"Captain Tsai, can we be sure that we have identified and neutralized the Mastermind's remaining agents in this room?"
We had a renowned psychologist now starring as chunky salsa wrapped in quickfoam to establish my need to ask that question.
I also hoped to panic the remaining agent(s) into revealing themselves. The energy projector felt very heavy on my left wrist.
I had read the manual - carefully - when it had first been given to me as part of a battlesuit. It was designed for smartware control, like any other rationally designed device in San San, but had a manual control. My right index finger rested lightly on the stud, as if casually.
Yes, I was trusting Bao a lot. The gauntlet hadn't killed me yet, and Samantha hadn't taken a second glance at it - her usual warning that she wanted it checked by something smarter than her.
I was trusting Amy - she was standing behind me now that I had taken over the meeting. She had already demonstrated this morning that she was a crack shot, and warned that she was very ready to selectively kill if necessary.
But I was very ready to literally incinerate everyone else in the room, mixing sinners and saviors alike, at the literal push of a button. Matters were that serious and all of us were expendable.
"A lot of issues have been raised but we need to cut to the heart of them. First we prevent the genocides. Then we neutralize the Mastermind. Then we argue over resources and costs."
"Genocides?" one of the Fedhobbyists asked - the same Public Health physician who diagnosed my exposure to a mild case of biowar a very long day agao.
"Stick with me for the count. Genocide 1: induced brain cancer as a present for anyone the Mastermind doesn't like. Genocide 2: two stage activation, dormant phase and active phase. Genocide 3: Rice Blast, which never should have existed in the first place. Genocide 4: he almost certainly has a fallback plan to blow the planet. Probably Doomsday Device. But I want to talk to an expert in stellar dynamics ASAP. Humanity would probably survive losing Terra, but the only thing that could bake the Inner System would be messing with the Sun direct."
The Dean of Sciences spoke up. "That's why Stanford!"
"Indeed." It was an open secret, so open that no one really thought about it, that UC Stanford was the best in the theoretical sciences. That included plasma studies, nuclear physics, electromagnetic theory, and all the other weirdness that goes into stellar phenomena. But they only had the one local star to study, unless you count Jupiter.
Jupiter. Shit. Stealthed space attack fighters.
I spoke as if casually. "Amy, who is doing our orbital overwatch?"
"UC Stanford Accident Control."
"Not good enough. We need heavy metal, and we need it fast. He has a base in the Outer System."
Amy was standing close enough behind me that I could sense her face pale.
Even Utopia has its limits. Let me digress into a brief course on interplanetary geography.
We divide the Solar System into two approximate zones. The Inner System: Mercury, Venus, Earth (hi!), and Mars - plus the moons of the same, and the occasional wandering asteroid or comet. The Outer System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. And Pluto, dammit! [ERROR: Pluto is not a recognized planet, at 39 AU this non-planet object is not part of the Outer System.] Override, you pesky piece of not very smart ware!
Anyway. The Inner System is mostly occupied by people, and a lot of hardware. Earth and its orbits (mostly LEO and GEO - orbital littering is enforced by lasers, one of the major reasons for their existence), the L points and the Moon are very inhabited. MarsCorp has a lock on Mars space. Venus and Mercury have research labs and a few small orbital colonies. There are ground bases on both but even our technology has trouble keeping up with Venus conditions, and living on the back side of Mercury is not very interesting. Visit at your own significant risk. However, all of the Inner System was intensely self policing and very obvious, like a cat trying to cover up on a concrete floor.
The Outer System is occupied by a few robots and not very many people. So if you wanted to hide something, it was really your best bet. The fact that the only _other_ quasi-stellar object you could study at length was Jupiter was icing on the cake.
The Asteroid Belt lies between the Inner and Outer Systems, about 1.3 to 2.3 AU from earth. (An AU or Astronomical Unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun. Egotistical bastards, aren't we?) There is a lot of activity in the Asteroid Belt but it's a lot more disorganized. Effectively lawless. If you didn't like Protocol, and you had the moxie to get out before Protocol had a chance to express its dislike of you, the Asteroid Belt was the place to go hide. The survivors of the Scientology Wars, the Mormons, the Moonies, the Afghans and radical Islamists had a number of mostly small, mostly struggling colonies. So anything entering and leaving the Belt was watched, especially by Threat Trackers. But the Belt is a big, big place.
Ever since the stealthed space attack on UC Stanford yesterday, I'd been wondering - where had they launched from? It was really hard to hide anything in local orbits for any length of time - gravity anomaly detection alone would be significant, and everyone in space constantly traded sensor data with each other for the obvious reason that running into something you can't see _hurts_. I'd assumed the Belt because that was least hypothesis.
But we'd _know_ if the attack had come from the Belt, through retroactive analysis of sensor data. So it had come from further out, on trajectories not watched because no one was using them. That meant Outer System and a considerable lead time.
The Mastermind had bitched to me about timing. I was messing up his timing. We had found out too soon.
I'm not a space expert. But I knew people who were.
So while Amy started making frantic calls, arranging for threat coverage of a dot on the surface of a spinning ball we call home, I made a call.
"Hey Stewart. It's Alan."
"This better be good, I just paused a fleet action."
Stewart was a gamer, specializing in space navy wargaming. He lived on the ragged edge of VR addiction without going over - mostly because it would interfere with his gaming.
A generation ago, he'd have been an Admiral. We didn't have those any more.
"It's good. Base in the Outer System, established between 10 and 30 years ago. Capable of manufacturing small space fighters, the type used in the attack on UC Stanford yesterday. Minimum 1000 residents. Also doing stellar research on Jupiter and working on Big Physics, like sunbombs. They're attacking in strength, time now. What can we do?"
"Interesting scenario. Not sure anyone's thought of that one before," Stewart said while munching on something crispy. "Assuming they have not just 3D printers but molecular processing - our tech base - and you said a thousand residents? Self sustaining research and fighter base? So they could have an Academy? Hmmm... wait a second. You don't game. Not a hypothetical.
"About five years ago, we had a flurry of gamers with long lag times. Play by mail types, you know? Thought they were Belt colonists. They were really good, kicked our asses. A lot. Figured they got bored and wandered off, most people do. Passed off what we had to Protocol and forgot about it.
"Alan, I gotta make some calls. This is Real Serious Shit. For God's sake don't put this on Threat Trackers yet, they're certainly watching for it."
"One last thing. They really, really want to kill UC Stanford. I mean, bad, they'll take losses to do it. Any defensive measures?"
"Yeah. Be elsewhere. I mean, really, be elsewhere. Why are you still talking to me?"
Stewart disconnected.
Flashing arrows lit on the floor again and we started following them at frail human speeds. Samantha waited until I was in motion then loped along just behind.
Life on the run.
We had a renowned psychologist now starring as chunky salsa wrapped in quickfoam to establish my need to ask that question.
I also hoped to panic the remaining agent(s) into revealing themselves. The energy projector felt very heavy on my left wrist.
I had read the manual - carefully - when it had first been given to me as part of a battlesuit. It was designed for smartware control, like any other rationally designed device in San San, but had a manual control. My right index finger rested lightly on the stud, as if casually.
Yes, I was trusting Bao a lot. The gauntlet hadn't killed me yet, and Samantha hadn't taken a second glance at it - her usual warning that she wanted it checked by something smarter than her.
I was trusting Amy - she was standing behind me now that I had taken over the meeting. She had already demonstrated this morning that she was a crack shot, and warned that she was very ready to selectively kill if necessary.
But I was very ready to literally incinerate everyone else in the room, mixing sinners and saviors alike, at the literal push of a button. Matters were that serious and all of us were expendable.
"A lot of issues have been raised but we need to cut to the heart of them. First we prevent the genocides. Then we neutralize the Mastermind. Then we argue over resources and costs."
"Genocides?" one of the Fedhobbyists asked - the same Public Health physician who diagnosed my exposure to a mild case of biowar a very long day agao.
"Stick with me for the count. Genocide 1: induced brain cancer as a present for anyone the Mastermind doesn't like. Genocide 2: two stage activation, dormant phase and active phase. Genocide 3: Rice Blast, which never should have existed in the first place. Genocide 4: he almost certainly has a fallback plan to blow the planet. Probably Doomsday Device. But I want to talk to an expert in stellar dynamics ASAP. Humanity would probably survive losing Terra, but the only thing that could bake the Inner System would be messing with the Sun direct."
The Dean of Sciences spoke up. "That's why Stanford!"
"Indeed." It was an open secret, so open that no one really thought about it, that UC Stanford was the best in the theoretical sciences. That included plasma studies, nuclear physics, electromagnetic theory, and all the other weirdness that goes into stellar phenomena. But they only had the one local star to study, unless you count Jupiter.
Jupiter. Shit. Stealthed space attack fighters.
I spoke as if casually. "Amy, who is doing our orbital overwatch?"
"UC Stanford Accident Control."
"Not good enough. We need heavy metal, and we need it fast. He has a base in the Outer System."
Amy was standing close enough behind me that I could sense her face pale.
Even Utopia has its limits. Let me digress into a brief course on interplanetary geography.
We divide the Solar System into two approximate zones. The Inner System: Mercury, Venus, Earth (hi!), and Mars - plus the moons of the same, and the occasional wandering asteroid or comet. The Outer System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. And Pluto, dammit! [ERROR: Pluto is not a recognized planet, at 39 AU this non-planet object is not part of the Outer System.] Override, you pesky piece of not very smart ware!
Anyway. The Inner System is mostly occupied by people, and a lot of hardware. Earth and its orbits (mostly LEO and GEO - orbital littering is enforced by lasers, one of the major reasons for their existence), the L points and the Moon are very inhabited. MarsCorp has a lock on Mars space. Venus and Mercury have research labs and a few small orbital colonies. There are ground bases on both but even our technology has trouble keeping up with Venus conditions, and living on the back side of Mercury is not very interesting. Visit at your own significant risk. However, all of the Inner System was intensely self policing and very obvious, like a cat trying to cover up on a concrete floor.
The Outer System is occupied by a few robots and not very many people. So if you wanted to hide something, it was really your best bet. The fact that the only _other_ quasi-stellar object you could study at length was Jupiter was icing on the cake.
The Asteroid Belt lies between the Inner and Outer Systems, about 1.3 to 2.3 AU from earth. (An AU or Astronomical Unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun. Egotistical bastards, aren't we?) There is a lot of activity in the Asteroid Belt but it's a lot more disorganized. Effectively lawless. If you didn't like Protocol, and you had the moxie to get out before Protocol had a chance to express its dislike of you, the Asteroid Belt was the place to go hide. The survivors of the Scientology Wars, the Mormons, the Moonies, the Afghans and radical Islamists had a number of mostly small, mostly struggling colonies. So anything entering and leaving the Belt was watched, especially by Threat Trackers. But the Belt is a big, big place.
Ever since the stealthed space attack on UC Stanford yesterday, I'd been wondering - where had they launched from? It was really hard to hide anything in local orbits for any length of time - gravity anomaly detection alone would be significant, and everyone in space constantly traded sensor data with each other for the obvious reason that running into something you can't see _hurts_. I'd assumed the Belt because that was least hypothesis.
But we'd _know_ if the attack had come from the Belt, through retroactive analysis of sensor data. So it had come from further out, on trajectories not watched because no one was using them. That meant Outer System and a considerable lead time.
The Mastermind had bitched to me about timing. I was messing up his timing. We had found out too soon.
I'm not a space expert. But I knew people who were.
So while Amy started making frantic calls, arranging for threat coverage of a dot on the surface of a spinning ball we call home, I made a call.
"Hey Stewart. It's Alan."
"This better be good, I just paused a fleet action."
Stewart was a gamer, specializing in space navy wargaming. He lived on the ragged edge of VR addiction without going over - mostly because it would interfere with his gaming.
A generation ago, he'd have been an Admiral. We didn't have those any more.
"It's good. Base in the Outer System, established between 10 and 30 years ago. Capable of manufacturing small space fighters, the type used in the attack on UC Stanford yesterday. Minimum 1000 residents. Also doing stellar research on Jupiter and working on Big Physics, like sunbombs. They're attacking in strength, time now. What can we do?"
"Interesting scenario. Not sure anyone's thought of that one before," Stewart said while munching on something crispy. "Assuming they have not just 3D printers but molecular processing - our tech base - and you said a thousand residents? Self sustaining research and fighter base? So they could have an Academy? Hmmm... wait a second. You don't game. Not a hypothetical.
"About five years ago, we had a flurry of gamers with long lag times. Play by mail types, you know? Thought they were Belt colonists. They were really good, kicked our asses. A lot. Figured they got bored and wandered off, most people do. Passed off what we had to Protocol and forgot about it.
"Alan, I gotta make some calls. This is Real Serious Shit. For God's sake don't put this on Threat Trackers yet, they're certainly watching for it."
"One last thing. They really, really want to kill UC Stanford. I mean, bad, they'll take losses to do it. Any defensive measures?"
"Yeah. Be elsewhere. I mean, really, be elsewhere. Why are you still talking to me?"
Stewart disconnected.
Flashing arrows lit on the floor again and we started following them at frail human speeds. Samantha waited until I was in motion then loped along just behind.
Life on the run.