Still, it is good advice. So once Jim has finished the repairs at hand, he turns his attention to the time warp. A search of on-board records reveals two briefer whorls earlier in that same cycle spatially centered in the much larger nest on the spinward margin of the landmass. This disturbs him, as he had been planning to loot a warehouse in the outer reaches of that same nest and she has the sudden suspicion that whatever is making these footprints in the space-time manifold is stalking her, anticipating her moves. There is some sinister force at work. She crosses two limbs as if suddenly chilled, remaining upright on the tripod of the other three. Something is hunting her!
True that! There are three parties on her trail, though ironically the party making the whorls is not one of them. Nagkmur is sweetly oblivious that Jim is on his trail. One is the Chi-Po (who have no notion of their quarry) and another is the Apkallu (who do).
As for the third… Because the sigils Jim has used to identify the repositories include the company logo, he has been pilfering unwittingly from the same corporation. He might as well have staged a big heist from one place and gotten it over with, for the owners have hired a top-notch private investigator to work the case.
Quite enough pursuit to unnerve her did she know of them.
Consider now the worker bee wending her way into the Pentagon from the upper platform of its eponymous Metro station. She is a civilian contractor “on loan” to U.S. Cyber Command. She splits her time between Ft. Meade and the Pentagon and so has been installed like Buridan’s Ass halfway between, in a College Park apartment near the University, whence she may take the train in either direction.
She walks with purpose, eyes straight ahead, no nonsense. She does not actually bump into anyone on the crowded platform or on the escalator to the security center, but swims like a fish among fish, maintaining her distance. A few in the morning stream send greetings her way and she answers their hails, but for the most part she is alone in the crowd.
She seldom smiles—it is too much of an effort—and when she does, it is a slight, wan upturn of the lips. You would have to look twice to be sure it was there, and it is seldom there long enough to be caught by that second look. “A cold fish,” some have called her, which is both unjust and true. Considering her upbringing, it is a wonder she can smile at all; yet, there is something fishy about her.
No, she does not have scales. She has never heard of the Apkallu League, let alone of its singular membership requirement; but sometimes she does have a hard time stringing facts together, which is an odd deficiency for one with her background. She has been taught logic so thoroughly that it is literally a part of her, and yet facts can play pranks when they join hands.
• Socrates is a man.
• Man is mortal.
• Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
True premises; valid syllogism. There is no escaping the conclusion. But…
• Grass is green.
• Green is an electromagnetic wave.
• Therefore, grass is an electromagnetic wave.
True premises; valid syllogism. And yet the conclusion is face-palm false.
The paradox had bothered her, and she had been hung up by it for several days. When she had at length brought it to her handlers in the Project, they had laughed; not at her but at the unexpectedness of the conundrum. Finally, Dr. Shiplap had explained it.
“It all depends on what the word ‘is’ means,” he had said.
And indeed, grass is green in a very different way than Socrates is a man. The former notes only an attribute possessed; the latter gets at an essence. For a while afterward she experimented with logical puns, to the amusement of her instructors.
That much may depend on what “is” means was first noted not by an American president but by a Greek philosopher: Aristotle. Annie had darted from link to link in pursuit of him, until she had swallowed his entire corpus. That old dead man spoke more sooth than many more lively ones—though you did have to squeeze him a bit to get the full understanding. “It’s all Greek to me,” said Dr. Shiplap, laughing hugely, though Annie had not understood why a simple statement of fact should be funny.
It all came down to form and matter. The two syllogisms had the same form but different matter, and a line of reasoning could be true or false depending on the subject matter. Semantics subverted syntax.
When she shared that conclusion with Dr. Shiplap and the others, they grinned and applauded, and arranged for her assignment at USCYBERCOM.
Annie is at her desk before she is at her desk. She logs in “on the fly” as soon as she enters the secure Wi-Fi zone in the E-ring and is multitasking before she turns the corner. She drops a memo to Navy NETWARCOM regarding a Chinese hack of Fleet dispositions and another to AFSPC regarding an effort to infiltrate the satellite surveillance network, though whether to disrupt it, insert disinformation, or simply to peek over US shoulders she cannot yet say. She also sends a memo to Col. Zendahl of NORAD regarding an investigation he had requested.
“There is definitely something up there,” she tells the colonel when he stops by her office later that morning. “No one has seen it, but several satellites have been disturbed in orbit: two of ours and one of China’s.”
The colonel is drinking black tea from a mug with the logo of the Colorado Broncos. “How long has it been up there,” he asks after a sip.
Annie continues to surf, analyze, and compose memos. “That’s hard to say, colonel. The satellite is stealthed and it’s a fine point whether we can pin down the first time we didn’t see it.”
Zendahl laughs. “Maybe it’s a Romulan Bird-of-Prey.”
Annie quickly googles the phrase. “Yes, very much like one. Do you suppose Russia or China has developed advanced stealth technology?”
The colonel coughs and hems a bit. “When will you have time to work on that, uh, other request?”
Annie notes the muscle groups involved in his expression and wonders what he is worried about. “It’s a done deal,” she answers. “I’ve already sent you the details.”
“What? You didn’t have to spend your weekend on it.”
“It was no problem, colonel. If anyone makes inquiries about your Goddard weather balloon story, they’ll find the appropriate documents, and even the people whose signatures appear on the memos will suppose that they simply do not recall the matter. Everything is properly backdated.”
Zendahl nods and takes another sip. “Okay. That will give us time to develop a second layer. If the Chi-Po make inquiries, someone at Goddard may do a physical count and realize that none of their aerostats actually have gone missing.”
“I’ve inserted a bogus asset number for an extra aerostat,” Annie tells him. “If they check inventory, they will find one unaccounted for. They will even find an amended purchase order and bill of lading from the contractor. If anyone digs further, they’ll find a firewall for a black ops site, suggesting it would be well if they don’t press the matter, and if in spite of all this they do, they’ll find a minor task force assigned to investigate the possible beta test of a walker drone by commercial party or parties unknown.”
Zendahl raised his eyebrows. “Why ‘commercial?’”
“All of the warehouses that have been robbed have been Bergtholm Electronics. That suggests a business rival. Bergtholm isn’t involved in defense contracting. Which makes this,” she adds, “outside CYBERCOM’s mission statement. Are you doing this for SPACECOM or NORAD?”