***--initialization date 21 June 2046…swarm entity 0101 constituted as Frost, Irwin, Doctor, Northgate University, Autonomous Systems Laboratory…Config One is active….initialization date 21 June--***
“What’s it saying?”
Wiggins ran some diagnostics. “Just housekeeping stuff…when it was created, the config it’s running.”
“Why would Doc Frost do something like this?” Klepnick asked.
“Maybe he knew we might need help later…maybe he encoded his thoughts somehow in the processor—“
Kraft was sobered at the idea that Irwin Frost would create such a swarm configuration and image of himself and that he would embed the thing inside his own body. What an ego. “Maybe we should ask Doc Frost II if he can help us out…you know, give us a config for a shock wave barrier.”
Wiggins said, “Major, that’s not such a bad idea. Might be a way of testing how capable the processor is.”
They debated the matter for a few minutes. Kraft was skeptical but the Containment techs Wiggins and Klepnick saw merit in the idea. “All we should have to do is give the swarm the right inputs. The right intel, all the data on the problem, and let it crunch the facts for awhile. I can set up some links to do that.”
Kraft knew they were running out of time. “Go ahead, Klep but I want that config brought up that we used in last summer’s counter-hurricane scenario too. That config’s proven, at least in the sims. Lieutenant Galland will be here in less than two hours. Get the real config ready first. Then you can play with Doc II here, or whatever the hell this thing is.”
“Yes, sir.” Klepnick and Wiggins went right to work.
Kraft drew Dr. Renfroe aside. “Doc, what do you make of this? Is that cloud of bugs in there really some kind of swarm version of Frost? Or is this just a circus trick?”
Renfroe shrugged, took off his glasses and wiped them down with a handkerchief. “I’m just a pathologist, Major, not a nanobotics expert. But from what I’ve seen, the thing looks like Frost. It sounds a little like Frost. Maybe it was configged to think like Irwin too. I’d say you’ve got yourself quite a little mystery here…worth looking into.”
Kraft was conscious of time slipping away. “Unfortunately, I don’t have that luxury, Doc. We’ve got rocks coming our way—big rocks—and they’re going to make a big splash in the Med. CINCQUANT wants some kind of barrier up before they hit. “
“No reason you can’t work that problem from several angles,” Renfroe suggested. “When do you have to depart?”
Kraft checked his wristpad. “Lifters need to leave Basel by noon…that gives us two hours.”
The Containment techs Wiggins and Klepnick, with help from engineers and Ops specialists around Scharnhorst threw everything at the problem. Every data stream from every sensor and database Quantum Corps could muster was fed to Doc II, which continued to fill out inside the Tank, until after an hour, the startling likeness of Doc Frost’s disembodied head seem to float serenely like some kind of wrinkled Buddha in the midst of the containment medium.
As Doc II crunched data, the rest of the Detachment’s gear was assembled beside a pair of lifters at Basel’s EuroPort airport. Galland arrived by maglev and went straight to Scharnhorst to run a briefing for the troopers. Kraft was there too.
Bravo Detachment (Special) was a rump nanotrooper unit cobbled together from whoever was available and had the requisite skills. Galland would command and billets were filled for typical ANAD-style detachments: Interface and Operations, Containerization, Stealth and Defensive Countermeasures and Quantum Engineering. In all, Bravo consisted of Galland and six other troopers.
Galland didn’t know any of them.
“Time’s critical,” she told her charges. The briefing was held at Scharnhorst’s lifter bay ready room, a notch carved right out of the side of the mountain that opened onto a picturesque valley of farmhouses and the small Alpine village of Karlsruhe.
“Objective number one is to get down to the launch site—the Major here has the details—and get this specially configured ANAD going. We’re basically deploying a Big Bang…to put up a shock wave and tsunami barrier around the western end of the Med.”
Sergeant Rene Lescaux was the unit QE, a quantum engineer hijacked from the Containment Lab. “Lieutenant, has this config been tested? I mean, you know, fully vetted? We all know what can happen when you let loose ANAD bots at max rep.”
Galland glanced over at Kraft. Sir, I could use a little help here, her eyes said.
Kraft interjected. “The config was just created. It’s new and untested…came right out of the Lab an hour ago…you’ll have to do with it, do standard diagnostics on the trip down to Algiers. Unfortunately, that impactor won’t give us any more time.”
Lescaux was clearly unhappy about the prospect. “Sir, if I may, who did the code here? Who designed the config? Maybe, if I could just—“
Kraft cut him off. He decided it was better to just introduce the Detachment to Doc II. He didn’t think he could adequately explain it, even to himself.
The swarm entity had by now continued evolving to a more startling likeness of Irwin Frost when Kraft led Galland and her troopers into the Containment chamber. He tried to explain what had happened.
Galland was dumbfounded. She examined the disembodied head from every imaginable angle, probed its structure with the imager, while behind her, whistles and murmurs erupted from the Detachment.
“Just incredible…and this…this config…was embedded, you say? Inside Doc Frost?”
Wiggins, the duty tech, zoomed in on the tiny capsule where Doc II had once been contained. “That was all that was left of Doc Frost when we brought the remains here. It must have been inside his body…surgically implanted.”
“Just like a trooper,” Lescaux observed.
“Your config for the shock wave barrier came from him,” Kraft said. “Or…it, if you like. Generated and debugged in less than an hour. Never seen anything like it. And there’s no time left to test it further.”
“We did routine diagnostics on the algorithm,” Wiggins told them. “Couldn’t find anything out of order….of course, you never know with these things.”
Galland circled the Containment tank, wondering if Doc II’s eyes would track and follow her. Did it see anything or were the eyes just for show? The swarm head continued to stare straight ahead, eyes open and unblinking, floating, glistening in its medium, its mouth working as if trying to say something—-
“Is he talking? What’s he trying to say?”
Wiggins shrugged. “Who knows? We ran acoustics on it, did other diagnostics, but it makes no sense. Gibberish, snatches of phonemes, whatever. Klepnick thinks it’s learning how to talk, like an infant, just making noises, to tune itself in some way. Me…I’m not so sure.”
Galland shook her head slowly. “Major…what are you going to do with this…thing?”
“Undetermined, as of now. It seems to keep evolving. Wiggins here thinks we should port the swarm to a larger tank…see if it’ll continue to take on the likeness of Doc Frost…grow to full size. I’m not so sure I want that…this whole thing gives me the creeps.”
“Maybe so, Major, but Doc II’s already given us a very complex config in less than an hour. No other ANAD swarm with normal processor capability could do that. Doc II may have a lot more to teach us.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, Klepnick. If Frost has advanced ANAD this far, what else don’t we know?” He turned back to Galland. “You’d better get to the airport, Lieutenant. Lift-off for Algiers is at noon.”
Galland acknowledged. “Roger that, sir. Lescaux, Fannin, get that config loaded and safed and let’s move out.”
Bravo Detachment lifted away from the mountaintop pad at Scharnhorst in a dense ice fog and set down on the tarmac at Basel EuroPort half an hour later.
The Detachment would load up its gear onto two lifters and a hyperj
et, hyperjet Apollo, which would carry 2nd Nano south across the Med to its destination.
Kraft and Galland stood silently together in the cold dense fog while nanotroopers and packbots scurried up and down loading ramps, shuttling pallets and crates and containerized equipment back and forth. Once the lifters were loaded up, the black ornithopter ships would be collapsed down to their transport chassis and then themselves stowed aboard Apollo.
The trip down to Algeria would take only an hour. When the loadout was done and the last packbot had whirred off to the hangar, Galland turned to Kraft.
“Major, the last update I saw was impact in thirty five hours. That doesn’t give us much time. I’m not sure how much of this barrier ANAD can erect.”
Kraft nodded in grim agreement. “We really don’t know if this config will even work. For all we know, it might set off building circus tents on the beach. But we really don’t have a choice now. CINCQUANT’s under a lot of pressure to try something, anything.”
“It’s got to work,” Galland said.
“Get down there, Lieutenant. Get that barrier up. “CINCQUANT…and a hell of a lot of people are counting on you.”
“Roger that, sir.” Galland saluted. She hustled off, toward the rear ramp to Apollo, joining the rest of 2nd Nano as they boarded single-file, lugging rucksacks and web belts of more gear.
An hour later, the spaceplane rocketed down Runway 17 Left and shrieked off into the leaden gray skies over the mist-shrouded tops of the Jura Mountains, leaving only a trail of white billowing smoke corkscrewing back down to the ground.
Kraft lifted back to Scharnhorst, quiet and pensive. He knew the barrier operation was in good hands; Galland was as capable an atomgrabber as the Corps had. She had honcho’ed dozens of ops in every corner of the globe the last few years.
On the ride up into the mountains, Kraft tried to block out vivid imagery that kept surfacing in the back of his mind: scenes of catastrophic destruction, thousands of panic-stricken people fleeing wildly, whole nations flattened by hurricane-force winds, thousand-meter high tsunami waves flooding ancient villages like Basel, hundreds of kilometers inland….
Hell, it wasn’t so hard to imagine Basel completely underwater…the Munsterplatz like a big lake choked with rubble and debris…and thousands of bodies, swollen, bloated bodies. That was the worst part--
Kraft squeezed his eyes shut hard and forced the imagery back into the dark hole where it had come from. He stared up at the last remaining stars now fading out of view above the mist. Daylight was coming and the first light of a brilliant hard blue Alpine sunrise tickled the tops of the mountains.
He knew Johnny Winger was up there, somewhere. Winger and 1st Nano had always completed their mission. And what was left of Hicks-Newman would be taken care of by Gabrielle Galland and the 2nd Nano Detachment.
There was no other way for matters to turn out. Kraft told himself that, over and over again. If you repeated something enough times, it became the truth, didn’t it?
Back inside Scharnhorst, he decided to occupy his mind with another visit to the Containment tank. He wanted to see how Doc II was doing.