The Second Ship (The Rho Agenda #1)(64)
“Yes, but I think the reason behind it is different,” Heather continued. “We all have a picture of ourselves in our heads. You know, a self-image. I think I’m good at certain things, Mark thinks he’s good at other things, and you think you’re good at others. I think our brain enhancements interpret our visual images of ourselves as goals. Our brains are taking those goals and implementing them, including our self-imposed limitations.”
Jennifer crossed her arms. “So you think if I imagine I’m strong, I can jump up here like you did?”
“I doubt it. Our self images are probably difficult to retrain. I’m only saying that we may have considerably more untapped potential than we realize. But even if we change our self-imagery, I’m still going to have things I prefer. And I’ll still practice those things more than either of you would.”
Jennifer finally smiled. “Makes sense.”
“That reminds me, I want to get up to the command deck and search for more data on subspace. If I’m right about what I saw last time, subspace vibrations should leak back into our space and vice versa.”
Mark raised an eyebrow. “And other than boring me out of my mind, this is important, why?”
Jennifer frowned. “Mark, listen for a change. I think I see where Heather is going with this.”
“Think of the different spaces like tuning forks a little distance apart. If I hit one with a small hammer, the others pick up the same vibration, the same tone, only more weakly. I think we may be able to make a subspace receiver.”
“Two questions,” Mark said. “Number one: Why bother? We already have the QT circuit. Number two: Wouldn’t we also need to build a subspace transmitter?”
Heather laughed. “Look. We’ve been scrambling to do anything that can get someone like the NSA to help us. And every time we do, we come closer to getting ourselves caught than to bringing heat on the Rho Project. It’s time to step up our game. With the quantum twins, we have to physically plant one of them somewhere to be able to send and receive from that other location. But with this, we should be able to tune our subspace receiver to focus on a mapped location in real space. It’s completely hands-off. With this technology, we can effectively hack the planet.”
“So we could aim it to listen to anything, so long as we know the location?” Jennifer asked.
“I think so. The problem is that everything rings the subspace tuning fork. So we would be listening to white noise or static. But that brings us to the next answer. We don’t need a subspace transmitter because everything transmits into subspace.”
“So how do we get around the white noise problem?”
“That’s why I want to spend more time on the command deck. I think we can introduce a carrier signal that we can detect in the noise.”
Jennifer started moving toward the door. “We can embed a data signal on it.”
“Right. With that, we could remotely tap any line, so long as we knew its exact subspace coordinates.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Jennifer said as she led the way out of the medical lab. “Like you said, time to hack the planet.”
Chapter 45
Making the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows was never pleasant, and this morning it was downright annoying. For one thing, the host usually selected congressmen or senators wholly intent on making complete asses of themselves. This was especially true of the guest on Vice President Gordon’s left on this last of his scheduled appearances. Senator Wilkins from Wisconsin not only strove to be an ass, he was wildly successful at it.
Charles Paul, the host of Sunday This Week, knew that the end of his hour was approaching, and since he had Senator Wilkins on a roll, he tossed out more raw meat.
“So, Senator, you are saying that even though the bulk of the scientific community around the world has embraced the environmental benefits of cold fusion technology, it is not as green as it seems?”
“Not only is it not environmentally friendly, this technology threatens all the gains made by the environmental movement this last thirty years.”
“How so?”
“Look, just producing energy cleanly doesn’t clean up the environment. Energy is the fuel of consumption, and rampant consumption is what drives the train of environmental destruction. This promise of clean, cheap energy is the siren sitting on a rocky shoal, calling us all toward an ecological shipwreck. It says, produce more. Consume more. No need to fret or worry about conservation.
“And all that stuff we are consuming is made from plastics derived from petroleum, or steel, which requires coal, or through the use of harmful chemicals. And that is without even mentioning the rape of the Earth's resources.”
Charles Paul turned to the vice president. “Mr. Vice President, your response?”
Vice President Gordon smiled. “I think that the worthy senator’s words speak volumes about his party’s true agenda. When he says consumption is the root of all evil, he means capitalism is the root of all evil. He and his allies would have us adopt a model of European socialism. Beyond that, they want the government to be able to tell the American people what kind of cars they can buy, how many of each item they can consume.
“And by his argument, if consumption is ‘bad,’ that must mean lack of consumption is good. But if nobody consumes, nobody buys. If nobody buys, nobody makes. If nobody makes, nobody works. His party’s policies, if followed to their ultimate conclusion, would have everyone walking or riding an animal to work, but only if that work produced things that nobody could consume and that were not made of anything.”