by Gareth Lewis
Nomabduce
Gareth Lewis
Copyright 2012 Gareth Lewis
The meeting dragged, which wasn’t unusual. As President, Marcus had little option but to try paying attention, despite other calls on his time. He laced his fingers together to ensure boredom didn’t lead to fiddling.
“What next?” barked his chief advisor, Carter. His bulldog appearance gave the not entirely inaccurate impression of a permanent growl. At least he could rely on Carter to keep things running.
One of Carter’s aides piped up. They changed too often to bother recalling their names. “The Alpharians are considering banning us from the next interplanetary game due to noises from sections of our fans.” Theirs being such a small planet in comparison to Alpharia made it faintly ridiculous, although the incidents during the last game didn’t help. “They’re...”
“I’m sure they are,” said Carter. “And I’m sure I don’t care. Don’t we have people to deal with this kind of thing?”
The aide started to respond, but Marcus could no longer suppress his curiosity. “What about the demand?”
Carter turned an irritated glare on him, which Marcus managed to not visibly shrink from.
“When anyone knows for certain we’ll be informed,” said Carter.
“Are we issuing a statement?”
“Only that we’re looking into it,” said Carter, his calm tone slightly forced.
The message had slipped into planetary broadcasts that morning. Its image had been only static, the voice unaccented. “One billion ducats if you want it back.” No one knew what it was, or how the signal had been distributed.
He considered pushing for more, but Carter had already turned back to the meeting, considering the issue closed. Not that he got the chance to return to the schedule.
The chief messagist, Stephanie White, entered, a hint of distress creasing her usually controlled features. Her immaculate appearance was carefully prepared to present the voice of authority, so such a look could cause despair in her audience.
Sighing, Carter sent her a questioning glance.
“Sir,” said Stephanie, somewhat hesitant. “We’ve had reports that people have... um, forgotten our planet’s name.”
They stared in bemusement for a moment.
Carter responded first. “Excuse me? You’re interrupting this briefing because some imbeciles are unable to damn, it really is gone isn’t it?”
It took a moment for Marcus to realise he couldn’t remember their planet’s name. It was in the forefront of his mind, yet obscured from sight and just out of reach. He knew he knew it. He just couldn’t bring it into focus.
“The message?” said Carter.
“The timing seems to match,” said Stephanie.
“Have there been further details of the demands?”
“There’s been nothing since the initial message, sir. Nothing we’re aware of, anyway.”
“Well, find someone who does know something,” Carter barked. She made a hasty retreat.
At least it looked like this briefing had finished.
*
The next meeting arrived all too soon, with at least one face he didn’t recognize. Vassily Arkwright apparently advised him on technical matters. He couldn’t remember taking advice from him before. Not that he remembered many technical issues arising. Arkwright seemed unimpressed at being in the meeting.
“What happened?” growled Carter.
“Memetic implant encoded in the audio track and static of the message,” said Vassily.
“In plain language,” said Carter.
“That was the plain language version. The technical version would take a few minutes.”
“Fine.” Carter’s voice had an edge. “How do we undo it?”
“Not sure we can. There’s a secondary memebomb laced through the encoding. Anyone trying to study it loses interest in doing so.”
“You can’t undo it without studying the code?”
“Not reliably. It could make things worse.”
“What about having a computer break down the code?”
“Tried. There’s a similar computer code meme. Makes them say ‘bad boy’ over and over.”
“How did they manage to get through our security to interrupt the signal?” said Carter.
Vassily shrugged. “Nothing we can track. Without tighter controls over the communication lines there’s no way to guard against that, and increased security would be a political issue.”
Carter ground his teeth.
“We can probably code to block against similar attacks,” said Vassily.
“Probably?” said Carter.
“Depends how similar.”
Seeing the danger of Carter exploding in an unproductive way, Marcus interrupted. “Is there no one who remembers the planet’s name?”
“Those who didn’t hear the broadcast are unaffected,” said Stephanie. “Having them tell the name to someone affected doesn’t work. It stays in the head a few seconds before being lost again.”
“The planetary designation seems unaffected,” said Vassily. “So commerce hasn’t been too heavily impacted upon.”
That did them little good. He could never remember the damn thing off by heart.
“How’s the public taking it?” said Marcus.
“There’s a degree of uncertainty,” said Stephanie. “Some people are still learning about it. It doesn’t get used much in conversation in some sectors, so they haven’t noticed. We’re trying to stay informed about the conversations, but no general consensus has developed. You should make a statement soon, though, and we’ll need a name for the individual, or group, responsible.”
“We’ve more important things than naming them,” said Carter.
“That depends how long the situation goes on,” said Stephanie, cautiously circling Carter’s temper. “A name influences people’s perception of the threat: whether they see it as just theft and extortion, or as an act of terrorism. Something relatively harmless, like name-thief, might avoid panic.”
“Fine, that’ll do,” said Carter.
“We’re still kicking around names,” said Stephanie. “Something relatively harmless, while engendering the correct degree of disdain...”
“Whatever,” said Carter.
“Are you considering paying?” said Vassily.
Carter glared. “Give in to extortion?”
Vassily shrugged. “Our choices are limited. Attempts to track the perpetrator down and reverse the effects are under way, but we should consider the alternatives. They seem to boil down to paying, or going on without a name.”
Seeing Carter’s bile rising, Marcus headed it off. “Do we even know how to pay?”
“Instructions were embedded in the message,” said Vassily. “We’re to issue an official capitulation when the credit is ready. At that point we’ll receive the account code to transfer it to, with a small window in which to make the transfer. We can assume there’ll be a series of transactions set up to take it somewhere we can’t track.”
“Yes, yes,” said Carter. “Stating the obvious is all well and good, but does anyone have ideas about what to do that doesn’t involve capitulation?”
“We could rename the planet,” said Stephanie.
“Rename it?” said Carter.
“Can we do that?” said Marcus.
“You’re the President,” said Carter. “Of course you can. Should we, though? Is that saying we can let people like this dictate things?”
“They’re dictating we pay to get the name back,” said Stephanie. “Choosing another name is a defiance of their power.”
They were silent a minute.
“Fine,” said Carter. “Arrange it.”