A Mote in the Eye of Eternity
Bubblegum Chaos
This story is set a hundred years after the events of Bubblegum Crisis,
which have been slightly altered for this story.
Prologue Three: Bigger, Badder, Faster, More.
Ingrid Casper smoothed her conservative skirt as she rode up the
elevator, headed for her meeting with Destiny. Ingrid fidgeted almost
nervously, refusing to let the navy blue blouse alone. The soft
synthetic silk slid across her skin, making her thankful for the work
she'd had done to her sweat glands, otherwise she'd have gone through a
couple sticks of deodorant by now.
A very different suit from the last one I wore for Genom, she thought
as the car raced up the Sky Hook towards New Babel. She rifled through
her briefcase, digging through the reports regarding Operation
Suppression, complete with debriefings, casualty reports and conclusions
from the two expert systems monitoring the situation in the region
formerly known as the Baltic.
And now she was heading towards Babel to present the operation to
Destiny, the Executive Intelligence of the entire Eastern Hemisphere of
Earth. Not that I'm nervous about the operation, she thought as she
looked out the window and back towards the pale blue stretch below her.
It went off without a hitch, eliminating the budding resistance group
that was brewing in wastelands left in the wake of Genom's takeover of
Russia.
It was Destiny that frightened Ingrid Casper. The massive AI was
responsible for the lives of the 28 billion human beings who dotted
Asia, Europe and the broken remains of Africa. It was Destiny that
ensured that each and every one of those humans was providing some
service to Genom's New World program. And it was Destiny that would know
of Ingrid's treachery, if any thing did.
Ingrid accessed her OS, eyes flicking in their wells as she took
control of the implants that monitored and controlled her internal
organs. She instructed the cardiovascular monitor to limit her heartbeat
and blush responses to ensure her apparent calmness. Her nervous system
was damped slightly, to prevent jitters or shaking if Destiny began
grilling her. The internal voice modulator was set to a done of voice
that inspired trust, not that it would have any impact on the standing
wave that made up Destiny's consciousness.
And finally she turned the master arm switch off, locking away the more
aggressive implants that Genom had installed in her when she was
primarily a field agent. It wouldn't do to appear threatening before the
third most powerful entity in all of Genom.
The elevator stopped at the apex of Babel, having traveled through the
center of the Eastern Genom HQ. The doors opened silently revealing a
spacious lobby, tastefully decorated. There was no secretary's desk, but
then why would an AI need a secretary?
"Ingrid Casper, 3rd Division MILTECH. I've come to give you the report
on Operation Suppression," she said calmly. The nervousness that filled
her during her ride up had evaporated under the ministrations of the
various implants, and she waited, totally relaxed.
"Of course. Please come in, I'll be with you in a moment," a soft
natural sounding voice told her, prompting Ingrid to leave the elevator.
"Please, take a seat," Destiny said as it walked from behind a blind
made to allow the AI's projection to enter 'naturally.' The image it
presented of itself was a tall man, perhaps two and a half meters and
close to 100 kilos. Naturally the holographic image was weightless, but
the quality of the presentation was breathtaking. Ingrid found herself
having trouble remembering that the handsome blonde man in front of her
was nothing more than a standing probability wave in a quantum
mainframe.
"I suppose you don't have anything to drink do you," she asked the man
image in front of her, suddenly feeling parched.
"Of course. I find observing human comfort most fascinating, so I keep
this place well stocked for meetings. Scotch?" Destiny asked, getting to
his feet.
"Sure," Ingrid replied, knowing that the AI had access to all sorts of
information and there was no reason his remembering her favorite drink
meant anything out of the ordinary.
The AI walked to the bar, opening one of the finished cupboards. Ingrid
raised an eyebrow. How did an image move an object? She wondered idly.
"Electromagnetic fields," Destiny replied, deftly pouring a glass full
of single malt scotch. "I can manipulate just about anything that
contains enough ferrous material."
"Impressive. I didn't know you drank," she added with a slight smile as
he brought two glasses back to the leather-upholstered couch.
"While you drink this, my real world analogue," he gestured to his
body, "will be replicating the actions of the 'real' me in silica.
Cheers," the AI added.
"Cheers." Ingrid raised her glass, not really feeling like finding out
how far the AI's illusions would go. She took a sip of the scotch, using
the glass to cover her eye motion as she reset her liver's alcohol
protocols. It wouldn't do to get drunk now would it, she thought as she
swallowed the scotch.
"Excellent," she commented.
"Thank you. Honestly, taste baffles me more than the rest of your
senses. I really must apologize for my rambling. Most visitors I get
come to me digitally, on my 'home turf' you might say. But this is
really much more interesting."
"I'm glad I can be of service," Ingrid said, drawing the reports out of
her briefcase. She retrieved a small clear cube from its sealed
container and passed it to the AI. "This contains all the hard data
regarding the actual operation, along with expenditure reports and
telemetry feed back."
"You used the new J series?" the AI asked as it took the cube from her.
Ingrid's boosted eyesight caught little flashes of light dancing inside
the cube as the room's I/O system accessed the data inside.
"Yes. Their performance was excellent. We also used several of the
prototype exoskeletons."
The AI made a convincing sound of dismissal. "I don't think humans will
be seeing too much combat from now on. The performance for those suits
was well below the J series'."
"They proved useful, especially from my viewpoint," Ingrid said mildly.
"Yes, yes. Advisors and observers must be properly protected. I've made
most of my conclusions based on this data, but was there anything else
you felt like adding? A bit of personal, how do you humans say it,
intuition regarding the area?"
"Nothing, sir," Ingrid said.
"Very well. Good work, Ms. Casper. Would you care for another drink?"
"No sir. I've some work that needs to be finished. It was a pleasure."
"A very illuminating conversation. Have a nice day, Ms. Casper."
Ingrid didn't allow herself a sigh in the elevator. Nor did she allow
her features to shift out of her "business mode" persona. Instead she
stared out the window into the upper atmosphere, the pale, pale blue
fading into darkness. Her reflection stared back at her from the crystal
window, self-assured and severe, a pretty face trapped in the cold,
framed by short black hair that barely reached to her eyebrows. Two dull
black spots where her iris should've been, marks of the surgery Genom
paid for when she made management.
Whatever she was expecting from Destiny this was not it. Compared to
the reports she made to the lower ranks of the hierarchy, which
consisted of a meeting in a severe office and being grilled on all
aspects of the report, it was a holiday.
Perhaps that's why she felt nervous in regards to the meeting. Ingrid
relaxed slightly, though her appearance failed to reveal the slight
variation in brain chemistry that her mood change precipitated. She
accessed the net through her internal connection, navigating through her
email with the proper series of eye motions and the occasional flex of a
finger.
She nearly jumped out of her skin as she noticed a new email. There was
no subject or time sent anywhere, and the best tracing programs she had
installed couldn't track the Real location of the sender. Ingrid had no
urge to talk to any of the ICE-men from Tech Support for any help.
So she filed Isis' email away for the time being and returned her
attention to Earth. Her view included Europe's Arcology, its myriad
lights proclaiming the inhabitants prosperity and modernity. There were
few buildings older than a half century in Europe, the final sign that
Genom's European branch had finally decided to get into the Modern Era.
After all, all the old things were still there, stored digitally in the
massive computers, free for all to experience regardless of distance,
wealth or health.
In the past, this had been a comfort for Ingrid, a constant reminder
that Genom meant progress. The unified world order was ensuring that all
of humanity was closing in on Utopia, one market share at a time. Then
Ingrid had learned some things about Humanity, taught to her by ten
Greek priestess, gunned down by cloaked Jubei series Boomers. And a
library older than the pillared buildings Genom was crushing in Greece,
filled with knowledge of religions and cultures barely remembered,
librarians burning bright in electron beam halos.
"Enjoying the view?" a voice asked her, smoothly feminine.
"Excuse me?" Ingrid said, startled.
"Enjoying the view? I was just wondering. I came to Earth to see a
little History," the woman behind her said.
"Yes," Ingrid said, embarrassed she'd missed the other woman's arrival
in the car. The other was a petite woman, dressed in a classic woman's
power suit, blue blazer set off by the white blouse that showed from the
deep V formed by her collar.
"I've never been before," the young executive said, nodding towards the
surface below. She brushed a hand through her short black hair absently.
"But there's a first time for everything, isn't there?"
"Yes, I guess there is," Ingrid replied absently. "Just here for a
little sight seeing?" Ingrid offered lamely, feeling as if the
conversational debt laid on her.
"Of course not, silly. If all I wanted to do was see old buildings or
paint scrawled on canvas I'd just plug in for a little. I'm here to for
a nice vacation from anything that even reminds me of work."
"I see," Ingrid replied. There was a current of surreality to the
conversation, a sense that something was fundamentally odd with the
other woman in the car with her. The car came to a halt, having reached
the uppermost layers of the Beijing Arcology, and Ingrid's stop. "I hope
you enjoy yourself, Ms. ?"
"Pick. Andrea Pick," the woman said, sticking her hand out. Ingrid
looked at the hand quizzically, having trouble remembering the last time
she shook someone's hand. Mentally shrugging, she reached out to shake
her hand.
As soon as their hands met, Ingrid's internal systems began registering
errors across the board. Her connection broke immediately, cutting her
off from Genom Security or her other backers. The diagnostics reported a
data infection, probably ported over through contact with the other
woman's skin.
Ingrid looked back at the woman as her neural boosters crashed and most
of her internal weapons systems failed to respond. The young face was
looking at her, no sign of malice apparent. Not much emotion either,
besides a brief bit of excitement. Ingrid tried to rush forward, to hurt
this woman, but the infection had already disabled her. She slumped
towards the girl, her nervous system behaving as if she'd been drinking
for a whole day.
The girl caught Ingrid, slinging one the incapacitated executive's arms
over her head, and opened the elevator door. Several people stopped to
stare as the girl half-carried half-dragged Ingrid out into the Grand
Causeway of Beijing.
"Help," Ingrid tried to scream, but the word came out as a cross
between a groan and a belch. She heard a snicker from the woman dragging
her along at her predicament. She was furiously digging through the
system screens in her head, desperate to find some way to neutralize the
program that had invaded her internal systems.
She grinned as the internal modem fired up again, connecting out to one
of the local servers. She tried to send the panic signal to one of
security boomers that patrolled the Causeway, but the message simply
wouldn't go. Ingrid couldn't find any reason for the message to stall,
but it sat in her vision, superimposed on the hordes of people passing
by.
"Come on, girl, lets sit you down," Pick told her, mostly for the
benefit of the audience, as she laid her down on one of the benches. The
girl ran a credit chip through the meter and sat next to her, resting
the crippled executive against her shoulder. She spoke slowly and softly
to Ingrid.
"For the next couple of minutes you're going to be meeting someone who
has your best interests in mind. Trust me, I know. She's trying to save
you from yourself and them," the woman, no, girl Ingrid could now tell,
said. Her glance was residing on one of the dark green boomers that was
prowling on one of the upper decks.
Ingrid tried to snort dismissively, but the neural program denied even
that to her. Her modem reported that a large packet was being downloaded
through the open connection. It chimed in her head once it finished
downloading and then her bodily sensations ceased.
She blinked once and she was in a empty place. Empty of light, sound,
impressions of temperature or smell. It felt like she was online,
running through a blank Net, even though she was not connected to
anything capable of supporting the necessary bandwidth full sensory
immersion required.
"Where is this place?" she asked the darkness.
"Where isn't really the proper question," a familiar voice responded
from behind her. "As the philosophers said when immersion technology was
being developed, 'where just doesn't apply.'"
"Isis!" Ingrid exclaimed, anger building in her voice. "You could have
just emailed�" she trailed off, remembering the unopened email.
"Unfortunately, Destiny moved faster than I expected. He noticed a
couple of inconsistencies in your assessment of the Baltic Situation and
the assigned expert system's so he checked out some of your psyche files
and made a judgement based on them." The pale female figure handed over
what looked like a sheet of paper, marked with the Genom logo at its
head. Below the logo, and the security clearance it assigned to the
document, were orders for her capture.
"'Apprehend and deliver to reconditioning center,'" Ingrid read with
growing despair. Then he- it had found out, she thought. "When did he
decide?" she asked.
"A few moments after you left his office. I sent Andrea to get you as
soon as I found out."
"How'd you find out? Destiny is an AI, after all. You can't just walk
up and ask him."
The female figure's face smirked. "You'd be surprised. Now I'm going to
disable Andrea's lockout, but please remember you only have a few
minutes before the boomers will be after you. Listen to Andrea, she's
going to get you to someone who'll escort you up to see me."
"Wait-" but the figure was already gone and an instant after she
snapped back into her body. "Damn woman," she muttered out loud.
"I hear you," her companion said sympathetically. "She's always like
that."
Ingrid stared back at the girl next to her, cold anger slowly building
her. "Enjoyed that, didn't you?"
"What, pulling a fast one over on a corporate bigwig? I won't lie to
you; I live for it."
Ingrid regretted the fact she couldn't unleash her internal arsenal on
the girl right there. It would've calmed the surging adrenaline that was
running through her system, beyond her implant's ability to control. Her
mind clicked, she'd forgotten the binders!
"I've got binders in me. They'll be able to track and-"
"Taken care of. That little virus I snuck into you took care of their
software protocols. They've stopped reproducing already, and they've
forgotten how to link to the outside world."
"Thanks," Ingrid said dryly. "Can we get going? This place is a little
to exposed for my current tastes."
"Actually, I'm going to be staying here for a second," the girl told
her, gaze vacant for a second. "Its my turn to make the distraction.
Head down that corridor," she pointed down the central corridor of the
Causeway, "and you'll meet a woman named Subon."
"She's Japanese?" Ingrid ventured, reviewing the combat protocols in
her head.
"Yes," Andrea said, one eyebrow. "Subon Chiriko-san. Don't worry, she
won't like you anymore than I will. Now get going." The girl's eyes
stared off again, and Ingrid noticed a tiny sliver of what looked like
mercury running down her neck and disappearing below the blouse.
Ingrid activated the neural booster set her sense discrimination
filters to maximum sensitivity and headed down the corridor. The
security boomers still hadn't taken more than a second look at her, but
she stayed as far from them as she could without arousing suspicion from
their pedestrian dynamics routines. It was one thing she was certain she
could handle, after all she'd spent the better part of her first year
with Genom working on them.
"Hey, lady!" she heard a female voice call from behind her. "You
dropped something."
Ingrid usually didn't respond to strangers in the street, but given the
type of day she was having she decided to pause. She turned and found
herself face to face with a Japanese woman of around twenty three, with
black hair pulled back in a ponytail. She drew something out of her
windbreaker, Ingrid tensing as her implants readied for action, and
handed her a cardboard box about twenty centimeters by ten, and eight or
so deep.
"Don't open it until you need it, Casper-san," the woman said neutrally
in lightly accented English.
"Hajimashite," the executive replied, "Subon-san. And when will I know
to use it?"
"Trust me, you'll know," Subon told her, "now lets get to the gauss
needle before your employer finds us. I'd have a much better time if
this went quietly."
Fat chance of that, Ingrid thought. "You're friend back there was a
little young for this line of work, don't you think?" she asked her
companion as they stormed through the crowds milling through the
Causeway.
There have been younger soldiers," Subon replied testily. "Not like
Genom has a clean record in that respect," she shot back, irritation in
her voice.
Perhaps alienating my rescuers isn't the greatest idea, Ingrid
reflected. "Look, we're going to have to work together to get out of
here-" she began, only to be cut off as a massive explosion rocked the
area of the corridor behind her.
"That would be Templar-san," Subon remarked. "Might as well run with
the crowd. If we get separated it's the gauss tower, section 3 block
4t."
"Got it," Ingrid told her, filing the data away in her neural banks.
The level of noise was increasing, punctuated by screaming and yelling
as the mass of people in the Causeway decided it would be a good idea to
go elsewhere.
***********************
"I thought I told you to minimize civilian casualties," Isis berated
through the neural link as the red chrome suit dodged the spread of
cannon fire clawing the ground around her.
"All I did was glitch the main boards and the boomers were all lethal
on me," Andrea said irritatedly, dragging the microwave beam across one
of the closer boomers, leaving six in her general viscinity. "How much
longer until those two are at the gauss tower?"
"Six minutes. You should cut out in two. Combat boomers approaching."
Andrea grunted, ignoring the low caliber rounds bouncing from her chest
and clicked the ECM up a notch, watching her available power monitor
drop a little. She sprinted and leapt, EM boosted jump easily carrying
her up to the second level in front a lingerie shop. The gray combat
boomers were lining her up for a shot, big beam cannons trained in her
direction. She enticed them a little with a stumble on her landing and
then threw herself through the shop's front window.
Six beam cannons tore into the store, blowing out the remaining windows
in the area. The store was burning brightly, and the flames were licking
the neighboring store before foam and water rained down from the
ceiling.
Unnoticed as the fire boomers poured into the plaza, a small shimmer
skirted the remaining boomers and snuck off towards the gauss tower.
*************************
"Shit, boomers," Subon told groaned as they watched the entrance to the
gauss tower. Six security boomers patrolled the area around it, sensors
so active that even Ingrid's minimal electronic warfare equipment could
pick them up.
"What are we going to do," Ingrid asked her companion, hands tight
around the small box in her briefcase.
"You might as well open the box," Subon said as she removed her
windbreaker. She wore a tight polymer suit underneath, stretching
against her like a second skin. "I'll handle the boomers then we race to
the meeting spot, hop into the canister and escape."
"Great," Ingrid said, voice dripping sarcasm. "Except the gauss tower
is controlled by a subset of Destiny, who'll shut down the entire system
to keep us from getting out of here."
"We've got someone who doesn't think a lot of Destiny on our side," was
the cryptic response.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ingrid asked as she pulled the box
open. She gasped when she looked on the object inside. "A Morning Star?
Where the hell did you get one of these?"
"I just work here," Subon replied. She tensed slightly. "That was the
signal. Templar-san is ready."
Ingrid hefted the little device in her hand, surprised by the weight
behind it. Originally developed by Genom's mining branch twenty years
ago, the powerful little plasma generators were immediately outlawed by
Genom Law Division and popularized by a GTV series.
"Go!" Subon yelled as she dashed towards the boomers. With each step
she seemed to grow more metallic, and after a half dozen meters, the
pretty Japanese woman had been replaced by what appeared to be a deep
blue figure. The figure closed with the six boomers at incredible speed,
clearing fifty meters in a little under two seconds.
As Ingrid followed, she watched in awe as the suit tore through the
boomers with ease, a deafening crack sending shivers down her spine each
time the suit raised its right arm. Rail gun, she identified as she
followed the suit into the gauss tower, carefully picking her way
through the wreckage of the boomers behind her.
"We've got three minutes before military boomers get here, maybe eighty
seconds before more security boomers arrive," Ingrid told her companion,
who gave no sign of hearing her warning. Instead she turned to a wall
about twenty meters into the main hallway, which had been empty on
arrival.
"Cut through that," a metallic voice from the suit told her.
Ingrid lifted the Morning Star, waited the half second it took for her
internal smart gun software to configure the beam weapon and mentally
activated it. The force it exerted on her hand would've surprised her if
the smart gun software hadn't already known exactly what to expect. The
bright beam tore through the wall as if it wasn't there, large globs of
molten metal dripping from the wall, little red specks marking the
ceramic fibers that ran through the material.
Her OS cancelled the command to her sweat glands as the temperature
rose. Behind her, the blue suit was destroying a few approaching
boomers. Ingrid silenced the little beast as she finished the rough hole
she'd cut through the wall and into the room beyond.
Her optics cut through the darkness and revealed a small room packed
tightly with equipment. Piping ran through the floor and up through the
ceiling. The sounds of fighting diminished from the hallway behind her,
with one earthshaking smash cutting off all sounds of hostility.
As the blue suit followed her in, Ingrid noticed the peculiar
flickering that surrounded it on the infrared image presented to her.
The suit, far from being warmer than the surrounding area, was sucking
heat into itself. Ingrid let loose a sigh and turned to face her
rescuer.
"Who the fuck are you people?" she asked the battle suit. She could
almost see the grin behind the metallic soup that covered the other
woman's face. The reply was filled with satisfied humor, discernable
even through the voice distorter.
"I think I'll let the boss tell you once we get back to base."
"How are we getting there? You don't suppose we'll get out of this
tower alive, do you?"
In lieu of answering, the blue suit walked towards the tubes, threading
gracefully through the maze of piping to the largest tube in the room.
It fiddled with something on the tube and Ingrid could hear a hissing
noise.
An image from an old action adventure picture floated through her mind
as she opened her mouth to protest. The blue suit cut her off. "Get in,"
it told her summarily. "You're holding up the schedule."
"Those are waste chutes for hazardous materials," Ingrid countered,
checking the schematics in her memory unit. "They don't get the same low
acceleration as the manned pods."
"Look, do you want to answer to the combat boomers on their way? Get in
or I'll go first."
"Fine. This is probably a less painful death anyway," Ingrid said as
she squeezed her way through the piping.
"They weren't going to kill you, honey. You were in for an all expense
paid trip to the repro center and you know it," the other replied as she
effortlessly hoisted the woman into the padded pod inside. "So even if
you were to die you'd be on the plus side." With that the suit sealed
the pod's inner door, ending the conversation.
A half second after the hatch was sealed a cold fluid poured into the
pod, soaking Ingrid. She struggled for a moment until she recognized the
taste in her mouth, the hint of iron that marked it as LBL. Then she
breathed deep, taking the oxygenated fluid deep into her lungs. The
darkness and the fluid combined to bring back the memories of her deep
diving campaign more than three years ago, and the undersea battles that
she led against the Trench settlements.
Brushing them aside she felt the pod accelerate, the fluid cushioning
her. It was painful, but between her reinforced bone structure and the
LBL she'd probably survive. The acceleration increased, her internal
monitors warning her of immanent loss of consciousness. She fell into
real total darkness just as her pod left the Tower proper. Sixteen
seconds later another pod escaped, and another ten seconds after that.
***************
Isis' consciousness uncoiled slightly as she checked the pods for the
third time in a minute. Though she hadn't let it on to Casper or her two
Neo Sabers, getting Ingrid out of Genom's clutches was the hardest thing
she'd planned so far. There was a lot about Destiny she didn't know, and
ignorance when facing an AI was a great weakness.
Fortunately she'd distracted the AI for long enough to allow her new
recruit to escape. Ingrid was of vital importance to the Neo Sabers,
primarily for her knowledge of the Sabers. But also as a message to
Genom and that massive pile of machinery supporting Quincy.
Left behind in all the data was a simple encoded message, which would
invariably be found and cracked. The message contained a short note to
Genom in general and Quincy in particular, secretly inserted in the
Genom network as she danced with Destiny a few moments ago.
"Quincy, not all have forgotten," Isis shaped electrons to say, digital
eye equivalents closed. "We're coming. Neo Sabers."
End Prologue
Author's Notes:
I've decided four prologues is most definitely too much, so Chapter One
will include a rewritten account of the planned fourth prologue and the
beginning of the first story arc. Thanks for bearing with me and thanks
more for reading. Yes, the LBL was a reference to EVA and no, there
won't be anything or anyone from that series making an appearance in
this fic. It wouldn't be wise to think they didn't exist at one point in
this universe, though.
Jerico Mele
Jmele@brandeis.edu
www.brandeis.edu/~jmele
Fnord!