Matrix Man (3 page)

"At the moment we're flying along the edge of the Banff National Park. Unlike other Canadian parks that have been released for residential development, this one has been kept as a wilderness."

Kim cut to Corvan's eye cam as he turned away from the hatch. There was a momentary shift in video level as his auto-iris struggled to make the change from bright sun to dark interior.

The shot showed a utilitarian aircraft interior with two opposing rows of heavily armed troops. Their uniforms fluttered slightly in the breeze from the open hatch. The scene was lit by a number of evenly spaced red lights and gave the impression of crowded efficiency.

"This is what it looks like inside an assault craft going into action. The World Peace Troopers don't know whether they'll run into armed resistance or not, but as you can see, they're ready for anything."

Corvan turned his head to the left and zoomed in on a youngish man dressed in a set of carefully tailored cammies. He wore a command helmet with the visor tilted back. A black wire connected the helmet to an olive drab plug in his right temple. The audience got a glimpse of blue eyes, a slightly flattened nose, and a boyish grin. The man's white teeth made a stark contrast to his deeply tanned face.

"This is Captain Hans Dietrich. He's a graduate of N.Y.U., a commissioned officer in the reunified German army, and I'm told that he plays a mean saxophone."

The officer in question laughed and waved to the camera.

Now Corvan turned to give the audience a look at the other side of the aircraft's interior. The troopers were loaded down with body armor, assault packs, and extra ammunition. Each carried a quick-release combat knife, two grenades, and a rotary breech H&K G-40 assault rifle.

Having served with the Green Beanies just before they were merged into the WPO, Corvan knew the weapons consumed 4.7-mm caseless ammo at the rate of two thousand rounds a minute. Heavy hardware indeed for a raid on a two-bit pirate radio station.

So they took a few shots at the World Peace Organization, so what? Or was it this Captain Video character that they were really after? If so, that might make more sense, although Captain Video seemed harmless enough. From what Corvan had heard, the guy specialized in long, rambling speeches. They all had one recurring theme: "You can't always believe what the government tells you." Not bad advice, in Corvan's opinion. Was that the real reason for the raid? It would fit with what he saw as an increasing level of governmental paranoia. As the WPO assumed more and more authority, it seemed to tolerate less and less criticism.

And there was something else as well—a feeling that he'd heard Captain Video's voice before, although he couldn't remember when or where. Interesting thoughts which he would revisit later.

As Corvan panned the length of the aircraft, some troopers ignored him, but most met the camera with a smile or a cheerful thumbs-up. "The rest of Dietrich's team have similar experience and represent elite military organizations from all over the world."

Guessing what Corvan would say next, Kim cut to the robo cam and used it to execute a flying dolly down the left side of the passageway.

"Before we took off, I was introduced to men and women from Great Britain, Russia, Argentina, the United States, China, Unified Africa, and a dozen more. All brought together into what President Hawkins calls 'a noble experiment.' If the members of these different nationalities can work together on a mission like this, then who knows, maybe the nations they represent could do likewise."

"He's smooth," Kim thought grudgingly as she cut back to Corvan's eye cam. "He's real smooth."

The assault craft hit an air pocket, which caused Corvan to stagger. The shot wobbled over the troopers' faces and gave the audience a taste of what it felt like.

"All right, people," Dietrich said, his voice coming in over Corvan's military commset. "We're three from the LZ and five from the ground. Check your gear and remember your orders. Secure the area and don't fire unless fired upon."

The words had a formal, almost rehearsed quality which reminded Corvan of all the suits he'd interviewed. But since Dietrich was military, and military uniforms had given birth to business suits, he decided that the whole thing made sense.

Corvan took a seat, allowing the natural sound and pictures to tell the story for him.

Kim nodded in agreement: finally a reop who knew when to let the story tell itself. The audience isn't stupid. They can see the tense faces, the nervous gestures, the way that one guy checks his weapon over and over again.

Outside the two tilt-rotor engines did what they were designed to do and swiveled upward. This turned what had been a plane into a helicopter. Three minutes later the aircraft touched down with a soft thump. Hans Dietrich was the first one out the door.

The troopers followed two at a time as Corvan resumed his narration and Kim positioned the robo cam for a tight shot of his face.

"Consistent with Captain Dietrich's orders, I'll be the last one off the aircraft. As soon as I'm off, the ship will lift off and hover over the LZ. In a full-scale military operation the aircraft would return for more troops or provide fire support. In this case, however, it will provide Captain Dietrich with a bird's-eye view of what's going on."

Kim knew that the last part was filler, something for Corvan to say while the last troopers jumped out of the ship. Nonetheless, it was skillfully done and Kim admired the way he'd slipped it in. The truth was that the cameras were trapped inside the aircraft when they should have been outside providing viewers with shots of the action. However, thanks to Corvan's aside, few if any viewers would be aware of that fact.

Suddenly there was the cloth-ripping sound of automatic-weapons fire, and Kim cut back to Corvan's eye cam. The shot swayed from side to side as Corvan rushed for the door and bumped into the last trooper out.

The aircraft had landed on a gravel bar where two small rivers came together. The rocks had been smoothed by a millennium of swiftly flowing water and crunched underfoot. Corvan found them hard to run on, and his eye cam wobbled over driftwood, evergreen trees, and the snow-capped mountains beyond.

Kim sent the robo cam skimming along behind. She couldn't send the camera out ahead because it would appear in Corvan's shot, and besides, its low-powered transmitter wouldn't reach beyond fifty feet or so.

There was another burst of gunfire up ahead, and Corvan remembered his concerns about the soldiers' weapons. He'd been right, but right about what?

Corvan heard the dull thump of a grenade and saw smoke billow up to the right. He cleared the beach and followed a well-worn path toward the smoke.

His words came out in short spurts as he tried to run and talk at the same time: "The action's up ahead . . . It's not clear what's going on . . . but you can hear more shooting."

Then there were three loud bangs, followed by more automatic-weapons fire. "There," Corvan said, "that sounds like a high-powered hunting rifle . . . Wait a minute, a trooper's down."

What had been a vague something on the ground up ahead quickly became a trooper with a sucking chest wound. The blood shot up in little spurts each time she took a breath. She looked up at the camera with-a pale, moonlike face.

Corvan shouted, "Medic!" and kept on running.

Suddenly Kim was on her feet. "Why, you cold-blooded bastard!"

Corvan heard her voice via his implant but kept on running.

A cluster of uniforms blocked the way up ahead. A trooper moved to intercept him, but Corvan went around him and came to a sudden halt.

What he saw—and what the world saw with him— was a pathetic huddle of shelters and tents. They shivered in the stiff down draft from the aircraft's twin rotors and leaked streamers of gray and black smoke from a hundred bullet holes.

Ten or twelve adults along with a handful of grubby children stood holding hands and singing. It was a sad song about leaving earth and traveling to distant stars.

In the foreground, almost at Corvan's feet, lay three bodies, two men and a woman.

Captain Dietrich stepped forward and pointed toward the ground. "As you can see, this is the woman who shot Trooper Horowitz.”

Once again Dietrich's voice had the hard, aggressive quality of someone who's speaking for the record.

Corvan looked down, saw the hunting rifle clutched in the woman's hands, and looked back up. Dietrich shook his head sadly and a single tear trickled down his face. For a split second Corvan almost bought it. Dietrich looked the very essence of the professional peacekeeper, violent when necessary but with a heart of gold. But the tear was too much. It didn't fit the rest of Dietrich's personality, and Corvan knew that he'd been had. The bastard was acting and the whole story had been stage-managed right from the start.

Before he could take the matter any further, Corvan heard a man moan and call his name. He looked down and saw one of the bodies move.

Corvan dropped to his knees and found himself face to face with an old friend. He zoomed in tight. Frank Neely had changed. A tangled beard covered his face and the eyes which had once danced with merriment were filled with pain. The spreading stain on Neely's stomach told Corvan why.

They'd been friends once, fellow rebels at old Earth Net, baiting the suits and watching them freak. Now Neely was dying in front of millions of people and Corvan didn't know what to say.

"Rex ..." Neely's voice was a low whisper, and as Corvan listened, he knew where he'd heard Captain Video before. Frank Neely and Captain Video were one and the same.

"Yeah, Frank, I'm here."

"Are you still the insubordinate son of a bitch you used to be?"
 

Corvan smiled. "Yeah, Frank, I guess I am."

Neely's face seemed to light up and his right hand found Corvan's. "Good. Then give them hell forme."

And with that, a spasm ran through Neely's hand and he died.

As Corvan let go, he realized there was something in the palm of his hand—a square of paper wrapped around something hard, a video disk approximately the size of an old-fashioned quarter.

When Corvan stood, he managed to slip the disk into a pocket while he pretended to wipe his hands. Suddenly he realized that he was still on, that millions of people were waiting for him to say something, to bring the piece to a close.

He wanted to tell them the truth, that he'd been had and they along with him. He wanted to tell them that Frank Neely had been murdered, but he couldn't prove it. So, like thousands of journalists before him, Corvan settled for something less than the whole truth, and swore a silent oath that he'd learn the rest.

Corvan turned a full circle so that the audience saw Horowitz being carried away on a stretcher, troopers searching the tents, and prisoners with their hands on top of their heads. His auto-iris closed down as he looked into the sun and opened up again when it had passed.

Kim thought about going to the robo cam and decided not to. Corvan's view was both dramatic and telling. It matched his words.

"People died here for reasons which aren't exactly clear. As you saw, one of them was an old friend of mine, Frank Neely, a man who had seen happier days, and called himself Captain Video. Why did Frank and his friends come here? What did they hope to accomplish through their illegal broadcasts? Was this bloodshed necessary? Those questions and more will be asked and answered during the next forty-eight hours. But no matter what the answers turn out to be, neither side of this conflict has any reason to celebrate. Rex Corvan reporting for News Network 56 from Canada's Banff National Park."

Kim faded audio and video together and saw New York take it away. Meanwhile she continued to monitor the two cameras. Corvan was looking down at his dead friend, and Captain Dietrich was looking at him.

Kim zoomed in on the officer's face. All traces of boyish charm had disappeared, and if looks could kill, Corvan would've been dead ten times over.

 

 

 

2

 

 

Carla Subido leaned back in her executive chair and examined Captain Hans Dietrich through narrowed eyes. They'd met during her year in Africa, both part of Numalo's sprawling network of friends and acquaintances, both tools of his enormous ambition. And while they'd discovered a certain similarity of world views, that had nothing to do with Dietrich's presence in her office. No, Dietrich belonged to Numalo, bound to the African by ties which Carla could only guess at. Ties which kept her from trusting him too much, from telling him that Hawkins was dead, that she'd changed the world.

The German officer looked tired, his cammies were rumpled, and his combat boots were smeared with Canadian mud. Good. He'd placed duty before personal comfort. Carla liked that. She allowed Hans a rare smile and saw some of the stiffness go out of his shoulders. "Have a seat, Captain."

Dietrich obeyed by choosing one of the two straight-backed guest chairs. They were made of highly polished oak and offered no padding whatsoever. Like everything in Carla's life, the chairs had a purpose. They encouraged people to speak concisely and leave. She watched Dietrich search for a comfortable position and fail to find one.

"So, how'd things go?" She'd seen Rex Corvan's report, but wanted to hear Dietrich's version as well. A great deal would depend on what he said.

Dietrich looked at Carla and felt a trickle of sweat run down his spine. She was perfect. Her lipstick and nail polish were an exact match for her red dress. The gleam of gold at her throat and ears provided just the right touch of elegance, of class, and served to bring everything together.

By contrast, Dietrich could smell himself and was afraid that she could too. As his eyes met hers Dietrich wondered if she'd planned it that way on purpose, or just took her job so seriously that everything was a top priority. Both, probably. She was like a biological artifact, frozen in a glacier for a thousand years and only recently come to life. Patient and very cold. Well, there was no help for it. He'd tell the truth and hope for the best.