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- MAD SCIENCE IN INDEPENDENT SPACE
- The scene: a dozen police officers hunker down
- behind their vehicles, many of which are missing
- large chunks. A man, barely visible through some
- sort of visual distortion, fires invisible beams through
- the streets, causing objects to flare and disappear. He
- cackles madly. They scream for backup.
- Captain: “Now goddamnit NOW! I have no idea
- what this maddie’s firing at us but it’s taking the cars
- apart!”
- Dispatch: “Three minutes, captain. Keep him
- talking or contained for two minutes and fifty-three
- seconds.”
- Sergeant: “Oh yeah, talking. Does ‘bwahahahaha’
- count as — JESUS!”
- A beam flies with a tiny thunderclap above the
- sergeant’s head, blasting a hole straight through a
- building, a tree on the other side of it, the next building,
- and stops at a pane of glass.
- Sergeant: “What the hell is that thing?”
- Mad Scientist: “Behold the power of my anti-neutrino
- ray!”
- Captain: “Like hell it is — even he doesn’t know
- what he’s shooting. Someone turned his cognitive
- accelerator up too high this morning.”
- Rookie: “Uh, guys, I think he heard you...”
- The captain and sergeant scramble from behind
- their car as significant parts of it simply vanish with a
- series of miniature thunderclaps. Only the windows
- remain on the ground.
- Sergeant: “Two minutes. Just two minutes.”
- Captain: “It has to be some kind of dissociation
- beam! It’s taking apart anything more loosely bound
- than diamond!”
- Sergeant: “Great, you know, I just happen to
- have this chunk of diamond in my pocket that I can
- put between me and the gun. Minute forty-five.”
- Rookie: “What about the nanoweave armor in
- the truck?”
- Captain: “Too risky. Might act like a diffraction
- grating.”
- Mad Scientist: “I can hear you, you know. I hope
- you’re recording all of this. It’s about time I got credit
- for what I did — for what I can do!”
- Miniature thunderclaps fill the air again, and an
- explosion rocks the neighborhood as underground
- capacitors release gigajoules of stored energy.
- Dispatch: “I heard that all the way out here —
- what’s going on?”
- Captain: “He’s started digging! It looks like he’s
- trying to cut down to the subsystems. Rookie, what
- the hell are you doing?”
- The rookie scrambles back from the wreckage of
- the car, holding the windshield in his hands. He takes
- his sidearm, dials it down to the width of a hair, and
- slices a handle to hold it with.
- Rookie: “Making a shield, sir. I can run distraction
- with this.”
- Sergeant: “Your funeral. Minute fifteen.”
- Captain: “Run in front of the Gate’s End’s windows;
- it’ll keep the damage down. Sarge and I will
- see if that DIF he’s got running is full-spectrum or
- not. Go!”
- The rookie holds the windshield and takes off,
- sprinting down the street. The maddie turns and fires
- at him, but the shots stop at the windshield. Stray
- shots hit the diamond windows of the Gate’s End
- hotel and stop. After a few shots from the sergeant’s
- inversion beam have no effect, the captain takes out
- a large grenade, primes it, and throws it. The metal
- net inside lands on top of the maddie and bears him
- towards the ground. An immense electrical pulse
- comes from the net, and the distortion in the air
- vanishes.
- Sergeant: “Got you now, jackass.”
- The sergeant aims, and the maddie’s gun turns
- and vaporizes the ground below the sergeant. He
- trips, but manages not to fire his weapon. The maddie
- cuts himself free with his weapon, taking out significant
- chunks of road in the process. He begins waving
- it around, firing continuously. The rookie charges him
- with the windshield, but the ground beneath him
- vanishes and he trips, cracking the shield in half. The
- captain lobs another grenade, but misses as his target
- runs for a side street.
- Captain: “Ten seconds. Come on guys, don’t be
- late today...”
- A gust of wind nearly blows all three officers over
- as a figure in massive armor rockets down the street.
- The armor loses three layers from the maddie’s gun,
- but the armored officer points a hand and the maddie
- freezes in place, eyes bulging. A few seconds later, a
- tiny electrical spark comes from the back of his head.
- He drops the gun and starts to sob uncontrollably.
- Captain: “Thanks, Sheila.”
- Armor: “No problem, Cobbol. Just sorry I couldn’t
- be here sooner.”
- INDEPENDENT POLITICS
- “...and with that we are in recess. We reconvene
- after lunch.” The gavel drops, and dozens of ambassadors
- and hundreds of observers funnel out of the
- Great Hall of the League Council.
- A pair of women and their aides walk out a side
- door downstairs, heading for the council’s canteen.
- They’re obviously not thrilled to be walking out the
- same door together.
- “Ophelia.”
- “Rainia.”
- “Laying it on a bit thick out there, weren’t you?”
- Guards open the door for them, and the pair and their
- aides lose their step slightly as they pass through the
- sound-baffled hallway that leads to the canteen. The
- air here is thick with pressure variance and airborne
- speakers.
- Ophelia rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. They deserve
- it, and you know it.”
- “I just think that, perhaps, the Patent Office
- might be a tad displeased that you referred to them as
- ‘conceptual jailors driven by greed.’” Rainia glances
- sideways to catch Ophelia’s reaction. She waves off
- the suggestion.
- “Pff. They know — probably better than we
- do — that a little bit of anti-establishment feeling is
- good for any organization.”
- “A little bit, yes, but...”
- “But nothing. If they’re so morally superior, they
- can do some forgiving.” They grab trays and pick up
- custom-replicated lunches. “And I’ll see you back in
- the Great Hall — my people and yours have some
- unfinished business.” Ophelia heads over to her delegation’s
- table, and Rainia slumps her way over to
- her own. They wave and make some idle chit-chat.
- Rainia rolls Ophelia’s ideas around in her head
- for a while. Anti-Transcendental feelings were running
- high this week, and what paltry projections the
- Independents could make showed that they might
- continue for the next month or more. She needed to
- make some contacts in the Tao or the Stored and get
- them to do some higher-quality projections. Things
- weren’t easy for their delegation right now — everyone
- was new at the job, since the old guard got voted
- out two months ago.
- One of her aides broke her concentration. “So I
- saw you talking to the bitch queen when you came
- in. What was that all about?”
- Ophelia shook her head. “Oh, just sniping. I
- swear that woman wants a war some days. Not that I
- think she really does,” she added, seeing the concern
- in the eyes of her contingent, “just that she wants
- other people to think she might.”
- Those at the table tossed the idea back and forth
- while Rainia thought and looked around.
- “The T-worshippers back home are going to be
- ripshit about this one.”
- “Ah, nobody cares about them anyway.”
- “That’s just the thing, persecuted minority.”
- “Someone’s gonna start caring soon.”
- “Do we want to encourage them, though? I
- mean, this is the League of Independent Worlds — if
- they want to be dependent...”
- “We can’t start throwing people out just because
- of how they think, this isn’t the Union.”
- “There we go; Godwin’s Law at work...”
- “I’m serious-”
- “Guys, please.” Everyone stopped, slightly chagrined.
- “Look over there.” Rainia motioned with her
- head towards Ophelia’s table. Her delegation had
- cleared some table space and their dermal ‘bots were
- projecting infographics, text, and interface components
- onto the surface. They moved with precision
- and purpose.
- “They’re working. They’re organized. We’re...
- bitching and moaning and acting like this is some
- kind of civics class. You tell me: who’s going to win
- when we get back in there? If we don’t get it together,
- this sort of crap is going to sweep the whole of Independent
- space. I can feel it in my bones.” Rainia took
- a deep breath. “Now — what can we do to combat
- it?”
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