The Braintrust

by Marc Stiegler

  “Colin?” Amanda tapped his arm to bring him back to the real world.

  “You’ve heard about the results of her experiments?”

  Amanda closed her eyes. “Yes.” She sighed. “It’s the price we pay for moving so fast. If we aren’t careful, we’ll turn as cautious as the dirtsiders in our horror at the cost to our patients. No more progress.” She frowned at him. “But that’s your lecture to give, not mine.”

  He did not answer, but moved purposefully toward the butterfly dome. “There they are,” he murmured in satisfaction.

  Amanda looked, but only saw the door swinging shut. “Who?”

  Colin seemed unable to listen. “With the first four isle ships, even when we were cramming in people till they spilled out the gunwales, we filled the isle ships with places to play. ‘Work hard, play hard’ was our mantra. Water slides, climbing walls, dance floors—even an ice rink. But I knew we needed a place to play softly, too. A place to heal the soul.” He opened the door for her.

  Amanda nodded as she walked to the other end of the air lock. “Of course.” She pushed open the inner door, then stopped dead as Colin joined her and she saw what was happening.

  As they watched from afar, Dash stood utterly still while Jam and Ping and a handful of others took pictures of her clothed in butterflies. A young couple walked slowly around her, recording the scene for later 3D video creation.

  Eventually Amanda whispered. “Did you plan this? All of this?”

  He shook his head. “Just a nudge. I had no idea.”

  Amanda bumped shoulders with him mischievously. “So, is this why you wanted her here?”

  “It was not.” The slightly calculating look that rarely left his eyes softened, dimmed, and disappeared. “Until now.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Confusion unto Our Enemies

  If you can't join them, beat them.

  Helen Mound, The Sunday Times

  The closest thing the Voice of the Silent had to a robotics expert was Jerry. Drew just hoped Jerry was up to the task.

  Their plans to snag a hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had gone off the rails. They had underestimated the amount of supervision the movement and storage of fertilizer received. There was no way to snatch the stuff without being found out, not without at least two inside men. They had to change the plan. Grabbing the fertilizer would be their third-to-last operation, followed without pause by the making of the bombs and the assault on the hospital ship Chiron. They’d found the abortion clinic. It was on the Red Planet deck, adjacent to a hospital wing that had guards stationed around it as if there were things or people of great value there. Not that it made any difference to their plans; if they blew up something precious because it happened to be next to the clinic, so much the better. People would learn not to put anyone or anything they cared about too close to places of abomination in the future.

  So Drew had rented a couple of bots, and Chuck had rented a half dozen arvans.

  Now they would see if Jerry, God willing, could get what they needed.

  ***

  Dash had been grinding through the autopsy data for more hours than she could count, trying to make sure they weren’t missing anything from the deaths that might impact the lives of the remaining patients. Now it was the middle of the night. Dash sat at the conference table, wedged between Amanda and Byron. They were studying the results of Ryan’s autopsy when Amanda’s phone rang with an ominous tone. Amanda opened her phone and asked tensely, “What’s wrong?” Amanda’s phone was set to speaker, so Dash couldn’t help listening in.

  “Dr. Copeland, a few hours ago two bots dashed through the cargo dock while the day’s shipment of fertilizer was being unloaded. They seemed half out of control, like a couple of teenagers were running them. As we have since reconstructed from the vidcams, the bots grabbed two canisters of ammonium nitrate and took off.”

  Amanda responded sharply. “Find the bots. Surely you can track them on the vidcams.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but they ran into an arvan lot that already had stacks of empty canisters. Those wouldn’t normally have been present, so they must have been put there in advance. After a few minutes of hide and seek, half a dozen vans pulled out and headed in all directions. We’re trying to track them all down, but we’re behind the curve on this. We didn’t realize the canisters had been stolen until after the arvans were long gone, so we’re back-and-forward tracking on the vidcams now. Meanwhile, we’re trying to track who rented the bots that did this. It’ll take us at least an hour or two to figure out where the ammonium nitrate is and who took it.”

  Amanda stood up and started pacing. “Set Condition Yellow for the entire BrainTrust.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” After a pause, the voice continued, “Done.”

  She stopped pacing at the far end of the room and dialed another number on her phone. “Colin, did you hear? We may have bombmakers on board.” She listened. “Good idea. I’ll close the docks and scatter the sniffer bots to look for the ammonium nitrate.” Another pause. “Check. Diesel too. Yes, later.” Amanda stabbed the End key. “I’m on my way to Chiron’s Command Information Center.” Amanda pursed her lips. “My rotation as Board Chairman started last week, so I seem to be in charge.” She pointed at Dash. “Stay here. Colin is on his way.”

  Dash looked puzzled. “Pak Colin? Why?”

  Amanda threw up her hands. “I have no idea.” Then she was gone.

  Colin trotted in with Ping and Jam in tow. Jam looked as somber as Dash had ever seen her, but Ping looked so happy she seemed ready to bounce off the walls.

  Dash looked at Colin. “Why are you here?”

  Colin punched several buttons on his phone and slaved the screens on the walls to his unit. Amanda appeared on one of the screens and started speaking immediately. “It’s worst case. A sniffer on Elysian Fields’ promenade deck just detected both diesel and ammonium nitrate. It looks like they’re heading to Chiron.” She took a deep breath, and said to someone off-screen, “Condition Red Defense of Ship protocol.”

  A klaxon sounded at an almost painful volume outside Dash’s conference room. Ping said quietly but urgently, “I should get my guns.”

  Colin shook his head. “Stay with Dash. Unless I miss my guess, she’s a target. Take her up to Blue Lagoon, the Omega conference room. I’ll join you there momentarily.”

  Jam took command. “Let’s go.”

  Dash pointed down the passage to the right. “The elevator’s this way.”

  Jam pointed forcefully to Dash’s left. “Use the ramp, girl. We don’t want to get stuck on the elevator in Condition Red.”

  “We’d miss all the action,” Ping explained.

  Jam rolled her eyes but said nothing as they headed for the ramp.

  Byron ran in the opposite direction, yelling to them over his shoulder. “I’ll catch up with you in a few.”

  Ping, Jam, and Dash started running, then stopped as the walls of all the passages shimmered. One moment they were standing on Mars, harsh and unyielding, but the next moment the walls were covered with lush green jungle growth swaying in a light breeze. The image of a monkey stared down at them, and Dash clapped her hands. “Bali!”

  Colin poked his head out of the conference room they’d just left. “Did it work?” He looked around. “I guess it did. We’ve been experimenting with full-wall-coverage digital paint for the deck themes, so we could switch them easily. Nice.”

  Dash looked at him sternly. “We are in Condition Red and people are running toward us with bombs, and you want to change deck themes?”

  Colin smiled. “I told you a while ago I’d look into getting your research wing a Bali theme.”

  “Now there are two decks with the same theme right next to each other,” Dash complained.

  “No, I switched them. Deck Eleven is now Red Planet.”

  Dash still looked at him with exasperation, but Jam now looked at him with admiration. “Confusion to our enemies. Allahu akbar!”
>
  “Hallelujah,” Ping agreed.

  ***

  The Emeryville Chapter of the ELC had gathered in Mary and Paul’s quarters on the Elysian Fields. Paul patiently asked Peter the same question for the tenth time since they’d gotten here. “Are you sure you don’t want to pop over to the Argus for a few minutes and use the 3D printers to roll off some guns?”

  And for the tenth time, Mary turned apoplectic. Once again, she shouted the One True Answer before anyone else could get a word in. “Guns kill people! We can’t be using guns!”

  Peter shared a look with Paul, then glanced at the backpack bombs that were finally ready to go—the ones Mary was so excited to deliver. Peter muttered just for Paul, “Irony really is dead.” Still, he did not argue in favor of Paul’s plan because—and he acknowledged to himself that this too was ironic—he agreed with Mary.

  A shrill klaxon split the air.

  “What’s that?” demanded Mary.

  Justin answered, “Condition Red. The archipelago is under attack.”

  Peter decided immediately. “That’s it, then. Grab your packs and let’s go.”

  Paul looked doubtful. “With the guards running all over the place?”

  Peter shrugged into his pack, his sense of urgency rising. “Either they’re after us, in which case this is our last chance, or they’re completely distracted going after somebody else, in which case this is our best chance. ‘Confusion unto our enemies’ and all that.” He threw open the door. “Red Planet, here we come!” They all started to run, their poorly-tightened packs flopping against their backs.

  Neither the running nor the flopping packs made them stand out. Tourists were already running in every conceivable direction, carrying ridiculous totes and packs.

  ***

  Their SDV, the Seal Delivery Vehicle, did not surface. Lieutenant Rick Boehm and his fire team swam the last thirty feet to the dock of the WarenHaus isle ship.

  Rick spit the regulator from his mouth and started cursing even before he removed his mask. He’d been cursing off and on ever since his fire team had gotten this assignment.

  Talk about a royal clusterfuck! He’d heard stories of the tunnels of Tora Bora, trying to squeeze the terrorists out of that Afghanistan mountain complex in his father’s day. That had been bad enough to keep anyone entertained, but this was going to be incredibly worse—or at least incredibly more ridiculous.

  If each passageway on each of these isle ships was considered a tunnel, he was looking at five hundred miles of tunnels on the BrainTrust archipelago. He had to find one person in that welter of passages and kidnap her. Quietly. While minimizing civilian casualties. In a city with a hundred and twenty thousand people in its teeming masses.

  And some of those people were children of senators belonging to the Red party. And Rick’s team was running an assault on the medical center, where such children could easily wind up if they broke an arm or caught the flu. What could possibly go wrong?

  At least these tunnels were not booby-trapped. Unless—he glanced overhead—you counted the vidcams everywhere. The vidcams couldn’t kill you, but they could alert people who could.

  Except—more good news—the security people didn’t normally carry guns. On the downside, intel suggested that when they did carry guns, those guns were scary good, high-tech beyond anything in Seal Team Three’s inventory. And in a few moments, when the vidcams carried images of his team to the Powers That Be, those security people would be trading out their batons for those beyond-state-of-the-art guns.

  Perhaps even worse, the intel also suggested that the security people themselves were scary good, top caliber professionals from all over the world. Not that they could be as good as his own people, of course, but definitely not to be despised like some bunch of ragheads who thought shooting AK47s in the air at a birthday party constituted military training.

  He led his team through the gangway into the WarenHaus. As expected, this cargo-oriented ship did not have exotic deck themes like the ships with lots of people. The walls were simple gunmetal grey, even the wall behind the pudgy fellow in dungarees, who was sitting on a stool and working on a computer. Damnation!

  Boehm stopped short. The pudgy fellow raised his eyebrows at him. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here,” he remarked companionably.

  Four machine guns and a grenade launcher were leveled at the poor fellow. “Hands behind your back,” Boehm commanded.

  “As you wish.” The pudgy worker stood slowly.

  As Tommie zip-tied the fellow, he talked. Irritatingly. “You do realize that you’re already on camera? You have maybe fifteen minutes before the peacekeepers are on you.”

  Rick already knew that, but he couldn’t afford to show concern. It was part of his leadership training. He smiled wickedly. “I think we can handle some peacekeepers armed with batons.”

  The guy shook his head. “Haven’t you ever heard of home court advantage?”

  Time to hurry. “Bruce, vidcams,” he commanded.

  Bruce was already unlimbering his XCR assault rifle. Bang, bang, bang, and all the vidcams with a view of their current location were gone.

  Two minutes later, all five members of the fire team were wearing the yellow shirts and black pants of the local cops over their armor. That might have been good news, except the equipment they were carrying was definitely not standard issue for the peacekeepers, so Boehm’s people would still stand out like sore thumbs on the vidcams if anyone watching had a clue. But maybe no one would have a clue because—more good news—the intel team had kept the mission on hold until the moment they got word that a group of Green terrorists they’d been tracking were starting their assault on another part of the BrainTrust.

  That was the only part of the plan he liked. The way the Greens spent their time soulfully spouting the wisdom of Mother Earth like a bunch of religious fanatics always pissed him off. How delightful it was that they were being useful for a change, if only as a distraction. Three cheers for confusion to everyone.

  As they had hoped and expected, there wasn’t anybody up and about at one in the morning on the cargo ship. The WarenHaus was the logistics ship, full of shipping containers. It had fewer residents than any ship other than GPlex III or GSDC, the two datacenter ships that were full of compute-servers. Those were almost entirely devoid of personnel.

  Rick and his team had boarded the WarenHaus because it was the best combination of few bystanders, good docking, and proximity to the target.

  They ran into the intersection between the port-to-starboard and fore-to-aft passageways. As they turned left, Rick glanced at his GPS and swore. As anticipated he had no signal, since they were running down a passage in the middle of a mountain of steel. Another quick check showed he had no coms either, not unless he wanted to interface with the BrainTrust’s own cell or wifi systems, which everyone had agreed during planning would just be another way to fuck up.

  Everyone on his team would have memorized all the maps of the archipelago’s layout they could get their hands on anyway, but since they’d expected to lose signal, they’d paid extra-special attention while training on the mockup they’d built of the WarenHaus and the Chiron back in San Diego. At this moment they were not quite four hundred feet from the gangway that would take them onto the Chiron. If their intel was phenomenally good and they were phenomenally lucky, the target would be on the Red Planet deck on the Chiron. Get in, snatch the good doctor, get out while everyone was focused on the Green terrorists.

  What were the chances that the intel would be that good? If the doc wasn’t there, if she’d swapped shifts with another doc and gone off to party at Quark’s, they were looking at a perfect FUBAR.

  ***

  The fertilizer had arrived, and with careful haste, the Voice of the Silent completed their bombs. They congratulated each other as they strapped on their packs and donned their Stetsons in hopes that the hats would make vidcam recognition a little harder. Jerry said a few last words: “Psalms
18:48, folks. ‘He delivers me from my enemies; Surely You lift me above those who rise up against me.’”

  And then they were running through the decks.

  In just a few minutes they were out of the Elysian Fields and onto the Chiron’s Red Planet deck. No one seemed to have noticed them. Their attempt to confuse their enemies had apparently worked. Since they had left the Elysian Fields, the crowd density had rapidly thinned. Now that they were finally on the deck with the abortion clinic, there was no one around.

  No one.

  Chuck was the first to say it out loud. “Something’s wrong.”

  Jerry slowed down but did not stop. “Trap?”

  They turned the corner that should have brought them to the clinic, but all that faced them was a compartment with nothing but a few tables and chairs.

  Drew answered. “Trap.” He looked around. “How did they move all those people out of here?”

  Charging feet came from two different directions, and several cops in their yellow shirts appeared from a side passage. Howie shouted, “Light ‘em up!” After that, no one could hear anything above the din of gunfire.

  ***

  The Emeryville Chapter of the ELC discovered the critical merit of physical fitness for operational elements of the Crusade on the way to the seared desert bleakness of the Red Planet deck. The good news was that they made it in only a handful of minutes. The bad news was that they were exhausted and gasping for breath. Peter felt like throwing up. He obviously sat on his butt too much as a software engineer; he needed to get more exercise.

  The others were in about the same shape. Well, Mary and Paul were in about the same shape; Justin had fallen considerably behind. Peter glared at him, but Justin just stopped and bent over far down the corridor. Practically folded in half, Justin waved for him to continue. Peter rolled his eyes and trotted into the open area that would have the abortion clinic to the left and their target straight ahead.