The Deftly Paradox

by Matthew D. White

  Lorde paused and reconsidered the plan, staring down the prints lining his office walls. First Fleet was already days ahead of any follow-up action. Leo would beat them by hours if she was lucky. Any resolution by the council would easily be a week too late. Without a local catalyst, New Loeria would be a smoking crater before a courier showed up with their sternly-worded letter to cease and desist.

  He called for the MOC and got a voice to answer who identified himself as Mr. Sullivan.

  “How was your meeting to the council?” Sullivan’s question was benign and reasonable, given his position at the hub of the MOC.

  That did not mean it alleviated the frustration from Lorde. “Absolutely nothing. Surprise…” He stopped and leaned against the wall of the corridor with a sigh. “They’re not going to budge off their bureaucratic asses without an airtight case. Unacceptable!” A line of Lorde’s dark hair dislodged from his forehead and fell across his eyes. He brushed it away, messily reseating it in place along his carefully-maintained exterior. “I’m sorry about that,” he apologized. “It just gets frustrating when there’s no urgency to get something done.”

  “No offense taken,” Sullivan replied. “Trust me, our guys are working as hard as they can to figure out OSIRIS’s rationale.”

  “Thank you. One more thing; even if you can prove a malfunction, there’s no way to rescind the order, is there?”

  Sullivan sighed. “No, there’s not. If anything is going to save New Loeria, it won’t come from us. The best we can do is damage control and hopefully keep any other ships from launching.”

  “I was afraid of that.” Lorde sighed. “Get me what you can. I’ll continue to work it from my angle, and hopefully we can put this back in the box it came in.”

  The intrusion of the liaison along with the final statement pulled Sullivan back to his previous line of thinking as the officer released their call. The latest bit of information displayed on his screen was enough to warrant a call to their deployed comrades. He went for Shriver’s number.

  The operator picked up instantly.

  “I might have something for you,” Sullivan said without an introduction.

  “Go for it,” Shriver said, with Maddie’s voice echoing in the background.

  “Okay, so I checked all the police commands from around that time and for Telfer’s building. Nothing at all. Nothing out of place until I broadened the search.” He continued, “Even though there were no police actions, there was one for a medical alert.”

  “What does that mean?” Maddie asked.

  “Like, advisement for self-endangerment. It’s not out of the question that OSIRIS was able to tell a med tech to swing by, they saw him going mental, and decided to sweep him up. From what you described before, I don’t think it’s a stretch.”

  “Thanks. We’re almost back to the MOC. Keep it up for us to see.” Erikson closed the channel. “I’m liking this less and less.”

  “You’re telling me,” Maddie replied. “This might be the first sign that OSIRIS is reacting to what we’ve done. What if it starts trying to thwart us?”

  “Might be too late for that,” Erikson admitted. “We haven’t done shit to stop it yet; I think it’s more likely we’re playing right into its game.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Well, if OSIRIS really wants to make these kinds of orders, it can only do so much. It won’t be able to influence the council if it keeps demanding systems be sacrificed; the public wouldn’t stand for such a thing.”

  “True. We’ve got a high tolerance but nothing that high.”

  “I think it’s worth considering the possibility that OSIRIS is becoming unstable. Instead of us going to the council for every questionable command, what if we took care of it ourselves?”

  Maddie looked up at her fellow operator. “I’m not tracking on you. Are you saying you want to break it yourself?”

  “Maybe. Maybe it’s a possibility,” he said. “If we disable OSIRIS, then no more orders and the fleet stands down.”

  “You’d destroy a half-millennium of work, history, and technology on a guess?” Maddie’s face showed her discomfort with the idea.

  “No, not OSIRIS directly. We’d never get a weapon in the MOC to begin with,” Shafer clarified, “but maybe there’s a way to knock off the power circuits; just disable it for a little while so the rest of us can catch up.”

  “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself and you’re oversimplifying things to a dangerous level. Seriously, that talk would land you under Dominion arrest.”

  10

  As the shuttle seemed to take an unexpectedly long time to make its final approach to the dock and maneuver its way to a gentle landing, Leo felt her anxiety rise. It was far from a sense of danger, but every second spent in port was one less spent getting to New Loeria. A brief feeling of relief washed over her when the hatch finally opened and the small crew disembarked to quickly refuel and see to whatever else their vessel might require.

  The station was little more than a supply dump, not even a formal colony, and attached to a large asteroid. Most of the facilities had begun their lives as tunnels through the hardened stone, with a few formed by capping the deeper craters on the surface. As such, there were few permanent denizens of the facility, with most being transplants as dictated by their mechanized overlord’s grand will.

  Theirs was the only ship in the small, private bay, carved out of the solid moonrock by a few well-placed explosives and apportioned with whatever support equipment their management had been able to con out of more successful operations. Evidently, they didn’t invest much in the lighting, as dim emergency cells were the only sources of illumination in the space.

  Between the dull gray stone and the minimal lights, Leo didn’t even see the ring of security personnel emerge from the shadows on all sides to surround her crew at the end of the ramp. As they materialized, she instantly recognized the uniforms of the local defense force. A swirling mix of flat black and gray paint covered interlocking plates of armor, all the way to the face-concealing visors which obscured their faces.

  Of the eight she could see, two were armed with rifles on their shoulders while the remaining guards carried drawn sidearms. All looked to be standard issue, and the suits were in clear disrepair with obvious tears in the cloth seams, as well as multiple scrapes in the paint.

  The three members of her crew were transfixed in place, evidently not familiar with the practice of being held at gunpoint. They didn’t make any sudden moves, but it was unmistakable by the greeting party’s stance their focus was on Leo.

  Time slowed, but within a moment, the leading rifleman spoke up. “Captain Conner?” he asked through his humanity-removing mask.

  Leo nodded. “That’s me. What’s this about?”

  “Ma’am, you are arrested,” the soldier said, stepping forward as several of his accomplices went for her arms, unexpectedly wrenching them about before immobilizing both behind her back. He showed no reaction as she stumbled to her knees.

  “Wait… What are you talking about? Just…” Leo managed as she was dragged back to her feet. “There must be some mistake.”

  “The OSIRIS makes no mistakes,” the man asserted. “Your ship carried the order,” he added before turning toward the others. “Place Captain Conner under arrest, hold until further instruction.”

  The final syllables were haunting, conjuring images of her being dumped in some forgotten hole on the far side of some tiny, blasted rock. There she’d spend her days, waiting for their overseer to one day decide to release her as a token offer of charity. If she ever made it home again, all she ever knew would have long been tilled under the soil. Whatever humanity remained in her oppressors, none of it filtered past their darkened visors. The leader of the security force turned to her crew. “We have no need of you. You have free access to Merrimack Station. Your ship is released and you are cleared to proceed on to your destination.”

  The pilot spoke up first. �
��She’s our only cargo. We’ve got no other orders to New Loeria”

  “Then that’s your call, to disobey the OSIRIS’s will,” the soldier stated. He approached the crew members, letting his rifle sweep across their feet. “You have no part in this. Go about your business. Get gone.”

  Leo caught the pilot’s eye through a strained tear brought on by the restraints cutting into her wrists. “Wait for me?” she asked. “Give me a minute. Maybe I can straighten this out.”

  “Ma’am, we’ll remain on site for as long as we are able,” the pilot said, unwilling to make any move or statement which could implicate him in an unlawful operation.

  The lieutenant could tell he was being as forthright and diplomatic as possible, given the circumstances, but that didn’t mean she held any significant hope of them staying on station for too far past their established fuel stop. She’d likely have little chance to dispute the orders and charges brought against her.

  Her mind was a flurry of angst and fear, but she continued to dig through the possible avenues to get off the station. Force wasn’t going to be an option, as she was outnumbered in a strange place without any equipment of her own. Given they were fairly isolated, bribery and negotiations might not be out of the question, especially if she could appeal to the humanity of any of her subordinate captors.

  She stumbled again as the soldiers ripped her arms up high behind her back and pulled her from the bay. Onward they went, into the adjoining corridor, which was again carved from the dull gray stone. Cables were draped from the ceiling, hammered in place by climbing bolts, while dirt and grime peppered the rounded walls, built up in every corner. Either she wasn’t remembering her previous visits correctly or this was clearly a non-commercial side of Merrimack.

  The prospect of explaining the MOC’s discovery was far easier said. She had no proof, and by design, the soldiers showed no emotion; to be honest, through their suits they couldn’t even be differentiated between each other. It was definitely a problem, Leo decided, as they released her bonds and tossed her unceremoniously into an equally dark and dingy jail cell, fit for petty miscreants, thieves, and the occasional decorated fleet officer. She pounded her fist against the floor as the hatch swung shut, before curling herself into a ball in the corner. Nothing was impossible, but the solution was certainly taking its time in coming to her.

  ***

  In a way, Erikson was somewhat pleased by the ever-growing attention his problem was receiving on OSIRIS’s maintenance floor. His original antagonist, whose name he had picked up to be Marcus, was still present, but they had also ensnared the curiosity of another ten members of the engineering team. Every one of their associates seemed genuinely and independently intrigued by the order and with every passing minute they evidently uncovered more questions than solutions.

  The additional personalities, Benny included, had assembled around the cluster of workstations while the remainder worked at the racks themselves. They spoke a language that Erikson could barely comprehend, leaving him useless to assist, regulated to sitting against the wall as he watched the chaos ensue. An hour into the tenuous operation, Marcus broke from the group and approached their guest.

  “Thank you so damn much. You’ve really done it,” Marcus said bluntly.

  “Do tell,” Erikson said without moving from his position or uncrossing his arms. “I’ve got nothing but time.”

  “Actually, you don’t, but that’s a separate issue,” the maintainer replied. “It doesn’t help that there’s a glitch in the encryption algorithm which makes every few strings unreadable. We’re able to crack some, but it’s a slow process when we’re fighting the whole system itself. Now, we have been able to isolate OSIRIS’s state when it made the order in question, but its precipitating events are disjointed.”

  The terms were of minimal impact to Erikson. “I just manage the outputs, so you’re gonna have to slow down a bit. What does that mean?” he asked, slightly softening his stance and leaning forward.

  “What it means is that we’re slowly and methodically able to unravel the events that led up to the OSIRIS issuing the order. If we’re going to cull a planet, it would require an exceptional reason behind the act so there’s a shit-ton of information feeding the decision. The only problem is the sheer size of the matrix—it’s effing huge. Whatever it’s doing, OSIRIS has been thinking about it for a very long time.” Marcus paused, as if suddenly caught by a flash of insight before continuing on. “The only assumption we have to work with is that there is more to be gained by the loss of the planet than there is by letting things be. What it is, we still can’t say.”

  Erikson scanned among the team of engineers, rushing between their various tasks. “It’s crazy; I’m glad we’re in agreement. Did you find anything on order two-fifty-six?”

  “No, and that’s a separate vexing issue,” Marcus said. “We’ve checked the databases over and over again and there’s nothing coded to two-five-six. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it is the first sign we’ve ever had of a malfunction resulting in an erroneous order.” He stopped, seeing the bewilderment appear on Erikson’s face. “That means OSIRIS had a glitch, didn’t realize it, and published the command designator anyway.”

  Erikson rocked forward on his feet. “Couldn’t that be the answer? If one component command is wrong, maybe they all are.”

  “Don’t be fucking daft. Everything else fits together exactly as it should.” Marcus shook his head. “The operation fits together as we would expect, except for the very end. The algorithm operated correctly but threw a bad response. Even if the fleet were to go through with the whole operation, glass the planet and all, they’d reach that command, enter it into the lead ship’s terminal, and sit there as no response is received, until they get bored and sloth their way home. Unfortunately, there’s no way to replicate the complete state of OSIRIS in order to diagnose the errors but, as long as we can keep unraveling the pieces, I think we should be able to figure it out.”

  “And determine why it made the decision it did?”

  “Yes. And have your staff upstairs keep an eye on bad command IDs. If it throws any more, it’d be handy to have them as a reference; maybe we can isolate the offending sectors.

  ***

  By the time Riley Lorde arrived back at his desk after the ill-fated attempt to push the council to some level of action, he had forty messages waiting for his attention. Most were from the staffers of various planetary representatives while a few appeared to be from the elected officials themselves. Starting at the top, he opened the first one that caught his eye.

  Senator Holland is extremely displeased that you would suggest disobeying the will of the OSIRIS. He would advise you to rethink your position and consider both the actionable ramifications, as well as potential administrative discipline levied upon sowers of sedition.

  Lorde rolled his eyes, ignored the recommendation of the staffer, and continued on. It was not a promising start in the least as he cycled through the list. The preponderance of messages was only slightly more encouraging. He sighed, leaned back, and looked away from his desk across the office’s open entryway. They would be receiving even less support than he had presupposed, which wasn’t much to go on. Regardless, he was determined to follow the action through.

  He would assemble two resolutions, Lorde decided. One would be an effort to nullify the currently-executed order for the attack on New Loeria. Even if it was too late to affect the outcome of the current situation, it would provide additional leverage should a similar action be taken in the future, and it would be the first effort to get the council to vote on a measure. It was a high price to pay to push an action so small. He soured at the thought of one of humanity’s most successful colonies being snuffed out on the part of an unfeeling computer’s whims while the most human component of their government was too indecisive to act.

  The second would be for a vote of no-confidence in the OSIRIS itself. Once enacted, the council would insert itself into
every decision-making chain of the OSIRIS, having instant veto power against any suspect acts. And that would be the end of their timid nonsense.

  So deeply lost in his darkening thoughts, Lorde barely noticed the council staffer approach his desk. His head snapped up as he heard his name. The man standing before him was as well-dressed as he was on normal occasions, without the obvious signs of stress on his face nor the marks of perspiration on his collar. “Can I help you?” Lorde asked the visitor, automatically getting back to his feet.

  “Mr. Lorde, I have a delivery for you. Eyes only.” The staffer passed a heavy envelope—about the size of a notebook—across the desk. It was wrapped and sealed on every seam and corner with reinforced, tamper-evident tape and further secured by an unbroken line of wax spun around the center.

  “I see,” Lorde said, accepting the package and turning it over in his hands. “Do I need to sign for it?”

  “No. There is to be no evidence of this transaction,” his guest said and turned to leave. “Best of luck in your quest,” he added before exiting quickly from the office.

  Lorde wanted to press the issue further, but the man was already through the door. With a shrug, he pulled a small knife from his desk and sliced through the seam along the side, splitting the tape, wax, and cardstock in one pass. Dumping the contents on his desk, a small journal emerged with one folded sheet of paper tumbling from the middle.

  The bound volume appeared to be blank as he quickly thumbed through the pages. It could have possibly been used for protection, Lorde decided, and instead opened the letter. He immediately identified the embossed crest of the council on the letterhead and the fancy texture of their custom stationary. It was short, handwritten, and signed.