Crossover by Joel Shepherd

Author:Joel Shepherd [Shepherd, Joel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pyr®

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"Seems weird that the League would be helping their biggest enemies find ways to counter their greatest technological advantage," Singh commented from the back seat of the big government cruiser.

Four SWAT agents sat in full armour, crammed into the cruiser's undersized seating, designed for unarmoured bodies. Seatbelts stretched across powered armourplate. The SWAT flyer in which they'd arrived was unable to make it back to the rooftop pad, which was now crowded with official vehicles. And the media had now surrounded the tower, watching from rooftop vantages and circling aircars and flyers far above the official skylanes, monitoring rooftop traffic through telescopic lenses. There were SWAT experts the media could conceivably contact, a friendly young Intel woman had explained to Sandy, who might count armoured bodies, read personalised helmet markings and wonder who the extra trooper was in SWAT Four. Thus the civilian aircar, which departed from the internal bay midway up the tower's side.

Data analysis had lasted all morning, and it was now approaching midday, although any notion of sunshine remained securely hidden behind darkening clouds and sporadic showers. There had been traces of collusion by Tetsu middle management. From those traces Sandy had been able to guess what the League programs they were accessing might have been. She'd passed on her hunch and suggestions to the CSA specialists, and they would now track the problem for as long as it took. Now, attached to SWAT with a vaguely defined brief referring to 'assistance and advice', she was headed back to Headquarters.

"League's full of weird ideas, Arvi," Vanessa replied, gloved hands on the cruiser's controls, following a gentle, predetermined course between towers. A nearby flicker of lightning lit up the darkened sky, a blue flare across a nearby tower's windows. "It's a weird idea kind of place."

"Old history," said Sandy, eyes wandering to a spectacular looking mosque in a leafy suburb below, fantastic patterns on its blue and gold tile domes. "Like Old China, back on Earth. Used to be a reclusive country. Didn't like democracy, didn't like market economies, didn't even like the proper rule of law. Which meant they were totally impoverished, of course, and getting trodden on by every major World power with big enough boots. So to make themselves more powerful they adopted what were then known as 'Western practices', like markets and legal systems, basic capitalism. They thought the only way to fight the West was to adopt their greatest strengths and make them Chinese strengths too. And they got enormously powerful doing that, and in the process inevitably turned into a democracy over time, because the old totalitarianisms just weren't capable of handling the modern market system effectively. At which point you have two major powers, China and the West — or most notably the United States of America — looking at each other and realising, hey, we're both capitalist, we're both democratic, what's left to fight about?.

"The League sees itself as the West and the Federation as Old China. The FIA accepts biotech advancements to even the League's advantage.

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