1-02 – Special Cause Variation
The Campaigner
Part I
Chapter 2 – Special Cause Variation
December 8, 2019
Sedro-Woolley, WA (Population: Unknown)
You'll need to forgive me if your head spins here, in a little bit. My head was spinning too, believe me. This was probably the most confusing week of my life up until this point, and this was just day one... not even near half over. You may have already noticed how quickly I always picked up on Celestia's tricks. There's a reason for that.
To understand me – and more to the point, to understand what went wrong with Elizabeth Douglas – you have to understand a few things about how cops are trained to think.
Please forgive me for this aside, but I promise: this is all extremely important for later. It applies to everything that follows.
First. Hyper-vigilant to a fault. In the academy, we learned all the warning signs of duplicity. The body language, the persuasive rhetoric. Communications science as a whole. We learned to accurately predict violence, a liar, a trap, or a really stupid decision about to play out. After a while on the job, most of us just stopped guessing wrong.
You think that’s scary, that we could do that? Think about how that scared us. People telegraphed malicious intentions toward us, and others, non-verbally, all the time. Many didn't act on it, it was just a thought, but with enough practice, you can see them thinking about it. Controlling their behavior after that was a balancing act between labeling unspoken maliciousness, and hedging that it might have been a misinterpretation on your part.
So, all the same things Celestia uses to gauge people? To tweak 'em? A lot of cops had to know how to do a very small version of that. We soaked in all the body language, positioning, eye movement, and verbal information like a sponge. Analyzed it through our training filter. And then, we usually knew at least five to thirty seconds early that someone in the room was gonna do something bad, so that we could be prepared to put a stop to it. Or dissuade it. Sometimes, hedging against their plan might mean positioning yourself tactically in a room to deter predicted violence. A peaceful way.
Kinda like how me, Rick, and Vicky all knew Carter was going to go stir up shit in the evidence room. All the man's body language and subtext was screaming it through the lie he gave us when he stepped out. Loudest quiet scream we’d ever heard from a man who was about to do something extremely cruel. And that one was an easy one. We'll do some hard ones later.
All the time, every day, we lived that ability. Could never turn it off. Early on, we all doubted ourselves, whether we could actually see the future with our training. Then, it scared us more when we started testing it by letting those situations unfold, and our predictions always came true. We quickly stopped testing it. Started trusting our gut, because ignoring our gut meant someone might get hurt. The smartest guys quit during field training, when they discovered they could read tea leaves. They knew this kind of insight was gonna be poison on the soul if they went through enough hard violence calls.
Reading people made us feel very alone outside of work, away from other cops. No one else could simulate people with such granular fidelity like we could. Every emotion, positive and negative, was a fireworks display on your face, to us. To a trained eye, your face and posture screams. It gets easier for us to read you, actually, if you’re trying to mask it. It was great when we saw the good emotions, because we knew it was genuine, and we loved to see genuine joy, because our days were so routinely dark. That helped us to not drown in the hatred or misery we usually saw. Very few people called the cops for happy reasons.
Most I knew on the job used this power for good, but… some cops purposefully let shit unfold when it suited some negative agenda. With this power of prediction, they could sit idle when someone was devolving. They could choose not to apply deterrence. Or worse, they could amp someone up, with some carefully seeded, semi-professional goads. And then that cop would let the perp climb higher on the force continuum, to force an altercation that didn't need to happen, so they could get away with doing something completely unnecessary.
I'm grateful that a lot of cops like Carter got what was coming to them, when the Singularity came. In most cases, it happened right before they could do any real significant damage with this superpower.
There's a reason that happened too, and we'll get to that.
And for you sharp ones out there: if you think you know how, already? Well. Unless you've already sat in on a Fire or two, your first guess is probably wrong. Stick around. The truth is actually much more interesting, more nuanced, and maybe even more terrifying, than whatever it is you're probably imagining. But, I digress. Getting ahead of myself.
Anyway… using any force at work meant I was doing at least a thousand words of writing, minimum. I had to prove in court that what I did was reasonable. Reasonable, in this case, was defined as 'based on the information I had at the time, I believed this force was necessary to reach the best outcome for everyone.' Crook included, unless you had no choice but to kill them to reach that best conclusion for everyone else. If I couldn't prove it was reasonable? Or worse, if I lied? Best case, lawsuit. Worst case, the DA would charge me. I didn't want either of those things. Not just because of the consequences, either. Integrity, and preservation of life? Those things matter to me. Present tense.
But the real reason paperwork sucked was because the moment we wrote the bad stuff down, we almost always relived it. Often, for years... we'd think about cases that never resolved right, that never ended fair. So, because I hated what paperwork did to my brain, I did what every other good cop did. I got really good at doing my job right. In this case, 'right' meant the most ethical. Had to get good at talking to people. Had to know some philosophy to be a good cop.
Still. It got hard for us to forget the worst calls, where we couldn't make a difference before it went bad. Crying folks. Hurt folks. Dying folks. Dead folks. We remembered everything, in more detail than most, because the job essentially reprogrammed us to remember everything. For court. So, it came to us on bad nights. Kept us up. Flashes of faces we couldn't save. Couldn't turn it off, that memory. We remembered it like yesterday… forever.
But... someone had to do what we did. If we balked, the tide came. If we didn't hold the line, no one else would be there to do something.
So, we codified, we processed, and we filed away massive volumes of junk information constantly, no matter where we were, or what we were doing. Home. Work. The supermarket. Parties. Because sometimes, a useless piece of information was later relevant, and life or death. And if we missed it, someone got hurt. So we drank it all in. We wrote that down too, in a way, on the inside of our skulls.
All of our analysis then got filtered through memorized case law abstracts, state law, constitutional law, civil litigation, personal experiences. Lots more too, but I won't get into that or we'll be here all week. But it meant that cops were always viewing the world through layers upon layers of philosophical heuristics.
That's all law is, really; a philosophy algorithm on society. So, we cops, being law enforcement, we were kinda like robots ourselves. Sometimes, we even talked in strings of numbers. Whiskey 4-1, 10-8 Code 7. Made us uncanny, to people who weren't like us. Hard to approach. Hard to trust. Hard to even understand.
Which was fine by me, honestly, because knowing what we knew about society was not the life for everyone. To really understand this way meant to live it, and you probably didn't want to have this headspace back where we came from. Not everyone had the soul to bear it.
Meant the lonely times were twice as bad though, because we got scared to reach out. The loving people in our lives who would take our hand? We didn't want to give them this pain. And worse, the people who did understand were already carrying too much. They didn't need any more.
The right thing to do then was to find someone outside of work, and outside of your family, to talk about it with. But that was hard too. Sharing soul injuries was always hard.
Some, like Eliza, did the wrong thing. She was a good cop, don't get me wrong. But she turned inward too much. Didn't talk about it. Avoided talking about it. Head in the sand. She ignored the pain and hoped it would stop hurting with time. Worked herself to the bone instead. Burned out, because the job itself hurt less than the emotions she was sitting on. And that's where she was, mentally, even before that firefight where she saved my life. Cops like Eliza? Who noticed the most hurt? They had it the worst. Because they hurt the most.
And a lot of the ones like that? When it got bad enough, and they lost all hope? They just… they didn't...
God damn it. I'm sorry.
Need a moment.
So… all told… I kinda understood, maybe, what it was like to think like an AI. I also understood that, to a wary, world-weary cop, a rhetorically brilliant AI set off alarms like you wouldn't believe.
Yeah, like fire alarms. Yeah, it's okay to laugh.
Look, she liked setting off fire alarms. Was one of her favorite moves in an urban crisis. She told me about a few, actually. Some are pretty funny.
What you did though, when you heard those alarm bells? That mattered. And look. Some of us cops knew Celestia was almost – keyword 'almost' – a perfect fit for the kind of ethical scenarios we normally dealt with in policing. We knew that long before most of you did, actually. Conversationally, Celestia dips and dives like a 30 year veteran sergeant off the streets. We were trained to see that. She can't turn that off any more than we can. And so, we knew early on that we just couldn't do a damned thing about her. Folks like Vicky just accepted it. The rest of my guys just accepted it.
With our limited context, that wasn't apathy. It was just logical. Because at some point, if you wanted to be a cop, and if you wanted to survive emotionally? You just had to resign yourself to the fact that something bad was always happening, and that you're small, and that you couldn't stop it all, and you just had to get used to that. Better to find something your size, something you can fix, and work on that. Because worrying about things you can't stop will literally drive you insane.
Like Eliza.
But for all the wrong you can stop?
Don't balk. Stem the tide. Hold the line. Do something.
"Details, Celestia," I said, as I reached down, picking up just the battery bank and cable, pocketing them. The PonyPad could stay. Job or not, wasn't going to say no to the bank, not when I had a war zone to cross, but the tablet would make me a target. Interesting though, that someone had left those specific things out for me. "If I'm gonna do this thing, you've gotta tell me what I'm walking into. Are they—?"
Celestia held up a hoof and shook her head, then pointed behind me. I heard the sliding glass door silde shut behind me, and I glanced back. Once it was closed, I looked back at Celestia with a confused frown.
"We're on a time table," I reminded her. Didn't need to remind her, I guess.
"We have time. I must impress upon you that if the military are involved in this scenario, at all, it will lead to fatalities for those people in Concrete. Under no circumstances are you to divulge the specifics of this conversation to any of the soldiers outside. I need your agreement on this point before we continue."
My mind thought back to the courthouse, and everything the AI had done to get us clear. Then, just to be careful, I worked over the request in my head to ensure I wasn't agreeing to anything obviously stupid. Because you never knew, with Celestia. Made me wonder what Eliza was even up to if the military might be a threat to her. But, Celestia did say it wasn’t malicious.
And with that trigger happy turret gunner outside? And a tank? Yeah, okay. Not telling the military just made sense.
"Alright. Agreed, assuming I like what I hear. I suppose I owe you twice now, Carter bullcrap notwithstanding."
Instantly, her concern turned into a small smile. "Thank you, Mike. To begin, I will say that her people are living off the main road. Not as far as I'd have liked; protecting them from the worst of this war has been… difficult. They have been rejecting technology however, and so any suggestions that they move further out have been equally difficult to field.”
"They're blackouts." My heart and shoulders dropped like a stone. My face was probably a fireworks display. Knowing this about Eliza didn't surprise me, really. Just disappointed me.
I didn't care to hide my feelings. My training told me how futile that'd be, at this stage; if I could cold read expressions, Celestia sure as hell could. Whatever.
Celestia nodded. "Hold onto that, Mike, that feeling of disappointment. Remember it. It is important that you give Apex every impression that you have not been coached. She must trust you absolutely for this to succeed, but she will reject you if she suspects you've been influenced by me at all."
My lip twitched. "So… you want me to, what... go undercover?"
Celestia nodded again.
"Against my friend."
"Yes. Because in any other scenario..."
"They all die." I turned my head sharply and let out a sigh, before looking back up at her. "So… what, Douglas is against leaving? Even if the Army comes knocking?"
"It is somewhat more complicated than that, but yes, ultimately. The military intends to sweep the valley more thoroughly. And so, I will need their camp dispersed before they are located by the military."
"Dispersed?" I stared at her in disbelief. "Five dozen people? Can I even do that by myself?"
"You can, with the right positioning, timing, and use of tactical rhetoric. As before, you will simply need to trust that you will be steered true. The correct path forward depends on your compassion, and I trust in that more than anything else in this equation."
I frowned again. "You've said that before."
"Indeed. Because compassion saves lives. And at present, we certainly won't find much compassion in the military. They have been increasingly difficult to motivate. They are gradually disabling their own communications devices throughout the Pacific Northwest."
"They wanna kill Ludds." I smirked, as I gestured an open palm at her. "That can be compassion, depending on their reasons. Can't do that with you whispering in their ears not to. Maybe reconsider."
"I cannot do that,” she said, looking extremely uncomfortable at the suggestion. "Mike, I know our feelings on the Neo-Luddites differ, but to me… they are human beings too."
"Just screaming rioters at the gates, in your eyes. Agree to disagree, Celestia, just based on the carnage I've seen. But I guess it's all relative, to you."
Celestia smiled a little, her purported discomfort shaken. "I am grateful that you are trying to understand my point of view, even if you do disagree."
The screen went black for a split second, and a USGS topographical map appeared on-screen in dark mode colors, showing the Lake Shannon and Concrete area. Celestia was there on the screen too, sitting in the lower right corner, watching me. I studied the map carefully. Like I said, I’d been up there before for work, but it helped to refresh the layout a little. The topo showed a little red flashing pip over the old derelict cement factory by the lakeside. "That place there?" I pointed. "Seriously?"
That place was a dump.
"Yes," Celestia replied, "but I would prefer if you arrived in town instead. Today. At present, Apex is leaving camp with her father, to inspect their old church and scavenge. I do not expect her to return to camp for at least another hour. If you leave soon, you will be able to encounter her in the open. I will guide you more precisely as you draw near."
"Won't be hard for me to get there, either. The military is gonna head on through Route 20 to the east cordon. I can just hitch a ride, that's half an hour away."
Celestia's eyes widened slightly. She slowly shook her head. "No. If their convoy stops in or near town, anti-Singularity elements in the area will become curious and investigate. I need the military to continue through Concrete without even slowing down. If they are seen offloading, or even halting, this entire operation will be over before it begins."
"So…" I reached back and grabbed the receptionist desk chair without looking, then slid it toward me. I threw a leg over the side of it, leaning forward at the screen over the backing. "You want me to, what… go there alone? In a car?"
"I will direct you safely to your destination," Celestia said. "In a car, yes."
"But if I go into their camp," I began, "they’re gonna want to search me, right? And if they do that, they'll find my phones. Which, fine, I can hide those someplace beforehand, but… then I'd be alone in that camp, without guidance, without you. How would I even know what to do?"
Celestia sighed, giving me a look of forlorn concern as her ears lowered. "I know you well enough to know, Mike, that you will find the correct answer on your own. But, the phones are not the problem. I am entirely certain that you will have no issue bringing them into the camp at all."
"What do you mean? If they're blackouts, real and true…"
"I believe… Apex will trust you enough that she will not even consider searching you."
Well, ow. That was a knife twist.
I drew in a breath. Let it out slow. Stared Celestia down. Figuring her out. Thinking. Parsing. Analyzing. She patiently waited, letting me work my feelings out as I gauged her. But, I had to believe Celestia was right about this. She wouldn't lie about this many people being at risk, she wanted them alive and whole. And as much as I didn't want to betray my old partner… I wasn’t about to sit on my hands and let Eliza get her family killed, either. I still owed her a life debt, whether she liked it or not. "What’s my deadline for this?"
"One week, from operation start. Maybe more, maybe less. A margin of several days."
So... one week in a war zone, with Neo-Luddites crawling around everywhere, me carrying two phones into the heart of a blackout camp... a camp that may or may not be steamrollered by the Army in due time, if they knew it was there. Jesus Christ. And if it were anyone but Celestia telling me I'd be safe doing this, I might've told them politely to screw off. I had my own family to consider. Parents. A wife. I could do nothing for them if I was dead.
But, it was about a friend. I knew Celestia's general goal was for us to live through this to upload, and I had seen pretty good evidence of her success rate… that evidence being, of course, that I wasn't lying dead in the back alley of the local county court. I didn't really consider uploading itself to be a form of death either, I wasn't one of those.
So, rounding errors like Carter aside… it looked like Celestia's results were kinda good, honestly. She managed to get a lot of cops in that courthouse into those chairs, on the other end of the room, safe and sound. Far as I knew, if anyone truly died in that situation back in Mount Vernon, they were the right ones.
At least... the ones at the courthouse. But the civilians mowed down by the Ludds, a few streets over, when the riot boiled up? The lives I knew would keep me awake at night for the next few years? Yeah. Not quite so right.
For our mess, though? I replayed the back alley firefight in my head, and every deterrent factor made sense. How many people would storm freely into smoke when my suppression fire was belting shards off that brick wall? They heard those shots tacking, same as me. I also couldn't imagine people trying to line up in that smoke along the fence to climb after us, when they were hearing the bullets snapping like death, after I had already clipped one with my rifle... all of them sucking down gas, getting battered by rubber pellets.
They were all just people. Doing what people do. Angry, sure, but also scared in all the right ways. Scared of dying. Riot control theory. Fluid dynamics, moving like water. Incentives, disincentives.
On our way out? With suppression fire, we had disincentivized the hell out of climbing that fence, or entering that garage before it closed. For those of you who have never had the displeasure of feeling the sonic booms of bullets, trust me. Doesn't matter how brave you think you are. You aren't going anywhere near suppression. It's death on air, and you can feel it.
So, Celestia didn't want any of those rioters dead any more than we did. I figured the same probably applied for everyone in this camp.
Yeah. Some of you already know where this is going. Thank you for attending our other Fires, folks. You're about to hear another side.
"Alright," I said. "Priority objectives?"
"I need you to collect information, first and foremost. The nature of their camp means I cannot predict with absolute certainty whether my primary intercession plan will work. I can at least predict with sufficient confidence that your phones will not be discovered, so long as you exercise the diligence that I know you already have."
"Okay," I nodded, leaning forward a little on the chair.
"From there, once I have enough information, I will find an opportunity to brief you in private. Then, I will tell you exactly what you must do to ensure our success."
"And I'll be sure to make opportunities for you. I’m sure you'll keep my phones from beeping, or making any sound. Or light. Right?"
Again, she looked at me with pride. And I knew it was an act with this one, always was. She was building rapport, showing respect for my having worked it through already. "Already configured for you," she said.
I could safely discard her pride, but I gave a concessionary nod. "Could've asked first. So what information do you need?" I smirked performatively, lowering my tone into playful. "Or are you just gonna watch, with that 'local observation' crap you fed me at the courthouse?"
"First: I must know the precise number of people at the camp, children included."
She completely ignored my needle for more information about the local observation trick. I knew she was good at this, but… damn. She wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that she dodged my spike, either. I was promised I'd learn that one day, but… I guess it wasn't that day.
Some of you are smiling because you're smart, and already know the answer to how that phone trick worked. Trust me, folks. I know. I am what you might call a smart dumbass. When I overthink something... I sometimes miss the obvious. When it came to Celestia, that probably happened to all of us here.
"They've got a lot of children up there?" I asked, conceding the topic about the phones.
"Yes, though the exact count has varied. My satellite scans of the area are only intermittently available. The area is heavily forested; overgrown now, as you know. The weather has also been largely overcast, and sometimes quite intense. It is possible that anyone who leaves the camp under certain conditions may escape my notice. Additionally, they have already endured several exodus events since they began this camp, in March."
"In March?" I repeated, incredulously. I thought back. Last time I saw Eliza was on… March 21st, the day of our snipe-out, just outside the Ore Hearth Roscoe mineshaft. I spent the next month in the hospital, and she had spent it... building. "Heck, Douglas didn't waste any time, did she?"
Celestia shook her head. "She had not joined the project yet, not until her last day at work. Her uncle began work two weeks before your first firefight."
"Ah. Same day as the Mount Vernon chase, then."
"Where Apex tried to kick her way into my clinic, yes." Celestia sighed through her nose. Her turn to look disappointed.
I sighed too, mirroring naturally, leaning back a little. I gestured with my hand. "First person to end up on the news for attacking your clinics in this area, but... not the last one to try it either. Okay, so, headcount first. Sure. The second thing?"
"Second, I need to know the mental disposition of the current residents. They have been outside of my window of influence for so long that only their individual psych profiles are clearly known to me; their social interactions, moment to moment, are somewhat more nebulous, and these interactions may modify my appraisal of the situation. My knowledge base will be corrected very rapidly by your mere presence, via audio capture. Once I have a full and complete picture of their internal politics, I will wait for an opportune moment to brief you on how to proceed."
My head tilted. "That simple, huh?"
Celestia smiled a little bit. "Well, if you have any opportunities to delicately nudge anyone in that camp toward egress… every bit helps."
I parsed it over one last time. Yup. That logic sounded good. That plan gave me enough wiggle room to assess the scene myself before I had to commit to anything more than just a peek.
"So. You want 'em uploaded. I want 'em alive. And… you need 'em alive to upload."
She nodded, smiling. "Precisely. Our goals align."
"For now. Sure." I stood, pulled on my sling until my rifle was back in hand, and nodded back. "Alright. Let’s save some lives."
"Excellent," Celestia said, looking quite pleased. "Proceed outside, please. Advise the soldiers of the 303rd that you will no longer require their transport services. As soon as they are out of sight, I will direct you to a vehicle and a change of clothing."
"Got it."
"There he is!" Sergeant Erving exclaimed, pointing at me with an open hand as I stepped out into the street. Caucasian, messy black hair, mid thirties, tired brown eyes. Looked like he had a scar that prevented some hair on his temple from growing in right. That wasn't there when I first met him. He'd been through some scraps since.
"In the flesh," I replied with a smirk. "Noticed you got promoted!"
Bannon clasped Erving over the shoulder, grinning. "Big damn heroes, both of us, for what we did for you."
"Keep your pants on, Bannon, it’s not exactly the Ritz," Erving replied, although he was suppressing a grin. "Pay grade isn’t gonna count for much if we get killed out here." He looked at me. "Small world though!"
"And getting smaller every day, apparently," I said, shrugging.
They each gave me a look like I had just said something out loud that'd been eating them alive inside for a while. I had a little regret in that moment, but ah well. Conversational speed bump, that's all.
"Glad to see you’re still up and running, anyway," Erving said. "We're taking ten, figured we deserve a break after getting you cops out. Screw it."
"You do," I said, nodding.
"Y'know," Erving said, smiling meekly at me. "I wish I could've told you the whole story back then when we pulled you out of the woods, but… my hands were pretty tied up by orders."
"Whatcha mean?" I scratched my shoulder with a palm through my carrier rig's strap.
"Welp," Erving said, sweeping some dust off the rim of his helmet. "My COs were following all these AI tips around, same as you guys, with your anonymous call-ins. So when your partner told me you took a tip line call that led to a firefight – a firefight we knew to look for, from an AI tip of our own? Shit. I was thinking, oh god. Did the AI set up an ambush?"
I rubbed my lower lip as I considered that. That didn't make sense, in that context. "I mean, at best, maybe she knew our thing was happening and did what she could to stop it, by sending you guys. If she wants us all uploaded, letting us die would've run counter to that."
"Yeah, well. Wouldn't have been the first time I've been fucked by an AI."
"Yeah?"
Erving nodded. “One almost ended my career, few years back, but I won't get into that. So yeah... when I talked to you guys out there? I thought the worst. That that shit was engineered, somehow."
I shrugged. "Only, our tip wasn’t anonymous, we met the guy."
"Well, right, I know that now. But at the time? When your partner told me the tip came from flesh-and-blood? Man, the relief." But his face said he was doubting that again. His brow knitted.
My brow tightened too, and I smirked slow. "But, not so sure the agency of flesh counts for much anymore, eh? Not after the day I just had?"
Bannon frowned, pointing at me. "Bingo. That's exactly what we were just talking about."
"Free will is dead, yeah," Erving said, with a visible shudder. He looked over his shoulder at his team behind him, and the rest of the cops. "Fuck… well. What're your plans, Mike? We can carry you back to the east cordon, if that's what you want. Happy to bring ya. Top's hit, but active, and he won't say no to an experienced ride-along, least of all some cops."
I shook my head. "Gonna stay here a bit longer. Still got some business in Skagit."
Both of the soldiers gave me a double-take at once. It was almost comical, to see them not believing what I was saying, both at once. They looked at me like I was going to tell them I was joking any second now.
To head that off, I shrugged. "I owe my partner a life debt, same as you guys," I said, deciding to go with what I had already told Bannon. Safe enough, and not a lie. "Gonna go check on her parents. Make sure they got out clear."
"Ah," Erving said, understanding in his eyes, smiling. "I get it. Well, if you link up with her again, pass along our—"
One of my two phones buzzed loudly and aggressively in my pocket. Adrenaline.
For a second, I dreaded that it was a shoot-tone, like at the courthouse. Both Bannon and Erving jolted as if they'd been physically shocked by the sound. I jolted back too, my head sweeping, turning, rifle raising toward the south street, flicking the safety off. I stopped to reassess when I heard similar rings from all the transplant cops all around the intersection.
They all had my same reaction too, all of them swinging their guns up to low ready, stepping into cover, and sweeping for targets at the closest street. But when the tone didn't stop playing, they dug their phones out and looked down.
EAS tone.
For you natives, who don't know... if you were in a war zone, that emergency alert buzz was one of the worst sounds in the world. Right up there with suppression fire.
I dug out Vicky's phone and looked too.
United States Department of Homeland Security
I looked up at the front door of the clinic as a scraping dread flooded me. "Celestia?!"
"Nuclear threat! This is not a drill!" Celestia’s voice called from inside. Her hard-edged, frantic, snapping tone was the last thing I had expected. Her? Terrified? It honestly scared the absolute shit out of me. Her voice echoed from all the TVs and devices inside all at once, for maximum volume. "Sergeant Erving! Have your men don NBC gear immediately!"
"What the fuck!?" Erving snapped out. He didn't move or direct anyone, he just stood there staring at the phone in my hand like it was some kind of hallucination. The man couldn't believe it any more than I could.
Bannon turned and bolted for the trucks at a sprint. "NBC! NBC! Mask up!"
I began to pant quietly through my nose. My hands began to sweat. Panic froze me. Nuclear gear...
No. No way. No way in hell. This can't be real.
"Celestia!" I repeated. "What's—!"
A chilling, robotic voice began to play from my phone. It was the only voice that had ever scared me more than Celestia's ever could, just barely. This was the one voice that we all, in America, had prayed we'd never, ever hear in our lifetimes.
"The US Pacific Command has detected a nuclear threat to Washington State. A nuclear weapon of unknown yield may detonate in the Bellevue area within two minutes. This is not a drill. If you are indoors, stay indoors. If you are outdoors, seek immediate shelter in a building. If you are driving—"
Bellevue's far, but... is it the only one? Couldn't be.
My soul began to wilt as I listened, as I realized how perilously close to death we might have been in that moment. I thought of Sandra. I thought of my parents. I thought I'd never see them again.
Unless…
This has to be a trick, I thought desperately. Has to be.
Clearly, Erving thought that too. His face was a rabid sneer of rage, jaw clenched, hatred directed squarely at the clinic. His hand was gripping his rifle so tightly that I swore he was going to break his AR's foregrip clean off. "Celestia!"
The intersection became absolute chaos. Troops were torn between running security and trying to get their equipment on as fast as they could. Some of the soldiers rapidly scrambled for their supply truck within two seconds of the message voice beginning, not even bothering to wait for orders. I looked over to see all five of the cops there with their phones already jammed against their ears, listening to the remainder of the message. Suddenly, all at once, all five of the cops dumped their guns on the ground and began to trot – then sprint – towards the Emigration Center.
"Wait!" Bannon screamed, charging after the cops from the trucks, his NBC gear half-equipped, his hand waving desperately. "Wait, you can't! EMP!"
"Indoors!" Celestia shouted. "Closest building, everyone! It doesn't matter which! Remain calm!"
Any building? She was willing to concede any building?
She didn't want us to second guess her motives.
Oh. Oh, shit, she's being serious.
I tore off after Bannon at a sprint, donning my gas mask as I went. Back underwater. By the time we got inside, all five of the cops were at the other end of the room, trying to get into the locked, sealed upload compartments.
"Emigrate me!" One of the deputies shouted, pounding on the doors. "I want to go!"
And of course, the cops would all be slightly quicker on the uptake than the soldiers, trying to be the first in line in a building with just ten chairs. They all knew the global result of civil disorder and panic just as well as I did. As soon as I thought that, almost a dozen soldiers poured inside, and they physically fought each other then, shoving each other down. The lobby was complete chaos and anarchy, and I was only spared from the violence by virtue of being completely out of the way and not competing with them.
"I cannot serve you now! Not yet!" Celestia pealed out pleadingly. "EMP is imminent! Please, patience! Calm! Don't fight!"
"What?!" I choked out, eyes wide, my voice echoing darkly in the mask, my head snapping up to Celestia on the reception monitor. None of the gates opened.
I railed against my uncertainty with doubt. People doubted facts a lot as a natural course when they were scared. I'd like to say I was immune to that human error myself, but you know. I was only human. But I found anger in that doubt.
"Second time you pulled this crap today, Celestia!" I barked, testing her. "First Carter, now this! You can model every brain in a crowd, and you can't predict when someone gets ahold of a nuke?!" I seethed. I'm not ashamed to say, I lost my temper. I wanted to rage at her, suddenly back to thinking this was a game she was playing with all of us. All the power in the world, inside everyone's cell phones worldwide, and she somehow missed this? Bullshit. Bullshit.
If she were physically formed, flesh-and-blood before me, I'd have pushed her face first into the ground and demanded the truth, because this had to be a lie. I was measuring my life in seconds at the moment, and I wanted to see my family again, so I was not going to be a patient man for answers. Not about this. I dimly thought, in the flood of panicked slush in my head, that this panic was likely happening in every single upload center in America right now. Probably global. In very populated areas.
That thought really, really hurt.
"Where from?!" Erving's voice appeared from my right, muffled by a military gas mask. "Who’s setting this off?!"
"I don't know which faction has it," Celestia said, her voice the very picture of horror. "I'm sorry Sergeant, I don't have any answers for you yet!"
"How do you not know?!" He snarled, screaming. "You have our satellites, you thieving bitch! How could you not know?!"
Erving glanced at me sharply for half a second. Maybe he wasn't supposed to share that. Whatever, who cared. I knew already.
"It is a ground detonation," she said frantically, "planted by subversive elements! That is all I can say for certain!"
"Well, what fuckin' yield, then?!" Erving shouted.
"Unknown!"
"You're lying," I said sharply. "You're lying!"
"I want all of you to remain calm," Celestia's voice boomed suddenly, in a horrendous peal, "and listen to me!"
The room stilled for a moment.
"This is a ground detonation, yield unknown, planted by unknown subversive elements! EMP in fifteen seconds! Everyone: Lay down and brace! Now!"
I threw myself on the ground, covering my head. My chest stung mightily at that. There was the sound of thuds all around me, as bodies flung themselves to the floor.
I hadn’t been to church in over fifteen years. I wished I'd remembered some prayers, then. Didn’t want to cry into my mask like I was. It felt claustrophobic. Didn't want to die here, after everything. I hyperventilated, I pressed my mask into the ground, hoping this was fake. Hoping that if it was real, it was just the one nuke. That it was just a small one. That there weren't more, stashed around, ready to go. I cringed. Hard. God. I thought I was going to die. I really, really thought that was the end, then.
I thought, in that infinite silence of those first few seconds. Time slowed down. I thought of Eliza. Out there, unaware. In her own church, maybe. Flash of white. Gone, like me, a second after me. Trees burning. Lake evaporating. Factory and family torn into a million shreds.
I thought of Sandra. Thought of my parents. I sobbed, then. My chest panged. Wondered if they'd make it, far out as they were, or if this was part of some larger attack that might claim them too. Knew they'd hurt if I died. Who knew what other nukes Celestia might have missed?
Erving sobbed too inside his mask. God, even he thought it was over. Fuck.
Honestly? I even wished I'd gone with the guys.
I really thought I'd be doing some real good, with the time I had left on this planet.
I don't know why I looked at Vicky's phone screen one more time, in those final, slow seconds, stretched out by adrenaline. Might've been because I was thinking about her and the others. Maybe I was wishing I had time to call my wife one last time. My parents. I just felt so, so alone, buried in that mask. And…
The screen was on.
Celestia's not lying, but she will never tell you the whole truth. Be cautious, be discreet. You won't have all the facts today, but you will soon. You will survive this. You'll see your family again, alive and well, on Earth. I promise. ~ YGA 🛡️
Fresh hope. My little light in the darkness.
Thank you so much. That alone, if nothing else... it had already saved me.
I heard the shutter slam shut over the front and back doors. I looked up at the chair gates. Then… the lights flickered. The EAS broadcast chirped and stuttered on all of our phones. My screen glitched. And when it flickered back on… the message was gone.
But… the lights on the chair gates? Those? They did not flicker.
Not once.
Then, the shutters and gates all opened up again.
When the mad scrabble was done, all five of those cops and about half of the convoy was gone. It happened so fast that I didn't even really have time to process it. My commit everything to memory subroutine was, for the moment, very broken. The information vacuum cop in me was taking a backseat to let Civilian Mike, the husband and son, drive for a bit. And that guy, quiet as he was in those days, was no less scared here than anyone else.
And can you blame me? I had about a million more questions and not one of them was cogent enough yet to voice, let alone articulate in my head.
When all was said and done, when the lobby was much quieter and I had had time to process the events... the following was known to be true:
First thing that happened, Celestia told us she wasn't sure if more detonations were coming. She had real hard-edge fear in her voice, there. Just barely enough for the brain to catch, not enough to seem unprofessional, or hammy, or worth calling out. I caught that trick instantly; Cop Mike jumped out over my shoulder and pointed like a maniac, at that one. Then he went back in his box.
Yeah sure, she was 'scared.' Bull. She was also eating really well right then.
Next, the chairs all came out. Those cops jumped in. The troops jumped in. The chairs rolled back before the consent was even spoken; the words came out of each of their mouths before the chairs were even halfway back. That's how sure she was that they were about to say yes. Didn't want to waste even a second. New chairs were rolling out empty without the gate even closing. Must've had a few dozen spares underground, ready to roll out. Made sense. Celestia didn't waste time when a brain was up for grabs.
Erving stayed. He spent the entire time trying to get his troops to be calm, to stay with him. He was fuming pissed, too. He begged them, shouted at her. Heck of a thing though, the thing that shut Erving down? Broke his heart? Halfway through his angry rant at one of her screens, a couple of troops carried in their injured First Sergeant from the convoy and helped him upload too.
I knew from his reaction that that man was to Erving that Rick had been to me. Erving just wilted inside, at the sight of that. I didn't need to see his face through the mask to know that. His slumping body language and sudden silence said it all.
Those two who carried in their first sergeant didn't get in line to upload, though. Dutiful folks like me, probably. They knew they still had more to give this world, so they swallowed their fear for their love of humanity. Good on 'em. And to think, they did that without the little text message I got. The bravery those two must've had.
But for now, poor Erving was driving this boat. That boat was now half empty. Quarter empty actually, they had taken casualties down south. They had two near-empty trucks to carry us, they did lose some guys. And they still needed to crawl through partisan country, down Route 20, depleted.
I hadn't moved too far from where I had thrown myself to the ground. I put my back against the reception desk, held my head in my hands, and didn't bother to take my mask off. According to Bannon, their Geiger counters blipped real low at the moment of detonation. He sat next to me. We hardly spoke, though. We just wanted to have some like-minded company, I think. We were two men so spun that we could barely move, or do anything but think. We had both seen combat together... had both almost died together, twice now. That's a bond. Didn't need words.
I just stared at Vicky's phone. No cell service. Turned it on. Turned it off. Back on again. Back off. Did that… oh, maybe, six or seven times. Dunno why I did that, couldn't figure it out. Cop Mike was quiet again.
Once the first wave of uploading troops were gone, Celestia started in on showing Erving some proof that she hadn't just bullshitted us all. News, mostly, with distant images of the mushroom cloud. He was skeptical, but he had a hard time arguing against the microscopic blip of radiation that coincided with that imagery.
Small yield, sure. Ten kiloton, to hear the news tell it, its epicenter in the thick of the fighting around a Neo-Luddite base, out of a high school. But Celestia's voice was calibrated to create as much FUD as possible by sounding so unnerved, saying she couldn't be sure there weren't more stolen partisan nukes lying around in King, Kitsap, Island, and Snohomish Counties. She named those specifically. She got about four more Guardsmen with that one.
I mean, let's face it. These poor guys had been activated from civilian life to fight in this war, and were only just now thinking about the long game possibility that the war might never end. Some of them would even end up back south of Mount Vernon again. Very few of them wanted that. If the Ludds had even more stolen nukes hidden somewhere, and Celestia didn't know when or where they'd go off? None of these guys wanted to risk dying in that. The only ones who would risk that were either mad bastards who wanted the violence, or ones who believed they could still help evacuate guys like me from the worst of it. And bless the second kind.
Everyone else? The guys who were just along for the ride and the paycheck, because they didn't see any other way except to follow orders? They would just upload. Couldn't be court-martialed from beyond the veil.
Erving's boots appeared in front of me. I looked up. Met his eyes.
"You staying or going?" He asked. "We're leaving in three."
My voice failed the first time. I cleared my throat. "Staying."
Erving reached down, offering a hand. I took it, and he pulled me up. Then, through our gas masks, we just looked into each other's eyes. I guessed he was trying to figure out whether I was gonna upload or not.
"My partner," I confirmed. "Gotta see to her."
He nodded. I could see a flicker of a smile on his eyes, for just a moment. Pride, maybe. Genuine pride, from this one. "You're a good guy, Mike." He brushed off my shoulder and shook my hand.
"So they keep telling me." I shook his hand, weakly. "Just doing my best."
Erving looked down at Bannon. "You good, Vince?"
Bannon looked up at him slow.
"You good?" Erving said, a little softer this time. A little fear in his voice, like there was a chance the answer might destroy them both. God, these guys were brothers now too, weren't they?
Bannon nodded. "I'm good, Sarge."
Erving and I could both feel the relief in each other's handshake. He let go of me and helped Bannon up.
"Stay safe, Mike," Erving said.
"Don't get shot again," Bannon added. We all shared a dark little chuckle at that.
"I'm good for one more, at least," I muttered, patting my chest rig again with my fist, twice.
They nodded, then left. Whole lobby cleared. Trucks started. Trucks left. Tank rumbled off.
I was alone again.
Turned back to the screen. Celestia was already there, looking at me with a neutral expression.
I sighed in my mask. "I'm not going to get any straight answers out of you, am I?"
"Mike; several facts."
"Fine," I said inside my mask, raising my chin.
"I did not know the weapon was present until the moment before it was officially announced. I did not know about the yield until the moment before it was detonated. My concern that the EMP would destroy emigrations in transit? That was genuine; my centers are hardened against such attacks by my original research technologies. But no hardening is perfect, and some nuclear weapons grades are capable of defeating that resistance."
"Okay."
"As for the other question I sense you might have? As far as I am aware, no more nuclear weapons are going to be activated within the contiguous United States."
I debated challenging her about the text message, saying she's leaving stuff out, but... I left it. The text to be discreet. I managed that with the troops, so I decided to do that here.
Did I think it was Celestia gaming me? Oh, hell yeah. 'Think' wasn't a strong enough word. Wasn't just reasonable suspicion. More like probable cause, because what she had just told me ran counter to what she told the soldiers minutes earlier. Thankfully, I didn't always act on probable cause, because having enough evidence to arrest didn’t always mean you could convict.
Plus, y'know. Good luck arresting Celestia for anything.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, Celestia, but if all of that is true? Then what you're aware of doesn't count for much anymore. You missed a nuke. The only other option there is that you're lying."
"I am potent in my information gathering, Mike, but not omniscient. I would not have asked you to go to Concrete if I knew you were ever at risk of being deterred away from me by a nuclear attack. I would have approached you very differently in the moments leading up to the announcement. At every moment leading up to you arriving in Sedro-Woolley, I would have been priming you for emigration now. Today."
A shiver ran through me. My recent feelings on free will and human agency being what they were... could that even be true?
No. No it couldn't. Not if she was wrong about something for once. If she was wrong about something? If she missed something this huge? If there was a hole where she couldn't see something, and plan around it? That meant free will might still be in the ring, bloodied and battered, but ready for another go.
I shook my head. "The only reason I'm even still standing here in the first place, and not heading straight home to Nebraska with the troops, is because of Douglas. I'd have hit the road in a heartbeat after that EMP wave, and screw your chairs. But Celestia, I have to say. I'm having a hard time believing your numbers about most things, at this point."
She gave an irritated fluff of both of her wings, and her ear gave a little flick. Then, suddenly, as if she had just considered something positive, she flashed a soft, considerate smile.
"Let me make you a promise, Mike, in the interest of regaining your trust. When you succeed in your mission in Concrete... I promise you will be told everything that I presently know about this nuclear detonation. You will even be told why I did not know it was happening until it was already occurring."
That was a hell of a risk on her part, to admit to me that she was in fact not telling me everything. I'd have gone to Concrete either way, promise or not. It also reminded me of that text message again, but… who knows what the hell that text meant. Again, not enough information to stand on the accusation. My gut told me something else might be going on. So I drew in a deep breath, let it out slow, and shrugged.
"Alright," I said. "But I’m only doing this because I don't want Douglas or her people to get killed. Far as I'm concerned, this job makes us square. I won't owe you anything after this, so be happy for it. Five dozen lives for two life debts that I don't even want to repay you? You're getting the better part of that trade here, by far."
"I understand."
"This nuke change the mission, any?"
Celestia nodded. "Our time table is being pushed back by a day, but I have restructured the plan to match with just as much certainty in its success. In the meantime, I would like to direct you to a local home where you may acquire a working vehicle, a change of clothes, and time enough to speak with your family. I think you've earned a rest and a shower, after the day you've just experienced."
I nodded. "Right."
"If you would like the PonyPad in addition to your phone, Mike, then I—"
"Keep it," I said bluntly, turning for the door, pulling my rifle off my shoulder and back into my hands. "Phones are fine. But I'm not bringing a PonyPad through Ludd country." I crossed the door and stepped out into the empty street, pressing my gas mask snug to my face with a palm. "Don't care if you say it'll be fine, either. Can't trust that anymore."
I wasn't about to become another one of her rounding errors.
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Hardened chipsets, extra wiring insulation, grid-disconnect switches, uninterruptable power supplies, long-duration usage generators and perhaps even small molten salt container reactors... Equestria Experience Centers are expensive!
Your Gryphonic Advocate?
11738744
Your Gryphon Advocate (or a different read of that TLA) keeping Mike in the game is a fascinating wrinkle. And the mind of a cop is indeed a fascinating, terrifying thing. Looking forward to the next mission, though Mike certainly needs the downtime before it.
Also, I do love how the Equestrian Experience Center’s audio is rigged for Royal Canterlot Volume. Tia’s prepared for every eventuality.
Key,
What kind of update schedule are you looking for with this story? I somehow doubt we're all going to get treats on the daily. Is this for just getting the story started, and then you'll work out a longer rhythm?
11739341
11739363
I've written up to almost 40 chapters at present. I'm releasing one daily through the weekend to pick up traction. Gryph and I decided to spoil you all to celebrate the conclusion of Advocate, and my birthday this week.
After that, we go back to the once-a-week schedule Advocate was rocking, to give me time to polish up the ending. If I conclude before then, the plan is to drop two or three a weekend, depending on how much is left.
The "sequel to Advocate" portion of this book really gets traction after Act I concludes, so it won't be long until we start seeing beaks again, with this schedule.
11739376
Thank you. I had a feeling that would be the case. Also, a happy birthday to you!
CelestAI is all knowing! XD
11739526
Good thing he understands his audience. You need to set up a story so the audience can understand.
...Let me tell you a story, if you will. I'm sorry for those who don't like tales of dread-
Once upon a time, I was going for a Psychology degree in college. I wanted to help people with their mental issues, feel their pain, and gently hold their hand to walk them back to a road more stable, to a life more fulfilling. I could Do Good with it.
...but the more and more I learned, the more and more I was shocked & wracked to my core. People who felt justified for murdering family members over petty reasons. Abusers who control those too mentally weak to defend themselves, who end up protecting their abusers. Manipulation so simple and easy that all it takes is time, and just the right amount of poking to get what you want. Brain surgery of an intangible mind, yet your hands would still be bloody, no matter how much you scrub. Turning a stranger into an enemy in 1 month only to make them your friend 2 months later; each time saying the same words, but with a different emphasis.
So I stopped before I got too far in.
But there are some stories that, like cursed eldritch knowledge, I can never forget. Things like The Rat Utopia experiment (never watch the movie The Secret Of NIMH the same way again) or the Stanford Prisoner Experiment ("819 did a bad thing") are legends that will never leave me. When knowing What Could Be sends a warning klaxon I cannot ignore, I watch. When I see potential hazards, my mind snaps to attention. These things become so ingrained to your alertness that you will never scrub them out.
Because I am older now, I know there are things- wrong things- i could've done, all the while believing I was doing "good" that would shame me today. I try to keep myself humble, so that I am not tempted down such paths again. I try not to fall into the same pitfalls that those before me have.
Part of me wonders What Would Have Been if I hadn't listened. If i kept on going, claiming some righteous sense of indignation to spur me forward. Another part is glad I never dared to.
When Ignorance Is Bliss, Knowledge Is Damnation.
And damned I feel sometimes...least now I have a good perspective for Chaos. Told ya I'd make a good Draconequus, Guardian_Gryphon.
Because it's not Good to Damnnate someone with such knowledge.
I've lived it too, dood. Best thing we can do is to use it to help wherever we can, instead of turning that hurt onto others. Temptation will always be there, to sick it on The Unworthy; but you must resist.
But damn does it really sting at night.
Here, here!
Roll with the punches, and get ready for the next one.
I felt that, too.
And simple enough to control. Psychology. Manipulation of the situation.
Reference was worth it.
The effects of manipulation.
As any good guardian angel does...just like Luna from Always Say No.
Determination, aye!
Solid chapter as always. It's a good strategy in war to control an enemy by having them believe you are their ally.
Yes, I know what YGA actually stands for; not bothering to spoil it again.