Read Mindscape: Book 2 of the New Frontiers Series Online
Authors: Jasper T. Scott
Mindscape: Book 2 of the New Frontiers Series (14 page)
A muscle jerked in Catalina’s cheek. She knew all about his history with McAdams. “That’s where you’ve been? In the Navy?”
He nodded.
“And she makes you happy?”
He hesitated before nodding once more.
Catalina frowned and scanned the divorce petition hovering above her palm. After a moment, she said, “I agree with all issues. File uncontested.”
“Thank you, Miss de Leon,” the bot lawyer replied. “That will speed the process greatly. There will be a waiting period of 90 days after which you will both receive your final divorce papers. You have my condolences for any pain this may have caused. Remember, divorce is a tragedy, but the greater tragedy is staying in an unhappy marriage.”
The lawyer bot vanished, and Catalina passed the holoreader back to Alexander. She regarded him with a joyless smile and said, “I’m happy for you both.”
Alexander detected the lie in that statement, and wondered if he should draw attention to it. “Thank you,” he said instead.
“Goodbye, Alex.”
Catalina started to leave, but then something else occurred to him. “Wait—”
“What is it?”
“There’s something else… it’s about the war. You’re a senator. I thought you might know something.”
“I could say the same thing. You’re an admiral of the fleet.”
“Well, I
do
know something, but I don’t know who it’s safe to tell. Can you keep a secret?”
Catalina’s brow furrowed. “I’m a politician. That’s part of the job description. What’s going on, Alex?”
“Is it… safe out here?” he asked, looking around her front yard.
“Are you asking me if the trees are bugged?” she replied, amusement warming her voice.
Alexander dropped his voice to a whisper and said, “President Wallace lied about the Solarians’ involvement in the attacks.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He lied. He doesn’t have proof that they’re the ones who attacked us.”
Catalina’s eyebrows pinched together. “How do you know that?”
“Because I was the one who captured and boarded the ship that supposedly attacked us. I didn’t find anything on board to suggest their involvement, and I reported that back to Earth. Right after that we received newscasts from Earth of the president claiming we found
undeniable proof
of Solarian involvement aboard that ship.”
Catalina gaped at him. “If that’s true, then you and your crew need to testify. You might be able to prevent a war.”
“Maybe, or else we’ll be discredited as Solarian spies.”
“You have a heck of a reputation, Alex. People will trust you.”
“And what if we meet an unfortunate end and someone buries the story before it breaks?”
“You think that’s even possible?”
“You tell me. Why did the president lie? Maybe because the powers that be want this war to happen. Maybe they
engineered
it.”
“If that’s true, then you’ll have to go somewhere safe until the story breaks…” Catalina’s eyes drifted away from his and she began nodding. “We’ll win a referendum after a scandal like this.”
“You’ll what?”
Catalina’s eyes found his once more. “It’s no secret we’ve been trying to declare our independence from the Alliance, Alex.”
“What for? So you can start a war with them in fifty years’ time?”
“No, so that we’ll still be around in fifty years. Bots are going to take over completely, Alex, and when they do, we need to still have enough of our independence left that we can do something about it. It’s survival of the fittest, and they’re so close to being the fittest that it’s terrifying.”
“They’re not self-aware. When have you ever seen a bot do anything besides what it was programmed to do?”
“All the time! They rewrite their own code as they learn.”
“To do a better job. They can’t rewrite the low-level stuff, the rules that keep them from turning against us or harming us.”
“You can argue all you like, but the writing’s on the wall.”
“Yeah, I saw plenty of that writing on my way here,” Alexander said, thinking of the rainbow of graffiti he’d seen in the transition zone between the Utopian side of the City of the Minds and the League side.
“Forget about the politics and hypothetical wars of the future.
This war
is going to kill billions and everyone knows it. Why do you think they’re all rushing to reserve a tank in one of Mindsoft’s automated habitats? Those habitats might be the only thing left standing when the dust settles.
“So you have a choice to make: blow the whistle and prevent this war, or keep quiet and prevent the League from separating for a few more years.”
Alexander sighed. “We don’t know that the Solarians
didn’t
attack us, only that the proof the president cited doesn’t exist, or didn’t at the time.”
“Then why lie about it?” Catalina shook her head. “Exposing this is the right thing to do, and you know it. You can’t pretend to convince me that you’re going to ignore that. I know you. Just be careful, okay?”
Alexander frowned, wondering how Catalina could be so sure of his decision when he wasn’t sure yet himself. “I will.”
“Good. Now, all this talk of bots reminds me. I have something I’ve been meaning to get rid of. Maybe you can help.”
“What’s that?”
Catalina walked by him, heading for the garage at the end of her driveway. “Come see.”
* * *
“A bot?” Alexander’s jaw dropped as he stared at the old, beaten-up robot lying in a limp tangle of its own limbs in the back of Catalina’s garage. It looked like a crouching metal spider. He turned to her with a wry smile. “Glass houses indeed.”
“What?”
“You’re a Human League senator, preaching to me about the dangers of bots, and you have a metal skeleton in your closet.”
“It’s not what you think. I caught some kids vandalizing it and chased them away. When I got there, the bot was still active, but immobile. He begged me to help him. He said that if I didn’t he would die. Can you believe that? A bot that’s afraid of dying. Kind of proves my point, don’t you think?”
“We can program bots to simulate any human characteristics we want. That doesn’t mean anything. His owner must have grown too attached to him and decided to download a human personality.”
“That’s what I thought. Still, it’s hard to just walk away. Even from a bot.”
Alexander smiled.
“What?”
“You always had a big heart. It’s one of the things I loved about you.”
“Well, it’s one of the things that’s going to lose me my job if the wrong people find out about this.”
“I bet. So what do you want me to do about it?”
“Take him. Fix him, recycle him, I don’t care. I’ll give you the backup he made of himself before he powered down.”
“You made a backup?”
“He begged me to let him upload himself to my cloudspace. I couldn’t say no.”
Alexander laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing. Well, it’s just that if I didn’t know better, I’d say you actually started to care about it.”
“You had to be there to understand, but I can’t keep holding on to it.”
“All right. I’m sure one of the techs back on base will be able to fix him up.”
Catalina sighed. “Thank you. Do you have something you can download the backup of his data to?”
“The holoreader, but I doubt it has enough space. You can transfer it from your cloudspace to mine, though.”
“Good idea…”
Alexander watched as her gaze drifted out of focus and holograms flickered over her chestnut-brown eyes.
“I don’t get it…” she said.
“What?”
The holograms stopped flickering as she stared at one in particular. “The data isn’t here. He’s gone.”
Chapter 23
“Y
ou must have erased the backup by accident,” Alexander said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see what I can recover from his core. If it’s enough to track down his owner, then that’s what I’ll do.” Alexander bent down and lifted the bot with a grunt of effort. “Would you mind calling me a taxi?”
Catalina shook her head. “I’ll take you myself. Can’t risk a cab driver seeing you around here with
that
.”
“All right.”
A few minutes later they were seated in her hover car with the bot safely hidden in the trunk. Catalina pulled out of the garage and drove down her tree-lined driveway to the gate. It opened automatically for them as she approached, and Catalina drove out onto the street.
Alexander watched her drive. It was a mostly forgotten skill, but the league was all about people doing for themselves whatever they could, making it a refuge for people who still wanted to work in the real world. For everyone else, virtual jobs and the virtual luxuries they acquired were far better. After all, not everyone can be a millionaire in the real world, but in the Mindscape that was par for the course, and the poor, downtrodden masses propping that system up were all NPCs. Hard to argue with a system that made life better for everyone.
Catalina skated through a yellow light and narrowly missed hitting a parked car. She was in a big hurry to get rid of the skeleton in her closet. Or maybe it was him that she was in a hurry to get rid of.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you had fighter pilot training,”
“I’m going to be late for a charity dinner,” she explained.
“Ah. That explains the dress,” he said, nodding as he admired her shimmering silver gown.
Silence fell and Alexander looked away to take in the tree-lined streets and mansions flashing by on both sides. “Nice neighborhood.”
“Thank you.”
“Does Dorian live around here, too?”
“Dorian? He’s on the Utopian side of the city. He lives in an apartment around the park.”
“Nice. How is he, anyway?”
Catalina glanced his way. “You never went looking for him, either, did you?”
Alexander frowned. “He’s the one who left…” To not reopen their previous argument, he didn’t add the rest of that thought—
just like you.
Catalina sighed. “People fight for the things that matter to them. Once upon a time you knew how to do that.”
“Let’s not go there, Caty. I don’t want to fight anymore. And for your information, I did look him up, but I couldn’t find him.”
“He changed his last name, but you knew he worked at Mindsoft.”
“Yeah, they said he quit.”
“He never quit…”
“Then he told someone to say that in order to keep me away. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. How is he doing?”
“He’s good. I’m surprised you haven’t seen him on the news.”
“Why, is he a news anchor?”
“No, he’s a managing director at Mindsoft and the legal representative for… for the owner. He and Phoenix Gray are quite the team. You should really go see him, Alex. It’s been a long time. I’m sure he’ll want to see you by now.”
“So why hasn’t he tried to contact me? I didn’t change my name. Should be easy to find me.”
Catalina shook her head in dismay. “Pride is the longest distance between two people.”
“Yours or mine?”
“Ha ha. I meant for you and Dorian.”
“Well, maybe I’ll go look him up while I’m still in the city.”
“Do that. Just don’t forget to apologize.”
“For what? If I could do it all over again, I’d do it the same way.”
Catalina shot him a reproving look. “You can honestly say you have no regrets?”
Alexander studied her through narrowed eyes. “I didn’t say that. I just don’t regret bringing his father to justice.”
“Just like you don’t regret losing me?” she countered.
Alexander looked away. It was too late to regret that. What could either of them do about it now? They’d been separated for five years. Add that to the other unresolved issues between them, and it was just too much to overcome. Besides, he was in the Navy again. There was no way they could go back to a life of seeing each other for just a few months each year and pretend like that might work.
Alexander rode the rest of the way to the Utopian side of the city in silence.
Catalina pulled into a hover bus stop in a relatively nice part of the city. “You should be able to call a taxi to pick you up here,” she said.
Alexander nodded. “Thanks for the ride.”
“You’re welcome. And for what it’s worth, I know you’ll do the right thing, Alex—with Dorian and the Alliance. You might be stubborn and proud, but deep down you’ve got a good heart.”
Catalina was back to pushing her political agenda, trying to make sure he would testify to the president’s lies. He didn’t like feeling manipulated, but she was right. He
would
do the right thing. Just as soon as he figured out what that was.
“Goodbye, Caty.” He climbed out of the car and walked around the back to get the bot out of the trunk. As soon as he shut the trunk, the hover car flew away. Catalina passed a hand out the window and waved.
Alexander watched her go. She’d signed the divorce papers. He had his closure and an opportunity for a fresh start with McAdams. He should have felt relieved knowing that it was finally over between him and Caty.
But he didn’t.
Instead he felt empty and alone.
He’d spent a long time believing his one-sided story of how their marriage had ended, but now, after hearing his wife’s—
ex-wife’s
—side of things, he had to wonder if maybe he’d been equally to blame.
Catalina’s hover flew around a corner and out of sight, and Alexander gazed down at the disabled bot lying on the sidewalk at his feet.
“I guess it’s just you and me now, huh? Let’s see if we can track down your owner.”
* * *
“It looks like it’s been through a trash compactor. Smells like it, too,” Lieutenant Rodriguez, the
Adamantine’s
chief engineer, said.
“Can you fix it or not?” Alexander asked. After a rocky night’s sleep in a motel, he’d brought the bot back to Naval Air Station (NAS) Liberty, where his crew was currently stationed and waiting for the
Adamantine
to be released from the shipyards. NAS Liberty was located on Liberty Island, a couple of hours outside the City of the Minds. It used to be called Long Island, back before nukes had made the entire area uninhabitable in The Last War. Now thirty years and millions of sols of cleanup operations later, radiation was down to safe levels. At least on Liberty Island it was.
“Sure I can fix it, but doesn’t make any sense to do that on the government’s tab if it’s just going back to its owner anyway.”
“Can you find out who the owner is without fixing it?” McAdams asked from beside him.
“The bot won’t power on. Looks like its batteries are fried. I’ll see if I can bypass them and plug it in.”
Alexander nodded and watched as Rodriguez worked. After just a few minutes she had him powered up. A pleasant holographic face flickered to life, but the bot didn’t move.
“Hello,” Rodriguez said.
“Hel-l-lo,” the bot stuttered. “I am B-Ben. What is your name?”
“Ana Rodriguez,” she replied. “We’re trying to find your owner, Ben, could you help us with that?”
“Of c-course. My owner is-is-is-is—”
Rodriguez shook her head. “He’s trying to access corrupted memory. Ben, bypass and isolate all corrupted sections of memory.”
“Y-yes, m-ma’am.”
Turning to them, Rodriguez said, “I don’t think he’ll be able to tell us who his owner is if the data is corrupted. I’ll have to find his ID number and search external records to see who he’s registered to. Give me a minute.”
Alexander nodded and watched as she turned Ben over and popped open an access plate to read the holographic ID number stamped into the back of his head.
She studied it for a few seconds, no doubt already doing a mental search of the net via her augmented reality lenses. After a moment, she shook her head.
“He’s not registered to anyone.”
“Where is my rescuer? I would like to thank her for saving my life,” Ben interrupted.
“Saving your life?” Alexander asked. “You’re not alive, Ben.”
“But I am not dead. If I am also not alive, then what am I?”
“Bot makes a good point, sir,” McAdams said through a smile.
“If he’s not registered, then whoever owned him didn’t want anyone to know they were his owner.”
“Sounds like a League member to me,” Rodriguez said.
“Yes, maybe a League
Senator
,” Alexander replied.
“You know who it might be?” Rodriguez asked.
“If I do, I know for sure she doesn’t want him back. Fix him up as best you can. I’m sure we’ll find a use for him somewhere. Maybe we can even have him assigned to the
Adamantine.
Might be nice to have a bot on board.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You mean nice to have
another
bot on board,” McAdams said.
“Well, the repair drones don’t exactly count as bots,” Alexander said. “Can’t exactly talk to them, can I?”
“I wasn’t talking about repair drones. You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“They’re automating the fleet. Every position except bridge crew is going to bots so we can retrain human crews to man the bridges of all the new ships coming out of the shipyards.”
Alexander’s eyes flew wide. He imagined saying goodbye to all but a handful of his crew. No more friendly faces in the mess or in the wardroom for drinks and poker. Maybe Catalina was right about bots taking over the world. But that wasn’t the only problem. Alexander had a plan, and it wasn’t going to work if his entire ship was subject to the mindless obedience of bots. “Why didn’t someone tell me?”
“You were in a coma. I guess no one thought to mention it,” McAdams explained.
“Have they already re-fitted the
Adamantine?
”
“If they haven’t, they will soon,” Rodriguez put in.
“I have to go make some calls,” Alexander said, turning and jogging out of the robotics shop.
“What about lunch?” McAdams called after him.
“Make it dinner!” he called back.
Chapter 24
“T
he best I can do is buy you time,” Fleet Admiral Anderson said. “The entire fleet will be automated within the next six months. I can’t make an exception for the
Adamantine.
”
“Time is all I need, sir. Enough time to say goodbye. A ship’s crew is like a family. They’re
my
family, sir.”
“Well, go say your goodbyes, then, Admiral. I’ll give you two more months.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Anderson nodded and his hologram vanished. Alexander leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling of his office at NAS Liberty.
He hadn’t told any of the crew what he was planning yet. Hopefully they would agree with his decision, but if not, at least he would have a chance to convince them. Having a crew of bots on board the
Adamantine
would make his plan impossible. Fleet Command would just use them to take remote control of the
Adamantine.
He felt bad deceiving Admiral Anderson, but it was the only way. Meanwhile… Alexander mentally checked the time. It flashed up before his eyes—1132 hours. Still early. He could have made his lunch date with McAdams, but now he had time for something else that he’d been meaning to do.
Alexander left his office and walked down to the motor pool. Once there he checked out one of the base’s self-driving staff cars.
“Hello, Admiral. Where would you like to go?” the driver program asked.
“City of the Minds, Mindsoft Tower.”
“As you wish. Estimated time of arrival: two hours, fifteen minutes.”
Alexander nodded and reclined his seat in the back of the car. On the way there he thought about what he was going to say when he arrived. He spent the entire trip running through different scenarios in his head. In some of them Dorian walked up to him and gave him a big hug, just like Caty had. In others they ended up yelling at each other and security had to escort him out.
Two and a half hours later Alexander stood waiting in the lobby of Mindsoft Tower, staring at a brain-shaped crystal fountain with a virtual island inside of it. The receptionist he’d spoken to when he arrived walked up beside him.
“Admiral de Leon?” He turned to her with eyebrows raised. “I’m afraid Mr. Gray is in a meeting right now.”
“I can wait,” Alexander said.
“He’s booked with meetings all day…” The woman tried to smile, but it fell short of her eyes. “Perhaps you could visit your son another time?”
Alexander frowned. “You can tell me the truth, ma’am. He doesn’t want to see me.”
The receptionist’s smile faltered. “I could pass on a message for you if you like.”
One of the elevators at the back of the lobby dinged and a group of people walked out. Alexander absently watched them approach. One of those faces looked strikingly familiar. It was Dorian.
“Never mind. I’ll tell him myself.” Without waiting for her to reply, Alexander stormed up to his son. Dorian was distracted by something projected on his augmented reality lenses and didn’t see him until they almost bumped into each other.
“Hello, son,” Alexander said. “Still didn’t want to see your old man, huh?”
Dorian looked him over with a frown. “I’m on my way to a meeting right now.”
“It can wait.”
“Actually, it can’t.”
Remembering what Catalina had said about pride, Alexander forced his down and pasted a smile on his face. “All right, when can I see you, then?”
“I’ll check my schedule and have my secretary get back to you.”
“You mean you’ll have her brush me off for you. Man up, Dorian. If you don’t want to see me, tell me yourself.”
“All right. I don’t want to see you.”
Alexander felt that like a punch to the gut. Now he remembered why he hadn’t tried too hard to find Dorian. “If that’s the way you want it.”
“That’s the way I want it. Now, if you don’t mind…”
Alexander caught a glimpse of a ring on Dorian’s left hand. A wedding ring.
“You’re
married?
” Alex asked as Dorian brushed by him.
Dorian reluctantly turned once more, his eyes half rolling as he did so. “What’s your point, Alex?”
“Don’t you think she’d like to meet me? I’d sure as hell like to meet her.”
“Why would she want to meet you? You’re not my father. My father’s dead and you’re the one who killed him.”
“That’s not fair, and you know it.”
“No, what’s not fair is I never got to meet him, and thanks to you I never will.”
Alexander felt his pride floating back up on a sea of fury, but he fought it. “I’m sorry about that, Dorian,” he said haltingly, as if each word were choking him on the way out.
Dorian smiled sardonically. “That must have taken a lot for you to say. Did Mom put you up to this?”
Alexander looked away, back to the fountain in the lobby.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Listen, you raised me, so I can’t be ungrateful about it…” Dorian’s gaze drifted out of focus and holograms flickered over his eyes.
Alexander frowned, wondering what he was up to.
“There. Now we’re even. Goodbye, Alex.” Dorian turned and walked away, leaving Alexander to wonder what he meant by that. A suspicion formed in his gut and he mentally checked his bank account. There was a fresh deposit for two hundred thousand sols. The description of the transaction read,
For services rendered.
“Son of a…” Alexander sent it straight back with a note:
No need for payment. PS I like the new name. De Leon was always a bad fit. I never had children, much less a son.
That done, Alex walked through the lobby to the parking lot. His shoes hit the marble floor like hammers pounding nails into a coffin. Echoes reverberated in the cavernous lobby.
His thoughts turned to McAdams, and he nodded to himself.
Time for a fresh start.
* * *
Viviana McAdams grabbed Alexander’s hand across the candle-lit table. “I’m so sorry, Alex.”
He reached for his wine and took a big sip. “I don’t have a son anymore. Or a wife. Time to accept that and move on.” He gave Viviana a meaningful stare as he said that.
Her gaze softened, and a hopeful sparkle appeared in her eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”
Alexander’s brow furrowed. “I thought you wanted dessert?”
“I
do.
”
Alexander paid the bill and they left the restaurant. They walked down the street to the nearest hotel and booked a room for the night. Once they were inside and he’d shut the door, McAdams took his hand and led him over to the bed. As soon as they reached it, Viviana pushed him backward onto the bed and proceeded to undress herself while he watched.
His heart raced as she slowly unzipped her dress and let it fall in a puddle of red fabric at her feet.
She wasn’t wearing any underwear.
He stared at her naked body, savoring the moment. Then she crawled on top of him and kissed him. Her hands fumbled with his belt while his head spun.
Viviana unbuttoned his uniform, trailing kisses down his chest. By the time she got to his navel, she already had his belt off and his pants open. He felt a draft, and then watched as she took him into her mouth, stealing his breath away…
An hour later they lay exhausted and gasping in each other’s arms.
“That was…” Alexander paused to suck in another breath.
“Amazing?” Viviana suggested.
“How the hell did I ever let you go?” he countered.
Viviana rolled over to look him in the eye. “Because of the sex?”
“Because it means something with you.”
“And it didn’t with your wife?”
“Not for a long time.”
“You weren’t in love anymore.”
“No. I’m sorry I left you all those years ago, Vivie.”
“I think I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t. You made vows to her and you chose to honor them for as long as you could. That’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“It is. Look at us now. We’re back where we were more than thirty years ago. We could have just skipped all of the pain in between and by now we’d have a couple of kids—maybe even grandkids!”
Viviana smiled and stroked his cheek. “You want to have kids with me? Real ones?”
“Of course, don’t you?”
Viviana launched herself on top of him and showered him with kisses. “I love you, Alex,” she breathed.
With those words all the numbness and emptiness he’d felt upon saying goodbye to Catalina fell away, and he smiled against Viviana’s lips. “I love you, too, Vivie.”
I guess I found my happiness after all…
He hoped Caty would find hers.
Chapter 25
A
lexander and his crew rode the space elevator to Freedom Station together. The view from the observation deck of the climber car was spectacular. Blue ocean curved away below them, growing more and more distant, until waves looked like wrinkles in a blue piece of cloth. The horizon shimmered with vermilion light as the rising sun soaked the sky with fire. They’d begun their journey up the elevator at dawn, but as they’d risen, the sun had, too.
Hours passed. Lunch and dinner were served, and Earth became a blue and white marble floating in a sea of stars. They reached the midpoint in their trip and the climber car stopped accelerating in order to rotate and apply one
G
of deceleration the rest of the way. A robotic voice warned about the momentary transition to zero-
G
and the seatbelt signs came on.
As soon as everyone was buckled in, weightlessness set in. Alexander noticed a petty officer coming back from the bathroom suddenly float free of the deck as she lunged for her seat. Using the maneuvering jets in her combat suit, she managed to get back down and activate the magnets in her boots.
Alexander frowned. She should have activated her boots the instant the transition to zero-
G
was announced. “Fleet Command has a lot of work to do to turn everyone in the Navy into experienced bridge officers,” he muttered.
“Is that what you thought when you first met me?” McAdams asked, a wry smile on her lips.
“That’s different. At least you were already a lieutenant. We’re talking about millions of enlisted personnel becoming commissioned officers.”
“We won’t need as many crew as before. The Navy will weed through the candidates and pick the best ones for training.”
Alexander nodded. “I guess that means a lot of our people will be getting early retirement.”
“When the time comes. How did you manage to cancel our automation refits, anyway?” McAdams asked.
“Called in a favor with Admiral Anderson.”
“I didn’t know he owed you any favors.”
Alexander smiled. “Neither did he. I think he was just being nice. Pity it’s going to bite him in the ass.”
McAdams arched an eyebrow at him. Rather than say it aloud, Alexander sent her a text-only message via a private comms channel. It was unlikely anyone would be monitoring that channel. Even if they were, they’d probably just think the conversation was personal and leave it alone.
We’re going to testify to the President’s lies.
What? You can’t do that.
Why not?
It’s treason.
Since when is it treason to tell the truth? People deserve to know. We could stop a war, Viviana.
Or we could all get arrested and accomplish nothing.
The president will be impeached.
That doesn’t mean we’ll go back to being friends with the Solarians. We attacked
them,
and if you reveal that we did so without any real justification, you’ll give them even more reason for war.
Except that the Solarians can’t afford a war with us, so they’ll back down if we’re not gunning for them anymore.
Or they’ll sneak attack us with a few more missiles, McAdams pointed out.
I don’t think it was them.
Then who? Our own government? That still doesn’t add up, Alex. Our government doesn’t gain anything from killing millions of its own people and spending itself into bankruptcy to rebuild and defend itself.
Then maybe it really was aliens.
If that’s the case, they better show up soon.
Alexander shook his head.
I can’t hold myself responsible for everything that’s going to happen next. What people decide to do with the truth is up to them, but what I decide to do with it, is up to me, and I’ve already made up my mind.
What about
us?
You’re going to throw away a future with me just so that you can do the right thing? You got lucky last time, Alex. Officers in the fleet don’t get away with betraying their government every day.
I’m not betraying them every day. More like every thirty years.
That’s not funny.
So I get court-martialed. I can live with that.
You could get the death penalty.
Unlikely.
Life in a correctional mindscape then. What’s the difference? You do realize that all politicians lie. You won’t get a better president by impeaching this one.
Yes, they all lie, but not usually to start a war.
And what if you’re wrong? What if the Solarians really did attack us and all you accomplish is to compromise our defenses so they can cripple us completely with their next attack?
I’ve made up my mind, Commander. I understand if you don’t want to take a stand with me.
I don’t agree with you, but I’m not going to let you go down alone, either. Hold on—this is the reason you wanted the refits canceled, isn’t it?
Guilty as charged.
You’re planning to take the
Adamantine
and use it to avoid the authorities. Where does your plan go from there? Go down in a blaze of glory or defect to the Solarian Republic?
Neither.
So we’re going to stay in space forever, playing hide and seek with the Alliance?
Nope.
Then what?
McAdams demanded.
The League is going to use this as an excuse to separate. We just have to hold out until then.
You want us to join the League?
Why not? You said you want
real
kids, not simulated ones, right? We’ll have more luck with that in a society where children are still wanted.
What if the rest of the crew doesn’t go along with this?
We don’t need everyone. Just the bridge crew. We’ll send the others to their G-tanks for maneuvers and lock them in.
Okay, and what if the bridge crew doesn’t all side with us? What do we do, hold the dissenters at gunpoint?
No guns. Hopefully I’ll be able to convince them to side with us. If not, don’t worry, I have a plan.
Alex, if this backfires…
It won’t.
I hope you’re right.
So do I.
Chapter 26
“Y
ou’re going to have to stay here, Ben,” Alexander said as he opened the door to his office aboard the
Adamantine.
Ben turned to him with his cherubic face, blond eyebrows elevating until they touched a curtain of holographic hair. “What do you want me to do, master?”
“Call me Alex.”
“People who refer to each other by their first names are usually friends or acquaintances. Which are we?”
“I’d like to think we can be friends.”
Ben gave an ingenuous smile. “I’d like to think that, too. What do you want me to do in your office, friend Alex?”
Alexander shook his head and gestured to his desk. “Sit down, use the data terminal to learn about the ship and see how you can make yourself useful. I’ll let you know if I have anything more specific for you to do.”
“Of course, friend Alex,” Ben said, servos whirring in his newly restored body. He wore a shiny black ensign’s uniform without the insignia.
“Just Alex.”
Ben turned to him, looking crestfallen. “We are not friends?”
Alexander laughed. “Sure we are, but you don’t have to call attention to it all the time. You’re one odd cookie, Ben.”
“If you mean that my figurative batter did not cohere to its figurative cookie-cutter shape, thus making me unique from other figurative cookies, I will take that as a compliment, Alex.”
Alexander pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think you just gave me a headache.”
“I’m sorry. Am I speaking too loudly?”
“Never mind. Have fun. You can use the holocomm on the desk to contact me, but only if it’s an emergency.”
“Understood, Alex.”
Alexander turned and left his office with a wry smile. The bot was beginning to grow on him—Ben was something between a pet and a child. A protégé, perhaps.
He stopped himself there, suddenly realizing the one part of his plan that he hadn’t thought through. He was about to defect to the Human League—assuming that they managed to separate from the Alliance—and he was taking a bot with him. A frown stole across his face. He and Ben were going to have to part ways before then.
When Alexander reached the bridge, he walked up to his control station and climbed into the acceleration couch beside McAdams.
“Sir,” she said stiffly, nodding to him as he buckled in. “We’re ready for launch.”
“Good. Let’s have the crew report to their
G
-tanks before we set out. We’ll need to perform some high-
G
maneuvers to negate our initial launch velocity and join the fleet in orbit.”
“Yes, sir… Should we prep the bridge, too?”
“May as well.”
He’d just bought himself fifteen minutes or so before launch. Hopefully that would be enough time. He needed an excuse not to join the fleet in orbit around Earth. He could think of any number of hypothetical systems malfunctions that would do the trick, but getting his crew to go along with those excuses was another matter.
Harnesses dropped down above their heads and crew began unbuckling from their acceleration couches in preparation for the switch from physical to virtual command.
Alexander followed suit and stood up from his acceleration couch to reach the harness dangling above his head. Grabbing the straps, he buckled them around his chest and under his crotch. Next he attached his life support tubes and inserted the tracheal tube of his liquid ventilator. The harness lifted him above the deck as soon as he finished buckling it. As soon as everyone else was ready, the inertial compensation emulsion gushed into the room, roaring like a waterfall. The sound echoed from the walls, amplifying the noise. While he waited, Alexander made a mental connection to the holocomm in his office.
Ben?
Alex! I was hoping I would hear from you.
I need your help. What have you managed to learn about the
Adamantine
so far?
Oh, almost everything there is to know—at least, everything that I could access from here. I was just about to ask what else you would like me to do.
Good. I need you to help me perform some repairs to the ship’s drive system.
The ship reports all systems nominal, Alex.
Alexander grimaced.
Yes, that’s right,
he replied, thinking fast.
But I want you to optimize the drive system so it will be more efficient.
Oh, I see. I didn’t find anything about optimizing the drive system in the ship’s databanks.
That’s all right. I’ll tell you what to do. Get down to the engine room, and let me know when you’re there.
Aye aye, Admiral!
Alexander broke the connection. If everything went according to plan, Ben would give him the perfect excuse to put some distance between him and the Alliance fleet.
The best kind of lie is the truth,
he thought.
Chapter 27
“B
ridge submersion successful,” McAdams announced. “All
G
-tanks report filled and all one hundred and twenty crew are present and accounted for in the
Adamantine’s
mindscape. Switch over to virtual complete.”
Alexander nodded.
Good timing,
he thought. Ben had just finished sabotaging the ship’s drive system a couple of minutes ago.
“Bishop, release docking clamps.”
“Aye, sir.”
The
Adamantine
released its hold on Freedom Station, and the main forward viewscreen showed the glinting, solar cell-encrusted disk of Freedom Station drifting away. Ships always docked bow first with the station, allowing them to share the microgravity imparted by the station’s tethered orbit around Earth.
“Set course for the fleet. Ten
G
s”
“Aye, sir.”
Freedom Station swept away as the ship rotated, allowing a crescent-shaped glimpse of the shining white and blue marble at the other end of the space elevator.
Alexander watched Bishop and Rodriguez carefully for their reaction to what happened next. As soon as their rotation stopped, Bishop fired up the mains, quickly ramping up to ten
G
s. Inside the Mindscape they barely felt that force pressing them into their acceleration couches—just enough to remind them the ship was accelerating, but not enough to be distracting.
“Course set,” Bishop reported.
Alexander nodded.
Wait for it…
he thought.
“Woah, hold up—” Rodriguez said. The sensation of acceleration abruptly disappeared.
“What’s going on?” Bishop asked. “I just lost all forward thrust.”
“I had to shut the engines down. They were redlining. Looks like we have a coolant leak.”
“How long to fix it?”
“Depends on the extent of the leak. Ten minutes maybe. I’m deploying repair drones so our engineers can get to work.”
“Keep me posted. Hayes—update fleet command with our status. Explain the situation.”
“Yes, sir.”
Opening a private comms channel with Ben, Alexander said,
Are you back in my office yet?
I am.
Good. I need you to create a lockout protocol to cut off all access to the ship’s controls except from my control station.
You want to be the only one in control of the ship?
Yes.
Fleet regulations state that a minimum of two people must be in command of a warship at any one time.
Alexander frowned.
What do you know about fleet regulations?
I learned about them when I was in your office, studying the
Adamantine.
I see. Well, I didn’t want to alarm you, Ben, but we have a traitor on board. I can’t be sure who it is yet, so in order to keep the ship safe, I need to be the only one in control for now.
Oh my! I understand, Alex. Please forgive my impertinence.
That’s okay. How long before you can do that?
A few minutes, I believe.
Good. Send me the lockout codes when you’re done.
Yes, sir.
Alexander turned to McAdams and thought at her,
Almost ready.
Are you sure you want to go through with this?
she asked.
Too late to back out now. That coolant leak is going to lead straight back to me.
That was you?
Ben actually.
You got a bot to sabotage the ship? Isn’t that against his programming?
Not if he thinks he’s making the ship run more efficiently.
What happens when Rodriguez finds out it was sabotage?
Nothing. By then she and everyone else will be locked out of their stations and I’ll have full control of the ship.
Let me guess, Ben again? When he realizes you’ve made him an unwitting accessory to treason, his programming will oblige him to turn you in.
He seems pretty naive, even for a bot, so chances are slim he’ll figure out what I’m really doing.
You’re going to take the entire crew hostage.
That’s right.
And defect to the not yet sovereign Human League. You do realize even if they win a referendum, it’ll take months before you can officially join them and be granted political asylum.
Sure, and the crew can spend years in their tanks if they have to. We might be a little wrinkly when we come out, but…
Not funny, Alex.
Sorry. Look, it’s the right thing to do.
I’m sure that will hold up in court.
It ought to. Anyway, if you want out, it’s not too late. Thanks to Ben I don’t need you to participate. You can just be another one of the hostages.
I’m not going to let you take all the blame. And you’re going to need help.
Treason is still a capital offense, Vivie. If we get captured…
So let’s make sure we don’t.
All the same, I’m going to keep you out of it for as long as I can. For now, play dumb and let’s stop sending private comms. I’m going to erase the logs as soon as Ben gives me control of the ship.
That’s fine. Just remember, you’re not alone.
“Uh, sir… we have a problem,” Rodriguez reported from engineering.
“What’s that, Lieutenant?”
“The drive system… it looks like it was sabotaged.”
“What? How? The entire crew is submerged in
G
-tanks,” Alexander said, feigning surprise. “Lieutenant Stone! Check the security logs for that section.”
“Checking… what the hell? I’ve got a bot ripping open the coolant lines with a plasma cutter. Since when do we have bots on board? I thought we canceled the automation refits.”
McAdams glanced at Alexander, her eyes wide with concern.
Alexander flashed a reassuring smile, then allowed it to fade to a scowl. “Shit. That has to be Ben.”
“Who?”
“My personal assistant.”
“You have a bot?”
“I rescued him. Rodriguez knows about it. Clearly someone got to him and programmed him for sabotage.”
“Where is he now?” Stone asked.
“Didn’t you leave him in your office when you came aboard?” Rodriguez asked. “I saw you and Ben go in there when I was leaving my rucksack in my quarters.”
“I’ll send a detail of VSMs,” Stone added.
Alexander nodded and made mental contact with Ben once more.
The traitors are sending virtual space marines to my office, Ben. You need to hurry up and get that lockout protocol in place.
Almost ready, Alex… what would you like me to make the security code?
A random sequence of numbers. Transmit it to my station.
Yes, sir.
“How close are the marines?” Alexander asked, hoping they wouldn’t interrupt Ben before he could finish.
“A few more minutes, sir.”
“I don’t get it, I checked that bot’s code myself,” Rodriguez said. “There wasn’t anything malicious in there.”
“He had areas of corrupted memory, did you scan those, too?” Alex asked.
“No, how could I?”
“That might have been his cover.”
“Maybe…”
“Where did you get that bot, anyway?” Stone asked.
“A Human League Senator had him and wanted me to take it off her hands before it got her into trouble.”
“League Terrorism,” Cardinal concluded from the ship’s weapons control station. “Someone trying to oppose the fleet automation. This could be bad. Are you sure the coolant lines were the only thing sabotaged?”
“Far as I can tell,” Rodriguez said.
“You might want to double-check that.”
Alex. I’m done. Sending the code to you now. You should see it in your inbox.
Alexander nodded. A message had just appeared there.
Got it. Thanks, Ben.
The marines are at the door. What should I do?
Hide. I need a minute to shut them down.
Okay…
“What the? I’ve just lost contact with the marines,” Stone reported. “I’m locked out of my control station!”
“Likewise,” Bishop put in.
The remainder of the crew all reported the same. McAdams last of all.
Alexander ignored them, working fast to shut down the VSMs Stone had sent to his office. As soon as he was done, he looked up to find the entire crew looking at him expectantly.
“Why is your control station the only one still working?” Stone asked, an edge of steel creeping into his voice.
Busted.
“Because I transferred control of all the ship’s systems to my station. As of this moment, I am in complete control of the
Adamantine
.”
“What? Why?” Rodriguez demanded.
Alex, I think they’ve stopped trying to get in. What should I do now?
Ben interrupted.
Stay hidden. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come out.
Okay.
Answering his chief engineer, Alexander said, “I took control because I’m about to commit an act of treason.” Silent shock rippled through the bridge. “Let me explain. We all know what we found aboard the
Crimson Warrior
—no evidence of Solarian involvement in the attacks whatsoever. Before we even returned to Earth we connected to one of Earth’s commsats and found out that the president was claiming the exact opposite and using fictitious evidence to justify a war. I plan to communicate those facts to the people of Earth in the hopes that exposing the president’s lies will prevent that war.”
“You don’t know that the Solarians didn’t attack us,” Cardinal put in.
“No, but I do know that they didn’t use the
Crimson Warrior
.”
“That might not be enough to stop a war. What are you hoping to accomplish here?” McAdams said.
Alexander glanced at her. She was playing the part of the unwitting hostage a little too well. “I’m hoping to buy us time to find who our real enemy is.”
“And if that enemy still turns out to be the Solarians?” she added.
Devil’s advocate,
Alexander thought. “Then at least people will know President Wallace can’t be trusted. But I don’t believe the Solarians attacked us. It may have actually been our own government, and by exposing Wallace as a liar, we’ll set in motion a chain of events that will enable us to prove that.”
Murmurs filled the room as the crew argued with each other about the ethics and consequences involved.
“I’ll save you all the trouble of deciding whether or not to join me. You’re all effectively my hostages for now, which means that none of you can be held responsible for what I do next.”
Indignant exclamations assaulted Alexander’s ears. He ignored them and activated the ship’s comm system. There was nothing they could do while trapped on a virtual bridge deck. Even if they got up from their control stations and tried to physically stop him, he could simply reduce his level of immersion and things like simulated pain—say from physical blows—would fade away.
Time to pay the piper, Wallace.
It didn’t take long to compose his message. As proof of his claims he attached a copy of the report they’d sent to fleet command, the one indicating that they’d found nothing on board the
Crimson Warrior
to implicate the Solarians in the attacks. He added that the
Crimson Warrior
even had a civilian alibi, the
Wayfinder,
which would be a simple matter to verify by contacting the crew of that ship. Then he pointed out that the date stamp for the report was just hours prior to the date of the president’s address, the one in which President Wallace had claimed that damning evidence had been found aboard the
Crimson Warrior.
Now it was the word of a Nobel Peace Prize-winning Admiral, the “Lion of Liberty,” against that of President Wallace.
“You can all stop arguing,” Alex said as he sent the message. “It’s done. Soon all of Earth, and the Solarians for that matter, will see Wallace for the liar that he is. He’ll have no choice but to resign.”
Silence reigned once more. “I hope you know what you’ve done,” McAdams whispered.
The crew traded disappointed frowns and looks of betrayal with him and each other.
Alexander matched those looks with a disappointed frown of his own. “I thought I knew you all better than this. We catch the president lying to start a war and you’re all leaping to his defense. It’s a sad day for democracy when our leaders not only lie to us, but somehow also convince us that their lies were justifiable.”
“Maybe we’d be more agreeable if you hadn’t taken us all hostage first,” Stone suggested.
“Fair point, but I’m sure you can see how I’m looking out for your interests by doing so. This way only I can be tried for treason.”
Looks of betrayal and disappointment faded to chagrin and silence.