What would Kasara say when I told her I’d been sleeping with a spy? Would she laugh at my stupidity or try to make me feel better?
My aide knocked on my door.
“What is it?” I shouted.
“Admiral Hauser has arrived, sir. He’s at the summit. So are General MacAvoy and General Strait.”
The firing squad has assembled,
I told myself. “Tell them I’ll be there in a minute.” Then I called Tasman. I said, “Howard, have you found anything else?”
“About Sunny?” he asked.
“About anything,” I said.
“I ran into a dead end on her a couple of hours ago. There are more files, but I can’t access them.”
“Why?”
“How much do you know about encryption?” Tasman asked me.
“Not much,” I admitted.
“Do you have a secure line for calling Strait and MacAvoy?” he asked. “Do you use the same line when you call for your car?”
I had to think about that. I made all my LCB calls on the same line but used a secure line when contacting people outside the building.
Tasman said, “Our computers have security levels. So did theirs. I haven’t found a key for opening some of their files. And Sunny may have worked under an alias or another identity. I’ve found files with her name in the title that don’t have any information about her. They have information about a woman named Mary Mallon. Ever heard of her?”
“Mary Mallon?” I asked.
Could that be her real name?
I had run a security check on Sunny, at least I got that much right, but it wasn’t particularly thorough.
“Legion produced some unexpected information,” said Tasman. “Do you know what killed the clones you forced out of that underwater city?” He didn’t bother trying to pronounce the name of the city, which happened to be Quetzalcoatl.
The Unified Authority had stashed an entire division of reprogrammed Marines in Quetzalcoatl. Using torpedoes and threats, the EME Navy forced them to abandon the city. They boarded submarines and came to the surface, but when we boarded their submarines, they were dead.
“They died from the death reflex,” I said. There’d been no mistaking that. We found thousands of corpses, all bleeding from their ears.
“So what caused their death reflex?” Tasman asked.
“They must have figured out they were clones,” I said. It seemed pretty obvious.
“They already knew they were clones,” said Tasman.
“What?” I asked. “They knew they were clones, and they didn’t have reflexes?”
This was big news. If we could program our soldiers, sailors, and Marines not to die when they found out they were clones, we’d be lot more secure.
Tasman said, “The death gland isn’t programmed. Neural programming impacts the brain, which impacts that gland. Normal clones are programmed to have a neural overload when they learn they’re synthetic. The overloading stresses the brain, which then signals the gland to release the death hormone.
“Apparently, the Unifieds cared more about your reconverting those clones than they did about their becoming sentient.”
“Sentient?” I asked.
“Self-aware, knowing they were synthetic,” said Tasman. “The death glands were designed to be unstable, like fuses, built to overload and break.”
* * *
The elevator doors opened. People watched me as I walked through the hall. Let me amend that. Clones watched me. Very few natural-borns worked in the Linear Committee Building.
I reached the conference room. The sentries standing beside the double doors saluted and stepped out of my way. The room beyond the doors was oval in shape, just slightly dimmed, and luxuriously appointed with wood-lined walls, a bar, an ebony table, and a waterfall.
Hauser, Strait, and MacAvoy stood by the twelve-foot waterfall, gazing into the pond at its base. They turned to welcome me. I saw nothing revealing in General Strait’s posture. Hauser looked glad to see me, maybe even relieved. MacAvoy, on the other hand, had a devious glint in his eye. He
My aide knocked on my door.
“What is it?” I shouted.
“Admiral Hauser has arrived, sir. He’s at the summit. So are General MacAvoy and General Strait.”
The firing squad has assembled,
I told myself. “Tell them I’ll be there in a minute.” Then I called Tasman. I said, “Howard, have you found anything else?”
“About Sunny?” he asked.
“About anything,” I said.
“I ran into a dead end on her a couple of hours ago. There are more files, but I can’t access them.”
“Why?”
“How much do you know about encryption?” Tasman asked me.
“Not much,” I admitted.
“Do you have a secure line for calling Strait and MacAvoy?” he asked. “Do you use the same line when you call for your car?”
I had to think about that. I made all my LCB calls on the same line but used a secure line when contacting people outside the building.
Tasman said, “Our computers have security levels. So did theirs. I haven’t found a key for opening some of their files. And Sunny may have worked under an alias or another identity. I’ve found files with her name in the title that don’t have any information about her. They have information about a woman named Mary Mallon. Ever heard of her?”
“Mary Mallon?” I asked.
Could that be her real name?
I had run a security check on Sunny, at least I got that much right, but it wasn’t particularly thorough.
“Legion produced some unexpected information,” said Tasman. “Do you know what killed the clones you forced out of that underwater city?” He didn’t bother trying to pronounce the name of the city, which happened to be Quetzalcoatl.
The Unified Authority had stashed an entire division of reprogrammed Marines in Quetzalcoatl. Using torpedoes and threats, the EME Navy forced them to abandon the city. They boarded submarines and came to the surface, but when we boarded their submarines, they were dead.
“They died from the death reflex,” I said. There’d been no mistaking that. We found thousands of corpses, all bleeding from their ears.
“So what caused their death reflex?” Tasman asked.
“They must have figured out they were clones,” I said. It seemed pretty obvious.
“They already knew they were clones,” said Tasman.
“What?” I asked. “They knew they were clones, and they didn’t have reflexes?”
This was big news. If we could program our soldiers, sailors, and Marines not to die when they found out they were clones, we’d be lot more secure.
Tasman said, “The death gland isn’t programmed. Neural programming impacts the brain, which impacts that gland. Normal clones are programmed to have a neural overload when they learn they’re synthetic. The overloading stresses the brain, which then signals the gland to release the death hormone.
“Apparently, the Unifieds cared more about your reconverting those clones than they did about their becoming sentient.”
“Sentient?” I asked.
“Self-aware, knowing they were synthetic,” said Tasman. “The death glands were designed to be unstable, like fuses, built to overload and break.”
* * *
The elevator doors opened. People watched me as I walked through the hall. Let me amend that. Clones watched me. Very few natural-borns worked in the Linear Committee Building.
I reached the conference room. The sentries standing beside the double doors saluted and stepped out of my way. The room beyond the doors was oval in shape, just slightly dimmed, and luxuriously appointed with wood-lined walls, a bar, an ebony table, and a waterfall.
Hauser, Strait, and MacAvoy stood by the twelve-foot waterfall, gazing into the pond at its base. They turned to welcome me. I saw nothing revealing in General Strait’s posture. Hauser looked glad to see me, maybe even relieved. MacAvoy, on the other hand, had a devious glint in his eye. He
Similar Books
