User:Robotech Master/Meetings Completing original
 | FreeRIDErs story universe |
Integration
by Jon Buck, Robotech_Master and Jetfire
Part 19: Meetings Completing
June 18, 123 AL
Anny scrutinized every step of Kaylee's latest refit. Since her commissioning two years ago the RIDE's chassis had had loadouts changed once or twice per month, befitting her semi-prototype status. New gear would be tested with the three remaining 001-series before wider deployment to the 002-series on up, who up until just a month ago had been in active combat.
This refit was different than all the others. The RIDEtechs installed two dozen hardlight projectors just inside Kaylee's exterior plating, and Major Annette Hewer wanted to ensure there were no errors. Two years in and she knew at least as much as the techs did, if not more from hours of Fuse and a lot of field maintenance.
The big question: how would Kaylee react? They hadn't told Anny they were doing this until the briefing just a few minutes ago. Her CO, Lt. Col. Phil Conyers had been apologetic, but insisted it was necessary for the upcoming mission.
They were going to put Fritz away for good this time.
With the end of the War with Sturmhaven had come elections. The old Congress was out, after being duly thanked for winning the war. The new Chief Executive and her Cabinet were far less tolerant of Fritz and his deadly patriot games. They wanted the strange integration of RIDE and man captured or killed—preferably the former, so he could be tried in a military court for treason.
It was being pitched as the last major military operation of the war—a sort of coda, tying up loose ends. Anny had to admit she was rather looking forward to what was planned for afterward. As the need to stay on a war footing was winding down, many RIDEs and their operators would be given the opportunity to transfer to other branches of government service—the Polizia, or even the Materiel Recovery Service—where they would serve as training cadres to help bring those departments up to speed on using the new RIDE technology. Anny supposed that coming face to face with a snarling metallic cat would give any smuggler or tax-evader pause. (Or at least paws.)
The big question on everyone's mind was how fast RIDEs would spread to the general populace. The RI bakeries were full and the military had depots bursting with unused “spare” DE shells—the existing ones having proved substantially more durable than expected. The new Government was more than a little uncomfortable with the legal status of RIDEs in general. They couldn't simply be allowed to run free—but with the manufacturing techniques already in the hands of every other major and most minor polities, it was more a question of who would be first to market rather than there not being a market at all.
“What the hell is that, Scooter?” Major Hewer asked the young tech, pointing at a ten-centimeter wide disc that looked like pure qubitite.
“This'll make you invisible to Fritz's sensors for a few minutes, or so we think,” Lt. Scooter Pearson said. The man sported red panda tags, and the long, striped, fluffy tail looked a little unwieldy. “Kaylee'll have the specs when she boots up, Major. Your entire detachment will have them.”
“Well, get that thang installed and button 'er up already,” Anny said. “I want ta break it to 'er myself. Doubt she'll like havin' fur when we're Fused after what happened ta Fritz.”
Unfortunately that was largely the point of this operation. Lure Fritz out into the open with the promise of maybe a female of his kind. After what he and Kaylee had done during their time “feral” in the Q-mainframe, she was the natural choice instead of Kandace or any of the later 002-series Ris.
“Okay, she's ready,” Scooter said, replacing the last armor plate on the mecha lynx's back. “I want to run the hardlight pelt through a pre-boot calibration cycle first. It's gonna look a little weird, but this is only the second time we've done this—or maybe the third? I think Rattigan's got a pelt.”
“Do it. Oughta be interestin',” Anny said. “Start with her head.”
She was long used to Kaylee's near-expressionless metallic face. Not even her “tufted” (actually, small antennae) ears were mobile. A barely-audible hum came from the RIDE, though her optics remained out. A multicolored mist appeared over Kaylee's face, then it was a real—if enlarged—head of a tawny lynx, eyes closed in slumber.
Panel by panel, the rest of the RIDE's emitters came online, slowly covering the animal mecha in a tawny pelt that was visually indistinguishable from an animal's. Even so, even after Anny's frequent interactions with Kaylee in VR space, seeing her “in the flesh” was astonishing.
“Still needs some fine-tuning, but I think we've got it, Major,” Scooter said. “Want I should reboot her?” At Hewer's nod, he pushed a few physical switches on the panel next to him.
The first sound out of Kaylee was a thunderous purring, making everyone else in the 001 refit shop pause in their work. She yawned, showing a realistic tongue and mouth, and stretched as much as she could in the cradle.
“Kaylee, dear, time ta git up!” Anny said cheerfully.
“Lordy Lord Lordy!” Kaylee purred. “Just another hour please, Anny. Just kick up the time compression…”
“This ain't VR, honey,” Major Hewer said gently.
The RIDE's hardlight eyes snapped open. “What? You…damn it! I just read the briefing! With all due respect, Anny, Conyers and Vinnie can suck my stubby tail for this asinine idea! What, do they think Fritz is Pepe le Pew and I'm some damn housecat they can paint stripes on to fool him? He's an idiot, I'll give them that, but he's not a moron.”
“I'd mostly agree with ya, but orders is orders,” Anny sighed. “And they got reasons they're not tellin' me for thinkin' he'd find ya tempting.”
“I'll just bet they do,” Kaylee said darkly. She had never quite gotten around to broaching the subject with Anny of her mating by Fritz and subsequent virtual pregnancy. It felt too personal to share just yet. Maybe in a few more months.
“Anyway, how ya feel?” Anny asked, trying to keep the concern out of her voice. “No odd notions 'bout getting skinned if they should wanna turn it off again?”
Kaylee snorted. “Hardly. If they wanted to turn it off right now…” She demonstrated by shutting it down for a few seconds, then turned it back on. “Huh. Well, okay, I gotta admit it does feel kinda nice to have on. Like the difference 'tween having clothes on an' walkin' around stark nekkid in public.” It was actually considerably more profound than that—the difference between being a wind-up toy and being real—but Kaylee was uncomfortably aware that saying so wouldn't exactly soothe Anny's fears. “But I'm not about to go Looney Toons if they want to take it away.”
She would be disappointed, though, she realized. But there wasn't anything she could do about it, so she resolved to enjoy the hardlight pelt as long as it lasted. And who knew, maybe if there were no further problems with it with her, they might let her keep it after the operation. If not, well, there was always later on after she and Anny mustered out together…
“Good ta hear,” Anny said. “So whadaya say we go road-test your new upgrades, pard?”
Kaylee purred again. “Sounds like a plan. Let's roll out and form up the rest of the squad.”
“See y’all later, ma'ams!” Scooter said cheerfully, wiping his hands on a grease rag. “Good luck.”
The 41st Detached Company was a new unit, formed just after the end of hostilities. It was an odd command as the Nextus military went, a regular army unit composed of soldiers who didn't quite fit in other commands but had a well-deserved reputation for getting the job done via unconventional means.
They were officially named the Loose Cannons.
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“Oh, yes. Them,” Leah said, the venom in the white unicorn's voice clear as day. “Of course they'd be involved in this. Hunting down 'renegade' Integrates is the whole reason they exist. I believe they were the ones who tried to capture Brena Silverston.”
“They did so at the behest of the young woman's parents. However, the Loose Cannons have been brought to heel,” Olav Roberts said.
“Is it too much to ask they play dead instead?” Aaron hissed sharply. “Their crimes have only recently come to light, thanks to the Marshals. Sixty feral Integrates hunted down and killed in the past decade, twice that many imprisoned, experimented on. What the hell were you thinking?”
“These decisions are above my pay grade,” Roberts said. “Look, I know you want to think of Nextus as the villain here. Our Frankenstein experiments unleashed Fritz upon the world, and our subsequent paranoia destroyed people’s lives. I get that.”
He pushed back his seat and got up, pacing the length of the table as he talked. “Unfortunately, I don’t have the brief to apologize for it on behalf of Nextus, officially. That takes, well, an Executive Act. All I can say is, these decisions were made by people. Fallible people spurred by Fritz's heinous crimes. People who were worried about their home, their families. People who didn’t have all the facts at the time.” His walk took him back to his own seat, and he placed his palms down on the table and leaned forward against it. “People who, maybe, regret it afterward and want to make it right.
“Remember, we only had Fritz himself to go on. We didn't know if he was a singular being, or there'd end up more like him. Regardless, he gave us ample reason to fear him. We had to act to protect ourselves. You can't deny you would not have done the same.” He nodded respectfully at the Integrates at the table.
“As a gesture of good faith, we're divulging the research we've done over the years on Integration and Integrates in general,” Dr. Clemens said. “You can find the relevant files on NextusLeaks as of now.”
Leah's eyes fogged over for ten seconds or so. Some of her anger faded. “Reviewed, verified, and compared against what we've done. You are no farther ahead than we. For the same reasons, perhaps?”
“We've long known that Fritz was watching us, and secrets are hard to keep from him. The Cannons could not have done what they did without his consent,” Roberts said. “Their purpose became to maintain the status quo. The Cannons sometimes actively assisted Fritz to silence any Integrate who wanted to go public.”
“To our shame,” Anny snarled.
“What of the Integrates that attacked the Waltons' home?” Leah asked. “They're guilty of crimes, no doubt, but we've heard nothing since their capture.”
“You'll have full access to them immediately. They have not been mistreated,” Roberts said. “Now, shall we continue the replay?”
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Escape and capture was all a game to Fritz. He was necessarily at the center of intelligence gathering, hacking Sturmhaven systems in the field with relative ease, so much so they were reduced to non-networked message drones to carry their communications in some situations. Their alternative was to spam so much misinformation even Fritz had trouble sorting through it—or so he said. Command only gave him access to his Data Interface Normalizer when absolutely necessary.
“This time, y'all, we're gonna make him come to us,” Major Hewer said to her detachment. “Kaylee and I are the bait. Officially we're experimenting with hardlight pelts for a wider rollout.”
“Major, that's screwed up,” Lieutenant Bruges said. The Cannons were loose when it came to rank. “You just gonna saunter around all sexy-like around the park?”
Hewer snorted. “Hardly. This ain’t some damn cartoon. But we’re doin’ the next best thing. We’ve leaked the word where Fritz can hear it ‘bout a shared op with Materiel Recovery. We’re supposedly helpin’ ‘em track down some smugglers sneakin’ in through the Dry.”
“So you’re thinkin’ he’ll show up to try to look all heroic for his lady fair, roundin’ up the nasty ol’ smugglers?” Captain Chang asked.
“I ain’t his lady, fair or otherwise,” Kaylee snarled. “But yeah, that’s ‘bout the size of it. An’ since half of us are gonna be playin’ the smugglers, we’re hopin’ we can take him by surprise when he shows up an’ we both turn our attention on him.”
“What'll really piss him off ,” Major Hewer added, “is that the parts these guys are supposedly smuggling came from Dry Ocean battlefields. He's a patriot—he can't stand that kind of desecration. He won't be able to resist. Now, that puts y'all playing the smugglers in a pickle.”
“Goddamned arm cannon of his is really the only thing that can still hurt us,” Chang said. “We've got some heavy shields that can put up a fight. The real trick will be that new Q-scram weapon out of R&D. He's sure to pay attention to that.”
“Sucks to be him,” Bruges snarked, his bull elk RIDE turning his metal ears back. “Kill the bastard. Motherfucker killed half my platoon because he just sat on his furry ass and didn't give us the intel we needed!”
“He's got a lot to answer for, no bones about it,” Kaylee said. Eight kittens, eight of them that nobody quite knew what to do with. Dr. Patil kept the RI parents apprised of what was going on—the kittens and all the other Ris’ “natural-born” young were due to be transferred from the frozen Q-based mainframe into standard RI cores. Whether any of them would ever learn how they were born was a matter of intense discussion among First Tier Administrators and Dr. Patil herself.
“Then let's get it done, Major,” Chang said.
“Alright. Briefing over,” Hewer said to the thirty soldiers and their RIDEs in the room. “Gear up, finish prepping. We deploy in three hours.”
In order to play their roles, those Loose Cannons playing the smugglers had their RIDE tags docked and some bio-sculpting done on their faces. How long these measures would fool Fritz was anyone's guess. It was entirely possible that he already knew the operation was a fake and he would show up anyway. It had happened a couple times before. :He's always gotta be the hero, Anny,: Kaylee gently reminded her rider. :Even if he goes about it in the worst way.:
:Yeah. Sometimes I don’t think he cares if it even looks real, long’s he can have fun pretendin’.: Hewer replied. :What the hell got into him, anywho? I know plenty a’ RIDEs with their little quirks, but I never heard of one damn other who was out an’ out psychotic that way, you? An’ we’d be in a sitch to know, if anyone. Leastways iffen it happened on our side a’ the war.:
The ambush of the “smugglers” was to take place far enough outside of the city proper that, should anything go spectacularly wrong, collateral damage would be minimized. “The old 'Abandoned Warehouse' cliché,” skunk-striped Captain Chang grumbled. His RIDE, like all the others, hadn't taken his attention off of Kaylee since they'd revealed the new pelt.
It was actually worse than that, Hewer reflected. For all the years she’d lived here, some of the weird turns Nextus’s government took still surprised her. It wasn’t bad enough that they had their own official leaks site, an oxymoron if she’d ever seen one—Nextus also had an “official smugglers’ entrance,” and this warehouse was right on top of it. Apparently the thinking went that it was easier to crack down on the major excesses when you were inclined to wink and nod at the minor ones.
By tacking on stiff additional penalties to any smuggling that went on outside this channel, the Nextus government ensured that only the stuff that was a hanging offense already would go that way. Things like luxury goods or borderline-illegal substances—chocolate from Sturmhaven, weed from Califia—came this way.
The Nextus government would intercept some of it, which it could then either tax or seize and resell itself—but was careful to allow enough through to keep it worth the smugglers’ while to keep using it instead of trying to find some way around. The irony was that it only earned Nextus a little less and smugglers a little more than trading legitimately—but it gave all those people who got a wicked little thrill from buying or supplying black-market goods a way to get their jollies relatively harmlessly.
It also made it easier to pick out the signal—the genuinely nasty stuff, like harmful narcotics—from the noise when all the noise had its own “easy” road into the city. So in some ways this little bureaucratic foible made sense. But it was also one of the things that made Hewer privately dubious about the operation, because the RIDE parts that were ostensibly being smuggled in were one of those things that more commonly eschewed the “easy” route. Would it make Fritz suspicious?
:Ya might’s well stop worryin’ ‘bout it, Anny,: Kaylee said. :Really doesn’t make a difference in the end. As you said, he won’t give a damn if it’s real or not. He’ll show up either way. Might even be more like t’ show if he thinks it is a trap.:
:Yeah, I know,: Hewer sent back. :But you know me. I’m not happy ‘less I’m worryin’ ‘bout somethin’. Worryin’ ‘bout the little things keeps my mind offen worryin’ ‘bout the big things.:
:Fair ‘nuff.:
It was all so damned…half-assed, Hewer thought more privately. But she supposed it fit. When you got right down to it, the whole war had begun in a desultory half-assed kind of way. It made sense it would finish up that way, too.
She still wondered, when she thought about it—which was more often now that she wasn’t out on the battlefield all the time—just what the hell people had been thinking, going to war over some Sturmhaven Steader idiot getting his ego bruised that he couldn’t take his sarium batteries offworld with him. It seemed funny that Sturmhaven would go to war over something that happened to a man, but the polity hadn't been nearly so militant about their misandrist ideology at the time. And maybe they’d just been looking for even a flimsy excuse to begin with.
As far as she knew, said idiot was still somewhere off in deep space on his grand tour of the Colonies and might not have any idea even now that he’d precipitated a war. She privately suspected his homecoming might be a bit…prickly. She had tagged his name in her news search bots just to make sure she didn’t miss it when it happened.
But if she was honest, the idiot had just had the misfortune to set off the tripwire on tensions that had been building between both sides for years. Nobody had wanted a war, expected a war, or really been prepared for a war—it had just sort of happened. The continent was big enough that there was lots of room for everyone to live, even two polities as “close together” as Nextus and Sturmhaven. After all, they only looked close on a map, and that was only when you were used to thinking of “the world” as Earth-sized. They were really thousands of kilometers apart—as far apart as Mexico City and New Boston back on Earth. There was no question of war over “living room.”
But that had been before qubitite had gone from nuisance to miracle mineral. Suddenly both polities were claiming all the Q-rich territory they could on all sides—including between them, completely ignoring small-fry Nuevo San Antonio in the middle. As their claimed borders bumped up against each other, a few incidents that resulted in fatalities to either side ratcheted up tensions quickly. And then it was “si vis pacem, para bellum” time.
It had actually been kind of embarrassing how unprepared for war both sides really had been. The first couple of years of hostilities had been amateurish on both sides, like watching a drunken brawl when you were expecting a professional boxing fight. The militaries of both polities had originally been pro forma citizens’ militias, meant originally for keeping the peace in the wide open spaces outside the city. With the sudden strategic importance of Q, their mission had been expanded to include preventing claim-jumping, but neither side had been quite sure how to handle an entire polity deciding to jump a claim.
When it came time to get professional, Nextus had the advantage. Its placid and generally unimaginative nature had strongly appealed to combat veterans of the dozens of brushfire wars on Earth or its closer colonies. When they had sought somewhere quiet to retire, an orderly little community on a distant, peaceful colony that didn’t have anything anybody wanted to fight over must have sounded like just what the doctor ordered. In some cases soldiers from opposing sides ended up living right next door to each other. This had provided a core of veteran personnel who could be conscripted to form training cadres to get Nextus’s personnel up to snuff, and to provide experienced voices of command.
Sturmhaven, on the other hand, didn’t share quite the same appeal to military retirees. The armed forces of most other worlds had been fully egalitarian for centuries, and the tight camaraderie their members developed across gender lines meant that both male and female veterans were likely to look askance at a polity that placed such a strong emphasis on the primacy of one gender over the other. (Hewer understood that Cape Nord had much the same problem, which might have been a problem for them if they actually had anything someone else wanted to fight them for.)
With relatively few veterans to call on, Sturmhaven had to hire mercenaries to train and fight for them—and since there just weren’t many all-female mercenary companies in the galaxy, the polity’s civilians and government inevitably had friction with the personnel they hired—another factor in the Sturmies’ slow start. Hewer sometimes wondered whether the war might have been ended sooner if Nextus had just been a little less cautious about prosecuting it in the early years when Sturmhaven was still having trouble. But hindsight, twenty-twenty, et cetera.
But regardless of personnel, neither side had exactly been the best equipped when it came to fighting out in the Dry where mechanical equipment failed with uncanny alacrity. The problem was that the places with the richest mineral deposits were the very worst to fight in for that very reason. It had been estimated that as many as a third of early deaths on both sides had been caused by malfunctioning equipment rather than enemy fire.
But then had come Dr. Patil’s breakthrough, on top of the other technological accomplishments of the last few years. Sarium batteries, hardlight from Wednesday, and finally RI cores had come together to create the first mechanical units that were completely immune to Q contamination and effectively doubled available manpower. So we could start killing each other directly instead of having our own equipment do it to us, Hewer thought wryly.
And had they ever. Since RIDEs didn’t come in sizes larger than light tanks, this had effectively turned the fight into a largely-infantry war on both sides, like World War I on Earth. There had been no equivalent to mustard gas, thank God—environmentally-sealed suits made that a non-issue—and modern medical nanotech had allowed soldiers to survive wounds that would have killed them just a couple of decades before. But there were still limits.
By the time Sturmhaven realized it could no longer support the mounting casualty count and sued for peace, as many as a quarter million soldiers had died. And neither side really had much to show for it in the end except for bitter experience.
Well, that and these new “miracle machines” that should have as many applications in peace as they did in war, Hewer thought wryly, glancing down at the fur that that covered her and Kaylee’s shared body. They had already revolutionized Q mining as both sides had realized they could build them faster if their human miners were no longer unprotected as well. Now they were entering the civilian market for the first time, and God only knew where that was going to lead.
But another “miracle” had come out of the war in the form of Fritz, and that was what they were here today to contain. Fritz’s merging and advanced abilities had deeply troubled the Nextus brass. Hewer was too far down the ranks to hear everything, but Conyers had confided in her that there had been a lot of argument over whether to attempt to create more “Integrated soldiers” intentionally, using volunteer RIDEs and pilots who were known to be more psychologically stable than Fritz and Captain Ryder. Thankfully, the end of the war had forestalled the debate, but who knew what might have happened if it had gone on? The more desperate the situation, the more desirable the end and the more justifiable the means would become.
And reading between the lines, Hewer was pretty sure that was a big part of the reason they were out here now—to show that they didn’t need more “Integrated” to deal with Fritz. If they could put him down without a problem, then he became less a desirable technological advance than a simple curiosity that could be easily dealt with—and those arguing for additional experiments would lose further ground. Hewer couldn’t exactly say that would disappoint her.
Kaylee broke into her thoughts again. :Look alive—jus’ got the signal. Our “smugglers” are in the tunnel. ETA ten minutes.:
Hewer nodded. :Understood.: She glanced around the warehouse, double-checking that all her soldiers were in position. They were arranged in what looked at first glance like an ambush of the hatch in the floor through which smugglers would emerge. But it would serve equally well in directing unobstructed fire at anyone who entered through the warehouse entrance or skylight—with those who entered through the hatch positioned to provide fire support.
All was in readiness. All it would take would be for Fritz to show up. The problem was, they couldn’t be sure exactly when that would—
“So, what’re we waiting for?” Fritz’s voice purred smugly from right behind Hewer and Kaylee’s left ear. “Smugglers, is it? You needn’t worry about them, dollface. They’re not going to get away.” He paused just long enough for Hewer to feel his smirk radiating like heat from a furnace. “By the way, that’s a very nice new look for you. You should thank me.”
Hewer didn’t quite jump out of her skin, but that was only because Kaylee overrode her reflexes. “Thank you for what exactly?” Kaylee growled.
“Why, because they’d never have given it to you if they didn’t think it would lure me into your square little trap,” Fritz purred from behind Kaylee’s right ear. “Silly of those cubes, really.”
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Kaylee said.
Fritz laughed. “It’s gilding the lily. You know I’d have come anyway. And you can tell your murgatroid friends to stop creeping up. I'm wise to 'em.”
“Are you going to come with us all quiet-like?” Hewer said irritably. “Or do we have to get rough again? The War's over, Captain.”
“Says you, Major Hayseed. I've got enough dirt in my memory banks to blow the War wide-open again. The Sturmies have been up to some interesting things, and the Nextus squares on the outs were no prize, either.” Fritz's right arm started to glow. “So, let's just forget all the talk and go straight to the violence. Come on, Kaylee, I need a hostage.”
Kaylee rolled her eyes. “The hard way, then. Catch me if you can, beatnik.” She shut down her hardlight and all external inputs, then powered up the Q-disc. The shock and dismay on Fritz's face was priceless, he actually reached out in front of him into the space Kaylee had occupied. :It works!:
The Loose Cannons had been put together from soldiers known for their ability to think on their feet and improvise—even if it meant doing something very risky. They were already dropping into “silent running” themselves, falling off Fritz’s sensors as they surrounded him. Fritz snapped his head around, staring left and right in shock.
It didn’t last, however. For all that they were invisible to his sensors, he still knew where they had been and could guess about where they were now. He snapped up his arm and fired a blast from his palm that slammed into Captain Chang and his RIDE and threw them back into the warehouse wall. His other blasts weren’t quite as accurate, but they did send the other Loose Cannons diving for cover.
“This is so not cool!” Fritz growled. “Right! It’s splitsville for this hep cat!” A loud rumbling shook the warehouse, and the smugglers’ hatch flew open as a ball of fire and smoke belched out of it. As the explosion lit the warehouse interior flickering orange, Fritz shot straight up for the skylight.
:Bruges, NOW!: Hewer commed. Lt. Bruges raised the Q-scram rifle and fired. The blast almost missed, but caught Fritz’s left arm. Nonetheless, the result was all Hewer could have hoped for—Fritz screamed in agony and fell out of the air, landing on the warehouse’s cement floor with a thump.
“Ow, shit! Shit, shit, shit!” Fritz yowled, lying on his back and clutching his arm. It was actually steaming, and now looked noticeably smaller than his other one. “You fucking crazy bitches, what the hell did you do to me?!”
“Looks like we clipped your wing,” Hewer said. “You shoulda come quiet-like when you had the chance.” She held out her hand to Bruges, who passed the rifle over. She trained it on Fritz. “Interesting effect. Your arm's so much Swiss cheese. I wonder what a torso hit would do. Think we should mebbe find out?”
Fritz stared up at her, eyes wide. “You wouldn’t. You can’t—you got orders about me!”
“Yeah? And how many orders you didn’t like have you ever followed?” Hewer asked, her finger tightening on the trigger. “Looks like you were ‘shot while escaping’ to me.”
“Kaylee? Kaylee, you can’t let her do this!” Fritz pleaded.
“Yeah? What reason have you ever given me for not being the one to pull the trigger myself?” Kaylee growled.
“But—but I love you, babe!” Fritz protested. “And what about our k—”
Kaylee aimed the rifle a meter to the left of Fritz’s head and fired. The blast pitted the pavement, coating Fritz’s right cheek with concrete dust. “Don’t you ever mention that! You don’t get to mention that. You made me into an animal, for a year, and then you…you just don’t.”
“You didn’t seem to mind so much at the ti—” Fritz swallowed and cut off as Kaylee swung the muzzle back to his face, then seemed to regain a little of his composure. “Look, really—ix-nay on the ooting-shay. Trust me, you wouldn’t like what happened next.”
“And what’s that suppos’ta mean?” Hewer said, her growl matching Kaylee’s for tone.
Fritz smiled shakily. “It’s like I said. I've got enough dirt in my memory banks to blow the War wide-open again. And yeah, it’s a cliché, but if I don’t check in on time, it leaks to everyone.”
“If you ain't got proof, then yer all talk,” Hewer said.
“Okay, then. Here's a taste, just for you,” Fritz said. “But you've gotta let me transmit to you.”
“Do I look like I was booted yesterday?” Kaylee snorted.
“Okay, then. Guess I'll havta get nasty about it. You should be getting something from Conyers about…now.” Fritz looked up.
Conyers and Vinnie were already overhead. “Stand down, Major! We got trouble. Administration wants to negotiate.”
Hewer felt an icy chill go down her spine. In years to come, she would have time to regret over and over again that she didn’t obey that chill and pull the trigger right then. It might have been a shallow regret, since it was pretty clear in retrospect Fritz had been telling the truth, and if so it might have led to the resumption of hostilities—not to mention the end of her own career and freedom. But then, looking back, it had ended her career and freedom anyway, hadn’t it? There was no getting around it—this was the pivotal moment when there hadn’t been a right choice to make. And Scylla was no more appealing than Charybdis.
But she’d been trained to follow orders. So she lowered the gun and nodded, not sure she could trust herself to speak.
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“On the face of it, the agreement was very simple,” former Secretary Conyers said. “We left one another alone, to mutual benefit. He knew we could track and kill him, we knew what he could spill would cost us dearly in lives and property. The needs of the many and all. We were sick of war, we hated ourselves for what we'd done.”
The Sturmhaven contingent glowered at their Nextus counterparts. “How…noble of you. One wonders what Fritz wanted to make public? What would we think of it, now?”
“To be honest, it's largely come out by now anyway in dribbles and snippets over the years,” Conyers said. “And while there were a few minor controversies and scandals about some of it, nobody thought it was worth a new war by then. Time heals all wounds.” He shrugged. “But by the time Fritz’s infodump lost its threat, other Integrates had appeared in the world, and Fritz had consolidated his power base among them to the extent that taking him out might have meant another full-scale war, with less easily-defined adversaries.” He smiled wryly. “And the passage of all that time had made him seem less important, too.”
“The new guv'ment was skittish and stupid,” Anny said. “They decided my Kaylee was a danger 'cause she was so closely associated with Fritz, I'm guessin' because of the kittens and all she did to keep Fritz on his toes for two years. They wanted to scrap her.”
“I couldn't let that happen,” Conyers said. “So, I sent her to purgatory. Excised memories, sent her to the Parts Shed. I know how the Nextus bureaucracy works. I bet everything on her remains getting surplused out at some future date. She at least had a chance at renewed life.”
He looked down at the table for a long moment. “I tried to keep an eye on things, to see when she finally went on the market—I’d wanted to buy her myself, maybe see about getting her back with Anny again. But I couldn’t watch as closely as I wanted without drawing suspicions, even then. So I missed it when it happened, and, well…it seemed like she’d found a good home, afterward, so I figured it might be best just to let bygones be bygones.
“Then Vinnie and I Integrated…and Fritz took a renewed interest in me. But that's another story.”
“All that hopin' don't mean you're forgiven, bunny rabbit,” Kaylee said. She de-Fused from Anny and padded over. “Getting Ryan—I mean, Rhianna—to restore me was a lucky break. We still got a score to settle.”
Rhianna walked over to stand next to her partner. “Later, Kaylee. After we've dealt with Fritz once and for all.”
“Kaylee, you got every right to be pissed off at what happened to you,” Anny said. “To us. Lord knows I’ve been. And while you were asleep most a’ that time, I had to take the long way around. You know how long it took me to get over it, you saw it just now when we Fused.” She shook her head. “But somewhere ‘tween decades two an’ three, I figured out I was—an’ you are—blaming the wrong person. You might just’s well blame me for not killin’ Fritz when I had the chance.” She shook her head. “Only one person needs to get the blame for this, an’ that’s the asshole who caused it. Thanks to Fritz, there weren’t no good choices for none of us to make.”
The lynx mecha growled in the back of her vocoder. “I suppose I'll get over it. I only just got all my memories back and defragged. Feels all too recent to me.”
AlphaWolf's mouth hung open in abject horror. “Necessary or not, and I know about having to make difficult decisions, that's one of the most horrible things to happen to a RIDE I've ever heard, Kaylee.”
“I'm sorry to say that I doubt Administration will ever compensate you, Miss Kaylee,” Olav Roberts said. “Too much internal politicking. That's just the way bureaucracies are sometimes.” He looked around the room at the gathered representatives, human, Integrate, and RIDE.
“The question now is, since you now all know how events unfolded, how should we collectively deal with this crisis?
“We should make sure we do deal with it collectively, for one thing,” Leah said. “All too often, poor communication kills.”
“He's a threat to everyone,” AlphaWolf agreed.
“And Fritz isn’t the only crisis we have, either,” Aaron said. “Just the most immediate one. The other one is, hey, look at us. We’re Integrates, we live in communities out in the Dry, and for good or ill we’re not going to be able to hide anymore. So we’re going to want official recognition as polities for at least the larger Enclaves or close groups of smaller ones.” He looked narrowly at Conyers. “And we’re going to be very interested to hear about weapons like that Q-scram of yours. Its effects sound nasty enough that it should be banned by treaty.” Other Integrates at the table nodded their agreement.
“So noted,” Roberts said breezily. “But those things can be decided at official summits to follow this one, now that we’ve opened the door a crack. But for right now…what about Fritz?”
“Fritz now, but there will be others,” Astranikki said. The golden eagle Integrate clenched her beak. “The Cave of Wonders was founded by one of them, a white bison by the name of Appa. He's still at large. He's not the type to have gone to Rodinia. Since he was ousted from the Cave he's gotten worse than Fritz, if anything.”
The equine leader of the Cave of Wonders nodded her head. “I was there when we founded that community. Appa knew Fritz back then, got many of his ideals from him. But they've grown apart, in their own directions with their own views on how things should be,” Clarissa explained. “I think we set him back when we gave him the boot, but that is another ticking time bomb that will have to be dealt with. Eventually he's going to realize that he's never going to be able to get all the Integrates on his side again, and when that happens….”
“The Marshals have been keeping Fritz's followers busy for weeks now,” Qubitite Star Reed Mosely said. “We've done the best we can with the resources we have, but we've taken a number of casualties. Integrates are tough opponents.”
“Reed, I hate to say it, but given the nature of the thing I think the Marshals are still our best source of manpower for this,” Conyers said. “You're neutral, you've got the most experience working in the Dry, you're better equipped than most polities for this. I think the Polities themselves will best look at defense within their borders, but otherwise…” He looked at the two from the Freerider Garage. “I understand we have you and your business partners to thank for this new encryption equipment and software.”
“If Fritz hadn't hacked our sub and put us into orbit for a 'made of meat' prank it never would've happened,” Rhianna said, uncomfortable at suddenly being the center of attention. “I'm sure someone else would've invented it eventually. I'm just a RIDE mechanic. Never been to college or anything. Looks like Nextus already had something similar, anyway.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Zane said. “You think my Dad had a long list of degrees? But…” He waved a hand at the room around them, and by extension the rest of the rig beyond it. “As my Dad used to say, never underestimate the power of getting pissed off.”
“Before that, you and Rochelle reverse-engineered a technology you had never seen before in the space of a few hours,” Quinoa said. “Days later you used those first principles to make Integrate-resistant encryption. Rhianna, I saw what was in your servers when I was still in my sycophant phase. You had hundreds of high-level research papers on Ris and RIDE engineering with language that makes my head spin. You made annotations on the articles, you clearly understood them. Seemed to me you knew what they were talking about. Sometimes you commed the researchers. At least one time you sent a correction that they added to the paper.”
“It was three times,” Kaylee smirked. “I been tryin’ to tell her. What does she think a college education even is except readin’ lots of textbooks and papers? I keep telling her she ought to try testing out of the matriculation exam at MMU but she’s too shy. She's already a damned good RIDE mechanic teacher for the Uplift Junior College.”
This seemed to pique the Sturmhaven group's interest, but other than a speculative look at Rhianna, they kept their own counsel.
“Everyone will get the latest spec when it's done,” Rhianna stammered.
“See? There she goes changin’ the subject,” Kaylee said, outright grinning now. “Like I said, shy.”
“Sorry ‘bout this, Rhianna,” Anny said, matching Kaylee’s grin. “She’ll be a little less ‘me’ after your next Fuse or two. We always were a little cross-contagious that way.”
“That explains the accent, I guess,” Rhianna said.
“At any rate,” Quinoa said. “Thanks to you, and Rochelle and Uncia, RIDEs and other computers can be protected against Integrate hacking. I understand Uplift has already gotten most of its infrastructure covered.”
“We've had to work quietly on that, so we're still working furiously to get everything covered,” First Consul Vogel said. “Fritz tried to hack the Government Center shields, but couldn't do it. I think if he'd been able to devote his full attention to it the gear would've failed after a few minutes.”
“Our independent testing revealed the same thing,” Astranikki said. “No offense, Rhianna. We're throwing everything we can at them, and we've got our own variants.”
“None taken at all. Wanda can keep hammering away at it,” Rhianna said. “She and Crystal are merciless beta testers. We've been sharing research notes lately, and Shelley’s been out to meet her.”
“Well, she has the advantage of two Inties in house to help out, three when Mike's home. But even Integrates can't keep other Integrates from hacking one another,” Astranikki said. “The only way for certain is to remove your DIN. Point being, this is going to be a constant arms race. And even a partial defense is better than none, as long as we know of its weaknesses. We're busy outfitting our own infrastructure with it too, especially our elevator. Aloha isn't a primary target, but it would be a showy one. We'd rather not have it become one.”
“Well, since the four of us aren't the only ones working on this now I'm happy to spread the risk,” Rhianna said.
“You're still important,” Consul Vogel said. “So, we can't have you all without protection.”
“Protection?” Rhianna snorted despite herself. The idea of Uplift’s militia throwing a protective cordon around her garage struck her as completely ludicrous. “No offense, but I think you should concentrate on protecting all of Uplift instead. They’d have to get into Uplift to get at us, anyway, and if they do make it inside we’ll all have a lot bigger fish to fry than protecting us and our shop.”
“Details that you can discuss later,” the Sturmhaven representative said. “Not to denigrate Miss Stonegate's achievement. I understand you only invented this new technology after you crossed over?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Vogel said. “When are you people going to stop believing your own press?”
“Then a more serious subject that bears discussion.” She looked at AlphaWolf. “Your Fenris has committed an offense against our polity.”
“Oh, really?” AlphaWolf said. “The polity that was going to yank him out of his own body and stick him in a smaller one whether he wanted it or not? Can’t imagine why he’d want to do something bad to you gals. Besides, he's only a male. How bad could it be?”
“That is beside the point!” the fox-tagged woman fumed. “He—”
“Freed a fettered RIDE?” AlphaWolf asked. “Hmm. You’re right. I’ll have to have some words with him.”
The woman seemed slightly mollified. “I am glad you understand the seriousness of—”
“Yeah, I mean, why on Zharus did he stop with just the one?” AlphaWolf continued. “I’ll make sure he knows to do all of them next time.”
The banter provoked a chuckle from Consul Vogel, all of the Integrates, some of the Marshals, and most of the RIDEs in the room. The Sturmhaven representative went beet red.
AlphaWolf waggled his ears amusedly. “Seriously, lady, he commed me and told me about it right after he did it. Your Oberleutnant Fuerst was pestering him about stuff that was none of her beeswax, and he politely told her to shove off. Then she tried to active-scan him. Now maybe you do things different in civilization, but where I’m from we’ve got protocols for sniffing each other’s butts. Far’s I’m concerned, your officer got just what was coming to her, and you should be glad you got off so light. As I said, I wouldn’t have stopped with the one, but that boy’s always been too polite for his own good.”
“I'm afraid we still have a long way to go where RIDE rights are concerned, even in Uplift,” Vogel admitted. “But we've made headway.”
“A topic for another time,” Sturmhaven huffed.
Mosley banged the hardlight gavel. “I'm afraid she's right, y'all. What I would like to come out of this meeting today is arranging a formal summit.”
“Uplift suggests no longer than ten weeks,” Vogel said. “Strike while the iron's hot.”
“Aloha seconds the motion,” Astranikki said.
“Okay, votes please,” Mosley said. Less than ten seconds went by. “Motion passes. Thank you for attending this rushed meeting. If there's no further business we'll adjourn.” There were none, and Sturmhaven's group left the table regardless. Mosley watched them with a smirk on his face, then banged the gavel again. “Cut, print, that's a wrap.”
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“Never thought I'd see the inside of this office again,” Astranikki Munn trilled as she and most of the rest of her family followed Zane and Agatha Brubeck inside of Clint Brubeck's rustic office. She gestured at one of the equally-worn guest chairs. “I spent many hours sitting there chatting with your Dad. That was back when this office was in Base Camp, before this platform was even scratches on a drawing board, but it hasn’t changed a bit since then. God, that was a whole other life ago, maybe two lives.”
“You've changed since then, bro,” Janet Munn said. They had originally been male identical twins, immigrants from Earth in the early 100s. “But then, so have I.”
“More curves, anyway,” Agatha quipped. “You both look beautiful for being over seventy.”
“Hey, these days it's the new thirty. I'm close to the age your Dad was when he and Allison first had you kids, you know,” Janet Munn said, grinning with pointy feline canines. Her RIDE, a black jaguaress named Melody, padded behind her.
“Hey, yeah, that’s right. So when’re you gonna be starting your next family, then? What with the kids from the last one being mostly grown and all, pretty soon you’re gonna have an empty nest.” Zane glanced over at Astranikki. “So to speak.”
Janet shook her rather feline head, “No more. When Sam realized our youngest was the same age as Wanda's Nikki, we decided it was time to pass the torch.”
Having Melody around reminded Zane of Carrie-Anne. Dr. Sam Munn, sitting with Janet, saw his glance and must have guessed what he was thinking. “Don't worry, Zane, she'll get there. If she wasn't out of the woods by now, I'd never have left her.”
Zane nodded grimly. “That bastard has a lot to answer for,” he said. “Kenyon and Quinoa should be up here soon. Is there anything you think we ought to discuss just between us?”
“Well, first I'd like your medical diagnostic data,” Dr. Munn said. He paused as Zane sent it. “Good…error rates from your formerly severed limbs are decreasing faster than expected. I don't think you'll need that cane longer than a few more days.”
“I think I’ll hold onto it, though,” Zane said. “It makes me look distinguished.” He grinned. “And goodness knows I need all the help I can get for that.”
Agatha looked distant for a moment as something came up in her 'specs. “Zane, AlphaWolf would like a word.”
“Sure, send him in,” Zane said. He glanced at the Munns. “If no one here minds, anyway.”
Janet shook her head, “Not at all. I wanted to have a word to him at some point.”
A moment later the sandy-colored wolf padded in. “Hello, Zane, just wanted to—oh.” He stopped as he realized how many other people were in the office. “Didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“It’s okay, we’re all friends here,” Zane said. “And what with the stuff going on ‘tween you and me and the Waltons and Steaders already, you probably ought to meet the Munns anyway. Gondwanan industrial magnates, collect the whole set.”
Sam nodded to the RIDE. “He's already collected one. Not sure if he wants the whole set.”
“Munns, huh.” AlphaWolf’s ears laid back slightly. “Yeah, I met one. Wasn’t exactly a red-letter day.”
“We heard. He's our eldest. After dropping off his charge, he came home to unwind a bit. I know it may not mean much to you, but we did give him a good chewing out. Not that he wasn't kicking himself in the first place,” Janet said. “He's put himself on leave from the Marshals for a while. Decided he's been in the desert too long and he needed to re-find himself.”
“Well, good, I guess,” AlphaWolf said. “I don’t normally have anything against hotheads, but when they endanger the lives I’m trying to protect, well.”
Astranikki nodded, “Something all of us understand well. Still, we do owe you some reparations. We've got our own paws in pretty much everything that happens in southwestern Gondwana.” She paused a moment, looking closely at Alpha. “I just sent you a location. A cargo lifter will have mechanical difficulties there in a couple of days and need to be abandoned. It should have what you need to properly improve your shields.
“Hmm,” AlphaWolf said. “You sure you want to be seen giving aid to ‘the big bad wolf’?”
Janet smiled, “We owe you that much, for reparations. Besides, we're Alohan. We make deals with anyone who has money. There'll be something else in there, something for you to consider going forward as well. But this is neither the time or place to discuss it. When you get it, think it over, talk it over with the others in your camp. No obligations.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” AlphaWolf said. He turned back to Zane. “Anyway, I was just coming by to say goodbye before I meet Fenris and the others for the trip back to the camp. And thanks for hosting.”
“You're welcome. Take care,” Zane said.
“I will,” AlphaWolf said. He nodded at the Munns, then made his exit.
“I don't think I heard him say 'so sayeth me' once since he's been here, Zane,” Agatha observed.
“That's a Steader Entertainment thing,” Quinoa said as she floated through the door. “Uncle Joe's idea. AW only does it in real life when he’s feeling especially bombastic. I think he finds having a catchphrase invented for him, especially such a lame one, hilarious.” She smiled bemusedly. “Kenyon will be another minute. He and AW wanted to say their own farewells.”
Zane nodded. “I can get that. Must not be easy, finding the perfect match who’s wrong for you for all the other reasons.” Some of the Munns nodded knowingly, Astranikki most of all.
“At any rate, I'm here officially representing the Steader family and our business ventures. The Entertainment arm's the biggest, but we've got our finger in just about everything,” Quinoa said.
“When you aren't giving our companies the finger,” Janet smirked.
“We keep each other on our toes,” Quinoa replied, sharing the smirk.
Kenyon Walton, Nigella, and Melissa entered the office, making it a tight enough fit for the mink RIDE to Fuse up with her partner. Kenyon took a deep breath. “Yeah. I've got a little wolfy nose now, too. Still smells like Clint's blend of tobacco in here.”
Sam shook her head, “Probably not after we leave though. Fitting in a way, a new beginning, a new phase of Gondwanan life, of Zharus life really.”
“Speaking of odors and new beginnings,” Zane said, nodding at the Munns. “This is going to smell like collusion to the media, but I think it'll work out better if we work together. We have to work with Inties to bring them into the mainstream.”
“PR will be the biggest thing right now. You realize that three of the four main families here all have Inties leading or in positions of power?” Astranikki pointed out.
“And the way our daughter is going, it may not be long until it’s four for four,” Nigella Walton said. “I need to make sure that girl banks her eggs next time she’s back in Nextus. I want grandchildren one way or another.”
“We can't claim we're unbiased, that's for sure,” Quinoa said. “So, we won't even pretend—just transparent. We also don't want lapse into trying to dictate anything to other Inties, or we'd just end up like Fritz. So we have to take our cues from the rest of the community. Follow their lead.”
“Which could be a problem if we ever pretend to be journalists, but hey,” Zane said. “We’re rich, we’re supposed to be eccentric.”
Janet's ears flicked. “Well, in any case, there isn't much we can do obviously. We aren't in the media sphere. We're venture capitalists mainly, and shipping secondly. We can arrange funding where needed, grease the wheels more. And we can talk with the enclaves we're already dealing with, get them to go public, with the media and others,” she said.
“Media's my job,” Quinoa said. “Uncle Joe told me he's known about Integrates for at least twenty years. He's made plans. Rather convoluted ones, but that's Joe. Mind like a mobius twisty straw.” She projected one in the air in front of her.
Astranikki thought for a moment, “Cave of Wonders wouldn't be the best yet. They're still too skittish. But Jay and Trace, they've been supporting an enclave out in the Tethys for a few years now. That might be a good one to bring out.”
“We'll need to establish regular suborbital service between open Enclaves and the rest of civilization. We'll have to convince more than one to open up fully to flesh and metal, otherwise we'll be accused of just having a Potemkin Village,” Quinoa said. “I think Xanadu and Jurassic Park will be the first, then maybe Camelot.”
Janet smirked. “Sub Aloha's has schedules ready to go when the enclaves open up. At least for the ones near us.”
Zane suddenly chuckled as a thought occurred to him. “You know, it’s really gonna burn Fritz’s biscuits when he figures out that we have him to thank for all this. If it weren’t for him giving us a common enemy, there’s no way we would ever have gotten so organized about this so quickly.”
Astranikki sobered up a moment. “Gonna piss off Appa's group too. Probably get him more recruits. Anyone with brains can tell Fritz is going to go down, but Appa hasn't hit the spotlight yet, making him a good magnet.” She sighed, “One emergency at a time I guess. Fritz first, Appa later.”
“Lastly…I'm going to announce Brubeck Mining is going to change a bit,” Zane said, looking at his sister. “Aggie and I have been working on a new business plan. We're willing to sell a third of our remaining rigs to you, Kenyon, unless you'd like to get in on this too.”
The mining magnate raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What's on your mind?”
“Aggie's going to be in charge of a new division, Brubeck Integrate Services. Our needs are rather different than humans or RIDEs. We can eat sarium flakes for breakfast, qubitite crackers for a snack, cavorite casserole for dinner, that sort of thing. There might just be money to be made in supplying those needs for Inties who want to live in ‘civilization’.”
Astranikki nodded. “We'd offer to join you in that. But I think we'll be competing. Some Wonder and Alohan Inties have already pitched some ideas we're going to be supporting. Competition's always good after all.”
“Doubt it'll just be our two companies, either,” Agatha said.
“If you're selling, I'm buying, Zane,” Kenyon said. “I'll stick to mining. Besides, your Dad would love the idea of you exploring new ground like this.”
“Diversification is key to successful business, y’know,” Zane said, grinning. “But cool. I’ll have my people draw up the paperwork.”
“You can also count on a substantial investment from SI, LLC. That's my personal arm of the company,” Quinoa said.
“Let me guess. 'Steader Integrated ,'” Kenyon said.
“It was just a bunch of mu moldering in a bank until last week,” Quinoa admitted. “Uncle Joe wants me to run something smaller before he hands over the big one. He's got some years left in him.”
“He's barely a hundred and ten,” Kenyon said, folding his arms. “Frankly, Quinoa, the way you were shaping up I was going to suggest he clone himself.”
“Can I get a little credit here, Kenyon? I'm not my uncle Harold. Or is he Henrietta right now?” The red sphinx in the blue dress shrugged. “I've lost track. He swaps more than Janet and Sam do.”
Walton realized he'd stepped on a landmine and earned a mink-furred elbow in the ribs. “Right, right. I'm sorry, Quinoa.”
“I think we're done here,” Nigella Walton said.
“It's been a long day,” Zane agreed, yawning. “And I feel another nap coming on. But thanks for showing up for all this, everyone. At least some of it's been fun.”
The tiger shook hands with everyone as they left. Then, just as he was putting his feet up on the old scuff marks from his Dad’s boots, a ping from Rhianna and Kaylee interrupted him. Turned out they were getting ready to go, themselves, and wanted to say farewell on their way out. Zane decided a catnap could wait for a little while longer. He messaged back, also sending a text to Anny.
They replied to meet them in RIDE Maint.
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When Zane arrived in the platform's RIDE garage he found Rhianna and Kaylee with Rochelle and Uncia with a group of polity and Enclave dignitaries in the Fabbing Shop. The subject was Brena Silverston, the vixen looking a little uncomfortable under all the scrutiny. Lillibet Walton was sitting next to her, holding her hand. On one of the flat panels overhead “DIN Baking” was displayed. Cooking analogies were pretty common in the RIDE engineering field.
“I guess this is where I do my Julia Child impression,” Rhianna said.
“Oh, good! That means I get to be Alton Brown,” Rochelle said, clapping her delicate hands once.
“I want to thank Dr. Clemens and Dr. Rosenthal for attending