Nanotroopers Episode 4: ANAD

by Philip Bosshardt

  Chapter 3

  “Symbiosis”

  Northgate University, Autonomous Systems Lab

  Pennsylvania, USA

  October 24, 2048

  6:45 pm

  Symbiosis (n): interaction between two different organisms living in close physical proximity, typically to the advantage and benefit of both.

  No one was quite sure when the first effects of the attack were felt. The debriefs later seemed to converge on the two newest atomgrabbers, both working hard with Winger to tweak ANAD's templates for the next phase of the trace.

  "Mass assault swarm!" somebody yelled. It was Jung's voice. The trooper was already on one knee, swatting madly at the whizzing, spinning cloud of assembler mechs that had engulfed him.

  "Bond breakers!" yelled Neves.

  "They've gone airborne!" Johnny Winger recognized the scenario, too late. They'd wargamed it enough times at Table Top. "Fall back…fall back! Get away from him! I’m launching my ANAD!"

  Winger knew full well they had only a few minutes at best. In wargames, ANAD had demonstrated bond-breaking, molecule-disassembling speeds up to a hundred thousand nanometers per second, about a tenth of a meter every second, blown away as just so much atomic debris. The Red Hammer bots inside Stovacs, if that’s what they were, were undoubtedly just as fast, if not faster. If they didn't get countermeasures going quick, everybody and everything inside the Admin building would be toast.

  Winger did a quick prep and ran through the initializing procedure… he flailed at the swarm with one hand while he punched buttons on his wristpad: Comm link to SELECT…Program to FBS--Fly-by-Stick. Launch would be opposed insertion. Active defense…ISR Mode. That stood for Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaissance.

  At last, he was done.

  "ANAD master coming out!" he yelled out. There came again the stinging pinch in his shoulder—it always left a dull numb ache for a few moments—and he heard the port click open. In seconds, the first faint visible signs of the master bot exiting—he had already toggled max rate replication on launch—were visible. The familiar shimmering mist appeared, hardly larger than a fingernail, but growing…growing fast.

  And armed to the teeth for combat with Stovacs’ halo bots.

  A tiny sounder image formed on his wristpad. Winger ducked and swatted at Red Hammer mechs as he steered the ANAD army toward its confrontation. Already, he had gone ‘over the waterfall’, as nanotroopers termed it. Switching from the macro world of people and buildings and big things to the nano-world of atoms and molecules. The image on his wristpad screen was fuzzy, indistinct for a moment, but it cleared soon enough.

  That’s when he got his first peek at the enemy.

  As ANAD sped forward, the nearest halo bots grew and retracted appendages and surface structure with blazing speeds. The outer membrane of the mechs seethed with motion, as atoms and clusters of atoms twisted, bonded, twisted again, rebonded, broke apart, recombined, straightened, undulated and whirled.

  The gap between them vanished and ANAD grappled with the nearest mech. Other mechs swarmed to the battlefield.

  Somewhere behind him, Winger heard Lofton quickly clearing the holding area, shoving Chief Wise and other Admin employees out of the building, out into the clear, cold night air. Only Neves and Jung stayed behind to help.

  Winger was stunned by the speed of the assault. A battalion of Red Hammer bots soon engulfed ANAD. No time to replicate now…got to get free…signal daughters….Winger fired off a burst of instructions to gather all the daughters ANAD had replicated going in. It might be too late.

  The imager screen shook with the collision, then careened sideways.

  Several minutes passed. The imager view vibrated with the ferocity of the attack. Chains of oxygen molecules, pressed into service as makeshift weapons, whipped across the screen. The air was soon choked with cellular debris. The Red Hammer bots replicated several times, adding new molecule strings. They stripped off electrons to make an armor shield of highly reactive chlorine atoms. In seconds, ANAD was immobilized by the chlorine sheath.

  "I can't hold structure!" Winger yelled. "I'm reconfiguring…shutting down peripheral systems!"

  Sergeant Jung had taken a place beside Winger, helping fight off nearby swarms. "Got to disengage, Lieutenant…emergency truncation. Everything not critical. We've got to get ANAD out of there before we lose him!"

  "I'm trying…but the damn mech's penetrated the signal path…if he cuts the link…."

  "I know, I know…just keep trying, Jesus…internal bonds on main body structure weakening…we've lost all grappling capability…."

  As they watched, the halo bots systematically began dismantling ANAD, molecule by molecule. ANAD was woefully unprepared for the assault. With ruthless efficiency, the Red Hammer mechs whirred and chopped every device ANAD could generate. ANAD tried to counter, replicating probes, inserters, jaws, cilia, pumps, blowers--but it was no use.

  The halo bots mutated too fast. Somehow, the mechs seemed to anticipate ANAD's every move.

  Winger was awed by its combat capabilities. "Incredible," he whispered. "The perfect warrior. Must have one hell of a processor."

  Sheena Neves agreed. "Probably quantum, just like ANAD."

  He had no choice but to disengage to try and save the ANAD master. Extract before ANAD was chopped to pieces and leave Stovacs to his halo. Jung surmised the mechs had programming to disassemble Stovacs atom by atom, if they perceived a threat. Red Hammer did that.

  "You're losing signal strength, Lieutenant!" Jung yelled.

  "I see it! They’ve penetrated the matrix. Main processing functions in danger…I'm counterprogramming…." Winger pecked madly at the keyboard.

  Sheena Neves shook a fist at the imager screen, now a dark, swirling mass of shapes and forms. "Come on, damn it! Come on…."

  But ANAD couldn't hold. Every move was countered by the enemy mechs. The halo bots’ response was swift and sure. Winger watched in amazement and horror, as one by one, ANAD's capabilities--fine motor control, attitude and orientation, propulsors, sensors, molecule analysis, replication--were rendered inert, or completely excised.

  ANAD seemed helpless.

  "Got to get the hell out of Dodge," Winger muttered. While I still can.

  Sergeant Jung was checking status. "It's bad, Lieutenant. We've got no electron lens. No enzymatic knife. Hardly any effector control. ANAD's crippled."

  Johnny Winger gritted his teeth. "Not just yet…" His fingers flew over the keyboard. "We've gotta get some data…got to probe that bugger, get some structure on him…if I can just get stabilized--"

  "Lieutenant--there's nothing left to stabilize--"

  Despite all odds, Winger wasn't about to give up. Grimly determined, he piloted what was left of the ANAD horde back for another wrestling match with the enemy.

  "Whatever this thing is," he swore to himself, "it reacts like ANAD itself." He worked the config controller, while Jung managed status, crossing his fingers that the ANAD master would hold together.

  Extend a grappler there. Poke a carbene there. Do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around—

  While Neves had ripped off sheets from Stovacs’ bunk and was swinging wildly to drive the swarm back, Winger disengaged ANAD, scrunching up an atom group as he tacked against the churning air, closing steadily on the nearest mech. Inside a few dozen nanometers, he siphoned off the mech's outer charge and let the zap break him away.

  Reams of bond energy data and config details burst onto the imager. Jung let out a yelp. The enemy mechs had given up vitals on structure and ANAD snatched the info right out from under them, storing it, pulsing it back to Winger’s wristpad.

  "Now, I gotcha, you little bastard--"

  Then an idea came to him, wacky, complete nonsense really, but it might just work.

  The holding cell area was empty of people, save for the three nanotroopers: Winger, Neves and Jung
. Stovacs was lost in a growing cloud of bots, looking for all the world like a fog rolling in. The fog had spilled out into the corridor and the troopers had huddled in a far corner, as they drove ANAD into combat with the halo mechs. A flickering line whipped through the air—the line of engagement between the swarms, looking like an electric snake corkscrewing and kinking above the floor.

  Winger pecked out a config change that had just come to him on his wristpad. “Hold those bugs off, will you? I’ve going to try something!”

  Neves and Jung swung anything and everything they could find—bunk sheets, floor mats, chairs, clipboards, tablets, in an attempt to maintain a bubble around Winger as he piloted ANAD.

  Winger swore under his breath, feeling the sting of bot bites, his ears ringing with the shrill keening buzz of nanoscale combat, battlefields erupting right over his head. Add carbenes here…add a phosphor group there…re-orient that valence group…fold there…now, maybe ANAD’ll have a chance….

  He toggled another replication cycle to give ANAD some mass. “Come on, buddy…get going…get going…slam atoms like there’s no tomorrow--!”

  Unseen by human eyes, the ANAD master did as Winger commanded, now growing replicants with the new config Winger had just added. He steered the tiny army back toward the nearest line of halo bots.

  “Eat this for breakfast, you atomic assholes!”

  The halo bots reacted like ANAD clones but all of them were multi-lobed mechs, upper and lower globes festooned with effectors, dozens of grabbers, probes, grapplers. It was Jung who had pointed out that the mechs’ equatorial belts had almost no effectors. “Like a seam,” he surmised. “An artificial joint…it almost looks like it was cobbled together.”

  “Could be a later design, grafted on,” suggested Neves, when she saw the same thing.

  But the best news was the lack of effectors. Winger piloted ANAD straight for the nearest mech, aiming right for its equatorial joint. The distance closed and the two bots grappled like miniature sumo wrestlers.

  Except this time, ANAD had come in at an angle, out of reach of the mech’s many effectors.

  It was like ballroom dancing, with fists.

  The first bot came up and Winger gave it a taste of ANAD’s bond disrupters. The electron discharge snapped off a few effectors and sent the thing spinning off into the distance. But no sooner had he done that than a squadron of them fell on him and he found himself engulfed in no time.

  “Give it to ‘em, Lieutenant!” yelled Neves, pumping her fists. “Right in the chops!”

  Winger had learned a thing or two about effectors in the months since he had finished nog school. The secret was to keep your propulsors churning, keeping driving forward, keep your energy up. If he did that, he found ANAD could slip out of almost any grapple and brain a bot with whatever effector was free. He particularly liked his carbene grabbers and he had even developed a dance step he liked to call the kiss and clobber…he let himself be grappled, momentarily shutting off propulsors and then almost relax. When the bad guy had retracted and moved in for the kill, he did a quick left-right spin, fired up his propulsors and slashed right across the bot’s mid-section—where most of them had fewer effectors—knocking the bejeezus out of the thing and pulling free to pinch and slash some more.

  It worked every time. Winger had in the meantime gone to max replication, at Jung’s suggestion, and the melee was underway. All up and down the line of engagement, like a collision of bird flocks, the swarms engaged…twisting, slashing, grabbing, zapping. Slowly, using his new maneuvers and his new config, Winger was finally able to push back and contain the enemy swarms.

  “It’s working!” he exulted. “It’s working! These bozos are getting smacked and spanked like you wouldn’t believe!”

  Jung’s voice was disbelieving himself, but still reassuring. “I believe it …I believe it… Just keep after ‘em, sir…I’m reading mass fluctuations at the margins…that means your guys are holding their own. Try your enzymatic knife when you get in close.”

  So he did. With ANAD’s new configs and a little luck, everything he tried worked. Maybe the enemy bots were slow. Maybe their configs were wrong. Whatever it was, Johnny Winger found he was winning a battle he’d never dreamed he would have to fight. This wasn’t half bad, this living like an atom. You had to watch your momentum and things stuck to each other like glue. Van der Waals and Brownian motions were a bitch, but it was the same for the enemy.

  Leverage and momentum, that was the key.

  Inside of half an hour, the battle seemed to be won. The fog that had drifted out of Stovacs’ body and then out of the holding cell, seemed to be lifting as the last few bots were swept up. Somehow, with a little luck and lot of smack, he’d been able to disperse the enemy bots and quarantine and isolate any stragglers.

  Now it was time to go police the rest of the Admin building and make sure the whole snow-covered quadrangle outside was clean and green as well.

  Unseen by anyone, undetected by ANAD, though, a few Red Hammer halo bots had detached from the main formation and made their way toward Winger’s shoulder capsule. While he and Neves and Jung were mopping up straggler bots inside and outside Stovacs’ cell, and bringing the Carpathian intern around, the small element of halo bots maneuvered behind a few errant, nearly invisible dust motes and eventually found their way to Winger’s shoulder capsule. The bots slipped inside and attached themselves to the inner lining of the protective containment sleeve. There they powered down and waited…waited for further instructions.

  By the time the snow clouds had moved out and a sliver of a moon shone hard and bright in the night sky over the Northgate campus, Chief Wise’s campus police officers had escorted a groggy Milan Stovacs to a waiting car and taken him away to be formally charged with sabotage and espionage in a federal court hearing later that morning.

  The Chief himself met with Major Lofton, to survey the damage to his holding cells and offices in the basement of the Admin building.

  Dust and nanobotic residue coated everything. “Looks like a hurricane came through, Major. I guess your boys will be sweeping my offices for evidence. This is now a major crime scene.”

  “We should have suspected Stovacs had a halo,” Lofton shook his head. “It’s normal Red Hammer practice. That’s how they keep their people in line. Lieutenant Winger here acted with great courage to contain the threat and secure the situation.”

  Winger was still cleaning himself up, letting Dr. Mary Duncan apply some ointment to bot burns on his neck and face. “It was ANAD, Major. Me and ANAD make a pretty god team. I hacked out some new configs and went after the mechs a new way…it was Corporal Neves who suggested the idea. They’re weak around their equatorial joint…not many effectors there. If you come in at the right angle, the other effectors can’t really reach you. It’s a design flaw that I’m sure will be corrected in future versions. We managed to smash ‘em today. We may not be so lucky in the future.”

  Lofton said, “The main thing is we got Stovacs…he was a Red Hammer plant right here at Northgate, right in ANAD’s backyard. He almost certainly arranged for Dr. Frost and Lieutenant Winger to be attacked several nights ago and he may have corrupted ANAD too…that remains to be seen.”

  Mary Duncan sadly agreed. “We’ll have to run strict form and function tests on the master bot to be sure, Major. Perhaps, even regenerate a new master. In fact, I’d like to kidnap Lieutenant Winger here, Major, for just that purpose. We’re going to need his help with all the tests and re-programming.”

  Lofton dismissed the atomgrabber and Winger accompanied Duncan back to Galen Hall. They were both pleasantly surprised to see Doc Frost back in the lab, looking none the worse for wear.

  Frost smiled weakly from his console by the containment tank. “I heard you did some rather unusual things with ANAD, Johnny. You’ve written a new chapter in the book on Man-ANAD Symbiosis.”

  “ANAD and me
are like brothers,” Winger admitted. “We really understand each other.”

  Duncan patted on Winger on the shoulder and offered a seat next to Frost’s console. “And what do you two best buddies say to each other lately?”

  Winger shrugged. “That’s the thing. We haven’t been saying much lately. I’m wondering if my coupler is damaged…or corrupted.” He didn’t tell them about the configs Major Lofton had loaded.

  Frost indicated some equipment lining the headrest of the Winger’s chair. “We’ll run some tests…re-program what we have to. If needed, we can regenerate the master bot, but that’s a last resort. Major Kraft expects the Symbiosis project to meet certain deadlines and we’re slightly behind, as usual.”

  Winger asked, “This project…I heard a little about it in nog school. Close coupling ANAD and human?”

  Frost agreed. “Blended man-machine warrior, Johnny. A symbiotic relationship between two entities is one of close physical proximity, with both entities bringing different capabilities to the mutual benefit of both. Humans bring dexterity, superior pattern recognition, flexibility and resilience. A nanoscale robotic assembler device like ANAD brings the ability to manipulate matter at atomic scales, a quantum processor, swarming behavior—the ability to attack an enemy from many directions at once, then disperse. It’s a perfect match if we can make it work. You’ve shown us some of the promise in the idea.”

  “And the perils,” Winger added. He lay back while Mary Duncan fixed a scanning harness around his neck and shoulders. She fussed with the setup for a moment, then pronounced herself satisfied.

  Frost turned the device on. “First, we’re going to take a look at ANAD in mobile containment…in other words, in your shoulder capsule—“ He tapped keys on a keyboard and a nearby screen filled with reams of data. Frost and Duncan studied the output. Hmmms and oh my’s followed. Winger looked over. Both engineers were frowning.

  “What is it?”

  Frost sniffed. “You’ve got some extra configs I’ve never seen before.”

  Duncan added, “And something---we’re not quite sure what—outside the containment sleeve. It’s inside the capsule. But not contained. Irwin—look there—“

  “I see it—what the—“

  Even as they studied the contents of Winger’s shoulder capsule, the Red Hammer mechs that had infiltrated the unit began replicating. It wasn’t a big bang, more of a slow growth…copy after copy after copy. Enough to be noticed. Not enough to set off alarms.

  But the rep cycle was visible to the scanner. A small mass of alien bots, no bigger than a few molecules, began reproducing.

  “Johnny…Johnny, it looks like you’ve picked up a visitor. Unknown mass in your capsule…must be an assembler. It’s replicating—“

  “I’m powering up the injectors,” Duncan said. “Just in case….” She toggled a few switches at the end of the console. Inside the scanner harness, small electron beam guns moved to align, cycled to ready status, targeting the capsule, their motors whirring silently.

  Frost sucked at his lower lip. “I’m going to full mag…see if we can get an image.” He zoomed in and caught his breath, then exhaled slowly, as if exhaling would upset something. “Just as I thought. Not ANAD. Some resemblance, but definitely not ANAD.”

  “I may have picked up a few Red Hammer mechs when Stovacs’ halo erupted out of his body. ANAD may not have corralled all of them.”

  “Johnny,” Frost spoke slowly, carefully. “Johnny, I want you to activate ANAD. Defensive posture. Get ready to launch. We’re going to have to deal with this right away—before it gets any worse.”

  Winger cocked his head just so, opening the coupler channel as he had been taught to do right in Doc Frost’s lab. It wasn’t easy with his head secured in the harness.

  Nothing. No response.

  “Come on, ANAD…wake up. Base to ANAD…get cracking…wake up, buddy!”

  Nothing.

  Duncan studied the scans. “No activity. Something’s happened to ANAD…maybe a bad coupler link—“

  “Or a processor glitch,” said Frost. His fingers flew over the keyboard, trying things. “The config manager may have failed. Johnny, let’s try—“

  But before he could finish, Duncan let out a sharp cry. “My God, Irwin…look--!”

  On the imager, it was clear that ANAD had responded. The master bot had already replicated dozens of copies and all of them were working in concert to breach the containment cylinder. As one, they were attacking the seals, working to move molecules around, break bonds, grab atoms and burrow their way through the seals. If allowed to continue, the containment cylinder would be forced open in a few minutes.

  “Johnny, shut ANAD down. De-activate immediately. Something’s corrupted his processor—“

  Winger did as requested. “ANAD…shut down. Override earlier commands. De-activate. Power down and remain in position. Base to ANAD, do you copy? Base to ANAD, shut down now!”

  Nothing.

  Duncan swore a silent oath, something Winger had never heard from the normally demure Scotswoman. “Damn, Irwin…it’s not working. Nothing’s working.”

  “We’d better get the injectors ready.”

  But before the electron beam guns could be initialized and boresighted on the problem, ANAD managed to completely breach the seals of its containment capsule. Winger winced…a sharp pain had just stung him in the shoulder.

  “Ouch…what the hell—“ Then he suddenly felt faint, his eyes glazed over and the room swam in circles, Frost, then Duncan, then Frost, then Duncan. His head spun and he started to pitch forward, out of the seat, tearing the harness as he moved. Only quick work by Duncan kept him upright.

  Frost forced himself to stay calm, unclench his fists. “Johnny, there is a massive and growing swarm moving out of your shoulder capsule. Some kind of rogue bots active and replicating, inside your shoulder. You’d better—“ he stopped, when Winger’s head swung down and his whole body went limp.

  The capsule port beneath his shirt had been breached and the seals destroyed by the growing swarm. Now, from under his shirt, a faint shimmering blue-white light emanated.

  Frost and Duncan backed away in alarm. Celia James put a hand to her mouth.

  “Oh, my God!”

  Frost snapped his fingers. “Celia…listen to me carefully. Get one of the MOB canisters from the shelf over there. They’re on the bottom.”

  Momentarily frozen in fear, Celia stood rock still, mesmerized by the sight of the swelling light beneath Winger’s shirt.

  “Celia!” Frost said sharply.

  “Of course, Doctor Frost, of course—“ She went to the shelf, opened a cabinet door and extracted a small cylinder. She came over tentatively to Frost and Duncan and handed it to Frost, her eyes never leaving Winger.

  “We’ve got to make sure this is contained,” Frost said. To Duncan, he said, “Mary, contact the Infirmary. We need an emergency crew here right away. There may be rogue bots inside Johnny and we may have to do an insert.”

  Duncan was already contacting the Infirmary. “Right away…do you think these came from Mr. Stovacs?”

  “Most likely…somehow a few strays must have gotten into his capsule. Now they’re loose…they may have corrupted ANAD. I won’t know for sure until we do an exploratory insert.”

  Frost held the Mobility Obstruction Barrier canister over Winger’s chest and activated the cylinder. In seconds, a small programmed swarm of barebones bots had been launched and began enveloping Winger’s entire body like a sheer veil. The process took about five minutes. When it was done, a shapeless form, resembling a human body, slouched in the chair. The outer covering resembled a faint gauze sack, pinpricks of sparkling lights strobing up and down its length.

  At that moment, two Infirmary medics burst into the lab. A small robotic gurney followed behind, like a faithful dog.

  Frost explained the situation.
“Johnny’s fallen unconscious. We were doing a test and found he may have corrupted nanobots in his shoulder capsule…possibly even loose inside his body and brain. I applied a MOB barrier to keep everything contained…it’s easier than the electron beam guns. We need to get him to the Infirmary now…check vitals. I’ll bring a capsule of simple ANAD…I may have to do an insert…see what’s happening.”

  The medics hoisted Winger and lay him carefully on the gurney. Following its programmed auto-sequence, restraints were applied. Frost used a small control pack to manipulate the MOB barrier, briefly uncovering a small opening around Winger’s head. Into that opening, the gurneybot worked several IV tubes, catheters and diagnostic leads. All of them applied themselves to Winger’s head, face, and neck automatically. Then the MOB barrier was sealed again.

  Outside, Winger was loaded into the ambulance for the ten minute trip. Frost and Duncan climbed in as well. Celia James stayed behind in the lab to clean up and secure the injectors and other gear.

  The ambulance sped off.

  Halfway to the Infirmary, the gurneybot began beeping insistently.

  One of the medics checked a monitor. His uniform label read M. Dallas. “He’s crashing, Doc…blood pressure down to eighty over forty-two…pulse at thirty and dropping…I’m applying atropine.”

  The other medic was a blur of motion. “We may have to intubate, Mike….I’ll get the tubes—“

  Mary Duncan’s hands rose to her mouth. “My God…what’s--?”

  Monitors and alarms beeped and warbled. A display screen showing vital lines began to move in synchrony…all the lines leveling off, flatlining….

  Inside the MOB, fierce blue white light shone from around Winger’s head.

  “It’s in disassembly!” Frost cried. “The bots are at his head, inside, breaking it down—I’ve got to do an insert now—

  Dallas held Frost’s arm back from the gurney. More alarms and warbling tones. “Doc, it may already be too late…I can’t let you go in there—“

  Frost and Duncan looked in horror at each other. Inside the cocoon of the MOB net, Johnny Winger was being attacked, possibly consumed, atom by atom, by a set of rogue bots that had erupted out of Milan Stovacs. His own ANAD seemed powerless…maybe even coopted to assist in the breakdown.

  Neither could know what the next few moments would bring, or that the answer would eventually be found in the next episode, at Table Top Mountain, several thousand kilometers away, where the Nanotroopers would soon encounter the next plot by Red Hammer to eliminate the threat of ANAD to their criminal enterprise.

  Only time would tell if ANAD would be up to the mission.

  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.