Page 43 of Last Chance to Save the World

The next thing I do is hack in to security feeds.

See, people don’t realize how much of a role communication networks play. All the cam drones? They don’tstorethe data they record. It travels via communication networks into a server that’s backed up remotely to other servers.

The communication network is a road that will take me through any locked door.

Top of the list: Strom Fetor’s security-access feeds. Once I get into the comm sys, it’s surprisingly easy to bring up all the footage.

Rian and I were spotted in the communication room, but Fetor didn’t know we’d made a stop in the server room. And now he never will. I scrub all the records of Rian accessing the room and delete the video feeds of me—in my blinding-white flare threads—inside it. I also track down the footage from the stairwell and slice that out, too. By the time I’m done, I have laid the digital groundwork for a perfectly normal visit to the towers. And, more important, all the plausible deniability Rian will need when Fetor inevitably figures out that someone has reprogrammed the bots he intended to be a cash cow for the rest of Earth’s history.

I am absolutely certain that Fetor’s simply not intelligent enough to link me to any of this, especially if I clear Rian. The man has many enemies, corporate and personal. But he does hire smart people, and so I have little doubt that eventually, my name will be one of the few remaining on his list of suspects. Maybe then he’ll finally believe I actually really hate him.

I don’t delete the footage of me in the communication room.

Maybe I should. Pride before a fall and all that.

But I like the idea of him searching and searching, not knowing who reprogrammed the bots, until some overworked and underpaid person presents him with a shot of me extracting the earring from the red telephone he so graciously put on a pedestal right in front of me.

He’ll never make this public. He’ll never admit to the galaxy how easy it was for me to strip him of the very data that turned him from a billionaire to a trillionaire.

And by the time he realizes it was me, I’ll be a ghost.

Untraceable.

If Fetor was a more intelligent man, he’d look into using messenger pigeons in the future.

Once I ensure Fetor Tech has no damning evidence of what we did, I go into the government records. It takes longer to break into them, but they have the same flaw. Everything goes through the comm network.

I meticulously root out every iteration of me and my mother and delete it. Then I go into all the records of Green Rogue—what a ridiculous code name for the movement—and seed in plenty of lies, misinformation, and false leads to give everyone a bit of cover for the next few years.

My mother didn’t approve of the risk I was taking to get access to the communications system. But she extricated me anyway, blowing her cover and cashing in all the goodwill she’s built for decades to aid me.

Least I can do in return. Besides, next time, I can charge her more. Maybe I’ll even toss a little spy bot to her underground network on the house. I’m feeling generous these days.

I crack my knuckles as I lean back in my chair. Through the carbonglass window, I can see the round, red curvature of Mars. Closer to me is the portal.

It’s time to disappear forever.

UNITED GALACTIC SYSTEM

MEMO

From: Rian C. White, DoIBiTe

To: All Personnel, All Departments

Subject: Climate-Cleaner Launch

Attachments:Report CJB3

It is with tremendous pride to my whole team that I can announce that the Climate-Cleaner Project launched successfully! Early reports indicate that the nanobots are efficiently operating at prime levels, and there is already evidence on a microscopic level tracking positively. Please see attached our hopeful projection of Sol-Earth ecological recovery.

Of course, we all know that cleaning up Sol-Earth’s water cycle will take years, even with these effective measures, but we expect to see visible changes within the next twelve to twenty-four months.

This was truly a team effort, and no one person1can be credited with the successful launch. Together, we are saving Sol-Earth, one water molecule at a time!

1 A lie. This would not have succeeded without Ada Lamarr.

UNITED GALACTIC SYSTEM

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