April 10, m0039
A few days later, the team get another mission - with an initial briefing from the ambassador and, as it turns out, from "Mr Grey". It seems that an E.U. intelligence operation has generated a situation which will require the presence of observers with an American operation on Mars, and the team are getting the job.
Specifically, the Quebec and Maritimes Union security services have been running down a series of shady arms deals, and the case was recently cracked with the help of a quantum computer. However, getting that to solve the suspects' cryptography took several months, by which time, events had moved on. The trail proved to lead to one Josef d'Alembert, a quasi-anarchist radical who also happens to have engineering qualifications. Unfortunately, by the time the authorities on Earth had his name, d'Alembert had, it turned out, travelled to Mars on a tourist visa - and when they looked closely, they found that he had dropped off the radar on Mars. However, his last traceable personal transactions where in the town of Sharona, on the shores of the Borealis Sea. More worryingly, tracking data back and forth, E.U. intelligence determined that d'Alembert may well have received a number of shipments from his friends on Earth - small non-fabricatable items of various sorts that could be used in weapons construction. (No, this isn't a euphemism for anything nuclear, in this case anyway; still, weapons are weapons.) Given that d'Alembert's specialisation is marine engineering, this all looked worrying suggestive.
But Sharona is US territory, so the E.U. tossed this one over to the SIA, with due apologies, a full file of data, and a strongly-worded request to be kept in the loop. The SIA obliged, coming back after a week to say that d'Alembert was still out of sight, but they believed that he had made contact with a faction of the so-called "Boreal Pirates" who operate along that stretch of coast. This, they thought, looked like a job for the US Navy.
Well, the Navy do have units on that ocean - one based in Sharona, in fact - but their feeling was that it would need reinforcement before tackling a Pirate gang. (Actually, the Boreal Pirates are usually regarded as a bit of a joke - their main operational interest seems to be raiding for supplies and recreational pharmaceuticals from the ice haulers on that sea - but this lot may now have better weapons, after all.) So they're airlifting an additional force in from their main base on the Marineris Sea - which is fortunate, because it gives the E.U. a chance to attach the team to the operation, and even to request a lift to the scene with the Navy people.
Which brings matters to the present, as the Navy cargo hopper will be heading out later this day. The team are instructed to handle this tactfully, looking after E.U. interests as best they can while preserving good relations all round.
So, the meeting formally closed, they discuss requirements. It's spring in the north polar regions, but it will still be cold up there... They invest some personal funds in expedition suits, floatation vests, and sealed bags for kit. Not that they plan on going in the water...
Then they head for the field where the US Navy team are preparing to head out in their service's one substantial transport hopper. This team turns out to consist of two humans - Lieutenant Calum Kethburger, who's in command, and his aide, Petty Officer Georgina Romero - and a fair amount of baggage, including a small but doubtless fast water craft (which some observers would tag as a RHIB), with not-very-chatty onboard intelligence, in a semi-dismantled state, two matched cases that give the distinct impression that they may each contain one quite substantial cybershell, and which are indeed referred to as "Alpha" and "Beta", and a third case that looks like it holds smaller objects or devices.
The E.U. team manage to strike up amicable enough relations with the Americans as the hopper heads off on its multi-stage flight northwards. (This sort of trip demands a couple of refuelling stops en route.) Kethburger, who seems to be a conventional sort of junior career officer, gets on well enough with Jianwei, and proves quite amicable to Florence - her looks, and a positive attitude towards navy people (thanks to her rescue by the Royal Navy some time back), maybe compensate for her problematic status as a bioroid, while Romero is happy to chat to Vajra, who gets to meet her wearable system's onboard AI in virtual space. As it's off-duty at this time, it's using a non-standard avatar - something clearly hand-crafted for masculine good looks.
As the hopper stops off at various refuelling stations across the northern deserts of Mars, Kethburger mutters that he hopes that any opposition they may have to deal with aren't running smart intelligence analysis on Web traffic - it's hard to keep a mission like this quiet. But anyway, by the end of the day, the hopper reaches Sharona's airspace, as everyone on board can tell when its flight control systems start announcing repeated minor course adjustments to keep them out of the way of gigantic, lumbering ice-carrying airships. When the town itself comes into view, its nature becomes very obvious; it's largely a working port, processing icebergs as they are towed in from the northern polar cap and sending the water south by airship or cargo crawler. In addition, most of the buildings are designed to be moved uphill from time to time as the sea levels rise. It all looks rather temporary and utilitarian, even transient.
The US Navy base, atop a hill just outside the town, has space for a landing, and the visitors are met by a rather bemused but formally very correct lieutenant named Jane Oppenheimer, who turns out to be the only human naval officer on site, although it turns out that she is assisted by Chief Petty Officer Montezuma, a full-sapient AI. The Europeans are a little bemused to encounter a non-citizen infomorph which rates a military rank despite technically being property, but reflect that something which is responsible for much of the operation of a working base needs to be able to issue instructions with some weight. Meanwhile, Alpha and Beta deploy - they turn out to be a pair of amphibious RATS units - and some smaller, less self-willed combat-model shells appear from the other travelling case and run some self-test routines.
It soon emerges that Kethburger has seniority over Oppenheimer, and has been placed in command of this operation - but anyway, there's no time to do more than unload and settle in this evening. The Europeans are assigned temporary quarters - a tent, as it turns out, but quite a comfortable one - and Florence drops off her luggage and goes to investigate what passes for a bar here. Kethburger evidently feels obliged to accompany her, and they find Oppenheimer already present; it looks as though she's glad of company and happy to chat. Florence asks about the local martial arts scene, and Oppenheimer tells her that there is in fact a local version of Zhua developed among off-duty ice workers. Its main special feature is, not surprisingly, that it's learned on icy-smooth surfaces, and fighters learn to allow for that. She pulls some video recordings up on the bar's main screen...
All this combat chat seems to leave Jiawei rather squeezed out when he drops in. He ends up nursing a drink at the back of the room. Meanwhile, Vajra is trying to teach Montezuma the basics of Robo Rally.
April 11, m0039
The next morning, with everyone rested, the lieutenants feel able to call a briefing meeting. Oppenheimer begins by acknowledging that the Navy has not previously worried very much about the Boreal Pirates, apart from providing some ice tugs with occasional escorts; frankly, they've been dismissed as a bunch of kids - but the Anne Bonney Memorial Fleet, the main outfit in this specific area, who d'Alembert seems possibly to have contacted, do seem to have some Martian separatist ideals, or at least tendencies. They're mobile, and probably smart enough to use ice structures for cover from infra-red detectors, so the first step will be to locate them - but there are some likely locations. Hence, the plan begins with a lot of reconnaissance and intelligence analysis work...
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Diplomacy, Jealousy, and Wrath
Scorpius 27, m0039, continued
While Florence arranges her four-day climb, from a tunnel exit to the rim of the great volcano's caldera, Jianwei and Vajra take the maglev back to Port Lowell - where Ambassador Schmidt would like a conference with them at their first convenience. She likes some element of face-to-face conversation in her work, sometimes.
April 1, m0039
Schmidt has been in conference with Brussels about this latest case, and one of her assisting LAIs, April Thetis, has been prepared with a persona overlay to represent the E.U. authorities' position. (It's designed for such flexibility.) Hence, it too has an avatar "present" at the meeting, adopting the image of a human female in sternly Hellenic-classical garb. It expresses a clear position; that state-level conflicts on Mars aren't the E.U.'s business, but that it is evidently impossible for E.U. citizens to avoid becoming caught in the crossfire from time to time - in which cases, de-escalation should be the standard objective, Also, the E.U. seeks especially to remain on good terms with the Nix Olympica community, on the basis that it recognises certain common interests.
One issue now arising from the latest incident is how to word a travel advisory. The meeting agrees that they can't avoid making a public statement referring to "severe memetic conflict", and also to things (literally) exploding "accidentally" - but Jianwei will try to assist in designing something that won't overly discourage E.U. visiting.
It is also noted that, although the team is and should seek to remain on good terms with the US Marshalls service, they could not but observe the speed and weight of the Marshalls' intervention on Olympia, when given an excuse. That relationship may need careful handling, if the Marshalls are sometimes going to act as agents of US state power...
Anyway, for now, the embassy's resident memetics specialist LAI is to be given special interrupt access to the team's communications - because it's going to be looking out for Quipu operations, and flagging any possibilities it detects for the team's attention. It apologetically seeks permission to take an attitude towards Peruvian Martians that might almost be interpreted as obnoxious ethnic stereotyping; they may have to be assumed to be planning something...
April 5, m0039
As Florence has ascended the extinct volcano, she has noticed at least one of her human companions has clearly been treating her as a rival. He's an American, of course, and on Mars, Americans do have issues with bioroids... But she thinks little of the matter - until she awakes on the last day of the trip, to discover that this individual has finessed the psychology of the guide AIs and set out on his own, ahead of the rest. This isn't in accord with safety rules, obviously, but he is obviously suffering from an excess of competitiveness, aiming to reach the top well ahead of the group. He has gone offline, but at least he has taken an adequate amount of kit with him, and he can be tracked by satellite imagery if necessary.
So the main group sets out, following their planned route. The competitive singleton, on the other hand, has evidently tried to plot a faster, riskier path. Well, it's certainly riskier - it involves heading up under what is actually an impossible overhang. After a while, the lone climber stops, and then comes sheepishly back on line. He's got himself wedged. He's also a little low on air and supplies - after all, he was trying not to weigh himself down...
Florence assesses the situation, and decides that she can manage a solo recovery climb. (Of course she does.) The climbing company are torn between the danger of losing one customer, and that of losing two... So after a few minutes, they place a call with Jianwei and explain the situation. (They're American too, and regard Jianwei as Florence's responsible adult.) Jianwei ponders for a moment, then gives his assent. Vajra joins the conversation, and suggests that the company sends a guide cybershell with support gear, but Florence is being overconfident enough to push ahead of that. (Vajra also tries to talk the tour company into paying her for all this, but sadly fails.) Florence and Jianwei have settled an optimum load for her to take, and she makes good progress up the rock face, and gets the sheepish American out of his problem. This leaves them some way ahead of the main party, even after some very necessary back-tracking, and Florence decides to move on forward, for the look of the thing; she and the American are waiting at the top of the slope when the others arrive.
The image of this looks good on the press release that Jianwei crafts, with assistance from Vajra on the memetics. It never hurts to make the E.U. look good.
April 6, m0039
The next day, Florence arrives back in Nix Olympica, and is disappointed to find that DD isn't available for lunch. She's still chasing that story, and saying it looks very interesting. Florence advises her not to get herself killed.
Meanwhile, Jianwei and Vajra get a call to handle a routine-looking commercial dispute resolution. A European tourist, Pierre Marchand (a typical Eloi type, to judge by available data), hired a local guide, one Xiang Gao, and is now complaining that Gao has reneged on his guide contract. A brief check shows that Gao is a Chinese citizen, and ex-military - well, there's a lot of those about. He is also quite easy to trace to an ecoforming station a little way out of Port Lowell.
The pair rent a light rover and set off to contact this individual. Arriving at the station - which is basically a hamlet with some high-tech installations and a bar - they are promptly directed to the latter, where they find Gao, clearly enjoying the place's wares. The most notable thing about him is that he is wearing a sword on his back. Jianwei approaches the bar while Vajra quietly takes a seat and watches events.
Jianwei buys Gao a drink (the human barman serves him a beer), and then mentions Marchand, which elicits a response. "...Boring round-eyed Eloi snob..." is perhaps the essence of it, embedded in a lot of what can best be described as Street Mandarin. Then Gao demands another drink. But the barman, noting that this customer is looking dangerously well-served already, turns difficult. Gao attempts to vault the bar, but fails (the ceiling is a little low for real Martian acrobatics), and somehow ends up yelling abuse at Jianwei, making himself angry enough to wind up for a swing at him. So Vajra, who has been watching all this with AI impassiveness, shoots him with his vortex pistol. The burst of advanced tranquiliser gas drops Gao on the spot, and Vajra lobs Jianwei a reel of cufftape.
The pair make a few calls, and then load the cuffed Gao into their rover and tow him back to the Chinese authorities in Port Lowell. This case can now be handed off to the legal system.
While Florence arranges her four-day climb, from a tunnel exit to the rim of the great volcano's caldera, Jianwei and Vajra take the maglev back to Port Lowell - where Ambassador Schmidt would like a conference with them at their first convenience. She likes some element of face-to-face conversation in her work, sometimes.
April 1, m0039
Schmidt has been in conference with Brussels about this latest case, and one of her assisting LAIs, April Thetis, has been prepared with a persona overlay to represent the E.U. authorities' position. (It's designed for such flexibility.) Hence, it too has an avatar "present" at the meeting, adopting the image of a human female in sternly Hellenic-classical garb. It expresses a clear position; that state-level conflicts on Mars aren't the E.U.'s business, but that it is evidently impossible for E.U. citizens to avoid becoming caught in the crossfire from time to time - in which cases, de-escalation should be the standard objective, Also, the E.U. seeks especially to remain on good terms with the Nix Olympica community, on the basis that it recognises certain common interests.
One issue now arising from the latest incident is how to word a travel advisory. The meeting agrees that they can't avoid making a public statement referring to "severe memetic conflict", and also to things (literally) exploding "accidentally" - but Jianwei will try to assist in designing something that won't overly discourage E.U. visiting.
It is also noted that, although the team is and should seek to remain on good terms with the US Marshalls service, they could not but observe the speed and weight of the Marshalls' intervention on Olympia, when given an excuse. That relationship may need careful handling, if the Marshalls are sometimes going to act as agents of US state power...
Anyway, for now, the embassy's resident memetics specialist LAI is to be given special interrupt access to the team's communications - because it's going to be looking out for Quipu operations, and flagging any possibilities it detects for the team's attention. It apologetically seeks permission to take an attitude towards Peruvian Martians that might almost be interpreted as obnoxious ethnic stereotyping; they may have to be assumed to be planning something...
April 5, m0039
As Florence has ascended the extinct volcano, she has noticed at least one of her human companions has clearly been treating her as a rival. He's an American, of course, and on Mars, Americans do have issues with bioroids... But she thinks little of the matter - until she awakes on the last day of the trip, to discover that this individual has finessed the psychology of the guide AIs and set out on his own, ahead of the rest. This isn't in accord with safety rules, obviously, but he is obviously suffering from an excess of competitiveness, aiming to reach the top well ahead of the group. He has gone offline, but at least he has taken an adequate amount of kit with him, and he can be tracked by satellite imagery if necessary.
So the main group sets out, following their planned route. The competitive singleton, on the other hand, has evidently tried to plot a faster, riskier path. Well, it's certainly riskier - it involves heading up under what is actually an impossible overhang. After a while, the lone climber stops, and then comes sheepishly back on line. He's got himself wedged. He's also a little low on air and supplies - after all, he was trying not to weigh himself down...
Florence assesses the situation, and decides that she can manage a solo recovery climb. (Of course she does.) The climbing company are torn between the danger of losing one customer, and that of losing two... So after a few minutes, they place a call with Jianwei and explain the situation. (They're American too, and regard Jianwei as Florence's responsible adult.) Jianwei ponders for a moment, then gives his assent. Vajra joins the conversation, and suggests that the company sends a guide cybershell with support gear, but Florence is being overconfident enough to push ahead of that. (Vajra also tries to talk the tour company into paying her for all this, but sadly fails.) Florence and Jianwei have settled an optimum load for her to take, and she makes good progress up the rock face, and gets the sheepish American out of his problem. This leaves them some way ahead of the main party, even after some very necessary back-tracking, and Florence decides to move on forward, for the look of the thing; she and the American are waiting at the top of the slope when the others arrive.
The image of this looks good on the press release that Jianwei crafts, with assistance from Vajra on the memetics. It never hurts to make the E.U. look good.
April 6, m0039
The next day, Florence arrives back in Nix Olympica, and is disappointed to find that DD isn't available for lunch. She's still chasing that story, and saying it looks very interesting. Florence advises her not to get herself killed.
Meanwhile, Jianwei and Vajra get a call to handle a routine-looking commercial dispute resolution. A European tourist, Pierre Marchand (a typical Eloi type, to judge by available data), hired a local guide, one Xiang Gao, and is now complaining that Gao has reneged on his guide contract. A brief check shows that Gao is a Chinese citizen, and ex-military - well, there's a lot of those about. He is also quite easy to trace to an ecoforming station a little way out of Port Lowell.
The pair rent a light rover and set off to contact this individual. Arriving at the station - which is basically a hamlet with some high-tech installations and a bar - they are promptly directed to the latter, where they find Gao, clearly enjoying the place's wares. The most notable thing about him is that he is wearing a sword on his back. Jianwei approaches the bar while Vajra quietly takes a seat and watches events.
Jianwei buys Gao a drink (the human barman serves him a beer), and then mentions Marchand, which elicits a response. "...Boring round-eyed Eloi snob..." is perhaps the essence of it, embedded in a lot of what can best be described as Street Mandarin. Then Gao demands another drink. But the barman, noting that this customer is looking dangerously well-served already, turns difficult. Gao attempts to vault the bar, but fails (the ceiling is a little low for real Martian acrobatics), and somehow ends up yelling abuse at Jianwei, making himself angry enough to wind up for a swing at him. So Vajra, who has been watching all this with AI impassiveness, shoots him with his vortex pistol. The burst of advanced tranquiliser gas drops Gao on the spot, and Vajra lobs Jianwei a reel of cufftape.
The pair make a few calls, and then load the cuffed Gao into their rover and tow him back to the Chinese authorities in Port Lowell. This case can now be handed off to the legal system.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Incomplete Conclusions
Scorpius 26, m0039, continued
The Marshals' rocket hopper arrives (allowing the E.U. team members the always curious sight of dust being kicked up - and instantly falling - in vacuum), and the two humans and one tech spider aboard deploy. They introduce themselves as Marshals Carstairs and Brown-Suarez and Excursion-Alpha-4. The Europeans feel obliged to observe what they do, and to leave messages on the subject with the local Emergency Response office for attention in the morning.
Jianwei takes the lead in talking to the newcomers, of course, but at this moment his feeling for legal niceties seems to be working better than his negotiation skills; within a few seconds, after quoting far too much legal jargon at Marshall Carstairs, he finds himself being routed through to Carstairs' LAI aide and generally being treated as a problematic legal entity. But anyway, there doesn't seem to be much to do here right now, so Florence goes back to bed, and Jianwei gets back into the rover at the same time to avoid inconvenience (as the vehicle doesn't have an airlock). Vajra, though, stays outside to watch the US tech spider going over what's left of the wheelform cybershell; with a little polite negotiation, he arranges to get a direct feed of technical data from the spider's work, albeit that much of it is encrypted. If the Marshals Service agrees to release that data later, all they have to provide is the encryption key.
The Marshals subsequently declare the intention to send their hopper back under autonomous control to fetch another forensics package; they're prepared to wait on site for as long as such things take. Jianwei points out that his own team maybe should take the package they brought out back to Nix Olympica - after all, much of the point of their being here is supposed to be to certify a chain of evidence as neutral observers, and the US authorities agree to that.
So the European team sets out homewards in the morning - albeit on the now-familiar route via the outstation with the medical facilities. Actually, they're slowed a little by some navigation problems - even when you've been over a route before, one rock still looks much like another - but they bowl along, especially once Florence has had her full set of high-sugar breakfast bars. They welcome Mahler and Melk aboard the rover from the treatment centre, and are soon on their way again. Perhaps a little too briskly, in fact - Florence puts the suspension under more stress than it's certified for at one point.
The team gets the two European tourists into their hotel without too much press attention, drop the forensics package at the Rescue Service offices, and head to a Chinese restaurant for dinner while awaiting the results of an initial analysis of the samples it has gathered - the Emergency Response people having agreed to share these as a courtesy. The results come through as they eat; it looks very likely that the airship's balloon was the subject of some quite precise nanotech-based sabotage. Indeed, by now, the US Marshals are releasing some initial statements which hint at the same conclusion.
Captain Ping comes in on a Web-based conference to discuss these results. It's clear that he is by now becoming downright irritated at the string of offers of help he's received from the Marshals. As usual, the US authorities are trying to muscle in on anything interesting that happens on Olympus Mons - asserting their actually non-existent right to a presence on the mountain and seeking to compromise the independence of the local authorities. The team suggests that Nix Olympica should go public with as much of their own data as possible, to demonstrate that they have an independent position here and stop the Marshals' investigation looking dominant. Jianwei has a thought at this point, and forwards a link to some of the published results to Kai Ssung-So, mostly as an exercise in provocation. Aunty's reading of the automated response that he receives suggests that Ssung-So has in fact left town by now. Presumably, he wasn't inclined to be on the receiving end of too much attention.
Anyway, the team head to their own hotel, getting there just as they receive a message from someone who identifies herself as "Darth Dalmatian". It seems that she is arriving in town at about 3 am, and she'd quite like to meet for breakfast. Jianwei agrees to that, and sends a note to Florence, asking her to come along too.
Scorpius 27, m0039
The team awakes first to a message from Kai Ssung-So, who is polite. "The American authorities seem determined to treat this as a hardware issue," he notes. "I fear that there may be an extended period of litigation before this matter is resolved..."
But the team - well, two of them - are more concerned for now with their breakfast in a pancake house, and then with the arrival of a familiar figure dressed in a pressure suit with a helmet that flares widely at the neck - and which has a surface design with a white background with black dots. "DD" contrives to order breakfast at the EU's expense, and chats about the airship crash. When Jianwei and Florence claim that they have no idea who may have been responsible for the software sabotage that was clearly a major contributory factor in the incident ("probably not the SIA..."), DD spends a few seconds staring hard at Florence. Evidently DD's nose for a story is proving better than Florence's rudimentary skill in lying. DD follows that exchange by commenting that the Americans - well, the SIA - are likely to try to pin such sabotage onto the Triads. Jianwei replies that she might want to look into that subject a little more.
The team then says that they seem to have finished their mission in Nix Olympica, although Florence is in fact going to be staying around for a few days, taking some leave time to do some climbing in the caldera. For her part, DD says that she will be staying in town for a while, to do a little more digging into this story. Jianwei decides to feed her a hint about recent problems on the local computer networks.
And so, after breakfast, Florence books herself a place on a tourist climbing party, attempting a distance from part-way up the slope to the top. She looks quite well set to out-climb some of the teleoperated shells which some tourists use for such expeditions...
The Marshals' rocket hopper arrives (allowing the E.U. team members the always curious sight of dust being kicked up - and instantly falling - in vacuum), and the two humans and one tech spider aboard deploy. They introduce themselves as Marshals Carstairs and Brown-Suarez and Excursion-Alpha-4. The Europeans feel obliged to observe what they do, and to leave messages on the subject with the local Emergency Response office for attention in the morning.
Jianwei takes the lead in talking to the newcomers, of course, but at this moment his feeling for legal niceties seems to be working better than his negotiation skills; within a few seconds, after quoting far too much legal jargon at Marshall Carstairs, he finds himself being routed through to Carstairs' LAI aide and generally being treated as a problematic legal entity. But anyway, there doesn't seem to be much to do here right now, so Florence goes back to bed, and Jianwei gets back into the rover at the same time to avoid inconvenience (as the vehicle doesn't have an airlock). Vajra, though, stays outside to watch the US tech spider going over what's left of the wheelform cybershell; with a little polite negotiation, he arranges to get a direct feed of technical data from the spider's work, albeit that much of it is encrypted. If the Marshals Service agrees to release that data later, all they have to provide is the encryption key.
The Marshals subsequently declare the intention to send their hopper back under autonomous control to fetch another forensics package; they're prepared to wait on site for as long as such things take. Jianwei points out that his own team maybe should take the package they brought out back to Nix Olympica - after all, much of the point of their being here is supposed to be to certify a chain of evidence as neutral observers, and the US authorities agree to that.
So the European team sets out homewards in the morning - albeit on the now-familiar route via the outstation with the medical facilities. Actually, they're slowed a little by some navigation problems - even when you've been over a route before, one rock still looks much like another - but they bowl along, especially once Florence has had her full set of high-sugar breakfast bars. They welcome Mahler and Melk aboard the rover from the treatment centre, and are soon on their way again. Perhaps a little too briskly, in fact - Florence puts the suspension under more stress than it's certified for at one point.
The team gets the two European tourists into their hotel without too much press attention, drop the forensics package at the Rescue Service offices, and head to a Chinese restaurant for dinner while awaiting the results of an initial analysis of the samples it has gathered - the Emergency Response people having agreed to share these as a courtesy. The results come through as they eat; it looks very likely that the airship's balloon was the subject of some quite precise nanotech-based sabotage. Indeed, by now, the US Marshals are releasing some initial statements which hint at the same conclusion.
Captain Ping comes in on a Web-based conference to discuss these results. It's clear that he is by now becoming downright irritated at the string of offers of help he's received from the Marshals. As usual, the US authorities are trying to muscle in on anything interesting that happens on Olympus Mons - asserting their actually non-existent right to a presence on the mountain and seeking to compromise the independence of the local authorities. The team suggests that Nix Olympica should go public with as much of their own data as possible, to demonstrate that they have an independent position here and stop the Marshals' investigation looking dominant. Jianwei has a thought at this point, and forwards a link to some of the published results to Kai Ssung-So, mostly as an exercise in provocation. Aunty's reading of the automated response that he receives suggests that Ssung-So has in fact left town by now. Presumably, he wasn't inclined to be on the receiving end of too much attention.
Anyway, the team head to their own hotel, getting there just as they receive a message from someone who identifies herself as "Darth Dalmatian". It seems that she is arriving in town at about 3 am, and she'd quite like to meet for breakfast. Jianwei agrees to that, and sends a note to Florence, asking her to come along too.
Scorpius 27, m0039
The team awakes first to a message from Kai Ssung-So, who is polite. "The American authorities seem determined to treat this as a hardware issue," he notes. "I fear that there may be an extended period of litigation before this matter is resolved..."
But the team - well, two of them - are more concerned for now with their breakfast in a pancake house, and then with the arrival of a familiar figure dressed in a pressure suit with a helmet that flares widely at the neck - and which has a surface design with a white background with black dots. "DD" contrives to order breakfast at the EU's expense, and chats about the airship crash. When Jianwei and Florence claim that they have no idea who may have been responsible for the software sabotage that was clearly a major contributory factor in the incident ("probably not the SIA..."), DD spends a few seconds staring hard at Florence. Evidently DD's nose for a story is proving better than Florence's rudimentary skill in lying. DD follows that exchange by commenting that the Americans - well, the SIA - are likely to try to pin such sabotage onto the Triads. Jianwei replies that she might want to look into that subject a little more.
The team then says that they seem to have finished their mission in Nix Olympica, although Florence is in fact going to be staying around for a few days, taking some leave time to do some climbing in the caldera. For her part, DD says that she will be staying in town for a while, to do a little more digging into this story. Jianwei decides to feed her a hint about recent problems on the local computer networks.
And so, after breakfast, Florence books herself a place on a tourist climbing party, attempting a distance from part-way up the slope to the top. She looks quite well set to out-climb some of the teleoperated shells which some tourists use for such expeditions...
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Local Interests
Scorpius 24, m0039, continued
Jianwei does take a moment out to send Quentin a message about the team's plans for the morning, and Quentin notes no problems with the arrangement. Meanwhile, Dougal finds Florence a bar that his search heuristics suggest will correlate to her known preferences. This turns out to be "Ping's Bar", a fairly substantial building close by the walls of the dome - the chief meeting-place for the university's martial arts enthusiast community. It is almost entirely open space inside, and indeed partly occupied by a sparring ring. The general style of the place is typical of Nix Olympica's local American-Chinese hybrid atmosphere; Florence orders a burger with fries and a rice wine, and looks for a table with a view of the ring.
There aren't actually any free tables, but at least one group already settled in signs her to join them; a Felicia bioroid isn't a common sight in these parts, and there's an automatic assumption that she must have her own insights into the martial arts. Members of the group prove chatty; they're a mixture of areology and Chinese history students who like talking about variant unarmed combat forms. They ask politely about her background; she's open about the general facts, and admits to having received VR combat training during her creation process. Some of the group actually remember seeing recordings of Florence's fight in the elevator car, which earns her some respect; nonetheless, one of them expresses cynicism about "vat training" for real combat, and the conversation, while never lapsing into outright hostility, becomes abrasive enough that a trial match in the ring becomes unavoidable. Other would-be combatants are interested enough that they allow this pair to the head of the queue.
Florence and her opponent size each other up for a while, and then he throws a competent punch that slides past her guard - first point to him. Florence responds by using her Zhua training to go over his head, evading his attempts to stop her (the move was hardly unexpected, after all), then lands behind him and follows through with an elbow strike that brings their points score level. He tries to retaliate in kind, but Florence expected that, parries, and follows up with a complex grip and over-the-head throw, putting her challenger down. Before he can recover, she pins him and gains a completely effective lock. He is obliged to submit, and then proves good-humoured enough about the experience to buy her a drink.
Aside from that - and a later request for a less serious-seeming bout to demonstrate some Zhua forms - Florence spends the evening in casual conversation. The only snippet she does pick up is a remark about the Zeppelin incident being typical of how things go around these parts - "the only people who know how to run anything are the Peruvians..."
Scorpius 25, m0039
During the night, after Florence has returned and retired to bed, Vajra receives notification that the forensics package has arrived, and goes to talk to it. It proves to be run by a simple-minded NAI, so he puts it into demo mode. (Their first exchange - "Do you self-identify as male/female/other?" [other] - causes it to display a VR avatar that combines a metallic, androgynous form with what is clearly meant to be a "sexy librarian" form in a downright annoying fashion.) Anyway, he can't find any obvious problems, so he returns to the hotel.
The next morning, he and Jianwei inspect the rover, then the team sets out once again. Unfortunately, Florence makes a minor driving error involving a high-speed approach to a sharp drop that causes them an hour or so's delay as they check the vehicle for damage and make calls through the Web to check their insurance position. Hence, it is becoming quite dark when they reach the crash site, but Vajra is able to deploy the forensics package - it works largely by IR and radio location, enough that darkness is of little concern to its operation. The team watches microbots deploying for a while, until the two organic sapients' minds begin to wander, and they retire to sleep.
Scorpius 26, m0039
However, Vajra needs no sleep and can provide a diligent watch, and is more than alert enough when the rover's sensors pick up an incoming trace in the early hours of the morning. He generates an audible alert sound; Jianwei comes awake smoothly; Florence's trained reflexes prove stronger than her alertness, and she comes awake with her helmet and gloves half on.
The team's AIs fail to acquire a precise lock on the trace, so Jianwei instructs Aunty to turn on the rover's floodlights. The team quickly locate a large wheelform cybershell rolling toward the airship wreck, and Florence immediately pops a side hatch and vaults deftly up onto the vehicle roof. Jianwei drops into the driver's seat and begins recording events while telling Aunty to prepare to move; Vajra, who has been outside of the vehicle all along, contemplates the ineffectiveness of his weapons against a combat-capable cybershell in a trace atmosphere, then settles down to researching the wheelform design. (It is actually the kind of slightly out-of-date generic thing which can be put together from components for which 3D printer templates can be found on the Web.)
The cybershell ignores radio challenges, so Florence takes careful aim, locks a homing shell's sensors onto it, and fires. The large-caliber projectile punches through what armour the cybershell has, and then detonates. This proves more than sufficient; the wheelform suffers a series of systematic malfunctions and stops moving. This is doubtless just as well, as a brief inspection shows that it was itself carrying a gun in an internal bay - as well as a tank of what seems like scrubber nano. It would seem that someone may have been anxious to eliminate some sort of evidence from the crash scene.
The team have not attempted to keep information about this very brief combat from the Web, so it is no great surprise that, within a few minutes, they are notified that a rocket hopper with a team of U.S. marshals is incoming. Before they arrive, though, Vajra collects forensic samples of his own from the wheelform wreckage.
Jianwei does take a moment out to send Quentin a message about the team's plans for the morning, and Quentin notes no problems with the arrangement. Meanwhile, Dougal finds Florence a bar that his search heuristics suggest will correlate to her known preferences. This turns out to be "Ping's Bar", a fairly substantial building close by the walls of the dome - the chief meeting-place for the university's martial arts enthusiast community. It is almost entirely open space inside, and indeed partly occupied by a sparring ring. The general style of the place is typical of Nix Olympica's local American-Chinese hybrid atmosphere; Florence orders a burger with fries and a rice wine, and looks for a table with a view of the ring.
There aren't actually any free tables, but at least one group already settled in signs her to join them; a Felicia bioroid isn't a common sight in these parts, and there's an automatic assumption that she must have her own insights into the martial arts. Members of the group prove chatty; they're a mixture of areology and Chinese history students who like talking about variant unarmed combat forms. They ask politely about her background; she's open about the general facts, and admits to having received VR combat training during her creation process. Some of the group actually remember seeing recordings of Florence's fight in the elevator car, which earns her some respect; nonetheless, one of them expresses cynicism about "vat training" for real combat, and the conversation, while never lapsing into outright hostility, becomes abrasive enough that a trial match in the ring becomes unavoidable. Other would-be combatants are interested enough that they allow this pair to the head of the queue.
Florence and her opponent size each other up for a while, and then he throws a competent punch that slides past her guard - first point to him. Florence responds by using her Zhua training to go over his head, evading his attempts to stop her (the move was hardly unexpected, after all), then lands behind him and follows through with an elbow strike that brings their points score level. He tries to retaliate in kind, but Florence expected that, parries, and follows up with a complex grip and over-the-head throw, putting her challenger down. Before he can recover, she pins him and gains a completely effective lock. He is obliged to submit, and then proves good-humoured enough about the experience to buy her a drink.
Aside from that - and a later request for a less serious-seeming bout to demonstrate some Zhua forms - Florence spends the evening in casual conversation. The only snippet she does pick up is a remark about the Zeppelin incident being typical of how things go around these parts - "the only people who know how to run anything are the Peruvians..."
Scorpius 25, m0039
During the night, after Florence has returned and retired to bed, Vajra receives notification that the forensics package has arrived, and goes to talk to it. It proves to be run by a simple-minded NAI, so he puts it into demo mode. (Their first exchange - "Do you self-identify as male/female/other?" [other] - causes it to display a VR avatar that combines a metallic, androgynous form with what is clearly meant to be a "sexy librarian" form in a downright annoying fashion.) Anyway, he can't find any obvious problems, so he returns to the hotel.
The next morning, he and Jianwei inspect the rover, then the team sets out once again. Unfortunately, Florence makes a minor driving error involving a high-speed approach to a sharp drop that causes them an hour or so's delay as they check the vehicle for damage and make calls through the Web to check their insurance position. Hence, it is becoming quite dark when they reach the crash site, but Vajra is able to deploy the forensics package - it works largely by IR and radio location, enough that darkness is of little concern to its operation. The team watches microbots deploying for a while, until the two organic sapients' minds begin to wander, and they retire to sleep.
Scorpius 26, m0039
However, Vajra needs no sleep and can provide a diligent watch, and is more than alert enough when the rover's sensors pick up an incoming trace in the early hours of the morning. He generates an audible alert sound; Jianwei comes awake smoothly; Florence's trained reflexes prove stronger than her alertness, and she comes awake with her helmet and gloves half on.
The team's AIs fail to acquire a precise lock on the trace, so Jianwei instructs Aunty to turn on the rover's floodlights. The team quickly locate a large wheelform cybershell rolling toward the airship wreck, and Florence immediately pops a side hatch and vaults deftly up onto the vehicle roof. Jianwei drops into the driver's seat and begins recording events while telling Aunty to prepare to move; Vajra, who has been outside of the vehicle all along, contemplates the ineffectiveness of his weapons against a combat-capable cybershell in a trace atmosphere, then settles down to researching the wheelform design. (It is actually the kind of slightly out-of-date generic thing which can be put together from components for which 3D printer templates can be found on the Web.)
The cybershell ignores radio challenges, so Florence takes careful aim, locks a homing shell's sensors onto it, and fires. The large-caliber projectile punches through what armour the cybershell has, and then detonates. This proves more than sufficient; the wheelform suffers a series of systematic malfunctions and stops moving. This is doubtless just as well, as a brief inspection shows that it was itself carrying a gun in an internal bay - as well as a tank of what seems like scrubber nano. It would seem that someone may have been anxious to eliminate some sort of evidence from the crash scene.
The team have not attempted to keep information about this very brief combat from the Web, so it is no great surprise that, within a few minutes, they are notified that a rocket hopper with a team of U.S. marshals is incoming. Before they arrive, though, Vajra collects forensic samples of his own from the wheelform wreckage.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Planning and Conferring
Scorpius 24, m0039, continued
While Florence is in the gym and Vajra is monitoring the Web and running some diagnostics on his own systems, Jianwei books a slot on the embassy diary to speak to the ambassador - and soon gets a call back on that.
"Oh, yes - you've been having an interesting time again, haven't you?"
Jianwei summarises recent events from his point of view, leading to his conclusion that there may be another TSA operation here, although it seems to have different objectives.
"Or perhaps it's two sides of the same coin," Schmidt murmurs.
In any event, some of these problems seem to have a similar source to the Nova Iquitos incident, so Jianwei requests another meeting with "Mr Grey", for a specialist assessment and guidance as to next steps. Ambassador Schmidt agrees to put in a request, although she notes that she herself doesn't know who "Mr Grey" is - she assumes that this is simply a place-holder on-line identity for whoever happens to be the ranking E.U. intelligence officer within half a light-second or so of Mars.
While that goes through, the team hear that the Nix Olympica emergency services unit has announced a press conference regarding the crash, and Jianwei and Vajra head along to observe this in person. (The team feels that Florence would attract too much attention, and anyway, she's still working up a sweat in the gym.) Many of the attendees are humaniform or "camera tripod" cybershells, but the event proves moderately interesting anyway, even given the amount of stonewalling from the clearly still uncertain authorities. The team note a lot of provocative questions that seem designed to reinforce those "uncertainty about current power structures" memetics, although it's only when reviewing recordings afterwards that they decide that a lot of the critical challenges seem to have come from a software agent representing the "Xanthe-Zhigansk News" agency. (Zhigansk is an independent Russian community in the Xanthe region, with lax enough government and regulation to make it a good location for anyone looking to set up a puppet news operation with obscure ownership.)
After the conference ends, Jianwei and Vajra leave the room - and after a few meters, Kai Ssung-So falls into step with them, and asks how the press conference went. Jianwei is guarded, but Ssung-So drops hints about people wanting to know who might have been behind a dual-cause accident. Evidently, the Triads are still investigating the incident.
As they arrive back at their hotel, Ambassador Schmidt calls and arranges a VR conference. Florence arrives from the hotel's pool in a thick robe, her fur still wet, and joins the others in Jianwei's room. Mr Grey is present when they enter the embassy's encrypted conference space, and reviews the situation again. One possibility he acknowledges, which had crossed the team's minds, is to leak more or less everything to the Triads, in hope that they will trace and deal with Quipu - they have more resources than most other people, after all, and enough incentive. However, no one is happy with the long-term implications of such a move. Ethics aside - and the conflict might get bloody - if it subsequently became publicly known that the E.U. diplomatic service was either colluding with the Triads, or using them to do their dirty work, anyone known to have been involved could be in legal and disciplinary trouble - and such things have a bad habit of coming out sooner or later, and the ambassador comments that she for one plans to have a very long career in the service.
However, Mr Grey can provide something practical and useful; a specialised firewall utility for Vajra to run on his system, developed by E.U. programmers on Earth. If the TSA have "basilisk" triggers that cause Vajra to shut down, they appear to take the form of moderate-sized binary files; this utility will watch Vajra's input channels for anomalous unexplained digital blocks addressed to him, and quarantine and document them. That aside, Mr Grey supports the team's conclusion about their best option at this point; keep their heads down and their ears open. He will handle any decisions about releasing information to the SIA, and possibly also to the Chinese - although the latter at least might result in leaks to the Triads, which might generate the sort of messes that the E.U. currently wants to avoid.
Once the conference ends, Florence heads back to her room to dry off, and the other two settle down to routine work, such as arranging anonymous travel bookings for Giovanna D'Aquila, so she can get on with her life and holiday without too much hassle from the press or their ilk. Then a call comes in from Captain Brooks-Carter, who has a favour to ask. As the investigation into the crash continues, the investigators need some specialised forensics checks run at the crash site - the first groups on the site were focussed on rescue and medical aid and conventional accident investigation, and criminal enquiries have different needs. An automated forensics package can handle this, but, the whole business is now becoming increasingly difficult and political; it would really be helpful if that package could be delivered and supervised by someone who is seen as reasonably neutral. The E.U. team may actually be as close as anyone gets to meeting that specification currently on the mountain.
In fact, it looks as though this assignment could actually usefully be combined with another trip to the outlying medical facility, to escort the other two E.U. citizens back to the resort - they're up and about now, and comfortable with the idea. So the team takes the job. But that will be for tomorrow; driving in daylight is generally considered safer, and the forensic task can wait that long. For now, Vajra continues to suck in data, Jianwei goes looking for a good Chinese restaurant, and Florence heads to the University area, reckoning that a bar full of postgraduates might come the closest to being interesting that she'll find in this place.
While Florence is in the gym and Vajra is monitoring the Web and running some diagnostics on his own systems, Jianwei books a slot on the embassy diary to speak to the ambassador - and soon gets a call back on that.
"Oh, yes - you've been having an interesting time again, haven't you?"
Jianwei summarises recent events from his point of view, leading to his conclusion that there may be another TSA operation here, although it seems to have different objectives.
"Or perhaps it's two sides of the same coin," Schmidt murmurs.
In any event, some of these problems seem to have a similar source to the Nova Iquitos incident, so Jianwei requests another meeting with "Mr Grey", for a specialist assessment and guidance as to next steps. Ambassador Schmidt agrees to put in a request, although she notes that she herself doesn't know who "Mr Grey" is - she assumes that this is simply a place-holder on-line identity for whoever happens to be the ranking E.U. intelligence officer within half a light-second or so of Mars.
While that goes through, the team hear that the Nix Olympica emergency services unit has announced a press conference regarding the crash, and Jianwei and Vajra head along to observe this in person. (The team feels that Florence would attract too much attention, and anyway, she's still working up a sweat in the gym.) Many of the attendees are humaniform or "camera tripod" cybershells, but the event proves moderately interesting anyway, even given the amount of stonewalling from the clearly still uncertain authorities. The team note a lot of provocative questions that seem designed to reinforce those "uncertainty about current power structures" memetics, although it's only when reviewing recordings afterwards that they decide that a lot of the critical challenges seem to have come from a software agent representing the "Xanthe-Zhigansk News" agency. (Zhigansk is an independent Russian community in the Xanthe region, with lax enough government and regulation to make it a good location for anyone looking to set up a puppet news operation with obscure ownership.)
After the conference ends, Jianwei and Vajra leave the room - and after a few meters, Kai Ssung-So falls into step with them, and asks how the press conference went. Jianwei is guarded, but Ssung-So drops hints about people wanting to know who might have been behind a dual-cause accident. Evidently, the Triads are still investigating the incident.
As they arrive back at their hotel, Ambassador Schmidt calls and arranges a VR conference. Florence arrives from the hotel's pool in a thick robe, her fur still wet, and joins the others in Jianwei's room. Mr Grey is present when they enter the embassy's encrypted conference space, and reviews the situation again. One possibility he acknowledges, which had crossed the team's minds, is to leak more or less everything to the Triads, in hope that they will trace and deal with Quipu - they have more resources than most other people, after all, and enough incentive. However, no one is happy with the long-term implications of such a move. Ethics aside - and the conflict might get bloody - if it subsequently became publicly known that the E.U. diplomatic service was either colluding with the Triads, or using them to do their dirty work, anyone known to have been involved could be in legal and disciplinary trouble - and such things have a bad habit of coming out sooner or later, and the ambassador comments that she for one plans to have a very long career in the service.
However, Mr Grey can provide something practical and useful; a specialised firewall utility for Vajra to run on his system, developed by E.U. programmers on Earth. If the TSA have "basilisk" triggers that cause Vajra to shut down, they appear to take the form of moderate-sized binary files; this utility will watch Vajra's input channels for anomalous unexplained digital blocks addressed to him, and quarantine and document them. That aside, Mr Grey supports the team's conclusion about their best option at this point; keep their heads down and their ears open. He will handle any decisions about releasing information to the SIA, and possibly also to the Chinese - although the latter at least might result in leaks to the Triads, which might generate the sort of messes that the E.U. currently wants to avoid.
Once the conference ends, Florence heads back to her room to dry off, and the other two settle down to routine work, such as arranging anonymous travel bookings for Giovanna D'Aquila, so she can get on with her life and holiday without too much hassle from the press or their ilk. Then a call comes in from Captain Brooks-Carter, who has a favour to ask. As the investigation into the crash continues, the investigators need some specialised forensics checks run at the crash site - the first groups on the site were focussed on rescue and medical aid and conventional accident investigation, and criminal enquiries have different needs. An automated forensics package can handle this, but, the whole business is now becoming increasingly difficult and political; it would really be helpful if that package could be delivered and supervised by someone who is seen as reasonably neutral. The E.U. team may actually be as close as anyone gets to meeting that specification currently on the mountain.
In fact, it looks as though this assignment could actually usefully be combined with another trip to the outlying medical facility, to escort the other two E.U. citizens back to the resort - they're up and about now, and comfortable with the idea. So the team takes the job. But that will be for tomorrow; driving in daylight is generally considered safer, and the forensic task can wait that long. For now, Vajra continues to suck in data, Jianwei goes looking for a good Chinese restaurant, and Florence heads to the University area, reckoning that a bar full of postgraduates might come the closest to being interesting that she'll find in this place.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Who Pulls the Strings?
Scorpius 24, m0039, continued
Vajra appears to be back online, and all the tests that the team, Samadhi, or Quentin have available suggest that this is indeed him, without major modifications or corruptions; Jianwei suggests that he performs a backup point immediately, before anything happens that might cause more permanent problems. The team had left him locked out of motor control on his shell, but now they cautiously return it. It does appear that Vajra is back, with no memories of the interruption; Quentin is evidently pleased to see him restored to function.
The team is continuing to play with theories about this whole series of incidents, including Jianwei's opinion that the airship crash was likely the result of two technically unconnected problems - the gasbag failure immediately followed by the software problem. Why these might happen together, other than sheer extreme coincidence, is still unclear, though. They wonder if Vajra and the airship computer could have suffered essentially the same problem; it's not inconceivable, but why just these two entities? There's no trace of anything similar showing up on Web reports. One clue, perhaps, is that Vajra's internal logs show that he received, presumably processed, and then immediately wiped a small packet - a kilobyte or two - of unidentifiable data immediately before his shut-down. Unfortunately, he can't determine its origins, although it evidently came through the hotel's standard Web channels; he doesn't seem to have made any non-routine comms connections at that time.
Jianwei authorises Aunty to continue tracking the news for similar incidents, allowing her to purchase a news-scanning skill set for the purpose (although she seems to have some trouble integrating it at first), and the team set up logging processes on as many comms ports on their assorted systems as possible, so they'll at least have records of any more trigger packet after the fact. Then, the team contact Captain Brooks-Carter and suggest a personal meeting; he is happy for them to come in.
So they don vacc suits and set out by tram again. Brooks-Carter turns out to have called in a couple of colleagues, apparently feeling that these problems are going beyond his domain of accident investigation; Captain Ping, of the Nix Olympica Serious Crimes Unit, whose job is mostly to keep Triad activities on the mountain to some kind of minimum, and Officer Lau, the small police force's computer problems specialist. When the team talk about possible systematic software problems, Lau pays attention, but his assessment is that there isn't much resemblance between Vajra and the airship's systems - not that Vajra is exactly an overly well-documented unit, he notes.
So he offers to pass more of the raw data he has available on the topic to Vajra, who accepts - and a few seconds later, alarms sound throughout the police/rescue installation, which goes into some kind of lockdown. Its security systems are apparently showing the presence of various software configurations and signatures which they have been instructed to treat as a threat, physically within its firewalls. A little nervous testing suggests that Vajra is indeed being treated as a potentially hostile software entity.
The team request a low-bandwidth channel out of the installation, place a call to Quentin to explain something of the situation, and then allow Vajra to be taken down to the installation's computer crimes office, accompanied by Ping and Lau - Brooks-Carter is beginning to look like a man who wants some problems off his hands. A few minutes later, a local high-end LAI is asking questions about Vajra's origins, which of course has to bring in the words "presumed former TSA military asset".
It appears that Vajra's peripheral software generates various signatures that approximately correspond to those produced by an unidentified, elusive entity which has recently been detected on the Nix Olympica Web. The match isn't exact, and with the E.U. embassy vouching for Vajra, local security is prepared to trust him, rather conditionally - but that suggests that the mystery entity was similar to him. Which in turn implies that this intruder was connected to the TSA. This might be considered odd, and also worrying.
It also cuts across the previous evidence of Triad involvement. On that subject, Ping has a brief conversation with the team - noting Florence's known personal history. The team is gaining an odd image with this security and rescue organisation.
So they withdraw politely, and discuss matters further on the tram back to their hotel. Could the Triads be using TSA-designed software agents? That's not entirely their style... Meanwhile, Aunty is scanning local news channels, and picking up a fair amount of discussion on academic boards. The team run further surveys of the local Web, and Vajra soon notes an area of free resources that seem more or less optimised for his use. Not being foolish, he knows a honey trap when he sees one; rather than being caught, he ends up in conversation with the currently-anonymous operator responsible. It's clear that this is someone at the University of Mars - the kind of academic computer specialist who reflexively sneers at that mention of police computer security specialists. He's prepared to trade more data on recent Web events, but what he has would require more technical skills than the team can offer.
However, they can point him at the probably-subverted version control software at the airship tours company, which he didn't know about, while they ask Quentin to look for some software problems consultancy expertise. He may have to go to Earth to find anyone appropriate (he'd normally often call on University of Mars experts for such things, after all). Then, after a few minutes, the anonymous academic calls back to say that he does indeed think that the mystery entity ran some kind of assault on the tour company. Given its efficiency, he wonders if the company was in fact subverted in advance.
Just on principle, Vajra puts a little work in and, mostly by a stroke of luck, identifies this caller as one Dr Rodrigo Manos. He decides that it's more polite not to tell Dr Manos so.
The team are settled back in at their hotel by now, with no specific duties to perform, so they relax a little; Florence looks at local dojo facilities, goes to the hotel gym, and plans a break on Olympus Mons when this mission is done, while Jianwei handles some public relations issues related to the crash and generally looks after consular duties. Then, Quentin gets in touch again, with word from E.U. experts on Earth.
Their belief is that there are indeed signs of SAI-level Web intrusions here. If it's a TSA operation - which seems very possible - it must be a major one. Well, the E.U. isn't aware of any major TSA operations on Mars, with one possible exception of which the team should be aware.
"Quipu" someone says. Vajra admits to being a little scared now.
Jianwei takes this as a cue to look at the memetics of the situation again, and decides that there are subtle but, when one knows where to look, clear similarities in the campaign signatures to the memetics around the Nova Iquitos incident. If "Quipu" is running a broad TSA memetics campaign, this crash may have somehow been involved in that too. It's possible that the Triads have been played by Quipu, while the recent intrusion at the tour company - indeed, all the peculiar events on the local Web since the crash - are beginning to look like a clean-up operation. As a part of that, maybe, Quipu decided to take Vajra off-line for a while - although it's not clear why.
Jianwei sends a message to the ambassador. He wants to request another meeting with "Mr Grey", who appears to be the sort of person who's in the right sort of position to decide how this should all be handled.
Vajra appears to be back online, and all the tests that the team, Samadhi, or Quentin have available suggest that this is indeed him, without major modifications or corruptions; Jianwei suggests that he performs a backup point immediately, before anything happens that might cause more permanent problems. The team had left him locked out of motor control on his shell, but now they cautiously return it. It does appear that Vajra is back, with no memories of the interruption; Quentin is evidently pleased to see him restored to function.
The team is continuing to play with theories about this whole series of incidents, including Jianwei's opinion that the airship crash was likely the result of two technically unconnected problems - the gasbag failure immediately followed by the software problem. Why these might happen together, other than sheer extreme coincidence, is still unclear, though. They wonder if Vajra and the airship computer could have suffered essentially the same problem; it's not inconceivable, but why just these two entities? There's no trace of anything similar showing up on Web reports. One clue, perhaps, is that Vajra's internal logs show that he received, presumably processed, and then immediately wiped a small packet - a kilobyte or two - of unidentifiable data immediately before his shut-down. Unfortunately, he can't determine its origins, although it evidently came through the hotel's standard Web channels; he doesn't seem to have made any non-routine comms connections at that time.
Jianwei authorises Aunty to continue tracking the news for similar incidents, allowing her to purchase a news-scanning skill set for the purpose (although she seems to have some trouble integrating it at first), and the team set up logging processes on as many comms ports on their assorted systems as possible, so they'll at least have records of any more trigger packet after the fact. Then, the team contact Captain Brooks-Carter and suggest a personal meeting; he is happy for them to come in.
So they don vacc suits and set out by tram again. Brooks-Carter turns out to have called in a couple of colleagues, apparently feeling that these problems are going beyond his domain of accident investigation; Captain Ping, of the Nix Olympica Serious Crimes Unit, whose job is mostly to keep Triad activities on the mountain to some kind of minimum, and Officer Lau, the small police force's computer problems specialist. When the team talk about possible systematic software problems, Lau pays attention, but his assessment is that there isn't much resemblance between Vajra and the airship's systems - not that Vajra is exactly an overly well-documented unit, he notes.
So he offers to pass more of the raw data he has available on the topic to Vajra, who accepts - and a few seconds later, alarms sound throughout the police/rescue installation, which goes into some kind of lockdown. Its security systems are apparently showing the presence of various software configurations and signatures which they have been instructed to treat as a threat, physically within its firewalls. A little nervous testing suggests that Vajra is indeed being treated as a potentially hostile software entity.
The team request a low-bandwidth channel out of the installation, place a call to Quentin to explain something of the situation, and then allow Vajra to be taken down to the installation's computer crimes office, accompanied by Ping and Lau - Brooks-Carter is beginning to look like a man who wants some problems off his hands. A few minutes later, a local high-end LAI is asking questions about Vajra's origins, which of course has to bring in the words "presumed former TSA military asset".
It appears that Vajra's peripheral software generates various signatures that approximately correspond to those produced by an unidentified, elusive entity which has recently been detected on the Nix Olympica Web. The match isn't exact, and with the E.U. embassy vouching for Vajra, local security is prepared to trust him, rather conditionally - but that suggests that the mystery entity was similar to him. Which in turn implies that this intruder was connected to the TSA. This might be considered odd, and also worrying.
It also cuts across the previous evidence of Triad involvement. On that subject, Ping has a brief conversation with the team - noting Florence's known personal history. The team is gaining an odd image with this security and rescue organisation.
So they withdraw politely, and discuss matters further on the tram back to their hotel. Could the Triads be using TSA-designed software agents? That's not entirely their style... Meanwhile, Aunty is scanning local news channels, and picking up a fair amount of discussion on academic boards. The team run further surveys of the local Web, and Vajra soon notes an area of free resources that seem more or less optimised for his use. Not being foolish, he knows a honey trap when he sees one; rather than being caught, he ends up in conversation with the currently-anonymous operator responsible. It's clear that this is someone at the University of Mars - the kind of academic computer specialist who reflexively sneers at that mention of police computer security specialists. He's prepared to trade more data on recent Web events, but what he has would require more technical skills than the team can offer.
However, they can point him at the probably-subverted version control software at the airship tours company, which he didn't know about, while they ask Quentin to look for some software problems consultancy expertise. He may have to go to Earth to find anyone appropriate (he'd normally often call on University of Mars experts for such things, after all). Then, after a few minutes, the anonymous academic calls back to say that he does indeed think that the mystery entity ran some kind of assault on the tour company. Given its efficiency, he wonders if the company was in fact subverted in advance.
Just on principle, Vajra puts a little work in and, mostly by a stroke of luck, identifies this caller as one Dr Rodrigo Manos. He decides that it's more polite not to tell Dr Manos so.
The team are settled back in at their hotel by now, with no specific duties to perform, so they relax a little; Florence looks at local dojo facilities, goes to the hotel gym, and plans a break on Olympus Mons when this mission is done, while Jianwei handles some public relations issues related to the crash and generally looks after consular duties. Then, Quentin gets in touch again, with word from E.U. experts on Earth.
Their belief is that there are indeed signs of SAI-level Web intrusions here. If it's a TSA operation - which seems very possible - it must be a major one. Well, the E.U. isn't aware of any major TSA operations on Mars, with one possible exception of which the team should be aware.
"Quipu" someone says. Vajra admits to being a little scared now.
Jianwei takes this as a cue to look at the memetics of the situation again, and decides that there are subtle but, when one knows where to look, clear similarities in the campaign signatures to the memetics around the Nova Iquitos incident. If "Quipu" is running a broad TSA memetics campaign, this crash may have somehow been involved in that too. It's possible that the Triads have been played by Quipu, while the recent intrusion at the tour company - indeed, all the peculiar events on the local Web since the crash - are beginning to look like a clean-up operation. As a part of that, maybe, Quipu decided to take Vajra off-line for a while - although it's not clear why.
Jianwei sends a message to the ambassador. He wants to request another meeting with "Mr Grey", who appears to be the sort of person who's in the right sort of position to decide how this should all be handled.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Software Controls Hardware
Scorpius 23, m0039, continued
As the team's vehicle approaches the Zeus Tourist Resort, it becomes clear from Web traffic that the press have picked up on both their presence and that of Giovanna D'Aquila, the first survivor of the airship crash to return to civilisation. They promptly offer her assistance in dealing with what will follow - that's their job, after all - and she accepts the offer. She's evidently smart enough to be careful about what she says, and the team help her to prepare a response to the obvious first questions ("I cannot say very much while the investigation is still underway..."), and work up a press release to appear over her name. They also offer to see her back to the hotel room which her wearable has already chosen for her, and she accepts that offer too. Her wearable is also already handling matters such as getting some of her possessions out of storage while her luggage on the airship is being identified, extracted, and flown back. The team are being cautious enough that everything that arrives for her will be scanned for bugs...
When the rover reaches the airlock and the travellers disembark, they discover a couple of enterprising reporters already waiting. Both Jianwei's and Florence's instincts for practical tactics desert them, and the group is brought to a halt by the importunate reporters. However, Giovanna keeps her head and remains bland, and Jianwei does some smooth talking, giving the others a chance to get away
However, as the group is entering the lobby of Giovanna's hotel (her personal AI automatically checking her in), Vajra's cybershell suddenly locks up and falls over. The other two team members move quickly to assist, trying to determine what has happened; Aunty establishes contact with Samadhi, first carefully validating his ID codes, and Samadhi reports that Vajra is still running on the shell's systems, but isn't responding at all to external stimuli. Jianwei invokes his director status with the company that nominally "owns" Vajra for legal purposes in some jurisdictions to authorise Samadhi to take control of the cybershell. Once Samadhi has the shell back on its feet, if a little unsteadily, the group quickly heads up to Giovanna's room for privacy as they run more basic checks. First, though, Jianwei borrows Vajra's electronic gear and sweeps the room for surveillance devices, finding nothing. After a short while, with no signs of Vajra returning to "consciousness", they ask Giovanna (who's understandably a little perturbed by this turn of events) not to discuss it with anyone, and head back toward their own rooms.
On the way, they contact Quentin at the embassy, first reporting their successes, then describing what has happened to Vajra. Quentin "talks" to Samadhi, then leaves him to walk the shell home. Quentin is evidently perturbed by this turn of events, but has no idea yet of its causes. Aunty is monitoring the technical news channels for any evidence of anything similar, but nothing has shown up, so Jianwei calls the Emergency Response Service, and leaves a message, and after a few minutes, Captain Brooks-Carter calls back. He notes their concern, but this seems to be an isolated incident at present; he comments that it may well remain so, as far as he can tell - he understands that Vajra is a rather non-standard sort of AI...
Quentin too gets back in touch; he's been probing Vajra's systems, and his conclusion is that Vajra's low-level processes are, essentially, looping. What they're processing remains unclear - he's not taking any large data input streams - but this has evidently locked up his higher personality functions. ("Oh my God, he's garbage collecting!" someone mutters.) It's quite possible he'll come back on line when this process is complete, so there's no question of restoring him from backup yet.
The team get back to their own rooms, Samadhi lies the cybershell body down, and the team plugs him into a high-speed fibre-optic port while Quentin gets in touch with some experts. As there's little they can do themselves, the two organic beings decide that, rather than ordering dinner in, they might as well go and get the feel of what pass for streets in this place. So they head out to a restaurant and bar to do some listening.
There's only so much to listen to, in fact - perhaps the most interesting thing they hear during the evening is a news report on the Web, which suggests that Peng Chiang-Kwan was put in nanostasis as soon as the rescue teams reached the crash site, but that was longer than anyone would like, and now a lot of specialist human doctors, AI experts, and advanced cybershells are being mustered to attempts a prolonged and careful uploading exercise on him; it'll be a while before its success or otherwise becomes clear. There are no reports of misbehaving AIs.
Then, in the bar, the pair are approached by a well-dressed man, ethnic Chinese in appearance, who identifies himself as Kai Ssung-So, the insurance company agent. He's blandly polite, and still seems to be looking to exchange information quite openly; he seems convinced - or determined to convey the belief - that software problems are the key to this mystery. Smooth as he is, Jianwei senses that he's seriously worried about something. Meanwhile, Florence remains reticent, just reining in her distaste for anyone Triad-connected - and noting that Ssung-So is accompanied at a distance of a few yards by another man, also Chinese to go by his features, well-built and self-contained - not exactly a disguised bodyguard...
As the pair are returning to their hotel, they take another call from Captain Brooks-Carter. His own people have been looking at the airship tour company's computer systems, and they think that someone has been tinkering with the logging components. They believe that there's something highly capable loose on the local Web, and he reckons that the Europeans might want to know that. In response, Florence mentions that there may be Triad agents currently operating in the resort; the captain takes a note of that, but isn't immediately concerned - detecting a Triad presence somewhere on Mars is rarely news.
Back at their rooms, the pair talk to Quentin again. He notes that one problem in trying to diagnose software problems with Vajra is his status as, well, probably a former TSA military asset; he's hardly well-documented. But Quentin and his advisers are convinced that Vajra is in that shell somewhere; hopefully, the loop will eventually terminate. They're bemused, though, and worried. Still, all the biosapients can do for now is get some sleep, leaving Dougal and Aunty to learn how to play Robo Rally. Before they settle in, they do get some assurances from Quentin that, if Vajra awakens in "kill the squishy things" mode, he'll warn them, or something.
Scorpius 24, m0039
Jianwei wakes first, and reviews the news channels over breakfast. As a trained memeticist, he concludes that this whole incident is maybe being exploited to raise general fear-uncertainty-doubt levels across the planet. He looks deeper, but if his first guess is right, this is a well-engineered campaign, and not easily traced. He mentions the theory to Florence when she wakes, and they wonder who could be responsible - Negative Growth or other such preservationists might have an interest in spreading such memes, as might the various Martian Independence groups; it's certainly a challenge to the current power structures.
As they finish breakfast, another call comes in from Captain Brooks-Carter. By then, Jianwei has assembled a quick presentation analysing this possible campaign, and he takes the opportunity to pass it over; the Captain in his turn says that he has been asking questions, and he believes that the team may have a point about the Triads; his own team's best guess is that they were looking to muscle in on the tour company, although nobody is admitting anything. But this doesn't explain the airship crash; reducing share values and intimidating managers would be one thing, but destroying the company's image and profitability would surely just be foolish and inefficient.
Then, in Florence's room, another voice speaks.
"Where am I?"
As the team's vehicle approaches the Zeus Tourist Resort, it becomes clear from Web traffic that the press have picked up on both their presence and that of Giovanna D'Aquila, the first survivor of the airship crash to return to civilisation. They promptly offer her assistance in dealing with what will follow - that's their job, after all - and she accepts the offer. She's evidently smart enough to be careful about what she says, and the team help her to prepare a response to the obvious first questions ("I cannot say very much while the investigation is still underway..."), and work up a press release to appear over her name. They also offer to see her back to the hotel room which her wearable has already chosen for her, and she accepts that offer too. Her wearable is also already handling matters such as getting some of her possessions out of storage while her luggage on the airship is being identified, extracted, and flown back. The team are being cautious enough that everything that arrives for her will be scanned for bugs...
When the rover reaches the airlock and the travellers disembark, they discover a couple of enterprising reporters already waiting. Both Jianwei's and Florence's instincts for practical tactics desert them, and the group is brought to a halt by the importunate reporters. However, Giovanna keeps her head and remains bland, and Jianwei does some smooth talking, giving the others a chance to get away
However, as the group is entering the lobby of Giovanna's hotel (her personal AI automatically checking her in), Vajra's cybershell suddenly locks up and falls over. The other two team members move quickly to assist, trying to determine what has happened; Aunty establishes contact with Samadhi, first carefully validating his ID codes, and Samadhi reports that Vajra is still running on the shell's systems, but isn't responding at all to external stimuli. Jianwei invokes his director status with the company that nominally "owns" Vajra for legal purposes in some jurisdictions to authorise Samadhi to take control of the cybershell. Once Samadhi has the shell back on its feet, if a little unsteadily, the group quickly heads up to Giovanna's room for privacy as they run more basic checks. First, though, Jianwei borrows Vajra's electronic gear and sweeps the room for surveillance devices, finding nothing. After a short while, with no signs of Vajra returning to "consciousness", they ask Giovanna (who's understandably a little perturbed by this turn of events) not to discuss it with anyone, and head back toward their own rooms.
On the way, they contact Quentin at the embassy, first reporting their successes, then describing what has happened to Vajra. Quentin "talks" to Samadhi, then leaves him to walk the shell home. Quentin is evidently perturbed by this turn of events, but has no idea yet of its causes. Aunty is monitoring the technical news channels for any evidence of anything similar, but nothing has shown up, so Jianwei calls the Emergency Response Service, and leaves a message, and after a few minutes, Captain Brooks-Carter calls back. He notes their concern, but this seems to be an isolated incident at present; he comments that it may well remain so, as far as he can tell - he understands that Vajra is a rather non-standard sort of AI...
Quentin too gets back in touch; he's been probing Vajra's systems, and his conclusion is that Vajra's low-level processes are, essentially, looping. What they're processing remains unclear - he's not taking any large data input streams - but this has evidently locked up his higher personality functions. ("Oh my God, he's garbage collecting!" someone mutters.) It's quite possible he'll come back on line when this process is complete, so there's no question of restoring him from backup yet.
The team get back to their own rooms, Samadhi lies the cybershell body down, and the team plugs him into a high-speed fibre-optic port while Quentin gets in touch with some experts. As there's little they can do themselves, the two organic beings decide that, rather than ordering dinner in, they might as well go and get the feel of what pass for streets in this place. So they head out to a restaurant and bar to do some listening.
There's only so much to listen to, in fact - perhaps the most interesting thing they hear during the evening is a news report on the Web, which suggests that Peng Chiang-Kwan was put in nanostasis as soon as the rescue teams reached the crash site, but that was longer than anyone would like, and now a lot of specialist human doctors, AI experts, and advanced cybershells are being mustered to attempts a prolonged and careful uploading exercise on him; it'll be a while before its success or otherwise becomes clear. There are no reports of misbehaving AIs.
Then, in the bar, the pair are approached by a well-dressed man, ethnic Chinese in appearance, who identifies himself as Kai Ssung-So, the insurance company agent. He's blandly polite, and still seems to be looking to exchange information quite openly; he seems convinced - or determined to convey the belief - that software problems are the key to this mystery. Smooth as he is, Jianwei senses that he's seriously worried about something. Meanwhile, Florence remains reticent, just reining in her distaste for anyone Triad-connected - and noting that Ssung-So is accompanied at a distance of a few yards by another man, also Chinese to go by his features, well-built and self-contained - not exactly a disguised bodyguard...
As the pair are returning to their hotel, they take another call from Captain Brooks-Carter. His own people have been looking at the airship tour company's computer systems, and they think that someone has been tinkering with the logging components. They believe that there's something highly capable loose on the local Web, and he reckons that the Europeans might want to know that. In response, Florence mentions that there may be Triad agents currently operating in the resort; the captain takes a note of that, but isn't immediately concerned - detecting a Triad presence somewhere on Mars is rarely news.
Back at their rooms, the pair talk to Quentin again. He notes that one problem in trying to diagnose software problems with Vajra is his status as, well, probably a former TSA military asset; he's hardly well-documented. But Quentin and his advisers are convinced that Vajra is in that shell somewhere; hopefully, the loop will eventually terminate. They're bemused, though, and worried. Still, all the biosapients can do for now is get some sleep, leaving Dougal and Aunty to learn how to play Robo Rally. Before they settle in, they do get some assurances from Quentin that, if Vajra awakens in "kill the squishy things" mode, he'll warn them, or something.
Scorpius 24, m0039
Jianwei wakes first, and reviews the news channels over breakfast. As a trained memeticist, he concludes that this whole incident is maybe being exploited to raise general fear-uncertainty-doubt levels across the planet. He looks deeper, but if his first guess is right, this is a well-engineered campaign, and not easily traced. He mentions the theory to Florence when she wakes, and they wonder who could be responsible - Negative Growth or other such preservationists might have an interest in spreading such memes, as might the various Martian Independence groups; it's certainly a challenge to the current power structures.
As they finish breakfast, another call comes in from Captain Brooks-Carter. By then, Jianwei has assembled a quick presentation analysing this possible campaign, and he takes the opportunity to pass it over; the Captain in his turn says that he has been asking questions, and he believes that the team may have a point about the Triads; his own team's best guess is that they were looking to muscle in on the tour company, although nobody is admitting anything. But this doesn't explain the airship crash; reducing share values and intimidating managers would be one thing, but destroying the company's image and profitability would surely just be foolish and inefficient.
Then, in Florence's room, another voice speaks.
"Where am I?"
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