Silicon Uprising

by Conor McCarthy

“That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?” Jason asked. “The Strife was pure insanity, but so is Half-Bit. We’re trying to find the center.”

  “I would say that the old ancient center is gone and we’re searching like mad. I don’t know what I mean by that exactly. Who knows?”

  “Makes a strange kind of sense. You do realize I don’t know what I’m doing? Being involved in all this.”

  “Who does at the beginning? You will find your way through the first mission. Or not. The task is to find out whether you will.”

  “Okay. I’ll find out.”

  Michael said, “We had a guy once who was involved in our most important project. He always seemed to have a thought in the back of his mind. A tiny little CMC loyalist lurking there. Well, everybody has one, but he disowned his, so in the end it possessed him, and he tried to betray us. Fortunately I already suspected him. The mind always returns to its biggest lie to reinforce the wall it’s built around itself. It compels you to prove that you still believe it. He talked too much about the importance of the Black Doves and the evils of the CMC, while others were actually doing something about it.”

  “And if you recognize the lie and cease doing it, the mind switches to the next biggest lie?”

  “Exactly. Anyway, I caught him on his way to meet a CMC intelligence officer and took care of it.”

  “You . . . ‘eliminated’ him?”

  “What choice do we have? We can’t afford to imprison people like that. He could escape, or the goons could find and raid the place.”

  “But then we’ll have a future built by people who committed summary executions. No offense, but you committed one.”

  “Or a fallen future without hope, haunted by your ghost, which says to frightened peasants, ‘Things could have been different, but I wanted to keep some treacherous guy alive to ease my guilt, and he blew the future all to hell.’”

  “Shit,” Jason said, “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I. There comes a point where a man makes his choice—good or evil. He made his. Maybe I made mine. I don’t know.”

  Jason contemplated that for a few moments. He felt like Michael had a thought in the back of his mind too—he watched for Jason’s reaction, trying to tell if Jason was worried about the morality of eliminating the spy, or worried about being eliminated as a spy. He hoped that Michael read his loyalty accurately.

  “Anyway,” Michael continued, “up until an hour ago, I planned on taking you on a little information-gathering exercise. But the game’s changed. Two of our people were killed in a gunfight with goons early this morning. They were due to pull off something big. Now you and I are it. You’re all I’ve got.”

  “What?”

  “We receive a great deal of information from informants. Half-Bit has radiation detectors in various places to look for any movement of nuclear weapons. One of our informers noticed a work order for maintenance on two detectors before it was due, and starting late enough in the afternoon that they will be down overnight. We put the word out, and we heard from a military officer that a W84 tactical nuke was stolen early this morning from the stockpile. Supposedly by Crimson Unity, helped by sympathizers inside the facility.”

  “We’re opposing Crimson Unity now? Some of the stuff they pull off is pretty funny. Some not so much.”

  “Much more the latter than the former.”

  “I guess if they set off a nuke there would be a heavy crackdown. Susan said you expect a major attack to justify a crackdown, so this is convenient for Half-Bit.”

  Michael looked at him as if he expected him to dig deeper. “It is convenient, isn’t it?”

  Jason thought of the implications for a moment. “Maybe too convenient. So what’s Half-Bit nuking?”

  “Itself. At least that’s our best guess about how it’s supposed to look. It turns out that a third radiation detector was knocked out by a truck. According to the media a malfunction occurred in the truck’s computer, but they didn’t mention the detector. Now, all three detectors are beside rail lines, and they are exactly the ones the nuke will pass if it’s transported to the freight unloading station near the top of the CMC bunker.”

  “But somehow it will never reach it, right?”

  “About thirty miles before the bunker, the line passes by a town of four thousand people. One of those new settlements that grew during the Strife. Now, what if the bomb went off there? The official line would be that terrorists tried to sneak a nuke into the bunker, but it exploded too soon.”

  “What the hell?” Jason said. “It’s going to nuke a town? And then I suppose they’ll go in and shoot video of people with no skin left and make propaganda out of it. They can get away with anything after that.”

  “Exactly,” Michael replied. “Perfect excuse for establishing a massive internal security organization. Much bigger than the small one you encountered. And it’s typical of Half-Bit. How many do we need to kill for the greater good? A city is too wasteful a target. It does that calculation.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We can’t stop it altogether, but we can save the town. We derail the train in the desert before it reaches it. We predict the CMC will then choose to detonate the bomb in the wreck and exploit the fallout as much as possible. No pun intended. There will be very few direct casualties.”

  “Much less political impact than wiping out an entire town,” Jason said. “And much easier on the town.”

  “Indeed. So that’s the mission. Supplies, including a trail bike, were delivered while you were shooting. You’ll ride to the railway tracks. I understand you’ve done a lot of riding.”

  “Every week. Sometimes more.”

  “Good, because I’ve done none at all. You’ll go alone. I’ll pick you up beside the highway after the job.”

  He opened the garage to reveal a late-model electric bike, used but in good condition. “What do you think?”

  Jason grabbed the handlebars and sat on it. “Good. Not road-legal either, so no tracking.”

  “Exactly. Let’s go inside and talk plans. Our friends will bring us dinner.”

  Michael retrieved a bag from his car before entering the house. He dumped it on the dining table and they each took a chair. He reached into the bag and pulled out a brick of plastic explosive with a small black box attached.

  “Whoa,” Jason said.

  “Yeah,” Michael said, “you’re in it now. We all are.”

  “I’ve been in it since they shot Brad. If we have to plant bombs, let’s plant bombs.”

  Michael nodded. “It goes under the rail between the ties. As a precaution they may send a drone with an infrared camera ahead of the train to scan the tracks from above. Mostly to protect against low-tech attacks—a boulder on a rail, that kind of thing. A charge hidden under the rail is best.”

  He pointed to the black box attached to the charge. “This is a special creation of one of our fellow partisans, verified in simulation by an AI. With Zarather on board we got access to some impressive AI. Detonating the bomb from a vantage point by remote control is out, because the nuke may go off during the derailment. You can’t be anywhere near. Metal detection, radar, and laser are out because they are active scanners that countermeasures can pick up. So we used a vibration detector that will sense when the train is near or on top of the bomb.”

  Jason pointed at a rectangular metallic object on the side of the charge opposite the box. It had a small metal disk stuck to it, with wires leading to the box. “Is that a magnet to stick it to the rails, and the disk is the vibration sensor?”

  “Correct. To make your job as fast as possible, it will detect when you clamp it to the side of the rail and arm itself. The light will flash red three times. If that doesn’t work, press the button instead.”

  “Can I press it again to disarm?”

  “Yes, and the light will flash green. Hopefully that will be unnecessary.”

  “Good to have, anyway.”

  “We’ll use two
charges, one on each rail, to be sure. You clamp both on and get the hell out.”

  “Are we expecting any security?”

  “It’s a long stretch of line, and a large security operation would draw attention. Word could get out that the official story of a surprise attack that went wrong is bunk. Your biggest problem is the satellites. But we have someone on our side to help with that. We know when the sweeps will occur. I’ll put the schedule on your neutered phone.”

  “Okay, so we need to get in and out between satellite sweeps?”

  “Impossible. They’re too close together,” Michael said, and reached into the bag again. He looked a little sheepish as he pulled out a plastic bag. From inside it he carefully removed a large cloth thickly covered with desert sand, random pebbles, and bits of vegetation. It was all stuck on with a rubbery adhesive but still shed sand onto the table as he handled it. The other side was covered with shiny metallic insulation.

  “You’re kidding me,” Jason said.

  “Nope, it will work. You let the electric motors cool for a few minutes, then put a large one of these over the bike. Cover it with more sand. Then you get under your own cover. The advanced heat reflector and insulator on the inside, plus the sand above, will be enough insulation to hide you from an infrared scan. It will blend in enough to pass a visual search too, if they shine a searchlight around.”

  Jason stood away from the table and held the cloth up. It had an irregular shape and kept dropping grains of sand on the floor as he handled it. He laughed.

  “It’ll work,” he said. “It’s just funny, that’s all.”

  “Crude but effective,” Michael said. “Same with navigation. You won’t use GPS because the receiver uses a circuit known as a local oscillator that leaks its own radio waves, which the enemy can detect. Compass only.”

  “We aren’t aiming for a specific point in the track, are we? Anywhere along the stretch will do?”

  “Right. We take the bike in your SUV tonight. I have night-vision goggles for you. There’s a good spot off the highway to unload the bike. I drop you off there and come back at your estimated return time.”

  “I’ll make sure the bike’s charged.”

  “Do you want to go armed? Risky, but you’re carrying bombs anyway.”

  “May as well go down shooting if I’m caught.”

  “Right. Now let me show you something.”

  Michael went to the SUV and activated the computer. “It has cracked firmware to remove speed restrictions during automatic driving, and allow use of the steering wheel anywhere instead of only off-road.” Michael showed him how to enable the voice command for it. “Trouble is, the speed restrictions are designed to produce a very low crash rate, but the firmware mod is meant for escape. According to my secondhand information, for every ten miles that you drive, you stand a one percent risk of leaving the road or colliding with an object.”

  “Wow, you sit there and hope.”

  “Pretty much. Still safer than using the steering wheel yourself at the same speed.”

  Jason tested the steering wheel by driving around the house in the rough. It felt like a slower version of his computer racing simulator, which he’d neglected since his job brought him enough money to buy a trail bike.

  “After the mission,” Michael said, “we lay low in an abandoned industrial building in a nearby town. Our friends have scouted it out. I’ll take my car and meet you there before the mission, so you know the place. Then we leave for your departure point.”

  Eleven

  JASON GLANCED AGAIN at the dashboard navigation map in the SUV. He kept telling himself that he wouldn’t look for a while but found himself doing it unconsciously, hoping that the journey would last forever, and hoping to arrive already so they could get it over with and start to avenge Brad. Though ultimately he would be satisfied only with reducing Half-Bit to molten silicon.

  Night had fallen. He and Michael had both remained silent for some time.

  “So,” Jason said. “What’s your story? As much of it as you’re okay with saying, anyway.”

  Michael stroked his chin for a few moments before answering.

  “I built houses before all this began. I took pride in that work, knowing that my clients would spend some of their most meaningful moments in the spaces I created. I took that seriously, but it didn’t make my work serious, if you know what I mean. Nobody wants to live in a serious house.”

  Jason chuckled briefly. He knew there was a point in there to laugh about but couldn’t quite grasp it.

  Michael continued, “I attended to every inch with love and care. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t productive. I made good time. After my apprenticeship, I started my own business and soon had as much work as I could handle. People valued what I did more than almost anyone else’s work, so I found clients by word of mouth.”

  “Reminds me of a company I installed an AI for once. I walked in and the place just felt . . . peaceful. Sure, there was conflict, but ideas were in conflict with each other, not the people who had the ideas. The employees were like that with each other and with the customers, and so was the whole organization versus the outside world.”

  “And the AI you deployed—how’d that go?”

  Jason rested his chin on his knuckles. “That’s the thing, it was the best. The work just . . . flowed.”

  “If everyone speaks their own truth without judging others or interpreting a different opinion as proof of evil, that’s more valuable than any business system. And when you tell someone they made an error, are you only informing them of the error, or do you want them to feel bad, to be wracked with guilt?”

  “Hmm, that’s a good point.”

  “Our paths already crossed in a way, since you burned down some of my work.”

  The words jolted Jason and he looked over at Michael. Michael grinned back.

  “Zarather’s mansion?” Jason asked.

  “I worked on it way back when I was young and still learning. Never mind. You just returned it to the chaos whence it came. Such is the fate of all things.”

  The SUV slowed and then turned off onto a desert track. It powered over some higher ground and down the other side to an area hidden from the road. They parked and unloaded the bike.

  Michael pulled out Jason’s phone, wrapped in aluminum foil to prevent it from connecting to a tower or any other device that might flag its location. “I’ll bury this here and mark it with a twig in case you’re late. You shouldn’t take it with you because if there’s any chance of a signal escaping the foil it’ll soon be goon central out there.”

  “Not going to wait long?”

  “Too risky. If you’re not here, I have to go. Call me, but smash the damned phone and bury it here after that. They’ll check all calls in this area.”

  A backpack held the camouflage sheets and explosives. Jason also stashed some water and energy bars. A watch on his wrist timed the satellites. He couldn’t risk flashing around the glow of his neutered phone except under the cover. He committed the satellite schedule to memory but took the phone just in case.

  He donned the night-vision goggles. Michael stuck a compass on the bike’s handlebars. “Just keep heading north, more or less. Take it easy. The ground is pretty hard, so you won’t leave strong tire tracks. Not enough for a night-vision camera from two hundred fifty miles high anyway, even if it passes directly overhead. But don’t make it easy for them.”

  “Sure. Got until first light anyway.”

  “If you leave in one minute, you have twenty-three minutes until the next satellite sweep. Ride for fifteen minutes, cool the bike for five, then you have three minutes to cover the bike and yourself. Should be enough.”

  “Just a matter of throwing some extra dirt on it and then hitting the deck myself. No problem.”

  “It’s a wide sweep so the resolution isn’t high. Space yourself about ten yards from the bike.”

  “Because if I spread out the heat signatures I’m less likely to get fl
agged as interesting.”

  “Right.”

  He mounted the bike and switched it on.

  “On the second leg you’ll have twenty minutes riding. That should get you there. Hide again, then plant the bombs. Watch your timing on your way back too.”

  “Will do.” Jason twisted the grip and the electric motor sprang to life, kicking up some dirt behind the rear tire. He accelerated away.

  “Good luck,” Michael shouted.

  Jason wore an open-faced helmet to accommodate the goggles. He felt the wind on his cheeks as starlight illuminated the way ahead. Rough terrain made the compass needle vibrate and swing back and forth.

  In the green night-vision image, a patch of light glowed on the horizon. Jason set his course relative to that and checked the compass again. The needle seemed to swing either side of north, more or less. Close enough.

  He looked to the horizon again. A hand-span to the left of the patch of light should do it. He refocused on the ground ahead.

  The bike was heading straight for a small boulder half-buried in the ground.

  He nearly jumped in the saddle at the sight of it, then leaned hard right, looking into the turn instead of at the rock, as his father had advised him many years before.

  The rear tire bumped the edge and bounced off. The bike began to fall into the turn, so he cut the front wheel harder right to pick it up, but overcorrected and snaked from side to side trying to rebalance.

  He eased off the power and settled it down. At a lower speed he turned back on course and accelerated again.

  Blood throbbed in his neck and his gut had knotted. He took a deep breath and paid attention to the ground ahead. Calm slowly settled through his body.

  On the way back, if he rode the exact opposite course, he should be able to return to the meeting point after planting the bombs. The thought comforted him.

  At an easy speed he dodged around rocks and desert plants with little effort. Focusing on the course relaxed him for a while.

  He thought of Brad. On vacation in Miami when they were eighteen, late one night, they were partying on the balcony of an apartment when a car stopped at an intersection below. The driver played club music at full volume, booming through an open window. The man grooved to it while wearing sunglasses in the dark. Brad said, “Look at that guy. I bet he’s pulling his dick right now. He probably has a robotic arm pulling it for him.”