Nanotroopers Episode 4: ANAD

by Philip Bosshardt

  ***ANAD to Base…ANAD to Johnny…don’t fight it…just relax…let things stream by…let go and just feel your way…feel that?...just feel your way….where it’s weaker, just kick…there! Like that, see?...you can slide and skate and sort of scoot through the gaps***

  And that was how, over the next few hours, Johnny Winger learned to maneuver through molecular Brownian motion and slingshot himself like a trapeze artist around pulsating fields of van der Waals forces.

  It was nearly midnight and Winger was drenched in sweat when the surging, swirling river currents began to fade to black and the riveted bulkhead of the containment chamber came into view. As he focused his eyes, he struggled upright and saw Doc Frost sprawled in his chair at the IC panel, snoring loudly, slumped over the keyboard. Mary Duncan had found herself a corner beneath some piping and curled up like a great white cat.

  Winger startled himself fully awake and shook his head. “Jesus, ANAD, how long was I out?”

  ***I calculate you were in sleep mode for exactly two hours and thirty four minutes, Base. Doctor Frost and Doctor Duncan are currently still in sleep mode***

  Winger winced and sat up, rubbing his shoulder and the back of his head. “Two and a half hours. I must have been exhausted. Say, ANAD, why do you call me Base, anyway?”