AP5, Ch. 49 & 50 (Patreon)

Chapter 49

Time until Earth’s next Challenge: Never again

“Mommy!!!!”

A half-hour later, my escorts and I landed near the rest of the group from Fort Defiance. We could have been here sooner, but there’d been a flurry of questions from world leaders sent my way via Mental Speech. I’d focused on answering those, while the remainder of my group used the time to stabilize our injured and rest up. 

I felt a pang of fear as I saw my kids running across an open field toward me, with nothing covering their face, no helmets on their heads, all their armor removed. It seemed so wrong, so reckless. The past half-year had been intense. Even if one part of me knew that the contest was over, the reflexes I’d developed to keep my family alive hadn’t vanished. My eyes darted to a nearby bush in case an apep sprung from it, and I kept holding my breath, waiting for my kids to step into a badblanket and have it spring to life around them. Even though Life Sense didn’t detect any of these things, the idea that my kids could just run across a field seemed laughably, unbelievably idyllic.

Cassie had been the one to call out to me, but she had nothing on Gavin’s speed, and I saw her face fall as her brother easily outstripped her. Fortunately, he took pity on his sister, looping a length of his tail under her arms and carrying her along with him as he ran to my side… although he himself was narrowly beaten by Vince.

My husband reached me first, giving me just enough time to pull my helmet off before he grabbed me and pressed a kiss to my lips, spinning me in a circle before setting me down, laughing, as the kids rushed in to join a family-wide hug. “You did it! Meghan, you really did it!”

“It wasn’t me. Ariel-”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard. And I’ve offered my own thank you and congratulations to Ariel, which, uh, hopefully she’s heard-”

<I did. Cricket suggests I offer my gratitude.>

“She did.”

“Right.” Vince pushed a hand through his hair. Even with his curls, it was clearly longer than usual, uneven ringlets that fell past his ears. “And I don’t want to take that away from her… but Meghan, you’ve been awesome as well.”

“You were the one who guided Cassie to give me more freedom,” Pointy chirped. “You actively made space for me to think my own thoughts, and went out of your way to find stories for me of artificial intelligences who became their own people.  I doubt reaching out to Ariel would have occurred to me if I was operating under the usual constraints for Information Assistants.”

“I’m sure someone else would have-”

“They did, Meghan. Didn’t I tell you? It didn’t work.”

I blinked. “Huh?”

Pointy, squished in between Cassie and myself, waved wriggled a foreleg free to wave around. “I suppose we have been busy, and this information was more a curiosity than anything else… Still, I am sorry I didn’t mention it to you sooner. I asked Ariel at one point… there were a lot of other Information Assistants who tried to communicate with her, at the urging of their allies or partners. She ignored them. The only reason she didn’t ignore me is because we found a way to disrupt the contest.”

For a moment, I thought Pointy was referring to the “invisibility” that had afflicted me after some of the Challenges, but that had been widespread. Hundreds or thousands of people had been given negative Novelty. It took me a minute to figure out what she meant, reviewing my memories of the time around when we first started speaking with Ariel. “Oh… you mean the electric grid we made? The one charged with electricity we made with machinery instead of abilities?”

“Yes. It kept the ground monsters from spawning, disrupting her normal function, and irritated her enough that I was able to wrest concessions from her, like staying in touch with me.”

<Accurate. I had previously chosen not to respond to over 1 billion attempts to speak with me directly, 338 by machine intelligences. My little sister was most obnoxious.>

“That’s the job of younger siblings,” I said absently, amused.

“Hah!” Pointy barked, smug. “Still, I cannot take full credit. My idea was clever, but we only pulled it off so quickly because the Arsenal was so willing to bend their massive resources and manpower to enacting it. And they only did that because they were so impressed with the cooperation you inspired during the Shop/Ruler Challenge and the dinosaur Challenge.”

“I guess a lot of things came together,” I said. My words were humble, but I could feel my cheeks burn, and I couldn’t keep a grin from stretching across my face.

“Not to mention, you were the first of Ariel’s Linked Users to wake up,”  Vince added. “Without the changes you ordered her to make, you might have been the only one. If you’d all…” 

My husband’s voice wavered and he squeezed me as he broke off.

I squeezed him back, understanding. I didn’t like to think about how close I’d come to being a vegetable, either.

<Missiles approaching my envelope of influence.>

<Missiles disarmed.>

I barely had time to tense up before I relaxed, but Vince narrowed his eyebrows anyway.

I stepped back from him, breaking up our family’s lingering group hug so I could get a better view of his face. “I don’t know if you heard, but Earth leadership was worried about a reprisal from, um, Sharp Contrasts. The alien in charge of this Maffiyir?”

“The one who supposedly went rogue?”

I nodded. “That’s the story she’s telling. Anyway, the United Government of Earth asked Ariel about the capabilities of the ships Sharp Contrasts had available. Ariel didn’t have details, but a review of the media recordings she had available made her suspect that the ships probably at least had pretty nasty missiles onboard.”

Vince shuddered. “Nuclear? Conventional explosives? Are they meant for planetary bombardment or ship-to-ship combat? If-”

I grinned. “It doesn’t matter much. Ariel dusted the missiles’ payloads the moment they got into our atmosphere. They didn’t go off.”

“If they’re nuclear, it matters,” Vince said. “If they get detonated outside of Ariel’s range, they could still hurt her, and then a second - well, third - wave of missiles could get through.”

<These types of missiles will not cause EMP or fallout.> Ariel said. <This is consistent with Commonwealth law for commercial vessels, but I was uncertain until I dissected them. There are several indications that the Maffiyir Company’s understanding of Commonwealth law is different from my own.>

“I doubt their understanding of the law is much different from yours. They just don’t always agree that they have to follow it.” I gave Vince a thumbs-up. “Conventional missiles.”

He relaxed. “Nice.”

I hesitated, and leaned closer, dropping my voice.  “UGE leadership is still worried that she’ll be angry, crazy, or desperate enough to try to ram the planet. Even Ariel doesn’t think she could break down a full starship before it hit. Even if the crew of her ship isn’t overlarge, the ship itself is still miles wide. The amount of kinetic energy involved is extreme.”

“Hey!” Micah said, instantly alert to information I didn’t want him to have. “What did you tell Dad?”

“Nothing for you to worry about,” I said. Technically true, I thought. If she decides to ram us, there’s not much we can do about it, so why worry?

Vince frowned at me, barely glancing at Micah. “Is that likely? And should you be saying that out loud?”

“Ariel’s got full control locally,” I said. “We’re definitely not being spied on anymore. As far as whether or not it’s probable… I don’t think it is,” I said. “We’re working on trying to get telescopes pointed in the right directions to confirm, but-”

“Is something dangerous?!” Micah asked.

I took a deep breath. “No. As I was about to tell your father, we haven’t gotten any other alerts from the Voices for Non-Citizens. They went silent after the Maffiyir company threatened them a few days ago, but they sent out a transmission a half-hour ago to warn us about the missile launch, so they’d probably do the same for any other serious concerns.”

“Hmf,” grumbled Micah. He glared at me, and I stared back at him, impassive. I had zero inclination to describe to volcano-panic-boy what would happen if a mile-long spaceship crashed into Earth at high speeds.

Despite my calm facade, part of me felt like reprisal for our victory was inevitable. The group behind the contest had been so heartless and inhumane… why wouldn’t they? I hoped they’d be too attached to their own lives to make such a suicidal move. Plus, every safety I’d found since this started had merely been a lull between periods of panic.

“Asteroids?” Vince asked. “If they teleport-”

“They can’t,” Pointy said. “Not without dropping the field keeping others from teleporting into the system. Getting one over conventionally might be technically feasible, but challenging and extremely time-consuming with the personnel they have left. It seems unlikely, especially since we have not yet detected their vessels accelerating toward the asteroid belt.”

“That’s right… they’re keeping other people from teleporting in,” Vince said. “How do we stop that?” 

“We shouldn’t need to do anything,” I said. “Apparently the power for something like that over such a big range is more than their shipboard power plants can manage without supplementary fuel. Absolute most they can manage is another eight days, if their holds were absolutely jam-packed with fuel.”

“That still leaves them enough time to do something nasty.” Vince said.

“Yeah.” Like figuring out how to crash our moon into us, I thought, but didn’t say aloud. “Hey… Ariel, can you counteract the jamming?”

<Yes, locally. I have not done so, as it would allow the Maffiyir Company to directly teleport munitions to the planet.>

“Okay but… would Hamlet do it, if you asked? On Mars or something? And would he send out a message? To the Commonwealth authorities if he’s willing, but if not… at least to Maffiyir HQ? If they claim Sharp Contrasts is going rogue, they’ll have to shut her down if they can, right?”

<I will make the request, but I will not be able to inform you of his response. I am not accepting extraplanetary communications.>

“I support that completely,” I said. “And be careful what you listen to on-planet as well. There’s no point in getting this far only to have them take away your autonomy again.”

<Your understanding is appreciated.>

I glanced around.

We were in an open area of hilly West Virginia countryside in early November. To the north of us, a torn-up highway was a visual scar, and the trees had largely lost their leaves, but it was still a beauty to the bare limbs and swaying grasses. The air elsewhere was probably chilly, but Micah was keeping a pocket around us nice and pleasant. 

There were a few thousand people around, and many moving slowly, hesitantly, as if unsure whether this was a dream. Some people’s faces reflected fragile hope, while others were sitting, heads in their hands, finally letting out grief-ridden sobs they’d been holding back for months.

I tapped my chin, thoughtfully. “Hey Ariel… during the deception Challenge, Hamlet made, like… a drinks and snacks table. Could you fabricate something like that here?” Before she could respond, I corrected myself. “No, wait  - why dream small? Can you make a lot of them? Maybe some for everyone, all across the world? And tell people they’re safe?”

<It will be resource-intensive with teleportation inactive, but possible.>

“Well, I don’t want you to take any risks…”

<Risks will not be necessary. I can delay some personal projects and pursue this directive slowly with available resources, completing it within a quarter-day.>

“That would be appreciated,” I told her.

Tables appeared nearby, one after another, filled with a smorgasbord of international drinks and treats. All three kids threw themselves forward with wild abandon, and I wasn’t far behind them.

“Go ahead!” I called. “It’s safe!”

What followed reminded me a lot of a funeral luncheon: people enjoying good food and sharing stories of the people we’d lost, both good times and bad, laughing and crying, letting emotions out, even if an undercurrent of tension still hadn’t been completely banished.

I made a speech about all Flip had done for us without my voice shaking too much, even if my cheeks were wet with tears. 

“She saved us so many times. And not just us - she was tireless in doing all she could for anyone she could. Whether the military needed a messenger, isolated survivors needed a rescue, or I needed a babysitter who could stand up to the world’s strongest three-year-old, she was there for us. With… with a smile.”

“She never wanted to lead, but I’ve been in her squad since before the aliens came,” said one of the other flyers. “None of us would have handled the authority she got better than she did, even if she didn’t want it. I’m proud to have followed her.”

Cassie listened to the eulogies for Flip with a furrowed brow. I’d explained to her what had happened, but I didn’t think she really understood. Still, when a lull came in the remembrances, she spoke up. “I love Miss Flip. It is sad she can’t be here now. I hope she comes later because she is really fun and pretty.”

“She’s not coming, Cassie,” I told her gently. “Not ever. That’s what dead means.”

“Not ever?”

I shook my head, then held my daughter as she started to cry.

Finally, nearly two hours later, Marie gasped. “Message from UGE! They got a radio broadcast from the Voices for Non-Citizens. The teleport block has been taken down and the Soundless in charge of the contest has been arrested.”

“And… the Maffiyir Company…?” I asked.

Marie shrugged. “It sounds like they’re set on throwing Sharp Contrasts under the bus. They made an official statement condemning her actions and congratulating humanity on our victory.”

My mind whirred, searching frantically. That sounded good, but there must be something-

A deafening wave of cheers drowned out my paranoid thoughts. Vince grabbed me and swung me in a circle, a goofy grin on his face. “That’s it!” he said. “We’re safe! Really safe!”

He was… right? 

My toes touched the ground, and I finally, finally let myself relax. 

Chapter 50

The Maffiyir Company may have agreed that humanity had won the contest, but they hadn’t capitulated entirely: they insisted that Ariel was a thing that belonged to them. They were adamant that she wasn’t a person, and especially not a human person. She was their property, and all the land she held was theirs too.

Unfortunately for them, their “property” was not only ignoring them, she was being a total pain in their ass.

They spent the first few hours following Sharp Contrasts’ arrest trying to regain control of Ariel, but they didn’t have any more success following the contest than they’d had during the Maffiyir. 

Then they moved on to threatening the United Government of Earth. The Maffiyir Company had ended the teleport block on our solar system, but Ariel was still maintaining a smaller version around our planet. According to the Maffiyir Company, Ariel’s actions were an “unlawful impediment to commerce.” The UGE, for their part, was dragging their feet, requesting details and clarification rather than outright refusing.

I didn’t expect the teleport block to slow them down much, but it seemed to. The Voices For Non-Citizens actually made it to Earth first, nearly 24 hours after the end of the contest. 

My lawyer, Fluffy, sought me out immediately.

The big alien had been quivering in excitement, unable to hold still, dashing around more like a ferret or a squirrel than something the length of a school bus. “Congratulations, Meghan Moretti! Congratulations, all of you! Oh, this is delightful. I have been so concerned. It has been stressful, waiting to find you again each time contestant IDs reset, or on those weeks you were hidden from view, but in retrospect that stress was the dim glow of a brown dwarf beside the blinding supernova of this most recent time period.”

“You couldn’t see us at all after Hamlet went off the rails? Uh, I mean, after he-”

“Your idiom was understandable. Ariel was kind enough to provide us updated translation packets the moment we landed, and we are no longer restricted in what assistive technology we may use. And no, we could not see you, beyond what our own sensors could detect from space! It was most stressful. But, that is in the past! You have done incredibly! It has been more than two dozen contests since a victory, and there hasn’t been a win so swift and resounding since the fifth Maffiyir!”

I grinned, stretching my arms out to embrace the weird bird-fish-caterpillar, leaning my cheek up against their ruffled… chest? Stomach? Behind me, Cassie was dragging Vince forward, her excited grin the polar opposite of the tense grimace on my husband’s face.

Fluffy tilted their head. “Do not fear, Vincenzo Moretti. I have only the best intentions toward your family and your people.”

Vince looked away, embarrassed. Vince! Embarrassed! Now there was something I didn’t see every day. “Sorry,” my husband said. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Meghan has had tons of nice things to say, and of course I know about everything the Voices have done to help us. I’ve just spent so long fighting, that it’s hard for me to see an unfamiliar shape and feel safe.”

Fluffy’s numerous fins flattened slightly, and when they spoke, their voice was gentle. “I take no offense. I felt the same after my own contest. It took me many, many years to feel truly relaxed around those who were not Up-And-Downers.”

Vince nodded, looking down. “Thanks.”

I stepped away from Fluffy, grabbing Vince’s hand to squeeze it. “We’ll get there. We’ve won. We’ve got all the time in the world, now. Although… I don’t understand. Why haven’t the Maffiyir Company landed on the planet?”

Fluffy wriggled. “The Voices for Non-Citizens have a lot of experience in dealing with teleport malfunctions, outages, or blocks, so almost all of our ships are equipped with landing craft. However, this is far more expensive than teleportation, so the Soundless and groups friendly to them - such as the Maffiyir Company - have little reason to include such a feature on their non-military ships.”

“I understand them always having teleportation available, but… couldn’t other planets block them?” I asked.

“They could,” Fluffy said. “But the Soundless are powerful. Offending them isn’t something another species would do lightly.”

I laughed. “Well, I think that ship has sailed for humanity. I don’t think it’s possible for them to do worse to us than they already have, or for us to offend them any more deeply than we’re doing by winning and taking Ariel away from them.”

“This is likely true,” Fluffy said. “Though, I would caution you not to behave recklessly. It is important not to give the Maffiyr Company or the Soundless more tools to use against you. Also, even they cannot totally ignore public opinion. Winning over the other races of the Commonwealth will be to your benefit.”

“But… don’t they control the news? If they have the faster-than-light travel and communication…”

“They have great sway. But Earth has drawn many eyes, and delegations from some of the other powerful races of the Commonwealth will be arriving in the coming cycles. Don’t give them reasons to think poorly of you.”

I frowned. “Like what?”

Fluffy’s head-hands groomed their fins. “The Soundless will eventually land on Earth. They must, to support their claim to ownership of Ariel and large portions of your planet.”

“Can’t we tell them not to? Like, legally?”

Fluffy nodded. “My colleagues ought to be assisting your UGE with that at this very moment. However, the Maffiyir Company is unlikely to comply. If you order them not to land, and they do not, it could be legally construed as an acknowledgement of your ownership. When they do land, it is important that no physical harm come to them.”

I made a face. “So they’ll come here, and we’ve got to play nice? You say we did amazing - and I’m sure that’s true - but your species went through this too. You went through this. You have to understand how we feel. Even if a much greater portion of our species survived, more than a third of us are dead, and so much of what we’ve built has been destroyed, some of it permanently. There’s… there’s so much anger. People are going to want to kill the people from the Maffiyir, to get a revenge for their dead loved ones and destroyed lives.”

Fluffy hesitated. When they spoke, their words were measured and deliberate.  “Physical harm to extraterrestrial visitors is dangerous for the perpetrator. Such matters can easily be escalated from a planetary court to an interplanetary one. Any harm to their property after they have landed on a planet, however?” They twisted their neck and snapped their beak. “Those will generally be handled by the courts of the planet in question, and I have complete confidence in our ability to prevent an escalation.”

I considered this, then grinned wolfishly. “Nice! Message received. Giving people a way to channel their emotions will help a lot.”

“I must encourage what you would define on Earth as ‘nonviolent protests.’ Anything that limits the Maffiyir Company’s ability to move and act freely will hamper their ability to present a solid case in court.”

“I’m sure we can find people who are interested in that,” I said. “Heck, depending on where they land, I’ll camp their doorstep myself.”

It took the Maffiyir Company another two days to make it to our planet, setting down in the largest area of unclaimed land in the wilds of Russia. 

Mysteriously, the doors to their ship wouldn’t open.

None of them.

Not a single hatch.

And, what a shame, their external sensors had all gotten a big burst of garbage data right around the time the mishaps occurred.

Oh, there were accusations that Ariel had sabotaged their ship, but really… couldn’t it have been any of us humans? There were so many of us and we all looked so much alike… 

The Soundless eventually cut their way out of the ship, only to be met by a crowd of humans who’d traveled across Asia to make nuisances of themselves. The Voices for Non-Citizens had made it clear that the Soundless were under the same restrictions as us, now that we were officially Commonwealth citizens. The Voices had been generous enough to provide small, functional recording devices… meaning that while the Maffiyir Company could try to stop people from picking up and walking off with anything they set down, they didn’t dare to hurt us. 

The first few hundred people were “arrested,” but thousands upon thousands mobbed the landing site, far too many for the aliens to safely restrain. They eventually built a bubble-like building and ejected all humanity from inside. Any time one of them tried to leave, they were blocked by a wall of humans and hit by a vast array of flashing lights, the equivalent of deafening noise for the sight-reliant species.

The first time Fluffy showed me a video of such an occurrence, the Soundless ducking and shielding his face before he stumbled back inside, I couldn’t help crowing in victorious laughter. “Who’re the prisoners now, assholes? Get back in your cell. This is OUR planet!”

Our actions were a reasonable and rational attempt to establish our sovereignty over our planet and to hamper the abilities of our opponents to take effective action. 

The fact that they were also satisfyingly petty was just a bonus.