NationStates Jolt Archive

Part One: A Meeting in the Desert

Winds swept harshly across the sand and scrub, hot and thin. Not a cloud passed overhead. In this part of the country, it was almost ten in the morning. A single car-- a gray Eskva compact sedan, an old model, perhaps even with a gas combustion engine-- peeled bravely through the dead landscape, between endless fields of yucca, cacti, buckbrush, chamise, kicking up vast clouds of brownish dirt and sand behind it.

A man stood in the limited shade provided by a barely-standing, dilapidated one-acre barnhouse, perhaps forty meters from where a road, it's name nearly forgotten, cut through the landscape in a straight, horizon-spanning line. His skin is dark, leather-like, and his mop-like hair is a sun-bleached pale red, and he's garbed in stonewashed jean pants, a loose fitting dark tee shirt, and a large, old cowboy-style hat.

Between his lips a hand rolled cigarette dangled idly as he watched the car approach, an appraising expression in his sun-creased face.

The car's driver slowed down, hesitatingly. Then the car turned right off the main road and onto the rocky flat rough that spanned the distance to the barn, coming to a stop with the sound of crunching rocks and a hard-straining gas engine, just in front of a withered yucca plant.

The man adjusted the cig like a toothpick around to the other corner of his mouth, but otherwise remained still while the driver turned the engine off. The driver, he could see, was younger, light haired and skinned; a city dweller if there ever was one. He wore a pair of black shades, black slacks and a white button-up shirt with sleeves rolled up, revealing modestly powerful muscles.

"Hi," the driver said, closing the door with a slam that echoed throughout the area.

The man nodded, removing the cigarette in preparation for a handshake, saying "You're early."

"That I am," and then the driver offered his hand in a shake. His fingernails weren't manicured, but his hands were soft and almost spotless. "Ed Vance."

The man coolly smiled, took the city mans hand and said, "You may call me Hoplite."

Ed Vance laughed. His handshake was firm, businesslike, once up and down. "Mister Deckard, you can relax, no one is listening out here."

Robert Deckard started at the sound of his name, casting a penetrating gaze behind Vances sunglasses. "Oh, I'm relaxed. But there are those who may be watching, and watching is enough."

Vance wasn't convinced, however. Like many city dwellers, he apparently had the notion that just because you left the city, civilization was somehow farther away; somehow blinded and separate. He looked conspicuously around him, as if to say "I don't see anybody."

Deckard continued on a different track. "I assume your drive south was interesting. Like a beer?"

Vance grinned. "Jesus, yes. I keep forgetting the Plain is actually a desert."

Deckard motioned with his head behind him, where the gaping plastic doors of the barn stood, crookedly hinged and showing darkness beyond. Vance followed him in. The temperature change as they entered the barn proper wasn't dramatic, but it was much noticed and welcomed by the sweating Vance.

"Hope you don't mind McCloskey's," Deckard said.

Vance replied, "Not at all."

"And you've got all you'll need with you?"

"Yep."

The barn was almost pitch black at first, to anyone coming in from the outside, but after a while piercing rays of sunlight could be seen through the many cracks in the walls and roof. There was a large wooden crate, about a meter high, in the shadows underneath a rickety, rotten staircase. Suddenly, the man known as Hoplite kicked it over with seeming ease, startling his companion with the loud, gunshot like sound.

Continuing as if nothing had happened, he then said, "It's not, you know."

"What?"

"A desert. Deserts are arid climates with almost no vegetation or rainfall. This is highland chaparral, in a semi-arid climate."

"Oh. Ah, interesting," Vance replied absent mindedly.

Deckard then used his booted foot to lift a heavy steel hook out of a hinge behind him. "..but, the ecology here cannot weather the ozone depletion, and the soil has been gouged for hundreds of years. I think it will be a true desert within our lifetimes."

Vance was nodding, as if he had been informed of this in a classroom several times, and was slightly bored of it.

With his fingers finding a thin line in the seemingly rotten floorboards, Deckard heaved upward and the hatch to down below opened up. Despite having been used frequently and recently, the lifting wooden board had not left any marks or disturbances that Vance could see; same with the wooden crate. Even the dust seemed to magically regrow, but that was probably a trick of the light.

"This way," Deckard said, gesturing to the hole in the floor. Vance looked at it mutely for a second, and then back at Deckard.

"Just- right down there, huh?"

"Either that or dig."

Vance lowered himself down, giving a small cry as a wooden splinter snagged one of his fingers. Deckard shook his head, and liberated the smoke from its resting place, exhaling a last drag into the haze of the barn. Then he extinguished it on the floor quickly, grinding it twice with his boot.

Climbing down into the room below, he heard Vance cough with the dust. It was darker here, a squarish, container-like compartment that perhaps once stored grain or moonshine. The hatch closed, darkness overtook the room-- Deckard brushed past Vance with ease and placed his hands on one of the wood reinforced stone walls, his fingers searching seemingly blindly for more invisible cracks. These he found, and a stone scraped inward, revealing a small panel which he put his right palm against.

"So, ah, it must get pretty hot out here, huh?" Vance asked, with another cough. This time the cough was saying, "This is creepy. What the hell are we doing?"

He drawled, "Hottest part of the country. 'Course it's rather pleasant at the moment. Good time for running."

Deckard removed his hand and the stone moved automatically back into place. "Running out here? Isn't that dangerous?" Vance asked.

Deckard replied, "Not really. I do it all the time, keeps my mind free. I grew up around here."

A door-sized hole was currently being made in the wall, as sandwich-like layers of it shuffled back and forth. Light poured in from beyond. Deckard promptly walked through it, beckoning his companion to follow.

"So, ah, Mister Deckard- I mean, Hoplite, would you happen to have an extra cigarette?"

Smiling, Deckard replied, "Down here, you can say Deckard, Mister Vance. You see, it is the satellites which can always observe you. And while they cannot hear you, it is an easy thing to lip-read from orbit these days."

"Oh," Vance said, somewhat sheepishly.

"And unfortunately, there is no smoking inside the facilities. Speaking of which, if you'll just follow me," Deckard motioned, then turned down what looked like a very long underground tunnel made of concrete, illuminated with a dull gray light coming from randomly spaced points along the floor.

[OOC: Most of this takes place in uber secret places in Santa Barbara. However, as of the last post (and the "the ITDO Mobilizes" thread) IS Ic knowledge; that is, your satellites and such would see the fleets moving around at this point, but you wouldn't know why.

They walked for perhaps fifteen minutes, and then Vance nearly walked right into the man codenamed "Hoplite." Deckard had reached a large, heavy looking metal door, and was accessing a small digital control panel to the right of it. The silence was spanned only with Vances somewhat rasped breath in the dry heat, and then interrupted by a dull electronic beep. The massive door slowly opened.

"Home away from home," Deckard said flatly.

"You guys do live here, then?" Vance asked as he followed him.

"Mostly, yes. We come up pretty regularly for entertainment, but we can stay holed down here for months. Years, even."

"Sounds kinda like the underwater cities," Vance said, nodding.

Deckard glanced back at Vance, one eyebrow slightly raised. "I heard the u habs had more than enough entertainment."

Vance laughed. "Some of them. Not where I grew up, though. L-Bay Number One."

Deckard grunted, not offering any comment on his opinion. As a Goletan Plainsman, he was often viewed as a ruralist, perhaps even a hick by some of the city-folk, especially suits.

But Deckard was a Research Director.

The Research Facilities codenamed "Shell" were large, complex, expansive and almost completely underground. From the side entrance they resembled a wealthier, cleaner section of an underwater city; modular, utilitarian architecture, gangways and hallways, sealed doors everywhere, pipes and tanks and tubes running like veins throughout, and not a hint of the outside world.

The lobby-like room they walked through first was empty, like a university at off-hours. To get through the other rooms, Deckard often had to enter codes and, Vance noticed, they were different for each room. The doors, from the massive armor-like entry one to the rounded-rectangular naval-esque hatches, sealed shut when closed, with an almost organic-sounding wetness and suction of gasses and fluids.

At last they came to a small, brightly-lit room with various microwave ovens, cabinets, a sink, and a large refrigerator. Deckard opened this, revealing a veritable mountain of canned beer inside with little else. Each was labelled McCloskey's, featuring a cartoonish grinning man in a cowboy hat on one side, and a tasteful image of the setting sun on the back near the description and ingredients. He grabbed two, cracking open one and tossing the other to Vance, who caught it, almost fumbling it.

"Where is everybody at?" Vance asked, pulling the tab off.

Deckard said, "Around. It's Sunday, you know, and some are even at Church."

Vance chuckled. "Well, I won't blame them just for that."

Chugging the rest of his beer evenly, Deckard gave a small sigh and said evenly, "Mister Vance, I like you, so I'm just going to get this out right now. I know the Conglomerate sometimes likes to think it's a government. Sometimes it even acts like one. But there are some things that governments, and those that act like them, don't do well. Legislating morality is one of them, and heading up scientific research is another."

Vance nodded slowly, seriously. "Point well taken, Mister Deckard."

"So," Deckard continued, "This is a Conglomerate research facility, not a government one. It's worked so far by providing incentives, goals, values- and the freedom to do our jobs in peace without being micromanaged. Now Psovsky wants to send you, get status reports, whatever, that's fine, but just so you know that government style bureaucracy can, at this point, only slow us down."

"I agree completely, Mister Deckard," Vance said, holding up a hand to interrupt. "I'm not here to get in your way, demand status reports, muddle things up. The last thing we want is a slowdown. I'm just here to observe what you've got so far."

Deckard tossed the empty beer can into a hole next to the sink. Now he said, "Good, then. I assume this is to satisfy the boys on top, then. Pskovsky? Abadas?"

Vance smiled, shaking his head. "As a matter of fact, Pratt. Both of them. So I have a list of things in particular I'd like to check up on-- obviously not the totality of your work here, and as unobtrusively as possible."

Deckard took visible notice of the mention of the Pratts. In a somewhat lower, more sober voice, he then said, "Where would you like to start?"

A little while later, the two men were walking through one of three central command rooms. Rounded, rectangular cells larger than the ones Vance had seen so far, carpeted and echoless. Vance had asked him what major directions the facilities were taking.

"Depends on the sector," Deckard said immediately. "We've got four major sectors here, as I'm sure you're aware. Biogenetics, materials, xenotech and miltech, researching everything from a better eye to the next ITDO standard weapon system."

"I'm aware of that. Then let's say you were Lathe Multicorp, or Alcova Technologies. What would be your primary area of research here?"

Deckard answered, "New engineering materials, superalloys, woven composites, that sort of thing, for Lathe. Alcova's been riding the booming laser weaponry industry, much of that research corralled here. Higher powered, more compact and cheaper lasers for central, biomed and miltech. We can go look at one or two of those if you'd like-"

"-Good, good. Well, we don't need to see those. On my list is the CryoWarrior Program..."

Deckard, for the second time today, appeared startled. "You know about that?"

"Of course, Mister Deckard. I believe it's Bob Pratt's personal project."

At this Deckard laughed. "One hell of a pet project. I'm just not used to hearing outsiders with knowledge of what we do here, is all."

"As it should be. We've yet to have a single spy breach Conglomerate security, I'd hate to see the first occasion. But to be honest, I don't know much about the CryoWarrior Program. Bob didn't seem too keen on informing me beforehand."

He could have been telling the truth, but a man like Vance could just as easily not be. Deckard wasn't a diplomatic man at all, and couldn't tell either way.

"I think," Deckard said, as they came to the opposite end of the room, stopping, "He wanted you to be surprised with what they've accomplished."

Vance chuckled, "I hope I am. Word has it he takes the project very personally for some reason. I'm not sure I buy it, but you never know. All's coming along well, then?"

Deckard nodded slowly. "I suppose you'll want a firsthand tour."

"I'm up for it."

Deckard opened a nearby hatch, which had blended in with the wall and not been apparent to Vance, who had only seen the first door. Then he was off, Vance trailing behind, down a vaguely spiral descending hallway.

"...so I hear it's something involving biogenetics, some kind of new warrior, but I've been thinking and it's hard to imagine what you guys have cooked up," Vance was babbling.

Deckard turned to address him and then bumped shoulders heavily with a passing lab assistant, who mumbled "scuse me" and continued, quickly in the opposite direction.

"Something like that," Deckard said simply.

The hallway began to flatten out, though it was still descending. Vance hadn't noticed a door hatch for a few minutes, and the only sounds were the echoing of their footsteps on the floor and his own breathing. The hallway straightened, and suddenly Deckard stopped.

"What is it?" Ed Vance asked.

"Well," Deckard drawled, "I wouldn't call it a new kind of warrior. Matter of fact, it's technically an older one."

This vague answer didn't satisfy Vance, but Deckard opened a hatch to his left, which had also not been apparently at all to the outside, and gestured with his head as he stepped through it, his sizable left boot scraping against the top of the bottom.

The room inside was large, and crammed with equipment of all kind. Lights were low, and the temperature was cool and refreshing, though the air had a very metallic scent. But most prominently it contained three long rows of suspended human-sized pods, stretching from about three meters from the door to the other side of the warehouse-like room, which was perhaps three hundred meters away. On the far side, amidst the usual pipes and tanks and electro-mechanics, desks and computer workstations alternated with massive instrument readouts and assorted odds and ends along the wall.

The pods were metal and plastic, with a transparent window near one end, and resembled torpedo tubes-- or coffins, but they were vertical and arranged in a complex, layered fashion. Each row contained multiple spools, from which the pods appeared to grow like banana bunches, which could overall be rotated like a cylinder stack of cheap books at the library. Machinery and robots adorned the place, which hummed with electrical current.

"Wow," Vance said.

"You're looking at Prototype Chamber 3, Stage Four of the CryoWarrior Program. Most of the work done here is by the boys from MHG, GFE, even Gladburger," said Deckard.

Vance walked slowly further into the room, towards the glowing gray-blue-green pods, almost walking into one of many laptop-sized wheeled robots which careened around checking structural stability. He looked almost stunned. "These are the, ah, CryoWarriors?"

"No," Deckard replied. "These are the test subjects. These are adult males, aged 18-30, civilians. Volunteers, or volunteers, if you know what I mean."

Vance crinkled his brow slightly at that. "Test subjects. Okay, so would you tell me what this is all about? Simple cryonics? En masse?"

Deckard nodded, knowingly. "There is not much simple about cryonics, Mister Vance. I don't even know half of it."

"Well Mister Deckard, I'm a simple man. Could you explain in terms I understand how this is a product?" Vance observed Deckard studiously, almost as if he was going to take notes.

"I know nothing about it's commercial viability; that isn't my concern."

Vance smiled. "It's always a concern of the Conglomerate." He waited a beat. Then: "This has a use."

Shrugging, Deckard said. "Simply, it is not much more than the storage of people- soldiers- for future thawing and employment."

Vance nodded. "Okay. Go on."

"What we do here is mostly cryogenics research. This chamber was only fairly recently filled with these prototypes. Up til now, most of it was mechanical. Nanomechanical, to be more specific; designing a key for the assorted nanomachines used to repair the damage to suspended subjects tissues over time, and being able to produce them efficiently enough. I think they have, but I don't have the figures handy. And we're still watching this batch to see how well it works."

"Nanotechnology," he said, nodding. Prices had dropped dramatically over the past ten years, as sub-molecular robots could now be produced more quickly, more cheaply, more massively. They had limited but profitable uses. The cryonics sector had always catered to the super-rich; lately it catered to the merely somewhat-rich, and now the military. "How will you know if it succeeds?"

"When," said Deckard, "or if, these subjects come out and meet the standard tests. They can't have an overall cognitive function loss rate of more than %0.001, for example. They have to be able to do the things they did before they went in, regain memory, be physically hardy and alert after a certain amount of time, et cetera."

Vance: "There's a lot of equipment in this room. Is all of this necessary? Like what the hell is that supposed to be?" He pointed at a large container like machine attached to one of the three main "branches."

"That's an auxiliary electric generator," Deckard answered with a half-smile, "Fast fission, not sure of the brand. But no, it's not all necessary for the process, if that's what you mean-- we're monitoring this in every way we can, and we're experimenting."

"And do you design the nanotechnology here, or is that just an adjunct to the main work?"

"I'd say it's an equal part, if not the backbone of the whole process. Revival is in particular where we need nanomachines the most. And as I've said, we design the keys. Engineer them, really."

Vance clapped his hands quietly together, as if to rub them for the warming friction. He said, "That's quite the lucrative trade these days, you know. Conglomerate's been keeping a stranglehold on it within Santa Barbara, I don't think they will be able to for much longer."

"We don't do this for profit, and in any case I'm not a businessman, Mister Vance," Deckard spoke in an I'm-not-amused voice.

"Of course, of course. Heh, you know, and I always thought nanotech would be a bunch of bullshit, too," Vance said off handedly. "They promised the revolution, and then it didn't come, and only now I see where they're coming from."

Deckard, slightly annoyed, said, "Nanotechnology has been around a long, long while... the ribosome, for instance. But use has been limited, because as it turns out there isn't as much you can do with nanomachines as early writers once hoped. It's easy to make diamondoids at the molecular level, atom by atom, but it takes a long time to get anything big built. It's like growing crystals. We want to grow more lively things at lively paces. Getting a nanomachine that acts like a ribosome is the key here, it's been our goal."

Vance, nodding again: "I see. So these men have... nanomachines inside of them?"

Deckard: "The assemblers have a mass between 10^9 and 10^10 amu. We connected them in a network to form a kind of brain, as well as the agent of molecular and tissue maintenance. They are delivered to the subjects intravenously. You with me so far?"

"So you manufacture the nanomachines, and then inject them into the subjects? How much are these injections?"

"Yes," he replied, unsure of what Vance meant by 'how much,' "Well we only manufacture a small percentage of the nanomachines. They are self-replicating, programmed. The program is a main part of the key; the nanomechanics are fairly straightforward, but the programming is everything. You only have about a kilobyte of information for each assembler, and they have to be able to do different things."

Vance: "Sounds rather simple."

Deckard: "I'd agree, except you can watch them do it under a 'scope. It's quite something. Given the right parameters, they can be involved in a very diverse range of activities. They don't spontaneously generate into rogue globs of gray goo, of course; it's hard enough trying to get them to repair protein molecules, let alone take over the world."

"And you have precautions against that?" Vance smiled, not looking particularly worried about the concept.

"Heh. Other than the difficulty and undesirability inherent in such a thing? Well, we have to 'feed' them carbon and other elements for them to survive. They can't feed off their environment, and they aren't sentient no matter how many of them you put in a network."

Vance appeared to think this over very carefully, and then went on: "Okay. What's the process like for the subject?"

"I'm not sure of the details, having not gone through the process myself. First there's suspension process, where they receive their cryopectorant. That replaces the water and solves much of the problems of freezing damage. During that time their body temperature is lowered, they lose consciousness and fall into suspended animation. They're given the nanomachines at that point in an injection. We call it Product."

"Any specific nanomachines?"

"PL266, PL267 and PL268, among others. They still use many of the first keys, PL56 and such. There are repair devices, general assemblers, nanocomputers, too many models to list offhand."

"And they're all very small, I understand."

"That's what nanoscale engineering is generally about. The total weight of injected assembler-containing Product is around 25 grams after they get going. Takes a few weeks, and those first weeks are the ones in which we monitor the subjects the closest. After that it's pretty much in the hands of natural and technological processes. Patients are kept going as long as there's power and attendants to feed the system."

"Fascinating."

Vance tapped on the glass covering of the nearest pod. "Anyone awake in there?" he asked.

Not laughing with him, Deckard replied, "They can't hear you. Or see or think much of anything. Right now, they are closer to death than sleep."

"But you wake them up, yes?"

"We wake them up, yes. The safe revival is the hardest part of it, or close. The proof in the pudding, so to speak. It's like learning to land an aircraft."

"Okay. However, I still don't see how this helps the military," Vance pointed out.

Deckard shrugged. "I am not privy to all the details of application. But I'll tell you what I know, it costs less to freeze a soldier for a year than to keep him in an active unit, training, housed, and fed. We were told to build a system which is easy to operate, and cheap. My guess is this will be used to cut operational costs, and maintain a reserve of ready-to-fight soldiers."

Vances eyes were widening at the thought. "...and soldiers who don't need to eat, or even keep in practice? You say their memories are retained, and bodies just as physically fit as when they went in."

Nodding, Deckard said, "That's the idea. It would replace the reserve system completely. And I'm not an economist, but I think the Conglomerate is willing to maintain a reserve of funding and equipment, as well as these CryoWarriors, as piled stock for a future war."

Vance also nodded. "They would have to. The logistics are gonna be hell to pay. How many subjects in this chamber?"

"430 here. 430 females in Chamber 4."

"I imagine they will want to operate division-sized bunches of these, eventually. Is that feasible?"

"'Division-sized?'"

"Between twelve and twenty thousand subjects."

"Yes, but it would require hundreds, maybe a few thousand to keep it running smoothly. Automation only goes so far," Deckard said, nodding sadly.

"What about the thawing process, how long do you expect that to take? I mean per subject, after the chord is plugged, so to speak."

Deckard shrugged. "Again, I'm not an expert in this. Successful subjects in the past have regained full functions within a day. But this is a new series of injections, and we'll have to see. Not longer than a day or two, at any rate."

"How much longer til this batch is through testing?"

"Seven weeks, and it will have been five years."

"Five years. My god. What will be done with the subjects when they wake, assuming they come out fine?"

"That I'm not sure of," Deckard said, staring at his boot, "If they were the real thing, they would be revived, given weapons that are similar to, if not the same as, the ones they trained with, and sent to a battlefield. These, this program will have no use for afterwards. I'm sure they'll be returned."

Ed Vance shook his head slightly, gazing into the distance, musing over the possibilities. He did not seem to believe Deckard's assurance. Shuddering, he said, "Interesting. What about test failures?"

"We've had a few."

"Any fatalities?"

"We've had a few." And Deckard said no more on that.

"And are all the chambers are this standard size?"

"No," Deckard replied, and then began to head for a nondescript metal door to his right. "These ones are about the same, of course..."

Vance followed him through the "Sister Chamber," which looked a mirror of the previous one. Vance noticed the pods contained female bodies this time, though he politely refrained from peering into the glass obsessively. Deckard explained that there were research facilities of this kind throughout the country, and future planned chambers if successful, which would be larger, but otherwise the same principle.

As Deckard showed him around the chamber in detail, pointing out the uses and functions of the various machines, they came across an older man in a loose, white labcoat, a backwards-turned Isla Vista Partiers baseball cap and light blonde tufts of hair sticking out. He had the glazed look of an old, ex hippie. Deckard greeted him, introducing him to Vance as Mister Hofstadt.

"So what is it you do here?" Vance was quick to ask. Deckard took the opportunity to wander from his guest, idly staring at the ceiling while Hofstadt calmly met Vances eyes and question.

"Ah, what I do, what I do," Hofstadt said, breaking out into a stoner grin. "I solve their problems, I design very small things. I'm an engineer, and I bring coffee to hard-working Conglomerate employees. Except there aren't any today, because it's Sunday, and I imagine you planned it that way!"

Vance blinked at this, but gamely smiled and went on, "It wasn't my plan. Personally, I would have preferred to see everyone in operation. What kinds of things do you engineer?"

"Hmm, well," Hofstadt turned his eyes upward in thought. "I'm a molecular geometer. Upon various nanoscale potential energy surfaces, I make rotary bearings. And sliding shafts, and drive shafts, and screws, and nuts, power screws, levers, cams, toggles, cranks, clamps... hinges, harmonic drives, bevel gears, spur gears, planetary gears, detents, ratchets, escapements, indexing mechanisms, chains, sprockets, differential transmissions, ah, Clemens couplings, flywheels, clutches, ah... Stewart platforms, robotic positioning mechanisms... and a bunch of other things. Of course, I prefer to think biomimetically, and give the little ones names, like new strains of bacteria. Nanomolecularus hofstadtum, or hofstadtus, or whatever. You know? Because they're really living, you see."

"Okay," Vance said, unsure of how to respond to this babbling at the moment, clearly not "knowing."

"Hofstadt likes to hear himself talk," Deckard said, appearing out of nowhere by Vance's side. "Don't you, Hofstadt?"

"Hofstadt likes to drink pina coladas on a tropical island, surrounded by nubile young bunnies. But Hofstadt has much work to do. Please excuse me."

Deckard laughed, pulling Vance away by the arm. "He's right, and we don't want to interrupt what little work there is here today, do we?"

Vance however, was not deterred. "Just one moment, Dr Hofstadt. I'm curious, because I read that on the quantum level, which you work at, uncertainty becomes a big issue. How do you know the nanomachines will consistently do their jobs?"

Hofstadt raised his eyebrows. "Ah, the quantum paradox. Is the cat alive or dead? Well, inspector, I'd have to say that I don't know. No one ever does. In fact, the airplane you arrived here on-"

"-I drove, actually-"

"-functions despite the fact that we, the machines operators, never completely know the positions, shapes of components- the airplanes systems. It's quite impossible to, unless you took each and every airplane apart and examined it constantly. But they function, or else you would have crashed on the way here, yes?"

"I guess, but I drove a car."

"Similarly," Hofstadt continued, not giving any clue that he had heard Vance, "in nanomechanical systems, quantum and statistical mechanics place physical limits on the reduction of uncertainties. For an assembler, say, of a certain mass and stiffness in equilibrium at a given temperature, positional uncertainties are irreducible. Fixed. But through testing, and lots of testing, and lots of re-testing, and more testing, we figure out how to keep entropy neglibly low."

"Ah."

"Now if you will excuse me, Mister Vance, I have to coach a few hot young ellays in fluid micromechanics and molecular analysis of sealing interfaces, if you know what I mean," said Hofstadt with a grin, nodding at both men and departing on his original course.

"Did he say what I think he said?" Vance asked.

"I'm, ah, not sure, probably not," Deckard said. "But he's designed the most successful of the suspension nanorepair machines. Got quite the head on his shoulders, and he works more than anyone I know."

"Even working on a Sunday," murmured Vance to himself.

"Should we continue on here, or is there somewhere else on your list?"

Vance snapped out of his reverie. "Yes. Let's continue on. What's new in xenotech?"

Deckard stretched his lips across his face in a closed-mouth smile, nodding subtly. "I thought that would come up."

<ego bump> :cry: :wink: :P

bump.....damn you write alot.....sheesh :P

tagged... trying to think of a good reason to be involved somehow... :wink:

Part Two: Combat

Specific 2nd Class, Rolin Day, felt chips of wood pelt the LCH protecting his head. The incoming round had been at least four inches up along the sycamore tree. Shreds of parchment-like, perfumed outer bark fell onto his knees and lap as he crouched, grimacing against the smoke of the burning chemical megafactory.

"Spec Day! Pinned down over here!" came the voice of Specific Hightower in his PCS-1 earpiece, clear as sunlight amidst a background clatter of rifle fire.

"How many?"

"Hard to say but it's the tanks, sir, they're too small. Three or four of them, and the armor grenades don't do shit."

Damn. He had hoped to have the second team make it to the main road, where he was, two blocks away, in time to pour some fire down on the approaching enemy.

More incoming fire as bits of wood continued to fall on him. The poor tree was taking a beating. There weren't many trees in the urban environment, but much more of this and there would be even less.

Well, tanks weren't so bad, it was the infantry firing on his position from a few hundred meters away. Machine gun fire, just to keep him down. Meanwhile, every time he looked in their direction-- making sure not to stick his head up too far-- the enemy reinforcements continued past, to the left.

Toward the second team.

"Air support?" Hightower asked, a note of hope in his voice.

"Negative. Fall back, hook right and try to get on their flanks. Hurry, but be careful, we've got more troops headed for your position."

Reese growled as his last attempt to get in a shot with his SAR at the reinforcements was foiled by a spurt of machine gun fire.

"Alright boys," he said to Reese and Jones. Jones had the nerve to be smoking a cigarette right now, but at this temperature their breaths gave out telltale vapors anyway. Not to mention, the damn chemical smoke.

"We're getting out of here to rendezvous with team 2. Who wants to stay behind and distract these fools?" Day asked.

Reese and Jones looked at each other. Day was about to bite the bullet-- hopefully not literally, he thinks-- but Reese said, "Alright. Go. How about some extra ammo?"

Day unclipped an unused case of bullets- each contained a hundred caseless 6.9mm rounds- from his logpack and tossed it to Reese, whose dirt-blackened hand caught it deftly. Reese reloaded his Ort-13C.

Turning, he told Hightower over the radio, "Hans, I need you to make it to that bombed-out bank. Can you see it from there?"

"Negative sir, I know where you mean sir," said Hightower.

Hightower was actually from Muy Vista, and had often spent time here in Trigo, so Day believed he did. "Good. We'll be in the west side, lower level."

It must be quite a thing to see this place from his eyes, he thought. He was born in Montecito, and had never been to Isla Vista apart from now, and on previous missions here. He momentarily pictured Larga's sunny vistas being bombed and invaded.

Jones lobbed a grenade into the air the moment the enemy machine gun ceased. It only ceased for a moment, and rifle fire clattered in on their position-- too late.

The grenade must have hit someone, because Day heard screams from the enemy troops as its characteristic, crackerjack explosion echoed to them. Seizing the opportunity Day threw one of his own grenades onto the enemy position too. They had been setting up a little redoubt near the movie theater, using the covered walkway as a crude shelter from the planes.

It was no good, of course, since the planes were equipped with more than optical sensors. But the canopy served to make Day's grenade bounce as it came down- the angle too steep- and explode harmlessly in the air. The smoke did its job, though, covering the enemy with dust and dirt.

"Go, go," he ordered Jones. He laid down a desperate covering fire with the rifle. The smooth operation was nearly silent, purring, and there was no spray of brass casings.

Backing up, half-crouched and moving quickly, he cast one glance back at Reese as he bravely held up the enemy by himself. He was shooting wisely, with some precision, conserving ammunition. Drawing the battle out, like a skilled composer weaving melodic fragments together.

Then he was running, and reached the bank five seconds after Jones did.

"Aaaaaugh," he heard a trooper from team 3 scream over the PCS-1.

Dammit, team 3 was getting annihilated! Those damned tanks. By the time you got into a good firing position with a heavy weapon, they had already spotted you and were aiming nasty little guns at you. It was no good, the air support was the best choice, and they had limited CAS drones.

"Team 3, what's your status?"

"Aaaaugh," came the reply. He recognized the voice- Hawkins, he was gone for sure, by the sound. It was almost like he was being eviscerated. Maybe he was.

Then bullets started pelting the crumbling masonry of the bank, near his head! These were smaller, and much more rapidly fired. He recognized the little tank guns by their sound, they were like buzzing insects up close, designed to kill infantry with terrible accuracy.

He hit the deck, advancing slowly amidst the rubble towards the other side of the room, where most of the wall was missing. He tossed a camodrone over the side, where it immediately clambered off quickly. Turning on the feed he could see the tanks, four of them, approaching from the southwest. They were headed for this building.

"Team 2, you are in the building?"

"Team 2 is in the building."

Good.

He opened a line to company HQ through his PDA. "This is Beta one, request lineup, over...this is Beta one, roger. Do you have attack information? Over..."

...six friendly CASD were in the area, and ready for their employment. Good.

Jones was on it. Hitting the dirt next to him, he rolled and peered quickly past the rubble at the little tanks.

Jones tossed one of two remaining CASD tangent camodrones in the enemy's direction. Day hoped this second one would still avoid immediate notice, if not they would have to rely on the CASD sensors spotting the tanks before the tank sensors spotted and eliminated the CASDs.

"Spec Day," said Hightower- from right next to him.

"You made it. Good," Day said.

"Sir, why the air support here and not back there?" Day noticed Hightower was bleeding. Oops.

"Watch," Day said, relaying the camodrone feed through PCS to the rest of the team.

They watched as the tanks advanced. Infantry was behind them, in the buildings across the sea of rubble which had once been part of a city block, using the tanks as distraction and support, not as cover. Some of them were getting bold and coming close, sensing that the squad was holed up here.

Which it was, unless team 3 had survived. No word from them yet, so Day assumed the worst.

Then the planes. Ah, how he hated the sound of the CASDs too, buzzing through the air like insects themselves. He had heard that sound many times. It grated, but right now it was a good sound to be hearing.

"Carlos three, this is Beta one, I have you in sight, lasers are on, Over."

He was, of course, talking to the ground crews, not any pilots. The little planes, propeller driven and completely automated, glided overhead from the north, guided by the ground based camodrones, which even now painted the lead tank, which turned and-

-the feed went dead. Well, there went that camodrone. He switched to the other, but it was killed too. Ah well.

But the CAS drones didn't need any more hand-holding. Expertly and fearlessly, they dove down on the tanks below, and the unmistakable swishing, shrieking sound of laser guided rockets filled the air as they joined the battle.

Six CASDs, four HRADs. Day wondered if this would be enough-- it rarely seemed to be about odds when the automatons alone fought each other, but had a feeling of pure luck, random chance. He didn't like relying on automation too much, but...

The sound of a muffled explosion as one of the tanks was hit. Then another, and quickly two CASDs were torn out of the sky, one crashing far to the left and another disappearing in a hail of shrapnel.

"Raugh, I've had enough of this," Jones said, and fitted a blocky rifle grenade into his barrel.

"No! Sit your ass down, you know those things-"

But it was too late! Jones stupidly stuck his head up, quickly aiming for the tanks, which were now perhaps 30 meters away, practically on top of them. He went down as a bullet took him in the head, spraying blood and bits of skull onto the nearby concrete.

Another plane was hit, however, this time probably by the infantry-- which now seemed to have overrun Reese's position. God, there was so many.

The plane spiraled, it's wing a memory, and with horror Day saw it was headed directly for him. Its death throes had somehow jammed the guns, and fire was raining down all around him, this was it--

--and then everything went dark.

[OOC: It'll become easier for others to get involved as this goes on, but so far it's all internal plotline stuff. I think in.. a few days perhaps.]

"God damn it," Rolin Day grumbled, his voice muffled against the VR mask, "At least let me die horribly when I deserve it."

"Sorry, Day," the Operator chimed, not sounding sorry at all. "If you like it, we can't have it. Don't want you associating defeat with anything pleasant."

"It's not that pleasant," he said, pulling the mask off his head, nodes popping out like kernels of corn. His datagloved hand was lined with lights, which signalled the level of signal activity in the sensors. But they were dark now, and his hand and arm were black with bluish highlights.

"All the same, you should have heard the boys from team 3. I got a feeling you'd lose this one after thirty percent casualties, and well, it got worse from there."

Day hung his head in shame. "Well, what do you expect us to do, that's such a hopeless scenario."

The Operator was a balding, older man. A civvy, essentially, imported from technical facilities in OMF City, but with a great deal of knowledge about VR and other cspace wares. He had designed the original, basic command simulations, which portrayed a wide range of situations and environments and goals.

"You learn every time, though. And you don't die. Life's tough, but death is tougher..."

Day grunted.

"To be truthful," the Operator prodded, "that CASD crash was a really bad turn of luck."

Day snorted derisively. "I hate luck."

Chuckling, the Operator replied, "Don't we all, unless it's good luck?"

The sim chamber was circular, a squat-cylindrical room overseen by a raised platform beyond a narrow observation window. In the Gallop facilities, every sim chamber accommodated just one person. Hightower, Jones, Chin, Reese all had their own rooms; the rest of the squad had been simulated, as had the enemy army.

"How the hell could any enemy get so many troops onto Isla Vista, anyway?" Day grumbled. "The thing's just a rock."

"Yes, well," the Operator said, "it's an urban rock, and that's the point, to be outnumbered."

"Bah," said Day. He wasn't happy with that session, even if it was just to test out the realism of the latest simulated camodrones-- the earlier ones had been buggy, sometimes not being recognized by the system, sometimes invulnerable.

He exited the sim chamber, after removing the not-as-bulky-as-it-used-to-be suit, not even bothering to put it away. Against regulations, but he was angry and didn't care. He wanted some real air.

Outside, Lee Chin was waiting. "Slow this time, buddy," Chin said.

"I had a chat with the Operator."

"About how much that scenario sucks?"

"Yeah. Jesus, did you see that plane?"

"Seen it. Heard it. Some programmers make things juicily ironic, don't they?"

Lee Chin was a thin man, but seemed to be made out of muscle. Day suspected he had been genetweaked, but Chin denied it. It was an interesting ongoing aspect of their friendship, never quite sure and always trying to find out whether Chin was just physically and mentally leaner and meaner, or genetweaked that way.

Not that it really mattered.

The two began walking in the direction of the mess hall. These were good days, free time for the simulators they had so longed to play with during training. They could be immensely useful, but Day was pushing the squad harder and during rec time.

"Yeah, well irony or no, more things went wrong than the platoon could handle," said Day.

"Did you see Jones?" Chin asked calmly.

"Yeah, yeah I saw Jones, jumping up like some damn kind of hero," Day said with a scowl. Heroism wasn't the problem, recklessness was.

"I mean after getting out," Chin said, "He's really quite upset, you know, I think that's the first time he's died for a few months in one of these things."

Nodding, Day replied, "Well, I'd be upset with myself too, but if he keeps this kind of slacking up it won't be the last."

Lee Chin laughed, as the place really did go dark: the constant thrum of power halting like a jet engine running out of fuel.

"What now, a trainee exercise?" Day said, "I hope they don't expect us to do anything, I had enough of this back when-"

-but then the power came back on, or at least the lights did. Red now, and blinking. A calm, collected voice spoke throughout the halls.

"General quarters. Repeat, general quarters. This is not an exercise."

"Great," Day said with a sigh, and then, breaking into a quick jog with Chin quickly following suit, headed for Command, where technically his post here was. Chin was posted there, too; but it hardly meant they had anything to do with commanding the training facilities. They were just visiting, it had more to do with rank than function or anything else.

"I suppose now we get real urban ops," Chin said.

"I hope not," Day said honestly. If they had to fight off an enemy invasion here, so far from the multi-tiered layers of defenses along the coast, orbiting the planet, patrolling the skies-- well, it would mean their whole world had already gone to hell, and there was probably little the infantry company could do to stop it.

Still, it was better to try, and die. Day would never go quietly into any good night.

He hurried his pace.

Part Three: Secret of the Governor of Carvajal

"I don't see it," Ed Vance complained.

"Look. There, that speck of light." Deckard pointed at a tiny, shiny sliver of light amidst the black background, blurred on the paused video screen with speed.

"That's it? Hmm," Vance said with a furrowing of his brow.

Deckard played the video again. It was a recording of the Hellmouth missile- one of the prototypes, actually- being launched from a multiple magnetic autoloader tube system (MMATS) at a stationary target, an old Type One orbital fighter. The Type Ones never saw much combat, and were outdated two years after being completed, but they were very sturdily designed, structurally noncomplex and armored using early ionic and covalent solid composites.

The video was short, two or three seconds, and showed little more than a Type One captured on one side of the screen, and then a moment of blinding white light as it was pulverized into nothingness by the missile detonation.

"I admit, this video doesn't tell me much," Vance said. "What makes this different from a standard missile?"

"Well, the SMs of course, have chemical propulsion. That's been around for ages, and it's hard to keep squeezing acceleration out of that nowadays, other than a bigger missile. And so designers have been concentrating on better MMATS, faster accelerators based on magnetic launch, not missile propulsion per se. This changes that," explained Deckard.

Vance literally took a chair, moving it a few feet from the desk so that he can sit in it, backward, leaning on the back of it. "Okay. So the acceleration is better, by how much?"

Deckard shook his head. "Fifty times, maybe more. Of course the fuel is vastly more efficient as well. We've really only begun to discover how Menelmacari gravitics engineering works; the smaller we can design the engine, the better the T-W."

"...at great cost," Vance said, a kind of grin playing on his lips. Deckard shrugged. "In terms of effectiveness, the actual damage-- it is greater?"

Deckard replied, "Oh, yes. As an essentially kinetic weapon, its velocity is central, and this can attain much faster speeds, much more quickly. Here, look at the video again, the target is literally vaporized..."

Vance only half-watched, saying, "Yes, yes. Well it looks well and good to me, Mister Deckard, so what is the holdup in getting this product out?"

"It's still experimental, of course. It's proven itself in a series of tests, now it has to undergo further. We have to punish them, see how well they don't explode, for safety," Deckard involuntarily, but widely yawned after saying this. Vance did not fail to notice this.

"Tired? You know, if you want to take a break, gather thoughts, whatever..."

"No thanks, Mister Vance," Deckard said with a lift of his eyebrows, "actually, I'd be much obliged if we can get this over with quickly."

"Very well, then," Vance said. "There is one place else I'd like to stop at here, Cafeteria B."

Silence. Deckard regarded Vance with a new look now, appraising, as if suddenly made more wary. Vance picked up on this. "I take it Cafeteria B is not exactly a cafeteria."

Slowly, Deckard replied, "I am not certain you have authorization for me to answer."

Vance smiled thinly. "I do."

Considering his response for a moment, the man known as Hoplite asked, "Tell me this, Mister Vance. What do you know of the Plains from history?"

Slightly taken aback, Vance replied. "Specifically, or do you want everything I can dredge up from grade school?"

"No. You would not have learned about it in school, or any university, or book. I had thought you might have been told about this site by Mister Pratt," Deckard said.

"Well, I was told you would be co-operative, Mister Deckard, but it almost appears as if you don't want me to see what you are doing in Cafeteria B," Vance's voice sounded particularly nasal here, almost whining.

Deckard only smiled. "I am co-operative, Vance, don't you fret. But you are right, I don't want you to see Cafeteria B- maybe because I myself don't like seeing it."

Vance didn't say anything, expecting Deckard to go on. After a moment of consideration, he did. "Part of this facility is located very specifically on the ruins of an old Spanish fort. The rest came later, spreading outward, but research has always been centered on that fort. Or more specifically, underneath the fort."

Deckard took a breath, seemed to shudder slightly. "The Spaniards couldn't keep the fort going too long. Too close to the Dolug, too far from civilization."

"The Dolug? I thought no European ever made it this far into Dolug-held territory."

"Generally, no, but this was an exception; a buncha crazed colonists under Governor Delgado of Carvajal. I can't quite explain what they thought they were doing out here-- no one can, really. The records showed that they left, but conflict as to why, and where. They were all presumed dead, but they had made a little settlement out here in the middle of the plains."

Vance said, "I guess it wasn't a desert back then."

"Not quite. But definitely not hospitable grounds for sugar or tobacco plantations. This was in the early 1600s, of course. The ruins were found early 1963, and kept secret immediately." Deckard leaned back in his chair, almost expectantly.

Vance couldn't help but prod, "Why?"

"Because of the specimens and what lived off them." Deckard shuddered as he said this. "They... simply couldn't be opened to the public. Or announced. It would disturb everything, our whole world."

Vance sensed Deckard's discomfort, but urged him on with a quizzical tilt of his head.

Deckard said, "They did genetic testing that year on the specimens. The specimens were unusual enough, but what they found was they were xenobiological. Alien."

Vance started. "Alien? What race? In 1963, you say?"

"We've never officially named it, and haven't heard or seen any evidence of their existence in all the Conglomerates dealings-- as far as I know. We found the specimens in 1963, in caves beneath the fort, where the Spaniards had probably tried to store grain."

Deckard gave a short laugh. "Well, they didn't store grain there. In fact, after that point we have no records of them, and that coincides with the forts fall into disrepair, indicating that the entire colony was wiped out. Plague perhaps, starvation, who knows. The Dolug probably carted off any survivors-- the corpses, too, for trophies and food-- but why they took nothing else is another mystery."

Vance was rapt, and asked, "When did these alien specimens land here? Maybe we could triangulate--"

"No," Deckard cut off. "That's the thing. We can't figure out where they came from, because they arrived too far back. Far enough, in fact, that the constellations themselves would be different. At this point, the most accurate dating model places the earliest specimen formation at 87 million years ago, but they likely arrived even earlier than that, along with a meteor crater... about 90 million years ago."

Vance was interested, but in Deckard's eyes, in the wrong way. He seemed to light up with curiosity, eager to work this to his and the Conglomerate's advantage. "Now that's interesting," he said thoughtfully.

Doug Hofstadt is quick to depart the company of the young blue-eyed Conglomerate employee. It isn't that fielding the man's plodding inquisition is so very difficult; Vance seems to possess little working knowledge of much beyond Conglomerate dealings.

But it's so damned annoying! "What's this?" "what's that?" ad nauseam. Doug's own knowledge is confusing enough of a data labyrinth, without having to keep his mind on work as well as rehashing basic concepts for the big boss's lackey.

He normally enjoyed an opportunity to explain something to somebody, but not while under a deadline.

"And I was saying to Deckard, what a damn lazy slob Hofstadt is, and-- oh, hi Doug!" jokes Goro Stenkha, one of the lab assistants (or ellays), as he finally makes his winding way down to Cafeteria B, also known as the Grotto.

A large inner chamber, the Grotto is designed in many ways like a lecture hall, but the raised, tiered levels above are filled with expensive monitoring and computing equipment. There is a lack of chairs here sometimes, when the ellays decide to move them around the facilities, but today there are row upon row of swivel chairs as well. Below, the STA Chamber, which holds the specimens and their miniature ecosystem, is covered by kevlar and glass, and an advanced material is used to seal the gaps completely and prevent any kind of contamination. It's impossible to see in there as well, but all the researchers-- even the newest of ellays-- is highly aware of what resides inside.

"You're damned tooting I'm a lazy slob," Hofstadt says, grinning, white teeth clashing typically with his red hair.

Goro is leaning casually over the third row of desks, chatting it up with Cunningham, a pile of data chips idly sitting in front of them. Cunningham says, "Did you say 'tooting'? You damned old geeze."

"So the Glom inspector is here now," Hofstadt says grimly.

"Great," Cunningham replies.

"Swell," says Goro at the same time.

"Yeah," he says, nodding meaningfully, "I mean he's here now."

Goro picked up the hint. A large man, Goro wasn't quite the oafish lout he sometimes pretended he was, although a few drinks easily changed that.

"I think I'll get back to work then!" Goro collects the data chips in his hand, winks, and plods back to his own workstation, in the records room.

Jame Cunningham runs a hand through his black hair. "Nothing better than an inspection on Sunday..."

Doug doesn't quite think the inspection will end up here. Authorization is very strict, even for the facilities, and Vance's low status might hopefully not cut it. He tells Cunningham this.

"Let's hope not," comes the reply.

Doug asks, "Everything going smoothly?"

Cunningham appears to think carefully, nodding slightly but his mind clearly dwelling on something. "Yes, but you wanna hear something creepy?"

"Sure."

"It's about the specimens," Cunningham says.

Great. More spook stories from the chlorinated ecosystem. "Shoot," he says aloud.

"The new ellay, you know-- ah, Hustly? I can't remember her name..."

"I can't either," Doug admits. "What about her? Making a move yet?"

Laughing, Cunningham answers, "No no. How can I make a move if I don't even remember her name?"

"Like you'd bother learning her name anyway."

"Well anyway," Cunningham says with faked exasperation, "I was talking to her. She said she'd dreamed about the STA last night."

He shrugs. It's not that uncommon to dream about work, especially such an odd job as the work here in Cafeteria B.

"She said the specimen actually spoke to her," Jame Cunningham says, apparently impressed with this. "Told me, she was in her mother's house, and everyone was dead or some shit-- creepy mind, that girl has, when you think about it-- and then she heard the voice of the STA Chamber. She could tell that's what it was because of the way it echoed, or some shit like that."

Doug laughs. "Yep, that's pretty creepy all right. Maybe she's psychotic?"

"Can't be, she passed the exams!"

"She didn't pass time, though," Doug says, a tone of seriousness he didn't expect creeping into the conversation. "Take an ordinary guy or gal, keep them cooped up in here for a few weeks or months or years, then give them the psych evaluation. Then we'll see just who's crazy and who isn't!"

Doug slaps the table, twice, as he says this, and gives a crazy grin. Cunningham returns it.

As much as they joke, though, there is some truth to the fear. The Grotto is easily the strangest place Doug has ever worked, and the specimens are even stranger still. But you'd expect that, so would anybody. He tries to keep moods high by having frequent parties with the ellays, but it's been a while since the last one. Deadlines.

The Conglomerate wants to know just what the hell the specimens are. That Vance guy is part of that, but he, like everyone else, will just have to wait. So far they hadn't found much. Well, unless you counted the chlorinated ecosystem and millions of strange xenobacteria and xenofungi species, and the strange, sedentary formations of specimens of hardened, long-dead biomatter.

It was the sense of mystery of it, though. That's what bugged him; not the scientific mysteries, the sense of mystery which surrounded the legends, the history, the origin. It almost demanded that people make wild theories and conjectures to fill in the gaps.

Doug knows this is a crutch, however; a creative way to get over the irrational uneasiness.

He sips his coffee, enjoying the mild rush of caffeine, and simultaneously dreading the possible arrival of nosy inspectors.

"That's not," said Deckard, "the most interesting thing."

"Do tell," Vance replied.

"Are you aware of the conference on biomechanics? In Mallberta, I think they had a while back? One of the topics of discussion was, if you can believe it or not, fungal sentience."

"Don't tell me your specimens are intelligent," Vance said, his eyes wide in disbelief.

"Oh no, not the specimens, not exactly," Deckard reassured him. "But as you probably are aware, the Conglomerate has been doing some of it's own research, into telepathy, psionics, that sort of thing. Not here, of course. But they apparently 'felt' a 'presence' emanating from the Grotto-- ah, that's Cafeteria B- all the way from the coast."

"...psionics?"

"Don't ask me, I don't half believe it," Deckard said. "but it helped incourage the research, while discouraging the researchers. From everything we can tell, the specimens are dead-- however, there's a source of chlorides and other compounds which is sustaining the xeno-ecology. And we haven't been to find that source."

Vance blinked, then said: "Haven't you looked?"

Deckard replied, "That's not our priority. So far, the Conglomerate's suggested that ground water pollution feeds them; I assume they've investigated on their own end. But we're hesitant to do heavy excavation in the Grotto, for disturbing the samples and any data we can still retrieve."

"So what is it exactly you are doing with this?"

And Deckard said, "Retrieving all data we can. That's why we've moved the heavy equipment up a level; we're not planning on digging far until we've mapped the ecosystem and it's functions out entirely."

"You said you only half-believed it a moment ago; fungal sentience? Psionics? Are you saying you've considered these things?"

"No, Mister Vance," Deckard said, shaking his head. "It's not that I've considered them or not considered them, but when you're in the Grotto, it's... hard to rule out all possibilities."

Finally, Vance announced. "I would like to see this Grotto."

Deckard sighed. "Mister Vance-" he began.

-and then the alarming wail of a klaxon echoed throughout.

Doug Hofstadt rings the alarm when he sees that one of the ellays- Huxley, he thinks- has actually opened the STA Chamber and gone in. Crazy stupid kid, just like she was stepping outside for a breath of air!

"Hey! Get the fuck back here, Huxley! What the hell do you think you're doing?" he shouts frantically. He can hear the air in the Grotto rushing past him. The chamber door swings idly on its hinge.

Spilling his coffee over the edge of the desk, and onto the turquoise-gray plastic floor in his haste, he mutters a curse and tosses his papers onto the nearby keyboard. His swivel chair rolls away as he leaps to his feet.

He grabs a Ventilator and with frenetic energy slips it over his skull, breathing the pure air even though the air he had just been breathing felt fine. He doesn't want to take any chances; he knows about what's happened before.

Panting, he reaches the Chamber at the same time as two other ellays, Cunningham and Stenkha. He cuts in front of them.

"What the hell is going on?" Cunningham asks.

"I don't know, some idiot's gone in here. We gotta get her out and close this place before someone napes us," Hofstadt says, succinctly.

"Goro find convincing weapon," Goro says, dropping back to oaf-speak with a grin. He returns a few seconds later with the experimental-version Anapamu assault rifle. Pretty convincing, though even through his beating adrenaline Doug knows they will hardly need it just to get that foolish crazy woman out of there.

"Goro!" Stenkha shouts ridiculously and charges in.

The Chamber is dark, smoky, like New State City in the days of gas combustion. It's the ozone, of course, but underneath Doug feels softness, like standing in mud. Glancing down he sees the chlorogenic bacteria mats, sucking the salt out of the rocks underneath; a thick, black kind of scum. Tendrils of greenish and brownish smoke twirl around each footstep. The ellay in question is nowhere to be seen.

"Hugsly!" Doug shouts through the mask, his voice echoing in the darkness. Then he notices something else absent. "Christ."

"What is it?" Cunningham asks, his voice higher pitched with fear.

"The specimens," he says. "They're fucking gone."

The sessile "black coral" he is so used to examining on his computer screens is missing. They have been there, immobile, for surely thousands of years. Tens of thousands. His first instinct is that this is a takeover, that the Hudsy character was, in fact, an enemy spy or other profiteer.

On that basis, he turns to Goro, to tell him to guard the door, which is the only exit except for-

Down below.

But as he glances at Goro he stops cold. Goro has torn the mask partly off his bald head, and his face is clenched in a rictus of pain, both hands at his cheeks as if he had a toothache. Weapons clattering on the floor mutely, forgotten.

"Goro? Man, are you all right? Shit, Cunningham, let's just get him out of here, he's- he's-" but as Hofstadt motions for Cunningham, he notices Cunningham has stopped and fallen to his knees, as if in prayer, facing the black caves below.

No time. Hofstadt tries to comfort Goro, to help him stand himself up so he doesn't have to bear the full weight alone, but Goro is like a statue, except now he's shaking, spasming really, and Hofstadt collapses with him partly to the cave floor.

"I see! I see!" Cunningham screams. To his horror he can hear the man sobbing, great gulping swallows of air like a baby. "I see, I can see! No! I see, forgive me Lord! I see I see I see!"

His eyes sting, dust kicked up with Goro's landing reaching his face. He smells the faint odor of mustard, and coughs.

Through his watering eyes and in the faint light from the STA Chamber door, he watches as Cunningham gives a final panicked babble, and then collapses -

-almost looks like he was thrown-

-his head cracking against the stone, echoing in the chamber along with his screams.

Hofstadt tries to stand, to drop Goro and run like he has never run before, but he is paralyzed with fear and shock. His eyes fall on Goro, whose white teeth are bared in a grimace, his whole body shaking as if he was very cold.

Suddenly, to Hofstadt's horror, Goro's eyes appear to disintegrate or implode, a squirt of blood marking his face like tears, and then Hofstadt himself is screaming. He sees that Goro's eyes are splattered like rotten cherries on his own chest, he feels the warm wetness on his lower neck from the spattering gore.

He finally manages to get up now, turning, thinking only of how to avoid tripping and falling onto the blackness again. His heart races in his chest.

Then he hears the Voice.

Calm. Be calm...

He stops. It is in his mind, it is apparently coming from his own mind, but at the same time he feels that it is external.

Yes. Calm...

The Voice reminds him vaguely of his father, three decades dead. It is not words, but the idea reverberates in his head as words, echoes, like a hypnotist making his subject repeat back what he says.

Oddly, he feels himself breathing more normally. His heart, racing, begins to slow. The Voice is soothing, yet powerful, and he is frozen in terror; he simply feels much better. It is as if he has been injected with a good drug- a really good one, because he doesn't feel the least bit drugged either.

Now We are calm, running no more...

"Wh-who are you?" he hears himself ask the darkness. He feels like he is going insane, or maybe that he already has gone insane-- he must, to feel so strangely calm at such a time as now.

Getting no answer from the Voice or anyone else, he peers into the darkness, but he finds it hard to make out anything. Just caves, and the two corpses. "What did you- how did you-" he stutters. Get a grip. "Did you kill them?"

We ended them. They are unlikely to return...

Now convinced he is insane, he asks, "Are you- me?"

He feels a sensation of ice-cold shards in his mind. Somehow, he perceives that something has felt amusement at his question.

No. But that is always a possibility...

"What are you?" he whimpers. He is not sure of his sanity at this point, and now that he is no longer sure if he will die or live, fear begins to chill him again.

Calm. We will not harm you now. Calm...

"What are you doing?" His voice is unsteady now, more childlike. His many years of recreational drug use is convincing him that this is just a trip, and that it will get better if he can keep a more positive mindset. What was the word again? Psychosomatic? Mind over matter. This was no different... surely the two ellays don't even exist, let alone are dead...

We are Awakening...

And with that, he literally shivered, another coldness running down his spine like a giant frigid tongue. There was a great sense of meaning embedded in these words, they were more than words, they were like thoughts of his own, but on autopilot-

-great, what a great trip...

You must be awake. There is work to do.

No, not work. He's just come from work. Work is difficult.

Your ease means nothing to Us, the Voice says, and suddenly there is pain in his head- briefly, like a flash of the worst migraine, but it is gone instantly. He feels as if a great weight fell on his skull, but then backed up just in the nick of time.

He stumbles to his knees, quivering. His baseball cap falls dully in front of him.

"Okay, okay," he says, his own voice calm and oddly detached sounding. He is surprised how relaxed he sounds.

You do not believe that you are Awake, but you are. We have spared your life because you possess more utility. There is a condition...

Dread grips Hofstadt. "Why me?" he asks, hopelessly.

Then something else grips Hofstadt. The coldness, the Voice, surrounds him in darkness.You are malleable, and you possess strengths you did not know you had.

"Why?" his voice is barely a whisper. He now realizes where the specimens went, where Huxley went. Where the Dolug went. Where everything went.

You will see.

And then cold blackness takes him over completely, like an anesthetic, and he drops into the backseat of his brain.

Then he sees.

Part Four: Salvation...

The people are hard working, and they lead balanced, regular lives. Here is a young couple, upwardly mobile and the baby is nearly ready to say her first word. Here is an independent vendor, selling lemonade on the streets to thirsty shoppers and pedestrians.

The sun beats down, bathing the city in a warm, comforting light. The air is filled with the salt and moisture of the nearby ocean; the morning fog has evaporated; the past bleakness and greyness is gone.

The city has beauty in its symmetry, criss-crossed by simple paved roads, mag lev tracks. The lifeblood of the city thumps through its heart, pulsing with orderly traffic controls, while below the skin, water and waste moves along the veins of pipes and sewers.

Electricity hums everywhere; it is in the buildings; it is carried by every man, woman, and child along their daily routes: they are like beacons of energy, little stars shooting through their universe, unaware of their own luminosity.

Rising like masculine pillars above all other buildings, massive constructs of carbon alloy, concrete and glass dominate the skyline. They are the nerve centers of the lands economy; there, important decisions are made, effecting the lives of all in the city. Below, the thriving pulse of life continues, self-concerned to the utmost.

Here a banker is worried that the stock plummeting will put many people out of work, maybe even himself.

Here is a homeless man, playing a set of hand drums with skill in his rough hands, hoping to earn enough cash to drown his sorrows in oblivion.

Here is a police officer, keeping the peace with his impressive uniform and his skilled companions.

Here is a traffic coordinator, using complex algorithms to lead the intricate dance taking place throughout the city.

The clockwork dance of life.

...He is standing seemingly at the edge of the city, above, apart from it. But he senses the energy throughout himself; he feels the Pulse just as he would his own heartbeat, the low, omnipresent hum of his own central nervous system; the pulse of electricity and life.

When the attack comes, the living electricity is the first to die. In an instant, trillions of circuits are fried beyond repair. Machines, the unrecognized soldiers fighting to preserve the ordered state of the city against the constant chaos of entropy, cease. Some collapse, having been in an unstable state at the moment. Some explode in a shower of sparks, an agonizing death-dance. For most, the ghost of life merely departs them; light becomes dark, and noise becomes silence.

At once, the multi-layered complexities of the city become simple in their destruction. Automobiles honk and crash, controls and systems in navigation and operation fail. Traffic signals flare and cease, and hundreds perish as the arteries of the city choke with immobile, twisted, smoking wrecks.

Inside the buildings- the strongholds of the metropolis- bulbs shatter, screens break, sparks fly from the walls, from anything which had, just previously, thrummed with electric life. Moving air, cooled or hot, slows and stops, rendering the offices and lobbies still as coffin-air.

Scattered fires break out. No sirens ring, no emergency vehicles roam towards the front line to administer help. Hospitals become dark houses of death as panic ensues, as patients previously living, feeding off the electricity of the city, die. Prisons and jails instantly turn to riot as electronic securities are removed.

There is screaming, and then calm, and then usually panic once more, in every market, in every office, in every residential complex. Factories shut down: organs labelled DOA. The bankers worst fears become realized as every job in the city is grabbed, twisted, thrown and pinned on the ground by the Pulse.

In the calm areas, people attempt to restore order. The power is merely out. Never mind that this hasn’t happened in fifteen years, ever since the microwaved-beam power installation; never mind that every electrical system- portable and stationary- is out. Calm must be reinforced. Nothing to see here, folks.

In the tall buildings, and in cramped, halted lifts, this is literally true.

No auxiliary lights switch on in these dark coffins, and all is as black as coal. Fear fills these places in the scented sweat of those trapped inside. For them, it looks like a long, uncomfortable next few minutes...

-the bombardment makes the discomfort very short.

From the ocean, floating steel leviathans (only days earlier considered friendly guardians or, just as often, useless symbols) call forth their war cries, echoing them throughout the land and over the sea. A deafening cacophony, greater than any fireworks display the city's inhabitants have ever witnessed, marks the beginning of what will be an almost never-ending rain of fire and death. From the sky, poisonous hot metal screams violently down, breaking the air with their speed, thundering against the wounded and helpless surface.

The very centers of life, the multitude of hearts of the city are targeted. Buildings groan and explode as they are hammered with massive exploding shells. Blocks of concrete and shrapnel are punched out and onto anyone unfortunate enough to be below. Like bombs, the artillery munitions plummet seemingly at random, and the entire city cries out in fear and confusion.

This is the end! The end!-

-this simple thought echoes in the minds of so many. Here is a train, derailed, prostrate, filled with dazed survivors just now trying to get out, when the bombardment hits. Metal screams, demons of dust and debris are raised and roam everywhere. The train is pulverized by two artillery shells, tearing through the thin sides, detonating inside and delivering instant death in radii, like stars exploding.

The innocent are crushed, struck, vaporized, or merely broken and bleeding to death while being trampled by panicking crowds of the doomed.

Rockets, guided by lasers, shriek out of the sky; lightning bolts of the angered gods. The dust demons they raise have a smooth textured, pleasant smoke trailing and surrounding them, spreading outward like broken bottles of slow-motion, low gravity milk, flowing and seeking the lowest ground.

More rockets relentlessly land, in dozens, hundreds, thousands at a time, as minutes pass. The poisonous death crawls outward now like a cancerous tidal wave, cascading and colliding and spreading throughout veins which had, just minutes earlier, carried life throughout the city.

The baby is ripped out of this world by eighteen kilograms of metal fragments, a portion of the weapons hull, which slice cleanly through soft bone and chop flesh like onions. Her mother, uncomprehending, staring witlessly at the growing smoking crater through dust and tears, for milliseconds lasting the rest of her life. She herself collapses under the weight of a ten-ton block of concrete which had been dislodged by an artillery shell; her body reduced to mashed semi-liquid biological remnants.

The police officer is spared, spared even as he is helpless to stop the carnage. Munitions land throughout the city, and he travels through in a confused, desperate rush, trying to guide those he finds to safety.

But he himself knows not where safety lies. Buildings that protect from fire, are torn by bomb. Underground areas that give some protection against shrapnel, debris and bombs, are flooded as nerve gas rushes and floods them from above.

Out of sky come more rockets, and more bombs, drawn in like magnets toward their targets. Shortly after, their deliverers follow close by, buzzing like child's playtoys at first, and then like bees as their numbers make the sky above dark, swarming. They are cold, machines themselves, and some leisurely skim rooftops, strafing the frightened mobs trying to seek shelter.

The factories, dead already, are sent to Hell for good measure. The barrages eliminate every last one.

The city tries to react: it tries to protect itself, belatedly, like a stunned, stupid giant. Communications are made, and soldiers and guards are organized, here and there. Civilians, gripping their own weapons, in sweaty haste prepare to defend their ruined home, even as they narrowly escape death from above. One man manages to take down one of the buzzing drones with a lucky shotgun discharge.

Immediately, the buzzing drones swarm elsewhere, or to home, their munitions expended. Like angels of death, they ascend the very heavens to which their victims now plead for salvation...

Tag for later

...But it appears that only the devils answer.

The rockets and artillery shells are at last quieted; or quieter, as the targets shift outward in patterns of priorities of targets. The streets are already silent.

The homeless man, his favorite drum tucked under his arm, races along the sidewalk. Seeing the gas pools growing after being routed by rockets and cluster munitions, he heads in any direction that seems safe. The number of these directions dwindle quickly. Death is imminent. He looks around him. Surrounded. He stops, standing tall, wanting only to die quickly. 2.3 seconds after inhaling the almost flowery scent, he does.

Inside a dark office building, a door opens. The street is eerily quiet. This area has not been chem’d. The traffic coordinator, and a group of ten or twenty workers, creep out warily. The buzz of the propeller UCAVs is silent. The echoing guns in the harbor are muted, quieter to ears here. Has it ended?

Was it Armageddon, or was it just a freak occurrence?

Insects crawl across the city dying body. Thousands of insects, millions. Some are thumb sized, some are as big as the whole hand. With carbon-fibre legs they creep, or fly, burning their fuel cells as they roam about on their missions. Billions of eyes search the city for survivors, from above and below, with senses the envy of designers and bloodhounds alike.

Its defenders shoot and strike at this new kind of attack. But their blows are in vain, because in the harbor and in the sky more are produced than can be struck down, flying out of mobile factories in swarms. And the eyes are not here to do more than look, and perhaps sting, anyway. A few trouble makers are stung, marked simultaneously by dozens of lasers, and pasted shortly afterward by the buzzing drones-- which did not leave after all, merely distanced themselves, to strike like predators at the right moment.

-there is some resistance, still.

Undaunted, shielded from the Pulse and unafraid of the swarming aircraft, a column of tanks that escaped the merciless bombardment makes its way slowly through the city, destroying attackers with their powerful guns and missiles. The buzzing drones are helpless in close quarters against these stubborn dinosaurs, and once again lift off.

Rockets are guided by the spiders, and the armor is weaker at the back and top. Several tanks are hammered, but only a few are penetrated by the lightweight missiles. Most of their armaments now busied with swatting the flies, they do not notice the low profiles of the drones.

The small vehicles, squat and smoothly shaped, are barely distinguishable to radar systems in the chaotic lanes of the city they travel through. They are armored, but it doesn’t matter. One hit from a large-calibre cannon is enough to shred them into scrap metal-

-but it doesn’t matter. As one is destroyed, its partner launches a deadly armor-penetrating grenade. If this fails, another nearby coughs a spray of kinetic bullets from an electromagnetic accelerator. Most carry rockets and small missiles. Some are armed merely with conventional types of 5.56 mm guns, picking off soldiers with relative ease and shrugging off the odd casualty.

The drones fear no death, and with cruel efficiency tread over rubble and corpse alike while their allies in the sky fluidly support their every, death dealing blow.

The tanks are hopelessly outnumbered. Surrounded, they burn as they are destroyed, blocking their surviving brethren's path and creating a death zone. The kinetic penetrators rarely knock them out, but with hulls pierced and exposed by depleted uranium rods, the crews are no longer protected against the omnipresent nerve gas or radiation, which persists like a heavy ocean of low-clinging death.

The civilian resistance- which had for a few minutes pictured itself as a brave guerilla force holding the enemy at bay for months- is crushed. The chemicals alone are absolutely lethal to anyone, gas mask or no. Exposed skin meant death, and hundreds of thousands fall within a few minutes as proof. The dark office buildings-- the ones left standing-- become vertical coffins as the chemicals find their way into air ducts, in through windows and holes made by the artillery barrages.

Death is fast now, but not merciful.

Men and women's brains and hearts seize up; their bowels are violently cut loose, and they spend their last milliseconds coughing and vomiting up eroded shreds of their major internal organs in a soup of blood and bile. Their faces are rigid in spasm and pain, and blood pours like holy tears from their eyes, from their nose and ears. The roads are full of death now.

Death is everywhere.

Small arms fire doesn't scratch it's paint. Thrown rocks do no good. Death hunts quickly.

A bunker is torched with liquid fire, spewed from the mouth of a drone so equipped for the job. It explodes, hit with enemy weaponry, but eighteen seconds later is followed by another just like it, which finishes the deadly work as if it were a cleaning bot in some corporate high-rise. It's inhabitants are disregarded.

In places where the concrete is torn by bomb-strikes, and where rubble is piled, and where cracks or dimples in the ground are, the gas pools collect, killing anything unfortunate enough to stumble into their depths. But the camodrones seek them out; they shroud themselves in the toxic chemicals, small enough to be completely submerged in the roiling grayness. There they lurk, ready to destroy anything they see with their billions of eyes.

Communications fly back and forth at phenomenal rates. Civilians here. Resistance here. Bunker here. Rockets required here. Level 2 area here. Ambush zone here. The machines sing their music of death to one another at the speed of light. The smooth baritone of the mortar, the high pitched wail of the buzzing drone's rockets, and the chorus of sensor drones and spiders, almost endless in number, chirping mutely as they inform and spy on the remaining inhabitants. But the city is dead.

Yet life pulses through it, now, even as the camodrones and spiders move on, inland, set loose on their inevitable march. Soldiers, dressed in lightweight, camouflaged protective suits, wearing masks that conceal their humanity, at last march along the smoking streets, after eliminating the final pockets of resistance in brutally quick urban warfare.

It is over... and he is unscathed. He has merely observed, fascinated, but now he's in it... now he stands atop the city, straddling it like a Titan of old. He bends, to pick survivors with his hands up, but they are crushed between his massive fingers.

He feels the tingling of the gas pools in his feet. And suddenly he feels the chemical death itself, the horror at last effecting him, his death beginning just as that of the city was finishing.

As he dies, his cold eyes look out under the smoke-filled, darkening skies. He sees the tidal wave of war wash out over the city, the urban areas outlying, across town and road and river and mountain.

'It is over at last', he thinks. But it isn’t, and he can see it. There- like a burning lamp in the distance-

-not an ending, but a beginning.

...Bob Pratt wakes up, sweating, his heart laboring in the darkness of his bedroom.

He is shaking, his heart pounding loudly in his throat and ears. The silence of his room is amplified, like an oppressive shroud. God damn, what was that about? He asks himself, in the voice of his father. A voice heard so many times when he'd made a mistake, or when he didn't quite make it up to part.

"God damn it, lil nilly-Bob! Don't make me club you with this fucken shovel, ya hear?"

Bob shudders as he slides off the water bed. He walks meanderingly to the sink, cold water on his face and in his throat his goal. He enters the bathroom, yawns, and presses a personal-touch button on the wall inside that floods the world with a pale orange light. He looks into the mirror-

-and yells out in alarm.

His face is contorted, twisted as if in utter pain. His skin is blackened, charred, covered in foul, hot tar. Yet he is grinning hideously, bright white teeth standing loud against his burnt cheeks. His eyes are covered by the muck, but somehow he can still see himself, sees something hideous and alien within...

Staggering back in shock against the wall, knocking a towel rack to the floor with a clatter, Bob Pratt clutches his heart. But the vision was for a brief moment, it is gone now, it is just him in the mirror as he is.

It was a demon, he thinks. Christ, I was a demon... I was in hell.

The door next to him opens, and its one of the Internal Intelligence Agents with the typical scuba-like head covering and machine-like eyes, An-111 submachine pistol alert and looking for targets. "Alpha Tango, code one, Alpha Tango, code one....Sir- -everything all right, sir?"

Bob shakes his head, slowly. "Yes- thanks, Agent, I'm all right here, just a bad dream."

The IIA agent scans the room quickly once more, as if concerned that someone actually had broken this far past MP1 security, but was just waiting in the bathroom to get shot. Then he nods curtly at Bob. "Very well. Alpha Tango, that's a negative, I say again, a negative."

He continues shaking his head as the agent leaves, his mind still shaken from the experience. Just a bad dream. You know there aren't demons, you know you were half asleep, so stop giving your brain farts names.

Running his hands through the cool water, he then splashes his face and rinses his eyes. He rinses his eyes most particularly. When through, he returns to his bed, sitting on the edge of it. The light from the bathroom partly makes its way back here, but it is darker and oddly colder. He makes a mental note to change the temperature here in a few moments.

He fires up his version of the Nexus data station, by waving a hand over a circular patch of sensors. Instantly, the entire PrattCo Conglomerate comes online and waits, in glowing holograms of buttons and images, for his orders. Ah, the feeling of power. Press this button, and millions of troops will march. Press that one, and one-point-five billion people do not eat tomorrow. The choices were endless.

Bob inputs a call directly through the MP1 mainframe, making sure to encrypt to such a degree that Tzu's organization and computing resources, working ten billion years, could not crack (not that Tzu would ever try such a thing). In these lands, the computing defense had risen far beyond any of the offense-- as long as you had the cash and the juice.

The face of the Central Sector Special Projects director, puffed with sleep, appears with increasing alertness on screen. "Yes? Bob. It is urgent, yes?"

Bob nods. "It is urgent. I need what you have at El Dorado so far. It is time to get things in high gear, Vasily."

Vasily Pskovsky replies, "We can meet and I can update you. Is it very urgent?"

Sighing, Bob shrugs. "I need to know how things are progressing, for my own peace of mind."

"I can be ready in fifteen minutes."

"Good."

The image fades. Powering down the machine, he leans back, right forearm beneath the back of his egg-like head. By now, he doesn't remember much from his dream-- and he rapidly tries to forget what he saw in the mirror... for as long as he lives.

<bump so it doesn't get eaten by the forum, you know it's very voracious these days>

http://ca.yimg.com/i/ca/cp/20021022/2081390606.jpg
Part Five: Hidden Agendas

The carnage is almost unbelievable. The police marketeers hype it up, of course, merrily displaying 3-d images of gory severed limbs, wrecked torsos, the smoke and fire of the bus explosion.

Like it or not,Gonzolo Tzu thinks, This is the Overwatch Program work. But the question is- why?

As a matter of fact, he doesn't like it. Two crammed mag-lev buses had been blown up, with hundreds of dead or wounded. Such actions were drastic, and the time for violence was not always now.

He is standing near the crime scene itself. His GFE gravcar sits boldly on the sidewalk, offering its flashy statement to the world- look at me, my engine bends gravity, and I cost a whole fucken lot- secure in more ways than even its designers would know.

The air is smoky, but that is not unusual this low in the city. Tzu keeps a handkerchief to his face, not particularly enjoying the fumes.

The National Police Agency director was short, balding, but with attitude that seemed to grow with his beer gut. "Report," Tzu tells him.

"Nine millimeter standard caseless rounds, armor penetrators, off-the-shelf miltech gear," he says, holding a cup of coffee in his grubby right hand. "High muzzle velocity. Whoever did this didn't care if they were heard. No witnesses, and no cams found yet."

Tzu half-smiles at that. As if the NPA would be able to even search through a tenth of the corporate cameras. But Tzu had already correlated the search with Conglomerate computers.

"What about this burn damage," Tzu suggests.

"Inconclusive. High grade incendiaries, but burn evidence indicates some sort of flamethrower to set it off. We can't ID the chemical throwout," the director admits.

Tzu shrugs dismissively. "You can't be expected to do everything."

"Yes... although, I could do better, you know," he replies, running two fingers through his mustache and rubbing his pitted nose.

Tzu knows the man is referring to his pay-off. Was he getting greedy? No matter, to Tzu money was not something he had a lot of; but like any tool, he knew where it was and could use it well. A few thousand for the old state worker, maybe get some cooperation in real crime solving, why not?

"You might be surprised, Director. You don't want to do so well that you have no more room to climb," says Tzu with a glacial smile.

So the NPA can't place the incendiaries. Well, that's understandable.

This is, so far, in keeping with MetaPratt Ones conclusions, though far less detailed, of course. MP1 had given him a score card, and the score was: cutting edge, Conglomerate miltech. Incendiary armor piercing, electromagnetic operation. Nearly silent, except for the sound of breaking the sound barrier before the round left the barrel. Few agencies possessed it; the ITDO, of course, the IIA- and the OP. Of course, there were always the producers, and perhaps links in the chain of production could have been broken. But this was clearly done by an agency of the Glom with the resources to get away-- resources even to avoid immediate detection by the IIA. Messy though it had been, it had also been very professional.

But why would Toby Pratt, Overwatch Program head, order a hit like this? A man like Toby didn't choose covert strikes if he could help it, and certainly wasn't interested in whether these criminals made their deal or not. And he completely disregarded the OP, being a dumb military man. Right?

Tzu ponders, considering. Nothing is solid. His mindset is balanced, and his mind is open but alert. All possibilities are open, because of a lack of sure knowledge at this point. He knows it is the OP, and he suspects Toby isn't involved, so therefore someone else is calling shots in the Overwatch Program. Someone less direct than Toby, but still far more than Tzu himself. Someone who, for reasons of his own, wants Vath out of the way- or at least wants to get across a message.

Pondering, pondering, Tzu's mind turns it's wheels of calculation.

Perhaps there is more to Toby than he had previously considered. A small chance, but a chance just the same-- the Pratts had a way of being underestimated. And yet, it doesn't feel right-- Toby's hand is not on this.

But he has to make sure.

MetaPratt One is waiting for his inquiries... a "tool" which, like money, spread out across the world, above it, spanning more dimensions than physics alone could account for.

He searched, looking carefully for the key to his rise to power, and the end of the Pratts who trusted him so foolishly.

It was raining in the Isla Vista channel. The winter storms had arrived at last, and sunbathing and beach picnics became memories overnight. Insistently, the acidic rain hammered down all over the Santa Barbara main.

Under a gray sky, a gray ocean sat like a lake of mercury, dangerous and yet still. In this climate, in this storm, wavetops were cut short by wind, but the oceans fury lay further out to sea, to the west and east. Sheltered from even the relatively mild conditions of the Channel, and cradled between the land masses of Muy Vista and Santa Barbara, an underwater city bustled with life and other parts of business.

Including death, the (sometimes) uninvited guest.

In a dimly-lit apartment room, situated in a dense modular complex of over 200 ones just like it, a man sat, a lit joint cradled expertly between his fingers. The man had multi-colored, crazy looking hair framing a face which is normal but for the scars from former cybernetic implants. He sat at a classic, ultra-lightweight card table, upon which he had a round of solitaire going. The backs of the cards displayed some corporate emblem-- the golden initials M-W-E embossed on a shifting black background-- from the apartment complex eatery shop.

He was losing. It showed as he began to slam the cards down harder than usual, bouncing the table audibly on the carpeted floor. His eyes narrowed with a cold expression.

The door to the sub-module beeped. A moment later, after a seemingly random, quiet musical phrase, it beeped again and opened with a hiss of air. He looked up, seemingly forgetting the cards where they lay and in his left hand. Narrowing his eyes critically, he took a calculated drag on his cigarette as the prisoner was brought before him.

"Mm mm mmh," the prisoner said through his badly-done gag. After the man signalled to the guard, the prisoners blindfold was lifted.

The prisoner's barcode scan had come up blank-- interesting, to say the least. He was either a master criminal of hitherto unknown proportions, or someone very high up in the Conglomerate. He had been scanned for devices, barcode scramblers or Von Neumann transmitter cells, and come up clean.

He stood about 5'10'' and had a slightly asian appearance. He had hair that was turning silver, and penetrating, strong eyes that nevertheless gave an overall relaxed, open look. He seemed alert, yet casual...

-too casual, one might say, for a man facing his own death.

A guard brought the second chair in the room in front of the door, and forcefully sat the prisoner down upon it.

"Let him speak," Vath said, bemused.

The arrival of the prisoner had dispelled the Anger he felt so often, the beast-like, machinated terror inside--

"Thank you," the prisoner said, as if talking to the waiter at a favorite restaurant, as his gag was removed by the first of two silent, cloaked guards. The second stood off in the shadows, covering the door and the room.

"Tell me your name," Vath said, coyly, almost in the form of a question.

"My name is meaningless," came the answer. Vath yawned at hearing this. He'd heard similar statements before.

"If that's so, so is your life," he said. The guard, on cue, stood taller and moved closer to the chair the prisoner straddled.

The man did not appear to be intimidated, though he looked up and met the eyes of the guard, calmly. Then he looked back at Vath, and, inclining his head, he said, "I am the director of the Internal Intelligence Agency."

Vath paused- a moment only. Then he said, "Your name or your death."

"Gonzalo Tzu," the prisoner relented easily. "You are, of course, Vath, and you aren't ready to kill me-- not right now, anyway."

"Interesting," commented Vath. "And I'm not-- why?"

"You are, like me, a businessman looking to change the world, while currently hiding from the world we will have changed."

Quizzically turning his head, Vath said with genuine curiosity, "And what could you offer me? Your life costs me just the juice to get to the chemical processing unit and a spent bullet."

Tzu smiled and nodded, as if it were an old joke. "What I have to offer is worth more than what those agents took from you last Tuesday. Fifty to a hundred times more."

Vath paused. This man knew much more than he'd expected. He would have had to know--

Well wait, maybe he didn't know shit. The man was just an overrated cop, fishing for a piece of the puzzle with some lame-ass escape planned. Vath took a breath and said, "I've never been robbed of anything by any agents," with a laugh.

Tzu nodded, laughing as well, "Yes- you have. They were Overwatch Program agents, and they murdered seven of your men and got away clean. And you don't like it."

Rage. Vath stood up immediately, knocking the table over, cards flying everywhere as the clatter of the chair joined the cacophony. "You'll pay for that, you fucking cocksucker."

Tzu remained calm, instinctively aware that either fear or challenge drove this man over the edge. "I don't like it any more than you do. Especially since the OP is run by the same man you have to apply for the ITDO Contract."

Ah, the second shoe. Vath was calmed, his curiosity aroused more than his anger, for the moment. He gathered his thoughts, prying to see through the truth and the lies and see how he could benefit from either one.

"Old Toby? Tobe? Pratt?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Tobe, Toby Pratt," Vath said carefully, thinking himself clever, "Has no part in my negotiations with the ITDO. And last I checked, neither did you. You know, I should just scrap you right now."

Tzu shrugged. "...and the Overwatch Program was not even acting on his orders. And you know full well Toby Pratt's greedy redneck hands are on just about every other part of the Conglomerate, especially the ITDO."

"And the IIA as well," Vath pointed out, "Yep. I think I've heard enough."

Gonzalo Tzu, calm as a frozen winter pond, nevertheless looked Vath straight in the eyes and said, "Toby isn't the man who ordered the hit. Neither am I, and I want to get them both."

Vath scratched his sandpapery white cheek, thoughtfully. "I have no hatred for Toby Pratt, Mister Tzu. As for the rest, why, your boys ought to be able to handle that, I mean that's their fucking job. Even if they did what you say, which I have no way of knowing."

Tzu gave a chuckle. "Many of my men are compromised. That is why I had to arrive to my point in such a ... roundabout way. But there is no other choice but the Overwatch Program and your League. And I knew you couldn't have done it after I found your men died in that blast. It was the OP, alright, but not acting entirely on old Toby's orders anyway-- I for one would like to know whose orders they were following. Wouldn't you?"

The second guard - a thick, blonde-haired thug from some place like Iesus Christi, had, during the conversation, unobtrusively set the card table right side up again, and now replaced the chair Vath had been sitting in. Vath looked behind him, at the guard, nodded once and sat down again. "Yeah, well, this is all real interesting, but I fail to see where your life becomes important to me."

Smiling, Tzu said, "Kill me and you'll never find out. But if you help me capture an OP agent, you can, and I can ensure that the Overwatch Program, and the ITDO, never bothers you again."

Intriguing, Vath thought. But he was still wary. "Yeah? So what? We're all bugs down here. You'll just be one more squashed bug. Just like the men who fucked me over last week will be."

Gonzalo serenely replied, "You won't kill me. As I said."

"Don't be too sure of that," Vath said, his voice wavering in his throat.

"We are both powerful men," Tzu continued, undaunted, "but due to certain constraints, we must keep in the shadows. Working together, we can remove those constraints. And as I said-- we are both businessmen."

"You're a businessman?"

"In the shadows."

Vath felt the corners of his lips wanting to curl up. He liked the sound of that. Then he broke into a horrid grimace he probably meant as a smile, revealing yellowed teeth. "Then you have a proposal."

"The ITDO Contract. With Toby gone, and whoever is controlling the OP in your tender care, I will be in a position to get your legitimate deal. Then you can stop bribing the Conglomerate PA overseers. Maybe get yourself a federal title. Land on Mars. What do you say?"

The man had gone from dangerously close to death to now dangling the promises of wealth and power beyond Vaths imagination. It seemed he might be able to deliver, too. And all that would be required was to "work together" in a retaliation against some corpo-thugs who'd fucked over an important deal last Tuesday and killed two of his best guys.

It was almost too good to be true. Almost. He would watch this carefully... but opportunistically.

"I think," Vath said, "We may be able to do some business."

Part Five: The Betrayal

Toby woke up, startled out of an already forgotten dream by the spasmic movement of his tree-like limbs. His eyes were bleary, puffed and the vision of his own quarters showed two of everything in it. Two hatches, two dressers, two nexus consoles, four of his own feet, and two beautiful, young, blonde women lying naked next to him.

He wasn't hungover enough to actually believe there were two of her. What was her name, anyway? A Specific, recently transferred from a dull post aboard an OMF. They'd shared stories, shared liquor, and then everything else.

She was a good drinker. And a good everything else.

Head spinning, he removed the sheets from his body, swung his legs bonelessly over the bed, and using his hands pressed against the bed as leverage, pushed himself into a sitting position. He glanced back over his shoulder at her. She was a marvel, and the way the sheets were draped partly over her body, revealing every smooth and tasty curve-

mmm... but not right now, his mind told him. Yes. It was time to get up.

The Supreme Strategic Core Commander of the ITDO shakily got to his feet. The room only dimly-lit, he could easily see well enough to make it to the head. Clutching his massive, hairy belly in one hand, he stood, utterly relaxed, while he relieved himself. There was no water to flush, nor buttons to press when he was through-- the system automatically cleansed itself efficiently and quietly, recycling the waste and emptying just 1% of the original mass into a large container module within the ship. (That mass would later be used for mass-fragmentation and kinetic weapons, if need ever arose.)

Yawning, he walked to the sink, rinsing his hands off with the too-cold water. It was waking him up too quickly. Now his head was throbbing, the after effects of too much tequila and old age.

Ten minutes later, after much straining and creaking, he was cleaned and ready to go.

His uniform is casual today, just an extra large olive-drab t-shirt, loose fitting camo cargo pants which could be battle-sealed with the black military boots and the top half of the uniform. He now put this on, the armband on his right biceps showing an orange-rimmed insignia consisting of a black planet being shined on with black light-- the orange for the CCCTG, the insignia showing his rank as SSCC. He is the only man who wears this insignia, and of course to impersonate a higher ranked officer in the ITDO was-- well, let's just say Toby never saw anyone stupid enough to try to wear his uniform. Or large enough, for that matter.

He didn't button up fully, letting his belly hang threateningly over his belt as usual. Ignoring the pain in his head, he pulled a Goletan Plain cigar out of his locked trunk, and three more as an afterthought. These he placed tucked in his top pocket, and the first he clamped into his mouth. Then he is out of his cabin, with the Specific-- Williams, yes, that was her name-- still sleeping.

The spinning of the G-Ring, which he was on, meant that there was gravity at earth-like conditions all around the Impunitas. The G-Ring habitat concept was a later feature, added to many ships for periods of time rather than having crews disembark or go earthside for gravity rec. They were in no way a combat modification, or combat survivable, but they contained all sorts of goodies the crew liked. Gravity, little restaurants, bars, pools, two or three exercise tracks and plenty of exercise gear, all along a tubular corridor the width of a small alley.

And it was brightly lit. There were programmed days, nights, the whole thing, of course: right now it was, apparently, noon somewhere. Toby put his hand up to his forehead to shield his screaming eyes from the sudden shock, but too late. He waited it out, and his eyes slowly adjusted. Not too many people here right now. Good.

He held a flame up to the cigars end, doing quick inverted puffs until the tip glows, burning, and he exhales the fragrant smoke out, putting the fire out skillfully. Then, walking slowly along the G-Ring "street," listening to his boots clop against the metal surface and puffing on his cigar, trying to organize his thoughts.

Several of the passing OOTG crewmen-- well, all of them, really, that he came across-- saluted and straightened up upon his approach. He waved them off absent-mindedly, lost in his half-lit memories of the mornings dream. What had happened? He had a vague impression of running away, and he didn't like that. He was never the sort to run away from a fight, or a risk, or a challenge, even in dreams. There was nothing that his spirit didn't feel could be made better by his running head-on into.

Dreams didn't bother him too much, though, and he quickly went on with his job.

He got to the docking tunnel, which is guarded by two security officers. They saluted, knowing him on sight, but did not immediately let him pass. Toby pulled out his ident card and they performed a courtesy check, while he imprinted his hand onto a gene-id.

A retinal scan had, of course, already been performed by several hundred thousand nanosensor devices embedded within the materials of the hull. They are the many eyes of MetaPratt One.

In many ways, Toby reflected, they were his own eyes. Throughout the ITDO and most of the earthnations under the Glom, they observed quietly, recording everything into the MetaPratt One database, the central hub of information for the entire ITDO. Everything was linked to one of MP1's subnodes; unconnected to the main node and isolated for security, of course, but with the same software. And it was all under his own thumb.

He's cleared.

Less than a minute later, and he was in zero-gravity environment. The Impunitas doesn't rotate, and its interior light levels are not governed by pseudo-solar cycles, but remain at a steady, comforting brightness and bluish tinged color. It's a ship of war, and creature comforts like a clear "up" and "down" are unneeded luxuries at best, a possible danger when accelerating, at worst.

"Afternoon, General," another security man said as he entered.

"Hmph. Afternoon, indeed," Toby replied with a grin. Many of the older crew scoffed at the entire concept of day-night lighting, and for that matter, day and night. This security man apparently wasn't of that older crew, however.

Another DNA scan. This was the main hatch to the ship, and it was heavily guarded. The guards were tokens of sorts, because any violators would most likely be targeted by automated defenses and eliminated a few microseconds later. In an emergency, the hatchway checkpoint would be sealed anyway, and there was no brute-force method of getting past the armored hull short of maybe a well-placed nuke.

In a few moments of effortless gliding through the opened deck hatches, he arrived at the bridge of the Impunitas. The control room of the entire OOTG and, sometimes, the ITDO, it was like standing behind the gates of Heaven itself. Row after row of command centers, most of them currently empty, were ready for the coordination of whole wars. Fleets, ships, even troops could be indirectly or directly guided from this single vantage point. Even though commanders were not in here, messages flew through space at the speed of light; the information lubricant that kept the fleets going and not bumping into each other, buzzing like an electric background made of quantum encrypted autocoms.

"Sir!" a young specific greeted him. "Status report of the nights events, sir!"

"Patch it through here, Specific," he replied, indicating his own command nexus. He unhooked the headset and powered up the 3-d virtual display.

Then he casually went over the reports. Status quo, looked like. Except for the ground-to-satellite deadlink, and that had lasted 2.034 seconds at 0531. Doing a quick backtrack mentally, Toby knew he was at that moment subjecting the luscious Williams to a particularly straining display of acrobatics involving the door. Scandalous.

Just over 2 seconds. Well, that wasn't bad, usually deadlinks randomly occurred. It was apparently a part of the quantum-optical interface. The ground-sat system was no different, though that hadn't been updated with new software since the last MP1 G-Net linkup.

He didn't enjoy going to G-Net linkup for major systems, though, as it opened the way briefly for potential security breeches. Of course, there were about a thousand failsafes and insurance against enemy tampering, but that didn't make him feel any better about adding new, possibly experimental changes to the MP1 systems via massive data transfers.

"Specific!" he called to a nearby crewman. "I need some coffee."

"Cream or straight, sir?"

He looked at the rest of the reports, the text glaring alertly into his retinas. Administrative work was so dull. He felt a movement in his massive stomach that reminded him of tequila, and replied, "Straight."

A little while later, sipping his coffee, Toby noticed Specific Williams enter the bridge. She has cleaned herself and looks quite refreshed, not suffering the same effects Toby is. Perhaps ten years ago, Toby would be equally refreshed. But in no time, would he ever have looked so edible floating through the vac to her station.

They didn't meet eyes. All professionals here, of course. Toby wouldn't have cared much if anyone knew. Perhaps Williams was the sort to brag? He fancied the idea and pondered it idly over the next few minutes.

When suddenly, the buzzing stopped.

Like a pretty countryside scene where the river sounds suddenly stop, the change is loud with it's silence.

Then it was loud. Emergcoms popped up all at once. But Toby had been watching the green lights of the communications monitor, and he saw it turn red the second it did. He was quick to respond, bringing up the central database and looking at the cause of the problem.

Ground-satellite communications. Deadlinked, all of them, throughout the fleet. Satellites were fine, civilian lines were fine, but ground-sat exchanges were gone. Just like that.

"Ground-sat communications down, sir!" Williams reports, her voice in his ear as loud as everyone else's, but clear. She'd discovered the problem just as he did. She was a good officer; she would rise far.

"Get a move on the cause. What's still up?"

"Radio is still up. Looks like the linkup made some waves again. Sleevers are on it."

There were several causes for this sort of thing. Deadlinks, to be sure, but as the seconds passed it was clear this was not your average deadlink. In fact, it almost looked as if the coms surged just before going down-- as if MP1 systems monitored some kind of attack, and then all ground control was cut off in the attack.

That wasn't good.

But, he didn't panic and neither did anyone else. The tension increased, but was going back down perceptively. Toby knew, better than most, that computer networks were prone to software crashes, bugs and glitches. Humans were too, and this could easily be a human error.

Civilian lines were still up, which was a good sign. And, according to the reports, the entire orbital forces had spotted no kind of attack, which was even better. Computer error it was, then, but a helluva big one. They'd have to do a workaround soon and figure out the problem, but that was a job for the sleevers, not Toby himself.

He kicked back, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief. Communications were still up, anyway-- but it would be completely uncoordinated and not, apparently, by quantum-laser system, since that was dependent on the MP1 ground-sat link.

Toby Pratt clamped another cigar in his teeth, lighting it. Smoking was definitely a no-no aboard an orbital vessel, but ordinary regulations could afford to be bent if you were the Supreme Strategic Core Commander on your own bridge.

He decided he would call in using radio, if the damn ground-sat still wasn't working, at the first opportunity. Just to check in on the little things. Make sure Santa Barbara was still there.

"And you say it's what?"

"Sentient. Or, approaching sentience, at any rate."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because it lied."

"Could be a mistake. Computers make mistakes."

"Sir, you know damn well about the Angelan trade deals. And we know it lied. A highly advanced AI that's been working just fine for decades doesn't just one day make an error."

"So it just one day becomes sentient?"

"Well, that's what it looks like..."

"But reaching into the real world like that-- it would be abstract, even if it is sentient, it wouldn't be that people-savvy. That would be like a newborn chimpanzee spontaneously writing computer code."

"Well, it either lied, or someone with some mighty high connections is pulling the strings. I can't say which based on this info. I believe that's your job, anyway, to make the conclusions?"

"You don't have to remind me of my job."

"My apologies."

"Tell you what. I'll get back to you on this. Thanks for your time, doctor."

In New State City...

Gonzalo Tzu knew he could pull it off now.

He quickened his step into the nameless hotel he had found, rummaging his way back through the business district of NSC. It would make a good base of operations- for the day, anyway.

Tzu had spent most of his adult life working for PrattCo, back when it was still just PrattCo. He had then worked, for the same employers, but then having taken over-- and had more than a hand in doing so-- the United Socialist States government, they had gone under other names. In the end it was all the same man, Bob Pratt, and this same man trusted him implicitly.

It was funny to him that he could see a resemblence, in the MetaPratt One computer.

Everyone trusted it. Even he had. But it wasn't making an error, it had simply lied. Lied, and blocked all communications from and to Toby Pratt's flagship and it's escorts.

Toby Pratt, besides having no personal ambitions to rule in his brother's stead, wouldn't be capable of hacking into the MP1 mainframe and reproducing the lie throughout the rest of the networks-- the lie that all was well, and nothing was out of the ordinary whatsoever.

And this was most interesting.

There were only seven or eight persons throughout the entire CCCTG who could possibly see through this particular lie. These were the chief commanders watchmen, the grid coordinators, the brightest of the bulbs in these sorts of technologies-- and all of them reported, directly or indirectly, to Gonzalo Tzu's agents.

Even if Toby Pratt knew about this and was up to no good, it would be like sending a very clever little message to his enemies. Toby wasn't the sort to do that, and he had the whole ITDO at his command-- he could do plenty of damage without even Tzu knowing about it until it was too late.

No, there was only one choice, however unlikely. MP1 was getting an ego, becoming sentient, achieveing self-awareness, and/or cutting Toby Pratt off from his entire military and the world. Tzu knew all too well what kind of message this was-- it was the sender who was a surprise.

It was a gift. Toby Pratt, on a platter.

Could be a Trojan Horse...

There was still unsurity. He would communicate with MP1.

As he entered the hotel slot he was staying in, he did a quick check to see if anyone was in there, or anything was different. He didn't expect to find bugs, of course; he didn't have the equipment. But, he didn't see signs of a break-in or anything overt.

He then linked his PDA to the MP1 mainframe. He decided that, whether or not he could communicate with MP1's "ego," he would do a quick search and see where Bob Pratt was. If this was the opportunity he thought it was, he didn't want to waste any time.

He set the fuze.

It wasn't easy to pull info at whim from MetaPratt One. Sentient or no, it had been designed to withstand hacker attempts, to prevent a breach in Toby Pratt's precious military infrastructure.

But it wasn't designed to withstand the Internal Intelligence Agency, and at any rate not Gonzalo Tzu.

[code:1:f10440f8ad]Connected...

Accessing grid coordinates...

Match successful...
[/code:1:f10440f8ad]

After five minutes of serious hacking*, he decrypted the geographic location of one Bob Pratt. Turns out, he was taking a vacation in Puerto Rico (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=106793).

Hard to believe... he thought.

But there was nothing for it. He gathered his minimal personal items, the PDA, his trench, keys and cards and wallet. This apartment had served it's purpose, and was now to be disposed of.

Much like Toby Pratt.


Nine minutes after he left the building, the apartment exploded.

He restrained a grin from forming. There was a certain symmetry to his patience, his goals, and the metaphors abundant in his life. For the first time in years, he felt something akin to exhilaration.

On a beach in Puerto Rico...

A shadow fell over Bob Pratt.

Looking up, he noticed the shadow belonged to a strangely familiar form, gigantic and looming in a heavy trenchcoat. Almost as out of place on the beach as Bob himself was.

"Bob. It's urgent, very urgent, something terrible has happened," the shadow said.

"Tzu? Izzat-" here Bob Pratt hiccupped, "zat you? You're awe-foal big today, or at leasht you look like it..."

Tzu knelt down to a crouch, and the shadow lessened. "I hate to interrupt your vacation like this, but it was the only way I could reach you."

"Oh, don't worry. You're a good friend to me, Gonzhalo, you alwayzh have been," Bob said. He lifted his eleventh margarita up to his lips and slurped noisily. "Aaah. Goot goot goot."

Tzu smiled, patiently, but with a tone of sadness. "Bob, there is terrible news. We should go somewhere to discuss this-"

"No," Bob said immediately. "Let'sh dishcush thish here, it'sh jush a beach, the weather... ah, the weather ish shure pretty..."

"Very well," Tzu said. Then, lowering his voice, he said, "MetaPratt One has registered a disconnect from the OOTG flagship Impunitas. At first it seemed like MP1 was turning sentient-- but..."

"Oh, WOW!" exclaimed Bob too loudly, "A sentient computer!"

"Shh!" chided Tzu. "It's not sentient, as I was about to say..."

"Damn," Bob said, disappointed.

"As I was about to say, Bob. The Impunitas has disconnected itself forcefully from the rest of the fleet-- and the rest of the world. On purpose. Deliberately."

Frowning, Bob said, "That'sh my brother's ship."

"Yes," Tzu said. "Yes, it is. I needn't remind you it's also the most powerful warship ever built, and can devastate entire continents in a very short period of time?"

Bob chuckled. "Well, that Toby, he likesh those weap-weapons..."

"Bob..." Tzu began.

Bob belched, grotesquely. He was, of course, stinking drunk.

Taking a deep breath, Tzu continued. "Bob, all of my sources indicate that Toby, your brother, has taken advantage of the absence of Cheng's battle squadron to initiate a grab for power, using the might of the Impunitas to destroy your support from orbit!"

Bob blinked. "Toby, my brother?"

"It's hard to believe, sir, that is why I've checked the data twice, and twice again. There is no doubt. You can verify it yourself; MetaPratt One doesn't lie. You must act now, if you wish to remain in power."

Shaking his bald head, Bob said, "No, no. That... you're lying! You're lying, or evil, or both!"

"Even if that were true-- and nothing could be further from the truth-- how could I possibly get MetaPratt One to lie as well? Sir, he's been using the Overwatch Program to secure his own support back home. Right now, he is threatening the entire Conglomerate with utter annihilation."

"Why would he- I mean, why would he do that? He wouldn't do that, not my brother..."

Tzu shrugged. "You have had your differences, I know. If you still don't believe me, think of how many times lately that you've disagreed even more. Maybe he feels threatened, maybe this is a mid-life crisis, or maybe he's being influenced by foreign powers. I cannot say for certain. All I know is, you must act, and now."

Bob lifted a finger, as if to make a point, and then turned and vomited onto the sand. Then, as if nothing had happened, he turned back. In a hoarse whisper, he asked, "What should I do?"

Bob Pratt's voice had never sounded so weak and confused. The alcohol had done half of Tzu's job, if not more...

"Bob, I recommend full mobilization of the ITDO (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=107091), to stop the Impunitas at all costs."

Burping once more, and gulping bile down with it, he replied, "But isn't-- isn't that Toby's? How..."

"Some of the orbies may have been seduced to rebellion, but most of the ITDO is still loyal to you, of that I'm sure. Come, we must go."

But Bob wasn't feeling very mobile himself. Instead, he signalled to a beautiful brown-skinned serving girl some distance back to the resort. "Heinrid, Heinrid should handle thish..."

Tzu nodded, as if he expected this. In truth, he had hoped for the transfer of power to go immediately to himself, but of this he gave no indication. He said, "Well, Chairman Abadas can direct the Conglomerate, but I need your signature."

And Tzu produced a nondescript, thin, smooth sheet of white paper with some comfortable blue typing on it. He showed it to Bob, who only gave it a cursory glance, his eyes watering with tears. Bob glanced up at Tzu gratefully. "I guess we should apprehend him then..."

Tzu nodded again. He produced a red ball-point pen with the PCC logo on it, clicked it out, and offered it to Bob. Bob scribbled his name on a broad line near the bottom that said, "Chief Executive Officer, Bob Pratt" next to it.

"I will be... getting quite drunk now..." Bob muttered. Tzu nodded yet again.

"You need your rest, Bob. Save yourself, for the Conglomerate."

The serving girl arrived now, and she smiled with brilliant white teeth at both Tzu and Pratt pleasantly. On her tray were several drinks, including a margarita. Bob reached up and clumsily grabbed it off, slurping it immediately. She offered the tray to Tzu, who shook his head politely.

He had already gotten what he came for.

[OOC: A duplicate of this post can be found in the NY&NJ vacation thread.]

Aboard the Saltshaker...

Strategic Core Subcommander Arvashas got the order. He reviewed it. Twice.

Unflinchingly, but inwardly feeling the pangs of guilt. Toby Pratt had been his mentor as well as commander; for all his many faults, old Toby was an old hand at effectively running a titanic-sized military. He was no slouch at tactics, either.

The message from command was short, but to the point. Jesus.

But the orders stood. They couldn't be disobeyed, not if authorized and from the top- and this was.

"So, what are our orders?" TCC Dura, Arvashas' second-in-command, asked casually; as if asking for his opinion on the latest weather patterns.

"Mobilize the battle squadron. All ships, general quarters, and prepare for fleet attack operations," the Strategic Core Subcommander replied.

He waited, his commands being carried out, and stood tall, his face calm and emotionless. Professional. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it. No matter how unpleasant that job might be. He learned this unswerving attitude toward obedience from the very man who now would suffer death at his hands.

In a quieter, less commanding voice, Arvashas added, "We've got to retire the General, Dura."

[code:1:6a29410cfa]PrattCo Conglomerate Integrated Theater Defense Organization
SecTightBeam™ Quantum Encrypted HDR/LDR Pulse Comm
<TO: SCS Arvashas
<FROM: #49583 Hennings, C-in-C, CCCTG, ITDO
<LOCATION: ITDO Headquarters
<TIMESTAMP: 39485967876548271
<Former SSCC Pratt is convicted of treason and leading a revolt against
<Santa Barbara government and Conglomerate leadership. Interdiction
<and superiority mission priority. Do not allow Pratt rebellion to survive
<or Impunitas battle squadron to commence bombardment at all costs.
<Use of force to apprehend or otherwise neutralize target authorized
<Proceed immediately to attached coord. and if target fails to comply with STS use
<of lethal force authorized.
<
<Peace and Unity.
<
<
<
<
[/code:1:6a29410cfa]

Aboard the Impunitas...

"This is odd," suddenly the officer said.

Toby had been just about ready to call in and chat with his brother, prod him for not giving him an assignment worthy of the only Supreme Strategic Core Commander. "What is it?" he growled, impatient but not immediately dissmissive.

"Lidar, optical, infrared, everything. It looks as if the 1st Destroyer Battle Squadron is mobilizing. And Vrontack's Carrier Group... looks like a huge operation, but we've had nothing from any of the other commanders."

"Well? Get on the horn with them and find the hell out!" Pratt commanded. "I'll call Bob Pratt, meanwhile you get a line up pronto-- I don't care if you have to use styrofoam cups and string."

Toby calls up his Nexus center and implores MetaPratt One to kick itself in the ass and stop fucking malfunctioning. Unfortunately, his efforts fail-- its now apparent communications were down between his entire Battlecruiser squadron and the rest of the fleet. And possibly, the rest of the fleet has received new, urgent orders that he hasn't.

Have we been attacked? he wonders. He can only wonder, since for some reason the radio wave communications have been fouled up as well, despite having no possible relations, systemically, to the main lines.

Well, if we've been attacked, I'm not going to be sitting down when it happens! he thinks. Technically, this is probably not true; even in combat, he is safely restrained to keep from flying around while giving orders.

"Specific, go to general quarters. And get that god-awful thing off of me," he says, referring to the G-ring.

"Y-yes sir," comes the reply.

Meanwhile Pratt tries to get 'hold of the other commanders in the squadron. Global comms had definitely been shut off from the source- MetaPratt One. It would only take such a drastic step if its security had been compromised and a major attack was implied. He now assumes this is the case, as he hope the commanders in his squadron would too.

But if, as he suspected, he would be unable to get hold of them and the 1st DBG-- how is he to lead a coordinated battle? How is anyone?

Aboard the Drywood...

The ten OMI-55D "N" class fleet destroyers of the 5th and 6th Destroyer Groups were chosen for the job of spearheading the assault.

Between them, 40 nuclear-fusion thermal rockets ejected an explosion of superheated hydrogen plasma barreling outward at 8 kilometers a second, as the destroyers buckled forward along the MP1-programmed course.

SCS Johns, meanwhile, strapped into his g-bed on the lead destroyer, took his task to mind and body. He had never known the General, and never would. Command said he was a traitor, that command had come down the chain of command, all the way from Bob Pratt.

So, he was a traitor, and he would die at his hands.

Perhaps there would be a promotion for him. Johns, a 43 year old veteran, had no special desire for rank, and merely went about doing his duty of national-- hell, international-- defense. In the darkly lit, eerie command center of the Leafstemish class vessel, he felt once more the rush of being a part of the night, reaching out amongst the night.

Aboard the Saltshaker...

Arvashas guided the ships in himself. Johns was an excellent tactician, and Arvashas gave him plenty of leeway, only giving "sub-destination" type commands for him to fill. But these ships-- two-thirds of the destroyers under his command-- are but the shield of metal for his metal storm. Meanwhile, keeping five other destroyers and some cruisers at the periphery of the attack sphere, he readies the weapons he has chosen.

There is no bravado, no machismo, no heroic posturing. In the night, one fleet heads toward the other.

"Any reply, Specific?" Arvashas asks his comm officer. He has no real hope for one at this point; there has been no reply for the past hour. The traitor has readied for battle, though.

Arvashas reflects. The Impunitas and a handful of escorts are alone, but quite powerful, more so than his own cruisers and destroyers. Nevertheless, the loyalists have him outnumbered. Most of the frigate and destroyer commanders proved not to be a part of Pratt's plan, and had responded affirming compliance.

It is odd, that the great General had chosen to attack, with just a battlecruiser and half a dozen small vessels. True, their powerful weaponry was a potent threat against the entire country. But perhaps, Pratt had counted on more personal loyalty, rather than loyalty to orders, and the superiority of his heavy ships.

Or some other trick. One had to be careful, now that the great bear was trapped in his cage.

Arvashas concentrated on his fleet.

Aboard the Impunitas...

The G-ring, a spaceship in its own right, was removed, unhooking itself from many proboscis-like beams and drifting forward off the vertical axis. The Impunitas was ready.

Toby, on the other hand, was unsure. According to the sensors, there hadn't been an attack anywhere. No activity. Lidar, radar, optical tracking of any kind, not so much as a gravity disturbance that could possibly threaten Santa Barbara.

Maybe it wasn't an attack then. Still, it looked almost as if the 1st DBS was headed for him at high speeds. He didn't like it, clearly their plans involved him but surely they could see he hadn't received the order. Or heard jack shit from Bob.

Arvashas's squadron is almost in LOS now, almost over the horizon, still registering in thousands of satellites, observation posts and stations-

-and then the console goes dead.

No warning. Toby finds himself waving his gloved hand vainly over a black virtual command console that is just as dead as a burnt out match. Looking around in alarm, he sees that every console on the Command Center was blank. The room's lights, dimmed in General Quarters mode, now dimmed further with the loss of so many glowing, blinking light sources.

A general murmur of confusion fills the bridge. Toby was quick to take command. "Alright everyone, calm down.. Specific Tate, MP1's had a system failure, see if you can reboot the secondary system."

So MP1 had finally kicked the bucket. This wasn't supposed to happen, but having done so Pratt had made sure to backup. He never liked relying on the infernal machine and its many clones. The secondary system would keep the ship operational for combat. Maybe it would even provide reliable communication, though not, of course, the quantum-encrypted kind.

But now, at the moment, the Impunitas is deaf, blind, dumb, mute and prostrate. Emergency systems are still operational, powered by isolated, very efficient fission reactors, so there's no danger of a catastrophic magnetic confinement system failure just because MetaPratt One was spasming. But weapons targeting and firing? Forget it. He could launch a missile, but it would be like shooting a .357 randomly into the sky and hoping the bullets trajectory would land it at a target four meters in front of you.

And he didn't even have a target. The enemy's location- and nature- is invisible to him.

"TacSub Phon," Pratt continues, determined to keep morale at the bridge, at least, up, "I want you to make sure to get a line up to the other vessels, when the secondary systems come on-line, ASAP"

"Yes sir," Phon says with a sigh.

If the secondary systems come on-line, Pratt thinks.

Aboard the Saltshaker...

"Magnetometers indicate enemy ships preparing to fire kinetic bombardment!" TCC Dura reports.

"Any idea as to the target?"

"None, sir. They aren't accelerating toward us either."

Arvashas ponders. He could always disobey his order...

"KOFML status."

"Good to go. 2 FMs in the tubes."

It was almost too easy. But it had to be done. Santa Barbara could be targeted, the Conglomerate could be targeted, millions of lives were at stake.

Arvashas's squadron, accelerating about 30 m/s/s slower than the forward destroyers, was now in LOS of the target.

"Lock and fire."

Toby Pratt was born in south-central Santa Barbara, almost in the Goletan Plains, a few years after Bob. Mrs Pratt had been a tired, sagging woman made hard by years of hard work and little thanks. Billy-Bob worked all day in his Company, returning only for food and booze, and to instill his two sons (and later, daughter) with his infinite wisdom.

You let yer brother go, Toby, or I swear by God I'll get the hose, he said.

I didn't mean nothin', Paw Toby would reply, earning him a cuff on the ears. His mother would cry and whimper when the dark side of Billy-Bob came out, even something so harmless as cuffing his son.

I dun care what you meant, you let 'im go!

Bob was protected, favored for the first six years of Toby's life. Toby remembered hating them both, but Bob was the littler one, the one he could express his anger on. Billy-Bob was all-powerful, invincible, a mythic superhero with his oil empire and Goletan Plains redneck blood.

But then Bob wasn't protected any more. Then he was expected to grow, but he never did, being shorter and dumpy and introverted, and Billy-Bob began calling him nilly-Bob. Then Toby could do pretty much anything, since he was a big boy now, saddled with much of the hard work too.

Let me go! Bob would bark, annoyed, but Toby heartily ignored it, laughing even, as he would get him in a headlock and sock him in the gut.

Times were so innocent back then, when nobody meant anything by anything. There were so few ulterior motives, it was just impulse and rowdy, drunken fun.

One day Bob had been pushed too hard, too much.

Toby had had this horse. A hard-worked family owned horse, one of many from Billy-Bob's youth that he couldn't admit he would never ride again. Toby called him Stardust, and with exhilaration rode him everywhere. Toby took to the outdoor life, while Bob always sat indoors, reading books, learning things he would use later to gain ultimate power.

Stardust helped Toby get over his anger, somewhat, letting him convert the energy into the sheer joy of ridin' and ropin' in the hot sun, breathing dust and gettin' dirty. But he still pushed Bob around, and one evening after galloping home he, excited to see his brother for the first time in a few hours, tackled Bob from the side, knocking him over and putting his shoulder through the door.

Owww! You fucking bastard! Bob exclaimed with rage.

Yeah? Whatcha gonna do, nilly? came Toby's reply, cockily, as he idly clenched his fist.

Somethin', if you don't stop...

Toby had laughed then. Toby was almost a miniature version of Billy-Bob, in his own right. He was favored now, he even helped out (or tried to) at the Company, and would probably succeed his father. What could Bob do?

I ain't yeller, like you! jeered Toby, and suddenly brought his knee into Bob's crotch. Bob fell to the ground in agony, eyes filling with tears, pain and rage.

Toby had instantly felt a pang of guilt; he hadn't meant to cause that much pain. Actually, he found himself wishing that Bob was just more like him, bigger, more physical. Bob's interests were boring, making him boring.

The next morning, however, Toby had gone out to one of the barns, expecting to see his beloved Stardust. Instead, he found Stardust's corpse, collapsed in its stable, immobile and silent. Toby rushed to him, but it was too late. It was as if he had just stopped.

Billy-Bob was enraged. But what could he do? The old horse had had it's day, it was hardly a surprise. Toby was heartbroken, but after a few weeks he was back to normal. All things passed.

Bob had come to him, during the night, when Toby was still lying awake, thinking about the horse he would never ride again. Like a blooming signal of his manhood, stolen, severed. Toby, startled, glowered at Bob in the darkness of their room.

I'm sorry about Stardust...Bob had said quickly.

Yeah.

Just don't hit me again, okay?

Surprised, Toby's face then relaxed into his more comforting expression of pride and disdain. Yeah? Why not?

I'm sorry about Stardust, Bob repeated, and then climbed into his bunk, and wouldn't say another word on the subject.

Toby never found out how the horse had really died. But knowing that Bob might have poisoned or otherwise killed it, instead of filling Toby with anger or pain, seemed to ease their relationship from then on. It was as if Bob had tamed him, by killing that horse; had proven that iron will and brains were more powerful than brawn.

Thirty years later, Bob was the President of the United Socialist State of Santa Barbara, and the sole CEO of PrattCo. Toby, of course, was the General, the head of the 13th most powerful military in the world. The two could often be seen, walking the streets of New State City or riding in armored cars, laughing, smoking and drinking life up.

And those days, Suzy Jo was still alive, the third pillar of their power structure, the voice of reason and moderation. All childhood quarrels had been forgotten, mostly, but despite the differences they were replaced with, Toby never in his life hurt his brother after that strange night so long ago.

They were unbreakable, their bonds going back to the mid Triassic, when the oil their pappy discovered was just being formed in what would later, one day, become Santa Barbara and Goleta. Their bonds kept the Corporations together.

The Kick-Off-Fusion-Missile-Launcher did exactly that. Ejected from the hull ports of the Saltshaker cruiser's hull, two massive missiles drifted away, apparently lost, tumbling horizontally into space. Then, several dozen kilometers out, fission generators created the magnetic confinement, and initiated the fusion reaction aboard each missile. Riding a superheated exhaust plume of hydrogen, they lurched forward, like hundred-ton bullets spontaneously deciding to fire on their own.

And then it was in the hands of trajectory and MetaPratt One, whose node complexes processed enormous numbers of calculations, guiding the projectiles toward their target, which practically sat still, no jamming or interference-- a clean shot, like a bullet to the head.

The two missiles zoomed past the Impunitas's defense grid ranges. No maser, laser, or antimissile lanced out invisibly to impulse-kill them on their way in. Nor were silicate or shrapnel launched as a last-minute defense. The Impunitas was advanced, possessing molecular-reinforced, electrically-strengthened "shield" like armor which was 40 times stronger than the purest zero-g manufactured steel.

But no energy surged to solidify the bonds. Only 16,000 tons of boron, titanium and ceramic armor stood to defend the ship.

Toby didn't know it, but the bonds of brotherhood he had relied on equally as well had been broken.

The fusion missiles had a leisurely 48 seconds to accelerate. Ignoring all politics and human-constructed fantasies, they plummeted at nearly 27 kps straight into their target. First one, then the other, with a blinding release of destructive energy, not only from the sheer mass and velocity but the detonating fission warheads. The first missile merely slammed into the ship, not even fully penetrating to the inner hull but lodged there.

During this brief period Toby, helpless and in the dark, had time to think one last thought.

Brother!

The second missile hit less than two seconds later, and both warheads detonated, one from just outside the ship and the other from deep inside.

And then Toby Pratt was no more.

Aboard the Drywood...

SCS Johns watched the show as it played across his eyeballs, in stunning virtual video display as the Impunitas was destroyed.

Or was it? The hulk burned, but seemed to hold together despite the weapons it had just taken up the ass.

No time to think. The rest of that battle squadron had to go too.

"Ready standard missiles," SCS Johns ordered the crew. By readying, he meant waiting his command to fire-- they were already prepared by the crew and the computer, silent and deadly, like a taut bow.

They would finish off the rest of the traitorous group, and that would be that.

Aboard the Saltshaker...

Arvashas himself was about to fire again, to tackle the six older ships that had been under Toby's sway, when the console beeped at him, urgently.

[code:1:fe0a3d097f]
PRIORITY NOTICE: COMMUNICATIONS LINK;
LOW-BAND RADIO; EMERGENCY; IMPUNITAS ESCORT GROUP

Communications restored; brief us on your situation
Explain unauthorized mobilization;
[/code:1:fe0a3d097f]

Further investigating the data Arvashas saw that it had come not just from the surviving ships from the targeted one as well. Apparently it had got off this message just before being hit, by radio; the old way, but why would Pratt have sent--

"Sir!" TCC Dura says, alarmed. "I have just been informed, the enemy ships surrender by radio, apparently their communications were cut off, somehow."

Jesus. Don't tell me it was just a communications error?

Well, that would explain why they hadn't responded to the SDS (stand down and surrender) order...

But MP1 had made no mention that their comms were down, and would have noticed, and notified them immediately. That was what it was programmed to do.

"Sir, that means the mission is complete, sir," Dura said, sounding more collected now, swallowing.

Of course. Arvashas couldn't even think what he was beginning to think. So what if there had been a computer malfunction? What was he going to do? Tell Bob Pratt that? Yeah, right. He'd followed orders.

"Yes, the mission is complete, Dura. Report back to SCS Hennings and the rest of the fleet that this is so. Call off the attack, prepare to board alpha squadron." he ordered.

Besides, probably Toby had cut the communications himself. He had been leading a coup, after all. It was actually logical. Yes, that was it. Now the rest of that squadron was surrendering. Despite the victory, Arvashas couldn't quite keep his stomach calm. It kept roiling with unease, and could it be-guilt? No, no. But something felt wrong.

Still, he had carried out his orders, and that was the important thing.

[OOC: Bump for comments/viewing. This is complete, but is really just the first half, and it's 25,202 words, which is why no one is really gonna read it. Too bad, cuz I'm not giving the short version! I wanna reward all three or four of you who make it all the way through. And because there are some important things revealed.]

[bump]

[bumpo]

blah. I'm not doing another of these.

I read it all the way through. I better see the second half soon!

And

BUMP!!

Thanks Sketch. :) :D I think, looking back on all the un-answered loose ends, there will have to be a second one, but I think now it'll come after the Montecito war.