Winning Peace - Chapter 15:
Sasha Tuigamala looked up as I entered the room, her desk having occupied one of the corners of my ministerial office for several months at this point. More than half a year, really. "You look like shit."
"That's why I keep you around, Sasha. Unfiltered feedback," I sighed and rubbed at my face, dropping into my luxury recliner as I did so. "God, I need another vacation."
"Then you should take one," Sasha replied bluntly.
I chuckled. "Even after all this time, you think it's that easy to just stop working for even a few days at a time with this job."
"It's what you keep telling everyone else," she stated. "You've sent people home for every reason under the sun, even paid out for time in some of the resorts and spas for your employees. Take your own advice."
I stared up at the ceiling. "I'm in charge. The buck stops here." I paused for a long moment, then removed a bottle of alcohol from my desk. "I'd offer you some, but you hate the taste of plums."
Her dark eyes widened at the sight of me filling a crystal glass. "I've literally never seen you drink on the job."
I locked eyes with her gaze and intentionally kept pouring far longer than I normally would, filling the glass almost to the top. "Drastic times call for drastic measures. Recordings off."
Sasha blinked as I pushed a button for my secretary. Lisa stepped into the room a moment later, giving a nod to Sasha, who had been formally hired as my press agent, and took a seat in front of my desk. Her eyebrows rose as she glimpsed the full glass in front of me. "It's going to be one of those conversations, isn't it?"
I shrugged helplessly and triggered the isolation protocol. Both women watched as the lights dimmed an appropriately dramatic amount before switching from the standard white to a cold blue. "Okay, here's the situation. I just came from a government briefing where I informed the other ministers of a long-term effort to indoctrinate and corrupt the people living off-world by a faction which remains on Earth. Long story short? The Last Dogs are still around, and still active."
The reaction was immediate as both women paled dramatically, Lisa going so far as to grab hold of the armrest to visibly steady herself.
"Th-they're..." Sasha creaked out, her words failing her.
I took a long drink of plum wine, the only form of alcohol I'd ever really enjoyed. It hadn't been an easy decision to do what I'd done. Part of me wanted to keep the entire shadow war just that, a conflict that mankind would never know about. Or, at least, know about beyond the Short War. In the end, though, I just couldn't. As much as I'd corrupted my personal principles in my ever-increasing web of surveillance, unwilling implantation of cybernetics, and a host of other crimes against humanity... I still had my limits.
A cynical part of me, too, knew that there was fame and glory to be had in the information I held, but I liked to tell myself that wasn't why I'd informed the rest of the council. If they were ever going to be the representative government of humanity that I'd built them to be, then they needed to be able to face challenges like this. For the sheer practical reason that I didn't want to be the sole point of failure. I'd always despised that idea.
If humanity needed a messiah, we were doomed anyway.
No single person should have that much control over the destiny of their entire species.
...and look at me now, look at my works, ye mighty, and despair. For if ten years can do this to me, what hope is there to hold fast to anything?
I pushed off the spiral of depression. "We believe, now, that the majority of the low-level operatives were wiped out when they detonated dirty bombs across the UNAS to provoke a counter strike against China, precipitating a full nuclear war. However, several members of various nations' military and political organizations had been suborned into the role of middle-tier leadership positions. From the evidence I've gathered through, none of them seem to be the 'true believers' who are actually running the show. The vast majority of the still-extant group seem to want to use the chaos and devastation to further personal, ideological, political, or nationalistic goals."
"This is a nightmare." Sasha whispered, her hands shaking. "How the fuck can those people still be alive?! After killing billions, how in God's Name can they justify still being alive!?"
Lisa simply put her head in her hands and began to quietly cry. A quick thought brought to mind the family she'd lost in the Short War, like virtually everyone, and the wounds this conversation must have ripped open. Wordlessly, I handed her the box of tissues.
"It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway... This information is classified, Sasha. I'll be giving you access to it on my servers while you're here in the office, but you aren't to tell anyone or disseminate the information." My explanation brought a halt to the woman's low-level cursing and muttering as she looked me in the eye.
"The people deserve to know," she told me honestly and forthrightly.
I nodded. "And they will be, in a controlled fashion meant to not incite panic. There will be a government announcement within the month, you have my word."
She opened her mouth, then jerked as realization sparked in her eyes. "The communications system. This is why it's been down. You've been throttling it to stop them from talking to us."
"You're a bright woman, Sasha," I complimented as I drank more. "The second you have a reasonable explanation you jump to a logical conclusion. Yes. The agitators behind the CRA protests, which have died down recently, were very likely the work of the Last Dogs trying to get a foothold here on Luna."
She held my gaze for a moment longer, then nodded. Thankfully, she knew nothing of the people behind the scenes, those who'd had 'accidents' recently. She certainly wouldn't have kept quiet about it. No, Sasha was too principled.
"Good," she stated finally, the grimace on her lips telling me how foul the words tasted passing through her mouth. "Good. Those fuckers... I hate to say it, but almost anything is worth keeping those lunatics away from us."
Or not. People could always surprise me.
"I'll be lobbying for you to at least write the press release, even if you can't be the one to give it," I stated with a sympathetic shrug.
"W-what are you going to do about them?" Lisa asked in an uncharacteristically timid manner.
I leaned back and took another sip of alcohol. "We're contemplating a number of courses of action at the moment. I took a great deal of time and care to ensure that I had both correctly identified the group as legitimate branches of the Last Dogs instead of some pretender group. In that time, I was able to draw up some preliminary plans which I presented to the council in tandem with the Minister of Intelligence, who I'd brought onboard a few months ago. At the moment, the only thing happening for sure is a press release about a series of network failures from the old-guard of satellites and software that have disabled reliable communications between Earth and Luna. Unofficially, the Secretary of State is moving forward with deploying an electronic warfare project to ensure the blackout is as complete as possible."
"You're sure it's them, then?" Sasha asked belatedly, seeming to still be a bit frazzled.
"As sure as I can be without one of them turning states' evidence," I replied. In actuality, I had already suborned several of them with cybernetics. A good chunk of the UNAS branches were under my control at this point, along with the operatives in the EU and India. "We'd prefer more time to observe them before moving like this, but the Minister of Intelligence and I both agree that we're seeing signs of increased activity, such that they may be planning to release biological weapons soon, and we have both the legal and moral obligation to do everything we can to prevent further loss of human life at their hands."
Lisa closed her eyes and whimpered. "It's happening again..."
I stood and walked around the desk, kneeling and taking the woman's hand in my own. "Not if we can help it, Lisa. I'm sorry about this. I didn't think it would affect you so badly. Take the rest of the week off. Go home to your spouse, have a good cry if you need to, and call me later if you don't feel up to coming in or want some kind of transfer where you won't have to deal with this, okay? Same pay grade, all your benefits, I'll move you wherever you want if you're not ready for this. No shame."
Lisa took a shuddering breath and nodded. "I-I think I will take the rest of the day off, at least." She opened her eyes, visibly shining with wetness. "I think I'll be okay, though. Thank you, Minister. I'm sorry about breaking down like this."
"Don't be," I told her seriously. "You should never blame yourself for how you feel. Now, go home and do something to take your mind off things, okay?"
She smiled weakly and nodded, rising up as I turned off the lockdown and allowed her to leave. Lisa had been with me long enough that she knew better than to tell anyone anything that went on in the office. As for me, I dropped back into my chair in a fit of exhaustion.
"It always surprises me to see you so... sincere," Sasha stated, a bit of her usual edge blunted. "You break, like... every rule about politicians I've ever heard."
"That's because, contrary to most politicians, I don't feel that lying to people is necessary to garner support. But that's also because, unlike most politicians, I'm not actually interested in self-aggrandizement or self-enrichment." I stated honestly.
"Yeah, I get that. Took me a while, but I got it." Sasha nodded, sighing. "I've combed through basically your entire database, at least the part you have open to me-"
"-which, now that you know about our canine problem, you'll have most of that section open as well," I replied with a wave as I lifted my glass for another drink.
"Thanks. I'm curious what's in the section you'll still have walled off, but when more than ninety-percent of a guy's life's work is about making the world a better place, he earns a bit of trust." Sasha walked over and took my glass from me, taking a sip herself.
"Ugh, I still have no idea how you drink that."
I chuckled and took it back from her. I wasn't actually surprised she'd put together that I was hiding files from her. Sasha was a smart cookie, but you didn't need to be all that intelligent to put the pieces together. Now that I was letting people know about the Last Dogs and my potential countermeasures, there wasn't much left I was actually hiding.
Oh, sure, I'd planned a extra-legal execution here and there, along with the backdoors I'd built into the systems to keep an eye on the populace, the cybernetics and the footage coming from the Last Dogs I'd caught, and... well, my whole influence campaign against the powers on Earth.
...okay, so technically that is a bit much to still be hiding, but I suppose Sasha has a point. Most of what I've made is geared towards an honest attempt to help people live better lives. Even what I'm hiding is still designed to do that... as long as you're not a would-be dictator.
"I'll be taking a tour of the system on one of our new ships soon," I stated suddenly, wanting to change the topic lest I get all maudlin again. "Will you be coming, or..."
"You're still planning to do that? I thought launching the new game would impede making the trip," Sasha replied, an echo of surprise on her face before she shook her head. "No, wait-nevermind about that, what about the Last Dogs? Doesn't the government need you to stay here to help?"
I shook my head. "I'll be available via tight-beam transmission with satellite relay if they need advice, but at this point it's largely out of my hands. I've provided them with various courses of action that they'll need to debate and come to a conclusion on before I can help them on implementation."
Sasha eyed me. "That's... unusually hands-off of you. You're normally a lot more neurotic about things."
It would have bothered me more if I didn't have my eyes set on the prize. The bulk of the Last Dogs could be dealt with by conventional means and conventional people. Honestly, even with my AI assisting me, my ability to deal with problems still had a bottleneck when you're talking about an entire planet. I'd gotten a bit creative and had narrowed down what I believed to be the head of the organization to Asia based on a number of factors, but that still wasn't good enough. The last month had removed the Middle East from my considerations after a series of storms had knocked out part of their network and the traffic in the area had taken a hit.
Orders relayed from the top of their command chain had not, though.
I was close. So fucking close.
I could feel it.
And I'll be able to open a portal in an emergency if my systems narrow things down anyway.
"Besides, Wild Odyssey will do fine. I trust the Minister of Arts and Entertainment, Adalai Scorpio, to take care of things in my absence. It's really more his baby than my own from a game aspect. My creative input was somewhat limited, as you well know."
Sasha nodded distractedly. "Alright, then. I'll come along. I'll need to go ahead and write up a bunch of material on the game that I've been putting off so that my viewers won't get antsy if I can't do real-time reviews."
"Take the next two days off and get that done, along with a break," I advised her, waving off her surprise. "Even if you hide it better than Lisa, don't think I can't see that the news today jarred you pretty badly."
Sasha stared me down. "Alright, but only if you do the same. You'll be taking a stressful business trip across the solar system starting next week and be gone for two months. With everything going on, you need the time off."
I huffed a quiet laugh. "Sure."
I did feel like I needed some time off.
Skill List:
Mathematics: 1-10
Computer Programming: 1-10
Physics: 1-10
Material Sciences: 1-10
Nanomachines: 1-5
Orbital Mechanics: 1-5
Quantum Mechanics: 1-5
Artificial Intelligence: 1-5
Artificial Intelligence Shackling: 1-10
Blackboxing: 1-10
Robotics: 1-5
Ruggedization: 1-5
Molecular Assembly: 1-5
Safeguards: 1-5
Failsafes: 1-5
Genetics: 1-10
Astrobotany: 1-4
Medicine: 1-3
Social Engineering: 1-5
Public Speaking: 1
Speed-Reading: 1
Teaching: 1
Critical Thinking: 1
Logistics: 1-5
Strategy: 1-5
Public Relations: 1-5
Corporate Espionage: 1
Automation: 1-5
Business Management: 1-3
Economics: 1-3
Aperture Science Technologies: 1-10
Ghost in the Shell: Cybernetics 1-3
Sword Art Online: FullDive Simulator I-3 (New)
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