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10:20 pm
April 12, 2012
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The Show Must Go Off–part fifteen
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MCL-BeltMiner#C485640624
It settled down after that eighth day. My picture, wearing my comasuit covered with dried blood, was all over the net. The story I managed to get circulated was that 'The Shade,' a gifted sociopathic serial killer and born leader was having me earn him a living. I was one of at least ten people that you didn't dare kill--or you were given the choice: die horribly or earn him money till you got killed on your own. It was perfect for intrigue. The Shade and five other scary guys had gone missing six and a half standard Earth years before. To make everyone nervous, I explained that only The Shade knew who his other nine chosen were. Some of THEM might not know who they were paying for protection. I had killed a pirate, and that pirate had been one of his. As a kink in the story, I was circulating the rumor that I was a nut who killed people who agreed to violence with his bare hands for religious reasons. Suddenly no one was interested in fighting me for any reason at all. My umbrella of safety apparently extended to my underlings, as well.
First Upclose, and then Crunch, became part of my entourage. I basically insured their loyalty by telling them I didn't want or need them. Crunch and Upclose shacked up and began paying me the original demands I made of her. Only slightly behind. I didn't ask them how because I didn't want to know. Crunch was also good for some heavy lifting out in Jenko's mine. Jenko was happy with the results, but very skeptical about what was going on in general: "you be careful, now, Q." I could tell he knew I was lying about The Shade--baffled me to no end. But some people you just can't fool, right?
Gibb's mystery unfolded quickly enough. His dad had been one of the original miners. He'd come here voluntarily. Not a criminal, he was just antisocial. Gibb had never met his dad and one day cut a deal. For twenty years' income payable to his sister--only living relative, Gibb would lie his way into conviction and the Beltmines instead of a VERY rich murderer. Reportedly his sister got the money, Gibb faced trial, shipped out, and got major tragedy. His dad died while he was en route.
Gibb was fantastic as a worker in a machine shop and not bad as a technician. I paid for his training on contract. Gibb owed me five percent of his pay for five years on regular schedule for the training, five percent for five years for his freedom, and free maintenance for anything he could fix in a timely manner in his off-hours for myself and Jenko. What Gibb never figured out was that I planted a SpyApp in his I.D. chip. I constantly got updates for security password changes, maintenance access--people were right to trust him--I think he would have turned me in and let me kill him for it.
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1:15 am
April 12, 2012
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The Show Must Go Off–part sixteen
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MCL-BeltMiner#C485640624
Seventeen days in I was cleaning the room when Upclose stopped by to help. I had been expecting her to try to have me killed again or proposition me any day now. Or both. I hadn't been expecting her to try to make us some money. I was extra suspicious of her because she had told me to pass on a compliment to Gibb. He had 'done real good' building and installing a thermal pattern event recorder so we'd know for certain whether anyone had even been in the bathroom and whether they'd been in the shower tub. Then she'd climbed into it herself and started scrubbing. Not knowing what to think, I'd gone to folding linens and storing them above my 'trophy case,' a steel locker that supposedly only contained a swatch of a pirate's homemade spacesuit liner, two wiped and smashed I.D. implants, and Yew's hollow rib. The idea of the trophy case enhanced my rep as a nut. I'd bolted it to the bathroom wall with Gibb's help the week before . . .
"Q? I've been thinking." Uh oh.
"About?" I prepped an adrenal boost.
"I could pay you a lot faster if I rented this room for business." Upclose? Hooking? No . . .
"It's none of my affair, of course, but will Crunch know about this?"
She laughed a little. "Crunch knows I'm a dominatrix, and he's not into that."
I didn't need GameFace to look thoughtful and slightly confused. "So you miss it?"
"Yes. But I don't have to do that with a partner. I've compartmentalized my life before. I can do it again."
I gave her a slow nod. Why not, right? "I don't suppose you could whip your clients into cleaning, could you?"
I heard her stop scrubbing and looked over at her. She was doubled over, sponge dripping from a clenched fist, vibrating with silent laughter. "Ohh, huh. Heh. I hadn't thought of THAT. That's pretty good. Maybe."
From her voice I would never have known she'd been laughing hard enough to shake the shower door. I did have to GameFace then, not to laugh at the situation: how does a fake nut stay safe from a genuinely murderous sadist? Get her giggling. Oh, brother.
"How do you feel about contracts?" As if I didn't know. She still had them on file with people she'd killed in the Gladiator Games.
"I like contracts."
"Let me show you one. Give me a moment." I tossed up the last linens, walked to the wallscreen remote, and called up the public version of one of my clients. She joined me and skimmed the boilerplate while I opened a u-box and imported a nameless updated schedule--you know those old redaction spreadsheets? I'd written one, not expecting to ever need it. She smiled then.
"Rent is about ten times a pro cleaner fee. Average slave boy pays me about triple the rent."
Average slave boy. Great. "Are these repeat customers?" Funny how this didn't bother me when BDSM in general nauseates me.
"Some of them."
I highlighted all but two of them in red. "I must put these customers first. They bring in steady money and are more than reliable. They give me retainers. If they reschedule, I have to be understanding." I highlighted one in orange. "This one is second. He only pays weekly and hasn't been on time. Coming or going." I highlighted the last one in yellow. "This isn't rented at all, but I'm in negotiations to rent it out at double the rate for a full cycle." I pointed to the gray areas. "Regular customers get a cushion around their time for privacy."
"So people might not notice them coming and going?"
"Right." I pointed to the white areas. "If you have clients here, I just need the room clean for the next one on schedule. So book it in this file--I'll make it remote accessible so either of us can check it before renting. Are you licensed?"
She gave me a funny look. "Are you serious?"
"The Enforcers aren't detectives and don't really care to be. They'll assume you're a hooker, even if you stay after to make sure the room's clean. The fine is fifteen times rent."
She pulled up a 'no sex agreement' on the screen. "How about this?"
"Sure, if you have your clients sign one of those, I won't be liable. That's good. They still don't license other private entertainment, do they?" I knew good and well they did, but they never bothered fining for that.
"Right."
"Rates, then: full rent for one-timers or short-timers plus triple the cleaning fee. Anyone you get long-term it becomes full rent plus double the cleaning fee. That's the OFFICIAL rate. Whatever else you can manage out of that goes to your debt with me."
She hadn't expected it to be so cheap. I didn't need my hardware to see it. "BUT." I had her full attention, "Per complaint per client any breach of privacy you will pay twenty times the rent. Five to the client in reparation and fifteen to me."
"Twenty! That's awfully steep."
"Fifteen bundle-rents happens to be the smallest fine the Enforcers -- well, enforce. This room is my largest livelihood. Agree to this, and there could never be a need for arbitration over it."
"What if a client lies?"
"The difference between myself and the Enforcers is that I AM a detective of sorts. I'll find out and you won't owe me. I, through you, will start paying them the five."
She looked at me like I was mining in my own room. "But you'll know they lied."
"After I've made them a first payment, I'll confront them. If they don't make good, we'll arbitrate."
Her eyes followed my finger as I slowly pointed to my section on arbitration. "They have to see it your way or fight you on your terms? And they signed this?"
"No one reads it." I paused while she digested this. "But then, if you stay away during times in the gray fields, my clients may never know who you are. And your clients would be bad-mouthing you. I would suggest you kill all those who mess with your reputation."
"Oh, I do. How do we split up who cleans when?"
We hashed it out then. She could subcontract cleaning if I approved the service, or she'd 'see to it' personally. She was now manager of my room for rent. And I had limited my own access to it. Electronically I would know more about the room than she thought possible, because of the things Gibb had made for me. My 'trophy case,' my wallscreen, my remote, my door modules, my plumbing, and even my 'weapons check' were tricked out. With utilities per month being cheaper here than a fancy dinner, I was free and clear. She offered me more. She had two rooms off-books that she wasn't using. They were bad locations for her. Worthless, in fact, to almost anyone. Except someone like me. Gibb got to move closer to his new job for another highchit a week, a badly designed restaurant rented his place as a storeroom, and I got a noob named Jones thinking like I had been thinking--live away from the action! Don't get mugged as often, stay out of crowds, do more recreational walking--he paid me to live outwardly. His old room I tricked out like mine. And then there were two one-room businesses. I doubled Upclose's work, tripled our income, and, of course expanded our client base considerably by my twentieth day. It was Jones' death on the twentieth day that really got things going.
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1:32 am
April 12, 2012
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The Show Must Go Off–part seventeen
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MCL-BeltMiner#C485640624
Jones was at home sleeping off a mining shift when the unthinkable happened. A quake. There had only been one other in the history of the Belt Mine Prison System. I don't know how many other people were home then. What I do know is that with Emergency Door Number Twenty-three failing, more than a hundred prisoners total died. Two whole hallways opened to space. I wound up surprised to find Jones and a client who'd paid me late had willed me all they had. I shifted around and gave Chugger a 'special rate' on my third room, newly acquired, since his room was lost--he'd been entertaining in my first room at the time. Reparations for a lost room weren't even enough for a sleep shift rental. I bought out Upclose' room value at double--I was doing fine, why shouldn't I stand up for a good employee?
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1:34 am
April 12, 2012
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The Show Must Go Off–part eighteen
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MCL-BeltMiner#C485640624
On the twenty-third day, I was finishing up my minimum (I still hadn't figured out how to meet workweek's quota in less than two shifts) when Jenko suddenly loaned Crunch his spotter and told him to get some practice. That got my attention. Jenko didn't think much of Crunch. Giving him a leg up, well . . . I watched him double check that Crunch wouldn't kill himself or send debris flying everywhere and walk toward me while I pretended to chafe over how little ore I was getting out of my debris. At easy knife-throwing range I looked up as if I hadn't noticed him coming, nodded, put the ChemCheck back on auto, double-checked my tether, and grimaced at him. He was using the tether we'd set up today, not even checking it as he walked. Even in near zero gravity he never bounced, though. Pretty graceful for a hunchback. I used my com till we touched suits to carry our voices. "You not getting anything either?"
He didn't break stride, just kept coming. "Just the magnesium, but that's about gone. This rock may have a nuclear core."
That was a standard complaint of his. You know even in those days the miners had software for sizing an asteroid and making cagey guesses on what had metal and what was practically ice-filled pumice. But once in a while the law of averages didn't pay off because rock would be concentrated unpredictably. We didn't have the imagers and dark spectrometers; they came out later. It was a waste of fuel to lighten an asteroid too much, you know? And we'd whittled this one down pretty far.
"I think you and I need to talk." Jenko was never one to waste words. Or like it when others did.
"Okay."
"I won't say anything, but I know you hack." Mmmm.
"Okay?"
"That shift you were out here alone? Then you came back and reported the pirate attack?"
"Yes?"
"You didn't strike me as a killer. Or as that fast."
"Okay?"
"So I looked at your report form. You were at the same kiosk I was at when I was alone. But you weren't home yet." Ouch.
He continued with, "I don't know where you really were, and I don't care. There's a problem coming, and I want you to handle it."
"What problem?" I looked up. Crunch was doing pretty well, so we'd have a few more minutes.
"Chat rooms are getting encrypted. Rumors are spreading."
"About?"
"Door 23."
"The one that failed?"
"Yes."
"What are they saying?"
"That an Enforcer rigged the door. That a bomb was planted in the trash deposits to cause the quake in the first place."
"That's absurd. Who would their target have been?"
"Doesn't matter. There could be a really bad riot." I thought about that. The life I saved might be my own, after all.
I nodded. "What do you think I could do?"
"Fake a report. Claim a dead prisoner did it. Suicide. We have a riot, or some fool starts digging through the trash deposits to prove it and causes another quake, lots of people could die and get us killed, too."
I nodded again. "I'll pass the word to handle the problem." There--that was vague enough. I might just 'know' the hacker.
I pointed at Crunch. "You'd better tell Crunch to keep his knees bent. We don't want his back ruined."
Jenko grinned, nodded, and lazily spun on the tether. He headed back without another word.
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3:54 pm
April 12, 2012
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The Show Must Go Off–part nineteen
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MCL-BeltMiner#C485640624
Some people talk about how manual labor can clear your head. Super-taskers like me, however, don't Zen out. We plan, we plot, we prepare, and, in my case, I pillage. Ten seconds after Jenko spoke to me I had liberated Enforcer data enough to fake an internal report, including internal memos, change schedules, generate soft copies of anything within the system. Ten minutes later I had skimmed enough to realize that the Enforcers weren't even investigating the rubble. They'd blocked it off, welded shut Emergency Doors 22 and 25, shut off power and closed utility valves, and sent maintenance droids to check everything around the area. AROUND the area?
I spent an entire minute verifying the location of every cleaning, maintenance, utility bot and every other piece of equipment I had capacity to hack. There was ONE cleaning bot unaccounted for. This was a problem. I examined the StayNeur ethos algorithms for a new angle: would I be obligated to tell the truth if I DID discover a conspiracy? I was the only one with access to my own head, and my StayNeur was only safe because I wasn't safe from it myself without proper planning. It took half the ride home with a constantly grumpy 'just let me drive' expression to find the right set of rationalizations. It took till we dropped off our junk ore and requested new coordinates to mine to plan how to make money off my new problem. It took silently walking back to Jenko's to put it in motion--I needed an airtight alibi. Text pre-composed and delivery timing calculated, I told Jenko to shower first. He'd see it all soon enough. Crunch, looking confused, sat down on Jenko's bed beside me, nearly catching his ear in my hammock. "What are you doing?" he said. I couldn't have been better off with any other audience.
5:32 pm
April 12, 2012
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I opened a chatbox with a period in the field for 'Send to.' As you'd expect, the BMPS system closed it. I did it a second time. Second time closed. I did it a third time. Third time closed. "What ARE you doing?" said Crunch, looking even more confused.
"Waiting," I said. Thirty-seven seconds later (Though I'd planned for thirty-nine,) a chatbox opened between myself and my virtual acquaintance, The Surgeon. It had taken some doing to get the system to accept his infamous serial killer nickname. BMPS had originally been supposed to prevent that. By the time Jenko was out of the shower, he saw the chatbox looked like this:
The Surgeon: Alert symbol change--2 choices past.*Q: noted
The Surgeon: New business or old?**************Q: new, sorry
The Surgeon: Debt increase or aligned motive?****Q: aligned
The Surgeon: Proceed.************************Q: Protect my life. New threaht. Income potential.
The Surgeon: Agreed. Continue.****************Q: Sorry for typo, sir. Cause of D 23 fail & Quake?
The Surgeon: Clarify purpose for questions & gains.*Q: Rumor mill can be dangerous, sir. Paranoia.
The Surgeon: This does explain questions. Income?Q: Extortion or selling of information.
The Surgeon: Y.W.N. already involved. Stay out.***Q: May I purchase his findings?
The Surgeon: You may. Free: 3 suspects remain.**Q: Thank you, sir. Terms?
The Surgeon: Later. The Surgeon exits.**********Q: Thank you, sir.
Crunch was re-reading it. "Why did you thank him after he exited?" He finally said.
"Because he cares about that sort of thing. He IS more dangerous than I am." I looked up at Jenko, who was standing there looking like he'd seen a ghost. "You okay?"
"Yes!" he snapped, "What are you involved in, boy?" I was startled. I'd never seen him lie before. He was GOOD at it.
"The Surgeon is obviously good at hacking. The Enforcers haven't caught him in what, six years?" Crunch was memorizing this chatbox. At least I already knew who he'd be typing it out for later. I smiled my insanely calm smile at Jenko, completely ignoring Crunch. "I never understood why he gave himself up. He'd been doing those so-called 'medical experiments' and ducking the cops for nearly a decade--Oh, I'm sorry, Jenko. They'll figure it out. I may not buy even if I can afford it. The problem is practically solved." Crunch and Jenko looked doubtful. Well, they WERE right, after all . . .
12:21 pm
April 12, 2012
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At the same time that I was 'chatting' with my virtual contact and pretending to not get involved, I goosed an Enforcer sub-routine to find another chatbox. One I'd deliberately seeded to include chat between virtual acquaintances Y.W.N. and The Shade. They discussed the possibility of framing the Enforcers for the quake, fixing a door, etc., and that all three suspects lived in one of the two hallways-worth of dead. I made the chatbox appear to have been opened in the jumper landing bay we'd just been seen leaving. The cameras recorded us leaving, then looped around to show the whole two-shift day yesterday and right up to us leaving again. The hook I left was an Enforcer Utility Bot, or EUBIE, as they called them in those days, marching up to the kiosk. In reality it had never moved--with the clean lines of a EUBIE, it was easy to fake video and add shadow, etc.
Most successful criminals avoid panicking the authorities. I needed to divert them if they were going to skip monitoring a hundred droids without asking questions. Most of the hackware I wrote that day was about not getting noticed. I actually automated digital footage serial number replacement so I could have one droid go back over it's own tracks in footage, pretending to do the work of five without getting noticed. This routine would only last from my twenty-third day to maybe my twenty-sixth if I was lucky. The panic was well underway when I left Jenko's, claiming I was going to see Chugger. I got less than ten paces out the door before the shakedown commenced.
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1:18 pm
April 12, 2012
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The Show Must Go Off–part twenty
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MCL-BeltMiner#C485640624
I was noting with amusement that their response time had improved when they arrived. I recognized KF2 and saw the rookie when they arrived. A team of three more waited a noticeable hundred feet away. KF2 was tense but still professional. "Enforcer 4967KF2 on site partnered and with backup team. Interrogation likely." He hung back, though, and waved the rookie to go ahead. I personally think of that as a mistake . . .
The rookie landed from less than a twelve-foot jump with a complete lack of poise and tried to make up for it by talking tough with me. "Enforcer 2054LC4. Open your palms and put your hands on your head, I.D. out!"
I blandly hung my satchel on my toolclip and complied. She scanned me and nodded. "O. H. M., aka 'Q,' BuMPS number C485640624. Where are you headed, miner?"
"Arena Row. L-C?" I GameFaced restrained amusement.
"LC4 is my common, miner; what of it?"
"It rhymes with Elsie, an archaic woman's name."
Her eyes narrowed. "What are you saying?" Oh, good; over wary. I didn't need GameFace to put on a quizzical look, but I used it anyway to keep any nervousness out.
"It's a coincidence. Your call signs are chosen randomly, correct?" For her, this was a complete non-sequitur.
"Can the small talk. You have been in contact with a known hacker, missing in action with a large balance to settle."
"Which hacker do you mean?"
She actually aimed her shoulder cannon at me. I GameFaced mild surprise and for the first time, my ice-cold fearless exterior began to bother her. She hid it well. "Are you denying it?"
I actually managed to pause a moment, drawing out the quizzical psychotic calm. I was good at cons BEFORE my implants. "By WHICH," I said, as if talking to a slightly deaf moronic child, "I mean which hacker--I know more than one."
That made a big dent in the chip on her shoulder. She knew she'd sounded stupid but it was in front of a witness to me cooperating. She reddened a bit. It was cute. "Their names?" Not a bad recovery!
I nodded. "I only know screen names, but if I have access to old news 'zines I could probably find--"
"Screen names will DO, miner!" She was going to be a screamer.
I nodded again, irritatingly slow. "Your Worst Nightmare, The Shade, The Surgeon, Rack, and Epi." There, I'd said it. A list of Enforcers' worst fears. That group of mysteriously missing Beltminers that killed nearly five hundred people on Earth, and only slowed down after finding ice, iron, iodine, and religion before they went AWOP. Payments for their utilities, claim rent, etc. Absent without payout was no longer a 'shoot-on-sight,' but for these guys they'd make an exception. The other members of their band were off-gridders, non-Luddites, but hated the net and everything it represented. One wonders how they ever did get along.
1:21 am
April 12, 2012
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LC4 was enough of a rookie that she didn't automatically think I was lying. And that she wasn't as scared by what I had just told her. "The coordinates you gave were no good." Ah, but she did her homework.
"Well," I said, "I didn't think they'd wait around for you to find them. They may have lied to me anyway. Did you at least find where they were?" I had jettisoned debris suitable to have been a rogue beltminer's transmitter and plotted it's probable landing site on a stripped, abandoned rock. Her face told me they had. Hmm. They hadn't put that online yet--why not?
"I'm asking the questions."
"So you have more, then?"
"YES!"
"Those being?" KF2 was actually smiling at how badly she was doing. He wasn't quite so prideful about his job.
"How do you contact them?" Ah, about time.
"I think they are always watching for me to be online. They choose when."
LC4 couldn't help but look up at the hallcams. "You will submit to memchip scan."
I looked at her with genuine indignance. "I will submit to memchip scan in this public hallway. And I will NOT accompany you to the Enforcer Station." It was time to start scaring them.
She gave me a sarcastic, scrunched-up face and said what no Enforcer was supposed to officially admit. "We were monitoring your chat, 'Q,' and we have you on conspiracy to commit extortion." Gotcha!
I gave her my sweetest, most triumphant smile and didn't need GameFace at all, even with her shoulder cannon still pointed at my face. "I would be FASCINATED, Elsie, for you to arrest me on charges of blackmailing you about Enforcers assassinating beltminers." And I pushed through the subroutine I'd prepped. Every hallcam pointed straight at me. Three cleaning bots, one maintenance utiility cart rolled into view, pointed their optics at us. Every vent, panel, duct, and service door opened to reveal another droid's optics beginning to point at me. It took about thirty seconds for the movements to complete while I simply added, "I wonder how long they would let you live." LC4 and KF2 both went pale and still. Their backup pointed their weaponry at each droid, bot, autocart, cam and screen, not knowing what to do. "They've been waiting for a confession or a slip-up. Why not go ahead? In the meantime, I don't dare go anywhere with any Enforcer. I'd be killed. You too, most likely. Of course, as long as I AM alive, the chances of you catching The Shade and his 'merry men' are higher." I GameFaced back to psychotic calm. "But as long as they know I've been loyal, they'll only kill me if they can do it quickly, hurting as many of you as possible in the process."
Every Enforcer took at least two steps back from me. I'd be a hero by next shift-end. "There is nothing more I can tell you. There is nothing in my memchips worth scanning. Do you want to waste the time?" She shook her head. I walked away.
1:57 am
April 12, 2012
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That had been a little too easy. I launched a fuzzier-than-normal bit of code named ESO to scan ALL footage recorded for the shift-week. Objective: odd Enforcer behavior. I sent out a shelled universal fail code on a timer and every droid that had been 'watching' us blanked their own memories and sent out a maintenance call. Gibbs was about to prove his worth. I decided I really would see Chugger after all. He had been warned I was coming and was waiting outside with a gun. At least he wasn't pointing it. "Hey, Chugger. Trouble?"
"I hope not, Q. Are we good?" uhh--
"I believe you're paid up and then some." He relaxed a little. But not enough--
"I've been asked some questions about you."
"Okay."
"I didn't really know what to tell them." It wasn't just fear in his eyes. GameFace wasn't quite able to decipher--anger or guilt?
"Have you faced trouble because of me?"
"Some. I'm not sure how much yet." Oh how icky.
"Do you wish to partner with me in demanding arbitration?"
He looked completely confused and horrified. "Not at this time." Eeew. He wasn't sure what to feel either.
I nodded. "How is your room?" Boy, that threw him.
"My--oh. I like it." My droid alerts told me that the loiterers in the hallway were all about me.
I pretended not to notice. I leaned closer. "You are an ethical businessman."
He frowned, still confused, but putting the gun away. "Thank you. I do try."
"How do you feel about the con game of partnering with a barfly to water down a drink and split the difference of drinks bought for them?" Chugger actually blushed.
"I used to do that," he said, "I won't anymore."
"Because?"
"I need to respect my customers as a respectable businessman should."
"So that's not a respectable thing to do?" He startled a bit. Oooh.
"I mean it might get around and I can't have that. I have to be known as honest. I haven't always been, but the fact that I'm known NOW as honest means I get better people in. I need better people in because I need the money."
"You are in debt?"
"Not yet. But if I'm going to buy this place," he pointed at the bar behind him, "I need to raise a lot more than I've been able to."
He went on explaining that his only vice was women and he only did that to stay sane, ya da yada ya--while ESO reported back to me. At first I thought it was a glitch. Chugger wasn't an Enforcer, but ESO watched him in and out of a bundling booth. Then I saw it. The rich beltminer woman that paid the bundling booth for a quickie with the surprised Chugger was Elsie. LC4. The Enforcer. No wonder he felt guilty. He hadn't realized it till pillowtalk was over. Maybe not until he saw her on patrol. He kept his hate for the Enforcers pretty quiet, but . . . Hey! The solution for his guilt could benefit me without being TOO expensive for him.
I leaned closer. "I know you didn't mean to talk to an Enforcer. Even a cute one." I gave him a genuine smile.
His eyes widened and his pupils dilated. "H-how did-?"
"Not important, Chugger. What IS important is that I want you to make sure the door swings both ways." Gotcha.
Still wide-eyed, fear left him at the prospect for revenge. "What would you like, sir?"
I covered my mouth and whispered. "You have a screen under the bar, don't you?" He grimaced. It might hurt him to bend like that . . .
"Yes, sir."
"My --ahem-- SPONSOR is wanting another ear on the Enforcers. Someone who might also be good to feed some disinformation."
"They monitor chat, though."
"They can't monitor his chatboxes unless he lets them. If your cursor suddenly jumps into a box marked 'The Shade,' converse freely. Tell him all. Take his assignments. In exchange he will never involve himself with you." I paused. "Oh, and Chugger?"
"Yessir?"
"If you would like a silent partner, or a loan, please come and negotiate with me."
He smiled. "Yes SIR!" I walked straight to the kiosk, typed three completely meaningless keys in a random order, and walked on.
1:17 am
April 12, 2012
Offline
I had walked half of Arena Row when my ESO subroutine went nuts. Several dozen Enforcers were turning off cameras. Um.
I checked the map in my head. The hallway parallel to my walk. I sent out orders for droids and bots to find grates to stare out, funneling footage straight to me. Pre-filtered to only include movement and light changes. It took several minutes for me to realize the net traffic in the area was at a minimum. I did a quick footage search and found nothing. Then I got an old-fashioned e-mail in my head.
Y.W.N.--We are doing as you request. We have nothing to hide. We are NOT guilty, and if you can find someone responsible and find proof, we would be perfectly happy to arrest them. Please use a minimum of violence and allow us to conduct a trial of the suspect or suspects you indicate and access to whatever proof you uncover. Remember, two of our own died in that tunnel. We did not hide the footage--we simply sent it to an independent investigator on a nearby Solarium. Please let US announce the identity of the guilty party or parties. Everyone already knows you are doing the detective work. Many more lives are at stake. We are willing to declare amnesty in exchange for our own satisfaction that this matter was handled correctly.
--Enforcer Head, v-gamma-seven.
Who requested what? I couldn't very well just walk over and find out . . . I stopped at the nearest kiosk and 'received' a fake message.
The Surgeon: Protocol #7. Arena Row parallel. Now.
I GameFaced a look of surprise and confusion and ran. While I was trotting to each and every arena, opening it, and finding them empty, I was searching the Enforcer buffer for a few keywords. Besides the rumor and hopeful tips for sale, I found three copies of the same message:
Enforcer Recipient, I found this waiting for me to send: This is The Surgeon. I want to find those responsible for the recent quake and loss of life. Please therefore deactivate all cameras inside and outside Arenas in inner hallways immediately and leave them off for twenty standard hours. I will be giving away free viewings of footage that I have stolen from the Gladiator Games of two cycles ago as incentive to attend. Myself and my colleagues hope to finish investigating before the twentieth hour. Send e-mail to Y.W.N. when halfway through.
Upclose' tells were on them. Only a hacker like me would likely figure them out, but still--
Word was traveling fast, and only by word of mouth. People were on there way here, and I wasn't sure why.
\\END TEXTBURST \\ROBOTARM:ADDON:LOC314
1:56 am
April 12, 2012
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The Show Must Go Off–part twenty-one
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MCL-BeltMiner#C485640624
I checked all the arenas on one side of the hallway and went to the nearest kiosk. "A random sample check shows all clear, sir," I typed without a box. I paused. Then I typed. "May I ask what is happening?"
Then it happened. I was receiving a report about the missing cleaning bot, ESO was sending more reports, and I wasn't even able to read them. Beatitudes. Psalms. Proverbs. An immense amount of Bible was passing through my head. I was stunned.
I sat there like an idiot. Bible would only pass through my head for one reason. Someone was trying to hack my head! I'd be safe, but crippled electronically until whoever was doing it had their hosting server crash. Since that was probably Upclose, that would be several minutes. That would mean whatever reports were being sent to me were toast. Intact data can be traced, after all. I stood up, frowning with just my own face. I needed to get back on camera! I needed to know whether somebody knew about ME. I needed to know whether a radio modem was suspected. My signal might not be traced, but in theory it could be triangulated or jammed. The whole set of bluffs I'd been running might just come crashing down. I took a chance. I set the BibleCrash to automultiply toward every server around and shut down the modem.
1:18 am
April 12, 2012
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Miners began to arrive. Slowly at first, only in fighter teams armed to the teeth. Then small groups and then random-sized groups. The arenas filled. I chose the largest arena with an announcer podium and waited. When the arena screens began to go through startup routine, I rebooted my internal modem, wary of some trick. Any stray signal would be disguised by massive carrier waves and Upclose's self-protective measures. She wasn't an idiot. No one would be able to completely disguise a continuous transmission in real time to this many 'leaky' signal receivers. I guessed right. She hadn't actuallly stolen the footage. She'd just planted a function to broadcast it straight from it's source on that particular server with fake signal traces from out in the asteroid field. The opening stuttered and restarted as the server crashed. She wasn't trying to hack my head anymore. I peeked and realized she was three hallways away at a kiosk--or had been. It was now fried. I checked footage to discover she was headed for Arena Row. Someone else was headed for me. I didn't recognize him at first. It was the first guy to meet me here. He walked up to me, offering a handshake. "Your protectors must be happy with you."
I shook his hand. "Yes."
"What do they want us to do? They're not planning a riot. Not their style."
"They want you to enjoy the show."
He blinked. "Um. Ok? Call me Thrash. Is there anything I can get you?" Ah.
"I could use some water. But more importantly I need to know if anyone was near Doors 22 or 24 within three hours of the quake. We're not asking for rats. We're asking for people to admit they were near to eliminate people with clear consciences."
Thrash nodded. "Five minutes," he said, and he squeezed into the crowd.
A lot can be accomplished in five minutes . . .
1:56 am
April 12, 2012
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In four minutes eleven seconds I saw Thrash and three other guys headed for me. Upclose had started drifting in and out of arenas on the other side of the hall, the ones with bigger fighting floors. Footage suggested she was just drumming up business. I didn't think so. By that time, I had attempted to recreate what ESO had been sending, what my bot search had turned up, any dregs of unerased footage from the quake hallways, buffer data-mining losses, etc. The short summary is I hadn't gotten very much accomplished.
Of course I'd DONE a lot. It just amounted to nothing. ESO had been reporting on Enforcers waving magnetic wands at cameras, starting a maintenance routine that just happened to last twenty-two hours. The cleaning bot was still not found, but I had figured out that it was buried in the quake and out of range of any standard transmitters. Quake footage really had been completely purged from the system during a seventh copy-outward command. Data mining hadn't gone very well either except that I discovered the Enforcers were goofy enough they'd left power to some of the rooms buried in the quake. The four guys drew near. I prepped GameFace for rapid changes and looked at them like a Pharaoh watching slaves arrive. Each one carried two bottles.
"Q?" said Thrash, "We have water, beer, lemonade, and FayKafay. Which would you like?" Yikes.
"Is the lemonade real?" That would make it more expensive than beer.
"Sorry, no," said the one holding it.
I nodded and looked at the water. Filtered, ozoned. "Water is fine. Thank you." The guys looked surprised, but handed me one. I opened it. I drank a long swallow. Then they opened theirs and drank too. And Thrash told me about the wonderful idea that I didn't know I'd given him.
1:42 am
April 12, 2012
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"Guys," said Thrash, "You all know who 'Q' is. Q? I'm Thrash, and I'll be your point of contact. These guys don't want any part of your umbrella or other contact if that's all right." Hmmm.
"I am not networking at this time. Of course, I can't speak for Them." Two of them squirmed.
"We're calling them 'A,' 'B,' and 'C.'" He nodded at each of them in turn. "And we have moved forward with your idea in a different direction." I was glad for GameFace--that sounded stupid.
"Which idea?" The conversation WAS almost twenty-five days ago. And my buffer was full.
"Fighting off-camera."
"Ah."
"We know that you have your newfound faith, like the Six-" Is THAT what people call them? The Six? "But we have a more political interest." Uh oh.
"Excuse me?"
'C' burst in with "This is not really a prison. It's a penal colony, and--" He actually looked around at the miners watching the screen. "--why? We should be our own country." Hhhhhhh. Great.
"Revolution?" I GameFaced mild surprise. The government put us here, so we fight them? Not my idea of staying safe. "I doubt that I can help you. The Six have their own agenda."
Thrash waved that down. "We know. We're not going to ask much. But we want to know about hacking in to the system."
I nodded. "For what purpose?"
"We want to make a counter-offer to the required registration. We're just laying groundwork, you understand. What we want to do is create fake fights and other footage and pass them off as real. We want to do this before we push for the right to do it because it already IS our right."
I GameFaced a bristle. "How will this affect arbitration?" My reputation needed to be protected.
"Only voluntary fights, no settlements. What we want from you is a way to finish them. 'A' can make and animate digital people. 'B' can make them look real, and 'C' can move them into and within an environment. We need a way to force the system to accept the footage, bypassing the cameras."
I GameFaced my expression through relaxing and then mild interest. That would be easy enough. I sent out a signal to the podium screen. A text box appeared with 'SECURE' at the top. 'C' noticed it first and nudged Thrash. I 'followed' their gaze and faked a startle reaction. I typed in a summary of the request. I blanked the screen and sent a follow-up. This time the text box opened with a really long title.
WE WILL REQUEST THESE TASKS BE ACCOMPLISHED BY UPCLOSE. PLEASE STAND BY.
The text box disappeared as the screen in the arena Upclose was in grew a caption. UPCLOSE PLEASE REPORT TO PODIUM AREA OF ARENA D7. SEE Q. WE ARE ADDING TO YOUR DUTIES. The Surgeon.
The footage showed Upclose almost collide with a random beltminer, reading that. She and two curious men came. Thrash and his guys closed ranks around her and motioned them away. They complied with apologies. Her eyes were big and round.
"How much trouble am I in?" she said. So I told her.
1:38 am
April 12, 2012
Offline
Thrash and his fellow revolutionaries gave us a little space but stayed right in earshot and looked generally amused and curious as I began. "They seem irritated, want you to buy back your safety, and expect an explanation."
Eyes still big, she nodded. "I was--"
"NOT to me. I'm not even sure why they're miffed at you. Type it to Them." I nodded at the podium screen where a graphic appeared of a stick figure waving it's index finger right at her. She raised her eyebrows. She wasn't at a predictable angle to the screen. She turned slightly to the arena screen and did the math.
"They have infiltrated ALL the hardware here, haven't they?"
I smiled at her. "I wouldn't be surprised to hear they own hidden hardware all over V-gamma-7." Heh heh. --Not yet. . .
She nodded and slowly typed 'The Enforcers already know I hack, so they WILL be after me for information on you. Is there anything you would LIKE me to tell them?'
The graphic disappeared and a chatbox jumped up showing what should have appeared to be an accidental glimpse at an argument in code between The Surgeon and The Shade. Then it disappeared. A short pause followed. This was going about as I thought it would. "I thin-" I interrupted myself for effect as the next header came up, reading 'DO NOT MENTION CONTENT OF THIS MEETING WITH NEW ASSOCIATES. TELL ENFORCERS EVERYTHING ELSE YOU KNOW OF US. DO NOT DIVULGE YOUR ROLE IN TODAY'S SHOW. DISCUSS PLAN WITH Q AND DO WITHIN TEN HOURS UNLESS TOLD NOT TO BY Q.' The header took up the whole box. I let the screen go blank before I broke the respectful silence. "I was right; they want me to tell you the plan. These men have footage we want in the system, but we want it in the system as if the system's cameras filmed it."
Upclose nodded, "How much footage?"
Thrash spoke up. "There's less than an hour's footage ready. It's sorted by location and time index."
Upclose frowned, "Have you already made sure there's no other footage for those places and times?"
Thrash looked surprised, and turned to the group. 'C' was nodding. "And all arenas."
Upclose nodded, "That's good; the system won't kick it out, even during a self-audit. I'll have to fake system tags and camera signatures and maybe some upload garbage temporary files--" Her eyes grew big again "--within ten hours?! I can't do that! The cameras are all off in the arena area! The uploads will be flagged even if I sneak them in unless these cameras are on!"
I knew she had her limits. "Upclose?"
"Yes?"
"If you prep the uploads, the Six can toggle the cameras on and off and erase evidence that they did that."
Her eyes narrowed at me. "What?"
I smiled widely. "I'm pretty sure they've done that to hide peoples' movements."
She shook her head. "There are LIVE Enforcers that watch feeds." Yikes.
I nodded along. "So there would have to be a big diversion or something."
She blinked. "Well, it wouldn't have to be LONG. An upload should take about 20 milliseconds."
I pretended to be impressed. "We'll leave the exact timing to them then. I guess I'll ask two of these fine young men to come with me and leave the footage with you?" She nodded. We had a plan.
\\END TEXTBURST \\ROBOTARM:ADDON:LOC314
2:05 am
April 12, 2012
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The Show Must Go Off–part twenty-two
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MCL-BeltMiner#C485640624
Thrash and 'A' came with me. The other two immediately huddled with Upclose. I set up another subroutine named Upclose, just for recording her movements in code to the nearest device under my control. I'd get it out of order, but I'd get it all. No more surprises. As we exited, the famous fight between Griffon and Gryphon started up. Last no-grav aerial fight with no winners. Griffon was obliterated, pieces everywhere, and Gryphon was declared the winner before anyone realized he'd cheated. His last three shots had been taken after he died. No automatic targeting or shooting has EVER been allowed.
I had been running a long con when it started getting air time on Earth. You know the Pranky Neighbor? Get two neighbors thinking that the other is pranking them over the fence while making book across the street with voyeurs. Start a prank-war-watching party, taking bigger bets as the crowd gets drunker. Then duck out with ALL the money bet, never having given a real name as BOTH neighbors suddenly get an 'anonymous' tip that the real pranksters are watching them? I'd come up with my own ingenious version of that when most of the thunder was stolen by the fight coming available on pay-per-view unannounced. The buzz ruined the timing on at least two-thirds of my action. I'd been about to start a firework fight--
"Thrash? What do you know about chemistry? Pyrotechnics?"
His eyebrows went up. "Uh. Not much."
"What do you know about junk ore storage?"
"Nothing."
"Do you know where the morgue is?" He stopped walking. He went pale. It was so cute! He recovered quick.
"That would be V-gamma-5" Thrash said. He was suddenly no longer happy with claiming a connection to me.
I whirled to 'A.' He stopped walking too. "How far away is V-gamma-5?" I demanded.
He only paused a moment. His face hardened. "Charts. I'll look it up." He started for a kiosk. I followed him, Thrash in tow.
"What do you want the morgue for?" asked Thrash.
"A diversion, religious reasons, and, of course, to help your cause." I gave him my distracted smile. I didn't even need GameFace, though I was using it. Too much could go wrong right now.
"How would blowing up the morgue help the revolution?" asked Thrash.
"What are you, brainless?" burst out 'A,' "Before it's full-scale revolution, it'll be just crime--and the Enforcers might hesitate a tenth of a second before killing if there's no morgue. Now shut up and do a parallel search with me. You're looking for storage of junk ore, like Q said."
"How do I find that?"
"Bound to be between deposit stations and payout unless it's grouped. If it is, look for records of heavy freighters with no pilots."
"They fly auto?"
"No, Thrash," 'A' rolled his eyes, "They correct for anti-collision and docking without pilots. They're randomly used as push-offs by whoever needs them to get to the belt." Ah, a fuel saver--that would come in handy.
Thrash really was a bungler. Just a thug who knew how to wind up with the right friends at the right time. I took over and found coordinates for four junk ore freighters between us and the morgue, waiting, of course, for 'A' to verify where it was for me. Off-screen, I verified Thrash as a surprisingly good pilot. Must've had that unteachable feel for flying. I set him up good. I tracked Gibb down in the shop and sent him a message he couldn't ignore. One-tenth of his remaining debt would be considered paid if he collected fifty shop-droid's worth of spare parts, an assembly droid with a bank-full of generic plans, two cutting torches and three fifteen-second thrust tanks, fully charged. All of them had to be off-book, not from machinery in-use, and he could NOT be caught. Partial success would be appreciated and valued later--he had one hour.
Gibb got only ten shop-droid worth of spare parts, but everything else. I have a feeling he just told a lot of people their droids couldn't be fixed without more parts and took them right out of those being serviced.
Thrash came back with his mining suit looking worried. It had extra armor. 'A' came back with four extra air tanks. I didn't ask.
"YOU WANT ME TO WHAT?!" Thrash looked like he'd be sick.
"Drive, that's all," I said blandly. I walked up to the assembly droid with an ordinary piece of copper wire I'd snagged from a broken stove we'd seen being hauled in not two minutes before. I stuck one end half into the infoport and held it just out of synaptic range. I stuck the other end half into a walljack. Gibb frowned. He knew this data transfer wasn't possible. Just as a precaution I sent out a records request.
"BUT IT'S NOT A SHIP!" Thrash continued. 'A' actually looked puzzled. Gibb was still frowning.
"Gibb? Any advice for the assembly droid?" I'd told Gibb a little bit.
Gibb nodded. "The air tanks in front, since a direct hit with an asteroid would kill him anyway. Cone-shaped visor. Everything else is like packing material. Shell in front." He picked up an old ship's rear window and hung it in an assembly frame.
By the time he'd finished I'd sent the instructions through a compiler and input them. The assembly took four minutes and looked horrendous. I clapped Thrash on the back.
"You'll do fine," I said.
"Our cause must go on," said 'A.'
"You guys are nuts," said Gibb.
"I must be," said Thrash.
The assembly droid helped Thrash put the 'ship' on and climbed onto his back. A walking junkyard. Soon to be a flying or dying one. 'A' and I began walking him to the airlock. I had to divert cameras away singly, so almost missed Gibb kneeling down to the walljack. A quick trace found an assembly droid; I had it turn from it's work, step over a cord, zip under two work tables, remove a wall panel and reach through diagonally to within an inch of the walljack. Through its eyes I saw what the records request hadn't finished with yet. The walljack was disconnected. And Gibb was about to open it. I faked a muscle spasm and told the guys to wait. I closed my eyes to concentrate. Using the assembly droid's cutting torch, I zapped Gibb through the walljack panel's fastener with about a third of tazing force. From his reaction, I probably miscalculated. He hopped around holding his hand and swearing for several seconds. That was enough for the assembly droid to build most of a CPU from used parts and debris, completely fry it, and then hook it up via a 'melted' connection to the nearest net gridlink. I had it close the panel and get back to work, erasing the rest of the shop footage while I did it. Then I helped get Thrash out the airlock so he could become the revolution's first martyr.
\\END TEXTBURST \\ROBOTARM:ADDON:LOC314
1:10 am
April 12, 2012
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The Show Must Go Off–part twenty-three
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MCL-BeltMiner#C485640624
I hadn't taken any chances on my transmission range--the assembly droid's memory was wiped and the new instructions input before the airlock opened. We'd chosen one with a quick-release open so that the puff would push him out and save a little on the first burn. The assembly droid had docking clamps put together and ready, even had time to spare for swatting micrometeors away, and Thrash touched down on the first junk-ore freighter undetected. No one was looking for a ship too small to hold three people and reserve fuel and shielding--if I hadn't tweaked the assembly droid for batting practice, this really would have been insane to try. We lost signal about then. 'A' was cool under pressure. He didn't even act curious, just helped me look up chemistry questions. I hadn't forgotten he was an artist. When we were done I asked him to make a few color-combination choices.
"Fireworks in SPACE?!" he said, "How could THAT work?" The real reason for the morgue stop was the stasis packs. The year before, somebody's dead uncle was being shipped back to Earth when an unnoticed meteor cluster had impacted with the fuel mixer. It turned out that the byproduct of rocket fuel burning through the cadaver null-g stasis packs was a vacuum-suitable dead-human-colored firework. The one news channel replayed it about six times, including commentary on when his copper bracelet caught and turned the flame blue for just an bit. Well. Obviously there wouldn't be COPPER in the junk ore freighters. Copper's good money. I explained the news flash of 'Blue Barney.' Turns out 'A' was in comatransit at the time, hadn't heard.
We were probably looking at oranges, yellows, maybe a bit of green or red. 'A' was pretty enthused. He came up with five or six plans based on differing amounts of calcium to the sodium, barium, and strontium that might turn up.
The assembler droid, after docking Thrash, had him reading electronic manifests out loud and looking for frozen methane and fuel convertibles while it built droids and hijacked more with my subhacker routines. One at a time, three re-configured freighters were joined, docked to, taken over, pilfered, repointed, and launched from. With ten droids it took seven and a half hours at a breakneck pace.
When I checked in with Upclose, I discovered she was already ready. When I told her I was surprised, she said: "I used some rooms' transmitters like an array to send some of the processing to an empty server on sunside." That turned out to be rather important.
1:30 am
April 12, 2012
Offline
I hadn't figured out how to get around hiding messages inside other messages until Upclose reminded me about making one large signal out of a bunch of small, synchronized ones. Sure, the programming, the timing, and the testing is a lot more work, but it is a lot easier to disguise origin, meaning, and purpose. It also takes less power. By nine hours and ten minutes, the reprogramming was ready, signals exchanged, cameras synced up to 'blink,' the fireworks were deployed, and notices were ready to screen.
At ten hours on the nose, every arena showed a caption explaining which outer viewports, which feeds from which cameras, and which side of V-gamma-7 to be on for the best views without obstructing the viewports. Every kiosk showed the same message. The fake fights were in the system. There was a mad scramble. Everyone wanted to see. Three people got broken ribs and there were a lot of sprained ankles before things settled down. No one had seen fireworks since they left Earth. I was taping it with a rogue camera. I was dead tired. I went home. People could do without me for awhile.
And they did. The revolutionaries faded into the crowds. Spontaneous parties and drunken brawls broke out in the hallways. Crunch wound up getting torn limb from limb when he tried to stop Upclose doing a celebratory striptease on top of a cleaning bot. She wasn't the only one. Female Enforcers had been deployed to do flying leaps and carry the strippers to safety. I was taping that too. I got home and almost got a nap before the bottom fell out.
1:31 am
April 12, 2012
Offline
I had dozed off mere seconds by my autoclock node (which did run a few percent slow in those days) when an old subroutine kicked in. I'd written a few anti-ambush modules the first day I knew I'd go to prison. SleepSafe informed me that Jenko had keyed in with his i.d., that his biometrics checked out, and that he was pointing something at me. I really wanted to stay asleep, but this wasn't normal behavior for him. The man's record was clear. He'd grandfathered in to miss most of the Gladiator Game requirements. He'd been mugged several times. No other violence. He WAS a murderer, but he'd used poison. As I began to wake up, lower-priority reports bombarded my consciousness. The missing cleaning bot had been trapped outside the hallway debris in old trashfill. Or maybe it hadn't. The data didn't match up. Thrash had not sent the coded signal he was okay. The morgue cargo ship he was supposed to steal had not been stolen. The post-firework riots were over. Every single planned color-combination had fired, with results about like we'd figured. The free fights show Upclose had started was still going on. The fake footage was in place and ready for purchase. A record number of beltminers were not working at the moment. A record number of Enforcers were 'assisting' the local prostitutes. Enforcer data traffic was oddly silent. As I pretended to wake up, I sent out instructions for the cleaning bot to reassess and tried to bounce a signal to Thrash's batter, the assembly droid. I opened my eyes to Jenko pointing a gun at my face just about a meter out of reach.
"You know," I said slowly, "If you fire that in here, the ricochet will very likely get you, too."
Jenko frowned and moved his other hand. He knocked on his gun-hand's wrist. I mean knocked. Jenko didn't have subdermal armor. It wasn't in his profile . . . "Who are you, REALLY?" he said.
"I am exactly who you've always thought I was." Why did Jenko have armor? He never signed up for fighting. Who had implanted it?
He motioned me to hold out my i.d. "Now tap it on the wall just above the couch." Mmm?
I reached down from my hammock and did what he said, frowning. I felt it in my head. Something in the wall scanned me. Something I hadn't put in the wall scanned me.
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