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LBQ2-1

Left Beyond Quest II - Thread 1 (Prologue)

On March 11, 1996, the Rapture happened.

Almost immediately, people found out that the phenomenon was global, that various people everywhere had disappeared from their clothes, to be taken . . . somewhere. As people panicked and scrambled to find answers, pilot Rayford Steele discovered that his wife and his son were also among those who were taken. A video message given to him by the New Hope Village Church's acting pastor Bruce Barnes revealed that this event was the Rapture, as foretold in the Scriptures, and that this was preceding the appearance of the Antichrist, who would usher in the seven-year period called the Tribulation, after which Jesus would return to the earth to set up His Father's Kingdom. Realizing that time was short and that his eternal destiny was at stake, Rayford prayed to God for salvation and eventually got his daughter Chloe to believe the message and be saved. Meanwhile, the person that would become the Antichrist, Romanian president Nicolae Carpatescu, made his first appearance at the United Nations, where he won over the entire security council and the world in his takeover of the organization to become the world's ruler.

This is NOT their story.

Fourteen months after the Event, Nicolae Carpatescu has consolidated his power, establishing a global currency, a global religion, and—nearly—a global government. To everyone's surprise, Switzerland has just signed in to it; the only holdout is Israel. Negotiations are in progress and Nicolae estimates that the human species will be united in four months. The bureaucracy deployed for this monumental undertaking is surprisingly small and effective, and much of the political and regulatory work is achieved in record time thanks to Carpatescu's silver tongue. The technical work, however, can only move so fast.

Following the Rapture, there were many speculations about what had taken place. Some thought it was aliens with advanced transporting technology to take those who offered least resistance away with them. Nicolae Carpatescu postulated that it had something to do with the presence of nuclear missiles and other unexplained, natural phenomena working together to cause the disappearances to happen. Enigma Babylon One World Faith spiritual leader Peter Mathews believed that it was God removing "the chaff" from "the wheat," allowing only those who were considered good in His eyes to remain. Now that the arduous task of dismantling most of the world's nuclear weapons is complete (Nicolae may or may not have kept a small cache as a deterrent), engineers and technicians are free for another undertaking.

The Foreman has been tapped to ensure that the united world has a united telecommunications infrastructure: the world is going digital and he is effectively the person in charge of making it happen. Nicolae is perfectly willing to allow for freedom of the press on the Internet . . . as long as he controls the wires. Hence, the Custodial Arrangement of Telecommunication Systems, headed by a Foreman.

The Foreman had somewhat nebulous memories of that meeting.

Carpatescu stepped out from his place at the table and went to each person individually. He greeted each by name, asking him to stand, shaking his hand, and kissing him on both cheeks.

“Mr. Todd-Cothran,” he said, “you shall be introduced as the ambassador of the Great States of Britain. I welcome you to the team and confer upon you all the rights and privileges that go with your new station. May you display to me and to those in your charge the consistency and wisdom that have brought you to this position.”

“Thank you, sir,” Todd-Cothran said, and he sat down as Carpatescu moved on. Todd-Cothran appeared shocked, as did several others, when Nicolae repeated the same sentiment, including precisely the same title—ambassador of the Great States of Britain—to the British financier next to him. Todd-Cothran smiled tolerantly.

Obviously, Carpatescu had merely misspoken and should have referred to the man as one of his financial advisers.

All around the four-sided table configuration Carpatescu went, one by one, saying exactly the same words to every ambassador, but customizing the litany to include the appropriate name and title. The recitation changed only slightly for his personal aides and advisers. The Foreman came last.

Pointing at the Foreman, Carpatescu said, “I welcome you to the team and confer upon you all the rights and privileges that go with your station.”

For some reason, it was so affirming, so flattering.

“May you display to me and to those in your charge the consistency and wisdom that have brought you to this position.”

Carpatescu went through the ceremony with others, who gushed with pride. Nicolae eventually covered everyone in the room except the security guard, his secretary Hattie, and his former mentor, Jonathan Stonagal. He returned to his place and turned first to Hattie.

Then, the Foreman’s memory becomes a little hazy. Stonagal had apparently tried to shoot Nicolae, there was a brief scuffle, and he and Mr. Todd-Cothran ended up dead.

Either way, the Foreman doesn’t much care; there is too much work to do. Carpatescu has tried to keep the Foreman and his mandate out of the spotlight. Of the recent increases in earthquakes and tsunamis, Carpatescu has issued the following press release:

"Fortunately, the timing of my most ambitious project could not have been more propitious. The Global Community recently secured sole ownership of all international satellite and cellular communications companies. We will have in place in a few months the first truly global communications network. It is cellular, and it is solar powered. I call it Cellular-Solar. Once the cellular towers have been re-erected and satellites are maneuvered to geosynchronous orbit, anyone will be able to communicate with anyone else anywhere at any time. I have top men working on it right now."

"Who?"

"Top. Men."

To be fair, after only two weeks on the job, the Foreman has noticed that, for some reason or other, most of the competent people in the Global Community organization have ended up under his management; Carpatescu really must be wanting to gain and keep control of the telecommunication infrastructure. The man himself is erratic. While he is normally brilliant, he definitely has episodes of—for lack of a better term—melodramatic villainy. To a lesser degree, the Foreman has noticed this of the subpotentates, as well. He suspects that there is a pattern.

His official title is Foreman of the Custodial Arrangement of Telecommunication Systems (CATS). It's not a cabinet-level position, specifically so he can fulfill his global mandate without stepping on the subpotentates' toes, and while he reports directly to Carpatescu, he specifically told the Foreman that he may do as he wishes as long as he stays within the budget and gets results.

CATS is strictly a civilian agency; his workers can eminent-domain land for installing antennas and the like, within reason, but do not have authority to make arrests or carry weapons any more than, say, the driver of a bank truck might. They will usually get cooperation from local police and defense forces, but this is by no means guaranteed.

After the initial mess of transferring deeds, getting lawyers to deal with lawyers, and realizing that the only two electrical standards common around the globe are a data cable and a hack upon a cigarette lighter, the Foreman starts settling into what passes for routine. It's been fourteen months since the initial announcement, and Switzerland has just joined the Global Community—only Israel is holding out. Save for the Foreman, the boardroom is empty this morning, which will not be the case for long. He takes a moment to contemplate.

Most people, except policy wonks and government workers, probably don't know that he exists; his job is to keep the phones and TVs running, and maybe this new-ish thing called the Internet, if he can get around to it. He has a relevant background in both logistics and computer engineering, which made him the obvious pick for the position. Apart from that, he’s young person, full of energy and able to go in the field.

(EFFECTS: You will be able to defend yourself effectively. People will underestimate you slightly, which can be good or bad. You have extra stamina, and can deploy with two teams unless they are acting at the same time, giving them a small performance bonus. You can deploy yourself for overt AND covert operations.)

The Foreman’s first job was setting up an HQ. In addition to the obligatory nondescript office building, it features a warehouse, an R&D facility (most R&D will be contracted out, but having a prototyping lab in-house is never a bad thing), a training center run by the HR department, and the like. The main building has a helipad, and there’s easy access to the city airport so that the Foreman can send workers out into the world quickly. He’s been assured that the new, unified world will be peaceful, but he has doubts about that . . . so, at the end of the day, his HQ is spread out among several anonymous buildings within the city.

(EFFECTS: In case of a siege, you will have to spread your forces or abandon facilities. It will be less visible. It cannot be taken out in one hit. Efficiency decreases.)

There was a bit of a bidding war among the subpotentates for where this agency would be located; the Foreman is not influential outside of the areas of his purview, so a few places were declared out of the running earlier, and his choice was limited.

It took a bit of finagling, but he was able to set up his HQ in Chicago, where the local culture promotes small government and a right to bear arms. American society was noticeably disrupted by the Rapture, so now, the Foreman will have more leeway in his actions. He will have an easy time procuring what would be considered military equipment elsewhere, and there are plenty of gumshoes to be hired.

(EFFECTS: You can deploy covert teams from the start. Procuring automatic weapons isn't a covert action. Free tech level in landline and satellite comms.)

The Midwest of the United States heavily impacted by the Rapture, with a number of airliner and train crashes and a large number of car accidents. Some fires have marred the downtown area. Ironically, the heavily white Christian suburbs were left largely untouched, since the people living there just disappeared.

The looting died down fairly quickly, and other than the obvious (the closure of all elementary and middle schools, for example), people seem to have embraced Nicolae's promise of a return to normality with their whole heart, to the point that if one were to look out of a window, they’d be hard pressed to find any difference between now and the pre-Rapture world.

Six billion people lived on this planet at the time of the Event. In the blink of an eye, almost a third disappeared—1,750 million children under 13, and another 150 million Christians, of various denominations but mostly Protestants. The only reason why there hasn't been a housing-price crisis is that the lawyers are still sorting out what belonged to whom during the disappearances.

This is a grey morning. The sky above the port is the color of television, tuned to a dead channel; the local networks are transmitting, but that's not a big surprise here—it'd take the literal apocalypse for TV to stop working in America. The Foreman has been tasked with creating a unified telecommunication infrastructure, which in most of the world means bringing things on par with the American standard: dialup Internet and cable TV available to those who can afford it, and local TV available to all.

The Foreman reports directly to Global Potentate Nicolae Carpatescu, but he’s pretty low on the totem pole, everything considered. There are some people with whom he familiarized himself to start, if for no other reason than because they can override his directives.

Nicolae Carpatescu: His boss. According to Christians, he is the Antichrist. Extremely intelligent and charismatic, but not technically inclined. He's agreed to make a bit of time for the Foreman once a month, enough to ask one question or make a request. Favor: 3/5

Peter Mathews: Pontifex Maximus Peter Cardinal Mathews II was the former archbishop of the diocese of Cincinnati, Ohio who became the pope of Enigma Babylon One World Faith.

Rayford Steele: Carpatescu's personal pilot. A fairly unremarkable (if competent) individual whose claim to fame is having landed a damaged airliner in a river with no loss of life.

Cameron Williams: Carpatescu's press secretary. He has a fairly hands-off style of management and is more concerned with enjoying the perks of his job than with doing it.

Douglas Dimmsdale: A former United States senator from Texas. Wears a ten-gallon hat and embroidered cowboy suit. Rumor has it that he's actually from Connecticut, but you wouldn't be able to tell from the accent. He has accepted the Global Community (GC) because he believes it will be easier to push for local autonomy than it would be with the US federal government. Current subpotentate of the United North American States and the Foreman’s landlord. He can make life difficult, but in principle,the Foreman can overrule him on technical issues.

The Foreman has two work crews available, and no covert crews; each work crew can handle anything from organizing a satellite launch to procuring enough land via eminent domain to cover a city in transmitters to setting up or continuing a research program. His organization's internal bureaucracy can handle most of the personnel details, although he will take note of anybody exceptional who he wants to have under his direct orders.

His budget for the trimester is twenty billion Nicks (the newly introduced global currency—old bills are still redeemable, in order to ease the transition), two more than normally allotted. Budgeting in the GC is by trimester, and as with every government organization . . . well, use it or lose it.

Other subpotentates:

Rehoboth: Rehoboth is one of the ten subpotentates chosen by Nicolae Carpatescu to be put in charge of the United African States. He is a tyrant who pillaged his own country of Sudan and made multi-millionaires of his wives and children, and thus he is greatly hated by his own people. He was given the subpotentate position as an insult to Mwangati Ngumo, who had stepped down from his role as the Secretary General of the United Nations, expecting to be given both the subpotentate role and licensed use of the synthetic fertilizer formula created by Chaim Rosenzweig to help his own country, Botswana.

Od Gustav: The subpotentate of the United European States. His command of languages rivals that of Carpatescu. Formerly a hospital administrator.

Pravin Lal: The subpotentate of the United Indian States. A fervent advocate of the United Nations' peacekeeping mission, he was one of the first people to sign up with Carpatescu. He was an accomplished neurosurgeon before entering politics, after an accident left him with a hand tremor.

Viktor Zakharov: The subpotentate of the United Russian States. A technocrat's technocrat and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he supports CATS' mission and was disappointed when Carpatescu vetoed installing CATS' HQ in Russia.

Sheng-ji Yang: The subpotentate of the United Asian States. Chinese father, Japanese mother. Master of the Five Excellences: calligraphy, poetry, painting, traditional medicine, and martial arts (including martial tai chi, wushu, and others). Studied military history at Beijing University, later acquired a PhD in psychology from the same.

Corazon Santiago: The subpotentate of the United South American States. Argentinian by birth, she survived the purges in her childhood by taking up arms early. Very much a fan of the right to bear arms. Known for her incorruptibility and Spartan lifestyle.

Abdurrahman Wahid: The subpotentate of the United Pacific States and briefly President of Indonesia. He is a competent administrator, but he is disliked by non-Indonesians and especially Australians for privileging development of his home territory over other lands under his jurisdiction.

Terry April: The subpotentate of the United Great Britain States, also responsible for keeping the British royal family nominally on the throne as "People's Representatives." Mostly busy dealing with ending the Troubles in a way that isn't too heavy handed.

—

Carpatescu's mandate is clear: he wants a modern, standardized communications system to project his message. The Foreman decides to prioritize one-way communication over two-way. The first order of business in that case is launching or "repossessing" enough geostationary satellites to cover the globe and ensuring that people can access the signal.

Most of the people coming in to the meeting are older than the Foreman; it took a bit of time for him to earn their respect in the early days, but he did, both by virtue of being far more conversant with the newest technologies than most of them and by the simple fact that he’s known when to listen.

"We've finally managed to quiet down the lawyers about what belongs to whom, without having to go ask the Boss too often; can't say we own the airwaves, but we might as well, for most practical purposes."

"Most everyone in the world who wants to is within walking distance of a TV, of course, but only about half the population can get GNN with the current setup."

"I hear reports out of Indonesia. Their technology rivals that of any nation . . . in fact, lately, there's been a push in FidoNet nodes over there. Should we offer them a deal?"

"I almost hate to say it, but after the Event, we were expecting a significant load reduction on the landlines, but . . . well, it hasn't really happened."

"The Boss is still raging about those two preachers in Israel. They're getting close to closing the annexation deal, and he doesn't want any interference. We have cameras on them 24/7; should we censor them, or add a laugh track, or what?"

"The Cellular-Solar project has begun, and we're hoping to roll out the first test units soon. The problem is that their range is limited: they'll do well in Europe, Asia, and the North American coasts, but we'll need something else to cross the oceans—or, for that matter, the Andes or Rockies, and . . ."

People are generally in good spirits, albeit lacking some direction. Most importantly, neither the Foreman’s boss nor his landlord have significant complaints.

CURRENT GOALS: You've picked a broadcast focus. Each territory must be covered by two satellites and have one surface network node. Satellites are primarily used for broadcasts, network nodes for data.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROGRAMS: Satellites oxxxx CellSol oxxxx Logistics xxxxx Defense xxxxx Robustness xxxxx

The Foreman has a psychologist on staff, Miriam, whose job is to keep an eye on the morale of his people and, as she can, of the people who can ruin his day.

POTENTATE FAVOR 5: Carpatescu is impressed with your progress. Your budget increases significantly, although being on his radar so prominently may not be a good thing. Of course, he'll raise his expectations . . . 4: You are doing a good job! Since you can be trusted, your budget increases slightly. 3:* You're doing an unremarkable job, as far as Carpatescu is concerned. Your budget will remain the same, and the other member organizations of the Global Community will pay less attention to you, since things "just work." 2: Your performance is spotty. Your budget is increased slightly so that you may compensate for these deficiencies, but that comes with the price of additional scrutiny. 1: Given your abysmal performance, your budget has been decreased. You risk being demoted or fired. 0: Nicolae Carpatescu has decided to replace CATS with a differently organized agency. Since it would not do to simply fire you, you will be targeted for assassination. The man is known for his twisted sense of humor; he just might let you keep the job if you survive.

SUBPOTENTATE FAVOR 5: Your landlord often uses your work as proof of his territory's economic efficiency. You can expect cooperation from the legislature in your overt operations, although since you have to keep a high public profile, your covert operations suffer. 4: Your actions have brought some extra prosperity to your landlord's territory. You can expect the legislature to let you work with reduced red tape, since what you are doing is working well. 3:* Your landlord tolerates you, more or less . . . let's go with more. No effect. 2: Your landlord tolerates you, more or less . . . let's go with less. No effect. 1: Your landlord thinks that CATS is a drain to either his economy or his prestige. Expect hostility from the legislature. However, your covert operators will find it easier to work with resistance groups and so on. 0: You have embarrassed or humiliated your landlord, who will likely launch an assassination attempt against you, either out of pique or to avoid appearing weak.

In the meeting, after a few polite coughs (everyone suspects this room is bugged; it is, but the Foreman is the only one who can access the recording), one of the people whose job it is to smooth things over with the local authorities when it comes to securing land for cell phone towers and coaxial cable lines pipes up. "My cousin Vincenzo tells me that there's some Christian Remnant pastor in Mount Prospect, a bit a ways down south, spending a lot of money renting earthmovers and doing a terrible job of being sneaky about it. Apparently, they're building a bunker. Fun thing is, he's not the only one; if we were to hand over two big Nicks to Vincenzo, we'd . . . well, not so much make a profit, but get them back in the next budget cycle. And we'd get good deals on construction crews for, you know, after-hours things, should they become necessary. And it'd actually start making us some dough if we kept it up across multiple trimesters, I reckon."

Another cough. "Of course, all in the service of the good cause, all above board. We'd just put a construction company on retainer, you know what I mean."

“Sounds like a good idea,” the Foreman says.

(EFFECT: -2 budget this trimester, secure availability of a goon squad, +2 budget net trimester, possible net gains if you keep doing this.)

The Foreman writes a note to the guy, and he runs off. A goon squad can't really be deployed out there in the wider world, but it's good to have local muscle with plausible deniability, in case someone does something stupid in the Foreman’s neighborhood. Later on in the day, he’s told that he has secured the services of the Ghilotti Brothers for any sort of nonurgent or very urgent construction or demolition work he may need done in the city. They've been fairly busy trying to get reclamation contracts after all the airliner crashes, and the cash infusion will help them greatly in competing with bigger, less agile outfits, so they are quite grateful.

The next person requesting the Foreman’s attention as he decides who and what to work with is his satellite expert, William Kerman.

"Ah, yes yes yes, hello, boss! So I've got some possible strategies . . ."

Five seconds later, the boardroom table is covered in blueprints, diagrams, and one crayon drawing that features the satellite expert in a spacesuit and, for some reason, with green skin. The last one has been laminated and flopped out of a folder, where it was by itself; it's probably one of the last things Bill's kid drew before disappearing. He apologizes and puts it away.

Fortunately, the Foreman has no immediate family that disappeared; the mood in the room becomes somber for a few seconds and then, to his consternation, goes back to where it was almost as soon as Bill puts the drawing away.

"Basically, we can go with the known quantity—EchoStar satellites in a geostationary orbit. These will do an excellent job covering our broadcast needs, especially if we find the money for subsidized receivers. These have been around for ten to fifteen years and the technology is pretty mature. Definitely the safest option for us. And . . . well, what with spy satellites being decommissioned as part of the Peace Initiative, should we want cameras on them, there should be room for it. Since the tech's already there and we already have a lot of friends in the formerly American telecom industry, thanks to your choices, we should expect to spend very little on R&D.

"Lately, there's been a lot of buzz about microsatellites. These are very cheap to launch, since we can get several up on one rocket, but we'll have to keep launching them since they're designed for low orbit. However, it should eventually be possible to use them with radio modems! Imagine that—everyone online anywhere. Can't put cameras on them yet, but any data that goes through, we'd be able to monitor it. We'd have to pretty much jump start the industry, though—lots of R&D spending.

"Finally, there's the deep space network option. A handful of big sats made out of repurposed Russian space satellites, in a supra-geostationary orbit. The good thing is that they should pretty much be fire and forget, and short of the moon deciding to jump orbits, they'll stay there for a thousand years. The bad thing is that they're not very good: high latency, we'll never get a good picture, and you can forget about using them for any real-time two-ways. The . . . interesting . . . thing is that it's Soviet tech: I honestly have no idea what snooping capability it has, we haven't finished translating the blueprints yet, but it will definitely have some. We will have to do some research on this."

The Foreman considers. “Is there a fourth option you haven't told me about, Bill? Can we make the deep-space stuff talk to what’s tried and true, as a high-reliability redundancy channel for extra backbone?”

"Ah, funny you should mention that, Boss. That's sort of my pet project . . ."

“What the balls is that?”

"Well, that's just it. Highly reflective aluminum-foil balloons, inflated with argon. Cheap, simple, what isn't there can't break. If we put them in an intermediate orbit, they'll act as a low-bandwidth backup for any of the other choices. I'd need a bit of extra money to resurrect the tech, though—it's 1960s stuff at its core, and then since it's all passive reflection, we'd need some decent antennas on the ground. The bad thing is that everyone can use it whether we want them to or not. The good thing is that, well, it just reflects radio waves. It's intrinsically unjammable.

"A nice thing about microsats is that you'll get to set the standard. It's all small companies doing it, so you can call the shots. On the converse, the nice thing, I guess, about going with what's already out there is that we'll have to do less work on that front.”

Bill is obviously nervous from the way he's glancing around in all directions.

The fancy LCD television in a corner of the conference room is showing GNN, with a bit of reporting. Now that Switzerland has signed onto the Global Community, the only holdout is Israel. For some reason, that country has decided against licensing the new kind of fertilizer invented by the reclusive botanist Chaim Rozenweig and has refactored its economy around agricultural exports while otherwise maintaining its isolationist policy.

Reports of an abortive attack by Russian airborne and Ethiopian pirates in order to secure the formula last year were quickly eclipsed by the Event. Quantum chemist Ignatio Mobius has recently gone into seclusion after claiming to have reverse-engineered the fertilizer and having found out that it will cause a dust bowl after a few years of bumper crops, since it works by leeching minerals off the soil.

The automated subtitles aren't very good: according to them, Mobius claims that "Steven Magnet" is trying to silence him. The news anchor notes that Mobius has been known for making outlandish claims before and that Potentate Carpatescu will fly to Israel in the next few days to try to work out a deal, the centerpiece of which is offering perpetual peace to the embattled country due to his denuclearization initiative. The next piece is about youth culture, titled "Party like it's 1999?"

“A backup option sounds good, especially one that can’t be jammed,” decides the Foreman.

Bill's eyes light up—he's likely going to put a lot of passion into this project. The sizeable check the Foreman just signed probably helped, too.

Using old Soviet space capsules seems like a bad idea, so the Foreman adds, “And go with microsatellites, possibly with dataloggers. They’re riskier, but they may afford more flexibility later.”

"Yessir! We've got a lot of Soviet Kuznetsov NK-33 engines from the 1960s and early 1970s sitting around. They'll make for great first stages for microsatellite clusters! We can use the Aerojet avionics, modify the engines for gimballing . . . bet we can get 3200 kilonewtons out of these babies! Plenty to launch a microsat constellation each!"

“Er, that's nice, Bill. Can you wait until you leave the room to do thrust calculations? You're writing on other people's documents.”

The aerospace engineer does a perfect Arnold Rimmer salute and ambles off.

Now, it's time to pay attention to David Hassid, the Internet guy. He's been given some instructions from the big boss, which is somewhat unusual since Carpatescu so far has been keen on the chain of command, and he wants to know the Foreman’s take on it.

"Well . . ." Hassid fidgets a little. "He said that under no circumstances we are to censor nationalist rebels or Christian Remnant subversives. He wants to, direct quote, "win the debate fairly". He also said that it'll make it easier for his intelligence agency to collect dirt for later use.

“I want it in writing that those are his wishes, to cover our asses.”

"The other thing is, there's a request from his personal pilot and his press secretary. They want, and I again quote, ‘laptops that can make video calls from anywhere on Earth.’ That would require a dedicated satellite link."

“We'll rig something up, and bug them, just in case.”

Other than that, Hassid shares that roughly one-eighth of the world's population can get online one way or the other; the three most popular networks are the Internet, which is US centric, Minitel, which is France centric, and a homegrown BBS Internetwork which is Taiwan centric.

"Are we leaving that alone, or should we encourage compatibility? I suspect that eventually, the Big Boss will want to have a footprint there."

“Divide and conquer may be better for our purposes.”

Interestingly, Mr. Hassid seems more interested in getting the two underlings' request through to the Foreman than anything else, given his body language.

In the end, Mr. Hassid is clearly flustered, but Carpatescu isn't normally the sort of person to throw a tantrum . . . and if he does, hey, not the Foreman’s problem. As for the "special" laptop, they'll make good test beds.

The Foreman figures that leaving Minitel and the like alone is good policy: he’ll get to arbitrate later, and for now, they work as they are.

That didn't take long, although he suspects that the Internet will become a battleground later. For now, it's time to pay attention to a disaster preparedness expert from San Francisco with some warnings. She's worried about the latest upsurge in earthquakes.

"Hello, Foreman! I'm Carla. I have been looking at the Cellular-Solar files, such as they are, and they are the only part of our program that features any sort of disaster preparedness options . . . What worries me is that they feature quite a lot of them. Has this stuff been written by a, how do you say, ‘prepper’ type person? Either way, you should know that there has been an uptick in deep-crust movement since the Event. We suspect a correlation, although we cannot verify it. Since we'll be broadcasting globally pretty soon, would you consider my proposal for some public service announcements?"

“Sure. The PSAs will focus on desenranscanco, teaching people how to improvise,” the Foreman states.

Desenrascanço (loosely translatable as "disentanglement") is a Portuguese word used, in common language, to express an ability to solve a problem without having the knowledge or the adequate tools to do so, by use of imaginative resources or by applying knowledge to new situations. It is achieved when it results in a hypothetical good-enough solution. When that good solution doesn't occur, it’s a failure (enrascanço—entanglement). It is taught, more or less, informally in some Portuguese institutions, such as universities, the navy, or the army. Portuguese people strongly believe it to be one of their most valued virtues and a living part of their culture. Desenrascanço, in fact, is the opposite of planning, but rather managing the problem so it does not get completely out of control and without solution.

"It doesn't make us look very good if we recommend that people just MacGyver stuff in an emergency."

"It's realistic, though. You know, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away!"

"We're supposed to foster trust in the government."

"We're supposed to make sure people watch TV. Let's give them something good while we are at it."

A call to some TV executives later, the Foreman decides to use a bit of his budget. He’s signed a lot of checks today, but he figures that an early investment will pay off. Encouraging self-reliance is likely to embolden nationalists at first, and he is warned about it, but he counters that it will get people to at least understand that they have to hold on until first responders show up. Carla thanks him.

He wants to make sure that among the TV programs that are cheap or free to license globally are, among others, “MacGyver” reruns, highlights about how to live off the grid, and this one show made by special effects people who feel they will soon be replaced by CGI, focusing on using practical effects to prove or bust urban myths. Given that after the disappearance, people burst into tears whenever “Mr. Rogers” or “Sesame Street” is on the air, there's plenty of room in the morning lineup.

Carla moves on to the next issue. "As for what we are doing right here and right now, well . . . not much, to be honest. A bit of seed money to ingrain disaster preparedness into our projects might be a good idea."

The Foreman thinks. “The bare minimum you recommend.”

Carla nods and continues, "As an aside, would you consider setting up an office in San Francisco? It'll make it easier to keep an eye on all the Internet startups over there."

“I have a better idea,” says the Foreman. “Let's recruit some tech-savvy kids from that area.”

Carla is surprised to be asked to send him a bunch of resumes, but she appreciates the trust.

Before the logistics person can come to him to end the meeting, the phone rings. The Foreman picks it up. It's someone named Chloe, who claims to have had the wrong number. He doesn’t hear a click at the other end, though, so he decides to trace the call.

He picks up the phone; as suspected, there's no dial tone—an old trick, only possible because Chicago's landlines still work with mechanical switching. If someone is trying to listen in, they are being professional about it and not breathing into the mic.

Tracing the call isn't hard: the Foreman effectively IS the phone company, so it's just a matter of sending a request out. In seconds, he learns that the call is coming from a house in Mount Prospect, close by, which is why the old "don't hang up to keep the circuit tied" trick works at all.

The Foreman then decides to feed the eavesdropper misinformation and writes a note on a whiteboard explaining what's going on to the other people in the boardroom. His people find it encouraging that he’s going to set up a stakeout using cameras and proximity sensors—he’s not willing to put people in danger. They all quickly put on their best fake Sicilian accents, discussing a delivery of weapons, to entice nationalist holdouts.

Since the American heartland under Mr. Dimmsdale is quite permissive on issues like concealed carry (Carpatescu is not pushing the issue, for now) the Foreman’s guys make up a delivery of mortars and bazookas, with the hope that whoever's listening will want to intercept it.

The last person the Foreman needs to talk to today before ostensibly starting real work is the logistics expert, a heavyset man sent from the FedUps conglomerate. He seems to be taking instructions from his headset when the Foreman asks him questions.

The Foreman already has disaster preparedness plans in place, but he doesn’t want to depend on commercial carriers, so he tells the logistics expert to focus his fleet-building efforts on building a coordinated, middle-of-the-road effort.

The logistics guy looks like a rail fan, from all the various pictures of trains in his folders. He's also obviously not very happy about the prospect of talking to a human being, by his body language.

“What’s with the headset?” the Foreman probes.

"Oh, this? I'm just talking to the guys in the basement all the time. That way if I need information, they can look it up in the database and quickly tell me. We call it the Nomenklator system, because Kay is a classical-lit nerd. We'd like to automate this someday, but that's not really a priority, I suppose . . .”

Hearing that, the Foreman wants one too, possibly one that can be hidden under hair or inside the ears. Looks like he’s cutting another check before the stakeout this evening. But he has to ask—“What’s the security risk on that?”

"Well, the security risk is that until we get some decent crypto going, it'll be interceptable. There was some TV preacher about ten years back who used something like this to pretend he had telepathy powers, and then that old magician guy who looks like Santy Claus busted him . . . I wonder if he got raptured. Doubt it though. Anyway, just . . . you can use this to show off, but only up to a point. Also, you're my boss and wanted one when you saw it—won't YOUR boss do the same? Except then we'll have to do maintenance on it."

“Still worth it,” the Foreman decided. “Here's a bag of Nicks, guy! Hook me up with an expert system on call.”

The logistician makes a series of odd expressions, and there’s an almost audible "Woo! We got funded!" from his earpiece. Once the earpiece is ready, the Foreman will be able to get additional information on just about any situation if he briefly describes it.

"We'll need extra effort if we want to expand the system, of course . . .” the logistician ventures.

The Foreman warns the guy not to push his luck, to which he also does an Arnold Rimmer salute and answers with a crisp yessir. Is that something the basement guys have standardized? Uniforms and the like may be something to look into one day . . .

The Foreman will have to tighten his belt a little bit for the first trimester, but he’s hoping that his strategy of spending money strategically will pay off in the long run. Everyone's got their initial marching orders! A few minutes later, one of the sysadmins downstairs brings in a copy of the headset he just saw.

"We need a sample of your hair to provide one that can be hidden above the ear,” the worker said. “It'll be ready in a couple of days."

“Are you guys making a voodoo doll?” the Foreman asked, suspicious.

"Er, no, it's just so we can match your hair color with the headpiece. Witchcraft . . . uh . . . I—No sir! Maybe Stefi, but—er . . . I can ask? No sir, no witchcraft here, we're just electrical engineers."

That evening, it's stakeout time, finally! The Foreman has a small bedroom adjacent to his office, with a few monitors that can get security footage piped in from the warehouse, lab, and training center (HQ, happily, looks suitably anonymous).

He waits . . . and waits . . . and waits. Nothing.

Oh wait, someone's coming in!

It's . . . a cop? Looks like it; the Chicago cop uniform has been hastily refurbished with Global Community headbands. The lone officer parks his cruiser over a low section of fence, pulls out a gun, and starts snooping around—he's not very good at it. Eventually, he comes to the guard station and orders the security guy to get out of the little cabin, then starts interrogating him.

Listening in, the Foreman discovers the cop's name is Bruno Folgore, and he sounds like the typical fourth-generation Italian-American who'd get his ass kicked if he were to interact with actual Italian people in the old country. He's basically interrogating the security guy and lets it slip that he got an anonymous tip from a concerned citizen about an attempt to smuggle in bazookas across Lake Michigan.

The Foreman determines he needs to take action. He uses the audiovisual link to interrupt and acts sleepy, pretending he’s been woken up by the fiasco. The call devolves into a rant about the Foreman’s conspiracy while he accuses the cop of being a collaborator, a spy, a Christian trying to doom the world.

Threats begin, warnings that the cop can be made to disappear—not just him, but his family. So he’d better tell the Foreman who he’s working for, now!

The cop listens to the tirade and clearly looks scared. He loudly pronounces his loyalty to the potentate and says that of course he's going to follow a lead if it looks promising!

"So that's how it's going to be, is it?” the cop complains. “I promise you, sir, this isn't the last time you’ll hear of me! I'll make something of myself and then you'll be sorry for accusing me!"

The security guy gets a bit of satisfaction from telling a "real" cop to buzz off after that outburst, and Bruno Folgore does so.

Then the Nomenklator system got its first test: the Foreman has immediately learned that Folgore did indeed get an anonymous tip, and that it came from a local call. Whoever they’d baited into thinking there'd be an arms shipment must have balked and called the regular cops . . . Guess things are getting back to normal after the Event.

Gotta wonder how long THAT will last . . .

LBQ2-2