“Good luck with that.”
Chapter 20
Silo sat with her hair fluttering gently in the cool breeze of the air-conditioning vent of the Declaration. While Garotte worked on their prisoner, gently and not-so-gently probing him for additional information, she’d continued his repairs. By moving very carefully though the steps listed in a digital manual and making a few lucky guesses in terms of alignment, she was actually able to finish calibrating the plasma injectors that had stood between them and a minimally functional ship. Cycling through the start-up procedure, she found the ship passed its diagnostics, with the exception of one. The damage to the hull meant it was no longer able to pressurize, but the internal emergency force fields would keep the air inside if they decided to leave the atmosphere. In the worst case, they could don the emergency EVA suits. Technically that meant she could stop her repairs, but she decided that one more thing was worth tackling. Air-conditioning might not have been high on the repair priority, but once it was functional, life became much more tolerable. With that task done, she’d gone back to her knitting.
“All right, my boy, I’m convinced you’ve shared as much as I’m liable to have use for, and you don’t seem to be hostile,” Garotte said, finally removing the wrist restraints from Ronzone. “Well, to be fair, you are overtly hostile, but in a white-collar fashion, which isn’t much concern to me. I don’t suppose you’ve got any useful skills besides the radio in your head.”
Ronzone rubbed his wrists. “I’ve got three degrees. Business management, psychology, and economics.”
“In other words, no,” Garotte said. “Am I correct in assuming you will be able to awaken our own communications devices?”
His eyes lit up as he realized he had a bargaining chip. “Yes! Yes I am quite capable of doing so. But if you want my help, you have to agree to take me back to the city and release me.”
“… Release you… You’re certain that’s all you want?”
“I’ve got a job to do, and I can’t do it while I’m in the custody of two renegades.”
“Tell me, Agent Ronzone, when you reactivated that radio in your head, you didn’t, by chance, contact the home office to see what exactly was happening, did you?”
“My supervisors expect and reward autonomy. I only contact VectorCorp for authorizations when necessary, or in extreme emergencies.”
“Getting chased by a pack of crazy robots didn’t qualify?” Silo said.
“It did. But by the time the severity of the situation became clear, the Teeker troops had physically dismantled every high-power terrestrial and orbital transmitter for some reason. Nothing I’ve got can get a signal out to the nearest communication node.”
“Ah. Well, let me enlighten you.”
Garotte beckoned for Ronzone to follow, then stepped into the Declaration and tapped some coordinates into the imager. An innocuous section of the sky came up on the main viewer. A few snap adjustments and filters revealed a sleek and heavily armed capital ship hanging in orbit.
“You see that ship?”
“Yes.”
“That ship is charged with keeping anyone from leaving the planet.”
“I’m aware of what a quarantine is.”
“Do you know what an Omega-White is?”
“No, but it has the sort of idiotic secret-code-word sound to it that high-ranking military officials like to use.”
“It is exceedingly military, yes. In the present context, it means that at some undefined point in the future, one or more bombardment ships are going to show up. Shortly thereafter the military will make a concerted effort to rain nuclear death on every last speck of soil.”
Ronzone eyed the ship on the viewer, then Garotte, with the same doubtful look.
“You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?”
“Not at all. Frankly my life will be measurably easier if you don’t. Then I’ll only need to drop you back in the city and be done with you, rather than keeping you nearby and getting you off the planet if time runs out.”
“Though if you were to put some thought into it, you might wonder why they would dismantle or destroy all of that communication stuff if this was the temporary sort of quarantine, hon,” Silo suggested from outside.
The agent furrowed his brow, clearly trying to work out if he was being manipulated, if he was making a terrible mistake, or both.
“While you mull over your prospects, might I suggest you earn your payment of choice by reactivating our various radios.”
“Fine…”
He touched two fingers to his right temple and shut his right eye. The muscles around his eye twitched subtly. For a few seconds nothing seemed to be happening, but slowly the ship’s radio flickered to life. Garotte’s slidepad followed, then Silo’s.
“There, is that all?” he asked.
“Not quite,” Garotte said. He dug out the high-security radio he’d been using to spy on the Neo-Luddites until recently.
“Where did you get that? Those are very tightly controlled VectorCorp model MJN-704—”
“Irrespective of its provenance, the device is worthless at the moment. So if you would, please activate it.”
“Fine,” he grumbled, even more begrudgingly. “Those idiots in security are going to have to answer for this one, though. Letting any devices in the MJN series of…” His muttering trailed off as he touched his temple again.
The hefty communicator activated and immediately produced a tone indicating there had been several dozen transmissions received while it was inactive.
“Well, well, well… it seems our Neo-Luddite friends have been busy,” Garotte said, rolling through the list of messages. “They’d been silent on this channel for some time, ever since they figured out we were listening… One moment… these time stamps… Silo, look at this.”
Silo stepped inside and looked over the screen. “These go back days. Right up to when they went silent. How can there be messages we haven’t heard from back then?”
“And they continue up until as recently as an hour ago. How could we be receiving messages? Communication has been spiked.”
“I’m a VectorCorp agent. When I reactivated your devices, I had to shift them to administrator authority, or they’d just be knocked down again. That enables you to receive messages that were sent with administrator authority. They are delivered on a classified frequency, with classified encryption, and classified encoding. Without a model MJN transceiver or an equivalent, you never would have known the messages were being sent. But… but I should have known about them.” He furrowed his brow again. “I’ve got full admin authority. I should at least be alerted to all transmissions on the admin channel. Even ones encrypted for other agents would produce a notification. I’ve got no history of these.”
“So the Neo-Luddites are communicating with something even deeper in the VC protocol than administration level,” Garotte said.
“Impossible. There are usage audits of all nonconsumer communication channels every six hours. It takes a monumental effort for me to keep my admin credentials current, and I’m an actual administrator.”
“And who does these audits?”
“VectorCorp Security.”
“And if someone was communicating in secret, who’d be responsible for finding it out and blowing the whistle?” Silo asked.
“VectorCorp Security.”
“So if someone wanted to communicate in secret, who could make that possible?”
“… VectorCorp Security. But if these terrorists somehow had a contact within VC security, you still shouldn’t be getting those messages. You said they knew you were listening. Assuming they switched to the admin communication layer at that time, why wouldn’t they also change their personal access key?”
“Broadly speaking, terrorist organizations do not attract the most savvy and capable of individuals,” Garotte said. He rubbed his hands together as he eyed up the list of messages. “This should prove enlightening.”
&
nbsp; “Do me a favor, sweetheart,” Silo said, picking up the QPS sensor they’d been using to track the robots. “We’re about ready to skedaddle in a hurry if we need to, right?”
“Indeed,” Garotte said.
“Broadcast something. Something big. Use the ship’s system, maximum power.”
“Certainly,” he said, quickly issuing the appropriate command.
Silo eyed the sensor for a moment, then swept it around. “That clinches it. We just got the attention of the nearest clump of bots. They’re headed in this direction now.”
“Excellent!” Garotte said, turning back to the list of messages.
“How is that excellent? We’ve got to get out of here!” Ronzone said.
“Because it means we can control the movements of the bots, hon. With the rest of the planet silent, we can lure the baddies by lighting up a communicator and boosting the power. There’s enough wide-open nothing on this planet to give us a fighting chance of keeping these things away from any cities or piles of resources. That should keep casualties down and prevent them from reproducing too quickly.”
“The robots may not be our primary concern for much longer,” Garotte said. “If these Neo-Luddite dispatches are accurate, the TKUR has been able to arm two Arbiters. Doomsday ships. The first one has been crewed and deployed. The second one is awaiting a crew. They’ve got a very low top speed, but I imagine the Teekers will give it navigation priority. Outside estimate, two days until arrival. Inside estimate, seven hours. As I’ve got very little interest in experiencing antimatter annihilation first hand, something will need to be done about that. It seems we’ve got a split of tasks. We’ll need someone on the ground to keep the robots at bay and destroy as many as we can in the process, and we’ll need someone in space to handle some communication and distraction.”
“You handle the distraction,” Silo said. “I’ll handle the destruction. Seems like this is a situation where we should be working to our strengths. I’ll keep an eye on Chris here, seeing as how we’re going to be needing his authorization to activate a bunch of radios and such.”
“Agreed. I do so love when decisions can be concisely made. Let’s get the equipment you’ll need out of the Declaration so I can get it into orbit.”
“Wait, wait. This is more than I bargained for.”
Garotte slapped Ronzone on the back. “We’re past the bargaining stage, my boy. You’ve now been drafted.”
Chapter 21
Lex, Ma, and Michella had scrutinized the details of William Trent’s incarceration for hours, plotting out the best plan they could. Fortunately, the former security chief’s status and resources had provided him with some creature comforts that provided opportunities for surreptitious contact. Like many of the wealthier or more famous inmates, his list of privileges and requirements read like the concert rider of an eccentric rock star. He had very specific dietary requirements, including the substitution of soy milk for whole in his breakfast cereal, and required only natural fabrics, no synthetics or blends. The key, though, was his therapy sessions. His psychological state was listed as high risk and extremely fragile. He was allowed private sessions with his personal therapist twice a week, and his therapist was permitted to schedule additional sessions whenever he saw fit. This, they had determined, was key. It was a situation perfectly suited to subversive communication.
Despite their nearly constant clashes of personality, Michella and Ma proved to be of like minds when it came to navigating the labyrinth of access restrictions and security that often stood between an investigator and his or her source. Lex chimed in here or there with ideas, but the bulk of the plan was produced by the two women. Once they’d worked out every last detail and planned for what they hoped would be any contingency, the time had come for a final system check before putting the plans into motion.
“Okay, so let’s run through this. We know the therapist frequently makes contact during the week, and we’ve got the addresses he calls from,” Michella said.
“Correct. I am capable of altering the connection routing information to appear as though the connection is originating from an appropriate data network.”
“And we’ve got transcripts from the last dozen or so calls, so we know what the therapist would say and how he would say it.”
“Correct. Utilizing recordings from various sources, I have constructed an interactive audio-visual simulation, which should be sufficient to make it appear as though a relatively routine short notice supplemental session is being scheduled.”
“And you’re sure you can make it convincing? If it sounds like your voice, then we won’t even make it past the receptionist.”
Ma responded in a pristine and dignified voice completely unmarred by her typical multitonal quirks. “I am quite capable of communicating in a more conventionally human manner.” She switched back to her patchwork voice. “I simply choose to maintain my original vocal inflections.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason you have not sought surgical intervention to modify and enhance your appearance.”
Michella scowled. “There’s nothing wrong with how I look.”
“This was the point I was illustrating.”
“But you…” Michella shook her head. “Focus. Is the connection solid?”
“Yes. And it shall remain so for at least the next six hours.”
“All right. Lex?” Michella said.
“Yeah,” he answered from the corner of the room, where he had put his feet up and was entertaining Squee on his lap.
“I realize when we started this we wanted you in on the call, since you were as instrumental in putting this man behind bars as I was. I think there’s value in getting him off balance by playing upon his hatred but… you’re missing an eyebrow.”
“So?”
“So generally speaking, conducting an interview while missing an eyebrow weakens one’s appearance of authority and competence.”
“Did they teach that in journalism school?”
“No, I worked that out myself.”
“So I’ll just go back to testing things, which may or may not explode?”
“Try to focus on the ones that may not explode.”
“Well, you’re just full of insight, aren’t you?”
“I’m savvy.”
“Okay. Ma, I guess I’ll meet you down in the torture chamber.”
“No, I need Ma here,” Michella said.
“I am in all parts of this facility at all times and am capable of engaging in numerous simultaneous interactions. But thank you, Ms. Modane.”
“… For what?”
“Behaving as though I can only be in one place at a time is an indication that you have begun thinking me of as an individual in addition to an appliance.”
“Oh… don’t let it go to your CPU.”
“I assure you, your opinion has very little impact on my feelings of self-worth.”
“Play nice you two,” Lex said, slipping from the room.
“Okay. Layout.” Michella stood and began indicating various screens. “I want all of my notes here, rolled up initially, and drilled down by topic as we discuss them. I want the transcript of our conversation here. Over here I want live research. Data on anything he brings up that isn’t already in my notes, again rolled up at first and drilled down as I dive deeper. I want the whole thing recorded, audio and video. Display, front and center.”
Before she was finished requesting each step, Ma had obliged.
“Okay, where are we on the network stuff?”
“I have pushed an update to the database authorizing an external connection and placed the call in priority. It will appear to be a standard call from a trusted source. We can initiate the connection when you are prepared.”
She closed her eyes and whispered something under her breath, as if rehearsing. “Okay. Make the call.”
“Negotiating connection. The prepared responses for the simulation of the therapist, Dr. Nathan Planchard, a
re displayed at the bottom of the screen. I will select and adapt the appropriate replies. If you prefer to make the selection yourself, tap or begin speaking the appropriate reply. You may also assume full manual control and any words you speak or mannerisms you display will be translated through the simulation. Simulation display is in the lower left corner. Connection established.”
A video feed flicked up on the screen displaying the receptionist for the facility, a dark-skinned young woman with short dark hair and an air that practically screamed bureaucrat. Her expression was emotionless and wooden, her tone relentlessly formal.
“Black Hill Maximum Security Correctional. Please state the reason for the call.”
“Hello. This is Dr. Planchard, PIN 33894. I need to schedule a private therapy session with William Trent, earliest possible time slot,” the simulation replied.
Michella breathed a sigh of relief. Though she’d had Ma demonstrate the simulation several times during the planning process, the reporter was never fully confident that the theory and practice of the plan would match up. Both the audio and video of the simulation were flawless.
“Have you submitted an access request with security?” the receptionist asked.
“I had my assistant send a message a few minutes ago.”
“You are aware that we require a minimum of six hours’ notice?” she said wearily.
“I’m afraid it is a rather urgent matter. I cannot discuss the specifics, for obvious reasons, but upon reviewing my notes from our last few scheduled sessions, I believe there is a risk that Trent may harm himself if some psychological stress points are not addressed and relieved.”
Michella frowned. Despite the fact they’d poured through dozens of transcripts, the positively unnatural jargon Dr. Planchard tended to use hit her ear like nails on a chalkboard.
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