Winning Peace 3:
I'd grown up in a slum, this time around. It wasn't the worst possible life I could imagine, but it wasn't anywhere near nice. My grandmother was an old woman by the time I came to stay with her after the untimely deaths of my parents in a car crash. I'd been lucky to be able to raise myself and had constantly worried about what would happen whenever the woman ended up dying. She was nice enough, but she was only half-there mentally and it was a chore to keep up appearances for the random social services visit I warranted.
I'd kept the apartment clean, but the rank smell of marijuana and more vicious drugs beneath the overpowering stench had been all-encompassing. For someone who had originally grown up in an environment where the strongest smells were rarely burned food, the initial exposure had left me sleepless, irritable, and occasionally cursing.
Don't get me wrong, I had never ended up on the streets, but there had been several close calls.
It wasn't the worst of all possible lives, but it wasn't anything I would wish on anyone else.
Now, as I stared up through the giant overhead perfa-glass window and stared at the surface of the Earth far away, I considered it all worth it.
"New updates on your feed, sir." The gentle voice of a reconstruction ancient Egyptian accent.
"What have you got, Thoth?" I asked, idly stretching out on my custom one-sixth gravity chair and snatching a velcroed bottle of water. Sadly, I wasn't acclimated to lunar gravity to the point where I could stomach carbonated drinks yet. That was a small price to pay for the epic views, though.
Also, the massive automated mining rigs that were coming online beneath my feet.
Because at a certain technological level you could slap a primitive artificial intelligence on a drill and just keep digging.
Digging was cheap.
Distracting me from my inner musings, a hologram appeared in midair.
"-and in further news, many corporations are protesting the continued refusal of the United North American States' Government to allow independent lunar settlements. Following the backroom deal to allow teen genius Ezekiel Lopez to construct his own personal lunar habitat, numerous other corporations across the UNAS and the EU have filed for permits to build on Earth's only natural satellite. Despite the outcry, though, the latest press releases continue to affirm that Lopez's construction is not a company asset, but a privately-owned housing complex, which does not violate the 2060 International Lunar Treaty's addendum to the Second Outer Space Treaty."
"Yes, yes... people are very jelly and I've fucked up the geopolitical order of private ownership in space. Woo." I waved a hand as the news anchor took a breath to continue, pushing the hologram window away.
"Master, I'll remind you that you should take care to not express such views where the public can ridicule you for them. Your image is very important to the sympathy you have been generating by playing the victim to these attacks." Thoth stated, his tanned visage appearing in another window to play my nanny.
"Reminder accepted." I waved him off. "But keep an eye on the current trends on social media. If those assholes at Yutah Mining Interests want to throw another fit about my moonbase, I'll fund another dozen protests for their underpaid employees."
Because I might be a soul-sucking billionaire, but at least I made sure the people who worked for me could feed themselves.
If they wanted to try to kick up negative public opinion against me? Well, I'd rip all their dirty little secrets into the open and no one would even remember that quirky young genius living quietly on the moon.
"Next item." I signaled with a sigh.
"As you can see behind me, the highway out of Seattle has been closed as it has become the new ground zero for an unfamiliar bacterial infection. Sources are divided on where exactly it is coming from, but anti-immigrant groups have been fast to point to a recent induction of North Korean refugees now being housed in the city, which-"
I muted the report, watching as the subtitles crawled by. "God, I'm glad I got off-planet when I did. Last thing I want to deal with is a new pandemic. One was enough for me, thank you very much."
Still, the prospect of a plague was more than a bit concerning. I'd need to set aside some money for employee stuff. A few moments' work and I cued up some orders for personal protective equipment and sent out a newsletter to make sure everyone knew it would be available on-demand.
The other news on my docket for the day was less directly relevant, but still a bit alarming. China and the UNAS were saber-rattling over the South Pacific again, the Sinoese Empire and North Korea were working on a joint program to develop nuclear-launched rockets in preparation for a moon base of their own, and the EU was working on peeling off another few formerly Russian breakaway states. Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, and Brazil were fighting cartels that had moved south from Mexico after it joined the United States and Canada.
The Middle East was... the Middle East.
The African Union was making waves by pushing forward initiatives to install helium-three and thorium reactors across a wider range of urban areas outside the capital cities of the continent. They'd been rolling out near-green energy programs in a multitude of stages that actually made things look good for the region for once. They still had plenty of problems, but there'd been a rash of competent and authentically altruistic leaders in the last two decades that threatened to put millions of people on a brighter path towards a better future.
I wished them nothing but the best, even if the cynical part of me wondered how long it would take before some idiot decided to mobilize the army and pull a coup.
"Let's see, Indonesia is still having that 'totally not a civil war'-thing, another chain of pacific islands are disappearing due to climate change, International prize going to a Haitian engineer for developments in preventing storm surges and flooding, might see about funding some of his projects..."
It took another ten minutes before I closed out my news feed and lazily stretched before standing.
"Sir, this is your daily reminder to take your low-gravity medication." Thoth chimed in and I sighed before bouncing over to the tiny dispensary and grabbing the four pills that popped out.
"You know, all this crap is almost enough to take all the fun out of bouncing around in one-sixth gravity." I stated, then smirked. "Almost."
…
"...and let's see, I'll need to source some of the more exotic stuff from Peru. Here's hoping their rare earth cache isn't mined out anytime this decade." I muttered as I looked over the new manufacturing setup that was slowly taking shape underneath my extensive living quarters near the moon's south pole.
"If everything I've read is true, Zeke, it's larger than they initially expected." Thomas Thurston stated as he tightened the last few bolts on the large assembler. "Happy Birthday, by the way."
I grinned and nodded. "Turning eighteen on the moon, definitely one dream that came true." I chuckled before allowing my humor to fade. "Thanks again for agreeing to work up here, Thomas." I stated, making a small hop that carried me three feet into the air to catch onto a rung in the ceiling. "I know it can't be easy uprooting the entire family like that, but I really appreciate you and the others helping me get this place set up. It really has been a dream of mine to see all this happen."
Thomas chuckled, sliding a hand over his clean-shaved ebony head. "Don't worry about it, boss-man. You're paying me more than enough to make up the difference and even if my husband whines about it the kids love it. Besides, he gets to brag to all the other homemakers back on Earth anyway and they're starting up an elementary school over in Armstrong City soon enough."
"Socialization can be important. I'll let you know when I've got a tram schedule worked out with the governor. We're still trying to hammer out some logistics, especially with how I've been displacing their luxury-goods suppliers." I hummed to myself as I flicked open an access panel and pulled a wire from my forearm-mounted computer to run a diagnostics program on the latest hardware installations.
"Good to-" Thomas began, but froze as a klaxon began sounding, red flashing lights going off as I cursed.
"Goddammit, I swear if Sven overrode the industrial loading airlock to keep his quotas again, I'll-" I froze, my eyes scrolling past the information being fed to me as I looked over the hologram that had popped up in front of me.
WHAT THE FUCK!?
"Magi system override, lambda-theta-omega-omega-omicron-helios-seven!" I cried out as soon as I could, already dropping from my perch and moving far too quickly in the low-gee towards the nearest corridor.
"Boss! What's up!" Thomas asked, his longer stride making it easier to keep up with me, even in the lunar environment.
"The satellites I have watching for incoming asteroids picked up a set of objects on impact course for Armstrong and a seventy-plus percent chance something's heading here." I stated, aiming for the more hardened area of the base. "Thankfully we picked them up early enough that we'll be able to ping them with lasers to push them off-course."
Even as the klaxons continued to sound, another series of alerts flashed on my device, windows appearing in front of me as I strained my ability to move through the compound.
"-just coming in, but casualties are expected in the tens-of-thousands as radioactive fallout begins to settle across the streets of Washington, DC. It's being reported that similar strikes have hit Mexico City, Houston, San Francisco, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Seattle-"
"Jesus." Thomas muttered softly, looking over my shoulder.
"Dirty bombs." I realized, the bottom dropping out of my stomach. "Someone actually did it."
Another report rose through my algorithm to demand my attention.
"This is Andre Hernandez implanted within UNAS command staff as a state of emergency is declared, for the first time, across an entire continent. Even now what remains of the government is ordering citizens to shelter in place, close all windows and doors, and conserve food and water as responses are organized in the wake of this monstrous and unprovoked attack on UNAS soil. Casualties are expected to be in the tens of millions even as reports keep coming in-"
"Sir, satellites in lunar orbit are reporting first-strike deployment by North Korea, missiles seem to be targeting South Korea, Japan, and Guam." Thoth broke in, his own hologram pushing the news reports out of my view.
"Thomas, what's-" My eyes flicked up to catch Alex, Thomas' husband, carrying their seven-year-old daughter with their ten-year-old son trailing closely behind. Thomas held up a hand and I motioned to everyone.
"Down the tunnel. We're going into the emergency bunker." I ordered, drawing the group towards a central junction where a central nautical-style door in the floor was quickly twisted open and a ladder was revealed. "Sorry, but you have to climb, the elevator's not scheduled to be installed until next month."
We could have tried to make the cargo elevator on the other side of the compound, but that would take time I wasn't sure we had.
I waved down another dozen personnel, probably half the staff I had in the entire complex before making sure the other half were using either the aforementioned cargo elevator or the other access shaft I'd just had installed last week.
"Thoth, check Magi defenses." I called out as I began to descend once the kids were on their way.
"Calculations put anti-asteroid lasers deflecting projectiles by seventy-hold, objects course-correcting, fifty percent course-correction, forty-percent, thirty-five percent-" My AI repeated dutifully.
I cursed foully. "Align lasers to kill projectiles, not just deflect them! Programmer overrides salsa-qwerty-lingo-tango-ipso-facto."
I could feel the gaze of several disbelieving employees on me as my cheeks heated. "They're my lunar death rays, I can make the passwords anything I want!"
Even in the tense atmosphere, several snickered while we kept climbing down.
"First of seven objects have exploded." Thoth reported. "Spectral analysis indicates a tactical-level nuclear warhead."
"Seize all computing power to target and destroy the objects!" I ordered Thoth desperately. "Global override all restrictions until they're gone! Password: Mercy is the virtue of the strong!"
"Password accepted, seizing control of Armstrong City's asteroid defense grid and all lunar satellites to enhance targeting data. Second object detonated, third object partially-destroyed and neutralized, forth object destroyed, fifth object destroyed, sixth object altering close-in course, sixth object destroyed." There was a moment's pause. "Seventh object too close for full laser array focus, directing lunar surveyor probe on collision course, contact! Seventh object diverted off course!"
There was a deep sigh of relief from everyone as we dropped into the cavern I'd been mining out beneath the base. Workers who had been on-shift were hugging their families as others began opening up the various emergency gear stored down here.
"Task all satellites to continue sweeping the sky!" I ordered Thoth. "I want all eyes open for incoming attacks and get me the goddamn governor of Armstrong City."
"Sir, we're beginning to lose contact with Earth-orbit satellites. Analysis shows likely launches of anti-satellite-weapons. Kessler Syndrome is likely to be achieved within the hour."
I nearly screamed in frustration. "Task all other data links to Earth to mine priority information. Save everything important you can from the archives on cultural, agricultural, engineering, physics, biology, everything you can get! Break into any secure systems you need to!"
Turning, I pointed to Thomas, then Kazuya, Sven, and Cecille. "Help me get my secondary office set up, please. I'm going to need to start coordinating with Governor Phillips of Armstrong."
To their credit, the four didn't spare more than a moment to hug their families as I directed another crew to start sealing the bunker from the upper facility. The initial crisis might have passed, but I wasn't going to bet on there not being another attack.
That was what this was, an attack.
Distantly, I realized what that meant. An attack on a major piece of international lunar infrastructure was nothing less than a declaration of complete war on the world at large. Was it actually North Korea? China? Islamic radicals had never gone away really, and there had been surging violence from the remaining cults of hyper-nationalists Christians who'd been on the losing side of the second civil war, but what had actually set everyone off?
"Sir, you'll want to see this." Thoth broke into my internal monologue.
My breath caught in my throat as mushroom clouds began to blossom all over my home planet.
Skill List:
Mathematics: 1-10
Computer Programming: 1-10
Physics: 1-10
Material Sciences: 1-10
Orbital Mechanics: 1-5
Quantum Mechanics: 1-5
Artificial Intelligence: 1-3
Blackboxing: 1-3
Robotics: 1-5
Ruggedization: 1-5
Astrobotany: 1-4
Public Speaking: 1
Speed-Reading: 1
Teaching: 1
Critical Thinking: 1
Logistics: 1
Public Relations: 1
Corporate Espionage: 1
Automation: 1
Business Management: 1-3
Economics: 1-3
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