Daniel Keys Moran - A Tale of the Continuing Time 04 - The AI War

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I, Daniel Keys Moran, "The Author," hereby release this text as freeware. It may be transmitted as a text file anywhere

in this or any other dimension, without reservation,

so long as the story text is not altered IN ANY WAY. No fee may be charged for such transmission, save handling

fees comparable to those charged for shareware programs.

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE PRINTED OR PUBLISHED IN A BOOK, MAGAZINE, ELECTRONIC OR CD-ROM

STORY COLLECTION, OR VIA ANY OTHER MEDIUM NOW EXISTING OR WHICH MAY IN THE FUTURE COME

INTO EXISTENCE, WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR. THIS WORK IS LICENSED FOR

READING PURPOSES ONLY. ALL OTHER RIGHTS ARE RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR.

DESCRIPTION: This is the opening segment of Players: The A.I. War.

THE AI WAR

A TALE OF THE CONTINUING TIME

DANIEL KEYS MORAN

"Players" -- the child, the actor, and the gambler.

The idea of chance is absent from the world of

the child and the primitive. The gambler also

feels in service of an alien power. Chance is a

survival of religion in the modern city . . .

-- Jim Morrison

Players only love you when they're playing

-- Fleetwood Mac, Dreams

THESE ARE THINGS you should know:

On July 3, 2062, the United Nations Peace Keeping Force, under the command of PKF Elite

Mohammed Vance, used tactical thermonuclear weapons to destroy a group of genetically engineered

telepaths living at the Chandler Complex in lower Manhattan.

There are two survivors from that disaster, two children who were raised together and grew to love one

another: Denice Castanaveras, a telepath; and Trent the Uncatchable, the greatest Player of his time.

On January 4, 2070, Trent, fleeing from the PKF, stole the LINK -- the Lunar Information Network

Key -- from under the noses of Elite Commissioner Mohammed Vance, and a young Elite candidate

named Melissa du Bois. It returned the Lunar InfoNet from the PKF DataWatch's control to the control

of those who used it; and it made Trent the Uncatchable a legend --

-- a man who had, before the eyes of his enemies, walked through a wall.

On July 4, 2076, the TriCentennial of the American Revolution, Occupied America rose in rebellion

against the Unification of Earth. In the course of that rebellion, rebels killed three hundred and forty-seven

of the deadly French PKF Elite; killed a hundred and ninety thousand regular PKF troops, of all

nationalities, including Americans --

The PKF, under the command of Mohammed Vance, killed two million Americans. The rebellion failed:

Occupied America remained occupied.

Mohammed Vance became the Elite Commander; after Secretary General Eddore, the second most

powerful individual in the System.

Three and a half years have passed. . . .

Trent the Uncatchable

and the Temple of 'Toons

2080 Gregorian

Ahimsa, infinite love, is a weapon of matchless

potency . . . It is an attribute of the brave, in fact

it is their all. It does not come within the reach of

the coward. It is no wooden or lifeless dogma but

a living and lifegiving force.

-- Mohandes K. Gandhi, 1924 Gregorian

Remember you don't really own anything you

can't carry at a dead run.

-- Unknown

-1-

The assassin in the rented p-suit, floating next to the holo of a crucified Porky Pig, said, "Are you Trent?"

Trent said, "No."

Through the faceplate of the assassin's p-suit, Trent could see the man shake his head. "Too bad." He

brought forward the gun he had been trying to hide behind his back.

Trent said, "I wouldn't do that."

Behind the assassin, Porky Pig's beatified holographic image radiated love and compassion. The assassin

said, "I'm sorry about this."

He aimed carefully and fired twice.

The bullets left the barrel of the gun at 850 meters per second and struck Trent square in the chest.

Trent's camouflage scalesuit went rigid all over under the impact; the shots knocked him from his feet,

sent him tumbling backward twenty meters through the vacuum, across the rocky surface of the asteroid,

through the Roadrunner exhibit --

"Beep! Beep beep!" The Roadrunner zipped out of the way; the Coyote came alive and chased Trent

through their display, missed him of course, fingers clutching after Trent's toes as Trent's scalesuited body

left the Roadrunner exhibit and tumbled on into the Ren and Stimpy exhibit, fetching up against the

backdrop. Ren came alive and screamed "You iiiidiot!" as Trent broke the laser beam that informed the

holo of the presence of an audience. "Look what you've done!"

There was no air in his lungs and his chest ached as though it had been struck by a sledgehammer. Trent

sipped air in shallow gasps, waiting for the pain to go away, waiting until he could breathe again. He

stared up at the stars through his helmet's faceplate; the stars stared back down at him, cool and distant

and indifferent to one genie's brush with death.

Off somewhere to his left, Sol shone, a light so bright his faceplate blacked it out.

He thought distantly, Downsider.

". . .the Big Sleep, you stupid, bloated fool . . ."

After over ten years in space, Trent no longer considered himself a downsider. It was a mistake no one

not fresh from Earth would have made. No SpaceFarer, no loonie, Halfer, or Belter . . . nobody but a

downsider would have tried to shoot him with an impact weapon while standing on the surface of a one

kilometer long asteroid that had no gravity to speak of.

With his right hand, Trent reached over and tapped the radio bar on his left wrist.

" -- means Death! Death you imbe -- " The shrieking Chihuahua's voice ceased in mid-word.

After most of a minute had passed, a extra-large form in a custom scalesuit, much like Trent's own,

appeared and floated over Trent.

Over their secure suit channel, Trent's "bodyguard" -- Andrew Strawberry, a Reverend of the Temples

of Eris, former World Football League star -- said, "What are you doing down there?"

Fighting for breath, Trent answered through his inskin, had the inskin transmit the message to his suit

radio, which turned it into speech for Reverend Andy. I got shot.

Reverend Andy did something that might have looked vaguely amusing to a downsider fresh from Earth;

he held his hands out at right angles to his body, briefly mirroring the crucified holograph of Porky Pig,

ten meters behind him. The maneuvering rockets at his wrists came alive, two strong blasts; he did a slow

pirouette, three hundred and sixty degrees. "I don't see him."

"People don't . . . listen," said Trent, gasping for breath. "Nobody ever listens."

Reverend Andy completed his revolution, came to a nearly perfect stop with another blast of his wrist

rockets. "Too true," Reverend Andy agreed. "It's the problem of our times. What did you do with him?"

The gravity at the asteroid's surface was effectively non-existent; moving slowly, Trent came to his feet,

ignoring the stab of pain in his ribs when he straightened out. Silently, the bad-tempered Chihuahua

continued to chew both of them out.

"Nothing. He used an impact weapon." Trent pointed out toward the stars. "Unless he's a lot better with

his wrist rockets than I think he is, he's out there. Heading for Mars at about ten meters per second."

Reverend Andy's head swiveled to look, as though he thought he could make out the man's pressure suit

against the background of black space, stars, and the occasional distant glint of burning rockets.

"Really."

Trent winced at the jabbing pain. "Man, I tried to tell him."

The Temple of 'Toons Asteroid is large by Belt standards, a roughly oval rock nearly a kilometer in

length along its long axis. Back in 2053 braking rockets had matched its orbit to that of the Belt CityState

of Gandhi, at Ceres. It trails Ceres in its dance around the sun, only five kilometers distant: in 2080,

twenty-seven years after opening for business, it is one of the oldest and busiest tourist attractions in the

Belt.

The Museum of Animated Art which is located there was not always a Belt institution. It had been

founded over eighty years previously, in Culver City, California, by the great Swami Dave Leary, a Hare

Krishna whose teachings had, so legend said, helped inspire the Prophet Harry to give up waiting tables

and become a holy man. In his great old age Swami Dave had moved the Krishna temple from Watseka

Avenue in Culver City to the new settlement at Ceres asteroid. It had been only natural for Swami Dave

to take the museum with him.

By 2080 the museum has grown far beyond its original boundaries. Sections of the asteroid's surface

have been turned over to holofields that recreate, life-size, the greatest art of the twentieth century.

Complete with copyright notices.

Reverend Andy radioed in; a sled carrying a pair of Security Services bodyguards, employed by the

museum, came out to pick them up.

As the sled was lifting from the downlot where the museum's curator kept her office, a pair of sleds

cycled through the SpaceFarers' Collective craft Vatsayama's cargo lock. The Vatsayama was docked

at an asteroid 180 klicks away from Ceres, after delivering supplies to the small Buddhist retreat there; its

sleds tumbled once to get pointed in the correct direction and then blasted out along the vector Trent had

given them.

They found the assassin hopelessly lost, just a short few degrees off the vector Trent had guessed,

tumbling around his own axis so quickly he'd grown dizzy and vomited in his helmet, so dispirited that he

did not even try to shoot at the SpaceFarers when they dropped a snakechain on him and towed him

back to the Vatsayama.

Trent couldn't get out of his suit with his ribs cracked; they disassembled his scalesuit in sections to get it

off him.

"Let's play Good Cop/Bad Cop," said Reverend Andy.

Sid Bittan, Captain of the Vatsayama, had met them at the airlock; she stood in the hatch to the infirmary

after Trent's scalesuit had been removed, a slim, attractive woman with white hair cut down to fuzz, and

watched a medbot tape Trent's ribs. "I'd space the bastard."

"That's not fair," Trent objected. "I always end up playing the Good Cop. It's boring."

Reverend Andy snorted. "They wouldn't let Gandhi play the Bad Cop either, okay? It's not my fault you

keep telling people violence is sinful. And they keep listening to you," he added pointedly.

"Let's play Bad Cop/Anti-Christ," Trent suggested.

Reverend Andy grinned at him. "Okay. I love playing the Anti-Christ."

"I'd space him," Captain Bittan repeated.

Standing in the Vatsayama's brig a meter away from the assassin, wearing magslips over his bare feet,

with his pressure suit removed and his broken ribs taped, Trent said, "So what's your name?"

The assassin, sitting on the cot in the Vatsayama's brig, stared mutely ahead. He looked American

Indian; no beard, and long black hair tied in a ponytail. He was only a few centimeters shorter than Trent,

Trent guessed, 190 centimeters or so -- tall for a downsider -- and roughly Trent's age, too, that

indeterminate period between twenty-five and first regeneration. He had been taken out of his suit and

had his hands snaked behind his back. Aside from that the SpaceFarers hadn't touched him. Vomit

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