Gabriel's Stand (20 page)

Rex Longworthy's ultimate humiliation took place soon after the Commission's latest ad campaign rollout. Tan summoned him from his new offices in DC to meet her Directorate at an unusual location in Manhattan. He had been whisked by limousine directly from JFK to a nondescript office complex in mid-town.

Berker had wasted no time in the year since ratification, formalizing her control. Now Rex served a dual role, head of the Technology Licensing Commission, and as a Deputy to the Directorate, which in this unpleasant incarnation was the same as Earth's Sisters. Still a bit unsettled, Commissioner Rex Longworthy was placed in the middle of the semi-circle of seats, his position several inches lower than those of the Sisters
.

Berker's bizarre cult of toad worshipers,
he thought,
with their shaved heads, indeterminate gender, and dead eyes.
And what a repellent setting,
he thought
. This is another intimidation play, obviously. And it's Berker's demonstration to the Sisters: ‘See what I brought in…
'

Longworthy shuddered. The room was a stifling hot greenhouse, filled with plants and buzzing insects. He tried not to be distracted as an immense cockroach ran across his foot.

“Report to us, Rex,” Berker said. “Please.” Her voice was utterly without warmth.

“There is real opposition to our emergency Third Stage operations. I wonder whether this is being rushed.”

“This comes as no surprise. Give us some specifics.”

“Several negative reports in the media.”

“You know how to handle that.”

“Yes, I'm working on it. And there are calls from politicians.”

“We are prepared to assist you there.”

“How?”

“This new form of tuberculosis is very deadly, is it not?”

“Of course,” Rex said nervously. “Everyone has seen the reports. It is reminiscent of the Great Indian Plague.”

“And very, very contagious.”

“It is a real worry. For everyone.”

“Yes. For you. For all of us. For the elected leaders. For the media leaders. For the captains of industry. Am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“This is ‘Gaia's Revenge.'”

This woman is stark raving bonkers
, Rex thought.

“How would you like not to ever have to worry about that problem?” she asked sweetly.

“I don't quite understand,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
I understand all too well
, he thought.

“We have a small supply of vaccine and of antibiotics that will work very effectively.”

“And?”

“Come on Rex, don't be so dense. I will see, ah, we will see, that these discreetly reach our friends. You foremost among them. And you will have a personal supply to distribute to certain leaders. Now, do you still anticipate any trouble dealing with this small opposition?”

“Of course not. With that kind of help, there is nothing I can't deal with.”

“I'm so glad you understand that.” Rex got up to leave. “Just between us?”

“Of course,” Rex lied.

——

A month passed while Rex fumed…but dutifully obeyed his masters. Then Knight Fowler was to receive an award as a lifetime patron of environmental causes at a private fund raiser for the Outdoor Club. This presented Commissioner Rex Longworthy an opportunity to corner the Chair of Bates Communications, the head of the largest privately owned media conglomerate in North America. Edward R. Bates, who had been ducking Longworthy's calls for two weeks, was standing alone next to bar when Rex Longworthy spotted him.

“Ed!” Longworthy exclaimed, as if he was meeting an old friend, “I was hoping I'd find you here.”

“Hello,” Bates said. He looked bored and little puzzled.

“Commissioner Longworthy.”

“I know. Your fame precedes you.”

“Call me, Rex, please.” A stony silence followed. “You haven't responded to any of my calls.”

“What calls?”

“I know you are busy.”

“Look, Mr. Longworthy—”

“Rex.”

“Rex. I contribute generously to environmental causes. Two hundred thousand to this organization today, for example.”

“Oh, Ed, this isn't about that, at all.”

“I see. Well, I'll certainly tell my secretary to put you through.” Bates looked at his watch, and moved towards the exit.

“I'd like a moment of your time, now.”

“Well, this isn't very—”

“Private? Point well taken. Mr. Fowler's private office is available. Why not right now?”

Bates shrugged in defeat. He gestured with his right hand. “After you.”

A moment later, the party noises were abruptly muffled as Longworthy closed the door to a large, well-appointed study. “Thank you,” Rex said. “I thought you would prefer to hear this directly from me and as soon as possible.”

“Hear what?”

“Your satellite news and programming feeds are using technologies that will soon be in violation of a Technology Retirement Order.”

“WHAT?”

“I knew you would want to know. The violations are in the ground-to-sat and sat-to-ground transmission process itself. I'm afraid there is no viable work-around. I saw the proposed order, myself.”

“This is outrageous. This would be a catastrophe.”

“Which is why I thought you would want to know as soon as possible.”

“We'll sue.”

“No doubt, but I may have another option for you.”

“And just what is that, Rex?” Bates' tone was overtly hostile.

“The Commission needs friends like you in the media.”

“You already have plenty of friends.”

“And we need
you
on board, Ed.” Again, stony silence. “I have authority to delay such an order indefinitely, for good cause.”

“I see. And what is the price of this good cause?”

“I just love the business mind. Not much of a price, really. We just want to be more in the loop.”

“In the loop?”

“Yes. Program content. News content. That sort of thing. No one need know.”

“Swell.”

“Here is a list,” Rex said, handing Bates a printed sheet. “These are people who should join your management team.”

Bates scowled as he scanned the names and titles. “I'm supposed to fire my division heads and their key staff to keep you people happy?” Bates was flushed, his words clipped.

“No, no, no. Nothing like that, Ed. These are additional people. They are there, at our expense, mind you, to help your managers.”

“Like political officers?”

Rex merely smiled.

“I don't suppose you got the reference.”

“I did,” Rex said. “Maybe you could think of them as advisors.”

“Like hell.”

“The order will be promulgated the first of the month.”

“That's in less than two weeks!”

“Only if you don't cooperate…”

Bates, turned away, pacing. “I don't like it.”

“It's for the best. No one need know.”

“I have to talk to legal.”

“Don't take too long.”

Bates glared back as Longworthy left the room.

“Shall I leave the door open?” Rex asked.

Bates shrugged. Commissioner Rex Longworthy walked away, leaving the door to the study ajar. After, five minutes, the patrician face of Knight Fowler looked in on Bates, who was in a phone conversation.

“Hi, Ed. Don't mean to interrupt. Did you two have a good visit? I find Commissioner Longworthy to be such a nice guy, don't you?”

Ed Bates ended his call, brushed by his host, and left the gathering without speaking to anyone.

In New Jersey, the very next week, the Commission paid a visit to the offices of Channel 100, a Bates' Communications Affiliate. The headquarters occupied an office building in Newark, not far from the airport. At 1:00 P.M., Commission agents appeared in three vans, freshly adorned with the Gaia Logo. Four agents remained outside on the sidewalk, a caricature of high government authority, complete with dark glasses on an overcast day, black suits, and self-important faces, while the remaining four strode into the lobby. Flashing the Commission ID at the receptionist, the lead agent produced a single sheet of paper. “This is a Retirement Order,” he said. “We will be conducting an inventory for the next two hours. No one may enter or leave the building.”

White with shock, the receptionist, a girl of twenty-one, pressed the intercom. “Walt, there are several Commission agents here with an order. Call Mr. Bates.” She looked up. “Someone will be here in a moment.”

“What's in the office there?” The agent pointed to a door on the right of reception.

“You can't just…”

The senior agent motioned and two agents strode to the door and threw it open. “Bring the cart,” he said, speaking into a lapel mike.

“Please step outside,” an agent said to the startled occupant of the office. The man meekly complied while the second agent strode inside and peered over the desk. “Leave that old monitor for now,” the chief agent ordered. “Pull the CPU.”

At that moment, an agent rolled a large metal cart into the lobby, while the second agent emerged from the office carrying a computer, the severed wires dangling. Station manager Walt arrived on the scene just as the first computer thunked into the bottom of the cart.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“Who are you?” the chief agent asked.

“I'm the station manager.”

“Then we'll be taking your laptop,” the agent said. “Do you also have a SmartPage?”

——

At 11:00 A.M. in Wyoming on the same day, two vans containing Commission agents parked next to the Laramie Police Department. Six minutes later, the Dean of the University of Wyoming received a phone call.

“I couldn't hold them,” the Chief said. “Looks like your tip was right on the money.”

“Thank you for the heads-up,” the Dean said. “I take it you are understaffed today.”

“Sadly,” the police chief said. “Couldn't spare anyone to help these people. Not a one.”

At 11:42, the same two Commission vans arrived at the campus entrance to find it blocked by four pickup trucks with empty gun racks clearly visible through their back windows. Joe Zimmer, the University President was standing with a group of men and women near the gate, conspicuous in his white shirt and tie.

The lead Commission agent and five others swaggered toward the entrance, looking out of place in their black suits. “Who's in charge here?” one agent asked in a loud voice, flashing his ID.

“I am Joseph Zimmer,” the man in the white shirt and tie said, smiling. “How can we help you?”

“I have a Retirement Order from the Technology Licensing Commission,” the agent said producing a paper. “Just what is your authority here?”

“I head the University's administration.” Dr. Zimmer took the Order and slipped it into his pocket without reading it. “I'll show this to our counsel. Anything else?”

“We are coming in.”

At those words, there was the unmistakable sound of rounds being chambered in ten separate weapons, three high powered carbines, one shotgun, and six semiautomatic handguns. In seconds, the agents were facing six off-duty police, men and women, and four angry ranchers. This citizen's phalanx stood in a grim tableau. The agent in charge reflexively reached for his service pistol; then came to his senses and raised his gun hand, showing his palm. Then an additional two dozen grim faced members of the community, equally well-armed, appeared and took their places alongside the defenders; it was a scene right out of some old western movie.

“I'm afraid that is out of the question,” President Zimmer said. “We take our privacy seriously here in Wyoming.”

——

By 1:51 at the Channel 100 office in Newark, the first cart was completely full of laptops, SmartPages, CPU's, cellphones, and personal entertainment units, and a second cart had been wheeled into place. The station manager, Walt, was still sitting on the carpet in the lobby, his back against the wall, while miles away, Ed Bates was trying without success to get through to Commissioner Longworthy.

One agent remained in the lobby area to supervise, while the others were working down from the top floor. “Looks like it might rain,” he said conversationally.

The station manager looked up, seething with contempt and fear; then he looked away and resumed staring at the floor.

The elevator door opened, and two agents emerged, carrying armloads of laptops. “We need more carts,” one said. “Don't you people have carts we could use?”

Walt stared grimly at the floor while more electronics clattered into the second cart. The switchboard phones rang unanswered. A crowd of onlookers formed outside, kept at bay by the agents posted near the vans.

——

It was high noon in Laramie and the Commission vans were retreating into the distance. “Thank you for the backup,” President Zimmer said. He shook the hand of everyone who had stayed to show support. An hour later, Wyoming State Patrol officers issued tickets to each Commission driver for violating the speed limit.

——

That evening Rex Longworthy received the report in his residential office in Darien, Connecticut.

“Now Bates wants to deal,” his assistant said.

“Of course he does.” Longworthy leaned back in his chair, arms behind his back. “Tell him he knows what the arrangement is.” He smiled triumphantly.

“It didn't go well in Wyoming.”

“Why? Was Smith Senior there?”

“The former Senator, now Professor? No. He made bail and no one has seen him.”

“What happened?”

“No support from the local law enforcement.”

“Yahoos,” Longworthy muttered.

“The University President refused to let the agents on campus.”

“And we just took that?”

“There were armed citizens. Well-armed citizens.”

“Damn. I knew we should have gone after the firearms first,” Longworthy said. He sat forward in his chair, slamming his fist in the desk. “But there are other ways to solve this. How soon can we get a map of the location of their data transmission cables?”

“I'll get on that.”

Rex beamed. “Don't fret, my friend. A few nuts in some backwater part of the old wild-west can delay our progress, but they can't stop us. We are the wave of the future. And soon we will have the media in our pocket.”

——

Following the Treaty ratification and the shakeup in the Senate, all staff employees of the Smith Sub-Committee on Domestic Terrorism had been laid off and the Sub-Committee on Terrorism dissolved. But deep in the bowels of the federal intelligence apparatus, recordings of international calls were still made by an automated process, classified by a mindless algorithm, and neatly stored for a review that would never come, for the human masters were no longer home.

The conversation was in German:

“You've let the little Indian girl slip away, I hear.”

“Snowfeather can't hide forever. Why worry? She can't do us any real harm now that we are in control.”

“Control is such an elusive condition, Louise. And you are caught up in short-sighted perspective. I'm surprised at you. Her father can do us immense harm.”

“I see. So we kill him, then.”

“No. You've waited too long for that. Her father has notoriously opposed the treaty, and now in retirement, he is becoming a popular figure. Your people tend to be clumsy. I fear they would give the opposition the wrong kind of martyr.”

“I'm sorry. So we need Gabriel's daughter in our hands in order to control him?”

“Exactly.”

“We'll catch her. I promise.”

“Do it quietly then, and before she becomes too prominent.”

“Understood.”