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FLASH

L. E.Modesitt, Jr.

TOR

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

NEWYORK

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are

used fictitiously.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Edited by David G. HartwellBook design by Mary A. Wirth

A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationData

Modesitt, L. E.

Flash / L. E. Modesitt, Jr.—1st US ed.

p. cm. "A Tor Book." ISBN 0-765-31128-3 EAN 978-0765-31128-3

1. Advertising—Fiction. 2. Political campaigns—Fiction. I. Title.PS3563.O264F58 2004

813'.54—dc22

2004009861

First Edition:September 2004

Printed inthe United States of America

098765432 1

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For Catherine and Eric,

lovers of large dogs and larger dreams

Chapter 1

Cracckk!

"Down!"Down! At the sound of the ancient slug-thrower, I dropped flat onto the squashed soyl plants at

the edge of the field. The illegal crops—soyl and caak—were mostly shielded by the taller overgrowth of

what had once been part of a rain forest. My three companies were spread along nearly a kay from north

to south so that the illegals didn't get past. CI wanted a bunch for interrogation. Somewhere to the west

of us was the Berbice River, but that didn't matter. Everything around us was wet. Nothing ever dried

out, not even the tropical uniforms that were supposed to wick away moisture while providing impact

protection. They did neither all that well, and certainly didn't do anything to stop the sweating.

Someone might have said that the pattering sound of slugs shredding the taller soyl plants to the east of

where I lay sounded almost like rain. It didn't.

Air, Bravo two.Nothing. The uplink was dead.

I clicked the implant to alt ... static-filled, but there. Not supposed to have static on satellite-combat

links. Right.Air, Bravo two.

You're breaking up, two. Try main.

Idiots! Would I have boon on alt if main worked?Negative. Main dead. Need CAS. Coordinates

follow.

Say again coordinates...

It took three attempts to get the coordinates clear.

Meanwhile, I could hear the deeper sound of an antique heavy machine gun to the south. I could also

sense telltales going off.

Bravo two ... Bravo two. Negative on CAS.

No time to question that one. I'd already lost half a platoon on the south end, all because CI wanted

troops on the ground, and I had a mixed force, some commandos and some straight Marines, on a

search and capture mission without the firepower necessary. I'd rather have just taken my own

commandos, but I hadn't been given that choice.

Bravo two ... three-one here ... delta caught in cross fire ... quicksand stuff and deep paddies or

something... couple of...

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The implant transmission flared red and vanished. I'd lost another officer, and without air support, delta

units were going to get shredded worse, and with century-old weapons at that. Long-range stunners and

lasers didn't work in rain forests. Neither did HV rifles, not well. That was why I had my own antique, a

design more than fifty years old, a stun-grenade launcher, but it wasn't that accurate at more than a

hundred meters. Gulsan had one, too. He was flanking me.

Charlie one ... Charlie one, sweeping southeast, vee on me ...After my orders, and before long we were

scuttling to the southeast, with more of the slugs shredding the taller soyl plants. Implant positioning

showed that fire was coming from a knoll of sorts two hundred meters to the southeast. Some sort of

crude revetment, but crude or not, it was good enough to stop lasers and hand weapons.

More telltales flicked red and gone.

At eighty meters from the revetment, with a narrow clear line before us, and slugs coming in at less than

a meter above my head, mowing down the tops of the soyl plants, and even the shorter and bushier caak

planted between the rows of soyl, I called a halt.Hold. Launchers centered.

Centered.

Fire!

After the first stun-grenade dropped into the revetment, someone tried to swing the old machine gun.

They didn't get far.

A handful of illegals vaulted over the revetment and began to run. At that range, even in the fields on the

edge of the rain forest, the HVs were effective. One hundred percent effective in the open.

In less than ten minutes, the field and the revetment were ours, but I had the men play it safe, and it was

more like a half hour before I climbed over the edge of the makeshift revetment and surveyed what lay

there.

The heavy fire had come from more than a dozen locals. Bodies were four men, six women, and two

children. That didn't count the others that delta company had taken down when they'd bolted the

makeshift revetment. The ones who had stayed inside had been crouching behind rotten logs, plastered

with dried mud and covered with vegetation. I could see their ribs. One of the women was ten years

older than my mother. She looked that old, maybe wasn't, but one side of her chest was blown away.

That was what happened when grenades designed to stun troops in nanite-boosted uniforms went off too

close to unprotected flesh. The old woman's teeth were black stubs.

CI, Bravo two. Site secured.This time the uplink was clear.Ready for documentation.

That's a negative, Bravo two. Torch and return. Torch and return. Op concluded. Torch and return.

Interrogative, torch and return?

That's affirm. Torch and return. Notify when you reach pickup area.

Roger.

We were "helping" the Guyanan president. The world knew that. But we weren't supposed to be

engaging in operations. The only problem was that the Guyanan army couldn't find its way across a

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plowed field without tripping, and the multis were screaming to the Legislature and the Executory.

Bravo force. Deploy torches. Deploy torches.

A half hour later, we were trudging westward, patrols out.

I glanced back at the heavy black smoke that rose into the sullen sky. Even with the fields a quarter kay

behind us, the odor permeated everything, a combination of burning rubber and rancid cooking oil.

"Why're we here, Colonel? Really?" That was Lieutenant Verglen, fresh-faced and right out of the

Academy.

"C1 says that athird ofthe caak coming into NorAm starts in this valley."

"So we've gotto pay so that AVia doesn't lose creds on somatin?"

"We're just here to make sure that the Guyanan people stay under the liberated rule of President Amao.

That's the official line." Thatwas the official line, and I was a light colonel. I didn't mention what else we

all knew—that MultiCor frowned on freelance production of soyl hydrocarbons that might compete with

the MultiCor energy consortium.

"And we have to follow the official line, sir, don't we?"

ZZZZZZZZzzzzzz...

A dull, off-key buzzing rolled through the sky—and the damp of the rain forest was gone. I was still

sweating as I sat up and hit the alarm button.

Guyana ... more than ten years ago.

I still had dreams—except they were too real. Flashbacks. Reexperienced reality.

Reexperienced in far too real a fashion.

I lurched up from the bed and staggered toward the exercise clothes on the rack. Food and tea and

exercise would help. They always did.

Chapter 2

The screen showed a body on the stasis slab. Short dark brown hair topped an oval

face—square-jawed and clean-shaven—a face a trace too long to be perfectly proportioned. Dark

half-circles lay under open unseeing eyes and thick eyebrows. No lines crossed the smooth forehead,

and none radiated from the corners of the eyes. A sheet covered the lower part of the body, but it could

not conceal that the area below the chest had been crushed.

"Almost looks flash," observed Yenci, blade-slender in the dark grays of a safety officer. "Too perfect.

No history. Just a pretty face. Except pretty faces don't look so pretty when they're dead."

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Silence followed the safo's words.

"Do we have an ID on this one?" Yenci finally asked.

"No ID."

"GIL check?" pursued the safo, the edge in her voice muted.

"No match."

"Not in the whole friggin' world? No trace to an existing clone pattern, no commercial cydroids, nothing?

We've got three ..three clone/ cydroids, all different, and there's not a trace to anyone?" Yenci's blue

eyes hardened, although they were never softer than agate at most times, even when registering through

scanners. "Your banks and systems can't find anything?"

"There is no match to DNA within acceptable parameters."

"What the frig does that mean?"

"The vast majority of human DNA is shared. Ninety-nine percent is close to identical to certain other

primate species—"

"Enough. Heard that before." Yenci paused. "Captain won't like this. He won't. Lieutenant won't either."

"Do you want a facial comparison?"

"Low priority—only on low-level. Office can't afford any priority."

"That will take between eight and ten weeks at current data-flow levels."

"Takes what it takes," Yenci replied. She turned and left the stasis chamber.

No response was required.

Whether the captain liked it or not, the body was there—dead. Life takes people where it will, not

where they will. That's what Bagram Wills said more than a century ago. Analysis of history and records

would indicate that it is as true now as it was then. People can control what they do and how they act,

but they do not control the effects of what they do. The effects spill onward and outward, like ripples in a

pond, if they're fortunate, or like the nearly unseen wave of a tsunami, if they're not. For all that, life is not

a river, nor a wide ocean.

The universe is infinite and endless. Life is not, even though it cannot be described accurately in any

analytical fashion. People employ comparisons or analogies or metaphors. They fail as well. They use

analytical systems and logical tools. Such systems can replicate thought, and some few reach awareness,

but neither the rational and aware nor the irrational and unaware can describe life. People have always

searched for meaning, and all too many grasp at beliefs that will allow them to deny that life, however

extended, modified, and preserved, remains most finite. "A flickering candle against the span of the

universe," according to Wills.

So are systems, even the most intelligent, even those fully self-aware.

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Chapter 3

I'd just come out of the fresher, clean with the feeling that you only get after a hot, hot shower following

good, sweat-producing exercise—like my morning run through the Boulder greenbelt. Tuesday was the

day I went for speed. After the flashback I'd had, that speed helped, but the extra exertion left me

panting by the time I went into the weight room, both for the weights, and for other exercises. Once I'd

finished, as usual, I dressed in dark green and black, black trousers and waistcoat, with a long-sleeved,

wide-collared green shirt. Cravats were back, Aliora had told me several weeks ago, offering her sisterly

fashion advice, but I only wore a cravat and jacket when I met clients in person.

Before I sat down and got to work, I took a long sip of the Grey tea from the mug I'd carried into the

office, then walked to the wide windows on the north side. From there, the Flatirons rose to the

northwest— red, angled-rock cliffs—in turn overlooking Boulder and the university. I almost could

ignore the closer roofs and the trees. That view was one of the beauties of being an independent

consultant. House and office were in the same place, andthe location was acceptable. Truly acceptable

would have been somewhere like Cedacity, also a university town, but for my work, the Denv area was

a necessity. There's always some data clients refuse to send by link, and most of them want to meet in

person at regular intervals. It's almost as if you're not real if they can't occasionally see you up close.

Understandable enough, since anything on the worldlink can be, and has been, counterfeited.

After a last look at early September sunlight falling on the red rocks, I called up the holo projection for

the Relaxo project. I tried not to think too hard about the work I didn't have after I finished the current

round. Consulting's like that. No matter how good you are, you're never sure that it will continue.

Abruptly, silver flooded between me and the projection.

"Most honored sir?" The houri wore just enough, and no more, to get my involuntary attention. At a

hundred and sixty centimeters, she exhibited both too much and too little. "Are you looking for the—"

A signal to the system commpro, and with a flash of light, the too-perfect figure vanished.

"Frigged filter!" Disruptions like that I didn't need. My office system was supposed to be proof against

emwhores. But nothing was proof against anything, not these days.

I settled into the ergochair, setting down the mug, and taking in the shelves on the east wall. In addition

to my collection of old-style, leather-backed books, I'd also bound some of the studies I'd done with

particular meaning to me. Aliora teased me about my vanity in binding them, but electronic files just didn't

carry the visual impact.

Was that because I needed a physical reminder of who I was? According to Shioban, my insecurity

about who I was had been one of the many reasons she'd decided to move on. She hadn't mentioned the

flashbacks, but those hadn't helped, either.

But you can't live in the past, no matter what happened.

I turned to the Relaxo sales figures on the holo projection. First, the ones on the left, then to the central

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column, the one that held the demographic breakdown ofHotters viewers, and then to the last two

columns, one with projected Relaxo sales by demographics, compared to actual sales. As I'd suspected,

there was only a normalized adjusted variance of 10 percent, just about standard for home fitness and

relaxation products. I called up the next set of figures.

Reya Decostas, incoming.The commsys linked to my implant, another relic of the past that I'd kept ...

and shouldn't have, not legally.

Reya would keep link-pushing until I gave in, and, if I didn't, I'd hear about it three times before she

forwarded my fees. I blanked the Relaxo data.Accept.

Reya's holo image flashed up before me—a dark-haired woman with pale skin and classical features,

clad in a not-quite formfitting adaptation of a toga, fashioned of a shimmering translucent cream fabric.

After almost a year, I could finally ignore that classic figure, a distraction that she loved to use to her

advantage—as I'd discovered early on, when I hadn't heard one of her conditions on a study, and it had

cost me over a thousand creds.

"Reya ... what can I do for you?"

"Besides the PowerSwift results, Jonat dear? It's not what you can do for me, but for one of my ...

acquaintances. You're the best of the prod-placement analysts..."

Flattery meant she was about to ask a favor I couldn't refuse or to offer a job at a rate that wouldn't

cover costs. I waited.

"It's noncommerce, but they'll pay your full rate."

"Who or what? And why?"

"It's real, not flash. Nonprof outfit. The Centre for Societal Research. Your contact is Tan Uy-Smythe.

Executive director. He's expecting to hear from you ... soon. You'll find the codes in my latest link." Reya

smiled. "Now ... what about the correlations on PowerSwift? I know you didn't promise them until

Thursday, but do you have any preliminary results?"

"So long as you recall they're preliminary." The display came up, low and to the left, so that I could see

the figures as I looked at Reya's projected image—and at the linkcam that relayed my image back to her.

I'd never bothered with synch-simmies that would let me work on something else and still theoretically

project competence and interest. Perceptive clients can tell the difference. "You're still running at forty

percent. That's high for discretionary home products."

Reya frowned. "We'd hoped for more, with the sublim and rez enhancement."

"Right now, except in certain demographic spots, rez can lose you as much as it gains. We don't know

the causal linkages. Resonance tech is still more art than science."

"I believe you mentioned that before." The PowerSwift director's voice turned dry. "The creative types

don't like hard facts."

I offered an exaggerated shrug, the kind that the linkcam would catch. A shrug was far better than any

words, since no words would address her statement.

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"You do know when silence is golden, Jonat. That's another thing I appreciate about you." Reya paused.

"What else?"

"Your tie-ins with the Infomatic line are low, only in the ten percent range. That's unadjusted..." I went

on to explain, without committing more than the facts indicated. In the end, I promised, again, to have the

complete analysis to her by Thursday, and to contact Tan Uy-Smythe immediately.

Once Reya's image vanished, before I linked Uy-Smythe, I spent a moment to call up theErrorOne

results from the analysis program. I ran through the numbers quickly. With my luck, Methroy would link

and want a quick read. The PPI product line director was always stuffing bandwidth ... and then

forgetting and linking again.

I retrieved the access codes Reya had sent and made the link for Uy-Smythe. A simple seal appeared

on the projected holo, circular, a white rose and a red one crossing over a stylized version of the restored

Parthenon.

Centre for Societal Research

Jonat deVrai, for Tan Uy-Smythe.

One moment, sir.

Without further comment, the seal was replaced by a man seated in an office library, one filled with

old-style leatherbound books. At least, the wall behind him showed the books. Tan Uy-Smythe was

slender, almost angular, with dark brown hair, and a golden complexion. "Mr. deVrai. How far from the

truth?"

"Not far at all. More like 'of the truth.'"

"Pardon my witticism. Reya Decostas recommended you as the only link-track analyst able to handle

this project. So did a number of others."

"I've been fortunate to be able to meet most of Reya's expectations."

"You have to be good to have been able to meet any of them." Uy-Smythe smiled.

"She didn't offer details about the project you had in mind."

"She couldn't. I didn't tell her, and whether you accept the job or not, we'll want a confidentiality

agreement."

"I only sign those if they include the standard waiver on illegality," I pointed out.

"That's more than acceptable. We're more concerned about our research and scholarship being

disseminated before it's peer reviewed. I know your reputation is impeccable..."

"But the confidentiality agreement has to be signed in person with a GIL verification and authentication?"

"Exactly." Uy-Smythe raised both perfect eyebrows. "You've dealt with nonprofs before?"

"No. Sensitive data, and I'm aware of the prudence test for confidentiality."

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"Just so. Could you come by our office tomorrow?"

"Two o'clock?"

"Ah ... two-thirty might be a bit better. I'll send the address and coordinates."

"Two-thirty." I flashed a smile, the kind I hoped projected warmth.

Once the projection blanked and vanished, I reached for the mug of Grey tea—and found it was empty.

Too much Grey tea, another of my faults. I flicked to All-News, and instructed the house system to have

the projection follow me through the formal front parlor to the kitchen.

Aliora had said more than once that my house was obscenely large for a single man, but I'd bought it and

contracted for the office modifications and repairs when I'd thought matters would work out with

Shioban. That meant I'd been paying the single-occupant surtax for nearly five years, but the privacy was

worth it, at least so long as I held on to my clients.

Good news from Ceres ... the fault in the mining complex has been sealed, and there have been no more

fatalities ... The total stands at 114 ... Not so good news from Serenium, where the so-called Martian

Assembly has threatened secession ... MultiCor is shipping more of its CorPak safos to Mars in full-grav

centrifuge ships...

With NorAm elections less than two months away, Continental Executive Poulas may be faced with

another two years of infighting. Polls show the Popular Democrats with 98 seats in the House, while the

Laborite Republicans would have 102, with, of course, Palan Druw as an independent. The Senate is

likely to remain solidly in LR hands...

The unidentified cydroid struck and killed by an electrolorry on the Capital Guideway remains a mystery.

The cydroid was an unregistered and unknown type carrying sophisticated microtronic gear. Capital

safos have notreleased any additional information, except to say that Investigations are proceeding...

TheNorthernAfrican Republic lightened restrictions on allmovement north, in the wake of the resurgence

ofthe ebol2 outbreak. NAR's President Hammad reassured the people of all Afrique that the restrictions

were temporary ... European Community in-ports have instituted full health screens on travelers from

Afrique...

The PAMD has struck again. An AP missile slammed into the armored limo of Everett Forster, Director

General of Unite ... injuring Forster and his driver. Forster had just testified before the Defense

Committee of the NorAm Senate on whether Unite had illegally transferred BID technology to SOFIS, a

deep-space development multilateral headquartered on Mars ... reputed to be supporting the Martian

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Modesitt, L.E. - Flash

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