Abandoned Code by Christoph Brueck

Author:Christoph Brueck [Brueck, Christoph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Slaughter Bees

The miracle of sleep-inducing devices was that a person simply slept. If vital signs stayed stable and no alarm was sounded within close proximity, the device that attached to the forehead actively toned down neural activity until the user fell into a deep slumber. Then brainwaves were slowly adjusted until the person was in a deep sleep. The technology had conquered the world of travelers and stressed managers by storm.

Jackson had used most of their time over the Atlantic to study the files and inform himself about their destination. Surprisingly little was reported about the ongoing war in Mali. What he got was that a dozen conglomerates with shifting alliances were fighting over the natural resources of the country by using proxy armies recruited from local warlords. They trained their armies, funded their equipment, and sent out military advisors, which was a barely-hidden name for mercenaries. The age of corporate warfare that many predicted never happened in the more civilized countries. Law enforcement and government military were too strong to allow for what would have been essentially nothing but economy-financed terrorism.

In Africa, though, it became a reality. Mali, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria had been the hotbeds of intense fighting; governments were replaced, people killed, and resources secured. The battles weren’t only fought by men with guns. Drones had been widely adopted, and cyber-warfare emerged. Central servers were made into fortress systems as the companies tried to hack the enemy to shut down operations of the fully-automated mines that harvested resources bought with blood and money.

Collateral damage wasn’t an issue there. No courts ever held any foreigner responsible for the wars, and everyone knew who the driving force was behind it. Chinese, American, and European agents swarmed the continent, trying to support the non-government players as well as they could without directly intervening.

Of course, the most complicated war didn’t happen with weapons at all; it was economic conflict. Loans and infrastructure made the governments dependent on foreign powers. Any state leader who opposed the corporations soon found well-funded rivals rising to power. Oddly enough, in Mali, the warmongering parties united several times to secure their war and had overthrown the government directly at least once.

Bamako had been peaceful throughout the whole conflict. Alicia told him it was considered an Elysium city, where espionage and bribery took place without intervention from more violent means. Basically, it was a game. A game with rules that everyone played by. There were zones where people fought, zones where they negotiated, and others that were of no interest. In those areas, poverty ruled, and the people suffered from a lack of infrastructure and education. Keeping them struggling also served the master plan of the players.

Jackson was repulsed by the whole scenario, and he wondered if Cypher felt the same. She’d opposed the SIF AG, one of the players in Africa. Once she ruined that company, did she go after a new target? MOSAIC had a minimal presence in Mali. Jackson couldn’t find any report about them taking part in the scenario.

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