Osiris seemed like a genuine person, who legitimately wanted to help people.
Hokusai probably needn’t worry about what he was going to try to do with her
technology, but that was rarely the problem. Most technological advancements
didn’t risk falling into the wrong hands so much as each development
inevitably led to further developments. Sure, you have things like the
Manhattan Project, which was specifically designed to kill people, and the
scientists working on the problem of fission knew exactly that that was the
goal. But most of the time, science must, and will, press forward, and the
best one can hope for is understanding consequences. At first, dimensional
gravity was used to allow people to walk around on this heavy world in
designated areas. Then it was used to launch ships into the sky. Now it was
being used to help people move around anywhere, with their own personal
gravitational field. This all sounded very good and benevolent, but each
application could transform, and that could happen in the blink of an eye.
Given enough time and motivation, someone with dimensional gravity could
create an execution platform. They could launch a vulnerable living being
into the empty, or they could increase gravity, and crush them like a soda
can. They could create a handheld weapon that tore a target apart, with each
limb being drawn in a different direction. They could design regular-sized
missiles that traveled interstellar distances at such mind-boggling
speeds—and thus contained ungodly amounts of energy—and destroy a whole
planet. Plus, manipulating gravity also means manipulating time, so
something like this could be used to imprison people for years, while only
seconds passed for those outside the prison. These were just the risks that
Hokusai could come up with on the top of her head, and they only involved the
artificial gravity aspect of it. Tapping into other temporal or spatial
dimensions could come with even worse consequences.
Osiris appeared to sense that her concerns had not gone away, which they
never would. Still, he was determined to help alleviate them any way he
could. “Come. I want to show you one last thing for the day.” He led them
farther down the hallway, until reaching a very ominous door at the end. The
sign said, Gravity Weapons Laboratory.
“This. This is exactly what I was worried about. I can’t believe you—!”
“Open the door, Madam Gimura,” Osiris said.
Hokusai could only shake her head in disappointment, so Pribadium decided to
open the door herself. On the other side was nothing but a stone wall. “Is
it a hologram?” she asked. To answer her own question, she reached up to
find a real, physical wall.
“What is this?” Loa questioned, kind of protectively of her wife.
“It’s a symbol,” Osiris began to explain. “This is no trick. It’s not a
secret transporter that takes you to the lab. The lab doesn’t exist, and it
never will. We built this door to remind us that nothing we need is on the
other side of it, and it never needs to become a room. As long as we’re in
charge of this technology, it won’t be abused, and we will remain in charge
as long as we’re alive, and if we do die, it dies with us. We’ve been very
careful to quarantine the information. Only a few key people understand how
it works.” He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small spherical cube
box with a single button. It almost resembled a detonator. He handed it to
Hokusai.
“Conceptual understanding of dimensional gravity was copied and sequestered
on eight neural implants. Every time we want to do something with the
knowledge, those in the know have to access the data using the implant.
Practical application runs directly from this chip, and into our hands.
Incoming data runs directly back to the implant, and we no longer share
information. I, for instance, don’t actually know how gravity clothes work.
Nor does anyone else, except for Dr. Petrić.”
“What is this?” Hokusai asked, indicating the sphube.
“The implants are airgapped, and they come with a single vulnerability,”
Osiris went on. “A radio signal sourced from this box will disable the
implants almost instantaneously. Now you’re the one in control of it. If you
decide to erase everyone’s access, that’s what will happen.”
Hokusai looked down at her doomsday device. “Will it hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” Osiris answered. “Even if it does, the pain will be
minimal, and temporary.”
She now half-frowned at the device. “Okay.” And with that, she pressed the
button. A squeal escaped from it, and made its way through the air beyond
them.
Osiris pressed his fingers against the top right side of his head. It didn’t
look extremely painful, but more like he had accidentally bumped it against
the edge of the coffee table after retrieving his contacts from underneath.
Tiny massive weights hooked themselves to his eyelids, and he only barely
fought against them. He quickly succumbed to the fatigue, and collapsed to
the floor.
“Was that supposed to happen?” Loa asked.
“It’s not what he said.” Pribadium knelt down, and checked his pulse. “He’s
still alive, just sleeping.”
“I don’t feel bad,” Hokusai said. “He gave me the button.”
“No one’s blaming you,” Loa assured her.
Pribadium walked a few meters down the hallway to the emergency box. There
were two buttons. One was for urgent need, and the other simply connected
with dispatch. She pressed the latter.
“Can I help you?”
“We need assistance transporting an unconscious man to the nearest medical
facility.”
“A carrier is being sent to your location. It has been programmed to
transport him to where the others are being taken. Please follow behind for
routine questioning.”
A couple minutes later, a hover gurney appeared, and wedged itself under
Osiris’ right side. Hokusai and Pribadium worked to drag him onto it, so it
could take him to the infirmary. An investigator was waiting for them. Five
unconscious people were already there. The other two were hopefully on their
way, so they too could be treated. The investigator was taking someone
else’s statement, and adding notes to a computer system that had been
grafted onto the skin on his forearm.
“This is what did it.” Hokusai handed him the detonator sphube.
“What is it?” he asked her.
Hokusai felt no need to hide the truth. “You should find neural chips in
each of their brains. These chips contained very sensitive information. The
box was engineered as a failsafe, to prevent this information from leaking.”
The investigator nodded. “The gravity data. Yes, I know of it. Why was it
activated?”
“He placed me in control of it, and I decided to use it.”
“Forgive me,” he said, “but we’ll have to wait until we revive them to
determine whether you’re telling the truth.”
“Of course.”
“I’m sure they are.” The scientist who was observing the gravity children
before stepped into the room. The seventh hover gurney followed her through,
and took its place next to the others.
“How are you awake?” Hokusai asked, almost accusingly.
“That’s what we need to discuss,” the scientist replied. She faced the
investigator. “You may go now. I’m invoking scientific immunity for everyone
involved.”
The investigator switched off his arm interface. “Very well.”
“I’ll take that,” the scientist said before he could leave. Then she
snatched the box out of his hand.
A robot surgeon removed itself from the wall, and began to perform brain
surgery on the patients, starting with Osiris.
“My name is Katica Petrić. I was responsible for human gravitational
adaptation, and there’s a secret I never told anyone; not even Osiris.”
Hokusai figured she understood. “You’re immune to the button.”
“Not exactly. I mean, no more or less than anyone else who didn’t have a
gravity chip in their brain. Eleven years ago, my colleague was
experimenting with dimensional energy. He was taking his job beyond his
mandate, and because of it, something went wrong. I had to go down and
release the energy before it blew another crater into the planet. Obviously
I survived, but the incident had a side effect. The chip—for a reason I
don’t know, because I’m not a neurologist—released all of its data into my
mind, and then it melted. I was under the knife for hours while a surgical
robot cleaned the chip out of my gray matter. It could do nothing for my
memory, however. That button won’t work on me, because I possess knowledge
of dimensional gravity that can’t be erased without seriously damaging my
mind. I’m more like you now.”
Hokusai nodded. “No technology is foolproof.”
“Are you going to kill me?” Katica asked.
“Of course not.” Loa was more insulted than her wife. “We used the button as
it was intended, for people who we presume consented to the eventuality. We
don’t kill, and if your team hadn’t thought of the chips in the first place,
then we just would have trusted that you wouldn’t do anything wrong with the
knowledge.”
“You obviously didn’t want anyone using this knowledge anymore, though,”
Katica began, “so I agree to retire.”
Pribadium had been searching her own memory archives since the first time
she heard the name. “You’re a Petrić, as in the Kansas City Petrićs?”
“Yes,” Katica confirmed. “Third generation.”
“Thor told me about you,” Pribadium said. “I mean, he told us about your
family, and the other three Croatian families. You’re kind of the unsung
heroes of Kansas-Missouri history.”
She laughed. “I dunno, they sing songs about the Matics, and Bozhena.”
“But no one else,” Pribadium argued lightly. “That’s not my point, though.
From what I gather, your family, in particular, has always been fully aware
of salmon and choosers.”
Katica knew she had been found out. “Every Petrić is born without the
ability to move backwards in time, but we’ve all been protectors in our own
human ways. I’ve been deeply invested in what happens to salmon since we
found out what my adoptive brother and sister were.”
“Who were your brother and sister?” Hokusai asked.
“Mario and Daria,” Katica answered. “The Kingmaker, and The Savior of Earth
from 1981 to 2034.”
“You don’t just protect salmon,” Pribadium pointed out. “You’ve been
protecting the vonearthans from them. You got yourself onto this team to
prevent it from growing out of control.”
Katica turned to watch the surgeon continue removing the neural implants
from her colleagues. “I do what I have to.”
“Your story was a lie,” Hokusai accused. “There was no energy generation
accident. You removed the chip, and kept the knowledge for yourself.”
“Oh, no, there was a definite energy crisis, and I did have to stop it,”
Katica contended. “I also just happened to be the person who started it. If
I didn’t do something to prevent them from learning too much, Beaver Haven
Pen would have imprisoned them all.” She dragged her knuckles against her
upper teeth, presumably as a nervous tick. “I modified the killswitch for
the same reason.”
“Are you telling me this is a real killswitch?” Hokusai was horrified.
“No, sorry, that’s not what I meant. It’s just...”
“What?” Loa prodded.
“The chips didn’t work. No one else knew, but there was no way of
sequestering the information. The longer the data was in their heads, and
the more they used this data to invent things, the more their brains
absorbed. Mine did it faster, because I already had some preexisting
knowledge, but it would have happened to them eventually, and I can’t be
sure they would have all been as noble as Osiris was about it.”
“What did you do?” Hokusai pressed.
“I didn’t just modify the button,” Katica started to say. “I had to alter
the chips themselves. I turned them into gateways to the brains. When you
pushed that button, it did exactly as you wanted, but because the chips were
no longer the only issues, the memory wipe had to be more...comprehensive.”
Just then after a few minutes of recovery, Osiris started to reawaken.
Ever the mothering type, Loa glided over, and placed her hand on his
shoulder. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I think so,” he replied. “I do have two questions, though. Who are you? And
who am I?”
