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  At the base of the cliff, he did a quick equipment check. His SIG P210 came out of its wrapping dry and clear of sand, and he clipped it to his harness. He didn’t need to check to see if his knives were sharp, but he checked to make sure they were also clipped into the harness securely to be certain they wouldn’t get lost on the climb. The route up the thirty meter cliff had been scouted a week ago by a recon drone. ShwydH could probably do the route with his eyes closed, but he’d still have to go slow and test every hold to be sure it wasn’t loose.

  “This isn’t a well-travelled sport route on good rock by any stretch of the imagination,” had been Jonah’s assessment after reviewing the video from the drone. He’d also been courteous enough to wish ShwydH, “The best of luck.”

  ShwydH found the first hold and started climbing. It would be best to finish climbing before the rain started, and that would be soon. The wind gusted in from the beach and kicked sand onto his legs as he raised his feet to the first toeholds and moved with quiet, careful power up the rock face.

  At the top, he settled into a shadowed spot close to the 12-foot electrified fence with razor wire leaning outward on the top and waited for the storm to arrive. He pulled the remote detonator from his belt pouch.

  The wind changed from gusting to a steady push from the ocean. When the first major flash of lightning went to ground one hundred meters west of him, ShwydH flipped the detonator switch and tossed the unit off the cliff in a trajectory that would take it next to the camouflaged blind. The lights flooding the fenced area went out in showers of sparks, and ShwydH ran the short stretch of ground to the takeoff point he’d decided on and leapt into the air. He cleared the razor wire and landed inside the compound with no trouble, glad the rocks around the fence had not been dirt that would have turned to mud. He didn’t think even Tiana could have jumped that fence from a muddy takeoff point. And, as Ayleana had once assured him—when she still wanted him to call her Aylie—Tiana was the best jumper EVER! But that was before she dreamed the start of the war and learned what he was.

  Rain went from a patter of windblown drops to a horizontally moving curtain of water, and ShwydH ran with silent feet to the main structure where he would find his target. Right now, the ozone from the lightning strikes and the electrical sparking caused by the EMP burst—from the device the drone had placed on the chimney earlier—would be masking his scent from the dogs who usually patrolled with the guards. The noise from the lightning would also distract them, he hoped.

  The balcony to the second floor patio was an easy first stage to his assault. ShwydH landed there and slipped into a sheltered alcove. He took the com unit from the Faraday bag and pulled the adhesive protection from its mounting to settle it on a bony part of his cranium. The unit would communicate sound to him but no one nearby. When he activated the unit, HumanaH sent him a nasal hmmm sound signifying that the connection was working on her end.

  “On the balcony,” he said, making almost no sound.

  “Drone feed above still live. No activity and no lights showing,” she responded.

  ShwydH heard footsteps inside the house approaching the balcony door. Only one person. Was someone coming to look outside? It would be so much easier to be discreet if he didn’t have to force an entry.

  A woman, a young one in a bathrobe, groped her way to the door’s bulletproof glass window and peered outside. She started to turn back. ShwydH, struck by an idea, uttered a pleading canine whine he had heard Bandit make. The woman turned back to the door, reaching for the handle.

  The door popped open a crack. “Here, girl!” the woman said. ShwydH, needing no more invitation, bent over to approximate a dog shape and rushed to the door, sliding his fingers inside and yanking it open.

  The woman’s startled scream never cleared her lips before he’d clamped a hand over her mouth and sunk his teeth into her neck. ShwydH pushed enough sedative into her to keep her out for eight hours and healed the bite as the dose took effect. The memory-wipe compound Tiana had taught him—the one without the side-effects DuGwaedH’s had always created—should make the last couple of hours fuzzy and block any memory of what had just happened. Not that ShwydH cared about her memory; she was an enemy. But this was a stealth mission, and everything had to have a natural explanation.

  He laid her sleeping form on the couch and followed the sounds of raspy snoring down the hall. Only one other person was in the main house... the target.

  ShwydH went through the door and stood by the bed looking down at the target, an elderly man who looked and smelled like he was in poor health. His skin was pasty, and ShwydH could hear his heart beating irregularly. Suspicious, ShwydH tugged down the sheet and peered through the buttons of his pajamas at his chest. He bared his teeth. The intelligence gathering hadn’t included this!

  “The target has, had, I mean, a new pacemaker. He has not awakened yet, but he will soon. The unit was destroyed by the EMP and his body is distressed.”

  “Just heal his heart, ShwydH,” HumanaH said.

  “I must have missed that class in burn-and-pillage school,” he said, using the name of an alma mater he’d overheard her mutter a few times when he’d been particularly destructive on the job. ShwydH knew better than to point out it was those talents that had helped save her life five years ago. HumanaH had yet to forgive him for doing that even if she did appreciate him killing DuGwaedH in the process. “If you want this to work, you’d better come,” he finished.

  ShwydH went back to the door to wait for HumanaH. When she arrived a few minutes later, ShwydH opened the door.

  “How did you get in?” she said.

  “I asked.” He jerked his chin toward the girl on the couch.

  HumanaH shook her head and walked down the hall to the bedroom. She bent over the man’s face and dropped a liquid from her mouth into his open, snoring one. “There’s a bottle of rubbing alcohol in the medicine cabinet over there.” She nodded toward the dark bathroom attached to the bedroom. As he went, she reached into a pouch, took out a glow stick and activated it with a snap. She opened the man’s shirt and spat onto her finger and rubbed it into the still fresh incision from the recent installation of the pacemaker.

  “Pour it on my fingers and knife,” she said, opening her folding kukri knife to hold it over her left hand’s fingertips. “You can put it back now, thank you,” she said when he'd complied.

  When he returned, she had two fingers of her left hand inside a flap of the target's skin. After a few minutes, she hissed. “His heart is a mess. The pacemaker was never going to keep him alive. He’d have died in a month if we hadn’t come.”

  “I don’t mean to tell you your business, but I wouldn’t think he’d need to stay alive in the coma we have planned for more than a year.”

  “The longer the better, I think,” she replied in a casual voice. “Confusion to our enemies. Almost done now.” She tapped her com unit. “Jonah, are you and Max ready to receive and verify?”

  ShwydH could hear the soft buzzing of the response. “Yes, I have Minerva ready to run ShwydH’s protocols.”

  HumanaH nodded to ShwydH.

  “What did you dose him with?” ShwydH said, stepping close to the target and leaning over him.

  HumanaH answered in nii and ShwydH considered a moment before mixing the cocktail he would use for interrogation.

  He popped the jugular vein between his lips and penetrated it enough to force the compound into the man’s blood. He closed the vein with a quick patch then patted the man’s face sharply. “Mr. Rutherford,” he said. “Please wake up, I need to speak with you.”

  The human stirred and opened his eyes. “Rachel?” he called.

  “Rachel is in the waiting room, Mr. Rutherford. Your pacemaker failed and we had to bring you to the hospital.”

  “It’s dark. I’m afraid.”

  The compound should be kicking in now.

  “Mr. Rutherford I need to ask you some questions. Your life depends on the answers. You need to
tell me the truth. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I’m so afraid,” his voice shook, not all of that was age.

  “If you answer truthfully you will live even longer than you were told when they put the pacemaker in. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are the passwords to log in to your accounts?”

  Rutherford began to speak. ShwydH could tell he was being truthful, and in a few minutes, ShwydH could hear that Minerva was confirming access to the accounts.

  When that was finished, ShwydH went on to the next questions.

  “Mr. Rutherford, who are your allies in your business dealings?”

  “What are the passwords to your electronic signatures?”

  “Was the contract on Jonah Galt your idea originally, or did others suggest it?”

  “What were their names?”

  “What joint ventures do you have?”

  “Where are the EMP hardened strongholds you control?”

  “Where are theirs?”

  ~~~{}~~~

  It was near dawn before they were finished. The security personnel never tried to reach Mr. Rutherford. No doubt they were just glad he wasn’t around to harass and threaten them while they tried to figure out what was wrong.

  ShwydH and HumanaH were on the beach again and swimming out to sea before Rachel woke to discover she couldn’t wake Rutherford. It was even longer before any of them could reach out to 911. A security team had to run to the closest house two miles away.

  Chapter 25 — Swords into Plowshares

  In a hole in the ground existed an intelligence, not a living, breathing intelligence, but an intelligence that could kick the ass of any Turing test you could throw at it. Probability of true sentience: 0.2%.

  AMM computed the utility of sending the construction of words to Jonah, the target most likely to gain utility from the notion, and decided to put it on hold with the other word constructs it had compiled to be used when the utility had a probability of being higher. It chose the ‘Whimsy “ folder.

  The sensors AMM deployed to focus on the conference room indicated a level 6.2 out of 10 for non-productive tension from the five sentients in the room, with Ayleana contributing a personal score of 8.57 to the mix—10 being the point at which physical combat began. It shuffled through the other constructs without arriving at an interjection with anything likely to bring about a lower tension level.

  “You shouldn’t be keeping Kest in the dark on this,” Ayleana almost growled.

  “It is for his own protection,” Tiana said. “If they could prove he took part in this meeting, it would be considered fraud on a level that would send him to jail for the rest of his life. More to my point, it could also be considered treason; that life could also be short.”

  “What about Jonah?”

  “Ah!” Jonah said. “That’s different, Aylie.”

  Ayleana raised her hands and shoulders in her patent human teenager, Oh yeah? query.

  “This was all my idea to begin with.”

  Ayleana sat back in the chair, frowning.

  HumanaH tapped the table for their attention.

  HumanaH speaking. Unforeseen event.

  AMM recognized the appropriateness of what Jonah had classified in its programming as an appropriate time to say something from the ‘WTF’ folder, but found no valid projections of utility in this situation without an unacceptable risk factor.

  “My branch sister,” HumanaH said in nii. “Consider this. It is, in fact, impossible to keep your symbiont partner ignorant of this without your consent. Why will you not respect the decision of Jonah and Tiana to pass the responsibility to you for doing so. Is that not where the responsibility belongs? If you truly think it in his best interest to tell him, then you should do so immediately after this meeting. Then you can shoulder the blame alone for what happens if it goes wrong.”

  In tone and volume, her words deserved the description of ‘soft as a feather’. After all, AMM was not being edited for clichés.

  AMM noted that Ayleana agreed and the matter was settled in her mind. Jonah and Tiana had also, inwardly, conceded the point.

  AMM estimated a 50% probability that Ayleana would reconsider her stance and decide not to tell Kest.

  “Neeeext,” AMM used the Alex persona to say.

  Jonah’s mouth twisted to reflect... ‘wryness’ and sat back in his chair.

  As silence lingered, AMM observed the tension level increase then, after a few moments, decrease.

  “Shall I give my report then?” ShwydH said into the silence.

  Jonah glanced at Tiana who looked back at him. AMM checked all sensors to find the conduit where their unique communication took place, but—as always—came up with no more data.

  “Thank you, ShwydH. Please go ahead,” Jonah said.

  ~~~{}~~~

  ShwydH stood. He hated sitting; it made him feel trapped.

  “Meeshala,” he said.

  The AI responded by dimming the lights and projecting the image of ShwydH's model on the wall screen. It was actually one ShwydH had developed for DuGwaedH before being... captured? He settled on ‘rescued’... by Tiana’s team.

  Years ago, when he’d first started working on the model, ShwydH had not been an expert in the political theory behind it. DuGwaedH had outlined what he wanted and given ShwydH the pertinent equations. But ShwydH had become an expert during the development. You couldn’t substitute for total responsibility for the programming required when it came to knowing the theory behind a model inside out. Tiana and Jonah had made later contributions based on techniques developed at SimSociety 2.0, and Meeshala, Tiana’s AI, had added a new world of data, machine learning and computing power to take it almost into the realm of the mystical.

  Originally developed for niiaH internal political analysis, the sobering accuracy of the tool’s projections when applied to the super-rich had given ShwydH’s new... allies?... associates... a reason to reevaluate many assumptions. ShwydH had not needed to adjust the model for the humans they faced. Politically at least, the super-rich acted just like the niiaH—power hungry and rapacious but quick to cooperate with like-minded allies as long as there was an advantage.

  They might even make me nervous if I really had anything to lose.

  No matter what happened, ShwydH would never be a slave again. He had power over that much. Though he might be on a leash now, his parole didn’t tug too painfully.

  ShwydH stepped closer to the table screen and ran his fingers over the control icons to turn the 3D image to the area he wanted to address first. “The information from Jonah’s and Kest’s failed assassins allowed us to triangulate from what we knew from previous attempts on Jonah. This time it was enough to get a line back to the source. From there, we used the information from Rutherford to get a picture of the forces allied against us.”

  ShwydH opened up five new parts of the model and expanded them, showing icons, lines and color coding in an intricate maze resembling a cluster of interconnected garish snowflakes and cancerous lattices. The others in the room were already familiar with the model language and the visual coding, so he didn’t have to explain everything.

  “Do you have to use those horrid colors?” said Ayleana.

  “We save the pretty ones for when we look at our organization,” ShwydH said.

  “You use the same model for us?”

  “Same model, different inputs.”

  Ayleana sacrificed a reluctant nod.

  “Meeshala has run a number of simulations, derived from suggestions HumanaH and I proffered, and arrived at a strategy that shows an impact that should cause maximum loss to their resources and personnel.”

  ShwydH brushed the controls to pull up a list of action items. “I’ve already set some of these things in motion that were time sensitive, but—“

  “We let him pull the trigger now?” Ayleana said, raising her voice.

  HumanaH leaned forward, again she spoke in nii. “Branch sister, d
o not suppose that he did anything without my knowledge. Will you please stop making interruptions that lead us off track?” Though her words admonished, her tone and demeanor were unthreatening.

  She’s protecting me!

  ShwydH almost felt shock, but continued where he left off. “...but, we can abort all those tracks if you aren’t ready to launch the strategy after all. Remember, the window of opportunity may be as short as three more hours, before the utility of these moves degrades rapidly. Many of the initiatives we are about to make were set up in advance by our operatives posing as agents for Rutherford.”

  Each of you have an action item list on the table in front of you. If you touch an item, the corresponding areas of the model will illuminate with a color-coded light... You may choose your own color.” He nodded to Ayleana. “I’ll trace the actions and their effects we project. Notice the passing of time moves from the bottom to the top on the model.”

  ShwydH touched the table again and a scattering of lights flashed at the bottom of the projection. “This action denotes the release of the combat trained security personnel for Rutherford’s enterprises. All of them will have generous annuitized severance packages that will continue to pay them as long as they maintain a modified non-compete clause to discourage them from moving to another power base within his past allies. This should lower the potential armed combat forces in play on their side by fifteen percent, unless they somehow co-opt the US military.”

  The lights moved a step higher. “Meeshala’s intelligence gathering algorithms uncovered significant illegal activity by parties within Rutherford’s organization that opened them to vulnerability from class-action lawsuits. Top legal firms with retainers already fully paid from Rutherford’s funds have started the groundwork to press charges, while most of Rutherford’s most capable lawyers will be directed to pursue lawsuits against his erstwhile allies.”

  ShwydH tapped the screen to move on. “Investments in oil ventures will be pulled back and moved into solar and technology that will lower the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. This will help cut their power base free of the ability to drive their own demand in the energy market and, we hope, create a cascade of damage to his allies...”