***aw, c’mon, Boss…have a heart…I’m beat up and really hurting down here***
But Winger paid no attention. Receiving the command, ANAD executed new config changes, grabbing atoms as best he could to cloak his processor in the structure of a simple dust mote. Moments later, from Winger’s position just below the top of the ridgeline, an unearthly tornado of dust suddenly erupted into the very midst of the enemy swarm. The tornado accelerated upward, expanding outward like an inverted funnel, filtering into the swollen clouds scudding over the mountains. Inside the clouds, water droplets began to grow.
For many minutes, nothing seemed to happen. The enemy mechs continued replicating, smothering the troopers caught at the top of the hill. But gradually, the pressure of the assault seemed to lessen. A fierce driving rain soon lashed the hills.
Soaked but finally able to breathe, Mighty Mite Barnes managed to drag herself to her feet, helping Sheila Reaves do the same. They both lifted their faces to the stinging rain.
“What the hell’s going on?” Reaves asked, shielding her eyes from the downpour. “Is there a front coming through?”
‘I don’t know,” Barnes said, looking around uneasily. She closed the faceplate of her helmet to keep dry. “But I got a feeling about this…something tells me Wings is behind this.”
All along the tops of the range, the swirling squall line expanded outward, leaping amid crackles of lightning from one hilltop to another. The rainstorm soon collided with the swarm of OpFor mechs, joined moments later by a deluge from the skies. Seams of electrical discharge split the air like curtains of fire, showering sparks and pops everywhere.
One by one, the cadets of the Detachment rose up, squinted through the rain and stood dumbfounded at the scene.
Bit by bit, the OpFor swarm was enveloped and vaporized by the rolling thunder of the oncoming weather front.
And that was when Major Kraft and the referees decided to stop the wargame.
An after-action review was held at the Ops center at Table Top. Cadet Dana Tallant, leader of the OpFor detachment, glared across the review board, actually a holographic model of the gaming range complete with Valleyville and all the terrain features. She glared at Johnny Winger with barely disguised fury.
“It wasn’t fair, Major. It was beyond the rules of engagement. OpFor…my detachment of 2nd Nano troopers, were blindsided.”
While the troopers bickered back and forth, Kraft read dryly from the official findings of the referees:
The dust storm seeded the nearby clouds, accelerating the formation of superheavy raindrops. Electrical discharges from breaking atomic bonds among the OpFor swarm enhanced the precipitation event, due to the bipolarity of water molecules. A rain event, basically a thunderstorm, was created by the well-timed replication of ANAD assemblers, assuming the structural form of molecules of silver nitrate and oxides of silicon…basic dust from the local terrain. The precipitation event and locally intense lightning discharges destroyed the OpFor swarm in minutes.
It was, in every respect, a tactically unique response to an enemy assault.
Major Kraft put the findings down and glared at Johnny Winger. “I suppose you can explain this, Mr. Winger?”
Winger cleared his throat. He averted his eyes from Dana Tallant. She didn’t like to lose any more than he did.
“I wasn’t sure what would happen, Major. We’ve experimented, me and ANAD, a little…seeding clouds to see what would happen. I didn’t think it was out of bounds. The rules of engagement—“
“—say nothing about this…I know, I know.” Kraft sighed. “Mr. Winger, at least your solution to the Big Bang scenario has the virtue of never having been tried before. It was….how shall we put it: unique. And definitely not in the book.”
“It was a stab in the back, Major,” Tallant insisted. She glared over at Winger. “To modify the weather in the middle of a wargame is like changing the rules in the middle of the game. Begging the Major’s pardon, but this invalidates the results of the exercise.”
“On the contrary—“ said Dr. Irwin Frost, who was also in attendance, “modifying weather using swarms of assemblers is quite interesting…a solution I would never have thought of. Johnny, how did you think of this?” Frost came from Northgate University. He had fathered the original ANAD several years before.
Winger shrugged. He looked over at Dana Tallant. “I honestly didn’t know what would happen when it started raining on the OpFor mechs. I figured it was worth a try.”
Kraft made a decision. “Cadet Tallant, technically you’re right: modifying the weather during the wargame isn’t covered under the rules of engagement. The referees stopped the exercise because I ordered them to. The technique is unproven and unpredictable, it seems to me, despite the results today. But we need to explore it further. That’s why we’re here in the first place: to develop tactics and techniques to employ ANAD in our mandated missions.” He looked at Winger with something like a mixture of annoyance and admiration. “And to test cadets’ abilities to follow orders, effectively employ ANAD and demonstrate sound tactical judgment, something any atomgrabber needs. It seems that Cadet Winger, despite obvious shortcomings, has demonstrated that he can employ ANAD effectively in a combat scenario.”
Winger shook his head. After days of practice and a few late-night ‘conversations,’ he felt he knew the little assembler as well as he knew any of the nogs at Table Top. “It was strange at first, not having to drive ANAD with the control panel.” He flexed his fingers. “Me…I learned the old fashioned way…how to park an ANAD inside a benzene ring, how to snap a covalent bond…with my hands on a stick.”
Kraft cleared his throat. “Cadets, you’ve all done better than I expected on the AQT. But I’m not running a kindergarten here. This is a combat outfit and we’ve got missions to perform. If Cadet Winger does anything else to jeopardize the mission, he’ll be personally answering to me. Is that clear?”
Winger nodded quickly. “Perfectly, sir. We won’t let you down, Major.”
“We?”
Winger smiled tentatively. “Me and ANAD, sir.”
Kraft groaned and ended the briefing. “Decisions on who makes the cut and gets an invitation to nog school will be coming out tomorrow. These decisions are always hard for me. You’re a good class, if a bit over enthusiastic. Some of you will be disappointed. Don’t take it personally. You can always apply next year. For now, lifters will take you back to the Mountain. Liberty is authorized at 1800 hours tonight. It ends at 2400 hours, promptly. Assemble tomorrow at Galland Hall at 0800 hours. That’s when the announcements will be made. Dismissed.”
Caden waited until just before 1800 hours, right at shift change for the Containment techs and the guard force, and slipped out of the Barracks. He took the nanoderm again, waited ten minutes in the john and took a quick peek in the mirror. Now, he was ‘Lieutenant Mehlkopf’ again, in all but name, right down to the ID. He walked briskly through a chill and biting afternoon breeze, noting the pale orange of the sun already rolling around the horizon like a beach ball, and made the facility in five minutes. He flashed his badge and 1st Nano ID, expecting to gain admittance easily enough but the guard noted something on his display and asked the Lieutenant to wait one, while he reset the bioscanner.
"Only take a minute, sir…probably a glitch in the system. Your ID's been flagged for some reason…."
That's when Caden jammed a PKR coilgun into the guard's ribs and fired. He'd already set the weapon to 20K--enough to fry bacon at a hundred meters--and the guard flew backward like a ragdoll, landing hard on the cement walkway outside the security shack. Caden quickly pocketed the weapon, cycled the bioscanner and dragged the guard back in by his feet. He propped the poor fellow up so the retinal sensor would see his dilated eyes and popped the SCAN button. This time, the access controller read the guard's already-permitted retinal pattern.
Behind them, the mai
n access door hissed open. Caden dropped the guard to the floor and hustled inside, working his way methodically through more doors and hatches, following the route laid out on his eyespecs.
Caden cycled the final hatch door, using his own retinal scan as ID. Inside Containment, he no longer cared if the logs showed unauthorized entry or not.
In a few minutes, none of that will matter, he told himself. In a few minutes, the whole base will be swarming with ANAD, out of control and replicating at maximum rates.
Inside the Level 4 compartment, he burst through the final door and saw the containment unit, a squat gray cylinder about the size of a coffin, parked in the middle of the chamber on an isolation pad, tethered by thick ganglia of wires, cables, hoses and flexpiping.
He checked his watch, noting only a minute had passed since he had fried the guard outside.
The cavalry will be arriving any minute now, he muttered to himself. He figured he had about three minutes to do the job. Grimly, he set to work.
Even as he deftly navigated the cylinder's systems, he felt fiery pinpricks all over his neck and back. Mosquitoes? Couldn't be. He slapped and patted at the welts that were forming on his skin. What the hell was that? Felt like a bee sting. But there couldn't be any such thing inside Level 4 containment.
Ouch, dammit!
He slapped at his neck again, as another fiery bite made his skin crawl.
One by one, he addressed the cylinder's systems, preparing this version of ANAD for combat launch at max rep. He toggled through each stage of the prep and deploy sequence: nutrient flow, power, monitoring--always one step ahead of the unit's self-protection circuitry until, finally, the cylinder was ready, ANAD was powered up and primed for launch, ticking over inside the chamber like a bomb ready to explode.
He scrolled through the config templates, resetting each Security delay, until he came at last to the Big Bang, the max rate replication command. Still, stinging and slapping at bites and welts--what the hell is that?--he authenticated each stage with his own ID, and drilled down to the final command.
Then, he knew what it was. More bites and stings, getting worse. Caden backed away from the cylinder controls for a moment, and ripped off his jacket and shirt, tossing them into the corner. Wei Ming had been right. Somehow, some way, he'd been tagged. Security mechs were probably crawling all over him. Most likely, they were already in the air, circulating through the Containment center like miniscule guard dogs. Now that he was inside Containment, somebody was working the swarm to stop him, trying their best to distract him from what he had to do.
It won't work, guys. Not this time.
He sent the final command, and at the same time, released the last valve isolating ANAD inside the cylinder. There was an audible whoosh! as a slug of high-pressure air and fluid sprayed into the compartment. In seconds, a visible cloud had darkened the ceiling, as ANAD exploded in max rate replication, grabbing atoms furiously to build and replicate structure. Like its namesake, the Big Bang was an explosion of nanomech division, a runaway freight train consuming everything in its path.
Caden ducked, still slapping and clawing at the pinpricks of the Security mechs eating his skin, and scuttled back out of the compartment. He ran headlong through the locks and hatches and exited the Containment building--right into the waiting arms of the Security detail that had already been alerted.
" Nathan Caden," came a voice from the detail, "--you're under arrest. Please step away from the door and keep your hands where I can see 'em, sir. I'm just going to--"
Caden wasn't dumb but spinning away from the detail to charge at the officers wasn't the brightest thing he had ever done.
He lunged at the lead officer, a Major Lofton from Base Security. The officer fired back, all of them now, discharging a MOBnet ejector just as the Caden came into range. It stopped Caden cold, the linked mesh of nanomechs forcing the man steadily to the ground. He squirmed a bit, but gave up, knowing it was useless.
Major Lofton was there too and he bent down to give Caden a good once-over. The cadet was bound up nice and snug; the more he struggled, the more the mechs squeezed back. A simple command would have snapped the mechs tighter still, like a miniature clampdown.
Suffocate the slimebag, Lofton thought. He could have done it with a clear conscience too. But then a million questions would have gone unanswered.
"Look out!" a voice cried out.
Lofton looked up just in time to see the gray cloud of exponentially replicating ANAD mechs boiling out of the Containment building like a tornado. The Security detail, with its prisoner firmly in tow, scattered in all directions.
Alarms and sirens blared out across the mesa and Table Top Mountain was quickly in an uproar. Caden was immobilized and dragged off to a bunker in the basement of the Ops Center.
Lofton fled too, but diverted left along the grassy quadrangle, toward the hangars and the ordnance and mission prep complex. That’s when he saw the trio of lifters from the Hunt Valley wargame range touching down at the North Lift Pad. He changed direction, tried to wave them off.
"It's a Big Bang!" he heaved out. “Get back…get the hell out of here!” Cadets began dismounting, confused, a little awed at the sight. They weren’t sure what was happening. Then D’Nunzio saw the boiling cloud.
“Look! Look there…mechs…it’s a bang!” They ducked and weaved and dodged others as troops streamed in every direction across the grounds. Loudspeakers thundered across the quadrangle.
"All hands…this is a Code One alert, CODE ONE ALERT…all hands, man your stations. Repeat…CODE ONE ALERT!!"
Johnny Winger sized up the situation. Major Kraft wasn’t with the cadets. Lieutenant ‘Wormy’ was in command of the cadets. Winger ran up. “Sir, it’s just like what we simmed at Hunt Valley…it’s a Big Bang…we know how to handle this—“
Wormy looked like he was about to cry. “You’re just cadets…get to your Barracks and stay there until further orders. We can handle this!”
“But, sir—“
“Now!”
Winger and Tallant and D’Nunzio bit their tongues and started hustling toward Galland Hall.
"They need containment out here!" Winger yelled. "Mobile containment--"
"--and magpulse weapons!--" added Barnes.
Asked later to explain his motivations for disobeying Lieutenant Wormy’s orders, Johnny Winger could only fall back on that moment in Net School when the principal Mr. Costner had come into the lab to tell Johnny his parents had been in car crash. You made whatever decision the moment required, whatever decision life threw at you. He hadn’t waited for permission to leave school then. He hustled out of school without a moment’s reflection on whether it was permitted. He had to be there, at the hospital in Colorado Springs…right now. It wasn’t a conscious thought. It was gut logic. Sometimes, your gut knew more than your brain.
That was his explanation for the official inquiry.
So Johnny Winger veered off from the rest of them and took a shortcut toward the Ordnance/Mission Prep building. They’d just kitted out for the AQT test that morning at O/MP.
“Where the hell’s he going?” D’Nunzio asked. Nobody replied. But they all changed course and followed.
They raced into the mission prep hall, ignoring fleeing guards and gathered every tech they could find.
From inside the bunker, Johnny Winger watched the ANAD swarm, replicating out of control, boiling across the lifter pads of North Field, a gray fog swelling and expanding into every corner of the base complex. His stomach turned at the sight. Even as he watched, fleeing troopers were caught in the swarm and went down, engulfed and consumed like the raging wildfires that sometimes swept through the Buffalo range of southern Idaho.
If we don't contain it soon, the swarm will spill out of the base and head off into the hills. The entire state could be at risk, parts of Canada too, he realized.
Already the thing had
swelled to dimensions that no MOBnet could handle.
It was the very same nightmare scenario they'd studied and discussed and theorized in class for the last two weeks. An effective defense had never really been demonstrated. Now, it was all too real…and heading right for them.
Winger knew they'd need every defense they could devise. MOBnet and any other shielding they could find. Counter-nanoswarms, if they could be launched and programmed fast enough. Atmospheric manipulation. Magpulse weapons. All the gadgets they’d learned about at Table Top. And probably more.
Ideas flew around the mission bunker thick as dust.
"Somehow, I've got to get to the master," Winger said. "If I can get a signal through that swarm, I’m sure I can counter-program…maybe stop the replication."
"Too dangerous," Deeno D’Nunzio said. "Swarm's too thick, too active. You'd never get close enough. And you’re just a cadet, like Wormy said. These troopers know what to do.”
“Do they? Look at them…they’re running in every direction. You heard what the instructors said. Even Ironpants Kraft said it: the Big Bang has no effective counter. You have to stop it before it starts.”
“Yeah, that’s what the book says.”
“Hey, we can do this…we can help. You want to be atomgrabbers…now’s your chance. We know what to do…we’ve had all the classes, the exercises, the tactics and strategy workshops. Come on…put your brains together!”
"Maybe…" Cadet An Nguyen was thinking out loud, "maybe…if we stun the swarm a few times."
"You mean with HERF?"
Nguyen was scribbling a sketch on a pad he had dredged up. "Sure…like this. Get some guns along the perimeter of the base…here, here and here--" he X'ed off proposed locations on his crude sketch. "Do it quick and pump a few billions watts of RF across the mesa. Crossfire. That should slow down the rep, and maybe, just maybe give Base Security and the troopers time to get a signal through."
That got D’Nunzio to thinking. "You've got to locate the master first. It should be somewhere near the center of the swarm, but it's in motion." Deeno shook her head. "How the hell do you find him?"
Winger was thinking fast. "I've got an idea. I had to dump our ANAD's control software back at Hunt Valley. I dumped the whole control system and piloted the master myself. That must mean this ANAD's on autopilot right now, stuck in overdrive, with no higher functions or safeties to override the rep command," Winger told them. "This replication's like a mindless spasm. And what do we do with spasms?"
"Shock therapy?" D’Nunzio wondered.
"That's where your HERF guns come in. Blast the swarm with RF, just long enough for me to find the master and dump the control system again. If I can do that, before replication starts up, I can take control of ANAD and drive him back to containment. Soon as I sever the control links to the swarm, magpulse guns can clean up the mess. At the same time, I can pilot ANAD out of the swarm and back to re-capture."
D’Nunzio and Nguyen looked at each other, then at Winger and the other troopers who had started to gather around them in the bunker.
“Where do we get guns? They don’t give cadets like us guns.”
One of the troopers was a sandy-haired fellow, clad in ballistic vest, fresh off the firing range downstairs. “I can get guns for us…I know the codes to the Armory.”
'What are we waiting for?" D’Nunzio asked.
"Let's go!"
It took seven minutes for Sheila Reaves to radio her plans to Security and to the base commander. Fortunately, the HERF guns were stowed in Mission Prep; the troopers who'd taken cover there helped break out the gear. Volunteer details were formed up and five HERF units were trundled by hand to opposite ends of Table Top's broad mesa. In the center of the mesa, the ANAD swarm continued swelling, rolling like a carnivorous mist across the grounds, filling the grassy swards between the Barracks, boiling westward toward the liftpads and lifters parked in revetments, seeping and crawling and flowing over all obstacles toward the Ops Center and Drexler Field.
The details had to hurry. If the swarm spilled off the top of the mesa and ran down the mountainside into Buffalo Valley and the ravines radiating outward from Table Top, the whole of southern Idaho would be at risk. Already, the Governor and the National Guard had been alerted to prepare to evacuate nearby towns.
In less than ten minutes, Reaves and the HERF guns were ready, powered up and humming.
Winger was in contact with General Kincade, Quantum Corps' commander at Table Top.
"All units ready, sir. I'm inside Mission Prep, with a portable IC unit strapped on." He didn’t mention that he was only a nog still applying to join the Corps.
Kincade's face was grim on the vidlink. The General was with his staff, bottled up in the Emergency Action Center seventy feet below Main Ops.
"Blast 'em, son! Blast the sonsofbitches to kingdom come!"
Winger needed no further encouragement. He checked with Reaves one last time.
"Weapons are enabled, Wings!"
"Fire!" Winger yelled. "Fire all around, all units! Full bore! Let 'em have it!"
A series of sirens warbled across Table Top, warning everyone to take cover.
The whole mesa seemed to vibrate as the first pulse shot out, squeezing the air with a thunderclap of heat. A searing wave passed through the Mission Prep hall as the bubbles of radio waves expanded outward, pulverizing everything in their path.
The first pulse was quickly followed by several more, each discharge hammering the ground with an invisible fist of energy. Johnny Winger screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to equalize pressure inside his head. His eyes and lungs burned. His skin crawled with fire, then tingled and crackled….
NOW! NOW was the moment….
He raced out of the hall and ran a swerving, zigzagging course across the open ground between the barracks and the Ops Center. The air seemed alive, thick with mechs, and he waved his arms wildly over his head, beating through the swarm. All about him, droplets of something fell from the sky. He stumbled and nearly fell, then scrambled to his feet, plunging into the thickening mist, until alongside the road from the BOQ to East Gate, he felt he was near the center of the swarm. Mech debris clattered and fell from the sky, tickling, brushing, crawling at his skin, but he ignored it and tapped out commands on his wristpad furiously, trying to link up with ANAD.
"Come on, buddy, come on…come on…where the hell are you--"
Already, the effects of the HERF pulse were beginning to wear off. His skin crawled with living fingers, tickling, pinching, as the swarm began to recover from the blast, replicating new mechs to replace those the RF waves had shattered.
Come on…come on…in desperation, he opened voicelink.
"Hub to ANAD…Hub to ANAD….is anybody there, anybody in charge out there…where the hell are you, buddy?--"
Just then, a staticky hiss in his ears formed a recognizable word.
"---emory register--"
"ANAD…is that you?"
The whisper grew marginally louder. Sirens nearly drowned out the words. "ANAD…ANAD to Base…..it's…this is….controls are…I'm weakened….can't activate--"
"ANAD…is that you…ANAD…this is Base…listen to me…ANAD, can you hear me?"
The whisper was weak, but there. Winger waved blindly, trying to get the sirens shut off, trying to stop the next HERF pulse. "ANAD…listen to me…command override…Excalibur alpha x-ray…command override…Excalibur alpha x-ray--" He hoped the reset command would work. He'd just told ANAD to shut down all comm links and effector controls…he hoped. And if anybody asked how he knew that, his lips were zipped. They didn’t teach cadets things like that at Table Top.
The swarm was reconstituting again, he could feel fiery pinpricks on his back and neck. Got to hurry now!
"ANAD…execute omega one…full shutdown…all links, all effectors, all sensors and probes…ANAD, I'm coming to you…I've taking
over--"
He toggled a sequence of buttons on his wristpad, snapped his eyepiece into place and, to his surprise, ANAD had responded, giving him full control of his core processor and all functions.
The nanomech voice link was weakening. "ANAD…responds….comm one and comm two down…effec--disabled…main core idling…ANAD to Base…please…hlp me--"
The eyepiece image was like driving a hundred miles an hour through a Colorado sleet storm. Polygons and spheres and snakes and cubes streamed past at high speed. For a moment, Johnny Winger was disoriented.
Where the hell am I? Can I even do this? For some reason, a vision of Misty and Marcy huffing and snorting at the barn door came to mind…that and hay. Lots and lots of hay—
No way am I going back there.
He tickled the tiny joystick on his wrist and powered up ANAD's propulsors.
Just have to dead reckon my way back to the barn today, he mumbled to himself. At least, comm links are down. That'll shut off the replication.
But he hadn't counted on Reaves firing off the HERF guns again. The swarm had partially reconstituted again, and the pulse, when it came, was like being caught in a tidal wave.
The link to ANAD stayed active and Johnny Winger felt himself scattered and tumbled and jostled and swept along in a great river, surging through, vast forces tearing at his limbs, punching him in the chest, ripping his head open. His own body's natural instincts forced him into a curled, face down position, as the thunderclap rolled across the base. But even as he was still and face buried in wet grass, the dizzying, caroming ride continued.
He was linked in with ANAD and seeing what the mech sensed as the RF wave expanded through the air above Table Top. For a few moments, he blacked out, then staggered back to semi-consciousness and stabilized himself with judicious pulses on his propulsors.
"ANAD," he muttered to himself, "let's go home." Momentarily, he backed out of the ANAD link and radioed back to the Mission Hall, telling Reaves to shut down the HERF guns. "I'm driving ANAD right now…and neither of us wants to go through that again!"
Gradually, the swirling, driving sleet of oxygen and hydrogen atoms slackened off and he felt he was making headway on half-propulsor power. Molecules of dust and debris thickened the air, making navigation dicey, but Winger quickly recovered his atomgrabber's instincts and piloted ANAD through reefs and shoals and rapids of whirling, churning atoms and molecules, feeling his way through the sleet, fighting stiff currents as he hacked his way back toward the Containment building.
It was doubly disorienting, when he physically stood up, peering outside his eyepiece, stumbling through the remnants of the gray mist, tripping over half-eaten corpses in the grass, then looking back through the eyepiece at the cyclone of atoms ANAD was battling through. Two different worlds in the same view: macro and nano, humans and atoms, and the rules were different in both.
Johnny Winger wobbled and stumbled his way back to the Containment building like a drunken sailor, with troopers and technicians giving him a wide berth everywhere along the zigzag track.
He made it to the complex in half an hour, with Security and other troopers holding open doors and clearing a path all the way into the Level 4 Containment compartment.
"ANAD….we're here. You're home," Winger muttered. He stepped delicately over wires and cables and hoses and carefully piloted the nanomech toward the vacuum tube being held out by Moby M'Bela.
"Only a few feet more," Moby told him.
Winger switched his vision back and forth, eyeing the position of the vacuum tube with his eyes, then peering into the eyepiece to maneuver ANAD through a maelstrom of oxygens and nitrogens swirling in every direction. He'd safed and stowed most of the mech's effectors, so ANAD was rudely bounced and jostled with every pulse of its propulsors.
"Hey…watch it," came the plaintive voice through Winger's earphones. "I'm not made of rubber, you know--"
"Sorry." Winger squinted at the eyepiece view, trying to match up what he was seeing with the macro view his eyes gave him. In time, a yawning chasm gaped before him, a canyon dark and turbulent with whirlpools of molecules spinning at the mouth. With a start, Winger realized it was the head of the vacuum tube. He safed ANAD for transit and let the suction of the whirlpools pull him in. The view in his eyepiece spun crazily and he rapidly became dizzy and disoriented.
"Looks like you're just about home, little guy," Winger said.
"ANAD signing off….down the hole!!" came the reply.
Winger disconnected himself from ANAD control and let Moby M'Bela do the rest.
The pressure pulse almost snapped the tube right out of his hands. In an instant, the Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassembler had transited the tube and plunged into the soothing homewaters of the Containment cylinder.
M'Bela grabbed the end of the vacuum tube out of the air and stabbed a button, sealing the tank. "Got him! Safing now…pressure coming up, temps okay, pH in the green. ANAD's sealed and safe."
Winger was already powering down his wristpad interface controls. "Whew…I'm glad that's done. What about the rest of the base?"
Major Lofton was there as well, along with Dana Tallant and Gibby. Lofton was patched in to Reaves, who was still stationed at the northeast wall, manning one of the HERF guns.
"Next pulse in ten seconds, gentlemen. Get yourselves ready."
By the time it came, Winger and the others had rolled the Containment cylinder against one bulkhead of the compartment and draped heavy tarps over it, trying to protect ANAD as much as possible from the RF wave.
The thunderclap came, rattling everything inside, breaking a few pipette racks on the wall, and knocking gear off a cart. The heat wave followed, searing the air like a hot desert wind. Winger and the others had dropped to the floor and made themselves small, covering their heads against falling debris.
Over the next ten minutes, the HERF guns fired three more times, shattering the mesa with RF waves, frying the rest of the ANAD swarm into loose atoms. Lofton took a message on his talker, and breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"All call," he reported. "All stations reporting in. Swarm density has dropped to a tenth and falling. It's safe to move outside now. Security details are securing all gates and checking the perimeter. Damage control parties are reporting in. General Kincade's coming topside."
Johnny Winger cautiously got to his feet. He looked at Dana Tallant. Her face was red and peeling.
"You look like a broiled fish."
Tallant grinned. "I probably smell like one too. Guess we’d better find Major Kraft…and Wormy…and let ‘em know what we did.”
"Later," Winger muttered, though it was tempting. "First, we'd better make sure ANAD's okay. And get started helping clean up this place."
Moby was feeling the scaly skin around his eyes. "That was too close--" he stopped, hearing the distant crackle of more magpulses, smaller pulses, clearing the air across Table Top Mountain. “They didn’t teach us anything like this in Molecular Tactics.”
Outside the Containment building, mech debris littered the grounds, along with pieces of siding and broken glass, roof shingles and twisted, charred pipe and wire. The entire base looked like a great cyclone had swept through, which in effect, had happened. The cyclone of the HERF guns had collapsed the last of the ANAD swarm and swept the debris over the side of the mountain.
For the time being, the threat had been neutralized and the swarm contained. A Big Bang runaway replication had been avoided and the town of Haleyville and the surrounding Idaho countryside had been spared the worst of the onslaught.
But it had been close. Too close.
Thankfully, casualties were light. Four fatalities had been suffered, both in the first minutes of the assault, all of the troopers caught out in the open, near the north lifter pads. The shredded remnants of their corpses had already been removed and taken to the Infirmary for identification.
&nb
sp; Johnny Winger brushed himself off and left Containment, heading back to Galland Hall and the recruit center with Tallant and M'Bela.
"What's going to happen to Caden?" M'Bela asked. The three of them picked their way through piles of debris being collected by sweepbots along the walkway. The bots scuttled back and forth across the grassy sward between the Ops Center and the barracks, shoving piles of metal and glass and brick into bigger piles for removal.
"I don't know," Winger replied. "Major Lofton said he had been taken to the stockade for now. General Kincade's already scheduled a hearing for 1100 hours. Rumor has it CINCQUANT himself is coming in."
"Whatever happens," Tallant said, "he deserves it."
Before they could make their way to Galland Hall, Winger got a call on his wristpad. It was Major Kraft. The Major's face was grim and hollow; it had been a long night for everybody.
"Report to the Ops Center at once, Cadet Winger. There's a pre-hearing investigation going on right now. General Kincade wants all the facts laid out before the charges against Mr. Caden are made. Security Branch needs a statement from you."
"On my way, Major." Winger peeled off and headed briskly across the quadrangle now humming with sweepbots and troopers collecting scrap and debris. A light curtain had been set up around a small patch of grass near the entrance. More bots crisscrossed that patch in systematic sweeps--forensic bots looking for evidence.
Johnny Winger wondered what would happen to Nathan Caden now.
He found Kraft in a makeshift office in the first floor canteen inside Ops, coordinating recovery efforts, trying to track down troopers and cadets. Talking to faces on his wristpad, comms in both hands, he waved Winger to a nearby seat. As he waited for the Major to finish, other troopers scurried about, setting up desks and tables, adjusting gear. A temporary recovery command post was being set up and Ironpants was at the center of a vortex of frantic activity.
Finally, Kraft got a minute. He glared at Winger with something like a mixture of disbelief, annoyance and wonder.
“First of all, son, I should thank you for all you’ve done here at the Mountain. Running headlong into that swarm, somehow getting control of ANAD—I guess I shouldn’t ask how you did that-- driving the master back into containment…that took guts. That was insane. You saved a lot of lives by what you did…even if no cadet in the history of the Corps ever tried a harebrained scheme like that before.”
Winger didn’t know exactly how to respond. Was he being dressed down? Congratulated? Studied like a lab specimen? All three?
“Sir, I saw a need and I knew what to do. I knew it was a risk. But given the situation—“
Kraft held up a hand, listening out of one ear to a report on his wristpad. “That was Major Lofton. They’ve got Mr. Caden MOB’ed and well secured in the brig. Lofton’s already done a little digging…it seems that Caden is not what he seems to be. He’s got connections we can trace to Red Hammer itself, right out of Hong Kong. Somehow, that didn’t come up when he applied…or maybe we’ve got security problems here.”
Winger was puzzled. “Sir, what do you mean MOB’ed?”
“Mobility Obstruction Barrier. Nanomesh enclosure. Caden’s physically secured like a fish in a net. You mean there’s something you didn’t know about what we do around here…I’m stunned.”
“Sir, I hope I didn’t step out of line. All I wanted to do was help out.” He took a deep breath. “And to join the Corps, like the ads say. ‘Get small and be a nanotrooper’.”
“Well, I could say something, son, but General Kincade himself is on his way down here right now. I think he’s got something he wants to ask you.”
“Table Top Mountain”
Table Top Mountain, Idaho
June 29, 2048
8:45 a.m.
General Wellman Kincade had been commander in chief of Quantum Corps Western Command’s base at Table Top for nearly two years. He thought he had seen everything. But never in his illustrious career with UNIFORCE and the Corps had he ever run into anyone quite like Cadet Johnny Winger.
Kincade was tall, ruddy and vaguely British in bearing, said to have a dry sense of humor, though Johnny had no desire to test that proposition. He had a white moustache; in that, he lacked the bushy monstrosity that adorned Jurgen Kraft’s lips and chin. Kincade’s was tidy, sandy-blond with a touch of gray. Like a museum poster, Winger figured. Indeed, Kincade was the embodiment of such great ‘Limey’ commanders as Montgomery and Kitchener, men he admired and often patterned himself after.
Kincade had invited Johnny Winger and Major Kraft to his eighth floor office. Both stood at attention, while Kincade made a few remarks. They sounded prepared.
“We’ve not had a cadet quite like you at this base before, Mr. Winger. What you did, under extraordinary circumstances I might add, was remarkable. I therefore must commend Major Kraft here for recognizing such, shall we say, exemplary talents, in one of his raw recruits. The Major here tells me you would still like to join the Corps…perhaps even make it a career?”
Winger swallowed a bit of pride and said simply, “Yes, sir. I tried to act properly, consistent with our training and the qualities Major Kraft has been teaching us. I saw the problem, knew how to deal with it and I acted, sir. If I was hasty in not asking permission, or checking with the Major or Lieutenant Wormy…er, I mean Wormer, sir—“
Kincade granted a slight smirk. “It’s okay, son…everyone calls him Wormy—“
“Sir, I recognize I did not have authorization to act as I did. If I overstepped my position, I’d like to—“
Kincade waved him quiet. “Nonsense. You demonstrated resourcefulness, courage, resolve…all qualities we’re looking for here at Table Top. The same qualities that General Sir Bernard Montgomery demonstrated at El Alamein, when he smashed Rommel and the Africa Corps. Quantum Corps needs people like you. However, I must ask: do you still want to join? Do you still want to be an atomgrabber? You’ve got what it takes. But you’ll have more inquiries to go through over this incident. Then there’s nog school…it won’t be easy for you. We’re training a new breed of warrior here, Winger. There are new enemies out there—Red Hammer for one, you know about them already—new menaces, new tactics to develop. There are no experts when it comes to doing operations in the world of atoms and molecules.” Kincade leaned back in his chair, lit up a pipe. He chuckled. “We’re making this up as we go along, isn’t that right, Major?”
Kraft looked like he had indigestion. “Yes, sir.” The very idea of making up stuff in a combat outfit never sat well with his Prussian sense of military bearing. But this was the Base Commander. And Cadet Winger was…what, exactly? A boy wonder? A major pain in the ass? The best damned recruit he’d come across in two years? A natural at atomgrabbing? “Sir, we are always refining our strategy and tactics as conditions dictate.”
Kincade smirked. “Well said, Major. Well said.” He fixed an even stare at Winger. “How about it, son? You ready for all this?”
Winger took a deep breath. He thought about his mom Ellen, all the times she had yelled at him for trying to fix things about the house, things that didn’t need fixing. “That boy has glue on his fingers…he gets into everything, always wandering off with pieces and parts of things….”
He thought about his dad Jamison Winger. Recovered from the accident, but not really. There were scars there you couldn’t see. Scars that would never heal. And Johnny knew the North Bar Pass ranch wouldn’t recover either. It was only a matter of time. He just didn’t see himself running a ranch. He needed more.
He needed something like this.
“Where do I sign, sir?” he finally said.
A broad smile broke out over Kincade’s ruddy face. “Excellent, son. First, there is a little matter of this—“ he held up a leather-bound booklet, embossed with the sunburst and atom emblem of Quantum Corps. “I want you to have this—you more t
han deserve it.” He handed the booklet to Winger. “Go ahead… open it.”
Winger flipped the cover up. It was a medal, an award, lying curled up on a bed of black velvet. The medal gleamed in the light. It was a stylized atom, with a nucleus of black onyx and orbiting electrons of silver, whizzing around as if the thing were alive. The whole works were attached to a thin gold chain.
“Major, if you would—“
Kraft swallowed audibly. It was clear he wanted to be anywhere else but here. He took the chain in his hand and draped it solidly around Johnny Winger’s neck. The thing was heavy and Kraft fiddled with it until it hung down straight.
Kincade stood up and shook hands with Winger. “It’s called the Order of Merit…the commendation reads ‘for meritorious service above and beyond what is expected…for selfless dedication to duty and to his fellow troopers…for exemplary conduct in the face of mortal danger…’ and so on. You get the idea. We don’t give this to recruits. But Major Kraft here related what you did yesterday. I got approval from CINCQUANT himself. That’s the Commander in Chief of Quantum Corps, at UNIFORCE Headquarters in Paris. Congratulations.”
They shook hands. Kincade scowled momentarily at Kraft, and the Major offered his own hand as well.
“Thank you, sirs. Do I have to sign something now…to join up, I mean?”
Kraft said, “You do, indeed. Here—“ He pushed an official looking form into Winger’s hands. “Recruit application. The disk there will have all the other paperwork. Stick it in your wristpad and follow the instructions. Get it back to me right away.”
Winger took all the forms and disks. “I will, sir…right away.”
Kincade was more solemn now. “Once you sign your life away with all that, you’re in, son. You’re one of us.”
“Sir--” Winger looked up, pocketing all the forms. “I’m looking forward to it…this is what I need to do with my life right now. I’m proud to be a part of all this.”
Kraft said, “Good, son. Good. Sign there and welcome to Quantum Corps. Get a good night’s sleep too. Your first day of nog school is tomorrow.”
Winger swallowed hard.
He was now an atomgrabber. He rolled the words around in his mouth for a moment and decided he really did like the sound of that.
About the Author
Philip Bosshardt is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He works for a large company that makes products everyone uses…just check out the drinks aisle at your grocery store. He’s been happily married for 25 years. He’s also a Georgia Tech graduate in Industrial Engineering. He loves water sports in any form and swims 3-4 miles a week in anything resembling water. He and his wife have no children. They do, however, have one terribly spoiled Keeshond dog named Kelsey.
To get a peek at Philip Bosshardt’s upcoming work, recent reviews, excerpts and general updates on the writing life, visit his blog The Word Shed at: https://thewdshed.blogspot.com.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends