[This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call. The start is here, and links to my other work here. It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books. I usually post a new chapter about every two weeks, and the next one is planned for around March 8th.]

Previous: Chapter 19

There was a loud crunch as Yiskah sent another heavy combat bot flying towards the wall with a kick. Flicker watched it hit. They were conducting the Box visit postmortem in the training room, because Flicker didn’t want to wait. When she’d asked Yiskah what was so urgent about beating the crap out of a bunch of robots, she’d gotten a dark look.

“Because it was a rough visit even before I had to mind-probe the Giggler,” said Yiskah. "And all I found was confirmation that Tabula Rasa selectively wiped his memory of the escape. Better robots than people.“

Which was a good enough reason to put up with the inconvenience.

"Okay,” said Flicker, turning back to the portable interface. "DASI, what are your revised estimates on Tabula Rasa’s escape, given the new data that Jumping Spider and Breakpoint sent?“

DASI displayed a graph on the screen and summarized: "Unassisted, 3% chance. Internal assistance, likely from the Giggler, 4%. External assistance from another criminal organization, 9%. External assistance from a foreign government, 6%. External assistance from a current or former US government black program, with all electronic evidence either erased or never present, 78%.”

A new graph, and she continued. "External assistance is strongly correlated with the 91% probability he is currently working with the entities responsible for the viral assassination attempt against you, and is at least partly responsible for the dead ends Jumping Spider, Breakpoint, and I have encountered in investigating it.“

"And the chance that’s the FSA, NIA or CBI?” asked Flicker softly.

“88%”

“That’s too damned high,” said Journeyman.

“And not high enough,” said Flicker, looking up to watch as Yiskah ripped the arm off a bot with a screeching pop. "95% and I can go public, if DASI thinks it will help. And 99.7% is the threshold Doc and I agreed was enough to verify they’ve restarted the Lost Years war. That’s when I start treating them like criminal organizations and taking out their infrastructure.“

Journeyman winced. "That could get nasty very quickly.”

“You know I can tear a building apart without killing anyone inside. It’s the only way to get everyone out safely in a hurry. I did it to hundreds, saving people during the Japan quake. It is kind of tricky for hospitals, nursing homes, and things like refineries and nuclear power plants, though.”

She shrugged. "I don’t think spooks and assassins would be able to function very well with no bases, records, vehicles, computers, gadgets, or guns. Especially not if DASI doxes all of them. But we don’t have strong enough evidence.“

"I didn’t mean physically.”

Flicker looked away. "Yeah. Which is why it’s still probably best that Jumping Spider and Breakpoint go after Tabula Rasa, and the rest of us just help as needed. They’ll be stopping by in a day or two. Although Jumping Spider did sound a little upset at Yiskah.“

Yiskah dodged under the grab of a lumbering bot and replied telepathically rather than waste breath on speech. "That’s because one of her best leads dead-ended in the former head of the NIA mind control program. Who suffered a sudden case of exploded brain when I was about twenty seconds old.”

“You don’t sound like you regret that,” said Journeyman.

“He was a vile torturer and war criminal, and Stella thought anything he knew that she didn’t was about to become moot. She also didn’t have a lot of time–I wasn’t originally intended to be a permanent individual. So you should really ask her. Though explaining the details to Jumping Spider might get interesting.”

“I have a question,” said Lif, who had been frowning at her handcomp. "About this maker of holes and gaps.“

"Tabula Rasa, you mean?” said Flicker.

“Yes. In what ways does he twist the threads around him? I fear I do not grasp that well, yet.”

“No one really does,” said Journeyman. "Mainly because he tended to wipe the memory of anyone else who saw him work. Doc figured out how to rig dampers to stop it, but they either broke or got turned off by whoever helped him escape.“

He waved a hand at the safety cameras watching over Yiskah’s workout. "When Tabula Rasa was just walking around, he could avoid recognition by both people and sensors. When pressed, people might vaguely remember someone was there, but no details. And camera recordings glitch out, or loop an earlier interval without him–without raising an alarm. It’s not known if he can extend that to someone else.

"He’s really good at looking generic–if he wore a janitor’s coverall or guard uniform while talking to someone, they never remembered anything else. And if he wants to sweep away other evidence… he can actually remove memories, from a person or machine. You can see why a group trying to hide from DASI would find that handy.”

“Indeed. What limits this erasure?”

“It seems to require concentration and take longer if he’s doing something extensive. And it requires him to be close to the target, which is how he finally got caught.”

“Oh?” said Lif.

Flicker snorted. "He tried it on Doc, apparently thinking he was safe because Doc wasn’t holding a weapon. But Tabula Rasa didn’t know just how violently Doc reacts to anyone trying to alter his mind. Doc took about 150 milliseconds to go from a memory discontinuity and seeing someone he didn’t recognize to slamming Tabula Rasa’s head into a steel doorframe hard enough to break his nose and give him a concussion. He didn’t wake up again until he was already in the Box.“

"I somehow doubt he’ll make that mistake again,” said Journeyman dryly.

Lif’s eye’s narrowed. "But he cannot hide his nature from me, now that I have his thread. Not even the Trickster could do that, only confuse trails by weaving through crowds.“ She smiled. "It has been some time since I have had a hunt that was a proper challenge. May I speak to your friends when they come?”

“Sure,” said Flicker. "But remember we want to capture him alive, if possible. He’s obnoxious and evil, and he’s probably helping whoever tried to kill me, but there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone himself. Which wouldn’t mean much, except he doesn’t need to. I can’t think of anyone better at just disappearing. And Yiskah will probably want to mind probe him to find out what all he’s done.“

"Hah.” The last bot had fallen, and Yiskah wiped sweat from her face. She walked over to join the rest of them. "I don’t want to mind probe anyone. Probes range from unpleasant to hellish. And I’m not sure I could successfully mind probe Tabula Rasa without killing him or wrecking his mind, if he tried to use his power on me. It would be very hard to keep my mind trap from ripping into him.“

She looked bleak. "And I’ve seen enough of the consequences of that for a lifetime, just today. So he may get to keep a few secrets.”

“Not from me,” said Lif.

“Possibly not,” said Flicker. "But remember there are a lot more people to hide behind, here.“

She turned back to the display. "All right. I think we’re done. We did everything we went to the Box to do, and we’re forewarned about Tabula Rasa. And DASI’s protocols should alert us if he tries anything where she’s watching.”

“Only if I am actively monitoring,” said DASI. "Much of my data comes from indirect sources, and tampering is possible. Tabula Rasa working for a black organization introduces a significant degree of uncertainty to intelligence and political analysis.“

"Yeah,” said Journeyman, “because you have to assign a prior to ‘Tabula Rasa is messing with us’. But he could have been doing that for the last three years. The only difference is that now we know.”

Flicker nodded. "So we’re better off. It just doesn’t feel much like it.“

*****

The meeting had started well, though it hadn’t gone quite the way Doc had anticipated. He and Stella had verified their identities for the Grs'thnk Auditors, who were extremely picky about details during initial face-to-face meetings, and set up an interface for DASI, who clearly worried them. When the rest of the Lizards started asking questions, he’d been ready to handle the technical ones, expecting Stella to field everything political and social.

Instead, it had been the other way around–Stella was soon deeply engaged in about six simultaneous technical arguments about the captured Xelian ships, DASI, Black Swan, and identity segmentation, while Doc did his best to answer questions about Earth politics and economics.

He quickly discovered it was because DASI was answering almost every technical question he could have, and faster. Her answers went directly to the Grs'thnk equivalent of his Database, and then to individual Lizards’ communication implants, without anything being visible or audible.

One thing he’d say for the Grs'thnk: They might seem to quibble endlessly, but those implants and long familiarity let them access data at least as efficiently as Doc could. So they could quibble quickly. And actually settle things in discussions that would be time-wasting quagmires in a meeting of humans. They hadn’t asked any easy questions–just ones that were complicated, tricky, or he didn’t have good answers for. Which was a refreshing change.

So of course he got interrupted by an emergency phone call from Earth. From the president of the European Reserve Bank.

Doc looked out the window of the secure communications room the Grs'thnk had thoughtfully provided as he listened. He was just admiring the wide view of Earth from orbit, but the window was actually functional; he could have used a tight-beam laser to communicate through it if he wished. But his normal phone was sufficient for this.

"No, I hadn’t heard,” he said. "But it’s pretty obvious–the trigger would be the talks breaking down. And twenty percent sounds about right, given the amount of damage the economic restrictions have caused. Generous, even. I’d try to convince the ICF to accept her offer.“

Barely restrained disbelief from the other end.

"You asked for my advice. They probably won’t, this time. But you’ll be on record as trying. So when–”

The bank president was not a stupid man. But he’d been surrounded by intellectual rigidity, the arrogance of wealth, and ideologically driven models for a long time, and it shaped his reactions.

“I doubt Black Swan really expects it to be accepted. She’s making the offer to show good faith, and set a precedent. But if you turn her down, she’ll make one to the Greeks, and you’re screwed. Their new coalition will be a lot more receptive to someone who hasn’t spent the last few years imposing policy requirements that actively made things worse.”

More protests.

“Of course they still have problems; but you are about to completely lose your leverage. If they default, you get nothing. And if Black Swan backs a new currency, you won’t be able to credibly threaten to wreck their banking system if they don’t cooperate. They’re already desperate, and have a new government that doesn’t view your demands as reasonable or legitimate.

"Any 'structural reforms’ she requires will be a lot less onerous–she has access to verification infrastructure that will help. So they might make enough progress for the first level of transition law compliance very quickly. And if they do that, and get even limited conversion rights to Earth Defense Union trade credits… they’ll have better money than the euro.”

Skepticism.

“The EDU does not lack for either income or assets. Black Swan pays taxes, and even if you ignore the orbital infrastructure Stella and DASI have replaced, do you have any idea what the ships themselves are worth? The Grs'thnk are buying the two worst damaged surviving warships, because their navy really wants to get their hands on working current-generation Xelian military shields. They are paying the equivalent of over six trillion euros.”

Exasperation.

“I understand. I give you, personally, credit for trying to keep the train-wreck from getting worse. But the political motives driving the austerity measures have always been more about punishment than helping their economy recover. And the people who have been suffering from them the most aren’t the ones that caused the problems, and they know it.

"So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they decide they’d rather trust Black Swan than you.”

*****

When Doc emerged, there were four Lizards waiting for him in the hallway. Three of them were Auditors, one from each team. The Auditors were an important part of the checks and balances in Grs'thnk political systems, and anything sufficiently important required three, from independent groups. They didn’t participate, but they made sure everything got recorded securely, in three different places.

One of their functions was the Grs'thnk answer to the inherent tension between a culture of political openness and the need for candid private discussion. They put out definitive reports, and if a Grs'thnk politician wanted anything to remain secret for very long, all three Auditor groups had to agree to it–and they almost never did.

It was not the most efficient possible solution, but it had the advantage of robustness. Like many Grs'thnk traditions, their role had started as a solution to problems that had caused a great deal of political unpleasantness and at least one war.

The last Lizard was more interesting–he’d been at the initial meeting, but hadn’t said much. He’d been introduced as Elder Trig'anth–Trig for short–and his title was 'Senior Opposition Observer’, whatever that meant. Doc could believe the 'senior’ part; he was the oldest looking Lizard Doc had ever seen.

He gave Doc a skeptical look. "Your claim about trying to stay out of politics isn’t looking very credible. And you were evasive about some important topics. Your partner and the AI look like they’re handling everything else just fine, so I’ve invoked my questioner privilege, and we’re going to have a little private talk.“

"About what?”

“History, and a couple of wars that our models say your planet should have had, but didn’t. I think you’re the reason they didn’t, and you’re being evasive because you’re worried the aid mission will set them off by sticking their snouts in the wrong place. I happen to be concerned about the same thing, which is why I thought sending this mission so damned fast was a mistake. 'First, do no harm’ is I think how you’d put it.”

Doc raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, we do need to talk.“



Next: Chapter 21

