"The time now in Zuriken," said a calm and friendly voice throughout the aircraft cabin, "is 6:37 PM. Our final destination is Pyongyang. We will be taking off shortly with the flight expected to last 45 minutes. The local time as of our landing is predicted to be 2:24 AM. The climate in Pyongyang is 23 degrees right now and overcast with strong winds, and an expected high of 29 degrees during the day. This orbital insertion flight will not be affected by inclement weather."
Amari made herself comfortable and tapped her foot. As might be expected, her boss and her boss's boss were both late, and her partner on this project was still in the bathroom. Doing what, she had no idea. It wasn't like he had to apply any makeup. She flipped open her telecom notebook and scribbled a note with her stylus: 45m, down from last time; a reminder to stick into her next presentation. The words flicked like bands of electricity and the notebook went dark again.
She looked around the empty cabin of the redecorated "Presidential Bertha." It was luxurious, a little quaint, but handsomely decorated with amenities tucked into every functionality. It resembled, she knew, the design of private jets and similar services like Air Force One that were known of in the Old World. That was how it was designed, and President Hieronymus Ischyros was highly insistent that it be made to spec.
Where it really triumphed over those older, quaint models, however, was in the diligent inclusion of the technologies which TransLuna had developed which allowed it to have the Bertha in the first place. A mechanical man stood at the bar, a unique model that had been built in Bern and which could mix 47,983 different drinks, utilizing eighty-dozen types of alcohol, including some alcohols which were essentially not alcohol, but resembled more strongly a type of petroleum. One of the stupid jokes the engineer put in was a "Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster," which the mechanical man refused to even mix anymore because people hated it so much. But for the most part it worked perfectly: you could ask it to make you a mojito, and it'd hop to it, faster and more precisely than many a human bartender (whom it studied under, of course), and with the right garnish and a much better attitude overall than most bartenders. It was an excellent example of virtual intelligence, or a thing which appeared to be intelligent for all intents and purposes, but was not, truly, intelligent.
Hieronymus loved it. Every time he got on the Bertha, he would order a drink from the bartender straight away, and make conversation with it. It was the "perfect robot."
A flush came from the toilet, and a few moments later, a young man emerged - though to tell exactly how young he was was impossible, because he was a mask-wearer from the Society.
Amari smiled slightly to see him. "Park, there you are - we're just about to take off!"
"I know, I know!" said Park, hurrying over to the seats to buckle himself in opposite Amari. "Sorry about that, Ms. Fahouk, I just had to powder my nose." His mask formed the visage of a charming blond boy which grinned sheepishly.
Amari rolled her eyes. "For the love of God, don't call me that."
"Heh heh," said Park. "So where's Hieronymus?"
"Hell if I know," said Amari. "So, are you ready?"
"Ready? I was born ready," said Park cavalierly, leaning back in his seat and extending a hand to the "fruit vine" above their heads - really just a clever and handsome refrigerator for storing fruits out in the open and impressing a lot of people. He snagged an orange and began peeling it. "I was born in Pyongyang, to be precise, so any time I go there I know I was ready to go there at the time in my life I was least ready for anything."
Amari blinked, but she was used to these kinds of interactions from Park. "Did you grow up in Pyongyang, too?"
"Yeaah, well, you know, the end of the world cut that one short."
Just then, a noise from the runway caught their combined attentions. A jeep had torn up the runway to disembark suddenly, with the unmistakable coat of Hieronymus emerging from the car, trailed directly by a tall woman wearing an extraordinarily elaborate outfit, a grand black dress with green trim and elaborate decorations of all kinds, framing a face that wore another society mask - like Park's, but far subtler and yet, somehow, more prominent.
"That'll be Hieronymus and Amelia now," said Amari, as they hurried up the runway and climbed aboard themselves.
The moment Hieronymus stepped on the plane, he waved to Amari and Park, beaming broadly, and strolled past them to the bartender.
Amelia, meanwhile, calmly sat herself down next to park. Her "face" lit up with a visage she often used in confidence, that of a young woman with black hair and green eyes, and a haunting sort of quality to her. Amari could never tell if the effect was wholly related to the image or related to her costume as a whole, but she definitely felt like there was something "weird" about Amelia, even if it was her responsibility to oversee Amari's department. Park, for his own part, was looking out the window and pretending to mind his own business.
"Good evening, Amelia," said Amari.
"Good evening, Amari," she said calmly. "You seem unwell."
"Hmph," said Amari, folding her arms. "This war stuff is bad for business."
Amelia chuckled a little. "That's why it won't last long."
Hieronymus laughed loudly as he accepted a drink from the mechanical bartender, who acknowledged him with an incline of the head.
"Hah! Who taught you that one? Was it Mark?"
"I read it in a book."
"Haha! That's great."
Hieronymus took his drink and sat down next to Amari. "Okay. Got off the phone with Mark. It got heated for a second but we came to a compromise. So this is going to be a good trip."
"If you say so," said Amari. "I just got off the phone with Hesteria."
Hieronymus was silent for a moment, staring at her with dawning comprehension, until finally he sat back and took a major swig of his drink. He offered it over to Amari.
"Want some? James Joyce. Irish whiskey. It'll do you good."
She took his glass and drained it, then pinched the bridge of her nose.
"I know the Hesterias want war," said Hieronymus. "Trust me, it's all they're talking about at SecGen right now. German generals are visiting every other week now. But wars come and go. International business is forever. The board agrees with me on this."
"So what good is that," groaned Amari, "if war in Europe comes to us and then kills us all?"
"If war comes to Europe," said Hieronymus slowly, "then war will be in Europe. We will be in Asia. And if that doesn't work out, we have other places to go. Stop worrying so much. You're focused on ... what? The fate of this dead planet? Come on. We have bigger fish to fry."
Amari thought on these words for a moment and decided to just stare out the window with a huff. "Fine. But, there are lives at stake."
"You tell me that like I don't know," chuckled Hieronymus, standing and going to the bartender again.
A little while later, they were in the air, soaring at hypersonic speeds through a comfortable slipstream in the stratosphere. The Presidential Bertha had come a long way from the rocket-based models of the 2040's; buffeting had been reduced to sub-1% levels and vibrations were null within the cabin. A complex series of dampers and actuators throughout the structure of the craft react and reposition themselves continually, battling against inhibiting vibrations and remaining flexible and robust. So it was a smooth ride, but mostly it was a fast ride. Hieronymus and Amelia talked, and Park stared out the window, and Amari stayed in her own head.
Just then, a beep sounded from her telecom, though it did not draw the attention of anyone else. Frowning, she opened it up, and saw something truly bewildering: she had received a message, actually an unsecured data transmission, from an address in Switzerland. It was not a name or authorization she recognized, which caused her blood to run cold. This was a company device and contained information that was very sensitive. She had been compromised - no way else could someone have scooped her codes in order to send her a UDT, which was generally against company protocol as it was unrecorded and unguaranteed and very insecure.
And yet, here she was; and the screen said, "NEW MESSAGE FROM BadBusiness"
She blinked. Well. Either she destroyed the connection right now and followed up with it with IT later, or she broke protocol and read the transmission from an unsecured source.
...
Eh, what the hell.
She opened it up, and the command line called a few routines before the message appeared.
BadBusiness: Is this Amari Fahouk?
Damn. She got got. She swallowed a lump in her throat and tapped back:
fahoukam: How did you find me?
BadBusiness: I looked you up.
fahoukam: How did you hack my telecom?
BadBusiness: I walked in the front door.
Typical hacker bullfeathers. She was beginning to feel impatient.
fahoukam: What do you want? Money?
No response. She waited a minute, then two minutes, and still nothing. Finally,
BadBusiness: No, nothing like that. Just wanted to say hi.
And just like that, it was gone, and the connection had been severed. She could still see the address, and the message log, but nothing else.
Feeling a little confused, she tapped the sides of the telecom pointlessly with her fingers, lost in thought.
What a time to be alive.
