Splendid Apocalypse: The Fall of Old Earth (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 5)

by Timothy J. Gawne

  They had almost finished their circuit of the main floor, and were about to head back to the office, when a sudden scream behind them made them jump.

  One of the feedstock had, surprisingly, woken up from the stunning. He was an enormous black man, naked, unusually well-muscled, with blood streaming down from his head where the captive bolt pistol had hit him. He had grabbed a cleaver, and was drunkenly slashing all about him. The workers scattered or tried to hide under the conveyor belt. One worker, slower than the rest, had his belly hacked open: he screamed and tried to hold his intestines in with his hands.

  The black man staggered and then lunged towards Blucher. Nandi stepped in front of Blucher and grabbed the arm that held the cleaver with both his hands. The black man stared at him blankly, then smashed him over the head with his free arm, and tossed Nandi onto the conveyer line as if was a doll.

  The belt was still moving, and before Nandi could get up his head encountered one of the industrial-scale band saws. The vertical blade effortlessly cut down through the top of his skull and the middle of his right eye, then out the side of his jaw just missing the neck. Nandi started to spasm. The belt continued on, and the blade sliced off his right arm.

  Nandi started to make a sound that was a sort of strangled gurgling scream. He tried to stand up. The upper right half of his head fell away, along with a decent chunk of his brain. Bright red arterial blood poured out of the head wound, and spurted in a stream from his shoulder. The jelly in the remaining half of his right eye oozed out and began dripping down. He turned around and saw the side of his head and right arm moving down the belt, then he passed out and fell over.

  The black man was continuing to stagger along waving his cleaver. The guards were out of position on the other side of the room, and in any event they had no ranged weapons but only stun batons. Blucher picked up a heavy two-meter long steel rod that they called “The Spike.” It had a sharp point on one end, and a blunt disk on the other. It was normally used to help free up jams or pry stuck bits out of hopper intakes. Blucher moved up behind the black man and rammed the sharp end into the back of his neck.

  The point penetrated all the way through but she had missed the spine, and the black man was still on his feet. Impaled on the spike, he tried to jerk away and it took all of Blucher’s strength to stop him. He twisted around and, awkwardly because his neck was pinned facing in the other direction, began to wriggle down the spike towards her. Blucher moved to her left, and the leverage that the spike gave her made the black man swivel around. He tripped in a slick pool of blood and spun to the ground, still waving his cleaver and with the spike stuck in his neck. Finally, two guards arrived and with stun-rods set to ‘full incapacitate’ they put him down.

  Blucher let the heavy spike fall out of her hands. She was breathing heavily, but forced herself to calm down. She looked around her: the two lines to either side of her were in chaos, but the other four were still working smoothly. Her assistant Nandi was lying in a pool of his own blood; he wasn’t even twitching and the blood had stopped spurting. In fact, there was no active bleeding at all. He must be dead.

  “All right people,” shouted Blucher. “It’s all over. Now back to work! You, and you, clean up this mess. Someone get the screamer out of here. Call the waiting room and inform them that we have some attractive new job openings for people with a can-do attitude who want to make something of their lives. We can still make our quota for the day. Or would you rather be unemployed?”

  5. The Librarians Temporal are Looking for a Few Good Minds

  “There is no such thing as a stupid question. There are only stupid people.”

  - Old Guy, cybertank, contemporary.

  The office of Brother Mahalanobis, senior archivist of the Order of the Librarians Temporal, was both cluttered and ordered at the same time. Cluttered, because it was so packed with books, folders, notepads, cables, and antique electronic equipment, that there was barely enough clear floor space to walk from the door to the single desk with two chairs. Ordered, because every book and folder had been neatly labeled and stacked, and listed in the small card-catalog standing along one wall.

  Brother Mahalanobis was a vigorous fifty-something, dark hair, mostly defeated by gray, but still holding out in patches. He was wearing a simple red robe embroidered along the edges with the book and sword emblem of his order, and open sandals made out of old tires. The large eight-cylinder revolver that he usually carried at his waist had been placed on a shelf within easy reach behind him. He studied the ancient computer terminal before him through reading glasses whose frames were perfect circles. The terminal was running the ancient operating system known as DOS, which was the second holiest form of data medium known to the librarians.

  The holiest of all was, of course, physical artifacts, such as books, stone tablets, or parchment sheets. They were a direct physical link to the originating minds, and could not be hacked, erased, corrupted, eavesdropped on, or lost forever due to a missing catalog entry. They were also effectively immune to spying from the central authorities, who had spent so long perfecting the art of electronic surveillance that Mahalanobis suspected that many of them did not even realize that a thing such as a book could exist.

  Still, as holy as books were, they were limited in their ability to be searched or indexed. The Librarians Temporal, being pragmatists, thus used other technologies. So the second most-holy technology was the ancient computer operating system known as “DOS,” short for “Disk Operating System.” DOS had been invented centuries before, and been obsolete nearly as long, but it had many advantages. It was simple enough that a single human mind could encompass all of it – thus, it was very hard for an enemy to insert malicious code or secret monitoring devices. The order did most of their book-keeping and budgeting on DOS for this reason. As Mahalanobis activated the screen, he muttered a brief prayer:

  DOS is good.

  DOS is eternal.

  Praise be to DOS.

  The third most-holy data medium was a multi-tasking networked system that had been developed specifically by the Brotherhood. It was essential for serious modeling and data mining techniques, but somewhat worrisome because it was still so complex that if, say, a brother had been turned by the central government and inserted malicious code, they might never root it out. There was a terminal on Mahalanobis’ desk dedicated to this system, but it was currently unpowered.

  The fourth most-holy (or as some liked to phrase it, first most un-holy) system was that used by the world at large. That system spanned the entire globe, and through dedicated laser-links connected to human settlements in other star systems. It encompassed the fruits of millions of brilliant minds laboring for centuries. Anything one might care to know was available on it, anytime, anywhere. And yet this cornucopia was also poisoned, by lies both subtle and gross, by misdirection and multiple layers of interlocking spyware and monitoring and copy protections, and any of a million vicious tricks and scams that countless over-controlling administrators and sociopathic businessmen had developed over the centuries.

  The central system was a necessary evil – for dealing with taxes, and learning the current rules for operating businesses – but the Librarians did not trust it. Anything you did on it would be logged and examined centrally. Click on the wrong icon and you could condemn yourself to a lifetime of debt-slavery. The system was so complex and sophisticated that a thousand librarians working a thousand years could not come up with a way to guarantee privacy or security. Thus, they only accessed it from locations away from their main libraries, and never conducted core business on it. There was no terminal capable of accessing the global network in the entire building.

  Mahalanobis was trying to balance the budget for the branch-library that he was temporarily in charge of. It was a privilege to be granted that honor, an important duty, and also an incredible pain in the posterior. The Librarians Temporal had an organizational structure where positions of leadership were considered a burden that one
was appointed to temporarily, rather than a plum job that would let you lord it over your fellows and rise in the hierarchy. He still ate the same food in the same cafeteria with his peers, drank the same vintage of wine, and slept in the same bed that he always had.

  Granted, it was still good to be trusted with such an honor by your peers, and there was a definite boost in status, but there were so many details. There just were not enough days in the week. Who would have thought that the leader of a cult of eccentric librarians who worshipped pure data archives and large guns would spend most of his time worrying about funding?

  The answer, of course, is anyone who knows anything about administration.

  Balancing the budget was getting harder all the time. Money was drying up, the price of food and fresh water was increasing, and their clientele had fewer available funds to pay for the services which the Librarians could provide. He was coming to the conclusion that there was going to be no alternative but to increase what they charged for black-market medical procedures, although it was possible that they might drive away enough customers that it would not be much of a net gain.

  A major issue was wine. The Librarians Temporal were generally an ascetic lot, and they didn’t need much in the way of creature comforts, but they did like their wine. The problem was that wine was expensive and difficult to manufacture – whiskey or vodka would be more cost-effective, but he knew that might cause a minor revolt. If things kept getting tighter he would raise the issue at the next council meeting, but not now.

  There was a knock on his door. “Come in, the door is open.”

  A female junior cataloger opened the door and stuck her head into the room. “Brother Mahalanobis, I hope that I am not interrupting you. The new prospect is here to see you.”

  “Not at all, Sister,” said Mahalanobis as he closed down his DOS session. “I was in need of a break anyhow. Show the young gentleman in.”

  A man in his mid-twenties entered. He was tall, lean, and had a shock of unruly black hair with a clean-shaven European face. He was wearing tattered jeans, tennis shoes with holes in them, a relatively pristine blue short-sleeve shirt, and a ragged denim jacket.

  “Please, have a seat, Mr. Parker.” The young man sat down in an old metal folding chair facing the desk. Mahalanobis picked up a manila folder from his desk, opened it, and began to read. “Well, Steven Aloysius Parker, I see that you are interested in joining the Librarians Temporal. Your records show excellent grades, although your doctorate is somewhat unusual. A PhD in Scandinavian Textile History? Is there a story there?”

  “Yes, you could say that. In high school, I had perfect scores in every subject, but then so did many others. There was an all-expenses paid scholarship for someone to get a PhD in Scandinavian Textile History. I could not find any other opportunities, and I like to eat.”

  Mahalanobis nodded. “Yes, the majority of people do. But now you are on the job market with a degree for which there is little commercial demand – though that can be said of most degrees, nowadays. In addition, I see that you exhibited strengths in statistics, mechanical engineering, business administration, emergency medicine, and neuroscience. You also achieved an expert rating in Muy Thai.”

  “I have broad ranging interests, and sometimes I need to blow off steam.”

  “You would seem to be a bit of a Renaissance person. Unfortunately, this is not the Renaissance. Most employers are not interested in such people, but only want experts in the specific skills they are hired for. Fortunately for you, the Librarians Temporal are not most employers. Tell me, what do you know of us?”

  “That you are a quasi-religious order of eccentric scholars that are dedicated to the truth, and that you also believe that knowledge exists to be used. You are also alleged to be heavily armed. And that you eat well.”

  “Mostly accurate. Centuries ago an order such as ours could have easily survived on the margins of society, and our spartan lifestyle would automatically act as a deterrent to the unsuitable. Sadly, today things are so bad out there that even our ascetic means are seen by many as rankest luxury, and you have no idea how much effort it is to screen out the unworthy. Thus we post nothing on the public data nets, and only use personal recommendations. Which you would seem to have in abundance. Brother Bayes, Brother Pascal, and Sister Wheatstone all speak highly of you.”

  “That’s very kind of them.”

  “Kind? Perhaps. But none of them would have done so if it had not, in their estimation, been true. Because that is the nature of our order. But, I am being rude: I was going to brew some tea, would you like some?”

  “Tea would be fine, unless you have any coffee?”

  “Coffee? Why yes, I believe that I have a few old packets of instant lying around. Black all right?”

  “Very much, thank you.”

  Mahalanobis began to fiddle with an ancient electric kettle. “The water should be ready in a few minutes. Meanwhile, do you have any questions for me about the order?”

  “Many. To start with, are you all required to wear robes?”

  “Oh, these? No, we are not obliged to wear the robes of our order, except on formal occasions. However, I confess that a simple robe and pair of sandals are so comfortable and easy to maintain that one becomes addicted. It also adds to the mystique of our Brotherhood. Nevertheless, many of the brothers and sisters prefer other clothes, and in truth it matters little. Did you know that our order began as a joke?”

  “A joke? I had not heard that. ”

  “Yes a joke. A very long time ago several minor and under-employed intellectuals were having a party and they wondered if it would be possible to found an order of militant librarians. Ones that were sworn to the preservation and accurate cataloging of data, and that were willing to use force in that endeavor. Over several long drinking sessions they fleshed out how such an order might be run, how it could be organized, how it might be both vigorous enough avoid going extinct yet still not become corrupted by the ambitious and selfish. It was not taken seriously.”

  “Your order has humble beginnings.”

  “Yes, many things do. Anyhow, eventually these intellectuals found an abandoned used bookstore – there used to be such things at one time, physical books, bought and sold in public, really! – and turned it into a clubhouse. They would arrive and debate each other, and get mildly drunk, and then seriously drunk, and dress up in silly robes. It was all quite harmless. Meanwhile, they continued to discuss and refine how such an order should be run.

  “I think that I see where this could lead. Then the economy got bad, and the scholars increasingly had trouble getting regular work…”

  “Yes, you grasp it. It happened so slowly that at the time nobody realized what was developing. A scholar between part-time teaching jobs would sleep over a few nights on a fold-out couch. Then another would move in, meaning to leave, but nothing ever turned up, so they paid their keep by doing maintenance and odd jobs. Then another unemployed scholar moved in, and another. They earned income from tutoring students, giving music lessons, fixing obsolete electronics, whatever would pay. Eventually they became the reality that, before, had started out as a joke.”

  “That’s a really cool story. So how do you earn most of your income now?”

  Mahalanobis poured the hot water from the kettle into two ceramic mugs – one was emblazoned with the emblem of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Football Team, the other with the logo of the Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer Satellite that had been launched in the 21st century. He emptied a pack of instant coffee into one, and offered it to Parker, then began to brew some black tea in the other using a small stainless-steel tea ball.

  “Our income? Through this and that. Tutoring and music lessons have dropped off, almost nobody has the money for that any more, and the ones that do can afford the best. Black-market medical procedures are a big profit-maker for us, serving those whose medical plans won’t cover what they need. We also manufacture various technical materials t
hat are hard to acquire legally – uncorrupted microprocessors, sterile saline and suture material, that sort of thing.”

  Parker sipped his coffee. “Did you ever consider manufacturing narcotics?”

  “Goodness no! That would put us in competition with the major drug gangs, and I don’t care what you may have seen in the movies, we do not want to make them angry with us. The same reason that we don’t sell any of the weapons that we manufacture for ourselves: it would draw attention to us in ways that we do not want.”

  “That makes sense. By the way, this is pretty good coffee, thank you.”

  “You are most welcome. In any event we really just want to be left alone, but progressively that becomes harder and harder. We have religious exemptions for most of what we do here, but every year the central administration tightens the screws on what is allowed. I cannot promise that our order will not someday be suppressed.”

  “I understand. But surely you have a relationship with the local police? You must have allies and friends?”

  “Certainly, young man. There are the usual minor kickbacks, and we have treated several children of the local constabulary of disorders that their health care plans did not cover. Similarly, while we will not supply even raw materials to the drug gangs, for fear of being enmeshed in that business, many of the local gang leaders also owe us for services rendered. They don’t always pay their debts, mind you, but unlike the central federal administration, they at least understand the concept.”

  “So, doesn’t that shield you?”

  “If it were only the locals, probably. Sometimes a minor gang run by an up-and-coming sociopath will try to raid one of our branches. After getting beaten, they leave us alone, and the boost to our reputation is almost worth the casualties. But the central administration owes us nothing, and if we ever get on the radar screen of the wrong official they will send in a federal special weapons team, or even the regular military, and they will crush us. In that event local support will mean nothing. Which is why we try so hard to stay low.”