"Oh you have a mod for that too?" she asked. "Can you do a number like the rubber man at the circus?" she joked.
He started to say something with a devilish grin and then his face shut down and he dropped it.
"What?"
"I find myself a victim of my cultural conditioning. I thought of a really wicked jab to say, but no matter how adult you are legally, I still found myself repelled at the idea of saying something risqué to you, because you are still visibly a young girl. It seemed very vulgar and unfunny suddenly. I suppose if I had been with a bunch of guys, after a few beers, I would have gone ahead and thought it hilarious. I hope you're not too much of a good influence."
"Don't worry," she said, patting his arm. "Even if we keep it squeaky clean, don't forget that ‘expensive damage, death and destruction' follow close behind me."
He recognized the quote as his own and they both roared with laughter, until even the people using their spex looked over at their table.
"I discussed this gene mod with my grandfather and both he and Jeff Singh are going to discuss it with you. My grandfather was very positive about it. We may have some further business for you also. I'd like to have the undo virus however, so if anything happens to you I still have it. You are a defector and who knows if they may have you on a list to assassinate if they can. I'm certainly on one I'd think. And here you sit in a public area," she scolded, "and didn't even get a steak knife on your tray. You trying to camouflage yourself as an Earthie?"
"You mentioned that before, but I have no training. Is there anywhere I could get trained with a weapon, if I buy one?"
"I'm not sure. I have some friends that might arrange something but I'll have to ask. I'll get back to you on that. How about the virus? You willing to dispense the undo version with the treatment?"
"Yes, but you'll have to have cryogenic storage. Is there someplace on station that can do that for you? A clinic maybe?"
"If liquid nitrogen temperature is good enough, I'll have my own private storage here and on another station for redundancy in a few days."
That's good enough, yes. But why have storage on another station? What could happen to it here, that wouldn't happen at another?"
"If a certain nation with the initials U-S-N-A, just happens to nuke Home to vapor is why. That's why everybody has been keeping their financial records and accounts dispersed, so they have something if they don't have a Home to come back to. Lots of folks divided their heirlooms and such and some families have sent their kids off to earth schools, or relatives, until the situation looks stable to them. It's only been a year and instead of accepting the situation and learning to live with it, some of the North Americans are allowing us to become, as my French friend would say, a 'fixe idee'. They can't let it drop. And even my grandpa is concerned we might end up fighting again."
"But nuclear weapons. I can't believe in this day and age they'd resort to them."
April laughed aloud at his expression. "You said they were trying to hide from the public just how bad we pounded them. Everybody up here already knows, they tried to use nukes on us last year. They targeted us with two nuke missiles and they were intercepted."
Jerry looked shocked. "There were reports of that in Australia. They quoted the Koreans as saying their satellites saw explosions, but the mainstream press denied it all. Nobody had any pictures of it and most everybody believed it was just a few nut case web sites, reporting crazy conspiracy fantasies. They didn't give it any more credence, than the crazy idea you guys caused the Great San Diego earthquake."
April just looked at him with a delicate little Mona Lisa smile. He finally got it and just buried his face in his hands and said, "Ohhhhh my God." After a while he regained composure from the revelation, took a sip of his coffee and looked askance at her. "And they really want to mess with you guys again, when you can do that?"
"With us," she suggested. "You've pretty well hitched your fortunes to our star haven't you? Are you going to join in making laws and paying tax?"
"I'm not worried about paying the tax, but I wonder if I'll have the time to listen to the long winded debates and actually know what vote I should cast."
"Two things that can help with that," she offered. "Last month we had another motion to make a park, that a fellow has been making every month. It would be nice, but we can't afford it. We wouldn't mind hearing something new, but this fellow will consume about a thousand man hours of our time every month, to make the exact same pitch if we let him."
"So a fellow stood up and asked Mr. Muños, who has volunteered to supervise the elections, if his server keeps track of how many are logged on to follow and vote. He said yes. So the fellow made a motion himself, that if a speech for a motion was being made, another box should be made active on the screen to click, that was an ‘I've heard enough.' box. If 30% of the listeners clicked that, it warned the speaker to wrap it up. If the number grew to 40%, it gave him 30 seconds to wrap it up and bring it to a vote. And if 50% said they'd heard enough it just plain cut him off and put it straight to a vote. Coming right after the park guy, it passed with the widest acceptance of any vote we've had to date."
"The other thing is, Muños is supposed to make a page on the voting site, where you can check ahead of time and read all the proposals that have been prepared ahead. Only thing is, once it's being debated on the floor a proposal can change quite a bit. First election we had my grandfather made a motion and proposal and in just a few minutes I suggested a modification of it and got it passed. But it does tell you ahead of time what some of the ideas are that will be discussed."
"So you've had a hand already in forming the law here. That's amazing."
"You can too, if you have some good ideas. Just be warned. The people here don't like being told what's good for them. They won't put up with somebody trying to regulate them like you see Earthside. We had one fellow already who came up to show us the light. He got up and condemned everyone and cursed them as sinners, for refusing to vote in a theocracy with him as chief interpreter of God's will. Next motion proposed, put him on a shuttle for dirt. He was banished before he even got to stay a night and can't come back. Only been three banished so far and a few more left on their own of course."
"More coffee?" he asked, as he got up for his own refill. He seemed to enjoy doing that and she agreed. He went off with her mug tilted up, reading the ad.
"Where'd you get this?" he asked when he came back, despite the address on the face. "I like it. You want me to carry a weapon around. I figure I can just carry one of these. One good smack with this thing should chill any assailant right out," he quipped.
"When you go out the door, turn against spin and it's on the North side of the corridor about 15 degrees around."
He started making circling motions with his hands and turned sideways in his chair, looking over at the corridor door. Obviously clueless.
"Uh, Go out the door. Turn right and go past three dividers in the corridor and on your left will be three small new shops, that have been remodeled out of one big one and opened this morning. The mug guy is the far one, with all the ropes and nautical stuff. Be sure to tell him I sent you, so I get my commission and he'll give you a mug. If he gives you coffee don't rave on it too much. It'll go to his head."
Jerry face said he didn't know whether to take her seriously or not. April bet he'd name her to Zach, just like she said. After the shakeup he just had about true nature of the war, he was probably ready to believe just about anything.
Any temptation he had to grill her about it, was preempted though by Margaret coming up to their table.
"Is this a private party, or can I sit and harass you this morning?" she asked, sweetly.
"Sure, have a seat, but the good side for people watching is all taken," April pointed out.
"I get paid to watch people. As long as you don't let anybody sneak up on me, I'll turn my back to them and be glad for the break. After awhile you find yourself profiling them on your own time
, out of habit. I just don't know how to shut it off," she confessed.
"Margaret is a detective. She works with Jon in Security," April explained to Jerry. "She often does the gate security for the incoming shuttle."
"This is my new friend Jerry, Margaret. A fairly new immigrant to Home," she explained.
"I wondered something the other day, you could probably explain," Jerry asked. "Since everyone can carry weapons now on Home, what is there to keep the USNA from sending up a shuttle full of soldiers in civilians clothing and just walking right in, armed to the teeth and taking over like they wanted to before? If you saw a bunch coming in that looked the right age and type, to be doing that, what would you do? You couldn't stop the whole shuttle full of them yourself after all, could you?"
Margaret smiled at him. "You're right. Last batch they sent up, I only killed the first twelve through the hatch and the rest got away." She watched carefully, to see if that disturbed Jerry enough he'd be finding a reason to leave. A lot of people were uncomfortable with a woman warrior. "Time to give someone else a turn I'd say. I'd just call Jon and say I think we have a bunch of soldier boys here and the militia would get a broadcast that there might be a fight. It's true, we might lose a dozen or so militia, because of letting them in, but look at that crowd over there eating a late breakfast," Margaret suggested. "How would you characterize them?"
Jerry hadn't twitched at her blunt recital and looked the crowd over, like he hadn't been studying them every morning for a couple weeks in great detail. "Well it's late, so you have the retired and semi-retired, that get up late and the self employed who are on their own schedule. I happen to know that one fellow there in the denim is a writer. Quite successful actually. I've read a few of his mysteries myself. The man at his table with the bandana around his neck, is a fellow who trades securities for himself online. He's one of those multitasking people, who can talk with you while he's eating breakfast and he types in orders with his left hand, while eating with his right and carrying on a conversation, all the time following seventy or eighty stocks scrolling on the pad in front of him. He can watch all of them, with the attention we'd struggle to give one at a time." He turned his attention to April momentarily, "Now there is something, when I figure out what combination of genes gives you that talent, I'll treat myself to it for sure."
"Deal," April agreed. "Put me on the list right behind you. Doesn't matter what you charge. I want it."
"Whoa! You mean you can really do that?" Margaret asked.
"In my own modest way, I am pushing back the envelope of such treatments, yes. But I have to be honest about this one. I have no idea how far off such a treatment is in the future. But it is something I've studied, that has all the earmarks of an innate inherited talent. It is one of the manifestations of instant calculating and perfect memory. It seems to appear in certain populations as a recessive, more than individual families, which drives me nuts. It may be related to perfect pitch and a couple other qualities. Some of which are not especially desirable, such as some forms of autism."
Margaret shook her head, obviously rattled. "We have to talk more about that, but back to the crowd here. How many do you think are armed over there?"
"Looks like about two thirds to me," Jerry allowed.
"Yes," she agreed, "maybe three quarters, if a few carry concealed and that is about what you see walking around in the corridor. And you'd be surprised how heavy the stuff is people are packing. I've even seen people with long guns slung. Even the people carrying lighter calibers, seem to have an affection for armor piercing ammo I've noticed. I'm guessing they remember the suits the Earthies wore last time. So if they send a shuttle full of soldiers up and they all come out bent on shooting the place up, how far will they get? They might not have armor like last time, but even supposing they take out two or three civilians for each one of them, that gets shot, which I doubt, how far will they penetrate?"
"Uh, until they run into the first hundred or so civilians walking around," he concluded, amazed. "It would be kind of stupid wouldn't it?"
"That's the best argument I've heard yet, that they will eventually try it," she agreed
"Then what would happen?" Margaret asked.
"Well, I assume you'd have your ambassador deliver a letter of protest?" he guessed.
"We don't have an ambassador. I doubt if you could get anyone here to take the job. You'd have to live down below on the slum ball and spend every day dealing with politicians. Most of us would rather muck out stables for a living," she quipped.
"If they try to invade us again, it starts us back at square one, at a state of war. Without going into a lot of ugly detail, we explained that we let them off really easy this time, but if we had to fight again, they'd better figure on losing at least half their population and the politicians would be targeted again first. Now the question is - Do they believe? They're such a bunch of liars themselves, I'm not sure they can really believe somebody else isn't just like them. Let's hope they don't test us," she concluded.
"OK, you've convinced me. It's my civic duty to get something capable of taking out an armored suit and lug the damn thing around everywhere I go. I still need somebody to show me how to use it too, but I'll do it. What do you two recommend?"
"Nothing beats a Singh laser pistol like April has, if you can afford it," Margaret stated as a flat certainty. "It's lighter than a firearm. Burns through literally anything and can shoot for hours on a charge. It shoots where you point it, without all the knowledge you need of ballistics for conventional arms. And you can turn the power down and practice with it, where you can't with full load bullets, because we don't have anywhere on Home for a target range yet."
"If you can afford it? Tell me how much we're talking here."
Margaret looked expectantly at April for an answer.
"This is a Mark IV," she explained drawing it and offering it to him. "I kept the first one Jeff built me, because it has nostalgia value to me. But I'm a shareholder in Singh Industries, so whenever he makes a new model I trade him my old one, for the new model and I'm a beta tester. This model isn't for sale yet. He'll let a half dozen of us use it for a bit, before he finalizes the design."
"And how much will that retail for, do you think? Jerry still wanted to know.
"Last I heard, he was asking about fifteen thousand EuroMarks for the current model. That will come down after he sells a few dozen and of course it makes the previous model come down in price. Trouble is, after just a year, the Mark II is already starting to go back up in price, because it's collectable. We only made twenty of the Mark I and the one I carried was the first one to be visible in the press, so it became prime of type for Jane's Weapons of The World. In fact, their photo on the model shows me shooting it off a news photo. I didn't realize it at the time, but Jeff is so systematic that he hand wrote a serial number inside the case of all the Mark I copies with a vacuum felt tip and signed them, which really increased the value. Mine is number 01. I've already had an unsolicited offer for it, of seventy thousand bucks USNA."
Jerry took the pistol she had drawn. It was very light and had a bulge on the end of the stubby barrel. The box shape of the Mark I was gone. The grips were very finely and sharply diamond checkered, so it was like griping a piece of sand paper. It looked pretty cheap. The case was plain carbon fiber composite and it no longer carried a screen. You had to use a pop up scope, or your spex to shoot it. A full screen was now reserved for a heavy two handed weapon, equivalent to a heavy machine gun, which even had its own lidar.
"So what is the difference between this and a Mark III?"
"This is a bit lighter. It has a smaller power pack, because nobody has ever used the capacity of the old ones. We've made the big pack an option. It can speak two hundred fourteen languages to communicate. It has more advanced ultra sound sensing, to make sure beside DNA testing, that the hand holding it is really attached to a live person. It has the ability to be set to a lower self destruct blast, that won't do so
much damage. And it has the ability to be set to give a single emergency shot, that will fire at a very high discharge rate until the laser parts self destruct from the overload. But it pumps out a big burst, for at least a half second until that happens."
"Big enough to do what?" Jerry wondered.
"Well, Jeff assured me it would destroy a main battle tank, or any known aircraft or spacecraft, with a single well placed shot, if you tell it what you're shooting at. And it does have a self aiming utility that will help you track a target once you identify it and get the pistol pointed in the right general direction. If you tell it what sort of target you are acquiring, it can give you a lot of help, if it is dark, or you are injured, or your spex are messed up. It will change the aim point for you while firing too. If you tell it that you are shooting at a tank, it will keep the fire centered until it sees a break through. If you are shooting at an aircraft, it will weave the beam around to chop it up. See the roll around the end of the barrel?"
"Yeah, that gives it a nice Flash Gordon sort of look. What does that do?"
"If you invoke the special high power shot, it has a gold covered Mylar film rolled up in there. When the shot is taken in air, it blows a small charge and the film is thrown out in a big circle, so it reflects the atmospheric backscatter off your beam. Otherwise you'd fry yourself from the radiation off the beam and reflections off any nearby surfaces. Trouble is we haven't had anywhere to test that feature yet. Jeff said he might get the rock owners to let him try it out, firing into the Rock as a backdrop, but he has yet to get all the permissions he needs.
Jerry tried to picture what kind of power it took to be that dangerous, just from the leakage that got away from where you were trying to direct it. That was awesome.
"Why does it need so many languages?" If a user needed a different language, couldn't you add it when it was bought?"
April 2: Down to Earth Page 6
