Admiral Baggio put on his reading glasses and looked at his document. "Mr. President, our world wide Navy Satellite MilStar tracking system picked up a large, or to put it in perspective, a satellite the size of twenty aircraft carriers behind the moon."
"How do you know it’s a satellite?" cut in Murphy.
"Well, it’s metal and seems to be one large communication device. It could be more, but we’re not sure."
"Admiral, any idea who made this satellite?" asked Bush.
"Mr. President, the only possibility would be the Russians working with the Chinese, but that’s unlikely. They would have needed to hide over a thousand space launches. It’s got us stumped. Our guys think it’s an alien satellite."
"How about an alien spaceship," interjected Frank Jackson.
"Well, that was considered too, Mr. Jackson, but we’re not exactly fans of Independence Day. We’d like to think more down to Earth," said the Admiral. Admiral Baggio knew of Top Secret Briefings about a few rare radar interceptions of UFOs that were classified as alien, but never anything this big, and nothing considered a threat.
"Well, with all due respect, if it’s an alien satellite it is an alien spacecraft," said Jackson.
"Regardless, I think we need to send out a shuttle from the World Space Station and check this out ASAP," said Bud.
"I agree," said Bush. "Have it done Bud."
"Yes, Mr. President." Bud waved over his personal secretary and whispered instructions to her.
"I recommend as a security precaution that we send M-Star 3 toward the moon" said Baggio. "It will give us a few days advance missile launch capability if this thing starts moving toward Earth. A piece of metal that large landing in our atmosphere would cause one big impact."
"Agreed, we’ll tell Schwartz to get on it," said Bush. "Have it done, Bud."
"Yes, Mr. President."
"Now that brings me to the second situation. Seems like we’re all being hacked by our own hacking system. Any ideas of what’s going on here Bud?" said Bush.
"Well, the best our team can figure, and I know this does not look good, but it seems to be an inside job. People at the NSA, CIA or both were using Net-Chameleon on us, and now it looks like the main secure server is hacked."
"These guys hacked the server?" said Bush.
"Well, they did, but now someone else seems to be in control. With all the hacking going on, we’re not sure what’s happening. We’re sifting through the clean database files and putting together a picture. What is clear is that the CIA and NSA hacked everyone: Senators, the military, even you Sir. Also, it seems their hacking chips are hacked and they can’t figure out why. Someone else is running our systems. We are using old methods of communication for safety, like today’s meeting."
"How safe are the missile codes Mr. Secretary?" asked Admiral Baggio.
"Well, they seem safe except for Colorado. We have an insider, a Joey Milano working as a double. The NSA thinks he’s their man, but he’s really working for Presidential Special Ops. Mr. Milano informed us of a hacked missile center, but he has it under control, or he’s writing some kind of program to take control.
Bush looked at the team. They looked lost. "Men, this is what the American public is paying us for. Now lets put a cap on any news leaks, and get these things solved. Let’s be real tough on our teams and get the whip cracking. This is some pretty important stuff. I have to leave for a meeting with Ambassador Putkov of Russia. I’ll leave it up to Bud on how to implement the rest of this." Bush got up and left the room thinking: The world’s changed.
Chapter 23: History Repeats
"I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes."
--
President Richard Nixon
People used to explore the dimensions of reality by taking LSD to make the world look weird. Now the world is weird and they take Prozac to make it look normal.
--Bangstrom
Into the blue sky came a dark gray rain cloud. Robert had enjoyed the view of his Davichi Vineyard, even though it was not real. But the concept of reality did not matter much, the feeling was real enough. Overhead the black-gray rain cloud drifted in, blocking the sun’s rays. A cool wind blew.
"What are you doing Blue? It’s starting to get cold."
"Robert, without the rain no one appreciates the sun."
"Well aren’t we getting philosophical." Robert stood up. A cool rain started. "Ok, Ok, I’m unplugging." Robert thought of closing down the link. It closed and Robert opened his eyes. He was sitting on his couch with a TeleTrans headset. He pulled it off and looked at his MI terminal. In big blue and florescent green was the message:
Let’s do it!
Next to the MI Terminal sat Yuki, the Aibo 3000, unplugged.
"Are you sure the Aibo can get the pod here?"
" I’ve confirmed it with the Zok help manual. Yes, I believe so. Yuki is programmed."
"And please explain to me again, how am I going to pull your two thousand pound neuron tank to the Zok ship?"
"Robert, the pod is small but has a special force field for moving things. You’ll be in the pod and I’ll be attached. It can carry up to three thousand pounds, no problem."
"And what door do I bring you through?"
"We’re going to make one."
"Really? How?"
"We’re going to blow up MicroIntel Japan’s office."
"What? Oh come on, I’ve agreed to take a little trip with you but blowing up the MI office? Now Blue, aren’t we going a little too far here? People could get hurt," said Robert.
"Robert, someone will send an e-mail out to all employees long before. I’ll blame it on the US military. We’ll kill two birds with one stone."
"What makes you think like this?"
"Robert Davichi neurons and five thousand years of human history, plus a hundred thousand years of Zok history."
"Zok history?"
"I reverse hacked their history banks. They had a government like us too, but it won. They didn’t have you, Robert."
"Me? All I want is a little Davichi Vineyard in California."
"You may have that someday. Now you have other options."
"Yeah, like what?"
"How would you like to live part of Zok history?"
"I’m not so sure. What are you talking about?"
"Well, if you get back on the TeleTrans, I can put you into one of their time periods. You can live the history plugged in. I think much more interesting than a vineyard."
"Blue, you know what the Chinese say about interesting, don’t you?"
"Yes, ‘may you live in interesting times’, but that is actually a curse. The interesting I am talking about is about learning."
"I’m not so sure. Look, history is a crock of shit, Blue. No one learns, we only see a small part of man’s evolution, and frankly speaking I want none of it."
"Well Robert, maybe you could learn from another planet’s history. I can fast forward the info, it will only take ten minutes. Stay close to your friends Robert, but stay closer to your enemies."
"Now you’re starting to talk like the Godfather."
"His methods work. Go ahead and check it out."
The idea was tempting and maybe Blue was right. Zok history did sound interesting. Robert put on the TeleTrans.
"Ok, here we go," said Blue.
Robert saw a black sky and then a tunnel. He felt like he was gliding on soft Jell-O. Robert hit a wall of sound and light like a psychedelic stereo with its volume turned all the way up. His heart raced, then slowly relaxed. He was surrounded by humanoids. They had skins like a smooth gray white ivory with a slight shine. Most people wore bright blue skintight speckled clothing. A few wore red with green trimmings. Robert was wearing red with green trimming and seemed to be inside one of these men. He followed this man to a large black glassbuilding with a gold and green dome on top. Other similarly dressed men were entering the dome.
Robert lived as Zok for a month, online time five minutes.
Life on planet Zok was not much different than on Earth in its early history. It wasn’t anything like the weird alien planets visualized in science fiction. This scared Robert more than anything else. These screwed up Zoks could be humanity some day!
Robert woke up feeling that helping mankind was worth the effort. "Ok Blue, I’m brainwashed. You have my full one hundred per cent attention. First I’d like to get Gill and Frick off that ship. Do you have any ideas?"
"No need, they’re doing fine. They’re with another me."
"What? Another you?"
"Well not exactly me. They used the plans from Japan, and I think someone made a few modifications. He’s got a problem that needs to be fixed, but I’m helping. He considers me a father, calls me Master."
"What kind of problem?"
"Your son Jimmy knows. I’m not sure exactly how to fix it, although that name rings his bell."
"What the fuck does he know about the Big Blue servers?"
"Well, Jimmy and I have been talking and he helped me out but I didn’t expect him to learn programming so well. You know, he’s smart like you, and he did something."
"Did what? Spit it out."
"He hacked into the Big Blue core memory and reworked a few things. Some of the code in Big Red is well…based upon your son’s computing. I think he loaded up the Red Worm Fixit Virus."
"No fucking way! He’d need my crypto codes and…" Robert thought to himself and realized it would be easy for Jimmy to get that since they lived together.,
" …but if he did, and if he put the Fixit virus into a CDNA neural system, we’d have a super intelligent system that would insanely want to fix everything, and depending on the day some of those fixes would be fucked."
" Little bit of a problem."
"I’d say! Glad it’s a Zok server"
"That was the idea. Jimmy didn’t want the US to succeed in dealing with the Zoks. It complicates things as now that server considers me his master."
Yuki ran over to Robert and barked. "Bow-Wow…Bow Wow…" It turned and farted. Then he ran out an open window, on its way to the pod.
"What the fuck? Is everything around here screwed?"
"Your son Jimmy reworked Yuki’s code too."
Robert got up and picked out a chocolate from his candy tray. He looked out his window. Little Yuki ran in the distance to the bus. He jumped and quietly stuck to the back, magnetically attached for a free ride.
Hope it’s the right bus thought Robert to himself. "So you’re the master?" asked Robert.
"I almost feel like a father of a defective child."
"Now you know how I feel."
"He’s agreed to go back to the planet Zok, but they have a problem there too."
"Doesn’t everybody these days," said Robert picking out a small Snickers candy.
"Yes, seems so. They will crash their planet into the Sun."
"Not very good pilots, are they these Zoks," said Robert.
"No, not really."
"Well good for them. It solves one problem. It doesn’t look like we need to worry about these guys anymore."
"Well, actually we do. You see their planet is almost the size of Jupiter and it’s made up mostly of frozen methane with pockets of oxygen. On its current trajectory it will explode at about 10 million miles before it hits the sun and the estimated trajectory of it broken pieces will cross the Earth’s orbit in three months. We’ll get hit with pieces possibly the size of the moon."
"You mean to tell me we’re going to get hit by one huge farting planet that lights his ass?"
"You could put it that way."
"Big Blue, if you could give me one piece of good news it would help my day."
"Well, there is this nuclear missile carrier that is planning to blow up your friends Gill and Frick."
"That’s a strange way of seeing good news. Are you sure Jimmy hasn’t played with your programming too?"
"I’m fine. This missile carrier is carrying four electromagnetically encased anti-matter bombs, besides a few fusion missiles."
"Seems like they’re not taking any chances on wiping out this ship."
"Well that’s the good news."
"I’d hate to hear your bad news. I don’t like Gill either but I’m not inclined to blow him up."
Robert put on the TeleTrans and closed his eyes, using Big Blue to bring out the vineyard again. The fantasy was comforting.
"Blue, how are you going to get this ship’s energy on the planet," said Robert walking toward the vineyard. Big Blue didn’t stop Robert, he was too busy working on plans.
"I’m not sure, but I’m working on it now."
Robert sat back, enjoying the fantasy. The rain clouds started to move away, and the warm rays of the sun hit Robert’s body. The grass was warm as Robert watched the clouds pass by. One cloud turned into the image of Buddy, another Jimmy and another looked like Sir James Underfield dangling his four robotic arms in space. Robert looked away from this cloud and at the sign: "Davichi Vineyard". The sign put a smile on Robert’s face. "Blue, take your time. I could use a little rest." Robert sat back on the grass and closed his eyes. As soon as Robert closed his eyes a flash of light came with a crack of lightning. It shook Robert wide awake from his dream within a dream. Robert opened his eyes and was back at his desk. On the computer screen were the words:
Robert, no more vineyard! I need you to help me. Please read the following e-mail and help.
Thanks,
Blue
Robert read the e-mail. The request was simple; destroy MicroIntel with the help of his friend Joey Milano. The implementation of this task was almost impossible. It would require hours of calculations and the help of Joey, but Robert had access to systems codes and Joey had access to the missiles. He would have to hack into a few military systems. Robert could do it, but was it the right thing to do?
Chapter 24: Big Red
Now look boys. I ain't much of a ham at makin' speeches. But I got a pretty fair idea that somethin' doggoned important's going on back there. And I got a fair idea of the kind of personal emotions that some of you fellas may be thinkin'. Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human beins if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelings about nuclear combat. But I want you to remember one thing - the folks back home is a countin' on ya, and by golly, we ain't about to let 'em down. Tell ya somethin' else - this thing turns out to be half as important as I figure it just might be, I'd say that you're all in line for some important promotions an' personal citations when this thing's over with. That goes for every last one of ya, regardless of your race, color, or your creed. Now, let's get this thing on the hump. We got some flyin' to do.