Jana!
Dana Polansky watched for a moment as the emergency detail emerged from the thickest part of the crowd and made for a nearby church, along one edge of the plaza, along the Rue de Rivoli. It was an ornate, almost gothic building in the shadow of the Hotel Crillon and Dana knew it had long ago been taken over by the Assimilationists.
They were taking her daughter right toward it!
Dana Polansky shivered, sprang out of bed, grabbed a jacket from the closet, and dashed out the door of their apartment, practically running, gesturing frantically for a taxi, trying to get to that church as fast as she could, anyway she could…before something really terrible happened.
No way was she going to let Jana fall into the hands of those freaks.
Chapter 2
UNIFORCE Headquarters
The Quartier-General, Paris
March 26, 2155
1845 hours U.T.
General Lamar Quint was right in the middle of composing a report to UNSAC about what Sentinel and Farside had detected out beyond the inner Kuiper belt when the apparition first appeared in his office. He’d been scanning after-action reports from recent Quantum Corps ops when a faint rustle along the window got his attention.
When he looked up, he saw a faint shimmer in front of the glass. At first, he thought it was only a reflection of night-time Paris outside. Jetcab and turbo traffic was always fierce at this hour along the Boulevard St. Michel. The 5th Arrondisement was thick with tourists and pilgrims swarming around the City of Light for the upcoming Easter week.
But it was no reflection. As Quint stared, the shimmer evolved into something thicker, something with faint pops and flashes of light embedded, the thing eventually mutating into a fog which obscured the window altogether.
The hairs on the back of Quint’s neck stood up. He knew what this was and how the hell did an unknown swarm make it past UNIFORCE security screens anyway? Even as he glared dumbfounded at the gathering form, he told himself he wasn’t imagining the apparition. He’d had a light dinner downstairs in the officers’ mess, maybe a few too many wines, but then this was Paris, after all, and he felt clear-headed.
Even as he watched, Quint could see the form materializing into something more substantial. Whatever it was, the config was good. Only a few flickers and pops of light and the thing was already beginning to take on visible substance as its bot master slammed atoms to build structure, to look like—
No, there was no way this could be—
The very fact that an unknown swarm could have breached some of the tightest security screens this side of Mars made Quint uneasy and as he was about to sound the alarm, the form snapped suddenly into full blown substance, no longer a shimmering veil but now recognizably, incredibly…this can’t be happening, maybe I did have one too many Merlots…one Johnny Winger.
General John Winger right in front of him. A nanobotic angel, a blast from the past.
Quint rubbed his eyes. He knew all the details by heart, how Winger had perished on Europa back in ’21, during the Jovian Hammer mission, presumed to have been consumed by the Keeper that had been trolling across the icescape of that tortured world. The memorial service was the stuff of legend. He’d seen the vid more times than he cared to remember. The original atomgrabber and now…and now….
“You can’t be…what you look like.” Quint muttered. “This is some kind of trick, some kind of config…and how the hell did you get in here anyway?” He moved to press the alarm button under his desk, but the angel spoke, loud and clear and in a voice that sounded authentic.
“General…before you go sounding alarms…let me explain.” The angel’s face and mouth tracked well, no blurs, no pixelating, no delays, no latency. Damn, this one’s good, Quint realized.
“Why don’t you do that, son?” Quint slowly withdrew his hand from the button, then steepled both hands on his desk and eyed the swarm cautiously. No sudden moves, nice and easy. He didn’t know what this angel was capable of.
The swarm drifted closer, but kept some distance from Quint’s desk. It stood at something like attention. In every detail Quint could see, the angel was a near perfect replica of the original Johnny Winger. But that couldn’t be…Winger had died thirty-four years ago.
“Despite what you may be thinking, General, I am actually Johnny Winger. I know what this looks like but I can prove it to you.”
Quint was dubious, to say the least.
“I doubt that but go ahead.”
“Well—“a hint of a smile, “obviously I look a little different than I used to. In fact, your eyes aren’t deceiving you, General. I am a swarm. But I’m still Johnny Winger. In fact, my original memories and identity are still around, tucked away in a drawer, you might say.” Winger didn’t want to go any further than that…the Shadow Man might be listening in, might already know the truth of what he had become.
“You don’t say—“
How do I convince this dinosaur? Winger wondered. “I used to be married. Dana Tallant. I had…have…one son Liam and a daughter Rene. They’ve all—well, let’s just say they’re like me. I shoved off for Europa on the Jovian Hammer mission on February 25, 2121, on board the Kepler. The dock hands called her K-Dog. Hideki Yamato was captain. I scored a ninety-eight percent on my first SODs test in nog school, you can check that out with the Academy…”
Quint put up his hands. “Those are all publicly known facts. Just data. Any spy could come up with that.”
Now Winger’s expression changed. More like a knowing kind of smirk. “You’re right, General. Probably there’s nothing factual I can say that’ll convince you that I really am Johnny Winger. So I’ll try another approach—“
Quint’s face hardened. How do I get Security in here without activating something? His mind raced with possibilities….
“So, I’ll try the truth…why I’m here. General, I let myself be consumed by the Keeper on Europa. It was a deliberate act.”
“Why would you do that? I never knew the Great Atomgrabber to be a suicidal maniac.”
Now it was Winger’s turn to pose a question. “Why did we try so hard to put agents and informants and operatives inside Red Hammer?”
Quint was rapidly growing impatient with this little game. Still, maybe it was best to humor this rather insolent angel…Jeez, what an attitude. “I don’t know…intel? Recon? Sabotage?”
“Exactly,” Winger said. “That’s what I’m doing like this. The Keeper’s nothing but a forward observer for the Old Ones…the big cahuna. Surely you’ve heard of them…it’s been in all the news.”
“Very funny. So you’re a…what? A spy? A saboteur? A swarm inside of a swarm? Isn’t that stretching things a bit?”
“Look, I know this is hard to take,” Winger said. The angel leaned forward, wrapped both hands around the edge of the desk. No fuzz, no blurs. You could almost believe this actually was John Winger. “And I don’t have a lot of time. I’m taking a risk even doing this.”
“What…now you’re going to dissipate if you don’t get home by midnight? Come on, ‘General Winger’, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“No and you didn’t become CINCQUANT by closing your mind and holding your breath. Will you just listen, for God’s sake?”
Now Quint glared back, saying nothing. Maybe I can reach that button, before he zaps me. Carefully, he unlaced his fingers and splayed them open on top of the desk. “I’m listening…for the moment.”
“The Mother Swarm is on our front doorsteps…you know that as well I do. Farside’s basically confirmed that. What the hell do you think this KB-1 anomaly really is…Little Red Riding Hood? Look, the Mother Swarm operates according to some program called the Prime Key. I don’t understand it myself…it’s like a main program. A major algorithm, something like that. The Old Ones are coming, they’re here now. They mean to absorb everything into the swarm…like Earth, the Sun, all the planets. T
he truth is they’re the ones who seeded life on this planet, only it didn’t turn out like they wanted. We’re supposed to all be swarms…like me. Evolved from viruses. But that didn’t happen. Evolution went off the track. Man is a mistake. So they’re coming back to fix that mistake.”
Quint scowled. “I’ve heard all this before…it’s the same old Assimilationist crap.”
“It’s not crap,” Winger told him. “It’s the truth. They even plan on building a forward base somewhere on Mercury, maybe Caloris Basin, if that means anything to you. And some kind of ring to intercept as much of the Sun’s energy as they can. Quint, we don’t have much time. I have some room to get around, to maneuver inside this…mother swarm. Don’t ask me to explain it. But I have intel I need to get to UNSAC. You should be making plans right now, plans to equip an expedition to Mercury, something to stop this. I can work from inside. But you have to do your part as well.”
This is all just a bad dream, Quint told himself. Maybe those Merlots were stronger than I thought…the French do that. “Okay, General…I’ll humor you. If you really do have some intel we can use to fight off this KB-1 anomaly, Old Ones, Mother Swarm, whatever you want to call it, how does that intel get to us? To UNIFORCE? Is there some way you can set up a schedule of contacts, download a file, show me some pictures or something…UNSAC’s going to want some bona fides as well, something to prove you’re not just a case of me having indigestion.”
The Winger angel gave that some thought, if a swarm could be said to think. “I’m actually running a pretty serious risk even being here now. But I intend to do whatever I can to stop the Old Ones…without us working together, we have no chance.”
And, with that, the angel began dispersing. Quint had more questions, but Johnny Winger had other ideas. He watched with amazement as Winger began fading out, going almost translucent, almost like an old photo. In minutes, the faintest outline of the angel was all the remained, dust motes caught in shafts of light from outside the window. Maybe that’s all it ever was…dust motes. Then, even the dust motes were gone.
And Lamar Quint was left with only the image and nothing more. They’ll think I’m as loony as a monkey reading poetry.
Quint rubbed his eyes and blinked. No Johnny Winger stood before him. He got up and went to the window. Normal tourist traffic outside. Jetcabs swirling around the Eiffel Tower, buzzing lovers in Luxembourg Gardens next door, alighting like moths outside street cafes to disgorge their fares.
He decided to talk a walk, maybe a little fresh air and without really meaning to, found himself riding a lift up to the eightieth floor, to UNSAC’s suite of offices in the Command Center. He went through all the security screens, retinal scans and other biometrics and asked the duty officer outside UNSAC’s office if the Commissioner was in quarters.
“Yes, sir, Madame Commissioner is in quarters but asked not to be disturbed the rest of the evening. Would you like to leave a message, sir?”
Quint scowled down at the scrawny buzzcut O-3 anchoring the desk. The captain’s name plate read Towley. Probably assembled from parts of recruiting posters, he decided.
“Captain, please inform the Commissioner that I would like to see her on a matter related to KB-1…it is urgent.”
Towley looked like he had just sat on a rake. His eyes narrowed. “Of course, sir. I’ll put it right through.”
Two minutes later, Quint was shown into the office suite of UNSAC. Angelika Komar was tall, red-haired and had a face like a schoolteacher, Quint had always thought. Darting eyes, always ferreting out misbehavior or original thinking among her downtrodden students. CINCQUANT could well imagine Komar brandishing a rod, always ready to smack the hands of any wayward charges.
Komar offered Quint a drink. They stood together for a moment, toasting nighttime Paris, then stepped out on the veranda to get a better view. Only the faint veil of a nanobotic security barrier marred the scene.
Quint described what he had just encountered in his own office. “I don’t know whether it was an angel, or a ghost or just indigestion. But the thing looked and acted like General John Winger.”
Komar sipped at her Chardonnay. “Nonsense. Oh, I suppose somebody’s cooked up an angel that resembles the General. It wouldn’t be hard…he was the most decorated atomgrabber in Quantum Corps history. There must be trillions of images and likenesses floating around in the ether. But after thirty years…even if it was an angel, why now? Why thirty years after the General was consumed in a blaze of glory on Europa? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“None of this makes sense,” Quint admitted. He polished off his own drink, momentarily tested the barrier. It buzzed and kicked his fingers back, like it was supposed to.
“The…thing, angel, whatever…said it was inside the mother swarm of the Old Ones. That he was somehow deconstructed and absorbed but had maintained his original identity, if you can believe that. He said he was working to sabotage the Old Ones from inside. I couldn’t think of what to say back.”
Komar put a hand on Quint’s shoulder. “Let’s just say I have doubts that what you witnessed was in any way, shape or form General John Winger. Face it, Lamar, you imagined the whole scenario. It’s either a trap laid by elements working for the Old Ones or a stress reaction to all that’s been going on.”
Quint sighed. “A distinct possibility, Madame Commissioner.”
Komar was sympathetic. “I want you to sign yourself into sick bay tomorrow for a checkup, Lamar. I need my top staff whole and hearty for the days ahead.”
Quint agreed to do that and left. Maybe she’s right, he told himself on the lift down to the seventieth floor. I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately. And with what Sentinel has been reporting lately, anybody would be spooked.
He resolved to do as UNSAC had ordered and returned to his own quarters, intending to find something that would help him sleep later.
Dana Polansky fairly flew out of the cab as it jerked to a stop along the Rue d’Aguesseau, near the Place de la Concorde. She was worried sick about Jana and even as she hustled up the street, weaving in and out among knots of rally-goers and sidewalk cafes jammed with late-night revelers, she spied the gothic spires of St. Michael’s Church of the Uplift in the distance.
She’s in there. She has to be in there. Those freaks aren’t taking Jana Polansky away from her mother without a fight.
Dana had triggered the MOBnet to fire when she became concerned Jana was getting sucked into that Assimilationist rally too far. A mother had a right to do that, didn’t she? Any mother concerned for her baby would have done the same thing.
Now, the freaks had bundled her off into that creepy church on the hill, two blocks off the Champs Elysees, a one-time house of worship long ago taken over by the haloheads, as some critics liked to call the Church of the Assimilation.
Mother Swarm, my ass, she muttered as she ran up the steps and barged in through the heavy oak doors.
The interior of St. Michael’s was cool and dark, with sturdy oak pews lined up chevron-style on a stone floor. The chancel was bathed in a blue-white light but there were no crosses or images of Jesus anywhere she could see. Even the stained-glass windows, pane after pane of saints and demons and angels and unknown bishops had been morphed over time to show scenes more beholden to the Assimilationists…long queues at the deconstruction booths, clouds roiling a sunset sky, deep-field images of stars erupting out of the dark and intergalactic nebulae all over the place.
“Excuse me, madam, may I help you?”
The voice startled Dana so much she nearly jumped out of her heels. She turned, saw a wizened old white-haired man in a deep burgundy robe. He wore some kind of metallic head cap, like a prayer cap made of mesh.
Dana blinked for a moment. Probably the rector, she surmised. Or what do they call them here…the gatherer?
“Yes…I’m sorry, sir…I was looking for my daughter. Her name’s
Jana…she was at the rally…the awakening. Some people carried her in here—“ she couldn’t very well tell him the truth…that she’d placed a spybot on her daughter because she didn’t really trust her among all the Assimilationist freaks and then triggered its MOBnet feature like the paranoid witch she really was…according to Jana.
The gatherer folded wrinkled hands, skin thin as rice paper, inside his robe. “I’m sorry…I don’t think I’ve seen anyone in here all night. The rally, you know…they were all outside.”
Dana knew perfectly well that Solnet’s dronecam had captured a MOB’ed figure, writhing and thrashing about, and being dragged right into this very building. She couldn’t very well tell the gatherer that either.
“I’m sorry, sir…I had numerous witnesses—“ yeah, like the whole rally, “—they were most insistent…I’m sure she’s here. Mind if I have a look around?”
The gatherer’s face seemed to morph right in front of her. Maybe it was the shadows. Maybe it was the lighting. Maybe the man was an angel and had the nanoderm treatment to make his face shift from an ancient Judean priest to a Halloween mask and back.
“You are not yet awakened, miss.” It was a statement, not a question. “Those who are not fully awakened may not pass beyond the veil.” His hand swept out, revealing a shimmering nanobotic barrier that Dana was sure hadn’t been there before. It filled the entire sanctuary, from the row of columns on one side to the columns on the other. The barrier hung like a translucent tapestry flickering and popping with a trillion tiny lights.
Dana studied the gatherer with a deep and dawning suspicion that he knew perfectly well what she was talking about. She felt the suspicion in the pit of her stomach and years of reporting and interviewing had honed that feeling to a knife edge. She knew when she was being conned.
Jana was here. But where? And how to find her?
Then it came to her. The dronecam. And she knew some of the operators in the Paris office.
Dana mumbled a good bye to the gatherer and dashed out of the church. On the steps outside, while cabs and turbos flashed by along the street, she called Solnet Paris. Henri Lusayn was on duty in drone ops.