The Braintrust

by Marc Stiegler

It struck him that somehow this was the wrong deck. Or something had happened; there were no guards stationed where they’d been the last time, and the abortion clinic, which had bustled with people, was empty. The whole place was empty. Except for one little group.

  A bunch of cowboys had tramped in moments before them, and now stopped dead. They carried shiny guns and dull gray backpacks not unlike his own. The cowboys stared into the empty clinic, apparently as confused as he was.

  Then a bunch of cops came out of a passage on the far side, bristling with weapons like no other cops he had ever seen anywhere. Christ!

  Paul asked, “Trap?” He seemed doubtful.

  Peter shook his head. “Weirder than that.”

  The cowboys started shooting at the cops, the cops started firing back, and Peter threw himself desperately to the floor.

  ***

  All the screens in the Omega conference room were lit up. Ping and Jam hovered near the door. Dash sat in a chair at the table, leaning forward as if to take action, then rocking back again as she realized there was nothing she could do. Byron, having caught up with them as promised, had slid around the conference table to the far side, where he alternated sitting and pacing. Colin stood staring at the screen showing the open area in Deck Eleven, which was now the Red Planet deck. Amanda yelled from another screen. “Colin, is this your doing?”

  Colin shrugged. “Well, I suppose it would be inappropriate to make a joke about it right now.” He paused. “None of our people are in danger, and at least we have good seats.” They watched as the group dressed like Red-state cowboys opened fire.

  ***

  “Sweet Jesus!” Lieutenant Boehm shouted as he skidded halfway to a stop. Then, seeing the nutcases in cowboy hats and jeans level their weapons, he shifted direction from a left turn into a straight sprint to duck into the side passage across from where they’d entered.

  The sounds of gunfire and ricochets filled the area. He knelt by the corner and stuck his rifle into the main passage so his scope could pick up a view of the scene.

  Bruce had crossed the main passage slightly behind Rick, but not quite in time to avoid getting nicked by a spent bullet. He limped over to Rick.

  Shaun was lying in the open, blood pouring from his chest. When the firing stopped for a moment Tommie crawled partway out to him, grabbed his leg, and dragged him back. Casey then knelt by the corner in the passage they’d come out of hefting his Xm25G grenade launcher.

  The cowboy nutcases were quickly building a barricade of tables and chairs.

  As Rick swiveled his rifle, he saw, coming from yet another passage, a gaggle of twenty-something geeks wearing t-shirts, shorts, and Birkenstocks. They looked clueless, though at least one of them had thrown himself to the deck when the cowboys opened up. Oh, shit. One of the geeks sagged to the floor as if she’d been hit. Dammit, this was what he’d been afraid of. Innocent bystanders.

  The mission was blown, and he didn’t even understand how it had happened. Who were those lunatics with the titanium rifles? They had to be titanium, from the glimpse he’d gotten; that silver-gray sheen was reasonably distinctive.

  But it didn’t make any difference who they were; they had to be stopped. For all he knew, that kid who’d just taken a bullet was one of the senators’ kids. Not his mission, but well within his purview given the circumstances.

  The original mission plan had included a contingency if the doctor wasn’t on this deck. If possible, they were to make their way to the Appalachian Springs deck to see if the doctor was at home, then get the hell out, with or without her. But first he had to deal with these trigger-happy yahoos shooting at anything that moved and killing bystanders.

  “Casey,” he hissed. “Take out those idiots behind the barricade.”

  Casey stuck his head and his launcher into the passage. The nutjobs opened fire again, but Casey got his shot off. He had not quite withdrawn back into the corridor when the grenade reached its optimal detonation point.

  ***

  The Xm25G grenade launcher was not so much a smart gun as a clever one. It was designed to hit targets safely ensconced behind bulletproof barriers: the rifle computed the distance to the barrier, estimated its thickness, and programmed the grenade to explode after passing over the barrier into the safe space where the enemy lay in complacent confidence.

  About ten percent of the time something went wrong. This was not one of those times; it worked perfectly. As a consequence, the Voice of the Silent ceased to exist moments later.

  Unfortunately, this perfect operation also meant that one of the fertilizer bombs, hit by the compression wave in just the right way, triggered. The resulting explosion was considerably larger than would be expected from the detonation of a mere grenade. Indeed, the explosion was large enough to involve the other three fertilizer bombs, creating a composite explosion astonishingly larger than might be expected. Large enough, as it happened, to trigger the peroxide bombs carried by Peter, Paul, and Mary.

  “Inferno” was an inadequate description of the resulting chain reaction.

  ***

  The Blue Lagoon deck shook momentarily. No one in the Omega conference room quite lost their footing, though Byron muttered, “Earthquake.”

  Most of the vidcams on the entirety of Deck Eleven ceased transmitting as a blink of brilliant whiteness swept the open area. Perversely, one camera close to the barricade flickered and maintained its focus on the charcoal remains of the people who had once hidden there. Ping was the first to understand what the camera was showing. “Whoa!” she exclaimed. “Burnt bacon bits.”

  Jam shook her head. “What are bacon bits?”

  Ping pursed her lips. “Take some dulse, chop it up into small pieces, and fry the pieces until till they’re burnt.” It was the best analogy for someone who’d never had bacon.

  Dash scrutinized the scene. “Yes, burnt dulse bits makes an adequate depiction.” Her expression was one of clinical dismay.

  The little vidcam that had survived so much flickered into darkness.

  ***

  Lt. Rick Boehm still did not understand how they’d missed the turn to the WarenHaus dock. They’d still been dazed when they came to the simple right turn that would carry them to their SDV and safety. As nearly as Rick could figure, they’d turned left instead.

  By the time his head had fully cleared, they were into the GPlex III. They could hear voices behind them shouting commands. “I think going back is contraindicated,” he muttered in an attempt at lightheartedness.

  It was a pretty weak attempt. After the explosion—or rather, after the explosions, which just seemed to go on and on like an artillery barrage—he’d known the mission was blown. If his target had been anywhere near where she was supposed to be, she was now dead. But he suspected that was not the correct interpretation.

  His men’s body armor had more or less saved them. Once Rick’s head had cleared just enough to be able to distinguish blood from water, he’d crawled to their bodies. Shaun had been bleeding out. Rick had shot the wounds he could find with FoamClot, but he had no idea whether that had been enough or not. Half of Casey’s face was burnt black; it was lucky that he was unconscious. Horrified, Rick had sprayed his face with InstaSkin. It was all he could do.

  By the time he’d finished with Casey, Bruce had Tommie up and staggering back the way they’d come. Bruce was helping Tommie, but Bruce was badly hurt himself; a FoamClot patch on his left leg testified to that.

  Tommie was not bleeding, but the blasts had knocked his helmet off. Rick himself was dazed, but Tommie was in much worse shape, swaying as he tried to stand. Rick took Tommie’s left arm, Bruce took his right, and the three of them hobbled out of there back toward the WarenHaus.

  But now they were aboard the GPlex III—of that at least, Rick was sure. The GPlex III was a pure compute-server ship, and quite distinct from the ships designed for residents. The promenade was not broad or packed with shops and people. Rather, the gray-walled promenade was just
wide enough for a pair of the ubiquitous arvees to pass each other. There were supposedly people deep in the bowels of the ship maintaining the servers, but they only came through here as they went to and from their cabins. At the moment, the passages were empty.

  Boehm’s briefing had included little information on the GPlex III and the other server ship, the GSDC. Intel had been unable to procure any information about the internal layouts of the server ships beyond minimal info about the public passages. The public passages and the promenade interconnected in the standard fashion with the other ships so people could pass through, but all the doors to the server systems were sealed. No one but the maintenance people got through those doors.

  Intel wasn’t even sure if there were vidcams in the promenade, having acquired conflicting reports. Looking around, Boehm could not see any, but that did not constitute proof they weren’t there. This ship held vital GPlex secrets; it seemed unlikely that GPlex was blind to events here.

  Rick closed his eyes and visualized the map of the BrainTrust again. Behind him was the WarenHaus with people chasing him; not a good path to take. To the right was the GPlex II, packed with people; another bad choice.

  The left was tempting. There was an artificial beach in the space where another isle ship could have docked. Reach the beach, turn right, scamper across it and dive into the patch of open ocean that occupied another isle-ship-sized hole in the BrainTrust archipelago. The beach would be empty. During the day the beach would be packed with swimmers and sunbathers, but no one would be there in the dead of night except perhaps a few adventurous lovers. It was very tempting indeed.

  But there was no cover. Snipers on any of the three isle ships in proximity would have absurdly easy shots while they crossed the beach to the ocean patch. The risk of being spotted in the open was the reason they’d rejected it as an entry point in the first place and come in through the WarenHaus.

  If they could get to the open ocean, they were home free. The DSV would hear them hit the water. They could dive, and in minutes they could be out of there. But not across the beach.

  Straight ahead was the gangway to the GSDC. Turning left in the GSDC would take them straight into the beachside ocean without risking exposure on the beach itself.

  As he explored his options, Tommie’s eyes rolled back in his head, which lolled forward. Boehm and Bruce let him down gently on the deck. Rick spoke to himself as much as to Bruce. “He’ll be all right. The BrainTrusters are not murderers. They’ll take care of him.”

  “Really?” Bruce sounded dubious.

  “It’s not like we have a choice anymore. Let’s get out of here and report.” He pointed forward. Bruce limped along beside him and they soon entered the GSDC as they listened to voices approach from behind.

  ***

  Colin swore as he watched the three Seals turn left into the GPlex III rather than turning right to get back to the dock they’d started from. Peacekeepers were ready and waiting on the dock. Whoever was in charge of the Seals must have deduced somehow that their entry point was now a trap. “Amanda,” he said more loudly than made sense, given that she was just a microphone away. “They’re heading into GPlex III. We need eyes.”

  “We certainly do.” On the screen, Amanda glanced at someone to her right. “I hereby authorize, for the duration of this Condition Red Defense of Ship, integration of the vidcams from GPlex III and GSDC.”

  A voice off-screen argued, “They aren’t going to like that, Doctor Copeland.”

  She shrugged. “It’s part of their contract. They can complain after we’re done if they’re overly excited about it.”

  The screens in Omega switched views to GPlex III. The Seals were making remarkably good time, considering how beat up they were.

  What else could go wrong?

  Another voice spoke from off-screen. “Dr. Copeland, we think someone actually survived from Group Two and got away. He’s wearing a backpack like the others in Group Two. We hypothesize it’s a peroxide bomb.”

  Ask a silly question.

  ***

  Justin had been gasping for breath forever. The stitch in his side was now so painful he could hardly take a step. He half-fell off the ramp onto the deck and saw no down-ramp. Perhaps this was indeed the bottom of the ship.

  The walls were icy white with occasional slashes and bubbles of pale blue-green peeking through the crystal faces; a Tundra-themed deck. Beautiful in its own coldly austere way, it was yet another of the Earth’s infinitely varied forms of beauty.

  Justin had come to realize—even before the disaster on the Red Planet deck—that whoever had told Peter the nukes were up there had been telling him a whopper. That was one of the reasons he’d used to justify to himself slowing down and falling behind his friends in their race plant their bombs. When his friends disappeared in a blazing inferno, he knew what he would do. As he’d told them, the nukes had to be in the pylons jutting out the bottom of the ship. He would go down there, find one, and finish the job.

  He touched his nose gingerly. The blazing explosion had almost finished him as well as everyone else, burning his face to the point where his lips and nose were cracked and raw. His eyebrows were gone. He was just glad he couldn’t see himself in a mirror.

  He couldn’t just run around on the Tundra deck hoping to find the hatch to one of the nukes. He tried to visualize where he was in relation to the bow and match that against the location of the forward pylon, one-third of the distance to the stern. Logical analysis led him swiftly to an unerring conclusion.

  He was lost.

  He started jogging toward what he thought was the bow, though he confessed to himself it was just as likely he was jogging toward the stern. That would be okay. If he were amidships, the pylons would be equidistant in both directions, and he didn’t care which one he found as long as there was a nuke plant inside.

  Justin generally believed that luck favored the prepared, but today luck had seemed to favor him despite his lack of preparation. He quickly stumbled upon a hatch surrounded by warning signs, some of them displaying the traditional yellow-and-black radiation alert.

  Of course the damn hatch was dogged tight and padlocked, but this did not bother him as much as it might have. He had foreseen the possibility that there would be a locked door or two between his friends and their destination. His hydrogen peroxide bombs were not ideal for blowing locks, but they would suffice, particularly when used in combination with a coil of magnesium ribbon he had brought for just that purpose. Magnesium burned with a brilliant white 3100-degree flame; he would use his tiniest bomb to set off the magnesium, which would melt the padlock’s shackle.

  A couple minutes later, standing at a distance from the flare, he could see through his closed eyelids that the burn was finished. He opened his eyes to good news. Gingerly kicking the remains of the lock away, he undogged the hatch.

  At that point, though, his luck began to run out. Someone shouted at him from down the passage, so it was definitely time to finish. He could see plumbing and machinery; the pylon was not just a giant lump of concrete to keep the ship stable in high seas. It was a nuke. He set the timer on the main bomb in his backpack, tossed it into the well of the pylon, and slammed the hatch shut.

  Cops ran up, pounded him mercilessly to the ground, flipped him, and cuffed him. They were struggling to drag him back to his feet when a muffled Boom came from below and the deck shuddered. Everyone fell, and Justin laughed somewhat maniacally. The ruptured nuclear core was releasing radioactive waste as they stood here. He and the cops would be the first to die, but it was okay. The Earth had been saved.

  ***

  The molten salt nuclear reactor sat in the thick-walled, confined space at the core of the pylon. As Justin had expected, it was a perfect environment for a hydrogen peroxide bomb. The explosion wreaked terrible havoc on the upper half of the power plant. The upper half was full of power-generation machinery, separated from the nuclear core itself by a thick slab of concrete. And while the
bomb did not blast the core and its lower-deck support structure with anything approaching the force it unleashed on the upper area, the explosion did breach the concrete divider. The core shook.

  But there was no secondary explosion. Since the reactor operated at normal atmospheric pressure, there was no containment vessel that would burst when ruptured and spread contaminants for miles. Rather, the viscous lithium fluoride salt merely quivered in its comparatively thin vessel, a container designed specifically to keep the liquid in a semi-spherical shape. That spherical shape was necessary to keep the neutron capture rate high enough to sustain the chain reaction.

  Several additional things happened more or less at once. The supercritical CO2 turbine that generated the power splintered into a thousand pieces. Without power, not only did the lights go out, but the cooling system that kept the freeze plug in the base of the reactor vessel from melting failed and the plug started to go.

  The CO2 that drove the turbine escaped, not quite explosively since it primarily departed through the remains of the turbine. As it rushed out, it created a sound that, had anyone been there to listen, would have been described as a very loud hissing.

  The CO2 acted as the coolant for the molten core, so when the coolant departed, the core’s temperature rose rapidly. In the old movies about obsolete styles of nuclear reactors this would have led to a meltdown of the core, but here the core was already molten, so nothing so dramatic ensued. Rather, the rapidly heating liquid of the core expanded, as liquids do when the temperature rises. As the liquid expanded, more neutrons escaped without initiating fission, breaking the chain reaction. The core then cooled as rapidly as it had heated moments earlier, following a mathematically inescapable consequence of the physics and the chemistry of the reactor.

  The spherical vessel holding the liquid core was, as noted earlier, relatively thin. The explosion that utterly savaged the upper deck mildly torqued it. The torque was enough to cause several cracks to form, and hot core fluid started to leak through. As it dripped out, since it was no longer part of the carefully shaped core, all the neutrons it generated were lost, further reducing the ability of the core to sustain a nuclear reaction.