Ode To Defiance Chapter 18

13

Stochastic Genius

No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.

―Isaac Newton

The stochastic genius of the BrainTrust started slow. First Amanda did a fleet-wide broadcast announcing that the blockade would continue indefinitely even though they had the vaccine, and food would be rationed.

Forty-eight hours later, after everyone in the archipelago had received the vaccine, Amanda lifted quarantine of the

Chiron

and reopened the internship gangways. Coincident with this enabling support for collaboration and cooperation, fruit-and vegetable-filled plant containers started showing up in the passages, in the promenades, and in the parks. As people saw other people carrying pots with beans and zucchini and tomatoes, ever more people started copying the idea.

Soon the

Helios

and the

Argus

had shifted their production processes to accommodate the demand for PVC pots, and all the nuclear reactors started processing the brine that was the main byproduct of fresh water production/magnesium extraction into a reasonable facsimile of mud. Seeds and seedlings came from the greenhouse decks to go into the new pots with the fresh dirt.

Merrilee Winston, a former GPlex employee now running a startup on the

Dreams

, led a programming team that included her thirteen-year-old son Charlie and created a new app to wrangle the general purpose bots to take care of the plants. The chip foundry on the

Warenhaus

switched to manufacturing red and green LEDs to maximize the chlorophyll-powering light, giving the passages a faint yellow hue as people walked through them. And the decks' themes vanished as all the lights on all the ships were brought to max power and held there 24/7. The ventilation systems were modified to increase the density of CO2 in the air—not enough to harm the people, but enough to encourage the plants.

Soon the ships looked like they’d all been overrun by a very domesticated jungle.

Three more days passed before the next stochastic event occurred.

Gina sat down with Dawn in one of the main

Haven

cafeterias to discuss the difficulties of signing up home buyers in the middle of a quarantine. Gina already knew it would be an unpleasant conversation; she had no idea that the food would contribute.

By this time the menu throughout the BrainTrust had gone pretty much vegetarian since fresh fruit and vegetables were the crops grown in the two agricultural decks on each isle ship. There had been a brief effort early in the history of the BrainTrust to bring egg production in-house as well, but that had proven abortively cost-ineffective.

So when the human waiter brought the menus with three vegetarian entrees, Gina was surprised when he said, “We also have a special today, an experimental dish we’re offering to everyone as a sampler.”

Dawn looked at him skeptically. “I’m afraid to ask what it is.”

The waiter visibly steeled himself. “A fine ratatouille with a delicate mealworm sauce.”

Gina did not drop her jaw. “Mealworms?”

The waiter answered with hard-won enthusiasm, “Got them from a professor with a biology lab on the

BrainTrust University

. Very high in protein. And mealworms grow very quickly indeed, with very little overhead.” He spread his arms. “You lace a disc of dirt with mealworms, then lay more and more unlaced discs on top until you have a cylinder, then let the mealworms multiply. It’s best if the dirt is saturated with, well, human waste for rapid growth.”

The waiter’s eyes glowed with the eagerness of a true advocate; Gina found herself thinking he was wasted as a waiter and decided that after this crisis was over, she’d offer him a job in real estate. He continued, “As the mealworms multiply, they migrate up through the cylinder. Then you can slice off the bottom, extract the mealworms, and grind them for the sauce.”

Dawn held up her napkin to hide the expression on her face. “Sounds captivating.”

The waiter smiled. “Shall I bring you each a sample?”

Gina maintained a fixed smile on her face. “Sure, why not?”

Gina and Dawn agreed, after going over the finances for their isle ships, which after all were making real revenues from rentals for both scientist cabins and manufacturing laboratories, that the numbers for their venture were mighty fine compared to the flavor of mealworm ratatouille.

Years later, gastronomic historians came to agree that the most important breakthrough came a couple days after the introduction of mealworms into the BrainTrust diet. In a demonstration of heroic willingness to put competitive differences aside in the midst of desperate crisis, the five-star chef on the

Haven

collaborated with the five-star chef on the

GPlex I

. They created a series of dishes whose names did not include the word “mealworm” but whose contents most certainly did.

The new dishes got rave reviews and continued to be served long after the blockade ended, noted throughout the civilized world as the finest examples of the next generation of

nouveau BrainTrust

cuisine.

UVR Rubola had been wiped from the archipelago, and the threat of famine had been averted. With the development of protein-rich rapid-growth mealworm-augmented fine cuisine, the BrainTrust could endure the blockade indefinitely. Still, the blockade was a nuisance.

Then the weather turned miraculously balmy. This inspired Chance to lead the first counterattack a few days later, starting as soon as the sun rose high enough to illuminate the battlespace. She bounced up onto the top deck of the

Chiron

wearing nothing but a red, white, and blue G-string, displaying her arm covered with a bioorganic tattoo sleeve, her opposing leg with biomechanical, and her back covered with her best work. A couple dozen women similarly clad followed her up the ramp. Chance whirled an arm over her head and shouted into the empty air, “OK, guys, crank us up!”

All the isle ships in the archipelago answered her call, blaring Beyonce’s

Single Ladies

to the blockading fleet. The girls started dancing, some of them awkwardly at first, but as the music swept over them and the general party atmosphere washed across them and the rhythm took them, even the shyest ones upped their game with ever more sinuous motions.

By early afternoon, word had reached the Chief Advisor that something untoward was happening with the blockade. He clicked open a window on one of the recommended livestreams airing from the BrainTrust with a closeup of the festivities. At first he thought he was looking at some sort of stripper club, then realized the floor upon which the girls danced was actually a helipad, and this was the roof of an isle ship. “What the hell are they doing?” he demanded.

Trixie, snuggled up close to him and touching him constantly for signs of arousal, frowned in surprise at his failure to respond to the scene of nubile women in his usual fashion. She gave the obvious answer. “They’re dancing, Baby.” Giving up on her usual job, Trixie looked at the video more intently and pointed with her free hand, “Isn’t that Doctor Dixon? The one you talk about needing?”

The dizzying gyrations of the bikini-clad bodies had kept him confused. Now that Trixie pointed her out, he gasped. “Dammit!” The direction of his thoughts changed. “Fantastic! Now we’ve got her.” Pushing Trixie away, he tapped his cell phone.

The Advisor had groomed a Seal lieutenant for the mission of kidnapping a doctor from the BrainTrust well over a year earlier. Not coincidentally, that lieutenant and his team were a part of the blockading fleet. When the Advisor’s call had gone through, he was met with the lieutenant’s enthusiastic “Yes, sir!”

The Advisor spoke quickly. “You know the doctor I wanted you to take is dead, right?”

The lieutenant answered cautiously. “That’s what our best intel says, Sir, but not with a lot of confidence.”

The Advisor snapped his hand in a dismissive motion. “Regardless. Take a look at this.” He juggled his phone and his computer until he was sharing his main display with the Seal. “See that woman with the tattoos?” The Advisor stopped talking for a moment as Chance spun in place and the tattoos on her back came into view. Wow.

Get a grip

, the Advisor told himself. “She’s Doctor Dash’s replacement. Chance Dixon.”

The lieutenant pondered the scene for a moment. “So, she’s dancing in a crowd of other women on the roof of an isle ship?”

“Yes, exactly! You can just copter over, jump onto the roof, grab her, and bring her back. But you have to go now, before she leaves!”

Puzzled concern entered the lieutenant’s voice. “But, sir, that’s a plague ship. How many of the people she’s dancing with are infected? Is Doctor Dixon infected?”

The Chief Advisor clamped his jaw tight before he could yell, “There’s no plague! It’s all gone! Just go get her!” Leaking that information, even to a Seal, would be bad.

The lieutenant gulped loud enough to be heard as he offered the next words. “We couldn’t really wear hazmat suits for this operation. Too slow. She might actually get away.” He paused, steeling himself. “We can go without the hazmat, Sir, but it wouldn’t be just my team and me at risk. When we got back to our ship, we’d be placing the whole crew in danger.”

The Chief Advisor buried his face in his hands. “Stay with me. I’ll get the admiral, and the three of us will see if we can work something out.”

More women wandered up onto the deck to join the party as others wandered off to take a break, although Chance continued to dance full steam. The men of the BrainTrust, having heard about the party secondhand or seen parts of it on the numerous now-viral videos, started showing up, forming a ring around the impromptu dance floor three deep.

A new crew of women, uniformly curvaceous and buxom beyond the norm, led by a vixen with honey-gold hair laced with streaks of blue joined in—and could they dance!

A team of enterprising mechanical engineers went to work in support of the ladies’ efforts, installing a number of stripper poles for those interested. The blond vixen spoke to them, giving encouragement and thanking them, and they walked away straighter and prouder.

The new women went directly to work on the poles. By mysterious means, despite the need to avoid damaging the integrity of the helipad, the engineers had anchored the poles so robustly that they stood rigid no matter how the girls whirled through their presentations.

Chance found the fluid motions of the women mesmerizing. She spun and swirled across the deck to dance with their leader. “Chance Dixon,” she introduced herself. “Who are you guys?” she asked at a changeover in the music. “Where’d you all learn to dance like that?”

The blond spun lithely around Chance and answered in a long slow drawl, “Sonia Manning. And honey, if you can’t guess who we are, I can’t tell you. It would burn your ears.”

Chance frowned. “Just about everybody on this ship is in the top one percent in some field of research.”

The blond spun around her once more, so close a sheet of paper could not have fit in the gap. The blond whispered in her ear, “Oh, honey, trust me, we’re in the top one percent in our field, all right.”

Admiral Beck stared at the Chief Advisor on his wallscreen, aghast. “You want to kidnap this woman from a plague ship?” He somehow managed not to scream in addition, “Are you totally insane?”

Clearly the Advisor heard the unspoken rebuke, and he ground out, “She is incredibly important to the survival of the State. Trust me on this, Admiral.”

Beck looked down, masking his face with his hand. He ground his teeth. “Very well, sir. We can surely rig some sort of quarantine here on the deck of the

Kennedy

.” The

Kennedy

was a Ford-class carrier, the most advanced class of naval platforms on Earth, populated by more people than some cities and powerful enough to wipe out the entire Japanese Navy from WWII all by itself.

The US Navy had done quarantines before on aircraft carriers with far less equipment and tech than this one had, but never after intentionally exposing a Seal team to a plague that allegedly produced over fifty percent casualties.

Beck was steeling himself to ask whether he should really give the orders to launch this mission when the Seal lieutenant interrupted, “Ah, sirs, there’s another reason this may be a mistake.”

Both his superiors glared at him through their respective wallscreens, but he was a Seal and not easily intimidated. “Look here. And here and here.” He drew virtual circles on the shared view around three well-muscled, extremely fit young women gyrating through the crowd on the

Chiron

wearing yellow bikinis.

The Chief Advisor looked, then barked, “So? All I see is three more BrainTrust dancing skanks.”

The Seal nodded. “That was my first thought too. But those bikinis are the same shade of yellow as the shirts worn by the peacekeepers. That specific swimsuit is one of the peacekeeper uniforms authorized for beach patrol.”

This pronouncement was greeted by a long pause. The admiral, who really wanted to put the kibosh on this mission anyway, set aside his desire for sanity and reluctantly complained, “Surely your team can take out a couple of peacekeepers along the way.”

Especially half-naked ones—they are clearly unarmed

, he did not add.

The lieutenant shrugged. “History shows that every assault team that has ever discounted BrainTrust peacekeepers has reliably been destroyed by them.” He started making more marks on the video. “But it gets worse.” He zoomed the shared view to a man wearing some sort of Muslim turban. The fellow was watching the girls, clapping to the rhythm of the music and clearly enjoying the show. “This man is a Khalsa, an elite warrior of the Sikh. We have a dossier on him. He has almost as many medals as I do.”

He panned the zoom and froze on an immense man with short blond hair. “Major Wolf Griffin, Marine.” The lieutenant did not call him an ex-Marine; there was no such thing. “He definitely has

more

medals than I do.” Wolf Griffin was not watching the girls; he was glaring out over the water in the direction of the admiral’s flagship as if he knew he were personally under scrutiny.

The Chief Advisor tried to take up the admiral’s complaint. “OK, so, they’re, uh…”

Admiral Beck interrupted. “Formidable.”

The lieutenant visibly relaxed as the admiral supported him. “Yes, sir. Even discounting the peacekeepers in bikinis and the mixed martial arts skills of Dr. Dixon, which I’m now reading are legendary on the BrainTrust, this would be a hard fight.”

The Advisor persisted, nearly pleading. “But still, can’t you take them? All we need is the one girl.”

The lieutenant turned grim. “I haven’t gotten to the worst part.” He panned to a gray backpack lying casually, tucked out of the way near Major Griffin. “I’m almost certain that that pack contains a folded-up BT12 PGM autolauncher, known informally as ‘Ping’s Big Gun.’ Intel thinks they may have used this to knock down as many as a dozen Chinese stealth fighters.”

The admiral stated the obvious conclusion. “This is a trap.”

The lieutenant shook his head uncertainly. “I don’t know, sir. If it were really a trap, they could have concealed it better.”

The admiral looked puzzled. “A warning? A taunt? Awfully subtle.”

The Chief Advisor smashed his fist on his desk. “I thought that bastard Colin Wheeler was in a coma!”

The admiral, who had studied Colin Wheeler as he would an opposing admiral, answered cautiously, “So either our intel is just bad, or we’ve been deceived, or he just recovered.” Another thought struck him. “Or…there’s someone else over there who thinks like him.”

The Chief Advisor just groaned. “I still don’t get the point. What are they trying to accomplish?”

As twilight fell, the electrical engineers did their best to outshine the mechanical engineers. Literally. They strung lights and hung mirrors to work the Autonomy Day lasers and flood the deck with a brilliance comparable to sunshine…if sunshine strobed and shimmered like a scintillating continuum of disco balls.

Gina Toscano came onto the deck with a couple of other women who, like Gina, looked like they had stepped from the pages of Vogue. Gina wore a string bikini that matched the cherry-red color of her husband’s copter, which in turn matched the suit of armor in the reception area of the

Helios

.

By this time Sonia Manning had organized a series of dancing lessons. Newbies under the tutelage of her girls were working the poles, learning body waves and knee hooks; one talented beginner was showing off a Venus spin.

Gina and Sonia fell into conversation like old friends, and soon the strippers and the models were exchanging secrets. The worlds of exotic dancing and high-fashion modeling would never be the same, demonstrating once again the fundamental principle of the BrainTrust, namely, that if you brought together the top people in divergent fields of endeavor, the creative mixing of disciplines inevitably led to new technology, deep insights, and, well, high art.

In the Omega conference room of the Blue Lagoon deck of the

Chiron

, SpaceR CEO Matt Toscano, venture capitalist Ben Wilson, and BrainTrust Chairman Amanda Copeland sat back after a long discussion of their joint undertakings. Matt flipped the wallscreen to a livestream of the festivities taking place above them. He breathed out in wonder, “Isn’t she lovely?”

Neither of his companions asked to which of the lovely women he referred since Gina was in the middle of the frame. As they watched, Chance came dancing up to Gina, no doubt to discuss tactics.

Amanda sighed. “Chance asked me to come up and dance for the brave men and women of the American Navy as well.”

Ben looked her up and down appraisingly. “You should go.”

Amanda sighed again. “She even gave me a present for the party, a one-piece Speedo.” She pursed her lips. “If I were just ten years younger…”

Ben persisted. “You should still go.” His eyes acquired a wicked gleam. “I promise I’ll have eyes only for you.”

Amanda raised an eyebrow. “You’re a delightful if poor liar, Ben.” She glared, then slumped. “I’ve never before felt any desire to enter Dash’s rejuv program.” Even though they had lost Dash, sometimes people still talked about her in present tense, as if she would walk into the room at any moment. “Maybe next year.”

Throughout the blockading fleet, enlisted sailors unanimously agreed they needed to do serious intel on the enemy. Those on watch duty turned binoculars and sensor suites to the

Chiron’s

top deck. Mess halls on every ship turned their wallscreens to the livestream of the BrainTrust dancers. A great deal of cheering, clapping, and whistling accompanied the careful analytical study of OpFor tactics. As the analysis went on, different variants of one question kept arising.

One enthusiastic youth aboard the flagship

Kennedy

voiced the problem succinctly. “Where’s the plague? Does that look like a plague ship?”

One mate added, “I’ve never seen a bunch of people who looked so, uh, healthy. Are we really sure there’s a plague? Looks like bad intel to me.”

Another added dreamily, “Who cares? I’ll risk it. Let me lead the first boarding party.”

A room full of amens greeted this hard-won assessment.

The news media picked up the viral video and ran with it. The Blue media gleefully observed that the Reds couldn’t even distinguish between a dead zombie and a, uh, vigorous young woman. The Red media did not pass judgment on the Red government, of course, but ran the video anyway lest they lose their audience. They didn’t need to comment, however: their viewers drew the conclusion easily enough without the assistance of a talking head.

Long before lunchtime, both the admiral’s senior officers and his adjutant Lieutenant Lambert were gently asking whether they were engaged in a sham of massive proportions. The admiral reminded them that they had orders, and they would damn well obey those orders. He started daydreaming about transfer opportunities.

The next day, around noon East Coast Time, the Chief Advisor felt the onset of a major headache. Leaders of the wheat lobby and the cattle lobby showed up, first demanding an audience, then demanding that he lift the ridiculous blockade so they could get back to shipping wheat and beef to the BrainTrust. The Chief Advisor begged off for fifteen minutes to deal with an emergency.

He withdrew from the Oval Office and pressed the wall panel that opened a secret door. The panel, the door, and the staircase to which it led had been built in 1987 for President Reagan in the event of a terrorist attack.

The staircase led to a closet near his private elevator, thence to many places including the Presidential Emergency Operations Center under the East Wing. The Chief Advisor looked yearningly down the steps to the closet, but he did not really consider using it.

The staircase had another feature that attracted him now: it was virtually soundproof. He screamed over and over until he felt better.

Chance saw Hilaal sitting quietly, alone, at a table in the cafeteria. He had just sat down with a tray loaded with biryani, a rare treat amidst the usual menu of mealworm/vegetable/somethings. She slid into the seat opposite him.

He smiled warmly at her; as usual, when Hilaal smiled, it was like the clouds had parted, the sun shone through, and there was nothing you could not achieve. “I persuaded them to use some of the rationed supplies to make one of my mother’s favorites. Would you like to try some?”

Chance looked yearningly at the dish, but she was sure it meant more to Hilaal than to her. She shook her head. “I have to run, but I thought I’d let you know what’s happening with Jubair. I know you were very upset when we put him in the brig.”

Sorrow filled his face. “I still don’t believe it. I’m sorry I was so vociferous about it when you announced it.”

Chance shrugged. “Understandable. Anyway, as I pointed out at the time, we’re all worried we have an innocent man in jail. I wanted to tell you, we’re doing a double-check.”

Hilaal raised an eyebrow.

Chance continued. “The BrainTrust happens to have the world’s foremost authority on facial microexpressions, Lenora Thornhill. She’s the Mission Commander for the Fuxing archipelago, so it’s hard to get hold of her, but she’s agreed to come here and interview Jubair. We’re hoping she can either clear him or make his guilt more definitive.”

Hilaal’s eyebrows rose in astonishment. “She’s coming here in the middle of the blockade? How is that possible?”

Chance chuckled. “We have our ways.”

Hilaal looked forlorn. “I’m very skeptical of such things.” He shrugged. “Still, if there’s a chance of setting him free, I’m happy.” He dug his fork into his biryani. Suddenly he froze, staring off into space.

Chance knitted her eyebrows together. “Hilaal? Are you OK?”

Hilaal blinked. “Sorry. I get these kinds of flashbacks once in a while.” He looked at his fork. “Sometimes I wonder if I have a mild case of PTSD.”

Having entered the

Dreams Come True

, where many of the startup companies had their offices, Chance wandered down the passages of the Dr. Doolittle deck, with walls rendered as scenes from the fictional Victorian town of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. On her way to her destination, she passed a tree where the parrot Polynesia and the owl Too-Too discoursed in frustration about the inability of humans to speak any recognizable language.

Eventually Chance came to the door to Replacements, Inc. As she stepped inside, she started to address the person standing there waiting for her, then stopped, stunned.

Sonia Manning gave her a brilliant smile. “Honey, so good to see you again.”

Chance looked her over from top to bottom and back again. She was dressed in a perfectly form-fitting lab coat and had her hair tied tightly back in a bun. “Sonia?” Chance had meant to say it as a statement, but it came out as a question.

Sonia chuckled. “Amanda wanted us to show you what we’ve been working on. She called it ‘the next generation of stochastic genius.’”

Before Chance could embarrass herself by just gaping, Sonia swiveled on her pumps and walked deeper into the facility. She began explaining. “You probably don’t even know what Replacements, Inc. is about, do you?”

They stopped at the edge of a remarkably large lab. Enormous, considering the cost of real estate on the

Dreams

. A number of people, a couple of whom Chance recognized as stripper-pole dancers and teachers from their day entertaining the US Navy, moved among numerous benches that held beakers and test tubes. Computers were hooked to an amazing diversity of gadgets, some of which Chance recognized. “Organic chemistry of some sort,” she surmised.

Sonia smiled warmly. “Ever so correct.” She pointed at a large glass cylinder with tubes running into it on the bench beside her.

Chance shook her head as she stared into the cylinder. Under any other circumstances, this would have caught her eye above all else. “A human liver?”

Sonia rolled one hip out, put one hand on it, and gestured with the other hand like a presenter on a game show. “Ta-da. An honest-to-God human liver, grown in this vat from scratch. Welcome to the second most important application of the CRISPIER, right behind your own rejuv.”

Chance stepped closer and scrutinized the liquids circulating through the organ. “It’s not quite right. Is it actually alive?”

Sonia uttered a sound of disgust. “So far we are unable to keep them operational for more than forty-eight hours. Very annoying.” She regained her good cheer. “But a month ago they lived less than twenty-four hours, so it’s improving.”

Chance looked back at Sonia in excitement. “This is amazing. Anything I can do to help?” She thought about it, then partially retracted the offer. “After we’ve dealt with these bio-terrorists, that is.”

Sonia nodded. “Quite possibly. We had some questions for Dr. Dash, but…” She shrugged.

Time to move on. Chance switched topics. “So, this is potentially marvelous sometime in the future, but Amanda sounded like there was something urgent and relevant to the blockade.”

Sonia stood straighter and gestured to a far corner of the lab. “And so there is.” As they walked, Sonia continued, “Our organs don’t live as long as they should, but they are otherwise pretty indistinguishable from the real thing. It turns out that there are applications even for short-lived organs, notably muscle tissue.”

As they came closer to their destination, Chance caught the first whiffs of an extraordinary aroma. Like Pavlov’s dog, she found herself swallowing her saliva.

They came to a bench that had been cleaned of apparatus. There was a bag of plastic forks, a steak knife, and a plate with chunks of a partially-cut-up prime rib.

Sonia grabbed a plastic fork, speared a chunk of meat from which juices still flowed, and held it up to Chance’s lips. “Say ‘Aah.’” She popped it into Chance’s open mouth.

Chance’s eyes rolled back in her head in ecstasy. She chewed slowly, luxuriating in the flavor. “Oh, wow. I’d pretty much forgotten what that tasted like.”

A crowd had gathered around them by this time. Everyone was smiling as they watched Chance’s reaction.

Sonia spoke for everyone. “Amanda wanted you to double-check our results to make sure our steak-in-a-test-tube was actually nutritious and not poisonous.”

Chance laughed. “If it’s poisonous, it’s fine, because it’s to die for.”

This was greeted with some clapping and a number of cheers.

Chance pointed at the plate. “I’ll need that for experimental purposes.”

This got a number of catcalls.

Chance laughed along with them. “Unbelievably, I’m serious. Amanda’s right; we need to make sure it is…” she tried to find the right phrase, “everything it tastes like.”

As one of the researchers wrapped the test prime rib, Chance frowned at Sonia. “You gave me the impression that you did something else for a living. Something more, ah, artistic.”

Sonia gave her an easy laugh and drawled, “Oh, honey, I

do

do something more artistic. And frankly, the art pays a lot more than this does at the moment.” She swiveled her shoulders sensuously. “But if we ever get that liver working, that’ll change overnight.”

Chance smacked her lips. “I imagine the BrainTrust will pay you pretty well just for the prime rib, at least for the duration of the blockade.” Chance reviewed their conversations. “So, when you said you were in the top one percent in your field, was this the field you were talking about?”

Sonia laughed once more. “Why, honey, can’t a girl be a one-percenter in two different fields at the same time?”

Chance winced and rubbed her ear. “Don’t ever doubt it.”

The sonarman on board the submarine USS

North Carolina

muttered to his captain, “I’m getting it again, sir.”

The captain rolled his eyes. “The jet ski?”

The sonarman nodded. “Just for a moment or two, in the middle of that pod of dolphins.”

The captain asked, “How close is it to the

Port Royal

in the

Heinlein

lane?”

“Very close, sir. Almost adjacent to them. At the moment, there are dolphins all around the cruiser.”

The captain considered that. “Isn’t this the time of day the pod swims over to the reef, away from the

Heinlein

?”

“Yes, Sir. I concur that it seems unlikely a jet ski would be going

into

the quarantine area.”

The captain closed his eyes. “You’ve heard this now, how many times? Three times?”

“Four times, sir.” The sonarman hesitated. “It could just be an odd reflection off a thermal eddy from the jet skis that are zooming around inside the reef all the time, but four times is a lot.”

The captain sighed. “Very well. The next time we break comm silence, I’ll let them know to stay alert for a jet ski frisking with the dolphins as the pod swims by. Hopefully the

Port Royal

will spot it before it rams them.”

Lenora felt the little submarine tap gently against the dock. Wolf threw the hatch back, and as they climbed out, Lenora shook her head. “I’m still amazed they aren’t picking you up on sonar.”

Wolf shrugged. “The dolphins, which we’ve trained to go back and forth between the

Heinlein

and the BrainTrust once every day, seem to mask our sounds. Certainly, while our subs are pretty quiet, they’re nowhere near as silent as a US Navy sub.” His eyes shone mischievously. “But if they do hear us, they probably get confused. The sub uses a variant of a pump-jet. To the extent it sounds like anything, it sounds like one of those.” He pointed out into the water between the

Elysian Fields

and the reef, where numerous personal watercraft bounced about.

Lenora smiled. “Ah, yes. Confusion unto our enemies.”

She made her way through the ship to talk to Amanda, who led her down to the brig. They released Jubair, and Lenora led him into a conference room that had been transformed in the opposite direction from Ballard’s interrogation center. Whereas Ballard’s room was designed to make one uncomfortable, this was virtually a living room.

Jubair sank into a cushioned recliner with a sigh of relief. “This is the first time I’ve been comfortable since, well, it seems like forever.”

Lenora smiled sympathetically. “Just so you know, I’ll be taking you back to the brig after this interview, but perhaps not for very long. We’ll see.”

Jubair nodded, and the interrogation began.

Three hours later, Lenora led Jubair back to his cell, grabbed a bottle of water, and took the elevator to brief Joshua and Amanda on her results.

Amanda and Joshua sat patiently while Lenora rubbed her throbbing temples. “There’s not the least hint that he has lied to us, nor any hint that he’s a terrorist.” She drank another slug of water. “I’d say let him go, but…”

Joshua prompted her. “But?”

Lenora pursed her lips. “The real culprit, as I understand it, has to be one of the world’s greatest geniuses. Am I correct?”

Amanda blew out a breath. “He seems to have figured out how to use the CRISPIER on his own. Even Dash had Byron to work with.” Her voice became even grimmer. “And these viruses he has designed, especially this last one? I don’t know if even Dash could have developed it.”

Lenora nodded. “As I questioned Jubair, I found myself wondering how this would go if Dash were the terrorist. Could she compartmentalize her thoughts so that the part answering the questions would be living in an alternate reality constructed by the rest of her mind? If so, when she said she was innocent, she’d be telling the truth, even though it was a lie.”

Joshua pushed for a conclusion. “So we shouldn’t let him go?”

Lenora slumped. “Not yet. I have to give this some thought.” She brightened. “You have all the tapes from all the other interviews, correct? Let me take a look at those while I stew on Jubair.”

Chance skipped into the Command Information Center. “I have an idea.”

Amanda had her head down on her crossed arms on the main conference table, her eyes closed. “I am trying to take a nap.”

Chance poked her in the shoulder. “Get up, sleepyhead.” Chance knew, like everyone else, that Amanda had hardly left the center since the plague had struck and the blockade had moved into position. “If this works, you can go back to your cabin and get some real sleep.”

Amanda struggled upright. “Well, you have my attention.”

“Good. Now close your eyes.”

Amanda growled. “My eyes were closed just a moment ago before you decided to interrupt me.”

Chance’s good cheer was irrepressible. “Sorry. But trust me, it’ll be worth it. Now close your eyes and open your mouth.”

Amanda did as she was told. A moment later a rich, beefy flavor she hadn’t tasted in weeks filled her mouth. She chewed luxuriously, keeping her eyes closed. “I take it Sonia came through.”

“Like, oh, wow, yeah.”

Amanda opened her eyes. “So, between one thing and another, I’d guess our food supply problem has come to an end.” She frowned. “I’d call the Chief Advisor and tell him his blockade is now pointless, but first off he wouldn’t believe me, and second, he probably wouldn’t care.”

Chance’s eyes gleamed. “Which is why we have to tell him so much more authoritatively.” She explained her plan.

Now Amanda’s eyes gleamed back. “Oh, that is so very crafty, so very…” Her eyes grew sharp. “So very Colin. Has he come out of his coma?”

Chance’s eyes lost their gleam and a haunted look entered them. “You know, I’ve been telling people that I’ve been trying my best to do what Dash would do.” She pursed her lips. “Well, at the end there, I think you know that Dash was trying to understand Colin’s thinking patterns.” She shrugged. “I guess that in my efforts to mimic Dash, I’ve succeeded a little bit in mimicking her as she mimicked Colin.”

Amanda eyed her speculatively. “Ah, yes. You’ve certainly done a remarkable job, replacing her as well as you have.”

Chance rubbed her ear. “Just doing what’s necessary.”

Amanda cleared her throat. “So, you’re still going with that explanation?”

Chance’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

Amanda shook her head wearily. “Never mind. Just the fantasy wishes of a very tired woman.”

A long pause ensued. Chance raised her eyebrow. “So?”

Amanda’s smile looked suspiciously like a grin. “Well, I think your proposal has tremendous merit. You prep the package, I’ll prep the call.” She muttered, “The Chief Advisor will never know what hit him.”

The Chief Advisor sat behind his immense, forbidding desk and reiterated his stance. “Just because there are a small number of young men and women with no signs of infection doesn’t mean there’s no infection. I will not sign off on new food shipments until they have a completely clean bill of health. Until they have a proven, certified vaccine.”

The wheat lobbyist and the beef lobbyist had been joined today by the dairy lobbyist. And the corn lobbyist. The pack was growing, and growing hungrier.

Mr. Wheat complained next. “But it could take them years to get their vaccine certified!”

Mr. Beef, the biggest loser in the blockade—and recipient of the largest emergency subsidies against the loss—amplified the point. “Our whole market could be dead by then. They’re starving!”

The Chief Advisor manfully refrained from observing that the Decktop Danceathon dancers had not only looked clean of infection but well-fed as well. He was curious about that, actually. In the opening days of the blockade, the CIA’s informants on the BrainTrust had said they should run out of food in less than a month, meaning that now they should be out in a couple more days, though later reports had suggested they’d figured out ways to extend the food supply. It shouldn’t make any difference; he could wait, within reason.

Just a little longer

, he reminded himself, closing his hands into fists beneath his desk.

Just a little longer. We can rejuv the President, I can remain in charge, and all will be well.

Right on time, Trixie stuck her head in the door. “My apologies, Chief Advisor, but you have a national emergency to attend to.”

The Advisor rose and shook their hands apologetically. “I’ll see what I can do to speed this up. I have some ideas.”

They grumbled but promised their support. After all, he

was

the only game in town.

Trixie sashayed in carrying a box roughly the size and shape of a frozen dinner. She displayed it for him, stroking the edges and licking her lips. “It looks really yummy on the cover.”

The label on the box promised The BrainTrust’s Own Beef Wellington. The accompanying photo looked so luscious, even the Chief Advisor found his mouth watering.

He grasped the package to rip it open, but it was a BrainTrust box, and when he grasped the Open Here tab, the box opened like a morning glory in the dawn light.

Inside the promised dish, sliced through the middle so the juicy center could be seen through the transparent film on top, resided adjacent to a cell phone. The Chief Advisor sighed. It was a BrainTrust phone.

Trixie rubbed his shoulders. “Shall I stay? Would you like me to taste-test the Beef Wellington for you?”

He patted her hand. “You’d better leave me alone with whatever this is.”

Trixie bent over and inspected the pastry-covered meat. “I don’t know, Baby. Sometimes you really

can

tell a book by its cover.”

“Not when the BrainTrust is involved.” He slapped her on her derriere. “I’ll save some for you.”

Trixie left, pretending to be in a huff. He picked up the phone and connected to the number on speed dial.

Amanda Copeland’s voice came through. “Chief Advisor,” she said far too cheerily for a person with over a hundred thousand people dying of starvation. “You’ll want to see what we’ve got for you. Vidscreen us.”

He slaved a wallscreen to the phone. Amanda sat in a room surrounded by wallscreens, desk screens, and a screen built into the tabletop.

A tall, lithe young woman of Hispanic complexion stood beside her, smiling. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been wearing a bikini on the deck of an isle ship. Today she wore a white lab coat. “Chief Advisor, so nice to meet you.” She spread her arms in greeting. “I’m Chance Dixon.”

The Advisor smiled back, delighted. Ha! He’d known they’d have to cave!

Chance gushed on. “I'm so looking forward to meeting you someday!” Her expression turned skeptical. “But not anytime soon.” She pointed at a Beef Wellington on the table before her. “Before we make our counterproposal, let’s have a bite, shall we? Set the mood.”

The Advisor had a feeling that somehow he’d lost the initiative. However, the beautiful steak before him had been calling to him for some time, so he did not object.

She showed him the button he needed to push to bring the Wellington to its heated, mouth-watering best. The transparent top peeled back of its own accord—the Advisor had to confess, the BrainTrust never did things halfway—and Chance showed him how to open the hidden compartment with a knife and fork.

It was the best steak he’d ever had in his life.

Chance savored his reaction. “I thought you’d like it. As it happens, this is what you’re forcing us to eat every day.”

The Advisor stared at her as the delicious steak turned to a cold lump in his mouth. He swallowed it half-chewed.

Chance was not done. “Let me introduce you to Sonia Manning, the leader of the team that developed your meal.”

Another woman stepped into view. She was impossibly curved, and her lab coat fitted her like a second skin. He was quite sure she too had danced on that top deck.

Her smile curved as deliciously as her hips. “Chief Advisor. So glad to meet you. Please let me tell you a little about our research at Replacements, Inc. I hope it will excite you as much as it excites me.”

She spoke briefly of their plan to grow new livers, kidneys, and hearts in vitro, and of how the blockade and the impending famine had persuaded them to travel in a new direction. Then she showed him the production-scale vats they had hoped to use to grow life-saving organs, now filled with top sirloin and filet mignon.

Chance took over the explanation. She picked up her compatriot’s cheery tone. “Isn’t that marvelous? Who needs cattle anymore?” Her face and her voice turned grim. “We can mass-produce Sonia’s equipment and ship it to people all over the United States. Within a year, there won’t be a market for cattle-based beef. We can do the same thing with every other agricultural product. Visualize the American economy when the entire farm sector is wiped out.”

The Chief Advisor could see the consequences so clearly that for a moment he was blind to everything else.

Chance continued, relentless and angry, “In forty-eight hours, you will lift the blockade and we will go back to importing food from you, or the first batch of beef-culturing gear will ship from the Fuxing archipelago to the United States.”

Amanda chimed in with her indomitable will, “Do not doubt us on this.”

With that, Chance leaned forward, beaming her brightest smile. “Like I said, good to meet you, sir.” She blew a kiss to him and shut down the connection.

The Chief Advisor just hated those people.

Twenty-four hours later Chance, Sonia, and Amanda gathered in a small cozy conference room with couches and padded chairs to drink a toast. The American cruiser had just left the lane between the archipelago and the

Heinlein

, and the aircraft carrier and its escort ships had turned around, headed for wherever such task forces sailed when not engaged in a blockade.

Sonia spoke a cautionary tale. “It was a great bluff, Chance, but just so you know, with our current tech, it costs about three times as much to produce steak in a vat as it does to breed cattle.”

Amanda beat Chance to the punch. “But was it really a bluff? You’re going back to work on your transplantable liver now, correct?”

Sonia nodded.

“Suppose instead you spent the next couple of years refining your system for manufacturing beef. How expensive would it be then?”

Sonia thought about it, and a mischievous smile spread slowly over her features. “You know the old political promise of putting a chicken in every pot? Given a couple of years of streamlining, I think we could put a solar plate that grows sirloin on every rooftop.”