Originator (45 page)

She pointed. “On the roof of that?”

The cops looked. “Uh . . . that'd be a safety code violation.”

Amirah gave them an exasperated look. “What's the bigger safety risk—a journalist facing a three-meter fall, or a hundred thousand people getting angry?” The cops looked at each other. “I'll make sure he doesn't fall.”

The cops led the way over, riot police making way before them, keeping noisy crowds back. Amirah looked them over as she walked—they didn't look like some rent-a-crowd; there were all ages, a predominance of younger and not-so-wealthy people, but in Tanusha that could be deceptive, lots of folks wore slacks on their days off. A few were a mass of tattoos, crazy hair, and piercings, but those were severely outnumbered, no more numerous than the
robed, religious types or other Tanushan protest staples. Many looked mainly curious, straining for a look as she passed, delighted and intense to find themselves this close to the front. Amirah wondered what they actually wanted. Or if they even knew.

The senior cop talked to the others around the van, who made sure the brakes were on, then at Amirah's suggestion opened a door and wound down that window. She leaped straight up to the roof, and then Digvijay climbed to the cabin, got a foot in the open door window, and accepted her hand to pull him up. He quickly straightened his collar, adjusted his tie, and looked distracted as uplink feed came in—Amirah could see it on tacnet, a simple illustration of who was connected to what. If she'd wanted an unfair advantage, she could probably listen to the questions his producers were feeding him before he actually asked them.

From up here she could see the crowd, and the size of it amazed her. All open space before the GC fence was filled with people, with no telling what was road or grass or footpath beneath. Up the feeder roads between the Montoya buildings there was still space to move, and people walking, but still it was crowded. More seemed to be streaming in from the stations. Many of the nearby crowd were exclaiming and pointing at her, recognising her from news feeds, or having the augmented reality feeds identify her on the spot. Some, she realised, were still marvelling at her vertical leap onto the van—effortless for her, and even some straight augments could do it, but the rule with security types was never let anyone see what you had unless you had to. She didn't think it would matter here, and when facing any potential threat, reminding them what she was could be useful, even defusing.

“Hello?” said Digvijay. “Hello?” And suddenly his uplink feed caught his voice, and the seven or so drones hovering over the crowd were booming out his voice. Then silenced, as he reported back to his producers, “Yes, that sounds good, just turn it up one notch more.” And to Amirah, “You have the link?”

It was very obvious on her internal vision, short-ranged to only two meters, coming from a booster probably in his pocket. She nodded and made the connection, aware that several sections of the crowd were now chanting different things.

“Tell us the truth!” was the main one, taken up by people all across the circle.

“Feds go home!” was another one, with less volume, but what the hell? People thought this was a Federation versus plucky-little-member-world problem?

“No war on the Talee!” a few others were yelling, not having figured a way to turn that into a catchy chant. Great, so within hours of launching humanity's first recorded alien attack on a human world, those same humans had already formed a pro-Talee lobby group. Damned if we're not the strangest species, Amirah thought, tugging her slightly wild hair into place.

“Hello all!” Digvijay's voice boomed out from multiple locations overhead. Over such a wide area, on multiple speakers, it created a long-stretched echo from the farthest reaches. “My name is Digvijay Chaula, I'm a senior correspondent with Tanusha KBS . . .”

Immediately the crowd started booing over his introduction. Members of the media were not popular, and Amirah had learned that she always came off better in confrontations like this one, because however much people disliked or distrusted the FSA, they disliked or distrusted journalists even more. And so she'd cunningly dragged one up here to hide behind.

“I'm here with Agent Amirah Togales of the Federal Security Agency, and she's offered to let me ask her some questions on your behalf!” Random noise, some cheers, some boos. A crowd this large took on a mood, a personality, all of its own. “Agent Togales, can you give us anything more than you've already said? Was this an attack by the Talee?”

Finally the crowd hushed. Amirah paused for longer, letting them strain for the answer, quietening further. “It was incredibly advanced,” she conceded. “Whatever it was, it forcibly puts people into virtual reality, as you've seen. We're putting every technical resource we can onto it right now, we've got experts analysing what they did, and finding ways to stop it from happening again.”

“Was it Talee?”

“I can't say.” Boos and shouts from the crowd, rising like a wave of sound. Clearly a lot of them already had their own opinion and took anything less than confirmation as evidence of evil government lies. A bottle hurtled from the crowd, very close, and would have struck Digvijay in the face if Amirah hadn't caught it neatly one-handed and tossed it onto the grass behind the van. “I'm not really the best person to be asking,” she continued without missing
a beat, as the startled reporter tried to process what had just happened, “there are plenty of Tanushan experts who could give you a better answer than me.”

Digvijay looked unsteady, as the fear of what had just nearly happened struck him, and cops lashed out through the crowd to grab the bottle thrower. Fortunately, others in the crowd were turning him over, with boos and shoves and pointed fingers. Cops grabbed the thrower and hauled him away. Amirah put a hand on the journalist's arm and gave an encouraging smile. No bottle was going to get past her. Bullets were another matter, but tacnet had the immediate crowd well monitored, and if a longer-range sniper round came in, all Montoya was studded with sensor mikes that would detect the sound and turn it into signal fast enough that she should be able to duck in time. And take Digvijay down with her, though she doubted such a bullet would be for him.

“Well,” said Digvijay, steadying himself. “Thank you for that. Don't you think perhaps we should find a safer place to . . .”

“I'm fine right here,” Amirah said calmly.

The journalist took another deep breath. “Is there any further danger that you know of?”

“Yes.” The crowd hushed again to hear that. “Whoever the attackers are, we can't be sure we got all of them. In fact, I'd tell everyone here to go home for their own safety, but they're probably not going to listen.” A disarming smile.

“Do you know of any specific threat to this crowd?”

“No, but the primary targets of this attack were security institutions and the Grand Council. So if you stand in front of them, logically there could be trouble if shooting starts.”

“Do you think there's a risk of more shooting?”

“Mr Chaula, at this point I wouldn't like to rule anything in or out. We were in a big fight at SIT just this morning, so it's not impossible, no.”

“Stop threatening us!” someone shrieked from farther back. “She's threatening us!” Then boos and yells as others shouted him down.

“Agent Togales, my information says that the FSA and CSA were the primary targets of this . . . this VR matrix that's been attacking people through their uplinks. A number of experts have said that only GIs could carry out such a thing.”

“That's possible,” said Amirah.

“Were most of the soldiers fighting in the Sadar Institute of Technology also GIs, by any chance?”

“Not all, but a number of them, yes.” Which was stretching it, as Detective Sinta had been the only non-synthetic present.

“It just seems that Callay is increasingly at the mercy of synthetics,” said Digvijay. “We get attacked by synthetics, we're defended by synthetics, GIs like yourself are occupying most of the high-level security posts . . .”

“Well, that's not completely true,” Amirah interrupted, not sure she was liking that line of questions. “The FSA and CSA command posts are all occupied by organics, and . . .”

“It's common knowledge that the FSA's special operations branch is run by Commander Kresnov.”

“Right, but special operations is not a core command, it's a special wing. Core command takes a lot of experience, and whatever our capabilities, no GI yet has the experience required for those roles.”

“And what happens when you get it?” The crowd were hushed now, the quietest since she'd arrived. She could see tens of thousands of faces watching her. Concerned. Some fearful. Others intrigued. A few, angry. “Commander Kresnov has been here eight years, and she heads special operations. CSA SWAT now has some synthetic SWAT Team commanders; you yourself have only been here a short time, but you're already the FSA's public spokesperson. If the only thing holding you back now is experience, what happens when you get it? Surely
all
our security posts will eventually be held by GIs? I mean, who else could compete with you? You're smart, talented, physically superior. You're collected under pressure, you don't get scared . . . hell, you're even beautiful, all of you. What role is there going to be left for us straights, as I gather you call us, in providing our own security? At what point do we all become passengers in our own society?”

Amirah recalled what Sandy had been saying about the Talee. About synthetic Talee's high position in Talee society. Was that where humans were heading? Was that a good or bad thing? And would others, like those in the crowd before her, launch a war to stop it from happening?

“Couple of things,” said Amirah. “First, that's crap that we don't get scared. I get scared. I was scared this morning.”

“You were there? At SIT?”

Amirah nodded. “Yes. Second, GIs with command skills aren't as common as you're suggesting. We talk about this a lot amongst ourselves. We agree that most of us probably aren't cut out for command . . . but some are, so sure, you're going to get a fair few of us at senior command levels, especially as new asylum seekers arrive from the League.

“Third, you're drawing a line between us and you. Synthetics and organics. It's also common knowledge that my friend Sandy Kresnov has adopted kids. And several other GIs have gone the same way, while more are thinking about it. I'm considering it myself.”

“You are?”

“Definitely. Not anytime soon and when things get much quieter, I hope . . . but one day, sure. Most synthetic people have had organics deciding the course of their lives, for all of their lives. Now that will swing back the other way a little. But it's a pointless distinction anyway because it doesn't really exist—we are you. And you are us. And we got attacked today—we, meaning all of us—and I promise you, we, meaning all of us, are going to do something about it.”

Vanessa saw the cheers from the crowd on the cruiser's forward display and shook her head in amazement. “Don't take this the wrong way,” she said to Sandy, “'cause I know most people would say that the most amazing GIs in Tanusha are either you or Ragi. But I'd go with Amirah. Look at her. She's young, hasn't grown up with that much social experience really, but she's standing alone before a hostile crowd and gets them eating out of her hand. I've never seen anyone with that knack, straight or synth.”

“And it also undercuts her point,” Sandy said sombrely from the passenger seat as Vanessa piloted. “We do have an edge. If the numbers keep building up here, we are going to have a huge number of GIs in senior command, eventually. And we do see things differently.”

Vanessa made a face. “Making artificial people was always going to cause problems, especially if they're all smart and dangerous like you. That's kinda why the Federation thought it'd be smarter not to do it.”

They were flying to see Jane, who was in an FSA strong point isolated from HQ. Sandy didn't like that, but Ibrahim had correctly assessed that Jane was a problem, given the deaths she had caused the last time she was here. Some in
the FSA held her accountable, and no matter how useful she'd been here, they resented the idea that GIs were held to a separate moral and legal standard. They'd leak it to someone, and then there'd be trouble. So Jane was elsewhere, and hopefully secret for now, from most of the FSA's own personnel.

“Problem is,” said Sandy, “Ami's talking shit and she knows it. League's making another hundred thousand high-des GIs to deal with their internal security problems. They say they're all going to be loyal this time, but how many of them you want to bet will turn up here in a few years, asking for asylum?”

“Probably half,” said Vanessa, gazing out at her city. “God knows where we'll put them all.”

“If they all want to work security, we won't have enough jobs for them here. They'll have to spread out, other worlds will have to take them.”

“See anyone volunteering lately?” Vanessa asked drily. “They still think GIs are the cause of half this mess, they're all quite happy to let Callay take the heat.”

“They might be right,” said Sandy. Vanessa frowned at her. “Of course, a hundred thousand high-des GIs given special powers to deal with internal instability . . . well, fuck, anything could happen. Given new Talee network tech.”

Vanessa gazed at her for a long moment. Then grinned. “That's what I love about you girlfriend, never a dull moment. You don't think League could control them?”

“In this environment?” Sandy snorted. “When I had my awakening, I was isolated. A hundred thousand high-des? With net tech that penetrates the lies and bullshit? My handlers didn't like me watching the wrong movies, the idea that GIs might actually defect to the Federation was unthinkable. Feds were the enemy, they hated GIs, didn't want us to exist. But now there's us gang on Callay, big shots in the FSA and CSA . . . hell, you can't stop smart people from having thoughts. Thoughts like ‘why can't I do what I want for a change?'”