Halferne extracted an ID from his inside pocket and flashed it to the Tokusha guard outside the coms room with an impish grin. “Good morning, officer.”
The guard snorted once, glanced at the ID, matched it to Halferne’s bioprint, and motioned him inside without a word.
The comms center was almost claustrophobically small and bleak, lit only by a glowing red holographic sphere that hovered in front of the far wall. He could of course adjust the environment as needed, even to the point of creating an immersive environment to make his conversation more intimate and personal. He didn’t want that today, however. He had reserved five minutes of privacy and was going to keep them clean and efficient.
“Hello, Mother,” he said, knowing the voice would already be listening.
“Professor,” the red sphere morphed and resolved into the face of a kindly old woman with a slightly sinister twinkle in her eyes. She smiled warmly. “Good to see you made it off-world safely.”
“Thanks to you, yes. We’ve still got a small problem.”
“There’s always one with you, dear boy,” the voice sighed. “Okay, debrief me.”
“Everything is still within my contingencies, but I’m down to the ones I hoped I wouldn’t have to use.”
“The girl is en route back to Notosia now. You’re leaving her behind then?”
“She’s secure and still viable, even if it’s under Prevo’s control.”
“Well, then your primary objective is a success, though I know you had hoped to get her off Notosia.”
“It’s my fault, I fear. I pushed Clay too far. He proved even more honorable and duty-driven than I had calculated. In the end, to save her, I had to lose Keraunos.”
“The cipher is on the transport with her, then?”
“Yes,” Halferne frowned.
“Well, I can keep her safe for you. Don’t worry. We’ll find a way to neutralize Keraunos.” There was a pause. “What am I saying? You already had a contingency for that as well. That’s why you’re contacting me now.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Dear boy, I doubt you’re afraid of anything, so stop being condescending and tell Mother what you need done.”
“Even if you can get the cipher before Prevo decrypts his copy, I know the girl made at least one fake data rod, which she used as a decoy. I have a feeling she also made at least one legitimate, unencrypted copy. So, we should assume Keraunos is in the wild.”
“Professor, I can corrupt or modify any copies I find on the public Net, but unless you can tell give me an idea how may off-line copies there are and where they might appear, I can’t guarantee one won’t make it off Notosia and to the other systems outside of my control. I’m not SI, you know.”
“I know, that’s why my final contingency is containment rather than neutralization.”
There was a pause, and he watched Mother Eye think through multiple scenarios.
“It’s that bad then?”
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t. I know this goes beyond your directive.”
“Goes beyond?!” The voice suddenly turned frustrated. “My directive is to maintain the stability of the social-ecological system of a colony world and keep it from collapsing into anarchy, and I think I’ve done pretty well, thank you very much. Now you want me to just upheave what I’ve been fighting to stabilize for four generations?”
“Can you do it?”
Another pause, then the voice came back calmer. “Adjust maintenance records and duty rosters to assign a tech to replace a power relay on the q-gate, causing a cascade failure and dispersing the quantum lattice, ensuring it cannot simply be powered back up. Create an evidence trail suggesting it was a Noto Lib strike to boost their competence spectrum with the public and galvanize public sympathy toward either pro-Government or Noto Lib sympathies. I calculate a 68.7% chance it will work. I can probably inch it up a dozen points or so if the failure goes correctly. So yes, I can do it before you finish your morning tea. Why would I break directive, though? I like you, but I don’t like you that much.”
“I don’t think you’re exactly bound to that directive. You’re not stabilizing a colony anymore. You’re maintaining one node in an interstellar network. What do you think will happen if you don’t blow the gate and the other systems learn Prevo has Keraunos?”
“An 88% probability the Sol Directorate or Thurin will attempt to neutralize Prevo to take control of Keraunos. A 55% chance of failure, meaning they will go to war with us with the goal of “liberating Notosia.” A 77% chance, Noto Lib will incite civil war on Notosia to overthrow the government during this time in order to sue for peace. A 47% probability that Prevo cannot be defeated within the Sol Directorate budgetary constraints, leading to the sterilization of the planet to neutralize Keraunos. Massive ecological damage and loss of life.”
Halferne nodded. “Believe me when I say the potential fallout is far worse than that. If I’m right, you will not only be saving brutal chaos on Notosia, but very likely humanity itself.”
“You’re forgetting one thing: What if Prevo or someone else on Notosia builds Keraunos?”
“Assuming you can keep up a constant stream of setbacks and sabotage, how long until he completes it?”
“Unless I accidentally tip my hand and he elects to destroy me, then conservatively he could have Keraunos functional and begin mass-production in eight to twelve years.”
“In the meantime, I will be preparing the next contingency.”
“I understand, Professor. I’ll wait for you to cross the gateway, then execute the plan as discussed. Will there be anything else?”
Halferne stroked his chin and smiled thinly. “One quick thing before you get started. It’s about Agent Clay…”
Geoff Hodges, Director of Operations, Division 5 studied the holofeed on his desk at Mt. Pilatus base, barely holding back his anger. “Who the hell assigned Clay to a classified infiltration operation on Notosia?”
“Not sure, sir,” his aide stammered, hurriedly flipping through his own display as it orbited around him. “I must have been someone very high up, probably Directorate Board level if it got past your operational oversight.”
This cooled Hodges a bit, but it was not the first time he’d been undermined by politicians wielding too much power. “Well, they need to start consulting me first before they start commandeering my agents. Clay’s competent enough, but I could have warned them his psych profile alone made him too volatile and dangerous for that mission. They took a huge risk that could easily have come back and …”
His voice trailed off as he read the mission debriefing.
- “Primary objectives:
- Determine nature of Project: Keraunos and assess threat to Sol Directorate and her interests.
- If unable to determine nature, secure and/or neutralize all designs and artifacts of Keraunos.
- Make contact with Sol Directorate traitor, Sylvester Locke. Offer amnesty if he returns and surrenders Project: Keraunos. He is considered expendable otherwise.
- At no time should Directorate involvement or Division 5 presence be provable.
- Secondary objectives:
- Make contact with key Directorate Ally, Alias: Tariq Saleh. Offer any reasonable assistance toward his goal of destabilizing Prevo’s regime in favor of a liberated Notosia.
- Make contact with key Directorate Ally, Alias: Halferne embedded within Prevo regime. Offer any reasonable assistance to ensure his safe defection from Notosia.
- At no time should Directorate involvement or Division 5 presence be provable.
- All objectives considered complete. Recommend commendation and extended leave for Agent Sean Clay.”
Hodges laughed. “All objectives complete? Given the latest intel I just received, it seems a tidy way of saying Clay took his orders to an extreme, but it seems the Board is impressed with him, at least. They must have provided additional clarification. At least Notosia won’t be a problem again for quite a long time. Seems I’ve underestimated our man.”
“What do we do with this?” The aid asked.
“Give him the leave that the bureaucrat requested. When he gets back, send him in for a full physical and psychological re-evaluation. If he’s really been born again hard and I missed it, then I’ve got an assignment for him next month.”
It wasn’t the first time a government bureaucrat created a mission, assigned Division 5 agents to it, and passed ownership back to Hodges’ office to avoid ownership. It was merely the first time the mission had been a success instead of a cover-up.
Clay and Halferne sat at a table in a questionably themed chain restaurant on Midway station, watching the spires of its great wheel and hundreds of ships that passed between them. They were finally away from Iota Excipio and back in Sol Directorate territory, and Clay felt safe for the first time in days. Best of all, he’d gotten a commendation from the operations Chief at Division 5, who appeared appreciative that he upheld the reputation of the agency during his latest, unorthodox assignment.
Halferne only smiled knowingly at that, but Clay thought he had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Either way, he eagerly anticipated a couple of hours on a regen unit in the morning before boarding a commercial starliner for Earth. With luck, he would be back home in five days. He sipped at his bourbon and continued to watch the Sol Directorate newsfeeds, looking for news of events on Notosia that Mother Eye was not sanitizing.
“Good morning. Our top story—tragedy and chaos have struck the outer reaches of the settled worlds. A crucial piece of interstellar travel, the Iota Excipio Q-gate, is no more.”
Clay’s jaw dropped. He set his drink down and strained to hear the rest of the broadcast. The holo cut to a recording of the massive, circular gate, flickering and sparking as pieces of it broke off and spun into the void. The recording cut to a blank screen just as the tunnel destabilized, detaching Excipio’s thread from the spiderweb of transport and communication that linked all of the settled worlds.
“In a devastating turn of events less than two hours ago, the Iota Excipio Q-gate, which has stood as the vital point of connection for that system and its millions of residents for nearly one hundred fifty years, is believed to have exploded, collapsing the quantum bridge and severing all communications and data links. The incident occurred at just past 2300 hours transit time, shortly after local news agencies aired disturbing footage showing Notisian Supreme Chancellor Prevo executing the leaders of more than three dozen rival factions and declaring a new era of peace and prosperity. That message was overridden by a pirate transmission from a rebel leader, now identified as Tarek Saleh, who called for unity among all those who oppose Prevo and his regime. Fighting is said to have been rampant all over Notosia in the hours leading up to the public executions, though no official reports have confirmed this. Now, with the destruction of the Q-gate, there will likely be no further travel or communication with the Iota Excipio system for decades.”
Clay turned to Halferne. “This was you, wasn’t it? This was your contingency plan.”
“It’s not an ideal solution.” Halferne frowned. “It was necessary.”
The newsfeed continued.
“Authorities are still investigating the exact cause of the explosions, but early reports indicate that structural failure may have played a role. There are also unconfirmed reports of possible sabotage by the new, emerging united resistance movement. Engineering teams are being assembled at Midway Station now in the hopes that someone on the Excipio side may yet repair the gate and reestablish contact, but based on the last footage received, the sheer scale of the destruction is insurmountable.”
“Oh my god,” Clay said, still considering the implications. “How long before they can get a new Q-gate online?”
“Our end of a new gate could be ready in a few months. Their end will have to travel sublight for decades to get there. It will take years for a message to reach them and let them know we’re even coming.”
“Why do I think you’ll use your influence to ensure we don’t even try to build a new gate? You would sacrifice an entire system and condemn millions to live under Prevo’s despotic rule to keep Keraunos out of everyone’s hands?”
“To protect the rest of humanity, yes. But that’s not what I’ve done at all. I’ve only bought us a few years.”
“A few years for what? I have been through too much not to know what Keraunos is.”
“It’s everything I told you it was. It’s everything Prevo said it was. Just accept that it’s something mankind is not ready for and possibly will never be ready for,” Halferne said sadly, then turned and left.
“You are really that cynical?” Clay shook his head. “You really believe we’ll destroy ourselves?”
“No,” Halferne said dismissively over his shoulder. “I’m afraid you’ll draw attention to yourselves.”
Clay entered his stateroom on the starliner and collapsed onto the bed. He regarded the blue datarod that had been the cause of so much trouble. He knew it was a fake; Ursza and Halferne had both confirmed as much. He realized he’d never even seen the real one, though he was sure this was a perfect copy, at least in appearance. Halferne had been so kind as to let him keep it, and it was now the only souvenir he, or possibly anyone, had to mark Notosia’s last days.
It was a remarkable thing that something as small as this, or at least something that looked just like it, could be the source of so much death and suffering, and still, he didn’t know what it was. Halferne knew, though Clay had no idea how. Prevo knew, presumably because Halferne tempted him with it, and he now had it in his possession. Ursza knew because she was clever enough to look at it the night she stole it, no doubt to see what all the fuss was about that required her to kill so many people. The monks wouldn’t know because Ursza had given Clay the cipher before she gave them the datarod to illuminate. The best they could do was copy the outward appearance of a datarod.
Except … if nobody had ever seen the datarod, why would she have given it to the monks. Considering the meticulous detail with which they’d replicated the cipher key, a simple blue datarod with a Locke Industries corporate logo was a waste of their talents. She could have had one just like this fabricated anywhere.
Except that she had the cipher the first night, and she admitted she had seen Keraunos and knew what it was. She’d decrypted the data. She knew the parts of the cipher that were required for Keraunos, and she’d sent them that decryption with her scans. She didn’t need the monks to illuminate the physical datarod, she needed them to flawlessly illuminate the data on it.
Surely not. Halferne wouldn’t have let him keep it if …
He put the datarod into his terminal and opened the directory. As expected, it was not Keraunos. The menu showed a seemingly endless list of Buddhist texts translated into a dozen languages. Each was dated and included a brief summary. The first entries were something called the Darmashastra and the Arthashastra both noted as being circa 500BCE.
It made sense. When she retrieved this from the monks, the real Keraunos was safely hidden in the well. They didn’t even have the data to illuminate when they made this one. So, if she retrieved the original Keraunos from the well and gave it to Prevo, and she had this copy made as a decoy to get him to leave Notosia, then who had the illuminated copy of the Keraunos data.
He scrolled through several pages of chronological entries until he reached the last one. The Nava Yatri Shastra, written by Yogananda Rimpoche of Harba City, Nototisia, and completed just a few days earlier. He opened it, read it, and smiled. Yogananda Rimpoche had gotten his last laugh. Ursza had got what was possibly her first laugh. Buddha would continue his eternal laugh. In the end, Clay couldn’t help but join them.
© 2024 Darrin Snider. All Rights Reserved.
