The Deftly Paradox

by Matthew D. White

  “Maybe it will be a case strong enough for Lorde to use to bludgeon the council,” Shafer said. “Even if it won’t undo the damage that’s already been done.”

  “Agreed.” Maddie nodded. “Let’s see about getting us a ship.”

  Marcus raised a hand. “Don’t bother. Remember who you’re talking to.” He paused in the ensuing silence, reveling in the attention a moment longer. “We have access to all of OSIRIS’s terminals. Get down to the spaceport and we’ll have the best transport in the system ready to pick you up.”

  “I’m impressed,” Maddie said. “Thank you.”

  Marcus brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his shoulder. “I told you we’re that damn good at this.”

  ***

  “I’ve got to say, the little guy was true to his word,” Erikson remarked as the three operators entered the floor of the spaceport. Just as Marcus had promised, a prominent fleet transport waited for them with the engines running at a low idle. They walked straight onto the ship, an impressive amalgamation of luxury and militaristic style which was normally reserved for personnel of no less importance than flag officers. Added to that, a prickly array of cannons led the team to believe it could also serve as an impromptu defensive platform if dropped in range of a raging conflict.

  They took their places in a ring of seats toward the rear of the cabin, Shafer’s expression growing more nervous than the rest. Maddie noticed it first and kicked his foot. “Hey, are you about to have a problem?” she asked. “You look like hell.”

  “It’s just…” He leaned forward. “Did you catch what Marcus said?”

  “About what? Bullet point is that he’s a dick and eccentric. Harmless to me.”

  “Granted, but no, not that. He said he got us this ship by way of an OSIRIS order, right?” the two operators seated across from him nodded but stayed silent. “Right, well, if he admitted to being able to falsifying an order, what’s to say one of the guys on their crew didn’t publish this damned thing to begin with?”

  Maddie thought through the possibility, attempting to remain neutral, but her face betrayed the attempt as her eyes grew wider. “You’re right, that’s a possibility we cannot rule out.”

  “Then why’s he helping us?” Erikson demanded. “I’ve been down there with him and his whole goofy cadre since this thing started. They looked as blindsided as the rest of us and have been working nonstop to figure out the OSIRIS’s thinking. If one of their own put this out, I think someone would have blown his cover by now. That whole crew would have to be better actors than engineers.”

  A rumble built beneath their feet as the transport came to life and released its hold on the landing pad. Effortlessly, it reared back, slicing through the clouds and into the twilight, catching the sliver of a sunrise as they neared the edge of space.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Shafer said, reconsidering his comment. “But do you really know how deep the maintainers are able to influence OSIRIS’s operations? Or its thoughts? Isn’t it possible that they’re able to insert commands without anyone being the wiser? If all one of them did was change the command codes, that’d be enough to throw off the whole thing.” He paused. “Hell, maybe even hack a sensor to provide bad data and skew the decision.”

  “The OSIRIS wouldn’t let that happen,” Maddie replied. “It has checks built in that would filter stuff like that out.” She looked to Erikson. “Right?”

  “I would think so,” he said, “but if someone knew the inner workings to a high enough degree, maybe over a period of years they could submit enough small modifications that would not be flagged by themselves but once compiled, they’d contribute to a more devastating effect.”

  “Do you really think one of them would go through with something like that? Why? They all seemed happy enough to be doing their daily mission.”’

  “Well, so were we and look where we are now,” Shafer said with a shrug. “Plus, maybe it was started by someone on another shift; that couldn’t possibly have been the entire crew we saw working down there.”

  “I’ll badger Marcus on it when we get back,” Maddie offered. The others nodded in contentment at the suggestion and she leaned back in the seat. It was difficult enough to deal with the real conflicts they were already facing; she really didn’t want them inventing more back home when they were in no position to influence them.

  The flight was all the operators could have asked for: smooth, relatively fast, and with the skill of their crew, they found their target without issue. The planet in question, a barren yet terraformed world referred to in the atlas as Brave Nexus, could have passed for Earth if given half a billion years to adjust and correct its divergent path.

  Local vegetation was minimal, aside from the swaths of alien lichen patches that had been seeded by human settlers across the rocky landscape, but the atmosphere had obviously benefited from the earthlings’ arrival. As the ship descended from space, the darkness gave way to shades of azure stretching to the horizon in all directions.

  From within the cabin, the passengers scanned the open landscape as they glided down, catching the occasional fleck of a green plant colony against the rusty floor. Anxious for a better angle Maddie carefully maneuvered herself to the flight deck and got caught the pilot’s view through the leading screen. Like the rest, the landscape ahead was devoid of anything resembling life. “I’m not getting it; if the atmosphere is breathable, why don’t we have a larger presence here?” she asked the flight crew. “This place is damned near empty. It’s not like we’re lost in space.”

  “It could be any number of things,” the crew chief replied from his seat to the side. “The air’s only part of the problem, or maybe they don’t have enough free water yet. Maybe the colonization effort is estimated to be too large of an investment, or maybe OSIRIS hasn’t dictated a colony ship to come here and set up operations. It might even be on the books for a mission as we speak.”

  “Whatever the reason, it’s looking like a damn lonely place,” Shafer observed, scanning along the blasted terrain, still pockmarked by craters from its long history before humanity’s arrival. Jagged formations of rock jutted randomly from the landscape, misshapen from cataclysms lost to time and burnished by eons of sparse, toxic winds. “How much farther?” he asked.

  “Just a few more minutes,” the pilot announced. “We’ve got a good position for the target, but I don’t want to overshoot if it’s as rough as you guys make it out to be. Won’t be too long.”

  The crew chief joined the party in the cabin as the ship got closer. With a solid flair of expertise, he pulled several of the conformal acoustic panels aside, revealing mesh cabinets stocked with environmental suits, survival gear, and an assortment of infantry and crew-served weapons. “Best get yourselves around.” He added, “No sense in letting you die out here.”

  “He’s right. We don’t even know what our target is yet,” Shafer said, removing one of the pressurized suits from its container in the wall. The light gray material was flexible but gave the impression of incredible strength, and judging by the cleanliness, had never before seen use beyond the confines of the ship.

  Maddie fitted herself first and moved to the weapon cabinet, selecting a short-barreled rifle along with a sidearm.

  She caught Erikson’s eye as he adjusted the visor of his helmet. “Are you sure you’re gonna need all that?”

  “It’s not a matter of needing; it’s a matter of survival,” she said without looking up from the weapon, swinging it up and sighting down through the nearest window as the ground grew below. “Better get over here and get your own. If this goes south, you’re not dragging your ass to me begging for help.”

  Erikson gave her a quick nod before following suit. “Okay, noted.”

  “On the ground in twenty seconds,” the crew chief announced. The team held on as their shuttle came to a hover and with a light jolt, set down delicately against the rocky surface. The flight team made a quick series of checks before giving their oper
ators the clearance to cycle the airlock.

  Not wanting anyone to get left behind, all three packed into the tight chamber together and silently prayed for the equalization to be quick. They heard a hiss, a pop, and the door swung away, revealing a dusty red landscape churned by light wind and lit by a miniscule star far above.

  Shafer cleared the threshold first and scanned his rifle across the horizon. He could make out no movement through the scope and no sign of anything that he’d call artificial. “Are you sure about this?” he asked the others as they followed behind him. “I’m not seeing shit out here.”

  “Calm down,” Maddie said, using a voice normally reserved for silencing an unruly child as she methodically checked the nearby ground. “Let’s start at the ship and work our way out. Knowing the way the fleets work, if the order called for annihilation, they gave it everything they had.”

  There was little around them to garner attention, so Erikson scanned continually closer before he knelt to study a small dark rock by his feet. It looked out of place enough to be the shrapnel from a fragmentary charge, but he ultimately remained unconvinced. Without a better reason, he stood back up and kicked the object away, sending a tiny shower of dust up along with it.

  He watched as the thin cloud of dust floated off as it dissipated into the distance. “Ma’am, I don’t know about you, but I think we’ve been had. Maybe they sent us here just to draw us off.”

  “Calm. Down,” Maddie said again without raising her head. The ground was rocky, covered with a few inches of pulverized dust, the same as the rest of the planet. To be honest, part of her felt the same way, although she was far from admitting it. With each step, she scraped into the ground with her toe, fishing for anything out of the ordinary.

  There was nothing to be found, she realized. They had literally landed in the middle of nowhere, the center of a forgotten, nameless desert with scarcely a landmark or wisp of cloud to be seen. The horizon was the same in every direction, broken only by the occasional mountain of crumbling rocks. She sensed Erikson’s frustration grow and kicked the dust before her. And felt the ground shift.

  With the muffled, creaking groan of bending metal, the plain beneath her feet gave way. Maddie looked out in time to see a split appear and the sandy topsoil begin to flow through a widening sinkhole. There was no time to think. She threw herself hard to the side, hoping to clear the layers of collapsing rock. She caught the side and held fast for a minute as the ground behind her continued to crumble and sink. Scrambling against the tug of gravity, the pitch became too great, and she felt herself tumble backward into an all-consuming world of darkness.

  13

  “Just watch,” the lead scientist instructed as he scanned across the modest cluster of displays at the front of his shielded facility. A small cluster of processing nodes filled the majority of the space, separated from the demonstration by a thick glass wall to deaden the sound of their cooling systems.

  Senator Leary shifted his feet within his polished leather shoes, nervously feeling them slide against the bright tile floor. He held his breath, waiting on the first real results from his decades-long crusade. His palms, clasped behind his back, had begun to perspire in the presence of a dozen of his colleagues.

  The screens displayed a short list of decision-making threads, each listing a small subset of substantiating information which contributed to the processor coming to a conclusion.

  “As you can see, the system is not seeking any additional changes. Security, logistics, and health are in equilibrium across our three example planets. It has reached a rest state. Next we will simulate a sensor burst from an arriving ship.” The scientist pressed a key and in moments, a series of additional fields populated.

  “The ship has reported that Colony Three is experiencing a forty percent decline in crop yields for the current growing season. At this point, it consults a database of possible causes based on historical data and plans a set of commands to minimize the damage and restore equilibrium.” More boxes emerged on the rightmost screen, each in the format of a formal command. “Orders have been prepared,” the scientist continued, reading over the statements. “Adjust flight schedule to minimize bacterial contamination, enact cleaning procedures for outbound colonists, direct botanical inspection, and deploy a support squadron for security and humanitarian assistance.”

  “Perfection!” one of the attending senators exclaimed. “Flawless execution, if I do say so.”

  “Thank you, but that’s not all,” the scientist replied with a boost to his confidence. “With the baseline we’ve now created, we can add all the functionality we desire and still maintain the proper outcome in any possible scenario. Over time, the system will learn how best to handle each engagement and, for lack of a better term, teach itself to improve. This is huge; you are witnessing the door sliding open to every capability we are looking to develop!”

  Senator Greene nudged Leary from the right. “Outstanding work. I’m impressed,” he whispered.

  “Thank you, but we’ve still got a long way to go,” he replied quietly with a nod as a thin smile grew upon his face. His dream remained alive, and today they were one step closer.

  ***

  A searing pain rushed through Maddie’s body as she tumbled down the wall and slammed hard against the metallic surface buried beneath the forgotten landscape. Her last breath of air was ripped from her lungs. Her vision became a blur as she hit, with a deep border of black outlining a dusty splotch of light trickling down from hole above. The shock of the impact was half the trauma and she laid frozen in place, waiting for the pain to subside in order to assess any injuries before she devoted herself to a movement.

  The faces of her companions appeared above her as silhouettes against the deep blue sky, waving and shouting down at her immobilized form. With one hand, she waved back, fighting off the burning sensation that continued to surge through her nerves. Maddie’s consciousness caught up with the situation and she could hear the operators clamoring back and forth about her, trying to decide what to do. Every word came through as numbly as if she was submerged under water.

  “Dammit, she’s not moving,” Shafer said. “Quick, get a cable from the ship so we can get down there. Shit, shit, shit…”

  “I’m sthill here,” Maddie mumbled and waved again. “I’m alrighth, just gimmie a minute.”

  The forms above her disappeared again and she forced her hands to move, then her feet. She could feel the suit clamped around her body and estimated her spine had survived the fall. Rolling to her side, Maddie felt the pain swell once again and fight against the movement but, although it resisted, nothing seemed to fail her tests. Everything held together and she pulled her head upright, pausing briefly again to center herself before focusing on the next movement.

  With her eyes averted from the blinding point light above, they finally adjusted to her dim, shadowy surroundings within the mysterious chamber. The floor, although covered with a layer of grime, sand, and rocks from the fall was indeed artificial and spread out for a ways in all directions. Only a foot away from where her head had landed sat an augmented pallet jack, rusty from disuse, which was a common piece of support equipment across the Dominion’s diverse installations. Looking deeper into the shadows, she could see a row of loaded, matching supply pallets still strapped down with their original lashings.

  The walls were stone but supported by regular corrugated splines that again appeared to be human in design. Dark lanterns hung from the ceiling, connected by heavy, drooping cables and spaced regularly down the span of the space. More surprisingly, the surfaces of both the pallets, as well as the room itself, showed signs of weapon blasts, fragmentary charges, and burns from high-explosives.

  “I think this is a supply center,” Maddie said as Shafer fished a tow cable down from the surface above. Without any contradictory information, the hole appeared to be a standard cargo drop, long forgotten by its previous denizens. A forgotten bunker for some war that was never fo
ught, perhaps? she thought and continued to scan about.

  “What are you thinking? Abandoned by the fleet?” Shafer asked as he dropped down beside her, scanning about the room. He kept both hands on his rifle but didn’t raise it from the deck.

  Maddie shrugged as she spied a row of burned dents in the nearest wall. “I’m not too sure of that; it looks like a firefight rolled through.”

  “Maybe.” Shafer nodded. “How you feeling?”

  “I think all right,” Maddie said as she forced herself to her feet. She took a step, steadied herself on Shafer’s shoulder, and quickly found her balance to keep going unaided. “Yeah, so far so good,” she mumbled to herself.

  Shafer knelt and retrieved a small metal object from the ground. He turned the perforated tube about in his hand before holding it up to Maddie. The narrow slit of light from above filtered through the miniscule canister. “Look, spent smoke grenade,” he pronounced before tossing it to the side and continuing his survey.

  “This must have been the target. Why the hell would OSIRIS want this place taken out?” Maddie asked before shaking her head with a sigh. “Keep going; let’s see where this leads.”

  Nodding in agreement, Shafer moved out as Erikson followed him down. The strangest feature he could make out in his field of view was a pile of debris that stretched floor to ceiling along the far wall. He approached the mountain of crumbled rock and twisted supports, being extraordinarily careful not to disturb the resting stones. “I think they collapsed the corridor over here. Probably the main entrance to the facility,” Shafer remarked, glancing to the side where the artificial walls disappeared.

  “OSIRIS wanted this place buried,” Erikson noted. “If they took out the primary access point, I wonder if they just happened to miss the cargo doors. That sounds pretty careless.”