by Bob Blanton
“Hey, whatever works,” Catie said. “Can we go over the scout now?”
“Sure. First, the flight bays; you know it’s going to be a tight fit getting four Foxes and two Lynxes into that flight bay.”
“Yes, but we’ll only be operating the scout in space, so we’ll be able to raise them up, spin them around, and drop them into place since we’ll be in microgravity. If we decide to take her into the atmosphere, we’ll just drop two of the Foxes off.”
“That will work, I just wanted to make sure you understood the implications.”
“I do. What are the final crew accommodations?”
“You have room for four officers, with separate cabins; four small, two-berth cabins; and ten quad-berth cabins for crew.”
“Great, so you were able to fit in the extra two crew cabins,” Catie said.
“It was pretty easy; we just stole a little bit from the captain’s cabin. It’s still huge, what with his day cabin and its big dining table.”
“And do the officer cabins have the extra upper berth?”
“Yes, we added that last week. I should have thought of that since we did it on the carriers.”
“Me too. But we’ve been moving so fast. Cargo bay?”
“About a third of the ship is cargo; you could always add more crew space down there if you need it.”
“No, I’m sure we’ll need all the cargo space. And we’ll need to use it for manufacturing space once we unload some of the cargo.”
“Oh, right. Well, you’ll have plenty of space,” Ajda said. “You have about half the missiles that Sakira carries, so hopefully, you don’t get into any shooting matches out there.”
“There shouldn’t be anyone where we’re going, but Uncle Blake doesn’t like going anywhere without some way to make his point,” Catie said.
“You have plenty of missiles for your Foxes. I put the armory in the back section of environmental so you can access the missiles from the flight bay. You have an elevator there to bring them down, or send them up to stow them.”
“Good, good. So, when can we take it out to test the jumpdrive?”
“We can finish things up in a couple of days,” Ajda said. “Who’s going to fly it for the jumps?”
“ADI for the first few; then we’ll have Seamore, our spider monkey, make a couple; then Liz and I will make the final test jumps.”
“Brave of you.”
“Hey, if Seamore can take it, so can we,” Catie said. “Besides, he’s our first jump pilot, so he’s already qualified.”
“Do you care who pilots it out to the fringe?”
“I want to, but I’m stuck here,” Catie said. “You can send it on autopilot, or you can fly it if you want.”
“Thanks, I might,” Ajda said. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“Alright, bye.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Marcie, do you have some time?” Catie asked. Marcie was the sales rep for MacKenzie Discoveries. She spent quite a bit of time on the road, attending trade shows and visiting key tech companies that were using products produced by MacKenzies. Catie was surprised to find that she was in Delphi City.
“Sure, Catie. What’s up?”
“I’m starting a business, and I wanted to get some advice.”
“What kind of business?”
“Right now, it’s making robotic step stools. I got the idea when I was rooming with a woman who’s kind of short.”
“That sounds interesting; how are sales?” Marcie asked. She got up and moved to the sofa in the corner of her office.
“I’ve sold five,” Catie said, “but I’m just getting started and need some advice.”
“Come and sit down, and we’ll talk.” Marcie sat down and patted a spot on the sofa next to her. “Now, what do you want to accomplish with this company?”
“I’m not sure. I just have some ideas about different products, and I want to sell them,” Catie said.
“Then why not just do it through MacKenzies?”
“I guess that since they’re my ideas, I want it to be mine,” Catie said. “Besides, Herr Hausmann says we should diversify.”
“Okay. I know you have plenty of money to start a company, so what’s the problem?”
“I want to design the stuff,” Catie said. “I’m not that interested in doing the sales and marketing part.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t seem like much fun to me,” Catie said. “I’m not that good at meeting people and being persuasive.”
“But you could practice.”
“Sure, but I’d rather work on another design. Besides, I still have projects I have to do for MacKenzies and some private projects that I’m working on. The design work is easy to fit in whenever I can, but the marketing and sales seem like they need to be more full time, or at least more consistent.”
“That’s correct. But you can hire people to do that for you.”
“I know; that’s why I’m here; I’m looking for advice on how to find the right people.”
“So, this step stool, is that your main product?”
“No, I’ve got a mini-Comm I’ve designed. And a viewer for it.”
“A mini-Comm?”
“Yes, here it is,” Catie said. She removed the Comm she had strapped on her arm and showed it to Marcie.
“Oh, this is small. With it being so small, how do you use it?”
“Well, I have a special interface that lets me type directly. But you would just use your specs to project a keyboard and type.”
“Oh yes, I’ve seen Sam doing that. You wear it on your arm.”
“It’s too big for a woman’s watch, so I either wear it as an armband, or I wear it on a chain like a pendant.”
“That’s nice; it looks a bit like black onyx. But what would be really nice is if you could make it more colorful. Maybe even put jewel inlays on it.”
“I’ll talk to Nikola about that. I’m sure we could work something out; we might even be able to do some custom designs.”
“And what else do you have, you said something about a viewer?”
“Yeah, if you don’t want to use your specs to view things, maybe you want to share, or you’re someplace where you shouldn’t wear specs, you can use this viewer.” Catie pulled a seventy-five by one hundred fifty-millimeter sheet out of the side pocket of her shipsuit. “It’s about the same size as an iPhone, but it’s thinner and way lighter. But like your specs, it lasts for one day if you’re not doing very much. But if you view a lot of color videos, then you’ll need to recharge it after a couple of hours.”
“I know about that charge limit with my specs. It can be frustrating at times.”
“Then you might like my mini-recharger,” Catie said. “It’s a battery with an inductive couple on it. You can recharge your specs up to four times from it. And it only takes one minute to recharge them.” Catie pulled a small forty-millimeter square block that was about twenty-five millimeters thick from the same pocket she’d had the viewer in.
“I like that. Can I get one?” Marcie asked as she held the small recharger. “See, you can be persuasive.”
“Ha, ha. You can have that one if you like. You just put it on your charging pad to recharge it.”
“Do you have anything else?”
“Not yet; I keep coming up with ideas, but until now, I didn’t really have any reason to pursue most of them. Now I want to make them real.”
“That’s good,” Marcie said. “I really think these will be successful. It could be a lucrative business if you come up with a few more ideas like this.”
“Good, so do you know someone I could hire to help me?”
“I’ll tell you what, send me the info, and I’ll get things started for you. I’ll work on it part time until it’s too much for me. Then we’ll talk. If I’m having fun, maybe I’ll let you hire me. I can probably afford to work part time for a year or so. And I’d like to cut back on my travel. MacKenzies is starting to be too much work for me.
I miss my kids and want to spend more time with them. Now that they’re older, I can’t take them with me as often, so the travel doesn’t work as well.”
“Oh, that would be so cool. I’d make you a partner and guarantee your salary for a couple of years,” Catie said.
“Oh, you don’t want to saddle your startup with a lot of overhead,” Marcie said. Then looking at Catie rolling her eyes, she realized that a few hundred thousand dollars didn’t really mean that much to a fifteen-year-old billionaire. “Let’s see what happens after I get things rolling, then we’ll talk.”
“Sure! And thanks, Marcie.”
“No, thank you. This will be fun.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Hi, Nikola,” Catie said as she met her in her Delphi City lab. “Why are you hanging out down here in Delphi City?”
“Leo’s being difficult,” Nikola said. “I thought some time apart would be nice. Besides, I like to be able to go outside and sit in the sun.” Nikola and Leo Zelbar were two of the first residents of Delphi Station. Many of their experiments could only be done in the microgravity labs up there, so they spent most of their time there.
“He did seem grouchy when I talked to him,” Catie said.
“Well, he’s always grouchy, but it’s usually more of an act. But right now, it’s real. He must be struggling with his latest experiments, that always puts him in a bad mood. So, what brings you here?”
“I’ve asked him to work on a project for me. It’s private, so I have to pay. He told me to talk to you.”
“He’s lazy; he always makes me handle all the business stuff. Anyway, we just charge by the hour for consulting work. I’ll make sure I capture his hours and bill you.”
“Thanks, that works for me.”
“What are you having him work on?”
“An iris so you can enter and exit a cargo bay without having to decompress it.”
“That sounds interesting; maybe working on it will put him in a better mood.”
“I hope so.”
“Is that all you need?”
“I have one other request. You know the mini-Comm I showed you guys in December?”
“Yes, wasn’t I supposed to get one?”
“Oops, I don’t remember you asking for one. I’ll have one delivered today.”
“Hmm, maybe I didn’t ask. With Kal and your uncle demanding all of the ones from the print run, I may have kept quiet.”
“I’ve got a few from my previous run, so I’ll take care of you.”
“Thank you. Now, what did you want again?”
“I was talking to Marcie about selling them, and she suggests they would sell better if they were decorated, like having inlaid jewels on them.”
“That would be pretty,” Nikola said. “Let’s see; we could use a foam blank to make a well, then put some inlay in it and cover it all with polyglass. I’ll work on it and let you know.”
“Don’t forget to charge me.”
“Can I have a percent instead?”
“A percent of the profits or of the company?”
“What company?”
“I’m forming a company to make these and some other products I came up with,” Catie said. “I’m going to start selling them soon.”
“Then, a percent of the company if you’re offering.”
“Sure, talk to Marcie about it. I’ll let her know we’ve talked; she’s setting the company up for me. And for the manufacturing, Artie is working on another project for me, so if you want to hand off some of the work, you can use him.”
“That will be perfect.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“President Novak, President McCormack is on the line.”
“President McCormack, thank you for returning my call,” President Novak said.
“It is my pleasure.”
“As you know, I called to follow up on our conversation at the inaugural ball. The FBI has completed its investigation and has compelling evidence that the Russians tried to hack the election. They were only mildly successful and had no impact on the outcome. However, we feel that this violation cannot go unanswered.”
“I can appreciate your position,” Marc said.
“I would like to know if you are willing to make good on your offer to release a virus into the Russian systems that would make it abundantly clear that such hacking will not be tolerated?” President Novak asked.
“I am, if you’re willing to make a public statement to the effect that the U.S. is going to retaliate and, in general, take credit for the attack after we unleash it.”
“We are.”
“I also want assurances that you will introduce measures at the U.N. to protect internet security. Something that forms an international body to govern and police it.”
“I would be very happy to do that.”
“Then, once you make the statements, we’ll unleash our virus,” Marc said.
“Thank you. I will be holding a press conference tonight.”
“I’ll be watching.”
“Good day.”
“Good day.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“He agreed?” Director Lassiter asked. The Director of the CIA was one of the few holdovers from the previous administration.
“He did,” President Novak said.
“Will you authorize us to follow his virus and attempt to infiltrate the Russian systems?”
“Yes, as we discussed.”
“Thank you, Madam President,” Director Lassiter said. “It presents an opportunity to get some critical information from the Russians. Hopefully, the Delphineans will tear a big enough hole in their systems that we can extract some valuable data.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“ADI, release the virus in two hours,” Marc said at the conclusion of President Novak’s press conference that night. She had made it abundantly clear that the U.S. was angry and would retaliate against Russia.
“Yes, Captain,” ADI said.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Samantha asked.
“I’m as sure as I can be.”
“It’s a risky move.”
“I know, but what can they do? The U.S. is saying they’re going to fight fire with fire. Are they really going to turn around and point a finger at us? And even if they do, everyone knows the Russians are in the wrong. We should have enough public and international support to weather any blowback.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Two hours later, ADI unleashed the virus. It snaked into the Russian systems, starting with the computers that had been used to try and hack into Delphi City’s systems. Once it had control over those computers, it infected Russia’s entire government network. By the next day, every Russian government computer was infected. The virus then selectively pushed information from various computers out onto the Internet. Most of the information was associated with government kickbacks and bribes paid to government officials by the big Russian corporations.
All the foreign bank accounts held by Russian government officials and the big oligarchs were posted, along with the transaction records showing money flowing from government accounts into the offshore accounts. All the records of the wholesale robbery of the Russian people by the wealthy and power elites of Russia were now public information. Once the information was posted, the virus erased massive blocks of critical data from the Russian systems; then, it had the CPUs on the computers lock themselves into a high-frequency loop and overheat themselves until they burned out. By nightfall, over seventy percent of the government computers in Russia were useless blocks of hardware.
During this time, ADI also sent the virus into the other networks that had been trying to hack the Delphi systems. While the virus did not propagate itself beyond those computers, it did bury itself into the networks, finding places to hide, like the very code that controlled the internet switches. Once the networks were infected, the virus destroyed the computers that were used to conduct the hacking operations for the various agencies. At the end of the day, Chi
na, Iran, the UK, France, Germany, the U.S., and most other major nations found that their intelligence agencies had thousands of useless computers smoldering in their hidden facilities.
◆ ◆ ◆
“President Novak’s aide is on the line. She wants to talk with you,” Messina told Marc.
“Tell her I’m not available,” Marc said.
“Her aide wants to know when she can reach you? She says it’s critical.”
“Tell her I’m unavailable right now. Say you think I’ll be free in two hours and you’ll block out the time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you think it’s wise to make her wait?” Samantha asked.
“I don’t want her to think that I’m afraid of her, or that I work for her,” Marc said.
◆ ◆ ◆
“President Novak, I’m sorry I wasn’t available earlier,” Marc said.
“I’m sure you are! Can you explain what the hell happened?!”
“Can you explain what you’re talking about?”
“The NSA and CIA are reporting that many of their systems were destroyed during that attack on Russia! You were supposed to attack their computer systems, not ours.”
“That’s what we did. I’ll have to have our people look into this issue. Are you sure it wasn’t the Russians trying to retaliate?”
“No . . . I’ll have my people verify that, but they were pretty confident it was your virus.”
“I can’t imagine how they would know that,” Marc said.
“The timing is too much of a coincidence.”
“I’ll give you that,” Marc said. “I can’t imagine why the virus would have traveled outside of the Russian systems. I’ll have my team get back with you as soon as we know. Do you have someone you want us to call instead of bothering you?”
“No! I’ll handle the call personally. Goodbye!” President Novak shut down the call.
“How long are you going to make her wait?” Samantha asked.
“I think it will take at least eighteen hours to analyze what happened,” Marc said. “I want her to reflect on how guilty they are. A few more hours of discussions with their experts should help.”
