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  1. MAD SCIENCE IN INDEPENDENT SPACE
  2.  
  3. The scene: a dozen police officers hunker down
  4. behind their vehicles, many of which are missing
  5. large chunks. A man, barely visible through some
  6. sort of visual distortion, fires invisible beams through
  7. the streets, causing objects to flare and disappear. He
  8. cackles madly. They scream for backup.
  9.  
  10. Captain: “Now goddamnit NOW! I have no idea
  11. what this maddie’s firing at us but it’s taking the cars
  12. apart!”
  13.  
  14. Dispatch: “Three minutes, captain. Keep him
  15. talking or contained for two minutes and fifty-three
  16. seconds.”
  17.  
  18. Sergeant: “Oh yeah, talking. Does ‘bwahahahaha’
  19. count as — JESUS!”
  20.  
  21. A beam flies with a tiny thunderclap above the
  22. sergeant’s head, blasting a hole straight through a
  23. building, a tree on the other side of it, the next building,
  24. and stops at a pane of glass.
  25.  
  26. Sergeant: “What the hell is that thing?”
  27.  
  28. Mad Scientist: “Behold the power of my anti-neutrino
  29. ray!”
  30.  
  31. Captain: “Like hell it is — even he doesn’t know
  32. what he’s shooting. Someone turned his cognitive
  33. accelerator up too high this morning.”
  34.  
  35. Rookie: “Uh, guys, I think he heard you...”
  36. The captain and sergeant scramble from behind
  37. their car as significant parts of it simply vanish with a
  38. series of miniature thunderclaps. Only the windows
  39. remain on the ground.
  40.  
  41. Sergeant: “Two minutes. Just two minutes.”
  42.  
  43. Captain: “It has to be some kind of dissociation
  44. beam! It’s taking apart anything more loosely bound
  45. than diamond!”
  46.  
  47. Sergeant: “Great, you know, I just happen to
  48. have this chunk of diamond in my pocket that I can
  49. put between me and the gun. Minute forty-five.”
  50.  
  51. Rookie: “What about the nanoweave armor in
  52. the truck?”
  53.  
  54. Captain: “Too risky. Might act like a diffraction
  55. grating.”
  56.  
  57. Mad Scientist: “I can hear you, you know. I hope
  58. you’re recording all of this. It’s about time I got credit
  59. for what I did — for what I can do!”
  60.  
  61. Miniature thunderclaps fill the air again, and an
  62. explosion rocks the neighborhood as underground
  63. capacitors release gigajoules of stored energy.
  64. Dispatch: “I heard that all the way out here —
  65. what’s going on?”
  66.  
  67. Captain: “He’s started digging! It looks like he’s
  68. trying to cut down to the subsystems. Rookie, what
  69. the hell are you doing?”
  70.  
  71. The rookie scrambles back from the wreckage of
  72. the car, holding the windshield in his hands. He takes
  73. his sidearm, dials it down to the width of a hair, and
  74. slices a handle to hold it with.
  75.  
  76. Rookie: “Making a shield, sir. I can run distraction
  77. with this.”
  78.  
  79. Sergeant: “Your funeral. Minute fifteen.”
  80.  
  81. Captain: “Run in front of the Gate’s End’s windows;
  82. it’ll keep the damage down. Sarge and I will
  83. see if that DIF he’s got running is full-spectrum or
  84. not. Go!”
  85.  
  86. The rookie holds the windshield and takes off,
  87. sprinting down the street. The maddie turns and fires
  88. at him, but the shots stop at the windshield. Stray
  89. shots hit the diamond windows of the Gate’s End
  90. hotel and stop. After a few shots from the sergeant’s
  91. inversion beam have no effect, the captain takes out
  92. a large grenade, primes it, and throws it. The metal
  93. net inside lands on top of the maddie and bears him
  94. towards the ground. An immense electrical pulse
  95. comes from the net, and the distortion in the air
  96. vanishes.
  97.  
  98. Sergeant: “Got you now, jackass.”
  99.  
  100. The sergeant aims, and the maddie’s gun turns
  101. and vaporizes the ground below the sergeant. He
  102. trips, but manages not to fire his weapon. The maddie
  103. cuts himself free with his weapon, taking out significant
  104. chunks of road in the process. He begins waving
  105. it around, firing continuously. The rookie charges him
  106. with the windshield, but the ground beneath him
  107. vanishes and he trips, cracking the shield in half. The
  108. captain lobs another grenade, but misses as his target
  109. runs for a side street.
  110.  
  111. Captain: “Ten seconds. Come on guys, don’t be
  112. late today...”
  113.  
  114. A gust of wind nearly blows all three officers over
  115. as a figure in massive armor rockets down the street.
  116. The armor loses three layers from the maddie’s gun,
  117. but the armored officer points a hand and the maddie
  118. freezes in place, eyes bulging. A few seconds later, a
  119. tiny electrical spark comes from the back of his head.
  120. He drops the gun and starts to sob uncontrollably.
  121.  
  122. Captain: “Thanks, Sheila.”
  123.  
  124. Armor: “No problem, Cobbol. Just sorry I couldn’t
  125. be here sooner.”
  126.  
  127. INDEPENDENT POLITICS
  128.  
  129. “...and with that we are in recess. We reconvene
  130. after lunch.” The gavel drops, and dozens of ambassadors
  131. and hundreds of observers funnel out of the
  132. Great Hall of the League Council.
  133.  
  134. A pair of women and their aides walk out a side
  135. door downstairs, heading for the council’s canteen.
  136. They’re obviously not thrilled to be walking out the
  137. same door together.
  138.  
  139. “Ophelia.”
  140.  
  141. “Rainia.”
  142.  
  143. “Laying it on a bit thick out there, weren’t you?”
  144. Guards open the door for them, and the pair and their
  145. aides lose their step slightly as they pass through the
  146. sound-baffled hallway that leads to the canteen. The
  147. air here is thick with pressure variance and airborne
  148. speakers.
  149.  
  150. Ophelia rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. They deserve
  151. it, and you know it.”
  152.  
  153. “I just think that, perhaps, the Patent Office
  154. might be a tad displeased that you referred to them as
  155. ‘conceptual jailors driven by greed.’” Rainia glances
  156. sideways to catch Ophelia’s reaction. She waves off
  157. the suggestion.
  158.  
  159. “Pff. They know — probably better than we
  160. do — that a little bit of anti-establishment feeling is
  161. good for any organization.”
  162.  
  163. “A little bit, yes, but...”
  164.  
  165. “But nothing. If they’re so morally superior, they
  166. can do some forgiving.” They grab trays and pick up
  167. custom-replicated lunches. “And I’ll see you back in
  168. the Great Hall — my people and yours have some
  169. unfinished business.” Ophelia heads over to her delegation’s
  170. table, and Rainia slumps her way over to
  171. her own. They wave and make some idle chit-chat.
  172.  
  173. Rainia rolls Ophelia’s ideas around in her head
  174. for a while. Anti-Transcendental feelings were running
  175. high this week, and what paltry projections the
  176. Independents could make showed that they might
  177. continue for the next month or more. She needed to
  178. make some contacts in the Tao or the Stored and get
  179. them to do some higher-quality projections. Things
  180. weren’t easy for their delegation right now — everyone
  181. was new at the job, since the old guard got voted
  182. out two months ago.
  183.  
  184. One of her aides broke her concentration. “So I
  185. saw you talking to the bitch queen when you came
  186. in. What was that all about?”
  187.  
  188. Ophelia shook her head. “Oh, just sniping. I
  189. swear that woman wants a war some days. Not that I
  190. think she really does,” she added, seeing the concern
  191. in the eyes of her contingent, “just that she wants
  192. other people to think she might.”
  193.  
  194. Those at the table tossed the idea back and forth
  195. while Rainia thought and looked around.
  196.  
  197. “The T-worshippers back home are going to be
  198. ripshit about this one.”
  199.  
  200. “Ah, nobody cares about them anyway.”
  201.  
  202. “That’s just the thing, persecuted minority.”
  203. “Someone’s gonna start caring soon.”
  204.  
  205. “Do we want to encourage them, though? I
  206. mean, this is the League of Independent Worlds — if
  207. they want to be dependent...”
  208.  
  209. “We can’t start throwing people out just because
  210. of how they think, this isn’t the Union.”
  211.  
  212. “There we go; Godwin’s Law at work...”
  213.  
  214. “I’m serious-”
  215.  
  216. “Guys, please.” Everyone stopped, slightly chagrined.
  217.  
  218. “Look over there.” Rainia motioned with her
  219. head towards Ophelia’s table. Her delegation had
  220. cleared some table space and their dermal ‘bots were
  221. projecting infographics, text, and interface components
  222. onto the surface. They moved with precision
  223. and purpose.
  224.  
  225. “They’re working. They’re organized. We’re...
  226. bitching and moaning and acting like this is some
  227. kind of civics class. You tell me: who’s going to win
  228. when we get back in there? If we don’t get it together,
  229. this sort of crap is going to sweep the whole of Independent
  230. space. I can feel it in my bones.” Rainia took
  231. a deep breath. “Now — what can we do to combat
  232. it?”
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