Shakedown Brawl

(And so the campaign restarts after its break.)

Sagittarius 16-May 2, m0039.


Things fall relatively quiet for the team for a couple of weeks, with routine duties for Jianwei and Florence, and Vajra actually taking some time off. It seems that it has transferred its processes to servers at the University of Mars, taking Samadhi with it, for purposes that are initially unspecified. Its humanoid body serves as a hatstand in Jianwei's apartment, except when Dougal and Aunty take turns operating it. One never knows when it might be useful for one of them to take charge of that shell, so some familiarisation seems like a good idea.

However, at some point during this time, Jianwei receives a message concerning his non-executive directorship in the shell company which renders Vajra legal in jurisdictions where that is necessary. It seems that the company is in the process of becoming legally responsible for a second full-sapient AI. In fact, it turns out that Vajra, having monitored Samadhi's development and decided that the LAI is capable of more, is having Samadhi upgraded to full self-awareness. Samadhi will remain in Vajra's and the embassy's employment for the time being - it may have become fully self-aware, but it still needs supervision and guidance for the time being - but in due course, it will become fully independent, and Vajra will presumably need a new assistant.

Anyway, Jianwei signs off on the change of Samadhi's status.

May 3, m0039.

Jianwei often comes into the embassy to work, finding that more convenient in various ways than using VR connections from home, but this morning features one very minor extra amusement on the way in; a delivery van has pulled up outside the building and deployed its associated mover shell, while its driver AI falls deep into apparently rather brusque consultation with Quentin regarding where to place the large crate which it has brought. Jianwei shakes his head and leaves the infomorphs to their conversation.

Inside the building, though, he finds himself summoned to Ambassador Schmidt's office. She makes an idle remark about the delivery, then suggests - with seeming complete casualness - that Aunty might go and help integrate the new systems into the local embassy network. Jianwei takes the hint and doesn't ask how Aunty can help, instructing the LAI to divert its attentions to that part of the embassy network. A green light comes on in augmented reality, indicating that the ensuing conversation is not being recorded.

"Actually, I have some good news," the ambassador announces. "Your team has acquired some extra budget. With strings attached, of course. To begin with, someone back in Brussels evidently got interested in some of the events that you encountered. It's one of the analyst AIs there. It evidently wants to review things from closer quarters, so it's moving to Mars - and it'll be assigned to work with your team. Fortunately, Quentin was able to find room for the new mainframe that it will need to run on. He's had to move some other equipment around a little, of course."

Jianwei comments that this is indeed good news.

"Yes, we can hope so. Its name is Danteng, by the way." (Jianwei recognises a Chinese slang term that suggests tedium - perhaps the new AI really wants more excitement in its existence.) "It's arranged for some kind of assistant to be available to it, to act as its eyes and ears. You'll have to sort that out in due course.

"Oh, and that's not all. You'll be getting another team member. To be honest, somebody pulled some strings to get a favour. You're getting an intern."

Jianwei is politely noncommital.

"Yes, well - he does look quite promising for his age. Just as well, given that he's eighteen. He's a Mars native, but he's also an E.U. citizen - well. joint E.U. and University of Mars citizenship, actually. From an academic family, it seems. His name is Charles Dupont. He's up on Nix Olympica at the moment, actually - perhaps Vajra should have a word with him?"

Jianwei agrees that this sounds like a workable informal induction process, and after a little more inconsequential chat, the unrecorded conversation ends. Jianwei goes off and discovers that, with its new hardware still being installed and tested, Danteng isn't running yet. So he puts a call through to Charles Dupont at Nix Olympica, and discovers that the new intern is definitely keen and enthusiastic about the job. After explaining a little about what the team does, Jianwei introduces Charles to Vajra, and those two fall to talking, with Charles's energetic enthusiasm colliding with Vajra's measured philosophical attitude. Vajra asks how Charles is proposing to travel to Port Lowell; the answer predictably involves the equatorial monorail, and Vajra offers to keep Charles company through the train's systems, and continue their conversation.

Meanwhile, Danteng has arrived on the new, fully verified system, and receives an orientation briefing from Quentin. It is an academic sort of system, specialising in Martian sociology, but it evidently has some kind of sense of humour, as its chosen VR avatar resembles a 20th century flatscreen cartoon character. Quentin passes the briefing duty onto Jianwei, who describes the team's work - actually, Danteng has seen a number of their reports - and then takes the new arrival on a walking tour of Port Lowell. Having studied a lot of reports about Martian communities, Danteng proves quite knowledgeable already, but demonstrates one slightly irritating habit; it almost seems to have difficulty distinguishing between actual conditions and the multiple social models and predictions with which it regularly deals, and so it keeps talking about landmarks and buildings as if they are only there some of the time, in some versions of reality.

At some point along the way, Florence makes an appearance, having escaped from her own routine tour guide duties, and more introductions are made. In due course, once Florence has taken her sidearms home, she and Jianwei go out for dinner, with Danteng along for company in VR. Danteng also mentions that its assistant/field agent will actually be an uplifted dog, which is being prepared for the duty at a local biotech company. Florence and Jianwei politely refrain from saying too much about the last such canine with which they had to deal.

Meanwhile, Vajra and Charles are talking about Buddhism and geology. Both evidently have very keen interests. Later that night, the organic team members sleep, while Danteng, having been advised to keep well in with Quentin, returns to the embassy to spend some time mastering the game of Robo Rally (specifically, the version which Quentin plays in the embassy storerooms in his off-duty time).


May 4, m0039.

Charles's train is due in the next morning, and Jianwei and Florence decide to meet it, accompanied by Aunty, who is operating Vajra's humanoid cybershell for convenience. At this point, it sinks in with the team  that it now has at least two fur-clad members; Charles is one of the first-generation Mars Adapt parahumans, complete with proper heat insulation, and Florence's tiger stripes contrast with his leopard-style spots. They both make fur look good, but the clash may be a problem.

From the station, the group head off to Crucis Bioservices, the company where Danteng's new K-10A aide should be waiting for them. The receptionist - human, but a heavy user of extreme cosmetic proteus nanoviruses - directs them to a room at the back of the building, where Woju the K-10A is waiting. By now, Jianwei and Florence have a clear idea of Charles's mood and general attitude, which is enthusiastic - he evidently finds the idea of working with this team very interesting. As the embassy have arranged him accommodation on another floor of the same apartment block as they live in, they realise that he'll be quite hard to avoid.


Woju, on the other hand, turns out to have a more sanguine temperament, to put it mildly. He seems almost depressed by the idea of his new employment, and the effect is somehow amplified by the barrel chest and long fur which his Mars adaptations have given him, and even more by the bulldog genes which have evidently influenced his facial structure. Still, the team hand him the computer harness which he'll be using to remain in touch with Danteng, and he gets up to come with them.

However, their departure is slightly delayed by the appearance of a pair of Mars cats which have been permitted to wander around the building. Being cats, they take an interest in these visitors as possible sources of food if nothing else. Charles accesses the building's systems to buy them some cat food. They're still bored and capricious enough to take a clandestine swipe at Woju's tail as he's leaving, but he retains his equilibrium, and Florence warns them off.

In fact, this leaves her and Woju discussing the finer points of tail management with the rest of the team as they all stroll down the street. They reach the apartment block, where Charles and Woju will be sharing some living space, and a battle of wills soon ensues regarding decor. Eventually, they end up with pictures of Martian landscapes on two walls, and an ocean scene from Earth on the other. It seems that Woju has dreams of travel.

Once the new arrivals are reasonably settled in, the team sets out to return to the embassy - but on the way, they receive a call from Marshall Kirkowicz. It seems that she's been alerted to a brawl in progress at an American bar - a New York-style place - and it that there are a couple of Italian tourists trapped in the middle of events. She's letting E.U. consular services know as a courtesy - her own cybershells are already on the way - but the team realise that they are close to hand, so they divert to deal with the problem straight away.

They arrive at the bar at much the same time as the Marshall's cybershells, which head in first, but as no gunfire ensues, the E.U. team quickly follow (Woju, who seems uncertain, being encouraged by Danteng). Inside, they discover a stand-off situation, with the Italians keeping their heads down on the far side of the room. As Jianwei endeavours to talk the drunken brawlers down, Charles sidles around the walls towards the tourists, accompanied by Vajra's flying microbot relays. As he spirits the Italians clear, Jianwei's efforts start to bear fruit - except that some of the brawlers seem persistently bloody minded. But as one or two of them move towards Jianwei with a hint of threat, Woju remembers the basic police dog training that is part of his background. Stepping up beside the team leader, he emits a deep-throated growl - and the troublemakers lose interest in making trouble, giving the Europeans time to leave the bar.

And so they can head on to the embassy after all. So far, the expanded team seems to be working.

Carrying a Load

April 23, m0039, continued

As they settle in, the team members chat a little over encrypted channels - after all, the Chinese might have dropped surveillance dust. (The conversation is managed by Jianwei and Vajra, whose skills prove fully adequate to compensate for Florence's lack of secret messaging experience.) They theorise a little more about Sergei's presence; if he's a GRA agent, what is their interest in Eden Unlimited? Something to do with plant genetics, perhaps?

Whatever... Vajra deploys a bug-hunter swarm, but doesn't find anything with it, and feels fairly sure that there is nothing to find. So while the organics sleep, he chats to Eve, assisting her re-planning work.

April 24, m0039

Nothing untoward happens during the night, and in the morning, the team do a little more local investigation. They don't find anything much in the way of genetic engineering equipment on the site, and when Jianwei finesses Eve's psychology, gaining access to more of her files, he doesn't find much more there, either.

However, a message comes in after a little while, asking the team to take their rover down to the lake shore, as there is an (unspecified) delivery arriving. Jianwei stays in the station on general principles (his presence might help assert continuing E.U. authority on the site), while the other two make the short trip. A small water vehicle - essentially an unmanned powerboat with a cargo pod - pulls up, emits a "sign here" pulse, drops off a crate, and then departs, leaving Florence to complain that it didn't take the crate itself away after its contents have been removed. In fact, the crate opens itself to reveal a rather generic "wanderbox" cybershell, a box on large wheels. Sergei promptly installs itself on that, and the group head back to the domes.

As Sergei now has an independent shell which it and its employers trust, it tells them that it is happy for them to leave. It also hands over a small box, which they might perhaps take with them... Florence wonders what's going on here, but Jianwei guesses that there's a deniability issue somewhere, and kicks her ankle.

The team head back toward Santo Tomas. On the way, they send requests for (a) a closed metal box to put the box they are carrying in (after Vajra has discovered comms ports on it), and (b) a flight back in a hopper with no other passengers. They're not actually this nervous really, but they don't want people complaining about finding themselves on an aircraft with an emergent intelligence. (Quentin actually calls back to query this. "You people know human memetics best, but it sounds a little paranoid to me...") In any case, they make an uneventful journey back to Port Lowell.

While they are en route, Marshall Kirkowicz sends them a polite note. ("We really should do something nice for her some time," Vajra comments.) Then, when they reach the embassy, they determine that the ambassador is in her office, with no signs of digital activity there. Jianwei sees the invitation implicit in that, and suggests that Dougal, Aunty, and Samadhi should be shut down or temporarily offloaded to the embassy network, thus removing any danger that their memories might be subpoenaed later by someone who wants to know what's said in the office.

Mostly, it turns out, Schmidt wants to talk to the team about the GRA - who do indeed appear to be behind Sergei. She isn't sure what they're up to herself,but she suspects that they want to move into Mars - where they do not currently have a significant presence - and this incident has given them a minimal but adequate excuse. Anyway, all that the embassy can do for now is watch and try not to annoy anyone.

Oh, and someone has identified an organisation that is competent and trusted to analyse Adam-4 and what happened to him, and the team are being sent along as observers (and guards). They have to take that box on to a company called Equatorial Data Services. They have tickets to Bako booked for the next day.

So the team head to their various homes (and Florence heads on from there to the local bars, but has a dull time of it). They chat a little about that idea of doing the Marshall a kindness, but identifying anything that wouldn't be classified as a possible bribe is hard.

April 25, m0039


 With a hopper booked, Jianwei calls ahead to avoid legal problems. Bako, it turns out, has rules in place for this sort of thing, and Jianwei has a straightforward conversation with the cops there. In fact, a lot of clearances have been arranged; the short trip is on a commercial flight, with Adam-4 travelling as what is enigmatically known as "19-inch hand luggage". The team can relax enough to pay attention to the street scenes in Bako, which proves to be full of ethnic-African somatypes, including the odd lion-maned Felicia.

Equatorial Data Services proves to be a hive of African computer geeks, but there are still formalities and legalities to observe and certificates to be exchanged; Jianwei ends up processing a mound of digital paperwork. The company have acquired source information and documentation from Eden Unlimited, which they regard as generous reference data, and the team are directed to a coffee lounge (with access to the building's internal networks and cameras) while the analysts work.

This work turns out to involve a lot of cryptic 3-D holographic models, but the analysts seem to know what they are doing. After a while, one of them stares hard at the holographic display. "That's interesting", he murmurs...

Answers and Amnesia

March 27, m0039, continued

The embassy cameras show the visitor; it appears to be the cyberdoll cybershell that was acting as security at the House of Fragrant Jasmine when they visited there. The team agrees to meet it, and it is ushered through the embassy's security systems (which don't detect any weapons or other threats) to a meeting room.

There, it initially greets them with the stiff formality of a low-empathy LAI, but having established that they are still interested in the case of Herr Weber-Markt, it pauses for a very brief moment, and then begins talking a little more fluently; it's apparent that it's now being teleoperated, presumably by Mistress Zeng. In any case, it declares that the House of Fragrant Jasmine has now come by information regarding the missing gentleman; he is well, and it would seem unfortunate if anyone were to worry too much about him. The House of Fragrant Jasmine does not want trouble - they are a legitimate business, after all. It might useful if, when Herr Weber-Markt reappeared, someone could speak to him and make sure that he understands that it is in his interest if not too much is said.

Jianwei says that this can certainly be passed on to the gentleman.

The cyberdoll states that Herr Weber-Markt may well be on a bench in the south-western public greenhouse in half an hour's time, and departs.

The team extract such equipment as seems appropriate (especially surveillance swarms for Vajra and a pistol or two for Florence) and which is legal for them on American territory, and head out themselves. They guess that, as he isn't Mars-adapted, Weber-Markt may well be in the Earth-normal pressurised section of the greenhouse - and they are correct. He is sitting on a bench, stroking one of the lightly genetically modified cats that are free to run around that section, and looking a little vague. Jianwei approached him and greets him.

"Oh - you know me?"

Jianwei explains that people have been concerned for him, and that they have been looking for him as EU representatives, and asks what happened to him.

"Oh - you know me?"

It soon becomes evident that Weber-Markt isn't entirely compos mentis, but has severe short-term memory problems at this point - so the team quickly summons an ambulance and books space in a hospital. After a moment, Aunty diagnoses Transient Global Amnesia - which occasionally occurs naturally, probably as a result of momentary neurological or blood supply failures, but which is really quite rare. In fact, these days, it's surely much more likely to be the result of some kind of nanodrug - emulating the triggers for the condition is actually quite easy. Such nanodrugs are generally illegal, of course.

The team gets Weber-Markt to a hospital (checking as they go that his wearable virtual interface is in his bag - although currently powered down), and the hospital runs a series of scans and ends up agreeing with Aunty. The nanodrug used on him was a smart piece of design (but then, there are several functional specifications for this sort of thing on the TSA Web); it's already largely broken down to barely-identifiable components. When the team asks for a detailed blood check for other nanodrug remnants, the hospital is happy to oblige, and remarks that, by the looks of the results, the patient may well have been treated with a high-grade "cleaner" treatment - not only are there no other nanodrugs in his system at present, but the remains of any that were there have been cleaned out by something very efficient.

Anyway, the good news is that the patient is rapidly recovering from his condition, and in fact, after running the obligatory array of tests, the hospital have no basis on which to keep him in. So the team escort him back to the embassy. By now, having recovered most of his memory function, Weber-Markt is becoming entirely coherent and distinctly taciturn. But rather than pester him too much at first, the team concentrates on his wearable. With his consent, Vajra dismantles it, takes a digital image of its (routinely encrypted) memory, reassembles it, and boots it up. It seems to be fine - but it turns out to have been restored, doubtless very recently, from the last backup that Weber-Markt took prior to his evening adventure.

For some reason, the expert psychologist Jianwei is having some difficulty reading Weber-Markt - Aunty actually does better - but it doesn't take any expertise at all to realise that his primary emotion at the moment is embarrassment, maybe with a touch of nervousness - but if the House of Fragrant Jasmine set out to intimidate him, they must have been quite polite about it. Still, the team get enough out of him to decide that that establishment is probably, if not provably, responsible for his disappearance.

But he doesn't want to talk much, so they agree that he should return to his hotel. Florence escorts him there in a taxi - and flirts a little, giving him her Web address and saying "call me if you want when you're feeling better". She'd like to get more information out of him, and she's prepared to put some effort into this. Meanwhile, Jianwei puts a call into the Marshall's office, and she calls him back fairly promptly (she's at work and it's not bar brawl time yet). He and Vajra bring her up to date on the situation, expressing their suspicions about the House of Fragrant Jasmine and possible Triad involvement; when Florence joins in while walking back towards the embassy, she's even more emphatic about this.

However, when she's half-way back, the Marshall breaks away with a mutter of "that's worrying". It seems that she's set some of her systems to monitor camera feeds around the city for signs of Sandy, and he's now been located - entering Weber-Markt's hotel. She doesn't have resources in place to deal with this very promptly, but she's happy if the team can do something...

Florence turns and breaks into a run - that's faster than looking for a vehicle, she decides - while Vajra goes online in search of a taxi. A quick and impressive display of optimised resource management later, one slides up outside the embassy, its doors snapping open as Vajra and Jianwei appear. Hence, they reach the hotel just as Florence is heading up the stairs to Weber-Markt's room on the second floor, having decided that the old-fashioned lift is too slow. Some fast acrobatics in Martian gravity later, she's on the right corridor and sliding smoothly down it to the correct door - but she can't hear anything through it except perhaps faint voices...

Downstairs, the other two are still talking to Marshall Kirkowicz, raising the possibility of getting that door unlocked for Florence - but that would require legal action, so it's quicker for Jianwei to turn his diplomatic skills on the human desk clerk. He's quite smart, it seems; his voice echoes in Florence's ears.

"The door will open on your mark - just say the word."

"Mark!"

Florence enters the room in a diving roll, but takes a fraction of a second to acquire the situation fully. Sandy isn't combat-trained like her, but his basic street smarts are sufficient for him to recognise her as that customer from yesterday, and to make him decide that she must be annoyed with him or something.

"What is going on?" Florence demands.

"You? Look, whatever complaints you have about that stuff..."

"I am an EU agent, assigned to protect Herr Weber-Markt..."

Florence tries to intimidate Sandy into compliance by popping her claws with a snarl, but his nerve - or his stupidity - holds. He rises from the chair he's sitting in, drawing the gun which he has openly on display - it's a large-calibre airgun, the sort usually tagged as a "tangler pistol" but quite capable of firing other specialised payloads. She draws her own 10mm pistol much faster and fires, but he ducks. Then he returns fire, but he's not trained with guns at all, and this is a wild snap shot, so something merely hits the wall near the increasingly panicked Weber-Markt, who's sitting on the bed.

Florence decides that it would be better to take this to close quarters, steps over, and kicks, punching the high heel of her boot into his ribs. He staggers, and she follows up with a hand-claw slash that leaves him bloodied and reeling. Deciding that she doesn't quite want him dead, she activates her zap glove, but he just manages to hold off her first strike with that, and fires again - and misses again. She throws a precise hand-strike that permits no counter, and he drops as high-frequency electricity pulses through his body.

Meanwhile, Weber-Markt has panicked and run, barrelling down the corridor - straight into Vajra and Jianwei. He tries to barge them aside, but his shoulder-charge is ineffectual, and Vajra gets a simple judo hold on him while Jianwei talks him down.

Everyone convenes back to his room and the story comes out. So far as Weber-Markt is concerned,Sandy simply showed up, talked his way in, then began demanding money with large hints of blackmail and a few menaces. Sandy seemed to think that Weber-Markt was responsible for some great inconvenience that he's suffered, and wanted payment in compensation... But Weber-Markt is really quite confused at this point.

Sandy, on the other hand, is recovering from his (literal) shock, only to find an annoyed catgirl sitting on his head and demanding information. (Florence's mood probably wasn't improved by the realisation that his pistol was firing some kind of aggressive nanotech payload - probably not lethal, but likely to have been painfully disabling.) He admits to selling Weber-Markt nanodrugs that were maybe rather stronger than the norm; somehow, this seems to have led to him being visited by someone (the team assume a Triad agent) who demanded that he compensate someone else for Weber-Markt's actions while under the influence. This has made him unhappy. As for the EU team - "I bet it was Consuela put you up to this, wasn't it? Damn idiot ... can't make up his mind what he wants ... complaining about what I get for him..."

"How would she - uh, he - have known about all this, then?"

"Well, he was in Northern Territories the other night."

Jianwei persuades him to provide a photograph of "Consuela's" physical appearance. The team aren't overly surprised to recognise their neighbour, Mika Hernandez. Before they can follow that up, though, they have to deal with Marshall Kirkowicz, who didn't hurry - she picked up enough from their Web feeds to decide that the situation was no longer urgent - but who now appears with salami on rye in one hand and the expression of a cop with paperwork in her near future. Various low-to-medium-weight charges will be thrown at Sandy, and the EU team's report will be taken under advisement in other respects.

So the team head back to the embassy to file a (slightly more comprehensive) report there. Later, when much virtual paperwork has been completed, they return to their apartment block - but Jianwei stops one floor down, and knocks on the door.

"Consuela?"

"You'd better come in," says Mika Hernandez, with a sigh.

Jianwei thanks him for alerting them to the problem with Weber-Markt, while pointing out that it might have been easier if Hernandez had been a little more open - as it was, he (or she) inspired a lot of distracting suspicions and theories. Jianwei maybe hints that the whole case involved a lot more physical danger and Triad activity than perhaps was the case, although his comment of "I don't appreciate having members of my team menaced with guns" is of course entirely truthful; he wants Hernandez to take a little more care, if there's ever a next time. From Hernandez's point of view, though, this was an honest attempt to do a small favour for a neighbour (while doing a large possible disservice to an annoying and unreliable nanodrug dealer), while preserving some personal privacy.

Jianwei leaves it there. "Oh," he says on the way out of the door, "nice avatar programming, by the way."

Hernandez shrugs. "It's just based on an old body scan of myself," he replies.

Footnote: It's not clear if the PCs will ever quite work out exactly what various people's motivations were here, but they came out of the incident feeling far more cynical and concerned about the motivations and actions of the House of Fragrant Jasmine than was entirely justified. On the one side, believe it or not, the House's staff were trying to save Herr Weber-Markt embarrassment.

They may be - at many levels - a perfectly legitimate business, but they're still, when all's said and done, a brothel. One of their selling points is discretion. If they called in the law, or a third party like their insurers, whenever a customer got a little carried away, they'd lose custom. On the other hand, when a paying customer is, as it seems, not entirely himself, then politely restraining him until he recovers his equilibrium, and then settling things quietly, actually counts as doing him a favour.

The fact that Sandy's over-strength disinhibitor took a little while to wear off, while Herr Weber-Markt's credit account wouldn't cover the damage he'd done, meant that this process dragged on a bit longer than expected, which made the situation rather sticky.

(Still, Herr Weber-Markt's behaviour after the team got him back showed that he, umm, was indeed potentially embarrassed.)

And on the other hand... They found that they had a Triad problem of their own.

When they started trying to work out why this customer they had in the very comfortable holding cell (er, private medical unit) somewhere was behaving so foolishly, they realised that he'd been supplied with a not-very-legal nanodrug. So they asked people they knew about this, and said people may just possibly have got annoyed. Not at the House, mind - at whichever moron was dumping that sort of stock on the casual market for the sake of a quick buck. This is exactly the kind of thing that gets law enforcement all worked up, even in Port Lowell. Which is terribly bad for business. So the Tria... people they knew supplied the House with some extra handy nano and asked them to resolve this as quietly as possible. Which they did, using the EU team. (Somebody there might have gone for a more brutal solution, or at least a stronger amnesia nanodrug, but of course the EU team were now known to be sniffing around - so tact was indicated.)

Then Sandy, who was being leant on by the Triads for costing them money, screwed it all up again.

Madame Zang is really feeling quite hard-done-by at this point, please understand. There she is, trying to run a legitimate business without offending anybody, and she's got deranged customers smashing the pleasure units up, the Triads telling her how to run things, a bunch of EU agents barging in and giving Triad hand-signs, and now Marshall Kirkowicz leaning on her. It's not easy in her line of work.

=====

Afterword: Jianwei comments at some point that he has come out of this with a certain amount of respect for the House of Fragrant Jasmine, who handled this incident in a professional and effective fashion. It's just a shame that their business involves working with the Triads - although unfortunately, that's probably unavoidable.


And somewhere, somebody's wearable makes a random connection and pulls a few seconds of ancient 2D video off the Web. "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown..."

The House of Fragrant Jasmine

March 26, m0039, continued

The team does wonder if their missing tourist might have passed any cameras to which they might gain sufficient access - but they can't think of any good way to get recordings from very many. They do check the systems as the EU embassy,which is a few streets away from Northern Territories, but Vajra's careful scan of those recordings don't turn up any sightings. So their next move is to make contact with some local hotels, and try and find the one where Kurt Weber-Markt is or was staying. This is simply a matter of filtering tourist guide hotel lists by price, languages spoken, and other plausible criteria, and then working down the sorted list. In fact, they are some way down - at the tenth, rather more of a sleazy dive than most well-off tourists would favour, and described as such in the guides - before they strike lucky. However, the hotel systems are entirely cooperative,happily confirming that Herr Weber-Markt is indeed booked in there, but that sensors and housekeeping records show that he didn't return to his room last night. Before that, he spent three nights in residence; he apparently had company on the second night, but the hotel's policy is to respect guests' and visitors' personal privacy as far as possible in such matters.

Meanwhile, the team's AIs have been skimming news channels and gossip blogs, looking for reports of bar fights in town last night or since; if their missing tourist took a powerful disinhibition nanodrug, he might have got himself into that sort of trouble. There was no shortage of such brawls - Port Lowell is that sort of town - but careful scanning and filtering excludes them all. So the team's next step is to contact the U.S. Marshall's office once again, and this time, they receive a little more assistance; they have a confirmed, if very recent, missing person situation, and a specific request - more access to camera records from around town. With the U.S. office's aid, they soon have a few hours more of recordings, which Vajra and the other AIs are able to scan at high speed. They do soon have a few sightings of somebody who was probably Weber-Markt shortly after he left Northern Territories, giving them a broad idea of which direction he went in, but they can't find enough to track his path properly, and the Marshall's office can't find enough compliant businesses to improve the trail. The team does think about using chem sniffers as mechanical "tracker dogs", but their quarry was wearing a Martian environment suit, which inevitably tends to keep biological traces and scents in, and the trail would involve a lot of very busy streets; that idea won't fly.

So it's back to the Marshall's office (via the Web) and its patiently helpful LAIs, with another request; to track their missing person's financial activities since last night. That's heavily covered by privacy rules, of course, but law enforcement systems can politely subpoena their way through those. A few minutes later, a brief string of payment records come through the Web from Weber-Markt's bank. The team decides that the interesting data points are those which come after the moment when Northern Territories auto-billed him for very minor (but nonetheless doubtless somewhat inflated) furniture damage costs. About half an hour after that, he authorised a moderately significant payment, in the hundreds of Euros; ten minutes after that, he made a smaller payment - say, enough for a couple of drinks; and fifteen minutes after that, some other entity, with vendor access to his credit system, made a series of test inquiries about funds available and authorisations required - the sort of thing that a business might (more or less legitimately) do to determine whether someone had immediate access to funds up to some specific level. But no actual payment was made, and since then - silence.

The bank can also provide a little information about the agency which processed all these payments and inquiries, although not their ultimate source - that's carefully screened at this level of authority. It was, as Vajra comments, a Bank of No Questions Asked, legally on Chinese territory where the Marshall's writ carries little weight. But there are proper channels for such queries - and more importantly, appropriate channels, if one has some idea how the game is played, and the name of a government or two behind one. So Jianwei puts a call through to the Chinese financial authorities, and finds an official who would like to retain the goodwill of the U.S. Marshals Service, and who can call in some favours...

(As Jianwei doesn't need Florence to tell him, he probably owes a favour or two himself now, from the point of view of those Chinese officials. That's the way the game is played, on Chinese territory.)

Ten minutes later, the official calls back. He's turned up the name of a holding company which was generating those requests; it's a purely virtual sort of outfit, but it doesn't take much financial knowledge at all to determine that it's American-owned and focused in Port Lowell - or much reading between the lines to work out that the businesses for which it provides a financial interface are actually, basically, brothels. Pulling down the list of establishments, checking their known prices for various services against the first expenditure from Weber-Markt's credit account, and filtering for location against the direction he appears to have been walking last night, turns up one promising-looking name: The House of Fragrant Jasmine.

This House has a nicely-designed Web frontage with a strongly Asian sort of style, but a very little careful assessment shows that the memetics here are mildly deceptive; it's really aimed primarily at Westerners looking for a little bit of safe exoticism. It's also a cybershell house, making its business not only legal but pretty uncontroversial by most public moral standards. Unless it's offering anything more dubious under the counter - and the standard guides don't suggest that it is - it may well be an entirely legitimate business.

So the team decide to pay a visit, and to be entirely open about their purpose for doing so. Still, they'd rather not look too aggressive, so they decide that only Jianwei and Florence will go in, while Vajra waits on the street outside, ready to provide support. As they may have to go direct from there to the meeting with Sandy, Florence dresses respectably (for her) in a little black dress (which happens to be armoured nanoweave - it's the only little black dress she's got), with some trashier clothes in a bag to change into later.

The House of Fragrant Jasmine does indeed have the look of a respectable sort of establishment, with a front-of-house reception area monitored by what is evidently a LAI that speaks to visitors through hidden loudspeakers. When Jianwei explains a little of the reason for their visit, it expresses concern and tells them that the manager will want to talk to them; some of the hangings that cover all the walls roll back, and a door opens silently, giving them admission to another room, similarly comfortable but a little more businesslike, with seats facing an ornate desk.

Another door, in the far side of the room, opens, and the manager, "Mistress Zeng", appears. She appears entirely human and ethnically East Asian; she's dressed in "silk" robes and makeup that mix the styles of a wealthy Chinese matron and a Japanese geisha. When she speaks, however, her words emerge from more hidden loudspeakers; her lips never move. She sits at the desk, and Jianwei explains something about the disappearance of Kurt Weber-Markt.

Mistress Zeng expresses concern at this story, but declares that she is unable to help; "If any person were able to assist with this matter, I am sure that they would do so ... however, it has been less than a day since this person vanished; I am sure he will reappear unhurt..." It is quite obvious that she is stonewalling (in a manner that accords with the house's style).

So Florence decides to try a slightly different approach. It's a fair bet that a place like this, however legitimate and respectable, will have some sort of acquaintance with the Martian triads - and her training, prior to her rescue by the Royal Navy, including a certain amount of appropriate protocol. So she speaks up, in Mandarin, and using terms that imply a Triad sort of attitude. "We're sure that you wouldn't want to put anyone to the trouble of waiting?"

This evidently throws Mistress Zeng a little; "I have no wish to trouble anyone..." although it doesn't change the situation instantly; all she says is "I suggest that you await developments..."

This leads to a tricky pause in the conversation - but then a wall-curtain whirs back to reveal another observer - a cyberdoll-style cybershell, built to resemble a physically imposing human male, and Mistress Zeng implies that the visitors might now depart. They do so, although there is a momentary face-off in the outer office, when Florence raises her hand in a gesture to tell the cybershell bouncer to step back, and the bouncer tries but fails to trap her hand. It seems to be LAI-operated, but to have a distinctly assertive programmed personality.

In any case, the team meet up again outside, and as the two organics brief Vajra, they turn back towards Northern Territories. Next on their schedule is Florence's appointment with Sandy...

She Walked Into My Office...

March 20-23, m0039

Over the next day or so, things turn quiet - no more attacks occur. Eventually, Marshall Kirkowicz drops by the embassy to talk to the team, She says that the incident seems to have put a rocket under law enforcement in Bako; while she doesn't hear everything, she believes that law enforcement there has run a series of sweeps, pulling in various individuals with connections to the Triads and elsewhere. She strongly suspects that the contract on Ouku/Kabra has been terminated; it will be drawing too much attention - and anyway, the European team have reason to believe that payment will no longer be coming through. She asks in passing about what the team know about the background to the incident and subsequent events, but the team can't tell her much; Florence for one shrugs and simply comments that "EU ambassadors are not without contacts".

(Florence also asks if she can recommend any bars, but doesn't get a very positive response; Kirkowicz mostly seems to regard bars as sources of trouble, and if she has any favourites of her own, they're quiet places which play a lot of traditional American music. Despite Dougal's recently acquired taste for country & western, they don't sound much fun to Florence, while Kirkowicz may not even want people to have the sort of fun that Florence is seeking.)

Anyway, given the circumstances, the Marshall has been able to arrange for the patient to be transferred to a major hospital in Robinson City, with a high level of security guaranteed. Tiberius is willing to authorise the transfer as acceptably safe - provided that he can go along and assist with this phase of the treatment. Hence, he disappears from Port Lowell for a time - and then, he announces that his personal plans have changed. The hospital is in fact willing to offer him a full-time position - good medical staff are still not that common on Mars, and he feels that he can do most good this way. He'll keep an apartment in Port Lowell, and he may still be available to the embassy from time to time, but he has evidently found himself somewhere where he can lose himself in his work.

March 26, m0039

After a couple more days of quiet, Jianwei is working in his office at the embassy one day, when his secretarial systems notify him that he has a caller in VR. Even his not-especially-trained eyes spot that this nameless newcomer is employing either a custom-design avatar or something selected with a lot of careful shopping; the visitor appears as a shapely woman in a classic little black dress, with a broad-brimmed black hat, high heels, and long black gloves. The effect is undeniably striking, but the face which meets Jianwei's look from under that brim is merely tolerably attractive rather than stunning, as might be expected with such a calculated image design. One thing that Jianwei's training in interpersonal relations does pick up is that the avatar moves easily and smoothly; it's almost certainly been matched carefully to the user's personal somatic model - she is almost certainly female, and probably looks somewhat like what Jianwei is seeing - or at least, she has looked like that for an extended period in the recent past.

Anyway, the visitor explains that she has "some information that you might need to know". She was, she says, in an Australian-territory bar, "Northern Territories", last night, when she saw one of the regulars, who goes by the name of "Sandy", doing business with someone who was pretty obviously a rich European tourist. Sandy isn't someone she likes, but he's one of those people who it's sometimes hard not to hear about - he handles all sorts of stuff "from the Belt" (implying that he's a low-level criminal entrepreneur with connections to the Triads). But he's been down on his luck lately, and in any case, the visitor wouldn't consider him to be a good place to go for recreational purchases, if you're sensible.

Anyway, the tourist retired to a private room at the back of the bar for a few minutes, then made to leave in a hurry. He somehow got into a dispute with one of the bar's bouncers on the way - and punched the man out. Sandy, meanwhile, had faded even sooner.

The implication is that someone for whom the EU might have to take responsibility has indulged in something - probably a brainbug - with radically unfortunate effects; some preemptive investigation does seem indicated. The visitor can't or won't offer much more information on the topic, though, and de-resolves shortly after telling this story; Jianwei calls the team together to decide how to proceed.

Their response involves a certain amount of caution, verging on paranoia. Certainly, they seem obliged to follow up the story, but they aren't sure why anyone would have told it to them - to set "Sandy" up for a fall, perhaps? They're determined to be careful. They do try putting a call through to Marshall Kirkowicz, but don't get much help there - she's a busy person, and they don't have a name to put to their report, while the location they're talking about is off her area of responsibility - there's a slight sense she thinks they're wasting her time, frankly.

So they begin by checking the Web site belonging to "Northern Territory", discovering that its slogan seems to be "What's Your Pleasure?"; it appears to be set up to exploit Australian extraterritorial status, Australia having especially relaxed laws in many areas, apart from weapons. (It's not as if there's much of an Australian population on Mars.) Some Web reviews confirm the impression; this is a bar where most things go and can probably be bought, provided that you don't annoy other clients too much. Jianwei also downloads a VR art appraisal system and has Aunty run it over the recording of the visitor's avatar; its conclusion is "good but not haute couture" - the clothes are a style cliche, but a cliche that's lasted 150+ years obviously has its strengths, while the system guesses that the face is either the one that the user wants for a very personal reason, or their original face which they've since changed in reality. The only other angle to check immediately is European tourists gone missing or in trouble, but there are no obvious answers there, and too many Europeans on Mars; they need to narrow their search first.

So the team decide to hit the bar - but doing so in a group might be problematic, so they'll send Florence, who's best equipped to look after herself, in alone, while the others hold themselves ready in another place just down the road. Lunchtime seems like the best bet, so that's when Florence goes in, less heat-suited up than most of the clientele, and orders a clone-meat kangaroo burger. (Her nonhuman physique attracts a little extra attention, but not enough to worry about.) She knows enough about how the shady side of things go to get a feel for how business is done here; the bar's own stock isn't overly remarkable (kangaroo meat and Castlemaine XXXX aside), but the place provides a venue for a range of dealings in moderately dark corners, and offers booths - for a small extra charge - that are doubtless used when a customer wants to try a brainbug or whatever straight away. She also notes that the place is set up as a Faraday cage - there's no transmissions in or out, except through a cable link provided by the bar, which demands access to content and reserves the right to block what's sent. It's far from perfect privacy, but it's as good as a place like this can reasonably offer (and it might make calling for help harder, should trouble break out).

Florence next finds a way to ask the (human) barman if "Sandy" is around, and is pointed towards a nondescript fellow who turns out to have an American accent. She's thought of a line that would explain her interest in him.

"Got anything that'll work with my biochemistry?"

"Maybe. What sort of thing are you after?"

"Just something for a good-time party girl, you know?"

"Hmm. I might be able to get something. Can you come back here later? About 7?"

Florence agrees to that, and ends the conversation. However, she has no more luck socialising with anyone in the place, so she eventually heads out (noting in passing that the bouncer currently on duty appears undamaged) and links up with the other two a few minutes later.

They discuss what she's learned, and wonder if there's any way to discover what happened last night. Florence has the idea of checking video/InVid sharing sites - and sure enough, by dint of some appropriate search term selection, Vajra soon finds one or two recordings. They show the interior of the bar, someone with a definite rich-tourist look leaving in a hurry and brushing past a bouncer, a brief exchange - and then the tourist throwing a snap punch that evidently catches the bouncer unawares, putting him on the floor. It doesn't look like a very expert attack by Florence's standards, although the tourist might possibly have basic self-defence training and be using target-marker software; it was a lucky blow, and a bouncer who didn't bother to continue the fight given that the opponent was out of the door before he was back on his feet. But if the tourist has purchased a disinhibition brainbug that can make him act that way, he may indeed be in trouble - or be causing it.

Of course, the recording does give the team an image of the individual, which they can run against records of EU citizens on Mars - and now they get a match. Kurt Weber-Markt is an Austrian citizen - and when Jianwei places a call to his address of record, he gets a "Not Available" response. Well, at least they have an actual problem to solve now. Unfortunately, though, there's not much more of use in the recording - no sign of anyone who might be the mystery visitor, for example.

But another thing they think to check is comments on the InVid site; there are a few, of course, mostly casually if slightly maliciously amused, some slightly concerned. One, though, a casual "Yeah, I saw this - it really happened", comes from a familiar name; Mika Hernandez, the team's downstairs neighbour. So they call him, and find him amiably helpful; he hasn't much to add, but he tells them what he can - except on the matter of Sandy, mention of whom makes him rather evasive.

So the team files a Probably Missing Person report with the Marshall's Office for Kurt Weber-Markt, and plan their next step.

Dead Presidents

March 20, m0039

The team remain on guard overnight. The feeling among the others is that Florence should be allowed her full sleep - she needs the most, and should anything blow up, they want her fresh, alert, and even-tempered - while Vajra doesn't need anything so ludicrously organic, and links itself into the embassy's fairly extensive security camera network while deploying its own personal surveillance swarms in case the network is somehow compromised. But Jianwei and Dr Vartex still decide that one of them should be awake at any time. So they take a watch each, with Dr Vartex staying up first; while he's awake, he sorts out a medically-approved nanodrug treatment that will keep Jianwei at peak performance for a night or two of this, then looks for but fails to find a full software model of the same treatment to run against his own brain emulation. However, when Jianwei takes over, Aunty manages to track that down for him.

Anyway, time passes until the morning without anything untoward happening, and the team continues theorising about and researching their current mission over breakfast. First, they look into Ouku's business connections, but don't find much there; so far as they can tell, he's simply investing in a range of ethnic-African software enterprises in Bako, none of them obviously controversial or dangerous; with the development of the space elevator on Earth (with its base in Kenya), this sort of investment could be seen as sensibly forward-looking. Not many Earth-based investors come all the way to Mars to look at businesses in person, but perhaps Ouku simply felt like exploring the solar system a bit; his itinerary since he arrived on Mars a few days ago certainly included some of the routine, obvious tourist spots.

Then the team decide to try looking into his family, to see if that turns up anything more useful. Vajra communes with Ouku's wearable LAI some more, and it comments that, while Ouku doesn't have much in the way of an acknowledged relatives, there was one family back in Kenya with whom he would socialise on a basis that suggested blood relationships more than business or friendship. Their family name is Kabra; the team starts looking around their Web presence.

What this suggests is that the Kabras are quite well off, in a quiet sort of way - indeed, if anything, they might seem to avoid publicity. However, they seem to have adequate resources; their significant Web presence is mirrored in servers on Mars, despite the fact that, Ouku aside, they don't have much in the way of contacts out here, which suggests that they have enough money to spend on such barely-relevant luxuries. (Unfortunately, Vajra makes a misjudgement in its research on this subject, and is thoroughly distracted by a completely unrelated Kabra who's a member of the Kenyan national amateur soccer team.) They have business interests, but nothing exceptional.

Then Colette Schmidt calls in to check that the team are okay and to see if they need anything. The team gives her a quick summary of the medical news and of what they know so far about the patient, which leads them to mention the Kabras. That seems to remind her of something; she says that she needs to speak to someone about this. Jianwei angles for more information before she disconnects, and she simply says "Bear in mind - the Dead Presidents Society is a myth..."

That term is vaguely familiar, and Vajra runs it through its standard search engines - and is promptly inundated with links. The Dead Presidents Society is supposedly a conspiracy of "retired" politicians, former national leaders and the like, who, thanks to modern medicine, aren't doing anything as conventional as dying off, and who are therefore running the solar system from behind the scenes. Jianwei has heard this sort of nonsense before, of course, but pays it little heed; still, this seems like a hint, so they cross-reference the names they have available against Kenyan political history - and quickly score a result.

Steven ("Steve") Kabra was foreign minister of Kenya, and quite a noteworthy figure on the international diplomatic scene, back in the 2050s. Pictures of him are ...  not inconsistent with the appearance of the patient. The party of which he was a member was eventually forced out of power by a series of corruption scandals, some involving him directly, and no longer exists as such; the parties which replaced them have fractured somewhat in the decades since. Kabra was widely distrusted at the time of his resignation, but as usual in political history, time has mellowed everything somewhat; commentators might now describe him as flawed but not an entirely bad figure.

This leads the team to speculate on who might have a motive to attempt to kill him after all this time. Of course, an individual might still bear a grudge, but his corruption was more of the nature of taking backhanders from foreign contractors than anything else; it's unlikely that anyone would still regard him as the cause of their personal ruination.

However, while they discuss possibilities, Vajra notes a buzzbot with minimal identification tags approaching the front door of the embassy. That's still unsealed - the embassy needs to be able to continue its routine business, after all - and the front door opens in response to a standard IR laser pulse request from the visitor, which identifies itself as making a package delivery. Aunty checks a database and notes that it appears to be a cheap-looking minifactured knock-off of an old military design - indeed, the body shape still includes something that might be mistaken for a weapons pod. Anyway, Vajra takes charge of the interaction, and tells the machine to leave its package at the front of the building. It says that it has been instructed to make a personal delivery; Adele somehow thinks that this would be a bad idea, and when Vajra relays the group's insistence that the buzzbot come no further into the building, it pauses for a moment, and then destroys the door leading to the interior of the embassy with a couple of pistol-caliber explosive shells.

Florence springs to a defensive position, and Vajra gives her an AR view of the building and the buzzbot's position on her head-up display. She takes aim through a doorway, and as soon as the buzzbot appears, she opens fire. It dodges her first shot, but she's faster than it is, and before it can return fire, she hits it with a second HEMP round, blowing it apart.

Vajra scans the exterior of the building; eight more such buzzbots are incoming, and they split four to the front of the building and four to the back. The party attempts to contact Marshall Kirkowicz, but she is out of contact at the moment (breaking up a barroom brawl, in fact); still, they notify her watching cybershells that the embassy is under attack. Meanwhile, Florence heads for the front lobby, and Dr Vartex and Jianwei head for the back, where a fire exit door looks like a vulnerable entrance point - and indeed, it is rapidly shattered by more explosive fire.

One buzzbot enters at each point, and both meet explosive shell fire. (Being EU government employees on EU territory, the party feels legally able to employ high explosive multi-purpose ammunition.) Florence's target takes a direct hit; Dr Vartex misses his, but the blast as his shot hits the adjacent wall throws it into a spin, and Jianwei's electrolaser pistol finishes the job. Two more enter, and Florence again deals with one; Dr Vartex is somehow thrown off-balance by the need to shift targets, and suffers a worrying moment before Jianwei brings the buzzbot down with another electrolaser pulse.

Then, as the team brace for more attacks, they hear a double cry of "Yee-hah!" over public comms channels. Marshall Kirkowicz's own flying cybershells enter the fray; striking from behind, and employing superior hardware and much better automation, they eliminate the remaining attackers in seconds. Dr Vartex finishes off one twitching buzzbot with a single shell, then quickly heads back to check that his patient is still stable.

The embassy is a mess, of course, and the team aren't surprised when the ambassador calls in. She sounds annoyed, but not at them, and declares that she's bringing another party into the conversation, who turns out to be using a standard anonymous avatar, but who has a female voice and a Spanish accent; Schmidt addresses her as "Penelope", and introduces the team as people who've just been shot at as a consequence of Penelope's actions. Penelope does seem startled and apologetic at this. Jianwei asks if she was the person who called them the night before, and she admits as much; another thing that the team catches in the exchange is that Schmidt was at some point Penelope's student.

In any case, Penelope undertakes to deal with this problem as best she can, and suggests that people watch news reports from Kenya. Schmidt informs her that certain old debts are now paid; Penelope in turn admits to owing a favour to the consular services team. After she signs off, Jianwei puts together some hints and half-remembered references, does some online research, and pulls up the publicly available information on Penelope Vasquez, currently Head of what passes for the Political Sciences Department at the University of Mars - and previously, under her old name of Penelope Valdovar, President of Catalonia from 2049-52.

Meanwhile, Vajra has used local traffic management records to track the paths of the attacking buzzbots back, and has decided that they flew in from Lake Candor. Given their limited range and speed, that makes a certain boat - currently sailing briskly toward the other side of the lake - quite suspicious. When Marshall Kirkowicz arrives in person at the embassy, Vajra shares that information, and the Marshall agrees with the conclusion, and gets in touch with the Bako police to try and arrange an arrest. Those members of the team who know anything about professional criminal behaviour assume that anyone on that boat will not have been the shooter in the mall yesterday - it's too easy for modern law enforcement to prove connections that can place the same person at two different crime scenes. Whoever commissioned this attempted hit will have hired a team rather than an individual.

But the person or persons ultimately responsible may well be distracted right now. Within a few hours, stories appear on the Earth news feeds saying that no less that three senior members of the current ruling coalition in Kenya have just resigned unexpectedly - and a quick cross-check shows that all of them are members of a party descended from the main opposition party back when Steve Kabra was a minister. It seems that Penelope Vasquez or some of her friends have been exerting some pull...

The Sniper's Target

March 11-18, m0039

Over the next few days, things fall relatively quiet. Dr Vartex moves into a new flat - the embassy has found him one in a block near to that where the others are living - and promptly sets up a sterile room there in case he ends up providing any medical services from home. He also checks over the medical facilities at the embassy and has them upgraded a little for his own use, and goes looking for additional work between his duties with the team. It's becoming obvious to the others that his rather grim attitude when they first met him wasn't just a passing consequence of his situation then; he's something of a dour workaholic by nature.

Meanwhile, Florence is hitting the bars of Port Lowell once again, working her way down a fairly long list. This is mostly because she's enjoying herself, although she does make some unsuccessful attempts to get a feel for the way the local underworld might be arranged. For variety, she also visits a couple of restaurants with Jianwei.

He, meanwhile, has called a certain reporter back, first thanking her for the warning regarding fellow professionals ("Anything interesting happen?" "Not really..."), then asking her if she'd traced back from the incident with the rogue hopper. Unfortunately, she proves to have been rather clueless on this, so Jianwei suggests that she checks the academic publications stream, and should maybe expect some kind of government action in the next few days - "although we're not sure what, because we're not quite sure who was responsible for anything either"...

"DD" thanks him for the tip. After that conversation, he checks his desk; as the leader of the team and its one professional civil servant, he generally has a bit of virtual paperwork to deal with.

As for Vajra, that AI goes shopping for some new swarms, and then goes looking to see if there is any kind of AI demimonde locally. He doesn't find one yet, but he assumes that there must be something to find.

Mostly, though, the team settle into routine work for a while, helping tourists, providing visiting businessmen with enough guidance and protection to help them feel well-served by the government, assisting with mundane embassy business or medical work, and generally settling into life on Mars. Actually, the Nova Iquitos incident doesn't seem to have stirred things up very much; it seems that any and all factions involved are playing this quietly for now.

March 19, m0039

Then, early one afternoon, a Web conference call comes in to the team members from the embassy. It appears that one Stephen Ouku, a Kenyan citizen, has been attacked in the African-dominated town of Bako, across Lake Candor from Port Lowell, and has ended up in hospital for intensive emergency treatment. This wouldn't normally be of any specific interest to the EU - but, on this occasion, it seems that someone thinks otherwise. Ouku is apparently considered important, and the EU has agreed to provide him with secure treatment for a short period. There's doubtless a political element here, but details are hazy as yet. Anyway, Ouku is being evacuated from Bako, and a medical hopper is now incoming with him aboard, set to arrive in Port Lowell in a few minutes. The team are being scrambled to provide him with the treatment and protection that he may need; they're required to drop what they're doing and deal with this.

The team summon a rented ambulance over the Web, converge on the airfield in time to meet the chartered private medical hopper, transfer the unconscious patient under Dr Vartex's supervision, and head for the embassy - which they've decided is the best place to keep him while they (a) deal with the treatment he still requires, and (b) work out quite what's going on here. Ouku's wearable computer has been shipped along with him, and Vajra interfaces with that and rapidly gets on very good terms with his LAI, while Dr Vartex sets to work in the ambulance, cataloguing his injuries, assisted by Aunty, who's working through the ambulance's sensors and data feeds from Dr Vartex. It looks like he's taken a couple of hits from small-caliber SEFOP rounds, probably micromissiles (Dr Vartex's forensic judgement seems to be working better than his medical skills right now); one made a serious mess of the interior of his torso, while the other went through his spine. The medics in Bako reached him in time to stabilise him, and the damage is of course all reparable with 2100-era medicine - given time - but he's currently being kept alive by extensive exterior life support, while an assortment of other technology is currently replacing much of his nervous system.

Still, Dr Vartex and Aunty consider that he should make a full recovery - provided that nothing else happens to him. That, however, may require that whoever caused the current damage should be prevented from finishing the job - and the rest of the team consider that they need more information if they're going to ensure that. They briefly consider waking the patient up to find out what he can tell them - an idea that recurs once or twice in the ensuiong discussions - but Dr Vartex notes that, although this would technically be possible, it would be somewhat risky (as well as probably highly distressing) for the patient. Medical ethics apply here; Dr Vartex can't authorise the procedure without a lot more justification.

So the others begin researching Stephen Ouku, in an attempt to determine who might be trying to kill him. The basics are easy enough to discover, largely just by asking his LAI; he's a wealthy Kenyan citizen, visiting Mars in general and Bako in particular from Earth on business. It looks like he's considering investing in various software development projects in Bako (a centre of the Martian software industry), and was involved in talks on that matter; he's evidently personally quite rich. At around this point, Dr Vartex notes that, although his patient appears to be somewhere around 50, there are signs of extensive rejuvenating treatments, and he's generally getting the impression that looks may deceive here; further cursory examination, and interrogation of that LAI, suggest that Ouku is more like 90. He's evidently something of a classic eloi, although maybe more engaged with managing his own investments than some.

However, when Vajra and Jianwei hit the Web to research his past in more detail, they hit a curious brick wall; there's very little or nothing available about him before about 20-25 years ago, although he was evidently quite rich even then. His LAI declares that it's been with him for about 15 years; not implausible, but, of course, no help in tracing him back before that. The researchers use a little EU authority to request more information direct from his home country, but Kenya, although not badly off in 2100, doesn't have the best or most reliable public records system

Meanwhile, a familiar face has shown up at the embassy door, and requests a meeting. U.S. Marshall Althea Kirkowicz has, it seems, learned of the arrival of Ouku in Port Lowell, and of the preceding circumstances. She's quite amicable about all this, and she freely acknowledges that anything that happens within the embassy is EU business, but the peace and safety of Port Lowell is her concern. She declares that she'll station a couple of airborne cybershells in the area outside, in case anything should happen; they'll show (red, white, and blue) tags in the European team's augmented reality.

That conversation done, the team reviews recent visual and auditory records from Ouku's LAI. It seems that he was at some kind of reception in a suite in a hotel in Bako; the room had picture windows overlooking an enclosed and pressurised mall, and while Ouku was standing near those, the attack came through the glass. The AI's sensors weren't aligned to get much detail of that or the responses of other people present, but analysis doesn't show anything suspicious. Jianwei then makes a call to the police force at Bako, and manages to charm them very passably; they have of course been investigating the incident, and have determined that the shooter had infiltrated the staff/maintenance areas of a building at the other end of the mall - it's not a high security site, so wearing maintenance overalls and looking confident did the job, while the shooter was smart enough to avoid facing any security cameras. The cops have swept the shooter's position with forensic gear, and promptly suffered a massive overload of DNA information; he must have dumped a quantity of dust picked up in a public space ("he vacuumed a bus" is the police slang). They're trying to narrow things down, but not getting very far. They've also, as Jianwei thinks to enquire, found some of the remains of the SEFOP shells on the floor of the mall, but these melted and blasted fragments don't carry much useful information. However, when Florence sees the images, she identifies them as 15mm micromissiles, and her judgement of the scene is that they were likely fired from a carbine - which fits with the "maintenance equipment bag" being carried by the unidentifiable shooter on some pictures. This certainly looks like a competent professional hit.

And so the team sets up a perimeter while still wondering quite why they've become involved with this incident. Someone reacted fast to what happened, it seems, and that someone had enough pull to have an EU ambassador instructed what to do - but Earth is close enough that messages could have got there and back in the time. Alternatively, there are a few EU member warships in near-Mars space, and it's just possible that the commander of one of those would have system access codes that could produce this result, given the perceived need.

What looks like the best clue on that subject comes that night, just as Florence, who has a feline need for enough sleep, is curling up near to the medical facilities. A call comes in from somewhere - on Mars or in low orbit, to judge from the lag and available message path information, although its exact origins are as carefully disguised as the voice that the team hear. Someone wants to check on Mr Ouku's condition, and also to thank the team for their efforts. That someone doesn't want to say very much (at this point at least), but denies any knowledge of the source of the attack... They do seem curious about it, though; "I don't suppose you know what weapons were used?"

"Two 15mm gyroc micro missiles with SEFOP warheads, probably fired from a Carbine," Florence immediately replies. This produces a somewhat surprised expression from the other end, noticeable through the masking software. Either the mystery caller is unfamiliar with weapons, or they are unfamiliar with the sort of embassy employees who can casually identify such things. In general, whoever it is doesn't come across as very accustomed to this sort of situation. Despite the voice masking, Jianwei, who is not only a professional diplomat but who has some training in linguistics, deduces that the speaker is almost certainly from an Indo-European linguistic background, and is most likely female.

Port Lowell Welcomes

Libra 27, m0039 (continued)

The train takes all day to travel from New Shanghai to Port Lowell (only slightly delayed by the clutter of cargo maglevs emerging from the ugly mining town of Hanggin Qi), in which time, Jianwei composes a report on the events on the elevator to submit to the ambassador before they even arrive. She will undoubtedly see the public postings on this subject at some point, so Jianwei thinks it best to be the ones who draw them to her attention, and best to reassure her that the matter won't become a greater problem. The report is well written and deftly phrased, but lacks his often keen sensitivity to the political complexities of his new posting...

He also spends a few minutes explaining to Florence that, while her new job isn't secret as such, some discussions with unknown parties may require a degree of discretion - handing matters off to himself may sometimes be best. The three discuss possible ways of dealing with "Double Delta" in future; it might be useful to establish a position of mutual obligations with a journalist - or it might be too chancy. The subject is left open for now. Another idea that arises and is agreed is that Jianwei should be appointed a non-executive director of the EU-registered company which legally has ownership of Vajra in certain territories (and of which Vajra is sole owner, of course); Jianwei and Vajra set the legalities in motion.

Then, as the maglev train begins to cross the long, high bridge across Lake Candor towards Port Lowell, the travellers receive a courtesy call from Quentin at the embassy. He reminds them that the organic pair have a couple of apartments rented for them as their initial accommodation - in an American-owned building, perhaps unfortunately, but there isn't much EU-owned rental property in Port Lowell - and says that he has taken the liberty of arranging for a maintenance case for Vajra's humanoid cybershell to be delivered to the same address. He's also booked a taxi to get them there.

The train slips down a spur line and docks with the sealed station. (Port Lowell isn't a fully domed city, but most buildings are pressurised.) The travellers disembark, making sure that their luggage comes too (the diplomatic pouch definitely included) with the aid of a porter shell from the station. The automated taxi (a yellow-painted box on wheels) then takes them to the apartment building - another dull box, which the architect has attempted to make interesting by placing each floor slightly skew to those above and below. The building AI greets them cordially and provides another porter shell to help them carry their things up the couple of floors to their new homes, which are adjacent on the same level.

They enter and begin settling in; the flats are small but immensely technologically efficient, of course, and have configured themselves into the colour schemes that they requested in advance. Vajra finds his maintenance case, and Jianwei uploads his personal choice in art from his implant to the wall screens.

Then there are knocks on the doors of both flats; the external cameras in both cases show fairly well-dressed young men holding what appear to be pizza boxes. Jianwei and Florence open their doors at much the same moment, and realise that their visitors are both on the same mission - and so they accept the neighbourly offers of pizza, and invite everyone into Jianwei's flat. The pair are Manuel Lacardio and Mika Hernandez, who live in a shared home on the floor below. (Yes, it would be possible to reconfigure Jianwei and Florence's flats into one large unit, but the design and construction of the building makes the task non-trivial.) It seems that some parts of this building are already occupied and some are not; these two will be the newcomers' closest neighbours for now.

Manuel and Mika are, it turns out, lower-middle management employees at the Mars Development Corporation - the American company which manages a great deal of activity on Mars, including the construction of Port Lowell and indeed the letting and maintenance of this very building. Both are Mars-adapted, having come down the elevator a couple of years since with a view to making careers on the planet and with the Corporation, although Manuel has spent some of the time since employed by a company other than MDC, before being re-hired in a higher position than the one he left (a notoriously standard "MDC career surge" move). They're affable enough in a youthful sort of way, and despite their cultural background, they are at least tolerably polite to Florence and Vajra - although there's little that Vajra can contribute to this meeting, being unequipped to eat pizza or drink the beer which Jianwei purchases through the house management system. There is a slight sense that Manuel for one is reflexively polite to Florence because of her very attractive (and exotic) looks, although the exact nature of the relationship between the visitors isn't stated.

Jianwei takes the opportunity to find out a little more about Port Lowell from a local perspective, and when Florence asks "Where's good to party?", Manuel and Mika are both happy enough to discuss the nature and quality of many local bars and clubs - working out what national jurisdiction each acknowledges, and hence exactly what substances and recreations may be legally available there, is evidently something of a local preoccupation. Once the visitors depart, Vajra quietly checks the flat for surveillance devices, but it doesn't seem that the visit involved any such ulterior motives.

Libra 28, m0039

The next morning, the new embassy employees have a 9:30am appointment with the ambassador, which reminds Florence that she can revise her wardrobe choices ("Hurray for gravity - I can wear skirts and heels again"). Jianwei attempts to offload the diplomatic pouch onto the embassy staff systems on arrival, but is advised to take it in and deliver it in person. Frau Doctor Ambassador Colette Schmidt is waiting at her desk, and proves politely businesslike; she received Jianwei's report, and has seen "Double Delta's" news postings (which indeed flick across the wall screens behind her desk as she greets her new staff), but she accepts that the unfortunate incident on the elevator probably was handled as well as could reasonably be expected. She is also very pleased to receive the diplomatic pouch; she uses her voice ID and personal codes to open it, extracts a sealed package from amongst the digital modules (mostly one-time pads, it seems safe to assume), and immediately calls for "Catherine", who proves to be a domestic spiderbot. Schmidt hands Catherine the package with instructions to "prepare one cup straight away, then follow my usual rationing schedule". Florence nods sympathetically, commenting that not even the Triad conditioning to fit herself perfectly for Mars can make her like the local coffee. The ambassador suggests that the Triads might think more in terms of green tea, to the quality of which she cannot speak.

Anyway, she expresses the hope that the newcomers are settling in, and that they can find... But then, the ambassador adopts the remote look of someone receiving a high-density information update. Vajra notes that the data flows in her vicinity have indeed increased in the last few seconds; presumably, her personal AI recognised that the importance of her dealings with her visitors was declining, and the importance rating of some new item of data was high enough to permit an interruption at that point.

"It would seem that we have a task for you already," she says. "One of our people - an EU citizen - who has been consulting for Ajiwau Ramen has, as I believe the expression is, gone postal. He appears to be holed up in his employers' offices here in Port Lowell. His name is Herge Bertrand. See if you can prevent any casualties."

The team leave the office briskly as the embassy systems summon another taxi and basic information on the problem begins to flow to their personal systems. Florence is a little unhappy that she hasn't yet obtained all the sidearms which she had arranged to have available on the planet, but she does have a tangler pistol on hand, everyone has at least a little nanoweave armour, and Vajra is able to arrange for his personal microbot swarms to be transported to the destination from the flats. Florence doesn't feel overly impeded by her (quite short) skirt, and the Triads were quite careful to engineer her joints and tendons so that she can fight perfectly comfortably in high heels...

Ajiwau's offices turn out to be yet another blandly unremarkable Port Lowell commercial building, set back from the road behind a Japanese-style raked gravel garden - and now surrounded by security men in smart dark uniforms, the look of which is only spoiled a little by the fact that each has a picture of a ramen bowl on the left breast. Jianwei takes the lead in trying to find out what is going on, but is slightly stymied by language problems until he manages to locate the team leader, a stressed-looking security manager who mutters something about Bertrand having an argument with the company, arriving earlier than anyone else that morning, and triggering the building fire suppression system when his colleagues arrived, driving them back out. There are no casualties (so far), but anyway, the security manager is a busy man, but he has this situation in hand...

Brushed off somewhat, the team manage to attract the attention of one other person who isn't part of the Ajiwau contingent - a woman of indeterminate age (but definitely not young), her steel-grey hair swept back in a tight plait, wearing a jacket that is bulky enough to suggest armour, a cap, and a visor that is probably armoured, and accompanied by a small cluster of businesslike cybershells. She introduces herself as Marshall Althea Kirkowicz. The US Marshalls Service has no jurisdiction here at this moment - the incident has so far taken place entirely on a Japanese corporation's own territory - but if anything spills onto the street, she will have due cause to react; for now, she's here to monitor the situation.

The team wonder if Bertrand has chosen to explain his actions, and a quick look into local virtual space shows that he has; he's published an open statement, in fact. Vajra downloads the document and skims it in a few seconds at computer speeds, and reports that it appears remarkably coherent and reasonable - something on which Jianwei agrees with a quick look. Bertrand has dispute with Ajiwau, and specifically with their corporate security. As a contract employee, he is (or was) entitled to their services in lieu of police protection in the highly corporate town of Port Lowell, but when he was recently physically assaulted in a bar in the town, they provided what he considers to be grossly inadequate assistance. All attempts at resolution having failed, he's taking this action. Glancing slightly further at the document, Jianwei forms the impression of a rather professional exercise in memetic design; all quite slick, even. The nearest it comes to ranting, really, is in the comments on Ajiwau corporate security...

Talking of whom, Aunty - who can speak Japanese - is attempting to monitor the situation with the on-site team, who appear to be forming up to attempt an initial assault, having determined that there are no innocent third parties in the building. They make a frontal entry through the lobby in textbook style, and then there is a pause. Then there are a number of loud explosions, and the assault team withdraw from the building at some speed, although still in textbook fashion.

The EU team note that the assault force apparently suffered no losses. Florence, who has some experience with firearms, notes that the explosions were really too loud for small arms fire. (She also downloads some building plans, and begins looking at options for intrusion on her own account. She could always climb the side of the building or something.) Following some polite but fast and forceful requests in the right quarters, Vajra manages to gain access to some of the building internal cameras, and identifies Bertrand sitting in his office, looking completely calm and with the distracted air of someone composing something on his computer systems. At some point, it occurs to Jianwei that this whole exercise might even be some kind of distraction - but there is no sign of Bertrand having a partner or an alternative strategy, and no other reports of trouble in the town.

They try sending him a message, requesting a chance to talk, but that simply ends up in an in-box, and probably in a long queue. So the consular services team decides to take a simple approach, and walk in the front door. Needless to say, this attracts the attention of one of the Ajiwau security staff, but Jianwei breezes straight past him with a shrug. He continues to take the lead in moving through the lobby area, but not fast - and not only are Florence and Vajra right behind him, but Vajra has a crawler surveillance swarm deployed immediately in front of the whole group. It's this that spots the first signs of Bertrand's preparations for more uninvited visitors, and Vajra reacts with electronic speed and precision. Indeed, his warning reaches the other two in good time, and he and Florence hit cover as the flash charge goes off. Jianwei, with ordinary human reflexes and no combat experience, doesn't, and is left rather ruffled and partially deafened for the rest of the day. However, his nerve holds completely, and he refuses to let this stop him.

Hence, the team find Bertrand, still sitting in that office, calm and even prepared to apologise a little for that incident. By now, it's completely clear that he is in full control of himself; it's possible that someone should have checked his job qualifications, which are in the area of situational memetics. He's using that skill, and so far as he's concerned, things are going just fine. However, Jianwei suggests that he may need some help negotiating his way out of this situation; Ajiwau could press charges for assault or property damage or whatever... Bertrand, in reply, points out that no one has been hurt, the property damage so far has been minimal - and Ajiwau are a culturally very Japanese corporation, with a distinct concern for face. He fully intends to negotiate a way out with no charges pressed and a mutually acceptable set of compensations, and if Ajiwau corporate security are left looking humiliated, well, good. Still, he's not ungrateful for Jianwei's offer to handle some of the negotiations at this point.

So the team head back to the front of the building (although Vajra does quietly leave a few surveillance microbots in the office). Jianwei goes out the front door, looking ostentatiously harmless, while the other two remain in the lobby, ready to respond to developments as seems best. By now, the Ajiwau team appear to have called up a van full of shotgun-sized weapons to supplement the pistols of various kinds which they were previously carrying; they still look like a bunch of restaurant doorkeepers being pushed to operate slightly beyond their capacities, but now they have bigger guns. Still, Jianwei begins talking to their team leader, saying that he's spoken to Bertrand and that the fellow is prepared to cease his action in return for various assurances, including a guarantee that no prosecutions will be forthcoming. (He also points out that Bertrand, a memetics expert, is definitely manipulating Ajiwau's memetics in all this.) The team leader is slightly thrown by this, but consults his senior managers, and after a few minutes, agrees to the terms and conditions.

Jianwei relays this to Bertrand, who has in any case been monitoring the conversation. He seems quite satisfied with the result, but cautious. "You're a diplomat," he says to Jianwei, "does that mean you know about the law?"

"A little," Jianwei replies cautiously.

"So this agreement, which we've all recorded, would be fully binding on them?"

Jianwei thinks for a moment. "I believe so, yes."

"That's good. See you later, then."

The choice of words makes the EU team suspicious, but they don't have much time to act before Bertrand triggers another set of charges. These don't make so much noise, but they do flood much of the building with chemical smoke. Vajra attempts to use his surveillance microbots to see what else Bertrand is up to, but loses connection; Florence, who has been deeply irritated by this latest gesture, thinks about what his options might be, given what she knows about the layout of the building, and begins looking for a way to catch him.

Meanwhile, members of the Ajiwau team have taken this as a sign that they still have a fight on, and trigger their next planned assault on the building. Something grenade-sized comes through a window into the lobby; Florence reflexively dives behind a pillar, but Vajra doesn't react in time and is in fact knocked off his feet when the concussion charge detonates. The Ajiwau team storm into the building, but Florence guesses that they won't find Bertrand in the office any more, and deftly leaves by the door through which they've just come, meeting Jianwei outside.

The pair instantly agree that the best thing to do is to quietly make their way round to a point which Florence has identified at the back of the building. When they get there, Jianwei spots a furtive figure making his way down an external fire escape, and points him out to Florence, who has her tangler pistol out by now. She carefully takes aim, and when Bertrand reaches the bottom of the stairs, she hits him with a couple of rounds loaded with sticky strands. He quickly pulls himself free, but by then, she is up to him and making it very clear how angry she is.

Jianwei arrives a moment later. "You're an idiot" he tells Bertrand. So far as he's concerned, he'd negotiated a safe ending to the situation, and Bertrand put everyone back into danger. Bertrand, on the other hand, seems to think that he's scored one final point on Ajiwau's security people, and feels confident that the company's decision to back down and buy a quiet ending to the incident will hold. In any case, Jianwei and Florence haul him around to the front of the building, and essentially force him to apologise to the Ajiwau security team leader as his team straggle back out of the building. However, it does seem that the agreement should hold, and when Vajra has emerged and collected up his microbot swarms, they decide to take Bertrand back to the EU embassy for his own safety. They make a point of sitting with Vajra and Florence on either side of Bertrand and Jianwei facing him, and while they are on the way, Jianwei chews him out further for his reckless behaviour, hopefully cowing him sufficiently that he can be quietly removed from Port Lowell without him deciding to indulge in any more memetically-loaded gestures first.

Indeed, the team manage to extract an undertaking from Bertrand that he will be leaving Port Lowell, although running him off Mars altogether doesn't look feasible. They make a note to attempt to keep track of his movements, just in case he does anything unwise. "In order to provide consular services more efficiently, it would make sense to keep track of him. After all, our AIs have predicted that he is likely to have need of such services in future..." When they've finished filing a report on the incident, they also get clearance from the ambassador to send a summary of most of the details to Marshall Kirkowicz, making a point of mentioning that Bertrand will be leaving town - which they suspect will please her.

But that is something they deal with after lunch...

Notes: EU Diplomacy on Mars

Our heroes will be working for the EU Embassy in Port Lowell, on Lake Candor. Strictly speaking, this is not a true embassy; the EU is a supra-national federation, not a sovereign state, and no community on Mars has recognised sovereign status itself - so there's nobody to be an embassy from or two. Rather, the EU has requested and received the right to establish consular-level representation in most of the national colonies on Mars, including full diplomatic privileges for a limited number of staff.

So the establishment where the PCs will report is, strictly speaking, the Central Consular Services Office, which reports to the Office of External Diplomatic Relations, part of the External Action Service, in Brussels. Colette Schmidt, who runs the CCSO, is officially the Head of Central Consular Services. However, virtually everyone refers to the office as the "EU Embassy" and to her as the ambassador, in everything except the most formal documents (and message headers which no one reads). About the only people who will make a systematic effort not to do so are those who are aggressively opposed to any sort of independence for the Martian colonies - allowing that a power like the EU has ambassadorial representation there is giving away too much. Of course, this in turn might annoy people like Ms Schmidt, although a professional diplomat would never show offence at someone else being formally correct.

Anyway, her privileges are pretty much exactly those of a full ambassador, and her position in the EAS bureaucratic hierarchy is appropriately high - though whether going off-Earth at her level is a clever career move or career suicide is doubtless a nice question. The CCSO performs almost all of the functions of an embassy, including trade negotiations and, everyone assumes but is too polite to say, a bit of intelligence gathering, with the added advantage of not suffering real-time telecommunications/VR oversight from home, unlike embassies on Earth in 2100. It also has full extraterritoriality - but then, given the ambiguities of "common courtesy" land ownership law on Mars, that's pretty easy to claim. The major EU powers (the UK, France, Germany, etc.) have some kind of independent consular representation on the planet, but even they are often happy to leave things to the embassy, and less wealthy EU members with only a handful of people on Mars are happy for the embassy to handle this sort of business.

Of course, functioning as both a consulate and an embassy means that the CCSO has a lot on its plate, and Ms Schmidt's memos of the last year or two suggest that this is becoming a bit of a strain. This is why she requested the budget and authority to set up a mobile consular services team "without portfolio". Now the team exists, its primary task will be to take a load off the rest of the consular staff's backs. It clearly doesn't help that there aren't actually that many people in the Port Lowell establishment - fewer than twenty full EU citizens, including three infomorphs, plus of course a lot of lower-level infomorph support. Most of them have some kind of diplomatic status, but it's hard to arrange this for additional people, if only because someone has to convince the USA, the Chinese, and preferably at least a half-dozen other powers to accept things. The OEDR swung this for Chen, but would take a bit of convincing to make the effort for anyone else. After all, a lot of work for the EU on Mars is undertaken by people other than consular staff with no formal immunities.

These are, of course, among the assorted professionals and consultants which the EU happily provides to assist communities of other nationalities on Mars (or among their families). The diplomacy involved can be delicate - everyone realises that these people are, ultimately, agents of EU influence, and it's not hard to guess that some of them are on some kind of government retainer, but getting too flagrant about it is bad manners, and being chucked out of a community for espionage or similar is highly inconvenient to say the least - but Europe does have people of some kind in a lot of places, and no one is really shocked by the idea. After all, everyone on Mars seems to have at least two jobs if you look closely enough. The EU also has official consulates in most of the larger cities on Mars, although some of these are literally virtual - infomorphs installed on local computer systems, able to provide aid on request - and in some cases, there are people whose overt second job title is "Honorary Consul".

Hence, administrative and diplomatic business on Mars can seem both entangled and very informal, especially by the standards of a hundred years ago. Remember that the prevalence of AI assistance has flattened a lot of administrative hierarchies considerably, while the Web speeds up communications and permits many tasks to be undertaken by people on the other side of the planet. On the other hand, the EU embassy has clearly been infected by the Martian philosophy that a job should be done by the nearest person who's qualified to handle it, and sort out the permissions later. The PCs' task is to be such a nearest person, as often as possible.