“Perhaps, perhaps. But perhaps the president would feel differently?”
“If small and fast would work, why are the others only building huge ships?”
“Because they must send thousands of people. They don’t have what we have. We can send a ship with no living beings on it. A far faster ship. Once it arrives and ensures the planet is habitable, well then the auto crèches can kick off the cloning process. When they are fully baked, we can inject the clones with copies of their own minds. Instant colonists, General.”
“Sounds like a fantasy to me.”
“You saw Gosha the chimp. We can already do it with robot bodies. All we need is a few more years and we will be able to do it with human clones.”
“What good does it do us to win this race? So we put a few Russian colonists on this far distant world. Who cares?”
“We could arrive centuries before the others can get there, barring some amazing advance in propulsion technology. If we carry enough different sets of DNA and mind chips, then we will have time to establish a sizeable colony there. It would be no small accomplishment for Russia to be the first to claim a habitable world.”
The general looked skeptical. “I’ll bring up the space idea with Minister Grischuk next time I see him. If that’s all you have to show me for now, tell me what my guard stole from you. I’m told it was two data cards.”
Tyoma paused to consider how to proceed. “General, while the robbery itself was truly regrettable, what was taken will not harm us. One card was a simple mind scan…of myself actually. No one can use that, at least not without doing serious damage to themselves. The other was one of our combat chips. Like I said earlier, we are still working on perfecting those.”
“What does it do?”
Tyoma blew out his breath. “Ah, it does so many things. The idea is to transform any raw recruit into a fully ready soldier. It provides all the data any soldier should know, identification and functionality of all weaponry, training sims on all martial arts, and so forth. The user will see colored auras around anyone in a combat zone for instant differentiation of friends, foes, and unknowns. The most useful bit, in our opinion, is what we call combat reflexes. During high adrenaline situations the code all but takes over the soldier’s mind, feeding it data at such a high rate that time appears to slow down. The soldier will literally experience combat as if everything is moving at about four-fifths time. The program will project likely lines of fire, anticipate the movements of enemies…there’s so much involved I can only touch on all that it does. It’s very exciting…but not fully ready for use.”
“One of these chips is out there? If it falls into the hands of our—”
“No,” Tyoma said. “The code is highly encrypted and protected. No one could copy it, even if it were fully ready. We’ll keep searching for the missing chips, but you shouldn’t worry too much about them.”
General Andreykin stared into Tyoma’s eyes for a long moment. “At least you’ve stopped joking with me, Doctor. I hope you are telling me everything.”
After the general took his leave, Tyoma put a group call through to Big Dima, Volodya, and Kostya on the wall screen.
“So?” said Volodya. “Did it work?”
“I believe so,” Tyoma said. “He allowed the wireless connection. I can test my code to see if I can hack his firewall. I’ll be shocked if I can’t. Wireless simply can’t be protected the way sentry code does with direct Web connections.”
“Good,” Volodya said. “And the rest?”
“He didn’t seem much interested in the space idea, but he said he’d pass it along.”
“We need that extra funding,” said Big Dima.
“We’ll see,” Tyoma said. “Let me go test my hack. I’ll let you know if it works.”
“Then we’ll have him,” Kostya said. “Even if he does learn the truth about the lost combat chip, we can protect ourselves.”
Moscow
Sunday, June 8, 2138
2:45 p.m. MSK
Marcus wiped cold sweat from his forehead and gripped his queasy stomach. He’d spent the past ten minutes retching in the toilet. His ribs still felt bruised from the intense pressure of the flight. At least being sick had dampened the feeling of fear as he approached customs. Actual human guards with submachine guns stood near each customs kiosk, so it was a relief when Marcus’s palm scan returned a prompt green signal and the guard waved him through the gate.
Enabling wireless took longer than usual as his account negotiated payment and connectivity rules with the Sheremetyevo airport network. Marcus was relieved when his father’s voice popped into his head.
«Everything okay, Marcus?»
«Yes. I’m through customs. You said there…ah, I see a guy with a sign for me.»
Marcus nodded at the short blond man holding a sign with ‘Saenz’ printed on it. The man grinned and led Marcus toward an exit. A sleek black air car hovered near the curb.
“Here you are, Mr. Saenz,” the man said in Russian. The card in Marcus’s slot instantly translated the words. Marcus nodded thanks to the man and thrust his traveling case into the back seat before climbing in after it. The seat was incredible — smooth and deep. Is it real leather? No one uses real leather, do they? If not for the excitement of being in such a strange place, Marcus figured he’d have trouble staying awake seated in such luxury.
“Destination?” said the flat male voice of the autodriver.
The Russian chip spelled out his desired response phonetically in easy-to-read letters that looked like they hovered in the air about six inches in front of his eyes. It was awkward, but he read off the address his father had given him. The door closed and the car rose quickly into the gray sky.
The sky…Marcus had known all his life about time zone differences, but it felt unnatural to have everything change so dramatically in so short a time. It had been the middle of the night when the suborbital launched, and now his slot told him it was close to three in the afternoon.
«Have something to eat,» Javier said.
«I can’t. I still feel ill.»
«I knew it would be hard on you to fly. I’m grateful that you are helping me.»
Marcus shook his head, though he knew his father couldn’t see it. «I worry that it’s all a waste of time. Do you honestly think they’ll be able to help you, even if they’re willing?»
«I don’t know. But they’re the first honest chance I’ve encountered. The longer I live in the Web the further from human I become. What will I be like if they can reconstitute me? I’ve spent years absorbing far more data than any human can handle. My ability to feel, taste, or smell is only simulated in my cradle code. If I am ever to have a shot at a human life again, I must grasp the earliest chance.»
Marcus turned to look out the window of the speeding air car. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of his father becoming real again. Groves of pale birches lined the banks of a grayish-brown river. The buildings they passed had an alien look to them — oddly shaped wooden or concrete structures painted in shades of color Marcus had never seen before — and it struck home to him just what it meant to be in a country so different from his own.
«How many embassies does America have here? Do they all work out of the same building?»
«Just two,» Javier said. «Ours and a small one for the Federation. They don’t even have their own place. Just a couple offices in the Canadian embassy.»
The Federation was a loose association of city states, each run by their own warlord, comprising everything east of America West that wasn’t controlled by Texas. Marcus wasn’t surprised Texas had no embassy. The extremist theocracy had expanded to take over much of the old South and was very isolationist, practically a prison state.