Грег Иган - The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 1

I ponder the dossier’s contents. These are no longer stored files, but a part of my lived experience, as though I had witnessed the events or been told them as a story. Fusion plant architectural schematics, plant process schedules—everything from the cleaning schedule to the HVAC layout—and a series of scent profiles including that of the domestic rat and silicon filament.

It is curious information, which joins the unsettled buzz in my stomach. Do I question what Anders has told me? Does it confuse me?

No. I touch his left palm with my nose.

“Great,” Anders says. He straightens up, turns to Angela. “We’re ready.”

We walk toward the building and its growing hum. The steam vents towering overhead are like enormous, dead trees.

Carol waits for us in the hallway of the building, where Anders hands her my lead. The hum is even louder here, a physical sensation more than a sound, and the building smells lived-in: coffee, dish soap, ink and paper, air filters. There is a banana peel in the waste bin of the conference room we are guided into by the sour-smelling Angela.

There are two other dogs in the room, both of which watch me enter. Neither of them are EI. Devin is already here, along with a lot of men and women in dark uniforms.

Carol sits next to Devin but stares at Anders with the same look she used to give Mack when he sauntered from the kitchen with particular satisfaction. Her brow is wrinkled, her lips pressed into a line. Anders ignores her and stands against the wall behind us.

“What was that about?” Devin asks her, gesturing to me with a knuckle. Carol glances at him and shakes her head.

I have a traitorous thought. I could share my information with Carol, in confidence—all of it, or part of it, or even none of it, but tell a believable lie. Perhaps this would help Carol feel connection with me.

I analyze this idea. The more I ponder it, the more it seems like it wouldn’t work. Secret though the information might be, it’s dull stuff. Schedules, scents, maps. And Carol might not like that I told her. I set the thought aside for now and listen to the briefing. I need to know what Carol knows.

Angela presents some information I already have from my dossier: We currently sit atop the Midwestern Fusion Array, third-largest fusion energy generator in the world; yesterday at 9:35 P.M. MFA security detected a communication systems breach, and shortly after that lost control of systems below the third basement, including most automated support systems and all drone controls; shortly after this a physical security breach occurred and Array security apprehended two men and a woman just inside the northeasternmost access building; these three, upon police questioning, offered a prepared manifesto from the Strong Arm of the Voice for the Silent.

“No shit,” whispers Devin. Angela looks at him sharply. A dog handler on the other side of the table laughs out loud.

“What,” the handler says, “is this power plant full of monkeys and guinea pigs? The hell are they doing down there?”

Angela turns her glare to the speaker and clears her throat. “The manifesto alleges that their goal is a catastrophic shutdown of the Array.” The dog handler snorts, and Angela’s expression scrunches up even more. “And it would be catastrophic, I assure you. Once the Array is down, it takes at least sixty hours to get it back up to 50 percent operational. The MFA powers the entirety of seven states and supplies the majority of power for six more. Nearly a quarter of the US. Worse, many of the areas served are currently in a state of emergency due to the storm systems some of you have been cleaning up after. People need to charge their cars so they can leave flooded areas or relocate from damaged homes. They need safe places to shelter. Hospitals need to be fully operational. This is a serious issue.”

The man says nothing, and I am relieved at his silence.

“The Strong Arm,” Angela continues, “should also not be dismissed. Despite their slipshod public reputation, their radicalized membership has nearly doubled in the last five years. They have funding. They’re efficient. They may have been hippies, cat ladies, and college vegans ten years ago, but that’s no longer the story. In the last two years, the Strong Arm of the Voice for the Silent has perpetrated several attacks against high-profile companies and organizations that were not widely publicized. The organization also never officially claimed responsibility. If they’re staying quiet about it, then they have some other motivation than fear, panic, and publicity. And if they aren’t bringing attention to this stuff, we certainly won’t. An ecoterror panic is low on our list of useful epidemics at the moment.”

“People will definitely notice if the power goes out in a fourth of America,” says a woman on the other side of the table.

Angela does not scowl at her the way she scowled at the man. “They will,” she agrees. “They’re changing their game. We aren’t sure why yet, but it’s concerning.”

“But,” Devin says, “you caught them. They hacked into your computer systems, sure. But what are we searching for?”

The scent profile appears in the forefront of my thoughts immediately: domestic rat, silicon filament, and something else I can’t place. It’s familiar and makes me think of work , of purpose .

“Approximately one hour ago, one of the six reactors in the Array went offline. It was taken offline in an emergency shutdown procedure that could not be stopped due to… tampering with the electrical system. Prior to this we had noticed a pattern of small breaches throughout the Array’s internal security systems. We believe the trio we apprehended released something into the Array.”

“A drone,” Carol says. “Shit.”

It’s not just a drone.

Carol spoke quietly, but Angela still heard her. Now Angela stares at Carol. “Yes,” she says. “Most likely a bodydrone. A rat.”

“Jesus,” Carol breathes.

“Huh,” says the dog handler who spoke before. “The hell is VFS doing with a bodydrone?”

“The Strong Arm,” Angela corrects. She continues. “The drone took down Reactor B. We suspect it is now near Reactor C, as Reactor A has been heavily secured. Conventional dog teams will provide relief and backup for the teams already securing Reactor A. We will focus offensive efforts on cutting off the drone before it can cause additional outages—that’s where the EI unit comes in.” Angela looks at Carol. “Reactor D is off-line for maintenance. Add B to that, and the Array is currently at 66 percent. Below 50 percent is considered plant failure. Below 33 percent is catastrophic.”

She takes a deep breath and looks around the room, skipping the eyes of the dog handler who spoke too much. “Well,” she says. “Let’s begin.”

Down an access stairway that smells of cement blocks and urine, like all access stairways smell, then Carol and I are out into a bright-lit hallway, empty save for the regular intrusion of steel doorknobs in the walls.

We are alone. Before we left the conference room, Anders stopped Devin. “Dev, you’re going to have to stay up top with me. Carol’s not likely to need a navigator down there anyway,” he said.

I think they are being very careful about limiting access to the MFA and to the target. I doubt even Anders had full access to the information I have been given.

I reexamine my traitorous thought from the briefing. None of the classified data that I’ve been given is worth sharing—much of it is schematics, equipment lists, fine details of the MFA’s workings. Important information, certainly, but Carol wouldn’t find it useful or interesting.

Perhaps I could make something up, but I am not sure what I would say. It might backfire. I am not ready to take the chance unless I know it will be worthwhile.