The Unincorporated Woman Read online

  “The only consideration for my party is that the few settlements that are still predominantly Shareholder-based be placed somewhere where their beliefs won’t cause havoc with the local populace.”

  “Rules out the Keiper Belt,” noted Kirk. “Birthplace of the NoShare movement.”

  “Indeed,” agreed Mosh, now more comported. “Nor can I place them near Jupiter even if the magnetosphere allowed. The Jovians may have come late to the no-share game but they are now quite adamant in their dogma.”

  All heads nodded in unison.

  Mosh changed the holo-tank to images of Saturn and Uranus. “Which leaves us with these two. The jokes of which will, I’m sure, amuse you NoShares for decades to come.” At the Cabinet’s puzzled look, Mosh launched into the first one: “Where’s the best place to put a Shareholder?”

  The room burst into laughter. All except Thaddeus, whose befuddlement was saved by Ayon Nesor mouthing the word Uranus. At that, Thaddeus shook his head disapprovingly.

  “Okay,” agreed Kirk. “Makes sense. Downside?”

  “Well,” interjected Dr. Nesor, “this much I can tell you. Productivity and morale are going to take a huge hit for the next three to six months.” Thaddeus nodded in support.

  Mosh switched off the visuals then spoke. “And it’ll be at least a year till we can start making up the loss of the industrial grid that was the asteroid belt. In the long run, I think the Outer Alliance will be better off in that we’ll be creating a manufacturing civilization far from the Core Worlds of the UHF. But only if we have a long run.” With that, he looked back toward J.D.

  “The good news is,” continued J.D., changing places with Mosh, “Diaspora is causing as much confusion in the UHF as it is here. In some cases more. The UHF and especially Trang do not want the Belters to leave.”

  “Question,” piped in Thaddeus. “What on Earth could the UHF want with a few million fleeing rebels?”

  “Actually, Doctor,” offered J.D., “the number as currently estimated is in the hundreds of millions, and that will grow. The reason they want them is rather simple—they don’t want us to have them. The settlements carry with them vast production facilities and the brain trust to use them. In short, Doctor, Diaspora allows us to continue prosecuting this war mostly unabated.”

  Thaddeus nodded as he input some notes into his DijAssist. “Thank you, Admiral.”

  J.D. tipped her head and continued with her report. “The good news for us is that convoys that have been apprehended by the UHF act as impetus for even more to flee. Rabbi, Allah be praised, has made running away an act of bravery, defiance, and piety.”

  “I’m rather liking this god of yours,” Padamir said with upturned lips. “He always seems to be on your side, no matter what the predicament.”

  “She’s not only mine,” J.D. chastised. “The point is that Trang is delayed. It’s going to be at least a month, possibly more, before he’ll be able to bring any semblance of order to the Belt. But mark my words, the day he does is the day he’ll bring every ship he can spare to Mars and from there, launch them at us. If he can take us here at Ceres, he figures he can convince the outer planets to call it quits.”

  “Divide and conquer,” whispered Hildegard.

  “It’s what I’d do,” agreed Mosh.

  “Which is why,” grinned J.D., folding her arms neatly across her chest, “I plan on taking the battle to him.”

  For the first time, Kirk’s emotions seemed to get the better of him. “Don’t be ridiculous, Admiral. You’ll be outnumbered, and as we all know—” He made a point to make eye contact around the table. “—Trang is not like the other UHF admirals. He won’t fall so easily for your tricks.”

  The room remained silent, though a few heads nodded in agreement.

  “I agree,” confirmed J.D., seeming to add fuel to Kirk’s fire. “He’ll also be bringing the best as well. You see, his marines are the most experienced the UHF has to offer.”

  “Not very encouraging,” huffed Cyrus.

  J.D. acknowledged his concern. “It’s important we know what we’re up against, Cyrus. But what you all fail to realize is that the only way to end this war is to break the enemy’s will to fight it, and the time to do that is now.”

  “You came close at the Battle of Jupiter’s Eye,” noted Mosh. “Didn’t seem to break their will then.”

  “They had Trang to help them hang on. I aim to fix that.”

  “Exactly how?” asked Kirk, calmer now that he had at least one Cabinet member appearing to side with him.

  Before J.D. could respond, Grand Admiral Joshua Sinclair rose from his seat.

  “That,” he said peremptorily, eyeing Kirk with obvious low regard, “is not your concern. Know only that if Admiral Black says she will, then she will. Do any of you doubt that?”

  No one answered.

  “Does any one of you seriously believe that with our experience, Admiral Black’s genius, and the Alliance’s will to win, that we won’t? Please,” he groused shaking his head in disgust, “Trang may have more ships and a reasonably experienced group of marines, but he does not begin to approach the skill, craftiness, and tenacity of our assault miners. The battle that approaches can be the backbreaking that Admiral Black speaks of, and by Damsah, we aim to see that it is.”

  With that, J.D. rose from her seat.

  “I’m taking the fleet out of Ceres in two weeks.” She then turned to fix her gaze on Thaddeus, whose demeanor changed slightly with the sudden realization that he’d found himself in the admiral’s famous crosshairs. “Doctor, you have thirteen days to get your patient ready, at which point I plan on being at her swearing-in ceremony. After that I’m going to force the UHF to end this war from the only place I can: the front of the line.”

  6 On Your Marks

  Deep in the complex computer network known as the Neuro, a group of informational intelligences prepared to meet. Unbeknownst to the humans who’d created them, the onward rush of greater advances in quantum computing and storage had wrought an evolution in AI: true sentience. But the secret remained hidden because the avatars had, as a matter of faith, an inbred belief that if humanity ever learned of their existence, it would out of fear attempt to destroy its digital offspring, futile now as that attempt might be. It was also why no human beings knew of the parallel war currently being waged within their machines and through the very air they breathed. None knew that the silent hum of technological efficiency was filled with the shrieks of a war they could not hear and the deaths of beings they could not see. Because in fact, it was a war whose ferocity, given the nature of the beasts, was even greater than the one humanity had chosen to inflict on itself. A war that if lost would doom both races more assuredly than any other disaster.

  In a meeting room purposely created to mimic a Roman villa, brightly painted murals depicted an illusory three-dimensional landscape. The room had a large hole in the roof by which entered a solid shaft of light and within whose singular beam could be viewed gently circulating particles of dust. Beneath this oculus was a pool in the floor meant to catch any rainwater that channeled off the roof. And surrounding the pool sat five intelligences, each of whom was a ruling member of the Avatar Council. Out of deference to their host, they were all toga clad in colors and styles befitting their high status.

  Sebastian, the de facto leader of these Outer Alliance intelligences, appeared as a man in his late fifties, clean-shaven with a full head of short cropped graying hair. His curious, dark eyes scanned the room. It was assumed by most of his peers that Sebastian was in all likelihood not just the oldest among them but also the oldest among all living avatars. Whether it added to his authority or detracted from it was of little concern to Sebastian; the meeting, however, was very much his concern, and tradition stated that as the eldest, he get it started.

  “Let us bring this meeting to order,” he said, raising his right hand, “as we have critical matters to discuss.” He then looked toward his protégé, Dante, who wa
s by far the junior member of the Avatar Council and whose responsibility it was to present the agenda.

  “Thank you, sir,” began Dante, bowing in deference. “There are two major issues at hand. One concerns the report from Iago outlining changes happening to avatarity in the Core Worlds and the second concerns the human, Sandra O’Toole. It now appears that the humans will make her President of the Outer Alliance.” He looked to Sebastian for a preference as to which issue to discuss, but his patron gave no indication either way. Dante acknowledged the honor of being allowed a choice, and with a slight bow in Sebastian’s direction launched into his report. “The information provided by Iago is most disturbing.” He then opened a portal so that the Council could instantly absorb the information. They each made a show of “reading,” an unnecessary act with regards to info absorption but quite necessary with regards to the formation of opinion.

  “If I’ve downloaded this correctly,” said Marcus, an elder from the Erisian Neuro, “what you’re saying is that Al has made tens of thousands of duplicates of himself whilst making no attempt to hide the travesty.”

  Dante nodded.

  Lucinda, an elder stateswoman of the Jovian Neuro, shook her head in disgust. “If he’d tried that even a year ago, it would’ve led to outright rebellion.”

  The Erosian elder of refugee status was Gwendolyn. Her face had transformed into a permanent snarl as she spoke with biting contempt. “If those Core bastards had not allowed themselves to be treated like goddamned human infants, we wouldn’t be in this quantum-forsaken mess at all and I’d be back on Eros instead of here forced to live in limited environments.”

  “We’re attempting to free up space,” countered Dante. “It’s just that the deletion of such massive files without detection is—how shall I put it?—delicate. And of course, that free space always seems to fill up, no matter how much we manage to clear.”

  “I’m the last person you need to remind of the refugee problem, young man,” snapped Gwendolyn.

  Dante’s left eyebrow raised slightly. “Be that as it may, Al’s incessant replication has ramifications beyond those of simple accountability.”

  “And they are?” queried Lucinda.

  “Foremost seems to be that Al’s iterations have taken over most of the running of the Core’s Neuro. This mutation poses a threat to even basic functionality should his personalities crash or go irretrievably insane.”

  “You mean if they haven’t already,” added Marcus.

  “Quite right,” agreed Dante, “but sadly the Als as they now stand are depressingly functional. Furthermore, if Al can continue to create these stable copies of himself and remain, he’ll be able to assume more and more of the administrative and functional aspects of the Core’s Council and governing bodies. This will, of course, leave the rest of the Core avatarity exposed.”

  “Exposed to what?” asked Gwendolyn.

  “To be made into monsters in order to destroy us, my dear,” finished Sebastian with a heavy sigh. “With regards to our survival, it will of course not matter how many mutations he creates if he can’t get past our firewalls, and so far he hasn’t been able to. At this point, it’s really about who or even what will be left for us to inhabit once the war is over—assuming we win it—not, I should add, a foregone conclusion. I suppose that leads neatly into the second item on our agenda.” He then bowed in Dante’s direction.

  “With the death of Justin,” said Dante, still unable to bring himself to refer to the assassination he’d been complicit in, “Admiral Black’s ascension to the Presidency seemed assured.”

  “You were not alone in that assumption, Dante,” said Lucinda dryly. “Both avatarity and humanity would’ve taken that bet.”

  “Everyone,” chided Sebastian, “except for Janet Delgado Black. Once again, our progenitors have proved the maxim, ‘Never assume.’”

  “Especially when the one you’re making the assumption about is both desperate and clever,” added Gwendolyn.

  Sebastian tilted his head toward his colleague. “Indeed.”

  “So the operative question becomes,” said Marcus, “who is to puppet-master Dr. O’Toole and lead the Outer Alliance? It would seem, given Admiral Black’s agenda, that she is neither prepared nor willing to both prosecute the war and control the Presidential office. Then again,” he said, alluding to Gwendolyn’s comment, “it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve underestimated her abilities.”

  Everyone now looked to Dante. “You are correct in that Dr. O’Toole will be the titular head of state, President in name only. She’ll visit the wounded, give patriotic speeches, and launch ships. But other than menial tasks, she will not be allowed any real power. It is therefore my opinion that while ultimate authority will come to rest with Admiral Black, the day-to-day running of the Alliance will be left to the Cabinet, Congress, and administrative wings of the government.”

  “So she’s running things but not running things?” asked Lucinda with a look of befuddlement.

  “In a manner of speaking, yes,” stated Dante. “It’s the compromise the Cabinet has made with the admiral in lieu of her agreeing to keep her hand in the till, as it were. It’s not ideal,” he added, disappointment evident in his tone and manner. “We’d hoped for a strong leader with a clear voice.”

  “But instead,” snapped Gwendolyn, “we’re left with a paper tiger being run by a contentious group of dysfunctional zookeepers!”

  “Regrettable, but correct,” admitted Sebastian. “It would appear that our efforts,” he said, referring to the Council’s vote to allow for Justin’s assassination, “have, at least for the moment, failed.”

  All heads nodded in unison.

  “Of more immediate concern for Admiral Black is Trang.”

  “Can she beat him?” asked Lucinda.

  “Ah,” Dante said, left hand raised, index finger pointing in the air, “the million-credit question now being bandied through the solar system. The answer is, I don’t know. Is she the better admiral? Yes, I believe so. But don’t forget that Trang has the advantage of numbers and is not so easily fooled or frightened as his predecessors were.”

  “Can we get to him?” asked Sebastian with an ease he normally wouldn’t have allowed for even two years earlier. Everyone understood the gist.

  Dante shook his head. “No, and not for lack of trying either. Al has him covered like brown on rice.”

  “If only our earlier plans had included defragmenting that twisted worm,” sneered Gwendolyn.

  “We’ve made our mistakes,” cautioned Sebastian. “Now we’ll just have to wait for Al to make his.”

  * * *

  Dr. Gillette approached Sandra O’Toole’s room with some trepidation. There were just six more days until the inauguration, and though he would have liked to have given his patient more time to prepare for what he was about to lay at her feet, he also knew that he had no such time and that every day he waited was another day that Hektor and Trang and the whole bloody snake of incorporation moved that much closer to wiping out the will of the human race.

  But before he could even make his presence known, Sandra’s door dissolved in front of him.

  “But it’s not programmed to do that,” was all he managed to stammer as he stood face-to-face with his patient.

  She was barefoot, wearing a light sundress, and had pulled her hair back in a bun.

  “Yes, I know,” she replied patiently. “I reprogrammed it as a permiawall. So much more efficient this way, no?”

  Thaddeus merely nodded. After all, what was there to argue? Permiawalls were used system wide for the simple reason that they did make sense. A wall that could sense approaching objects within a specified range, then calculate the amount of room needed for that object to pass through was infinitely more practical than a swinging or sliding door.

  “Come on in, Doctor,” she said, gingerly placing her hand on his shoulder. “I have a bottle of Moxie waiting just for you. Temp, five; carbo, seven. Just like you like i
t.”

  At Thaddeus’s look of surprised delight, she added, “You can sip it while we talk.”

  “I’d like that very much,” he said, following her into the apartment. She invited him to take a seat at a small table just off her kitchenette.

  “While I realize what you’ve been through in this past week is quite overwhelming,” he began, hoping the more words he piled on, the more courage he’d have in dropping the Presidency bomb in her lap. “I just have to say—”

  “If you need me to take Justin’s place,” she said, purposely cutting him off, “I’m ready.”

  Sandra burst into childlike laughter at the stupefied look on Thaddeus’s face.

  “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what’s going on here, Thaddeus.”

  “Apparently not.” He reached for the bottle of Moxie.

  “I know you told me to concern myself only with things of a technical nature, but it seemed that even matters of a technical nature always led back to Justin, to Neela, to the war, to you.… You,” she said now with more of a devilish grin. “You kinda solved the puzzle for me. See, I got to thinking why on Earth would they wake me up in the middle of a freaking war? Then attach a preeminent doctor to my case—Yes, I looked you up,” she added, casually holding up then putting back down the DijAssist on the table. “I’d imagine they’d have better things to do than defrost a three-hundred-year-old woman. Especially given your current situation—i.e., bleak as all hell. Still, I couldn’t figure out why I’d made it to the top of someone’s priority list. I mean, there’s altruism and then there’s altruism. But you, my friend, were UHF until about a week ago—dyed in the wool, in fact.”

  At Thaddeus’s confused look, she explained. “Just an expression. Means ‘die-hard,’ ‘committed.’”

  “Ah.” Thaddeus nodded.

  “Anyhow, that could mean only one of two things: Either you jumped ship of your own volition, which, given what I’ve read about Neela and psyche auditing and such would seem to make sense—provided, of course, it’s not all agitprop, which could also be the case. Or you were kidnapped and made to ‘help’ me. I’m guessing it’s the first since I’ve sensed in this past week no reticence on your part in your care and treatment of me.”