L'Gem

by Sharon L Reddy

  Chapter Three

  It was a seven-hour uphill walk to the mine adit, then another long walk into it, but some brief rest stops were planned and 'brisk' wasn't necessary, when they got into the forested foothills. The track they traveled didn't look like it had once been for haulers, but it was still wide and clear enough for their "car." A native herbivore had kept it 'mowed' in the center.

  When they entered the mine adit, the men could see where they were walking by the soft glow of the shield. Choppy leaned into the vehicle and asked if the glow was visible outside. Tarse told him nothing under it was, but it was most useful on open ground or a road because those wouldn't show the view on both sides ran together on top. The bigger the shield, the wider the view that went up and over. They considered the width they were using the practical limit, because wider would have view of more than road on it. Choppy dropped back and word was passed that the glow was inside only. The shield would be very useful at night.

  A few moments later, they turned a corner, walked a short distance, then lights came on and the shield disappeared. There were closed doors behind them and a large ore transport platform beside them. A very short time later, they were riding the platform, towed by the vehicle, through the vast mine system.

  The Demfen mines had been abandoned nearly one hundred fifty years before. They'd been one of four mining areas protected from open pit mining by the colonial charter. By the time the mining corporation could have gotten the charter restriction overturned, all the high-grade ore had been taken out of all four areas and the mines abandoned, with everything not worth breaking down left inside.

  The towns near the twelve other adits had grown around them. They'd continued to grow because of the beauty of their locations and the very nice roads to them. Nearly all were primarily vacation spots, supplemented by forest industries. There were tree farms, but most of the forest products were food, not wood.

  Thirty-two tasty food plants and fungi were encouraged to grow and harvested, but they weren't cultivated. None had proved to be domesticable. They could be grown elsewhere, but the expense of reproducing the supporting forest ecology was too high to make it profitable. That unique ecology was why the area had been protected in the charter and why there were hydroponic farming tanks in the center of the mine system.

  They'd come in the thirteenth adit. No town had grown around it because everyone knew it was 'the end' and the only thing that came out was ore. People all went north. Moving workers in and out of the mines had reduced actual work time and their profitability. Importing fresh produce from agra areas to feed workers in the mine would not have significantly reduced costs. The solution had been barracks for workers for three-day work shifts, hydroponic tanks and creation of a small lake for aqua-farming.

  The lake was fed by the same underground stream that supplied drinking water. The 'dent' in the mountains where it was made didn't get much rain, snow or run-off, or there would have already been a lake there. It wasn't easily accessed from anywhere but the central cavern of the mine, and quite unattractive in comparison to the beautiful natural lakes in the region. If people had known it was 'brimming' with fish, it would have attracted fishermen, but that had been the most surprising discovery Tarse had made. The little lake had become an oasis with a thriving ecology in the century-and-a-half since it had been a fish farm. It was 'thick' with pinkfish.

  The lake and hydro tanks had paid for themselves in excess produce sold in the towns. Their size, and dropping agra prices, had been why they'd been left behind. The plants that had long ago rotted, then dried and fallen to dust had been cleaned out and had charged the system with nutrient stock that would last for years. The system would be self-sustaining long before then. The only reason it hadn't still been producing was the power had been shut off.

  The six got even more angry when one hundred fifty-seven men, including Bard and Harim, ran for the bins of fresh produce that had been robo-harvested within the last five days. Bard and Harim walked out of the happy mob, eating tomats and carrying several other items in the crook of an arm.

  "Fresh food is only a listing in the prison budget, like pay for work, things to buy, games to play and anything else to do, including books to read. We had entertainment screens and datpads because there were riots whenever someone decided to put the power and supply budget for them in his pocket."

  "We were slave labor fed nutrient-enriched gruel made from eight types of dried foods. We got things to vary the taste to prevent riots. We produced high-quality covalls for the gov to sell, cloth to cuffs, or we were locked in and starved for two days."

  "Bard, we want to get the women out, but they'll be watching for us. We didn't want to advertise we came after you, but we couldn't get to the women's prison fast enough, or get them all under the shield, if we did. The rebel prisons aren't where they say they are. Those are large plastine shells, and bait for a trap."

  "How can you access the gov comp net without being noticed, Ritzi?"

  "I used an auth code that kept IS from being noticed, Harim, then inserted one for me no one has an auth code to notice."

  "How did you get the first auth code?"

  "I overheard it on a school civics tour when I was nine. That's when I made mine, twelve years ago. It took me two-thirds of the year to get it up to the level I have auth to open any file and rewrite any program, and I'm the only person on the planet who can. Every bureau in the gov has secrets from each other, and especially from IS. That won't last much longer. IS has about finished preparations to take over, but they won't find my little auth code. If they did, everything in the data array would vanish."

  "Harim, she was the programmer on the most advanced physics research project on the planet."

  "Lima and Panner are primarily theoretical physicists. Brimmy and Garil are primarily application physicists. Bard's a more balanced combo of those two. Tarse is a little stronger in application and has a real talent for directing research. I'm a combo of theorist and programmer, but more programmer."

  "Harim's the missing talent, Ritzi. He's going to be better at pure math than I am."

  "What?"

  "Harim, you went from elementary level arithmetic and general science to translight theory in a year, while learning everything I could remember about language, art, history and everything else."

  "You were both teaching and learning at the same time. There was nothing else to do, and it was probably the first time in your lives your minds were fully engaged in learning. Harim, yours was also engaged in paying attention to stay alive most of the time. Bard was bored far more often."

  "You're right, Tarse. I hated the environment and loved the learning and teaching. I wasn't ever bored."

  "I wasn't the last year, but I fought against it because it was likely to be fatal the five before."

  "We're lovers. That won't change."

  "Why would it change?"

  "Harim, you're in the same situation I am. We could be happily faithful, but they wouldn't be happy trying. It would bother them if we did 'faithful,' and they'd end up trying. So, we'll remind ourselves they wouldn't and we love the real people, not the forever-all-mine fantasy and go out and girl watch, until we've had enough practice ignoring were jealous, it's not hard work."

  "The plan sound sensible, except for 'go out,' Tarse."

  "Ritzi, time to change who they were."

  "Cupcake, this is the frosting. Implement program no match match and document print."

  "Frosting, I like you, but you're missing something."

  "The tube's being squeezed; pair of green, now eight pink."

  "Implementing program no match match. Document print beginning. Images required for documentation completion."

  "Everyone! Hairstyling is immediate requirement! No one has to change, but there's a cosmetic supply house of bleach, dye, curl and straighten stuff in the dining hall! That building! It's all permanent, so no one does i
t without a buddy!"

  "Come on, Harim. You get curls."

  "You get blond."

  "Oh, I knew that."

  "Ritzi?"

  "Red and waves, Tarse."

  "You or me?"

  "Me. I've already got your white-gold curls set aside too. Your name is Nevin Curran, Nev."

  "I like it. Yours?"

  "Danniera Tracy, Danny."

  "Nice. Them?"

  "Knighton Pyramid and Silverin Bladesly, Knight and Blade. Update, Cupcake."

  "Phase one complete. Phase two forty-eight percent at mark. Mark."

  "I'm sure you checked all the names."

  "All four listed at least ten times in planetary directory, Nevin. Pyramid has twelve listings, all changed from Pirimandisi, which has one hundred two. Knighton changed his when he was eighteen, three years ago. I feel safer."

  "Phase one?"

  "Ret scans and file images changed between point two and eight-point nine percent, in random one hundredth percent selection. Phase two includes news archives. If it's not hard copy, it gets changed. Cupcake is about to finish with what she can do until we have new images. Lima is Veronica Dell, Ronnie."

  "She picked it."

  "Yes. Brimmy is Dawn Lee."

  "I don't blame her. Garil and Panner?"

  "Cascony Laudren and Statton Sharp, Case and Stats."

  "They'll love it. Ronnie and Dawn are going to come out of hiding."

  "We all are. None of us have mousy hair, but it's all brown."

  "That's the reason there's permanent hair color change, Danny. Nearly everyone's hair is nice hair, but brown. Because we don't have all those colors that were genetic recessives, in anything like the percentages we once did, brown is no longer one of many interesting colors. I think I'll like being a blond. I think you're going to even look dangerous as a redhead."

  "Oh, you do know how to give a compliment."

  One was only supposed to get permanent treatment at licensed establishments, from a licensed cosmetic clinician with medical training. The products to do it were only supposed to be available to them. Tarse had bought the entire about-to-expire stock of a supply house for cash and it had been quickly moved out the back door into the light hauler that temporarily had a business name on it. It had also temporarily had a fifty-credit note stuck on the right front. That had disappeared during the loading and a police officer had his back to the delivery alley when the hauler pulled out. The business name had blown off as tiny flakes when the light hauler moved into the high-speed lane on the gravway. Hundreds of times a day, in every city, government regulation, licenses and fees lost to private enterprise, by government employees.

  A few men got sick. Some got blisters. Many got a little dizzy. Most felt raw all over. None had extreme allergic reactions. They'd just mixed and smeared all over and took the oral at the same time. The three women followed instructions precisely. It took them a great deal longer to do their bodies one area at a time, then their hair in sections, with prescribed time between, then carefully use the facial application kits on each other, but only Dawn felt "slightly light-headed," and only Ronnie felt "a little green" after the oral dose, which changed melanin production. Without it, the dyes wouldn't be permanent.

  When they were done, they selected clothes from those on a large number of racks. 'A secondhand store' had helped several charities with their sorting and racking chore, buying everything brought to collection centers for three days for a nice cash donation. A number of people had noticed friends donating those days and decided to clean out closets and storage areas. The 'friends' lived in nice neighborhoods. 'Someone' had forgotten to take the display clips off the one Danny chose. They had the name of a very nice store on them. Ronnie noted her grandmother remembered them when she got part way into an outfit and one sprang off it.

  Clothes hadn't been the only things collected those days. No one had said anything, but they were taking things. People had looked at what they were loading and taken things. Someone was doing something. Whatever it was, the government wasn't involved. A rebel organization couldn't exist. Since it couldn't, people watched for a sign someone was doing something. All they could do was help, and hope one of those times would be the beginning of the end of the corrupt and increasingly oppressive government of Gradelode. The people at collection centers hadn't mentioned the type or amount those days. If someone was doing something, they too wanted to help.

  Knighton Pyramid read his identification, blinked and began to giggle. His documentation was complete. He had a copy of the approved petition of name change, his university transcripts, for his doctorate in mathematics, and his employment record. He'd only had one job. He'd been an adjunct professor of math and physics in a continuing education program for a year. His rating, based on student performance, was excellent.

  Silverin Bladesly finally just handed Knighton his. He was surprised when he looked it over, nodded and gave it back. 'Blade' read it again. He had a masters degree in mathematics. He'd worked his way through school with jobs that ranged from child care to personal physical trainer. 'Knight' rumpled his silky chestnut curls and pulled him into a hug.

  "They gave us everything we need to be who we are, and to have become deeply loving friends. Math doesn't make us spectacularly employable, but that too is an asset. It makes it reasonable for over-educated us to take jobs from tutor to moving furniture."

  "How did they know… I took care of children?"

  "Because you sacrificed yourself to protect them. You understand how precious they are too completely not to have had children of your own, in some way. They figured out what you used the money you were too good not to make to do."

  "Finding a loving home for a child is simple. Unlocking the door to get them in is not. The gov holds the keys and every person in it, who can grasp them, demands payment to release them."

  "She named us Knight Pyramid and Silver Blade. She managed to identify, tease and challenge us at once."

  "I'm impre…"

  Knighton spun to see why Silverin had stopped talking. There was an epidemic of mouths hanging open. They'd been cute girls. It had suddenly become obvious it was deliberate. When the three 'boys' walked out of a doorway, Lone applauded and one hundred fifty-six men joined him. The six smiled and bowed. 'Nev' held up his hand and it quieted.

  "It was easy for us to use the colors and clothes to become 'other people,' because we intended to do so and were maintaining the distance between them. It's going to be more difficult for you, especially those who have worn shirts and pants that didn't even allow the personalization of a rolled cuff or laid-back lapel, for a long time. Lone, now Dr. Lawrence Carter, statistician on research sabbatical, knows who he is quite clearly because the enforced anonymity couldn't penetrate. He maintained complete separation from the environment in which you were all immersed. Until you had all those documents, you didn't have the complete image of who you are out of which to build a personal style of dress and appearance, your presentation of your inner identity to others. You didn't necessarily choose the wrong clothes, but they aren't your clothes to you. I see many bright colors, because they are bright. If I were you, I'd have headed for the brightest thing on the rack. Don't hide. That makes you obvious. There is no need to do so. Nothing in any gov file, or news archive, matches your ret scan, or your faces. Read those documents and create a synthesis between your past, the present you hold in your hand and the future we are going to create for our people."

  "This is a bureaucratic oligarchy progressing to a police state. Democracy hasn't existed here for over a century. There's no way for people to vote for who they want. We all know election results are fiction, but most don't realize rebels are an IS invention, presented as a method for the bureaucracy to isolate people who learned something dangerous to it. IS used it as an excuse to institute full comm monitoring and increase personnel. There are only three hund
red seven. They're slave labor in five drug production labs and nine hydro-tank farms, where three plants, from which all the addictive drugs are produced, are grown. Reproductive suppressants and agents to initiate spontaneous abortion are added, though use of the drugs does cause some. All facilities are underground. We learned one 'rebel' is a boy of thirteen, so that's where we're starting. You all have bank accounts. We removed 'nomination funds' and several others. None of you are poor, a few are very comfortable, a few very well-off. All of those are on the lists both the bureaucracy and IS maintain of such things. We have more to do, so we need your help to get ready."

  The sword and shield car was made more comfortable and a trailer added. The other men did that while eight worked on additional theory and applications. Blade was surprised to be one of them, then he asked a question that was exactly what they needed to point to additional applications. They only built one. A way to short weapons was the solution to needing them they really wanted. Just before the eight left to empty the first prison lab, Danny found something in a file. She was blazing with fury when she got in the vehicle. She informed the seven in it a temper tantrum had surprised her.

  "What did you do?"

  "Sold every stock and property holding not on Gradelode, Nev, and emptied a large number of bank accounts. Three 'branches' of mining corps were negotiating to lease two thousand social service indebted and five hundred rebels, one hundred ninety-three not yet 'captured,' from the gov, to mine a non-habitable planet. All labs and farms were to be fully automated in eighty-three days. The second phase of the plan was five thousand per year. The gov was negotiating to get them to lease fifteen thousand, instead. The Gradelode 'branch managers' were looking over several business expansion proposals for feasibility. The gov people involved expressed confidence they'd accept them, since they wouldn't be limited by parent corp policies. They won't be paying to have two thousand 'selected for shipping.' They don't have any assets on this planet. They purchased all our currency offplanet, then it vanished. It never existed. We're economically isolated. All budgets are fixed. No one involved has an excessive accumulation of money. All budgeted items, services and salaries will be paid, but there's not a loose credit on the planet, and never has been. Gradelode's budget and disbursement are now in the control of the management program for World Builder Eleven, level eight."

  Nev, Dawn, Ronnie, Case and Stats screamed with laughter. Knight raised an eyebrow at Blade. He shook his head. Ronnie told them it was one of the most complex world-building games in existence and the only way to get off level eight was discover something that would bring traders from other worlds.

  "In the game, you have to find a medicinal plant, a new mineral deposit, a new domesticable grain or develop a new technology. The game unlocks when the incoming comm channels are jammed and ships are filling docking berths and landing pads. There are a large number of possibles. Which you can find is random, but it's the arrival, not the discovery, that unlocks the level and gets you to the next, full participation in the interplanetary market."

  "You can't back up or make changes, except in very specific ways. Your population will rise and such, but percentage of expenditure and taxation won't change. The usual way to change it is delete the program and start over. It takes everything with it and begins with a world and a ship of colonists with a charter. Every item currently budgeted will be purchased and shipped and every salary and subsidy will be paid. And only we can change it."

  "What about jobs and commerce, Nevin?"

  "Private enterprise is how you find the key to the lock, Blade. Every game move allowed on the level is standard private sector stimulation and you can't go deficit giving a tax cut."

  "Most people end up starting over many times at level eight, even knowing the way to advance is build businesses that can fund research and development in companies and universities."

  "They're warned, but I don't care."

  "No, Knight, they're not warned. They're the ones who left that boy's comp on with a tap to it. Of course the program eliminated the cheating. One can't have offplanet assets and trade until after level eight. They'll discover that's the source computer and the game was running in the background fairly quickly."

  Blade began to giggle. Knight's face suffused with pleasure, then he too began to giggle. Soon all eight in the very pleasant interior of the invisible car, towing a narrow trailer, which would hold one hundred fifty comfortably, were giggling. Behind them, many men were choosing attire for an evening out.

  The twelve carts they'd ride to the adits 'brushed out' their tracks as they traveled. They weren't all going to brothels, but many were. It wouldn't be at all surprising for group of six to ten men to go because none had before.

  The invisible car sped across the continent in the high-speed lane. Nothing 'saw' it, but its sensors saw out. While it traveled, one worked on a comp and six finished assembly of personal shields. They had tranquilizer darts, gas grenades and the weapon-shorting setting on the magic sword, but no idea what they'd actually be dealing with in numbers of guards or type of equipment to be destroyed. Eventually, Danny gave up and helped with their shields. There just weren't any details available. It was an independent operation.

  They 'poked a hole,' lobbed in a gas grenade and walked through the hole a few seconds later. Dawn and Ronnie dragged four guards out, while Danny worked on the comp. The five men took the lift down.

  They began at the bottom, six levels below ground. The men they found on that level weren't asleep. They were unconscious. They carried them to the lift and sent them up four at a time. Knight went up with the first load. Dawn and Ronnie unloaded the lift, while Knight carried men to seats at the front of the trailer. After the six loads of four men, he went back down. The eight were burning with fury. The men were wearing only shackles.

  The fifth level only had six on it. Two were guards. They didn't see the lift open, or anything else. They were loaded on the lift while the five men freed the four in a kitchen. They were unconscious too. No one had argued, or even been surprised when Nev had tossed in a gas grenade. The men sent a cart up with them. The guards had to be moved forty meters. After they moved them, the men went up one level and found the bottom of the huge laboratory.

  It wasn't necessary to kill any guards, so they didn't, though it became more difficult not to every level where they found naked, shackled men working. The women had gone to the car when Danny finished preparing the computer. The men were told there were women with them, but they wouldn't see them until they were free of chains. Some of the men had tears in their eyes, when they said, "Thank you."

  They found the boy on the last level of the lab emptied. Dream dust had suddenly gotten too plentiful and cheap in the area where he lived and he'd been hunting for the reason, and why the police were ignoring it. He'd told a friend he suspected they'd been ordered to ignore it and the government wanted people addicted. The friend had told him addicts were expensive and the government was too greedy for that. He'd been looking for how it could be profitable for the government when he'd been arrested. Blade asked if he'd been abused.

  "No. You'd have killed them all if I said yes."

  "Just the mad animals. I'd have assured those who awoke knew why they didn't."

  "You didn't ask anyone else?"

  "They'd have told us if they knew some are. So, we leave them to awaken to tell their superiors a hole appeared in a wall and there was nothing there to make it."

  "They'll have every gov employee hunting you, to get what did it."

  "Yes, everyone will soon know there's a rebellion in progress."

  Two-point two K away from the lab, a pair of doors opened on a hauler loading dock. The invisible car and trailer were one hundred sixty-seven K from the lab, when dust blew out of them. Danny checked the time and smiled, then opened the audio link to the trailer, where the men were removing shackles.

&
nbsp; "A short time ago, a very large spark struck a store of volatile chemicals. No one was injured in the explosion which gutted a large underground facility. All personnel are clear of the area where the surface structures and ground are falling into a very large hole. That was the second largest lab. We're headed for the largest. A few who won't be bothered walking by my back would speed getting the big one empty. It'll be crowded back there by the time we finish. We plan to go out again tonight and get the three smaller labs, then start on the farms, nine of those. That's where women are sent."

  On the way back from the last lab, 'they' changed the plan a bit. Knight said, "The women's prison." They got there just before dawn. They lobbed gas grenades, shorted weapons and made a hole in the wall. They lobbed a few more gas grenades when they saw IS uniforms behind it, then eight wearing personal shields walked in. The computer was loudly sounding an alert. Blade turned off his shield, shorted the door lock, shot tranquilizer darts and opened the door for Danny. No one saw him unless he intended it, but he turned the shield on, anyway.

  The cells were open, the women in the trailer and the car was in the high speed lane and headed north before a large IS force landed. Nev drove into one of the adits and men cheered when seventy-six women walked out of the trailer.

  Women grabbed hair change formulas and ran to become other people. Danny canceled twenty-two identifications and moved money, then opened that section to the game program management. It wouldn't 'notice' images added to files, but one couldn't shuffle money in the game. The invisible car was on the way to a secret hydro-farm before the first 'missing lab' was discovered.

  They 'took' all nine farms in succession, before the evening guard shift arrived. When they did, they learned the hydro tanks were boiling the crop and seed supply, and the computers were gone. At twenty-one forty-three, all documents were complete. Five hundred forty freed men and women sat on the ground around eight sitting on a table. Knight realized he was 'talking' when six looked at him and Blade elbowed his ribs.

  "We're the only rebel organization that can exist, but there are tens, probably hundreds, of thousands of rebels. We found out the government plans for you and the subsidized districts, and shortened the first chapter of the rebellion to its title. We've got a stall in place, but we can't predict how long it will last. The IS high echelon could put the whole planet on the barter system, and require a pass to cross the street, in ten days. We don't think they'll move that fast. They may not discover they've got a problem until gov center opens for business as usual in two days. Once they do, it won't take them long to learn 'a program moved across a tap,' But we think they'll hunt for our obviously new tech awhile before they resort to deleting World Builder Eleven, level eight."

  A number of people roared with laughter. Knight pointed at Danny and she took a bow. Applause and laughter widened as laughing people explained. When it finally died down, Knight noted he'd heard redheads had fiery tempers, but the warning had been on the haircolor bottle, then waited for laughter to subside again.

  "This is where it gets dangerous. From now on, it's not knock out guards, poke a hole in a wall and get people out of places the gov doesn't want people to know exist. We're going to have to learn who it pays too well to cooperate with the government, and kill beasts too dangerous to be unleashed. Some people are going to die because they're too addicted to survive withdrawal, but it'll just be a little sooner and it won't be kids. They die of OD before they reach that point. We saved all who are alive. We've got thousands of private labs making spermicide. The people in them don't know it's going in their water supply. Most people who work for the government aren't evil. Some do it because someone must, but most just decided a regular paycheck and a little side money was the practical way to survive in a corrupt society. They don't know what's going on and carefully don't learn. We don't want them in those jobs, but we don't want them to starve, either. There aren't nearly as many as we've been told. About eighty percent of personnel budgets aren't used to pay personnel. They're used to hide the truth and pay people who don't exist. Most of the oligarchy and city officials were collecting four to forty paychecks. IS also gets a lot of that money. They probably have more people than they list. They definitely have more equipment and do things they don't tell the bureaucrats. We may be fighting them in the streets before this is over, but that's what we most want to avoid. Uh… Mike?"

  "Mike, and I really like it. The magic sword and shields?"

  "Limited. Even equipment to build equipment to build some parts of the sword are controlled. The shields aren't as difficult, but they take power and suddenly having one disappear is not pleasant to contemplate. Until we…"

  "Mike, we've seen that sudden glazed look before."

  "So have we, Nevin. It took both Loren and me to get the pan he was holding out of his hand. Blade was laughing too hard to want to help. The idea worked great."

  "Excuse us, everyone. We're going to steer him to a computer. That way, we can see what he's thinking and help."

  "He's not used to having a comp to work on, Nev."

  "We know, Blade, but this is what we did when he came to the physics lab."

  Blade quickly pointed out men for people to gather around to work on things, then followed Knight. He got there just in time to get a math assignment. Stats groaned, copied the equation off the datpad and put him on a chair in front of a computer. Two early middle-age women, now named Elise and Kendra, sat down at open computers. A young man, now named Dayton, sat down at another.

  "I'm an engineer."

  "So am I."

  "I'm a medical numerologist. You can guess the numbers that didn't make sense that I started checking."

  "Yes, Kendra, I can. You were probably an early rebel."

  "One of the first, Stats. My profession no longer exists on Gradelode."

  In an exceptionally lovely living room in an area of very large lovely homes in Jenneara, five K from Roper district, a man listened to a report, politely and succinctly delivered by one of his employees. When she finished, he reimbursed her expenses, paid her wage, then added a very large bonus from his pocket, all in cash.

  He informed her he was changing her job to personal secretary. He called her lover, told him he was hired as building maintenance supervisor, to get her and their year-old son moved into the east wing apartment, then make sure every property met all code standards. His house manager opened the apartment and ordered a hauler for her, then walked into his employer's study and sat down.

  "L day?"

  "L day-plus. The gov and IS made real rebels and they've got tech that made cracking open Horgen and Fataner daylight strolls, with time to sort. They left seventy-three in Horgen and twenty-two in Fataner. They didn't kill any guards when they broke loose all the convicted rebels, either."

  "Oh, shit."

  "Get every person on the payroll listed on the payroll. Most are security. Shut down all gambling operations. They stopped being profitable twelve days ago. Get the clinics medical supplies and protection, and get all the prostitutes run through them and licensed."

  "The pimps just need addresses for brothel licenses."

  "Keetsy?"

  "Did a lot of talking or they wouldn't be ready."

  "Give him a real nice address for his license. Stores?"

  "Guslo's been sniffing the air for storm. If there's an item on a stockroom shelf they don't have a purchase receipt for, they know where, and it won't be in the store in three minutes."

  "Tell our discreet friends the protection price increase made it more profitable to do strictly licensed business and provide our own security. Warn them all addictive drug supplies will run out fast and there won't be more until someone imports from offplanet, or finds a cheap way to construct from basic elements, which no one has so far."

  "What?!"

  "Nine years ago, I traded an old man a university scholarship for his great-grandson
for a gov secret so secret they forgot they were supposed to be taking care of him. The gov finished wiping out all six hundred forty-three plant species the botanic survey listed as producing addictive substances, in the wild, forty-two years ago. I got his granddaughter a job that got her family out of Roper as a bonus. He found out no seed for those three plants existed anywhere else as a thank-you. Glide and mopweed still exist, but the additives that made them more than mild euphorics don't. The assassin is out and I'm very pleased. I'm sure were on friendly terms."

  The warnings were passed personally. Three cars and one flyer left Jenneara. Four cars and one flyer left Richland. Two flyers left Azura. In six hours, "L day" spread across five continents. It wasn't universal by a wide margin, but many checked the books and chose to follow the lead of the Roper boss.

  One who was warned drove to the home of an acquaintance. That woman didn't believe her. She went with her to the home of a business associate. He didn't believe her, either. He very discreetly checked a price, then spun from his computer and yelled for people. Seventeen minutes later, twenty-four people, with printout images of seven plants listed as very common in the region, in the botanic survey, walked into an area designated as a nature preserve in the colonial charter. Over a two-hour twenty-three minute period, nine plants that resembled the images were found.

  The twenty-four got back in a transport. When they reached the estate of their wealthy employer, one carried the nine plants in to him. He scanned them. The computer identified them as nine other plants. He poured three glasses of wine, gave the women theirs, paced his library four times, then sat down, picked up his glass and took a sip of wine.

  "They're gone. The 'supplier' wants four times the standard price for twenty percent of the usual order."

  "I don't like your business, but I like the gov less. You're no longer profitable. A… two thousand percent price increase is designed to make you obvious, with nice bloody bodies. You're 'scraps' IS is going to throw to the middle-masses. You might convince the government you don't know it was the producer and top-level supplier, if you dump your current stock, pass word the producers are out of business permanently and the protection price increase twelve days ago was the gov setting up to cover loss of income. Every real smart boss on all five continents is dumping every illegal operation and licensing every one that isn't. Decide if you prefer a loss on your current stock to being dead."

  "It'll make IS look like heroes."

  "Do you know anybody with brains who doesn't realize the gov has always known where the drugs came from?"

  "No, the smart ones have all figured out the gov's too greedy to let anyone else make the money."

  The 'rebels' in the mine didn't know they destroyed the only source of addictive substances on the planet. IS didn't know it. There was no record of the extermination of six hundred forty-three plant species in any gov file. The only record was in the living memory of a few people who had lived longer than a bureaucrat had expected, when she chose laborers in their seventies for the task. By the time the people in the mine had breakfast, distributors were shoving drugs into trash cyclers, as fast as the machines could reduce them to basic elements. By the time they finished lunch, territory distributors were emptying cycler element bins into public waste disposals.

  Local distributors and pushers weren't warned, so no one tried to raise prices. Local distributors never kept enough stock to be a temptation. Pushers never carried more than they'd sell in a short time. By the time the tech bunch suddenly left computers and ran for tools, just before dinner was ready, local distributors and pushers were beginning to use the money they had in their pockets to disappear.

  That night, Knight and Blade took four men in the invisible car to perform a series of thefts so odd they doubted anyone would notice them. The trailer the car towed was an ore cart. Knight drove the car to four cities that night. The thieves emptied specific element bins of several public trash recycle units, in each.

  Knight and Blade went a third of the length of the continent, towing a smaller trailer, to perform the last theft of the night. The government tech repair center on the south-central west coast was the largest, and the only single place they could get all seven items they needed.

  The theft was closely timed. The gate swung open ahead of the car and closed behind it. A loading dock door opened and a robo-cart rolled out onto the dock. Knight and Blade moved the seven units on it to the trailer quickly, then got back in the car and closed the shield. They had to wait for the gate to open, but not long.

  "Sixteen seconds less than the leeway we allowed."

  "We can lift and carry more than we realized. We gave us more time to move with heavy loads than we needed. I wish it was reasonable to see how long it takes for the gov to figure out those things are missing."

  "So do I, Knight. No intake receipt, so they didn't get here. No shipping record, so they didn't go anywhere. No repair order, so they didn't need fixing, and the people who sent them expected it to take 'forever,' so they won't check for a long time. You aren't happy about a couple of the repairs needed. You didn't tell me why."

  "Calibration. Basically, we need the instrument we're fixing to check to see if the instrument we're fixing is right, to be sure two others are right."

  "There's a way around it?"

  "Two. One is see if something we build blows up."

  "The other?"

  "Perfect pitch and a trained ear."

  "I don't have perfect pitch."

  "Uh… How well-trained is your ear?"

  "I can identify the key tones in a lock code series. Bard! Look at the road, not me."

  "Sorry. I haven't driven much. You called me Bard."

  "You scared 'Knight' right out of me. Have you driven more than I have?"

  "How long did you drive tonight?"

  "That's what I thought. I have driven a car before, around the block three times. I didn't tell the woman who paid me to do it, while she was making a fast illegal purchase, I'd never done it before. She asked if I could and I said yes, and that I didn't need what she did, so wouldn't steal her car. I didn't tell her I didn't need the money, but really wanted to drive."

  "I was going to buy one."

  "So was I. Why don't we?"

  "You think we should?"

  "I think were going to need a number of vehicles. This one is nice, but not what one would use to take a woman on the usual type of date."

  "The women we're thinking about aren't 'usual,' but I agree we need more vehicles."

  "The only ones not nervous about using their identities and bank accounts are the six."

  "The men asked for cash for the brothels."

  "I'd use cash at one if I was a pocker with a boring past and a steady job. That's why Nevin just handed it out."

  "Watch 'pocker.' I'd never heard it before."

  "It's used a lot, but not in the class we want to be, unless you're informing a man he isn't in it."

  "Why pock?"

  "I have no idea. I don't know why 'tod,' either. They both say 'origin unknown' in the dictionary. Car?"

  "If I start thinking about how to hide a shield unit in a regular car, I'll forget I'm driving."

  "Hiding it's easy. Trust me!"

  "Do you want to drive?"

  "No, but I'll explain fast, so you remember you are. Shields don't have to be this big. Some cars have recessing tops, panels and others, for things like sunshine, ports for playing loud music at places like a beach, and solar panels and power reception antennae to keep the system charged when you do."

  "I knew about the sunshine."

  "The others can be ordered on a car, but they're usually added. Sound ports and solar panels are fairly cheap and often owner-installed, with widely varying levels of skill. A power reception unit and antenna is easy to self-install, but usually done by a shop because they do all the stuff to add the receiver to the car owner's house power
account."

  "I still have big holes in everybody-knows, Blade."

  "After we fix the things we can't have, to build things we can't have, to build things that can't exist, we'll get out and fill them real fast. There aren't many."

  "Only the ones so everybody-knows it didn't occur to you I don't."

  "I get mad every time I think about the things you didn't."

  "Should I tell Danny I've never made love with a woman?"

  "She knows."

  "Are you going to tell one you haven't?"

  "You're working on me again."

  "Admitted."

  "Nev's right. Fidelity would be easy for me, and you'd work at not feeling trapped and 'be faithful,' if I asked it, and I know it."

  "If you really needed it, I wouldn't have to work at it."

  "I know that, too. The women won't be as hard on me as the men."

  "Huh?!"

  "I didn't think you realized it."

  "I still haven't."

  "Case has. Dayton's hoping you do very soon. I thought we were in Hell. They were fed twice a day, worked all the time they weren't eating or unconscious, or in two hours of induced REM sleep per five-day to keep them alive to work. That didn't really penetrate until last night when Kendra said she didn't remember how to go to sleep. Only three hundred seven and everyone thinks three or four times that many. Why did IS just hold people for long periods, then move them to other continents?"

  "To increase their budget. To get people like Choppy and Backit to help them hide they had a lot of money they weren't paying for reports. To make rebels, so scared bureaucrats gave them more money and power, until they had enough to take it all."

  "Warkerdoll became commandant fourteen years ago."

  "You're planning an assassination."

  "Just considering it."

  "I want to put him in Horgen, with all the other beasts."

  "So do I, but it won't happen. He's 'just following orders.' The government is corrupt. He knows it. Everyone does. It's up to the people to change the government in proper democratic manner. Then he'll have other orders to follow. However, until they do it in that way, he follows the orders of this government or commits treason."

  "I still don't think that's the right way, or it's time. We need to know more."

  "Like is he too brightly painted not to be a target?"

  "That's a good 'more' to put at the top of the list."

  "It's always number one."

  "That's eight. Number one is…"

  "Pock!!"

  "I'm not good at this."

  "You're fine at driving. Just not at… remembering you're driving."

  "I really scared you that time."

  "You went glazed that time."

  "I want you to drive."

  "You scared you."

  "Yes."

  "No."

  "No?"

  "I don't think you'll kill us and you're learning something. Cars have comps that would grab control if you swerved like that. Too many people depend on them to make up for lack of attention to what they're doing and what's around them. I'm going to remind you a swerve like that could throw something off the trailer and every person on this world, who doesn't choose to victimize others, is a victim who needs what's back there to be rescued, before they're all enslaved."

  "Check I didn't lose anything."

  "All there. The situation isn't dangerous, but the potential exists for it to become so suddenly. Deep breath. Stretch your spine. Square your shoulders. Now relax into the seat, but stay alert. Better?"

  "Yes."

  "You didn't forget the importance of what we're doing."

  "Yes, I did."

  "No, you didn't. It's all been… too easy. Walk in. Walk out. Zip, zip, nobody can see us. Nobody can stop us. This time just move stuff off a loading dock and go home. You were working on protecting people when it's not that easy and needed a reminder this part is potentially dangerous, too. You put something in the future ahead of what we're currently doing on the priority list. You didn't forget it was important. Oh, no. Don't cry. I don't know what to do, and I feel terrible."

  "I love you. I couldn't even imagine having a friend like you. Do you want me to promise no other men?"

  "Of course, but I'd thump you on the head to get your mind working if you did. You're the person I love. Eventually, you'd have noticed you watched a man walked by with more interest than passing object, if you hadn't been sent to Horgen. You know how limited and narrow your exposure to sexuality was. You are limited by cultural… Inculcation?"

  "Yes, but don't use 'cultural inculcation.' That's redundant. You could say by Roper inculcation, or some other term identifying the… instilled cultural attitudes."

  "Scientific inculcation?"

  "Better than Roper as usage example."

  "Not better for showing me 'identifying.' Anyway, you didn't have a bunch of people pounding you into the shape they were sure was the only healthy one, but you did have expectations. Love stories are boy meets girl, boy meets boy or girl meets girl. There just aren't many boy meets girl, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, girl love stories. They'd run out of broadcast time before the characters were all introduced."

  Knight burst into laughter. A few moments later, disaster almost struck. Knight slammed on brakes and swerved into another lane and the hauler that abruptly moved into the high-speed lane missed them by centimeters. Blade checked the load. They still had all seven items, but three were no longer upright and one was too close to the edge. Knight took the next exit, then pulled off the road. They moved all but the two biggest pieces of equipment into the car. After they had, Knight pulled Blade into his arms.

  "I wouldn't have been ready, alert enough. Nothing can see us. He'd have hit us and never known what hit him."

  "It has its drawbacks. Aftershakes are appropriate. I checked my pants. I was surprised. I was sure it scared the shit out of me."

  Knight reached back and felt his and looked surprised. Blade laughed and gave him a squeeze. They didn't get back on the road immediately. They used the brewer in the car, sat on the trailer and drank a cup of tea. The remainder of the drive to the mine was without incident, but Nev saw something had gone wrong, as soon as they got there.

  "What happened?"

  "A hauler didn't see us. We didn't lose anything. They're in the car. Three pieces tipped over hard."

  "Those we can get again, Knight. You two we can't. I can see how close we came to losing you in your eyes. You're about to get hugs. I'm sure warning you is a good idea. If I brewed you mopweed tea, would you drink it?"

  "Blade?"

  "Yes. It'll be the first time I had it."

  "That doesn't surprise me. This is the first place you could let something… take the edge off."

  "No, but we didn't have any in the cell when we locked the door."

  "The guards couldn't open it if you locked it?"

  "They'd have gassed us first."

  "No one will open an unlocked door without knocking here. Danny learned our 'detour' to Fataner was just ahead of delivery of an 'infiltrator.' She's trying to figure out how to get her out."

  "What?"

  "They're holding her fifteen-year-old daughter as a rebel. Danny thinks she killed an IS officer for attempted rape of the girl, or vice versa. Anyway, they have them both and it's a two-bait trap."

  "It's time to kill some people."

  "Who do you have in mind, Blade?"

  "I was thinking of starting on your list, Knight."

  "Thank you. Let's have some tea, eat, sleep, and then I'll think about…"

  "Number one is eight."

  "Yes, one is eight. Nevin, the pyramid has eight sides."

  "I'm reaching, Knight."

  "How many dimensions does it have?"

  "Height, width, depth?"

  "It has twelve surfaces."

  "Twelve, twelve, twelve, but�
� It's eight. It's eight!!"

  "It's eight."

  "What is eight?"

  "The damn little piece we couldn't figure out, Blade. It's a measurement 'count.' Depth is 'counted' four that way and four that way. The measurement is irrelevant, but now we know…"

  "There are eight possible applications for the pyramid."

  "Yes! Hi, Mike."

  "Sit down, boys. Your brunch starts with tilf-flour biscuits with crimp fungi gravy and melon slices."

  "Starts with?"

  "Trimpy stuffed pinkfish fillets are baking."

  "You're having a good time with real food to cook."

  "I'm learning I actually like to cook, Knight. Loren and I could so… We still are and we've got volunteers enough we both admitted the reason has to be it's fun."

  "This is the mopweed tea. This is a tasty sweet herbal tea. It's brewed strong. Use it to cool and flavor to taste. All the tea will do is loosen the knots enough to enjoy your meal, then get the sleep you know you need."

  Nev got the two headed for bed, then the six of them and two engineers went to work on the equipment. While they were working, they learned most of the long-held 'rebels' didn't know the monster IS had become, and some thought they could call their families when they got to a public comm. Nev called a meeting fast. Ronnie briefed on IS budget, personnel and practices, then went to the kitchen and did it again. Others helped people understand what she'd told them in daily-life terms, and that they were deadly to their families, often in graphic personal anecdotes.

  Danny told the women "a bodyslam onto a bed" was the only hint the men would be sure they weren't mistaking, then Dayton asked if a man wanted to help him be sure he hadn't been "messed up." A former prison inmate yelled, "Yes!" and several burst into laughter. Mike and Loren lightened the mood in the kitchen, with the story of Blade "body-rolling" biscuit dough, while they attempted to get Knight to notice they were trying to get a pan out of his hand. Gov center had been open one hour, thirty-three minutes, when Danny sat down at a comp to check things after lunch.

  "Nev! The whole planet… changed. IS is nervous and the bureaucrats are flat scared. And they haven't even found the program yet."

  "Changed how?"

  "There may not be an unlicensed or illegal business on five continents. Drugs are flat gone, except for the remainder of the gov's stock and no one will even look that direction. Maintenance people are swarming over buildings in subsidized housing areas and licensed prostitutes are arranging furniture in, freshly comp-issued, licensed brothels. Stores, brothels and clinics have smiling 'greeters' with lots of muscle, all legally employed with employment taxation record filing fees paid. If you want to gamble, someone will draw you a map to a licensed casino. What did we do?"

  "It may not have been us, or not just us. See if you can find where it started."

  "Roper district."

  "Our hero-for-a-demon good business-demon was busy, and prepared. He didn't have anything to do with drugs drying up. See if you can find why he was prepared. What did the government do in Roper district to… make people be pleased they enslaved two thousand and yell take more? Why was drug production shut down the buzzer to get everything extremely legal?"

  "Someone obviously knew where rebels were and we wouldn't leave a profitable place to put more behind."

  "I'll bet our hero demon… knew."

  "Twelve percent increase fourteen days ago. They paid it once and got ready. Why?"

  "Can we figure it out without Blade?"

  "The wizard raised the price of ignoring 'usual demon business.' They surprised him."

  "Doing business was more important than doing demon business. The price raise was too much. Passing it on wasn't possible."

  "Unless the customers got money from somewhere else. It was supposed to start thefts and violence, make sure every person was afraid to leave the house unwatched, or open the door."

  "It backfired. Good business demons know property loss is high in a war zone, you can't sell anything to a body and dungeon tenants aren't return customers. The drug dealers didn't 'get legal.' They just plain stopped. They didn't even try to sell current stock. They certainly didn't raise prices. The wizard did! They weren't going to be profitable. Get some to kill each other, making them bloody obvious, get the people screaming do something and sweep up the bloody bits."

  "Except the gov and IS didn't plan it, Nev. The price raise was done by a comp. It computes sale price based on stock level and a set profit margin, and raised it… two thousand percent."

  "We hit just before delivery! That's why there was so much! The major distributors would have restocked yesterday."

  "Someone checked the price early. Why?"

  "A big price increase fourteen days ago? What loss of income…"

  "Was the wizard expecting. Nev, that wasn't where I expected to start a rebellion, and certainly not in the expected fashion."

  "We're still missing something and so are the wizard's minions, and maybe the wizard. What do the soul-sucking demons know the wizard doesn't?"

  "You think it's too complete."

  "No one, down to the street, is looking at the supply. No one is dribbling it out a tiny bit at a time to special customers at restock prices, Danny."

  "What's in it?"

  "What are you thinking?"

  "Did we get more of some elements than there should have been in public waste recycle?"

  "You think they dumped it?!"

  "They know something the wizard doesn't, Nev. They're not hiding it in caves until the minions pass. What do they know the wizard doesn't… remember?"

  "Get the formula for dream dust. I need methods to figure this from some elements."

  "I have them!"

  "I have methods too, chemical engineering."

  "Doc Larry! I need social stats to go with! I do, and it's the perfect excuse to get him close enough to bodyslam."

  "Go, Kendra."

  "Don't pout, Elise. I don't plan to keep him and there are lots of gorgeous hopefuls to play with, until I've got his memory of what that thing is for well-refreshed."

  "You pegged that one perfectly, Kendra. Twenty-six years and he worked on social stats the night the most desperate went to brothels."

  "We weren't worried they'd lose control when you got here, but they were."

  "What are we working?"

  "What the demons know the wizard forgot, Doc."

  "They're about to check the trash. I need ordinary waste for areas to predict components. For that, I need lifestyle, probable numbers in public areas, other things that I don't know because our fields don't intersect there. Medical numerology."

  "I'm working on it as a Chem E problem. I'll be going from what they got back to probable source type."

  "We're looking for?"

  "Thousands of kilos of dream dust, caper and every other addictive drug on the planet, shoved in waste recyclers over a six to eight hour period, planetwide."

  "Doc? Doc?"

  "What the hell is going on?!"

  "Actually, Hell went completely legitimate over the ten hours previous."

  "We think the gov started the rebellion fourteen days ago and we just sounded the go buzzer."

  "Show me, Danny."

  They worked from two directions and the statistical analysis left no doubt. Doc Larry began pulling other data into a matrix and yelled for Blade. Nev said he hoped he survived waking him abruptly and went after him. He knocked on the door lightly and stepped back quickly. Nine seconds later, they came out, both in clean clothes.

  He briefed them on the way to the computer area in the corner of the semi-enclosed, huge central room. When they got there, Doc Larry asked questions, Blade gave descriptions and Doc Larry entered numeric values.

  Knight worked on tech. He yelled he needed "ear" and Blade ran for him. Knight yelled for silence. Fifty-two seconds later, Blade ran back to Doc Larry, Dayton ran out
of the quarters area and Danny, Nev and Elise ran from computers to workbench.

  Doc Larry and Blade were both adamant. The hero-for-a-demon had to be warned of the 'export plan' and their stall before the next morning. And they had to have a shield, a car and a house with a garage and get tools in the garage, to put the shield in the car, first.