by Guy Haley
Ekbaum had said that before to him too, not long ago. Otto had ignored him, out of bullheadedness, and fear. Now with the ever-present throb in his back he could not. He should slow down.
He thought again about retiring.
Otto had avoided the meetings of the last few days. The fate of the Realms was not his to decide, and he had little interest in the matter. He had also avoided talking to Valdaire about it on the few occasions he had seen her. It was clear she was very angry with whatever had been decided.
He wanted to go back to the Londons, but he had to hang on until the fake Qifang was dealt with and the Thirty-seventh Realm deactivated. The first part of that had fallen to Richards and Hughie, and should be done soon. He'd heard the VIA were going to decommission the servers carrying the dead space of the ruined Realms tomorrow. That was why Valdaire had been angry, not that it meant much to him. When it was done he could pay the extravagant fee to catch a stratoliner back home to Europe. The green taxes alone were crippling, tripled because he'd taken the flight out here on a strat too. Richards could pay for it. He had no patience for a two-day transatlantic dirigible flight, not after all this.
His MT crackled.
"Richards," thought Otto. "Are we done here?"
"Otto! Can't talk!" Richards' voice was what Otto always described as "breathless", a state not brought on by lack of breath, for Richards had none of that to be lacking, but a curious halting way of speaking his partner had when running too much data at once. It was a mode of speech peppered with a tiresome number of exclamation marks, and rarely heralded good news. "It was a trap! Hughie has been suborned!" thought Richards. "k52! Running for the Thirty-seventh Realm! I'm going in! Can't explain! Report with Chloe! Can't talk! Otto! Tell them to shut the servers down, shut them all down!"
"All the Realms?"
"All of them! Y…"
The connection was broken.
Movement caught Otto's eye and he looked toward the House. The lights on the security cordon flickered. The noise of engines powering up and down erratically broke the night's tranquility. Otto watched several vehicles jerkily moving backwards and forwards. Two ran into each other, the clang of their collision delayed by distance. Shouts followed.
Otto turned up his light amplification and image magnification. He saw men leap from their machines, drop equipment, throw their helmets to one side and roll on the floor in agony; some, those not of the VIA and less well-equipped, stood jabbing at the buttons of unresponsive devices, bafflement on their faces.
Gunfire shouted out as the vehicles and autonomous weaponry of the cordon turned on the soldiers. Installations bloomed quick flowers of orange flame. The last shreds of peace fled.
Others joined Otto at the balcony, Valdaire among them. "What's going on?" she asked, rubbing wakefulness into her face. Alarms sounded as the airship came to life.
"A massacre," said Otto. "The machines have turned on the troops. Richards and Hughie have failed. k52 has usurped Hughie's court. It looks like he's used it to break into the VIA, turn their own equipment against them to protect the Realm House."
"He knows we're going to try and shut him down," said Valdaire.
"Of course," said Otto. "It is the most logical course of action."
"The heavy lifter, shouldn't we get off?"
"No," said Otto. "My adjutant tells me the Four inside took itself offline at the first sign of trouble. Those vehicles down there, they have only simple brains, little independent thought, easily compromised."
The airship's docking clamps fell away from the tower, and it rapidly ascended, emergency water ballast streaming from its sides. Fire streaked up from the ground. Gatling cannons, mini-missile pods and metal storm racks of the airship brought down the projectiles before they could hit. The craft's formidable offensive arsenal followed, pounding tanks into pieces, but the heavy lifter was outnumbered and outgunned. Otto could feel the pressure of aggressive AIs through his mentaug, trying to get at the Four pilot. It was retreating.
"Come on," he said. "Richards left a message with Chloe."
Then the sky filled with fire, as the lifter ponderously fled its assailants.
"It's war," said Valdaire quietly.
"War?" said Otto. "It always is."
RICHARDS & KLEIN WILL RETURN IN 2012 in OMEGA POINT
Extras
Timeline of the events leading up to Reality 36
2039 First permanent base on the Moon. Many more bases on other solar bodies follow.
2040 First interstellar probe launched.
2044 The First Great Inundation of London. Flooding becomes a regular event in the capital. Floods are commonplace right across the UK.
2052 A financial crash precipitated by the failure of ecological services in multiple biospheres wipes trillions off the world's stock exchanges and plunges the global economy into widespread recession. The 'Eco Deficit' depression lasts for twenty years. Traditional models of centralised manufacture begin to come apart under the tertiary effects of the Information Age. Great unrest in the recently unified pan-Islamic state of the Caliphate sees moderate government established in Bagdad.
2065 Otto is born.
2067 The Ice Sheet Tip, a mass melting of the Greenlandic ice sheet, occurs decades prior to most predictions. Over the next thirty years, sea levels rapidly rise around the world, inundating numerous major cities and causing a flood of refugees. The UN steps in to create a climate control consensus. The powers of both the UN and regional federated power blocs increase, but are opposed by multinational corporations and national governments.
The North Atlantic Drift is undone by the input of fresh water. Over the next fifty years, Western Europe's climate becomes akin to that of 20th Century Japan; sweltering summers and freezing winters.
Mass population movement, which comes to be called The Second Great Migration, is in full swing.
2069 First true AI created. Heralded as strong AI, it is anything but. In some ways Class Ones are as clever as human beings, in others much, much dumber. The Singularity fails to happen, although later models are successively more intelligent. In December, Novoflu, or 'Christmas Flu', sweeps round the globe. Population growth had begun to stabilise around 8 billion owing to increased prosperity in certain parts of the world, and ecological collapse in others. It now begins to fall quickly. One billion people die worldwide over a three year period. Later epidemics are less severe, but millions succumb to it annually on a three-five yearly cycle hereafter.
2074 Honour, Otto's future wife, is born.
2078 Continuing research into animal sentience and the advent of uplifted animals, genetically engineered humans, AI and human/machine hybrids leads to the EU Directive on nonhuman citizens being enacted.
2080 The South Bank of London is partially abandoned. New Lodnon is planned.
2085 The Med and Atlantic walls, strings of floating fortresses, are begun to stem the flow of refugees from the southern hemisphere. Neo-communism takes root in South America. Africa is a basket case.
Otto joins the army and begins the lengthy process of cyborgisation.
2097 Civil war begins in Brasil, the last true democracy in South America.
2098 The Med and Atlantic walls finished. The Second Great Migration is halted.
Otto leaves the army and begins a new career as a freelance security consultant. During this time he works with Buchwald and Lehmann in Africa.
2100 First true Martian city set up by NASA and allied corporate enterprises. Honour reluctantly agrees to a cranial implant.
2101 Construction of New London reaches halfway point.
2104 Richards and the other Fives are created. The Class Fives are the first to possess full self-awareness. The Five Crisis hits. Many Fives go mad. All Fives recalled. Most are destroyed, many commit suicide. Large parts of the world's computer network is brought down, plunging the Earth into a week-long information blackout. Chaos reigns, but is restored by the actions of several sane Fives.
In the aftermath, the ageing Internet 2 is replaced by the hardier Grid. Only 76 of the initial run of 1,200 Fives are judged sane and allowed to remain active. Court proceedings in their favour are an important factor in the Neukind Rights movement. AIs are outlawed and hunted down across China by the People's Dynasty Government.
2107 Under AI management, the Martian conglomerate undergoes full merger. Newly established 'Marsform' begins terraformation of the red planet with USNA blessing.
2110 Honour dies of Bergstrom syndrome. First interstellar probe images arrive.
2113 Zhang Qifang gives speech calling for full rights to nonhumans sentients in Naples, January 18.
2114 All AIs recognised as Full Human by amendment to UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights. Sentiency defined, and all 'Neukind' and lesser animal sentients protected under international law. China refuses to recognise the amendment.
2114 The 36 Reality Realm game 'RealWorlds' made off limits. Four are to be destroyed over the coming years. k52 takes over their administration and study. The RealWorlds corporation goes bust.
2117 Richards 'father' Armin Thor dies, March 13. Richards joins EuPol.
2121 The Subtle War. China annexes large parts of Russia's Far East in an enforced 'purchase'.
2125 Richards unmasks major corruption in the London Metropolitan branch of EuPol.
2126 Richards sets up business with Otto.
2129 Today. The Earth's population stands at five billion. An uneasy peace reigns. AIs are taking more and more control, both overtly and covertly. Ecological restorative work is well underway, however much of the planet is in a terrible state. Man is on Mars, the Moon, Europa, the asteroids and Titan. Life goes on.
August, Richards employs Genie.
October / November events of Reality 36 and Omega Point.
About the Author
An experienced Science Fiction journalist and critic, Guy worked for SFX Magazine as deputy editor, where he still freelances, he edited gaming magazine White Dwarf, and was the editor of Death Ray Magazine. He lives in Somerset with his wife, young son, an enormous, evil-tempered Norwegian forest cat called, ironically, Buddy, and an even bigger Malamute dog named Magnus..
ANGRY ROBOT
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An Angry Robot paperback original 2011
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Copyright © Guy Haley 2011
Guy Haley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-0-85766-145-6
EBook ISBN: 978-0-85766-147-0
Set in Meridien by THL Design.
Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham, ME5 8TD.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30