Red Zone - 27
A Novel
7
He opened his eyes, and they were his eyes. I am back in the reference universe. The idea seemed to have stuck in his mind, a lever that moved the world, so long as he could find a place to stand.
The door to the reactor room snapped open, there, frozen in place, clearly kill-switched, was the figure of Alpha, locked like a statue, one arm speeding towards a harness, that plugged into the controls. On the harness, a single button, glowing red, meaning it was armed.
The Jovians sauntered up to Alpha, and stood square in his field of vision, almost underneath the outstretched arm, as if to address him.
“You are never going to be as grateful for a kill switch in your miserable life Alpha.”
“You aren't going to kill him.”
“Nah, I just want to push him away from that button and disarm it.”
“Not sporting?”
“Why, do you think it would be honorable?”
“No.”
“Me neither. So, help me push us out of harm's way here.”
The two managed to slide him the required distance.
Sairen, can you disarm this? He paused waiting for a reply that came quickly.
Easily. It is 2nd level scissors-paper-stone.
Easily turned out to be a long 15 minutes, during which even talking was impossible. The figure of Tony Beranstant watched the entire time. His hands moved in delicate patterns he did not entirely understand, using tools that had been set down from the installation. It had seemed a simple device, but obviously, it had been made with many layers to defeat tampering.
I thought you said it was easy.
I did not say quick. First level is walking back the chain – but if your opponent catches you, you must grind back. That means draw after draw until you change tactics. Then zap.
Is that it?
I think so. We can unkill Alpha.
I do not believe that would be wise.
He'll die like that.
So, you want to unkill someone whose first act will be to try to kill us?
OK, so there are some implementation details to work out.
Get back to me when you have a procedure.
He could see a face sticking her tongue out at him.
That is not very mature.
I'm sorry.
“So Deesh,” the Jovan's voice snapped his focus back on the outside world, “what's our next throw?”
“Maje Kohli is the driver here, and I think I am going to need to hunt him down. I have a question for Zhang Wu.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“Thank you, that's the answer I needed.”
I'm going to sleep you now.
Why?
You tried to betray me.
How do you know... Oh right.
You surely could not have thought that I would let the matter drop without confirmation.
Please. He made me.
Good night Sairen.
Please. Please. Please.
Good night, I will wake you later when we can fix you.
He snapped his neck back and forth and pulled out the code that he now knew belonged to Zhang Wu. There was a ghastly silence in his head, and he realized that half of the semi-constant buzzing was the activity of Sairen, and the channel that it, then she, opened out exposing him to the manipulation of who, or what, Zhang Wu was.
He looked one last time at the frozen figure of Colonel Alpha. His survival instinct was to open one of the weapons caches in the control room, pull it out, level it, and pull the trigger. He even turned and took a step towards one. His eyes and focus fixed, and then fixated, on the nearly invisible circle which, if touched with his thumb, would open it.
“You ok, Deesh?”
“No. I am not.”
“What happened? Just the facts.”
“The facts, even if we possessed them, are too few in number to rely upon. It is the unfacts which are essential.”
“Unfacts?”
“Quantum philosophy, the things which might have happened, but did not, but whose chance of happening altered what did happen. Like the fear you have left a tablet in your quarters, you go back, and find that it was on your person all along. The unfact of leaving the tablet changed the facts.”
“Gotcha. So, what happened back there?”
“An entity by the name of Zhang Wu attempted to trick me into thinking that you were under his control. I realized that the simplest explanation was that the entire simulation was in my head, piped through Sairen, with Zhang Wu pulling the strings. It was a simple thing to test.”
“And So, who is this Zhang Wu.”
“He is some sort of sphere intel, perhaps a dragon, or a Kami out of control.”
“What's his interest in you?”
“I think he wants to control me, taking advantage of how the Dominion nearly ruined my mind, and I think it likely that he is part of the sphere backing the rebellion on Mars.”
“All around good guy, it appears. So, what was his ploy for.”
“I think he wanted me to kill you. Alpha he can have anytime he wants, and I am not all that difficult to dispose of if he sets Sairen at it carefully.”
“Why me?”
“You are the one person in this region of Mars that he cannot kill, control, or bribe, I would suspect.”
“If that were the case, he'd just have you plant a slug in the back of my skull, or had your girl down here toast me. I've been using up lives at a horrible rate the last few days. I'm on fourth or fifth chances.”
Deeshandir locked in thought.
“He was very clear in setting you up as under his control. His mistake was that he has a tin ear for Colonel Alpha.”
“Couldn't sim 3 meters of mean? That's surprising.”
“Not necessarily, I think that Zhang Wu's personalities are degenerating into solipsism.”
“As is most of your society, Deesh. So, what did you do with Sairen, blow her off the board?”
“I slept her but will revive her later when there is time. She has pieces of me which I am very much aware of missing.”
“Mercy is a good quality to cultivate.”
“I saw you decide not to kill Alpha.”
“Laws of war.”
“True.”
“So, we got the colonists, who are rebelling to keep resources raping the planet. We've got your sphere backing them, in the form of Zhang Wu and his merry band of kill chips, we've got the Dominion, and within that infighting between Dip, Mil, and Sec, and finally we have the Republics. That all on the program?”
“Well, I am sure there are eddy's and rifts, but that, I think, is modestly comprehensive.”
“So, my questions. Who froze Alpha? We were hot on his trail.”
“Kohli is the logical choice. When he found Alpha was going to immolate the station, Alpha became a liability.”
“How do you know that is what Alpha intended? What if it is the other way, Kohli wants to blow the base, because it solves lots of his problems at once. Alpha wanted to kill us, and wanted to take out the destruct device.”
“Yar, venting the reactor is a logical step towards both. But why didn't he enlist our aid.”
“Would you trust this marauding sack of protoplasm?”
“I suppose not. Thinking the worst of him is remarkably predictive. However, Zhang Wu tried at the last to trick me into turning him back on.”
“Just because he's not suicidal, doesn't mean he wishes us well.”
“That was one of the signs that Zhang Wu was really in control – the suicide tactics...” His voice trailed off.
They looked at each other.
“That is it: Zhang Wu set the reactor, and Kohli fled.”
“While our boy Alpha here, came down to defuse it, to save his men.”
“And Sairen planted the idea of the reactor to get me down here.”
“Finally, Kohli found the kill switch, figuring he was far away enough.”
Deeshandir fiddled with the security system and pulled up the last few minutes before their arrival. They watched as Alpha roared and argued with Kohli to help defuse the trap. But, at the last Major Kohli's grinning face simply watched impassively, until Alpha simply froze in mid-gesture.
The Jovians spoke. “So, Zhang Wu is the suicide king.”
“That makes sense, he is supposed to have hundreds of personalities.”
“And obviously they are all fanatically devoted to whatever his cause is.”
“The singularity, Anthony, he wants to bring on the singularity.”
The marine simply shook his head.
“You know, I keep thinking I've found out the worst about you people, and you keep proving me wrong.”
“It's an arms race, and we're ahead.” Deeshandir grinned.
“Nice to know you can crack a joke. So, what's the throw?”
“We have a station full of frozen Bees to lock up, and Kohli to track down and kill.”
“Looks like I get to do the grunt work, because I'm not chasing a tank.”
Venky was thinking of Scissors, Paper, Stone. Because the three were like an unsolved problem: they all work well together until a new situation rears its ugly head.
“I was hoping you would come to that conclusion.”
“Godspeed, Mr. Venkatesh.”
Fin