Deep Core

by F X Holden

  Take this section of the document to Winter within the next week. Tell him it’s coming out, but I’d rather this came from him, from the government. Don’t try to message it via the Core network, you have to deliver this in person!

  AJ went back to the top of the page, couldn’t stop reading now, but it was pretty messed up. Not in the sense of scary, more in the sense of – out of context.

  LPA-2 or BLUE

  The next proof I will offer of the capabilities of the FO Exploit, is what I uncovered in the Deep Core about the side effect of the medicine colloquially known as ‘Blue’.

  It is well documented that the drug is a lysophosphatidic acid (LPA-2) receptor agonist which protects against sustained gamma irradiation at the specific wavelength emitted by Coruscant’s sun, and in higher doses, increases the survival of citizens suffering from acute radiation syndrome after breakthrough irradiation.

  Hundreds of years of safety data have shown that at the recommended daily dose range, LPA-2 agonist is completely safe. Due to this safety record, and although it has been in use for more than 200 years, it is not regarded as a candidate for further Priority Core Research as no better alternative to the small blue LPA-2 tablet is needed.

  This is what the Coruscant Commonwealth government would have you believe.

  Data recovered from Deep Core shows that in fact 73 years ago, a team of Tatsensui scientists working independently of the government or large academic institutions, analyzed one million life years of data from 10,000 patients across the three colonies and came to a different conclusion.

  LPA-2 does not work as expected in 3% of all patients, and in these patients (easily identifiable by a genetic mutation) there is evidence of higher levels of damage to the microglia in the brain and spinal cord, resulting in cognitive decline.

  In other words, they get Transient Global Amnesia, and eventually, Permanent Global Amnesia.

  Yes, you read correctly. TGA is not caused by localized anoxia. Nor is it caused by any of the dozens of other theories, sensible or sensational, that have been advanced over the years. TGA occurs because LPA-2 agonist does not provide gamma radiation protection for the vulnerable brain and spine microglia in hundreds of thousands of citizens across the four inhabited moons of Coruscant.

  And the Commonwealth Government knows this. It has known for 73 years.

  The scientists who conducted this breakthrough research were Citizens George Lane-Fox, Barnard Castle, Anna Rogerson, Jane Potts, Basil Peto and cybers JI.8376, RF.2624 and VB.7865. They regarded their findings to be of such importance that they submitted them immediately to the Commonwealth Chief Science Officer, Shapirji Saklatala, who invited the team to travel to Orkutsk to present their research to the Commonwealth Drug Safety Authority, sitting in emergency session.

  Their transit ship struck an unmapped defunct communication satellite en-route to Orkutsk and all on board, inconveniently, perished.

  There is no record of their research ever being published, discussed or distributed for further analysis by any Commonwealth Authority. No record of it exists outside the Deep Core.

  This data was retrieved from the Deep Core by use of the FO Exploit on Coruscant Local Date 21.29.25.

  “That’s how it ends, right there?” Cassie asked when he called her that night.

  “Yeah. The part I was given anyway.”

  “You realize there are at least four mind-bombs in that single page?” she said, counting them off with her fingers. “One, TGA occurs because The Blues don’t work in everyone. Two, the Tatsensui government has known this for decades. Three, they covered it up by killing everyone on that ship and burying their research, and four …”

  “Warnecke is claiming he has found a way to mine the Deep Core,” AJ said. “Something that is supposed to be impossible.”

  AJ had called Cassie on his earbud when he’d finished reading Warnecke’s manuscript. Or actually, after he’d decided he wasn’t going to hand the document in to Reception straight away, he was going to think on it; so he took it home, and read it again. And then he’d called Cassie, because Cassie was the only one outside Sol Vista who he’d told about Warnecke.

  Cassie had landed a job as a news analyst at a local broadcast station, which AJ figured was a bonus, because she might see angles that a quantum programming major turned-handyman wouldn’t, plugged into the Core or not. AJ had all the resources of the Core at his fingertips, but he couldn’t make leaps of intuition like a citizen. It was why cybers made terrible cops. AJ had pieces of a puzzle, but was this the crime that Warnecke had wanted to confess to in Fatty’s? Hacking the Deep Core was a crime, but AJ had checked the penalties handed out to others who had tried, and they ranged from one to five years home detention. He’d seemed to AJ to think whatever crime he’d committed was more serious than that.

  Cassie had been quiet on the comms as he was reading through the text, but AJ could see on the VR feed she was making notes and she started quoting stuff back to him.

  “He says ‘the next proof I will offer’,” she said. “That implies this is just one of the secrets he’s uncovered.”

  “I thought about that. What if there are more and this one isn’t the biggest?” AJ asked. “If somehow or other he’s been roaming the Deep Core at will, pulling data together on the biggest conspiracy theories across Coruscant?”

  “If even this one revelation pans out as true, then we’re talking a cover-up at the highest levels of the Commonwealth. The government just accepted that three percent of us will go TGA, and Blue was good enough? Heads will roll, governments will fall, it would be anarchy,” Cassie said, a quiver in her voice.

  “I know,” AJ agreed. “And right now, as far as I know, the only people who know about it are you, me and an old guy with TGA.”

  “Which is known to be associated with mental health issues, like paranoia,” Cassie pointed out.

  “Yeah, but can we afford not to take him seriously? He said ‘Take this to Winter, tell him it’s coming out’.”

  “And Winter is this Congressman friend of his?” she asked. “Kevin Winter. The same guy you saw at Sol Vista the other day?”

  “Yeah, I assume.”

  “So why does he want you to give it to him? Didn’t they already discuss it when the guy was here? They’re friends, he could just send it to him.”

  “I don’t think he likes the guy much,” AJ said, remembering how angry Warnecke had been when he saw Winter in reception at Sol Vista. “I’m imagining this conversation where Warnecke said to him ‘Look, I hacked the Deep Core and I found you guys have been covering up the truth about a range of things’ and then Winters said to him, “Sure you have Dave. Prove it.”

  “So he could just send it as a text,” she insisted. “Why should he want a personal courier to carry it over for him?”

  “It’s on paper,” AJ pointed out. “Would you want to send a text message via the Core network, which showed you had found a way to hack the Deep Core? It’s not a mailbox, it’s a system spanning AI! That’s a bit like asking a cop to pass a message to your office that you’re going to be a bit late for work because you just shot someone and need to get rid of the gun first.”

  She laughed, “OK, I get that. But you’re assuming the Core doesn’t already know. If someone has hacked the Deep Core, I’m pretty sure the Core knows it’s been hacked and is mightily pissed.”

  “And Warnecke is about to claim the credit?” AJ said. “He must have a death wish.”

  “Yeah, except he could just release this data straight into the public domain, but he’s choosing to go through his ‘friend’ Winter.” She was thinking like a reporter now. “He must think Winter can protect him somehow.”

  “Or amplify the message,” AJ said. “Or, he wants to be sure his old buddy gets on the right side of this and can be leading the outcry and demanding action, rather than standing in the dock justifying the cover-ups.” He groaned, “This is so far out of my comfort zone. I want to take this straight
to the cops.”

  “It’s an option,” Cassie said. “Maybe the easiest.”

  “I’m thinking OK, this guy is talking about hacking the Deep Core. If he was just some resident confessing to any other house or garden crime, I’d let Cyan and the authorities know.”

  “Ordinarily I would totally agree,” Cassie said. “Except this isn’t some ‘house or garden’ crime. This is corruption at an interstellar scale and we might only have seen the surface of the ice-floe. You have to be really, really careful with this AJ.”

  “Which means what?”

  “Which means, maybe taking it directly to a Capitol Congressman isn’t such a bad idea. Let him decide what to do about it if he’s already had some sort of conversation with Citizen Warnecke about it.”

  “Whatever I do, I have to tell Cyan about it,” AJ pointed out.

  “And get her involved? If this gets ugly, the fewer people who know, the better.”

  AJ groaned again, “Yeah, but she’s served off world. She’s the most together person I know. She’d know what to do.”

  “You let Cyan decide everything for you?” Cassie asked. “Maybe you aren’t so interesting after all AJ.”

  That got him a bit annoyed. “Cyan doesn’t make my decisions for me,” he said. “And you can’t bait me that easy.”

  She laughed, “OK, hey, I’m just teasing. Didn’t you hear the part where I said you were interesting?”

  “No, I heard the part where you said I wasn’t,” he said.

  “Aw, and I thought you were a good listener,” she said. “Because I do.”

  They cycled back through the document again, sifting and weighing every word. It didn’t change the reality. And it was a reality too big for AJ to deal with. If he did what Warnecke asked, he was in this up to his neck. No flow, just mud.

  “I’m just going to give it back to him,” AJ said. “Wipe my cache. Make like this never happened. He keeps bothering me, I’ll go to Cyan and ask for Leon or Andreas to deal with the guy instead of me.”

  “OK,” she said. “Alright. If that’s how you want to play it.”

  “You can’t publish a word about this,” AJ said. “We will never know whether this is just his TGA talking, or did he really succeed in hacking the Deep Core.”

  “I am deeply hurt you even felt the need to say that,” Cassie replied. “Even though this might be the news scoop of the goddamn century and make you, me and everyone involved in blowing the lid off it, interstellar super-celebrities.”

  “You saying that doesn’t exactly reassure me,” AJ said.

  She changed her tone, becoming serious, “AJ, you have my word. I wouldn’t do anything that could put you in danger.”

  “Alright then,” he said, feeling a bit better. “That’s decided.”

  “But speaking of danger,” she said. “You promised me a surf lesson.”

  “Are you serious?” he said. It was the last thing on his mind right now. But the minute she said it, he could see himself out there on the Shifting Sea and felt the familiar tug. It might help him think more clearly – everything seemed different when you took a sea level perspective on it.

  “Never more serious,” she said. “If you go through with this, it might be my only chance at a surf lesson before you get deep spaced into oblivion by some Commonwealth Covert Ops team.”

  “You suck at being a confidante, you know that?” he said.

  “Tomorrow morning?”

  “Five a.m.,” he told her, expecting her to protest.

  “My new favorite time of night. See you then,” she quipped, and cut the connection.

  6. DIRECT LINE TO THE CAPITAL

  By 0520 the next morning they were lying on his spare board outside the Sea Gate while AJ taught her how to paddle out and read the upswell, and even got her up crouching a couple times on some lower intensity spouts. Which was pretty impressive considering she had never been out on the Shifting Sea before - the girl was a natural.

  They shared a car which dropped Cassie back at her place first, and it was nearly 0800 by the time AJ got to Sol Vista, so he skipped his pathway checks and went straight to his workshop to figure out what was the best way to approach Warnecke. Confront him and force him to take back his damned document? Or just slide it under the door, hope that his TGA would do the rest and he wouldn’t even remember having given it to AJ?

  He never got to complete the thought, because Warnecke was waiting for him at the workshop. For a few wonderful hours AJ hadn’t been thinking about him, but that was never going to last, he knew that.

  “You read it?” he asked. He didn’t look nervous, keyed up, or anything. But he looked like he had been waiting there a while. He saw the pouch in AJ’s hand. “Yeah, you read it.”

  AJ could see there wouldn’t be any avoidance or distraction move he could use. He sighed, “Yeah, I did.”

  “OK, so you know I’m serious,” Warnecke said.

  “I don’t know what I know,” AJ said, honestly, holding up the pouch. “I don’t know what this is.”

  Warnecke smiled at him, “And I thought cybers were smart? You aren’t supposed to understand. You’re just supposed to take that to your boss, Winter, and show him I’m serious. Show him I mean it. It’s going to come out, and he can either get ahead of it, or get buried by it.”

  “Winter isn’t my boss,” AJ said. “You met my boss, her name is Cyan Tanike.”

  “Oh sure, she’s your boss,” Warnecke said, sneering. “I believe you.”

  AJ held up the pouch, “Why don’t you just give this to him? He’s your friend.”

  “I tried when he came here. He won’t even look at it, the fool. He doesn’t take it seriously. You read it, you’ve seen how important it is. You work for him, you can get him to look at it!” Warnecke said.

  “Sorry, still don’t,” AJ explained and held it out to him. “I need to ask you to take this back, and stop bothering me about it.”

  “Oh, you think just because I’m some old fart, you get to decide this,” Warnecke said. “You don’t get to decide anything, surf bum. You’ll do what I’m asking,” Warnecke lifted his shirt a little and showed AJ that tucked into his belt was a small but ugly gun. He watched AJ’s reaction, which AJ tried to tell himself later, was pretty damn calm considering it was the first time anyone ever pulled a gun on him.

  “Don’t shit your pants,” Warnecke said. “This isn’t for you, it’s for me. You take that sample to Winter. You tell him either he gets ahead of this, or it’s going to squash him. You tell him I have multiple off-Core copies of this evidence where he can’t get at them and unless he calls a press conference soon, I’ll come to the Capitol, shoot myself somewhere public, the whole damn thing goes to the press and the FO Exploit will be public domain.”

  “What’s the ‘FO Exploit’?” AJ asked.

  “Need to know,” Warnecke said. “And the hired help don’t need.”

  AJ watched him go, then thumbed the workshop open, took a step inside into the calm darkness and pulled out his stool. The legs scraped over the concrete, and he sat himself slowly down on it. Shit.

  “You could make more noise,” Leon said from his corner. “Probably. I doubt it though.”

  He was sitting with his feet up, hands folded across his little pot belly, cap pulled down over his eyes. It was how he liked to start most days. He called it “Planning of logistics” in his work diary, because that’s what he used to write down when he was doing the same thing in his army days. But he was a good guy and AJ didn’t doubt he had post-traumatic stress, some of the stories Leon told him about the war on New Syberia. PCPD or not, in the end, he was just like everyone else, traveling around the sun as many times as he could, trying to feed himself and his family on the way. At least he had shaved today, as far as AJ could see in the semi-dark of the shed, so this was a day he was more likely to have his shit together.

  “Did you hear that conversation outside?” AJ asked.

  But Leon didn’t eve
n lift up his cap, “What conversation mano?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You hearing voices now too?” Leon said. “Only room in here for one crazy person sorry. Go find your own crazy space.”

  AJ sat a bit longer, listening to Leon slow breathing. Then he realized he was just sitting, but not thinking. He should be doing something - a resident just pulled a gun on him. Or something. Pulled a gun on himself? Anyway, he was carrying and AJ was pretty sure there was a rule about residents not being allowed personal weapons. Or in a specialist TGA center, there damn well should be.

  He stood up, picking up the pouch with Warnecke’s paper in it. His chair scraped on the floor again.

  “Mano, it’s like you are trying to kill my vibe,” Leon said. “Shut the door quietly on your way out, OK?”

  AJ grabbed his tool belt and walked into the Garden. He realized it was an avoidance reaction, but there was always work to do in the Garden or the Lake and there had to be some advantages to a cyber being able to compartmentalize their thinking. He’d fixed that loose rail yesterday but yeah, he could just do a circuit around the whole lake, tighten up all the bolts, make sure nothing else was coming loose. If one bolt let go, there might be others getting ready, right? AJ loved work like that - it had a purpose, and it had a start, and it had an end. Kind of like his dissertation in college, except what he wrote there, he realized would be assimilated into the Core, but no one but his teachers would ever read it. Here, at Sol Vista, there were people depending on him to keep them safe, and clean, and happy. Even Warnecke.

  So he let the work take him, going from rail to rail, checking the posts, checking the beams, tightening every bolt. It was a good feeling when he found one that needed a few turns, because that was a rail was going to stay put for another couple of years now. That rail wasn’t going anywhere.