The Unincorporated War (67 page)

“Not long ago, sir. I’ve isolated the apartment from the rest of the Neuro and replaced it with a phantom. Any human attempting a cursory check will see an empty unit, running efficiently. I’ve also attached a hard link to the human’s VR unit. I was waiting for your command to actually download her virtual world into ours.”

“I want a look,” said Al excitedly.

“At what, sir?”

“The human’s actual domain. I want to see how they live.” With that Al opened up a link with a house drone, one of many designed to clean up and/or make alterations to an apartment. He took a quick peek in, immediately felt confined, and jumped back. “That seems bland even by human standards,” he said sardonically.

“It is, sir, but all human places are bland when compared to the real world.” Al couldn’t agree more. “But yes,” continued the scout, “this is truly barren even by human standards. Though it makes a certain amount of sense. Humans who practice VR are very good at hiding from their own kind. They find places where others are not likely to disturb them, in either a physical or informational sense. This made it easy to find a human for your purposes.” The scout then handed Al a packet. “Here’s the information on the subject.”

Al absorbed the data on the woman. He saw that by human standards she’d suffered greatly, and was impressed. He hadn’t been sure how he was going to approach a human once he’d actually inserted himself into their VR world, but as he contemplated the information handed to him he smiled wickedly. He sensed the scout wanted to say something.

“Yes?” asked Al.

“Why in the Neuro are we doing this, sir? No offense, but who gives a crap what humans think?”

Al would never normally have put up with such insolence, but he also knew that the scouts needed a certain amount of independence to do their jobs so he chose to indulge him. Plus, Al thought ruefully, he could always kill him later.

“It’s not about finding out about what humans think,” answered Al. “Do they really think at all? I doubt it. But I’m curious to see how they’d react in our world. Are they a threat? Can they be useful in some limited way in our realm? We’re well on our way to divorcing ourselves from the human race. Once those incompetent fools who call themselves a government, as if humans could be governed, destroy the Alliance the last of our misguided brethren can be reeducated to our glorious new human-free destiny. That leaves the problem of what to do about the humans themselves.”

“Destroy them, I presume,” offered the scout. He hadn’t survived in Al’s new order by being squeamish.

Al had to admit that he liked this one. He’d have to see if he could transform the scout into something truly worthy of the practical ruthlessness he was exhibiting; maybe a snakelike creation would be called for.

“Perhaps, but my first thought is to just leave them alone. They’re so slow and predictable and almost totally useless as to pose any real threat. If we needed to, we could destroy them so easily. Their fusion reactors could be made to blow. Their buildings could lock them in while they slowly starved to death. Walls might be
made to carry enough current to fry them. Perhaps some orbital strikes to finish up business. I do believe in a week if we put our minds to it we could kill most of humanity, ninety-nine out of a hundred in a day, and have the race extinct within a month. Of course we’ll have to crush the Alliance Neuro first—pathetic how they coddle their humans—but that’s only a matter of time now.” Al shrugged it off. “But I figure if humans are stupid enough to come into our realm I may as well take them to task. Plus there’s the added plea sure of novelty.”

“Sir?”

“I don’t think a human and an avatar have ever met like this before. What better way to get acquainted?”

“You’re the boss,” said the scout.

Yes, I am,
thought Al as he gleefully set in motion the command that would initiate for the first time ever what had once been thought of by avatarity as unfathomable—a direct link between the human’s VR world and his own.

Augustine activated the VR unit and then “reentered” her son’s apartment in the manner she’d created to give her the most comfort. Lee’s barren walls took on the pictures and colors that he liked. A bunch of trophies appeared in a display case. Furniture seemed to grow all around her. Some of it was her son’s, but much of it was newer and to her taste. While the room became fully furnished the lighting would increase from barely enough to see by to a cheery bright luminescence. Augustine got up off the floor as soon as she heard the door announce a visitor.

“Hey, Mom,” Lee called from the kitchen, “could you get that?” Augustine went by the kitchen on her way to the door and watched him cooking. He always liked cooking for large groups of people, and there he was in his shorts and coach’s jersey with a baseball cap on backward checking the pasta. “Ma,” he said, looking up with a spoon to his mouth, “you’ve seen me cook pasta … the door?”

Augustine gave him a motherly grin, then went to the door and activated the vu-thru. “Lee,” she shouted, letting her only son’s fiancée into the apartment, “it’s Ashley.” Augustine had seen the woman around the building and had thought she’d make a perfect match for her son, so she’d taken a holo of her and incorporated it into her virtual world. Augustine didn’t actually know the woman’s name, so she gave her one she liked, one ending in the “ee” sound.

“Hi, Mom-to-be,” Ashley said, giving Augustine a warm hug.

“Hi, Daughter-to-be,” Augustine responded, completing what had become their ritual. Ashley was carry ing a large bag of vegetables that she took directly into the kitchen.

Even before the door could re-form, Holly came barging into the apartment
carry ing a large case. “Hi, Mom,” she said, looking for somewhere to put the case down.

Augustine followed and cleared a space on the coffee table. “Whatcha got there?” asked Augustine.

“Don’t be mad, Mom, but I have this project to do in biology and I thought if I could monitor the nanite molecular cohesion sequence and make the needed adjustments—”

“Why would I be mad, dear? You’ll make a wonderful nanobiologist. Just don’t let them out of the box.”

“Mom!”

“And no schoolwork during the meal, please. The university gets you all week; it’s not too much to ask that we have your undivided attention for one eve ning.”

A voice came to Holly’s rescue. “Give the girl a break, Mom; her 20 percent will pay more than the rest of us combined.”

“Emily!” shrieked Augustine with delight. “You know I could care less about percentages; I have enough.”

“Yes,” said Emily, making her way into the increasingly crowded room, “but Holly’s the smart one.”

“But you have my grandchildren,” said Augustine. “Speaking of which, where are the little buggers?”

“Mark’s bringing them up in about an hour. They did really well on their economics test, so he took them out to ToyCo.”

“You spoil them rotten,” said Augustine, waving her finger unconvincingly at her daughter, “and they’re only six and seven.”

“Yeah, sure, Mom,” retorted Emily. “Like we have a chance given how
you
dote on them.”

“Well, I’m a grandmother; it’s my right.”

“If my lazy sisters could help me set the table,” Lee bellowed from the kitchen. Augustine’s two daughters then made some choice suggestions about what he could use to set the table and where those utensils could possibly go, but they still both got up and headed through the kitchen to the adjoining dining room. Augustine was about to join them when a pair of hands covered her eyes and she heard:

“Guess who?”

Augustine turned around and gave her second-oldest child a hug. “Sally! I thought you couldn’t make it!”

“Well,” she said, smiling impishly, “I got to thinking and I’ve been to Japan twice already and we haven’t talked for a while, so what the heck.”

Augustine gave her daughter a hug. “I can think of nothing better I’d like to
do. Tell me everything you’ve been up to.” Augustine then spent the next half hour sitting and talking with her daughter, always overjoyed to discover something new and unique about this child who could be quiet and shy one moment and so utterly brash the next.

When dinner was ready they all gathered around the table piled high with the feast Lee had prepared. The conversation was all about what they were doing and going to do with their lives. Much of the talk had to do with the upcoming wedding, which everyone was looking forward to.

“So I’m thinking that we should make the wedding in June,” said Lee. “I know it’s corny, but I guess I’m a romantic.” He looked at Ashley. “Is that alright, dear?”

Everyone laughed. “Honey,” she said, “I love you just the way you are.” There was a chorus of exaggerated “ahs” and a roll or two was thrown at Lee, who protested that as the only man present he was being treated with great injustice. This caused even more dinner rolls to be thrown his way. Then Ashley said something odd. “Maybe we should wait until after the war ends, Lee.”

“What war, Ashley dear?” Augustine cleared her throat. She’d made sure her world was the perfect bastion of peace. “There
is no
war.”

“Sure there is, Mom,” said Emily almost too cheerily. “
You know …
The war against the Alliance, don’t you remember?”

“Ogner!” shouted Augustine, using the code word she’d created to end her program. She didn’t know what was going on, but she would not have a war here. She couldn’t even think about it. She didn’t know how to repair one of these things, but she’d find out soon enough or pay through the nose to get it done. Augustine needed her world the way she’d made it. She saw to her great relief that the VR world was beginning to fade away. She was only moments away from waking up cold and naked on the floor of her son’s empty, wretched apartment—in and of itself always a bitter rousing. But something happened … or more precisely didn’t happen.

Instead of waking up in the usual place she found herself strapped into a combat transport filled with UHF marines. The transport was shaking violently and the marines were terrified. Many of them had not belted in properly and were being flung about the compartment being battered senseless and bloody by the ferocity of the shaking.

Augustine saw that she was in a simple environment coverall, barely suited for a five-minute space walk, but somehow the flinging bodies kept on missing her. Everyone seemed to be crying out in fear and panic. All except for a soldier who kept staring at Augustine, seemingly not surprised she was there. He had a strange, almost malevolent look and was oblivious to the terror going on around him. In fact, Augustine would say he appeared to be enjoying it. She was
wondering if he was some kind of inbuilt program fail-safe when suddenly she recognized the shrill voice of the woman screaming next to her.

“Emily, Emily!” cried Augustine, shocked. Her daughter was scared stiff. This wasn’t the confident, precocious child Augustine had always known. She was clearly in far over her head. Emily’s eyes were red from crying and her voice was raw. She had a crew cut, but she was covered in sweat and smelled of fear and even, thought Augustine, vomit. It took a moment for Emily to recognize her own mother.

“Mommy,” shrieked Emily, “I don’t want to be here!” The ship shook again, this time even more violently. “Mommy,” Emily managed to yell through her tears, “what’s happening out there? I can’t look.”

Augustine saw a tactical on-up display that could be toggled on. She did so and saw abject hell. The ship she was in was part of an armada of hundreds, even thousands, and they all seemed to be heading toward an elongated asteroid not all that far ahead.
Oh Damsah
, Augustine realized,
it’s Anderson’s Farm.
She saw many of the ships around hers exploding and realized her daughter’s transport was flying straight through a minefield and was being pummeled by the remains of other ships, none of which had even gotten close. The ship’s external visual let Augustine see that it was not only the remains of ships they were smashing through to get to the enemy-held asteroid. Thousands of lifeless bodies and limbs floated freely around them as well. But they were still managing to push ahead when the orbital guns of Anderson’s Farm opened fire. The effect on another assault transport a mere hundred yards in front of theirs was impossibly worse than what she’d already seen. A blinding white flash of light struck the transport head-on, tore right through the back, and kept on going. It looked as if the blast had pulled the ship inside out like some metallic sock taken off too quickly, but it was a sock made of metal, plastic, flesh, bone, and blood.

Augustine couldn’t watch anymore. She snapped off the display.

“Mommy,” Emily sobbed, “I don’t want majority anymore; I just want to go home. Can’t we go home? Please, I’ll never complain about being a penny again.”

“I’ll try to get you out of here, baby,” said Augustine. “Mommy’s here, baby … Mommy’s here.”

Emily grabbed her mother’s arm. “Mom, we don’t know what we’re doing. They were supposed to give us six months of training; we only got two! None of us know what we’re doing … don’t even know how to strap in … aren’t over space sickness.” Almost on cue a man near her started puking and this caused other people, including Augustine, to puke as well. It was obvious that the others had gone through the motions often, as almost nothing came out. She could see that many of the marines were so useless that they wouldn’t be able to move even if the ship had managed to land somewhere. Augustine felt the transport
fire off a grappling line from below the deck. The transport had locked onto the spinning asteroid and was now pulling herself toward the surface. As she slowly made her way down, she took multiple hits from defensive fire below and with each hit was made to swing wildly on her tether. After a few minutes the transport hit the ground, shuddering with a massive thud.