14 - Isidro Chapter 1

William’s book collections had always been a fascination of mine. He allowed me to scan various art objects in his mansions and post the models to the net freely, but the tomes and scrolls he guarded jealously. Jealousy probably wasn’t the correct way to describe his motivations. He wasn’t the sort of collector who tried to drive up the rarity and exclusivity of things he possessed, but all the same he hid the literature away from the world. Some of the dusty parchment did seem like it might crumble even under the gentle caress of laser scanning, but plenty of the items in his private libraries were contemporary works.

He didn’t really fear becoming a target for hoarding banned items, dangerous writings or damning indictments of the world’s crimes. The other activities he was involved with were far more damning. His reasoning for being so secretive was something I could never quite grasp and perhaps he himself failed to understand what drove him to gather and protect those books. Without any heirs though, one day the collections would fall into my hands and I would flood the net with copies. Sometimes I even thought about printing facsimiles by the thousands and dropping them from our orbital lair.

Of course, that all depended on my surviving longer than he did.

For the moment, I stood in his dingy office on Galactic staring into one of the precious cases of books. I called it dingy even though few people were likely to agree. It was certainly a more opulent room than most stations contained, but I had grown up moving from this or that villa to those or these palatial houses. I was surprised the first time I went back out into the wild and found a pack of scrawny sprawl mutts; I had come to expect that every dog was the sort of genetically engineered beast that guarded my hiding places.

William had rarely been around in the same place as I was. He’d never attempted to cast himself in a fatherly role or to replace the parents I had lost. It made for a lonely childhood, but it meant we’d been able to become friends on more equal terms as I grew older. That was essential since we were to become co-conspirators in a most dangerous plot.

I idly listened to one of my bots chattering away in my ear as it dredged up information about the particular book I happened to be looking at. I wasn’t really looking at it and I wasn’t really listening to the machine interfaced with my mind. A dozen other creatures chirped and brayed to catch my attention. Reports on recent attempts to crack a corporate firewall, the movement of military satellites in the area, and an array of other matters flooded into my subconscious. I flipped a circuit in my brain and shut out the machines. Ash was on her way up the spire.

She arrived in her usual combative style. Ash’s moods had become more intense as of late, which I found both encouraging and troubling. I knew that something must have happened between her and Reb, hence the new nickname, but I wasn’t sure what. They seemed to be getting along better than before and Ash was more supportive of my goals than ever, but certain things also provoked darker reactions from her.

William, for instance, now received her open contempt. It was almost amusing since I knew how inoffensive he really was, but it was more sad than anything. I couldn’t blame her for the reaction; he was a nearly perfect idol for the very things she wanted to crush and he cultivated the image of a Bond villain, but he did so to bolster his own confidence rather than because he wanted to own the world. I wondered if she had ever even seen those old films.

“Thanks for coming up here,” he said to her. I went to sit beside her and felt relieved that she didn’t extend the guard she’d raised against William around to me as well.

“What’s up?” she asked, directing the question more to me than to him.

“There’s something we were hoping to discuss now that the Hand has surpassed field testing,” I said.

“You don’t waste any time, do you?”

“We’re worried that a certain loophole is going to close soon, so we would like to strike while the iron is hot,” Willaim said.

“And what do you intend to strike?”

I winced; his choice of metaphor was a bit off the mark. To smooth things out, I decided to just launch right into the plan. I said, “We want to go after one of the aether harvesting satellites.” She turned to look at me in total confusion. “We’re not going to actually strike it or anything. Dr. Pavlita has come up with another way to use the gravity wave emitter: high resolution scanning.”

“Because they have stealth tech designed to thwart electromagnetic waves…”

“Bingo. They’ve kept the specs for those sats buried deep enough that no hacker has gotten them and with the exclusion zone no one has dared to try to snatch one out of the harvest net. We have the opportunity to finally pull the curtain back a little.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? This doesn’t exactly sound like it will get you any closer to finding your father.”

“Even if we fail to find Dr. de Leon, we’re committed to exposing the truth about aetheric energy,” William said with conviction.

“Ok, what’s the catch?” she asked. I cleared my throat but let him explain.

“Pavlita reckons we have to get the Hand within thirty feet of the target to get useful data.”

“Well that’s not hard, just drive right into the monitored perimeter and ask US Space Command politely not to shoot you down.”

“That’s where the loophole comes in. No way you can get a shuttle close enough. Even a guided EVA rig would trigger the sensors. But...a single person doing an old school space walk could make it.”

“Bullshit,” Ash exclaimed immediately, then she began to think about it. “You mean without any computer guidance, without anything but gas cans for maneuvering?” William nodded. “How long would that even take?”

“Forty three minutes and twenty seven seconds, shuttle to target,” I said quietly. She turned to look at me again.

“Is there a tether long enough?”

“Nope.”

She whipped her head around to face William and snarled, “Hell no, I refuse; it’s insane.” He chuckled and waited for me to speak up.

“I’ll be the one doing the EVA,” I said with as much confidence as I could put into my voice. She stared at me in disbelief.

“Do you understand how crazy this is? I know you’re a lot more comfortable in micro than I am, but this kind of thing is suicidal.”

“I’m the one who came up with the plan. I’ve been training outside the station and I’ve been running simulations; I’m up to a 93% success rate.”

She shook her head slowly. “7% chance to get lost in the darkness. What are you going to tell the pickup boys if you have to pop a distress beacon?”

“Thanks to your help, that won’t be necessary.” I smiled at her trying to reassure her just as much as I was trying to reassure myself. “With the Hand, I should be able to boost myself back to the shuttle if I get into trouble. Actually, that’s also the exit strategy for after I get the scan and need to get out in a hurry.” The idea didn’t seem to go over well with Ash.

“Well I don’t have any experience with something like this, so I’m not sure what sort of advice you want from me.” She furrowed her brow as she studied me closely.

I steeled myself and said, “I’d like you to pilot the shuttle, more or less just to oversee the mission since the autopilot can handle everything.” The wrinkles on her forehead deepened. “And if I get into trouble, there’s no one I trust more to save my ass.”

She sighed and leaned back, closing her eyes to think over the proposal. I had a feeling that she would eventually lend her support since she hadn’t immediately told me no. I admired that she took the time to weigh things properly before acting. Her experience had not become recklessness or fearlessness, but instead she had become more cognizant of risks both physical and moral. I believed that I could rely on her to stop me if I was ever about to do something truly stupid.

“Fine, but for the record I think this is a terrible idea.”