The Hammer of God

“Next time friends are coming over with homework let’s remember not to serve wine, or serve them dinner either. In fact, let’s never have them over again.”

“Sounds like you have a real page-turner of a bill there.”

“Who writes this stuff?”

“Every prescription drug company in the world, or their lobbyists. Now go to sleep; that’s enough civics class for one night. I am expecting a slammer of a headache tomorrow and I want to be well rested for it.” Janice reached across him and up to the lamp on the nightstand. Her breast smothered his face as she strained for the switch. She uncoiled back to her side, fluffing her pillow, and trying to get back to sleep.

Bill started thinking. A few years back, that would have been enough provocation to initiate some serious lovemaking. Why not now?

Why not now?

He snuggled over, found her, and ended any concern about a headache.

?§?

“Seventy-two hours. That still leaves a twelve-hour margin of safety.”

“And the thermal element itself?”

“Time released and not unlike the basic structure of heated shave cream.”

“No chance of detection?”

“Our Chinese friends and their Pyrex glass copies will insulate the contents.”

“Then we are ready?”

“Yes; we just need to place the active strains in all twenty-four jars.”

“Keep me informed when the shipment is ready?”

“Yes, Sheik.”

The next morning, Bill put out a Point of Information bulletin over his SCIAD network. The network was one of his inventions. In much the same way national security depended on the free and open exchange of data, ideas, and suppositions between agencies, so did a strong scientific defense. He had seen first hand the impact of the first big-science attack on America and it wasn’t pretty. It took a long time even to determine that America was being attacked and people paid for that with their lives. A network like SCIAD might have made a dramatic difference.

The name was a double-entendre of sorts; SCIAD was the shorthand for his White House role, but like all scientists, Hiccock acronymed it out: Scientific Community Involved in America’s Defense. Because it was his pet project, and because very few in Congress or the Administration understood the first thing about it, he was able to make up all the ground rules. Bill was proud of SCIAD’s layered architecture, which guided the flow of ideas. The real trick that kept SCIAD from denigrating into nothing more than an Intranet version of the Internet was its structure. It was all too simple for any jackass to publish anything on the web, without provenance, peer review, or proper methodology. Add to that the wonders of PhotoShop and other graphic programs, and any “whack job” can make their junk science look as good as real science. The SCIAD network had built-in gatekeeping and content filtering, with verification and authentication.

In Bill’s on-line scientific community, there were two levels — rings, actually. The closely held ring consisted of members Bill had code-named “Element.” Members of the second, farther out (in more ways than one) ring were classified as “Compounds.” Hiccock’s SCIAD handle was Nucleus, although everyone knew it was Bill.

There were ninety-two members of SCIAD’s Element ring. They were FBI vetted and cleared to see top-secret SCIAD traffic at its most raw and unedited state. Their primary job was that of gatekeeper to Nucleus. Two Element members had to concur on a thesis, proof, or speculation before it was transmitted to Nucleus. Bill then had the option to send it back to the entire Element ring for comment.

There were now nearly three hundred Compound members on the network, individuals who didn’t have the squeaky clean, flag-waving backgrounds or citizenship to pass National Security scrutiny but had unbelievable minds nonetheless. What America desperately needed in scientific defense was mental horsepower and the Compounds provided it. They were privy only to redacted information. None of which would compromise Nat Sec, but it would get their mental engines going. As with the Element ring, in the event a Compound member came up with any significant thinking, that member also had to be vetted by at least two Element members before dissemination to Nucleus and then out to the entire Element level. As a further hedge bet, Bill then had it all fly back out to the outer ring once again, as redacted information about this new item. This then allowed all 30 °Compounds to kick it around before shooting it back inside to the Element ring again. This looping of data and vetting by at least two Element class members kept down the wild, off-the-charts speculation that could clog a system. Yet, because Bill made his bones on “wild ass speculation” in The Eighth Day affair, he didn’t want it stifled completely.