13:21, Moscow, Union Mobile Field Command
They've deployed a MFC for her. It does everything Ivan's high-tech-for-the-eighties facility does, but better, some extra things, and it also fits in the back of an allegedly-FSB field command truck.
What, at the moment, it is doing is serving as a mobile holography suite.
Jamelia is talking to Command. In person. She sits in the chair, hands folded on her lap, and listens to the five figures talk about the situation.
And all she can think about is how Command isn't Control. To people like Jamelia, who remember the old days quite intimately, the difference is clear. Control was monolithic. Solitary. Absolute. Even if there were people behind that mechanical voice and single viewpoint which came down the phone or appeared on her television screen, there was the Control persona as a buffer between them.
Command, by contrast, is five people. Five old, powerful, incredibly rich and influential people, speaking on behalf of their Convention, but five people. Some of the Conventions cycled their representative on Command, while others were the formal leader of their group. They had mannerisms. Quirks. You could - and Jamelia did - make quiet enquiries about their past and find out things about them.
It was a sign of the times. Command is a human face to the Union, made up of people who were the senior Earthside staff back in 1999. In the case of the New World Order representative, Joseph Bastion, he was the man who'd been giving the orders back in her very first major op in Tehran, when she'd just been one of the faceless raw recruits on the ground. She was older now than he'd been then.
"Belltower," he says, cocking an eyebrow. "Are you sure this will work?"
"This operation is planned with multiple fail-to-safe points," she states confidently. "In my negotiations with the rogue Iterators..." the Iteration X spokeswoman seems to glower slightly at that, "... I have been following the standard negotiating handbook. I am certain that they have access to it to, which moulds their behaviour. I have made the 'small concession' of allowing the delivery of certain requested goods - anti-rejection medicines, bulky low-capacity power cells and the like. I suspect they will try something with them, of course, but from what I saw when teleoperating a Type-B vatclone for negotiations they appear to have taken considerable damage and, in addition, they are making use of high end gear which is likely suffering issues in the no-longer-clean Museum environment. Standard issue anti-rejection medicines will only stave off the inevitable. It is what we would do if we were trying to buy more time to talk them down."
"We cannot risk this subject falling into the hands of renegades," the Progenitor, Jon Li, says. He is gorgeous, and to be blunt looks to be about 19 in the way that few real nineteen year olds actually look.
"Fail to Safe protocols are in full effect with aid of Senior Constable Cross," Jamelia reassures him. "Any tamper and the subject will activate. Even if the tampering occurs at the front door, that merely means he is activated early and must fight his way inside. This course of action was taken to try to minimise the collateral damage from his use. If he activates inside the sealed counter-entropic vault, we may be able to conceal his use from all hostiles entirely while ensuring a total elimination of all targets."
Li smiles faintly. "I must say, the idea of the lowest collateral deployment of this EXEMPLAR II subject does appeal to me," he says. "I presume the SISTERS for the defensive perimeter?"
"Yes, sir," Jamelia says. "We have confirmed the presence of what appear to be haemophages among enemy forces - likely brainchipped, given their former allegiance to Iteration X, and we may also be dealing with v-addict enhancile consules. Relatively soft targets, and likely to try to flee. It will necessary to maintain a secure defensive perimeter, and in addition they will be used to sweep the location once the hard targets are eliminated. They are..." she pauses, "... more precise and so can be used to ensure that no witnesses survive to spread their subversive message," she states.
"In addition," she adds, "although Constable Cross did not detect any EDE presence among the hostiles during reconnaissance, I am not willing to rule out the risk that they have hostile machine spirits among their ranks. With the addition of Dimensional Science-trained troops in the perimeter, we can ensure that the perimeter is kept even if they attempt to bypass it by that method."
"And as for APOCALYPSE CANCELLER," the Syndic observes. "Why?" He steeples his fingers. "Sell me on it."
"Yes, sir," she says. "I do not wish it deployed. Hopefully it will not be needed. However, with the combination of their temporal jamming spoofing all futurecasting and their mention of industrial MatTrans, I am not prepared to take a risk that they moved something heavier inside. I was only allowed in a little way for negotiations, and I only saw the outer cordon of defences. With respect, standard protocol would dictate that any heavier assets be concealed. I don't know what's inside, and as per the orders passed to me I am preparing for the contingency that they have high end hardware down there which might require a high end retaliation."
Why did she ask for APOCALYPSE CANCELLER? Jamelia isn't entirely sure herself. She's running mostly on gut instinct. Some of it is to do with the Big Lie, that useful little trick. Who would believe that someone would really ask for the massive expense of having it brought up to combat readiness and all the corresponding attention paid to their case if they were really going trying to fool them. That's the bit she can justify.
But deep down, there's a terrible gut instinct. Maybe it's to do with how much the plans of the Enemy out there resemble Blanc's plans. Maybe it's hard-earned instinct. Or maybe something followed them back through the TransMat and will arrive very soon. She won't feel safe until it's destroyed.
In the end, her plans are approved. And Jamelia leaves with the observation that the representative of the Void Engineers didn't speak once on any major topic.
That worries her. That worries her a lot. It worries her because it might mean her hypothesis about them is wrong. And it worries her because it might mean her hypothesis is right.
