by Lee Bond
Vasily -who had almost become a Technical Specialist himself- raised a brow. He almost smiled. It was like they’d traveled back in time and were sitting in a classroom somewhere, the impressively brilliant Sa Tomas Kamagana lecturing a roomful of dubious Latelian ‘geniuses’ on why their non-AI systems were destined to fail them sooner or later. The swirling rage in that room had been thick as molasses and Tomas, enrapt in his lecture, had been oblivious. “Oh?”
Tomas chuckled, still impressed with Guillfoyle’s scientific skill even though it’d cost him his career. “The c and x-series DEC chips are duplicitous, Vasily. It is ingenious. The main chip, several dozen nanometers in size, performs its functions without betraying its darker, more treacherous purpose; hidden, smaller –yet larger- than anything I’ve ever personally seen, is a second set of ‘simple’ chips. Even if technicians come across the traces, they will think they are looking at are redundancies or … what would you call them … signatures. Yes. Fanciful patterns and nothing more. When clipped into a board –one designed by Guillfoyle, at any rate- the x-or-c-DEC chip completes a circuit in the targeted computer system. The more Guillfoyle-derived components, the greater the secondary circuit becomes. Analysis shows hard-coded avatar commands built directly into this new circuit. Guillfoyle’s avatar language is very complex, sa. There is a snippet of code that is really quite revolutionary... You see, it …”
“I believe you. As much as I would dearly love to hash over the techniques Guillfoyle employed to undermine the entire Latelian military, there are more important things at hand.” Vasily commented dryly. “I hope you didn’t come all the way from Port for this, Tomas. It was a wasted trip otherwise.”
Tomas nodded sagely and puffed away on his pipe. “I am an old, old man, Vasily. I am not as healthy as I once was. I would not undertake a journey from my home on a whim.”
Vasily -who knew exactly what kind of a man Tomas was- doubted the old man’s statement in its entirety. As a EuroJapanese man from one of the Emperor-dominated worlds within Trinityspace, Tomas had received the very best in medical treatments before fleeing the Emperor forever. Although Tomas looked his age, Vasily had a hard time believing that the old bugger felt as old as he looked. He nodded, accepting Tomas’ sincerity. “Very well, Tomas. Why did you come down here?”
A Sheet –thicker than someone of Tomas’ diminished stature should even own- clattered its way across the desk towards Vasily. Curious, the OverCommander picked it up and examined the table of contents. He narrowed his eyes at his old friend once he’d assimilated the gravity of what he held.
“Possessing this class of avatar or the assembly language required to code them is very serious, Tomas. No one, not even I, can ignore these laws.” Nevertheless, he tabbed his way through a few pages, mood darkening considerably with each paragraph he skimmed. “If I read the explanations for these routines properly… With them, you could infiltrate the entire miLINK. By law, I am required to shoot you on the spot.”
Tomas smiled wistfully. “Let us assume that, for the moment, you will not do that until you hear more my explanation for doing as I have.”
Vasily pulled at his lower lip, reading and shaking his head. The old man hadn’t lost any of his genius. In point of fact, most of what the OverCommander read ascended into such obscure heights of machine code that he felt dwarfed by the immensity of the illegal project; he was holding netLINK avatars of such complexity that they bypassed their own ‘next-gen coding’ by several decades. If their work was 'advanced', Tomas’ was … the apex. He grunted, allowing Tomas to continue.
“Contrary to what you may think, Vasily, the avatars on that Sheet were designed to infiltrate and affect only c-and-x-DEC series chips. If they encounter any ‘LINK or system lacking the hardcoded signifiers that Ashok uses to identify afflicted systems, they will dissemble before any damage is done. If you upload these new encryption algorithms and the frontline avatars onto a prote ‘LINKed to a compromised system, they will spread via that ’LINK to all similarly constructed apparatus and erase the hard-coded commands. The chips will still be accessible through the proper codes, but they’ll be useless.” He smiled again when his oldest and dearest friend tried accessing the first of the files and ran into a security check that he would never pass, not even with the might of blackop avatars. “Using my tools come with two conditions. One is unavoidable and the other is non-negotiable.”
“There is nothing I can do to restore your military credentials, Tomas, nothing.” Vasily gripped the Sheet tightly. Though they had been friends, the best of friends in all truth, Vasily could not, would not, condone blackmail of any sort. He tried to will Tomas into saying something to defuse the situation he’d created.
“Bah! Credentials. I do not care about my military credentials.” Tomas waved his hands in the air, smoke still dribbling out of his pipe; looking at the lit pipe seemed to remind the old man of its existence, so he took a healthy pull, smiling at the taste. “Now. This.” Tomas pointed with his pipe at the Sheet in Vasily’s hands, “this is a one-time deal, sa; tomorrow I go back to work crunching code.”
Vasily looked at his choices, hating what he saw. Waiting for the equipment and tools to arrive from various depots around the planet would take a few more hours at best, definitely longer with the weather front turning beastly. Technical Specialists were saying they needed at least another hour to get everything up and running. Doubtless, testing the old comm-lines to ensure a lack of backdoor traps would even take more time. Longer still to reintroduce the Onesies to ancient tech…
It was a nightmare trailing off into the wee hours of the morning and the hostage taking had already gone on for too long.
Soon enough they’d have an Omega solution to their problems in the form of the Gunboys. Arriving soon, the monstrosities could easily handle anything Vilmos threw at them and the rebellion would die an ugly, ungainly death in the pouring rain. It was a fitting demise for someone like Vilmos.
Yet, if they could avoid using the Gunboys… They were slated for bigger and better things and with Vilmos’ already surprising victories, Vasily loathed the thought of losing even a single Gunboy to the terrorists. The setback would be an insurmountable defeat.
Vasily sighed glumly. It was disgusting that he even imagined Vilmos in possession of weapons that could defeat a Gunboy. “Your terms? Bear in mind, I’m inclined to listen but I am not making any guarantees.”
Tomas relaxed, albeit momentarily; he was in an extremely precarious position and the situation was about to go from foolish to suicidal. He motioned to have the Sheet returned, which he received. While he worked on authorizing Vasily to run the avatars, Tomas spoke calmly, rationally, as if he were asking for a loaf of bread.
“One is not so much a condition as it is a … reminder that sometimes the cure can seem to be worse the affliction.” Tomas continued even though Vasily’s dubious countenance darkened. “As I said, the primary connectivity DEC is situated in one spot, but has many tendrils running through the ‘boards. When activated, my avatars will provide a software override temporarily bypassing the x-DEC, but at the cost of the hardware thusly affected. The systems will essentially overheat and burn out.”
“So using this ‘solution’ will destroy any ‘LINKed compromised system.” Vasily grumbled deep in his chest. He didn’t like the thought of this and yet his own teams hadn’t come up with anything remotely workable. “How bad will this be?”
Tomas made an off-handed gesture with his pipe. “I expect, even for Onesies, the pain will ultimately be quite intolerable. They’ll heal. They always do. There will be the risk of flash fires throughout the area as vehicles and command stations are similarly overheated. Some of the larger, newer machines and vehicles may well explode.”
Vasily shook his head, threw his hands in the air. “This sounds as bad as anything Gualf might do. No, no, I cannot sanction this.”
“And what were you planning on doing with the affected hardware anyway? Salvage i
t?” Tomas demanded stridently, his voice cracking under speaking so loudly. He’d forgotten how stubborn Vasily could be when confronted with a complex choice with no clear ‘yes or no’ answer.
“Using my solution will destroy any equipment the avatars run through, yes, but they also will compile data onto that Sheet, offering solutions that could lead to reworking the x-DEC chips. Replacing all the hardware Ashok Guillfoyle has infiltrated over the years will cost billions, Vasily. Billions. Any gains you made in selling his properties will be lost in a heartbeat and then you are looking at months to replace everything, time where your Army will be significantly underpowered. If the avatars work properly, the damage will be localized. From there, we can apply the solutions simultaneously in safe zones. You could theoretically undo Guillfoyle’s infection in days. Days. For little cost save time and patience.”
Vasily took a deep breath, exhaling noisily through his nose. As much as the OverCommander hated to admit it, Tomas’ offer was undoubtedly the only one that was going to come his way any time soon. His own Technical Specialists had nowhere near his old friend’s knowledge of netLINKs or avatar encoding. It would take them decades to arrive at the same conclusions the ex-EJ wizard had come to, longer still to implement them. He massaged the back of his neck. “Operationally speaking, how long before things stop working?”
“An hour, perhaps more, perhaps less. It depends on the amount of information passing through the LINKS. Decreased intelligence, increase survivability. As with the God soldiers themselves. It is a good design.”
“How long did it take you to design this? A week? Two?” Vasily probed, amazed. Tomas Kamagana had been out of the ‘limelight’ of avatar constructionists for more a decade. The stuff he worked on for Zamger’s netLINK Fun Services was strictly rote avatar-crunching, boring lines of code that purportedly enhanced individual bandwidth without hogging district system resources.
Tomas nearly choked on his pipe. “A week?” He tsked. “I did this during the ride over in the cab, Vasily.” He laughed as the OverCommander blanched. “I may be old and decrepit and barely able to see over your belt buckle, but you cannot for one moment forget that when I came here at the age of fifteen, the state of lateral non-intelligent coding in this system was appalling. I wrote the rules we code by. There is nothing being written in avatar language today that I cannot better.”
There it was. The old arrogance that Vasily knew so well, the arrogance that’d driven the man to insane risks to prove Ashok Guillfoyle’s guilt so long ago. Briefly, Vasily felt a great sense of loss at what might’ve been if they’d all listened. However, they hadn’t, and more fool them. Though Tomas Kamagana had proven himself Latelian at heart, at the time he'd still been ‘just an immigrant’ with Ashok being a member of a noble if fallen house. Guillfoyle’s integrity and loyalty to the Latelian Regime had been beyond reproach.
Vasily desperately wished that they could undo some of what they’d done to the man… alas, the Latelian Regime, even under Alyssa Doans, was not in the habit of retroactive apologies, no matter the cause, no matter the cost. Such cost … “And what is ‘non-negotiable’?”
Tomas looked out the window towards The Museum. It hurt to see such a wonderful monument battered, beaten, half destroyed. The old man closed his eyes, memories turning The Museum into smoldering rubble. “My daughter is in there, Vasily.”
A dark cloud of sorrow passed through Vasily. Naoko? Tiny little adorable Naoko … in there? “Surely not as a …” A stern gaze from Tomas stopped the sentence cold. “I am truly sorry, Tomas. There is nothing I can do. Things … things have gone very wrong in there. Everyone in The Museum has been exposed to Trinity science. We cannot allow what they’ve seen reach the ears of the public. Our science has and always will be the only science.”
Tomas ignored the whole host of obvious points he could make to the opposite of Vasily’s claims and waited for the man to continue. Exposure to Trinity’s technical mastery was hardly a problem; even though they were warned upon moving to Latelyspace, there were thousands of men and women in Port City who would talk freely and willingly about the differences between the two ‘worlds’.
“Someone has also destroyed the counterfeit, Tomas.” Vasily’s point sounded weak, even to his own ears.
“Bah!” Tomas shouted. “I am privy to more than a thousand such secrets, Vasily. I know more about Doans’ reign than anyone else alive other than you. So what if The Box in the Arena is fake? Everyone who needs to know knows it will not and cannot be opened. Hardly anyone alive today even knows what the real Box truly looks like, just as leaders more than a thousand years ago decided. Should anyone gossip, all Alyssa needs to do is issue a press statement saying that we’ve been keeping the original Box hidden until the Final Game for security purposes. In light of all the problems lately, people will believe her. It doesn’t matter. Naoko matters.”
“Tomas,” Vasily said evenly, hating to draw on the cool detachment being OverCommander provided, “there are perhaps fifteen people in the entire system that know about the counterfeits, and they are people like myself. People who would never, even on pain of death or torture or worse admit to anyone what they knew. Alyssa could indeed issue that statement quite readily, and most would believe. Most. As we’ve seen here today, the mood of the malcontented is quite dark and more dangerous than we predicted.”
“She is my only daughter, Vasily.” Tomas said softly. “She is the only thing I have left in the entire world. I already gave my wife, your sister, to my secrets and lies. I cannot lose Naoko, too.”
“Would that this situation was any less volatile, Tomas...” Vasily shut his eyes. Tomas was smaller than ever now, shrinking into himself as he had during Maurna’s … processing. “I…”
Tomas reached a decision. He tossed the Sheet across the table. “Ensure she lives, OverCommander Aurick Vasily Tizhen. Failing that, dispatch soldiers to my humble home in Port. The secrets Ashok lost to the ‘LINKS are nothing compared to what I know.”
“You cannot be serious.” Vasily rose swiftly to block Tomas’ departure. “That statement alone…”
“Is treasonous beyond comprehension and punishable by instant death, I know.” Tomas said into the OverCommander’s shiny belt buckle. “But it is nevertheless true, and is of such sincerity. Make certain that Naoko Kamagana and her new Offworlder friend slip through the cracks of the purge, Vasily. That is all I ask. I am, after all, an old man. I cannot make you do anything. Nevertheless, wisdom, and your relationship to dear, dead Maurna and little Naoko Kamagana, must. Else what you and Alyssa plan will reach the heavens before sunrise and all your plans will tumble into the dust. She lives, or this system dies.” Tomas took advantage of Vasily’s sudden paralysis and left.
Vasily couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find his head. He couldn’t even begin to think when the man had found … found out let alone process that he’d kept that information to himself! The power of that knowledge –and there was no doubt in Vasily’s mind that Tomas knew- could’ve saved the Kamagana family line from what’d happened. Never once during the torturous public castigation, the military court-martial, the endless attempts at Peaking, had Tomas even hinted at his profound secret. Alyssa would’ve killed hundreds, thousands, to save Tomas from his fall had she known. With that man on their side … their plans could’ve been close to completion a decade ago!
Vasily gasped, once, a brief, sharp pain in his chest. Maurna! Her … her breakdown, her interment in a mental health facility, her repeated and endless claims of secrets and lies and everything else that’d seemed so mad up until her suicide; she’d known Tomas had known something powerful enough to save their family. She’d known, and had probably tried to force him into using that secret as leverage.
And he had denied her, for the greater good of the Latelian Regime.
Vasily remembered hating Tomas Kamagana for a long while, hating the pressures that his seeming insanities had put the family through; it was only after being s
pirited away in dead of night to a secure facility that they’d discovered the inoperable tumor, a tumor eating away at her sanity.
It all made sense now, years later and years too late: Tomas’ stoicism, his intractable silences, his brutal coldness … Vasily understood now that the entire thing had been more than enough to push Maurna over the edge.
Vasily wanted to hate Tomas all over again but couldn’t. The realization that one single man could hold onto such power during the darkest personal moments a human could experience and not give in to temptation … it was humbling in the extreme.
There was no greater Latelian in the system. Vasily knew without even thinking that had their positions been reversed, had he been the one on trial and had he been the one in possession of such a secret he would’ve used that power almost instantly.
Now that most loyal Latelian was desperate. At the worst possible moment, Tomas Kamagana was offering a double-edged sword of sickening necessity and undeniable efficiency. Vilmos Gualf needed to be dealt with immediately. It could be minutes or hours, but soon enough Watergate Men and Sigmas wouldn’t be enough to contain the disaster. By now, other traitors in their midst had undoubtedly spread word of the calamity everywhere.
By now, Trinity Itself could know. That was intolerable. Vasily turned his head upward for a moment, wondering what their hidden Trinity representatives thought of the little drama passing below their feet. Would they even care?
Vasily picked up the field glasses and watched The Museum for a time in silence, mind adrift in the past. Thoughts of Maura and her inexplicable attraction to the moody, irritating and insufferably smug Tomas filled him. She’d weathered unbelievable grief from their parents, her peers, her friends, her employers all the time, every step of the way. Vasily knew he’d been the worst of all, blind to the joy in the couple until the impossibly tiny Naoko Kamagana had come into their lives.
