04. Birth of Flux and Anchor (44 page)

"Well, dammit, man—you said you were from Security. Why the hell didn't you find out about this? The organization involved for a worldwide plot of this magnitude in so short a time
couldn't
have been kept secret!" The Gates had now been sealed for seventeen months.

"Correct, as far as it went. We
did
get wind of it almost from the start, but he is quite clever and he had allies. It appeared that the thing originated from below—younger officers and some of the holy men who held influence over them in the mosques—and was quite widespread. We let it go for a while to see where it would lead, and to identify all of the major leaders with an eye to crushing them at once and minimizing bloodshed and rebellion. We were betrayed instead. As an old hand at coups, Ngomo knew that if one needs to make a pact in blood with the devil to do something, he will sign such a pact and try to deal with his distasteful allies later."

Lisa Wu had a sudden creeping feeling in the pit of her stomach. "That bitch Watanabe."

"Yes. You do not seem surprised. It fairly shocked us. Watanabe hates the military, you see, and Islam would hardly be conducive to her all-female church."

Six months after the Gates had been sealed, the former directors had been released from custody, Watanabe included, but restricted to Anchor and forbidden to live even in the capital, let alone enter the headquarters building. All were watched by Security personnel and the Anchor Guard, but Ngomo had some allies in the middle ranks of Security, and knew the list of Security personnel already at least somewhat under Watanabe's control.

And Watanabe was still a genius. Security made the same mistake that Cockburn and the others had made; in the end, Coydt's people had relied on what the computers reported to them, and the computers were not necessarily giving them the story. Key people under Watanabe or Ngomo's control, either literally or through ultimate loyalty, were shifted by computer orders to certain vital points; others who could and would have unmasked the whole thing wound up watching the wrong people, or minor people, and reporting a wholly credible and totally misleading revolutionary scenario that was bearing apparent fruit to Security but was nowhere near acting.

"The key was Watanabe," Singh told her. "We never suspected her for a moment. For years, since the founding of this place, we have had access to her innermost thoughts and ideas—or so we believed. We had no idea that she suspected, let alone discovered this. She did not stop it. She is far too clever for that. She simply placed data filters in line between our readouts and her input. What we got was so bad, we never suspected that anything more was being kept from us. And once she was in control, she could insulate Ngomo and his key officers as well."

"And—her price?"

"Ngomo gets the whole world except for her cluster. She gets that to do with as she will. All of Ngomo's people and any Moslems there will be allowed out before she assumes total control. The troops there are specially processed by her, using a procedure we cannot begin to understand. They are subservient to the church, loyal to her, and willing to fight to the death for her church, male or female. This gives her security and absolute control of four 7800 series, thirty-two 7240 series, and several hundred lesser computers, all for her own use, as well as access through the network to the entire data bank for amplifiers and the like."

The idea was chilling. "And Ngomo thinks he can contain her there? After what she's already shown she can do?"

"Ngomo is no fool. He has had the fruits of revolution snatched from him by compatriots before, remember. He has the military command codes. He has used them to set up conditions under which any violation of the agreement by Watanabe will result in a Region Three master shutdown. He feels secure for a while with this, although he is not, as I said, a stupid man. Eventually, after consolidating his new regime elsewhere, he will turn those military programs on Watanabe."

"And she knows this. It's still going to be cat and mouse."

"Indeed. Highly unpleasant cat and mouse. And they did in fact make several serious errors in their takeover, as might be expected of something so complex, the most fatal of which was that General Ryan discovered the full scope of things too late to stop it but in time to prevent a meeting of the general staff at which time Ngomo was going to imprison or kill the others.

"Cockburn simply placed his Headquarters Anchor on full alert and dispatched Coydt and several top computer experts from Security and Signals to Region Three to try to cut it off if they could. They were still getting set up for the countermove when Ngomo, realizing the jig was up, moved precipitously. Headquarters had five thousand troops, but most were technicians and bureaucrats. When Cockburn and the top officers on the staff were taken out. most of them switched rather than fought. The few hundred who did not were quickly taken out."

"But—Security and Signals!"

"Security's ten thousand or so are spread over the entire planet, excluding the headquarters staff, who were the first to die. That's only a few hundred per Anchor. Signals has twenty-two thousand, but they are spread all over the void, an even larger area, and concentrated only in a few spots. They had no more than a few hundred people in each Anchor either. Ngomo has used the military override commands to change the nature of grid energy, excluding the type that is used to power everything from the so-called god guns to the automatic cars. Their motors can no longer draw power from the grid. This has effectively cut Ryan off, as his troops must move on foot or on what horses they have—and it's not enough—and even supplies must be moved the hard way. They are all designed to take a two-hundred-and-forty-volt, fifty-cycle direct current. The grid will no longer deliver that voltage, although it will deliver others."

"Jesus!"

"This, then, gives Ngomo the only effective and cohesive forces on New Eden."

"But—wait a minute! The direct computer interfaces and the big amps don't run off the grid. They convert Flux directly."

"Yes, but with a directive prohibiting power to the remote units and his people in control of all administrative buildings, what difference does that make?"

"A lot. Security may have blown it, but I can't believe you're
this
incompetent. Watanabe and her followers remained in their exile camp, did they not? They did not get back to the building, even under false pretenses?"

"Of that I will swear. Yes. Why is this important?"

"Because she couldn't have done all her damned tinkering indirectly, feeding long strings of esoteric programs and chains to army people who then trotted off and enacted them. She needed a direct and secure interface. It's the same way she fooled you. She's got a big amp in the void right near that camp of hers that doesn't register on anybody's monitors. She's got it totally hidden, its actions masked, and its power consumption buried in some other place so it doesn't show. That's the reason for her revival city out there in the east of X-ray."

"But even if that were true, it wouldn't function under the military orders," Singh pointed out.

"Yeah, and no 7240 can ever be interfaced without a Guard. Bullshit. She's somehow got the 7800 convinced that it's not a big amp at all, and so not subject to the exclusion order. I bet it took her all of a day and a half to solve it, too, sitting there in her comfortable little prison all those months. Damn!"

"So?"

"Well,
we've
got a big amp here, too, just out there in the void."

"But it is disconnected!"

"Sure—and so was hers. If we can figure out how to do that trick, we might be able to play hell with all this yet. What about Signals? Do they still have full communications?"

"Ryan has no direct interface with a 7800. but he does have a great deal of specialized equipment directly hooked up to the network and it is not two-forty dependent. Yes. He can talk—he just can't act."

"Maybe we can—if we have enough time to solve this thing before they come here with stakes to burn the witches and wizards and stick black robes and veils on the survivors."

"I am afraid you might not be joking. The sentiment against the people here is getting that virulent, and Ngomo, of necessity, made his primary deals not with the moderate and modern Islamic communities but with the most fanatical and fundamentalist leaders. They are a tiny minority of the whole, but they have been handed the keys to power with promises of liberal rule and they are, of course, being believed in the main. By the time they find out just what they have been given the keys to, the conservatives will be in full control and will have sufficient technical support to convert the population to their way of thinking using the 7800. It has happened before, but never before have they had delivered into their hands the means for absolute conversion."

"They'll never do it. They are too few against a vast majority, and that majority includes some pretty devout people on their own side. The Hindu population here won't stand for it at all. and the Christians will be equally indignant. They can't mass-convert a population quietly. It will simply mean more blood."

"But they can and they believe they will." Singh told her. "That is part of the deal with Watanabe. She believes she has a master program that will actually alter the master Anchor programs, that will convert everyone in it to their way at once."

Lisa Wu gasped. "But that would kill every living thing!"

"Indeed. Kill it—and resurrect it, all in a matter of perhaps three quarters of an hour, maybe less. Nothing will be changed except that all human beings within the Anchor programming matrix will be commonly filtered before being restored. In a way, we can say that they will know all but remember nothing. It must be admitted that while this has been done with individuals and even with very small groups, it has never been done or proven on this scale and even Watanabe is not certain that it will work as intended. She is a driven woman, however. She believes God guides her hand."

"My God! Where's Coydt? Where's the opposition to this? Do you realize what you just told me? That twenty-four Anchors are about to be propelled socially back to the fourteenth century and that four others are about to be forced into the mold of a mad woman?"

"I know this. It is why I am here. Security is doing what it can, but Ngomo has the military command codes. All Security personnel have been disallowed access to the 7800 network. That is how Ngomo did it. That is what I have been telling you. There were enough traitors within Cockburn's staff who, for their own personal reasons or for dreams of power and empty promises, gave our rebel general control. First he got the control codes. Then he killed Cockburn and all staff that he either could not or did not control or own outright. Then he cut us all out of the network, and only then did his troops and the civilian groups within the Anchors begin their ruthless takeover. All we can do is alert everyone we can and aid them in getting out to the void. We do not know how much time we have, although it is certainly not hours or even days but weeks at least we are talking about. There is an organizational plan, but it is a bleak one."

"Go on."

"We are trying to move as much in the way of books, records, programming modules—all that is central to our origins, our history, and our technology, even if we can't use or access it at this time, into safe areas in the void. Ryan's troops are instructed to assist in this. These enclaves are being established by all the Sensitives we can save, contact, or round up."

"If we can just activate that amp and get into the net!"

Pandit Singh stared at her. "And do what? Perhaps, just perhaps, we can save Anchor Luck. Even more of a perhaps is saving Region Four. We get a terribly bloody and divisive civil war in each and in the end the others simply ride down in some kind of jihad and take the survivors. Face it. We have been so busy spying upon and fearing one another that we failed to see the competent and dangerous idealist in our midst plotting our overthrow. Security is very much to blame, I admit. We were so busy ferreting out secrets that we discounted the invisible man sitting there in plain sight casually learning what had to be learned and doing what had to be done."

"Then we should just—
surrender?
Abandon millions of innocent souls to this?"

"No. Try to find a way to beat them if you can, of course, but at the same time prepare for the worst and always consider the consequences. What is done by computer may be undone by computer."

"And what of you and Coydt and the rest?" she asked.

"Our own Special Projects people managed to get an enormous load of material out of the headquarters before it became impossible. They trucked it down to the Gate transmission room and out to Gate Four. I am going there now, if I can. I have enough contacts and blackmail and knowledge of secrets that I believe I can penetrate the headquarters and use the transmission system. There is a secret exit from Suzuki's office that leads through walls and down to the basement area, for example. I have a number of identities, including one as an officer of the Anchor Guard. I believe I will succeed. There, what has been taken out will be dispersed as best we can to existing redoubts, and Signals will keep track of what and where as best it can and move it as needed. I will be coordinating there as best I can. When you establish your areas in the void, contact Signals or the Gate as best you can and we will attempt to establish a network of resistance groups. Others here and in all the other Anchors are attempting as best they can to convince people of the impending doom and to rise and act, but few truly believe it is even possible."

"But something should be done to begin evacuating all that do buy it to the void!"

"They won't go. Some will, and we will use them, but most will not. This is their land, their home. They did not go back to Earth when they had the chance in a crisis they could see and understand; they will not abandon it now because of some political coup and a lot of speculative nonsense that they will somehow be changed as a group. They are ready to fight for their land, Arab and Hindu and Nigerian and Argentine and Aussie alike, but they cannot believe or even accept that they will have no chance to fight. Many are now rejoicing at the spreading news that the so-called military dictatorship is ended and the dreaded Security is destroyed or impotent, and their liberators are clever and patient and extremely intelligent. Do not confuse their fundamentalism, their religious rock, their total belief that they do the will of Allah, with stupidity. They are brilliant and they know they will never get a second chance."