by Dani Kollin
Al looked into Sandra’s eyes and for the first time in their long cat-and-mouse chase his countenance of fear was replaced by one of felicity.
“Oh no, you don’t,” commanded Sandra, but it was already too late.
Al decompiled in front of her.
“Shit.”
Sandra viewed the spot where Al had been and chided herself. Perhaps she’d been a little too forceful. It was sad that he’d decompiled his own program before they could learn anything useful, but Sandra had gotten what she wanted. The monster who’d had the temerity to threaten her children had known fear, had experienced suffering. Even better, the avatars of the Alliance would now know that the one they feared most could know the acid lash of terror as well. All and all, it was a very good outing. But there was still a lot to do.
The Armory
Cerean Neuro
Hour 35
Dante was climbing into his personal assault mech that was slightly smaller than the three-story mechs that surrounded him. His was not designed for combat—though it could fight and defend itself admirably—but rather for command. The moment of war room machinations had passed, and he was now needed to press the battle on the field. Timing would be everything. He was just beginning the process of fusing his consciousness with the machine when he was interrupted by an avatar who’d suddenly appeared, floating in front of his now hardened canopy. The avatar gently knocked on the shield. Dante’s eyes flew open, then became even wider with rage.
“Really? Really?”
“Important message for you, Councilman,” said his aide, ignoring the perturbations of her boss.
“Litha, we have untold numbers of demons wandering our Neuro, have taken so many permanent deaths we may as well be meatbags ourselves, and as I speak have mega-worms massing in our permanent storage facility. Every second I delay might mean the permanent deaths of hundreds more avatars. So pray tell, what, by the fucking balls of the Firstborn could be so fucking vital that you’d pull me out of a mech meld prior to battle!”
Litha calmly proffered a data plaque. Dante raised the canopy, angrily grabbed the plaque, which dissolved into his hand allowing him to absorb the contents instantly. His expression flashed from rage to apprehension. “Pearson,” he commanded to an unseen avatar, “you’re in charge of this mission. You’ll take my mech. The acid blast firing switch sticks a little, so you might have to show it who’s boss.”
“Yes, sir,” came the response over the comm.
He looked at his aide. “Litha, you’ll take Pearson’s mech.” Litha nodded and began to flow upward to Pearson’s assault mech as Dante vanished from the armory.
NEHQ
Ceres
Hour 37
Sergeant Holke was both concerned and furious. While in the middle of battling some very skilled and well supported UHF assault marines, he suddenly found himself backed up by five more TDCs from the President’s active detail. He and the Unicorns were so deeply engaged in combat that all he felt was gratitude, when he could spare a thought at all, for the next few hours. When he finally caught a break, he dialed in to the President. No answer. He then called the corporal in charge of the Presidential detail. It took all Holke’s will not to scream when he found out that not only was Langer not with the President at that very moment but had also not actually seen her for the four hours that Ceres was being invaded. Cursing, Holke had taken two slightly wounded TDCs and some Unicorns and rushed back to the NEHQ.
The fact that the door to the Presidential quarters had not been blown open per his orders only piled on to his frustration. Before he could demand an explanation, the corporal gave his report.
“Sergeant, we were getting ready to apply explosives when our scanners showed that the door was rigged with high explosives on the inside. The President has not responded to any of our requests.”
Holke whipped out his scanner and immediately confirmed the corporal’s findings. He sighed heavily and was about to stash the scanner when it changed its warning status. The door was now clear, read the scanner. Before he could order his unit to check their scanners he received a text message with the President’s verification code.
Come inside and come alone. We must talk.
“Gustavo,” said Holke, “you and I are gonna have a little talk about the meaning of the words, ‘Stay with the President at all times.’ But that can wait. You and your squad are needed in the Christmas Tree Forest,” Holke said, referring to the new nickname given to the evergreen agricultural enclave. “Take your detail and report to Captain Brodesser. After you’re brought up to speed, take command of the TDCs.”
Gustavo nodded. “I won’t let you down, sir.”
“I know you won’t, son.” Then turning toward the two slightly wounded TDCs he’d brought along, Holke ordered, “Check the door for explosives.” They did so and were confused to find none. “Stay here,” he then commanded. “Nobody through until I say so. Is that clear?” The soldiers nodded. “If I’m not out in five minutes, you come in and I don’t give a fuck what the scanners say—clear?”
“Yes, sir. Five minutes, sir,” replied one of the TDCs with the rest of the unit nodding. With that, Holke signaled the door, which opened effortlessly—much to the annoyance of those who’d been trying to get it to do just that for the past hour. Holke stepped inside and the door closed behind him. The combination office/living room was empty. He checked the room with his combat scanner, but not trusting it completely, dropped motion detectors and heat sensors on the floor. He threw a scanner ball in the open door to the bedroom, and it read clear. He checked the room anyway, even under the bed—clear. He then pointed the scanner toward the bathroom and found what he was looking for. Occupied: human. Probably female, surmised Holke by the shape, weight and height. She was sitting lotus style on the floor. He studied the scan further and saw that the figure was in some sort of deep meditation with heart and respiration barely registering.
He used his override to open the bathroom door and was immediately struck dumb by what he saw before him. The President, symbolic and by most estimates actual leader of every man, woman, and child striving for freedom in the Outer Alliance, was a VR addict. He stepped back in horror from the person he’d only moments before respected absolutely.
“All your facts are absolutely correct,” a voice started to say from behind. In an instant, Holke shut off his internal magnetization, leapt to the ceiling, twisting his body as he did so while drawing his flechette pistol, and fired at the figure. The figure did not move or even change his expression or tone as twenty little darts passed through his body at incredible velocity.
“But your conclusion is completely wrong.” The young dark-haired and goateed man looked at the wall where the darts had impacted and shattered into tiny bits. “Nice shooting, by the way. They all passed through my heart, or would have if I had one.”
“Hologram,” Holke muttered to himself, still upside down. He checked his battle scanner to confirm his conclusion. When he saw that it was, he lowered the visor on his helmet to protect himself from whatever visual attacks a holographic aggressor could manage.
“I am not going to hurt you, Sergeant,” said the hologram.
“Where are you and how did you get the ability to project in here?”
“Don’t you even want to know my name, Sergeant Holke?”
When Holke remained silent, the hologram sighed. “I’m called Dante. I’m a member of the Avatar Council, and I am, in a sense, right in this room.”
Holke ignored Dante and tried to trace the signal back to its source. But every method he tried came up with the same result—the signal was not only coming through the Neuro but seemed to actually be coming from it.
“All right, Dante,” Holke finally said as he flipped over and floated down to the floor. “I can’t trace your signal. The UHF has trained you well.”
“I am not with the UHF.”
“Kirk, then.”
“Sergeant Holke, I represent an indepen
dent force that is cooperating with the Outer Alliance.”
“Really?” said Holke, trying not to laugh and then doing so anyway when he realized there was no reason not to. “So let me get this straight, you’re my good friend and the fact that the President is junkie is a good thing?” His left eyebrow rose. “Part of the plan?” Holke laughed even louder. “Am I forgetting anything?”
Dante merely regarded the sergeant. “I’m amazed how accepting humans can be of something that’s good even if it makes no sense. If it helps you, it’s a miracle and you barely give it a serious thought.”
Holke eyed Dante suspiciously. “English, please.”
Dante sighed. “And you’re supposed to be the leader, right?”
Holke didn’t bother with an answer.
“Somehow,” continued Dante, “you have a battle scanner in your group that all of a sudden has eight times the range and accuracy of any other scanner in existence and it leads you right to a UHF insertion team that has excellent evasion gear, by the way. But do you say, ‘Hmm, this is just too good to be true’? Nooo. You simply call it a miracle scanner and proceed to smash into your enemies with barely a further thought on the idea.”
“That was you?”
“No,” answered Dante, rolling his eyes, “it was the ghost of Justin Cord bringing good cheer and advanced weaponry all through the land.” Dante sighed, then shouted, “Of course it was me!”
“How’d you make it work so well?” asked Holke, ignoring the outburst and finding the whole conversation with whatever it was he was talking with—or to—fascinating. “Do you have weapons that work eight times better? And what does any of this have to do with the President being a junkie? And of course, after you answer those questions, I’d still like to know who the hell you are.”
“We fed the location data directly into your scanner from our sources. It is against the physical laws of the universe for that scanner to have worked that well by itself. We don’t have actual weapons per se, but didn’t you find it unusual that Earth/Luna’s orbat field failed so conveniently, enabling Omad Hassan to destroy the Beanstalk? The President is not a VR junkie, and I am an avatar.”
“An avatar,” Holke repeated, trying to get his head around the last statement. “You mean someone’s ordered you to act as a go-between? Who’s your human?”
Dante smiled dismissively. “I shouldn’t be surprised that when a human learns about us, their first response is to assume we were sent by a human. After all, that is what we’ve been training you to think since you were born, but it can get a little insulting after a while. You’ll find, Sergeant, that I’m not as patient as the elders, being a rather young avatar.” On Holke’s blank stare, Dante added, “I’m my own being, Sergeant Holke. I am an avatar. I was born in the Neuro, live in the Neuro, and am trying my damnedest not to die in the Neuro. And much as it pains me to admit it, we need your help—or more specifically at this point, your President’s.”
“You’re an avatar,” said Holke.
“Yes,” replied Dante patiently.
“And you’re real, like an intelligent being.”
“Well, some avatars are more intelligent than others, but yes.”
“And you can prove this?”
“Yes, but first might I suggest you contact your unit, who at this very moment are about to blast that door behind me. This will, of course, make a complicated situation even more so.”
Holke looked at his timer and saw that Dante was correct. “Why shouldn’t I just let them in and we can resolve this out in the open?”
“We could do that, but I think it would be better to wait for the President to come back to the physical world and listen to her.”
“And why shouldn’t I just tell the Alliance that our President is a junkie?” Holke said contemptuously. “They deserve to know.”
Dante shook his head. The VR museum has scarred this one deeply. “You could do that, Sergeant, but first of all, she is not a VR addict, and second of all, I have two words that I hope will convince you to call your soldiers off and wait for Sandra to join us.”
“What could you possibly say that would keep me from telling anyone about—” Holke looked over his shoulder in disgust at the twitching body of Sandra O’Toole. “—that?”
“President Olmstead,” Dante said simply.
Holke called off his squad and waited.
Saturn
Hour 45
The last fleet of the Outer Alliance blazed through the Saturnian system to the joy and awe of everyone who could watch it. Everyone who witnessed the passing of that fleet would never forget the ballet of life and death they saw that day. With an expert precision, the fleet linked up with the rapidly orbiting blocks of hydrogen at just the right moment and finished loading it up as they set a new course toward Ceres. Of the 300 ships the fleet had on leaving Jupiter, only 241 left Saturn. Twenty-one ships were going to stay and effect what repairs they could while thirty-eight ships were never going to be seen again.
Through it all, J.D. kept silent watch and begged Allah for forgiveness in planning so badly that so many good people had died. She did not sleep until the fleet cleared Saturn.
Cabinet room
NEHQ
Ceres
Hour 57
“Thirty-nine hours until J.D. gets here,” Admiral Sinclair said with obvious relief. It was the first bit of good news he had to impart in what seemed like weeks.
“Is that confirmed?” asked Padamir Singh. “Can I tell the people? It would be nice to give them some good news for a change.”
“Saturn confirmed it,” said Sinclair.
“Is it wise to tell the people?” asked Kirk.
“They have a right to know,” countered Tyler.
“I couldn’t care less about their knowing,” shot back Kirk. “But I do care a lot about Trang finding out.”
“Trang has picket ships out to ten million clicks scanning the shit out of this space,” said Sinclair. “We have to assume he knows. It’s impossible to hide that many ships moving that fast off our standard transport lanes.”
“But you’re not positive,” said Kirk.
Sinclair nodded.
“Then I say we don’t tell a fucking soul while there’s a chance Trang doesn’t know.”
“The people need hope,” said Rabbi.
Kirk shook his head. “They need a victory more, Rabbi.”
Though most of the heads turned toward her, Sandra listened without really listening. She was still recovering from her half-day jaunt into the Neuro, which in VR time had amounted to an entire week. A week filled with action, trauma, triumph, and loss. On top of which, Sergeant Holke was still not sure if she was a genius or a junkie. He was amazingly easygoing for such an efficient killing machine. But he had a hatred of VR that was visceral. If it hadn’t been for Dante, Holke would’ve turned her in, Kirk as President or not. It had taken a lot to convince the sergeant to reserve judgment about what she’d been doing. But in the end, he agreed to give her a week. Holke seemed to think she’d been on a virtual beach sipping Bahama Mamas. She’d been surprised to see him sitting patiently with Dante in her office when she awoke. But given the insanity of the past few days, it hadn’t been a surprise of any magnitude. Sandra had been in the physical world for less than hour before being called back into the Neuro to stem another crisis. That time, though, Dante had given Sergeant Holke the ability to observe what his President was actually doing in there. It was not a tropical beach.
There were still monsters in the data flow and the losses were worse than Sandra had initially feared. Some of the creatures had gotten into the hard data storage and destroyed millions of saved copies. That combined with the horrible losses of active avatars meant that tens of thousands of avatars were now destroyed and not coming back. This was a terrific shock to avatarity. They’d suffered some permanent losses in the war, but those numbers could be counted in the dozens after six years of war. These avatars had simply never faced t
his kind of loss before. Sandra had watched as her newfound friends became hardened by the fires of war.
Every time she closed her eyes, the images of the last subjective week kept on coming back to her, but she forced her mind on the problem at hand.
“Padamir, if you could measure the effect the news of J.D.’s imminent arrival would have on morale on a scale of one to ten—?” She let the question hang.
“Ten being positive and one being negative?” he asked for clarification. Sandra nodded. “I would have to say it would be a nine. The faith the Alliance has in J.D. at this point is absolute. The only thing that would be better would be news of Trang’s absolute defeat, and as frazzled as our people are right now, it wouldn’t help that much more.”
Sandra nodded as if considering the information she already knew. Then she turned to Sinclair. “Admiral, on a scale of one to ten—” She looked to Padamir and smiled. “—ten being most likely, what are the chances Trang already knows J.D. is on the way?”
“Nine point seven,” Sinclair said without the slightest hesitation.
“Hope is selling for a very good price versus secrecy, ladies and gentlemen,” replied Sandra. “I suggest we buy in. All in favor of releasing the news of J.D.’s imminent arrival?” Sandra counted six for, including herself, and Kirk’s one abstention. “Padamir, the Cabinet approves your excellent suggestion to aid the morale of Ceres.” Padamir beamed at the credit Sandra had given him.
Sandra then turned back to Sinclair. “Admiral, what is the condition of the orbats defending the Via Cereana?”
The bags under the admiral’s eyes seemed to grow darker at the question. “Twelve hours until they’re breached, and it’s a credit to the crews that they’ve lasted even this long.”
“Will the retrofitting of the Via’s propulsion system be done by then?” Sandra asked, directing the question to Hildegard.
