Chapter 6 #2
Al’s system had a built in GPS function, of course, as did a lot of his personal gear…
unfortunately they were all manufactured with late twenty-first century encryption and depended deeply on more satellites than currently existed in the modern constellation.
Getting them rewired to function on older signals wasn’t impossible, but it would require jailbreaking his gear…
and he didn’t have replacements in case they were bricked in the process.
So…
Back to soldering.
*****
Secure Boardroom, Houston Texas
“Where do we stand on this Bastion person?”
The woman at the head of the table had a severe look about her, pinched and angry, as she glared around the ornate conference table.
“Very little to nothing.”
The answer came quickly, no waffling about, as the mousy looking man at the other end just shook his head as he spoke.
“That is… disheartening.”
“I agree, however there’s nothing about this man in any system. If he’s one of this nation’s assets, he’s so deep-cover I doubt anyone in the current administration has ever heard of him.”
She hissed through her teeth, irritated, “Do these people do that?”
“Unfortunately, there is at least some evidence that they do,” The man confirmed. “It’s mostly anecdotal, however, so we cannot be certain…”
He trailed off, sighing, and shrugged before he continued with a fatalistic tone.
“If they do this sort of thing, deleting the evidence would unfortunately be one of the first prerequisites.”
“This is the first time we’ve encountered anything like that with this nation,” The woman said severely. “The Soviets are disorganized enough to let something like this slip, but these… Americans, they’re almost obsessive about keeping records.”
“Agreed, which is why we’re not certain he’s one of theirs. Speech analysis is… of limited value due to the short duration of the transmission and the limited selection of words, plus of course the voice modulation and compression artifacts.”
“However?”
“However, word choice indicates American cultural influence, some familiarity with the Military, and a few other minor indicators.”
“What about reversing the signal degradation and modulation?”
“Already done… and here’s where things get… strange.”
“What do you mean?” The woman asked, eyes narrowing.
“The voice isn’t human.”
The woman sat bolt upright, eyes now widening, “Not one of our…”
“No,” The mousy looking man held up a hand, cutting off that thought, “Nothing like that. It’s a digital construction… I would have said that it was at least a decade ahead of the current high technology of this world, but…”
“Someone did it.” She finished bluntly.
“Yes.”
“Fine. Is there anything else?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Continue the task,” She said, getting up.
“Of course.”
She walked to the door, opened it, and stepped out and smiled as an aide approached.
“Madam Senator, we have to walk. You have a meeting in ten minutes.”
“Of course, Jason,” She said as the door closed. “Lead the way.”
*****
I think I’m done?
The misshapen contraption Seb had built was never going to win any beauty contests, that much was certain, but it seemed to check out.
“Check my results, Al,” He said, rattling off the coordinates he was getting back from the system.
Calculating position through a GPS constellation was really all in the math, and thankfully he’d gotten the formula from Al rather than have to look it up himself, along with the necessary secondary frequency used to enhance positional accuracy.
That left only the encryption keeping him from having military grade accuracy, but even late twentieth century encryption wouldn’t be a match for Al… if he had to crack it, but he didn’t since the old formula had been part of his training data.
“Results appear accurate,” Al told him a moment later. “However, please be aware that I am not currently able to make the comparison directly. My own receivers are not currently configured to handle this earlier generation signal. Please be careful.”
“I know, I know,” Seb told the VI. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it simple and safe.”
Seb packed up the messy contraption along with some tools and stashed them all in the inventory space. It was time to get a workout in anyway, and he knew a stretch of beach that would be empty this time of day.
*****
As expected, he found a nice stretch of beach with no one to be seen in any direction. Seb knew the area like any child would know their playpen, he’d grown up here… twice now… and there wasn’t much around that he was unfamiliar with.
So he paused his jog and found an open space, well away from the capes and the sea, but more so from the cape. Getting wet was something he could live with, getting buried in sandstone… that would be a bit more problematic.
Getting the inventory open anywhere he was currently standing was easy, it had been integrated with his nervous system as part of the operation that pulled it out of the alien invader and linked it to his own being.
Now, though, he opened up the dimensional space and pulled out the GPS system he’d cobbled together.
It was such a bad looking mess that Seb honestly would be embarrassed to show it to most of his peers, if they were still around, but if it worked…
he’d just have to live with the embarrassment he supposed.
First he got a local reading, made sure that he was using as many satellites from the constellation as was possible. Then he had to link the numbers as an alternative opening point for the system to register. Al handled that bit, once he’d triple checked the GPS coordinates he’d given the VI.
“Coordinates entered.”
“Ok, we’re done then. Close it down,” Seb said as he packed things away and got ready to finish his jog.
He continued on down the beach, reaching the far end and tapped on the cape ceremoniously to show that he’d made it all the way down, then once more opened up the inventory space.
“Ok, Al, let’s do it.”
“Very well, Main Herr. Connecting spacial points.”
The inventory space wavered a bit in front of him, firming up a moment later. He couldn’t see through it, unfortunately, the dimensional fabric was impermeable to photons fo reasons that no one had worked out.
Seb took a breath, though, and stepped through.
On the other side he stumbled a bit as he appeared halfway down the beach in a single step, the sand squeaking as he got his bearings and let out a breath he’d not realized that he had been holding.
Did it. Ok, fast travel unlocked… well, once I put a bunch more exit points in places at least. Still makes no sense that the enemy never used…
Seb paused in mid thought before he started swearing, using words that his mom would literally tan the skin off his hide if she heard… or understood in a few cases.
“Mein Herr?” Al asked, sounding partially confused and partly concerned.
“Al, make a note, just because the shock troops don’t have access to dimensional travel via inventory space does not mean that the infiltrators and enemy command don’t have access.” Seb ground out. “More mysteries are starting to look clearer.”
“Of course, Mein Herr. Note made.”
Seb trudged back toward his home, his ebullient mood now considerably lower as he found himself wondering just how many of his colleagues had been working to ensure that his efforts, and those of others, to uncover the enemy technology had been consistently detoured to less than useful places.
“Damn it.” He grumbled. “I need to go back over everything in my notes, every idea, ever cockamamie concept that was ever shot down… all of it has to be back on the table.”
*****
Interlude 3
Prompts with Al : Operation Beckett Part 2
Assume all previous research was compromised by the invaders. Pull up all the discarded black files for re-evaluation, prioritise ones that are potentially useful with our current resources. Pay special attention to projects that were hard cancelled for reasons that don’t hold up upon analysis.
Of course, Mein Herr. The most likely early development projects for review would include a variety of military options falling under the category of ‘Soldier Boosts’. However there are some anomalies in unassociated projects in my files.
Which ones?
Project Black Hand. CRISPR mutagen projected to increase reaction times, as well as provide a direct hardware link for mind-machine interface. Project abandoned during the early days of the war, reason for abandonment… test subjects experienced dulled emotional responses.
And?
And that’s the entire reason for the project abandonment, Mein Herr.
That doesn’t make sense. We were greenlighting dozens of projects, just in my office alone, with far worse side effects than that. Analyze Black Hand, ignore the project cancellation. Prepare a full report for me. What else?
Of Course Mein Herr. Queuing the analysis for later development. Most advanced projects are not currently feasible, however many abandoned soldier boosts were achievable with basic CRISPR setups… within a marginally acceptable margin for error.
That’s fine. Give me the names, and start preparing a shopping list. I’ll figure out how to set up a home lab.
Of course, Mein Herr. Processing.
*****