Crystal Rebellion

by Doug J. Cooper

  “No. That’s not the point.”

  Chapter 9

  From the quiet security of pad ring two, Criss waited while the Explorer established orbit. Only the very rich and powerful could afford to vacation on the luxury liner. These people wanted the best of everything. And that translated into a ship supported by a dedicated three-gen.

  Criss assumed control of the crystal and, using its credentials as cover, began his foray through the colony.

  Working quickly, he isolated individual feeds at access points away from the spline. Parsing through that flood of unprocessed information, he distilled out facts. These answered most of his questions, but for every one he answered, another rose to replace it.

  With good news sparse, he encapsulated the larger issues for his leadership. They gathered on the bridge of the scout, the craft itself sitting in cloaked concealment in the older portion of the space field outside Ag Port.

  “Alex has a four-gen fab facility in final testing,” he said, showing them a projected image of the production lab that Alex and Larry had just left.

  Juice, sitting in the pilot’s chair, duplicated the image at a smaller scale on the ops bench in front of her. Then, zooming and swooping, she examined the equipment.

  “No way Alex could do this,” she said, gesturing toward the floating image. “The guy is super smart.” Her eyes lost focus for an instant as she flashed a hint of a smile. “But he’d need a lot of help to build this setup.”

  “I agree,” said Criss. “Much of the four-gen project is classified as a colony secret. For me to learn more, I need to enter a secure area controlled by the Triada. I haven’t found a way do that without them knowing.”

  “Will it work?” asked Cheryl, gesturing at the fab facility in the image. Though she sat next to Sid in the seats behind Juice, she angled her body away from him in a manner that reflected displeasure.

  “Yes, I think it will,” said Criss. The group preferred he speak with yes-no certainty rather than offer odds they must interpret. So he didn’t tell them that he forecast the probability that it would work at just over ninety-two percent. Or that the corollary was an eight percent chance it would fail.

  “Is the loyalty piece in there?” asked Sid.

  A twinge at the edges of his cognition matrix signaled his apprehension. “There are indications that the imprint module has been removed, but to know for sure, I need access to the template, and that’s in the Triada’s secure area.”

  “Alex wouldn’t be able to do that either.” Juice shook her head with certainty. “Loyalty imprinting is knitted into the cognition matrix core. It’d take a lifetime trying to understand the nuances of all those connections.”

  “So if it were true—if the loyalty piece is disabled,” said Sid, “would you say that’s compelling evidence that the Kardish are here?”

  “And yet I can find no sign of them in the feeds,” said Criss. “And there are no traces of a Kardish vessel—cloaked or not—anywhere in the solar system.”

  Criss rubbed his chin with his fingers in a display of concentration as he spun through his forecasting. “It would be most curious if we found evidence of a Kardish presence in the Triada’s secure area.” Choosing to raise his risk profile by a small amount, he announced his decision. “I’m going to take a peek.”

  Maintaining a presence on the scout, he leaped a duplicate awareness out to a small utility feed that ran parallel to the highly surveilled spline. His reconnaissance showed it was unused. A cool glow soothed his tendrils when he landed without incident.

  Following the feed inbound, Criss rushed to his destination—the multiplex. He approached slowly, staying under cover of the tangle of links and feeds that ran in and out of this central hub.

  As he neared the multiplex, he could sense heat radiating from it. Confounded by what might be the cause, he leaped to the threshold, took a snapshot scan of the interface array, and retreated to safety.

  Back in the tangle of links and feeds, he checked his scan and found that something had corrupted the snapshot. Adding redundancies to his procedure, he returned and snapped a second scan. This one suffered the same fate. Huh.

  He’d expected there to be millions of connections scattered across the interface like bright stars in a nighttime sky. Instead, he saw daytime. Glowing like the sun, one link dominated everything, shining so bright he couldn’t see anything else.

  The feed to the eastern spur—the one with the craggy tunnel running out to a mining operation—churned at an astronomical rate. Criss estimated it would take hundreds of three-gens to process such a flood of information.

  Adding this discovery to his forecasting, a new scenario rose in likelihood.

  Back on the scout, he turned to his leadership to introduce the idea. And in a scene that had happened before—each time catching Criss by surprise—Sid verbalized the idea ahead of him.

  “Could the crystal be here without the Kardish? Is there any way that makes sense?”

  * * *

  Ruga watched through Larry’s eyes as the blood drained from Alex’s face.

  “Did you say Juice?” Alex moved his hair behind his ear. “Your plan is for her to operate the ICEU, even though she’s never seen it or this lab before?”

  “You’ll be here to help her,” Ruga said through Larry. He had Larry step back, increasing the distance from Alex and reducing any suggestion that Larry might be a physical threat. “This makes it a team activity. You fabricate the crystal lattice, she embeds the intelligence, and you wake me up.”

  Ruga’s alarm spiked at his blunder—he’d just had Larry say, “you wake me up.” When Alex continued without reacting to his gaffe, Ruga’s concern moderated.

  “Have you asked her?

  “I haven’t.” Ruga shook Larry’s head as he spoke. “Do you think she’ll say no?” When Alex didn’t answer, Ruga continued, “I believe she’ll be eager to help with this historic activity.”

  Alex seemed to deflate, and he gave Larry a long stare. “I’m done for today. I’m going home.” Walking the few steps to the door, he turned partway back as if he were going to say something, then continued into the hall without a word. The door whispered shut behind him.

  Ruga, seeking to practice human behavior, shrugged to the empty room. Then he stepped into the hallway and looked both ways. Alex was gone, but a young couple—members of the Tech Assembly lost in a personal conversation—drifted down the corridor in his direction.

  After that first time in Ag Port when he had leaped into a Green, Ruga had limited his awareness projections to private settings with one-on-one interactions, like when he posed as Larry and worked with Alex in the lab. At this moment, the challenge of being among random strangers in a public space excited him.

  He started toward the couple, his cognition matrix tingling in anticipation. When they ignored him, the sensation swelled to delight. They don’t see me! A grin crept onto Larry’s face and Ruga caught himself. You’re just a Blue going about your everyday business.

  Verda had his Greens smile as a default when in public, believing it encouraged community. Ruga preferred that his Reds show a stern expression when out and about. He’d learned that the more his synbods scowled, the greater the cooperation they received from colony residents.

  And Lazura, interested in fostering an intellectual environment, had her Blues show a range of expressions that varied depending on circumstances. With that in mind, Ruga assumed a neutral demeanor that he hoped suggested “contemplative openness,” a term Lazura used on occasion.

  He passed by the pair in the hallway with a polite nod, then entered the tech center stairwell, descended three floors, and exited into a clean, simple hallway much like the one he’d just left. Turning right, he stopped at a door labeled: CRYSTAL R&D, DR. MARCUS PROCOPIO.

  Ruga opened the door and peered inside. He’d asked Lazura to create a reason for Marcus to be out of the building today. Since Marcus was a member of the Tech Assembly, she could do so wi
thout raising suspicion.

  But she’d been showing an increased reluctance to cooperate, and she never said one way or the other if she would follow up on his request. Thank you, Lazura, he thought as he stepped into the unoccupied room. He made a mental note to deliver that message when he was done being Larry.

  The door closed behind him, and Ruga took a moment to absorb the chaos that was Marcus’s workspace. Intricate bits of technology, some small and shiny, others blocky with colorful connectors, were scattered about, creating an impressive disarray.

  Stepping around a housing sheath and over a power unit, Ruga approached a broad table. Someone—presumably Marcus—had pushed everything aside to make a clearing. In the center of the space lay a mobile carry-pack.

  Ruga lifted the carry-pack onto his shoulders and felt the case mold against his back. Marcus had constructed the portable unit to give power and connectivity to a four-gen AI, with the fist-sized crystal itself cradled inside a protective mesh shell. This particular unit—Marcus’s most advanced design to date—should let Ruga function at about half his new capacity until he could be placed into a permanent four-gen console.

  Taking the mobile carry-pack with him, Ruga returned to Alex’s lab. He maintained a neutral demeanor in the hallway, and to his relief, the few people he saw ignored him. When the fab facility door shut behind him, his nervous tension drained away. Caught up in the physicality of being in a synbod, he had Larry sigh.

  Then, moving with focused efficiency, he placed the carry-pack on the tech bench and squared the unit in front of him. Opening up the top flap, he shifted the connective mesh to one side. This exposed a slide circuit, distinguished by the black wafers positioned across its surface.

  Selecting a hand tool with a thin, flat head, he jiggled the tip under one of the wafers and wiggled it back and forth until the wafer popped free.

  The wafer looked like all the others, except this one was a kill chip that Marcus had added late one night. It wasn’t a traditional kill chip that cut power to the pack when commanded. This kind exploded with enough force to kill both the crystal in the pack and whoever was carrying it.

  Holding the wafer between thumb and forefinger, Ruga had Larry utter a sound used to judge others. “Tsk.” Then he snapped it in half and dropped the pieces into the disposal chute. Returning the slide circuit and connective mesh to their proper positions, he closed the carry-pack and set it on the floor behind the tech bench.

  Alex’s schedule for the day called for a dry run of the crystal growth sequence, with Larry designated as the party responsible for this hours-long chore.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Ruga informed Larry. Disengaging from the synbod, he cruised the spline, shifting his focus to Alex. He watched the man return home, eat dinner, and climb into bed. Alex liked routine, and he behaved just as Ruga expected.

  So Ruga was caught off guard when, after watching the man fall asleep, Alex opened his eyes and snapped upright. Swinging his feet to the floor, Alex sat on the edge of the bed and stared into the darkness.

  He sat unmoving for several minutes, then rose, filled a glass with water in the kitchen, and padded over to his front door. Stepping onto the porch, he stared outward and sipped his water.

  Ruga had never before witnessed such behavior from the man.

  The new routine didn’t last. After a half-dozen sips, Alex returned to bed and drifted to sleep. He didn’t surface until his usual wake time the next morning.

  Ruga analyzed the bedroom scene again and again, viewing it from different angles and using a full suite of assessment algorithms. He couldn’t find any external event that explained Alex’s break in routine.

  Chapter 10

  Cheryl squeezed the handrail in a death grip as the floor and walls shook. Looking out at the desolate Mars landscape, she rode inside a flexible tube that wriggled out from the Ag Port dome like an enormous leech. Her ride was short but harrowing, and then the tube latched onto the exterior of the shuttle. A sucking sound signaled a tight seal and the rise of air pressure.

  “You good?” Sid asked. With the connection to the ship complete, she now squatted in an enclosed passageway leading from the Ag Port dome out to the newly arrived shuttle. He squatted across the corridor holding a matching handrail.

  They could see each other, but they both had Criss-designed personal cloaks that hid their presence—sight, sound, and smell—from everyone else. And, for the moment, they both also wore space coveralls—the lightweight, flexible spacesuits needed for crossing the planet surface from the scout.

  “All good,” she replied.

  “Criss?” asked Sid.

  “So far so good. I’ve started a full diagnostic. It takes a few minutes to complete.”

  Criss still resided in his console on the bridge of the scout and would remain there until they returned to Earth. A primary goal of this excursion was to verify that the locus relay—the one Juice had built and Cheryl now carried—functioned as designed. After Criss confirmed he could use it to project himself into the colony and establish a secure command and control capability while avoiding exposure in the spline, Juice could enter the colony to visit Alex.

  A mechanical clunk signaled the opening of the main shuttle hatch. Moments later, a group of well-dressed senior citizens, passengers from the Explorer, walked between Cheryl and Sid, chirping in excitement at this next stage of their vacation adventure.

  With Sid at her side, Cheryl rose and followed the group through the containment airlock and into the immigration area. Opening the clear hoods of their coveralls as they walked, both let the flexible helmets drape down their backs.

  The seniors queued up in line at the visitor processing station. Sid and Cheryl walked around the group, through the small concourse, and out into the domed world of Ag Port.

  “Wow,” Cheryl said, looking up. She’d found the huge faceted structure to be beautiful when viewed from the outside. But standing beneath the enormous protective shell and experiencing the wonderment of its complex splendor from the inside was a whole new thrill.

  Still looking up, she said, “I’m chafing in these coveralls. Let’s find a place to change.”

  They moved to a low stone wall to avoid children playing nearby. After standing for a moment, Cheryl’s annoyance flared when she understood Sid was waiting for her to make a decision. She pointed up at the branches of a tree. “Let’s change there.”

  “Okay,” he said, looking up where she pointed.

  “Dammit, Sid. Stop.”

  His brow knitted the way it might if he were trying to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls.

  “The stakes are too high for games. You can lead. Sneaking about is your skill.” She let her jab hang out there for a moment before she continued. “But if there’s a choice with no clear answer, ask my opinion. Why is that so hard?” It hurts that you don’t include me, she added to herself. Aloud she asked, “Criss, how are you doing?”

  “I can move about freely. Even from the inside, though, I find that the Triada’s secure area is too well protected for me to gain access without their knowledge. I’m strong enough to force my way in, but I don’t recommend it. Not yet.”

  “So we’re a bust?” asked Sid. He stepped out of his space coveralls and crumpled the suit into a ball small enough to hold with one hand.

  Giving hers a final crease, Cheryl tucked her folded suit under her arm. “Where should we store these?”

  “At the end of the wall.”

  Cheryl looked where Criss suggested and saw a soft glowing arrow floating like a ghostly street sign about twenty paces away.

  The locus gave Criss access to his full capabilities while in the colony, and he’d used that power to infiltrate the colony systems, assign himself designer status, and build a camouflaged node. From inside this sanctuary, he could manipulate anything while hiding from everything. Using the colony photon casters, he’d created a floating arrow for his leadership—an arrow only they could see.

  �
��And we’re not a bust,” Criss answered as Cheryl and Sid moved to the end of the wall. “But a pointed conversation between Juice and Alex has risen in importance. He’s involved in ways I had not understood, and his insights could provide clues to the secrets hidden in the Triada secure area.”

  A small brown utility shed sat off the end of the wall, and another arrow directed their gazes to the eaves of its simple roof. Sid reached up to explore.

  “The inside sill will serve as a hidden shelf,” Criss said.

  Sid stuffed his coveralls into the space Criss identified. Cheryl handed Sid her suit, and keeping it neatly folded, he laid it next to his.

  She looked up into the eaves from different angles and confirmed that passersby could not see the suits. Centering her pendant—the core of Criss’s new cloaking technology—she turned her gaze out across the farming community.

  “Alex arrives by tram in twenty minutes,” said Criss. “If you start now, you can see him in the market square on his way out to his community garden.”

  Glowing arrows appeared along the ground, tracing a path to their destination. Criss offered a circuitous route that hugged large physical objects like fences and buildings so they could avoid collisions with moving things like people and vehicles. Sid took off at a fast clip along the route Criss suggested. Cheryl scurried to catch up.

  They maintained an aggressive pace, marching next to a broad road that edged a huge grow tier. The path looped around the structure, crossed a street, and then entered an expansive herb garden that bordered the market square.

  Basil, mint, rosemary—more than a dozen herbs with culinary and medicinal value—grew in nooks formed from the jumble of sharp rocks. While an ingenious use of problematic space and an attractive visual display, the jutting stones added peril to their journey.

  “Ow,” Cheryl said under her breath when she stubbed a toe on an outcropping.

  Sid stopped and shot out a hand to steady her. She’d caught herself with a stutter step but grabbed his hand, anyway. You are a good man, she thought, warming to his attentive behavior. She kept her hand in his for a fraction of a second longer than was necessary for the situation. Then Sid turned and resumed their trek.