Chapter 54

Time: January 2, 204894 5:44 PM London Local Time (44 minutes post injection)

I was keeping out of sight from the windows at the kennel; quietly scanning the area to be sure nobody could sneak up on us. Jim was immersed in his work. Several of Kyle's journals were laid out before him, and Jim was going through them slowly, occasionally making notes. Without warning, A'moth popped into the room with us.

Jim looked up and gave her a warm smile.

"Hi!" I said. "Did your meeting end early?"

A'moth shook her head. "It was just getting started. The council is calling an emergency meeting in fifteen minutes. It seems they're having trouble with the internet."

Jim looked at her oddly. "What kind of trouble?"

"I don't know. I think the global network is down though. Maybe even the intra-city net at Ulsan."

Jim frowned. "That doesn't sound likely. They have so much redundancy in their net. They rely on it for everything."

A'moth gave a short laugh. "Hey, I know! I rule this place! Jim, could it have anything to do with the Black Hole?" A'moth went on to describe her experience in Hawaii.

Jim did a few calculations for a moment. "Yeah, the generator casings... Not surprising. The trip through the core will be viscous though, even for neutronium. That should slow them down. They won't pop up on the other side of the globe."

"What about the internet?" I asked.

Jim shrugged. "Well, I can't see how the Black Hole injection could affect that. But the coincidence is too large to ignore. I would guess the two events are connected. A'moth, can you pick up Isabelle now? Why don't we just hit Nebraska now and get the hell out of here?"

A'moth shook her head. "She's on a jet, somewhere over Eastern Europe now. I can't jump into a moving plane. We'll have to wait for Tokyo." A'moth looked at the time. "I probably should get back to Ulsan; see what I can find out at the council meeting about the internet."

I spoke up. "There's no reason for us to stay here either."

A'moth nodded. "You're quite right. Do you want me to jump you to Nebraska?"

I thought for a moment. "Yeah, Nebraska will be okay I guess... Jim, how about we try my hideaway at Santa Fe? It'll be a lot warmer there, and it's only 800 kilometers from the Nebraska channel. If I had to, I can jump that with you in forty seconds."

Within the next minute A'moth jumped Jim, then Kyle's books and some supplies, and then finally me to the former site of Santa Fe, the ancient capitol of New Mexico. We were under the overhang of a shallow cliff, with a beautiful late-morning desert scene before us. The air was delightfully warm and dry and the natural beauty of the desert was idyllic.

Jim and I both gave A'moth a quick kiss goodbye before she jumped back to Korea.

Time: January 3, 204894 2:18 AM Ulsan Korea, Supreme Council Chamber #1, 1 hour 18 minutes post injection

A'moth was sitting quietly with the rest of the council, waiting for the last three members to arrive, the two Level-6 network e-techs and the general science e-tech. A'moth knew that being this late for any council meeting, let alone an emergency one, was very, very unusual, and she wondered what the heck was going on...

A'moth took a moment to reflect on the council. It was comprised of nine Level-6 commanders, including the chairwoman, plus seven Level-6 e-techs, two in genetics, two in non-genetic medicine, two in networking, and one in general science, which was a catch-basket for all other scientific fields. A'moth thought the ratios among the e-techs closely reflected the WFM's scientific priorities. She also knew where the real power lay in the ruling council...

In theory, a Level-6 e-tech was equal to a Level-6 commander. In practice, there were nine commanders to seven e-techs. In addition, it was the commanders who controlled the armed forces. The commanders were also a tight political group. Each one was an official sponsor to each of the other nine cities. In practice, they placed the interests of Ulsan and the WFM before everything else...

The three missing e-techs hurried into the room. The chairwoman frowned at them and spoke a single word. "Report!"

One of the two network e-techs cleared her throat and began, "At 1:00 AM local time, we lost the internet, all of it, both the world and city networks, all of it. The world loss is still a complete mystery. We think we understand the city loss, and hope to have that piece up by 4:00 AM, perhaps as early as 3:40 AM."

The nine commanders stared at the e-tech, clearly displeased by the news.

"And the recovery for the world net?" asked the chairwoman. "When will that happen?"

The e-tech just grimaced and looked at her network colleague. The second woman spoke up. "We have to admit we don't know. We don't even understand what the problem is, let alone how long to repair it. The backbone of the world-net is a set of eight fully- functional, fully-independent satellite arrays, plus four additional emergency networks with somewhat limited functionality. All twelve networks are down! They all crashed simultaneously, on the exact second that blasted slip-ship was scheduled to enter NBHX35! Who authorized that mission?!"

The general-science e-tech spoke up. "It wasn't just me! We all voted in favor! And Dr. Lisa had some excellent arguments too for the exploration. I'm still not convinced that was the cause of the network crash!"

The first network e-tech rolled her eyes and shouted furiously. "You can't be serious! The exact second! The possibility of such a coincidence is zero!"

"But there's no physical way a slip-ship entering NBHX35 could bring down the net!"

"Prove it!"

"Prove it?! What do you mean, prove it?! They are two independent phenomena. There's no connection between the slip-channel conduit and our internet. Oh, some control consoles share bits of data at Honolulu perhaps, but there's no power coupling. The slip-ships are reality-shifters. And they have no power to affect reality except to change their position. I'm telling you, the slip-ship did NOT cause this outage!"

The network e-tech looked exasperated and then shouted sarcastically, "And I suppose your Honolulu team confirms this?"

The science e-tech retorted, "As soon as you get your network back up, I'm sure they will!"

"Silence!" shouted the chairwoman, banging gavel on the table and signaling the current conversation was to end. "Lisa, this is not your area of expertise, but I think all the council members here respect your scientific insight. What is your opinion?"

A'moth thought for a few seconds. She noticed the science e-tech was looking nervously out the west windows of the conference room. The city seemed well lit and functional. The outward appearance was that everything was in order. "Tan-Rae," A'moth asked, calling to the first network e-tech who spoke. "What was wrong with the city network, and how are you repairing it?"