Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2) (59 page)

‘Unless they use explosives,’ said a tall bald-headed man holding an assault rifle protectively across his stomach.

‘Unless they use explosives,’ the woman agreed.

‘We’ve got cams covering the outside of the cylinder,’ said the same man.

‘But they may not last very long,’ the woman replied. ‘We’re now a main target because we have the Gene Bank samples here.’

‘And, as a main target,’ the man noted, ‘we’re heavily defended.’

Alex understood the implication. Once the assault force got past the station’s troops immediately outside, it was probably all over for them.

‘Even so,’ said the woman, ‘we have to do whatever we can. We all know what surrendering or being captured will lead to.’ She paused to survey all the faces around her.
‘You all have your particular areas to cover. So keep communications open and be ready to move if or when necessary. Any questions?’ None of them seemed inclined to say anything, so she
finished with, ‘Let’s get to our positions.’

The crowd began to break up into groups, and only now did Alex see that there were some more proctors present. The woman picked up a light sniper rifle from where it leaned against the wall
behind her, beckoned a stooped and elderly-looking man over to her side, then they approached.

‘This is him?’ she asked, flicking a worried look at the proctor before she gazed at Alex. He realized he wasn’t the only one who felt the sheer impact, the
presence
of
this creature.

‘It certainly is him, Jenny Task,’ the proctor replied.

‘I don’t see how he’s going to be any use to us,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t it be better just to stick him in a cell.’

Alex glanced at the old man. He was carrying a sniper rifle too, and a pack of ammunition, and was gazing distractedly back towards those currently departing. Alex considered grabbing the rifle
and getting out of here. No, the proctor would be on him in a second. He had to bide his time.

‘Charlie,’ the woman addressed the old man, ‘he’s with you, apparently.’

The old guy swung round and recognition struck like a blow. Alex gasped and jerked back, both his feet actually coming away from the floor. The proctor reached out with one hand and caught him
by the shoulder, dragging him back down.

‘I’ve built a hide in the big walnut tree,’ explained Charlie. ‘From there we should be able to cover most of the thin-soil areas.’

His face was different, of course, but it was the same one that Alexandra had found. Moreover, Alex recognized him on some deeper visceral level. Here stood Alessandro Messina, or at least what
that man had now become. Here in front of him stood the very reason for Alex’s existence.

The woman reached out and patted the Chairman’s shoulder. ‘Charlie here has turned out to be quite useful,’ she said. ‘Though he’s forgotten a lot of his past, his
inborn abilities and early training in the Inspectorate military have not been erased. Apparently Charlie once used to be a sniper.’

Alex knew everything it was possible to know about Messina, had treasured that knowledge. The man had indeed been a sniper in the military, eighty years ago, before promotion to command and then
promotion out of fatigues into a suit and onto the first rungs of the Executive. A natural ability? Of course, it was one Alex himself possessed.

‘But remember, Charlie,’ said the woman, ‘wait until they are out of the penetration locks. A stray shot inside might result in an atmosphere breach.’

‘Sure,’ said the erstwhile Messina, looking very serious. ‘These bastards are going to be good for my plants – they’re not going to kill them.’

‘Attaboy,’ she said.

‘Good for your plants?’ Alex repeated numbly.

The mind-wiped Alessandro Messina peered at him carefully. ‘Yeah, we turn them into fertilizer.’ He reached out a hand to the woman. ‘Need to get moving now.’

The woman gazed at the proctor, who gave her a nearly imperceptible nod. She shrugged off the strap of the rifle she was carrying and handed it over. Messina swung it round and held it out to
Alex. ‘I hear that you should be a good shot, too.’

Alex just stood there dumbfounded. All that was left of his Chairman, his Alessandro Messina, stood before him right now, quite adamantly stating that he would be fighting the
Scourge
’s assault force. Two contrary views were so at war inside Alex that they caused a physical pain in his torso.

‘If the assault force soldiers manage to get in,’ said the proctor, ‘their prime aim will be to get hold of the Gene Bank samples. They will kill anyone who stands in their
way.’

It was a statement that Alex could not deny. In the end the answer was quite simple: he would fight beside his Chairman and do everything he could to prevent him being killed. He would obey his
Chairman because that was what he had been programmed to do. Nothing outside of these facts was relevant. He took hold of the rifle.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am a good shot.’

Earth

It was time to assess broadly how things stood with Earth and to make some plans for the future. To this end Serene began running a computer model of the entire economy
and environment of Earth. This particular model was the best available, with its ability to predict about four days into the future – before a butterfly flapped its wings somewhere and the
whole thing went tits-up. However, she wasn’t interested in predictions but in the neat and easily digestible way the present and the past were displayed.

Despite everything she was throwing into orbit, and Professor Calder’s massive spend, Earth’s resources were at a hundred-year high. This was simple mathematics really: production
itself was mainly robotized and only limited by materials and energy supply, so it had been little damaged by the massive reduction in population. And while Saul’s attack on the Committee had
damaged production to a certain extent, it had also benefited it by causing a reduction in political control. Consumption, on the other hand, had been vastly reduced. Running some further
calculations, Serene found that Calder’s spend accounted for less than ten per cent of the gain made from reduced consumption.

Economically, Earth was looking good. Environmentally it was also better, but the gain was a questionable one. While wilderness areas were on the increase, there didn’t seem to be much yet
that could grow wild in them. Reviewing extinction and environmental-destruction statistics, and specific stories related to them, Serene began to unearth some disconcerting realities, all
expressed in a rather neat little graph.

It seemed that, while the extinction and biosphere destruction rate had been steadily increasing in line with the rise in population, that rise had not been as deadly as was claimed at the start
of the previous century. Certainly there had been some big, newsworthy extinctions – like those of the tiger, the lion, the elephant and the grey whale – but they were not the kind that
could result in the death of Earth’s biosphere. The dangerous stuff had come later; in fact it had ramped up markedly under Committee rule, and one of the stories before her illustrated
why.

The North African breadbasket, as it had been called, was a Committee attempt to increase food production. Large portions of North Africa were turned over to agriculture; massive populations
were relocated southwards – the whole process wiping out many indigenous species. Desalination plants were built to supply extra water but, due to a cost-based political decision, the
resultant salt was dumped in storage bays inland. When, in the middle of the last century, the weather took one of its cyclic turns for the worse, resulting in an upsurge of rain in North Africa,
billions of tons of salt had dissolved and run out into the fields, turning them barren. Meanwhile, nitrate and insecticide run-off had caused massive algae blooms and fauna deaths in the
Mediterranean, shortly followed by an extension of coastal dead zones, until they met up with those extending out from southern Europe. The North Africa breadbasket had killed a large portion of
the Mediterranean Sea.

Serene felt a moment of extreme disgust and annoyance. She had always felt that the Committee was utterly inefficient and this story perfectly illustrated why. Its problem, in the end, was that
it had not properly rid itself of its human-centric take on governance. While it understood that humans had to be controlled for their own benefit, it had not grasped that they needed to be
controlled for the benefit of more than that. They had to be controlled so as to maintain the ideal that was Earth – something she herself could see plainly but other humans apparently
missed. It was the right and proper duty of a ruler to ensure everything in the human world ran at optimum efficiency, while also accepting that the human race was a plague on the face of the
planet, an aberration which had its natural-world equivalents but was much more dangerous.

She sat back, scanning her garden, and noticed that some of the shrubs which she had thought were dead had put out new buds. Perhaps the nutrients provided
directly
by her previous
horticulturalist were starting to do the trick. A distraction, however, so she returned to her thoughts.

The human race was a problem, and on those terms she must think to the future. While she herself was alive, it was a problem that could be controlled. Though medical research was reporting
further breakthroughs in the banishment of senescence, and she could extend her own life, she still might die and whoever took over might not be as resolute.

Senescence . . .

Research into life extension was certainly right and proper for her, and for those she found useful, but perhaps it was time to consider a complete reversal of that concept as regards the bulk
of the human race. In the end it came back to her earlier thoughts about modifying humanity.

Serene closed down the feed from the model, did a brief search and opened up some files she had been studying a few months back. The Alexes were an interesting experiment, undoubtedly. Absolute
obedience and belief could be inculcated to deep levels – that was evident – but the whole operation was very labour intensive. She needed something better than that, something longer
lasting. And in the end, as far as life forms were concerned, that came down to one thing: the immortal genes.

Another search began to render useful results. Telomere repair and extension and other genetic modifications resulted in a limited prolongation of life, but the reverse applied too. Those who
had been seeking out how to make people live longer had, in the process, unearthed how very easy it would be, with some small genetic modifications, also to shorten human lives. This idea had its
appeal, but Serene could see problems. Limiting the span of people’s lives could result in a loss of useful expertise. Quite obviously you did not want people like Calder dying by the early
age of, say, forty. Also, limiting lifespan would not slow down breeding, which primarily needed to be controlled. So what was the answer?

Serene sat back and glanced at the empty bottle of champagne next to her, wondering if now was the best time to consider such things. Next, she turned her gaze up towards the light tubes in the
ceiling. No, the sooner she began grappling with these problems the better, and she was starting to get some sense of the shape of a solution.

Truncation of lifespan and control of fertility were essential. The science of eugenics was the answer, and the way of applying that science had been staring her in the face. Wasn’t it
obvious that the best way of controlling the human race was precisely the method she had already used? She could spread a plague.

Viral recombination of DNA was a proven science, with a history nearly a century long. It should be possible to manufacture a virus capable of modifying DNA so that those infected would have
only a short lifespan and would die quickly at the end of it, without senescence, maybe at some convenient age, say at forty or fifty. Perhaps the same virus, or another one, could be made to
render everyone thus infected infertile, but in such a way that turning fertility back on would just be a matter of administering drugs. That solution seemed best: the actual ability to have
children being state controlled.

As far as expertise was concerned, she could ensure some meritocratic immunization programme, but only against the life-shortening aspect of the modification. Those demonstrating brains and
ability would be allowed to live long lives, but their ability to breed would still be utterly controlled. This would result in humanity diverging into two different strands, but even that would
not be a permanent state of affairs. As technology continued to advance, and as robots became more capable and more expert computer systems emerged, there would come a point when that shorter-lived
version of humanity would no longer be needed.

It would, she realized, work perfectly. Therefore ordering the future lay completely within her grasp. The knowledge made her feel almost euphoric. However, the good feeling quickly passed as
she realized that this was all merely a distraction from her immediate concern, which centred on events millions of kilometres away.

Argus

Feeling utterly cold, Saul watched through many sensors as the attackers worked their way down through Tech Central, blowing out the bulkhead doors that had closed to
prevent atmosphere escaping. While this was occurring he considered the work of one of Hannah’s lab assistants, James Allison. For times when this man wasn’t helping her, she had
provided him with a research project of his own. She had wanted him to do a comprehensive analysis of the Galahad biochips inside ID implants.

Allison had not been enthusiastic about that at first but, as with all good researchers, he was methodical and precise and soon did become fascinated with the device he was studying. His first
report to Hannah concerned the cybernetic virus, shortly followed by the electro-templating method used to produce it from the recipient’s own venous system. He then delved deeper into the
chip, revealing how its genocidal purpose was concealed within its professed aim of ensuring that no one but the original recipient of an implant could use it. It was interesting to note that when
those involved in the implant black market shut down the chip’s ostensibly prime process of identification, the chip’s real purpose remained untouched.