All Fall Down: The Chronicles of Altor, page 12
Anna made notes on her tablet.
“Do we have a nomination system set up?”
“Not yet.”
“Good. I want it to be all self-nominations.”
“You know what kind of people that will attract.”
“Exactly,” Quinn said with a smile. “It will attract the power seekers. The people who might have been the head of their local homeowner’s association or aspired to be. The people who relish having control of situations that don’t really need to be controlled. They’ll step into this role because they’ll think this is the path to power in Altor. Instead, it will tie them up with more work than they can handle.”
Quinn snapped his fingers.
“And here’s another thing. No one can resign from the council until their two years are up unless they can get a note from a doctor. And that doctor will be Janus in one of its many forms.”
“Very clever.”
“If we allowed people to nominate others, it’s possible that some good person who has high responsibility would get roped into serving. I don’t want to waste that person in a useless role.”
They walked on in silence around a curve in the path. To their right was a small pond with two swans swimming in circles.
Anna remained quiet. She had been with Quinn so long that she knew when he was finished with a thought process and when he wasn’t.
“I swear, the only person who deserves political power is a person who doesn’t want it.”
“Very true. I’ve made a note of it. Now,” Anna said, “ready for the report on the tunnel?”
“Yes.” One of Quinn’s greatest frustrations since closing the time lock was that Marshall and the General were several miles away in Dust City. He was anxious to get them back inside.
Janus had designed a tunnel from deep underground that would hit the surface miles away from Altor. The problem was, if there was a way to tunnel out, there was a way to tunnel in.
Quinn had always known there would be a tunnel. It was how he planned to get the heavy equipment from below ground to the surface when the time came. He had estimated that he would have at least five to ten years before he would need it. He had hoped it would give the world a chance to find some sort of balance before he opted for the vulnerability a tunnel would bring.
Instead, a military attack on Altor had forced Quinn to close the dome when his two close advisors were in Dust City.
That made finishing the tunnel a much higher priority.
“Continued progress on the tunnel,” Anna said, reading from her tablet. “They are still hoping to finish in another sixteen months. They encountered some difficulties. An unexpectedly large boulder that was too much for the drilling machine. They had to make a choice between improving the machine or spending additional time diverting around the rock.” She glanced at Quinn, whose attention seemed to be wandering. “There’s much more information. Do you care to hear it?”
Quinn knew that the same report was undoubtedly in his inbox and probably had been for some time. He also knew he was unlikely to read it any time soon. He waved his hand.
“No. As long as I’m kept abreast of whether or not the deadline for completion changes, the rest doesn’t matter.”
“Got it,” Anna said. “No labor pains, only the baby.”
A question popped into Quinn’s head. “Who wrote that report?”
“It’s signed by both Shaquem and Shaquille. I don’t know which of them wrote it. Why?”
“I just have a hunch that neither of them did. I think it was Janus.”
Anna nodded but didn’t say anything. What Janus did or didn’t do, or how it represented itself, was nothing she concerned herself with.
They were almost to the bend in the path. Another few steps and the view of the pond and swans would be gone. That’s when something caught Quinn’s eye.
He stopped and retraced his steps until he had a better view of the water. Anna followed him.
On the other side of the pond, there was a lovely grassy area. A perfect spot for young lovers to have a picnic or a mother to take small children.
At that moment, there were five people sitting on the grass. They were sitting as if they were meditating, with four of the people facing one. To Quinn’s eye, it looked like a teacher and students.
Three of the people were wearing the regular dress of Altor—comfortable pants and the flowing tops that were most in style in the dome at the moment. The teacher who sat in front of the small class wore an orange robe.
That wasn’t what had caught Quinn’s eye. He had seen that person, dressed exactly like that, before. When he had asked Janus about him, the program had given him a rather curt answer, saying, That is Tokin Ming-Sa. He is citizen number 5,269. He is important to Altor.
Quinn had intended to have a follow-up conversation with Janus about why, exactly, this Tokin Ming-Sa was important to the city. Quinn couldn’t think why he might be.
Still, that wasn’t what had caught his eye.
The thing that had attracted his attention was the fifth person who sat with him. Another older man.
He was also wearing an orange robe.
Chapter Seventeen
Vulnerabilities
It was an unusual meeting in many ways, even for Dust City, where few things were normal.
First, it was a meeting that was not called by a human being, though everyone that attended thought it was. Instead, Janus had called the meeting, established the agenda, and sent out the invitations. It did so not as itself—few people in Dust City knew how involved Janus was in the operations of not just Altor, but also Dust City. Instead, it sent the invitations as a voice file, using a perfect recreation of Quinn’s voice and syntax.
Even Marshall, who had worked elbow to elbow with Quinn for twenty years, didn’t recognize that anything was off. Janus’s mimicry was so advanced, even if Quinn himself had heard the message, he might have thought he had just forgotten that he had sent it.
The second unusual aspect of the meeting was the mix of attendees. Adrian Pierce, who was one of the triumvirate of leaders of Dust City, was not invited to attend. He didn’t even know the meeting was taking place, but if he had, he wouldn’t have cared. He had more things to attend to than he could ever manage in a day.
The invitees who did show up in the meeting room were Marshall, Steele, Lt. Forster, and Harper Wilkins.
One of those people was not like the others.
Marshall and Steele were upper echelon Altor advisors who were trapped outside of the dome. Dan Forster was a US Army Lieutenant.
Harper Wilkins was a thirteen year old girl.
The meeting room wasn’t much. A long table and chairs, a big screen television on the wall, a small kiosk with coffee on to brew.
Steele was the last to arrive, saying, “Sorry, got caught up in a strategy meeting.” He looked around the room and saw Harper. He had been around extraordinary people enough in his life not to assume that she had wandered in by mistake. Instead, he said, “I’m John Steele,” and extended his hand.
“General,” Harper said. She shook his hand. “I’m Harper Wilkins.” She looked around the room and said, “Like the rest of you, I have no idea why I’m here, but I’ll help however I can.”
There was a tablet in front of each of them. Lying lengthwise across the table was a long-barreled weapon that looked like a rifle but had a plastic dish with four metal bars that came together, as if it was focusing a ray. Below the trigger of the weapon, where ammunition would normally have been stored, a steel cylinder dropped down.
When Steele sat down, the monitor on the wall came to life.
It showed images of the second battle of Altor, where the attacking force—it was still unknown who it was or where it had come from—had nearly breached the dome.
The near success of that attack had been because of Altor’s over-reliance on drones of all types. The weapon that was now laid across the table had disabled dozens of drones as they entered the fray. If it hadn’t been for the bravery of a few Dusters and the arrival of the US Army, Altor might have fallen.
The footage showed the weapon on the table being deployed time and again. A drone would fly toward the battle, a soldier would aim the weapon, and the drone’s cameras would go blank.
Other drones flying behind would capture the image of the first drone plummeting to the ground.
Quinn’s voice began narrating the video.
“On the table in front of you is the weapon that nearly destroyed Altor. Now that we have captured one and reverse-engineered it, we understand it better. It is a new technology, a focused EMP beam that disables any electronics it is aimed at. Completely useless against a charging soldier with a rifle, but one hundred percent effective against anything with an electric brain.”
Forster and Steele both nodded. They had already seen reports on this weapon. What they hadn’t seen was a strategy to countermand it.
Quinn’s narration—or at least a voice that sounded exactly like Quinn—continued.
“Altor was very fortunate that the US Army arrived when it did. However, just because we beat an army with this weapon once does not mean we will never face another attack with the same weapon. If one enemy has it, we can assume that others do too. I’ve called the four of you here today to brainstorm ideas and come up with a counter strategy.”
The screen went dark again.
Steele reached out and picked up the weapon. “It’s heavy.” He handed it to Forster.
“Likely the battery and electromagnetic coils in the drop-down section. It takes a lot of energy to create the focused EMP. Still, when you think about what it can do, it’s amazing that it’s as light and portable as it is.”
Their four tablets came to life and there was a cross-section of the weapon. Below the weapon was a label: DK-1. Drone Killer One.
The cross-section was animated and the exterior of the cylinder was removed to show exactly what Forster had theorized.
“So simple,” Marshall said. “That’s what makes it genius.”
“Simple is often hard to defeat,” Steele observed. “So what can we do?”
“The obvious solution is to build some sort of Faraday cage around the drone,” Harper said.
Forster immediately shook his head, perhaps a little condescendingly. “That can’t work.”
“Right,” Harper said. “Because that doesn’t just protect it from the EMP, but it also stops it from receiving any commands from the operator, right?”
“Exactly,” Forster said, “So—”
“So,” Harper continued, “you have to create a preprogrammed command into it.”
Forster shut his mouth, then said, “Wait. What?”
“The drone could be preprogrammed,” Harper said, “to carry out a series of command functions from the time it is launched. For instance, fly to a specific point on an established map. Fire laser for five seconds, then proceed to a second point and do the same. Then return for new programming.”
She nodded her head as she spoke, gaining energy from her idea.
“Think about it this way. Send one drone out but keep it for observation only. Send it so high up that the DK-1 can’t reach it effectively. There’s got to be a limited range on them, right? It’s not going to have a range like a laser, is it?”
Forster looked a little chagrined and glanced at the others.
“No,” Steele said, “EMPs aren’t going to have a range like that. I would guess the effective range might be a quarter to a third of a mile, based on the way they used it in this battle. They always waited until the drones approached before they took them down.” He couldn’t keep a small grin off his face, as it was obvious now why Harper had been invited to the meeting. “Go ahead, finish your thought. It’s a good one.”
“It’s not ideal,” Harper said, “because things move around on the battlefield. But if we can send a surveillance drone up to take a wide-angle shot of the attack, someone could program the other drones to carry out a mission then return to base for another.”
“The challenge would be to find someone who could handle that programming so quickly,” Marshall said. “That would require strategy, programming knowledge, and dexterity, all done very quickly.”
Harper nodded. She hesitated, then shrugged and said, “I can do it. There’s a video game called Drone Command where you have to do exactly that to beat the army that protects the final boss. That’s probably where I got the idea.”
“So we would need to retrofit all the drones with EMP protection,” Forster said. “But how would we get that programming into it? Whatever we used to protect it would also stop it from receiving the commands.”
“Right. That would be the challenge,” Harper said, then grinned. That made her look like the young girl she was. “In the video game, we didn’t have to worry about all that.” She looked up at the ceiling for several long moments.
The three men sat quietly, waiting while Harper ran ideas through her head, rejecting each one. Then she brightened.
“We could fit the drones with the EMP shielding but create a hatch. When the drone is at its base, the hatch could open and we could beam the programming in.”
The men stared at each other, looking for a flaw in that plan.
“It would be a lot of work,” Marshall said, “and I’m not sure what shielding we could use that would protect it but still allow it to carry out its programs. We can’t just encase it in a Faraday cage. It won’t be able to see or fire its weapon.”
“Is there a coating of some sort that we could put around the drone?” Harper asked.
“Not that I know of,” Steele said.
“The good thing is, we don’t have to just rely on our own brains,” Marshall said. “ Janus, are you there?”
Janus was absolutely everywhere in Altor, and almost everywhere in Dust City.
A neutral male voice said, “Hello, Marshall.”
Marshall outlined the idea that Harper had thought of in broad terms, then said, “Is this viable?”
“Yes,” Janus answered instantly. “Thank you, Harper.”
Harper grinned for just a second, then wiped it away.
Marshall cleared his throat and said, “We are stuck on creating the coating that we could put on the drones, however. Can you help us come up with some sort of formula that will do what we need?”
“Yes.” Again, the answer was instantaneous. Given the billions of things Janus could process in a millisecond, that was not surprising. “We have most of the materials we would need to build a protective coating, but it will require one thing that we do not have on hand.”
Steele made a tsk sound and shook his head.
Marshall held up a hand and said, “How far away is the material we need?”
“It is eight hundred and twelve miles away.”
“How much of this material do we need?”
“It is a minor element but critical. The lab would need ten pounds of it to make enough of the coating to protect all the drones and all the drones we will build for the next one hundred years, approximately.”
Now Marshall’s curiosity was piqued. “Where would we find it?”
The monitor on the wall lit up. A latitude and longitude displayed at the top of the screen, along with a satellite picture of a lake and surrounding hillsides.
“It’s not in a city?” Marshall asked. “I thought it would be in a manufacturing center or industrial area.”
“It is not,” Janus said simply.
“What element is this?”
As if reading from a news article, Janus said, “The newly discovered element does not yet have a name. It was first discovered just five years ago by Simon Rodgson.”
“Discovered? How do you mean? Why haven’t I heard about this?” Marshall asked.
“I can’t speculate why you don’t know something, Marshall. There are too many things you don’t know.”
“AIs can be such assholes sometimes,” Marshall said under his breath.
“That is a term that can be applied to humans, but I simply have a different manner of communicating. It should not be construed as me being an asshole.”
Marshall closed his eyes, trying to keep his smile to himself. Janus saying asshole felt a little like when he used to turn his calculator upside down and make it display BOOBS. It was slightly funny, but hopelessly juvenile.
“Strike that last question then. How was it discovered?”
“This material was discovered in 2029 by Simon Rodgson. He was technically the person who found it, but it wasn’t identified until he took it home to his wife. She ran tests on the sample and found this substance, which has not yet been named.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Marshall said. “One person found it, but it was identified by his wife. How did that happen?”
“Rodgson found it at the bottom of the unnamed lake I am showing you now.”
Harper figured it out first. “It’s a meteor.”
“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s a meteor. I thought that was clear from context.”
Steele laughed. “So, all we’ve got to do is get a crew across the hellish landscape that is our world, dive down, and break off ten pounds of this meteor.”
“Very good, John Steele,” Janus said. The AI was not yet much for nicknames. “That is all you must do.”
By the time the meeting broke up, a few things had changed. The most important was that they had at least some form of a plan to fix Altor and Dust City’s greatest vulnerability. Secondarily, Marshall, Steele, and Forster had a newfound respect for Harper Wilkins. She still looked like a girl headed into eighth grade but everyone could see there was more to her than that.
As they left, Marshall walked along with her. “The General and I are going to meet later this afternoon to discuss how we can pull this off. Would you like to attend?”
“Sure,” Harper said. “I’m going to go take a shift piloting a surveillance drone. That always frees my mind up. I’ll see if there’s any other ideas I can come up with.” If she noticed that Marshall had invited her and Steele, but left out Forster, she didn’t let on.
