by Lee Bond
Garth forgot to watch his mouth. “There is no fucking way I am letting you die. I haven’t even asked for your help with Huey yet.”
“Huey?”
Garth pulled the force mace out of his foam finger, laid it across his lap and flicked it on. A faint glow of power surrounded it. No one save Naoko had noticed. They were too busy preparing for the worst. “You’ll see, babe. You’ll see.”
Naoko pointed to the glowing weapon in Garth’s hands. “That is operational! I thought … How did you …”
“It’s all part of the long talk we have coming.” Garth turned his head. Some of the terrorists were returning, toting very large containers between them.
“I am beginning to think there will not be enough time in a year for all the things we have to say to one another.” Naoko replied lightly, an attempt at humor. She relaxed somewhat when Garth chuckled and nodded.
Down in the middle of the amphitheater, several dozen large cases were stacked side-by-side and popped open. Inside each was a wide variety of weapons, ranging from handguns to rifles, knives to axes. Vilmos inspected a weapon from each crate at random just to make sure that someone hadn’t screwed up along the way; acquiring realistic-looking guns was more time consuming, costly –and above all, suspicious- than getting hold of the real thing. It was one of those funny little things.
Satisfied that none of the frightened prisoners would find themselves in possession of a fully functional automatic rifle unless he wanted them to, Vilmos turned the Sheets back on and addressed the nervous, frightened crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, sis and sas,” he began, imitating the well-known Game Announcer Uncle Sa as best he could, “may I have your attention for just a moment.”
The crowd, thousands strong, understood Vilmos’ ‘request’ for what it truly was. They stopped talking frightfully amongst themselves and looked to the Sheets.
“Unfortunately, the endgame is coming. Later in the day than I planned for, but it comes all the same.” Vilmos filled his voice with apologetic tones, as though everyone in the audience was on board with his diabolical scheme. “By now, Chairwoman Doans and OverCommander Vasily have concluded that we cannot be allowed to live. I've exposed every single man, woman and child in this room to Trinity’s tech. If we were to tell a single soul what we’ve seen today, it will spell doom to the Latelian Regime.”
Vilmos waited graciously for the few in the crowd to stop wailing. “Any minute now, Goddies are going to come boiling through the walls ready to shoot and kill and possibly eat every single one of us, me included.” He gestured with the aplomb of a game show host towards the boxes behind him. “I give you a final opportunity to save your lives. By doing so,” he added sincerely, “you will show Doans the true fighting spirit of the Latelian heart. She may allow those of you who fight desperately enough a chance at life.”
“Wot ‘appens,” someone shouted loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the entire coliseum, “if we is not wantin’ to ‘bear arms against our oppressors’, mate? Wot if we is quite content to sit ‘ere baa-baa-baaing ourselves into the grave?”
Vilmos tried to find the naysayer in the crowd but failed. “That’s a strange accent you have there, friend. It’s hard to understand you, but I got the gist of your question. If you decide you don’t want to pick up a gun and fight for life, you are useless and the gun turrets placed around the room will shoot you dead.”
A raucous burst of hectoring laughter filled the Viewing Room, forcing people to shift in their seats uncomfortably. “You is welcome to try, my son, you is welcome to try.”
The utter confidence in the strangely accented voice was distinctly off-putting. Was the owner of that voice the one responsible for effectively dismantling the presence of loyal Latelians throughout The Museum? Was he the one behind the overly large explosions, explosions so very nearly ending their attempt early?
Vilmos shook his head irately. There wasn’t enough time to stand around arguing with overly confident sheep. God soldiers really could be along at any minute, bringing utter hell to them all. Better to show them.
He snapped his fingers at an aide and she unflinchingly commanded one of the turrets to open fire. Thousands of rounds per second tore into its pie-wedge, ripping through the crowd.
The reaction was automatic, definitive, perfect. Within seconds of activation, the first gun to come online mowed down hundreds of hostages, sending the blood-covered survivors into a panicked frenzy. Hundreds more were shot down in the aisles as the reticulated gunports snapped loose to track and target civilians as they attempted to flee.
In the other sections, prisoners thought about doing the same but the moment they rose from their chairs, the guns clattered angrily to life, deep red targeting lights glowing somberly. Sickened by panic, they seated themselves, trembling on the brink of madness.
“There.” Vilmos scolded triumphantly. “You see? I offer you a better chance than that.” He crossed his arms against his chest. “Come down here and pick up a gun or you will die. We are all dead now, so it makes little difference who kills you.”
xxx
Even though it was utterly callous, Garth thanked God Vilmos’ display was happening on the other side of the Viewing Room; from a distance, all those people dying hardly seemed real. He was no stranger to wholesale death, but the vibrant young woman sitting beside him was. He gripped her arm tightly and spoke gentle, soothing words. He wasn’t aware of what he was saying on a conscious level. All he could think about was keeping Naoko mentally intact.
After a few minutes, he spoke calmly, “Naoko. When it’s our turn, we need to go down there and pick up a gun. Do you think you can do that?”
Naoko used the sleeve of her shirt to wipe away the tears. “I’ve ruined my make-up. I must look awful.” She burst out laughing at the shocked look on Harry’s face. The ugly brutality of the hologram’s face didn’t carry concern very well at all. “I’m … I’m sorry, sa. This is awful. Morally reprehensible and foul. But … I have seen this sort of thing before.”
“You have?”
Naoko nodded as she dug through her handbag for a tissue to blow her nose. “My father was in the military. I think I said that already. I can’t remember. This day has been so long. I barely remember waking up. Anyway, as a young girl, I broke into his files and witnessed the true history of our wars. It is not as glamorous or as … noble as the people believe. There were … horrors.”
Naoko blew her nose loudly, and then dropped the tissue to the floor. Under normal circumstances, it would go back into the handbag, but with everything that was going on, no one would notice one tissue. “In addition to all that, Garth Nickels, do not forget that everyone in the room has been a long-time adherent of the Game. Bloodshed is a part of our lives. This is all very gross and disgusting, but … I believe I am over the worst of it now. I cry for the loss of life. There were children in that group.”
“You are awesome.” Garth put as much warmth and consoling energy into his voice as he could muster, even though he was aghast at the resilience of Latelians. Throughout the Viewing Room, things were already returning to normal. They were as hard as any soldier. Harder, because they themselves had never been on the field of battle. “A little deranged to look at this kind of stuff as a kid, but otherwise, you’re aces.”
“I was not ‘deranged’, sa!” Naoko shot back, shocked by her own anger, “but curious. My father toiled endlessly in his efforts to guide the army into a more humane path of conflict. He failed.”
“Oh. I’m … I’m sorry. Forgive me?” He sighed when she nodded, though a squint around her lovely eyes suggested they were going to have a talk about his assholery when everything was over. “Can you let me know when it’s our turn to go down there and get some guns?” Garth started working on his prote.
“What are you going to do?” Naoko inquired, wishing there was some way to hack into Garth’s prote. She’d already tried a dozen times since being stuck in the Viewing Room while he ran aroun
d bashing terrorists in the head with Allyn Devince’s mace, but to no avail; a professional hacker renowned throughout the entire system, it bothered Naoko more than she liked to admit.
There wasn’t a computer network on the planet she couldn’t hack into with time and patience, and yet her new love’s ugly machine was immune. What had he wrought with the clumsy-looking Odin?
Garth watched the hack-avatars cycle up and grinned. With the might of four military-grade proteii at his command, his impromptu plan should work. It’d be inelegant, obvious and could possibly wind up leading Doans and her minions right to his doorstep, but he’d made a promise to himself in that hospital. He was going to keep it. “A last ditch attempt to convince the powers that be to calm the he… calm down and let us out of here alive.”
“It will not work.” Naoko replied sadly, hanging her head on Garth’s shoulder. It might be her imagination, but the holographic skin touching her cheek was beginning to feel more like skin than the simple presence of solidity. There was definitely new warmth to the ‘skin’. She stifled worries at what was happening beneath that hologram. Garth seemed fine and beyond that, he was utterly disinclined to worry.
“Let us hope,” Garth directed the first of his avatars to track down OverCommander Vasily’s prote, “that I can be all Jean-Luc Picard and rationalize our way out of this mess. Because baby, if that doesn’t work, I’m gonna go Shatner on these fuckers.”
Live, from The Museum, it’s Terror Time!
The Traitor’s confession was at an end.
Listening to Ashok’s dispassionate and ever-growing list of lies, deceit and trickery was a revelation to Chairwoman Doans. In many ways, the traitor’s ability to get as far as he had into the military computer netLINKs had come as a direct result of her introduction of more ‘lenient’ government modalities into the mix.
Ashok Guillfoyle was a businessman. For him, operating in a system like Latelyspace was ultimately bad for business; before adopting and enforcing democratic processes into their worlds, she could’ve stormed in and taken everything away from him, at any moment, for any reason.
Alyssa still possessed that power. In fact, she’d never surrendered any of her own rights and authorities. But she’d been operating under that fallacy and would continue doing so until they reached their goals.
Guillfoyle’s unfettered successes down the paths of treachery, greed and lies proved that when strict rules and regulations were put aside for more relaxed legislations, a company could flourish like a strangling weed. Conglomerates in their most liberal sense were an invention of Trinityspace. Guillfoyle had adopted the credos of his heroes in the blink of an eye and had flourished.
No such monopolistic, controlling and uncontrollable beast could exist without democracy. Or, Alyssa thought wryly, the utter and absolutely perfect illusion of democracy.
Only fools and the blindly loyal believed the Trinity AI ‘let’ It’s people do anything. The only difference between how Trinity governed and how she governed was in knowledge; intentionally blinding herself with social equality and endless debates had perforce given Ashok Guillfoyle the tools of sedition, and he’d gleefully leaped at the chance. He’d wanted to rule the system through the power of money, of knowledge, sitting at the top of the heap with all the very best in life. Trinity had possessed ultimate power and authority in It’s self-named volume of space that no one was the wiser as to how little control they truly had over their own lives.
Directly opposite his younger brother in every way that mattered, Vilmos Gualf’s raison d'être was a reinstitution of the hard-core iron fist in a duronium glove. The two of them had colluded for years, planning the perfect method to oust Chairman Scottsdale. Was it not for a Sigma burying the entire event, that approach would be marked in history as the bloodiest coup in the entire history of Latelyspace. The least part of that story would be the part where Scottsdale’s ‘flight of madness’ in a stolen VapoRaptor was revealed to be more of a ‘panicky escape from a howling mob of maddened lunatics’, ’his’ destruction of The Museum a decisive, tactical strike orchestrated to send a resounding message to Scottsdale’s supporters.
In addition to being needlessly sentimental, Gualf’s choice of staging grounds was a personal message; he was trying to remind her of who she was.
Alyssa wanted to laugh. Vilmos Gualf was trying to resurrect a Chairwoman who hadn’t died.
If only Vilmos Gualf hadn’t run for the hills after her ascension to the Chair. She could’ve used a man like him, would’ve exploited his animalistic cunning for their greatest plan. Alas, things had gone the way they’d gone and they were all stuck on the path.
“Is this it?” Chairwoman Doans demanded. Across from her, Ashok nodded miserably. His face was puffy, his throat swollen, his skin pale, all from revealing his excesses.
“Yes, Chairwoman Doans. There is nothing left.” Ashok realized he hated the sound of his own voice. If he ever got the opportunity, he’d rip the Second Tongue free, regardless of all the damage it would cause. Not only would it free him from pain, it might kill him. The bliss of impending silence filled him.
“You’ve been a very good boy, Ashok.” Chairwoman Doans smiled sweetly. She’d been wearing the guise of a ‘liberal’ tyrant for so long she’d actually forgotten the thrill of power being a true dictator brought. “The Peak has done you a world of good. Would you like to return for more ‘reeducation’?”
“No, Chairwoman.” Ashok wished depth of emotion came through the Tongue. He would literally do whatever it took to stay free of The Peak. How people survived for years in that monstrous hellhole was beyond his capacity to understand. “I would like to stay out of there.”
“And why should I let you?” A call was trying to come through on her prote. Doans pushed a button and killed the transmission at its source. This was too important a conversation.
“Because I am no longer a threat to anyone. If I can work for the Chair, I would like to. My designs in anti-God weapons and defensive systems are revolutionary. In the pursuit of deceit, I detected more than a dozen crippling faults in the Onesie conversion protocols, weaknesses that anyone with the technical knowledge can exploit. I am willing to share these with you for my freedom.”
Doans hid her smile. Utter truth was a beautiful thing. Ashok Guillfoyle was ineffably sincere. He’d cracked like an egg. They all did. It was just a matter of finding the right pressure. The Chairwoman frowned as another call tried to push its way through. Indicating that Ashok should hold that thought, Alyssa tapped another button and waited while her avatars located the source of the call.
The call came from nowhere. Chairwoman Alyssa Doans grunted. She knew who it was, and flinched when every Sheet in her office flared to life with the unexpected and definitely unwanted hideous visage of Harry Bosch. Damn that man!
“Hey, Chairwoman.”
“That’s him.” Ashok jumped to his feet, trying to shout his shock, but the words came out in a very dull monotone. “That’s Garth Nickels. That’s … that’s him! The source of my demise.”
Alyssa raised an eyebrow. “I hate to point out the obvious…”
“Ashok! Buddy!” Harry cried. “Good to see they let you out of prison. I’d like to thank you again for supplying me with the drug. You’ve given me a new lease on life. Oh, and the prote, too. It’s amazing. Wait, what? What the hell is that on your neck?”
“That is not Harry Bosch. There is no ‘drug’ to cure a God soldier. I did not provide him with a proteus.” Ashok persisted as best he could. “That is a complex hologram. The real man is beneath the illusion, and that is Garth Nickels. Everything he says is a lie.”
“Shut up, Ashok.” Alyssa snapped. Ashok shut. “Are you still in The Museum, Sa Bosch?”
“Yes, Chairwoman. Errr, actually, that’s why I’m calling.” Harry scratched his nose. “It strikes me that we’re looking at a purge-all-souls kind of situation and … that doesn’t sit too well with me. I’ve got a vested interest in sur
vival, Chairwoman.”
Alyssa’s lips quirked in wry irony. “There is nothing to be done, Sa Bosch. As an ex-soldier, you of all people understand all too well the dangers of letting something like this go unchecked. I cannot expose my people outside The Museum to Trinity technology. It would destroy us.”
Harry nodded. “I get where you’re coming from, Si Chairwoman, I really do. What you’re not getting is that everyone in this room is going to need serious therapy. No one here is going to be talking about anything other than the number of people they saw die. Vilmos Gualf just got finished killing around a thousand people to make a point. Right now, he’s handing out weapons to the survivors. I’m pretty sure most of them are willing to use them in order to live. It’s your fault for making us all so very strong.”
Ashok loved his brother, but hated the man’s ideals. He wanted to find a solution that would help end the occupation, but couldn’t.
“Ah.” Chairwoman Alyssa Doans relaxed into her chair, smiling. “Then there really is nothing I can do, Sa Bosch. By arming the civilians, he is turning them into combatants. The God soldiers tasked to the current crisis are not intellectual giants. Asking them to differentiate between regular people forced into holding guns and terrorists dressed like normal people is impossible. I am very sorry, Sa Bosch.” Alyssa tried to shut the Sheets off. Nothing happened. Who was this Hieronymus Bosch, and where had he come by his technology? She couldn’t even deploy avatars to verify the man was in The Museum! She cast a narrow, thoughtful eye at Ashok.
The prisoner was clearly frantic at the sight of Bosch, but beyond that, he showed extreme interest in the matter beneath their ‘chat’; he was just as curious as she was as to how Bosch was doing the impossible. Who had this Bosch person fallen in with, to have such equipment at his fingertips?
More tellingly, why weren’t his providers dead or working for the government?
“Chairwoman Alyssa Doans.” Harry intoned, his eyes narrowing into the beadiest of points. “You and I both know the targeting software on a military proteus can be loaded with ‘friendly’ fire bios. Targeting solutions provided by a prote and a soldier’s cybernetic brain can very easily be relayed onto a God soldier’s retinal tracking systems. You can literally make it impossible for them to fire on innocent people. Otherwise, they’d wind up shooting themselves as often as not. As you say, they’re not intellectual giants.”
