Damn close, thought Winger. But they’d punched through the barrier and smashed the mechs into atom fluff…free radicals, an electron here, a scattering of protons there. That was all that was left.
It was almost too easy. That made the hairs on the back of Winger’s neck stand up.
Two thousand meters above the hollow, the summit of Mount Kipwezi glowed fiery red, casting deep blood red shadows across the ground. But there was no blood.
“Skipper, what’s that strange glow up there…I’m reading EMs and thermals off the scale,” said D’Nunzio.
“Some kind of quantum source,” added Halvorson. “Decoherence wakes all over the place…whatever it is, it’s huge.”
Symborg?
Winger studied the terrain, the slope, the winds. They could climb. But they had suit boost and riding a plume of thrust with all their gear would be a whole lot easier. It was a judgment call.
“We fly,” he finally decided. “Spread out…five meters between you. Gibbs, you take point this time. We go as one unit…maintain formation.”
At his command, the troopers of Detachment Alpha lifted off and slowly and carefully burned their way up the craggy slopes of Mount Kipwezi.
“Form up on me,” Winger told them, as they ascended. “I’ll scan for an entrance—“
They finally found the cave opening on the steepest slopes of the northwest flanks of Kipwezi, nearly four thousand meters above the surrounding plain.
The cave complex, when they located it, was well hidden in the folds and crevices of the upper slopes of the volcano, above a cloud deck and slick with ice and snow drifts. The wind screamed and gusted at well over eighty knots at this altitude and all the troopers had to hunker down in the lee of a rocky barren to keep from being shredded with ice shards and rock chips scoured off the mountainside.
Not very impressive, thought Winger, considering what was possibly inside. Why would Symborg hole up in a godforsaken place like this? The entrance was little more than a fold in the ground, like a bed sheet bent over and tucked under, maybe a meter across in its widest dimension.
At the cave entrance, another barrier swarm fluoresced and flashed like a strobe.
“I can take care of that,” said Mighty Mite Barnes. She eased forward, aimed her HERF carbine at the entrance and lit off a loud thunderclap of rf. A shrill keening buzz echoed from out of the cave and the barrier went dark as the bots dispersed.
They were in.
Detachment Alpha moved deeper into the cave, following a drifting mist of bots that wavered in and out of view. They descended several levels, crossed a rock bridge across a deep chasm and maneuvered through more tunnels. Lighting was created by a faint mist, a pulsing, flickering light that cast deep shadows on the gnarled veins of rock lining the cave. The floor was slick, patches of ice everywhere. Soon enough, they came to a narrow opening, barely waist high. More light flickered from inside.
The mist of bots which had floated with them swirled like dust in a storm and gathered around the opening like a frame, coruscating and flashing as if lit from within. Bonds were broken and atoms slung together…in moments, the mist formed itself into a small ramp, extending over a sluggish pool of water. At least, Winger thought it was water, even as tendrils of steam hovered over the surface like a fog.
Cautiously, first Winger, then Halvorson, then the others edged out onto the newly formed ramp and walked ahead.
They passed niches and crevices, dimly lit, and saw shadows and wraiths and half-formed angels, swarm entities with one leg, one arm, no head.
Then Deeno D’Nunzio cried out.
“Look! It’s Simonet—“ She swung her carbine around, then started to jump across a small ravine, but hands held her back. It was Barnes.
“Hold on, girl…look…there’s more than one—“
In fact, as the troopers looked closer, there were dozens of semi-formed angels drifting, reclining, lying prone on the floor, all of them in varying states of completion. Multiple facsimiles of Nico Simonet, a few minus heads, one with a smooth blank surface where its face should have been. Then they saw Villa, then Hammond, all of the missing troopers…only these weren’t real. They were partially formed simulacra, swarm entities tricked out to resemble the troopers, dozens of them scattered around the cave hollows and crevices.
“It’s a nursery,” whispered Reaves. “A hatchery—“
“Someone’s breeding angels,” said Glance.
“But where are the real ones?” asked Barnes. The sight made her skin crawl and she shuddered, brushing off loose bots as they began to coagulate around the Detachment. The flickering mist was thickening.
“Keep moving,” Winger ordered. “Otherwise, we’ll be feedstock.”
They crept deeper into the cavern complex.
When it appeared, the swarm materialized out of the rock ceiling of the cave. At first, the swarm resembled nothing more than trembling shadows, a pale flickering ghost seemingly contoured with the cave ceiling and walls. As it descended from above, the swarm gathered itself into a roughly spherical shape, still pulsing, still throbbing, backlit from within by the fires of atomic bonds being broken, new structures being slammed together, new bots being formed.
The thing hung in the misty air like a swollen cloud, ready to dump torrential rain on a tropical forest. But they were a long way from any rain forests. The swarm
unfurled itself and hung in the air like a great storm front, a trembling fist, flashing purple and orange and magenta all at the same time.
Winger swung his HERF carbine around and was ready to throw some rf at the thing, when it began to morph, collecting itself into a more recognizable shape. The great roiling sphere elongated itself, then grew appendages, recognizably arms and legs, then shoulders.
Its face took longer, but in time, the outlines of eyes, a nose, a mouth began to materialize. As the bots that comprised the swarm continued to grab atoms, Winger checked with Reaves. Her eyes lit up at the EMs, the thermals, the signatures the vast swarm was emitting.
“Big time atom grabbing, Skipper. Decoherence wakes off the scale. Whatever this thing is, it’s slamming atoms like there’s no tomorrow.”
Then the face became clear.
It was Symborg.
“Lieutenant--!” It was Gibbs, at the rear of the advance. He waved at the rear of the cavern, now thick and swollen with a swarm that was even now closing in from behind. “It’s blocked—we can’t go back.”
Now Winger turned to confront Symborg. He thought to unleash his own ANAD from the shoulder capsule, but thought better of it. Might need him later.
“Where are my troopers?” he asked Symborg. “You’re hatching copies in here but what have you done with the real ones?”
Symborg’s voice, when it came out, was a clash of multiple voices, all overlaid with each other, a symphony of tones and harmonies and echoes, some high pitched, some deep bass, trembling, wavering, yet menacing all at the same time.
>>You will be guests of Hong Chui and join in the great assimilation. The Prime Key will be executed and completed in full. Module one requires all multi-cellular life forms, all single-configuration entities to be absorbed…statement=true. Re-configuration of the environment, evolution of altered life forms, and integration with host must follow in order>>
Winger’s finger tightened its grip on the trigger of his carbine. Behind him, the rest of the Detachment silently shifted to better firing positions.
“What is this Prime Key?” Winger asked.
But Symborg didn’t answer. Instead, a small tendril of bots sloughed off his hand and began flowing toward Winger’s face. He backed away. At the same time, he felt the port on his shoulder capsule coming open.
ANAD was spooling up, coming out. But he had ordered no launch.
“What the hell?” He reached to slam the port shut, but the bot stream stung his hands and he jerked them back.
<
br /> Slowly but surely, completely uncommanded, the ANAD master bot began maneuvering its way out of his shoulder capsule.
“ANAD…ANAD, abort! Abort the launch…return to contain—“
Then he realized he no longer had any control over the master bot.
And at that moment, two of the troopers, Reaves and Barnes, opened fire.
The cavern shook with thunderclaps of rf and great seams and spouts of rock and ice spilled out on top of the Detachment.
END
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.
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