by M. D. Cooper
THE TINDERBOX
STELLAR DATE: 08.19.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Lowspin Docks
REGION: Cruithne Station, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
In her apartment on Cruithne, Fugia sat cross-legged on the deck of her livingroom, fuming, waiting as the lag effect passed and the request moved into ‘I’m being ignored or made to wait’ territory.
She was beginning to think there was more than a fifty-fifty chance Marsian delegate would ignore her Link request.
While it wasn’t unusual for her to check in with her Marsian contact as she did with many of the leaders in SolGov, including Cara’s own guardian devil, Folsom, asking for favors put her at a disadvantage that she was rarely willing to accept. As soon as she mentioned Tim’s name, the Marsian would have leverage over her. She didn’t think the news about Cara and Folsom was out yet, but the request could also create leverage on Folsom, and he would not be happy about that.
The web of politics fanned out in all directions. She chewed on ramifications, searching for her own blind spots, as the request pings echoed in the back of her mind.
Ten minutes ago, Fugia had acknowledged that she was desperate. She acknowledged that she was allowing emotion to shape her decisions…. But she could not stop blaming herself for allowing Tim to get away when she was close to him on Vesta.
At that time, she couldn’t have known that Folsom would act to free Cara from the SolGov prison before she and Lyssa could move. How had a little-known senator from Hera Collective sidestepped her on such an important mission?
Cara was family. But the Sykes family also represented something to the people of Sol. It was Andy Sykes who had risked his life to smuggle Lyssa out of InnerSol. Few knew the true circumstances of that decision as she and Ngoba did, but it didn’t change the fact that she considered Andy Sykes one of the catalysts for the current age.
Forget Heartbridge. Forget Sol politics. Without Andy Sykes, Psion would not have attacked Ceres when they did (if ever), the Anderson Collective would not have been cast to the four winds to wreak havoc, Camaris would not have attacked Vesta, Psion would not be in its current precarious state, and Earth, Mars, and the JC would not be on the edge of war.
Historians had not taken long to call the destruction of Proteus the flame in the tinderbox, but others had pointed out that without Andy Sykes, Proteus would still orbit Neptune.
Charles Osla had been savvy to allow the broadcast of Stars the Hard Way, a vid that continuously reinforced the legend. With Cara’s return, and the broadcast of her fight with the show’s lead actress, Llana—and the bloody breaking of the woman’s nose—Cara Sykes had reminded everyone in Sol that she existed.
Which begged the question, what had happened to Tim?
Pundits and opinion speakers asked the question daily. Mars had reported his death, while surveillance from Vesta suggested he may have survived. However, the Mars 1 Guard stood by their statement of his burial with honors. Conspiracies grew.
But Fugia knew. She had stood at the foot of his bed in the hospital ship and cried at the sight of him, lost in the Link control the Marsians used to suppress the individual and ensure good order and discipline among their troops. It was a crime against humanity.
She had told herself he was safer there, not expecting him to disappear completely.
There was almost no lag.
Where is he?
She quickly ran a tracking protocol, and identified a ship just a few light seconds away, on a vector for Mars from High Terra.
Fugia took a deep breath, preparing herself.
What was this going to cost? She had her estimates. It was time to find out how good a negotiator the Marsian truly was.
THREE TASKS
STELLAR DATE: 08.19.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Amplified Solution
REGION: Cruithne Station, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Cara was deep in a maintenance subroutine, the thrum of the engines comforting her thoughts, when Ngoba placed the coffee cup on her console. The steam from the rich liquid reached her nose before she turned her head.
“Oh, that smells good,” she said. “Thank you.”
“That’s a hell of a machine you’ve got back there. I’d have stolen this ship, too.”
An image of the salesman trying to convince her of its urine recycling qualities flashed in Cara’s mind, and she stifled her smile by sipping from the hot mug.
The brew was amazing. In truth, she hadn’t drunk enough coffee in her life to consider herself any kind of aficionado. Everything she’d sampled out in the Disk had been approximated by the replication system, and had never quite tasted right. Not that she had anything to compare the flavor to.
In this case, she knew that Ngoba had brewed the cup from his own beans grown on Cruithne or transported from Earth, and even if it tasted ‘off’ to her, his enthusiasm created the experience.
“I’d like some cream, though,” she told him.
Ngoba gave her a mock gasp. “That’s just not right. Keep your weakening agents out of my drinks. Next, you’ll want to add water to my whiskey.”
From across the room, Petral said, “Well, depending on the barrel strength.”
Ngoba raised a finger. “Don’t taunt me with your heresy. When I make a cup of coffee, I drink it as nature intended. Water and bean, heat and time. And adding water to whiskey is a slap in the face of the distiller who put it in the barrel.”
“That’s a source of debate,” Petral said. “You realize alcohol pulls more flavor from the oak, right?”
“You drink whiskey made by drones orbiting asteroids using AI-generated recipes,” Ngoba said. “Don’t try to lecture me.”
“I never thought you were going to turn into a crotchety old man, Ngoba,” Petral said. “Why can’t an AI generate an excellent whiskey?”
Ngoba nodded toward Emerson. “I’m not insulting our AI friends. The longer I live, the more I come to appreciate the chaos in human imperfection.”
“AIs aren’t perfect, either,” Emerson said. He had been busy scanning the communication network, but looked pleased at the interruption. He pulled his neck to either side as if he was sore from sitting. “Try approximating human inconsistency sometime, and see how far you get. Forget humans, aim for general entropic decline in closed systems. The Earth is an amazing chaos engine.”
“Have you been to Earth yet?” Petral asked.
“I have. I was there when Cara shot Lyssa.”
Cara cleared her throat, sitting up in her seat. “That was a rash decision.”
Emerson shrugged. “I understand completely why you did it. How else were you going to break her grasp? Your flesh is not nearly as replaceable as her frame. Did you hurt her emotionally? Yes. But some would argue we don’t have true emotions.”
“I don’t think anyone is suggesting that,” Ngoba said quickly. “You’re just as human as us, here.”
“I appreciate you saying that,” Emerson said. “However, I am always scanning as many channels as I can. Millions. Most of humanity’s output at any given time. I believe the stats are currently forty percent in support of AIs, and sixty percent calling us the next greatest threat to humanity’s future.”
“Humanity First garbage,” Petral said.
Emerson shrugged. “Very effective, for garbage. I would suppose that doesn’t make it worthless.”
“You’re allowed to have an opinion,” Petral said. “If it pisses you off, say so. They want to eradicate your kind…. I think that warrants a little anger on your part.”
“Anger won’t serve me now. I save it for battle.”
Cara took another long sip of her coffee. “That’s what I like to hear. Politics get boring real fast.”
She was about to complain about Folsom, when Fugia interrupted them with a collective Link request.
Folsom’s demands were already a burden she wasn’t happily bearing. She thanked the stars he was willing to wait for the time being.
* * * * *
Rondo hugged his cat as the others looked at him.
Cara laughed in spite of the stress and the tension in her neck.
Adama purred like a coffee grinder and shoved his head under Rondo’s beard.
Rondo scratched Adama’s ears and let the cat climb up to lounge across his shoulders.
Petral raised an eyebrow like she couldn’t tell if Rondo was flirting with her. He didn’t give her another line, which indicated he had been responding as his usual, literal self. Petral looked disappointed.
Forcing herself to speak carefully, she laid out their situation as she saw it. Some paths were obvious, like Ngoba staying on Cruithne. But what should she do? Lyssa was in immediate danger, and while Tim might not be under the gun from the Marsians, there was the real possibility that he could disappear again. Fugia’s information was perishable—and possibly an invitation to a trap. As was taking on Camaris without a fleet in reserve.
the Weapon Born said.
The Weapon Born smiled.
There was a pause, as Fugia didn’t answer immediately. She was a hacker, not a soldier.
Petral nodded.
Fugia nodded finally.
Petral sighed.
Cara ran through the options again, wondering if she should argue for going after Lyssa. But it made sense. She had the ship. And if she was honest with herself, she wanted to be the one to save Tim.
Rondo shrugged sheepishly.
Crash said, surprising them. He hadn’t been on the channel before.
Cara wasn’t sure how the parrot would help, but she was grateful for the vote of confidence. How did birds get around in low-g?
Ngoba said.
Rondo went visibly pale.
Cara chewed her lip.
Cara wasn’t sure what to think about that. She hadn’t decided to stay in Sol any longer than was already necessary to get Folsom off her back and outfit the ship to her liking. Fran had already helped her get the Amplified Solution into fighting shape, so that only left Folsom. She knew the senator would keep trying to manipulate her as long as she was useful. He was a politician, after all.
Petral nodded.
Cara raised an eyebrow.
THE LONG WALK
STELLAR DATE: Unknown
LOCATION: Unknown
REGION: Unknown
The reality of an expanse was that, inside
, its owner was God. Lyssa’s only defense against Camaris was to remain uninteresting, a woman walking across a grass plain with biting wind in her face that seemed to suggest a coastline just over the endless horizon.
In this expanse, Camaris was the root, the ancient designation of system owner. All authority rested in her or her designees, and Lyssa had no way of determining the cracks in her security without alerting Camaris to her activities...provided the AI was paying attention.
As she walked, Lyssa tested her surroundings. One part of her mind perceived the rough grass scraping her legs, the dew wetting her legs, the soil moving under her boots, while another part of her saw the abstraction for what it was: an expression of data, bounds defined by standard code and algorithms that dated back centuries. Camaris might control the variable environment, but she hadn’t created the system herself. This was an operating space, like any base system running spaceships and mining equipment.
Through a series of careful probes, Lyssa learned what environment Camaris had used, and once she had that information, she collected every vulnerability that hackers had identified to crack the administrative control.
The good news was that no one seemed to notice her tests. The bad news was that there were no currently identified vulnerabilities in the expanse framework. If Lyssa was going to find her way out, she couldn’t use an off-the-shelf toolset.
A third part of Lyssa’s mind recited a poem that she had learned from Tim’s red book of Emily Dickinson poems, back when he was ten and reading the collection obsessively.
“Hope is a thing with feathers,” she hummed to herself, the words easily lending themselves to a melody to calm her mind, “that perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all...”
Sometimes she repeated words or phrases along with her footsteps, the lines falling easily with her pace.
‘Sings the tune without the words’ felt like the key to the riddle keeping her trapped. She studied the coded frameworks around her, switching between abstractions and algorithms, and searched for the fractures in Camaris’s prison.