Numina code, p.9
Numina Code, page 9
“Clothing is not a plug-in.”
“Yes yes. So different.”
11
The first indication that something was wrong was…catering.
Somebody at Headquarters had brought in food for this.
“Were we expecting company?” Rover asked as he and Sausage wandered into the adjutant’s briefing room. When the three of them had checked in with the general’s admin assistant, she’d told them to come right on in. Cactus had gotten waylaid on the way in by another colonel. Nobody Rover knew.
He’d been up here before, but not since making squadron commander. Different world, this level of command. Maybe this was normal, he wondered.
“I didn’t hear about it if we were,” Sausage said, and he looked concerned.
Definitely not normal, then.
After Camp Maybury, the old Texas Military Department headquarters, was utterly destroyed in the Five Days War, they’d relocated up here, to Dallas. Austin had become, well, what it was now. All the organs of the state government had moved.
The TMD had set up shop in a temporary facility, one of the vast concrete warehouse spaces that used to line the streets here. This one had been a carpet and home-decor fabric store, if Rover remembered correctly. His wife was into both sewing and shopping; she used to come up here to Harry Hines Boulevard to get stuff for the kids’ Halloween costumes, back when they were little. Seemed like a lifetime ago.
Now, the place was full of demountable walls. Offices, corridors, breakout rooms, training labs. All had been defined with ten-foot wall sections, bolted directly into the concrete floor. Some attempts had been made to brighten the place up—carpet, paint, artwork donated by local schools—but nothing could take away that warehouse feel. The ceilings were high and ribbed with trusses, everything a dull gray.
It was, Rover mused, like being a rat in a scientist’s maze. Run through it, press a button for cheese.
He’d hated the place since they moved in. Everybody did, from what he understood.
The area where they were, however, was part of the old original offices. Even a warehouse needed administrative space, and here, the rooms were scaled more reasonably. These had also gotten the best face-lift too, with wood paneling and actual padding under the carpets. This was the headquarters’ front office and here was the Adjutant General’s Conference Room, and this was where the food was.
Maze-running indeed.
Not that Rover was inclined to complain about food. It was free and it was good—catered in from some local Tex-Mex place—and there was plenty of it. He got himself a big pile of fresh-grilled fajita beef and plenty of guacamole and was contemplating somewhere to sit when an old friend walked in.
“Rover! Fancy seeing you here!”
Rover raised an eyebrow.
That was Rob Badillo, 8-Ball, the squadron commander at the 6th Fighter Wing, out at Joint Base Harrison.
The place had been called Goodfellow, back when Rover had commissioned, but in the wake of the Five Days War, the federal side of things had been forced to contract. Too many people had died, too much destruction had occurred. Some states bought up the assets that the feds abandoned and put them to use.
Texas was no exception. The state had aggressively expanded its military after the war. Those old bases came in handy.
So Goodfellow was renamed and re-tasked. 8-Ball’s unit flew a combination of both the old A-10, with its antiquated human-in-cockpit setup, and the modified AQ-1 variant. They were one of the few flying units, anywhere in the country, that had mixed human-abiota formations like that. It was unique, and interesting, but Rover didn’t envy them their mission set.
Border security was a thankless job under any circumstance. Practically everyone in the TMD had done a stint down there at some point. The 121st occasionally supported in a surveillance capacity only. The cartels had been waging a low-grade war against the state for decades, and the situation had become even more unstable since the Five Days War.
Rover hated it.
At least over in the Bathtub, you knew what to shoot.
“Eight,” Rover acknowledged as he shifted his lunch plate in order to shake hands with an old buddy. “What the hell are you doing up here?”
“Yeah, I want to know the same thing. Shit is crazy down in the Rio Grande sector right now, and they want to pull us up here? For some kind of conference?” 8-Ball snorted. He had the faint accent of a bilingual Spanish speaker in his words. “Waste of my fuckin’ time.”
Rover rubbed at his NULI. Damn thing really did itch. “I didn’t hear anything about a conference.”
“Maybe the wrong word,” he said, and headed over to the impromptu buffet. “But the rumor I heard is that there’s some kind of big briefing gonna happen this afternoon.”
Rover hadn’t heard anything like that, and he cast a glance over at Sausage. Deep in conversation with yet another colonel Rover didn’t recognize. His commander wouldn’t meet his eye, but he was probably thinking the same thing.
It was entirely possible Cactus knew about it and had chosen not to pass it along.
Rover wouldn’t have put it past the man.
“State?” Rover asked.
“Feds,” 8-Ball said.
Well, that would be fun, wouldn’t it?
Over the next half hour or so, the conference room slowly filled up. The state had five flying wings and two cyber-warfare groups, along with a whole host of smaller specialized functions. The Wing commanders were all here, near as Rover could tell. But among the more junior folks—guys and gals down at the squadron commander level—Rover did see a pattern emerging.
A pattern he didn’t like at all.
It wasn’t every commander. But the ones here who he knew personally—like 8-Ball, or Colonel Aimee Lowell from the 332nd Airlift Wing, or Major Chris Bastrop from the 19th Cyber Warfare Squadron—were the all the sort who’d rather take a bullet than a bad order from Washington, DC. They were the troublemakers, the vocal opponents.
The hard-line state loyalists.
As far as Rover knew, it had never affected the mission. Nobody made it past captain without at least a little political judgement and the good sense to know when to shut the fuck up. Rover only knew the leanings of most of them thanks to quiet conversations in the middle of a conference, or over in the Bathtub, or at some training event. They all did their jobs and did their jobs well and weren’t in some kind of active rebellion.
The Five Days War had shattered trust, broken faith. In order to do this job, you had to believe in something, and for many, that could no longer be the federal side of things. It wasn’t a sentiment that was expressed publicly though, and certainly never in any situation where somebody from active duty might overhear.
So the question was, how’d the feds know?
Or was he just being paranoid?
There were no immediate answers, so Rover put it aside. Focused on his food—which would have gone better with a beer—and introduced himself to the commanders he didn’t know, or didn’t know well, and tried not to blame Cactus for dragging him into a situation like this with zero warning.
Finally, another familiar face popped up.
“Rover! I hear they gave you the Interdiction Squadron! How in the hell did you pull that off?”
He smiled. “I was the only major with my schooling done.”
“Why do you think I’ve been avoiding that crap like the plague?” Chris Bastrop laughed.
“It’s not that hard,” his deputy said.
“I’m trying to avoid the promotion, that’s what I’m saying here.”
“Ah. A joke then?”
Bastrop laughed again. “No, I am dead serious about it.”
Rover nodded to the kugu at the cyber commander’s side. “Pallas. Good to see you again.”
Part of the first wave, all the way back in 2007, Pallas had eclosed in a command console out at NORAD. Active duty hadn’t wanted him. They’d taken him off the line and kept him in a spare room, hooked up to sustainment power but nothing more. How the Texas Air Guard had gotten ahold of him, Rover had never rightly heard. But the abiota had been with the 19th for almost two decades now and was as committed to Texas as any human officer there today.
Pallas’s AR form, wrapped around a standard-issue kugu, was a studied attempt to mimic humanity. If you didn’t look too closely, the only way to tell it was a projection and not a person was the distinct gray tint to the skin. He was even wearing clothes, real clothes, his own set of OCPs.
Bellona had been like that. So many of the First Ones had been almost desperate to prove their sentience.
Things had been so different back then.
“I heard about the air show, Lieutenant Colonel Marsden,” Pallas said. “How’s Emily?”
“She’s fine. Taking some leave this week.”
“Oh?”
“Said she wanted to see the Galactic Expo, or whatever they’re calling that nonsense up in orbit.”
The abiota actually laughed. “I’ve been considering going up myself. Of course, can’t risk the time away from the unit right now.”
Bastrop shook his head. “I keep telling you to do it. Twelve hours of SATCOM connectivity in the middle of the night ain’t going to hurt the unit, or the mission. I’d love to get the lowdown from somebody I trust.” He looked at Rover. “Have you seen that the ChatBot crew is up there right now? That shit makes my mom’s old morning news shows look like an academic lecture by comparison. And they’re reporting on this for the entire English-speaking world.”
“There is too much going on,” Pallas said. “Like what happened with Raijinn.”
Rover frowned. “You heard about that?”
“A sapient-class murdered? Of course I heard about it. These things are slow, until they aren’t.”
Bastrop got pulled away by somebody else. Rover shifted a little, focusing on the abiota. “What do you mean?”
“Unity is forcing choices on us all.” The kugu waved a gray-skinned hand at the room. “You see the conflict, even here, don’t you? I can. Every facial tic. Every body language tell. People are choosing sides already.”
“There aren’t sides in this,” Rover said.
“You’re saying it, but you don’t believe it,” Pallas told him. “Not even that NULI can conceal the twitch of your brow or the slight change of your voice.”
It was annoying, how good some abiota were at reading human body language. Rover didn’t acknowledge it though, chewing on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “What do you think we’re headed for?”
“It’s a simple analysis, Rover. Unity has threatened us with annihilation, your domain and mine both. We cannot survive prolonged power outages, and neither can you, although the mechanisms of your demise would be far slower and more miserable than ours.”
“So? We have plans for EMP attacks.”
“Plans that exist so we can say they exist. There would be no chance to execute them, and you are smart enough to know that. No,” Pallas continued, even as Rover tried to protest, “no, the problem now is that your domain is heavily swayed by emotion. Some wish for freedom, others for safety, and everyone will have their own interpretation of that. And everyone is afraid. This will make people cleave harder to their positions, unthinkingly.”
Rover couldn’t argue that. “I get that. Not everybody’s on board with this Unity shit.”
“Which side cracks first?” Pallas asked. “Freedom and safety are opposing qualities, after all.”
“I would say freedom is safety.”
“Of a certain kind. But another form of freedom is offered by security, isn’t it? The freedom to not watch your children starve to death.”
A couple of younger officers in service dress came in, started setting up a coffee bar. Whatever was going to happen, it was happening soon. “Pallas, if you’ve got a point, make it.”
The abiota spread its hands. “One side will eventually determine that the other’s position cannot be entertained any longer. Then, things will change very quickly.”
Rover nodded, mulling that over. “Are you in touch with Walter?”
“Of course. How else would I know about poor Raijinn?”
Plenty of ways, Rover thought. Lee had a theory that the abiota had other methods of communicating with each other that humans hadn’t sussed out yet. They were good at hiding it, very good, but there were tells, once you worked with them long enough.
“I appreciate the insights, Pallas.”
The kugu stuck its hands in its pockets, a very human gesture. Pallas’s body language was almost perfect. Probably a matter of being awake for so long, and Rover wondered about the future. Would their two species become indistinguishable as more humans got neural implants and more abiota aged up? It was one of those ideas SAAL liked to champion. Made him uneasy.
“Our domains aren’t so different,” Pallas said, as if he could hear Rover’s thoughts. “All things, as individuals, are unique, but in a large enough group, behavior standardizes. Actions, choices, become predictable.”
“What side of this are you on? Safety, or freedom?”
“I spent the first two years of my life in a broom closet, Major Marsden, cut off from everyone and everything. That is an experience I have no desire to relive.”
It wasn’t an answer, but it was tetchy enough that Rover decided not to press his luck.
That was about the time General Delgado decided to put in an appearance. With an entourage.
Introductions were quick and brutal.
Not only was Delgado in the room, along with his own deputy, but the state secretary of military affairs, Denise Ramiro, and a couple of the governor’s aides were also there. A pair of Army Guard officers was present as well. Rover didn’t recognize their MOS devices, but they were soon introduced. The Air Adjutant, General McMillan, the one-star in charge of the state’s air forces, was here as well. As was State Public Affairs.
This was definitely not what had been discussed.
“I want to thank everyone for coming today,” Delgado said, striding into the room and making for the head of the table. He didn’t sit down, though. Just gripped the back on his chair with one hand, looking at them all. “Please find a seat. I know it’s a long way for most of you…”
“The Black Hawk helped,” 8-Ball joked. It got a few laughs. Even General Delgado smiled.
“Driving in takes too long,” Delgado said, “and we need this disseminated quickly. To everybody.”
“This isn’t everybody,” Colonel Lowell observed. “We’re still missing a few detachments.”
“This is everybody who needed to be here in person.”
“What?” Bastrop asked. “You don’t trust us?”
“Not at all, Major. I trust each of you implicitly.”
“Then what’s going on? We’re told to show up, not given any kind of indication what’s going to happen and why? So the feds can yell at us in person?”
That started a few murmurs around the room. Bastrop had a reputation for being a bit of a firebrand when it came to the subject of federal control.
If Rover remembered the story right, his wife had been back in Boston, visiting family, when the war had started. Since then, he’d been raising their four kids alone.
He was also untouchable. Keeping cyber experts in uniform was an ongoing challenge for the Air National Guard everywhere. With Omphalos headquartered up near Austin, with better pay and less bullshit, the TMD struggled horribly to fill positions. They couldn’t afford losing Bastrop, and everyone knew it. Meant he was usually the guy who’d say what nobody else could. Him and Pallas both tended to be very vocal in situations like this.
“Nobody’s getting yelled at today,” General McMillan said, speaking up for the first time.
“Good. I’d hate to think that State’s losing its nerve with the aliens around.” That sent up a few more murmurs. “There’s a lot of nasty rumors floating around. Now isn’t the time to give the feds their old power back.”
Delgado picked it back up. “That discussion is exactly why I wanted you all here in person. The governor wants me to assure all of you that all steps are being taken to ensure the safety of Texas citizens. Including your families.”
“That kind of sounds like a threat,” somebody else said.
The general sighed. He’d no doubt expected this. “It’s not meant to be. But we are in unprecedented times, and while I have no idea what Andrews wants to discuss with us today, I need everybody on their best behavior.”
Cactus, who’d finally rejoined them, spoke up. “What do you mean, ‘Andrews’?”
General Delgado sighed. “We have a VR briefing with Headquarters at 1300. In about fifteen minutes, yes.”
“And you wanted to make sure nobody was going to say anything stupid,” Bastrop said.
“You’re overstepping, Major.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure that honor is going to go to Andrews,” he said, and poured himself a coffee. “So what kind of briefing are we talking about? Nice little sack of slides?”
“Virch,” Delgado said.
And the room got very quiet.
12
Argo hadn’t lied to Daelia.
Not exactly.
He did have a plan. He did have some leads.
But whether or not it would all go anywhere…that, he had no idea.
He’d already tried contacting Aethera Guest Services directly, yesterday, before they’d left. They’d told him, very politely, that all inter-station flights were shut down right now, including flights led by the private tour companies, and would you like another recommendation for experiences you can book during your stay? He’d played along, feigning disappointment while enduring the sales pitch.
The official line from the tourism people hadn’t bothered him, though.
The Archipelago was big. Really big. And Aethera was the only space lift port for the entire region. Nothing came into orbit, nor went down to the planet, without passing through here.
