The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [113]
‘Whatever the outcome, this reporter will ensure that accurate accounts of events at Darien will continue to be forthcoming.’
After that the cast returned to the female presenter but the drone Reski Emantes quickly faded her out. It then cut to a number of circular vid-feed arrays arranged in an overlapping sequence.
‘As we were watching, one of my analysers was creating a detailed datamap of Farag’s report,’ said the drone. ‘Right now we’re monitoring the spread of the report as other newsors and infotainment services pick it up and add their versions to the popfeed. Monitoring for accuracy, of course, as well as any edits and recontextualising. I’m also scanning for netspiders, who are an especially twisted type of ongrid denizens who usually descend on breaking news like this and soon start pumping out their own distorted versions, slanted and commentarised to either agree with the official line or recut to look demented and/or laughable … ah, look … ’
On the leftmost circle one of the vidfeeds suddenly began to show the Farag report while data bubbles flickered around it.
‘That whole ring represents the Vox Humana worlds and a few independent Human colonies,’ Reski Emantes said. ‘At the other end is Earth, Mars, Luna, the Glow, all the mainstream megamedia corps, the transstellars and the government agencies. That vid-feed, and the pair that just appeared, they represent Citivox subscribers who post up clips and reviews. Analysis of the clips indicates a hundred per cent accuracy, no micro-editing, no sublayering, no addcuts … ’
For a minute or two there were no further updates, then on the third ring an orange circle began to blink. The drone tapped it with a needle beam and examined a datastring that appeared.
‘Disturbing. That was from a Citivox subscriber on Hygailo, an Earthsphere world – he’s posted a warning to delete the latest Citivox dispatch, claiming that it’s armed with a lethal muta-virus … ’
‘Genius,’ said Harry. ‘Kill the message by infecting it with a virus then distributing it, and any resultant damage discredits the apparent source, Citivox.’
‘And here come more of the same,’ said the drone.
For the next ten minutes they watched as the virus warnings, some more vitriolic than others, spread steadily from left to right. Then the drone put excerpts from the devirused vid up on a secondary holopanel, and they proved to be heavily edited, overlaid with extra visuals and intercut with other vidage calculated to evoke derision. Then came messages from the subscribers, some saying that the file had auto-erased itself, others claiming that net intruders had wiped the file from their stacks. This was followed by an urgent gridcast from Citivox urging subscribers and sequential users to delete the Farag report, saying that its own copy had become corrupted, making a repeat cast impossible.
‘What was all that about?’ Julia said. ‘What just happened?’
‘A full grey-grid countertrend operation just happened,’ the drone said.
‘But why bother?’ Harry said. ‘Can’t keep this kind of story secret – eventually an authentic version will be available everywhere.’
‘Yes, but all they need is for it to be unavailable or unreliable for an Earth day, even half a day, long enough for the administration to stand back and let the military carry out its assignment.’
‘How do we stop it?’ Julia said. ‘There has to be a way to get that report to the eyes of Sino-Asian leaders … assuming that your copy is … ’
‘It is intact and utterly free of any viral presence,’ Reski Emantes said. ‘I checked.’
‘You were having your tactical system work on possible mission profiles,’ she said. ‘Assuming that you’ve factored in this new data, have they come up with any plans for reaching the relevant leaders? Anything useful?’
‘Synced with the new data, the tac system is offering something very useful,’ the drone said. ‘And very risky. The mission profile entails entering the Glow as autonomous entities with plausible and consistent exter