Fear the Future (The Fear Saga Book 3) (18 page)

“Did you have fun at the party?” said one.

“Yes,” she said demurely. “You could say that.”

Interval Epilogue …

With the festivities behind them, the Council gathered, called to task by the simple message that they had news from their destination. For such a meeting, even the princess was on time.

“Welcome,” said DefaLuta, “as we are all present, I will start.”

They all sat in a great circle, an image of the Alpha Centauri cluster slowly fading into the distance behind them like the memories of the epic party it had heralded. The image was, in fact, a real one, not a representation, the first they had enjoyed in a long time as light now came to them at less than relativistic speeds. But such things were not high in the minds of the gathered group. They sat and waited, their faces all masks of passivity despite the various nefarious, amorous, and traitorous activities they had all gotten up to at the Translation Party.

“I won’t beat about the bush,” said DefaLuta into the silence. “As I have informed the Prime Minds, we have gotten bad news from Earth.”

All braced. Bad news? What does that mean?

DefaLuta paused to gather her thoughts, confused as she was as to how to react to the information she had just received. She was aware, though, of the need to inform the gathered group, and realized she was, in fact, being a bit melodramatic.

“My apologies. I did not mean bad news, so much as, well, incomplete news.” The room’s interest was further piqued.

“I can confirm that the IST has been able to insert itself into its target moon and has been able to establish connection. We received its first signal a few minutes ago,” said DefaLuta.

“But it is sending only silence. That can only mean one of two things: that it has been damaged or has not functioned to its specifications, or …” she paused for a long while here before saying somberly, “or it is receiving no signal to relay onward from the Advanced Team.”

The room was stunned, and now, with DefaLuta’s go ahead, they felt as their Prime Minds released the full data into their minds.

“It is sending data, we can confirm that, but either its ability to receive data from Earth has been affected, or there is no data to receive. And I am afraid that, as your Prime Minds are no doubt now informing you, the latter option is by far the more likely option.”

The room was understandably shocked. The cost of every part of the mission had been nothing short of astronomical and only the promise of a prize the size of an entire world had justified it. That one of the parts of this operation would have failed so spectacularly was disquieting, to say the least.

If it was indeed a lack of signal from Earth that was the problem, then there was a list of potential causes too long and frankly unpleasant to contemplate. Well, almost. For at that very moment, an ever-growing group of minds was contemplating just that. Adjusting models that had been running in loops for years to start to factor in this new data and analyze potential causes and impacts.

As the news spread, there was admonition. Talk of incompetence on the part of the satellites’ designers, harsh words thrown at the Yalla representative whose corporate race had built the big machines. There were some furtive glances among the lesser races, suspicion growing for their more powerful Lamat, Eltoloman, and Mantilatchi allies. They would study this new information very carefully, seeking signs of treachery. They might even find some, for they were there, of course, though it was not evidence of the treachery they were expecting.

For while concerns started to build and plans started to change, the suspicions of the lesser partners in the great enterprise could not have been further from the truth. Indeed, Princess Lamati, as one of the few Council representatives whose personality had also been given a place in the minds of the Advanced Team, would no doubt be very proud indeed of how hard her facsimile had actually fought to save the Advanced Team.

If she ever knew, that is.

She might have been a touch disturbed at the tactics she had been driven to, distasteful as they would be even for her to imagine in her comfortable life here aboard the Armada.

But she would not know, not today, at least. Today she would know only that there was a break in the line. A break they all hoped was technological rather than physical, a system error that the satellites were even now aware of and trying to fix.

Across the fleet’s many virtual habitats, seas, mountains, hubs, and other more esoteric constructs, a growing group of people and Minds were starting to review the data. The news was filtering out from the Council, sent from each representative to their inner-circles, and even now flowing outwards via the lines of influence in each state.

The six Nomadi conspirators had already received it, of course, informed via a subroutine in the Nomadi Prime Mind almost as soon as the Council was. They would not, they saw, have to die today, and more than a few of them breathed a profound sigh of relief. But what else they could make of it, they did not know.

The relay had made it and was still alive, if maybe far from well, it seemed.

Silence.

They had been told to expect it. To hope for it. But now it was here, it was all rather … anticlimactic.

But while they discussed what came next, the news itself did not stop with them. The information continued to spread throughout the fleet, spreading virally now as news this important naturally must. After a while it even reached the lowest ranks, and there it found a seemingly harmless technician.

Amongst all the fleet, this one man had some idea of what was and was not supposed to be happening on Earth.

He considered the signal’s implications. There was always a chance that it was, in fact, a fault in the machine, either the relay or the satellites. But barring that unlikely eventuality, it meant that the satellites had, as they had hoped, been destroyed. It was disconcerting having so much riding on a silence. A lack of confirmation. But that was all he had, and for now it was the best he could have hoped for.

And so now he moved on to the next phase. First he would start relaxing a set of systems he had put in place: destructive systems. Systems that would have tried to add to whatever his six illustrious co-conspirators would have tried to do before they all committed suicide. Systems that were a blunt version of what he was hoping to do later in the mission. Kill switches.

But now he could move away from that exercise in butchery. He did not want to kill his people. He did not want to murder a million of his kin, no matter how much he disagreed with their intentions. Now he could move away from blood. Away from blood and toward sabotage. He must repurpose his programs as he had hoped he would have the chance to.

And so the isolated technician, far more illicit, far more protected, and yet with a far riskier part in a complex plot, began planning his next steps. For this was the team’s sleeper. A conspiracy within a conspiracy. A man who had been a technician at the ceremony to insert Shtat Palpatum’s mind into one of the Advanced Team’s strange-looking human analogues. A man whose personality had actually been copied in Shtat’s place, down into the Agent, along with a complex packet of specially designed viral programs and precious data stores.

He smiled at the thought of what his duplicate must be up to. If the IST’s silence was his other self’s doing, then it was a masterstroke, the only downside being that this lone technician could not know just what his other self was really up to on Earth’s distant surface.

Chapter 15: Ladybird

Across the earth, the news broke like the passing of childhood’s innocence. It was a fact that changed all others, and very little of what anyone did afterwards was untouched by it.

The world’s great religions that had come to define and be defined by the cultures they existed within struggled to adjust. Like any corporation in the face of a barometric shift in their customers’ world, they tried to factor it all in, to discredit it or take credit for it, to claim it or spurn it.

Inevitable but nonetheless shocking changes came in waves, and took different forms and scales depending on several factors. In places where there was little separation of church and state, the absolute truth of the new world we all now lived in struggled for hold in soil already saturated with mutually exclusive beliefs.

In more secular regions, each nation’s government’s complicity in the cover-up started to hold sway, either as that government drove the messaging with greater vehemence, or their media crucified them for not having driven it sooner.

But in most places it was not one color, but a confused tie-dye of them all. The reaction of the people, both on an individual level and en masse, was reflexive and tidal. This news touched something instinctive and yet also profoundly intellectual, challenging your mind like it had never been challenged before, and simultaneously pulling at your most primal fears.

In the end it all happened in a rush, a stretch of not more than a week. A week many would remember as the most important in their lives, a week that started innocently enough, with the awe inspiring but relatively innocuous news of the coming of a new member into Earth’s growing family: the arrival of Hekaton. But it was a week that would end in worldwide panic.

Across the globe, the rousing words of the gathered UN representatives rang out, each speaking in their own tongue, as one, on a massive dais constructed just for the purpose outside the UN headquarters in New York. They did not know it yet, but it would be the last such event that would occur there.

In unison, the gathered representatives said, “Today we celebrate the greatest achievement in mankind’s long and incredible history. Today we add to Earth’s family, not by birth, but by adoption. Today we welcome into orbit Hekaton, a new moon, and a new hope. It is the latest in a series of technological triumphs that have been made possible by the combined efforts of so many nations, a cooperative effort unparalleled in human history.

“Today we see tangible proof of the incredible feats humanity can achieve when we work together. We could list for you the nations that have contributed, the individuals that have worked so hard to make this possible, but that list would be too long, and in the end, could never do justice to the hard work and sacrifices that have been made by so many. For this is an achievement we should
all
be proud of.

“After the terrible tragedies of the last three years, after the accident in Georgia that has displaced so many of our American cousins, after the plague that claimed millions across the proud nations of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Korean peninsula, and after the war in Europe and West Africa that threatened to stop all of this important work even as it was just beginning, we now stand here to tell you we are not divided, but even more united, even stronger in our resolve.”

This part was timed deliberately, and the long line of speakers each waited until all were finished before reaching out to take the hands of the delegate on either side of them, a symbolic gesture of their unification which, though admittedly hokey, nonetheless made for a powerful image.

With hands held high, and smiles that were filled with a genuine pride at being part of the auspicious event, they then said together, “And so, my fellow members of this great race, we ask that you join us in welcoming Hekaton into orbit. A new son for mother earth. A symbol of unity, of cooperation … and of peace!”

- - -

From his viewpoint on the outskirts of the crowd, or rather from one of many guard’s through whose battleskin Minnie was secretly able to see and hear, Neal watched the event and smiled wryly.

Neal:
‘¿peace? ¿that’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?’

Jim:
‘don’t start on that again, neal. you have no idea how long it took to agree on the wording of that speech, and of all its seventy-eight translations.’

Neal:
‘all right, all right, jim. ¿but peace? i mean, it seems to me that hekaton is going to be a symbol of precisely the opposite.’

Jim:
‘¿and you wanted this included in the speech, neal? oh, well why didn’t you say so. maybe we could have gone with, oh, i don’t know … symbol of impending doom, perhaps.’

Neal laughed despite the off-color nature of the joke. Behind closed doors Jim had a very dark sense of humor, something he rarely had the opportunity to show the light of day. But once he had finally gotten his spinal interface installed and had become used to the strange communing speech it allowed, he had let his wicked humor come out of its shell a little, if only within the absolute safety of Minnie’s all-powerful hold over the ether in which they spoke.

Neal:
‘ok, ok …’

Jim:
‘or maybe we could have named the whole thing ‘we are screwed mountain’ and painted a big finger on the side of it.’

Neal:
‘ok, jim, mercy. i choose peace, i choose peace!’

His mirth and that of Jack and Madeline, also on the line, bled through the link. Ayala was notably not as amused, and her conspicuous silence brought them all back to reality.

Madeline:
‘the net is alive with this thing. minnie, i am seeing lots of interesting opinions about it already.’

They had expected a strong reaction from the announcement, of course. But Neal had conceded, even preferred, that the news come from the UN representatives and not from the office of the man that was actually at the center of the events being so poetically described by the massed delegates.

Minnie:

Jack:
‘yes minnie, that is ironic. more than they can know.’

Neal:
‘and also painfully close to the truth, as is the one before it. ¿jim, have we updated our press releases on the mobiliei armada to include these latest developments?’

Jim:
‘we have, neal. we have a rolling set of options ready to go at a moment’s notice.’

Neal:
‘good. ¿while we are on the topic of press releases, what is the latest from Beijing?’

He was speaking to Ayala, who was even now temporarily located there. She had taken up residence in the North Korean Embassy in the Chinese capital, now one of many such political strongholds that TASC’s special relationship with the former dictatorship gave her access to. It was a strange relationship, one born of necessity, one which both sides found distasteful, yet which was essential to them both as well.

For the North Koreans it was a simple choice. They had struck out at Neal and his organization and as penance their leadership had a choice between compliance or annihilation. Where such prolonged coercion might normally have brought rebuke from the larger world community, there were very few who would mourn the muzzling of the unruly pit bull of a nation.

Of course, there was one country that still objected, and therein lay one of the real benefits for TASC. For their hold on North Korea’s leash gave them a tangible bargaining tool with the only remaining source of outspoken resistance to their cause: China. A little give, a little take, a public role for China in ‘guiding’ the slow reintegration of their even-more-communist neighbor into the world, all were part of the molasses-slow process of building a working relationship with the former enemy of the Terrestrial Allied Space Command.

Ayala:
‘it goes. to say it goes well would be a stretch. they continue to push for unilateral removal of our forces from pyongyang and we continue to say we must stay, potentially permanently. but negotiations along the continuum between those two ideologies remain productive … to a degree.’

Neal:
‘¿the information agency?’

Ayala:
‘yes, the information agency. they insist on controlling the changes to the standard propaganda, including the curriculum, such as it is, and we insist on allowing the u.n. to do that. you really would not believe the level of dogma and misinformation in the existing texts.’

But Neal would. They all would. One of TASC’s negotiating tools had been the slow but steady exposition of the level of propaganda, most notably the part that targeted children within the truly totalitarian state. It was so bad that even the most liberal of their allies agreed that just removing all mention of the Great Leader’s infallible status would cause nothing short of a nationwide nervous breakdown. But an easing of the rhetoric was clearly required, and it was on the speed of that easing which China was firm on being in control of.

Jack:
‘to be honest with you, ayala, i don’t see that the propaganda question is much of our concern.’

Jim:
‘it isn’t, jack, but it is china’s concern if they are to continue to defend their own less than free information flow. and if they care about it, then we care about it.’

Jack went to respond, but Ayala was already responding for him.

Ayala:
‘it is murky water, Jack, to be sure, and water i, for one, would rather not swim in. but it is a stumbling point we can use for leverage. if only because we don’t really care about it that much, and therefore can bargain it away in order to get what we
do
want.’

Neal listened on as the discussion twisted, as it tended to often. Today it was, apparently, Jack’s turn to change sides, speaking up against TASC ‘not really caring that much’ about such things as basic civil liberties, but Jim was quick to point out that such issues, while of great import, of course, were not TASC’s mandate.

In the end, Neal knew they would hold strong on the point for a while in order to garner further support from their more liberal Western allies, but to be immovable on it would only polarize their diverse pool of member nations even further, something they could not afford to do.

Neal let them talk even as the UN delegates they had been watching continued their own speeches, and the world’s pundits began chatting at an ever-louder volume themselves. Debate about such things was starting to exhaust him, and so he pinged Minnie to tell her to let him know should he be spoken to directly and then allowed his attention to wander.

He had gotten more than he could reasonably have hoped for from their incursion into North Korea, both in terms of silencing a loud, if in the end impotent, dissenter, and garnering sorely needed leverage at both ends of the world’s political spectrum. North Korea had revealed itself to be the petulant regime no one had ever doubted they were, and TASC had been given an opportunity to be the hero for once, even though its actions had really been motivated by self-preservation.

Evidence of China’s involvement in the plot had been partial at best, but far from nonexistent, and indeed there was no real way the North Koreans could have done what they did without help from someone in the People’s Republic of China, even if it had only been the last remnant of the destructive strategies of one Pei Leong Lam. But finding out the extent of that was Ayala’s job, as well as uncovering any further remnants of tech ten capabilities, or any other subversive plot afoot in the Chinese empire.

That was the real truth behind her so-called diplomatic mission to the massive communist state. It was yet another part of her ever more complex and involved efforts to police the many parties, factions, and despots still resisting the work of TASC.

It was a job only she had either the skill or appetite for. As far as Neal was concerned, things were moving in the right direction, they were just moving far too damn slowly. As the conversation between his friends and colleagues dragged on in subspace, Neal opened his eyes and stood.

He was in his home. Or rather he was in his living space, one of three he had around the globe. It was simple. Well appointed, no doubt about that, though sparse. And even the furnishings it did have were all but vestigial. It had a couple of burnished leather armchairs for the rare moments of respite from his daily duties. It had bathroom facilities. And it had a bed, or something that resembled one.

The bed was, in truth, the most advanced massage chair in the world. It moved under him like a hospital bed to aid his circulation when he lay in it for prolonged periods, it was temperature controlled and just shy of sentient in its ability to support him as he lay prone in its cradle-like confines, sometimes for ten or more hours at a time. And it held a hardwire link to the base’s main communications hub, and from there to its largest subspace tweeter.