The UN envoy and her bodyguards were dead, of course. Alice still couldn’t figure why the Moles had done that. They had been logical in their demands until then. Unreasonable, yes, deluded, certainly, but they hadn’t crossed the line into crazy town. Even after their bootstrapped systems had slaughtered the first two waves of Marines, their requests had been clear enough: recognition of Mars as an independent colony, and ownership rights to the land they had already colonized. The UN agreed to open talks after those early military debacles, hence the envoy offering to speak at the Martian Parliament. That’s when it had all gone wrong. The Moles butchering the UN team on live TV, and sending the Virt worldwide.