Chaos Cipher (55 page)

Omicron’s
exclusive arms policy
assured him, they weren’t armed, but considering the nature of this
meeting he had no reason to be suspicious they were. Anton lifted
his head back and the slim looking man smiled
respectfully.

‘
Robert
Alker,’ he greeted, with an auspicious and unctuous irie. ‘Haf-lah!
And may I say what a fine station you have. This is my first visit,
now I can see I’ve perhaps left this experience far too
late.’

Anton smiled
warmly, ‘well I hope you enjoy what we have to offer here.’ He
quickly judged Alker to be a fawning sycophant for reputable
individuals, and made a mental note to watch out for the oleaginous
complements that might be directed to smooth over some ulterior
motive. Anton, though his past dealings with government officials
were limited, was a cautious person when it came to such Titans.
Somewhere at the back of his mind, he was hoping this visit would
be a brief one. Alker seemed pristine. His skin was fare; his high
rounded cheekbones gave him a slightly wide head, a slim nose,
which drew his predatory eyes in, giving them a sinister sort of
look.

‘
This way,’
Anton offered, indicating with his hand up to the stairway that led
to his office. The two other men assigned to the meeting made the
whole thing look like a motley crew. One was naturally bald, with
tribal markings on his face. A body guard, he assumed, probably
well-travelled and with wide experience in private army ranks
established globally; a born killer if ever there was
one.

Anton hadn’t
been to Earth much over the years but he knew the tribal marks
weren’t the tidy work of some local skin lace-tattoo parlour, but
of actual combat affiliated status ranked by the echelons of
dangerous hardland clans.

The other was
more uptight, consciously summing up the room and recording the
surroundings of the vestibule through an ocular relay. Anton was
indifferent about him, some lawyer official who was obviously there
for the verbal agreements in light of their conversations. They
ascended the steps, leaving the view of Jupiter below their feet
and approached the main door to Anton’s office. The stairway began
to flow, carrying them along as they ambled. The corridor was long,
it reminded Alker of the first time he went through a subway
escalator in Neo-London back when he was just a boy.

‘
We’re very
glad you were able to make this meeting,’ Alker said, ‘as you can
appreciate Earther hardland types like myself really find it a
struggle to get used to space travel. Still, they say those
Gravmex-field machines are improving these days.’

‘
You must
mean the gravmex panels?’ said Anton.

‘
That’s
them,’ Alker said. ‘Incredible devices, how can they generate
gravity like that?’

‘
Yes,’ said
Anton. ‘We thought about installing some once. But the station here
is centrifugal and it works just fine. Our methods may be a little
dated, but the gravmex are splendid I agree, we just haven’t
updated that technology. Gravito-magnetism research has been
pending in our science department for some time, just can’t get the
scientists. Not many like Willow Kruger nowadays.’

‘
She was a
great thinker of her time,’ Kintz half smiled. ‘She was a Jew but
indeed a great thinker.’

Alker picked
up on the Mr Kintz’s micro aggression and was stunned at Anton’s
stoicism; he’d imagined him to be upset. He let it slide. It wasn’t
the first time he’d heard Kintz make anti-Semitic
allusions.

‘
Artificial
gravity makes possible far reaching journeys, right?’

‘
That’s
right,’ Anton said, ‘you know how it works don’t you? They suspend
the body in biosynthetic fluids to mitigate the effects of gravity
on the body, and then increase gravitational pressures around the
ship with the gravmex. It essentially freezes time slippage. The
spanner folk call it temporal suspension. Those gravmex panels and
a touch of condensed Obsiduranium fuel can make for a hell of a far
reaching journey.’

‘
Obsiduranium
is difficult to come by,’ said Kintz, looking over the side of
their walkway to the tubular glass below where Jupiter’s clouds
turned. ‘High energy fuels like that are not very
economic.’

‘
We’ve never
had any,’ Anton smiled confidently. ‘Our starnavis are powered on a
variety of energy solutions the spanners call Omnidyne solutions.
Everything from pulse fusion aneutronics, micro-fusion cells and
ZPE Casmium plates. There are sixty eight saltus-carousels within
the station’s ownership, all making velox back and forth between
solar systems and they all run on either magnetic coil charged
superfluid or EGM, electro-gravitational-magnetism you know more
formally as gravmex. The farthest one cycles every two years
between here and the Garisk system carrying a ship called
The Constella Transit
.
She’s a long service and successful courier vessel with a dynamic
hull that compresses with gravitational duress. There’s not many
like her.’

‘
Actually,’
Kintz nodded, ‘we’ll want to know more about your saltus-carousels
and security for sure. Nothing too in depth you understand, we’re
trying not to overstep our boundaries.’

‘
Good,’ Anton
deliberated turning around.

‘
What is the
general method of trans-data?’ asked Alker.

‘
Didn’t you
do your research?’ Anton answered, ‘we use Quantics for
communication and general data-transfer. Data is usually in
qubits.’

‘
Really? I’m
surprised,’ Alker exclaimed. ‘Most you celestial settlers were
wired up for the convenience of interfacing with commercial space
craft. I know for a fact it helps pilots fly…don’t they have those
neurosphere sensorium thingies?’

‘
Some of our
pilots are integrated. But even a neurophase requires a quantum
network.’

‘
Wired-up,’
Alker corrected.

‘
Excuse
me?’

‘
We call it a
wire-up,’ Alker smiled, delighted to educate Anton. ‘A colloquial
term for neurophasing an individual when neuroptics are grown
through an individual’s cerebral paths for computer to brain
interface. Incidentally we’re all wired-up. Mr Kintz has a
neuro-ligature, as do I. So does my body guard here, Major JD
O’Three.’ And Alker looked over his shoulder at the
bodyguard.

‘
As I said,’
Anton repeated, ‘We use Quantic devices on this station, strictly
non-invasive models that operate on brainwave training. There’s a
basic Nexus server for those who need the interface, mainly cyborgs
according to our research. The station is controlled through some
crypto-consensus that operates everything from forums to
currency.’

‘
Cyborgs?’ JD
O’ Three corrected, ‘they prefer the term
transentients.’

‘
Sure they
do,’ Anton smiled casually, ‘and I prefer to call them cyborgs. A
transentient is a disabled person with a biomechanical enhancement,
cyborgs are sentient machines trained to kill. I know the
difference.’ And Anton’s smile lowered to a scathing glare. ‘So, is
a wire-up still as dangerous now as when the procedure was first
launched?’

‘
Of course
not. The neuroptics or micro-optical filaments are grown through
naturally channelled neural imprints scanned from the cerebral
cortex and mapped by sonic resolutions.’ The large bald tattoo’d
body guard went on with leisured ease, ‘first we use Nanomes to
insert a spliced wetware virus and contaminate the neurons with
photo-sensitive reactions, then we build the web of micro-optics
through the neuro-channels. The neural paths are mapped
appropriately with sonic resolution scanners, it’s very safe. Then,
surgical architects program the nanomes to create the micro-optical
filaments from calcium plating based on the subject’s own DNA and
the neuroptics are grown to reinforce those neural channels. Once
neurophased, one can upload various programmed applications
directly into the brain’s neurosphere software. They can speed or
slow perceptions of time, contemporaneously storing vast amounts of
trans-data translated by the Nexus, promoting implicit recall
memory and, hence, completely eliminating any brain deficiencies
such as dementia, hearing impairment, blindness and so on. Added
benefits include higher IQ, and grade access to the cities. Most
Titan subjects are born prepared, Neurophase ready, with the virus
being introduced during infancy.

‘
So are they
dangerous? Well, there’s no evidence to suggest so. However, there
is a risk of irreversible brain damage when the task is done poorly
like some black-market merchants tend to do
anonymously.’

‘
Well, Titan
or human, it’s still a controversial subject even today.’ Anton
said dismissively. ‘I don’t understand why people want to play
around with mild genetic alterations and so on just to work a
computer? We stick to the Quantic parti-splicers and non-invasives
here on
Omicron
.’

‘
We’ve been
playing with genetics since the twenty first century,’ Alker
shrugged, ‘what’s the big deal? Bio-hacking is a multi-planetoid
industry. Helps our soldiers kick bottom, helps our cosmonauts land
in different gravitational environments. Our human ancestors were
just fine, weren’t they? They spliced genetic codes to make their
foods more efficient; they spliced their pets, their gardens, all
sorts.’

‘
We
transentients do it because it helps to police a city and control
it effectively,’ said JD O’ Three, ‘though I agree, sir, it
challenges some ethical perspectives. The neuro-ligature hardware
implants are a breach to some out-dated moral human rights
conventions. But since the definition of human is now so vague it
is difficult to prescribe it rights. Some claim that Neurophase
interfaces are cause to contemporary problems concerning paranoia,
reality distortions and in some cases extreme violence. Some legal
problems too, with a small number of Old Oligarchy leaders still
calling for the preservation of intellectual property on memory and
information. We DNA stamp newly created information to protect and
encrypt origin, similar to a quantic authenticity stamp on an
ocular image. It’s not perfect but there are no alternatives since
they’re not easy to forge.’

‘
Well,’ Alker
laughed looking at the large man over his shoulder, ‘not as dumb as
he looks, is he? Incidentally, he is fitted with a military grade
version of neuro-ligature which has exceedingly good combat
efficiency as well as improved intelligence, so I’m told; also
explains the old techno mumbo jumbo. He was reading from a
neurophase catalogue downloaded into his memory. But still, not bad
for a bodyguard, IMO.’

JD O’ Three
picked up on the patronising tone in Alker, but it didn’t bother
him. It wasn’t his job to be offended, his job was to break bones
and protect his client. Though he itched to tell Alker his IQ level
exceeded the politician’s by three times even before the neurophase
was built in.

‘
To conclude
my argument,’ JD resumed. ‘In all cases of invasive neural
integration not one report of dementia has ever been
recorded...’

‘
Would you be
aware of it if there had been?’ Anton interjected. ‘Think left if
you’re told to; think right if you’re told to. Now, believe you’re
not under control. Now tell us you’re not demented. See where I’m
going with this, computer head? Power is a wonderful thing when
regulated and nuanced. Call me old-fashioned but that’s rarely the
case I believe. I don’t trust the neuro-ligature because it’s a
very invasive form of power.’ And he looked at Alker with a knowing
smile. ‘Decentralised and feigning non-existence, since like all
power it works best in the dark.’

*

Anton’s
office and meeting room was more evenly lit than the dark
corridors, illuminated only by the breach of blue light shining
between the escalator’s gaps and the hand rails. The computer
detected motion in the room and automatically raised the
observation shields, letting the sun arrow brightly inside. Anton
walked around the large, ovular, varnished oak table set dominating
the middle of the room. He took a seat at the head of it and
offered his guests to sit.

‘
Please,’ he
directed.

Alker eased
into a chair and placed his palms down on the cool smooth surface.
He was joined by the Lawyer to his left, while the guard stood
obediently by the door; hands affronted one over the
other.

‘
Now,’ said
Anton slowly and bluntly, ‘I apologise if I seem a little pressing,
but this meeting for me has come at a price. I won’t cover the
details of that because it’s irrelevant now. Your company has taken
great interest in the station for security reasons and you’ve
clearly wasted no time in prying into our operational methods here.
What is it I can help you with, Mr Alker?’

‘
Are you
aware of the news coming in from the
Kyklos
disaster?’

‘
I have heard
of it, yes.’

‘
What have
you heard of it?’

‘
It was an
arc-station; one of the original space stations to exodus Earth’s
orbit during the Solitaire wars.’ Anton explained, deliberately
emphasising, ‘well over a century ago.’