Huh? Well, tell them it’s not working for me. I already have a headache trying to work this all out. He paused. Then Bruce felt whole again. One minute there were two hims and he felt like he was talking to himself and going nuts, then the two of them completed synching like a computer and he finally understood what was going on.
“I’m buggered if I know how this is going to work,” he muttered. “What about the MPU, what’s happened to it?”
I can do much better than that piece of unreliable, outdated software package, the Transcendent said, joining what was a very confusing conversation. We can dispense with the requirement to deal with yourself on a metaphysical level as well.
The icons in his vision blinked out and Bruce felt something slip from his mind. There was an immediate sense of loss, a bit like losing an old mate, or having to put down a favourite dog. For a moment the normally stoic Bruce was almost overcome by emotion at the loss of his faithful and supportive old friend – then it was over. The friend, in fact, was a cantankerous old software program which had never been there when it was really needed.
You won’t need those icons to interface with us, and we have so much more to offer than the MPU, the voice, this new presence, insinuated into his mind. It seemed to Bruce he was being seduced – part of him was actually flattered by the concept. The approach was working for the Transcendent.
He put his hand out to steady himself on a non-existent pole as his mind started to race as if it had been turbocharged.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Bruce asked for the umpteenth time. “What happened to the MPU and who are you?” For a moment he was concerned some kind of virus had overtaken him, or worse, some evil hacker had somehow interfaced with the MPU and was toying with him.
Don’t worry, the gentle voice soothed him. Think of us as an upgrade.
“What kind of upgrade?”
Then everything was crystal clear to Bruce. He finally understood how he could be in two places at once. His mind seemed to expand as he discovered he had access to all the information resources available in the universe. He could now answer the eternal question regarding God and how life had begun. Well, not quite. But with some authority he could tell anyone who bothered to listen and would believe him how intelligent life had evolved on this planet. He could even provide evidence of other semi-sentient life across the galaxy. He now knew the truth behind the world’s creation myths and how precious and unique sentient life was in the known universe.
However, he still could not say for sure whether the origins of life in this universe were part of someone’s grand design or it had all begun as some great cosmic accident. Even the Trancendents, powerful and sophisticated as they were, still hadn’t managed to answer that question.
However, Bruce knew he now had a much more reliable and powerful toolset at his fingertips than he had had in the MPU. He was almost omnipotent – which was all rather scary when there was nobody to contradict him.
Fifteen
The trial continues today of NBA star Arnold Rumbold who is facing charges of conspiring to and attempting to assassinate the President of the United States as he began an address at a specially convened sitting of the United Nations General Assembly.
Just how Rumbold gained entry to the Assembly remains a mystery and has raised concerns about the security of senior officials at the United Nations. An official speaking anonymously, because they are not authorised to comment, suggested Rumbold may have bribed a security guard with the promise of free game tickets to gain entry to the public gallery.
Rumbold’s current mental state is also under question. Unfortunately, it appears he is another high-profile example of a prominent celebrity who has been poorly advised and perhaps taken advantage of by his support team, then gone off the rails in a spectacular fashion.
It has also been suggested Rumbold has been prey to some form of brainwashing by a group of people purporting to be in communication with inhabitants from a planet from the other side the galaxy. However, Rumbold is maintaining that he is the official spokesperson of an alien race known as the Skidians and is also maintaining President Mitchell is not, and never has been, a representative of his people. He is also adamant he was acting alone.
As Rumbold was attempting to complete the assassination attempt of Mitchell, the President was in the process of having a very public meltdown on the podium, claiming he is the official representative of a race of aliens who have access to technology far in advance of anything yet developed by the human race. Mitchell claims he was negotiating to secure access to this advanced technology for the benefit for all of humanity. The President also claimed he had visited the planet on an alien spaceship numerous times.
Given the President has not been seen in public for some days, one must ask the question whether he and Rumbold are sharing adjacent padded cells.
In other news – NASA, in conjunction with government space agencies from Russia, China, India, Japan and the European Union, will send an unmanned probe to undertake a fly-by of the large asteroid known as Automedon as it approaches Earth. If it continues on its current heading it could become a new satellite orbiting Earth at twice the distance of our moon. The purpose of the probe is to obtain more data about the composition of the asteroid and determine whether it would be useful to mine, and also to confirm its current trajectory to ensure it does not pose any threat to Earth.
Manned missions are planned as soon as Automedon’s orbit is stable. NASA has a new generation of reusable shuttlecraft in pre-production which will now be tasked to visit the asteroid once they have been commissioned with multinational crews.
This kind of cooperation is almost unheard of between the national space agencies. While astronauts, scientist, and support crews are all for collaboration, politics and national prestige normally play a huge part in any space activity.
Dick Todd was frantically trying to contact his brother, who seemed to have gone completely off the grid. Dick, like his brother, had a morbid fixation with the ins and outs of American politics and spent far too much time engrossed in the Fox News Channel. Not because he agreed with the politics, far from it. His views were pretty similar to those of his brother in that he was fixated on various shows for the entertainment value alone. He enjoyed them in the same way he enjoyed watching really poorly executed karaoke in the bar below his office, painful to witness but somehow impossible not to see through to the bitter end. Today his interest was heightened because of the news of a terrorist attack in Portland, Oregon, the city where he owned a bar with his brother Trev.
As the news cameras panned to the scene of yet another terror attack on the United States, Dick recognised with a shock the still-smoking ruins of his business. The structure was gone, but he recognised the unique stone buildings that had stood – and still did – on either side of it. The first thought Dick had was they seemed remarkably undamaged despite the supposed bomb explosion which had taken out the bar, leaving a pile of smoking rubble in the space. It seemed to him that the building must have had been taken out by a really surgical rocket strike. Or someone had used a big digger to carefully rip the building down and push all the rubble and timber into a pile and put a match to it.
He turned up the sound in order to clearly hear the commentary.
“… The owner of the building which housed the bar cannot be located. It has been assumed by first responders the owner was either a willing participant and conspirator in a failed bomb plot or an innocent bystander in this and other failed terrorist attacks in the north-west. Police,” the reporter droned on, “… have released information pointing to information the bar may have been used as a front for a terror cell and that authorities were confident they had the cell contained and all the participants either in custody, or they had been killed in various aborted raids.”
Dick desperately dialled his brother’s mobile again. He had little interest in what the average American thought about the news of the attack, but as far as he was
concerned it was a complete load of twaddle. “Trevor Todd, who is speaking please?”
“You’re not Trev. Who the fuck are you?”
“The owner of this phone is being held in a secure facility and is being questioned regarding recent terrorist activity in the Portland area. I repeat, who are you? You are required to identify yourself to me and we will want to talk to you in relation to this matter.”
“Get lost, you halfwit.”
Dick ended the call and went upstairs to his office. Trev would have been horrified to know his brother had had him under constant surveillance the whole time the café had been open. Likewise, the local authorities would have been appalled to discover that a hacker from small-town New Zealand had circumvented the local municipal CCTV system and pointed a handy security camera at the bar, and it was still dutifully recording and transmitting the images to Dick.
Ignoring his phone, now ringing incessantly, Dick scrolled back through the recording until he found the information he was after. Two rather interesting things, as it turned out. He let the mobile ring a few more times, then answered. “Speak.”
There was a momentary pause on the other end of the line at this greeting.
“This is a critical national security situation,” an officious voice began, clearly not used to being questioned. “You are required to identify yourself and provide your location so you can be picked up and brought in for questioning in relation to terror attacks in the Portland area.”
“Get a grip on yourself, mate. In case you hadn’t noticed, you don’t have any jurisdiction over me. Now, what is going on over there?” Dick pressed on, not allowing the caller to recover his composure. “Please put my brother on the phone or I will release some very interesting video footage to Fox News TV and any other news channel I can find.” Dick paused for a moment before continuing. “Do you want the registration number of the SUV in which two men and a woman drove away in with my brother in the back seat?”
There was a short pause as the caller gathered their wits before replying.
“Trevor Todd has been implicated in aiding and abetting a known terrorist. On this basis he has been taken into custody for questioning in relation to the terrorist actions around the north-west and other parts of the country in the last few days.”
Dick ignored the caller and scrolled through the footage frame by frame until the bar burst into flames, then scrolled backwards a few frames.
“Are you still there?” the voice asked, clearly growing anxious.
It only took Dick a few moments to find the cause of the explosion. “Given time, I could probably find out the owner of the car that stopped outside my bar and threw the explosive device inside. I also have a full-face image of this person. What are you going to do then?”
There was silence for a moment. Dick was bluffing. He was pretty clever but not quite that clever.
“Stay on the line, please.”
Maybe the bluff was working.
Dick decided not to bother hanging on. They, whoever they were, had his number and would call back sooner or later. He leant back in his chair and thought about how he was going to respond. Number one was getting his brother out of the scrape he had got himself into. Number two was how much cash he was going to screw out of these guys as compensation.
At least he had got the attention of the caller and they realised he was not going to be pushed around. Whether this would help Trev remained to be seen. He wondered what Trev had got himself mixed up in. Certainly not terrorism. Had the stupid bastard got himself mixed up with some drug dealing? He was probably silly enough to do something like that. Dick could trawl through hours of recordings and maybe find out, as he had cameras in the bar as well, but wasn’t sure he could be bothered.
Bruce Harwood! I wonder where he is and whether he knows anything. Dick scrolled through his contact list, sure he had Bruce’s phone number there somewhere. Which he did, and he hoped it was still current.
“Hello? Who’s this?”
“Hi, Bruce. How are things, mate?”
“Good, mate,” Bruce responded suspiciously. The voice was vaguely familiar but Bruce could not quite place it for the moment. “Who’s this?”
“Dick Todd.”
“Not bad then. And yourself?”
“Fine thanks, living the dream.”
Yeah right. Living the dream in Tuakau? Bruce thought.
“What can I do for you?” The call was a bit out of the blue, after all. “I saw your brother the other day – he was actually best man at my wedding,” he added belatedly, remembering the connection. “Is he OK, is anything wrong?”
“That’s why I’m ringing you. His bar has been destroyed by fire, and every time I try to call him some kind of policeman tries to find out who I am. Do you know if Trev was up to anything dodgy over there?”
Bruce hesitated just long enough for Todd to smell a rat. Todd’s phone beeped to indicate an incoming call. He looked at the number and asked, “Can I call you back?”
“Sure, mate,” Bruce replied. “I’m not going anywhere in a hurry.”
Thirty-five thousand feet over the Pacific Ocean Wisneski received another strong hint he was going to be the fall guy when this whole operation blew up in the face of the administration, as his phone warbled and a man describing himself as one of General Smith’s people, some low-level functionary he had only met once or twice, was asking him for guidance.
Wisneski was in the process of discovering all investigations and questions surrounding the programme to deal with the asteroid and the aliens now appeared to lead directly to him. Part of him was flattered at his apparent elevation into a position of considerable power. On the other hand, any investigation by the media or any one of numerous government agencies that could be pulled into investigate the whole sorry mess – what the government knew about the asteroid, and why hadn’t those riches and the alien technology been appropriated for the benefit of the United States – would also have his name on them. Blowing up suspected terrorists and destroying public property in the process were the least of his worries.
In all the drama of the last few hours and days, he had wondered from time to time what had, and what was to become of Sue Harwood now she had effectively been proved worthless to the cause. He was not aware that Trevor Todd, Bruce Harwood’s drinking buddy and temporary landlord, had been taken into custody.
Special Agent Duke and his sidekick Adams were not the sharpest objects in the pencil case, and Wisneski doubted they understood the deep shit they were in. Clearly the chain of command had gone silent and they were seeking some form of direction, looking around for someone to unload their problems on. He wondered who had given them his name.
“What kind of trouble have you got yourself into this time, Duke?” he asked.
“As you will be aware, we have Trever Todd in custody.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it, and I’m unsure whether I understand the connection with me here?”
“General Smith said for us, to get some direction on this matter from you, sir,” Duke explained with far more deference than Wisneski had experienced in his previous dealings with Duke. He had locked horns more than once with Duke, who seemed to think he had a huge amount of influence on the course of National Security strategy.
“I’m not sure I follow you. You’re asking me for direction regarding an operation I have no knowledge of? Don’t you find this unusual, Agent Duke?”
“I don’t know the ins and outs of the process, sir,” Duke persisted. “All I know is I have been advised you are now my designated command authority in this matter,” he continued, doing his best to hand over responsibility for his two prisoners to Wisneski. He, too, had an inkling where this operation was going and wanted nothing more to do with it.
Wisneski rubbed his chin thoughtfully and glanced over at Shelly Shaw, wondering what she was thinking. She was the other fall guy here – well, woman. Wisneski could see the headlines now: disgraced military
intelligence-cum-security officer and his accomplice plot to take over the United States Government using alien technology. All kinds of abuses identified. Alleged plotters in custody, senate and congressional committees will complete separate investigations. Figures at the heart of the establishment implicated … blah blah blah … and he would be lucky to ever see the outside of a federal prison ever again.
“And who was your former command authority?”
“I am not at liberty to say. Sir.”
“Of course. We both know General Smith is just covering his arse. Very well, how can I help? I’m sure this isn’t a courtesy call to swap pleasantries.”
“No. As I just mentioned, we have taken Trevor Todd into custody but somehow his brother has found out we have him and his demanding to speak to him.”
“So how is this my problem?” Wisneski asked.
“We are unsure whether we should acknowledge we have Todd in custody or not.” Duke paused. “There’s going to be an almighty mess to clear up if we release him. I mean, how do we explain the demolition of his bar?”
“I can’t help you there, you’ll just have to deal with that yourself.” Wisneski thought that orders for the destruction of the bar, if they had ever been written, were already being retrospectively rewritten. Or more likely, being hastily written with his name all over them as they spoke. This did not mean he was going to make life easy for Duke.
“My suggestion is that you allow Mr Todd to speak to his brother. While you have Mr Todd on the phone, it might help to explain to him that we have his brother in protective custody.”
Duke did not respond immediately, and Wisneski found his call being transferred to another line.
“Hello?” he asked as he heard a click. “Who am I speaking to?”
“My name is Dick Todd and I demand to know where my brother is and why he’s being held. Immediately.”
The Lifeboat Page 32
