DISCUSSIONS ON A CAVEMAN

There are three things required to run any civilization effectively; a government, a military, and commerce ­–industry was just a natural by-product of man’s eagerness to get filthy stinking rich. With its profound control over government and military, Trinity saw no need to restrict the growth of Man as commercial entrepreneurs because it gave its charges something to feel good about. It encouraged the growth and realization of dreams, knowing that at the center of Man’s soul there was a powerful need to consume. Consume land, consume food, consume products. They needed to feel in control of their lives, even if it was fallacy.

Thus, down through the vast span of time, planet-spanning companies known as Conglomerates were born, powerful, influential, grotesquely rich and abnormally lacking in even the most basic of human decency. Government may keep a civilization ticking over, but it was money that made it all worthwhile.

And the greatest granddaddy of them all was BishcopCo.

Because of their instrumental assistance with the alien race who’d introduced Humanity to Quantum Tunnel technology, ancient BishopCo leaders had been able to set themselves on a road of economic and commercial success powerful enough to carve a path of survival through the darkest of Dark Ages. The momentous occasion of eight thousand years ago –arguably one of the most, if not the most, important moments in all of Time- had given them enough power, enough cachet, enough mojo to build a power base impossible to reproduce.

Working with that solid foundation, the rapacious BishopCo principle of ‘power at all costs, screw the little guy’ had heralded a true revolution in the concept of commerce and industry; systemic business. Representatives from the first true Conglomerate had been on the first thousand pilgrim ships heading for the stars in search of new homes. At the time of their departure, those brave men and women could not have known just what their actions would engender hundreds of lifetimes after their own, but they would have been proud to know that they’d done something no other Conglomerate before or since had done; BishopCo was so mighty and so vast that the employees alone could populate whole star systems. Forget standing armies, forget an unthinkable amount of money. If civilization was to reboot tomorrow and bodies were needed, BishopCo would provide.

More money went into Jordan Bishop’s pockets than any other Conglomerate head. The decisions he made dictated the lives and deaths of billions. He was a power unto himself, answerable only to Trinity.

Like all of the older Conglomerates in Trinityspace, headquarters were on Trinity Prime –once known as Earth. Unlike the other systemic corporations, BishopCo’s home base would remain there, in the center of the greatest monument to Humanity, until the skin of the much abused planet finally ruptured and the world began to die in earnest. Until that happened, Jordan Bishop would rule from his roost in Zanzibar, the modern day equivalent to Rome of ancient Earth. All roads led there, and it was from there and there alone that all policy was dictated.

Those Bishops who’d ruled the boundless Conglomerate before Jordan had always grown weary of their chores quickly, sometimes abdicating their thrones after a meager handful of years. Jordan himself was a dynamo of energy and ideas; the current king of commerce had just celebrated his three hundred and fifty-sixth year of steadfast domination on an ever-expanding market, and planned on going for as long as he could, with or without the aid of illegal Black Market rejuves. After thousands of years of selective breeding, Jordan Bishop was genetically predestined to be the perfect businessman; he was fearless in the boardroom, ruthless at the negotiating table and utterly implacable in the eye of the storm. He was not cold or emotionless, because lack of the latter meant no imagination, no drive, and without those bountiful traits, no business could thrive.

In his three hundred plus years, Jordan had weathered more storms than a dozen other men, and he reveled in his power. And why not? His closest competitors were Tynedale/Fujihara, and after them, Voss_Uderhell, but the distance between the triumvirate of Conglomerate power was so great that entire civilizations would have to fall for the gap to be shortened. The only institution to have more power, more wealth, more control, was the Trinity AI itself, but again, it was about measurable tangents. Through BishopCo, Jordan Bishop was King of the Hill, and he liked it that way.

The only way to survive the expansion of Mankind had been to diversify by diversifying as steadily as any organism interested in survival would. It was not merely enough to survive. The mandate was conquer. All Conglomerates designed, constructed, and sold merchandise from flower seeds to generation ships. They all dabbled in genetics and computer programming, in terraforming and strip-mining. After more than eight millennia of expansion, competition was fiercer than ever, leaving some planets pounded into submission by dreadful Conglomerate wars.

But business was business, and even Trinity understood that a little strife and mayhem was good for Humanity every now and then. Taught the upstarts humility and the hungry that there was always more out there.

After all the lies, insinuations, and secrets were thrown by the wayside, it was the the simplest of reasons that explained BishopCo’s ability to stay afloat in a sea of turmoil populated not only by other Conglomerate-pirates eager to see him sink forever beneath the waves, but by horrific storms that plunged the world into Darkness.

Willpower.

Simply put, Jordan had a preternatural ability to do what the next person couldn’t, and in an arena where the competition could easily be described as rapacious and maniacal, that was really saying something. Knowing that there would be an endless stream of people willing to take on employment under any conditions freed Bishop to routinely exterminate people who didn’t meet his exacting standards of business excellence. He demolished his own buildings then built them back up again, twice as high and twice as big. He paid well and delivered substantial rewards, extracting punishment three times as painful as either.

Jordan Bishop lived to make money, and that was that.

With his endless coffers, Bishop bought small starter companies moments before they got to a certain level of brand recognition. He stripped owners of their assets, gave them entry level positions thousands of light-years away from their homes, sold the useless and outdated equipment in offices and laboratories, and then perfected their technologies. Those that wouldn’t sell or, rarely, merge were buried under lawsuits and nightmarish visits from PatenzWare affiliates. Or they just as easily found themselves ground under the mighty Conglomerate heel. Data was torn out of dead AI systems. Legal troubles vanished with a flick of the wrist, Conglomerate responsibility whitewashed with a broad stroke of a revised policy.

Other Conglomerates tried to do the same, but couldn’t muster the same passion.

Yes, Jordan was powerful, and partly because he’d been born into the greatest ‘glom in Trinityspace. Yes, he was the end result of thousands of years of selective breeding. Yes, he was greedy, arrogant, egotistical, narcissistic and at least partially insane. Had to be, with the way things were. Amidst all his shining attributes and limitless power that was his to command, there was one other advantage that Jordan Bishop had over the competition. It was a powerful one, and Jordan would use it until the stars in the heavens were snuffed out and Reality called it a day.

Spur. The android.

An artificially intelligent android, Spur was the only Trinity recognized and approved autonomous AI system in all of Trinityspace. Unlike other AI systems now designed and mass-produced by Trinity itself, Spur had been developed in the secret labs of the Emperor-for-Life Marseilles of two thousand years ago; designed to become self-aware on its own and to exceed its own design specifications, Spur was a marvel of technology that no one else could exceed. The fear of reprisals from the Trinity government were too great to even consider designing something like Spur on paper, let alone actually constructing one. Surpassing all Turing tests and outstripping traditional modes to determine intelligence, Spur was a unique creature of the highest order. He was a vast artificially intelligent mind housed in a perfect android body, and his existence was deemed miraculous as well as deadly; miraculous because of what he was, deadly because even though the deadly ADAM Wars had happened thousands of years ago, the terror of machine minds in utter control of their surroundings would never fade. Much had been lost to the Dark Ages, but the history concerning the depredations of rampaging AI machines was untouched in its entirety.

Spur was a creation of the EuroJapanese Emperor-for-Life and was the man’s prized possession, but it was one the ruler would never see again. Following its construction, Spur had been sent to treat with Adrian Bishop over a gentlemanly difference. Unaware of the android’s existence until it was too late to prevent its activation, Trinity hastily took control of the situation by defining the quality of Spur’s existence from that moment forward; no matter the circumstances, be it marauding super aliens from another dimension or a Dark Age so profound that the end would never come, it, Spur, could never leave the confines of Bishop’s main holdings.

With powerful, armor clad entities such as the Enforcers and the rampaging, self-aware, non-corporeal Turing Regulators at its beck and call, Trinity’s proclamation was met with full cooperation: Spur might be a machine, but he was alive, and appreciated his life for what it was. Unable to leave, the android learned quickly that to communicate with an AI outside of the Bishop sphere of influence as an AI was to invite severe reprimands. Spur learned to speak with his lesser brothers and sisters as a Man would, and learned in the process how to grow ever quicker towards a state of perfection.

Cast adrift from the guiding light that was its master, Spur did the only thing it could. It went to work for the Bishops, and after thousands of years, it had become a permanent, necessary fixture. A mind like Spur’s was capable of performing quintillions of tasks in real-time, and it was with great willingness that Jordan used the android’s prowess to his advantage; others in the Bishop dynasty had done the same, but, again, they had lacked the imagination to do things properly.

“My Lord.”

Jordan Bishop took a bite of sausage from his plate, chewing thoughtfully, ignoring the immaculately dressed alabaster android. “This meat comes from one of many Offworld planets within Trinityspace, a world called Skr. The natives of this world hunt the animal for days on end, and because of its size, are forced to cure the meats right there; the natives themselves, though tenacious as ticks, could never hope to carry the carcass home in time to process the flesh properly. It is then packaged for sale and shipped Offworld by an incredibly minor Conglomerate, where roughly ninety-nine percent of the people who consume this meat have no concept of the trials involved in bringing it to their plates. It is assumed that if one consumes this meat, that they are truly elite, and in some circles, it is actually considered the height of wealth and panache to pretend the meat is actually edible. There is, of course, a simpler method to get the meat, yet the Skrrans prefer to do the way they have done for however long they’ve been doing it.”

Spur bowed deeply, forelock sweeping the ground. “My Lord.”

Jordan wiped his mouth carefully with a silk napkin. “The meat is absolutely foul, though. The animal, indeed everything on Skr, is inimical to humans. Regardless, they have the decency to hold fast and true to tradition. You bring news?”

“I do, my Lord.” Spur, who had long since grown accustomed to Jordan’s particular brand of humor, was confident that Jordan was already well aware of the situation and merely wanted to have it explained to him so he could get angry.

“Very well.” Jordan examined the screens in front of him critically. After hundreds of years of watching his business grow, mutate, evolve, he’d become a master at sensing the rhythm of his various concerns, and of intuiting the shape of things to come. It was as easy as checking his pulse, and took no more effort. This morning, though, the shape had changed, a sour note falling into the rhythm. More to the point, his liquid cash reserves, which had been growing steadily for the past few hundred years, had suddenly stopped showing a profit. “What have you learned?”

“There has been,” Spur intoned, “a change in technologies.”

Jordan quirked his eyebrows. “An Offworld patent?”

When Trinity had arrived on the scene, neatly saving Humanity from a disaster from which they could not have survived, it had made several things abundantly clear; one, its desire was to see Humanity spread to the furthest corners of the Universe in which they lived. Two, it would do as little as it could to see Humanity exploited or tainted by the presence of aliens. Trinity was not xenophobic, merely cautious; working from the impossible-to-understand strata of near-galactic proportions, the AI was well aware of just how many ‘Offworld’ beings viewed the Human race, and wanted to minimize the threat of galactic war. Using a combination of threat, control, and sciences illegal for anyone else to even imagine let alone implement, Trinity had eventually managed to force every single alien race within its own rapidly growing borders to stay within the confines of their own systems. Naturally, dozens of Conglomerates did illegal business with these Offworlders, and were permitted to do so as long as the technologies making it into Trinityspace did not fall within the carefully ordered list of proscribed sciences. It was not unheard of for an Offworld technology to make a significant impact in Trinityspace. A case in point was the Q-Tunnel technology itself.

“This is not the case, my Lord.” Spur drew a slender finger across Jordan’s desk, loading the accumulated data into the resident computer.

Jordan read the précis quickly. “This is … disconcerting to say the least, Spur. I don’t like the idea of another Conglomerate stealing from me, nor do I wish to wade through the rest of this … this … waste of time. If I wanted to read, I would not have asked for your presence.”

Spur bowed. As he had initially surmised, Jordan was angrier than he’d been in at least fifty years, and was feeling … petulant. “The technology is first generation. It was invented in the field by one Captain Garth N’Chalez, a mercenary captain in the employ of Special Forces. Initial design specifications were engineered from the larger model and were then patented by the Captain for personnel usage. A notation in the file I was able to procure indicates that Captain N’Chalez forced Supreme Commander Aleksander Politoyov to purchase the hardware and lease the software.”

“Innovative. Continue.” Supreme effort kept Jordan’s wintry-green eyes from blazing with anger.

“In addition to the payment schedule, Captain N’Chalez received consultation fees for other research and development. The sums involved were minimal, and owing to the nature of the Captain’s relationship with Special Forces, it is evident that the Captain had an ulterior motive for the pricing scheme he forced Politoyov into.”

“Which was?”

Spur clasped his hand together behind his back, sealing his fingers together inside the voluminous sleeves of his red and gold silk brocade robes. “The other information I managed to acquire came at great price, my Lord, and is of a sensitive nature. Possessing it could get us into trouble.”

“Get on with it, android.”

Spur nodded. “Slightly over five years ago, a Tynedale/Fujihara mining operation discovered an ancient relic deep within Pluto’s crust. Operating under the aegis of Trinity’s Historical Services, they contacted a Historical Adjutant to oversee the operation the moment the storage container was discovered. Along with fourteen other people, Captain N’Chalez was removed from deep cryogenic suspension five years ago at a remote Tynedale/Fujihara facility. In accordance with Historical Services’ mandate, the Adjutant attempted to gather information about the time period from which these people came. As you know, all costs for the operation would have been absorbed by Historical Services if even the smallest of insights into the past had been given. This was not the case; all fifteen of them were suffering from a devastating case of amnesia that left them with no information beyond their names. The Adjutant on the scene, someone named Kant Ingrams, was forced to send the costs back to Tynedale/Fujihara. Twelve of the fifteen Decantees were killed during an escape attempt that raised the price for their ‘resurrection’ by several million credits. The Trinity AI resolved the issue by finding the remaining three Decantees financially responsible for the costs of waking them up and the repairs made to the facility. Owing to their apparent military background, amnesia or not, the three Decantees, two male and one female, were indentured into the three primary military organizations. Garth N’Chalez used his invention of the so-called gravnetic shield generators to cut short his stay in Special Forces by upwards of twenty years.”

“How long were they suspended for?” Jordan asked, intensely curious. Through various avenues, he was familiar with Kant Ingrams; the wiry, obsessive man was Trinity’s heavy-hitter when it came to Historical Services. Ingrams was overly zealous in his drive to understand and prevent future Dark Ages, oftentimes operating on the outer extreme of Trinity’s tolerance. His forte was destroying evidence of dangerous technologies and burying the truth before it got out into the open. The thin, high strung little man had a death toll numbering in the thousands. He had a Trinity Enforcer at his beck and call. For him to be drawn into a simple Decantation was … disconcerting.

“The report, though shocking, maintains that the entire group had been in stasis for approximately ten thousand years, placing them before the first Exodus War, the first Dark Age and the ADAM Wars.”

Jordan stroked his goatee. That certainly explained Kant Ingrams’ involvement in the matter; much was lost to each of the galactic Dark Ages that Trinity’s domain suffered, and with these … cavemen … from the dawn of time in his hands, Kant must have surely thought answers would abound. All of the Historical Services minions believed that the key to prevent the threat of another Dark Age was to plumb the depths of time and space. Trinity approved the research as a matter of course, but never actively encouraged them in their additional goals; much of what remained from each of the Dark Ages was distinctly dangerous, and from the reports Jordan had seen, really and truly did need burying. Jordan could see how eager Kant would have been, and how terribly dismayed that none of them had illuminated even a single point for the man. “How very frustrating.”

“My Lord?”

“Lost in thought, Spur. You say these people came from so far ago? How is it possible that they survived stasis for so long? Surely the technology of ten thousand years ago is pale by comparison.” Jordan consulted his reference software. “The oldest recorded Decantee is someone named Stephen Shambell, Decanted just after the last Dark Age. He’d been frozen for four hundred years, his recovery a long one. I concede that these new people were Decanted and managed to survive, but I still fail to see how they survived for that long. And you say they almost escaped, destroying much of Tynedale/Fujihara’s outpost at the same time.”

Spur paused, digesting the information at his command. “The time period in question is rumored to have been a Golden Age, if you will, of scientific discovery. According to Trinity’s own databanks, technological developments were happening so fast at that time that civilization had very little opportunity to explore any one of them fully before it was supplanted by another. Since the first Dark Age appears to have occurred some two hundred years after these people were interred, it is unsurprising that they knew nothing of the mechanisms spawning that cessation. Trinity further offers the theory that in many ways, the people of that time could have been far more advanced in certain areas than we are today; they did not suffer from the restrictions that we do today. Attempts at reverse-engineering the vessel used to store these people have, thus far, met with repeated failure. Current time to complete the analysis of both the alloys of the craft and the field generators that apparently assisted in their cryogenic sleep is another eighty years.”

There were far too many ‘could haves’ in conjunction with this Garth N’Chalez, making Jordan very uncomfortable. “That is not so long, in AI-measured time.” Jordan stared at the picture of the man Spur claimed was responsible for the loss in revenue. A caveman, a throwback from a time so far ago that it was impossible to appreciate. He even looked less civilized, with his ragged black hair, blue eyes and battle-hardened face. Regardless of his personal feelings, Jordan had to admit that Trinity’s hypothesis on Man’s level of technology back then was plausible. Unlikely, but plausible.

Regardless of the imperfect information concerning the era from which these Decantees had supposedly come from, there was the undeniable fact that right then, at that very moment, there were more than a thousand devices of varying complexity in use that could not be duplicated, reverse-engineered, and in some cases, even understood. Trinity’s attention to these particular Decantees was well understood, even appreciated, especially with the imminent threat of another Dark Age looming uncomfortably close on the horizon.

“That is in AI processing time, my Lord. The metallic frame has thus far resisted every test known to Man, and the fields protecting the inner workings prolong the examination. Trinity scientists have coined the term ‘suspension field’ to describe the phenomena. Their current hypothesis is that, once activated, the field renders anything within it outside time. In an effort to explain how the high-resolution deep crust scanners employed by Tynedale/Fujihara missed the ship, the technicians working on the case have posited that a second field cloaked the vessel in some way. The drill, a kilometer wide at its smallest, collided with the craft and either damaged the mechanism powering the field or disengaged it.”

“It is my understanding, Spur,” Jordan said slowly, trying desperately to digest the impossible, “that these Decantees, from this mythical time before time, were unable to offer Ingrams anything in the way of importance.”

“That is so, my Lord.”

“Then what, by all the Gods, has this caveman created, and how?”

“My Lord, the device is known as a gravnetic shield generator. A unique combination of antigravity/gravity waves are manipulated by a series of complex emitters and handled by a further series of machines. The machine itself is powered by direct absorption of electromagnetic waves. N’Chalez designed the units for use in combat, but Trinity purchased the patent and re-engineered the design to be powered by manmade black holes, increasing the capacity a thousandfold. Quite succinctly, it supplants all other forms of planetary defense and environmental shielding for inhospitable planets. I have provided you with a detailed assessment for later perusal. Captain N’Chalez’ design is flawless from every angle, sire, yielding one hundred percent efficacy against hostile forces. In light of maintaining safety, Trinity has opted to refrain from testing Hand of Glory missiles, but virtual tests show high levels of resistance from the planet-busters, possibly even total. Trinity has not tested against Offworld technology at this time, but the current level of threat from non-Humans is rated green at the moment. Once activated, power required to maintain each facility is categorized as less than minimal. Operating on a planetary scale, this device is more cost efficient than the energy it takes to run the software. I feel it incumbent upon myself to mention that the disparate technologies used to create this device have been existent for thousands of years. It seems that while Captain N’Chalez was unable to provide any insights into Human history, he is able to work within the present. As per existing defense contracts with all Conglomerates, Captain N’Chalez receives a percentage of each planet’s gross income.”

“And since,” Jordan grated, “it is cheaper and better to use these ‘gravnetic generators’, the dollar value assigned from each planet has tripled.”

“This is true, my Lord.”

“Has this caveman invented anything else likely to shake the Firmament of Heaven?”

“No, my Lord. He has since quit Special Forces and is currently wandering throughout Trinityspace. I am unable to locate him, and during my initial efforts, I was warned away by a representative.”

“With good reason, Spur, with good reason. He is not a Conglomerate, which makes him vulnerable to … mishap. Find him. Then employ someone to kill him. This caveman had his chance to live in peace, but he waived that right the moment he took money from me. When he is dead, we will start a smear campaign. Something flashy, something about the dangers of manmade blackholes. All under the guise of sincerity, of course.”

“As you wish.”