The Pattern Ship (The Pattern Universe) (15 page)

“If the objective of a terrorist is to strike fear of death into the hearts of people and thereby gain power over them, then if this threat is removed, would the terrorist still hold power if the fear of injury or death no longer existed.

If International peace is held back because it is carried on the back of fear of the big stick of global warfare, then if this no longer holds threat over other nations, then might real peace prevail?

If the individual on our streets can walk in safety at any time of day or night in any part of our cities without fear of attack, then will we have achieved a new world order?

That’s a lot of ‘ifs in there, but what I am talking about is going to happen, and soon.”

The President paused, took a calculated sip of water and looked carefully at the people around him. They had no idea what he was talking about yet. Excepting Jefferson beside him who looked relaxed and was watching carefully for the reactions of people he knew might pose a problem for them.

He resumed.

“A few months ago I was secretly approached by someone who offered me such an opportunity. They were not talking to me about Military theory, Philosophy, Peace Politics or Social Engineering.

They were talking about a scientific breakthrough that would allow every single man, woman and child on this planet, the ability to individually and collectively withstand oppression, or aggression by any means regarded as normal today, purely by carrying a small box with them the size of a mobile phone, one just like this.”

As he produced a small dark grey contoured pebble from his inner jacket and placed it on the table in front of him, everyone leaned forward and tried to get a closer look.

He picked it up and showed it to everyone and holding it close to his body, but still in sight, he depressed a stud in its fascia and was immediately engulfed in a golden glow which after no more than a second, disappeared.

There was immediate uproar. The main concern being that something had happened to the President, which quickly subsided as the President smiled at them and waved them back to their seats.

Jefferson arose at this point.

“Please don’t be alarmed. What you have just observed is the activation of a personal forcefield around the President keyed to his own biological fingerprint. It will ignore inanimate objects that are passive and only react to a threat to the President, or an unwanted intrusion by another biological fingerprint not approved by the President’s emitter.”

The uproar was now uncontained. The noise so loud that the President’s security detail rushed in, arms in jackets, worriedly heading for their President. He turned and waved them off whereby they stood down, but refused to leave until the noise had abated and control was re-established.

When finally order was restored, the questions and answers flew backward and forward until everyone was satisfied that the President was not in any danger, was not compromised in any way and was secure from any threat.

Once this was achieved and Jefferson could take control of the meeting, he did so, with authority instructing the committee to desist further intrusive questioning of the President and to instead concentrate on the importance of the message delivered. ‘That man no longer need fear threat from another’. It was a powerful message.

Jefferson passed the floor back to the President who now stood with his knuckles on the edge of the desk, leaning forward on them for emphasis.

“The condition this technology is being made available for us to build and develop means that once we have produced working models of this device we have to share it. Not just with our allies, but the whole world, and that it should be affordable and open patent.”

The murmurs from unhappy members grew.

The President raised his voice to still them, hand up towards them indicating for them to desist.

“Okay everyone, here’s the thing. If we keep this invention on American soil two things will happen. Firstly, there will be retaliation from other nations who want the technology for themselves, and secondly, if we hold it and they don’t how long will it take for us to utilise the shield, forcefield whatever you want to call it, as an instrument of oppression.”

“Are you saying we cannot use it to defend ourselves and our people, Mr President?” a voice called out from the left of the table.

“Are you asking if we should be the only ones who can?” Garner replied sweeping his eyes around the table, not sure which one of them had spoken and wanting to make sure they were all aware this was his ballgame.

“Unless we are the oppressors what do we gain by keeping the technology to ourselves?” he asked of them.

“But, we cannot just give it to China, or Russia. What if it falls into the hands of terrorist?” this from Davies, head of Economic Policy who was probably thinking about the balance of payments and continued domination of the US dollar.

“If we give it to the terrorists and those they make war on, who is going to gain, the terrorist or the victims?” argued Garner.

He pushed home. “If the terrorist loses control despite having access to the technology, then he gains nothing and the victim gains immunity from the terrorists aims. The terrorist is defeated by passive resistance supported by a personal forcefield that protects the individual. The terrorist can no longer achieve his ambition.”

Gradually over the course of the meeting the debate shifted from whether the USA should, to how it was going to achieve it. The Presidents aides were all good at their job, top people in their respective fields and it soon became apparent that it was going to be essential that the forcefields need for reasonably simultaneous distribution was going to be a logistical nightmare.

President Garner decided to offload the operational detail so instructed them.

“I will leave it with you to consider your roles in the distribution of the emitters throughout the government offices. The emitters will be provided free to all Law Enforcement and Military personnel as soon as they are available and we are taking steps to set-up a commercial outlet via the main internet and mainland store chains.

This will get the product onto the streets with the minimum of delay. Davies? You on the ball with all of that?”

“Sir, Yes, Mr President, with pleasure, Sir.” Davies beamed.

Davies was ecstatic at the thought that the responsibility for the commercial aspects of the project were his, then as it suddenly dawned on him the immensity of the task he had been given, he sank into his chair looking pensive and pale.

Jefferson chuckled and leaned over to him,

“Welcome to the Big League, Davies” he grinned at him.

Davies just gulped.

When the President had finished giving out specific coordination roles he organised it into a sub committee and put Jefferson in charge of that so that all elements of National Security were covered.

When they both finally walked out of the conference, it was Jefferson that was smiling and Garner looking drained. Jefferson had never had so much fun at other peoples expense. He saw no downside for himself, or his people and it was going to really set fireworks off around the world.

He knew he would soon have his hands full keeping the lid on things, but it beat the hell out of sitting on his hands every day not being able to do anything because political will was against intervention.

A good day, he decided. A very good day.

***

Ship, at the request of both the occupants, had realigned the nanobot walls to the point where the window now resided almost permanently in the lounge area. This ensured that Zeke who preferred sitting to standing when looking out, had no further vertigo attacks. It also made the room extremely popular with both of them and the occasional visitors.

It was their agreed breakfast period, their day tended to try and coincide with the time-zones they frequented the most. At the moment that being mainly the USA it was currently aligned with EST.

Zirkos tasted the coffee, deciding it was too bitter, cast it aside and got Ship to deliver him a hot chocolate. The coffee de-materialised. He had taken a fancy to the sweet beverage after visiting the Fortress manufacturing plant and being invited to sit at a late night shift meal table with a mixed bunch of workers.

Zeke was watching him, in good spirits at seeing major progress on the force field emitters. They had just been discussing the need to expand the manufacturing up when a call had come in from Ferris to say that they had resolved the scaling issues and now had managed to also modify the forcefields intensity and sensitivity.

The boffins were now designing some new features into the emitters which could automatically upgrade all those issued with the inbuilt nanobots and a secure internet connection.

Zirkos sighed and leaned back in his chair. His mannerisms becoming more human every day. If his skin wasn’t silver tinged he could easily be taken for a human.

“So, Zeke, phase three under way and so far nobody outside our little circle even knows the aliens are among you.” He laughed good naturedly at the memory of the night shift workers joking about the alien among them at the table.

“No, its progressing well. What do you think we should do next?” Zeke enquired.

Zirkos needed to inform him of a growing issue “The Pod A.I. has been reporting increasing incidents from the Chinese where they are trying to cyber tap into the US networks. They appear to be looking for something to do with radioactive research. I think they have been smelling a rat ever since the US realigned their satellites to aim out into space.”

“So, you’re saying we should go visit the Chinese?”

“Yes, let’s. However, I think we should use the new personal forcefields.”

“Ship, I believe the latest patterns are stored?” Zeke asked the A.I.

“Affirmative.”

“Please provide Zeke and myself with linked shields, Ship.”

Zeke’s eyebrows raised “This is new, linked shields?”

“Yes, you can now manually link up two, or more shields by both pressing the side button while touching shields, or in the case of the ones Ship has just modified, ours are linked by Ship who has amended the patterns because your people have put in hidden over-ride codes. Ostensibly for Crime Control by your law enforcement, but they have allowed for a blanket over-ride which would make multiple groups vulnerable to shield failure. Ship has disabled them on ours.”

“Really? Who authorised that?” Zeke queried.

“It seems it was a suggestion by Jannson, backed up by Ferris. They argued that whilst the shields should be a secure personal safeguard, there should be some means of disabling them for crowd, or crime control. The agreement was reached whereby the codes would be inserted, but requiring high level access to activate. The consensus approved it.”

“What level did they set the activation at?” asked Zeke already guessing the answer to his question.

“General Ferris is the lowest activation level in the Military, the equivalent levels in both the Agencies and the Police forces are also allocated these codes.”

“Have the codes been provided to these groups yet?”

“No, only General Ferris has them until they deem the situation stable enough to introduce officially.”

“Damnation!” Zeke fumed.

“You feel this is an attempt to control the technology, Zeke?”

“No, I feel its maybe an attempt to control the people. To take, or wrest back the power of oppression.”

“Do you not need some means with which to disable a person’s shield. Perhaps if they are in need of medical assistance, but the shield doesn’t realise. Or, if the citizen is somehow causing risk to others beyond what we perceive possible at this moment? Zirkos offered.

Zeke conceded the point “Yes, in such instances I believe this to be a good idea. However, the ability for a Military General to be able to disable individual as well as mass disablement of personal shields runs counter to our foundation, that every person has the right to protect themselves. The need to disable mass shields is purely for oppressive purposes.”

“I see. In that case we should do something about it.” Zirkos mused, he steepled his hands, the habit had grown on him from the outset.

“Ship, has the nanobot code been rewritten by the Fortress group yet?”

“Negative, Maker. They have been unable to write the code tight enough to fit the existing data block size.”

“Ship, can we design an over-ride for the forcefield disablement code without it being detected by Ferris?”

“No, Maker. However, a codebot might be a better solution in such an instance.”

Zirkos explained to Zeke what Ship was proposing.

“A codebot is a nanobot that is given an exclusive task, if ‘X’ happens then release code ‘Y’ else remain dormant. It would simply wait until the codes were applied, then submit its own over-ride code to negate it. The first code would activate, but the reboot built into the codebot would force it to re-establish itself almost immediately.”

Zeke was impressed, it seemed like a better solution than no solution at all. In a single individual’s case, the Police, or whoever needed to, could gain access quickly while it was rebooting, while crowd control would be totally ineffective as once rebooted the initial dis-arm code would be neutralised.

They both agreed the solution was a good one. Zirkos commanded Ship.

“In that case Ship, design code and test for mass upgrade. Function add. All over-ride codes inserted into existing and future technology to be reset with reboot and ignore. All attempts to force further over-rides to be notified to Zeke, or myself. Make sure the code is protected and transparent. When tests confirm reliability is at one hundred percent broadcast upgrade and replace all units that fail.”

“Confirmed, Maker.”

“Ship, advise when upgrade operation is completed.”

“Affirmative”

Zirkos looked at Zeke, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking we have one sneaky sonovabitch who might just have been working on a power play and still might be.” Zeke chewed his lip while he thought about the possibilities.

“I’m also thinking that if we make it ineffective immediately, the opportunity to catch them out will be lost. Can we not insert an ignore or a reactivate code that only operates on a broadcast from Ship or Pod. That way we won’t interfere with genuine law enforcement issues.”