by Sean Platt
“You cut a deal with Organa? Why?”
“They started calling themselves ‘Organa’ in ’48 or so, when Mr. Booker had a public change of heart about his group’s mission and decided it was important to be natural, blah blah blah. Before that, they were known as Gaia’s Hammer. Have you heard of Gaia’s Hammer?”
Dominic had vague recollections of dinner table discussions in his youth, remembered hearing that name used between his father and Grandy. But even then, those discussions had the feel of ancient history — two old soldiers swapping old tales. But he couldn’t put his finger on it for sure. He shook his head.
“Paramilitary organization, founded and led by your buddy Leo. Very fringe. Their premise was that the ecological disaster in the ’20s and ’30s that fucked the world right up the butt was humans’ doing, which of course it was. They said that people had refused to listen for decades while signs kept mounting about how we were damaging the planet. They said that the old hippies were well intentioned but soft, and that peace was all well and good except for the fact that nobody paid it any fucking attention. So after the chaos, as the country started to get back on its feet and build the same old machines back up, Gaia’s Hammer took it upon themselves to stop it all from happening again. They said they wanted an organic world, without polluting factories and big, self-interested businesses. Same as the old hippies, except that Gaia’s Hammer didn’t just sing Kumbaya and smoke bongs. I suppose the way they enhanced the crap out of themselves was intended as some kind of poetic irony — harnessing technology to fuck technology. The group grew fast because apparently people were plenty pissed off after the Fall and wanted someone to blame. They stayed mostly hidden and staged massive, well-coordinated, well-targeted attacks on recovering infrastructures. Quark’s Crossbrace project, which was the first version of The Beam, was constantly set back by Hammer attacks. Hammer had people everywhere. In 2034, fifteen politicians were assassinated at once, in the same day, all throughout different locations in the satellite government offices outside of DZ. All were reconstructionists who wanted to pause previously established ecological programs so they’d be able to fast-track the rebuilding of industry. Gaia’s Hammer burned factories, bombed network centers, and murdered whoever was in their way. It was all for the greater good, they said, to avoid another catastrophe. They said they were on the Earth’s side, and would keep hitting hard even after she herself stopped delivering punches.”
Dominic blinked then stared up at Austin. “I’ve never heard any of this.”
“Like I said, it was mostly hidden. They weren’t showy. They must have had insiders because they always hit in the right places and did plenty of damage without drawing any more attention to themselves than was inevitable. Then they made that deal in ’48, and it went like this: The NAU government said, ‘Let us rebuild and leave us alone, and we’ll do it within agreed-upon, ecologically sound boundaries.’ You see, there was dissent in their ranks, and a lot of people wanted to leave Hammer, but Leo ran it like a Mafia don. When lieutenants tried to get out, they ended up dead. But in the end, Leo was tired, too. The deal gave both sides a way to stop the war and start fresh without losing face. Both sides were able to claim victory. All records pertaining to the Hammer were expunged, leaving only memories. Those memories faded fast, and today you’d have to find someone directly involved to hear the story I’ve just told you. But it’s the truth, Dominic, and you’re a good enough cop to find evidence to verify it now that you know what you’re looking for.”
Dominic considered. He didn’t want to believe anything Austin was saying, but he was right about the last bit — Dominic could easily investigate and find out for himself. Austin had given him a bunch of clear steps to verify pieces of the puzzle: somehow check Leo’s weight, ask the right people about Gaia’s Hammer. He could be bullshitting, but there would be no point if Dominic could confirm or deny so easily.
“So what happened to Gaia’s Hammer?”
“They settled down, apparently. Reinvented themselves as Organa — which became, very soon after, an ineffectual hippie group like the ones Leo used to laugh at. He started talking about peace and connecting with the planet and eschewing technology. He stopped actively fighting to stop progress, and in the intervening fifty years, he seems to have mellowed. He even looks the part. We think he got pulse treatment to kill off his nanos and is now aging naturally, which seems about right based on his appearance. For a while, after a few years of mistrust, the NAU thought he might have actually chilled out completely. Like he finally got tired of his old ideals. He’s been actively hiding the group’s past and his old ways, and apparently he’s been showing himself to people since the ’50s — ” Austin opened his palm toward Dominic, “ — as a kindly, granola-munching, tree-hugging hippie. And maybe he is. But he didn’t used to be, and we have good reason to suspect, now, that he hasn’t entirely given up his old revolutionary ways.”
“They’re harmless today,” said Dominic, wanting to believe it himself. “Even if what you’re saying is true, which I’m not saying it is, they’re not a threat anymore. At all.” He thought of the teacher he’d met, the friend he’d had, the village he’d visited, the peaceful man he’d known for forty years. They’d had their arguments, and Dominic had never detected one iota of threat from Leo — or even significant anger. How could he square his entire life’s impression with Austin’s portrait of Leo as a ruthless revolutionary and killer?
“We don’t think that’s true,” said Austin.
“I do.”
“Because you know him, right? Because you know Leo Booker — the man he is today, even if it’s not who he used to be.”
“Right,” said Dominic.
“You’re sure you know him?” Austin almost smiled. “Totally, completely, absolutely sure?”
Dominic hesitated.
“Because, Captain Long,” said Austin, “what I’ve told you so far is just the beginning.”
Nicolai paced his apartment, feeling more conflicted than he ever had in his life.
In the past few days, it seemed as if everything in Nicolai’s world had flipped end-for-end. He used to rank high in the Directorate; now he was planning a shift to Enterprise. He used to have a good, high-paying job; he’d just quit then broken into his ex-employer’s home. He’d spent sixty years at Isaac Ryan’s beck and call, but now, after Shift, he’d find himself under the eye of Isaac’s brother.
The thought of ending up in Micah’s camp — not by intention, but because the younger Ryan would no doubt seize on Nicolai’s defection as a PR bomb in his favor — felt to Nicolai like diving into oil. There had been a day when he’d spent time with all of the Ryans, sure, but Micah had always bothered Nicolai. Micah had a way of being obliviously selfish, as if he were so single-mindedly focused on his own aims that it never occurred to him what damage he might do to others in his pursuits. He reminded Nicolai of the proverbial bull in a china shop. The bull didn’t necessarily even realize that it was too wide and too strong or that its horns were too sharp. It only knew it wanted that pewter salt and pepper shaker set at the back of the store, and it would pay no mind to the little old ladies who were underfoot between here and there.
Nicolai had hoped to avoid Micah, but he’d been kidding himself. There would be no avoiding Micah. He’d avoided Micah for years — had, in fact, wasted a lot of breath advising Isaac to do the same — but a shift to Enterprise would mean inviting Micah back inside. Nicolai was a valuable piece on the Ryans’ chessboard (a rook, at least), and Micah wouldn’t allow him to silently switch affiliations. Micah would be on him the minute he heard Nicolai’s traitorous news — which, because Isaac was Isaac, he’d probably hear soon no matter what Nicolai did. Because Isaac himself would tell him, and then Shift would be all over for the Directorate.
But, arguments aside, Nicolai had been with Isaac for six decades. It didn’t feel right to abandon him so completely. Isaac was infuriating, but he was also helpless. Nicolai could
n’t help but pity him.
Nicolai paced his apartment, running his fingers down the slanted top of the gorgeous grand piano that he would now, finally, have a chance to learn and play. He’d suss out his other wetchip — from another dealer if not from Doc — and he’d spend a lot more time writing the things he wanted to write. He’d put a blank canvas on his easel and paint. But before he could do any of those things with a clear conscience, he had one last bit of political business. He owed it to Isaac.
“Canvas, get me Micah Ryan. Audio only, track and follow.”
While the connection sniffed out Micah, Nicolai set a hand on the flat part of the piano, his back to the beautiful instrument, his eyes looking out across District Zero. The light had mostly bled from the day. He could see an almost-full moon in the sky, its luminance dimmed only slightly by the NAU lattice that kept Nicolai safe from his old home in Europe…trapped in paradise. He told himself to keep his call to Micah direct and brief. He’d propose a deal: Nicolai would make an exclusive announcement for Micah later if Micah would keep his mouth shut about his brother’s speechwriter’s defection until Shift was over. Once Micah agreed (or disagreed; he could only try his best), he’d get off the line. He’d keep the conversation businesslike, and he wouldn’t go to video for Micah to read his facial expressions. If he could do those things, Micah might never suspect that Nicolai had learned what had happened during his missing days, who Kai had said was behind those erased happenings, or the other things she’d told him about Micah’s dealings — about just how heavy the bull was willing to tromp as it smashed and gored its way toward the objects of its desire.
“Well, isn’t this a delightful surprise,” Micah’s voice said as they connected. “I thought you might call, Nicolai.”
Stupid, Isaac. If Micah “thought Nicolai might call” after years of radio silence, that could only mean that Isaac had already blabbed news to his brother, probably in a vain hope for sympathy. The idiot worked so fast to disembowel himself.
“Then you know,” said Nicolai, not bothering with pleasantries. He’d never been truly acrimonious with Micah despite his wariness, but Micah respected precision. Being direct served both of Nicolai’s goals: getting business over with quickly and refraining from being pleasant to the man who’d tried to kill one of his friends. Or maybe two.
“Yes,” said Micah. “Isaac and Natasha came over last night. She was in one of her huffs. You know how she gets. Isaac was a mess. He said you’d quit and that you were probably heading over to join me on the dark side.”
“Not join you, really…”
“You know what I mean. But what would be amusing if it weren’t so tragic is that Natasha is planning to shift, too.”
“Natasha is going to shift?” That was a shock. But also, it wasn’t a shock at all. She’d started as Enterprise and had only switched for Isaac. She could also be a spiteful bitch.
“Looks that way. Not a good week for Team Isaac.” Micah chuckled.
“Look, I wanted to offer you a deal,” said Nicolai. “My Shift would be big news for you, right?”
“That had, in some small way, occurred to me,” said Micah, still chuckling.
“Well, I’ll talk all about it for you. Do a press conference and everything. I’ll even stand right up there beside you if you want, and I’ll say…”
Nicolai could imagine Micah waving his hands in an impatient gesture as he cut Nicolai off. “…if I’ll just wait until after Shift to make my brother look like a fool. Right?”
Nicolai tapped two fingers on the piano, annoyed at Micah’s foresight. Eventually, he said, “Right.”
“Of course. That’s no problem at all. You yourself are the prize, Nicolai. Not the timing, or a political advantage. I got what I wanted. Even got my sister-in-law as a bonus, though I don’t know if Natasha counts as a ‘bonus.’” And for the third time, he gave that infuriating little chuckle. The chuckle said he’d known exactly what was going to happen and was amused to see the inevitable play on its stage, watching pawns in his game feigning choice.
“I’m out of politics, Micah. No offense, but I don’t want to work for you.” He thought of Kai, Doc, and the blood on Micah’s hands. “I don’t want to work for Enterprise at all. I just want to shift to Enterprise.”
“I understand,” said Micah. “I figured as much. But again, it doesn’t matter. Do you remember how hard I lobbied to get you to join us all those years ago? I know how much it tempted you, too. But you were too loyal. You were like a mouse who feels he owes something to the trap because it gave him cheese.”
“I remember you lobbying,” said Nicolai, sidestepping Micah’s conception of his loyalty to Isaac as a trap.
“You were meant to be Enterprise, Nicolai. It was a crime seeing you in Directorate. I’ve seldom known anyone more naturally Enterprise than you. Except for me, of course. And your father…had he lived to see the birth of Enterprise.”
Nicolai felt his hand slip on the piano. He slid backward, ramming his hip into its side. Something inside the great instrument tinkled on impact.
“I’m sorry?”
“Your father. Salvatore. It broke my heart to watch you slowly die in Directorate, Nicolai. I know you don’t want to work for me, and that’s okay. It’s enough that you’ll be where you should have been all along. Maybe the things you’ll be able to do in Enterprise will change the world, like your father’s inventions.”
Nicolai, feeling dizzy, slid along the piano’s length and slumped onto its bench. He felt levels of vertigo stack high above him. He hadn’t breathed a word of his father since seeing him dead on the ground. He hadn’t told the Ryans (or anyone else in the NAU) about his father’s business, his immense wealth, or even his name. And nobody knew about his inventions. Nicolai himself hadn’t even known about them for more than half his time in Italy and had only found them by accident because sometimes an inventor’s teenage son manages to gain access that even the AISE (or the American CIA, for that matter) can’t get. He’d been told his father was a professor, and even after he’d learned that his father worked for Allegro Andante (but not what he did for them), Nicolai had been told to keep telling the professor lie to his friends. Only decades later did Nicolai manage to piece the puzzle together, finally understanding the gadgets in his father’s usually locked study and in the so-called arsenal room his father had explained he’d only be able to access in an emergency. As best he could tell, Allegro had had an ironclad NDA with his father. Salvatore invented, and Allegro Andante would publish (once the technology was ready) without giving him credit. The untold millions of euros in the family’s bank account must have been Allegro’s way of making up for stealing Salvatore’s rightful fame.
But then the chaos had begun, and his father’s inventions had never been released. Salvatore had died in his living room, and Nicolai himself had burned the mansion and all it contained. When he later saw hovering objects in the NAU, he assumed Allegro Andante (which had burned to cinders too; he’d trekked to Rome and seen the shell) had leaked some gadgets before expiring. But regardless of how those gadgets had made it overseas, Salvatore Costa’s name wouldn’t have been on any.
“What do you know about my father’s inventions?” said Nicolai. He felt weak. It had been seventy years since he’d found his family slaughtered in their mansion on the hill, but now it was as if he could see their bodies laid out in front of him. He closed his eyes. Behind his lids, blood flowed. A house burned.
“I know they don’t get the credit they deserve,” said Micah.
“You mean he didn’t get the credit he deserved,” said Nicolai.
“That too, yes. But also the inventions themselves. They were more than just hovering bots, you know. Your father suspected the potential of hovertech. I never knew him, of course, but my grandfather did. My family had ties to some powerful people in Italy at the time, and I’ve heard the stories. Making things float!” He laughed. “Yes, it’s a neat little novelty. Think of all of the ki
tchen floors saved from the ravages of scraping chair legs! Think of the advances in sweeping under ottomans! And finally: flying cars. How long have we been promised flying cars, Nicolai? Every science fiction film I’ve found from the twentieth century promised us flying cars, and finally we got them. The world rejoiced. Am I right?”
Nicolai felt blind-sided and punch-drunk by the line of discussion. He’d seen the flying cars, the hovering ottomans, and all sorts of other things that floated. He’d been secretly proud of each, but only in his own little way. Those things hadn’t exactly changed the world.
Micah, not waiting for a response, went on.
“But what not a lot of people know — but which I know because my grandfather’s company was among the first to work with hovertech in the States — was that hovertech nanobots were the first to use an intuitive distributed network. See, your father didn’t just want things to float. He wanted his nanobots to be able to respond to commands, to move around, to float various different objects as needed. Simple to solve, right? Just add processors. But the problem is that nanobots are just too damn small, and when people tried to give them more than the most rudimentary processors — and I do mean rudimentary, on par with using a rock as a can opener — they became way too large to do their jobs. So your father asked a question: What if he modeled the human brain? The brain isn’t just one big chunk; it’s a collection of discreet neurons that all work together to create thought. So to make his bots compute, Salvatore found a way to spread the processing functions out over many bots instead of giving a complete processor to each bot. Just like neurons in a brain. A single neuron isn’t very useful, but if you get a ton of them together and they work in harmony with each doing a little bit of the work…well, then they can become damn intelligent. Intelligent enough, in hovertech’s case, to come up with their own intuitive goals. Intelligent enough to farm raw materials from their environments and build other kinds of nanobots to help them as those goals demanded.”
