A few days later, I was studying for the Solomon House entrance exams at home.
My mother had just arisen from the dead—quite literally from being dead in one of her soap-stims—and was making her way clumsily toward me. She had a fresh drink in hand.
“Hey, stinker, I saw you embarrassed yourself at that Killiam party. What the hell were you thinking?” she half-slurred, half-laughed at me. “Some security expert you are.” She sniggered, taking a swig from her drink.
I watched her blankly.
“They killed the dolphins you know,” she added, cruelly recalling a major security breach that had been the start of the end with Terra Nova. “Dirty, smelly fish, serves them right.”
Still I said nothing.
“I guess nobody is coming to your party, huh, stinky Jimmy?”
She was right. No one was coming to my upcoming birthday party, not anymore.
Mother was behind me, turning away to refill her drink. I slowly closed the interface to my notes and twisted around to face her, pulling down a dense security blanket that enveloped us in a glittering glacial blue.
She turned back to me. “What?” she barked. “Something to say, little worm?”
“If you ever talk to me again, Mother, if you ever so much as lay a hand on me, or utter one more word to me from that trashy, dirty mouth of yours,” I said, slowly and evenly, “I will make sure that you regret your very existence.”
I smiled to make the point, opening up her pssi channels and filling her emotional inputs with pure hatred. She stared at me, about to say something, but then stopped herself. Terrified, she turned and shuffled away, and I released the security blanket with a flick of a phantom.
“Enjoy the soapstim, Mom!” I called gaily after her and returned to my notes.
I’m going to ace this test.
22
Identity: Patricia Killiam
The winds whipped and howled, churning the surface of the ocean into a frothing maelstrom. Gigantic waves surged and crested, propelled by the driving storms. The collision of two Category 5 hurricanes was a once in a mega-annum event, and Atopia was a seed about to be crushed between these two grinding wheels.
And then, bright pinpoints of light appeared, flashing through the sheets of dark, whipping rain. More pinpoints flared through the downpour and began illuminating the heaving seas. They multiplied, glittering and flashing into a sheet of superheated plasma that vaporized the rain, sending plumes of mist rocketing up through the atmosphere.
We were all in Command, watching this on a projection in the middle of the room.
“The slingshots weren’t designed to be used this way,” Jimmy explained as we watched the growing inferno begin to notch a tiny gap between the colliding storms. “Usually, they’re only used in sustained operation for a few minutes to take out incoming kinetic threats, but we’ve made some modifications to sink away the heat. We should be able to operate them continuously for at least a few hours, maybe more—long enough to get the job done.”
The viewpoint on the projection swept away and upward, zooming backward into space until we could see most of the colliding hurricane systems with Atopia highlighted on the seas between them. Jimmy accelerated the simulation speed, and we watched as a narrow gap between the storm systems appeared and Atopia was sucked through it.
“We’ll use the slingshots to blaze a super-high-pressure system through the middle of the two colliding storm systems. Then we’ll drive Atopia at maximum speed straight into it. The relative vacuum we create will literally suck us through as we burn a path forward with the slingshots.”
Jimmy smiled as the highlighted pinpoint of Atopia popped through to the other side of the storms in the simulation.
A singular, loud clapping punctuated the room. It was Kesselring, beaming at Jimmy, and everyone joined in.
“You’ve saved us!” Kesselring cried out. “Brilliant, simply brilliant!”
Relief that we would escape destruction in the storms almost overwhelmed me. I couldn’t help but join in the applause. It was ingenious, and it looked like it would work.
“It will be a bumpy ride through,” added Jimmy, “but not too bad.” He waved away our applause.
Kesselring leaned over to me confidentially. “Excellent work in bringing Jimmy onto the Command team.”
“Thanks,” I replied, nodding, but my clapping trailed off as I spied Rick standing off to the side, his expression vacant. “Looks like it will work,” I agreed, “but if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to something.”
I collapsed my primary subjective away from Command. Marie had already poured me a scotch, and I sat down behind my desk and put my feet up.
“Through the storms we go,” said Marie gravely.
I took the drink from her and stood. Unconsciously I began pacing back and forth.
Marie brought up the phutureworlds we’d been working on for so many years now, their projections floating in my display spaces, staggered from the most critical to least, filling my eyes with death and destruction. She was bringing them up to make a point.
“None of this makes any sense,” I complained, taking a sip from my drink.
My view of warfare was fairly academic. Open warfare was, in essence, an information-gathering exercise. From a game-theory point-of-view, attack and defense were designed to resolve the capabilities of opponents until both sides converged on the same assessments.
I’d openly shared almost all information regarding Atopia to avert such a conflict—“almost” being the operative word. Perhaps by sharing what we were hiding, I could negotiate a peace with Terra Nova, but it was hard to shake the feeling that I was a traitor to my own cause.
Even then, I couldn’t imagine Terra Nova being so desperate that they would purposely direct powerful hurricanes onto the densely populated West Coast. Even a weakened America would be sure to retaliate, violently, after the damage these storms would cause. Terra Nova was ensuring its own destruction.
Once upon a time, when we’d just started Atopia, I’d helped lay the foundations for Terra Nova as well. I was perhaps the only person on Earth who could fix whatever was happening.
“Are you ready?” Marie asked. “This may be our only chance.”
With all the attention focused on the emergency at hand, a window of opportunity had opened for us to talk with the Terra Novans directly and in secret—a chance to strike a grand bargain. “Everything is set up?”
“They’re waiting,” Marie replied. Seconds ticked by.
“Very good. Initiate.”
We exploded upward out of my office, squeezing through a tight communication channel in the Atopian perimeter, and then dispersed, clipping and mixing our sensory packets around the globe. We rematerialized in a large, warmly lit room with wooden walls that arched in vertical panels to intertwine and spiral together to form the ceiling.
On closer inspection, the walls weren’t paneled, but were living tree trunks growing tightly together, and the place glowed with a light that seemed to emanate from nowhere. I was seated beside Marie at a large stone table.
Across from us sat the Elders of Terra Nova. In the middle of them was my old student, Mohesha. She nodded at me, smiling, and I smiled back. My distrust began to melt away.
The senior Terra Novan Elder, Tyrel, began speaking, “It is with gratitude that we accept you in our council today. We know this is a great personal risk.”
It hardly mattered anymore. My days are numbered was what I wanted to say. I just wanted things to be right, to do the right thing.
“I also am honored.” I nodded deeply. “I come here today to negotiate a peace.”
Without emotion, Tyrel watched me. “We have great respect for you, the mother of all of this,” he said, sweeping his hand around the table, “of all Terra Nova, and more, of all synthetic intelligences and worlds—”
“Thank you, but I’m not here to collect—”
“You’ve been used, Patricia—deceived. You’ve even deceived yourself!” interrupted Mohesha. Her dark features glowed in the soft lighting.
“I’m not here out of desperation,” I said firmly, ignoring her. “We’re beating this storm trap. I am here simply because I want the same things as you.”
Silence.
“Even if we wanted to, and we do, we could not help you,” replied Tyrel.
“You must see the destruction coming,” I continued. “You know we’ve been hiding some of the details, but the pssi program is the only solution.”
Tyrel and the rest of the Elders watched me sadly.
“Chasing happiness, by giving people anything they want, has never been the path to salvation,” said one of the other Elders after a pause. “Satisfying every material and sensual pleasure will not lead to peace.”
“But surely you have seen what I have seen!” I shouted, slapping the table. “You have to stop what you are doing. It will only lead to your own destruction!”
Dead silence. Absolutely no reaction.
“After Atopia escapes, I’m going to the media, to tell them what I’ve been hiding,” I explained. “I’ve already started it through Sintil8. It will slow the release and we can collaborate.”
“We know about Sintil8,” said Tyrel. “We know what you’ve been planning with him.”
“What do you want then? Is it money, a share of the profits?”
“How far you have fallen,” Tyrel stated sadly. Tears came to his eyes. “You can no longer stop what you have created.”
“Is all this just about stopping the pssi program so you can position yourselves better?” I asked incredulously.
“This is not about the pssi program.” Tyrel wiped away his tears. “By itself, we would have been happy to evolve together, in a symbiotic coexistence under your dominance, but you’ve unleashed an unspeakable evil into the world. We must destroy Atopia to stop it.”
“What are you talking about?” Then a light winked on. “So you admit to creating these storms?”
My mind raced. Had Sintil8 double-crossed me? Had I made a fatal mistake in bringing him so close to me? Was he the monster I’d unleashed? How had Terra Nova managed to jump so technologically far ahead to control weather like this?
And how do they think they can get away with it?
“Yes, we created these storms, as you say,” Tyrel admitted, “but I cannot say more, and even if I could, we don’t have the full picture. We believe the key to what is happening is contained in William McIntyre’s body.”
“Willy?” I asked, remembering the report on Bob’s friend. I became even more confused. “Did you have something to do with Willy’s body disappearing? Why?”
“It was through his proxxi Wallace that we first understood the potential magnitude of the danger,” admitted Tyrel, “but it was Sintil8 who helped Wallace disappear from Atopia using the access keys you granted. Wallace was acting to protect William.”
Things were spinning into nonsense. All I understood was that Sintil8 was involved in the disappearances.
“We have no time for this,” I objected. “We need to make a deal now. You’ve seen the same phutures I have, there is no other solution. If you don’t stop this, you’ll be destroyed!”
“We’ve seen the phutures,” agreed Tyrel, “but you didn’t take into account one scenario.”
“And what is that?” We’d played out billions of phutures.
“The destruction of Atopia.”
That stopped me in my tracks. It was true—all of our phutures included Atopia as a component of the solution set.
“This is a trap of your own making,” explained Tyrel, “and yes, you may escape these storms.…”
My head spun. Had my pride blinded me?
“But, regardless, before the sun rises tomorrow morning, Atopia will be wiped from the face of this world.”