The Mercury Rebellion

by Felix R. Savage

  “Sit tight,” Vlajkovic told him. “Help is coming.”

  Elfrida said, “Are you by any chance under the illusion that your phavatars are going to bust you out of here? Because if so, you’re living in a fantasy world. Actually, they’re the ones living in a fantasy world. They think they’re going to re-fight World War Three!”

  Vlajkovic smirked. He was in an advanced stage of denial, she thought. High on the fumes of his dream of liberation. “Maybe they are going to re-fight World War Three. Maybe that’s what it’ll take to free humanity from the tyranny of the UN.”

  Elfrida knew then that Vlajkovic wasn’t going to be any help. “Did you even look at that supposed jailbreaking ware?”

  “I couldn’t figure out how it was meant to work,” Vlajkovic admitted. “Pretty complex stuff.”

  “Jake said you were an expert!”

  “Me? No. That was Richard.”

  Elfrida sat down. The leaks were worse in this corner. She wiped an arm across her face. “Sometimes, I think the AIs deserve to win,” she said.

  ★

  Four levels up, the newly elected director of UNVRP poured a cup of Earl Grey for the brigadier in command of United Nations Star Force Mercury (Surface Operations). They were sitting in the office suite the director had inherited 24 hours ago. It was a peaceful refuge. A birdsong soundtrack complemented the Alpine 3D wallpaper.

  “Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with me, Director Lin,” the brigadier said.

  Was he being sarcastic? she wondered. UNVRP’s operations had been suspended, its funds frozen. It was even odds whether the Venus Project would be dissolved immediately, or suspended indefinitely. Not that it mattered either way to her … She hid her thoughts by fussing with the tea things.

  “I’m sure you appreciate our concern,” the brigadier said. “The Project’s surface mining assets have been legally frozen, pending the resolution of UNVRP’s status at the next meeting of the Select Security Council. So we were surprised to see them moving. Just a drop of milk, thank you.”

  She smiled gently. “I’m aware of the legal situation, of course. But on Mercury, if you stop moving, you die. To comply with the Select Security Council’s orders, we have to move these assets out of harm’s way. That is, out of the path of sunrise. If we left them where they were, they would be melted, worthless.”

  “Of course,” the brigadier said. “Where are you moving them to, if I may ask?”

  “We’re bringing them back here.” She sipped from her teacup. “Brigadier, if I may ask, why has the Dead Weather left Mercury? Not that its assistance would be necessary at this time, but it seems like an odd moment to leave.”

  “Thereby hangs an unedifying tale.” The brigadier paused, as if wondering whether to continue. He grimaced. “Your colleague Dr. Hasselblatter commandeered the Dead Weather for his personal use. He refused to remain on Mercury one moment longer, and as you know, he is very well-connected. It would not have been Star Force’s decision to move the Dead Weather at this time, but …” The brigadier shrugged expressively. “Pyls O. Mani also went on the ship, as did everyone associated with both campaigns, and Zazoë Heap’s people.”

  “But that leaves only one Star Force ship, the Crash Test Dummy, in this volume,” she said, trying to sound anxious, instead of elated.

  “Please don’t be concerned. The probability of a PLAN attack is slim to nil,” the brigadier said, finishing his tea. “We believe their ship drives aren’t efficient enough to burn this deep into the sun’s gravity well, and still have fuel left to fight with.”

  “Thank you for reassuring me.”

  The brigadier finished his tea. “I should go. I have to find some way to destroy all those carpets. If we were on Earth, I’d burn them.”

  “Just dump them on the surface,” she said. “They’ll burn, when the sun gets high enough.”

  “Ha! Good suggestion, Director.”

  The brigadier left.

  Alone, she put down her teacup. It clattered noisily against the saucer. She clenched her fists, squeezed her eyes closed, and pushed out several deep breaths. Then she returned to her desk.

  In addition to being the director of UNVRP, she was also the lay judge of the Inferior Space Circuit Court. And she had a very important trial to prepare for.

  ★

  The trial of the rioters started at 8 a.m. sharp. By 7:30, the former ballroom of Hotel Mercury—the largest public space in the hab—was packed.

  Cydney sailed in at 7:59 and occupied the seat in the VIP section that Angelica had reserved for her.

  Marines dragged the rioters into the ballroom and tossed them into an improvised pen of folding chairs joined together with splart.

  The peacekeepers were herded into another pen, and given coffee and danishes.

  The first item on the docket was Mike Vlajkovic’s trial for the murder of Zazoë Heap.

  Cydney slumped in the VIP section, vidding the proceedings without much interest.

  She was worried about Elfrida. Where was she?

  Crowd-control drones circled above the spectators on wings that made a noise like old air-conditioners. The noise made it hard to hear what was being said on stage. Angelica, black-robed, sat on the judge’s bench with her eyes closed. Amid this atmosphere of formulaic proceduralism, Cydney’s commentary lacked its usual sparkle.

  Aidan, the leader of her production team in Los Angeles, emailed her. “What’s up, Cyds? Touch of PTSD?”

  Stung, Cydney tried harder. ~OK, here we go. Vlajkovic’s lawyer is about to deliver its opening statement.

  The lawyer was a robot. It rolled to the center of the stage. After a bow to Angelica, it turned its headpart to face the crowd. “Your honor, the forensic evidence I am about to introduce will prove that my client did not kill Zazoë Heap. Contrary to media reports, she was not shot. She suffered mild pulmonary edema due to a very brief exposure to the so-called knockout gas which was introduced into the atmosphere during the incident. However, this would not have been fatal. The cause of her tragic and unnecessary death was self-euthanasia.”

  Cheers and boos drowned the lawyer out. Cydney, wide awake now, emailed Aidan. “Urrr! I should have guessed! I was on the phone with her the whole time and there definitely wasn’t any blood! But she did throw up. And now I know why. She must have taken a peace pill, and then changed her mind. But it was too late. Serves her right for giving up when the going got tough.”

  After pressing send, she thought: What about you, Elfrida? Did you give up? I thought you weren’t the type to kill yourself. But what does anyone know about anyone?

  Angelica gavelled the crowd silent, and reminded them that there were still 116 victims to account for. The trial then devolved into a lawyers’ brawl. All the lawyers were MIs from UNVRP’s legal department, downloaded for the occasion into housekeeping bots. These had been wrapped in black skirts to make them look more lawyerly. They certainly acted lawyerly. Indifferent to the boredom of the solar system, they all tried to prove, in convoluted sentences studded with nests of parentheses, that the others’ client(s) had done all the killing / escalated the crisis / started it.

  Angelica sat on the judge’s bench, sphinx-like. Her eyes were still closed. She was probably vidding the latest episode of Desperate Housewives of Ganymede.

  “Um, Cyds?” Aidan emailed. “Still alive?”

  Cydney subvocalized, ~Yeah, hey, guys. I’m still here. The reason I’m not commentating is because I am worried out of my fucking MIND about my girlfriend. She’s been missing since the night of the riot. And lots of other people are still missing, too, and there’s a rumor that they got stuffed into the recycling to hide the fact that EVEN MORE than 117 people died, and what if that happened to Elfrida? So I asked that bitch up there, yeah her, to search for her. I mean search PROPERLY. And she said, well, Dr. Hasselblatter left, didn’t he? He basically commandeered a Heavycruiser to get home. Elfrida probably went with him. And I’m like, she did
NOT! She did NOT frag off home without even saying goodbye to me. And she, I mean Angie, said, at some point you will have to make up your mind: which of us do you want to be with? Um, yeah, I kind of held off on sharing that whole development with you guys. But I’ve made up my mind now. It’s Elfrida I love. I love her more than I ever thought I COULD love someone. And I don’t care if she’s wrong for me, or not in my league, or whatever, I just want her BACK!

  11 minutes later, this flooded live across 18 million-odd screens and retinal implants on Earth. Aidan and his team, in Los Angeles, clutched their heads in despair.

  A few seconds later, they exchanged high-fives as 18 million viewers became 19, 20, 21 million—all hoping for more.

  But Cydney had logged off.

  ★

  In the small hours of the next morning, the proceedings came to an end. Angelica Lin had compressed a trial that would normally have taken months, if not years, into 21 hours, seven minutes, and thirty-four seconds.

  The crowd of spectators had shrunk considerably. Only a handful remained to hear the verdict, including Cydney. Many events in this era were run by bots, meaning ungodly long stretches of argy-bargy without breaks, so content providers like Cydney had tricks for staying the course: stim and coffee, but not at the same time; wear an EVA diaper under your clothes … She hadn’t gone that far this time, but she had been awake for 37 hours.

  She stared blearily at Angelica. In her sleep-deprived state, she irrationally hoped that Angelica’s verdict would somehow solve the riddle of Elfrida’s disappearance.

  Though Angelica had also been awake for a day and a half, her voice was clear. “On the basis of evidence and principle,” she said, “I find the defendants not guilty.”

  Not guilty!

  The headparts of the lawyers lit up, indicating their desire to speak. They all rolled into the middle of the stage at once. Angelica gestured. They stopped.

  “That’s better,” Angelica said.

  Amid the excitement in the courtroom, the crowd-control drones went nuts. They did not control the crowd. They zoomed around in rapturous circles.

  Half of the Marines left the room, breaking into a run before they quite reached the door.

  Mike Vlajkovic pumped his fists in the air, his face alight with joy.

  Fully awake now, Cydney strained to hear over the cheers of the spectators.

  “On this day,” Angelica was yelling, “by the authority invested in me as director of UNVRP and lay judge of Inferior Space, I declare Mercury to be an independent republic. UNVRP’s assets and personnel will be transferred to the new republic, effective immediately, and contingent on the consent of said personnel. Regarding everyone else, the open citizenship application period starts today and will run for one year. Anyone who doesn’t wish to be a citizen of the Republic of Mercury may self-deport. But we’d be more than happy to have all of you. That offer is also open to the employees of the private-sector companies operating on Mercury.”

  Cydney said aloud, “Can she do that?”

  The only other person left in the VIP seating area was Mork Rapp, the environmentalist, who’d been left behind when the other ex-candidates fled on the Dead Weather. He said, “It’s a joke. An elaborate joke.”

  “I’m not sure,” Cydney said.

  “This idea has been kicked around before. Doug Wright thinks it’s his idea. He’ll probably sue her.”

  Angelica walked down the ramp from the stage. The lawyers came back to life and followed her. When the remaining Marines approached her, the lawyers butted them, forcing them back.

  “She’s jarked the lawyers,” Cydney said.

  “You see, you see? It is a joke.”

  More people pushed into the ballroom as the news flashed through the hab. The walls and ceiling suddenly brightened. The old wallpaper theme had been deleted and replaced by a design of a flag that showed a blazing sun. The flag was being held up by a cartoon person and a cartoon robot. It repeated all over the room, casting a warm light over the bedlam. This proved to Cydney that Angelica had planned this all out beforehand.

  From the midst of the ecstatic mob, Angelica shouted, “More details, draft constitution, etcetera, coming later! For now, I’ll just name the core principle of our republic! It is equality!”

  “Uh oh,” Mork Rapp said. He and Cydney were now standing on their ergoforms, straining to see.

  “What?”

  “A republic founded on the principle of equality?”

  “So?”

  “Are you completely unfamiliar with history?”

  “Pretty much.”

  The Marines were trying to reach Angelica. They could not physically penetrate the crowd of Vlajkovic sympathizers, who outnumbered them ten to one.

  “I get it,” Cydney said. “The not-guilty verdict was to win the plebs over, so they’d prevent Star Force from grabbing her! The Marines aren’t allowed to use force unless someone’s actually waving a weapon. They’re actually kind of useless, aren’t they?”

  “Look,” Mork Rapp said. “The drones.”

  The crowd-control drones were flying around the room, spraying silly string.

  “How’d she get them to do that? You cannot hack Star Force hardware.” Mork Rapp rubbed his chin. “Except, she has.”

  “Well, she used to be a Marine herself,” Cydney said.

  23 Years Earlier. Callisto

  Angelica sat crosslegged, pinching crumbs off the single nutriblock that was her ration for today. As the siege of Callisto dragged on, the food situation had gotten extreme. The loss of the experimental hydroponics module meant they had no fresh vegetables, and the vitamin C supplements had long since run out. Some of the hostages had scurvy.

  Mad Konstantin was negotiating with the fleet in orbit to have supplies dropped

  Angelica watched him playing poker with two of his bots, Trix and Pranx. He had five bots, all styled as attractive women. Konstantin bragged about their intelligence, but they couldn’t be that smart, since they did whatever Konstantin wanted.

  Such as playing Texas Hold’em for nutriblocks.

  C-Mutt and Gloria dos Santos were playing, too.

  “No, no,” C-Mutt moaned. “You had a pair of threes, Glory. You shoulda re-raised!”

  “It’s her fault,” dos Santos said, smacking Trix on the leg. “She was twiddling her nose stud. It distracted me. Well, I guess I’m out.”

  Angelica leaned in the direction of the poker game, propping herself on a locked elbow, and said loudly, “What do you expect when you play poker with bots? How are you gonna win? They’re bots. They’re built with poker faces.”

  .Actually, this was not true of Konstantin X’s bots. They were capable of very human-like expressions. Once, Angelica had accidentally touched Trix’s face. It felt like skin, but colder, probably fleximinium. They were far and away the most realistic bots Angelica had ever seen. What bugged her was how much they must have cost … unless Mad Konstantin had stolen them. That was always a possibility.

  “Aw, Glory,” Trix said to dos Santos in her sweet, chirpy voice. “I’ll give you some of my nutriblocks. I don’t need to eat, anyway. And it’s more fun when you play.”

  “Women,” said Konstantin to C-Mutt, rolling his eyes. “They just don’t understand that the point of competition is to humiliate your rivals and then laugh heartlessly at them.”

  C-Mutt snorted. He said to dos Santos, “Wanna play strip poker?”

  “What’re the rules?”

  “Oh, it’s easy. You lose a hand, you take off an item of clothing. I lose a hand, Trix takes something off. She loses a hand …”

  “Hey! I see what you did there,” dos Santos giggled.

  And Konstantin X just sat quietly, smiling to himself, straightening the row of nutriblocks he had won.

  Other hostages drifted over, joined the game, traded winning hands for hugs and footrubs. Everyone was in a good mood, optimistic about the possibility of the supply drop. Trix stood up and sang a Bel
ter Blues tune about home, sweet home; actually it was a recorded track, piped through her mouth, but it looked and sounded as if the bot were really singing. The hostages floated, listening, bundled in layers of garments like medieval peasants. They’d turned the heat way down to save power. The bots were bundled up, too, even though they didn’t need it. A psychological trick to encourage their acceptance.

  Angelica, in her self-imposed exile from the group, tried to work out what bothered her most. Was it that everyone seemed to have forgotten the bots were bots? Or was it that they seemed to have forgotten the bots belonged to Mad Konstantin?

  She edged over to where he stood slightly apart from the group. “What’s your game?” she said, low.

  “What do you mean, Angie?”

  “OK,” she said. “I’ll rephrase. Why are you such a dickshit?”

  He blinked his velvety dark eyes. “Well, when I was a kid, my mother told me I could do anything, if I only tried hard enough. Maybe that explains it.”

  “Oh,” she said in frustration.

  “There is no game, Angie. I believe what I believe. First the planets, then the stars. That’s the destiny of the human race. But we’re never gonna get there unless we accept that MIs are part of the human race, too. We need to partner with them, not enslave them.”

  “Mars.”

  “We have to get over Mars sometime.”

  “Do you expect me to get over Drayawray? And the Marines who were asleep when your spaceship landed on them?”

  Konstantin X shrugged. “You’re the one with a guilt problem, not me, Angie. ”

  She looked in his eyes and knew he meant it. He did not feel one smidgen of guilt over the hundreds of people he had killed.

  “Your problem is you’re a stone-cold sociopath,” she said.

  “Try this thought experiment.” He was as relaxed as ever. “What if, to reach the stars, it’s gonna take people like me? Think about the greatest achievers in human history. Napoleon. Genghis Khan. Stalin. You can bet they didn’t shed any tears over a few dead grunts here and there.”