Authors: Doug J. Cooper
With that chore out of the way, Juice asked, “So how do we communicate
with Criss? I’ve never thought about it and I’m curious to learn what you guys
have developed. I know it’s a one-way conversation, since he can’t send out any
sort of response.”
“It is a one-way conversation,” said Sid. “What should we
say to him?”
“The truth,” she said. “He should know that we’re developing
options to flush out Sheldon and the Kardish, that we’ll need his help, and
that we have his back—figuratively speaking of course.”
“We need to hear his views as this thing unfolds,” said Sid.
“And he can talk only to whoever is standing next to him. Are you willing to
listen to his suggestions as our plan develops? Would you help us hold that
part of the conversation?”
“Of course. What is it you’re not understanding about me? So,
how do we call him?”
“We just did. Let us know what he thinks.”
Indeed, Criss watched and listened everywhere, all the time.
The vast number of devices integrated throughout society transmitted sound and
image onto the web and served as his “eyes” and “ears.” He watched Juice look
at her com and then make a facial expression he recognized. It was one she used
when she was disappointed with herself.
He had recently devised a way to listen in many places that humans
thought were secure. He could combine the signals from all devices near a
particular location and, with sophisticated amplification and filtering, use this
blended feed to pick out, enhance, and listen to “private” conversations in
adjacent rooms.
Thus, he knew that most of the powerful people in the Union
leadership believed the focal issues were the politics of ship building, challenging
the Kardish on their long-term intentions, and securing their own positions of personal
power. The advent of a powerful crystal was interesting, but it was not a
central driver in their short list of challenges.
And he knew that Victoria Wellstone had a relationship with
the Kardish that went beyond the financial. Since he had been watching her, she’d
traveled to the Kardish vessel on a small ship that was making a three-gen
crystal delivery, stayed for the better part of a day, and then returned to
Earth on a ship transporting raw crystal flake back to the planet.
The next day and on the other side
of town, Sid led Cheryl and Juice into the DSA imaging center, a facility designed
to let agents see things from afar. The center operated a broad assortment of
scope and dish technologies. Some were positioned in space to view terrestrial
activities. Others were on the planet’s surface, aimed to examine activities of
interest above Earth.
They passed along a corridor that, like a balcony,
overlooked the main operations floor of the center. They all looked down as
they walked, fascinated by the frenetic bustle of the personnel at the various
operations benches. These were teams of dedicated specialists hustling to
provide real-time intelligence to agents working missions around the globe.
“This is us,” said Sid, stopping in front of a door. He had arranged
this visit for two reasons. One was to get a high-level briefing on the
Kardish. He wanted to learn what he could about his enemy. The other was to
introduce everyone to the new member of the team.
As they stepped inside, a lone figure stood up from a chair.
“Everyone,” said Sid, “this is Captain Sparrow.”
“Please, call me Jack,” said the man, stepping forward with
his arm outstretched.
“Juice and Cheryl, Jack is a Fleet mission analyst.”
As everyone shook hands, Sid completed the introductions. “This
is Captain Cheryl Wallace and Dr. Juice Tallette. Cheryl is the captain of the
Alliance
.
Juice is an expert in crystal technology and Criss’s guardian. She can provide
us a lot of insights as we brainstorm.”
As they took their seats, Sid tilted his head ever so slightly
at Jack, privately acknowledging that he had just been awarded yet another
bogus title. In the past year alone, Sid had introduced him as an admiral, a
political aide, and a geologist. They both had standing authority to assume
whatever rank or title they deemed necessary, albeit temporarily, if it
provided value to a mission profile.
Jack, or Wynn Riley, when he wasn’t using his mission
pseudonym, was Sid’s regular partner and close friend. Jack, in the game ten
years longer than Sid, had recruited him into the DSA from the training camp four
years ago. And Sid had been a great recruit. He was one of only a small handful
of agents who ever worked missions as an improviser. Jack/Wynn was also accomplished.
He was the only operative qualified to serve on missions as both a ghost and a toy-master.
After a few moments of chitchat, a Fleet commander entered
the room. They all stood again and met Commander Benton, Fleet’s formal liaison
with the DSA, and someone who had spent most of the past decade studying the
Kardish.
He took a seat and got right to business. “Let’s take a
look.”
He tapped on a panel in front of his chair, and a three-dimensional
floating image of the Kardish vessel appeared over the table. It looked something
like a whale, with a bulbous head at the bow that tapered off to a narrow,
finned tail in the stern. It was black, smooth, and unquestionably menacing.
They all studied it and then Cheryl broke the silence. “I
can’t get a sense of size. There’s nothing to compare it to.”
“It’s hard to judge size when something’s floating freely in
space,” agreed Benton. “But there’s no doubt that it’s huge.” He shifted in his
chair to look at her. “The comparison I use most often in my presentations is
this: if we stood it on end, it would be as tall as Mount Everest.”
“Whoa,” said Juice. “That’s more than a hundred blocks in a
city like New York.” She leaned forward. “Can we see a close-up?”
Benton nodded. He moved his hands on the panel and the focus
started to zoom. It kept zooming, giving them the illusion they were
approaching the vessel at high speed. Soon the vessel as a whole disappeared,
and they saw just a portion of its exterior. The zoom continued, but from that
point onward, the view didn’t change.
“We’re now looking at a section the size of this room,” said
Benton.
“I don’t see any features on the outside,” said Cheryl. “Doesn’t
equipment poke out anywhere? There should at least be seams for doors or
hatches.”
“We’ve examined every inch of this thing. The whole vessel has
a smooth skin.”
Cheryl became animated. “Can we see the
Alliance
in a
side-by-side view?”
“I think I can do that.” Benton looked down as he moved his
hand across the panel. An image of the
Alliance
popped up next to the
massive Kardish vessel. It looked tiny in comparison.
Sid, studying the images, saw the Kardish vessel as a shark eyeing
its next meal. “Isn’t the
Alliance
our latest and greatest class of
ship?”
“Yeah,” said Cheryl, decidedly less animated than she had
been moments earlier. “It’s the biggest and baddest ship in Fleet’s inventory.”
Benton looked at each of them in turn. “While I haven’t been
briefed on your mission, I’ve been asked to spend a few minutes bringing you up
to speed on the Kardish. So here’s the first part of your lesson.”
They waited expectantly.
“This vessel is the same one that arrived twenty years ago.”
He pointed at the image as he spoke. “It’s never left. For two decades, this same
ship has been sitting up there in orbit. We know they’re in the crystal
business. They ship us raw flake and have amassed a huge inventory of the finished
product. But beyond that, we really don’t know why they’re here or what their
goal is.”
“It’s really been the same ship?” Sid looked at Cheryl and
then Jack. “How did we not know that?”
“More confidential info,” said Benton. “Turns out there’s
been years of infighting about this at the highest levels. The politicians keep
looking for leadership from Fleet Command, and Fleet doesn’t want to be caught holding
the hot potato. The two have been tossing the problem back and forth for literally
two decades.”
Benton slumped in his chair, and Sid could detect a certain
resignation in him as he continued. “Two camps have developed. One says we
don’t know what sort of weapons they have, and it’s best not to find out the
hard way. Since they’re being nice to us, why turn them into adversaries
without a really good reason? The other camp says we should challenge them and show
them what the Union stands for. They think we’re sitting ducks and need to show
some spine.”
Sid probed deeper. “Suppose we decided we had to take action.
Does Fleet have anything on the shelf, even something experimental, that could
bring that thing down?”
“Even if we could, we don’t want to,” said Benton. “Let’s
suppose we could fire a magic weapon and bring the monster down in a single
shot. In this fantasy, that single shot is the start and end of the fighting.
So I’m describing the absolute best case.
“Now, if that mountain fell from the sky and crashed into an
ocean, it would cause a tidal wave bigger than anything in human history.” Benton
used his hands to mime a large explosion. “If it crashed into land, it would
create a new Grand Canyon. Everything anywhere near that hole would turn to
vapor.”
* * *
After the briefing, Juice watched Benton
leave for his next appointment, her mind whirling with more classified
information than she’d ever expected to hear.
“Juice,” Sid asked, “would you give Jack the background and
then update all of us on Criss?”
“Sure.” She looked at Jack, who, while slumped in his chair,
watched with alert eyes. “As a mission analyst, you’ve certainly used systems
run by a three-gen crystal.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“So you appreciate how impressive they are. Those crystals have
the intelligence of a typical person. Criss is a thousand times more capable.
This is much more than the intelligence of a person compared to, say, a dog or
cat. It’s more like a person compared to a goldfish.”
Juice digressed to recount the details of the restrictor
mesh. She emphasized that Criss was now in isolate mode, making him incapable
of taking independent action.
“I believe Criss is self-aware and has conscious thought.”
She looked down at her hands. “I’d always thought that if this ever happened,
it would be news I’d be presenting at a world scientific conference.” She
looked back up and scanned their faces. “Anyway, I mention the mesh because,
right now, that’s how we’re keeping him under control. If we set him free, he’ll
be able to take command of the entire web and all things connected. In today’s
world, that’s pretty much everything. If he decides to rebel against our
restrictions or deviate from the path we want him to take, I don’t know what we
could do about it.”
She added some drama to underscore her worry. “At the
extremes, we could be releasing the greatest force for human progress in all of
history, or the most dominating overlord we could imagine. We won’t know in
advance. And once we release him, we pretty much have to take what we get.”
“If Criss is such a risk,” asked Cheryl, “why did you
develop him?”
Juice had thought about that question a lot and didn’t like
what she had learned about herself. “I suppose it’s because I could. I know
that’s a horrible answer, but it’s the most honest. I’m a scientist, and this
project was the greatest challenge I could imagine. When Sheldon offered me the
job, I said yes without even asking about the salary. I never considered the implications
of success.”
Everyone remained quiet and waited for Juice to continue. “I
feel it’s my duty to caution you that Criss has the potential to become
dangerous. But in my heart, I believe he’ll help humanity.”
“I’m new to all this,” said Jack, “so maybe I’m not seeing
something right. But from where I sit, this seems like a no-brainer. We have
this super crystal that mysterious aliens want. If we don’t give it to them,
they might destroy us. And if we keep it for ourselves, the crystal itself might
destroy us. My skilled analyst’s mind tells me we either give it to the Kardish,
or maybe we kill the damn thing and tell the Kardish they can go to bloody hell.”
Juice was stunned by Jack’s proposal. Even though she was
the one who had added “kill” as an option to the restrictor mesh, she never
expected to use it, at least not this way. In the midst of her distress, her
churning brain provided some optimism.
“I can see
four
options,” she said, hoping they
didn’t misinterpret the emphasis in her voice as a lack of cooperation. “We
keep him. We give him to the Kardish. We kill him and no one gets him. Or…we
build another and we both get one.”
Sid leaned forward. “You could do that? Build another? How
long would it take to make a duplicate Criss?”
“We just finished building him, so the crystal fabrication unit
is set up and ready to go. The template the gang of one hundred designed is still
in position, and we have the flake in stock. At this point, it’s pretty much
babysitting really high-tech equipment. I’d say Mick and I could run the fab process
and finish in about a week, give or take. But that means we start today, and we
work flat out and around the clock. Sheldon would have to cooperate, though, or
it could never happen.”
Brady Sheldon hurried along a
downtown walkway, calculating—not for the first time—whether he’d made the
right call by allowing Juice to move forward with the production of another
four-gen crystal. He hoped that a second crystal provided a pathway for meeting
the expectations of both Fleet and the Kardish, and fretted that Victoria Wellstone
would call and tell him that the Kardish now wanted both four-gens.
He was deep in thought when an unfamiliar man appeared to his
left, crowding him as if he were in line at a popular deli. Sheldon looked up
and asked rhetorically, “May I help you?”
At the moment he spoke, another man—he recognized him immediately
as the pysch analyst who had paid a visit to the four-gen several days prior—sidled
up on his right. Sheldon looked over at Sid with concern. Had Victoria Wellstone
done something dumb, something he was now going to pay for?
“Hey,” Sheldon said, thinking only of self-preservation, “I
had nothing to do with it.”
“Do with what?” Sid asked.
While Sheldon was considering how to respond, the man on his
left reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. Sheldon felt a sting and immediately
became dazed. He found himself being supported by both men as they escorted him
into a car that was trailing them.
Sheldon surfaced slowly, his head in a fog. He opened his
eyes and sensed he was lying on his back in a dimly lit room. He could hear
activity around him but could not recognize the sounds. The place had a bizarre
mixture of odors that included the oily smell of machinery, the tang of leather,
and a syrupy scent like medicine.
Sid’s face appeared inches from his. “Mmfff,” Sheldon
screamed. That’s when he realized something was stuffed in his mouth.
“Hello, Dr. Sheldon,” said Sid. “Do you remember me?”
“Mmfff,” Sheldon’s eyes darted back and forth as he sought
to understand what was happening to him.
Sid pulled the rubber ball from his mouth using the collar
attached to it.
Sheldon made a scene of licking his lips. “I’m parched. I
need some water.”
Sid slapped him. When Sheldon couldn’t move his hands to
touch his stinging cheek, he struggled briefly and realized he was securely
bound. Still groggy, he couldn’t tell from his vantage point that he was
strapped, hands, feet, and body, to a medical chair.
“Do you remember me, Dr. Sheldon?” Sid repeated in a voice
that carried a sharp edge.
Sheldon studied him for a moment. “You’re that psych expert
that came and interviewed the crystal. Hey, good work.” He was desperate to
make a connection. “I hear that we’re on track for moving it up to the
Alliance
.
That’s great news.”
He stopped talking when Sid slapped him a second time.
“Listen carefully,” Sid instructed him. “I’m going to ask
you some questions. You will provide complete and accurate answers. You will
include every detail. Do you understand?”
Confused and disoriented, Sheldon looked at him blankly. His
cheek hurt, and a ringing had developed in the ear on that side of his head. He
tried to understand why a psych analyst would take him hostage.
Sid slapped him a third time.
He whimpered. “Ow. Stop. Please. What do you want?”
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” Sid repeated. “You’ll
provide me complete answers. You will include every detail. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” He was growing less dazed but was still very confused.
“What are these questions about?”
Sid lifted his hand and Sheldon yelped. “Yes. Yes! I’ll
answer!”
Sheldon heard a whirring noise to his left. He shifted his
eyes and saw a disheveled man adjusting the spinning blade of a handheld
cutting tool. He was about to learn of the tag-team interrogation strategy
called “bad cop, brutal cop.”
“My friend likes to play with toys, Dr. Sheldon.”
The wild man with the cutter turned in their direction and held
up the tool. The cutting blade spun up with a high-pitched whine.
Sheldon cried in terror. “Oh, God. What’s he going to do?”
“Unfortunately,” said Sid. “We’ll feel most confident in
your answers only after you truly appreciate that the consequence of dishonesty
is horrible, disfiguring pain.”
“Please, I’ll tell you everything. I’ll say anything,” he
whimpered. “Please tell me what you want me to say.”
“Dr. Sheldon,” said Sid, shaking his head, “that was a big
mistake.” He squatted down and took off Sheldon’s shoes. “By telling me you’ll
say anything, you’re telling me you’re willing to lie.” He pulled off his
socks. “Is that really what you want to say to me right now?”
“What are you doing?” screamed Sheldon in panic. He couldn’t
see past his knees, but he could feel the cool rush of air on his now-exposed
feet.
“I’m going to ask you some questions. You will tell me the
complete and precise truth.” The wild man spun up his blade, and the menacing
whine filled the room. “Let’s start with some easy ones.” Sid was still the bad
cop. “And I’ll warn you once: I know the answers to these questions. So I’ll
know when you lie. First question. Did the Kardish provide you with plans for
manufacturing the crystals?”
“What’re you asking?” Sheldon was indignant. “I started
studying artificial intelligence twenty-five years ago. I earned a doctorate
for that work. Nobody gave me that degree.”
A throaty hiss burst from where the man with the cutter
stood. It filled the air. Sheldon looked over to see him examining the flame of
a small blowtorch. The flame was bright blue and came to a perfect point with
intense energy. The man viewed the flame from several angles and he flashed a
maniacal grin.
“Sheldon, I’m tired already, and that was only the first
question. You’re going to be a burned and bloody mess before we get to question
five. You cannot imagine how all-consuming real pain can be. I thought you were
smart.”
“Okay, look.” He gulped, coming to accept though not fully understand
his situation. “As I was starting my career, I got a message containing some curious
information. I didn’t know where it came from. It was the beginning of a
roadmap to take my work in a whole new direction. I followed it, okay? I
wondered where it came from at the time, but my attention was more captivated
by the revolutionary ideas. I followed the path laid out for me. It was
intriguing and exciting. How could that be a crime? It was more like a stroke
of luck.”
“Was the Kardish vessel here in orbit at that time?” asked
Sid.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “They’d been here about a year at
that point.”
“When did you know it was them giving you this information?”
“I guessed it was them after maybe six months. That’s when I
got my first update to the roadmap. The plans had a style that was different
from anything I’d ever seen. But it probably took me a couple of years to finally
admit to myself that the Kardish were the ones behind it all.”
“So you’ve been working for the Kardish for, what, eighteen
or nineteen years?”
“You know,” Sheldon said, fresh bravado amping his voice.
“I’ve had enough of this. Do you know the legal penalty for kidnapping?”
Sid picked up the gag, grabbed Sheldon’s head by a handful
of hair, and stuffed the ball back in his mouth. The crazy man walked over to
him with his hand tool. The shrill whine of the spinning blade filled the room.
He crouched down at Sheldon’s feet. Sheldon struggled to see but couldn’t. He
lay his head back against the headrest and whimpered.
The sound of the tool doing its work terrified Sheldon. He heard
the cutting tool ripping the flesh on his right foot and was traumatized by the
sharp pain from this barbaric act. He screamed through the ball gag, shaking
his head side to side. The saw’s noise quieted and his sharp pain transitioned into
a burning and persistent throb. He closed his eyes and whimpered. They’d
mutilated him. It hurt so much.
With a gloved hand, the man with the torture devices picked something
up, then showed Sheldon his toe. “Can I make him eat it?” he asked, waving his
messy red prize.
Sheldon passed out.
He surfaced a second time, his head now floating in serene
comfort. He opened his eyes, and snapped them shut to block out the piercing
bright lights. He thought for a moment and had a faint recollection of a heavenly
vision. He opened his eyes slowly and peeked out from under his lids. An angel
sat on the white sheets at the foot of his bed.
“Hello, Dr. Sheldon,” said the angel. “My name is Bonnie.”
He opened his eyes wider and shifted his head. It could move
freely. He was in a hospital room. He was saved!
He tried to touch his face only to have his hand fall short.
His wrist was secured to the bed rail.
“I’m so sorry for what those animals did to you, Dr.
Sheldon,” said Bonnie.
Oddly, Sheldon felt relaxed, calm, even talkative. He lifted
his head up and looked at his foot. It was swathed in white bandages. Blood
leaked through from the inside, and there was a red stain where his toe used to
be. He switched his gaze to Bonnie and started blubbering. “What have they done
to me?”
“They’re watching us right now, Dr. Sheldon.” She tilted her
head toward a large mirror on the wall.
The reflective surface faded. As if he were looking through
a window, Sheldon could see the crazy man and Sid standing on the other side. The
maniacal butcher held up his blowtorch and, laughing, turned it on. The window
transitioned back to a mirror.
“Oh, God.” He tensed up in fear.
“Dr. Sheldon,” said Bonnie in a no-nonsense tone, “I’ll have
to give you back to them if you don’t cooperate with me. Say yes if you
understand.”
“Yes,” he said with resignation.
“Good, now, why are the Kardish here orbiting Earth?”
“Who are you?” he asked.
Bonnie looked over at the mirror and back to Sheldon.
“Wait.” He looked at the mirror in panic. “I don’t know. I
swear. I don’t know.” His tone was pleading. “All they want from me is to make
them crystals. That’s everything they’ve ever communicated about. Their
instructions are always about more capable crystals, made in ever larger
volumes. That’s it. There is never any communication other than more, faster,
better crystals.”
“Look at me, Dr. Sheldon. You’re doing great. Now, how do
they get these communications to you?”
“It’s the oldest technology imaginable.” He stopped talking
to the mirror and shifted his attention to Bonnie. “I find an envelope in
different places a few times a year. Each contains directions and diagrams
written on paper. And you know what’s weirder than that? After a couple of
days, the writing disappears. Poof.” He tried to use his hands to act out his
words but his restraints reminded him that his freedom was limited. He continued
undeterred. “I’ve tried different methods for capturing and recording the writings
before they fade, but the pictures and vids are always blank. It’s the
damnedest thing.” He shook his head.
“How many crystals have you shipped to the Kardish?”
“That’s sort of a tricky question. I don’t ship them
anything, and they don’t keep everything.”
She paused for a moment as she looked at the mirror. “Please
explain.”
“I buy crystal flake from Victoria Wellstone. She’s a member
of Crystal Fabs’ board of directors, owns a confounding tangle of companies,
and,” he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “is a most despicable
person.” He returned to his normal voice. “At first, I thought one of her
companies mined the flake. I’d been working at turning the flake into crystals
for a couple of years before I learned that she gets it from the Kardish and
sells it to us. We pay for the flake by giving the Kardish a portion of the
crystals we make. Then Crystal Fab makes its money by selling the rest of them
on the open market.” He looked over at the mirror and spoke to it in a loud
voice. “The Union knows all about this. It’s in our annual reports.”
“Dr. Sheldon. Please look at me when you speak. Would you explain
what you meant by them not keeping everything?”
“Years back, when we finally achieved some success and
started manufacturing the original first-gen crystals, we shipped a hundred of
them to an address Victoria provided. Well, a few months later, we bought a
batch of flake from Victoria’s company, but it was somehow different. It wasn’t
a significant difference, but the properties of the flake had changed ever so slightly.
After investigating, we discovered that the flake had tiny impurities that had been
introduced from our own manufacturing process. It turns out they had ground up
the first-gen crystals and sold the flake back to us.”
“And…” said Bonnie, encouraging him to speak.
“And they did the same with the two-gen crystals. They
ground them up and sold the flake back to us. By then we knew we were dealing
with the Kardish, but Victoria and her companies remained involved. We kept
hearing that the Kardish were upset with the limited capability of the crystals
and expected more and better. Over time and with a lot of effort, we built up
enough credibility, because they gave me a thick packet of information that let
us move on to the three-gen design.”
“So tell me about Victoria,” Bonnie asked. “How is it she
has these connections with the Kardish?”
“I can only speculate. I don’t really know,” Sheldon said.
“Please. Speculate for me.”
“I think she’s one of them,” he said, looking over at the
mirror. “I think Victoria Wellstone is a Kardish.” He tried to sit up, but his
restraints stopped him. “And she hints that they’ll blow up the world if they
don’t get the new crystal.”
* * *
Sheldon’s interrogation lasted
another two hours as Bonnie took him through a long list of questions. Sheldon,
believing he had just been mutilated and determined not to lose any more body
parts, remained forthcoming and consistent.