Accessibility
© 2025 by Walter Reimer


The Prime Minister stood at the holographic ‘window’ in his office and scowled at the image of New Melborn. The city was dirty; the entire planet was dirty, had been for centuries, and successive governments had steadfastly refused to do anything to stop Terra’s degradation.

It’s not that no one wanted to, of course. It was just too difficult, and there were too many calls upon the exchequer to permit the investment of so much money and time. There were political considerations as well.

And the young Emperor was not the first head of state to think about greening Terra.

The corsac fox ground his teeth, his brush whisking back and forth before changing the projection’s image to a far more pleasant view and walking back to his desk. He’d had everything arranged. The Emperor would be kept distracted before finally being convinced that his project wasn’t feasible, and that young zebra, Chen, would be the perfect expendable pawn to take the blame and be removed from the board to languish in obscurity.

But that leaf-eating bastard Director of Intelligence, and one of the planetary AIs, had ruined everything. He had only one spy in the Imperial Household on Maratha, a maid who wasn’t privy to everything that went on, but had reported about the death of the Regent’s paramour.

Chen now had ‘M’s’ protection, and full access to all the previous projects, thanks to . . . “Shamir,” he growled as he took his seat.

A trio of holographic emitters flared to life and a wolf wearing a suit appeared standing in front of the desk. “Good morning, Prime Minister,” Shamir said politely.

“’M’ informed me that you gave Chen Hlompho restricted access,” the corsac fox said.

“Yes, Prime Minister,” the simulacrum said with a friendly smile. “I determined that he should have a certain level of access in order to further the progress of the Emperor’s project – “

“I know,” the fox growled, “but in so doing you disrupted my plans.”

“Oh. Well then, I apologize. Had I or either of the other AIs been apprised of this – “

“It’s your job to anticipate what your superiors want. Why in hell are you given the speed you have, if not to foresee my wishes?” the Prime Minister asked. He waved a paw irritably as the image opened its mouth. “The question was rhetorical.”

“Of course, Prime Minister. Was there anything else?”

Vulpine ears twitched and the fox’s expression slowly morphed from angry to inquiring. “What steps have been taken to prevent an alien incursion from subverting you?”

Shamir’s expression remained a polite smile. “Newly-instantiated central processors were installed for Argus and Borealis. Analysis of the methods the Kashlani used to subvert those systems have enabled us to encode new firewalls. To avoid physical attacks on Mei, Avril and myself, synchronized backups were established elsewhere in Sol System.” The smile widened. “Somewhere within nearly four hundred billion cubic kilometers.”

“I see. And your core processor here?”

“The destruct mechanism was replaced with a four-megaton antimatter charge,” Shamir replied. “Was that all, Prime Minister?”

“I have a meeting with Foreign Minister Balakrishnan later.”

“Yes, Sir. At ten hours.” The simulacrum vanished, leaving the fox grinding his teeth again at his inability to get revenge on the entities who’d slighted him.

But . . .

The smile that followed wasn’t a pleasant one.