by Brian Trent
“I’ll quote it for you,” Gethin said forcefully. “Once an IPC officer has identified himself, he is to be released unless formal charges have been levied. Those charges are handled by IPC Internal—”
“Yes, yes. Your notoriously fair-minded legal wing.” Slotkin shook his head. “A crime has been perpetrated here, and Prometheus Industries has the right to detain, question, and conduct its own investigation.”
“On what authority?”
“Section Five of the Promethean security policy. ‘Preservation against enemies within or without shall be handled by PI security personnel.’”
Gethin grinned icily. “Like I said. Very dangerous ground.”
It was an old debate. Prometheus Industries was the first corporate empire truly deserving of the reference; literally cosmic in scope now, with offices and bases of research operating throughout Sol. They had their own currency, a security force larger than the standing armies of most nations, and mobility through the company was decided by employee vote: an actual merit-based democracy. It was historically unprecedented, even by the standards of the old plutocracies; the American Republic had been dead for decades by the time the Plebian Revolt overthrew its corporate masters, yet for all the corruption that came to light, even America had been confined to a single world. The Prometheans were as interplanetary as the IPC, and looking to expand.
Slotkin held Gethin’s stare. “Your public record says you were a professor at Olympus University, and before that at the University of Athens?”
“Yes.”
“In what subject area?”
“Politics, bioethics, history.”
“Does the IPC draft many teachers to be special agents?”
“Only the really special ones.”
Slotkin continued to glower at him. Gethin kept his face impassive. Within his skull, however, quiet flashes of communication were pulsing. Ego had given him all the raw data on this facility, employees, and these three jokers. Ego’s job was done.
Now Gethin contacted his other Familiar. In his lap, his fingers surreptitiously tapped on a virtuboard. While the security guards pored over their display, Gethin sent silent commands to his Id.
It was a fact of life that seventy-nine percent of civilized Earthers had optical augs and an implanted sensorium. Among Lunars, that figure shot to ninety-five percent, and among Prometheans it was breathing down on universality. Such people were so used to virtual and augmented overlays that it formed an inextricable part of their reality.
Hacking was therefore possible.
Gethin’s Id stealthily prepared for the ultimate magic act. Harnessing their optics, readying a visual image to spike into their optics so they’d continue seeing him in the chair…while his real body quietly slipped away in a puff of edit.
The Prometheans wouldn’t realize anything was wrong until they tried to touch him. By then…
“I’ve got it,” announced Delgobbo at the security display. He set the playback running. Gethin, still cuffed, abandoned the visual edit and stood, rounded to where they were.
There was no sound on the surveillance feed, but it wasn’t necessary. Kenneth Cavor had survived the base explosion, but he was wishing he hadn’t. From the hospital shuttleport, Cavor was carried by stretcher into the emergency room. He looked like a hideous gargoyle rendered in soft wax. Four porters carried the stretcher while the patient bucked, half his body covered with a bubbly red carapace that must have been skin. Nurses zapped his pain away and his head lolled like a scorched ball of meat.
Slotkin bowed his head. “We wish our brother a recovery with speed and absence of suffering.” Officers Terry and Delgobbo repeated this sentiment.
Onscreen, Cavor was hurried from the emergency room to intensive care. New skin would be grown for him; in the meantime, he would be disconnected from physical sensation, his mind left to recuperate in a Cave personalized to his tastes and preferences.
Suddenly, the feed turned into white fuzz.
“Whoa, right there!” Slotkin said. “Back up.”
Delgobbo obliged.
Cavor was sleeping on his hospital bed, breathing steadily. His disfigured body was crisscrossed by blue medpatches; they looked like strange parasites feeding off his injuries. Cavor’s head rolled to one side, eyes glazed. Gethin wondered what Cave the man’s mind was entranced by when…
…the camera went black.
The rest of the feed was dead air.
“And no one noticed the lines were cut?” Slotkin accused.
Gethin took note of the timer in the display’s corner. “I was still on the Night Train. I had yet to enter the hospital, talk to the nurse, and find the room.”
“The lines weren’t cut,” Delgobbo insisted. “Every other camera was functioning. Only Cavor’s room went dark. I guess the nurses just didn’t notice.”
“Watching the flight explosion coverage, I would guess,” Gethin offered.
Slotkin glared at him, either angry at not having reason to restrain him any longer, or at this blatant exposure of weaknesses within PI security.
Gethin grinned. “Officer Terry? I want a probe sent through the entire ventilation system of this hospital, with a live feed of everything it sees. I want copies of all security recordings for the topside landing pad. Officer Delgobbo? I’m deputizing you as my official liaison with the joint IPC-PI cleanup crew of Base 59. You will report to me on what they’ve found in precisely three hours or you’ll be arrested for obstruction of justice. And Slotkin? Take these fucking cuffs off me immediately, or I’ll have PI’s Lunar properties raped inside and out.”
Chapter Seven
The Man of Many Lives
Mr. Sakyo Hanmura lived on Mars, but the secret meeting was taking place on Luna, and since a two-week journey was absolutely unacceptable he had no choice but to kill himself.
Members of his family had performed the samurai art of seppuku many times in history. The Hanmura line was ancient and noble. One of his ancestors, Tensei Hanmura, had been part of the legendary forty-seven ronin of 1702 OC who, after avenging their master’s murder, lined up in front of Gotokataji Temple and killed themselves in one massive suicide. The tanto blade Tensei had used for the disemboweling was still in the Hanmura family’s possession. A sacred relic, restorer of honor, and link to the past. Manufactured in some blacksmith’s shop outside of Kyoto an estimated nine hundred years ago. When Hanmura Enterprises set up its Martian headquarters, Sakyo insisted the tanto blade come with him: he kept it in a glass case in the dry, steel vaults of his corporate fortress beneath the forested slopes of Mount Olympus.
But Hanmura didn’t need the tanto blade for this suicide. In fact, his suicide was a clever trick. He didn’t need to die at all.
Sakyo Hanmura sat on a tatami mat, sipping a local junmai. He casually splayed out the fingers of his left hand and touched the ring finger. A signal spat into space from his lavish castle.
One of the strictest IPC codes involved individual sentience. A deceased person’s estate could send a regen signal only if he or she was deceased. At any given time, the IPC code stated, there may only be one sentient pattern of an individual in existence.
Hanmura sipped his sake, enjoying the junmai’s smooth taste.
Meanwhile his pattern traveled like a light-speed arrow to other worlds. The signal reached Hanmura Enterprises’ Lunar headquarters, and then again to the family’s Switzerland base on Earth. News of the Flight 3107 accident was already old. News of the earlier explosion on Base 59 was still ripe, still divine, still capable of being exploited.
Four and a half hours later, Sakyo Hanmura2 was opening his new eyes on Luna. Sixty million miles away on Mars, his original self had long since finished his sake, his lunch, and then gone for a stroll into a cherry blossom path of his corporate garden in the oxygen-rich zone of Hanmura Estate.
On Luna,
Hanmura2 tested out his new muscles, flexing his fingers and joints. He examined himself carefully in the mirror. He flicked open the meter-long nanoblade built into his right forearm – its edge little more than a molecule in thickness. Sharp enough to puncture nanosteel, it was ghostly and translucent: a blue phantom spear stabbing out from his flesh. Satisfied, Hanmura2 retracted the blade.
Never can be too careful, he thought.
Naked, he assumed a lotus-style yoga position and meditated quietly, centering his thoughts in this new shell. It was only temporary anyway; when all business was concluded, his newest incarnation would be incinerated. Hanmura2 accepted this as he might acknowledge the temporary life of a dream body: intriguing perhaps, but nothing more than a meat-puppet go piece placed on a gameboard.
Neither was he the only go piece in play. On Earth, a Hanmura3 had been hatched to handle that battlefront.
So Hanmura2 attuned himself to his breathing. He centered his thoughts, clearing his head with meditation. Then he opened his eyes, stood, and dressed in an impeccable black tunic.
The meeting was held deep underground. Wealthy Lunars lived deep; the Earther fetish for tall arcologies made no sense here, where deeply carved sanctuaries offered the best protection money could buy and where the elite ruled not from phallic crows’ nests, but like the roots of an ancient forest.
Hanmura Enterprises’ Lunar estate was a mile below the surface. Vast water caves separated the rooms, with chandeliers of asteroid ice glittering overhead and tinkling into pools. There was even a throwback zoo and crystalline moonflower garden. Hanmura2 didn’t bother with this scenic route. He took a lift straight to the executive conference room.
Leon Gates of TowerTech, Inc. was standing by the room’s window when Hanmura2 entered. The man was gawky and pale and had unsettlingly large eyes. Hanmura2 quickly reviewed what he knew of him. Gates was the eldest son of Ronald R. Gates, who was arguably the oldest man in the universe. Though Hanmura himself belonged to the original batch of immortals from the dawn of the New Enlightenment, Ronald Gates had been born and lived and died during the Old Calendar. Had survived the Final War and Warlord Century by being cryonically frozen. When the Earth Republic was established in the aftermath of Apollo the Great’s unification campaigns, Gates had been thawed by his company, repaired through nanite infusion, and re-elected to TowerTech chairman.
The popsicle had then sired sixteen children in the new age. Only Leon Gates, however, had shown an interest in carrying the company torch…his siblings melting away into the obscurity of the hyper-rich with its endless fetish parties, augmented-reality dreamscapes, and Snapshot memory-addiction. Leon was two hundred and ninety-four years young, chairman of TowerTech’s Lunar properties and savvy puppet master of all TowerTech-owned news media. People said that Father Popsicle never sent a press release without consulting his loyal son.
The room’s other occupant was Srikumar Bielawa of Vector Nanonics. A smallish man of modest build, attractive and dark. Vector was based in the Kingdom of Persia, but had grown interplanetary in scope and operated major hubs in the Venusian Republic and the mini-system of the Belt. Bielawa himself was descended from Warlord Shantanu the Gold, who had been worshipped as a god in his time – an avatar of Vishnu – because of his stout defense of southern Asia during that brutal century.
The three men greeted each other quickly, bows and handshakes, and seated themselves at the table. The handshakes confirmed biometrics of all present.
Hanmura2 cleared his throat. “When a Dragon stumbles, it soon regains its footing. Should a lone wolf choose that moment to strike, he will only succeed in being trampled. But many wolves can make a difference.”
Bielawa made a noncommittal grunt. Gates licked his lips and drummed his fingers.
Hanmura2 smiled. His smile was like the expression an android might summon in dealing with humans; selected from a menu of possible emotions to display. “Each wolf heads its own pack, no?”
Gates shifted in agitation. “Prometheus Industries has suffered a very public accident,” he said. “Public opinion polls are drawing a damning picture and the IPC is eating it up. So yes, we kick them when they’re down. The three of us agree that a coordinated war is for the best, just like I’m sure we concur on dividing the spoils.” He stared at his Japanese rival.
Hanmura2 kept his smile on his face. This time it wasn’t a fabrication; he was amused at how Gates was fulfilling the Western stereotype of the blunt, direct, unsubtle cowboy. For a second, Hanmura2’s eyes found Bielawa’s, and the two exchanged the smallest of joys. Bitter rivals in business, they were nonetheless more bitter towards the barbaric West, which, belief ran, had been responsible for the Final War and all the barbarism that followed.
“Very well,” Hanmura2 said with an expression of polite contempt. “The Dragon’s stumble is very public. We agree that now is the time to wage war.”
Gates nodded impatiently. “So let’s be frank. Our competitive intelligence divisions have their personnel, sites, subcontractors, and supply lines. Let’s hit them from our positions of strength.”
“Three-to-one is a losing proposition for us,” Hanmura2 challenged. “Can three mosquitoes bring down an elephant?”
Gates scowled, and the effect was that his large eyes seemed to press outward like hard-boiled eggs. “Maybe you look at the playing field differently than me –” I’ve no doubt of that, Hanmura2 thought “– but Prometheus is a corporation like any other. They’ve never faced an allied engagement like this. The bigger they are…right?”
Bielawa inserted his words as deftly as a knife. “Forgive me, Mr. Gates, but our honorable Martian guest is not suggesting a three-to-one gamble. He suggests a ten-billion-to-one certainty. Much better odds.”
Gates blinked. “What?”
Hanmura2 spoke quickly, but he thought: TowerTech is in the hands of a haughty child. When this is all over, Vector Nanonics and I will squeeze him until he pops.
“Here is the proposition: the Dragon has a lair in the Pacific. It is an offshore research facility tasked with manufacturing for the TNO project. It will very soon be at the bottom of the ocean.”
Both his guests looked shocked. Hanmura2 knew he must concede some weakness after this confession of strength, and so he added, “But to effect our purpose, it cannot be seen as an attack. Leon Gates is the unequaled master of media.” He nodded towards the man. “Perhaps a fake memo, ostensibly leaked by a disgruntled Promethean, would convince the unwashed masses that the Dragon is conducting experiments with dangerous, exotic, and unknown properties of energy. If a memo like that was leaked to Lunar officials who are already scrambling for answers—”
Gates nodded heartily. “And from the spaceports, it’ll spread fast.” He laughed. “Yes, the white wolf can handle this one.”
The three men laughed agreeably.
“If it were to be published before the Pacific accident, the picture will be even more damning.”
Gates smiled. “Done.”
Hanmura2 turned to Bielawa. “Your cubs have influence with IPC President Song’s administration, no?”
Bielawa bowed at the compliment, admiring the masterful way his rival had flayed Gates open with barely a prodding. “Yes,” he said.
“And I believe you have your agents tailing IPC investigators even now?”
“Yes.”
“They can encourage the IPC’s famous paranoia?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Let us seal this alliance for the duration.” He approached the other men, took their hands, and suddenly they were in a linked circle. With bowed heads and chanting voices, the men swore brotherhood. In a way, their ring paralleled the trilobed Republic…a metaphor Hanmura2 was quick to use when it was his time to swear. Bielawa grinned, summoning his own prepared metaphor of Sol’s three inhabited brightworlds – Venus, Earth, Mars – linked by human touch. The w
heel turned to Gates, who was clearly surprised by this ritual. After a few seconds of awkward stuttering, he stunned them all when, right off the cuff (or so it seemed) he offered, “Um…what do we bring to the table here? Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva to my left; Shinto-Buddha-Zen to my right; and I’m the Father-Son-Holy Ghost!”
The men laughed like cruelly plotting schoolboys.
“Three minutes of silence, gentlemen,” Hanmura2 said, clutching his compatriots’ hands. They bowed their heads.
Hanmura2 closed his eyes, processing all data this meeting had gleaned. Things for now, things for later, and many things secret.
Chapter Eight
The Insect Speaks
Keiko dropped by her apartment for a quick shower and to gather her thoughts. In the steaming cubicle, she put in a call to her Lunar friend Lenny, thanking him again for the recording of Base 59’s explosion. Things were getting crazy now, he told her. Investigators had completely taken over the base’s wreckage, and there was rumor of an incident at Tycho Hospital.
“What incident?”
“Don’t know yet,” Lenny said. “The IPC has commandeered the place. I swear, the Lunars have become lunatics. Have you seen the protests over Salvor Bear’s death? There was a riot in Tanabata City today.”
Keiko killed the water and toweled off. “All because of a damn actor? Stay on top of things, Lenny. Let me know if you hear anything else about Tycho.”
“Will do. Jamata.”
She went into the breezy dressing room for her clothes when a call from Drake Fincher flashed in her optics.
“You’ve got to see this,” he said, and uploaded a video stream.
Keiko closed her eyes to watch without distraction.
A red-haired woman with honeyed skin appeared. She might have been pretty, if not for the lean hardiness in her face. Some arkies got that appearance when their myostatin-blocks were cranked too high, resulting in a total burn-away of body fat. The mysterious woman had that look, but there was a harder edge too. A chiseled toughness that could only come from…
