Darklight Pirates
Chapter Twenty-two

Kori Tomlins fumed as the newser told of setbacks for the crowds rioting in the streets of the capital. She glanced at her daughter. Bella hunched over a hard terminal, hesitantly pressing the keys. This caused Kori to grow even angrier. Without a control helmet feeding its data directly into Bella’s brain and Bella insinuating herself into the neural network that governed the entire continent, setbacks to her plans happened with alarming speed.

Kori had sent out three teams to plant bombs, to sabotage needed transport centers. The way Herold had talked, the small explosives would deliver maximum damage and confusion. She cared nothing if people died. She wanted Weir to work overtime to repair the damage to the delivery routes, the systems, the very structure of the nation. Somehow, Weir had anticipated the destruction. One bomb had detonated, the others were taken away for safe disposal. And the one that had blown apart the loading docks at the central food dispensary had only slowed distribution, not stopped it. She had counted on a full day of interruption and had to settle for mere hours.

Bella assured her that day would bring about serious protests throughout the capital. But with increasing ease, the riot squads quelled the unrest, dispersed the demonstrators and caused Kori to waste both hard-gained explosives and the agitprop teams’ efforts. Every last one of those guerrilla fighters had been killed or captured. Every one.

“Someone is letting Weir know our plans. We have a traitor.”

“Yes, Mama.” Bella never looked up. She chewed her tongue as she used two fingers on the keyboard.

“It’s Herold. Who else could it be? He never goes on the missions. He builds the bombs, then relocates his factory before the detonations.”

“I have a new way to cause some trouble. Do you want to see?”

“Unless you have found a new supply for our explosives, no. Wait, yes, dear, what have you discovered?”

“The Programmer General has an elaborate accounting system in place now. Stealing from it the way we did when we started isn’t possible without alarms going off.”

“I know that.” Kori turned away in disgust. For all her brilliance at programming, Bella showed herself to be an idiot at times.

“I can use that against him. Keeping accounts balanced to such a degree requires considerable computing power. Almost 20 percent of all Burran’s server farms are constantly checking, evaluating, balancing.”

“So you nudge here and there and cause him to use more computing power? So what?”

“No, Mama.” Bella’s tone made Kori want to slap her. She sounded as if she lectured a dimwit and not her mother. “I reallocate. Instead of a thousand kilos of amino acids for the 3D printers in Eastminster, enough to feed a quarter of the city for a day, I ship it to the capital.”

“You don’t destroy it?”

“It’s not needed here. It is in Eastminster. The people there might not starve, but the shipment has to be tracked down and sent to the proper location since that much extra nutrient will go to waste otherwise. If I insinuate another false shipping manifest, I can send it back to the aquafarms on the coast, depriving the people in Eastminster of their food for yet another day.”

“Not serious, but annoying. Yes, I see that.”

“It wastes resources, but the accounting program is happy. The nutrients are always in the system, only not moving to where they are needed most.”

“The people are more likely to take to the streets and protest if they are hungry and hear that others have too much to eat. I can start rumors about a government austerity program, with certain population centers taking the brunt of the cutbacks. With no food on the table, why not believe the rumors instead of what Weir’s propagandists tell them?”

Bella smiled shyly. She gripped the sides of the keyboard and finally looked away from the flickering video screen. The ancient machine had been uncovered in a warehouse. It was so old that Kori doubted anyone could track it by its electronic footprint. That made it the perfect terminal to use for such materiel diversions, even if Bella took forever to input her changes into the system.

“You are wonderful, dear. Wonderful. Can you do this everywhere? All at once to create maximum confusion and disruption? Even of military shipments?”

“It’s better to only try this a few times. If Weir finds too many discrepancies, he’ll look for how I entered the changes into the routing programs. I am leaving behind small Trojan horse programs to pop into effect randomly. That way I won’t even know what is being shifted around.”

“Use his own accounting against him.” Kori tried to remember how much money remained in accounts scattered around the world after the first day or two of Bella’s tampering. That had been months ago.

She closed her eyes for a moment. They had started with nothing and built the revolt against Weir into something big. If she had succeeded in assassinating him when they broke into the Residence almost a month prior, taking power would have been easy enough. No one remaining after Weir’s purges had a fraction of Bella’s skills. The master computer would have been hers to command. But they had been betrayed then, too.

That might have been the first time. Weir’s guards had been waiting for the attempt. Bella insisted that Aaron Riddle was responsible and that he had known they were coming far enough in advance to set the trap. Kori discounted her daughter’s opinion. Riddle was a lapdog, nothing more. He had been furious when Cletus had received a promotion over him, but there had been a good reason for that. It looked like nepotism, but she knew her son was cleverer and had a keener sense of tactics.

Kori forced herself to relax thinking how her son and husband had both abandoned her. Riddle had been opportunistic aligning with Weir. She might have been in a better situation if she had done the same.

“I can waste the resources in other ways,” Bella said. “If an order calls for a hundred kilometers of cable, I can have the factory turn out a thousand. It will be useful eventually, but the resources are normally all allocated on a just-in-time schedule. This unbalances that timetable without unbalancing the payment accounts.”

“Where will the surplus be warehoused?” Kori laughed harshly at that. With every supply line on a knife edge of efficiency, new warehouses might have to be found--or built. Valuable products wouldn’t be reduced back to the melt if they cost a young fortune to manufacture.

And if Weir did that, he wasted time, money and raw materials. It worked to her benefit causing unrest no matter what he decided.

“Can you put in orders to move troops where they aren’t required?”

“That would be reported. Better to move too many where they are needed. I remember Cletus complaining how little coordination there was between units in the field.”

“The fog of war,” Kori said. “No plan lasts longer than the first engagement.”

“Something like that, I suppose.” Bella lightly moved her fingers across the keys, making small clicking sounds as her fingernails caught the edges before slipping on to the next set of keys. “If Riddle fields a hundred soldiers, how does he control a thousand? Or supply them?”

“Before you do that, we need a plan. We need a goal.”

“Do you think that Herold is a traitor?”

Kori opened her mouth, then closed it with a snap. Working and planning in a bubble, isolated from the others in the rebellion, guaranteed failure. In spite of that she dared not trust anyone too much. She had trusted Donal and now fought a rebellion to regain power in Burran alone. Bella was capable and worked miracles with the sorry equipment they had, but she did not confide in her. Herold might not be a traitor, but he lacked the vision needed to do more than blow up buildings and people. Organizing the resistance cells deprived her of able lieutenants even as it protected the fighters against betrayal.

“I wish I knew. Is there any way you can tap into the comlink and find what Weir and Riddle are saying?”

“Not really, Mama. The encryption changes quickly, sometimes a hundred times a day, according to a schedule they might pass along in person. There’s no way I can know. If I try too hard, they will find me.”

“Are they that good?”

“Papa was that good setting up the system. He built in checks and balances. Only when Weir fiddled with the way the Blarney Stone worked did he open ways for me to sneak in and make my own changes.”

“The accounting balance subprogram?”

“That and other places. He is trying to improve the system, but he’s not that good.” Bella smiled almost shyly. “He’s nowhere near as good as I am, and I’m still learning. Papa would have made sure I knew the things that Weir is only guessing at.”

“Where is he diverting money to his own accounts? That might be a way to attack him. Find the places and reveal them to the newsers.”

“He’s either hidden them too deep for me to find or he’s not stealing for himself.”

“If not, he’s a fool. He has to know he won’t remain in power very long.”

Kori slumped into a chair across the table from Bella, crossed her arms and scowled. She needed a more comprehensive plan. Attacking the Residence had been premature, but the potential for Weir’s death had made it important to try. She could have installed Bella as Programmer General immediately, and Riddle would have never been able to use the military to gain the power he had. It was almost as if Riddle and Weir worked to different ends.

She turned that idea over and began to figure out ways to exploit it. Weir had the power, but Riddle wanted it. The military had not seized control. No one under Riddle had the expertise to run the economy, but the complete power had slipped from Weir’s grasp. If anything, it took two of them to run Burran now. How could a wedge be driven between them? She considered how easy it would be for her to convince Riddle that Weir wanted him removed or even killed. It might be harder to go the other way since Weir ran the economy and could cut off the military’s supplies. With so much automated and controlled by the master computer, Riddle had the more difficult road to power.

But could she ally herself with him to ultimately wrest control from Weir? Who would prove the most malleable? The biggest fool? He had repeatedly tried to bed her, to her disgust. Although she had never asked, she thought he had similarly propositioned Bella and Ebony in an attempt to insinuate himself into the Tomlins power structure.

She felt the pressure of time and diminishing power weighing her down. Whatever happened had to be done fast. The longer she nibbled at the government, the more likely it was that she would bite off a poisonous chunk.

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