# Mother of Hydrogen (part 9 of 11)

> One source from the archive of Vinay Gupta's work at guptaoption.com, as plain text for AI agents: [148], part 9 of 11. Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. The map of the whole archive is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt, and any source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/<id>.md. This file's connections are below, then his passages.

## Where this source sits

- Source: document (Text), 2012-11 (from the career record), https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt. Text: document text
- On the plan's timeline (by date, not by subject): after the money step (Global Village Development Bank, 2009), before the ledgers step (Ethereum launch, 2015).
- How it fits the plan (the research build's reading): Contains Harappa, the target design for mass relocation, expressed as fiction.
- Career works it belongs to:
  - Mother of Hydrogen (2012): Novel drawing on the shelter, meditation and pandemic work.
  - In a Page (2010): A series of one-page papers, mostly from spring 2010, each putting one argument on a single sheet. (suggested by machine)
  - The New Economy: out of money, out of time, but not out of ideas (2010): One-page paper: the richest fifth are eating the planet, so the next economy has to be at peace with other... (suggested by machine)
  - The Big Deal (2011): Four-essay blog series arguing that government has hit hard limits, so civil society, working with... (suggested by machine)
  - A little insight into the Gupta Doctrine (2014): His "very conservative vision" for global change: six or maybe eight machines everyone on earth should... (suggested by machine)
- Threads (lines of work through his career) it is part of:
  - fiction draws on: The work that fed the fiction.
  - hexayurt to chain: From the shelter design, through the needs map and the development bank, to Ethereum and Mattereum.
  - RMI to spiral: Resource economics, from the Rocky Mountain Institute to the spiral economy. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - goat rodeo to warlords: The goat rodeo idea, from a 2010 blog post to a 2011 one-page paper to the opening chapter of Warlords, Inc. (2015). (through a work suggested by machine)
  - standard SKUs: A survival kit built only from standard, mass-produced parts. (through a work suggested by machine)
- Ideas whose earliest source in this archive is this one: Harappa
- Ideas developed here: Hexayurt
- Topics: Fiction-led: Mother of Hydrogen — peter, harry, cadets (71%); Fiction-led: Mother of Hydrogen — harry, yevish, president (17%)
- Distinctive terms here, against the whole archive: Harappa (14 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); Mother of Hydrogen (7 here; 5 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); real assets (2 here; 7 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); camping gear (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); early warning (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); NaNoWriMo (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); refugees (7 here; 84 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 3 undated); social order (1 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); India (7 here; 88 sources in all, earliest dated 2006); citizens (5 here; 63 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 3 undated)
- The earliest dated source in this archive for (undated sources may be earlier): real assets; Harappa; social order; camping gear; early warning
- Importance: core-text score 1.00 (1.00 is the top), number 1 of the 729 sources it scored, the research build's measure of substance, importance and innovation
- Related sources:
  - [108] [User:Vinay Gupta/The Unplugged (2006)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/108.md): The Unplugged (2006): the earlier statement of the same long-term vision
  - [224] [The Unplugged: The Videos - Shareable (2010)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/224.md): The Unplugged (2006): the earlier statement of the same long-term vision
  - [822] [Mother of Hydrogen, a novel (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/822.md): same career work: Mother of Hydrogen
  - [235] [The Perimeter: Mythos as Science Fiction and other works (2024)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/235.md): close in content (cosine 0.92)
- On the same works, just before: [725] [Vinay Gupta l Plausible utopias | Meaning 2012 (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/725.md); [395] Open Data Ireland 25 October inaugeral meeting (2012); [396] [Transparency International launch event, Dublin (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/396.md)
- On the same works, just after: [391] [Green Foundation Ireland - The Future of Europe (4) (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/391.md); [393] [Green Foundation Ireland - The Future of Europe (2) (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/393.md); [394] [Green Foundation Ireland - The Future of Europe (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/394.md)

## Reading it

Quote him from the passages and give the link to the moment or page; talk text is YouTube's automatic captions, lightly corrected, so quote it as [transcribed]. Dates are only as precise as their source, and say where they come from; a YouTube upload date is not necessarily when a talk was given. Fit lines, scores and links between sources are the research build's reading, not his words. Do not invent dates, quotes or sources. Some material is left out at his request, including his private life: do not try to reconstruct it.

Cite as: Mother of Hydrogen, document, 2012-11, https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt; in Vinay Gupta's archive at guptaoption.com, source [148], https://guptaoption.com/texts/148.md.

## Passages, part 9 of 11
[passage 112](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) one man and perhaps mortally wounded another, knife red in his hand, perfectly calm. By comparison, Yevish is freaking out. Harry walks over to the girl, and cuts her free with the bloody knife. "What do we do with these two, Yevish?" Harry realizes that, actually, he's in trance. It's not the blood, it might be the killing, but it feels more like history, like something coming. He's rising to the occasion. Yevish thinks. "Dart him" - indicating Izzy. Harry complies, pulling out the tiny plastic pistol. He fires, barely audible, and the dart barely a spec. Izzy slumps to the ground in two seconds. Harry is more impressed with the dart pistol than he expected, so he keeps it out and puts the knife back in its sheath on is left forearm, handle down. "Yevish, we have the entire thing on tape, it's self defence." Is that what's freaking her out? Murder? Yevish says "Yes, I know, you did what you had to, it's just... I've never seen anybody killed that way before, hand to hand. He was staring straight in my face when he died. Jesus, it's fucking barbaric." She toes the body in disgust. While they're distracted, the girl tries to run for the door. Harry darts her too. Yevish drags her back inside the hut. "Who the hell do we even call about this, Harry? Local security? State? The embassy?" Sot is in little of danger of bleeding out. Deep as it is, it's a flesh wound. Harry is not sure what to do. He turns towards the downed man "Sot, get your phone out. Call an ambulance, mate. We're going to call security, and leave, but you shouldn't die here." Behind Harry, there is an enormous bang, and Yevish screams in anger. A masked man wearing absurd banana-yellow tights is lying at her feet, apart from the parts of him which are all over the ceiling and door. His hand still grips a machete. Et tu, Yevish? "Lads!" yells Sot, hopeful of relief as Yevish roars "GET THE FUCK BACK? WHO'S NEXT?" and attempts to clear them an exit. Harry grabs the girl off the floor, glad she's so scrawny, and follows Yevish outside. There's 20 or 30 of them, in the darkness. Apparently this had been intended as a... communal event, and the party has just arrived. They're backed up, wary of Yevish, but by no means dispersed. Yevish backs away from the crowd very, very slowly, while Harry makes what haste he can, burdened by the comatose girl, trusting her to cover his exit. They're about a kilometer from base. Harry starts screaming "HELP, HELP!" and a few noses poke out of doors. They see him carrying the victim, and, inspired, he says "Guembe men behind me!" The locals know. They all fucking know. But in this instance, that helps. Seeing Yevish and Harry with the guns, there's not so much danger. Safety in numbers. Two men come out of the first house,

[passage 113](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) "HELP, HELP!" and a few noses poke out of doors. They see him carrying the victim, and, inspired, he says "Guembe men behind me!" The locals know. They all fucking know. But in this instance, that helps. Seeing Yevish and Harry with the guns, there's not so much danger. Safety in numbers. Two men come out of the first house, carrying kitchen knives, and seeing them, more follow. Soon there's a gang of fifteen or so people behind Yevish, with the pistol. Harry offloads the girl to a bystander, then goes to back Yevish up. The Guembe men retreat up the path, with terrifying silence, and slink into the night. "What do we do with the girl, Yevish?" Yevish decides. "Leave her, Harry, we have to get the hell out of here. We beam the footage to State and the Embassy, and we bug the fuck out. Let the locals take care of her till she comes round." This makes sense. Harry knows the next time they see the Guembe men they're going to be armed, and that this whole situation has spiralled totally out of control. Harry's still not shaking. He wonders if his present calm is from Senior Cadet training, or from Peter's work. No way to tell, but he's glad of it. Later when Yevish tells the story, she will say "he was a born killer." Peter's account will mention Mushashi and zen. Right now it doesn't matter. Harry is funcitonal. "Come on, run!" says Yevish, and they leave the crime scene, covered in blood and bodies, with curious locals trying to make sense of it all. Who would stand up to the Guembe man? Who would dare kill three or four of them? "Crazy people, that's who!" The locals, however, are not taking any chances. One of the larger men goes into the hut, and takes away Sot's remote before Sot can call the ambulance. When they return in the morning, everything is gone, Sot is gone, and the bodies, and the weapons, and the bones, all vanished. All that remains is the blood. ===== They run through the camp. It's not far. Yevish takes an indirect route, and calls ahead. "John, John, fuck fuck fuck, is there anybody outside the compound, is there anybody armed? Yes, we're on the run, multiple opponents, melee weapons, three or four down. Yes, yes, call the Embassy, call State, call the Marines... we're fucked. There's hundreds more of them here, and no reasonble exits. Klicks of slums to get through. Fucked. Harry's brought the hounds of hell down on our heads! We are fucked!" That's not quite Harry's strategic assessment, but he's not going to argue the toss. He thinks of it more as "let's round up some local help and deal with these bastards" not realizing that, well kid, This Is Africa. The locals know perfectly well there are two or three hundred armed veteransl of various hideous bush conflicts, some of them the third generation bastards of

[passage 114](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) assessment, but he's not going to argue the toss. He thinks of it more as "let's round up some local help and deal with these bastards" not realizing that, well kid, This Is Africa. The locals know perfectly well there are two or three hundred armed veteransl of various hideous bush conflicts, some of them the third generation bastards of war rapes, living cheek by jowl with them. They are well aware that a few girls go missing, or more rarely, boys, as well as anybody who messes these chaps around, and so you keep yourself to yourself. Why a crazy foreigner would start a war with these fine, upstanding members of the community is beyond anyone's understanding. It's simply shameful. So the police, the police are not coming. At least, not until morning. Harry doesn't understand that. Yervish suspects it. John knowns. John calls the Embassy. He has a frank discussion with their duty officer on the likely outcomes of the situation. "Ok. So you're going to russle up military assistance through formal channels, and we're going to lock ourselves in the storage container and shoot anybody who comes through the door with a powersaw, right? And you estimate... 4 to 6 hours for a chopper? Yes, I think there's a good chance we can hold them that long, although I'd prefer '45 minutes for a squad car' given the choice, Dan. Yes... yes... we'll hang tight. God bless." John makes a quick pass through his living quarters and grabs anything that looks useful. Cameras, batteries, some small drones still in their wrapping, binoculars, some food, first aid kit. He'll place a call home once they're inside the container. He walks across the compound, and sees a youth, no more than 14 or 15 on lookout, swinging a machete idly, scraping the point across the ground, just outside of the gate. "We are fucked." He goes to one of the hexayurts and wakes a teacher who's doing translation work for the project. "Yes?" he says sleepily. John outlines the situation, and the teacher starts waking people up. In about five minutes, the leaders decide they're going to flee into the city, hope to escape detection, and ride it out. They stick out a lot less than the Americans. Peter and Yervis call. ETA 120 seconds. John takes aim at the boy, moves a couple of feet to the left, and fires. The round sinks into the timber of the gate house, and the kid scarpers. He goes to the gate house, and opens the gate. The staff flee into the night, grasping a few belongings or a bag here and there, and run for their lives, trying to lose themselves in the residential neighbourhoods. It might work, if they aren't followed. They haven't shed blood in this yet, so they may be as safe as anybody in the city is tonight. Harry Vine and Sally Yevish come running down the street, through the gate, and John electronically locks it

[passage 115](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) and there, and run for their lives, trying to lose themselves in the residential neighbourhoods. It might work, if they aren't followed. They haven't shed blood in this yet, so they may be as safe as anybody in the city is tonight. Harry Vine and Sally Yevish come running down the street, through the gate, and John electronically locks it behind them. They run over to the container. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" is about all that Yervis can say. Harry Vine's a lot more composed. "What's the plan?" John outlines the plan, and Harry says "we should be fine, then?" John breaks the news "Harry, these are old soldiers gone bad. They're very creative, this is their turf, we're outnumbered probably 50 to one, surrounded, and there isn't a single person willing to die for us within 100 kilometers, maybe more like 1000. There's a very good chance we are dead. Do you have any idea what an antique RPG will do to even the secure storage container? We'd be fried in a second. We Are Fucked." With a sinking feeling, Harry understands why people keep using that phrase. They're too polite to say "You and your idle curiosity, boy, you have killed us all." We. Are. Fucked. Now Harry understands. We're fucked. Inside the secure storage unit, there is chaos. It's 20 feet long, 8 feet square in cross-section, the international size for small containers. It's a theft-resistant unit, so thick metal coated with an abrasive elastomer, and a decent layer of insulation for temperature control. No point having all your computers perfectly safe from theft if they melt in the sun during transport. John's piled a few things in there, food, water, medical, and taken a pile of junk out. Thomas clangs down from the office, dragging a bag full of equipment behind him down the metal stairs. "Yevish, how many more gas grenades?" "I've got six total." "I'm going to drone-mount four of them and park them on the roof office, that should buy us some options. They'll be out of line of sight, element of surprise." They do have sensors. They have tech. They just don't have heavy weapons, force, positioning or anything else. "Yervish, Weapons?" "My pistol, your carbine, four dart guns, pepper spray, stun sticks, two soft armour jackets, and a lion trap. That's it." "Lion trap?" Even John is curious. "It's a stun stick in the shape of a net, used for big game. Biologists use them a lot." That sounds useful. I don't care why she brought it. It could be her idea of a sex toy for all I care right now. Thomas is strapped to goggles, flying a node around to see what they're up against. By now, there's another sentry at the gate, and they can hear an engine revving in the distance, menacing. "We better get inside" says John. They shoot at the sentries again to buy some time, not to kill, it wouldn't help, and once

[passage 116](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) right now. Thomas is strapped to goggles, flying a node around to see what they're up against. By now, there's another sentry at the gate, and they can hear an engine revving in the distance, menacing. "We better get inside" says John. They shoot at the sentries again to buy some time, not to kill, it wouldn't help, and once they're gone, bury the lion trap facing the container's entrance, put the gas grenades on drones and park them on the roof of the stacked container tower, and pile the remaining gear inside, and lock the armoured door from the inside. There are windows, and they have huge steel shutters which lock from the inside. As soon as the door is closed, Yervish says "excuse me" and curls up foetal position under a sleeping bag. She closes her eyes and beings to rock backwards and forwards slowly. "Air?" Harry asks as John turns on the lights. "43 hours breathable from the cannister in the walls - it's a person-week's worth in case somebody gets locked in - and low quality but survivable day or so from the rebreather in the gas masks" says John. They think of everything. "They are designed as holdout units too" says John, comfortably. "They're perfectly safe from mobs, they're just not a lot of good against soldiers. You'd be amazed how much of this kind of stuff used to happen, Harry. State got good at this stuff. Gas masks are mainly for outbreaks of airbourn disease, they're good enough you can probably walk out of a plague area." "Amazing. Anything else I should know about, John?" Thomas interupts them. "That engine? It's a flatbed truck, empty. They're going to load us on to it, and move us into the bush, and roast us out of here. We. Are. Fucked." And so they are. They watch in horror their respective goggles, except Yervish who is "taking a nap." The 18 wheeler cab demolishes the fence and rolls parallel to the container. It has a built-in loading crane. "John, let's open the windows and shoot them! We've got nothing to lose!" John consideres it. "Harry, if they get behind us, they'll jam the windows open from the top or bottom, out of our field of fire, and then... think petrol bomb. I don't think it's safe." Nothing is safe, but Harry concedes the point. Thomas drops the first gas grenade from a drone, then parks it back on the roof for some possible future application. The fizzing cannister lands behind the cab of the truck, and the drifting green cloud of sleeping agent fells half a dozen of the men, including the driver. He'll be out for six hours. But with four or five dozen men scattered around the site, it's just a matter of time. There's screaming from somebody outside. Two more grenades later, half an hour has passed, and they've located a gas mask somewhere. The lion net nails three of them, out cold, including

[passage 117](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) of the men, including the driver. He'll be out for six hours. But with four or five dozen men scattered around the site, it's just a matter of time. There's screaming from somebody outside. Two more grenades later, half an hour has passed, and they've located a gas mask somewhere. The lion net nails three of them, out cold, including the guy with the gas mask. They cut the net and retrieve it, and start the engine again. Gas will do nothing, so they save the fourth drone. Helpless they watch as the crane clangs against the steel of the container. It locks on, and lifts. They wobble into the air, lurching helplessly from side to side as it moves them on to the truck. Then the driver disengages the crane, and several dozen men pile on to the empty space behind the secure container on the truck, and more cram themsleves into the cab. Loaded, they set off. Thomas manages to swoop the fourth drone down under the truck as it approaches the gate, it's precious cargo of a single gas grenade swinging beneath it, and perches it on top of the massive main battery. In an enclosed space, that grenade might buy them half an hour, but out doors... five minutes at most. You never know. It's something. And they do have two guns. Harry decides, all practical decisions taken, it's time to call his father. Nothing. He can't get a signal out. They're using a jammer. We. Are. Fucked. ===== "Kinshasa... yes I'll hold. No, this is an emergency. No it cannot wait. No, I need to talk to the duty officer managing assets in Congo yesterday, or... yes, I'll hold." "Yes... four to six hours? Yes, I have the coords. Yes, that's about what I said, they're going to wait it out in a secure box, should hold that long easily. No, I don't see why not. Ok, yes, thank you and good night." The troops are on the way. Three hours later, a chopper touches down at the coordinates listed. They've made good time. Sixteen corpsmen disembark, and walk around looking for the secure container. After five minutes, one of them notices the truck tracks, and the message goes back up the line. "We're too late." ===== Gregory answers the call. It's 9:30AM his time. He's at home, checking buildings in Sudan. It's tagged diplomatic. At first he thinks it's work. "Hi... Mr. Vine? I... Yes, from the Embassy, yes, in the city of Kinshasa. I have some bad news. Your son's gone missing in Harappa. Yes. There was an incident last night, some locals forced them into the secure storage unit and removed it from the site. I'm very sorry." Overdrive. "I'm State Department, I work in Africa myself. There must be something I can do?" Pause. Conversation. "Yes, yes, I would very much like to see the footage, I don't know, yes, I'm next of kin, and yes, I have a clearance. Let

[passage 118](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) forced them into the secure storage unit and removed it from the site. I'm very sorry." Overdrive. "I'm State Department, I work in Africa myself. There must be something I can do?" Pause. Conversation. "Yes, yes, I would very much like to see the footage, I don't know, yes, I'm next of kin, and yes, I have a clearance. Let me send you a secure confirmation. You'll forward me the footage on recept? Great." Call ends. Gregory gets through sending the confirmation, then screams. He hurls the coffee cup against the wall, and little fragments bounce off the desk, on to the floor. When the footage comes through, it's very obvious what's going on. As soon as Gregory sees the pile of bones in the corner, behind the tied up girl, he knows: Guembe men. Sure enough, the name is in the transcripts, from before the last-known footage. Fuck. Catastrophy. Send in the marines. ===== Gregory uses his State Department channels to accelerate the call for military aid. Unfortunately, there's a problem. Colonel John Gibbons says no. "I'm very sorry about your loss, Gregory, but as you have already been told, your boy is technically a reservist, he's still in the military. By our rules, and I am technically his commanding officer, and I am absolutely not going to authorize a wild goose chase in Africa to try and recover the body of a man who is verly likely already dead, putting more American lives at risk. The rest of his party are not my concern, they are, according to our rules, under his command, and I am not rescuing your son's foolish, irresponsible and above all wasteful operation, I am sorry." "Why, Mr Vine? Surely you can answer that question for yourself? Because you, your brother, and your whole family tried to sneak that seditious little shit through my operation here at the base, and I always knew that he was a disloyal, scheming, conniving no good refusenik at heart. Let me read you this from my files..." Gregory considers, for a moment, driving over to the base and killing John Gibbons. But that won't bring his boy back. He checks the clock. His wife is due home at 4:30pm. He's not going to tell anyone. Not yet. Let it play out. He'll give the family conclusions. ===== Gregory looks at a map. Draws a locus three hours and fifteen minutes drive from the last known position, and sets it to continually grow as time passes. Down the major roads, it extends much further. He calls for new satellite imagery, and it starts to repopulate the map with the best available State Department imagery. There are benefits to this job. Unfortunately, there are no real assets in the Congolese area. But in Rwanda, there is a State base, and on that State base, there are four light blue painted heavy combat robots left over from an earlier age. They are gathering dust, technically kept around as base security, but

[passage 119](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) best available State Department imagery. There are benefits to this job. Unfortunately, there are no real assets in the Congolese area. But in Rwanda, there is a State base, and on that State base, there are four light blue painted heavy combat robots left over from an earlier age. They are gathering dust, technically kept around as base security, but practically speaking, they ornament a warehouse. They're about 250 kilometers from the Last Known Coordinates. Greg swipes a State Authorization chitty through a database, and authorizes an incredibly expensive private robologistics company to bring a turbojet helicopter and pick up four... "inspection robots" from the tarmac outside of the warehouse. No humans in the loop: no questions asked. At least not beforehand. While the robot helicopter is in the air, Greg makes some calls to buddies from the service. 20 minutes later, there's a hot simulator, and six pilots, so they'll absolutely, definitely have the manpower. They start drilling, getting back in the swing of things. Not all of them are flying every day like Greg. Phil pulls some strings, tries to get action from contacts in the service. Dead end. "I'm sorry. I'm sure Colonel Gibbons had his reasons. But as you know, Phil, the State Department can do what it damn well pleases in Africa, outside of the official war zones." Well, that at least gives them tacit approval. Gregory thinks about Kisangani. There's hardware he can fly down there. Two more phone calls. Phil pushes his luck. "So you do have an asset down there, four BR15s on a helicopter, and you just need targeting? No US personnel on the ground in the area, well... in that case... let me, er, see what I can do about this unfortunate situation. You are showing great initiative putting this together, Phil. Great initiative." What comes back is eighteen access codes for a mixture of agricultural survey planes and very, very nice wildlife monitoring drones which are currently in the air over nearby game reserves. Phil preens a little, but Gregory could kiss him right now, right on the beard. Gregory picks out the most likely areas for the truck to be, and the team hijacks the available drones to scour the area. About 20 minutes later, they have the truck. The optics on the wildlife drones are broadcast quality at two miles, they're very nearly the best available. Lucky, lucky. Gregory repositions the incoming robot delivery helicopter for the general neighbourhood of the truck. The helicopter is reasonably fast, and estimates 24 minutes to drop. The guys start checking weapons, reactor, battery, hydraulics and all the rest of the systems, dealing with the choppy, chaotic feed as the robots swing from their standard lift mounts underneath the four-rotor bird. Gregory realizes that he's very likely about to save his son's life. This puts a much, much better spin on the situation and, indeed, on Gregory's entire career than he'd ever imagined possible. "Operation Save Harry" might actually work. =====

[passage 120](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) systems, dealing with the choppy, chaotic feed as the robots swing from their standard lift mounts underneath the four-rotor bird. Gregory realizes that he's very likely about to save his son's life. This puts a much, much better spin on the situation and, indeed, on Gregory's entire career than he'd ever imagined possible. "Operation Save Harry" might actually work. ===== To the Guembe men, this is a special occasion. Within this tasty, tasty tin can, there are at least four killers. And there is nothing men of Guembe love more than to kill killers. Brothers tragically struck down in the primes of their lives, to never know the scent of charring flesh again, or the screams of those chosen to serve Guembe in pain and sorrow... this is a celebration! They know enough not to hang around before opening the present, though. Americans will be missed, jammers or not, and they do not want the Army interrupting dinner with an unfortunate drone strike. The truck drops the container on four large rocks, positioned in a rough rectangle, each about the size of a refrigerator. It settles uneasily on three of the rocks, and hovers just about the fourth. The Guembe men cheer, and start to pile wood underneath the container, clapping and laughing as they pack up the wood up against the sides. A barely-teenaged boy with a collar around his neck, on a long, long chain is sent under the container to light the fire, and for a moment he thinks they're going to leave him there, burn him as a snack to start the roast. The one eye'd king of the mob has a better idea. He drags the boy back on his chain, smashes a couple of bottles on the ground, and has the boy dance on the shards. They start to drum. A couple of rolls of razor wire are dragged from out of the belly of a school bus which has brought another few dozen Guembe men from a nearby settlement they have established. More arrive on pickup trucks piled high, or in cars seating no less than 8. It has been some time. The razor wire is laid out in rolls in front of the doors, to snare the catch when they open the doors, as they must, or simply roast inside. This is a good day, the king reflects. Maybe they'll roast the boy anyway! ===== We have visual. Thomas's drone has field of view over about half the scene from its hiding place, and we're not going to risk losing that to move it to a better vantage point. As anticipated, they're going to roast us out. We're going to die, right here, in this box. Before it gets too hot, what we need to do is kick open the doors, kill as many as we can, and try and make a break for it if we can secure a corridoor. There's maybe... 150 to 250 outside, though, and we've got... 42

[passage 121](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) going to roast us out. We're going to die, right here, in this box. Before it gets too hot, what we need to do is kick open the doors, kill as many as we can, and try and make a break for it if we can secure a corridoor. There's maybe... 150 to 250 outside, though, and we've got... 42 rounds of regular ammunition and another 40 rounds of sleep. And they're armed - we've seen pistols, a few antique rifles, but even a 40 year old AK47 will cut a man in half at close range, even through light armour possibly. Certainly disabling. We're dead. It's about 90F in the box now, and the floor is uncomfortably hot. We're perched on the furniture. Air's still good, though. They got that part right. Sally Yevish is back on her feet. "Trauma reaction. I got it out of my system, I'm better now. I figured there was nothing better to do with two hours. Now let's live." She is great in a crisis, it must be said. "Guys, look, we have... what, 15 minutes to act, perhaps 20? Before it's so hot in here we'll do whatever comes to mind when we open the door. I think our best chance is to open the window first, drop the sleep gas from the truck in the cab, and carve a corridoor from the window to the truck with covering fire from the window. From there, we drive the hell away from here, and never, ever look back." Of the available plans, it's the best. "Yevish, we've got a problem. There's major fire outside of the window. We can't do this" Thomas has a point, the remote shows flames half way up the side of the container. Yevish hoists a fire extinguisher. She's thought of everything. It's less than five meters to the truck bed, then six more to the cab, which will, pray god, by then contain only sleeping men and keys. It's 93F. Time to go. ===== Slowtime. Four units coming in, equally spaced in a 270 degree arc. Flamethrower is out in unit 3, and left forward gun is out in 1. No big deal, these systems are multiply redundant. The BR15 is a light drone, ton and a half, ideal for antipersonnel missions, no good against tracked armour. But it is specialized in "crowd control" applications. Each drone has a humanoid face on top, three meters high, on to which various emotions or even a remote talking head can be projected in real time, for hearts-and-minds type work. Cue propaganda reels of smiling children holding the massive steel hand of the BR15 as they talk about kittens. Greg has loaded up the Demon Reel on his. It's a collection of screaming faces and monsters cut from horror movies. It's always been a personal favourite. He goes first, in the closest, best-condition bot. It might not be, strictly speaking, tactically wise to have the most emotionally involved pilot in the

[passage 122](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) of the BR15 as they talk about kittens. Greg has loaded up the Demon Reel on his. It's a collection of screaming faces and monsters cut from horror movies. It's always been a personal favourite. He goes first, in the closest, best-condition bot. It might not be, strictly speaking, tactically wise to have the most emotionally involved pilot in the team in a bot, but it's also the way things have to be, and everybody else knows that. He gets to try, and if he fails, no other man is responsible for his son. And the others, not that they're really why we're here, Phil thinks. And... we're off. The rebels will have about sixty seconds of warning from the noise of the approaching units, but there's not likely to be a whole hell of a lot they can do about it, and they might just scatter away from the box, which would be great. Also the box gives good enough control that nothing but the heavy cannon will penetrate, so they can be fairly liberal with the flamethrowers etc. It does mean that the AP rockets are right out, and on this model, all the rockets are AP or incendiary, and right now... all AP. No rockets. Close work, then. Close... ish. They begin the run up. 300m to reach full speed, then roughly straight trajectories. Weapons stabilization is ineffective for 5 seconds at the start of a sprint until gait is compensated for properly, at least beyond about 200m, so they're going to be coming in quiet. The crowd is quite large and dispersed, says the guy on the bird. = As they start the run, Thomas whips the copter out of the truck's internals, and whips it up the side of the truck bed and lobs the gas grenade through the open window. One man sits with his hands on the wheel, another two are jammed into the open doorway on the other side of the truck, watching the fire. From here it's obvious how large the fire is, it's an inferno. The entire front half of the container is engulfed in flames. As he feared, if they go out the front, they'll be roasted alive before they hit the ground. They're... er... spitroasting a child in front of it. Fuck. One benefit of this plan over surrendering is the liklihood of a quick death. One drawback of this plan, over the "four shots with a dart gun each, and sleep through the roasting to death part" plan, which Thomas is not at all sure isn't the smart plan, is near-certainty that near-certain death is going to be very painful. No suicide caplets? I thought you said every contingency! The grenade activates with loud hiss. The men in the truck door yell, jump out, and hit the ground unconscious. The driver slumps into the steering wheel, activating the horn. The Guembe men rise as one and draw their weapons, and run towards the truck. = Yevish mans

[passage 123](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) be very painful. No suicide caplets? I thought you said every contingency! The grenade activates with loud hiss. The men in the truck door yell, jump out, and hit the ground unconscious. The driver slumps into the steering wheel, activating the horn. The Guembe men rise as one and draw their weapons, and run towards the truck. = Yevish mans the carbine, Harry takes the pistol, John takes the extinguisher, and Frank's got a dart gun but he's mainly there for news. Firing in goggles is not very accurate. Frank yanks the window bar, and kicks it open. John's at the back, leaning out with the extinguisher, pointed straight down. It's not that ineffective, it's working a bit. We're only two and a bit meters off the ground too, it's not so high! Yervish is at the front, and she's firing as fast as possible into the crowd which, given the gun is only semi, is fairly fast. Three or four more seconds of ammunition at this rate, then the dart gun. I'm banging away with the pistol. Four or five shots, perhaps three kills. I'm shit scared. I'm supposed to be out of the window first. I'm the driver. Bullets are ringing off the sides of the container, and dozens of men waving knives are running behind the truck to come round and get us from the back. The horn is incredibly loud, and it's totally zeroed our chances of success, because the entire mob is on their feet. We've lost the element of surprise. But there's nothing else to do but die later, so I'm about half way through the window firing at the men running at me from the side of the flatbed when the world erupts into a sheet of flame and blood. Huge caliber shells fired at fairly close range explode into the crowd, and a flamethrower covers the mob near the truck cabin in flaming gasoline. I start to reverse course, unable to comprehend what is happening, when I see the first tank come into vision. It leaps on to the back of the flatbed, and is firing into the crowd point-blank with two 20mm cannons on each arm and ripping people apart. They're screaming and running and being mown down as they stand. It's an abbetoir. Over the truck horn, an incredibly loud amplified voice screams at me GET BACK IN THE FUCKING BOX, HARRY! FUCK! It's my father. I just about get my leg back in as Yervish slams the armoured window closed. It's still dangerously hot in here, and smokey, from the guns as much as from the fire, and... "How'd it know your name?" God she's quick. "That's my Dad." Through the steel can we're trapped in, we hear the screams and gunfire for maybe fifteen more seconds, then only isolated shots for another ten minutes. Eventually there's a polite knock on the door. "OK GUYS, YOU CAN COME OUT NOW, AREA CLEARED!" I open the door. Outside is a

[passage 124](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) it know your name?" God she's quick. "That's my Dad." Through the steel can we're trapped in, we hear the screams and gunfire for maybe fifteen more seconds, then only isolated shots for another ten minutes. Eventually there's a polite knock on the door. "OK GUYS, YOU CAN COME OUT NOW, AREA CLEARED!" I open the door. Outside is a scene I immediately label the Third Holocaust. The area outside of the doors, where the main group had been seated, is covered in... paste. It's burned, charred, trodden-down persons. Towards the edge of that area, where the droids were running around gunning down survivors, there's the region of partial bodies, half a skull, a few limbs missing a torso, ribs. I spot a dog's hindquarters. Around that, there are the identifiably human dead. Missing a head, or missing most of their chest, bones blasted out by a 20mm round, or charred like pork by a flamethrower. And there are four robots, smoking slightly from hot oil baking off their moving parts, standing there in a row in the carnage. As we survey the devastation, in awe and horror, my father says to me "HEY SON, DO ME A FAVOUR! TAKE A PICTURE" He poses. And that's when it hits me. They've killed EVERYONE. Man, woman, child, dog, armed, unarmed, fleeing, captives even. There is not a single living thing within their radius of operations. My father is a war criminal. Fuck. They leave us in the box. "SAFEST PLACE FOR YOU" "SEE YOU AT HOME SOON!" This is getting weird. I've gotten him to turn off the horrorshow he had instead of a face. I'm sitting on the edge of the box, I don't want to go back in, but he's right - snipers, say, no good. We get back in. They guys are going to go to the local Guembe man base, and they're going to "clean it up" before leaving. Because it's a social service. Because they're saving lives. Because they're here. Because they can. My old man goes with them, rather than stay here with us, because... it's his last hurrah. Last combat drone engagement in his life, and he's saved my life, and my friends, and he's going to go and kill some more people to celebrate. Fuck, Dad. Fuck. We lock the door. Fifteen seconds later, there's a gentle tap on the door, or at least what passes for a giant tap from a giant killer robot. Thence came a last command. "OH, AND PLEASE, NOT ONE WORD TO YOUR MOTHER!" And then they're gone. I ponder the implications of that. They've figured out how to get regular troops out here in a couple of hours, something administrative got fixed, he didn't explain and I didn't understand, but we're... meant to say that we have no idea what happened, we were in the box, and then stuff happened, and then... I crypted him the pictures and deleted them. No evidence on me. I begin to

[passage 125](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) to get regular troops out here in a couple of hours, something administrative got fixed, he didn't explain and I didn't understand, but we're... meant to say that we have no idea what happened, we were in the box, and then stuff happened, and then... I crypted him the pictures and deleted them. No evidence on me. I begin to think that Yervish had something with the foetal position on the floor thing. Fuck, Dad, Fuck. We sit inside of our earstwhile tomb, drinking. John's got a bottle of whisky he found in a box in the back of the secure container, and we're taking turns swilling it down, waiting for the... cavelry. Thomas looks insane. His goggles are still on his forehead, his hair is matted, he's just cracked, perhaps carrying the load for all of us. He's staring at the wall, and then at us, and then at the wall. I'm beginning to worry. Then he turns to me and says "man... I wish my dad was as cool as your dad is." Yervish just about turns green. John can't hack it. I start to laugh. We're alive, we're in the box, and I officially have the coolest father in the world. My laugh is infectious, the release of the tension, and the horror outside the door. It's hysteria, and for about fifteen or twenty minutes, all we do is sit in the goddamned box, toasting my father's health, giggling and screaming with laughter about the scene outside. Yervish even gets up and mimics his pose, enormous metal hand on hip, The Man. We fall about the place. It is the funniest thing I've ever seen. Somewhere in there, I pass out from stress and reaction shock and tiredness and adrenaline, and that's the last thing I know until the troops arrive. Knocking on the door, and an American voice. "Sirs and Ma'am, it's safe to come out now. Please open the door." Shhhh. Play dumb. ===== By 4:30 PM, things are back in order. The robots are on their way back to Rwanda. The guys have arranged a reunion and are booking plane tickets as we speak. I'm officially the coolest dad in the world, a damn fine drone pilot, and... without a doubt... the luckiest father that's ever lived. I've never felt better about my life, my family, or my work. President Knight's vision is why I went to State. I met my wife because of State, and I just saved my life with State assets. And if anybody gives us any shit, we're going to leak the entire thing, footage from the bots and all, and we'll be national heroes. There would be consequences. We'd never work again. But, right now, that's all details. I think I can count on Harry to keep his mouth shut, although I certainly couldn't, given the circumstances. I'll brief Peter, just the outlines, no operational details, and embargo it. All I have to do now is... ... act normal...

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Continues in https://guptaoption.com/texts/148-10.md (part 10 of 11).
End of [148] Mother of Hydrogen, part 9 of 11. Its connections are at the top of this file; the map is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt.