We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 2: Chapter 14: Sabotage

Book 2: Chapter 14: Sabotage

Riker

December 2170

Sol

The image on the video made me curl my lip in a sneer of both contempt and disgust. Half a herd of cattle lay dead in their paddock—fifty animals, poisoned by something in the food, according to the vet. On the other video window, Ms. Sharma, UN representative for the Maldives, waited silently. She was attempting to maintain a stone face, and failing.

The slaughter represented the third act of full-blown terrorism this month. VEHEMENT was ramping up from a nuisance to a full-blown threat. This was the first time they’d taken lives, though, even if livestock. I hadn’t come out and said it, but I considered this an act of war. If I caught up with this group, and it came down to an exchange of ordnance, I wouldn’t have any ethical issues with taking some of them down. I admitted to myself that I really didn’t know if I’d be able to pull the trigger. It was one thing to talk war, it was another entirely to actually take a human life.

But I would want to. That much, I was sure of.

Food supply continued to become more critical as Earth’s climate deteriorated. Over half of the thirty-five remaining enclaves around the planet were at least partly dependent on food subsidies from our orbital farms. The Maldives were still nominally self-supporting, but this assault on their food capacity would mean we’d have to kick in, at least in the short term.

Representative Sharma finally couldn’t hold it in any longer. “This is senseless. Senseless! Cattle? What have they proven? What have they accomplished? Cowards!”

I nodded at every word. For all the bickering in the UN, the various representatives were united in their hatred and contempt for VEHEMENT. After an event like this, I could probably push through any special measure I wanted to, with little debate or opposition.

“This is going to hurt, Ms. Sharma. Those cattle represent a lot of high-quality calories, not to mention the breeding capacity.” I took a moment to check the herd numbers. “It’s not life-threatening, but it is damaging. I think, if the handlers hadn’t noticed the animals getting sick, we could have lost this entire herd. And that would have been devastating.”

“I will move to set up a task force at the UN meeting tomorrow,” Ms. Sharma said. “I think there’s been a general feeling up to now that if we just ignored them and didn’t give them the attention they obviously crave, that they’d go away. No longer.”

I nodded without comment. I had the pronouncement from VEHEMENT up in another video window. These people were several screws short, but there was no doubt they were deadly serious. The essential message was that humanity had made a mess of the solar system, and it was time for them to bow out and let the universe recover. And because we might be reluctant to go along, VEHEMENT was going to help us towards that goal.

Great. Violent, self-absorbed crackpots. On top of everything else.

I forwarded the missive to Homer, Charles, and Ralph, and also sent a copy on to Bill. Not that he would have any specific ideas, but I’d gotten in the habit of looping him in on everything. I smiled briefly at the thought. Universal Archives.

Homer popped in a few milliseconds later. “Number Two, I am forced to admit I’m coming up blank. These clowns trump anything I could possibly say, just by existing.”

“Yup. Just when you think humanity has found the limits of stupid, they go and ratchet up the standard by another notch.” I shook my head. “We’re going to have to modify our schedules to replace the calories that the cattle would have supplied. Got any ideas?”

Homer bobbed his head back and forth. “Could be. It’s just possible that I’ve been under-reporting production a bit, to establish a small surplus. I suppose now would be a good time to notice the error with a gasp of relief.” He grinned at me, and I smiled back. Homer was full of surprises.

That was fine for right now. But what about next time VEHEMENT struck? I had a bad feeling that it was going to get worse, rather than better.