Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 11 - Jemima's Gambit

Two lone figures stood in an abandoned industrial building situated in a near-empty zone on the far Western edge of the habbed zones of Mars. The first figure, male, tall, robed, stood in front of a plate diamond window and gazed at the desolate landscape.

A green sky tinged a red Martian soil, punctuated by large yellow patches.

The man wore the latest tech QSID glasses, and was clearly using them to communicate with somebody, probably a ship in near orbit, imagined the woman who stood silently ten metres to his rear.

She watched the small involuntary twitches in his shoulders that people often got when communicating via NPlant. The man’s twitches were quite pronounced, and at times she thought he was actually going to start gesticulating angrily with his hands.

The woman felt that he was definitely in an argument; she waited patiently, taking care not to move or breath more than necessary.

The man’s shoulders settled as they finished their private dance in time with his conversation/argument, he turned to the woman and spoke.

“It would appear that events have rather gotten away from us. Unfortunately, the little trick you played in Empires didn’t go unnoticed, much as I originally feared it wouldn’t.”

He barely disguised his contempt as he spoke the words little trick; she had been fully aware of the risks, however she felt that it was vital to get to K-Rox before Interim, or at least try to, for what it was worth.

“You see, as I told anyone who would listen beforehand - "

He was really laying on the I told you so bit, honey-thick.

“- by using our one and only secret weapon for such an, obviously fruitless exercise, we not only alert the enemy to our capabilities, but we make sure a potential asset, has been recruited to the other side!”

“I’m sorry – ”

She wasn’t actually, but felt it was what he wanted to hear; there were no empLink-ups around here, so they were just working on old fashioned intuition. To her surprise, the insincere apology, although did not quite stop him, seemed to slow him in his tracks, she continued.

“I’m sorry, I felt that with aZorl betraying us like that, if he manages to secure K-Rox’s services, he would be giving himself a massive advantage. I felt it was only a matter of time before K-Rox would accept whatever huge sum of money he’s offering.

Then of course there were the Illuminated Ones to think about; my suspicions were that once Interim found out about aZorl’s offer, they would finally use their influence over K-Rox.

It’s obvious, we’ve known that they had Malcraft as their ace in the hole; I wouldn’t be surprised if they have broken cover and revealed to him who they are.

We’ve long suspected that his friend Ziper is an Interim agent; it wouldn’t take much for them to link Malcraft’s disappearance with aZorl’s quest, and with that give them an easy route to recruit K-Rox to their side.

That way it’s simple for K-Rox, him and anyone trying to catch Malcraft are the good guys, everyone else are the bad guys. If we were to run it through a Fuzzy probability scenario, the plan probably had less than 1% chance of succeeding. However in the circumstances, I felt it was a chance worth taking; I thought I could get his interest – "

Jemima started to trail off as she thought back to the moments surrounding her meeting with K-Rox in Empires.

“It happened so quickly, I breached the game and approached him within two minutes of entering. I used the same techniques as before; a simple back door using the slave Ais.

But as soon as I approached him, I sensed silent alarms popping off all over the place, and some rather nasty hunter-kill programs came sniffing around my entry points. I disconnected fast, and – ”

She shrugged her shoulders and returned Harvey Miltion’s steady gaze; she often wondered what he stood to gain from the cause. It often seemed to Jemima that the interests of Harvey Milton would not be that different from those of the Illuminated Ones. Why? She wondered for the hundredth time, did this guy want to help them?

Asimov's Ghost Chapters 1-10

Original artwork by @nekromarinist

Cryptogee