The Great Symmetry (26 page)

The Kelter choppers were heading for an outpost, about halfway back to Abilene, and would be there in less than a minute. Collins Station: a wellhead, some small hydroponic farms, and a pipe to the city. Population two hundred. “Do it!” Lobeck found himself saying. “Go to ground.”

That would be perfect. Not only would it make targeting dead easy, but it would serve as an example, of what happened when a government presumed to interfere in the business of the Affirmatix Family
.

There was new data on the navigation display. Incoming choppers from Abilene. Seventeen of them. Some military, some civilian.

Whatever they were planning, it didn’t matter. Lobeck had the armament incoming to take care of any force that might think to make a difference. And they were carefully tracking which two choppers had the three terrorists.

The two sets of Kelter choppers met just outside Collins Station and reformed into a dense beehive moving into the desert, away from the station.

“You see the targets,” Lobeck told Skylar. “They are all bunched up for our convenience. How long until we can hit them from above?”

“Four minutes,”
she told him. “I have some other developments for you −”

“Hold on that. Let’s focus on this situation.” Lobeck zoomed in. What were they doing?

Twenty-one choppers flying as close as twenty meters from each other. And between the choppers there was movement. People, zipping across on lines or simply jumping. Arriving and departing from the two vehicles that held their targets, then continuing on to others. ‘Track this!” he ordered. “Identify all vehicles that could possibly contain our subjects.”

“That would be all of them,” Skylar told him moments later.

And then the beehive scattered to the winds. Some went to high altitude while others skimmed the ground. They flew in every compass direction, even toward the Affirmatix force.

“We’re going to need more missiles,” Lobeck commanded.

“Before we do that, there’s other information you need,” Skylar said.

“Send them!”

“Launching twenty more in the next thirty seconds. But really, you need to know about this.” She told Lobeck what was occurring right that moment, in every city and town all over Kelter. “So you see, the damage is done,” she concluded. “We have lost containment, planet-wide.”

“Planet-wide,” Lobeck echoed. “I see.” He watched the bees scattering in every direction on his display. “What are our chances of getting every chopper?”

“About half,” she told him. “If it was worth doing. Which it isn’t.”

“But the principle of it! We cannot let them escape.
Target each of them.”

“Arn, you’re losing sight of what matters. Just think for a moment.”

Lobeck tore himself from the image of the fleeing vehicles as they grew farther away with each passing second. The big picture. Affirmatix. Their mission. Maximum value.

Skylar was right. The escaping choppers were no longer worth his attention.

“Recall the missiles,” he decided. “We will release the rentals and I will lift for orbit.”

The Situation Room

Governor Rezar stormed into the situation room and accosted the nearest person he could find. Walker, according to her name tag. “Why was I not notified? Who is in charge here?”

“Governor, it’s a routine security matter. We don’t need to trouble you−”

“You know how I found out? My niece called me. Ten years old. Catherine Jane w
anted to know if I would take her for a ride to explore a new planet.” The governor bristled.

Walker soothed. “We’ve got it under control, sir. If you’ll just come this way, I’
ll get you a cup of coffee.”

“I need a briefing,” the governor ordered. “Now.”

“Sir, the IC is kind of busy−”

“Get me somebody who knows what is going on.”

“Okay, I can give you a summary,
” Walker told the Governor. “We’ve got a meeting room, right this way. I’ll get that coffee for you.”

“No. Here. In the main room. That table there will do.
Give me the two minute version.” Rezar strode toward the table, the aide following, and awaited his briefing. In fairness, he had been distracted by other events, out in the desert. But someone could have brought this crisis to his attention.

He could tell that Walker was doing her best to do justice to the unexpected assignment. It was a complex situation, and she didn’t know the governor’s state of knowledge. She took considerably longer than two minutes. That was okay.

As Rezar listened, the aide’s narrative merged at times with the
buzz of discussion around them. When she was done, he had a few questions, which she answered as well as she could, and then he simply said, “Let’s go for a walk, and have a listen.”

Two operators nearby were narrating a series of statuses by sector.
The woman gave the running commentary. “Undergrad chatter is off the charts. Any key word that we block, they make up another, in minutes or even seconds. And now we’re getting disturbing reports from campuses of people talking in person, everywhere, just outside their dorms and classrooms. We can’t stop that.”

“Illegal assembly?” the other operator queried.

“Can’t do it,” she said. “Too diffuse and distributed
. In any given place, it could be two people or two hundred.”

“That’s just college kids. Always on about some conspiracy theory.” The man pointed at a spot on the chart that floated in front of them. “What about the young professional demographic?”

“They’re
more isolated and don’t adapt as quickly. But it’s not much better with them. The false story is seeping into regular business communication. It’s a lot easier to block a message that’s entirely about the false story, as opposed to one that just refers to it.”

At another table was somebody who appeared to be in command, at least of that table. “We need more time so we can let the True Story grow,” s
he was saying.

“But that’s the problem,” the man to her left replied. “We don’t have a True Story yet. Still in process.”

The woman insisted. “We need the True Story right now!”

“We’re trying. Each time we float one in a test market, it doesn’t even get close to a critical mass of acceptance or even attention. Too much
is left unexplained.”

“Without a True Story, we’re purely on the defensive. We can’t stay there. Push the story artists hard – we need something right now.”

At another table, they were discussing the implications of the threat.

“Definitely infoterrorism,” a man pronounced. A civilian to all appearances. “It appears aimed directly at Affirmatix, which is taking a huge hit
. But it’s hurting all the majors, there’s no doubt. This attack is really hammering everyone’s faith in the market.”

His assistant was writing on dead tree paper, of all things. “What can we do to limit the damage?” he asked.

“You mean, if it can’t be contained?”

The assistant looked up from his scribbles. “Yes. Adaptation, if mitigation fails.”

“One option is to try to pile it all on Affirmatix. One bad egg. It’s probably all that’s left to us.”

“I can’t do that
,” the scribbler replied. “My subscription is fifteen percent from Affirmatix. What about you?”

“Twelve percent. But if it comes down to a decision, what do you do? Defend one subscriber, or save the rest?”

Farther away, a team was monitoring the Spoon Feed.

“We have that big breach scrubbed. Now w
e’re pretty clean. Just a few hints on two channels. We can keep it together, if we keep the Spoon Feed intact.”

“But that’s not the problem. We can always control what’s on the Spoon Feed. The issue is ratings. Look, over a quarter
of all users are on solid food. That’s out of control!”

Usually, over ninety-nine percent of accounts were tuned to one of the channels of the Spoon Feed, with curated chat and the adjunct shopping searches. Now, almost thirty percent of people were actively searching or corresponding on their own in
itiative. It was unprecedented.

Governor Rezar looked around the vast space. There were more and more ants, and they were increasingly agitated with each passing moment.

He decided that it was time. “Get me the IC.”

This time Walker didn’t hesitate. She simply led the way. “Here he is, sir.”

Recognition, surprise, and annoyance in the space of less than a second. “Governor, this isn’t really a good time−”

Rezar had endured General Leon before. Any interaction with the man was like talking to a giant stumpy diode. Pronouncements came out, but no ideas went in. “
I am here to relieve you,” Rezar told the general.

“I don’t think you understand. This is a very complicated situation. We’ll give you a full briefing after we have contained it.”

“Am I, or am I not, the governor?”

“Meaning no disrespect, but you need to leave this one to the professionals.” Leon turned away and started issuing more orders.

Rezar walked around Leon, inserting himself between the general and his minions.
“Am I, or am I not, the governor? Of this planet.”

The stumpy man threw down his headset. “Fine. Take this mess. Better you than me. Good luck containing it.” And General Leon stumped off.

The rest of the command crew looked at the governor.

“Let the truth be told,” Rezar said.

“Sir, that’s kind of the problem,” a Colonel, Goodwin by her name tag, told him. “We don
’t have a True Story yet. As soon as we do, we’ll−”

“The truth,” the governor insisted.

“You mean, the false story? The attack? Let it out?” She had an incredulous look on her face.

“I think it is out.” Rezar waved around the room. Chaos, worsening.

“But we can’t ever give in to infoterrorism. Respectfully, sir, that’s Marketing 101. We have to stick to our guns, or we will lose all credibility.”

“This story, if I understand
correctly, contains a huge number of statements of fact. Thousands. Where the glomes exist, and where they go. Correct?”

“Well, yes,” Goodwin admitted. “Over a million.”

“It can all be prov
en, or disproven, so it will sort itself out. We stand down.”

Goodwin still pushed back. “We all have fiduciary responsibilities to our subscribers. I know that mine are taking big hits. We can’t abandon them. And just because something is factually accurate doesn’t make it true.”

Rezar moved into lecture mode. “Colonel, I have a civics question for you. What position in our government does not allow subscribers? Who is the only person on the planet whose salary is entirely paid by taxpayers?”

He could tell that she had to think about it. “The governor?”

“Gold star for you.
And I think I have just figured out why. So now we stand down.”

The command crew looked at each other, in bafflement and indecision. Finally, Colonel Goodwin spoke. “You heard the governor. Stand down.”

Slowly, the giant room quieted.

What About The Median?

Sanzite, with the representatives of the other six of the Sisters, monitored from the ship that they had stationed several million kilometers from Kelter Four, near the glome to Goodhope. The situation was not progressing well. The information, their exclusive asset, was now the talk of all Kelter.

As might be expected, they could see governance beginning to unravel. The equity markets were gyrating wildly, surging on the hope of huge expected gains from the new discovery, then collapsing from fear of massive change, and uncertainty about the continued blockade. Overall, the Majors were taking a beating.

To Sanzite, one of the most telling signs of chaos was the loss of control over communication. Many people had abandoned the Spoon Feed, and were now publishing and reading each other with abandon, the government apparently powerless to step i
n. There was not even a single True Story to help people make sense of events.

Then Governor Rezar had made a public appearance, covered by the Spoon Feed and on many independent feeds. It was shocking. He was clearly unprepared. He had stumbled. Admitted to uncertainty. He appeared to be asking for advice or input from the public. People were even present, in person, as an audience.

These were obvious precursors to the total collapse of government on Kelter.

Sanzite remembered the last time he had given a speech in front of a truly live audience. He was rotating chair of the council of Presidents, so it had been his turn to give the annual State of Civilization address. Of course, he had been better looking at the time.

The Marcom team had insisted that it was critical for viewers to feel the buzz of excitement from an enthusiastic public, hence the audience that was allowed to be present in person. And, the opportunity to attend the historic event would be a prestigious bone that could be thrown to top supporters. Attendees were carefully selected.

What a blunder.

Early in the speech, when Sanzite had been describing the impressive gains in average income, a man had stood up and shouted “What About the Median?” That man had been quickly suppressed, and Sanzite
had continued.

A few minutes later, Sanzite had moved on to the extraordinary increases in average life expectancy, when dozens of people began the chant. “What about the Median? What about the Median? What about the Median?” Clearly the screening process for attendees had massively failed.

The infoterrorists had somehow brought in materials to cement themselves to the fixed theater chairs, so removing them was slow.

And worst of all had been Sanzite’s mistake. “Seems everybody’s a statistician these days,” he quipped into the live microphone, and inadvertently coined the name of a new movement.