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| - There was no waiting trolley car at the stop, so Kresly activated the call button that would summon one. "We could, but it would be best to make an appointment." No doubt she was correct, but each passing day made me feel more disconnected from Earth. I had been excited to visit Mars, but I was now feeling disappointed. There seemed to be no shortage of Martians who were ready and willing to help the aliens perfect their mind control technology. Apparently there were only a few "rebels" who tried to resist the aliens. I wondered how to find the rebels without getting Janek excited. Soon an empty trolley car arrived. When Kresly and I got into the car she handed me a piece of paper with a written message, "Do not speak. Visit rebel?" I looked at her and nodded. She took back the paper and then used her comscree to contact the Varna project and arrange for a visit. "They are expecting you tomorrow. Would you like to do some sight seeing? We can make our way over to Buzhan district and my favorite cafe." I said, "That sounds nice, as long as you are not getting tired of being my tour guide." "Not at all! I'm very pleased to have a chance to get to know you and to visit all these key research projects. I think you realize that this entire underground city was built for the purpose of working towards the goal of improving communication between the nanobots and humans. Sometimes I'm stunned when I think how long these efforts have been going on....and now, here we are, and it is in our life time that everything is finally being achieved. Just think Joe, some day you will be in all the history books because of your roll in making Janek." I was puzzled by Kresly. Here she was, sounding like an enthusiastic supporter of Janek while secretly taking me to visit a rebel. I wondered how she planned to evade Janek who even then must be listening to us. "I would be happier if I had never gotten involved. Sometimes I'm stunned when I think how simple and pure my life was before I got involved in all this." We reached the Buzhan district and got off the trolley in a residential area. I followed Kresly up a walk way towards a house. She said, "This is my place. We're a bit too early for dinner and the cafe." She took me inside and showed me her office. "I generally work here. I'm the chief sociological Observer for the Asian geo-unit." She led me through the suite where she worked and out a back door to a pool and a spa. "Let's relax in the spa, then we'll go to dinner." She turned up to full blast the noisy jets of the spa and wrapped her conscree in her shirt then set the bundle near the spa. I started to undress, but she stopped me and just took my comscree and wrapped it in her skirt as a second bundle dropped by the spa before she took my hand and led me back inside to her bedroom. She pulled on a robe and then took me down the hall to a smaller bedroom. She indicated that I should enter, but after I did, she closed the door and stayed out in the hallway. After a moment I heard her move away from the door. I was baffled by Kresly's behavior. What now? I was in what looked like a child's bedroom. After about thirty seconds I heard a quiet voice, "Now we talk, quiet. Janek no hear us." The voice seemed like that of a cheap computerized speech synthesizer. It seemed that the voice came from a small box on a table beside the bed. I asked, "Who am I speaking to?" The voice was definitely coming from the little box...some kind of radio receiver? "A 'rebel'. Like you....free of nanobots." I decided that this 'rebel' was not a native English speaker. I said, "It seems strange that Kresly has a friend who is a rebel." My understanding was that Observers were of fundamental importance to how the aliens monitored events on Earth and kept control of the human population. "Is she also free of nanobots?" The 'rebel' laughed, "No, Observer always in nanobot control. Kresly is a rebel sympath. I think, you, too." I did not really understand what these 'rebels' wanted to accomplish, but I was interested in any individual or group who was willing to question what the aliens were doing on Earth. "I cannot bring myself to trust the aliens. I want to know what their plans are and how to release people from the nanobots and the mind control they exert. Do you know how to do that?" "Bots out of brains? Here, we ask....it must be done...by alien...alien law. On Earth...." There was a pause. I tried to complete the thought, "On Earth nobody knows about the nanobots. I learned the secret and was sent here." "Yes." I asked, "You have no plan to help Earth?" There was a long silence. "I plan." This rebel did not sound very enthusiastic, but maybe there was not really anything more to be done, talking in this way. "Well, I would help, if I knew how. It seems like almost everyone on Mars is a puppet of the aliens." The 'rebel' finally seemed to react to my pessimism. "We resist. Kresly controls nanobots....some. Enough." I realized it must be true, that Kresly must have some power to resist her nanobots. Kresly had been able to hand me the note about meeting a rebel and somehow she maintained a rudimentary contact with the rebels without drawing the wrath of Janek and the aliens. It seemed likely that if the Martians had lived with nanobots constantly for thousands of years, maybe they had learned some tricks for blocking out the aliens and allowing some freedom of action. I asked, "But is it really enough? Is there really anything we can do to stop the aliens?" I waited another five minutes, but I heard nothing more from the nameless 'rebel'. I tried to imagine what might be done to counter the aliens and their plans, but it seemed hopeless. Janek seemed to be in complete control of the situation. Did it matter if there were a few 'rebels' sneaking around trying to resist? My dream of helping Chloe free herself from alien mind control seemed like nothing but a nightmare of frustrations. I went and found Kresly by the spa. I wanted to ask her what she knew about the rebels and their plans, but she seemed to sense my desire to talk about rebels even before my first question was spoken. She shook her head and stopped me from discussing the rebels. I decided that since she was infected by nanobots it simply was not possible for her to discuss the rebels without the aliens becoming aware of her involvement with the rebels. Days passed. I visited the Varna software project and met the people who had created the VirileMail software. They were now busily making use of the Lockback chips to boost the power of their own "copy" of the Janek-type AI. I was useless....I had made my long journey to Mars with a hope that I could learn about the aliens and find some way to free Chloe and protect all of Earth from the aliens. But I had unknowingly been part of the delivery of Lockback chips to Mars, providing the aliens with yet another milestone in their relentless program to ever more efficiently control human minds. The Varna team welcomed me to work with them...and it made sense, their project was the Mars equivalent of the VirileMail project. But I still wanted nothing to do with anything that would help the aliens. Weeks passed. I had learned something of Kresly's work as an Observer of events on Earth. I spent most of my time reading in the vast Observer records of the history of Earth. Everything was there, the entire sweep of human history. There was something about this great task, the creation of a detailed record of Earth history, that appealed to me. However, when I had asked Kresly if I could become an Observer she tried to ignore me. Finally she had shouted at me, "Yes, alright! The answer is yes! You can become an Observer. The first step is you will take nanobots back into your brain. Is that what you want?" I'd never seen her upset before. Of course, by that point I knew the rules. Observers were sometimes called upon to go to Earth and anyone with knowledge of Mars and nanobots could only be allowed on Earth if they were under the control of nanobots. Kresly tried to explain it all to me, "Look, it is a fundamental ethical rule for the aliens: they are not allowed to interfere with the development of Earth's culture." I protested, "That makes no sense. The aliens have done nothing but interfere for millions of years! They take control of human minds and push the development of alien-inspired technology. You keep telling me about 'rules' but the only rule I see is world domination!" Kresly sighed. "Joe, don't try to be a lawyer. You know how laws work: there is theory and there is practice. If you like, tell yourself that the law is only this: that the aliens cannot fundamentally alter human cultures. For example, by letting Earthlings know about nanobots or the human colony on Mars." I complained, "All you are saying is that the aliens keep everyone on Earth ignorant. Happy and ignorant puppets. How can you even use the word 'ethics' to describe it?" Kresly tried to make me see her point. "Okay, then call it 'alien ethics'. I've studied this situation my entire life and it makes a certain amount of sense. If you must, just call it my intuition, but think about it for yourself! Your every instinct is to resist the aliens, to view them as a threat to humanity, but where is that threat? What is really so terrible about what the aliens have done? Maybe you mostly fear the unknown and the future, but is your fear rational? Think what Earth would be like if the aliens were unethical." It was as if I had foreseen this debate from the first moment when I knew I was on my way to Mars. I had expected to be subjected to human puppets trying to tell me to be happy as a puppet. "Kresly, you are my friend. I've listened to you and I understand what you tell me. Maybe if I live here long enough I will learn to fall asleep and stop fighting the aliens. But that has not happened yet, and I don't care if Janek knows it." Most importantly, I did not want to fall into that sleep of accepting alien control over humanity and I feared that, with time, I would forget Chloe and Earth and just give up. Maybe Kresly was correct, maybe the aliens were not really that bad, maybe I was a fool to fight them. Then finally, suddenly, all my indecision and doubt and waiting came to an end: I finally met the mysterious "rebel". It happened when I was on my way home from the market. A young woman got into the trolley car right after me. We said hello and I recognized her because she had been on the trolley with me just the day before. Ever since my journey to Mars and my discovery that one of the books on the spaceship was a primer on Martian languages, and particularly since my arrival on Mars I had been learning the "market language" of the Martians. It was a conglomerate language that had developed long ago and become the "universal" language on Mars. In my best Martian I said, "We meet again." The woman looked at me but she said nothing. She handed me a note:Joe,We spoke several weeks ago and you said you would help against the aliens if you knew how. I am Lilya Vavilov, Nykieta's daughter. I have made a vaccine which can protect against the Badhesion virus. I need you to deliver the vaccine to the resistance on Earth. Follow me off the trolley. Leave your comscree behind. That was how it started. I followed her to a park and she explained her plan. The Vavilov virus engineering project was near its goal. Now Janek needed to find someone on Mars who could deliver the Badhesion virus to Earth. Kresly was being prepared for that mission to Earth, but Janek would prefer to use me if I volunteered. All I had to do was tell Janek that I was ready to return to Earth. I asked, "But doesn't that mean that I must accept the return of nanobots to my brain?" She replied, "Yes, that is correct. However, we now have the vaccine and it will make you even more resistant to the nanobots than before." That sounded encouraging, but I was skeptical. "Have you actually had time to test this vaccine?" Lilya tried to help me understand the bioengineering. "Through selective breeding, the aliens have long worked to improve the ability of nanobots to interface with human brains. Through many generations the nanobots have selected humans who have rudimentary naturally-occurring equivalents of Badhesins. For many years we have had a version of the vaccine that works to inhibit the nanobots from making use of those natural proto-Badhesins. We've had luck with this approach for many years and this is what allows people like Kresly to gain some independence from her nanobots." I complained, "But I do not understand how 'some independence' will be enough." Lilya acknowledged that my hunch was correct, "So far we have just been waiting for the critical time to arrive...this is the critical time. We've finally seen the structures of the actual Badhesins. The design parameters for Badhesins have always been a closely held secret of the aliens, a secret not even revealed to my mother. During the past few weeks Janek took direct control of the evolutionary algorithms in the computerized Badhesin design process and pushed that process through to completion using the computational power of the Lockback chips. To counter the intended use of the Badhesins, all we need is to have the molecular structures of the Badhesins. We now have that structure information and it allows us to make an optimized vaccine. Even though we have not had time to do much testing of the new vaccine, it is based on a simple molecular principle and we have every reason to expect it to work." "So put away your personal fears of nanobots and worries about subjecting yourself again to their powers of mind control. There is some risk for you, but now you must think of Earth. With this vaccine, the balance of power will shift. The rebels on Earth will reveal to the world the existence of the aliens and their nanobot-mediated mind control. The population of Earth will rise up in revolt and shatter the plans of the aliens." For the first time I began to believe that it might be possible to fight the aliens. "Janek will not stand by and do nothing." Lilya said, "When you go to Earth, you will take care of that problem. We've figured out how Janek communicates with the nanobots. I will show you how to sabotage Janek's communications lines and that will isolate Janek from the nanobots. That will prevent the aliens from mounting a coordinated response."
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