floor upper plane now--" the signal sputtered and died off as the second recon swarm distributed itself inside the floor and laboriously filtered its way forward, bypassing the security web that made a barrier around the control room. Gibby kept his eyes glued to ANAD's return…any disturbance in the signal could mean trouble.
They didn't want to stir up the hornet's nest just yet.
"DPS1," Winger shouted out, "get Superfly up and running. I want some kind of perimeter around these vans. Now that we're inside the beehive, I want protection for the convoy. Red Hammer may send someone snooping down here."
Mighty Mite Barnes was in the trailing van, with the rest of the defense and countermeasures gear. Her voice came back over the commlink.
"Right away, Wings. Superfly's already powered up, ready to rock and roll. You want bots and HERF ready too?"
"Do it. But make it quiet. Let's don't disturb the neighborhood any more than necessary."
Deeno was keeping an eye on the imager. "Skipper, ANAD's focusing--"
The screen was settling down as the nanoscale swarm shaped itself for a few moments into a virtual camera lens, grabbing enough photons to form up a visual image. Shadowy forms moved about the room, now filled with consoles and flickering video feeds. A featureless head drifted across the view--someone moving in front of the nearly invisible swarm--and Deeno caught a glimpse of a name patch on a lab coat.
It read Johansen.
Johansen was bending over a console, peering at something. Video screens flashed beyond them, changing displays. Winger tiled the image, splitting ANAD's take into visual, acoustic, EM and other inputs, gulping data from patterns ANAD made out of the photons he was grabbing.
"ANAD to Hub…are you receiving?…are you getting any of this?…ANAD scanning now--ANAD detecting signal drop--boosting power--ANAD doesn't know where that drain is coming from…investigating now…"
"Hub to ANAD…focus in on that video feed to the right…swing boresight right to bearing zero six zero degrees and hold--" Winger worked the gain, trying to get a clearer picture.
"See something, Skipper?"
"Maybe--just maybe--" Winger waited a second, then settled back as ANAD focused on the video screen. The flickering images came into sharper resolution.
"What the hell--look, Deeno, is that what I think it is?"
The video screen bore a clear resemblance to their own IC panel. As the gain was further boosted--ANAD changing the shape of its virtual lens on the fly--individual graphics on the screen became barely legible--
Pharmex Video Feed - Comm/Swarm Interface -
Gibby squinted, mouthing the words. "Skipper, that's an interface control setup. Just like this one--"
'I know it. And see that--" he swept his fingers to the far left side of the imager view. "A map…grid coordinates…what are those lights on the map?"
Deeno came closer. "Positions, Lieutenant. You can see the outline of Africa…there's the Red Sea…there, that's India, isn't it? Australia, the Persian Gulf--" her finger traced north, then back and forth. "All Asia, even some of Europe."
"We're getting audio feed," Deeno told them. "Listen--"
Scratchy voices issued from the speaker.
"--second colony almost on target, Sven…Sicily's clear--we should have--XXXXXXXXX-- to lower them into position--"
"Very well." It was Johansen speaking. His mouth moved in time with the audio. "Change format now…send the safing command…and bring them to a stop, right over the middle of the island."
"Let 'em drift down?"
Johansen's head made a jerky sort of nod. "More natural that way…mimics real airborne particles…they'll be dispersed…look like a viral infection from natural contaminants."
The other voice belonged to a stocky, bearded man in the foreground. "Pharmex…you have control. Here's the starting vector."
On the video screen over their heads, a face floated into view. The face was speaking. ANAD re-tuned and compensated to pick up the pressure waves of the new voice…it came from the speaker on the screen.
"Got it. I'm ready to re-format the swarm. Soon as I've got detectable entries on the ground, I'll format for seizures--good old neurobuzz--then dig in and set up shop. By tonight, we'll have some new customers--"
Johansen seemed satisfied. "Go easy at first, Dieter. A few tickles, give 'em the jazz and make 'em happy. We'll hose 'em with dopamine tomorrow."
"Understood. Salerno will be one hopping town by the end of the week--"
A faint smile crossed Johansen's face. "Yeah…that puts another node in Uncle's hands. We should be about due for another payment too."
Winger fiddled with the take from ANAD, re-shaping the virtual lens into infrared, acoustic, EM, and other detectors, studying the results as they came in. A mile away, inside the Red Hammer compound, ANAD complied, re-forming the swarm of nanomechs into different instruments, grabbing photons, pressure waves, anything "Hub" wanted.
"Gibby…what about you? Anything interesting?"
Gibbs had filtered his own brood of mechs outside the lab and steered them across walls and through seals and locks to a sealed chamber on the other side of what seemed to be a cylindrical complex. Another security web screened the entrance and Gibby ordered his own recon swarm to disperse and hold position.
"Indirect stuff. I'd like to go back across to the Containment building…see what's cooking inside that pod I noticed when ANAD came in."
"Negative…" Winger vetoed the idea. "Too much exposure…we'll trip something for sure. We've been lucky so far."
"Wings," Deeno said. "It sure looks like Red Hammer's controlling some kind of airborne swarm through that other lab.”
"Pretty damning," Winger agreed. "We've got audio, video and EM intelligence from ANAD all on tape. That ought to give UNIFORCE enough to make a case, shut this place down for good. But we still have to stop those links. We've still got to contain and defeat those swarms."
"That map seems to be the key," Barnes observed. "Maybe the colonies' positions are monitored there. If we can get coordinates and config status--"
"--we'll know where to strike." Winger liked the idea. "Hub to ANAD, re-form for extreme close-up. Detach a small force…I'm going inside that computer and grab the data right off the drive--"
"Isn't that risky?" Deeno asked. "You start mucking around with molecule-sized bits and somebody'll notice for sure."
"We've got no choice," Winger said. "This is our best chance to get exact information on the locations of those superswarms."
Unseen by ANAD, the Red Hammer mechs had emerged from the floor of the lab and dispersed themselves, flitting about the room as so many loose molecules, hiding behind dust motes, errant carbon radicals, anything they could find. Controlled remotely from an interface controller at the front of the compound, the mechs stalked ANAD relentlessly, tasting a trail of stray photons that the Quantum Corps nanowarrior left each time it signaled back to the vans.
For several minutes, as Johnny Winger insinuated a tiny element of ANAD replicants inside the hard drives of the computer, the Red Hammer mechs closed on their target, an infinitesimal predator seeking infinitesimal prey. Johansen and the rest of the crew seemed completely unaware of the battle about to be joined.
So was Johnny Winger.
But the battle never came. Instead of engaging ANAD, the Red Hammer mechs cruised in hiding on stray air molecules, right to the source of the stray photons and held off at a distance of several billion microns, like a squad of lions waiting to pounce. Silently, stealthily, one at a time, the mechs seized single ANAD assemblers and throttled them, ripping atoms from atoms, until the assemblers had been dismembered into atomic fluff and set adrift. Then, with no further command, the mechs re-configured themselves into replicas of the dismembered ANADs and drifted forward, a squadron of Trojan Horses the size of carbon atoms, filling in and reacting as its fellow assemblers did when commanded from the Hub.
By the time ANAD had finished reading the molecular dots of data on the computer drive, the Red Hammer mechs had thoroughly infiltrated the swarm and insinuated themselves deep and undetected into the very heart of the formation.
A kilometer below, completely unaware of what had just happened, Johnny Winger breathed a sigh of relief.
"Looks like we're done. Buddha, you got all that?"
Nguyen had been running the recorders. "Every single nanobit of it, Skipper."
"Very well. I'm recalling ANAD. Gibby, get your guys ready. Let's get the hell out of here."
The exfiltration process lasted several hours. Winger didn't want to leave any atomic trails for the enemy to follow, so he commanded ANAD to re-configure for transit back through the mountain again.
“We’ll leave a small force behind and replicate from that, after ANAD departs. Once the master is secure here, we’ll go big bang and wreck that place but good.”
ANAD seemed less than thrilled by the prospect. "ANAD to Hub…ANAD squeezed awfully tight in those lattices…ANAD requests permission to return above ground…more room to maneuver--ANAD gets bounced around by calcium ions in that underground limestone rock--"
Winger and Gibby looked at each. "Is he about to be naughty?" Winger asked.
"I don't know, but you'll have a hell of time spanking this child."
Winger ordered the assembler, now becoming a bit too autonomous, to transit the mountain. "Hub to ANAD, return below ground…that's an order. I don't want to take a chance on triggering