XIX: Calamity of Calamities

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The Thoughts of Yong An-Hong: Translated by Alexandra Yuan: Copyright 2205, Centauri University Press: Hanson Harbor, Nova

08/01/2175

When I began to write in the night, I found myself unable to continue. I was overwhelmed. I chose to alleviate my fears in sleep medications. Now, perhaps, in the light of the morning, I can write what I have seen.

I have never believed in visions or prophetic dreams. But today, perhaps, I have experienced just such a thing. My Interlink is off, and I dare not reactivate it, lest Shen or someone else take notice of my thoughts and actions. Before today I feared mistrust and conspiracy; now I am certain of it.

The events happened in this way. On the personal request and recommendation of Admiral Nobuyuki Ito, I went to the office of the President yesterday in hopes of convincing him to end his mad ambitions to go to war with the Grushan Federation. I waited patiently as he spoke to the head of the American government over secure channels; I overheard little of the conversation, as my mind was preoccupied with understanding President Yan's sudden animosity towards the Federation and ambitions toward the recapture of the Nova colony. For a whole half-hour I was kept waiting before I was at last shown in to speak with Yan An-Sing. This was out of the ordinary, but my call was unexpected so I had no concern. I carried out some minor paper tasks while I waited; My secretaries usually carry out these tasks, but they have been slow of late, and I wanted something to occupy my body and clear my mind of the dozen matters which concerned me. Then, at last, I was shown in to see the President.

At the first, our conversation was normal, insofar as it has been since the arrival of the black ship. I asked him about the progress of his great expansion of the Interlink project. He was as enthusiastic as ever; more than five billion people have installed the fourth-generation device on Earth, and on the colonies, nearly 93% of the population have done so as well. Overall, 84% of all human beings in the Terran Hegemony currently have some sort of Interlink device, mostly fourth or third generation. Unrest in the Latin American and Middle Eastern provinces has dropped as installations have risen, though Africa still raises many problems. He was hopeful that soon all humanity would be united in the Hegemony and the Interlink.

Then I addressed the issue for which I came. I held up the communication from Admiral Ito and confronted him by saying, "An-Sing, my friend, I have been told of your military ambitions towards Nova and the Grushan. This gives me great fear for many reasons; first, I am surprised and concerned that you felt it necessary to conduct these plans behind my back and behind the backs of the legislatures and diplomatic corps. Plans made in secret are plans that cannot stand up to scrutiny or the crucible of reality. Second..." But he never let me finish the sentence I had begun.

"An-Hong," he said, "I know your mind. You believe that the Hegemony does not have the strength to contend with the Grushan and the Novans."

I said, "Not only I believe this, but Admiral Ito as well. I have here his words, which he asked me to bring to you personally.

"Yes, Ito," the President replied. "He has raised objections before today. It is ironic. He of all people should be able to understand what I am proposing." I asked him to clarify what he meant. "I intend to form a historic alliance between the Terran Hegemony and the Zaha-Katchem. You know as well as I do the potential that such a force could have. The Zaha-Katchem are indestructible in combat, and our armies are far stronger than the Grushan. Humans are two times as tall as Grushan, over forty-five kilos heavier, and can lift up to twice the amount of Grushan. Add to that the android army that Earth has invested its full power in for nearly a hundred years, where the Grushan barely have simple robots, and I give to you a ground force to be reckoned with. And that reckoning must be soon! The Zaha-Katchem must move on eventually, to find a world of their own. Our fleet has been on high readiness since their arrival, ideal for a surprise attack. The time is coming, and coming soon, An-Hong."

"But why," I asked him, "has your mind bent to this sudden animosity against the Grushan? They have been Terran allies for a century and a half."

"But they slighted us in favor of the Novan rebels. They patronize our every action, they enforce meaningless sanctions for the project of peace, they belittle our fleets and our borders. But more than that, they lack the peace and unity that we are on the verge of achieving. In less than a year's time, we will be able to eliminate poverty, conflict, all divisions between humans. We will create heaven on earth. In hundreds of years of space faring civilization, they have done nothing such as this. Their planets are governed by petty nation states which still go to war with one another. The Senate is an oligarchy of tyrants and corporate overlords. Their leader is 'praetor,' an imperial guardsman. The military regulates all trade within the Federation. How can this be a just system? They call it a federation, but it is more of a dictatorship. The Grushan need human enlightenment to rescue them from their innate barbarity, human wisdom and guidance. With the Zaha-Katchem on our side, the time for this renewal, this salvation for the Grushan people, may come at last."

Here I turned away. I could no longer look him in the eye, for his face had become wild, as if transfixed with visions of his own ambition. He ranted on, and the Terrans became the just regulating masters of the Grushan, and elevated them above the poverty and feudal lifestyle and superstition that have defined their race for centuries. And the Zaha-Katchem, pleased with the wisdom and strength of man, joined the Hegemony in its continual expansion across the stars. And we would become one great race, divided by evolution but united by hearts and minds. And I could say nothing or break in to his endless monologue of ambition.

Then, I saw a specter, perhaps, or some like thing. I know not what the vision means. For as Yan An-Sing, President of the Terran Hegemony, spoke on, I felt my Interlink device fail once again and deactivate, as it often has over the past weeks. Then I heard the voice of the president cease. I took it as a break in his chain of thought and turned to raise one of the many objections in my mind. But as I turned, the words I would have said died in my mouth. For the President was no longer where he had been, when he had risen from his desk in his agitation. And in his seat, where I had seen him but moments ago, was a worm-ridden corpse in the shape of Yan An-Sing. Stench filled the room and settled on my senses like an enormous fog. Flies darted this way and that, eating flesh from the President's body. The corpse must have been nearly three weeks old, for the skin was clammy and pale and insects had begun to grow. Its face was frozen in an expression of such horror that I drew back, not simply startled, but genuinely afraid, as if some predatory animal was stalking me. I hid my face. Then, I felt my Interlink reactivate, as it always did, and behold, the voice of Yan An-Sing filtered through my ears, continuing on with his rant as though he had never stopped!

I do not remember what he said after that moment. The vision was something too horrible to think of anything afterwards. And yet I ask myself; which was the vision, and which reality? Was my Interlink really disabled, or simply hijacked? Have I been speaking to shadows for these past weeks? Who has made this illusion and why? My thoughts in this last question rest immediately upon Shen Wai-Fun; if anybody could do such a thing, it would be him. And he profits by it, for it has been in these past three weeks that the President's Interlink push has occurred, and this will profit Ambience Corp. greatly. But why the sudden animosity against the Grushan? And why would they fail in keeping me in the dark? Or if the corpse was the illusion, then who would want me to see it and why? To force me into some action or dissuade me from another, perhaps. But why this and why now? And what do they stand to gain?

I have no answers for these questions. But I am afraid.

08/01/2175

I have spent a long restless morning in thought. Yesterday's vision has shaken me and made me afraid, and dawn brings me no closer to a clear answer.

If Shen Wai-Fun is behind the experience, then it seems that he has only targeted me; I have spoken to the President's cabinet members, and it seems that they have been unaffected by periodic Interlink shutdowns such as my own or by visions of the President or anyone else. The CEO's who I spoke to seem to be similarly unaffected. So why target me specifically? I am not the President, only the man who becomes President if he is truly dead.

If the President is dead, then I am by right the President. But if he is not dead, and I am deceived, then I can be denounced as a lunatic and replaced. Or if the President is dead, and I claim that he is while the people see that he is not, then the same happens; then the President dies in a few weeks, and my successor replaces him. That would make Abdallah Yousazefi the President. But there is no alliance between Shen and Yousazefi; their politics contradict one another on every level, unless this is also a sham. But they must also know that I have allies? In the admiralty, Ito and Winters will stand by me, and I have many friends in the legislature. I have contacted them and they can give no account of experiences at all similar to mine, nor have they noticed any other signs of conspiracy. If this were Shen's intention, he should have taken them into account, yet it does not appear that he has.

Perhaps Shen has killed the President and is using the Interlink to cover the matter up; my experience was simply a matter of error in my own device, a possibility if Shen has been fabricating an entire human for two weeks; my device may simply not be advanced enough to handle the excess data. But then why not dispose of the body? Why take the risk that someone might discover the deception?

Perhaps President Yan is alive and this matter is his plan. But again, why? He is President of the Terran Hegemony, and Commander in Chief; if he wants me out of the way, all he has to do is fire me. Why go through the trouble of this elaborate deception? There is no reason to it.

Perhaps this whole affair is the work of foreign agents. Perhaps the Grushan or the Novans have found a way to attack Ambience systems. But if the corpse was the illusion, why bring me down with it? And if the President was the illusion, why manipulate the Hegemony to bring us into a war with the Grushan and the Novans? They know that the advantage would be theirs, of course, but a complete conquest of the Terran Hegemony would still be an extremely costly affair, and they ought to know that too.

But what of the Zaha-Katchem? Could they do such a thing? Their ships cloak themselves in darkness; do their people do the same? Surely a race as advanced as theirs has the ability to overwhelm our feeble firewalls. They claim to bridge two minds into one with ease. But how do they stand to gain by attacking the Grushan? Why kill the President? If they have been in the capital before, where are they now?

One thing I know for certain; the Interlink is behind all of this. Nothing else has the technology to fabricate such an illusion. I must look to Ambience Corp. for answers, one way or another.



Personal Journal: William Aucaman

08/01/2175

I just woke up from the longest sleep I have ever had in my life. After my family broke Cynthia and me out of the EPD holding cell or whatever it was, and my last journal entry, I fell asleep shortly and I must have slept for an entire twenty-four hours. So did Cynthia. I'm sure she needed it though.

A lot has happened since then. My parents, Adrian, and Cynthia are holed up on the wildlife reserve, camping. Dad and Adrian have been a bit back and forth throughout the day. Adrian told me on Monday about a black ship or black shuttle that he found in the forest. He was out investigating something weird he found on a lightwave scan. I don't know much about the science of those things, unfortunately; from what Adrian explains, a lightwave survey uses equipment set up on all sides of a survey area. Light filters through the sensors on one end of the survey area and the equipment counts individual photons as they pass through the sensor. They then pass through the survey area. Some obviously hit obstructions and are deflected in odd directions. The rest pass through the sensors on the opposite end of the survey area. The sensors communicate using faster-than-light entanglement communication computation devices, so they actually track each individual photon as it passes through each net and is deflected. Computers then calculate the time it took for one photon to pass from one sensor to another and using this and the angle at which the photon hits the sensor to compute that photon's trajectory. With that information computers can construct a fairly accurate though a bit chaotic and not necessarily detailed image of a survey area. He got one through NAU's Gifted Children scholarship program.

In any case, he found a weird anomaly in the woods. From what he tells, it's a patch of land where light bends around something and then continues uninterrupted on its course. So he went out there to find out what the thing was. The way he tells it, it was like he ran into an invisible brick wall when he reached it. My brother obsesses a little when it comes to this sort of thing, so he sat down and tried to find the thing's computers with his laptop. He didn't explain how he didn't, and I wouldn't have understood anyway, but essentially, he managed to decloak the thing, and it was a black shuttle like the ship in orbit. He's been trying to get the thing to open, but he's having trouble; he tells me that the thing has adaptive AI that's keeping him chasing his tail. He's been working on it basically nonstop since we broke out of jail.

Police aerial patrols keep coming through the area. They're no slouches, even if they are being manipulated by Ambience agendas; I think it's only a matter of time before they search us out. Adrian thinks that if he can open the black ship, he can use the thing to fly out of here, but that's a big if. My hope is that there are more of those energy weapons inside; then we can make our way cross country if we can, maybe reach Mexico or someplace where the Hegemony doesn't have quite as strong influence.

Cynthia's leg is doing a lot better now. She's still a bit shaken, but I think she's doing a lot better since getting rest and medical attention. She tells me that she thinks that her sister might be inside the black ship. She's a bit restless, and wants to get over to help Adrian, although there really isn't all that much she can do.

I wonder how it is that the police haven't tracked us down yet. They should be able to track Cynthia's Interlink, even with it off. Perhaps it was damaged in the fire; that would explain why the monster couldn't track it either.

Olivia is another story. She's staying with Mom and Adrian where they found the black probe, and Cynthia and I haven't seen her yet, though Cynthia really wants to. From what I've heard, she's still unconscious and very dehydrated. Mom managed to get an IV going into her, so hopefully she'll be fine until we can get to a hospital. Adrian cloaked the black probe again while he's working on figuring out the interface.

One thing is sure; we can't stay here. I'm afraid we don't have that much time before the cops find us, so we really need to get a move on as soon as possible. Cynthia and I will probably be executed on sight at this point; Mom, Dad and Adrian aren't much better off. Perhaps Adrian's black ship may be our best hope for survival.

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