His right index finger touched the keyboard return-key, and he paused. He read the responses coming over the Internet. He thought, "This can't be real nuclear detonation controls! They're too easy. There has to be more to this than a password and the decryption key!" On the screen appeared, "Nuclear Detonation Sequence Initiated and Locked." He stared at the words for a few minutes. He mused, "Maybe it didn't work. The best protection is telling you what you want to hear. 'Wonder if this is a ruse? Oh well." He decided not to think about it.
He turned off his monitor and walked outside under the green patterns of a maple tree shimmering in the warm summer sun. He had just committed the greatest criminal act of all time. The whole world would be looking for him, and they would ultimately find him. They would find him because of a pretty young lady in another place, far away. But he didn't know her, and she didn't know him, yet.
Erisa was content. The computer terminal bathed Erisa in a soft blue glow in the darkened room. Her delicately featured face turned from green, to white, to blue, as she clicked the mouse. She was surfing the Internet in idle entertainment. At 24, she had a good job, a great boyfriend, the economy was booming, and the Net had permeated everywhere. The Internet, the one global network, connected everything. It connected every computer, every telephone, every television, and even many radios and watches. She was just exploring, looking for things to read and minds to meet. She came across an Opinions newsgroup on a Rockefeller University computer with the subject posting, "Us canaries in a gilded cage."
The General Electric sales team had finished setting up fifteen minutes before. They had the laptop connected to the 21 inch display, and the various instruments arrayed on the conference table in the front of the room. Joe Piles and his technical assistant Randy Shaeffer had everything down pat. Joe's boss, Joe Kolanoff, smiled at the door and invited everybody in.
Erisa walked in with her usual perk. She met the old guy in the slick suit and said "Hi!" She looked about, but then immediately froze on the inside. There was the Commissioner, the Mayor, and Congressman Blackburn. "Jez," she thought, "What's going on. I thought this was just a sales pitch on a cable detector." She sat in the back while the 'gentlemen,' including her 'gentlewoman' boss, smoozed in the front.
On cue, Joe Kolanoff, in his slick blue suit and GE lapel pin, walked to the front beside the Commissioner. The Commissioner started, "As you know, we have invited General Electric to come and explain some new equipment. They selected us as one of their first counties, because of Boston's aged infrastructure. Joe Kolanoff, here, will provide the introductory remarks. Joe and I were at the club yesterday, joking about using these things to find all the fish in the lake!"
Joe started in, "Well, maybe. But what we really have will let you show millions of dollars in savings to your taxpayers. You'll free up money to spend on the important things. The things you promised to do."
Her family was much harder to live with than Pete. Erisa sparked to life, "Let go for a swim." Erisa and Pete found that the YMCA had made for a great relationship. They loved to swim, and they swam to love. The evenings were wonderful.
That weekend, at the Mexican restaurant they had discovered together, Erisa and Pete took up the topic of two months before. The topic now seemed years past.
Pete started, "OK, let's say that the President tells us that the planet is not safe any longer because the secret of the bomb is out."
"That has the wrong solution. In that case, moving off the planet does not decrease the fear of the people left on the planet. It would be ridiculous. Do we all decide that we are dead and are going to have to save a few of us or something?"
"You are right. It is ridiculous," said Pete. "I suspect that there has to be a way that moving people into space is, first, something that enemies commonly want to do. And, second, that moving them into space must somehow resolve a conflict between them. One must somehow be the winner and the other the loser."
"This is a hard problem," said Erisa. "If you were the President, you would have to find something that can compel the competition and resolve it by settling another planet, establishing a long space voyage, or something. All those international committees of scientists agreeing on treating planets like we treat Antarctica is not useful. You need countries claiming planets and establishing garrisons to defend them. But who's crazy enough to claim a planet for a country? It's hard to claim something that everybody can see equally well. If you have to do this, you might as well invade a neighbor, like Iraq did with Kuwait."
Four million people in America had lost their lives and as many in other parts of the globe. This was something like one in one thousand of all humanity. The bombs were found to be Russian plutonium bombs, but were not delivered by the Russians. The Russians had lost, once more, their heart and soul, their dear Moscow. Once more, every man, woman and child had been viciously murdered for some cause unclear. But it was in Russia, in a town east of Moscow, that the invention came.
The secret was in a thought. An old woman had shown up in the town just after the bomb had burst on Moscow. Her son was in the laboratory. It was a secret Russian laboratory, established by the Soviets to determine a mechanism for getting large numbers of people off the planet. The solution was simple if the resolution was firm. Rockets could be manufactured in large numbers. Five percent would never make space. Ninety five percent would make space, but could never return. The cost in time and money, they reasoned, would be in the return to Earth. The space travelers would be left with a mere trickle of return flights.
At a lunch with her son, the old woman explained to the people in the laboratory that this was the time to get people off the planet. Now, when lots of people understood the danger. Her son, a senior manager, agreed and established the committee to start the evacuation of as many souls as the Russian military-industrial establishment could put on rockets. Nobody would go who did not volunteer, but getting fifty thousand to volunteer was not going to be a problem. The problem was mustering the resources, the commitment, in Russia. But even this did not take long.
Erisa's friend Paulette was expressing an interest in taking in orphans. This was enough to motivate Erisa to pleasantly say goodbye and to get in her car and take to the road. She needed people her age. She wanted friends who wanted her help.
In Houston, Erisa moved into a small old house in town. Being near downtown was not bad, she would just die like Pete if a bomb hit.
The worldwide search for the bomb culprits was still going on a year and a half after the bombs. Russia by now had over 1500 people in space and the U.S. had about the same.
He touched the keyboard. He carefully keyed the string of characters, "Ad34ZZ$#kllsmllAY23**n." And he thought again, "It couldn't be this easy!"
Then there was a second series of nuclear explosions. This time there were five:
Nice, France,
Manchester, England,
Canton, China,
"No." He was taken aback, but then he thought better of it. "Oh yes. I was in an FBI briefing the other day. They were explaining telltale signs that might reveal the terrorists. We have to be careful. God only knows what the result would be, if they shipped a bomb into space and blasted our new colonies. Anyway, they said they were starting a new kind of research center in Houston. They're hiring software types."
"Thanks, I'll tell her." She was thinking about Jack and feeling safe in having changed the subject. "By the way, sorry about the weekend, but I still want to be alone. I'm just not over all this horror." She lied.
That evening, when Erisa approached her house, there was Jack, leaning on a rake. He had straightened up her yard. Augusta street does not exactly have grass lawns, more like sand and cactus. In fact, the street, within a mile of downtown, was itself dirt. But Jack made her little yard look pretty good.
As she got out of her car, he spoke. "I didn't have anything to do today, so I just came over and played with your yard. I hope you don't mind."
"No. I like it. Let's eat." She took out a small bag, sauntered up to him, smiled and said, "I loved last night. I've got a bottle of wine here." Wine was pretty expensive stuff.
She broke out happy, "Yea?"
"Yea!" And they kissed and rolled all over the house.
At FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC., Major Henderson was finishing his briefing on the status of security measures for the city. The Major had an exceptionally rugged, clean cut, and intelligent appearance, even for a Marine. Saturation teams had worked for a year, going over every square meter of Washington with Geiger Counters and GE Subterranean TVs. The city had been sealed to specific locations for egress and ingress. At all locations weights of vehicles, inspections, and radiation readings were taken. Yet there was the nagging certainty that the next time the blast would hit Washington.
"Why spare it?" The Major pointed out. "No one has found a pattern that seems convincing except that the terrorists seem to have no restraint. We believe that if the terrorists were able to place a bomb in the city, they would."
"But Major, do you really believe this security is enough?" The newly elected Senator wanted to hear it from the Major, not the news media.
"It would be difficult to get a bomb into Washington DC. It could be flown in. That would be about the only plausible way. We really have it sealed down, and we have enough experience now to be pretty confident."
Jack and Jill left. The Major walked down to the Director's office.
"May I see the Director for a moment?"
A few moments later, he was standing in front of the Director.
"I'm afraid we are going to have to classify this operation, sir. Seal the building. I should have a team in this afternoon."
He pulled out his letter of authorization. Signed by the President.
Jack had a hard time getting Erisa's home phone number, and, when he did, he had a Lieutenant on a speakerphone with her. It was already seven, and she had been wondering all day how he was and it was getting late.
"I don't think I'm going to get there tonight, but everything is OK," he said. "I just got held up with some security things."
The Lieutenant was passive. Erisa asked, "Tomorrow is Saturday. Are you going to be back, or do you know?"
"I don't know. But I can find out."
"By the way. I didn't tell you last night. They are going to do a security check on me, and its going to take a couple of weeks. I thought, if you don't mind, I could fix up your house. You know, paint some rooms and repair some of the junk around here. I need a little more money. They are paying me but I completely forgot to ask them for an advance yesterday."
Erisa smiled and said "sure." She decided right then that 'sure' was going to be her special word for Jack Martin. 'Sure' was better than 'yea' for him. He seemed to need her more than Pete did.
When Erisa arrived that afternoon, she noticed the building materials in the yard.
"I conned them into delivering these for the two thousand dollars you gave me this morning." Inflation had been rampant since the economic collapse. There were maybe a dozen two-by-fours and assorted bags of cement and cans of paint and stuff.
"Oh," she said. It was a struggle not to scream.
"I'll pay you back if you need it later. I just need something to do."
"No," Ferguson got out. He went over to the Dodge, flipped his badge, and said a few words. The guy picked up his microphone and talked for a few seconds, then started up his car and drove away.
It was only 4 P.M. Erisa would not be bothered. Jack was happy. "Thanks for the ride."
"Anytime," said Ferguson. And Ferguson stepped into his car and drove away.
Realizing the day was nearly gone, Jack got back to work on the house.
It was seven o'clock before Jack began to worry. Erisa was still not home. He waited until eight, nine, and then ten. He figured he didn't really know her and couldn't blame her if she stayed out late. So he just stretched out on the couch and went to sleep.
Two hours before, Erisa was walking out to the NSP parking lot when a car pulled up. A man got out of the front seat, opened the rear door and pushed her in. There was another man in the rear seat with a gun. The guy was pointing the gun at her. It was a revolver, and she could see the gray colored bullets. She did not say anything. He did not say anything. No one in the car spoke as it drove away.
"My name is Dick O'Leary. This is Frank Simplaceanu." He paused, saw that she was puzzled and said, "Tomorrow we can talk more. For now, I suspect that you should rest." Another pause, then "You are with us now, Erisa. Escape is impossible. If you try, you may be badly injured or die. Do you understand?"
"Yes." Erisa could not help but respond as politely as they were being to her. But she did not understand why they felt the need to kidnap her. Rather than ask, she resolved to bide her time. She thought she could get away and escape these people if she just relaxed and watched for an opportunity.
Overnight Erisa and Dr. O'Leary independently clarified their concerns to themselves. Erisa had wondered how did they knew she had helped on USSS 26. Was it really Jack that had logged into the Internet page for Metafire? She became certain that she would have to continue hiding the existence of Jack.
For Dr. O'Leary, there was something wrong. He just could not believe that Erisa logged into the Internet page for Metafire and didn't distinctly remember the name "metafire." Would she remember the Netbill password, "probably?" If not, how was he going to find the person using Erisa's account? Yet, the coincidence was too close between her work with USSS 26 and the search on the Internet. Was the Georgia Tech group that had learned the "probably" password really just a front from an NSP investigative team routinely investigating the company of a problem capsule? Was it more sinister? Could this be a sign of law enforcement getting wind of Metafire? There were many questions.
The report on Erisa's last day at the NSP was not as interesting. The only item of any interest was a caller that hung up the moment she said "Erisa." She had mentioned this to a friend. There was no trace on the call. It had been made locally.
The Major knocked.
"Yes. Come on in." Ferguson was fine with people just dropping by.
The Major looked sternly at Ferguson, "Since I'm the temporary security officer, you have to ask me about letting Jack stay."
"Can I?" said Ferguson.
"Sure." The Major then smiled. He was having fun. He had read the same reports. "You know, if Erisa was kidnapped because of this Metafire thing, Jack is in great danger. You might be in danger too, John."
"I was starting to think about that. How do you think we should handle it?"
The Major looked directly at John Ferguson. Then he grimaced a little. "I think we need a different Jack. We need somebody trained to handle what may happen. Alternatively, we could just bug Jack." But I don't think Jack would be very good at taking care of himself. He seems too introverted.
Dave Johnston kept his car parked about twenty yards down the street from Erisa's. There were a couple of other cars parked on the street. He was dressed casually, about six feet tall, athletic, but not muscular. He had his .357 Magnum revolver in his pocket. He had a Federal permit to carry, even though he checked the gun in his luggage. The guys back in Sante Fe had arranged a safe house for him, so that he would have a local place to go, if he caught the 'other' person. He had decided that his best move was to wait in Erisa's house. There was an area between the kitchen and living room that could not be seen from any windows. He brought over a chair, took a novel off her bookshelf, and read.
Randy took his time driving to Erisa's. He had taken an unmarked police car, a veritable wreck. It was a red Dodge Horizon without power steering or air. Considering it was 100 degrees in the shade, it was pretty miserable. But Randy wanted to give the other guys as much time as possible to get stationed. As he drove down Augusta street, he spotted one car. It was Steve and an officer he did not recognize. "Must be FBI or something," he thought. He didn't realize how right he was.
Pulling into Erisa's driveway, he noticed no sign of life. He noticed the building materials out front and a hammer on the walk at the front door. He tried to act naturally. He took out the key Steve gave him. He walked up to the front door, picked up the hammer off the walk, and unlocked the door.
Randy's plane landed. They moved to still another aircraft. This one was a jet. This time, there was a woman who also had her hands tied. She looked at him. "She must be Erisa," he thought.
In looking at Randy, Erisa mused, "Who is this guy?" As she would catch glances of him, she found him familiar. He had a small round face. He had seen a lot of sun. Nice looking. "Do I know this guy from somewhere?" she thought.
There was no conversation on the flight. Dick O'Leary and Frank Simplaceanu, were along as well as Dave Johnston and now a woman with bright eyes. When they arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base, they were moved over to a small building. The jet parked directly in front of it, and nobody seemed to be paying any attention. Once inside Dr. O'Leary explained, "By this afternoon you will be in space. Jack, you are going too. I am sorry, but you will have to disappear along with Erisa."
"And Jack," this was the first time Frank had spoken, "if you act up we have the means of simply disposing of your body as a bit of matter falling to earth. Think hard on that for the next few hours."
Dick then spoke to Erisa, "Erisa, this is Jack Martin. That's who he says he is."
Back in Houston, the FBI Cyberspace Research Center personnel were at work. There wasn't much they could do about the fact that they had lost the policeman. Jack had agreed never to go by Erisa's again. "At least," he said, "until Erisa is back." Ferguson and the Major felt comfortable that even though the worst had happened, the danger from Metafire was minimized. There were dead set on establishing something more than a weak circumstantial case against Metafire.
"Major, we know that Erisa was kidnapped and that whoever kidnapped her, kidnapped the detective Randy Shaeffer."
"Yes."
"We also know that this group is extremely capable. We did get pictures of the kidnapper. We are taking the pictures to Sante Fe for identification. But no matter what, I think the Metafire group has no place to go. If they find out that Jack is FBI, they'll have to surmise that we still don't know enough to act. Actually, that's true. Right Major?"
"Right. And we could still have a big problem if Metafire finds out Jack is FBI and out of this office. All we can be sure of is that this policeman, Randy, did us no damage. It's just that we had a chance to catch them, and we blew it."
Jill laughed and said to Jack on the last day before they moved, "We just got blown by the wind to Sante Fe. This is where we weave our web, Jack. Time to put down your hands on the silk. It's time to feel for our prey."
George Davis, "god," had established email contact with the new Russian capsule. It was the group he was waiting to meet again. "Janet, we have Andrei." Janet felt a sense of warmth at knowing he was coming.
She pulled herself over to George quickly, and, with her hand on the front of the computer monitor, she looked at the screen. There it was, an apparently gibberish message to "god@Metafire1.com" from "andrei@whitefire.ukr." In the window just below the mail window she saw the Public Key field filled in with "Andrei of Whitefire." And in the text area the message, "We are up. Seven. Including Steven and Marie. Do you have a means of joining?" The public key insured that it was, in fact, Andrei sending the message.
George emailed an encrypted message back, "Stand by. We have a plan for joining up. Stay in the Russian zone for now, but don't link up with any other craft." The communication was over. Both groups knew the communications had to remain short to avoid being decoded.
On board Metafire Two, Erisa and Randy had no privacy at all once out of the box. Frank Simplaceanu introduced them to the other people in the capsule. Randy continued to glower at Dave Johnston. Frank introduced his wife, Angela, and his grown daughter Jane. Jane was perhaps twenty. Frank and his wife, perhaps twice that. These people, with the exception of the black haired Dave, were all light complexioned with light brown hair. The other two, James Sporkin and Beth Gilliano, were dark eyed and similarly black and thick haired.
Sporkin, in particular, looked distant and intense. Sporkin was the genius that invented the Metafire Internet mirror technology. It employed a type of data compression that he had called "symbolic knowledge" compression. Without Sporkin's super compression, Metafire would not have had a business. It could not have effectively mirrored such large sites as all the sites in New York City.
Sporkin said hello and went immediately back to work at his computer terminal. Beth and Jane volunteered to take Erisa and Randy around the cabin and explain the different facilities.
The group, in such small quarters, had opted to divide the area into a men and women's sleeping area. Since the capsule had two extra passengers, there was hardly any way not to bounce off each other. In fact, even after the division of men and women, the sleeping arrangements left people uncomfortably close.
Jack called from his desk, "Jill, I've got something!"
Jill ran in and looked at Jack's PC. He had done a search of the Metafire museum's copy of New York City. They had long since made copies of the museum for their own use using a program from www.ontv.com called WebFetcher. The search was for the word "metafire," and it succeeded. There was an email message in one of the files:
To: sam@fbi.gov
From: kkm@kkm.math.rockefeller.edu
Re: threats
Sam,
I have stumbled on a complete revelation on the net. There seems to be a group called Metafire that has been sending all kinds of encrypted mail to the Ukraine. I was trying to decrypt their stuff using my new methods, and I succeeded. But, Sam, I think these people are THE TERRORISTS. I have made copies of their email and await your instructions.
This email was dated one day before the blast hit New York City. Jill then told Jack the really good news, "I checked out the people in this email. They were both in the New York blast. But the guy from Rockefeller University survived. His daughter filed his taxes for him. He's in a hospital on Long Island."
Jack and Jill arrived with their computer booty in the early evening. Ferguson had arranged a high security entourage of two Marines and selected FBI personnel. No Los Alamos personnel were allowed, but Major Henderson was in fact present by the morning.
On coming in to the room, the Major beamed, "Congratulations. So, that's the computer I've heard about. I don't think it's going to work if you plug it in!"
"No. But I can take out the hard disk." Jill had arranged to have a toolbox in the room and was rustling through it. She had opened up DEC Alpha's on a number of occasions. "In the next couple of hours we expect to have a team in from DEC that can inspect the unit and suggest possible courses of action."
"By the way, I have personally briefed the President on the situation here." The Major wanted everybody to understand, "he would like to know the status, one way or another, as soon as we know it. It's the reason I'm here, actually."
Ferguson was watching Jill disassemble the Alpha, and then looked up at the Major, "it could take several days, Major. We have to be careful not to destroy what we want to read. If the disk head crashes, it could take out all the data we want on the disk in a fraction of a second."
Jill wanted to know, "Can we call Ken Miller just to see if he can give us some information?"
"Yes, but don't reveal that we have his disk. Deny it, if he asks." Jill just stared at Ferguson who realized how stupid that was to say, "No, I don't think he'd be able to ask given his condition. I'll also have to arrange a Marine to call you on a secure phone link from his bedside."
It only took a few minutes to ring through to Dr. Miller. "Dr. Miller. Dr. Miller. Your computer." Jill said.
"No. No 'puter. We're gonna die." Dr. Miller was still trying to explain something he was vaguely aware of.
"You hid the files. You .. hid .. the .. files .. Dr. .. Miller. What file name? What should we look for? What's in the computer, Dr. Miller?" Jill intended to try all day if she had to.
"Dangerous. Metafire. Metafire. We're gonna die. We're gonna die."
Everybody heard the word Metafire at the same time. How did Miller know about the Metafire connection? "That's enough," John Ferguson interrupted in a quiet voice, "This is something. Write that down. Write down what he just said. He doesn't know anything about what we are doing. He just implicated Metafire directly. We have cause to issue a full search warrant against Metafire. The coincidence is too close."
"It's an interesting concept, if it means anything at all. Actually, I don't see what it means. John, I really don't think this guy knew what he was saying."
"Well, I do, and that's enough for now." Ferguson got on the phone to arrange for a court order and FBI personnel for a raid on Metafire.
Agents, but not Ferguson or the others from the Center, arrived at Metafire Systems, Inc. the next morning. They found Dick O'Leary sitting at his desk. He matter of factly allowed the search team in.
After being shown the search warrant, Dr. O'Leary said, "You are certainly welcome to search here. But we're a running business. We operate through our computers."
"Sorry sir. You will have to go offline for a few hours. We have agents here to make copies of your records. We have to ask you to step outside right now, and don't touch anything." The agent was doing his job.
Unknown to the agent, the receptionist has already touched an alarm pad and recordings were being made of all the sounds in the room and some of the sights. The recordings were at that moment being broadcast live to George and Janet at Metafire One and Dave and Angela at Metafire Two. When Dr. O'Leary touched the alarm spot on his desk, as he was getting up, there was simply a text string on George's and Dave's displays, "Richard O'Leary Desk Alarm." But both George and Dave were already watching and listening.
Ferguson picked two and checked with their superiors. He knew both men and their superiors. It wasn't hard. He wanted well-conditioned men because he wanted to be sure that, if the Metafire personnel got physical, his people would stand a chance. You can't exactly carry guns into space. He figured that Jack would be useless in defending against a physical attack.
Jane had shown Erisa how to don a virtual reality outfit. It included gloves, lightweight shoes, and what appeared to be a large set of glasses with no lenses but with ear muffs attached. With it, she could enjoy a bit of sport. Because the quarters were so cramped, sports that required a lot of hard swinging about were out. She started up a series of wrestling matches. In this reality, everybody had pretty much infinite strength, since these devices didn't give any tactile or force feedback. The wrestling was sort of like Superman and Bizarro or the Power Rangers. If you got to somebody you could pretty much smash them up. But if you pressed too far, through somebody's arm for instance, you lost your virtual grip -- like a tilt in pinball. So you had to be careful and adept. The objective of wrestling was to toss or otherwise stuff the other person in a garbage can. Erisa liked this. Randy and Dave said they didn't, but they had a match with everybody watching in awe at their skill on the 3D monitor. They were able to hold on to each other and legitimately wrestle, even though they had no tactile feedback. It took real skill.
"I have to get on the other calls. Anything else?" Erisa was going to make Jane happy.
"No, thanks." And Wendy hung up.
Just as Jane was preparing to comment on Erisa's call, Frank spoke out loudly, "The cavern's coming in!"
A tug was approaching with one of the Metafire supply capsules. This one contained the 3M/Dupont inflatable cavern.
"We'll attach at the top," Angela said. "Frank, continue contact with the tug. Jane, you and Dave prepare entrance to the top latches. The tug will maneuver the capsule's top to our top." She was saying this because there was so much gear on board that stuff had to be moved about to clear an entrance way to the top door. "Oh yeh, Frank, have the tug move our rear assembly to the side station and have it move the other capsule's rear assembly to its side station."
"OK." Frank started typing on the purchase request form on his terminal. "This is going to cost about sixty thousand. That includes the tender from the capsule's orbital position."
"OK." Angela was not surprised. The tug was a specialized capsule that contained large windows, two robot arms, two people, and a lot of fuel for getting around. It was well suited for moving about on the periphery of New Boston or any other cluster. Tugs were brought up in Shuttles. Each had exactly one pressure door on the side. The door on the top end was replaced with the arm assembly, windows, and maneuvering rockets. People did not live on tugs. They worked on them. None of the standard capsules had enough rocket power to do more than make small positional corrections using their nitrozine rockets. Orbital decay had to be corrected by the tugs.
"OK. Do you want me to stick around while you inflate your blimp there?"
"Yes." Frank thought about pressing the button immediately but he figured it was likely to hurt them more than Scooter. "Are you clear. The bolts are explosive."
"Yes, clear. Go ahead." Typical of Scooter's dexterity, he was almost two hundred feet away in just ten seconds.
Frank yelled to everybody on board, "Here we go. We're gonna have our cavern right now." He pressed the button on the terminal display interface to deploy the 3M/Dupont Space Cavern. Balanced explosions blew around the bottom end of the other capsule, and a large object started inflating. It took about thirty minutes to fully inflate.
"Check the air pressure in the cavern, " Angela wanted to know how it was.
"Point seven, it checks out." Frank confirmed the same number as was maintained on the Metafire Two. "We can try it."
"OK, tell the tug we are opening our hatch."
"Dave, could you take over for Frank for awhile." She spoke over the intercom for the first time.
Dave replied out loud, "Sure." Night fell with Sporkin still searching for the lights in the cavern.
In Ferguson's office, Jack met the two agents assigned to go along with him. Both were small, young and athletic. One, named Steven Streep, was introduced as an Air Force reserve pilot.
"Fighter pilot." said Ferguson. "Steven tests as one of the fastest guys we have in terms of his ability to react and take a sure action."
"I don't know about that, John." Steven didn't like this introduction stuff, "I just wanted to see what it was like in space for awhile. It might be fun, and I think setting up the first FBI office would be interesting. You're an analyst?"
Jack said, "Yep. They figure that a lot of the work up there is going to be cyberspace intensive. Also, we've got a target."
"They've been told, Jack." Ferguson cut in. "Here is Jim Edenfield. He's from Montana. He's our top operative agent there. Jim, this is Jack Martin. Jack is the person we were talking about."
The work order presentation was uneventful, and work began immediately on fitting the Russian and American capsules end to end. Meanwhile, Frank, in Metafire Two, received a message from the NSP. It read, "Metafire Two, you are hereby ordered to join with capsule Bluebird. Bluebird is currently being tendered to your location and should arrive at 0300 Universal Time. Please indicate the hatch of your choice."
Frank called Sporkin in from the cavern. "What do you make of this?"
Sporkin responded, "They think they are ordering us. Do you have a video contact address for them?"
"Yes."
Sporkin seemed not to notice the response. He was looking at Angela who was now pulling herself toward them. "We have a possible problem. NSP has ordered us to join with a capsule coming in."
"Don't respond," Angela was prepared for something like this. "We'll let'm stew."
But Jack and the FBI guys were in the Bluebird and closing on Metafire Two. They were determined to board.
"Right, John." And they left the FBI office for the Los Alamos airfield.
Jack, Steven, and Jim watched over the Internet in horror as they realized that Metafire had hijacked the Shuttle Discovery. They could look out of their capsule's window and see the Metafire Two capsule with its huge cavern attached. Yet they had no way to simply board her. A join of this kind required the cooperation of both capsules. If one capsule refused to effect the join, the join could not be made.
They turned their capsule toward the Discovery when they heard that it was opening its cargo bay doors. They reported the exit of the Metafire One colony, with Russian capsule attached. It was hard to see, almost twenty miles distant, but Jim Edenfield had made a telescope-type arrangement of camera lenses. Although Metafire One was acting on the dark side of earth orbit, the Shuttle bay lights gave away the activities.
"I still can't believe how fast these guys are!" Jack made the comment to the others.
"We have their Internet message. They have hostages in both vessels. In fact, the broadcast Internet traffic from Metafire Two is that they have hostages too!" Jim was back on his terminal working hard to keep abreast of all relevant information. "The tug has been ordered to come to us. We'll have more room to move about once we're joined with it."
"Who is she?" The FBI Director did not know her.
"She is my top analyst. She is the one that uncovered Metafire."
The NSC Director intervened, "Certainly. Have her flown up. We'll convene again in the morning. Seven thirty A.M. Major, you have the watch. In the morning you can sleep. Set up all the systems you need. You have Presidential authority."
They broke up. Government vehicles were waiting to take people home and to local hotels.
Scooter Burbank had joined his tug with the FBI capsule Bluebird. Opening his hatch, he first saw Jack. Jack hadn't even combed his hair for days. "Hello, my name is Scooter. You look pretty jammed in there. Come on in."
"Thanks." Jack pulled himself past Scooter and into the tug. "Windows. Finally we don't have to look through eye-holes!"
"Yes, I've got water for bathing. I've got real food. I've even got some real orange juice! By the way, don't you jerks have some women here? I was hoping to see some pretty women." Scooter was disappointed.
Inside the Metafire colony, the Metafire people hugged briefly. The Ukrainians introduced themselves to the new Americans. Everybody who was free of other tasks then got busy emptying out and preparing the supply capsule. George directed the placement of all the supplies. There was a lot of computer equipment, as well as special food stocks, clothes, and general hardware. When ready, they moved the Discovery repair technician into the supply capsule. They tied him to a storage latch, and Dave Johnston moved in to take control. During all of this time George had communicated with Frank and with the crew on the Discovery. There was very little talk.
But before the capsule left, George got a call from Ferguson. "George, we know you now have four hostages. The fourth is Erisa McCabe. Put two hostages on the capsule. You can keep two. Do not refuse us on this, George."
George looked at Janet and muted the microphone, "How do they know?"
"They must've traced from Jack Martin. Erisa disappeared on the Houston Police. They don't know. They're guessing." Janet reasoned.
George thought about it and decided it didn't make any difference. It would go better for them if the FBI knew Erisa was alive, but he wasn't going to explicitly admit it. "OK. But no more changes." George directed that the Discovery communications officer be put on board the capsule. "Disconnect the capsule from the colony. Now!"
"I have them," Jim Edenfield shouted. "Here, they're on the speakers."
"Alzo, w' 'ust ganize a method of mantaining a continus watch. The authorities still have the Bluebird capsule. That's the capsule with FBI. We've sen it attached to a tug, and we have seen it being provisioned."
The laser designator was directly pointed on the side of the Metafire cavern. The laser sound monitor was working. Jim Edenfield was a seasoned agent who knew these laser sound monitors worked only to a certain degree. If a person is faced away from the surface being monitored when he spoke, then the sound would be so heavily attenuated that it could come out like a muffled mumbling. Furthermore, every container, and every position on every container would transmit different kinds of sounds better than others. And, if people talked in light voices, there was a pretty good probability that there would not be enough energy in their speech to vibrate the surface in a detectable fashion. So it was not surprising to Jim to now get the silence of a white noise overlaid by the whirrings of the mechanical systems on board the Metafire colony.
"They were talking about us, guys." Jack mused.
"Yes, they are going to watch us. We'll watch them. I'll establish communication with headquarters and ask for further orders. But I suspect they're just going to tell us to keep our distance and keep monitoring."
Because she was an official reporter, the Internet version of USA Today would contain her byline with her stamp on it. Since late 1990s, it was possible to create Hyperspace stamps. The daily edition of USA Today had a "readright" stamp on it. This stamp was issued by the U.S. Government and cost USA Today $500 to put it on an edition. It guaranteed that only those people with "reading rights" to USA Today, could read it. If a person misrepresented himself, who he was, then he was in violation of the law, and would be guilty of theft. Hyperspace stamps were used for many purposes. A Government 'minted' read right stamp was just one stamp. In fact it was not the only one. The same internal treaty of the United Nations that had guaranteed unique phone numbers in the late 1980s had been used to guarantee unique 'stamps.' These had names that, like a phone numbers, were guaranteed unique throughout the world, and they usually had a pretty icon.
There were less expensive "read right" stamps, that usually meant that the offense was civil. Furthermore, there were more expensive "read right" stamps. In fact there was one, that cost $5,000, that imposed stiff penalties against anyone unauthorized to read and against any agent that permitted the content to be transmitted in an unprotected fashion.
USA Today also had stamps that indicated that Gannett automatically conferred free use for schools as long as they did not remove any of the stamps. Wendy's stamp was one that she 'minted' herself. It wasn't her signature, but it was her unique declaration that this was her material. She had registered the stamp with the U.S. Copyright office. This meant that no one else could use the stamp legally, and no one could remove it legally. The stamp would 'stick' to the text of the article for all time. If she ever found it was removed, she could take the offender to her local judge. He could assess damages and have her paid. The standard penalty was $1000. That wasn't very much money, but the judgement would be swift and sure. Unbeknownst to people outside the U.S. Copyright office, it was Metafire software that made the copies of the copyright office records that in turn established, authoritatively, the date of first copyright.
After about three hours of maneuvering, both colonies were fixed up. Jim took his helmet off first. The air seemed fine. Scooter mentioned what was, by now, on everybody's mind, "That new re-breather must be catalyzing something in the gas. It's amazing that it goes away so fast. Even the smell!" With the helmets off, they radioed Ferguson to tell him the bad news about their failure to take Metafire.
Scooter was maneuvering the Bluebird to its position about a mile from the Metafire colony, when Ferguson stated his conclusion, "Boys, we've failed. It's interesting that those Metafire guys were as calm as they were. Get the laser listening device back on them. We're working on another plan."
On board of Metafire, Steven was just waking up. The nylon ties that he had intended to use on the Metafire people were now binding him. His arms were stretched behind his back, with ties holding his elbows behind as well as holding his hands, back to back. Ties held his legs together and also held his legs to his body. There must have been twenty ties linked end to end that formed the lengths necessary to bind him up like this.
As he woke, we remembered what had happened. He turned a corner and saw a contraption, brightly glowing in his infrared vision. The infrared showed the characteristic cylinders positioned a couple of inches off each other. They were bombs just like the nuclear artillery shells he had been taught to recognize! A prick in his side! He yelled. Then he lost consciousness.
George waited until the next morning to contact the FBI about the meteorites. "John, I have some bad news about one of your agents."
Ferguson was with Jill. No one else was in the room. George had asked for, and gotten, a video connection with them. Through a special video screen that had been developed by Xerox in Palo Alto, they were looking into each others eyes.
George continued, "It's your agent Steven. Our colony was struck with some matter, some meteorites. One of them killed Steven. Our doctor said it went through his heart. It was over in an instant, John."
Ferguson hardened. Jill just plain didn't believe it. She said, "You know the likelihood of this is pretty remote, George? What makes you think we are going to believe you?"
George turned and looked over to the side, motioning someone to come over. It was Erisa. She looked into the screen at John and Jill. On the bluebird, Jack was monitoring the call. There she was, Erisa. Jill and John had similar reactions.
"Hi. It's me!"
"Yes, but it isn't as versatile as the laser." Jim was not amused. "Let me get in there. I'm contacting Ferguson right now for instructions."
The instructions were not surprising: "You bumbling fools! From now on, you will have no direct contact with Metafire except under our strict supervision. No more! They're smart. They'll out-think you at every turn!"
That afternoon, on board of Metafire, Michael Yatchiv heard the first radio transmissions from the Russian officials at New Vladisvostok. Metafire had permission to be towed over to their city for the purpose of acquiring the Whitefire supply capsule and Whitefire tug. The transmission was a narrow line of sight microwave. Bluebird did not receive it, but Ferguson and his team did receive the same notice from Russian officials on the ground. Ferguson went over the internet to Bluebird in voice, "Ok, guys. Now you have my permission to communicate with Metafire. It's time to move them over to New Vladisvostok."
"We have Metafire's request on hold." Jim Edenfield had queued the voice from Metafire while he was listening to Ferguson. "There." He clicked the receive button.
The voice was George, and he had decided to be funny, "We have permission to go to New Vladisvostok. Aren't you guys tired over there? We would wait a day if you wanted to get replacements."
Andrei was not hesitant, "You have my full faith George." Andrei then moved on toward his sleeping arrangement in the cavern. George pushed off to get some more sleep too.
When Ferguson got to the White House situation room, he saw that Major Henderson was waiting. Jill was also sitting at the Sun terminal clicking away. Ferguson smiled at the Major and said, "Big day today!"
"Yes, John. Big day. The Russian capsules are attached and the Metafire colony is back in New Boston. Let's hope we can use our little surprise on those bastards!"
"Have you briefed the President?"
"Yes, thirty minutes ago. He is going to Camp David today, but he will be in touch. This isn't an international crisis or anything. We don't anticipate any problems yet. We did get a GE Subterranean TV crew out to the Ukraine Whitefire site. They found nothing. The site was clean. All the Whitefire people had left and left nothing behind. No bombs." The Major was feeling pretty comfortable that the situation was contained.
"What's the possibility that Metafire has other bombs?"
The President was visibly alarmed. He asked, "How do you people propose to end this? We must have this matter concluded. If we believe we have finally identified the terrorists, then how can we give assurance that they are finally gone. How can we give assurance to the American people that there will be no more nuclear explosions?"
"Sir, a safe conclusion is our highest priority. We are bringing this to conclusion as rapidly and safely as possible." The Major was still standing as the President walked out. He noticed he couldn't swallow.
Back on board Metafire George found Angela on his shoulder. She said, "We've done it! We should be free now."
"Yes. Gather everybody in the cavern. The FBI will be quite busy for awhile trying to decide what to do. We are safe. I want to speak to everyone."
George clicked on the communications window and said, "John, I am breaking off now. Is there anything further?"
"No, George. I hope you realize that we are going to change the charges now against the people you left behind."
"Major Henderson? This is General Adams. We have a report from the National Security Agency that you should see. Please come in right now."
"Yes. Can you arrange for John Ferguson and Jill Thomas to be there?"
"Yes. They will be called in as well."
About a half hour later, the Major walked into the situation room. Jill was already there. Ferguson was out in Virginia and was still forty five minutes away. Jill had brought up the email from the National Security Agency. It began, "We have deciphered the email held by Dr. Miller. The Sante Fe group, Metafire, and the Ukranian group, Whitefire, are clearly responsible for the first bombings. There were thirteen nuclear devices in the hands of Metafire. We have also determined that there was a misunderstanding. Whitefire believed the bombs would not be set off. Several Metafire personnel also believed this. Stan Firestone identified the culprits. They were Samuel Epstein and Rhonda Richards. They were killed. But another interchange between Firestone and George Davis indicates that they, too, participated in setting off the bombs without the others' agreement."
"Jill, dig up that last interchange. I want to read it. We may have trouble here." The Major now sat down. "Let me think for a few minutes. After you get that interchange, then get all records from Dr. Miller's disk that mention George Davis."
"Yes sir."
On Metafire, not four days from leaving New Boston, the lack of work to do on the Internet was starting to cause friction. Some of the people had gotten pretty bored. There wasn't a constant intrigue of customer and potential customer interaction. The physical well-being of the Metafire colony did not require a lot of attention. People started to interact with one another.
Platon felt that the facilities were being mishandled. He told George and Angela, "Sporkin doesn't know how to handle the Russian computer systems. I want to have those controlled independently from yours. The hard network link we are trying to establish gives Sporkin and some others access to deleting and changing our files. Sporkin says that the file system should have a single sensible organization. Sensible to him, George. We refuse."
"But we agreed yesterday that we should be able to explore each others' computers, Platon. You won't give us direct log in capability?" Angela said.
"That's right."
"Then why should we give you log in capability?"
On board the FBI Bluebird mini-colony, Scooter, Jim, Erisa, Jack, and Randy had had a much worse time of it. The entire living area for five was no larger than twelve by forty feet. Erisa and Jack had fixed themselves up what Scooter called 'a nesting area.' The 'boys,' as Erisa called them, lived in with the bomb and the corpse of Steven. It had taken almost a week before the NSP had come up with a plan that kept the group busy.
The plan originated when Scooter played with the attitude thrusters. In a conversation with Erisa, he mentioned, "You know I got fifty feet yesterday."
"What do you mean?"
"I moved us fifty feet further from New Boston. It takes some playing. What I do is thrust a bit away just as an attitude thruster goes off. Simultaneously, in the computer, I change the distance we hold to the hub. It seems to work. We haven't blown up yet!"
Erisa had the idea to contact the NSP about this. She had been back on active duty since her release and had worked logistics issues from her terminal on Bluebird. Her boss, John Adamson, had been cleared and was appraised of the situation on Bluebird. He was happy to give Erisa work.
Back on Earth, the Major was getting a disappointing report from the effort to crack Dr. O'Leary and the other Metafire people. All four people had been brought to Washington under arrest. But Metafire had hired attorneys to defend them, and they were not talking. They were very friendly. Finally, with the continued pressure from Metafire customers, the Major arranged for Metafire to come back on line from an office in the Pentagon manned by Dr. O'Leary and his team, and watched over by the analysts Franklin and Charles. The agreement was that Metafire revenue would pay the government costs to oversee Metafire operations.
A hundred thousand miles away, in the Metafire colony, slow progress was being made on cutting the killer satellite away from the hull of the colony. The investigative tour, in Metafire Two, of the hull had shown that the satellite was in a location that was clear of any serious piping and wiring. Andrei and Platon were tasked with the job. They would expose the outer hull, cut with the power laser in a cup like arrangement, and stop the air leakage with patching tape. They had calculated that they could cut 95% of the hole, in perforations, without causing the hull section to "blow out" from the hull. It would take almost a week of constant work. But even before that, a second hull had to be fabricated out of parts from one of the showers. The shower vacuum pump was calculated to be strong enough to hold a vacuum in the final phases of cutting. It would also allow them to test the integrity of the second hull configured over the first.
Erisa was right to worry that Angela and Frank might check to make sure a rescue craft was in route. Immediately after the conversation, Angela told Frank, "We can check how close the rescue craft is very easily, Frank. We simply ask the craft for a TCP/IP network socket and then inspect the ACK speed." She was referring to a direct Internet connection and an acknowledge or handshake response that occurs in the low level electronics. Such responses are limited, at these distances, by lightspeed. Responses that were short enough could only be made by a craft close enough to them to be a real rescue.
Ferguson contacted George with a simple message. "We need to resupply Bluebird. They are running out of air, water, and food. Can you allow us to dock a tug? This can bump your bomb, and, at the very least will wind up moving it, perhaps several hundred feet."
Angela by this time had come forward and was with George when he got the message. He asked Angela, "Should we allow this?"
Angela responded, "I don't know why not. I can set the inertial motion detector to be less sensitive. Can you give me the current release code?"
"Sure." George was in no way alerted. "Platon said that the killer satellite will be pushed free tonight. Tomorrow I'm going to make some more demands on the FBI. We want our communications with Earth restored." Matter of factly, he emailed her the release code, "D54AA0B32D332EF."
The next morning Angela called a general session of Metafire. She told everyone that she had received some privileged mail from Earth that had to be presented and discussed. Before the session was to begin, she took the release code for the bomb and re-programmed the bomb with another release code, disabling the first. All three Simplaceanu's armed themselves with knock out needles in anticipation of having to deal with George or defending themselves. They had resolved to tell all, then to let Metafire, as a whole, decide what to do.
The morning session was put off to the afternoon. George announced at breakfast that the killer satellite was being released during the morning. Platon and Andrei had completed the task sooner than anyone expected. The pull of the tape inside the vacuum chamber and a push would send the killer satellite on its way. Even at two or three miles an hour, the satellite would be too far away to be dangerous, by lunch. To be safe, though, only Platon and Andrei were in the tug when the time came. The hatches between sections were all closed, just in case the explosive went off. But there was no problem. The original analysis had been correct. Metafire was safe from the killer satellite. Now Metafire had the advantage over the FBI. That is perhaps why the afternoon discussion session went so wild.
Angela, as second in command, took charge of the session, "Today is a good day, and it is a bad day as well. I am going to introduce some information that was relayed up from the FBI on Earth. Apparently, they successfully decrypted a whole collection of email messages from two years ago, just before the New York City blast. The email included messages between Stan Firestone and George here, as well as many messages among us. Frank and I have inspected the messages. The ones that we knew about, the ones addressed to and from Frank and I, are ones we know we sent and received. In other words, all the messages look viable. I want to invite everyone here to confirm this within the database, because there are some troubling messages between Stan and George."
Two months later, on board Metafire, life had settled into a comfortable pattern. The people had all individually become comfortable with the fact that someday, perhaps a year away, they would all perish at once. The adventure was great in making use of all available resources to extend their survival and study space. When Erisa had returned to Sante Fe, she lobbied successfully for Metafire to resume limited business operations. The work helped everyone on Metafire in being comfortable with their life in space. They knew they were continuing to make a positive contribution back on Earth. Erisa was once again completely happy. The people on Metafire needed her, and a growing collection of Metafire customers had grown to rely on her.
The FBI Cyberspace Research Center still had the problem of identifying who set off the bombs. Ferguson had returned to Sante Fe and hired two more people, including Franklin Churchill, to fill out the team with Jill and Jack.
Jack had also been assigned the task of monitoring the operations of Metafire. Erisa and Jack bought a home in one of Sante Fe's residential strips. She had returned to her job with the NSP, but her job was now providing remote Internet support for Metafire. Metafire's revenue had been directed to NSP and Russian Space Program activities. Also, if Jack needed it, she would be available to answer questions that required familiarity with the personalities on board of Metafire.