The Colonel Read Online Free Page A

looks back up, catches his gaze, holds it. “But that’s not what’s bothering you.”
    â€œWhy do you say that?”
    â€œBecause no matter how much you disapprove of their lifestyle, eight million happily-catatonic souls aren’t any kind of military threat.”
    â€œYou sure about that? Can you even begin to imagine what kind of plans could be brewing in a coherent thinking entity with the mass of eight million human brains?”
    â€œWorld conquest.” Lutterodt nods, deadpan. “Because that’s what the Dharmic faiths are all about.”
    He doesn’t laugh. “ People subscribe to a faith. That hive is something else entirely.”
    â€œAnd if they’re a threat,” she says quietly, “what are we?”
    Her masters, she means. And the answer is, Terrifying .
    â€œMoksha’s not so radical when you get right down to it,” she continues. “It’s built out of garden-variety brains after all. My guys played around with the cortical architecture. We’ve got entanglement on the brain, we’ve got quantum bioradio grown on principles you won’t stumble across for another twenty years. You can’t even define it as technology any more. That’s why you and I are talking right now, isn’t it? Because if a bunch of networked baselines has you worried, how could the Bicamerals not be a threat?”
    â€œAre they?” he asks at last.
    She snorts. “Look, you can optimize a brain for down there or up here. Not both. Bicams think at Planck scales. All that quantum craziness is as intuitive to them as the trajectory of a baseball is to you. But you know what?”
    He’s heard it before: “They don’t get baseballs.”
    â€œThey don’t get baseballs. Oh, they get around okay. They can wipe their asses and feed themselves. But stick ‘em in a big city and—well, saying it would make them uncomfortable is putting it mildly.”
    He doesn’t buy it.
    â€œWhy do you think they need people like me? You think they set up way out in the desert so they can build some kind of supervillain lair?” Lutterodt rolls her eyes. “They’re no threat, believe me. They’d have a hard time getting across a busy street.”
    â€œTheir physical prowess is the last thing I’m worried about. Something that advanced could crush us underfoot and never even notice.”
    â€œColonel, I live with them. They haven’t crushed me yet.”
    â€œWe both know how destabilizing it would be if the Bicams marketed even a fraction—”
    â€œBut they haven’t, have they? Why would they? You think they care about a fucking profit margin in your fantasy-world economy ?” Lutterodt shakes her head. “You should be thanking whatever Gods you subscribe to that they do hold those patents. Anyone else probably would have kicked the anthill over by now, for no more reason than a good fiscal quarterly.”
    So we’re ants to you now.
    â€œWhether you admit it or not, your world’s better off with them in it. They keep to themselves, they don’t bother anyone, and when they do come out to play you cavemen make out like bandits. You should know that already; the Armed Forces have been licensing our cryption tech for over a decade.”
    â€œNot lately we haven’t.” Not since someone up the chain got antsy about back doors. Although perhaps the Colonel had something to do with that decision as well.
    â€œYour loss. Just a couple months back Coahuila came up with a Ramanujan-symmetric variant you guys would kill for. Nothing lays a hand on our algos.” She reconsiders. “Nothing baseline, anyway.”
    â€œIt won’t work, Dr. Lutterodt.”
    She raises her eyebrows, the very picture of innocence.
    He leans in across the table. “Maybe you really do feel safe, sleeping with your giants. They haven’t rolled over and crushed you in