multitrillion-dollar corporation, how do you reverse a global trend, when many people don’t want you to even try? When many who believe there is a problem have thrown up their hands at the enormity of it? When many believe there is no problem?”
The doors clanged open, showing only the utter darkness of the ship’s holds ahead.
“You have to become … slightly mad.” Bish moved toward a control panel. “There are futurists and space nuts who talk about ‘terraforming’ another planet: making an uninhabitable planet habitable for humans. Like Mars. Drop some comets on it, add atmosphere. Put a giant mirror in orbit to heat it up a bit. Big idea stuff. So Ivan Cohen and Paige Greer decided that they would motherfucking terraform Earth to stop it from turning into Venus. So when they took over this factory ship, they started making something new, and filling holds all over the Arctic with these things.”
He tapped a code on the panel, and the lights came on.
For a long moment Anika couldn’t grasp what she was looking at—until she focused her eyes on the smallest unit in front of her.
She walked forward, and out of a solid wall of shiny metal globules, plucked out a transparent ball the size of her fist.
“I’ve seen one of these before,” she whispered.
“For six months Gaia has been churning these things out,” Bish said. He looked morose. “I was supposed to get an exclusive, in exchange for silence, but this morning the story broke. Someone working in a factory finally leaked video of the things. Now everyone’s figuring out what they’re for.”
Roo, the information gatherer, held a sphere up, looking into the shiny insides. There was a mirror inside, gimbaled and motorized so it could adjust itself to face any direction it wanted. “What
Bish looked at the two of them as if they were stupid. “It’s a lot more effective than a fucking mist cloud, right? And it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than trying to build a giant mirror in space to deflect some of the sun’s heat. Millions of these things, floating around. Mini-blimps. They’re programmable, little chips inside that cost no more than a penny. You can direct the motored mirrors to face any direction, so in a cloud of them you can use heat to let them rise up or fall, so they can use wind and weather patterns to move around as a unit. They’re shiftable into one giant clump of a mirror, able to focus heat or deflect it where needed. Gaia created their silver bullet, man.”
He held his hands out and walked into the silvered, jostling mass of floating balls. The tinkling sound of hundreds of floating spheres moved with him as he was enveloped by them.
Overhead, the hatch ground to a halt.
The sound of rattling, hundreds of tiny balls slapping against the walls and each other, filled the hold.
“They initially planned to release them a hold at a time,” shouted Bish from inside the now slowly rising mass of spheres escaping the bonds of the hold. “So they could inject them into the upper atmosphere over the Arctic slowly so as not to alarm satellites and radar systems.”
“Or get caught,” Roo muttered.
“Now they’ll be releasing them as fast as they can,” Bish said.
The spheres were thinning out as they rose into the air. Anika could see through gaps to the sky and the edges of the hatch far over her head. Thousands bumped along the sides of the massive funnels, and then they merged into the streams of mist.
Anika was standing beside a moment in history, she thought. This was amazing. Stunning. This company had been laboring in secret to build something vast right here in the Arctic Circle.
Something that would change the world.
For a moment, her head craned back looking at this exodus of tiny machines into the sky, she wasn’t wondering about radiation, revenge, or the cold. She just stared at the metal, glinting cloud in wonder as it rose to reach the dark clouds far overhead.
Roo grabbed her arm. He didn’t look awed. He looked scared. “We have to get off this ship right
“What are you talking about?”
“Those navy ships? They reacting to
Bish walked across the empty hold floor, sending several straggling spheres that couldn’t quite rise into the air wobbling her way. “You think they’d fire on us?”
“I can’t believe they’d do that,” Anika said.
“I don’t know.” Bish rubbed his forehead. “But why risk it? Take us with you to Pleasure Island. I don’t have anything left here. I’ve lost six months, we have the sphere launch video now. It’s all I need if I’m not getting an exclusive.”
“What about crew? Is there anyone else on board?” Anika asked.
“Like I said, automated and on autopilot,” Bish said.
Roo had his new phone already up to his ear. “Chandra? Spin up, we leaving
24
Rotor wash whipped Anika’s hair about as she climbed the steps back onto the helicopter pad. Lars joined a second later, staggering up with five cases in his hands and a duffel bag over a shoulder. His jacket flapped wildly as he leaned into the gust.
Anika helped him get the cases in, and once they were all inside, Chandra grabbed Roo and yelled, “Are you sure all of those things are out of the air?”
Bish leaned forward. “Should be, there’s no reason for them to wait anymore.”
“Anyone else on board?” Chandra asked.
“It’s on autopilot, just us.”
Chandra looked out around the entire helicopter, hunting to see if more of the spheres were around, then, satisfied, lifted off the helipad and pitched them toward the open sea.
“Stay as low as you dare,” Roo reminded him.
Chandra nodded. He was still glancing around, looking for threats. Anika looked out the windows as well. They were skimming along just over the tips of the waves, spray even slapping the windward side of the helicopter.
It looked like the helicopter’s skids could kiss the waves at any second. Anika really had to admire the piloting. This was old school, fly by wire, brain and muscle and twitch reflexes all working together.
Chandra was something else.
“You really think they will do something to the mist boats?” Lars asked Roo and Bish. He reached into his duffel bag and pulled out another beer.
“Four years ago the U.S. Army got ready to launch a test orbital mirror,” Roo shouted. “They were thinking it would allow them to focus solar energy down on a solar engine. They could power an army, no need for oil, with a beam of concentrated solar light anywhere in the world. China got all threatened, said that beam could be directed anywhere. Flash vaporize an army, see? They said it weaponizing space, and was a treaty violation. Said they would attack it with anything they had. Everyone backed down. So now Gaia’s weaponizing the upper atmosphere. There’ll be consequences.…”
Chandra slammed the helicopter sideways, throwing around everyone inside it. Anika slapped into the side of the door, feeling it shake as her shoulder smashed against the handle.
Lars and Bish smacked into her ribs, dizzying her with the familiar pain.
And with her face smashed against the glass, Anika saw the long, dark shape of a cruise missile gliding mysteriously toward them just over the wave caps. It dodged, violently arcing around them with a quick burst of several adjusting jets.
They were not its target.
Anika sat up to look out the other side of the helicopter just in time to see the cruise missile silently fly into
