But Sid hadn’t appreciated just how dangerous it could be.
“Something got out,” Sid said. “The second that data on Jimmy was decrypted…”
Now that the can of worms had been opened, he suspected the whole Midtown den was in danger. There was no telling what Jimmy might do to anyone who knew his secrets.
He was afraid they were about to find out.
19
High over the Gulf of Guinea, the coast of Africa a thin line on the horizon, a drone began dispersing decoys, dropping them toward the distant speck of the Terra Nova platform. The viewpoint dropped down, following the warheads as they spiraled in, and then the inferno of the Terra Novan slingshots began to fill the air with superheated plasma. The simulation halted, and the shared reality space of the meeting morphed into streams of financial data and mortality statistics that ballooned into the attendees’ meta-cognition frameworks.
It was a joint planning meeting between Atopian and Allied staff, held in virtual space. The meeting’s presentations spawned into alternate realities that stretched forward and backward in time. The simulations grabbed each attendee’s consciousness as needed to explain what needed to be understood. Questions were raised and answered in private meeting spaces that popped in and out of existence.
The senior staff of Allied Command was present with their senior staff. Their black-and-red uniforms composed a full two-thirds of the circular conference table in the meeting world created for the event, with the other third made up of the Atopian representatives. Jimmy Scadden presided over the whole thing, conspicuously outfitted in his military whites.
Nancy Killiam excused herself, pulling her consciousness into the identity space of the conference room. Taking a deep breath, she leaned forward and put her elbows onto the polished mahogany table. She buried her face into her hands, rubbing her temples with the heels of her hands.
Jimmy noticed her retreating. “Is everything all right?” He began calling the meeting to the last point, dragging the focal point of everyone’s mind back to him.
Nancy stared at him, wondering how much he knew. Bob had been in a passenger cannon pod, arcing high over the Atlantic, when he reached out to her. He’d dropped her a data beacon before he’d cut off contact, but she hadn’t told anyone.
“If you have any more information, now would be the time.” Jimmy smiled.
“No,” Nancy replied coolly, “I have nothing new.”
This was mostly true. She hadn’t decoded the beacon. It was too risky. For now.
One by one, the meeting participants inhabited the bodies sitting around the table. In the background, around the peripheries of the room, the merged realties of the simulation worlds continued to evolve, like a shifting veil of rain.
“We all have personal relationships with Vincent Indigo, Robert Baxter, Sidney Horowitz, but this is how traitors work,” Jimmy added. He knew she was thinking about Bob. “They use you, your history together—”
This was both dangerous and patronizing. She shifted the latest tracking reports into the meeting’s informational spaces. “Thank you, Mr. Scadden, but I’d point out that it was you who had the last contact with Robert Baxter before he left Atopia, in fact suggesting that he leave, if I remember.”
Everyone was at the table now, and they were listening to his exchange with Nancy.
Jimmy blinked. “Yes, but—”
“Robert Baxter and I were friends,” she continued, “but he is a part of your family.”
Jimmy turned to the rest of the meeting. “I’m quite sure everyone knows where I stand.”
“I think that it is quite clear where everyone stands,” said Commander Zheng, head of Allied Command, looking at Jimmy. “Except you.”
The Alliance had grown increasingly aware of the disproportionate influence Atopia was wielding as pssi spread into their consumer populations. While it had sided with the Alliance, in the past Atopia had never formally joined.
“You know my condition for joining the Alliance,” Jimmy replied. He brought a series of Terra Nova attack simulations to the center of the meeting space.
The Atopian council had done its best to downplay the near-disaster of the Terra Novan reality skin, to limit the damage to its brand and upcoming product release. In this they’d almost succeeded too well. Nobody on the outside believed Atopia had been in mortal danger. The impression was that it had all been a kind of extravagant corporate espionage between these two competitors as they rushed to release their products.
The Alliance had been willing to go along with blockading Terra Nova in the physical and cyber realms, but Jimmy was pushing for an all-out kinetic attack with full Allied support. The varied conflicts of the Weather Wars were finally subsiding, and an attack against Terra Nova would constitute an act of war against the African Union.
Jimmy looked around the table and smiled. “The Great Peace is almost upon us, ladies and gentlemen. Terra Nova is all that stands in your way.” He turned to Zheng. “It is your choice.”
The Alliance needed Atopia. Very little would stand in its way of dominance if Atopia joined them, but if it switched sides, or went its own way…
Zheng stared at him, his jaw set for a long moment. Then he nodded.
20
The man with the ax paused, waiting for the screaming to stop. The earth was muddy from a rain shower, but the fast-moving clouds overhead cleared a patch of blue sky and the sun just managed to shine into the grassy courtyard between the farmhouse and barn. With a whimper, the screaming abated. Satisfied, the man balanced a log on the chopping block, squared his feet and swung his ax back—but then paused again.
A line of birch trees shimmered against the backdrop of the dark forest that rolled up into foothills of the Ural Mountains, and someone appeared. A man, of slight frame and tentative step, peering toward the farm. Hesitating, the newcomer hung back.
The broad-shouldered man raised his ax in salute. “Mr. Indigo! This way!”
He motioned toward a patio set against the back of the farmhouse. Then he returned his focus to the log—still balanced on the chopping block—and swung back his ax again, looping it around to neatly split the wood in two. The ax stuck into the chopping block, and the man left it there, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of one arm. He pulled his dangling suspenders up around his shoulders and walked up to the patio.
Vince continued walking toward the farmhouse. It was a synthetic space construct. Just an instant before he had been walking through the Louisiana swamp that the eagle-drone—that rescued him—had deposited him into. Someone dragged his primary subjective into this world. So he continued walking to see what they wanted.
He checked back with Hotstuff.
“All good here,” she replied to his query. In an overlaid display he watched her continue to slog through the swamp with his body. “Somebody’s hacked your subjective channels. I could try to get it back—”
“No,” said Vince, still walking toward the farmhouse. “It’s fine.” The man ahead of him was motioning again, inviting him to come and sit on the patio. There were no metatags, no background data feeds on either this world or the man, but Vince could guess.
“So,” said the man loudly as Vince neared. “You’ve been wanting to see me.” The man laughed. “In a manner of speaking.”
The thick Russian accent was surprising. No automated translation, but the man wasn’t a native English speaker. This just confirmed Vince’s suspicions. “Wanting to see you might be an exaggeration, but yes, I’ve been looking for you.” Vince reconsidered his statement. “Someone asked me to look for you.”