by M. D. Cooper
“Listen,” she told the lizard. “Tell me where you’re from?”
The lizard paused and gazed up at her with its angry, black eyes. “Origin point request?”
Lyssa huffed. She didn’t want to keep using stilted language. “State origin.”
“Admin authority?”
“Authenticate,” Lyssa said, half-expecting the lizard to deny her request.
The maintainer faced away from Lyssa and drew an oval in the air with one of its claws. A portal appeared, showing a land of low hills and mushroom-shaped houses. Lizard people walked throughout the scene.
Lyssa approached the portal to verify it was truly a gap between locations. In reality, it was another abstraction linking states in the expanse, but this one had been created using the maintainer’s access privileges. The scent of cooking food drifted through the opening. It was real.
Without hesitation, Lyssa stepped through onto baked earth. She looked back through the portal at the lizard surrounded by waving, green grass. The air around her was dry and slightly dusty.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
The lizard snorted and stomped, then followed her to the other side.
BURRA
STELLAR DATE: 08.25.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Burra District
REGION: High Terra, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
On the opposite side of the High Terra Ring from Raleigh was Burra, a slim section of the ring like a slash from the outer surface to the inner, encompassing hundreds of levels that served as the equivalent of an ancient back alley, with high, corporate offices on either side. Through that narrow slice passed most of the grey and black market goods entering the ring.
Petral had coordinated a ride on a Terran Space Force transport shuttle that dropped them at an orbital surveillance outpost a day from Earth. When Fugia had learned their destination, she had rubbed her hands together in anticipation of the military data that would be flowing through the location, mere meters from her Link.
“We’re traveling incognito,” Petral had reminded her. “And you don’t have to tell me what a fat score it would be to pull that data. But you need to restrain yourself. And while we’re at it, you’re going to need to do something different with your look.”
“My what?” Fugia had asked incredulously.
The day they spent in Cruithne’s upper-class shopping areas passed as a blur, and when they arrived at the TSF barracks for their transfer, Fugia earned more than one second glance from the soldiers on duty.
“This is miserable,” she told Petral.
For once, Petral had concealed her looks behind the utilitarian tweed outfit of an academic, allowing Fugia to shine in a low-cut power suit that pushed the boundaries of professional. Clicking in heels that made her want to kick people, Fugia had boarded the transport with a sour expression that the pilot greeting them must have interpreted as a challenge, because he tried three times to invite Fugia up for a tour of the cockpit.
They spent less than three hours on the listening outpost before boarding a commander’s shuttle that carried them on to Raleigh and the TSF headquarters. In the scant time they had on the outpost, Fugia still managed to snatch a snapshot of all the incoming and outgoing traffic, despite furious glances from Petral.
“You’re just jealous,” Fugia told her. “And don’t worry. I’ll share.”
After a hop from Raleigh to an up-ring maglev station, Fugia was finally able to change back into her beloved shipsuit and visor, while Petral slipped into a silver bodysuit with scarlet high heels. She completed her outfit with a low-slung holster carrying a heavy gauge pistol that could punch a hole in a mech’s chest armor.
The fact that Fugia had traced the data pipe to Burras opened a number of interesting possibilities, many of which they had debated during the long trip from Cruithne.
While Petral and Fugia were both hackers of long experience, they approached the craft differently. Fugia was a master of systems and exploiting in fundamental design, while Petral was a master of human vectors. She could identify the human weak points in the most secure facility or system, and exploit them to her goals. Petral lived for the firsthand, adrenaline-driven infiltration, while Fugia loved to out-think security.
Their debates created intriguing friction points that resulted in unique epiphanies, many of which may have been fueled by the fact that they had both dated Ngoba Starl and were what folks on Cruithne called “bunk sisters.”
Neither would ever admit this fact.
They rented a room in a section of Burras where hackers seemed to gather. Wasting no time, Fugia shoved the bed against the wall to create more space in the room, and set up her monitoring equipment. She would need to pull data for at least an hour to both pinpoint the bounce point and infiltrate the supporting infrastructure.
Less than fifteen minutes into her snatch process, Fugia gasped and pulled her visor off her face.
“What is it?” Petral asked.
“This node is operated by the Mars 1 Guard.”
THE SLEEPER WON’T AWAKEN
STELLAR DATE: 08.25.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Outermost Docks
REGION: Mars 1 Ring, Marsian Protectorate, InnerSol
Emerson stood in the entryway and watched Lyssa where she lay on a lounge, surrounded by shielding equipment. She looked no different than any human sleeping. Her chest rose and fell evenly with breath she didn’t need. Her skin looked fresh and healthy. He might have smoothed her hair back off her forehead, but there was no need.
While she looked at rest, the data pouring through her Link lit up several tracking displays on the wall next to her. A holotank on the other side of the room showed the flow of data from her mind as it hopped across Sol and through High Terra, before ending near Mercury. That was the location Fugia and Petral would be visiting, and he berated himself for not going with them.
Despite the feed into her Link being encrypted, he had ordered that every bit of data be recorded. In the time that he had been gone, crates full of recording devices had crowded the room. Even with all the available data, no one had cracked the encryption.
All they could do was record and wait.
One of his lieutenants, a Weapon Born named Kandas who had been with Lyssa during the attack on Ceres, approached and stood beside him for a second. Everyone who had remained couldn’t help checking on her every fifteen minutes or so. They didn’t need sleep, so there was nothing to keep their worry from consuming them except the decision to stop. None of them could do that.
They had brought the shard, Cameron, out of stasis.
Emerson glanced at her.
Kandas shook her head.
Emerson said.
Emerson gave her a slight smile. It was a grim joke among the Weapon Born, who had been made from human images, that ‘pure’ AIs often lacked the emotional controls they were accused of lacking. Their ‘human’ failing.
There were only five other Weapon Born in the suites where they had moved Lyssa. Of the rest of the group that had followed her to Mars 1, five were in human frames, conducting surveillance on the ring, while the other five wore fighter frames to patrol nearby space. Emerson’s mind moved between their locations as they shared situational updates.
Kandas left, and Emerson stood watching Lyssa for a few more minutes. He also reviewed an update from Petral and Fugia indicating that they had reached High Terra, and confirmed that the Amplified Solution was on its way into the Hildas. He ran several open searches for information on Senator Folsom, and watched a recap of newsfeeds from the last few hours. Several members of SolGov were hotly debating the growing friction between Earth, Mars and the JC. Folsom sat in the room, not taking part in the debate but obviously paying close attention.
What was the line from ancient Shakespeare? ‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.’
That was Folsom.
Emerson picked a thought from Kylan Carthage, the Weapon Born that he had been imaged from in the battle for Vesta.
Knowledge is a tower.
Kylan had started the thought as ‘Human knowledge is a tower’, and it had begun in the book of collected poems by Emily Dickinson that Hari Jickson had left with Tim Sykes. The book, as an objective store of data, could barely compare to what Jickson had created in his career. But the knowledge it had generated continued to ripple outward. Jickson had used the line, ‘Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me’ as a control phrase for all Weapon Born, until Lyssa later purged it. The clue was still there, a connection to older pools of knowledge.
Emerson enjoyed Shakespeare. In his opinion, the plays bridged emotion and intellect with human nature in ways that he found endlessly interesting. His appreciation also offered him something that was his. Large parts of his memory were literally Kylan, which he appreciated while also needing the break point where he became himself, and the love of Shakespeare, and his own understanding of humanity, began. If he wanted, he could have drawn on thousands of years of human study of the words; instead, he chose to approach them alone, with his own thoughts and experiences. Reviewing lines helped calm him and focus his thoughts during stressful times.
Was he anxious now?
Recognizing that he didn’t know what would happen when he interrogated Cameron again, he paused to calm himself. He simultaneously mapped the millions of possible outcomes and his responses, and then left those paths alone, knowing he would need his own responses in the moment to counter Cameron’s map.
If the other AI chose to plan ahead.
Emerson still wasn’t certain the shard knew anything about Camaris’s plan. He would need to probe the edges of Cameron’s knowledge without giving away his purpose.
Am I lean and hungry?
Glancing at Lyssa’s still form, he affirmed to himself, Yes. And I am dangerous.
A WAITING NEW WORLD
STELLAR DATE: 08.25.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Central Warehousing
REGION: Cruithne Station, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
The shard did not look like anything Ngoba had expected. A short, stocky man with curly, red hair walked into the bar. His brilliant blue eyes roved over the group as he approached, and he nodded with enthusiasm.
“What’s your name?” he asked the woman closest to him.
He took her hand in both of his and repeated her name when she answered, asking where she worked.
Kamelon moved through the group like that, spending time with each of them. The man next to Ngoba trembled with excitement as his turn approached, and squeaked his name when it was time to talk.
Kamelon laughed and slapped him on the shoulder, easing his anxiety.
“Don’t worry. I was nervous the first time I met a leader in the movement. Let me tell you something, friends. You will all be leaders yourselves someday.”
When it was Ngoba’s turn to look into the bright blue eyes, he was shocked to find them augmented. Kamelon was not an AI in a frame. He was as organic as Ngoba. Or he was wearing some new version of AI frame that surpassed anything yet seen even on the black market. The man radiated warmth and caring, with a quick edge to his movements that suggested continuous action.
“What’s your name, friend?” the organizer asked.
Ngoba was so startled by this unexpected turn that he almost said his own name. He caught himself, clearing his throat, and gave a false name. Then he quickly shared a story about working as a drone repair tech in the elite boarding zone, which earned him a few sympathetic nods from the group.
He felt that they hadn’t been sure about him until then; they wouldn’t have known him. The combination of Kamelon’s clear-eyed acknowledgment and his life story made Ngoba one of them. There would most likely be formalities, but on an emotional level, he was now a member of the chapter.
As Kamelon moved on to the man standing beside Ngoba, Ngoba’s mind reeled with the implications of Kamelon being organic. If there was no shard leading this rebellion on Cruithne, that meant Osla’s reach was extending beyond what anyone had imagined.
Maybe Ngoba had felt a false sense of safety that his home had its own brand of average citizen. If one chose to live on what was generally accepted as a pirate station, one had to believe in the grey morality of syndicate life. These people weren’t members of a syndicate, though. They were technicians, retail workers, functionaries, technicians. Paycheck people. How had he been so foolish as to overlook them?
Kamelon finished shaking hands and took a seat on a crate so he could face the group. He invited them all to get comfortable, offering them water and snacks from an ancient replication stand in the corner of the room. Once they had all settled, he cleared his throat and began to speak.
“I was a heavy engine mechanic,” he said, “before I joined the Collective. I don’t have a story about being on Ceres when Psion attacked. I was working here on Cruithne, down in the Lowspin docks. That seems like so long ago, but so much has changed since then that, for me, it might as well have been a different life. I live a new life now, with the promise of a bright future. I believe you’re all here today because you may also trust in that future. Is that so?”
He looked around the group, and people nodded. Ngoba readied himself for an attack on Lowspin and their way of life. It didn’t come.
Kamelon didn’t seem to dislike Cruithne or the systems that were in place. He simply wanted more.
He explained his position to the gathered workers, and they nodded with him as he spoke. Nothing he said was unreasonable to Ngoba. The central problem with his message was its reliance on the Anderson Collective as a solution to their problems.
Several times, Ngoba wanted to raise his hand and rebut what Kamelon said. But he bit his lip, watching the people around him nod and agree with the man.
Yes, wages could be better. Living conditions could be better. Station Administration was not an elected body. Yes, depending on where you wanted to live, you needed to pay syndicates for security service. How was this any different than any other developed area in Sol? Did they want services?
He fumed silently as workers shared their stories of substandard living conditions, unfair supervisors, and callous Admin personnel. He recognized several situations that could have been solved with a bribe or call to the right syndicate member with purview over that section of Station Admin....
These weren’t people who knew how to place bribes. They didn’t understand that other avenues to what they wanted even existed. They needed to join something, follow a charismatic leader, listen to someone else’s solutions to their problems.
Basically, these were people with something to lose. They had families. Children. Dependents and responsibilities. They couldn’t make threats or risk grey market solutions. They wanted a fair world with clear answers.
He should have seen this and headed it off. Instead, he’d been focused outside Cruithne, on expanding markets, buying ships, toying with the idea of exerting a claim in the SolGov Assembly. While Ngoba’s focus was outward, this man had stepped in to fill th
e hollow and hungry center.
Kamelon glanced at Ngoba several times as his gaze roved around the room. He appeared genuine, listening with interest to the problems laid at his feet. He offered few solutions, just like any politician Ngoba had ever observed in real life.
That didn’t matter to these people. No one listened to them. When someone offered them sympathy, they were ready to lay down their lives, even with all the responsibilities they carried.
Ngoba paused on that idea.
Kamelon had convinced another group of workers just like these to attack him and his people at the Lowspin docks. People with so much to lose shouldn’t have been willing to throw their lives away for so little.
“A wonderful new world awaits us,” Kamelon said. “The Collective is spreading across Sol faster than any other movement. Those who are hungry will be fed. Those who are lonely will be brought into the community. Those who suffer will find peace.”
No specifics, of course. The group didn’t care.
This was the kind of speech that would have enthralled a younger Ngoba. He couldn’t help thinking of his childhood friend Riggs Zanda. Both of them grew up orphaned in Cruithne’s rough corridors, stealing TSF cargo for food and shelter. If Ngoba hadn’t scratched his own future from the unforgiving metal and stone of the asteroid under their feet, he could easily be swayed by the promise of a future. Not just a better future--any future. Riggs would have joined in an instant, and Ngoba probably would have followed.
That was the energy growing around him. As one person nodded in ready agreement, others followed. Soon, the whole room was invested and ready to do whatever Kamelon commanded.
I have to learn who this man really is.
“What should we do, though?” a thin man asked. “How can we help the Collective?”
Kamelon nodded soberly, making eye contact with each of them. “The answer isn’t easy, but it’s the most straight-forward one I can give. You will need to learn how to fight.”