The Luna Deception Read online

  “More to the point,” Lorna continued, “a vote for Seth would be a vote for Charles K. Pope’s radical agenda.”

  “Radical agenda?”

  “Come on,” Lorna said, coolly. “UNVRP is radical. Terraforming Venus? Imagining that you can turn a toxic inferno into a shirtsleeve environment, by throwing a few kilotons of green slime and iron aerosol at it? That’s not radical?”

  Mendoza frowned, confused.

  “Oh, I’m pro-UNVRP. But I’m just saying, familiarity breeds contempt. Take a step back, and you can’t deny that the Venus Project is radically ambitious. Especially in the context of the other challenges humanity has to deal with right now … such as the PLAN.”

  At the mention of the PLAN, Mendoza felt a chill run through his body. He said carefully, “Plenty of people think UNVRP is a waste of taxpayer money that should be spent on other things.” Fragger1 had written a screed about that just the other day.

  “Yes. But money was nothing to Charlie Pope. For him—now this is something you may not know—UNVRP was to be only the beginning. He planned to use the Phase 5 ramp as a stepping-stone to bigger things. Ultimately, he wanted to dismantle Mercury and turn it into a Dyson sphere.”

  “A Dyson sphere? A trillion trillion solar arrays orbiting the sun?”

  “Yeah. Sphere, swarm, call it what you like, it was a nutzoid idea when Dyson first came up with it, and it still is. But Pope thought we could do it, and not only that, we should do it. Basically, the man was crazier than a cockroach in a radioactive waste dump.”

  Lorna’s voice had a flinty edge. Mendoza suddenly remembered the internet rumors (not even rumors, really, just dead links) suggesting that Charles K. Pope had been murdered.

  “So we’re looking to elect a candidate who can fix UNVRP’s public image,” Lorna concluded. “And Angelica Lin is just the woman to sell Venus to Earth all over again.”

  “Still, it’ll be tough to get her elected if she hasn’t got the right qualifications.” Mendoza hoped Lorna did not think he could magically fix that problem.

  “She’s got the only qualification that matters. Did you look at her? Va-va-va-voom.”

  Mendoza laughed.

  “Fanta?” Lorna drew two cold cans out of a mini-fridge in the side of the gondola. Mendoza accepted one. “So, if you’re on board, we can get started on Angie’s campaign any time.”

  “Uh, isn’t she going to have a dedicated team?”

  “Yeah, for the PR stuff, yeah. What we’ll be doing is more in the way of … oppo research. You know.”

  Mendoza made a noncommittal noise. He sipped his Fanta. It was sticky-sweet. “You ought to run for the UNVRP job yourself,” he said. “Sir.”

  “Ha! Thanks, but I don’t like to travel. I haven’t left Luna in twenty years.”

  The roof was darker now. Mock stars enhanced the illusion that the airship was floating in the night sky. The only difference was no Earth overhead.

  The airship had been gliding in circles. Slowly, it descended towards the edge of the dome. Verneland—named after nineteenth-century author Jules Verne, one of the founders’ idols—boasted a band of parkland inside its perimeter. People sat in a grove of attentuated plum trees, bobbing their heads to the beat-boxing of an a capella techno group. They turned to stare at the airship as it landed on a nearby lawn.

  “Dog, what a horrible noise,” Lorna said. “That’s not music, it’s some kind of Cro-Magnon tribal bonding shit.”

  “No kidding.” At least they agreed on something. Mendoza had to give Lorna the impression that they agreed on everything. He didn’t know if they did or not.

  “You should be able to get home from here,” Lorna said. “Train station’s over that way. So to get started, I’d like you to design a poll focusing on the other candidates, or maybe one for each of them. We’re looking to find their weaknesses. Take your time, do your best work. Think you could have something for me by Wednesday?”

  So, take your time, but have it done within 24 hours. Lorna must be a nightmare to work for. “No problem,” Mendoza said. “I can hack away at it during office hours. They haven’t given me that much to do yet.”

  “Fantastic,” Lorna said.

  Mendoza got out, stumbling slightly on the grass. The airship lifted off again. Mendoza waved, but all the time, questions thundered in his mind.

  There had to be other psephologists on Luna. Or if Lorna wanted real talent, he could have hired someone on Earth. Mendoza hadn’t even used his training in years before he got transferred to MeReMSG.

  So why me?

  iv.

  While working on the polls Derek Lorna had asked for, Mendoza did a bit of digging around the edges of Lorna’s public profile.

  He learnt that in addition to all his other posts and honorary titles, Lorna held the title of lead researcher at the Dasein Institute, a space station orbiting 4 Vesta, which had been put there after last year’s catastrophe, for the purpose of studying the Heidegger program.

  The Heidegger program was the name given by humanity to the PLAN’s malware—the stuff that had infiltrated people’s BCIs on 4 Vesta and hijacked their brain reward pathways, turning them into meat puppets.

  All the meat puppets had died when Vesta’s life support systems failed, but the Heidegger Program was still there, in the infrastructure of the abandoned colonies. It controlled several phavatars, and sometimes used these to try and sabotage the rail launcher that was driving 4 Vesta slowly towards the inner solar system.

  The Dasein Institute researchers sat in their space station and watched the fun. As far as Mendoza could find out, that was all they’d done so far.

  Lorna, of course, must be participating remotely, via a phavatar of his own.

  I haven’t left Luna in twenty years …

  And why was that, anyway? What had made this brilliant man such a homebody?

  Mendoza did some more digging. At the bottom of a memory hole so deep he needed decryption tools to reach the bottom, he found something interesting.

  ★

  “I didn’t know you had a relationship with Angelica Lin?” he said when they met on Thursday evening.

  Lorna’s reaction was startling. He flushed darkly. “I don’t.” Recovering: “Or rather, our relationship is one-sided. I admire her; she uses me to get what she wants. Sigh. One is a slave to beauty.”

  They were eating supper in a trattoria in Wellsland, not far from the UNVRP building. Lorna was conservatively dressed today, so they looked like two colleagues grabbing a plate of pasta after work. But Lorna wore glasses with a fractal pattern on the lenses, the type that pulsed near-infrared signals to confuse facial recognition software.

  Mendoza spread his hands. “I was just interested, that’s all … I stumbled on some stuff about Callisto. There was that incident in 2265, right? That crazy personhood activist group, CyberDestiny, took over the UNSA base. Ended up killing pretty much everyone. And you were there, working at the base; I didn’t know that. And so was Angelica Lin.”

  Lorna pointed at him, a rueful smirk on his lips. “You did not stumble on that.”

  Mendoza smiled and shrugged. “I just thought it was interesting.”

  “Well, it’s not a secret, but it isn’t relevant, either,” Lorna said after a moment. “We worked together. Kind of. I was on the software side. Angie was one of the Marines who, er, didn’t protect us very well. But nothing ever happened.”

  “Nothing?”

  “I was desperately in love with her, but she never looked twice at me. So it goes.”

  “Aha,” Mendoza said. All was now clear. He was working his ass off to help Lorna impress his crush.

  “And in case you’re wondering, I’m not just trying to impress her here,” Lorna said, which convinced Mendoza that that was exactly what Lorna was doing.

  He knew the feeling.

  As if reading his thoughts, Lorna said, “You ever been in love, fellow?”

  Mendoza twirled some fettucine around his
fork. The food in Wellsland restaurants was always good. Real, fresh ingredients. “Once, I guess.”

  “I’m going to hazard a guess that it didn’t end in wedding bells.”

  Mendoza laughed. “She prefers women.”

  “Yow,” Lorna said. “You have my condolences. How’d that happen?”

  “Well, some people say it’s genetic, but my opinion is it’s more of an environmental thing …”

  “You know what I mean. How’d you get together?”

  “It was on 4 Vesta, actually. She was there for the Space Corps, and I was doing astrodata analysis for UNVRP. This was before they axed the asteroid capture program. Anyway, to make a long story short, we were out in the field together when the Heidegger program got loose.” He spoke stoically. “Elfrida saved my life.”

  Lorna shook his head. “Mendoza, you and I are, like, living each other’s lives here.”

  Mendoza laughed, thinking: Except that you’re a famous scientist, and I’m just the schmuck you arm-twisted into doing some work for you.

  He finished his fettucine. “So,” he said. “Was the stuff I sent you OK?”

  Lorna shifted gears smoothly. “OK? It was better than OK, it was great. Just as I thought, Dr. Abdullah Hasselblatter is the one we need to watch.”

  “Seriously? I thought Dr. Ulysses Seth was the one to beat. Or Pyls O. Mani.”

  “No, no. Hasselblatter’s the dangerous one. He’s no populist, but look at his connections. He’s the President’s man.”

  “He’s also Elfrida’s boss, as it happens.” Mendoza reflected that Elfrida couldn’t be happy that her boss had decided to run for the UNVRP director’s job. She had gone to Mercury to get away … not to get caught up in an election. It would be ironic if she got roped into working on Dr. Hasselblatter’s campaign, while Mendoza was working on Angelica Lin’s.

  “Is that true? Get out!” Lorna’s eyes flickered behind his privacy glasses, checking up on what Mendoza had said. “Hey, so she’s on Mercury right now! That is ironic. So you’ve got a personal stake in this, too.”

  Mendoza frowned. That sounded somewhat ominous. But Lorna did not explain what he meant. Their dessert came: tiramisu.

  “So our next step,” Lorna said, “is to zoom in on Hasselblatter’s campaign. Exploit his weaknesses.”

  “Mm. He’s so close to the President that I wouldn’t want to zoom in on any professional lapses he might have had,” Mendoza said delicately. “There are some question marks around his personal life. He’s married; his wife is a Muslim, like him, but she’s said to be very devout, while he, um, isn’t. And there are hints that their son may not be their son. I don’t know if you want to go there …”

  Lorna shook his head firmly, making Mendoza feel dirty for having brought it up. “No, I don’t want to exploit his personal failings. Anyway, fabricating some kind of scandal, that would just be manipulating perceptions ...”

  “Psephology is the science of manipulating perceptions,” Mendoza pointed out.

  “I know, but you’re a smart guy. Stay with me here.” Lorna ate a bite of tiramisu, gazing reflectively at the fairy lights overhead. “Democracy isn’t a thing anymore. We vote for lay judges, municipal bylaws, and corporate branding campaigns, not for our leaders. These elections on Mercury are an anachronistic relic. But the really ironic thing?” Lorna rocked forward, meeting Mendoza’s gaze. ”These are the cleanest elections in human history, hands down. No anonymous political donations. No advertising. Campaigns just three weeks long. And with digital ID tracking, there’s no possibility of voter fraud.”

  Mendoza knew all this. He said, “Actually, it’s still possible to rig elections. We have a parliament in the Philippines—it doesn’t have much power, but it exists. And when election time rolls around, you’re doing pretty badly for yourself if you can’t collect at least a new TV, or a share in a car, in exchange for your vote. In other words, the candidates buy voters, who then cast their votes legitimately.”

  “Shocking.”

  “It’s illegal, of course.”

  “In the UN, that would be a felony. Why are we even talking about this?”

  “Exactly,” Mendoza nodded. “So we’re back to polling. That’s the only way to influence …”

  Lorna cut him off. “No. No, Mendoza, it isn’t. As it happens, Dr Hasselblatter’s greatest weakness is that he’s using a creative consultancy based here on Luna.”

  “Oh, yeah, that was one of the things I noted for you.”

  “And I may, or may not, have a friend who works there.”

  Mendoza put down his fork. The rich tiramisu suddenly sickened him.

  “So here’s what I’m thinking. Hasselblatter has no idea how to run an election campaign. It’s not as if he’s ever had to do this before. So he’ll do whatever his pricey consultants tell him. And they … will do what we tell them.”

  Mendoza toyed with his dessert fork. “You mean you want to sabotage his campaign?”

  “We.” The flinty look was back in Lorna’s eyes. He obviously knew exactly what he was saying. “We are going to sabotage his campaign.”

  Mendoza nodded jerkily. Everything he’d done for Lorna so far was legal. This …

  Would be a crime.

  I’ll be a criminal. I’ll be in Lorna’s power forever. It did not occur to Mendoza that Lorna would also be in his power. The difference in status between them was too great.

  “I’m not sure,” he started.

  But Lorna suddenly grinned and waved his hands. “You could have fun with this. You’re good with graphics. So let your imagination run wild! Give me ideas, images, talking points, animations, that’ll be exactly what the voters don’t want. Keep it within the bounds of plausibility, but the wackier, the better.”

  Mendoza shook his head. He pushed back his chair. “No. Sorry, sir, I’m out of here.” He added, gesturing at the remains of their meal, “How much do I owe you for this?”

  “Sit down, Mendoza.”

  “I can’t …”

  Lorna stood up. “OK. OK, fine. Let’s take a walk.”

  ★

  The largest open space in Wellsland was Heinlein Park. At this hour of the evening, the park teemed with dog-walkers, teenagers on spring-loaded stilts, and tourists anticipating the rise of the fake Earth in the fake sky. Lorna steered Mendoza into the botanical garden, a jungle of ferns, eucalyptus, and ancient cycads. The first bench they came to already had a couple on it. So did the second. They meandered on. A rat darted across the path.

  “Holy crap, did you see that?” Lorna said. “I’m going to report it right now.”

  “There are rats where I live, in Nightingale Village,” Mendoza said. He did not mention that some people nuked and ate them. It made a change from nutriblocks.

  “That sucks. We don’t want them in Wellsland. You know, people import them as pets. A couple escape, and you’re screwed. That’s what happened to Wrightstuff, Inc.” Lorna slanted a searching glance at Mendoza.

  “Isn’t that the company that owns most of Mercury?”

  “Not ‘most’ of it. Some of the best bits at the north and south poles. And their claim is legally dubious. But yeah. They have hundreds of thousands of colonists in those polar craters.”

  “Hundreds of thousands!”

  “I know, right? You never hear about that. They’re crammed in, and they have a rat problem, as I said, which is actually the least of their problems. It’s a marginal existence. But Doug Wright—the guy that runs the company, fifth-generation CEO—he’d like to claim the whole planet. He wants nothing more than to declare Mercury independent, and raise the Stars and Stripes again.”

  “The Stars and Stripes … that rings a bell.”

  “It should. It was the flag of the United States of America, which once colonized your country. That’s where Wrightstuff, Inc. came from. They fled to Mercury when the USA fell apart.”

  “Huh.” Mendoza was thinking, God, I hope Elfrida doesn’t get mixed up with the
se people.

  “So, Doug Wright wants to reboot the USA. That’s just crazy stuff. But regardless of his neo-nationalist aspirations, he’s a good guy.” Lorna paused. “A good friend.”

  “OK …”

  Lorna stopped on the path. It was full dark now, and the tree ferns blocked out the lights from the buildings around the park. Mendoza took a step back, instinctively wary.

  “What’s your take on the PLAN?” Lorna said.

  Mendoza thought: What Fragger1 said. But spouting that kind of macho rant in public could get you locked up, not to mention that it would have sounded stupid coming from him.

  Anyway, the truth was simpler, and easy to tell. “I had a sister. The PLAN whacked her on her first voyage to the Belt. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Collateral damage. So yeah, I feel kind of strongly … I don’t like the PLAN at all.”

  Lorna nodded. “I’m sorry about your sister. I wasn’t going to bring it up. But thank you for telling me.”

  “Most people don’t even think about the PLAN,” Mendoza said. “There’s nothing they can do about it, so they block it out.”

  “Tell me about it! But when you’ve been personally touched by evil, you can’t ignore it anymore, right?”

  “No … and then there was 4 Vesta.”

  “Yeah. I’m involved with the Dasein Institute—that’s the team of scientists studying the Heidegger program—and I can personally testify that the PLAN is the worst threat humanity has ever faced. It is actively trying to destroy us. And what are we doing about it? Not counting—actually, counting Star Force patrols? Fuck-all.”

  Mendoza licked his lips. He found himself in the unfamiliar position of agreeing 100% with Derek Lorna.

  “This can’t go on,” Lorna said. “Or rather, it can go on, until it stops. That’s the worst case scenario. The plain truth is that we need to take action against the PLAN, and I mean military action, now.”

  They walked on along the bumpy path, fronds brushing their knees. Mendoza understood now why Lorna had chosen this route. This wasn’t the kind of conversation you could have in a trattoria. Weirdly, it felt more dangerous than talking about ways to illegally influence elections.