Deep Underground "Well, that certainly worked out well, didn't it?" said Arnold, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "No need to point out the obvious!" said Terrence. "Stop this sniping at each other, we need to work out what to do!" said Teresa. "Yeah, right, let's get on with it." said Lenny. Teresa summed it up in a sentence: "Teylon's group deprogrammed those girls with ridiculous ease, even though it is supposed to be impossible, the Girls in Pink are probably beyond our control, and, if that isn't enough, Sarsaparilla is now claiming to also be in direct speaking terms with their Angel of Death!" "Look on the bright side," said Prakash, "At least we know what Sarsaparilla's super power is!" He got four extremely displeased looks. "Does that mean she is also going to go around, causing people to drop dead from mysterious causes?" said Terrence. The leader suppressed a yawn. It takes time to go through security camera footage, and they could not give the job to anybody else. So they were all feeling the effects of lack of sleep. "We'll deal with that if and when it comes. Although, it ain't all that far from what we originally had envisaged for her, after all." he said. "Yeah - but none of what we originally planned for those teenagers is now possible." said Prakash. Five exhausted people were silent for a while. Until, finally, Teresa spoke up. "Actually, you know, I'm kind of glad that those girls didn't end up being slaughtered just like the others." "But you agreed, along with everyone else, to that plan!" said Arnold. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean I have to like it! Besides which, we only signed off on it, the Futures Planning group are the ones that thought it up!" "Frankly, it's been bugging me some time, that group has really gone to extremes with their plans in the last few years." said Terrence. "But nonetheless, we all went ahead with their plans. You can't wiggle out of accepting responsibility!" said Arnold. "I know that!" said Teresa. "I think their ideas did have worth. And we did need the extra money at the time, and their various plans have certainly bought it in without disrupting the Martian economy." said Arnold. "Yep, it certainly did. Although, I suppose I will have to concede, they were - shall we say - a lot more creative than I thought they would be." said Arnold. "You mean a lot more evil." said Teresa. Arnold was about to reply, but the leader got in faster. "Hey everyone! Let's not have another of these acrimonious discussions about the ethics of what we do. Save that for our spare time!" "What spare time?" said Terrence. "Let's work out what we are going to do right now." "Well, it appears that trying to kill them will just get our own operatives killed. Trying to abduct and recruit them gets our plans subverted and they become even more resistant to our means. Trying to prevent them from meddling in our programmes just gets more recruits to Teylon's side. So what the bloody hell can we do?" said Prakash. "Why not lock Teylon out of his bank balance? It's perfectly easy to do, and shouldn't endanger our lives." said Teresa. A moment’s reflective silence. "Indeed, why not? In fact, why not try it right now?" said Lenny. He nodded to Terrence, who shrugged and then started typing into his computer terminal. "Let's see, apply my master password, access the banking system, type in Teylon, and, yes, he's got a very nice bank balance, so, where's the menu, ah, this one, override account authority, ah, click here, and... press the yes button and he should no longer be able to access -" He stopped in confusion. "Not Allowed. Huh?" "Where the hell did that error message come from? Does anyone know anything about this?" A chorus of noes. "Are you sure you are using your master password" said Lenny. "Of course I am! But if you don't believe me, try it using your ever so much more superior master password!" "OK, OK, I will..." The leader tried. Only to get the same error message. The Terrence screwed up his face in disgust at the situation. "How about we adjourn this matter until this afternoon? I'll get the senior programmers to look at it and try to trace the problem down." The others agreed, and they moved onto the next item in the agenda. That afternoon. "So, any progress?" said the Lenny. A very dispirited tech guy replied. "No. None. Zip. Zilch. Not only can't our programmers find out why the error message is occurring, they can't even find the code that produces it. And, even worse, we did a little experiment. We tracked Sarsaparilla and waited until she went shopping, and then we borrowed a junior operator from the Futures Planning group and had him go into the same shop and make the same purchase that she did, using her account information. And..." "Go on, tell us the bad news." said Arnold. "We made the purchase OK. This..." He held up a packet of candy chips. Essentially rubbish, loaded with sugar and artificial flavours, but almost zero actual food value. "And we thought we had succeeded. And then we checked the bank records." He walked around the table to the leader's chair, and dumped the packet in front of him. "The bank records clearly indicate that the money came out of your account, dear leader." "Oh", said Lenny. He picked up the packet. "Well, since it is mine..." He ripped off the tab, took out a chip, and sampled it. "Oh, Uck!" He dumped the rest of the packet in a nearby bin. "Do all teenagers have such vile taste?" "Well, they do sell those things, so I suppose at least some do." said Teresa. "So, any ideas?" said Lenny, who then took a drink of water to wash out the taste of artificial flavoured sugar. "I know!" said Teresa suddenly, "Why not cancel our stipends to the students? After all, if we pay them money based on their ability levels and projected usefulness to our plans, then surely we have a right to stop paying them. Especially since they are all diverging from our plans." "Hmm, that's an idea. And, your realise, they will probably turn to Teylon for financial assistance, since they will all have no trouble in working out it is because of him that they will be without any money. Who knows, he might grow to resent it and it might put some strain on their relationships." It was agreed, it did seem a good idea. "OK, I'll do it, straight after this meeting." said the Terrence. Then the Prakash thought of his own suggestion. "Why not request that Sarsaparilla goes and have her esp ability tested? Just like we did for Teylon. Just to really drive it home that we are aware of what they are doing. As if they can't work it out already." "Fine, let's do that. And let's defer any more discussion about this blasted matter for a day or two. Oh, not to mention the question of what do we do about Shane." said Lenny. "Let him stew over things for a little while. It'll hopefully make him more amenable to our original plans. Maybe." said Prakash. "But. but, there is still something more we could do right now." said Arnold. "Like?" said Lenny. "I've been thinking, why not let the Futures Planning group take the risk for once? After all, if Teylon is trying to eradicate the evil in our society, they certainly qualify." "Hmm, you mean we give them a carefully curated account of Teylon and his group to them? I suppose that could work, if they get the idea of dealing with him themselves then the consequences are on them, not us. Hmm, hmm, you know, I don't think we really need that group any more, as was said they really have become excessively extreme over time, and currently we don't have any funding problems." "I certainly won't mourn for them if they meet a sticky end." said Teresa. "My, my, now who's the evil one." said Terrence. "Shut up." The leader ignored this exchange. "Sounds like a good idea. I'll let you arrange it. Might as well get it done as soon as possible." They moved onto the next item on the agenda. They always had a lot more to deal with apart from just Teylon. For example: the latest death from the esp implantation procedure. "What happened this time?" said Lenny. "We decided to adjust parameter #35, no known properties at this stage, while setting all of the others to the safest known configuration." said Terrence, "Fortunately it only killed the foetus. As far as we can tell the mother is fine." Teresa rolled her eyes. "That damned alien Artifact. Why the fucking hell couldn't they have left us an operating manual?" There were sighs from around the table. They had gone over this point many many times in the last three decades. Since no one else could be bothered to answer, Teresa continued. "Bloody Trickster alien. Or whatever it was. Say, do you suppose this Esmeralda, alleged Angel of Death, knows anything about all of this?" Lenny shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows?" After the meeting, Terrence did try cancelling the student's stipends. And it worked. There was a small cheer from the committee members, who had gathered around to watch before going on to their own activities. "Well, at least we have succeeded at one thing. But still, Teylon and his gang have been the source of far more trouble to us than all of the other groups trying to find us. Let's hope it doesn't continue. " said Lenny. "Oh," said Lenny, "There's another implantation scheduled right now. So let's take a break and watch what the source of all of this is, after all." Lenny typed in some instructions and the room light dimmed, then the big window to their side, which up to now had always been blank, cleared. Now visible was another room. Its back was a rock wall extending from floor to ceiling. The floor and ceiling, having been constructed by man, where normal looking. However, the rock wall looked impossibly smooth, like polished mirror smooth. And, floating a metre above the floor and two metres out from the wall, was a block of something that was softly glowing with an orange light. It was shaped the size of a single bed, and it sat there in midair, totally indifferent to the fact that it had no visible means of support. Somewhat incongruously, a computer cable with a USB end was plugged into one end of the orange block, the other end of the cable trailing off and out of sight. "What's it this time?" said Arnold. "Since it's a bit too soon after the last failure, this time we've selected a safe option. Or at least as safe as we know how to make it." said Teresa, "We're aiming for another space ship pilot. Although we are slightly changing parameter #72. In the past, that has never caused any adverse effects, and it sometimes results in something new and useful." "Of course, we can never be sure." said Prakash. "Damn whoever created this thing." said Teresa. Some action started: two lab coated female nurses pushed in a wheeled hospital bed. On it, covered in a single sheet, was a woman, about mid twenties, who was currently sedated. The two nurses gently transferred the patient across to the orange block, then carefully removed all of the monitoring equipment that was on her. Bitter experience had shown that the implantation procedure did not tolerate any competing interference from human's puny medical instruments. The two left the room, together with their wheeled bed. The committee watching collectively took a deep breath and held it. There was a flash of brighter than normal orange light, then everything went back to normal. The two nurses hurried back, transferred the patient back to the hospital bed, and reattached the monitoring equipment. The committee members read the status screens on their monitors, and breathed easy again. "Good, good, no adverse effects apparent, all indicators from both mother and foetus are within normal ranges." said Lenny. He issued the commands and the window went blank again, and the lights came on. "Well, hopefully in one and a half decades time that foetus will be ready and willing to pilot a space ship." said Terrence. "Assuming the change to parameter #72 hasn't done something strange." said Arnold. Lenny: Sitting in his office After the meeting Lenny went to his own personal office. He flopped down into his executive chair and spun it in a circle, before leaning back. This Teylon business is getting ever so complicated. Big sigh. How did it end up like this? Thirty years it's been. Three whole decades ago it started. Yeah, I remember. I got that email from Laura, who at that stage I hardly knew. And one thing led to another... Flashback time for Lenny: The initial discovery, thirty years ago He was sitting in a pressurised cabin, at an operations console. In front of him where the various controls for the drilling machine, and four large screens. Behind him were Laura, Terrence, Teresa, Prakash and his wife Lucy. One of the screens showed the view outside. Straight in front was the drilling machine, its dusty aluminium shell towering over the cabin by a few metres, its legs spread out and firmly planted into the dust and rubble of the crater floor to stabilise its position. To one side were a couple of trailers, which transported the drilling bits. Currently they were almost empty. To the other as visible a small portion of the crater wall, almost obscured by piles of rubble. The audience were ignoring this screen, instead the contents of another screen was holding their attention. It showed the current operating parameters of the drill. "We're now down to 1.8 kilometres, almost at our limit," said Lenny. He flicked a few switches to stop the drills. "Let's see, try the remaining echo sounder again... Yes, there is definitely some discontinuity ahead; pity the sensitive echo sounder was destroyed." He restarted the drilling process. He had some private thoughts which he kept strictly to himself. Probably just another change in the rock composition. This mob is pretty hopeless, all of this effort based on some dubious gravitational anomalies. If I had known just how sketchy their evidence was, I would have never bothered. Really, they’re a bunch of amateurs, hoping to hit the jackpot. Sigh. Ten more metres and the drilling rig is out of its range. I can pack up and go back to my normal job. I must remember to cover my tracks well, if they go on doing this sort of thing they are going to get caught - bloody Terrence thinks he's a computer whiz kid, but he's left whopping big traces of his computer hacking all over the place. Its only because Mars is going through a phase of shaking off it frontier town mentality that nobody has bothered tracking down such things. And bedding Laura is nice, but I wouldn't want to be shackled to her on a long term basis - a man needs a bit of variety you know! A couple of red lights appeared on the console. Ah, why has the load dropped off - don't tell me that there is yet another drill shaft breakage - oh, it's not. Several hours later. "OK, now that all of the drill bits are completely out of the hole, I can send down the sensor array." said Terrence. He was controlling this from another, smaller console. Fifteen nerve racking minutes later, the sensor array got to the bottom of the hole. "Turning on the infrared mapping functions" The cabin was absolutely silent as six people watched as the shape of the cavity was slowly built up on the screen. "Oh fucking hell." said Lenny. There was a shocked silence. They all agreed with him. Because, not only was the cavity enormous - "It's about eight cubic kilometres!" said Terrence. It was also a perfectly symmetrical hemisphere, with the flat base at the bottom and absolutely level. "It's artificial." said Prakash, "Totally artificial." "We, that is humanity, certainly couldn't have made this." said Lucy. "Oh my." said Laura. "Awesome." said Teresa. After a while, Terrence remembered the other abilities of the sensor array. "I'll switch to the video cameras and then turn on the flood light... Wait, what is that?" The flood light was still off, so there should have been complete blackness. But, instead, there was a speck of glowing orange. Lenny got the chills, running up and down his spine. Later, in the middle of the night after an exhaustive planning session, he summed up the conclusions. "Terrence should go ahead and back date our renting of the equipment, just to make it all legal. But, for the time being, we keep everything quiet. This may or may not be the start of something really really big, and if we play our cards right, we can be the ones to totally own it!" An hour later, he was in bed, next to Laura who had already fallen asleep. This bunch of clowns really did hit the jackpot. And, who knows what that orange speck is, but to just charge off and announce it to all and sundry was a totally stupid idea. Just as well I managed to talk them out of it. I already have them listening to me, I should be able to set myself up as the leader. This is the once in a lifetime chance to make it big! So it looks like I'll have to stick with them, after all. And as far as company goes, Laura is not bad at all. Not bad at all. I mean, if I need some variety, I can always sneak it on the side. Lenny: He shook his head in an effort to clear his mind, then turned on his computer system to do some more work. Arnold: After the same meeting, Arnold had gone to get another cup of coffee. These sorts of meetings really give me a headache. How did I end up like this? Flashback time for Arnold: Getting a lot more than he bargained for The time was three months after the discovery of the Artifact, and as of yet Arnold was still completely ignorant about it all. Right now, he was sitting in his main office, half way up the North Tower. It was a window office. Outside it, through the heavily reinforced window, could be seen the reddish gray sweep of the Martian landscape, small hills and numerous craters stretching to the horizon. By standing right at the window and looking down, the small dome at the base of the tower could be seen. Covering all of one square kilometre, it had a definite green colouring, which was due to all of the hydroponic gardens it contained. The north tower was currently a kilometre and a half high, and one day the plan was to build three more towers and put a massive dome over them all. But it was early days yet, with their current technology that plan could not come to fruition for at least another half century. Arnold, and the man sitting opposite him, did not pay this view the slightest attention. Right! This is coming along nicely; I'll just put the screws on for the final effect. "I need to point out that you are now three weeks overdue with your next loan payment, and, ah, unfortunately, due to the collapse in the commodity prices the value of your company has slumped to almost zero..." he said. The man opposite him was almost crying. "I know! I'm sorry! But the price fall was so unexpected. And there was the failure of my accounting package that made things worse!" You stupid fool. I own the logistics company involved with that market. It was obvious to me that there was going to be a collapse. Eventually. And, of course, sneaking that bug into your accounting computer was a really worthwhile investment. "Well, both your homes, one here and that one on the other side of the planet, are part of the loan's collateral, but their combined value barely comes to 10% of the amount owed." Make him despair. Make him grovel. "Please sir! Show some mercy! I have a wife. And two teenage children, who have just started high school. If I go bankrupt I can't provide for them, and they are so intelligent. With the proper education they could do wonders!" This is kind of fun. But, from a purely practical point of view, it is a waste not to put those two kids through university. Mars needs all the highly skilled workers it can lay its hands on. And, of course, 'Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed'. Arnold was a great one for quoting from Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. There's no point in grinding him down, he might one day find the strength to attack me. And I can't go around killing everyone, people will eventually start connecting the dots and it could become a real nuisance. Arnold put a thoughtful look onto his face and glanced to the side slightly, as if he was in deep thought. Through his peripheral vision, he kept close track as the man sweated. He's actually saturated his shirt, he's so frightened. A perfect situation for 'Appear weak when you are strong.' Arnold also quoted a lot from Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I'm certainly in a strong position here. If I appear to be considerate and generous, he'll be a loyal worker for life. OK! Let's finish this off. "Well, I can certainly see it wasn't your fault that things turned out this way. Hmm, well, let's say you give me the business and your Verdant property as payment, and I'll forgive the rest of the loan. You can keep your other residence, and, I actually have no quibbles with your work ethic and abilities. What say I give you a low-level managerial position in one of my related companies? It's in the same dome as your residence. I'm afraid the position is not as high level as you are used to, but it will give you a decent income. I don't really need another officer, but with future expansion you will eventually have plenty to do." Lay on the fake generosity and kindness with a trowel, yep, he's taking the bait. "Oh, thank you! Thank you! I will work hard at my new job. And I will be able to send my kids to high school and university!" Yep, his kids will get totally immersed into the social life of their new school, and I will make sure that he only gets promotions to other positions at the same location, so even less chance that he might come across some facts here in Verdant that reveal how he was hoodwinked. And, meanwhile, his company is an excellent fit for my proposed logistics expansion! Time to wind this up and get him out of here. Arnold stood up and walked around the desk. The man stood up also. They shook hands and Arnold received many effusive thanks, before the man went out. Arnold plonked himself back into his office chair. Thank God that is over. He practically shook my hand off. He spent ten minutes writing the necessary emails to implement his plans and fired them off. OK, let's relax for an hour or so, and just browse the latest snippets of information my little bots have found on the web that might be of use to me. A little time later: So, a group of people from the Sanitation Department have backdated the hiring of some currently unused equipment. That's - interesting. A pretty amateurish attempt at covering their tracks, I must say. But, why would they do such a thing? I mean, either you hire the machines outright, or you steal them outright and sneak them back afterwards. But to do this half-arsed thing... His brow wrinkled in thought. So, what if they wanted to do many searches, and could only pay for one of them? Which means that the last one succeeded? And now they want to publicly claim the results? Hmm - They hired mining equipment. So they're after minerals of some sort. Maybe they found a deposit of gold or platinum. He smiled to himself. If they have, I want a part of it! Time to open some gentle negotiations! A week later, Arnold was standing under the Artifact, with the other five standing behind him. He looked up at the orange glow, then down at the laptop screen showing the user interface. Bloody hell, I certainly got a lot more than I bargained for. I had better think things over very carefully. And I think Lenny knows exactly what I am. A little later, they were having a meeting in the living quarters on the surface. "May I suggest a merger of our interests? You have a total game changer here. If these esp powers are of any use what so ever, then they could be of immense value to our little society here on Mars. And I have the financial means, and the business and political connections, to help you." he said. "Perhaps we can have a detailed discussion about some possibilities?" said Lenny. Arnold: Finishing his coffee Sigh. Better get back to work, or otherwise this fucking Teylon business will be the death of us. What a mess. I can’t even find the energy now-a-days to quote my favourite authors. He went back to his office, turned on his computer and immersed himself in his backlog of work. Terrence: After that meeting, Terrence also went back to his office. He stared at his computer screen, currently blank. Yeah, that’s right, that meeting we had a few years ago to decide how to continue the Star Ship program. Flashback time for Terrence: Recruiting a star ship captain At that committee meeting, Terrence had been doodling on his notepad as Arnold finished his report. So, that group trying to construct the star ship totally stuffed things up and went bankrupt. Exactly as Arnold had predicted. "So, in summary, we now have half a star ship, but no coherent plan for crewing it, and the problem of shielding it from relativistic cosmic rays is still not solved." Teresa cleared her throat. "As far as the shielding goes, we may have had a bit of luck there. There's an esper named Shane, who has been developing his ability, and he turns out to have truly impressive shielding powers. And, what's more, his shields can stay on permanently, even while he is sleeping. And he can cover an entire ship." "But, as always, the problem is - will he want to go on a one way trip to some star, isolating himself from the rest of humanity apart from a small crew, with no realistic hope of ever returning?" said Lenny. "Don't forget the imitation slaves that the Futures Group is producing. Why not carefully select some of those to be the crew. They will never complain, they'll always be totally obedient to the captain, and they will never get home sick." said Prakash. There were some frowns at this, particularly from Teresa. "I keep getting this idea that there's something wrong with that whole slave brainwashing thing... Ah, does anyone else think that?" Some of the others shuffled in their seat, before Lenny spoke up. "Nyah, I still think that explanation we got from that meeting with that Ajaeren and the others was perfectly adequate. Or at least I suppose it was." At this, Arnold looked as if he was going to say something, then he appeared to dismiss it from his mind. "Ah, well, then, fine. After all, I suppose that is one of the reasons why we created the Futures Group in the first place, to add a bit of creative thinking without letting them in on the whole esp implantation thing." said Teresa. "Actually, using the slaves could be a good idea. Naturally, we would send, say, three quarters female and one quarter male. That gives the best chance for colonizing a new world, if the chance presents itself." said Lenny. Nods from the others. "But we still haven't talked about convincing Shane to go on such a trip!" said Teresa. "The captain can't be a brainwashed slave, so why not make Shane the captain? And, he'll be the proud owner of a lot of female slaves..." said Lenny. "That's a bit icky, but, I suppose so..." said Teresa. "Maybe have some input from the Futures Group on how to get Shane to commit himself?" said Prakash. "Yep, good idea. If you could compose an email to them, and we'll discuss it at the next meeting?" said Lenny. "Sure." "There is also the question of which star to go for," said Lenny, "You've looked over the list of the top five contenders, any ideas?" Well, here goes. Terrence put his hand up. "I'm for Tau Ceti. While it doesn't quite score the highest in all of the relevant criterion, I think that what it has hints at the best possibilities." Lenny looked around the table. "Anyone else have any preferences?" No one did. He looked at Terrence. "But, really, why are you keen for Tau Ceti?" "Well, ah, you see... I know this sounds funny, but... Last night I had a really vivid dream of an angel, white wings stretched out wide, holding me and flying me all the way to Tau Ceti. And swooping over a planet with oceans and a carbon dioxide atmosphere. It looked beautiful." There was giggling from Teresa, the rest didn't bother making any replies. Lenny looked around. "Fine, then, make it Tau Ceti." "What, just on a dream?" said Arnold. "Well, but aren't dreams produced from the subconscious? And, isn't the subconscious known for sometimes making deductive leaps of logic on problems that the conscious mind finds intractable?" "Yeah, but..." "So, maybe Terrence has had some intuitive insight, which his mind has presented to him as a dream. The question is, has anyone else had any such flashes of intuition?" Nobody owned up to any such thing. "So, we make it Tau Ceti. OK, everyone?" It was OK with everyone else. The decision was recorded in the minutes, and they moved on. Terrence: Still in his office He had a few extra thoughts. The Artifact: the source of our powers, the source of all of the espers on Mars. The Artifact: which we found and kept to ourselves. Ah, yes, how excited I was at the thought of the power I would have, how well I would live. I kept thinking of all of the wealth that would come from owning the means of access to the ability to implant Esp powers. But, really, my dreams of living like royalty were nothing but dreams. It's not all that crash hot being here. We live in total secrecy, we get no recognition from the public at large, most of the privileges we have are really just responsibilities. With the office door safely closed behind him so that no one would see, he put his arms on his desk and his head down. This all sucks. I really haven't achieved all that much, have I? Arnold had to go over my attempts to hide the backdating of our rental. And then, both he and Lenny were the ones who completely removed any traces of our renting after we found the Artifact. I managed to get the Artifact to work, but it's only at a very basic level. And I keep getting hints of a deeper, more sophisticated control interface, lying behind those simple numbers we enter to get it to function. But I can't quite see it. Most likely that girl Adalace will eclipse me there. I control the technical side of things, but that's not all that special. History isn't going to remember me as anything more than just one of the gang that found the Artifact. But, at least, history will record me as the one that chose Tau Ceti. Let's hope that it's the correct choice. Let’s hope I am remembered for at least one thing of importance.