Ethel the Vigilante Granny

Ethel the Vigilante Granny part 6

Julian Corda sat in the war room flanked by Donald and Peter. Julian was in charge of security for all 28 of the flying octahedrons and Jessica Ambrose, head of Rainbow Group was due to arrive first.Edward Leither, head of the 14 Jewel and Warden cities was delayed, unsurprisingly since it had been one of his cities that had almost been destroyed. The war room was a simple rectangle with a boardroom table and heavy fake dark wood panelling. Unusually for the times they were living in the command and control equipment was modelled on devices controlled manually. Ancient rotary dial telephones and keyboards.

Although the technology looked archaic it was backed up by the most sophisticated surveillance equipment available. Julian was currently using it to find out how many omissions there were in their defences. "Peter, tell me again. Why do we not have satellite coverage of the launch site?"

"Because all home-grown enemies were defeated several hundred years ago. Since the nano wars of the 23rd century everyone was thought to have tired of this kind of fighting. Also, the prohibition of weapons manufacture makes it impossible."

"And yet somebody manufactured a missile capable of taking on 27th century technology."

"We must have missed something."

"Obviously."Julian watched the repair and rescue operations on his inserts and then ran through a logistics check. There were 14 flying cities in each group, 1000 residents in each, not counting the middle-class workers. 28,000 citizens were always above ground overlooking the farms, water processing plants and other essential facilities everybody needed to survive.T here was a lot of mingling between the UK's rightful rulers and the middle-class peasants. One or more of those peasants had launched an attack on paradise and nobody had seen it coming.

"Donald. Any observations? Who did this?"

"No matter who did this it is fascinating, yes. We gave them everything to make their lives comfortable and yet they strike us with prohibited ordnance. Most audacious it is."

Julian resisted showing impatience. Donald was brilliant but neuro-atypical. Long ago he had arranged for an atomic scanner to be connected to his brain. He could see reality at the atomic level but he did have difficulty seeing reality at any other level and this sometimes made it difficult deal with him. It made him very good at analysing code and physical objects but he wasn't always coherent when explaining what he'd seen to others. Peter was equally as skilled but liked people too much. That disturbed Julian but as long as the man in black did his job he wasn't too concerned for the time being. It took more than one type of genius to stop humanity from destroying itself. Which wouldn't have been a problem ordinarily, that was the point of the flying cities, humanity's finest capitalists had long ago removed themselves from ordinary laws and concerns until capitalism itself had fallen. Now there were two castes, those that appreciated life and those that maintained it. Over 700 people had died in the attack on the Jewel and Warden octahedron.

Julian was secretly pleased. He needed something worthwhile to occupy his time.

The thought of pursuing real criminals helped give him a feeling of purpose that had been lacking. Chasing dangerous enemies as so much more enjoyable than chasing suspected, hypothetical ones as policing ideology could be so dull between the torture sessions. As soon as Jessica and Edward arrived he could begin the fight back.

He could hardly fail but he recognised a worthy adversary when he saw one. He was backed up by the ability to make any piece of technology they could conceive of. Satellites, stealth insects, fake cats and birds (with concealed scanning equipment).All of these things could be created with a verbal description to the machines.But not if you were a land dweller, this was the conundrum they were presented with.