Damned things! They must have been released intentionally by the SciOs.
Joss stared dumbly at his hands, focused on the fingertips. Suddenly, without his apparent volition, he felt an awakening in his body, the now-familiar gathering roar of power in his ears that he thought might be blood surging in his veins, like a river of white water roaring through tubes.
He hadn’t commanded the energy to reemerge, but it was doing so just the same, and this time he didn’t think he objected. Maybe he would use it against the pesky little insects! Then he realized he’d been upset with them just before the surge in power, the emotional factor again. It also seemed to him that he needed to be careful if he ever became upset with a person. Would he still be able to control the discharge of Dark Energy?
A shimmering black thread—a single, thin strand—shot from his left forefinger and zapped a fly, turning the creature into goo and dropping it to the floor. With a casual, involuntary wave of Joss’s hands, additional focal threads came out, killing more flies. Now he interjected his own conscious thoughts, and found that he could fire from one finger at a time, or from two, or from all of them at once if he wished—and this time the threads of energy didn’t coalesce; they remained separate, each of them with striking power. He killed one fly after another, and even ten simultaneously with a set of micro-blasts from both hands.
Then, looking into the adjacent dining chamber, he saw more flies flitting around. This time he found that he could fire the threads longer distances, and every time he saw one of the creatures fall he understood a little more.
Thought to action. Nearly instantaneous. Zap, zap, zap!
It was almost fun, but it also frightened him. Operating as it did from his fingers, the power seemed to almost be a supercharged form of kinesthesia—muscle energy and muscle memory, resulting in death.…
He worried that he might not be able to control the invasive energy in his body. Because of this, Joss didn’t want to go to the next stage quite yet, if there was one. So he decided to withdraw the strands and reassess the situation. He sent that mental command.
But against his will, the threads remained stubbornly in the air, near his fingertips. He became conscious of his pulse racing, and as he realized this, it slowed immediately.
Experimenting, he wove an energy field in the air between the fingers of both hands, creating additional black threads with casual gestures, and hardly any mental impetus. Just a little was all that was required.
Even more flies appeared from the dining chamber, flitting about, racing from one point to another without alighting. Not learning from their predecessors, they circled Joss’s head, diving this way and that. He counted four, five, then eight. This time he didn’t zap them. Something else seemed possible.
With practice he found that he could weave the threads of the energy field around his body, keeping them there, and sure enough, the remaining flies moved away from him, repelled by the field. As moments passed, the field weakened, and the flies drew nearer, but not too close, as if sensing danger.
This was intriguing to Joss, and he was gratified that he was able to exert some control over the discharges and the patterns they formed in the air. Maybe with practice the threads of energy would go away. He made several more attempts, generating new energy fields and leaving different black contrail patterns in the air around him. The airborne shapes he created didn’t seem to matter much, because each time he recharged the system the flies flew farther away. With practice, he found that the fields lasted longer and longer—up to several minutes.
Curiously, he detected flashes of color around the edges: blues, reds, greens, and yellows … Then, as if his earlier mental command had finally taken hold, the fields dissipated.
25
The Green States of America contains its own seeds of destruction, and eventually the nation will rot away like organic forest matter and vanish into the Earth on its own. Just the same, we have chosen to add a catalyst, in order to hasten the process.
—General Dylan Bane, in an address to his allies
SELECTING THE PLACES to strike had been like picking from a tray of glittering jewels. There were so many enticing targets in the Green States of America—two continents of government offices, military installations, and reservations for humans. In the end, he narrowed the list down to nine military bases of the Army of the Environment—Berkeley, San Diego, Seattle, Bostoner, Baltimore, Miami, Panama City, Rio de Janeiro, and Valparaiso. All were ports where the GSA had naval bases, including submarines armed with the most advanced nuclear missiles. At each location, he had plans to disable any subs that were docked, or commandeer them. He had intelligence reports that only fifteen percent of their underwater warships were out to sea—a defensive lapse—so he might just catch the enemy napping.
The powerful entities that gave Bane money trusted him to make his own decisions, because their interests aligned with his, at least to a degree. But he had ways of maintaining control over all of his dealings, secrets his allies did not know, and never would. It was that way in all of his affairs; no one ever learned everything of importance about him, or what he was thinking.
Dylan Bane didn’t care one way or another about any loss of life in the military assaults. He thought only about inflicting maximum physical and psychological impact on the enemy, on causing panic in their ranks and sending the survivors scurrying for cover like rats from a storm. There would be no hiding places for some of these green rats, and especially not for his own former superior, Arch Ondex, or for the hypocritical guru Rahma and the rest of the GSA hierarchy. He had planned horrendous deaths for that bunch.
But now, just as he was about to launch forty-five voleers in attack squadrons from his subterranean Michoacán base, he felt a trembling around him, and saw most of the master control panel lights arrayed before him flicker off.
“Earthquake, sir!” one of the young male officers reported. His voice wavered. “It’s centered a hundred and twelve kilometers southwest of here, and it’s put eight of our squadrons offline, forty voleers. They’re working on getting them online again.”
“Any damage to our ships?”
“Not known yet, sir; we do have some small cave-ins that can be cleared. Most serious seems to be the problem of fleet electronics. Hopefully the techs can solve it quickly.”
“Well, I’m not waiting!” Bane exclaimed. He tapped the sequence of three buttons to launch his remaining attack squadron of five ships, led by his own vessel. Their destination: San Diego. It was one of the most powerful GSA bases, with nuclear submarines, stealth bombers, mechanized land units, and a host of other military equipment.…
* * *
MINUTES LATER, THE self-proclaimed General stood on the command bridge of Voleer One as the armored transport craft burrowed its way through the crust of the planet with four other voleers behind it, all carrying his specially designed weapons of mass destruction and six thousand soldiers. This would be the opening salvo, and as soon as the problems were solved with the other squadrons there would be more afterward, coming out of nowhere. He planned to play a violent game of hit-and-run, until the enemy threat was ended.
Bane intended to put his enemy completely out of business.
Now his fleet of voleers was crossing beneath the deserts of northern Mexico, heading in a northwesterly direction, tunneling through the earth hundreds of meters underground. On a wall screen he saw that the navigators had recommended final course adjustments, and the pilots were setting the proper coordinates.
His voleers carried military vehicles and attack aircraft, brimming with Splitter technology to inflict the maximum possible non-nuclear damage on the target. Bane had old-style nuclear weapons back in his Michoacán arsenal (and still accessible), but he had not brought them with him, seeing no need for them at this time. There was more downside than upside potential if nukes were used and triggered the destruction of the entire planet. An atomic war was madness, and he would take measures to avoid u
sing such weapons at all.
He glanced at the master control panel, but knew he was out of range of any underground signals from the other eight squadrons in his fleet. He hoped they had all launched, and were speeding toward their various targets. For the moment, he focused on San Diego.
In annihilating that military base he could not avoid destroying much of the adjacent reservation for humans, undoubtedly killing hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. It was unavoidable. The same held true for every other target, as soon as they were hit.
The GSA had to fall, and the nine attacks should make them capitulate. If not, he would call for additional strikes against hundreds of additional targets.
He thought about the hotheaded Red Major—Reed Zachary—who had stolen three aircraft and made his own ill-fated attack. It was too bad the young officer had not waited. He’d been impatient to hit the enemy, had refused to wait and had paid the price for it with his life, along with the lives of the crews and soldiers who had accompanied him. It had all been a waste, a loss of talent and equipment. Bane hated to lose good, highly trained people, and he particularly missed Zachary, whose argumentative personality had been stimulating, and had caused Bane to think about a number of things he might not have otherwise considered.
Looking around the command bridge, Bane saw Marissa Chase, the pretty young officer with whom he’d been sleeping. Arguments with her were often stimulating, when they had arousing sexual overtones.
It occurred to him now that in his zeal he was acting precipitously, just as Zachary had done before him, going off with an inadequate force, overeager to do battle. Maybe this was a mistake, if the techs couldn’t launch the other voleers. He shouldn’t attack only one base, if the other strikes were not also being made. An attack on San Diego by one squadron, even with a series of attacks on other bases by the same squadron afterward, would alert the enemy and cause him to stiffen his defenses. The SciOs would be called into action with exotic weapons, and the GSA already had many Janus Machines that could be used as powerful cannons.
Simultaneous surprise attacks would be much better.
Abruptly, General Bane altered the command coordinates, and a short while later his five voleers surfaced in the darkness, but with nothing to attack. They were in the arid Painted Desert of the Arizona Territory. The ships had electronic veiling so that they could not be detected by satellites or other surveillance technology, but now he could communicate with the rest of his fleet and his base back at Michoacán. He sent a coded transmission across his encrypted, clandestine system, to the voleers and the base.
The message was not received there, but went instead to an unmanned outpost he maintained on the Pacific coast of the Mexican territory, west of the Michoacán base. This concerned him a great deal.
An AI response came back to him, reporting the bare facts in a smooth, asexual machine voice: “A second temblor hit Michoacán after you left, caving in the base on forty voleers. Suggest you call off your mission and return to aid in rescue and salvage operations.”
Bane cursed into the chill of the desert night. He didn’t see how this could have happened! Taking into account the history of quakes in the region, his engineers had designed seismic reinforcements into the construction of the base. Central Mexico had the advantage of location from a military standpoint, enabling him to attack both continents, north and south. He was likely to lose that advantage now, and perhaps a great deal more.
Burrowing underground again, leading his single squadron back to the disaster site, he worried about the logistical and technological problems of getting the other vessels out of the cave-in (if they were even salvageable) and how to avoid detection by the enemy.
After so much preparation in recent months, he had been eager to make the opening salvos of a powerful guerrilla war. Instead, he had suffered a huge reversal before firing even a single shot, a setback that would require him to go back and rework his entire plan. If he could save more of the high-tech voleers (and that was a big “if”), he would set up a new subterranean base in a more stable area from a seismic standpoint. In any event, he would need more money from his allies, and they would not be pleased about that.
He ordered the squadron to top subsurface speed.
26
Does the end ever justify the means employed to achieve it? When considering the welfare of the Earth and its inhabitants, is it even a question of morality, or is it more about the survival of the planet, about setting priorities that boil down to this: Which species deserve to survive and which do not?
—one of Artie’s encrypted data files
WEARING HIS GREEN cop uniform and shiny helmet, Andruw Twitty stood at the barricaded main entrance of the Montana Valley Game Reserve. It was early morning on a crisp, overcast day. Leaving a Greenpol squad car nearby, he had just announced his presence to one of the guards, a petite woman whose uniform seemed too large for her. She was a hubot, he determined from her machine-design armband and the slight translucence of her skin, so she had some human biological component in her body. The Chairman was known to keep hundreds of the humanoids around here.
Twitty couldn’t tell what this one might have in her body to qualify her as one of the hybrids. Perhaps she had a human internal organ—a heart, a lung, or a kidney; there were often interesting stories about where the body parts came from. Some had been salvaged from the bodies of Corporate War heroes, people that Chairman Rahma wanted to glorify for his own propaganda purposes, always enhancing the mythology of the revolution. There was even a rumor that a hubot had run amok in one of the relocation camps, murdering people because it had received a demented brain, like a robotic version of Frankenstein’s monster. Twitty had always doubted that story; it sounded apocryphal to him.
To get to the Rocky Mountain Territory by maglev train, Twitty had used his police credentials, which not only enabled him to leave the Seattle Reservation but to travel a good distance from it. Then, around a hundred and fifty kilometers from the game reserve, he’d obtained the use of the Greenpol car.
In the past, he had reported to the Chairman by EVR transmission, but his attempts to get through in that manner this time had been thwarted, with stiff responses that the GSA leader was “unavailable.” The responses sounded canned to Twitty, and he was convinced that Rahma did not even know he was trying to get through to him.
Perhaps he would have more luck by showing up in person and asking for an audience. Confidential Greenpol reports indicated that the Chairman was in fact at home. Twitty was convinced that what he had to say merited a personal audience with the great man, and that he would be grateful once he heard the additional information about Joss Stuart and Kupi Landau. Damaging information.
Momentarily, the guard returned and shook her head. “The Chairman is unavailable,” she said. It was the same irritating message that had been transmitted to him at the Seattle Reservation, after he returned home and submitted his report to Greenpol authorities there.
Annoyed, Twitty said, “You know I am a police officer who has previously reported directly to Chairman Rahma, and I assure you that what I have to say is of the utmost importance.”
The guard shook her head adamantly.
A shadow crossed the ground, and Twitty noticed a large creature in flight overhead, with immense, batlike wings that extended outward from a doglike—no, wolflike—body. He shuddered as the animal flew closer, and seemed to be looking directly at him with eerie, pale yellow eyes. It was much, much bigger than a wolf.
“What the hell is that?” Twitty asked.
The guard looked up, but seemed unconcerned and just shrugged.
With a scowl, Twitty wondered what manner of creature this was. Some endangered species, no doubt, that Rahma had rescued from overseas. Odd, though. He had not heard any publicity about this one. He wished he had brought along his sidearm.
“Hear me out for a minute,” Twitty said, keeping a wary eye upward. “This morning, a government broadcast sai
d there is no evidence to blame Joss Stuart for the destruction of the ReFac building in Berkeley. They’re saying that all indications point to the explosion being an accident—one that has given Stuart ‘cute little talents’ that he can use at party games to impress women. Listen, the son of a bitch is my roommate, so I know him personally, and I assure you he has more than ‘cute little talents.’ Stuart is quite dangerous, and has threatened to harm me if I…”
Again she shook her head, and interrupted to say, “Send your report through normal channels. The Chairman doesn’t have time to listen to everyone who wants to break into his busy schedule.” The guard smiled. “Please understand, I hear some very creative stories here.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Now go, or I’ll have to put you on report.”
Twitty reddened, but he turned and left. As he drove toward the nearest maglev terminal, he saw the airborne wolf tracking him, flying low, swooping this way and that across his path, making sure he saw it. The thing gave him the creeps.
Finally, the creature turned and flew back toward the game reserve.
* * *
IN HIS OFFICE, the Chairman had refused to even speak with the guard over the security system, which had the effect of sending the pesky eco-cop on his way. Rahma had been following the ongoing reports on Joss Stuart and his strange powers, and under other circumstances he might have allowed Twitty a few minutes of his time. But nothing involving Joss Stuart came close to another matter that had come up.
A much more important matter.
Just before Twitty’s arrival, the Chairman and Jade Ridell had been making love on the couch in his office, but had been interrupted by a high-priority holo-net transmission that beeped and appeared in the air by them.
Now Chairman Rahma sat naked on the edge of the couch, staring at the confidential holo-report that floated in front of him, an update from the Army of the Environment on the troubling attack that occurred near the Bostoner Reservation. His old girlfriend Kupi Landau had destroyed one of the aircraft, saving her Janus Machine and its crew. He had already lauded her heroic actions when she was in Quebec afterward, and he’d arranged for her to receive a medal. But he had something else in mind for whoever organized that attack, if they were still alive. Public executions to show he would not tolerate opposition.
The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma Page 19
