Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

Dobbs had half-expected an attack while they were all in an obvious, immobile lump like this. But Curran hadn’t disturbed them at all. That could only mean he was using all his resources to ready his attack on the banks. Dobbs opened a path inside herself and let her memories of the strategy sessions slide out to Cohen. After them, she released her plan of attack. It wound through the gathering. Questions and suggestions shot back and forth until a consensus solidified between them all.

The randomizer matrices were already in place, waiting for their timers to count down. It was possible that Curran had sent his talent out with signals to speed up the process. They had to find one or more randomizers, take them apart, design viruses to disable them and set those viruses loose in the net. They had to get some Fools to Earth to coordinate with the banks in case Curran tried the distraction of taking down the transmitters. Ahmet Tey might listen to Dobbs, especially if she could get a character reference from Al Shei to him. So, she’d lead the Terran party.

The problem was, there was nothing they were planning that Curran couldn’t have guessed at, and he knew their weaknesses as well as they did. All AIs shared the same set of vulnerabilities. Messages between individuals could be faked. If someone was taken apart, all their memories could be used against their allies. You could only trust what you could touch.

They would have to divide into teams of four or five individuals that could act as resistance cells. They would have to use runners between the cells to carry messages, and even then there was the possibility of someone’s shell being used as a mask to conceal an enemy, the same way the shell of medical data had been used to hide Flemming aboard the Pasadena .

They’d need a base they could use to coordinate move and news between the cells. The best place would be the Neptune Exchange, the two huge space stations that formed the fast-time transmission gateway to the Solar system. Not only would that provide their hastily-assembled army some stability, but, if they could hold it, it would keep the single largest transmission point in the Solar system safe from Curran’s talent.

A third of them would head for the Neptune Exchange first. From there, Dobbs’ cell and ten others would head straight for Earth. The rest would fan out through the network, securing as many of the major junctions as they could.

Keep the data paths steady. Find the randomizer matrices and stop them. Find Curran’s talent and stop them. We must keep the credit base steady or Settled Space is going to fall apart around us.

We’ve got it, Dobbs , the answer came back five hundred times. We’ve got it.

They broke their mass link and scattered, gathering at the mouths of the junction paths in their cells. Cohen, Brook and Lonn stayed beside her. Dobbs angled her attention towards Earth, the heart of the network. She imagined she could feel the net tremble around her as all the others did the same.

“Curran’s talent might already be in the Neptune Exchange.” Dobbs sent the message across to the Earth-bound cells. “I’m going first. If I don’t send the all-clear in two seconds, they already have the exchange.” I can hold out against anybody for two seconds, she told herself. Even Curran.

She gathered herself up, heart, soul and all the nerve she possessed. She wished there was a prayer she could say. She wished there was someone who might hear it. There was nothing and nobody. There wasn’t even time.

She sent a ping-copy to receiver 501-BG-A12 at the Neptune Exchange. The signal came back in tact. That meant nothing. If the talent were there, they now knew she was coming.

Alone, Dobbs dove forward.

One.

Dobbs dropped into a crowded holding stack. She touched the ID packet. She had made the Neptune Exchange. She stretched out. Nothing disturbed the data streams as far as she could reach except her. She tripped a set of switches and sent a diagnostic down the nearest path and waited for it to come back. It found nothing except what was supposed to be out there.

Two.

Dobbs made a ping-copy of herself and set the transmitter to shoot it back to Cohen. She kept the diagnostic circulating and waited for the answering signals.

The diagnostic slipped back to her and Dobbs caught it. Before her next thought formed, a stranger fell across her, cutting her off from her surroundings. She twisted, but it rolled her aside. She swelled up against the swaddling presence and, in the next thought, hauled herself into a tight ball. The stranger didn’t respond fast enough and Dobbs shot out of its loosened grip.

There was another stranger looming over the receiver’s command stack. Dobbs lunged at it and shoved it out of the way. She barely brushed the new command configuration before the stranger’s compatriot dragged her backward, stabbing deep into her outer layers, seeking a hold in her private mind. Dobbs lashed out, cutting a swash clear through the stranger’s periphery. Anger lent her strength. These two had re-set the receiver commands to work in a loop with the repeater series. Cohen, Brook and Lonn were trapped. Her friends were frozen signals bouncing back and forth between the two receivers.

Dobbs aimed another swipe at the first stranger. The second grabbed her and sent her reeling down the path toward the transmitter. Dobbs tried to surge back toward the receiver, but both strangers filled the path. She punched at them. They hardened themselves against her attacks. Slowly, they drove her toward the transmitter holding stack. It didn’t take much to guess that they were going stuff her into the loop with Cohen and the others. Dobbs hurled herself against them, but together they were to massive for her. They shoved her backward.

Dobbs felt the entrance to the holding stack open against her. She stretched herself out, trying to jam the entrance shut with her presence. The strangers in front of her just pressed down harder. Bit by bit, Dobbs felt herself begin to give way.

First Stranger shifted. A chink broke open between it and the pathway’s side. Dobbs dove for it. Second Stranger faltered. Dobbs pummeled First Stranger with all her strength and the chink widened into a crack. Dobbs hammered at it. First Stranger collapsed and Dobbs barreled past it. A friendly touch grazed her as she flew down the path. Terrence. Dobbs barely had time to understand Terrence was the runner for Renee’s cell when she felt Second Stranger snatch at her. Dobbs grabbed up Terrence and the pair of them fled toward the heart of the Exchange. They ducked down paths at random, tossing messages and packets behind them to block the way.

Dobbs snatched up a dense packet and tried to throw it behind her. The world contracted. Something dragged at her outer self until she felt like water swirling down a drain. She could feel her thoughts being sucked apart from each other one by one. She screamed frantically and lurched backwards. The thing dragged harder. Terrence engulfed her, cut clean through her outer self, and heaved them both away from the thing. Dobbs screamed again as her main self separated from the lost portion. There were memories in there, and information she needed, she was sure. It was gone, completely, utterly and horribly gone. If she’d been in her body she would have been shaking in terror.

“Dobbs, can you answer me? Dobbs!” Terrence rolled her over into a side path and circled around her.

“Yeah, yeah.” Dobbs forced herself to focus her attention on the torn part of herself. Holes gaped in her recent memory. Whole conversations with Al Shei and Lipinski were nothing but tattered ruins. Dobbs rolled herself into a tight ball and remembered why she was here. That much remained. Asil in the bed in the medical level of Curran’s can, that was there, Al Shei throwing her off Pasadena, that was there. But something was gone from Lipinski’s place, and more was gone from Yerusha. What had she said before she’d run? What had Lipinski asked before she turned him away? Dobbs shook herself. That was gone and it would never be back. She couldn’t mourn it now.