It was unlikely that we’d sustain core structural damage even in a direct hit by either or both of them, but that was making the sorts of assumptions that trapped us here in the first place.
Now I understood why my communications had been cut off. Rick was formally taking control and declaring an emergency. All civil power was now in the hands of ADF Command.
“Marie, could you splinter me that latest report?”
I reached down to smooth out a wrinkle in my skirt, trying to regain my composure. Marie looked up at me from some files she was studying from the chair she was sitting in at the side of my office.
“We’ve had something of a breakthrough,” she responded excitedly. “The high surface temperatures seem to be caused by migrations of dinoflagellate blooms. Someone out there has been planning this for a long time.”
She splintered me all the data sheets before continuing.
“It looks like they seeded the ocean surface with iron dust to grow some bioengineered plankton and they’re now directing huge swarms of the little creatures, basically sucking energy from one part of the ocean and into another. Definitely bioengineered and directed.”
“Can we stop it? Can we find out who’s doing it?” I asked. She shook her head. “Was Sintil8 able to find anything for us?”
“He was some help,” she replied with a nod. “What we’re looking at could be a new addition to the Weather Wars arsenal.”
I sighed. Directed cyclone warfare could add a whole new wonderful chapter to the ongoing book of human conflict. Of course, weather had always been a decisive factor in war.
My personal favorite, a story my father had told me as a child, had been the defeat of the Spanish Armada by England five hundred years ago. The British victory had less to do with the genius of Sir Francis Drake than simply a week of wind that had pinned the Armada against the French side of the English Channel. The wind had held the Spanish in place, giving the British ‘weather gage’ to float fire ships into the hapless Spaniards, destroying the fleet before it even had a chance to attack.
The defeat of the Armada had halted the Habsburg invasion of land forces, at that moment poised to cross over from the Netherlands. The direction of wind for a few short days had dictated the outcome of the next five hundred years of global geopolitics, even the rise of America itself as a superpower.
What we faced now was far more than simply a wind in the wrong direction.
“We can’t fire weapons at blooms of microorganisms, nor at hurricanes,” added Marie. “We’re just going to have to stay out of their way as much as possible. If you want more of a run down, you’re better off speaking with Jimmy.”
Even that was going to be difficult now, given the state Rick was in. And the list of possible suspects behind these storms was worryingly thin.
“Or perhaps Bob?” I suggested, thinking about who may be able to provide some fresh insight. “He has a curious relationship with directing little creatures like you’re describing. Why don’t you talk with him?”
Marie nodded. “I’ll see if I can get some input from him.”
She paused.
“What?” I asked. I could see she had something else on her mind.
“It’s strange,” Marie answered. “Yes, we can see how they’re doing it, but the numbers don’t quite add up. Even with what we’ve discovered, they shouldn’t be able to direct weather as severe as this.”
I didn’t understand. “Could you be more precise?”
“It just doesn’t add up,” was all she could say, shaking her head.
“It sure doesn’t.”
Too many things were unexplained, too many loose ends were accumulating, and Rick was right—we didn’t know what we were doing anymore. I was going to have to stop this freight train, even if it meant risking everything.
“Well, keep on it,” I told her. “I’m going to see about talking with Jimmy.”
I sent him an emergency ping. I needed to collect as much information as I could.
To my surprise, Jimmy accepted right away, and my office faded out as my primary subjective was channeled into a private deprivation space, surrounded by a heavy security blanket. Jimmy wasn’t there, but his communication network was open to me.
I felt ill at ease.
“Jimmy,” I called out into the dimensionless emptiness, “what can you tell me?”
17
Identity: Jimmy Jones
I held Patricia carefully in the anonymous security blanket. Rick wouldn’t be happy finding me talking to her right now.
“Things are under control at Command,” I replied. “Preparing for a state of emergency is just a precaution, and having the tourists leave is the sensible first step.”
“I don’t disagree. What I mean is—do you know who’s doing this?” Patricia rephrased.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
She took a deep breath. “So you really think it’s the Terra Novans? Do you have proof?”
“No,” I admitted, “but who else could it be?”
Everyone knew they wanted to slow down the pssi program to give their own program a chance in the market. The commercial stakes were huge.
“We need proof, Jimmy…it doesn’t make sense. The risk of an offensive like this completely exceeds the potential returns. I need you to find out what’s going on.”
“I’m on it, Pat,” I replied, now a little exasperated.
“And keep an eye on Rick, please Jimmy, he’s shut me out now. I know you understand. And please, put your energy into finding out where this is coming from.”
This began to feel like nagging.
“I will Pat, I promise.”
“I love you Jimmy. You take care, okay?”
“I will,” was all I responded. She looked hurt. “Bye for now.”
I cut off the channel. She knew how busy I was.
It was hard to concentrate on her needs with my mind so widely splintered. Samson and I were spread far and wide throughout the multiverse now, trying to find clues as to how someone had targeted us like this without us getting advance notice.
I knew Rick’s wife had been depressed, we’d all been very concerned, but this reality suicide had taken things on a new and disturbing path.
It was, however, something I could relate to. My own mother had been a drunk and a soapstim junkie. It was bad enough to be disinterested enough in your own life to just patch into someone else’s, but Mother didn’t even go that far.
Her favorite pastime had been to patch into synthetic soaps, an endless universe of autonomously generated and farcically campy dramatic romance worlds.
Mother hadn’t even bothered to give up her life for someone else’s experience—she’d given it up for an empty, soulless simulation. I guess it was like a gameworld for her, but instead of facing down some challenge, she just sensed it all passively while the soapstim told her that her ex-husband wasn’t dead, but had actually been in a coma for twenty years and was now in love with her step-sister’s boyfriend, or some other such nonsense.
Living in passive fantasy worlds had made my mother’s return to her lacking life, that much more painful. Being out for so long all the time, her brain’s wetware lost much of its neural connectivity with her body.
When she returned, she had to drive her body around using her proxxi Yolanda as an interface to her intentions. It gave her a jerky, unnatural way of moving, which just fuelled her frustration and empty anger. They called people like Mother soapstim junkies.
“You little worm!” she would scream at me as she settled back into her body after a particularly long session, already a few drinks into calming her nerves.