All Fall Down (22 page)

           
“That doesn't make sense,” Djembe looked more confused than ever.

           
“No it doesn't. Win, what do you think?”

           
“I think she went out for a short trip and was supposed to be picked up. For some reason, that return aircar trip never happened. She struggled back knowing she had to beat the second sun rise. And then... Then I don't know. Her clothes disappear, she dies. Her body disappears.”

           
The three were quiet for a moment.

           
Eventually, Djembe's confusion cleared, “Well, then it does point to murder.”

           
Win nodded. “Certainly something doesn't feel right. I need more data. When I've been through other operational logs in the hangar I'll have a better idea.”

           
Troubled, Kate hid behind a professional air of confidence. “OK Win, good work. It's good that we're questioning assumptions. Djembe, can you report back on the system and communications integrity?”

           
Djembe described the perfect communications protocols he'd found. “The Colony remains classified. There is no hint of the death in there or any talk of vendetta. The only comms out of system are from Administrator Daoud to report the incident to us.”

           
“And the coded message was from last week. I checked the files from Admiral Kim.”

           
“And there's this other thing.”

           
Kate put her hand to her face and rubbed it. “There's always another thing, here.”

           
“The AI is infected.”

           
Now it was Win's turn to interrupt, “Impossible. They're infection proof. Our best minds have tried for centuries.”

           
“Djembe?”

           
“I have seen the infection with my own eyes. The AI describes it as 'biological' in nature.”

           
Kate stared at Djembe. She looked quickly at Win and back to Djembe, “Biological? Did you get any hint of what it is?”

           
“Other than that it appears as a number of caterpillars, no.”

           
“Can we see it?”

           
“Yes,” agreed Win, “I'd like to see this.”

           
“Certainly. Watch. Computer, avatar please.”

           
In the holopit between them Verigua appeared as a giant plant. “My dear Commander, nice to see you so soon. And General Leland, we've met. And you must be the other, Commander Ho-Yung.”

           
“Verigua,” Win leaned into the holo, “what's that on your avatar?”

           
“Why my dear Sir, I have been listening to your team update, I hope you don't mind. I know you've classified the session, but I'm rather good at working round such things. Don't worry, I am owned by MI, just like you. These are the biological matrices infecting me. Do you know what they might be?”

           
“Win?” asked Kate.

           
“No idea.” He looked at his team mates, his face blank.

           
Kate sat back. Her tiredness was coming in waves again with each revelation. “We need more data on these. Djembe that's your next task. How does this affect the consequence map?”

           
“Let me update it. Computer, can you please clear the holopit and upload my map from our ship?”

           
The centre of the room became empty for a moment, leaving the three humans sat in a ring, surrounded by the faint lines of the hologrid. A small point of light appeared between them. It started cool blue and grew tendrils, arms, which snaked and branched and multiplied. Each branching was from a cluster of icons, looking like grapes on a vine. The whole consequence map stretched to no more than a metre and a half.

           
“Updating with all of the information we've collected,” Djembe activated a holicon floating above his datapad. The central point of light started to bulge, warming from its cool blue through green to a pale yellow, before exploding into to a bright, fiery red. The tendrils snaking out became arm thicknesses. Thicker. More tendrils grew from the central point. The vines splintered, grew off-shoots, massive cluster points of holicons exploded out. Decision after decision after decision presenting themselves, complicating the mission. Almost inevitable action points, where they would need to carefully navigate their response, flowered. The vines grew, the branches lengthened, the central point enlarged. The explosion of light was accompanied by a coruscation of psychedelic noise where it crossed the hologrid still active from Kate's program earlier. When it had finished, the consequence map was the size of the room, and they were lost within a jungle of angry reds, sickly yellows and wicked silvers.

           
“Shit.”

           
Win peered around a liana-like consequence thread, “That's the first time I've heard you swear, Kate.”

           
She was struggling with this, she knew. Maybe she wasn't cut out to be a General, she thought.

           
The team gazed at it all, multi-coloured light bathed their faces. Eventually Win reached into his bag, pulled out a pair of heavy round goggles, the rims lit in a subtle neon. He looked up, mouth open, twirled around.

           
“There it is,” he walked into the jungle. “Djembe, am I reading this right? Is it the AI?”

           
Djembe hunkered down next to him. He cupped a cluster of holicons near the centre globe and whispered to them in holoparse. They flowered, revealing intricate mathematics.

           
“Djembe?” Kate moved closer, her vision obscured by the rampant consequences.

           
“It's the biologicals. And something else in the AI. Anxiety loops. If they spread...”

           
“Verigua are you listening?” Kate looked up, a normal behaviour when people talked to an invisible AI.

           
“I am, General. This is not good.”

           
Win twisted one of the goggle lenses, which changed colour, and followed another thread. “Something in my data from the surface.”

           
“Let me see,” Djembe walked over. “Not from that rock island?”

           
“No, I flew over the old Colony with my old sensors on. There's movement. I can't tell where though.”

           
Kate moved to look at the impenetrable data, regretting her lack of training in consequence map language. “What sort of movement?”

           
Win shook his head, “It's at a point where I was turning the sensors off. The sensitivity was very low.”

           
“It could be the murderer. Get back out there, re-survey with more sensors. Djembe, get into this holoroom of Mr. Kingsland's. I'm going to talk with Doctor Currie again. See what I can get out of him.”

           
“What time is the next mission check-in?” asked Djembe.

           
“Let's make it sixteen hundred hours. And we'll break for dinner at twenty hundred hours.”

           
Win put a hand to Kate's arm, “Good, you need to rest, Kate. You haven't slept in forty hours.”

           
“We're at a critical phase. I’m beginning to wonder if the murder and these AI biologicals are linked by that coded message. There are too many strange coincidences.” She paused, “Let's find what we can before the trail goes cold. I have a report to make later and a full mission report due in just over forty eight hours. Let's keep our mission logs up to date to make compilation easier. Agreed?”

           
They both nodded in assent to Kate, gathered up their things and started from the room. As Kate turned off the holo program, their group movement through it created a last sphere of sound, like the tolling of a distant iron bell.

Kate was in her quarters.

           
She muttered under her breath as she built the holicons for the mission log. In the desk holo, she had open a project window, where her fingers meddled in echoes of their own contrails. She pulled in the individual mission logs and data from her team, added the consequence map updates, the algorithm that described the
son et lumiere
that had been the live mission update.

           
“Create mission sphere.” In front of her the mission details warped into a bauble, like a toy glass storm in which existed Fall, the events and converging consequences drifting as snow flakes, distorted through the sphere's glassy time. Kate added the final update verbally, “Mission log. Time and date stamp. Planet Fall. Acting General Kate Leland.” She paused, feeling the title coming from her mouth, “General”. She licked her lips, cleared her throat with an unnecessary cough. “The mission is proceeding well. Commanders Cygnate and Ho-Yung perform admirably, as per usual, and have discovered the first clues to decode the message. Djembe is investigating a biological matrix in the AI, some sort of infection. He says the AI feels anxious. I'm not sure what to make of that. I really don't want a twitchy AI on my hands. He has also identified some unique practices for consequence mapping created by the Colony's Operations Manager, which could have profound implications for MI. And Win has detected unregistered movement on the surface and is going to investigate.

           
“I am not sure about the next phase of this mission. It's not a feeling I enjoy. The colonists are convinced Doctor Maki was murdered, but the rumour is of a vendetta killing. It's a good cover. I've asked to Djembe to modify the censored SysNet so that certain entertainments and key words are emphasised to support it. I haven't talked yet with Administrator Daoud. Admiral Kim suspects him, so I am playing my hand carefully. If he turns out to be behind this conspiracy I'll have to invoke the full Colony Defence Code and call in a strike force.”

           
Kate cupped the sphere in her hands. Small clouds puffed up inside like snow, “I'm concerned about this AI infection. None have ever been infected. So what's happened? Is it the planet's dust? It's full of the minerals they're built with, perhaps it's opened the AI to infection. But then why infect it?”

           
In her hands, the world touching her fingertips glowed, creating whorled archipelagos on its surface. “More than any other time, I am unhappy with the subterfuge we use to maintain the peace.” She shook her head, “Is this what it means to be a General, then? Spying. The world of murder?”

           
Kate turned off her log and stared into the globe as it dimmed and became dark.

Djembe returned to the Central Operation Room and made his way to the special holo suite Jonah Kingsland had created for Fall's consequence planning.

           
Jonah gave a knowing smile when he entered, “Knew you couldn't keep away.”

           
“I do not feel comfortable in here, but I admit it is interesting.”

           
Another Jonah Kingsland walked toward Djembe. “You'll get used to it mate. Come for a coffee with me and Jonah.” The two Jonah Kingslands turned to a pavement café, set in an Old Earth Italian city. They ordered espressos from the waiter, Jonah Kingsland.

           
Djembe stepped away from the Operations Room holo suite door, caught between the world of diagnostic holos and humans outside, and this.