by M. D. Cooper
“Yeah,” Jason drawled, slipping back into his easygoing persona, “she can get a bit pissed at first when what she’s seein’ doesn’t sync with what she smells or feels under her paws, but she doesn’t seem to mind it too much.”
The guard just shook his head at that and waved them on.
* * * * *
“Ben, our guests have arrived,” Lysander interrupted the analyst politely. “Would you mind going out to meet Jason as I get them situated?”
The statement struck Ben as rather odd, but he kept his own counsel as he stood and walked to the office’s entrance. Thomas, Lysander’s aide, had just greeted Jason, and—
Oh, damn. He brought the cat.
“The senator is ready, gentlemen,” Thomas said and gestured toward the door.
That’s odd, Ben thought. Why have me step out, just to come right back in?
But the room he stepped into held no resemblance to the office Ben knew he’d just left.
He glanced over at Jason to ask for an explanation, and paused, surprised.
Where there had once trod a cat the size of a small pony, now stood a man with a head of curly, reddish hair, and bright green eyes.
What the hell…?
* * * * *
Jason noticed Ben’s shocked expression and exchanged a smirk with Tobias. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag now, huh?” He nudged Toby, and the redhead rolled his eyes at the lame joke.
Lysander had generated his own personal expanse, which meant Tobias could appear however he chose. Today, he was as flesh-and-blood as Jason or Ben.
“Ben, you know Tobias,” Jason nodded at the man who stood by his side. Tobias extended his hand for a stunned Ben to shake, as Lysander rose to greet them.
Tall and rugged, Lysander appeared as a forty-ish man with dark hair, a perpetual five o’clock shadow, and piercing, brown eyes.
“Hey, kid,” the AI’s gruff voice sounded in Jason’s ear as he was enveloped in a quick, tight hug. One quick squeeze to Jason’s shoulder, and the AI released him, stepping back and nodding toward Ben, whose face still betrayed his confusion.
“It’s called an expanse, Benjamin,” Lysander said. “Everyone here,” the AI gestured toward five women and men seated around a cozy fire in a library that looked like it hearkened back to an Old Earth mansion, “is still in my office on El Dorado, but also here, in the most secure place I can provide. It is untraceable, unhackable and utterly undetectable.”
“And since it’s a projection directly into our minds,” Jason added, “the Old Man and Toby both feel real to us in every way.” He grinned at Ben’s slightly glazed expression. “Takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s pretty cool being able to actually shake Lysander’s hand, isn’t it?”
Lysander placed a guiding hand against Ben’s back and gestured for him to take a seat, then turned and extended a hand to Tobias. “So, kid, I see you’re still slumming it with the likes of this crazy bastard.” He grinned, pulling the younger-looking man to him and knuckling the top of his head.
“Hey-y-y, watch it boyo,” Tobias protested, pushing back and straightening his shirt, “Just because this is your expanse, that doesn’t give you leave to hand out noogies now. That’s more like something out of Jason’s playbook.”
Lysander cocked an eyebrow at the other AI. “Where do you think he got it from?”
Jason could tell this was a side of Lysander that Ben wasn’t terribly familiar with, and took pity on the guy.
“It’s okay,” Jason addressed Ben. “It’s like this for everyone, their first time in an expanse.”
“Well, yeah… but I don’t think I ever expected to see...”
His voice trailed off, so Tobias supplied, “...a senator acting like an asswipe?”
Ben reddened, and Jason barked a laugh. “That’s esteemed Senator Asswipe to you, Tobe,” he corrected.
Lysander’s smile remained, but his eyes grew sober as he gestured toward the empty seats by the fire. “Join us, gentlemen, will you? We have a cartel to take down, and a rescue to plan.”
As they approached, Lysander introduced the five AIs already seated. Commodore Eric appeared as a severe man, dressed all in black, his black hair slicked smoothly back, his black eyes piercing. He nodded to Ben as the analyst took a seat.
Gladys had bright teal eyes set in a pixie face, and her hair seemed to shed waves of teal glitter each time it shifted. She was dressed in a teal and silver camo suit that wouldn’t camouflage anything…unless she happened to be in a room that was covered in—well, teal and silver. She gave Ben and Jason both a sad little smile as she greeted them.
Vice-Marshal Esther, by contrast, was dressed in a very conservative business suit. Her hair was carefully coiffed, coiled in an elaborate and sophisticated style. She inclined her head regally at the two humans when she was introduced.
“And these two gentlemen are Landon and Logan,” Lysander said as he indicated two men who looked identical in every way except for skin and hair color. Where one was dark, the other was fair. They nodded in sync with each other, and Jason wondered fleetingly if they were the AI equivalent of fraternal twins.
“We’ve reviewed the records you gave the senator, Ben,” Landon said. “We’d like to compare them to yours, Jason.” As Landon spoke, Logan nodded, his eyes fixed on his brother as he did.
Jason passed over the recording he’d made of the previous night’s events. As the file transferred, Vice-Marshal Esther shot Jason a severe look, and Gladys gasped audibly.
When he saw the AIs reacting, Jason winced internally. Way to keep that L2 status hidden, dude, he chided himself. He assumed their responses were to the transfer speed they sensed occurring between the human and the senator.
Tobias sent them all a warning look, and Jason sensed him rapidly informing them of his L2 status. If Ben noticed, he didn’t comment—probably assuming the gasp was in response to the accounts they’d given.
There was a brief pause as the AIs ran through the file, then Commodore Eric spoke up.
“That was quick thinking, to tag the shuttle, Jason. I suppose you were a bit busy at the time to make note of its flight path.”
Jason shook his head. “The best I can tell you is that it departed to the east. Tobias and I were hoping, sir, that you could get us a copy of last night’s flight records from space traffic control.”
The commodore nodded and flipped what looked like a golden coin into the air. It landed in front of Tobias, who pocketed it without comment. “That token should give you access, allowing you to get in from any number of public access ports.”
Tobias nodded. “The records should have the transponder codes those shuttles were squawking, since every aircraft within the Mode P Veil is required by law to autoident.”
Ben looked blankly at Tobias.
“Uh, ‘Mode P’ means Planetary Airspace,” Jason explained. “ ‘Mode S’ is Suborbital, ‘Mode R’ is Ring ….” Ben nodded then made a gesture with his finger, indicating he should go on.
Jason shrugged and obliged. “Even if the transponder was off, flight records should have no trouble tracking the shuttle’s radar return. It’d just be tagged as an unidentified transient. So once we can trace that, Toby and I can fly out to the last known location and begin hunting her down.”
“The snowflake microdrone Jason tagged it with reflects a unique and very specific geometric property that his app will tag when we're in range. It’s not something anyone else will be able to query,” Tobias added. “But the app has limited range, so we’ll need a good idea of where to look first. Those records will provide that.”
Lysander threw Jason a stern look and opened his mouth to protest.
Jason raised his hands to forestall it. “I’m not about to take on the cartel all by my lonesome, I promise you that. All we are planning is a bit of passive reconnaissance, to see if we can get a ping without attracting any attention.”
“Which brings us now to our main mission: taking down the cart
el’s headquarters. I’ve been shadowing the multinodal scans that the ring’s NSAIs perform, and there’s a definite pattern that can be exploited,” Gladys spoke up. She gestured, and a holo of El Dorado, surrounded by its ring, sprang up in the middle area between them all.
“As the ring’s surface area is almost eight times that of the planet’s landmasses, there are a lot of empty and undeveloped spaces they could be hiding in,” Gladys began.
“However,” Vice-Marshal Esther countered, “there are far fewer places that make logistical sense. I think that list can be narrowed down quite a bit.”
Ben nodded.
As she spoke, the Vice-Marshal rotated the image, highlighting areas as she mentioned them. “It wouldn’t make sense for them to be on the ring’s inner surface, for one. Most of the far side of the ring, excepting the small, marginally developed area around the other elevator, is nothing more than kudzu-covered dirt.”
“Yes,” Ben agreed. “Aboveground construction of any kind couldn’t be done without being noticed. So they had to have set up shop down under, in one of the sublevels.”
“Agreed,” Landen said while Logan nodded. “They’re most likely in a part of the ring where any stray EM would be masked by the planet. Though the ring isn’t geostationary, there are locations that align less often with major traffic routes or El Dorado Space Force zones.”
They studied the ring as Esther rotated the highlighted area.
“From what I saw of the NSAIs’ scans,” Gladys said as she noted a region on the far side of the ring, “Any location within this space would be subjected to a routine scan twice a day.” The AI shrugged. “It wouldn’t take much to schedule your work around the scan. If the setup has halfway decent tech, they could easily mask themselves.”
Ben looked confused. “But how?”
“Wherever you have technology, you have the ability to create technology that cancels it out,” the commodore explained. “If an energy wave can be created, then a wave—one hundred eighty degrees out of phase—can be generated that will cancel it out. Light, sound, water...it doesn’t matter.” ”
He threw up the image of a simple sine wave. “It’s called ‘destructive interference’. Basically, the opposing wave stops the original wave.”
“So…next steps?” Lysander prodded.
“I’ll do a passive sweep along the scan’s path here,” Gladys pointed, “here, and here. I should be able to narrow down possible locations significantly by the time Jason and Tobias have tracked down that shuttle.”
“I can set you up with some equipment from an SIS safehouse,” Ben offered. “There are a few mech frames you can use, some stealth armor and munitions, of course.” He tossed a pin up into the holo with an address and access code.
“Anyone want to volunteer to embed in a mech frame?” Lysander asked those assembled. Without hesitation, the twins both nodded, as did Esther.
Gladys wrinkled her nose, making a face. “I think I’m better off skulking around inside the ring’s NSAI nodes. It’ll be the fastest way to provide updates to the team as they go in.”
Eric nodded then glanced over at Tobias. “Are you staying with the cat, or will you go along on the flight?”
Tobias cocked his head to one side, glancing thoughtfully at Jason. “I think for this, Jase, you might want me embedded in a ship. It’ll give us twice the firepower—that is,” the AI turned questioningly to look at Ben, “if you have access to something that goes boom?”
Ben nodded. “The department has a few small fighter craft hangared at the base.” He threw another pin up into the display. “They’re stealth-capable and have some ordnance aboard. Not a ton of shielding, though; these are usually used for quick-strike, get-in-and-get-out type missions.”
Jason nodded. “That’ll work. We’ll touch base right after we get the STA’s flight records.”
INFILTRATION
STELLAR DATE: 07.06.3189 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Commonwealth Archives, Sonali
REGION: El Dorado Ring, El Dorado, Alpha Centauri System
“…with millennia of human and AI history compiled within its marbled halls, the Commonwealth Archives is an invaluable resource for the avid history buff. A day pass will set you back just seventeen credits, and is well worth the experience. Before you leave, be sure to like, share and subscribe, and stay tuned for more episodes of our ‘Inside the Loop Tour’ series with Travis Jamieson.”
Jason adjusted the heavy backpack he wore as he approached the maglev line that led to the Commonwealth Archives, conveniently located in the same complex as the Security Commission’s big data farms.
Tobias laughed. Jason couldn’t decide if it sounded disgusted or bitter. Maybe it was a bit of both.
The AI sent Jason the mental image of his head shaking before elaborating.
Jason blinked, taking a moment to parse that.
Jason assured him as the maglev pulled to a stop, and they disembarked.
Jason laughed shortly.
The AI made a rude sound.
<’Euphemizing’, Tobe? Seriously?>
The marbled hallways echoed back the soft susurration of Jason’s steps as he entered. The place appeared to be deserted, but he was sure his entrance had been noted by the NSAI that tended the building during its hours of operation.
He looked past pillars, spying cozy seating arrangements scattered here and there. In between them were archival stations, where an individual might hook into the standalone system and download a search before moving to one of the provided seats.
Jason quickly set up the tap that would allow Tobias access to the system, regardless of his physical location. A few moments later, he shrugged the backpack’s strap over his shoulder, and the two exited the building.
* * * * *
Calista’s mind was returning to the data theft, and the loss of Avalon Mining’s business to TransOrbital that they’d learned about at lunch yesterday, when the servitor arrived with her Dark and Stormy.
The drink fits my mood, she thought to herself. Or at least, its name does.
She was momentarily surprised when she heard Shannon’s voice in her head. She’d forgotten for a moment that the AI had asked once again if she could tag along via Link this evening. She spared a fleeting thought, wondering at Shannon's interest in human social activities, then dismissed it with a mental shrug.
Calista cocked her head to one side, examining the glass filled with ginger beer, rum and fresh lime. “You know, I have no idea. Its name just seemed to match my mood.”