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This is my (Rigil Kentaurus) first attempt at some SMAC-fiction, so before you start rolling around on the floor laughing more than you did when you watched "Austin Powers", please tell me what you think, and what is good, what is bad. Pleeeeaase, I need to know if I should continue, or leave the writing to others. The title is only a "working title", I'm not sure what to call the story yet. Please help me with suggestions. I'd just like to mention that the Net Riders are based on the faction made by ANX which can be found in the faction section.
The Text Without a Title
Part 1
"Come on Frank, it's time to go! You don't wanna' miss Yang's speech." John said from the open door.
"I'm coming. I just have to program the nano-bots. The army needs these Ragnarok cannons by tomorrow. A new team of recruits need to be equipped before they're sent into Believer territory." Frank replied.
"Man, we're really loosin' a lot of good men out there. I hear Yang has issued orders to create some more cyborgs though. About time the men and women out there are replaced by non-humans. Give a couple of clones a few cybernetic implants and we'll have some lean, mean killing machines ready to take care of those damn fanatics! It's about time we teach those bible bashers a lesson!"
John sounded excited, he always did when talking about the war. He had lost his oldest son to a Believer quantum laser. He said he would never forgive the bastards for that, and Frank didn't think he ever would either. John was actually what would be called Asian on Earth, with a somewhat yellowish skin. Frank had heard that in those days, John wouldn't have been a normal name for an Asian, but noone really remembered what would be normal for who anymore. Most people didn't even know what Asia was. Some people said it had been a huge desert somewhere very isolated where it only rained every 40 years. Frank didn't really believe those stories, but it had been so long since humanity actually lived on Earth that he didn't know anymore. He could probably check the datalinks if he took the time, but he always got home very late and was too tired to do that kind of stuff. John said it was a rather large area usually referred to as the East even though there wasn't really any east or west since planets are round. John said it was because the light-skinned people, like Frank, who came there came from the west so it became east for them. Maybe it was true, maybe it was not, who cared?
"Okay, that's it. 100 Ragnarok cannons will be waiting for us when we arrive here tomorrow. The genejacks will take care of 'feeding' the bots." Frank said when he was finally done programming.
"About time. We'll be almost a minute late for the speech, let's hope the punishers won't notice us." John said in a worried voice.
"Relax, we'll just tell them we had to do some work for the army, they'll accept that. Besides, Simon Lyella is on duty tonight, and he owes me a favor" Frank hoped he'd remember that.
Frank was responsible for programming the nano-bots at factory Z-Beta-006 at People's Teeming. His bots supplied the army with needed equipment, mainly Ragnarok cannons, an advanced type of quantum laser cannons that could be mounted on different vehicles. The technology had been stolen from the UoP by one of the Hive's finest probe teams.
Ragnarok was apparently the armageddon of old Norse mythology back on Earth. The University had extensive historical archives and had probably found it there. They always had enjoyed giving their weapons strange names. Their inventions were like babies to them, so they spent a great deal of time finding names for them Frank had heard. Academicians, a bunch of whackos all of them. Now this technology would help the Hive win the war against the Believers, or at least that was what the Party said in their propaganda. Frank didn't really believe it. The war had been raging on for 20 years already and he certainly couldn't see an immediate end to it. Both sides were strong, bases changed hands continuously and millions had already died on the battlefields, mostly cyborgs and "mutants" though.
"Mutant" was a rather unofficial term for the "modified" humans, clones of course, who were sent to the war. They had no gender, no emotions, nothing to live for except the glory of the Hive. Or at least that was what he had been told, who knew, maybe it was just more propaganda, so that noone would attempt to stop the "production". The Believers didn't use neither cyborgs nor "mutants" though. They didn't believe in meddling with "God's design", so they sent waves of brainwashed fanatic men and women into battle. Officially the Believers didn't clone either, but he had heard reports of humans looking strangely alike out there on the battlefields. They couldn't support this continuous flow of soldiers if they didn't clone, but officially there were no cloned Believers. The brainwashing skills of Miriam were admired, even by chairman Yang, so she probably had her faithful followers believing they didn't have any clones at all.
In the holo-theatre Yang's hologram was already standing at the center, speaking to the crowd that had gathered. Everyone had to show up at these speeches after work to show their loyalty to the Party. Anyone who were late or didn't arrive at all were punished by a division of the police known as the "punishers". Frank didn't even want to think about what would happen to the unfortunate people who didn't show up. Simon remembered the favor though, and since he had, after all, been doing work for the military they were excused.
The speech was the normal stuff; congratulating on a productive day of excellent work and more lies about how great the war was going. "Miriam and her cruel followers will soon be worshipping the great Hive, rather than their silly God".
Noone but the exceptionally stupid believed it, of course, but it was part of the daily routine. Afterwards everyone would salute the chairman and go home. Frank said goodbye to John, discussed the new programming code, LUPUS, with one of his fellow bot-programmers for a while and went home to his apartment.
His living conditions were good, bot-programmers were valuable and the Party took good care of anyone with the right skills. It had been decided that he would become a programmer when he was still just a child. The evaluators came to his family's home and asked him questions and took DNA-samples. One week later his father was instructed to send him to the bot-programming academy when he reached the age of six. His mother and father had been in ecstasy. Very few were lucky enough to become bot-programmers, and this would mean that their citizenship would be upgraded from level 5 to level 3 which would mean a great improvement in living conditions and their purchase-quota.
That was 50 years ago, he was still quite young, with at least 100 years left, maybe 150 if he was valuable enough to the Party. Should he become one of the top 10 programmers for more than one year in a row he would even be allowed a total lifespan of 300 years, and upload into the mind-database after his death. They had not found a way to use uploaded minds or return them to new bodies yet, but he assumed that would be possible sooner or later. Then a new body would be designed for him and he could return to the world of the living once more. Because of the problem of overpopulation only the most important people were allowed any more than 300 years, but when the Hive was to colonize new worlds later, great minds would be needed, and that would be his chance for a new life.
Frank felt more tired than usual. In addition to his normal duties he'd had a lot of work to do on the Morganite-Hive nano-bot cooperation project. It had been necessary for him to communicate with some guy named Ahmed al-Shukra. He was some specialist in the field of nano-bot specialization, specifically making nano-bots transform only certain materials. As it was now, the nano-bots had to be programmed to only work with everything within a certain area. This could in some cases be dangerous if anyone got too close, or the work-area was miscalculated or there was an error in the programming code. There was also some exchange of bug-detecting programs he had to take care of. Bug-detectors were crucial, if there was an error in the program code it could be disastrous. Nano-bots could “eat” expensive computer components, like had “never happened” at factory I-Omega-045 in Communal Nexus, or even worse. Frank shuddered at the thought of an habitation complex, with inhabitants, swallowed by the nano-bots. Well, he could use some sleep, and this thought pattern could take a long time to finish, so he decided to just forget it. The chances of such a thing ever happening were minimal. He fell asleep quickly, and the neuro-stimulators made sure he had pleasant dreams of increased productivity and glorious victory for the Hive.
Part 2
"Mr. Defense Minister! We are picking up a transmission from an unknown transmitter. There is no way to identify the source. Shall I put it through to your unit, sir?" the small woman in charge of communications said through the commlink.
"Please do, sister. I would like to know who this could be…"
George Souza was one of the few males in the Believer administration. He had been picked because of the fact that there were no females available with his military and leader skills. He wasn't too fond of the Believer policy, but he couldn't just turn down such an important position. That would be silly since this could give him a chance to perhaps start his own little faction if there ever came such an opportunity. He would certainly try his luck if the Believers began to loose this war. Another thing was that if he had said no, it would have been called “refusing to do the Lord's bidding” and that would be treason. The Believer courts weren't famous for their mercy, so he accepted. This gave him more freedom than most Believers. He didn't have to put up with the endless brainwashing, he didn't have to go to church every single day and he didn't have to go through monthly tests of faith. That could have caused some trouble since he had never really been able to believe in this God-thing. He believed in himself and noone else.
"Who is this? Identify yourself or I will cut the connection." he said in a somewhat aggressive tone.
"We are the Net Riders. We are androids seeking to become human. We have a proposal for you." a monotonous, computerized voice said.
"Hold on a second" George told the android looking at him from his screen.
Then he muted the commlink.
"Net Riders? Who are they?" he said to himself and called up the "librarian".
"Ms. Alvarez, can you look up 'Net Riders' in the datalinks?" he asked her.
"Yes, brother Minister, hold on a second. Do you want me to request information from the other factions' datalinks as well, sir?" she asked politely.
"Please do… But do it fast." George didn't want to keep the android waiting for too long.
Half a minute passed…
"Sir, are you there?"
"Yes, sister, go ahead."
"We have nothing in our own datalinks. I only found a short note in the UoP's datalinks, and they didn't want to give me everything. It seems a small band of advanced AI-androids escaped from a UoP facility sometime in the days before intelligent machines were banned with only few exceptions. The academicians called them Net Riders, for reasons unknown, but we assume they are skilled in network-related jobs. It is not known what are their goals or if they are aggressive, but they were not programmed to wage wars. I'm afraid that's all I could find, sir." the librarian finished.
"Thank you, sister."
He didn't have much to go on. Under normal circumstances he would have refused to talk to these androids, especially considering the Believer policy on intelligent machines or cybernetic implants. But these weren't normal circumstances. The war with the Hive wasn't going too well, and these androids might be able to help them. They certainly couldn't expect help from anyone else. The UoP didn't like their “irrational” beliefs, Morgan felt that religion only came in the way of business, the Spartans didn't care about anyone but themselves, and the Gaians and the Peacekeepers were not interested in war.
They were loosing ground, and he feared that if their forces failed to defend Great Zion morale among the troops would drop extremely low. It was harder for Miriam to brainwash the soldiers since they were out on the battlefields, so they understood the situation, unlike normal Believer citizens. He cursed sister Belveron for convincing Miriam to declare war on the Hive. He had told her they couldn't possibly win. The new Hive cyborgs crushed their troops and their mindworm program was years behind the Hive's. Even though the cloning facilities were working full time, without the knowledge of the general public there just wasn't enough soldiers, nor guns. They had held out for 20 long years, even that was quite a miracle, almost enough to make him religious.
George saw this as an opportunity to seize control. When people finally realized how the war was going, and no brainwashing could stop them from finding out sooner or later, Miriam's popularity would stoop. If he then leaked information about the cloning, she would probably fall, and he could take over. The army was loyal to him and the people only supported Miriam because they believed her lies. Sooner or later…
"Mr. Defense Minister! Are you going to respond, or do you want me to cut the connection?" the communications lady asked him.
"What? Oh, sorry, I will reply now. Thank you, sister." his thoughts had drifted again, they did that often nowadays.
"Well, Mr….? What's your proposal?"
"You can call me Nex, Mr. Souza. My proposal is as follows; we, the Net Riders, are willing to jam all Hive communication for at least four hours and steal their new weapons designs for you. In return we only want a little human DNA and permission to use some of your facilities for a week or so." The android replied.
This could be his big chance. If the Net Riders could do what "Nex" promised, they could probably do more as well.
"It's a deal if you will also bring me designs for their cybernetic implants and cyborg designs. If you can also get me a secure link to chairman Yang himself I will give you whatever you want, including living human beings." George hoped this was an offer the android couldn't refuse.
"Will that not be against Believer policy, Mr. Souza?" Nex asked in a synthetic, yet surprised voice.
"Yes, it will… Can you do it for me?" he asked back.
Seconds passed. Nex's eyes went blank, that was the only way George could describe it. They went totally black, like if he was shut off, but a green light started to flash on Nex's forehead. George had no idea what this meant. The Believers had never built androids, and he had never seen one before. It actually looked quite human. You could see it wasn't, but it was pretty close. After about thirty seconds came the reply;
"I have discussed your proposal with the rest of my group. We have decided to accept, but we'll need a greater reward. Give us the necessary materials to construct a small base, give us 2000 energy credits to get us started and allow us to settle in Believer territory under your protection. Give us all that, and we will do as you ask. We can also give you secure lines to any other faction leader you might want." Nex replied.
George had to consider this for a while. Nex asked for a lot, but so did he. These Net Riders seemed capable of delivering what they promised, and having them in his territory could pay off for him as well as them. Maybe he could use them later. If he was caught this would mean death by public sphere execution. On the other hand, the possible rewards were incredible. His own faction! It was now within reach! Still, he felt uncertain… Maybe Miriam deserved his loyalty, she had never really treated him wrong. He despised what she represented, but in a way this was just as bad. What a strange situation this was; the tough military officer sitting here pondering ethical questions.
"Mr. Nex. I have reached a decision…" he started.
"Well?" the android replied.
"Do as I ask, Mr. Nex and I will give you whatever you want."