by Rob Buckman
In his youth, Shariatmad had believed, and even though he’d never admit it, a small part of him still wanted to believe. His father had shown him the truth, however: that all forms of government were based on deception, no matter what they called themselves. You just had to package it in such a way that the people never realized the sham until it was too late. Once you’d gained the power and control, it didn’t matter what the people thought. A religious form of a socialist government was even more deceptive, his father taught him, since they claimed their authority came from an unseen god called Allah, and through his imams and acolytes, they spread the word of reward for the faithful, and punishment for the non-believers. It was a great system, and even if challenged, leaders like him could always hold both hands up, look pious, and proclaim, “Insha’Allah,” it is the will of Allah. After seeing the day-to-day workings behind the scenes, the young Shariatmad saw behind the curtain, and soon after followed in his father’s footsteps to the leadership.
At last the meeting ended, with no real answers or new orders being given. With so little new information to go on, all they could do was continue on the way they’d been going, and hope for the best. Shariatmad retired to his private meditation chamber and locked the door. That was the signal to everyone in the palace that he wasn’t to be disturbed. Sitting on the soft divan, he prepared his hookah, and drew in the fragrant smoke while he contemplated the future. The room was well lit with soft, discreetly hidden lighting, except for one dark corner behind him, and it was from there he heard something stir. Supreme Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmad shivered, knowing without looking what it was, remembering stories his grandmother told him about jinn and monsters from the dark pit of the underworld. He’d only dared look upon the horrible monstrosity once, seeing a black, shapeless something, seething with some unearthly energy, that morphed into a vaguely humanoid shape dressed in equally black robes. It spoke to him now in a hollow, grating voice that whispered promises of power and immortality, of spreading the word of Islam to the stars and beyond, with Shariatmad at the pinnacle of power. The voice was seductive as always, feeding his fears and his lust for power for such a small price. Reducing the world population by harvesting the unwanted people answered so many of his earthly problems of overpopulation and growing world hunger. In this, the voice spoke truth. It was only when the first harvester ship arrived and began taking only the young that Shariatmad realized the terrible bargain he’d struck. He’d been assured that his children were in no danger of being taken, or those of his most trusted circle, but it did little to help relieve the guilt he felt. Then these deviants arrived via cold sleep, and the creature’s requests became demands. Demands for information he couldn’t answer. That was the first time he’d felt the pain the creature could inflict on his body and soul. That first time felt like an eternity of torment, yet lasted barely ten seconds.
“What information do you have for us?” the creature whispered.
“None, holy one. Our sources have told us little other than these people are building new warships and preparing better weapons for the next visitation of the aliens.” A hair-thin filament of pain wormed its way down Shariatmad’s body, from head to foot, contorting the Ayatollah’s body into strange positions. The hookah dropped from his nerveless fingers.
“Find more information, or else.” Then the pain was gone, and Shariatmad sobbed in relief.
“Yes, holy one,” he whimpered, dropping to his knees in abject submission. As silently as it arrived, the creature retreated back into the shadows from which it came, and vanished.
* * * * * *
With guards in tow, Scott strolled rapidly from the bachelor officers’ quarters to his office, meeting Brock on his way. They chatted about nothing in particular, still leery of bugs and what-have-you until they were safely inside the anti-bug field now set up around all major buildings. If all went well, every building on the base would soon be protected, with the additional security of a bug detector and zapper over each entranceway. Finding that some bugs were as small as a grain of rice was an eye opener, and it didn’t take their R&D boys long to come up with a detector and zapper. At least now, they knew how the information was getting out, and with luck, they’d soon find the collection unit for the short-range bugs, and who was retransmitting them to the mainland.
As they walked into Brock’s office, a young woman shot to her feet and came to attention. She looked from one to the other, half raising her hand in a salute, but not sure which one she was saluting. Scott smiled, wondering how long she’d been out of boot camp.
“At ease, trooper.” As he spoke, the young woman pulled herself up and finished the salute to Scott. He returned it, seeing Brock cock an eyebrow at him behind her back as he walked to his desk and sat.
“So, what brings you to Colonel Brock’s office this early in the morning, trooper?” Scott asked.
“I … I was told by Captain Mitchell to report to him, sir.” She held out a file. Scott took it and passed it to Brock as he sat in an easy chair beside Brock’s desk.
“At ease, Marine, and you are?” Brock asked.
“Allway … um … Private First Class Akilah Allway, sir.” At what Scott judged to be four feet ten inches tall, she was a little short for the usual Marine Corps standards, but with the influx of so many young people from the “mainland” begging to join, that standard had to be relaxed a little.
She wore her long hair in a tight bun, as regulations required, and looked to be about eighteen or nineteen. In appearance, she didn’t look much younger than Scott or Brock, who looked to be about twenty-five to anyone who didn’t know their history. Young they might look, but they saw the world with old men’s eyes, and, and no one meeting them for the first time could dismiss them as inexperienced young men. Yet the same couldn’t be said for the nervous young woman standing before them, ill at ease. Ever suspicious, Brock wasn’t above thinking she might be a plant. “And where are you from, Private First Class Akilah Allway, and how did you get here?”
“I’m … I’m from a little town called Fenway in the Western Prefect, sir. I heard about you from the imam during a sermon on obedience.”
Neither Brock nor Scott had ever heard of the place, but what was now called the Western Prefect was once the United States. “Go on,” Brock said.
“The imam was talking about how deviant women here in Zealand … I mean New Zealand, went about without a hijāb, or niqab.”
“Deviant, huh.”
The girl blushed. “I’m … I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to imply …” She stopped when Brock held his hand up.
“No need to apologize, Private. We’ve heard it all before, and spoken less politely,” he added, reading the file as she spoke.
“I … well, I was um… intrigued, and searched the web for more information. That’s when I came across additional information in SSP’s database …”
“Wait. Back the bus up. How on earth did you manage to look in the State Security Police database?”
The young woman blushed again and bit her lip. “You … you won’t report me if I tell you, will you … sir?”
“Good god no, girl. Why on earth would we do that?”
She looked from Brock to Scott, still biting her lower lip. “I hacked their database,” she whispered as Brock passed the file to Scott.
The file was the girl’s 201 file, and Scott had to suppress a wince as he read it. The poor girl had failed everything. Basic training, Physical Ed, field craft, advanced infantry training, marksmanship, the lot. Except one thing. Give her access to a computer and she was a super soldier. It still didn’t explain why Pete Mitchell had sent her over to see Brock.
“I see,” Brock acknowledged, “and what did it tell you?”
“That … that all of you arrived here … in our time, by a process of cold sleep.”
“Do you know what that is, Private?” Scott asked.
“Oh yes. I looked it up. It took me a while, but I finally found sever
al papers, by a doctor, or professor, named Kessler. In them he described how the process worked, and how long you all had been asleep. It was fascinating reading. How people in your time, with the primitive equipment they had at their disposal, managed to freeze you all and send you forward in time is just amazing—” She spluttered to a halt, seeing the amused expressions on Scott and Brock’s faces.
“I take it you haven’t been to the education facilities yet, Private.”
“No, sir. There’s little they could teach me that I don’t already know.”
Brock smiled and picked up his remote control unit. The wall monitor came on, and flicking through the menu, he picked a video and hit play. The video ran for several minutes, showing scenes from several major cities, open farmland, the inside of a steel mill, including the launch of a space shuttle, and generally a cross section of a modern industrial nation.
“Do you know what you’re looking at, Private?”
“Um … yes. I’d say that was a cross section of our world. .. I think.”
“Oh, it is. But that is a cross section of this world three hundred-odd years ago.”
Private Akilah Allway blinked, looking from the frozen image of the space shuttle taking off, to Brock’s face.
“Not so primitive after all, huh.” Brock smiled. “If you’d taken the time to visit the ‘educational’ section as you were supposed to, you would’ve found out that the history of this world you thought you knew, is in fact a lie.” The girl’s mouth formed into an O, and she turned bright red.
“Tell me about your father and mother, and how you come to be such a wiz with computers.”
The girl looked down at her hands for a moment. “My father was arrested by the SSP for something … I never found out what. My grandparents would never say.”
“And your mother?” Scott asked in a gentle voice, seeing the young woman was on the verge of tears.
“She … she,” Allway let out a small sob, “she was stoned to death after being accused of being a prostitute.” Sad tears rolled down her soft cheeks, and she angrily wiped them away. “She wasn’t … and …”
“It doesn’t matter to us, Akilah. You are here now, and won’t ever have to worry about the SSP any more. But how did you learn to work a computer.”
“Um … you know that females don’t get a proper education, so after I went to live with my grandparents, they let me play on their computer terminal. I couldn’t go out much, not without a male family member, so I started teaching myself.… I soon learned how to read and write code, and it wasn’t long before I found I could, um … well, hack, as they say, into other systems.” She shrugged, and gave them a weak smile. “It wasn’t long after that before I found I could hack my way into most computers. And after that, I learned more and more.” Brock nodded to Scott. They both knew of nine-year-old kids back in their world that could do that.
“But that aside. Why did Captain Mitchell send you to me?”
Giving herself a little shake, she recovered. “Um … well, sir. It’s about your resource usage.”
It was Brock’s turn to blink. “My what?”
“Resource usage, sir. You aren’t utilizing all the tools at your disposal to maximize their potential.” Now her voice had taken on a disapproving tone, as if the failure to use the resources was Brock’s personal failure. “If I could show you, sir, I’m sure that I could explain it perfectly.”
“I’m sure you can. Please sit and explain away.”
Brock’s tone of irony was lost on the young Private. She took Brock at his word and sat, clearing off the corner of his desk for her minicomp. Intent on what she was doing, she didn’t see Brock cock his head to one side and raise an eyebrow at Scott. Scott in turn suppressed a smile and shook his head. This young woman was two people in one. On one hand she was so unsure of herself, she stuttered and blushed, and on the other, she was this self-assured, logical, competent individual who took charge. The holoscreen came to life while she tapped the keyboard, but neither Brock or Scott was in a position to see what it showed.
“So, how did you arrive here?” Scott asked.
“Oh, that. I discovered that you ran recruiting shuttles to several major cities, so I located the closest, left home dressed as a boy, and hitched a ride. It wasn’t hard to get past the SSP goons and sneak aboard the shuttle.” She spoke absently, with no nervousness or hesitation, as if explaining how she’d gone down to the corner for a loaf of bread.
She looked up. “Can I use your monitor? The data will show up better there than on my small screen.”
“By all …” Even as Brock answered, the space shuttle vanished, replaced by what looked like a spreadsheet with graphs. She pulled out a mesh glove and slipped it on her right hand, and used it to push data around the screen, opening and closing files at will.
“I started with analyzing the core group here, and discovered that all the people who came out of cold sleep eat twice as much as a normal person of your size and age. You also move at a much more rapid pace than anyone else.”
“Huh?”
“Well, sir. It’s a little difficult for the best recruits to keep up with the instructors, even when they’re going slow. Other than a result of the cold sleep, or something else, I can’t find out why. Your metabolism works twice as fast, with a corresponding increase in physical activity.…”
“What else have you been able to put together?” Scott asked. Allway manipulated the files and data on the screen.
“This side represents the currency amount presently available to you. As you can see, it’s replenished on a regular basis from the sale of metals and other products. This line represents your current expenditures. Here they cross, which means you’ll be working with a negative cash flow within three years—”
“Wait!” Brock growled, holding his hand up. “I’m not the financial wizard around here. You need to talk to the finance department about this … wait. We do have a finance department, don’t we?” He looked at Scott, and saw him shrug.
“Never thought about it, really.”
“That’s the problem, sirs. No one around here has!” They both looked at her. “You’re doing great on your manpower and equipment utilization, but that’s expected from you, Colonel Brock and Admiral Drake— oh. Um … military protocol … I mean, sirs.”
“Forget the protocol for the moment,” Brock said. “What else have we overlooked in our mad dash to stop the aliens from stealing more young men and women, like yourself, from this planet?” There was a slight edge of anger to Brock’s words.
“I’m … I’m sorry sir. I didn’t mean to offend.…”
“It’s all right, Private. Let’s just say that our priorities are a little different from yours.”
Hearing Scott, Brock leaned back in his chair and blew out his cheeks. “Admiral Scott is correct. And I shouldn’t have snapped at you. Tell us … in general, what else we have overlooked?”
“For one thing, you aren’t using your available resources to gain a position in the stock market.…” She stopped. “You do know they have a stock market … don’t you?”
“No we didn’t. Nor do we have the expertise to use it,” Scott murmured.
“Well, sirs. I can set up a holding company and start buying available shares in some corporations. It’s easy really, once you have an algorithm to look at the future potential of a particular corporation.”
“Humm, we have taken over a lot of orbital manufacturing facilities,” Scott said.
“Yes, sir. I noticed that, and that you’re paying way too much compensation to the facility owners. It would be better to buy them out and take over ownership yourselves.”
Scott and Brock looked at each other, and Brock tapped his comm unit.
“Sergeant Rinehart here, Colonel.”
“Jango, report to my office as soon as you can.”
“On it, sir. Be there in twenty or less.”
“Private Allway,” Brock said, “I can see where you’d be
an asset to this command.” It was a little scary to think this half-woman, half-child could look through their databases so easily. It said something about their security and the strength of their firewall. It also spoke of her courage: in this time, hacking carried the death penalty.