The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma (26 page)

Now the buxom redhead blanched. “I was just trying to cheer you up, that's all. You usually appreciate that when you're under stress.”

“
Stress?
This is more than stress, but you're too young and foolish to know the difference! You can cheer me up by getting the hell out of my sight.”

With her floral-pattern dress only half buttoned, Jade grabbed her sandals and fled. As she opened the door to the outer offices, Rahma shook his head in dismay. The sex with her was so great that at times he was blind to her faults.

He shouted for Artie.

Moments later the loyal hubot hurried in, and looked where the Chairman was pointing, at the holo-report. “Have I missed something new here?” Rahma asked. “This looks like a rehash of what we already know.”

After reading it, Artie said, “You're not mistaken, Master. The investigators seem to be filling time.”

“And wasting mine.”

“Perhaps I should check right now and see why they even sent this?”

The Chairman could have done that himself, by sending a mental command. But he nodded wearily. “OK, check with AOE and let me know.”

“Yes, sir.” Artie lifted one of his artificial, realistic-looking hands. A beam of red light shot out of the palm, dissipating the red letters of the holo-signal and replacing them with an urgent message to AOE headquarters in Berkeley.

Watching Artie's face, the Chairman saw intensity in the dark blue eyes that had once belonged to Glanno Artindale and were now used by another comrade. There were similarities between Artie and Glanno in the way they behaved and the way they served the Chairman without question, but not as sycophants in either case, not in a vacuous manner. They guided him intelligently, gave him good counsel.

He missed his friend, the man who had made such important contributions to the revolution and had died heroically, the man who had briefly been Rahma's male lover. Rahma remembered the good times they'd had together, the intimate moments and the unfortunate confrontation they'd had when Rahma refused to give up his women. After that, Glanno flung himself more into the revolution, and Rahma always wondered if it was why he died—Glanno had a devil-may-care attitude after their brief, ill-fated fling, and he became more confrontational against the police, provoking the pigs, making himself a target.

Following Glanno's death, Rahma felt guilty for a time, but eventually he succeeded in putting that out of his mind, because of the governmental challenges that needed his attention. He tried to do so again now, remembering instead what a great adviser his friend had been, and what a brilliant scientist he'd been, working tirelessly to resurrect extinct species.

“Well,” Rahma said to the hubot, as he got into his underclothes. “Any response yet?”

“Just a moment, please.” Artie was processing information, sorting through overlapping pages of information that floated in the air, with white tabs on them.

The Chairman slipped on a green-and-gold robe and hemp sandals, then draped a golden peace-symbol pendant around his neck. “Come on, come on. What are they saying?”

The hubot let out a whistle. “Something
is
new this time, sir, an attachment they forgot to send. The AOE just received it in the last hour. An automated soldier has been found, something the searchers didn't notice earlier. In the excitement of the attack, this one fell from an aircraft into a forest thicket.”

“Give me a quick summary, Artie.”

“Yes, sir. The captured robot had a self-destruct mechanism that failed to operate. Our people have completely disabled the mechanism, and they've found no evidence of Corporate involvement.” He paused. “Instead, it points to the SciOs.”

“What? Why do you say that?”

“The self-destruct mechanism in the first place, Your Green Eminence. You know how secretive the SciOs are, and how their sensitive machines are all fitted with destruct mechanisms if anyone tampers with them.”

“That's nothing. Self-destruct mechanisms have long been used to guard sensitive information.”

“There's more. The robot's programming indicates that the attackers used both human and robotic troops, and listen to this—the three aircraft had artillery pieces that were the equivalent of Janus Machine Splitter Cannons, capable of turning targets into gooey masses.”

“There was no evidence of that in the aircraft wreckage or on the battlefield.”

“No, sir. For some unexplained reason, they used conventional weaponry, perhaps because their Splitters were inoperable. As you know, such technology is known to require extensive maintenance by SciO technicians.”

“That's true. But SciO technology? How can that be possible?”

“Hard to say. There's more here, and I'm trying to give it to you in the right order, on a priority basis. The captured robot has sketchy, coded programming that indicates it was part of a military force that came from an underground base thousands of kilometers away, in central Mexico. And they tunneled underground from there to here—bringing troops and war matériel in that tube-shaped transport vehicle.”

“
Tunneled?
All that way?”

“That's not all, sir. They did it in four hours.”

“
Underground?
They used supersonic subterranean transporters?”

“That must be the transporter wreckage we found. Keep in mind, this could all be bogus information, programmed into the robots to throw us off.”

“I don't like the sound of this,” Rahma said.

“Nor do I, Master.”

Just then, an alarm sounded, three piercing beeps. The earlier message arrived after an eight-beep alarm, indicating a much higher urgency. As Rahma sent a mental command to accept the new message, he saw it appear in red, replacing the previous one and all of the additional files that Artie had accessed.

The Chairman read, shaking his head. Yet another problem. The Panasians had finally discovered that GSA operatives had taken one of their rare snow leopards and they were causing diplomatic trouble, demanding the animal's return. But they didn't seem to know how the snow leopard was taken; they didn't know about enhanced virtual reality—EVR. If Hashimoto ever learned that the Green States could put avatars in Panasia, he or his advisers would wonder how—and experts might figure out that the GSA had compromised a Panasian satellite.

Since the inception of the GSA twenty years ago there had been a series of incidents between the two nations, and several times the Panasians had threatened nuclear retaliation. There were countless issues separating the GSA and Panasian governments, and no reasonable person thought they could be resolved short of war. The only question Rahma had was when the inevitable full-scale confrontation would occur. But this time, Hashimoto's message was more complex. “My government does not want nuclear war,” he wrote, “but I cannot ignore the unauthorized excursion by your operatives, and the theft of one of our valuable animals.”

Rahma read the words over and over, wasn't sure how to take them. What did Hashimoto have in mind? It couldn't be anything good.

As Artie stood by, the Chairman considered all of the recent events, and wondered if there could possibly be some connection between the bellicose, argumentative government of Panasia and the disturbing Bostoner attack. Some of his advisers had been theorizing it was a military test, a probe of GSA defenses, and the enemy weapons had failed to work properly.

A chill ran down his spine. If a connection existed, the terrible war between nations was about to begin.

But where did the SciOs fit into all of this?

 

27

All life-forms on the planet have the right to live in dignity.

—a saying of the Green Revolution

JOSS AWOKE WITH
a feeling of edginess, and went about his morning toilet. He moved quickly, taking advantage of his heightened metabolism, but didn't bother to shave, even though the stubble of beard on his face was getting longer than he usually kept it. He'd never worn a full beard or mustache, and this put him in the minority of modern men, but it didn't seem to have had a limiting effect on his career. The six men in the Berkeley Eight, and other adult males who wanted to show they were green zealots, liked to cover their faces with hair, but people could still advance themselves without that, by demonstrating competence in green technologies.

In embarking on his career as a greenformer, however, Joss had not anticipated the incredible alterations that would take place in his body. Yesterday, he'd discovered an ability to generate an energy field around himself that kept flies away from him, or he could kill them with bolts of energy if he preferred. Remarkably, top-secret technology had become embedded in the cells of his body, and he was figuring out how to use it. Each day that passed, he learned more about it.

No wonder the SciOs were so interested in him, and he knew they'd be here soon, bothering him again. He'd intimated to the medical attendants that he would be more cooperative with them today than he had been the day before, when he'd felt annoyed by their constant tests, their unending probes. But he did not feel at all cooperative, and sensed that this day would not go well. He just
knew
it.

The challenge was how to handle their demands with poise instead of doing something he would regret, something that would make an already bad situation even worse. The pesky SciOs were like the annoying flies, and he strongly suspected that Dr. Mora had ordered the insects to be released in his quarters, just to see how their lab rat would react.

Joss smiled. If only … He caught himself. Could he possibly accomplish what he had in mind?

He ate breakfast alone, a customized cereal-and-fruit mixture from a dispenser in the kitchen alcove. Afterward he stood in the entertainment chamber and looked up at the observation cameras in the corners, the spy eyes that were watching him. “You may come in now,” he said.

Moments later, Dr. Mora and a female research assistant entered. “Are you feeling better?”

“Better than what? Than yesterday? Or before the explosion?”

Dr. Mora took a step forward, smiled in a kindly way. “Is there anything we can do for you, Joss, anything to make this easier? You know we have to conduct the research, but I want to make it as comfortable as possible for you.”

“Is that right? Well, then, I think I'd like some extended time off.”

“I'm sorry, but that isn't possible. It is urgent that we keep moving forward.”

“Your superiors told you that.”

“Perhaps, but nonetheless it is true. Something extraordinary happened to you, and you hold the key to a scientific doorway that no one has ever been through before. A doorway to incredible human potential.”

“
Mutated
human potential.
Freak
human potential. What do you want to do, put people into ReFac buildings and blow them up, trying to replicate what happened to me?”

“No, but your body is a gold mine of genetic possibilities. At any moment you could…” He paused.

“Die?”

“I was going to say, lose your powers. Death is only one way. The powers could just vanish and wouldn't be there for us to analyze. At this very moment, you might not have what you had yesterday.”

“It seems to me that my genetics, whatever they are now, wouldn't just fade away. And if you're so intent on studying me, perhaps I should bill the SciO Dark Energy research division by the hour, by the minute? I have value, don't I?”

“Of course you do, but—”

Joss stared at the floor. “Maybe we should take an inventory of what I can do and set a value for each of my skills. Then you can pay me.”

“Of course you deserve to be compensated, but that isn't something we should waste time on here, not until the important experiments are concluded.”

“Concluded? You're leading me on, Doctor. You and I both know that I'll never be released. You SciOs will always find some reason to keep me locked up.”

“That isn't true.”

“Then when will I be let out?
When?
”

“That is not my job to determine.”

“All right, whose job is it? Bring that person in here, along with your SciO moneyman and a couple of lawyers, and let's draw up an ironclad agreement. In exchange for X greendollars I will permit myself to be a lab rat for Y amount of time.”

“You're being preposterous.”

“This situation is preposterous.”

They glared at each other. Then Dr. Mora whispered something to his research assistant, who left. She returned quickly, accompanied by SciO security officers carrying short-barrel tranquilizer rifles.

“We don't have time for games,” the doctor said. “These sessions will continue, with or without your permission.”

One of the SciOs pointed his rifle at Joss, seemed to be waiting for the doctor's command to fire.

Joss moved both hands quickly, releasing black strands of energy into the air that whirled and spiraled and wove themselves together into a crackling black net. He thought of the energy field he'd created to deflect the flies, and put more effort into this one. He added to the strands in the air, creating a tight-mesh black net that wrapped around him and took on the shape of his body.

He heard percussive noises, saw the barrels of the tranquilizer rifles flash red. Instinctively he dropped to the floor. He saw a volley of tranquilizer darts hit the netting on his side, depressing the barrier ever so slightly and then bouncing off, as did others that followed. More SciO security officers appeared, but Dr. Mora waved all of them back, to the doorway that led out into the corridor.

Joss stood up, and when he did, the protective field remained with him like an article of tight clothing, still retaining his shape. To sustain it, he didn't have to add energy by moving his hands around. He just
willed
the field to remain in place, and it did.