The Extinction Switch: Book three of the Kato's War series (2 page)

“No.”

“Look.”

There was silence for a minute, while the other man digested what he was seeing. “Oh, my God…” he said. “We need to head back to Earth immediately.”

“Agreed. Make a ship-wide announcement, and then get us underway.” Vast machines began to spin in the depths of
Revenant’s
hull. Their great mass generated gravity waves. Once these were in sync with the gravity field surrounding the ship, it promptly disappeared. Titan was once again on its own in the frozen depths of the Solar System.

Revenant
re-entered spacetime, after an eight-minute warp flight, in orbit around Earth. She was 110 kilometers from the massive Earth Transport Interchange. The silver spaceport, whose backdrop was the white swirling clouds of the blue planet, had four terminal arms. They formed a two-kilometer-wide cross. Three kilometers away was another identical cross. They were connected by a massive cylindrical backbone. The station’s main function was to allow people and cargo from interplanetary and interstellar ships, which were not equipped for atmospheric entry, to transfer to winged shuttle craft, which were. Five minutes before they were due to dock, a serious voice emanated from a speaker on
Revenant’s
bridge: “
Revenant
, you are not, repeat not, authorized to dock. Earth has been placed under quarantine until the threat can be assessed. Nobody gets on or off until further notice.”

“
What?
”
Revenant
’s Russian pilot said. “This is the flagship of the Interstellar Space Industries fleet! We demand to dock!”

“We know who you are, but the FSE has mandated that all Earth-to-space traffic cease.” FSE stood for Federated States of Earth, a weakening, but still alive, system of one world government.

“Kassie!” Zara cried, turning to Akio. Her long hair swished. “She’s now stuck on Earth, in the middle of that mess!”

Akio closed his eyes and nodded. “There are no shuttles to or from the surface anymore. Call Kassandra,” he said, as he looked away at the wall.

Connecting
, he heard in his ear. A few seconds later:
No bandwidth available
.

“Keep trying until you get through,” Akio said.

Kato silently hugged his beloved daughter Zara. “It’ll be okay.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

“If we can get Kass up here, our family will be safe from it…hopefully…” Kato said.

Zara pulled away. Kato sighed. Crewmembers mumbled in the background. “We have this crap inside of us, Dad!” Zara said. “All of us! Everyone who’s been on Earth in the last thirty years has breathed it in. He can throw the switch on any of us, at any time!”

Kato closed his eyes. “I’m trying not to think about it. This scenario is exactly what was envisioned when nano-weapons were banned in 2060. Something toxic that self-replicates ad infinitum.” He paused for a minute. “I suppose it makes sense, in a dark kind of way, that Seung Yi’d use nanotech to attack us all. After all, he learned most of the technology from when he worked for me.”

CHAPTER TWO

Entara

----

The surface of a rocky world, roughly one third the size of the Moon, appeared before Seung Yi in 3D. This was a simulation of the dwarf planet Ceres. It had been claimed hundreds of years previously by the descendants of Seung Yi as their own world. They knew it as Entara. However, that civilization had ceased to exist 105 years previously, when Ceres was wiped out in a massive, inexplicable explosion.

Seung Yi’s face glowed from the reflected light of the world in front of him. His private chamber had red walls, with ornate gold trim at the edge of the high, white, embossed ceiling. With a two-finger swipe gesture, he touched the globe and zoomed in, and kept zooming until he was standing next to a metallic structure on the surface. It looked like a large factory, with an exterior much like anodized aluminum. There were two short, round chimneys, which ejected waste into space. The spoil, having had its precious iridium ore extracted, never fell back down due to the near absence of gravity. The roof of the facility said, in large Chinese characters, MINE 400A. A cargo ship descended slowly towards a landing pad nearby. Seung Yi dived through the wall of the plant. Men could be seen operating giant spherical smelters. With another flick of his fingers, Seung Yi went underground. Ingots of pure iridium moved along a conduit, propelled by wheels on all sides, to stop them floating away, towards the spaceport.
More precious than gold. Than much pure gold. Let’s back up, and turn the globe.
Zooming back out to a God’s eye view, more smelters were dotted here and there across the surface. Rotating some more.
Ah, here we are. Civilization
. A network of large, low domes could be seen. Smaller ones were connected to these. Doors opened in the top of the large ones, allowing spacecraft out, and admitting others.

Let’s go into one of the large structures
. It was a spaceport. Lots of people and materials were moving through vertical shafts into Ceres’ interior. Seung Yi went under the surface into the areas beneath. There were large lobbies through which the shafts passed. Eight large passages radiated from each. He followed one. It was full of offices, with people working at 3D displays. Down he went, through hundreds of floors of living quarters. There were regimented clusters of six apartments, in a honeycomb shape. The one in the center of each cluster belonged to an officer. He kept order. Seung Yi went through the door of one family unit. A busy mother tried to corral eight children. There was a large screen on the wall, with text scrolling.
Just how many people lived on Entara? Let’s turn the world, clockwise. Move up near the surface, and then down. An uncountable number of living units, going down kilometers beneath the surface. Turn again. The answer: millions and millions. Working and breeding for the common good.

Seung Yi’s eyes narrowed. It was all gone. Forever. Obliterated in a vast explosion. Seung Yi had lived there, but only in hibernation. He had never seen all this with his own eyes. The simulation was his only guide to what life had been like there. A perfect copy of him had been made and hibernated in a backup colony before the explosion. This was the only reason he was alive now, and also explained why he knew so little of something that had been built by his descendants.
Let’s get back above the surface and rotate counterclockwise
. Zoom. There it was! His pyramid. Two hundred meters high and built from rock. He went inside. The floors here had plush red carpeting. A level of workers, then doctors, then living quarters, meeting rooms, a control room, a hospital. And now… a boardroom! It was the headquarters of MX9, the corporation that handled the transactions between Entara and the rest of humanity. There was wealth beyond counting, as the mined fruits of Entara and other asteroids were sold to the greedy planets that demanded them in ever larger quantities.
Now… up
. Near the top was a large, plush chamber, with interior stone walls carved as smooth as glass. Not the corporation this time, but the home of the High Council who had run Entara during Seung Yi’s long sleep. They were sitting around the table. Their lips were moving, but no words coming out. And… there were Zan Tang and Tai Zu! The only two who had survived the explosion. Yes, it was definitely them. Seung Yi didn’t recognize the other ten Councilors. Above that was a private medical facility.
Now, the very top
. Dare he enter? He had to see what it actually looked like. Seung Yi went through the floor into a large, bare stone room, whose ceiling was a pyramid. In the center was a machine the size of a large chest freezer, with a glass lid that opened upwards. Inside: Seung Yi. He looked just like he was asleep. He bent over, and looked into the tranquil face of the original of himself.

Seung Yi zoomed out until he was back outside the pyramid, and looked at its stepped exterior, lit on one side by a weak, faraway Sun. Dots that were distant spacecraft moved slowly by in the background. “Call Zan Tang,” he said.

“Yes, Master?”

“Come here.”

Moments later, the gilded door of Seung Yi’s private quarters opened, and in came one of his trusted Councilors. Seung Yi turned to him. “It’s hard to believe, it is not, that this entire, thriving world existed?”

“Yes it is.”

“An entire civilization, spanning hundreds of years, and I was there in the middle of it, asleep. Yet it was destroyed, by those who wanted to steal the wealth that we earned from mining. The only reason you and I exist today is because copies of us were made in another location, since our original selves were lost with the rest of Entara. It is almost as though we are ghosts.”

“You are a copy, Master, but I am the original Zan Tang. I volunteered to be hibernated and placed in the backup colony in case it was ever needed. I never for one second expected to be revived again. It seemed inconceivable that anything could wipe out the original Entara.”

Seung Yi nodded, and turned to Tang. “And yet… it happened. Wise indeed was the one who foresaw this possibility. So, while we are now reduced to living inside a rock, we will soon have the entire planet Mars to ourselves. The strong, industrious society I envision will be able to take root again. Once we are re-established, we can build interstellar warp ships and expand without limits.”

CHAPTER THREE

Breakdown

“Boulevards des Moulins,” Annabelle said, once Antonio re-joined them at the hotel. “Take it right, and the hyperloop’s about fifteen minutes’ walk. Next quickest way to Nice besides flying.” The hyperloop was a levitating train that operated in a vacuum tunnel. It could reach immense speeds in the absence of friction.

“Let’s go,” Kassandra said. They headed off down the lush, palm-lined street. Normally quiet at that time of the evening, it was packed with people and vehicles. While they were still a few hundred meters up the hill from the station, they could see a crowd around it.

Some dejected-looking people were walking back up the street, in their direction. “Broken! How can it be broken? At a time like this!” came the tirade from a Frenchman with bushy eyebrows, walking towards them. His wife nodded passively.

“Oh crap! Don’t say this thing isn’t working either!” Annabelle said. A quick inquiry once they reached the edge of the agitated crowd confirmed it.

Kassandra’s jaw clenched, and her eyes narrowed. “Dammit! Now what?” Antonio shrugged. The three stood in silence for half a minute.

“We might have to walk it,” Annabelle said, at last.

“What?” Kassandra said. “I’m not dressed for walking anywhere!”

“There doesn’t seem to be any other way,” Antonio said. “It’s only twelve kilometers or so.”

“Twelve kilometers?!”

“We might just have to suck it up,” Annabelle said. “It will be fine once we get there, though. Once we get to your plane we’ll be in Lyon in an hour. You’ll be off Earth and out of danger soon after that, and we’ll be on our way to where we’re going.”

Kassandra sighed. “Fine. Let’s get on with it. Let’s get a bite to eat first though. God knows how long it will take to get there. Meanwhile, I’d better disguise myself. Last thing I need is people hassling me.” She used her neural implants to command the mask she always wore to activate. Her heart-shaped face became pudgier, and her eyes sported bags underneath them.

Half an hour and a snack later, they were walking east. “My signal’s gone out completely,” Antonio said.

“Mine too,” the others said in unison.

“I feel naked and blind without my implant,” Kassandra said.

“Luckily I already downloaded the map to get there,” Annabelle said. There was a cliff where the road had been cut away from the steep hillside on their right, and a slope down to the sea on their left. It was dotted with expensive homes. There were manicured rows of palm trees between them. Vehicles zoomed past. Many more were heading east, towards France, than west. A steady stream of vee-tols flew by a few hundred meters up. A low hum was heard above. Antonio looked up. Five dark spheres, roughly a meter wide, flew not far above their heads, heading quickly west. “Police drones,” he said. The others remained silent, and kept walking.

They soon reached a large sign. “Goodbye Monaco, hello France,” Annabelle said. The scenery gradually became flatter. The volume of traffic increased with the onset of dusk. Three gunshots in rapid succession cracked in the night somewhere off to their right. Annabelle looked at the others, fear written all over her face.

“I don’t like this at all,” Antonio said. Sirens wailed somewhere behind them. Traffic on both sides pulled over to allow two police cars through, as they sped west towards Nice. The friends plodded on, putting more kilometers behind them. It was 10 PM when they finally reached Nice’s small airport. The normally-quiet facility was busy. People bustled in and out of the terminal. Raised voices were heard at the ticket desks. Some cried softly, looking lost and dazed. Children jumped and ran around the hall, to barks from distracted parents. A conversation was overheard: “Every single flight’s full! Nothing’s available for weeks!”

“Okay, where is it?” Kassandra said, scanning the desks. One, much smaller than the others, was quiet. “There. Ascension Charter.” They made their way over. One dark-skinned woman worked busily at a screen. She looked up. “I have a plane waiting. The name’s Nishimura,” Kassandra said.