Tag: Autumn Belfontaine

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Narrative

A Ray of Hope

Autumn Belfontaine was sitting in the newsroom, sorting through one after another report of disaster on a level not seen since the 1918 Spanish Flu. If anything, the current situation was worse for the simple reason that the world of 1918 had not been nearly so connected, so that many places were spared for the simple reason that they were too far away for people to get to them during the incubation of the disease.

Today, only the Martian settlements were that far away. Even the Moon was a mere three days’ flight from Earth, if one were to take a direct flight. There’d been a close call with the Indian space program’s pre-flight quarantine procedures already, but it had been caught because the person had a layover on Harmony Station just long enough for them to become ill on the Sakura rather than after they’d gotten down. However, it had put a big chunk of Japan’s space infrastructure out of operation while everyone aboard both station and ferry had to quarantine.

And there’s some speculation that the next person to turn up sick on the way to the Moon will simply “fall out of an airlock.”

Autumn didn’t like the idea that someone could be so careless with everyone’s safety, but she could understand the motivations behind it. Schedules were tight enough in ordinary times, and with a big chunk of the cislunar spacelift capacity out of action, there’d be a feeling that they couldn’t afford to lose more on “just in case” precautions.

But now, with some kind of illness at Schirrasburg which might be the diablovirus, it became even more urgent. Lunans lived in far tighter quarters than Earthlings anywhere but Tokyo or Hong Kong. Even the various scientific outposts and mining bases, while isolated from each other, still had very little pressurized volume per person, which meant that everyone was in constant contact.

And then she noticed something on one of the Russian wire services. An anonymous source in the Imperial Household was reporting that Tsar Constantine had met via teleconference with Academician Nikolai Voronsky, head of the Russian genetic engineering program. Apparently Voronsky was reporting success in sequencing the genome of the diablovirus in its three major variants.

Which raised a serious conundrum for her. On one hand, people really needed some hope right now, with the news of disaster being moderated only by the fact that whole regions on Earth were no longer reporting at all. On the other, this was not exactly a reliable source. Heck, it was hardly above the level of “gossip sheet.” Was it a responsible thing to actually report it?

She retrieved her phone. Time to pass this to the people in Medlab, see if anyone down there had a good idea of its veracity.

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Narrative

An Unwelcome Surprise

Spruance Del Curtin was winding up his search when he heard voices in the front office of the radio station. For a moment he wondered if it was just some of the late-night people from Engineering walking past, but no, they’d definitely come in.

And from what he could overhear, they were talking about whatever was going on in Schirrasburg. Yes, that was definitely Autumn Belfontaine. He’d recognize her voice anywhere.

He glanced around the newsroom in search of somewhere to hide, then realized that it would only make him look even more suspicious. Better to just have something innocuous up on the monitor and pretend that he was just preparing for tomorrow’s air shift.

And then the overhead lights came on, catching him completely by surprise. He blinked, his cheeks warming with the embarrassment of being caught by surprise.

“Now this is a surprise.” Reginald Waite looked down at Sprue. “I hadn’t expected you to be putting in extra hours tonight.”

Whatever line he’d been planning to say went straight out of Sprue’s head. He probably could’ve fast-talked his way past anyone else, even Ken Redmond, but Waite knew exactly what buttons to push.

“Just doing some research.” Damn if that didn’t sound defensive.

“Would it have anything to do with your recent communications with Chandler Armitage?” Reggie leaned forward a little. “I’m hearing that you’ve been texting him quite a bit about some data you’ve been working on.”

That rat! Sprue had to fight down an upwelling of incandescent rage at the thought of being betrayed by a brother.

Except Chandler was a Navy officer, an Academy graduate — and thus would have a lot more in common with Reggie. Small wonder he’d decide that the big Shep should know that little brother was nosing around.

“Um, not exactly.” Technically true, since it wasn’t actually part of the data he’d been asking Chandler about, but he would’ve never overheard Dr. Doorne talking to her husband otherwise.

“But it’s still something you’re just a little too curious about.” Reggie’s lips curled upward in a smile that seemed to belong better on a shark. “Very well. Since you seem to be determined to get into matters above your pay grade, you’re going to be accepting the responsibility that comes with that knowledge. I’m officially adding you to this meeting, and we’ll determine how that will change your role here at Shepardsport Pirate Radio.”

Somehow trying to find out what the heck was going on no longer sounded like so much fun. No, it looked like a lot more work, and a lot less he could brag about at the dining commons to impress his buddies.

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Narrative

An Unexpected Summons

Autumn Belfontaine had planned to head back to her apartment and turn in for the night when she got finished with her shift at the Testing Center. It had been an easy night, not surprising when one considered they were at the beginning of the current training cycle. Within a couple of weeks that would change, but this evening she’d been able to catch up on a lot of other responsibilities, including a refresher course she was taking on broadcast practices and procedures.

So she was more than a little surprised when her phone chimed incoming text and she found a message from Stephanie Roderick down in IT. We’ve got a problem. I think we should meet in the newsroom.

Unease tingled in Autumn’s nervous system. Why not down in IT? They had a perfectly adequate meeting room, and it was normal for a department head to host the meeting in her own area.

But now was not the time to ask questions. Those could wait until they were face to face. OK. Right now I’m still working at the Testing Center. My relief should be here in five minutes.

Good. We’ll meet you there.

Autumn considered that information — “we,” not “I,” which suggested this problem involved other people. Someone else in IT? Someone in another department? Was that why Steffi wanted the meeting held in the newsroom — because the radio station was neutral territory?

All of it would be answered in due time. Right now she needed to get things wound up so she could leave as soon as her relief showed up — and hope he wasn’t late.

Although lunar culture ran on the military attitude that early was on time, on time was late, and late was unacceptable, it didn’t always work like it was supposed to. People got held over in one obligation when they had another responsibility immediately afterward, creating a domino effect. Usually they’d text to allow the other person to make alternative arrangements, but there were times even that was impossible.

The clock was counting down the seconds when Ted burst in, looking harried for all he was trying to present a professional appearance. “Chem lab had a spill, and I had to stay over to clean up. I tried to get here as fast as I could, but it just took too long.”

Autumn recalled that he had managed to draw an unusually late chemistry class, which had created awkwardness before. She was going to have to talk to Deena and see if they could get him shifted to a different shift — and herself shifted to a different work responsibility, one that gave her greater flexibility when things like this came up.

Right now she needed to hand off the Testing Center, not that she even had anyone taking practice tests, let alone actual exams. But the formalities had to be completed before she headed off to the station to meet with Steffi and whoever else was involved in this problem.

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The Hornet Nest

Autumn Belfontaine was no stranger to controversy. The whole point of creating Shepardsport Pirate Radio had been to confront the Flannigan Administration on its various malfeasances.

However, she had not expected such an intense response to her report on the removal of children from impromptu fostering arrangements in the homes of friends, to be placed in makeshift group homes in converted school buildings. To read some of the hate mail that was pouring into the station’s mailservers, one would think that she’d gone on-air claiming that the various state child protection agencies were carrying on satanic rituals at the stroke of midnight, not just carrying out an ill-conceived bureaucratic mandate.

At least there was one advantage to being on the Far Side of the Moon — threats had very little impact. Had she still been on Earth, working on a dirtside radio station, some of those death threats would’ve been truly frightening. Instead, she rather doubted there was any real chance of them making a launch any time soon. Even threats to dox her held little power, given that Shepardsport was a tight-knit community steeped in the astronaut tradition, and since the Kitty Hawk Massacre, everyone’s financial records were carefully locked down, so even publishing her Social Security number and her bank accounts wouldn’t enable anyone to upend her life.

She was about halfway through her inbox when she heard voices out in the corridor. She looked up, out the newsroom door, to see Spencer Dawes and Juss Forsythe talking. Juss had a big tool satchel slung over his shoulder, which suggested he was in here for some kind of maintenance. On the other hand, what Autumn could hear of their conversation did not exactly sound technical.

However, she wasn’t their supervisor, so their personal conversation was not her business. She returned her attention to cleaning out her e-mail, but not closely enough to realize the screen was refreshing just as she clicked.

She realized just what she’d hit. “Crap. That’s got a payload.”

Before she could force the browser to quit, the whole screen turned into a chaos of colors and symbols. From within the computer’s guts came a high-pitched whine. Whatever was in that attached file, it must’ve been a doozie.

“Quick, crash it.” That was Juss, who’d jumped clear across the newsroom like his ur-brother jumping over a fence.

Autumn wasn’t sure which one of them hit the power button, but it worked. The screen went black and the whining sound ceased.

“That thing could’ve infected the whole network.” Juss’s voice remained matter-of-fact, with no blaming.

“What do we do now?” Autumn looked at her computer. At least this wasn’t the computer she used for writing up news stories, or any of the other important stuff she couldn’t afford to lose. But being without her e-mail computer would mean needing to read it on a computer she considered less expendable.

“Not much we can do.” Juss unplugged the computer and began disconnecting the peripherals. “I’ll have to run it down to IT so they can clean out whatever malware was in that e-mail.”

Damn, Aunt Steffi’s going to be so pissed.

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At the Highest Level

Reginald Waite read through the proposed news brief a second time, wondering why it was even on his desk at all. He’d pretty much let Shepardsport Pirate Radio operate on its own, and certainly had never attempted to exert any sort of censorship authority over it.

Yes, Autumn had submitted that initial news brief after the Kitty Hawk Massacre to him for review, but it had been as much a courtesy because at the time she was still his guest here, not a permanent part of the community. Once she’d come to him with the idea of establishing a pirate radio station to get the real news out, he’d trusted her judgment as news director and never tried to micromanage her.

On the other hand, most of what she had been covering fell into the category of partisan politics. After he’d run the helmet-cam videos of the Massacre on U-Tube for the world to see, the worst abuses had been reined in.

What Autumn’s news brief described was nothing short of gross malfeasance of duty, being systematically covered up. Unfortunately, it was not hugely surprising — with so many people falling severely ill, it was inevitable that children would be left with no parent at home, and no close relative nearby.

But why did government agencies in several states feel such an intense need to disrupt the informal care arrangements that a lot of these children had worked out with their friends’ families? Legally speaking, they would be on shaky ground, especially if the parents were incapacitated as Dr. Thuc’s sources were indicating, but as long as nothing happened, it made far more sense to leave well enough alone and save state resources for where they were needed most. Certainly a reasonably safe home was preferable to this business of herding all these kids into gymnasiums and classrooms filled with cots, more akin to an emergency hurricane shelter than a foster home.

And to think that it probably would’ve gone unnoticed if Betty Margrave’s niece hadn’t maintained contact with an old friend from Houston. Did someone force that girl to write that stiff, stilted message, or had they simply confiscated her phone and written it for her? However it had come into being, it was so off that it actually managed to be more suspicious than if they’d left well enough alone.

Having someone from IT hacking into state child welfare office computers was irregular. However, given that it was done under the direction of the head of Safety and Security, it wasn’t like the Mallory kid had taken a wild hair to do it on his own.

On the other hand, Eli was a Shep, Betty was married to another Shep, and Autumn was the daughter of a third Shep. This was getting pretty en famiglia here.

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A Bitter Pill

Betty Margrave knew the information would hit Autumn Belfontaine hard, given her personal history. It had been a punch in the gut for Betty, because of her two nieces.

Small wonder Kitty was taking such an intense interest in Amy’s situation. She’s just old enough to understand what could’ve happened if I hadn’t been able to get to her and Cindy as quickly as I did, or I hadn’t been able to bring the authority of an FBI agent to the table when the child welfare people started making noises about the girls being taken in by a dual-career couple.

By the time Autumn finished reading the summation of the situation, her hands were shaking so badly she had to set the tablet down rather than try to pass it back. In the Moon’s lighter gravity a fall was far less likely to do it harm, but it certainly wouldn’t do it any good.

“This is disgusting.” She was so angry her voice shook, sounding quite unlike the professional voice people knew from her radio broadcasts.

She took a deep breath, except it came in a sharp gasp. Yes, she was trying to regain control over her emotions, but no, it wasn’t working nearly as well as she wanted it to. “I mean, I know that they’ve got to be short-staffed, if things are as bad as we’re hearing. But to just round up all the kids whose parents are in the hospital and herd them into schools turned into makeshift dormitories–“

“What do you expect from a government operation?” That was Eli Mallory, who was leaning against the doorframe in a pose very similar to a photo of Alan Shepard in one of his best-known biographies.

Betty had to fight not to laugh. She’d seen plenty of botch jobs in her FBI days. Even the Marine Corps and NASA, organizations in which lives were on the line, had their issues. But as a representative of the command structure of the settlement, she had to be careful about anything that could be taken as mockery or disrespect to the authority upon which it rested. “You might want to be careful how you say that. This settlement happens to be a government operation.”

Anyone else, it might have taken aback. But Sheps prided themselves on always having a snappy comeback “True, but up here you’ve got to be on the top of your game if you want to be around for very long.”

“He does have a point.” Autumn had recovered some of her composure, although her radio voice wasn’t quite back. “We managed to get over five hundred kids from the NASA clone creche settled in without anything approaching the mess the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services seems to be trying to cover up. Although you’ve got to allow that these kids were raised to be competent, responsible and industrious from the beginning, so it’s probably not quite comparable to a bunch of random kids from the general community.”

From the sound of that comment, Autumn must’ve been drawing from some personal memories. Then she looked straight at Betty. “However, that’s all a distraction. Right now we need to decide how to handle this. My instinct is to go on the air and blow it wide open.”

“And you’re not sure if that’s the best way to handle it, or if that’s the anger talking.” Betty studied the younger woman. In the last few years she’d gotten a good measure of Autumn Belfontaine, and could tell where her major weak points lay. “How about you write the story up as if you were going to file it for a news agency. Then I’ll take a look at it and see if it’s a go or if we need to run it past higher authority.”

Both of them knew that higher authority meant Captain Waite.

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Of Distance and Difficulty

Autumn Belfontaine had plenty of experience in doing interviews. One of her very first assignments as a reporter at the U of Minnesota student radio station had been to get man-on-the-street interviews at a political rally.

However, she was used to being able to talk with her interviewee face to face. Sure, radio was an audio-only medium, so the listeners weren’t losing anything. But as an interviewer, she really liked to be able to see the other person, gauge their reactions to her questions in a way she couldn’t when she had nothing but a voice on the other end of a telephone line. And no, videoconferencing technology didn’t really substitute for being in the same room with a person and being able to look them in the eyes.

Having it be someone she knew should’ve made it easier, but somehow she was finding it much harder. It didn’t help that she and Chandler Armitage had a rather complicated relationship. Genetically speaking, he was her uncle, since he was her father’s clone-brother. But they were so close in age that he felt more like the brother she never had.

Which is no excuse. You’re a professional, so act like it.

Still, there was no denying that things simply weren’t clicking, and it wasn’t just because the assignment had been sprung on her with almost no time to prepare. She was supposed to be getting his insights on the situation from his experience as a pilot flying to various settlements, but all his responses sounded stiff, even canned.

At least this is a recorded interview, not something we’re doing live. With luck, he’ll loosen up. Worst case, we 86 the whole thing.

Autumn was so tightly focused on it that she almost didn’t hear the tapping on the door. When she did, she turned to see who could be interrupting her. At least coming in on a recorded interview wasn’t like barging into the DJ booth while the DJ was on air — they could edit out such interruptions.

To her surprise, it wasn’t the music director, or the sales director, or even the general manager, but Ken Redmond himself. When the Chief of Engineering shows up at your door, you’d better answer, ASAP.

“Commander Armitage, we’re going to need to wind this up.”

At least he was understanding, but it still felt awkward to cut things short. And even more awkward after the call was completed, to go out there and see what Ken needed.

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Things to Worry About

There were times when Brenda Redmond wished she didn’t have the morning drive-time air shift at Shepardsport Pirate Radio. It was a news-heavy shift, which meant getting to hear all about everything that was going on in the world — which these days meant everything going wrong in the world.

And the news report Autumn Belfontaine had been delivering right at the end of Brenda’s shift was particularly worrisome. If a worker in the Indian Space Agency’s pre-flight quarantine facility could pass the diablovirus to their astronauts and infect the entire Japanese LEO space station and lunar ferry, how safe were America’s facilities? Especially considering that it wasn’t just NASA any more, with McHenery Aerospace and several other private companies launching crewed spacecraft from commercial spaceports. They were supposed to follow the same pre-flight quarantine procedures as NASA astronauts — but there’d been issues of corner-cutting on other safety procedures, so who was to say they weren’t getting lax there too.

All it would take is one person.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Drew had been down at Coopersville, but he was stationed at Slayton Field. Grissom City was not only the largest and oldest lunar settlement, but also the busiest spaceport city. Which meant Drew would be right on the front lines in terms of his risk of exposure.

But she couldn’t let her worries about him leak into her communications to him. She knew the risks — it came with being a military spouse. And it wasn’t fair to the other pilot-astronauts’ wives for her to worry too obviously when they had their own burdens.

Better to focus on the things she had some level of control over. Her work, her training and gym time, her teaching responsibility. And taking care of the kids, of course.

Her phone chimed: incoming text message. She pulled it out, halfway hoping it was Drew.

No, it was Kitty Margrave. Call me. We need to talk.

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The Ill Wind

As Lou Corlin arrived at the station offices, he considered that he might have spend more time than he should’ve on the traffic analysis Steffi Roderick had given him. Sure, it was a really thorny problem, but he also knew he had responsibilities the next day, including his air shift and his training.

But the whole time he was looking over that data, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was overlooking something important. That maybe everyone was overlooking something important, because they were so certain they knew what kind of problem they were looking at.

Which is what happened when we were locked out of the Internet. The symptoms resembled prior DDOS attacks so much that nobody in IT paused to wonder why it was intermittent, or why the usual remedies didn’t work. And then Sprue asked a couple of awkward questions, Steffi insisted they needed answers, and suddenly a whole bunch of weirdness had reasons.

And speaking of Spruance Del Curtin, he was here early today, and talking with Cindy. Not that scheming sort of talk that suggested he was trying to gain points, or wheedle something out of her without looking like he was obviously trying to gain a favor. No, he seemed to be actually discussing something with her.

Lou recalled hearing that Colonel Hearne had abandoned the syllabus last night in Constitution class and got into a whole lot of heavy stuff about how societies work. Of course the standard syllabus was intended for a typical public school classroom, so it probably wouldn’t be that hard for a class up here to catch back up to where they were supposed to be in plenty of time to take the test.

Much as he’d like to hear more about just exactly what Colonel Hearne had said, Lou could tell now was not the time to butt in on Cindy and Sprue’s discussion. Not to mention that he needed to get ready to do his air shift.

That was when Autumn Belfontaine poked her head out of the newsroom. “Lou, can I talk with you for a moment?”

“Sure.” Lou joined her in the newsroom, wondering what could be going on.

“I’d like for you to verify my understanding of some news releases in Japanese.”

As Lou skimmed over them, an icy knot of dread formed in the pit of his stomach. “It looks like they’re pretty much shutting down the Earthside part of their space program. Reading between the lines, it looks like they’re focusing on protecting their installations here on the Moon and on Mars from contagion.”

“Which strongly suggests those Indian astronauts did spread the diablovirus to the Sakura, but its medstaff detected it in time, so they didn’t spread it to Luna Station or anyone on the ground.”

“But they’re never going to come out and actually say that, because that would mean losing face.” Lou paused. “Or perhaps putting their Indian partners in a face-threatening situation.”

The fall of China’s “flying junkyard” and the destruction of Phoenix was before Lou’s time, but he’d studied it in enough classes to have a pretty strong awareness of the role played by fear of losing face in the decision chains of the Chinese Communist Party in those last fateful days and weeks. Spaceflight was no longer such a touchy national prestige thing for Japan, but the issues were still there.

And there was also the implication for the American and Russian space programs. Lou had already heard there were problems with infections at several of NASA’s space centers causing staffing shortages, and he wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Imperial space program was getting hit by the problems too.

And all it would take is one careless person somewhere in the process of clearing people for spaceflight to get it up here too. We’ve been lucky so far, but how much longer will our luck hold?

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Communications Restored

The next morning, Autumn Belfontaine arrived at the newsroom fully expecting to get 404’s and 5xx errors more often than not. Instead, the first thing she found was her AP and Reuters feeds ready and waiting for her.

Well, it looks like whatever was knocking out our Internet downlinks to Earth, IT’s finally gotten it fixed.

She noticed Lou Corlin standing just outside the newsroom door, going through the music library terminal. “Lou, could you come in here and take a look at the Japanese news feeds. Your Japanese is a lot better than mine.”

“Sure thing, Miz Autumn.” Lou abandoned his music search to look over the websites Autumn had pulled up. “Although Tristan’s is a lot better than mine. He’s the one they’ve been having working with native speakers since he was a toddler. They even sent him over to Japan a couple of times before the Expulsions.”His translations pretty much confirmed the impressions she’d gotten from the kanji she recognized. Sometimes she regretted not having studied Japanese in journalism school. But at the time she’d assumed her career would remain Earthbound, and Spanish had seemed such a logical choice, with French a close second if she stayed in the northern tier states, close to Canada.

And if you’d just wanted an easy A you would’ve studied Swedish, since Grandma and Grandpa still spoke it, and you spent enough summers with them to pick it up.

However, it pretty well confirmed what she’d seen on the English-language wire services. The world they’d been cut off from — had it really only been three days? — was not the same world they were being reconnected to. “Lou, you need to get ready to start your air shift. But I’m thinking it’s time to call an all-hands meeting of the news department. Now that we’ve got connectivity again, our stringers can FaceTime in.”

As she started to type the mass e-mail, she paused and reconsidered. “And I think I’d better have Betty Margrave and Sam Carlisle in the loop too. They’ve probably got sources of information besides what comes in on the wire services and what I can glean from local TV news sites.”