Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary

by Philip Bosshardt

  Chapter 23

  Buckland Center, Alaska and

  Cyber Corps Watch Center, Herndon, Virginia

  October 27, 2121

  0245 hours

  Ken Liang had been Chief of Security at the Buckland Data Center for almost three years now and he had never seen anything like it. Alarms had been going off all over the center for the last few hours. It wasn’t just a virus or a Trojan or anything as simple as that. No, Buckland was ground zero for some kind of swarm assault and all their defensive systems, barriers, screens and firewalls had somehow been breached. They might as well have been made out of sand.

  Liang had already sent out a flurry of emergency calls to Cyber Corps and Quantum Corps, up to and including a Level 1 alert…the kind you never sent unless the world was coming to an end. It didn’t take a genius to see that some kind of virus explosion and nanobotic big bang was underway inside the complex, even though it was buried nearly a fifty meters below the tundra of western Alaska.

  Then, unaccountably, the emergency calls and alerts stopped. Buckland Center went quiet. It was like the place had just disappeared.

  That’s when Lieutenant Tim Hornsby, duty officer at Cyber Corps’ Watch Command Center, sat up and took notice.

  “What happened to Buckland?” he asked. Sergeant Jeremy Vault, the other signals tech on duty that night, looked up. “It just disappeared.”

  Vault flipped through a blizzard of displays, trying different connections, different nodes and paths. Nothing. “The feed was there. You know they’ve been screaming since 0100 hours about some kind of attack. Now—“

  “Better get Captain Leeds down here. Tier 1 data centers don’t just go offline without reason.”

  Inside of half an hour, Leeds was cocooned inside the glassed-in walls of the Op Cell on the tenth floor, with Valerie Patrice, done up nicely in a smart UNIFORCE blue and white uniform, even though her angel patterns still needed some work around the edges, James Tsu from CyberLab and CINCCYBER himself, General Pacer.

  Pacer scanned the last hour of feed from Buckland with a growing scowl. “It’s pretty clear to me that something’s up. I know Buckland has a history of crying wolf but this looks bad on the face of it—“ Pacer went down the list, “—every carrier channel and node offline at the same time, multiple firewall breaches, switches, routers, hubs and links down by the hundreds—“

  “Plus Table Top’s reporting Level 1 alert signals as well…they were trying to get somebody at Quantum Corps…normally that means bots. Some kind of swarms.”

  Pacer rubbed some stubble on his chin, sipped at a coffee and made a face. “We’d better get some eyes and ears up there, Captain. It’s just possible, given what’s been happening lately, that enemy swarms, maybe under the control of Symborg, or Config Zero—“

  “Or that Keeper,” Valerie Patrice noted.

  “—precisely,” Pacer admitted. “Some kind of nasties may have taken control of that installation and severed all outside comms.”

  Leeds wondered, “Maybe that’s how they’re getting into the Net. From Buckland Center.”

  Pacer couldn’t discount the possibility. “Buckland’s got to be stabilized and wrested away from those swarms. The site has to be secured. Maybe we can solve a lot of problems if we do that.”

  Leeds agreed. “We need to involve Quantum Corps in this. Tsu and I have been working with some contacts at Table Top on tactics.”

  Pacer was incensed. “I didn’t approve that. What can Quantum Corps do that Cyber Corps can’t do? This is a Net problem.”

  “Sir, they have the means of dealing with bots. These are no longer just rogue packets we’re dealing with. Valerie can corroborate that. This isn’t just bad code. These are bots with brains. Bots that can physically manipulate things.”

  “And bite you,” Patrice added.

  Pacer was still unconvinced. “So who’s your contact at Quantum Corps?”

  “He’s on General Argo’s staff. I’m actually recommending we work together, Cyber and Quantum Corps, to do a special op up at Buckland. That’s what it’s going to take to get on top of this threat. A joint special operation. I could work out a TOE, an op plan, personnel, gear, all that stuff. “

  Pacer looked from Patrice to Tsu and Leeds and back. “We’ve got Valerie here. Now that she’s been…er, deconstructed, we can bring our own brains to the fight as well.”

  Patrice said, “With all due respects, sir, I was overmatched. I’m not sure what we’re dealing with here, inside the Net, but whatever it is, it was faster than me. It could change configs faster, bring different effectors and weapons to bear on the fight faster. Plus, I’m still getting used to…this—this-- “ she sort of shrugged and her config blurred momentarily. “There’s still some work to do….on me.”

  Tsu cocked his head. “It’s just a matter of tweaking her config drivers. We can fix those edge effects. And we can speed up your processor, give you better configs, more effectors. It just takes time.”

  “That’s my point,” Leeds said. “We may not have time. Buckland’s been screaming for help for days. Now they’re offline. That’s a Tier 1 site. How many more will it take? The Bugs…or whatever they are…are already inside the Net. We have to go after them now, with whatever we have. Quantum Corps can help.”

  Tsu held up a hand. “We should at least study this phenomenon…the Net may be a kind of nursery, breeding a new form of life. Study it, try to communicate with it.”

  Pacer chopped the air with his hand. “Tsu, that’s the one thing we’re not going to do. It may be a nursery but whatever we’re facing here needs to be killed. Or at least quarantined.” He sat back in his chair and stared off in the distance, seeing things only he could see. “I understand there’s a gray area between purely logical things like packets and carrier bit streams and the bots that are now crawling around the Net. So, Leeds, I’ll go with your idea. In fact, I’ll put your idea before CINCQUANT himself. A joint special operation to take back Buckland and clean up the Net…that makes sense. I’ll have to run it by POTUS, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I just hope we can get these bots under control before it’s too late. If Tsu’s right and some sort of sentience has developed inside the Net, we don’t want it combined with the physical manipulation and replication ability of a real bot. Leeds, work me up an op plan and we’ll get started.”

  And that’s how Operation Cyber Sweep merged with something called Operation Quantum Sweep.

  The next few days were a blur for Anson Leeds and Valerie Patrice. Already, Leeds had worked up new tactics for confronting and neutralizing the hordes of warrior packets and bots that had begun to infest the Net, hordes that seemed to be emanating from Buckland Center. CINCQUANT, in the form of General Argo, assigned Major Zhao Zhiyang from Table Top as liaison from Quantum Corps. Leeds traveled to Table Top Mountain in Idaho to meet Zhao and get some time in the Corps’ sim tank and wargaming range at Hunt Valley.

  Leeds had his own mental image of what an atomgrabber should be like…something like a skinny, pasty-skinned, wild-eyed, frizzy-haired teenager sporting dozens of arms and hands like an industrial robot. Zhao was none of those things. In fact, to Leeds, he looked a figurine of Buddha himself: serene, confident, even a bit smug for a warrior-type.

  This should be interesting, Leeds figured. Cyber Corps meets Quantum Corps.

  Zhao was waiting at the South Lifter Pad at Table Top when Leeds landed. The two officers saluted and shook hands.

  Leeds looked around the base. It was a clear, crisp, fall day on the mesa and the Buffalo Ridge shone sharp and snow-covered twenty kilometers to the north.

  “Nice place you’ve got here, Major,” he said. “This is my first trip to Table Top.”

  Zhao directed him toward some low-domed buildings in the distance. “We like it. We’re going right to Containment, but I’ll give you a quick tour as we go.”

  The two O
-3s made their way toward Containment, with Zhao pointing out the glass-fronted Ops Building, across a grassy quadrangle and the grid of the barracks and residence halls in front.

  “Those three domes behind Containment are the Sim and Training center. You’ll be spending some time there after we leave Containment. On the other side of Ops, those hangars are Mission Prep and Ordnance.”

  “You’re kind of isolated up here on this mountain top,” Leeds observed.

  Zhao smiled faintly. “We are…and we like it that way.”

  “Atomgrabbers and their secret base,” Leeds said. “Always plotting to take over the world.”

  Zhao wasn’t amused. “Unlike Cyber Corps, we can at least see our enemies. Small is all.”

  “And virtual is even better.”

  And so it went for much of the morning.

  Leeds and Zhao cycled through biometrics and security into Containment, traversing several locks and hatches, each heavier and more secure than before. They came finally to a small compartment ringed with electron beam injectors. An ellipsoidal tank dominated the compartment, surrounded on three sides by consoles and instrumentation. Several techs were working with something inside the tank.

  “Level One containment,” Zhao explained. “I want you to meet ANAD 4.0. This little guy will be kicking some serious butt up there at Buckland Center.”

  Leeds studied the imager screen. “Looks like a bunch of grapes. On a trellis. What are all those projections?”

  Zhao sighed, like he was explaining things to a five-year old. “Those projections are effectors. This little champ has dozens of them…grabbers, probes, disrupters, enzymatic knives, you name it. And he can grow new ones in just a few seconds. Watch—“ Zhao nodded to one of the techs, whose name plate read Waldheim.

  The tech massaged a keyboard. As Leeds watched, the ANAD device seemed to quiver and blur for a few moments. There was a faint bubble of turbulence—“he’s slamming atoms left and right now,” Zhao explained—then the view cleared. When the image settled down, ANAD sported a whole new array of projections.

  “What just happened?” Leeds asked, not sure what he was looking at.

  “ANAD just changed out his whole effector array completely. Reconfigured himself for a completely new environment in—“ Zhao checked a timer –“less than ten seconds. No bot on earth can do that…not even the MARTOP bots we’ve got in isolation over there.” He indicated another hemispherical tank connected by thick ganglia of tubes and cables to ANAD’s tank. “We’ve been running tests for days now. ANAD can run circles around MARTOP. He wins every bout, every scenario. He’ll mop up Buckland in a few hours.”

  Leeds wasn’t so sure. “Impressive, to be sure. But our intel shows the enemy isn’t quite so cooperative. I guess there are some fundamental differences between us…between Quantum Corps and Cyber Corps…differences in operating philosophy. You deal with bots. We deal with code, packets, bits and bytes. There’s a gray area, to be sure. And some overlap. But we’ve got intel showing MARTOP bots aren’t the only problem.”

  Zhao seemed intrigued. “Found something you can’t handle, is that it? Need some atomgrabbers to save your butt?”

  Leeds decided not to take the bait. “Defeating this enemy is going to take both of us.” He related James Tsu’s theory about a growing sentience inside the Net, and Valerie Patrice’s first recon, where she ran into something more intelligent, more capricious, more cunning, than just a bot. “The problem seems to be centered at Buckland. That’s where we have to go. That’s where we have to defeat this…whatever it is. We need to work up a basic op plan, the two of us, and go from there.”

  Zhao was thoughtful. “Okay, I’ll buy that. We both bring certain strengths and capabilities to the fight. Before we get down to tactics, though I want you to try a test drive.”

  “Test drive?”

  Zhao indicated Waldheim’s seat. “Sit here. The sergeant here will put you in the driver’s seat. Fly-by-stick,” he told the tech. Waldheim pressed a few buttons, then slid out of his seat.

  “All yours, sir.”

  Leeds sat down. “What do I do?”

  “See that joystick on the side—“ Zhao indicated a small control lever. “Put your hands on that…you’re now in control of ANAD.”

  Leeds cautiously touched the lever. Nothing happened. Now, more firmly, he grasped the joystick and tweaked it in one direction. He looked up at the imager display.

  ANAD was gone.

  Zhao and Waldheim snickered and stifled some chuckles. Leeds understood what this was all about: show up the Cyber puke and make him look like some country hick in front of a nuclear reactor. He released the joystick, flexed his fingers and went at it again.

  “Easy does it, sir,” Sergeant Waldheim offered. “You managed to knock ANAD flying…just a few nudges…there…see him--?”

  And, even as Waldheim spoke, the quivering mass covered with projections slid slowly into view. ANAD was back, now on its side, its effectors grasping and articulating at nothing in particular, like a cockroach on its back.

  “Touchy little bastard—“ Leeds concentrated on centering the view. Somehow, he managed to right ANAD and dock him back at the scaffolding, but the bot wouldn’t stay put. Every pulse and tweak of the joystick sent the bot flying off in a new direction.

  “Welcome to the world of nanobots,” Zhao finally said. “Engage damping—“ he told Waldheim. The sergeant reached over and pressed two buttons. Instantly, ANAD became more sluggish. Easier to control. “You’re working with atom-sized forces now, Captain. Van der Waals, Brownian motion, that sort of thing. Atoms are sticky. They don’t act or react like everyday objects.”

  Leeds managed to make a better showing after a few minutes’ trial and error. In time, he was able to maneuver ANAD around his playroom of molecular objects and dock him back at the scaffolding. He realized he had been holding his breath. A bead of sweat dropped onto his nose.

  “A different world,” he agreed, relinquishing his seat to Waldheim.

  “That’s the world we have to fight in... and win in,” Zhao told him. “I just wanted you to have a feel for what you’re getting into. Now…shall we go talk tactics?”

  “Gladly.”

  They made their way outside Containment and crossed the quad, heading for Hangar A, the Mission Prep and Ordnance building.

  Over the next few days, the op plan for Cyber Sweep and Quantum Sweep was worked out in detail. The basics were simple enough: Leeds would be slotted in as a Defense and Protective Systems tech (DPS 2) with the Quantum Corps detachment. Zhao, Leeds and the rest of the Detachment would make a ground assault on the Buckland compound from outside, including transiting directly through a hundred meters of permafrost to come at the target from below ground. Cyber Sweep, in the person of Valerie Patrice aboard Sweeper One, would assault Buckland from the inside, from its Net connections and nodes. In effect, the strategy was one of a pincer movement, a double envelopment. The hope was the Bugs could be caught in the trap and annihilated before they could spread any further.

  Intelligence pointed to Buckland as the point of entry to the Net, as the source of all the alien packets and bots that were infesting the Net. The Watch Center at Herndon continued to monitor rogue packets entering and leaving Buckland, odd file transfers, memory dumps, buffer overflows and other strange behavior. There was little doubt something was running Buckland, something other than its normal complement of operators and the huge data center was ground zero for Net troubles around the world, even around the inner solar system through connections with Solnet.

  To engage and neutralize the Bugs, or whatever was running Buckland, that was the mission of the combined special op. Somehow, Leeds, Zhao, Patrice and the rest would have to find the master bots and quarantine them or destroy their ability to replicate. That was the only way the Normals could take back Buckland and save the Net.

&nb
sp; So Anson Leeds became an atomgrabber. He spent one afternoon up at the Hunt Valley test range, a few dozen kilometers north of Table Top, learning how to operate a DPS tech’s weapons, in a live-fire exercise with other troopers. The experience was an eye-opener for Leeds.

  Defense and Protective Systems techs were the claws and teeth of any ANAD Detachment, Leeds found out. They managed the High-Energy Radio Frequency weapons, guns that could shatter any nanobot formation into French fries. They also qualified in magpulse weapons, MOBnet deployment tactics and a few other nasty surprises for any adversary woolly-headed enough to take on a detachment from Quantum Corps. Every detachment had two DPS techs. Leeds was given the slot of DPS 2, a junior rating. His squadmate was female: Evelyn Ngombe, a tall, statuesque, Congolese markswoman who could blow a cloud of bugs to smithereens in seconds and drop a hammerhead of magnetic loops on an enemy’s head with one eye closed. She’d won every sniper competition at Table Top hands down for three years straight.

  And she regarded Anson Leeds, now squadmate and fellow DPS tech, as just slightly more capable than a cockroach.

  “You gonna fire that thing sometime today?” she inquired of Leeds as he was having trouble cycling a HERF carbine at the Bugland live-fire exercise one afternoon. Bugland was the name the troopers had given to the ersatz practice target complex the construction bots had assembled at Hunt Valley, for tactical practice. “A girl could go gray waiting for you to figure that contraption out.”

  Despite her contempt, Ngombe proved to be a patient instructor with Leeds and by the end of the exercise, with a lot of cursing and swearing and finger-mashing, he was spraying bot clouds around Bugland with the best of them. At the end of one assault, he found Ngombe nodding at him with grudging respect, saying, “Not too bad for a nog… just keep that bad boy primed better and you might even kill more of their bots than ours.” Faint praise, perhaps, but Leeds knew he was finally in as a nanotrooper.

  And in the process, he had developed a hell of a lot more respect for atomgrabbers after the Bugland exercise than ever before.

  Final briefings were scheduled for that evening. After that, the Detachment would hit the sack for a few hours. H hour, liftoff from Table Top, was set for 0230 hours the next morning. The squadron of lifters would make the four thousand kilometer run from Table Top to Buckland in about four hours.

  The briefing was held in Hangar A, just a few steps away from the lifters that would take the Detachment north. CINCQUANT himself, in the person of General Argo, ran the show. Also on hand, through a life-size avatar off to one side, was General Pacer, CINCCYBER. Pacer was at Herndon.

  “Here’s the latest--,” Argo was saying. A schematic of Buckland danced in 3-D on a pedestal in front of the general. He pointed out some buildings on the surface. “These surface structures are lift-gates, basically elevators, that take people from the surface down to the complex and back. The Detachment will assault and secure these targets, then post a watch detail here. Nobody goes in or out without permission. Alpha Squad will penetrate Buckland from the lifts, but it has to be coordinated with the underground force. That’s Bravo Squad’s job. You’ll touch down here—“ Argo pointed to a narrow ravine two kilometers south of the main complex. “Solid-phase transit…that’s your mission. ANAD goes into the ice and burrows his way toward this level—“ he indicated a point about midway down the multiple levels of the data center, “and once the tunnels are done, troopers follow. Your hypersuits are already equipped for below-ground assault…extra suit boost, thermal control, armoring in contact areas, upgraded quantum couplers for comms. It should take about two hours for ANAD swarms to carve out assault tunnels.” Argo turned to the CINCCYBER avatar. “General Pacer—“

  The Pacer avatar approached the 3-D model of Buckland with a lighted pointer. As he waved the wand around the image, more detail lit up. Soon, the image model was draped in wireways and cables.

  “These are broadband and quantum connections into and out of Buckland. Valerie Patrice is an angel now…some of you know that…and she’ll be functioning as a sort of forward tactical controller. While Alpha and Bravo Squads are assaulting Buckland from above and belowground, Patrice will be aboard our packet cruiser, Sweeper One, reconnoitering the complex from inside. She’ll be in coupler contact with the squad leaders…pointing out targets, enemy force concentrations, anything that looks bad. Think of her as a finger, pointing the way. Quantum Corps will be the fist. Between us, I expect to smash the Bugs at Buckland in a matter of a few hours or so, and secure the site. After that, we send in the reconstitution teams to get the place up and running again. Cyber Corps and Quantum Corps, the finger and the fist. The Bugs’ll never know what hit ‘em. Any questions?”

  Anson Leeds was about to ask a question. He wanted to ask a question. He looked around. There were some grumbles, mutters, the usual bitching. But no questions.

  He kept his thoughts to himself.

  Two hours later, the squadron of lifters departed Table Top’s North Lift Pad, heading north. Heading for Alaska.

  Operation Quantum Sweep was underway.

  Three thousand eight hundred kilometers east of Table Top Mountain, Valerie Patrice stood with James Tsu at the door to the CyberLab containment chamber. She took a deep breath.

  “I don’t mind telling you I’m a little scared. This—“ she fluttered her hands, looked up and down her outfit, such as it was –“…I’m still getting used to. I feel like a condemned prisoner, going in there.”

  Tsu tried to be comforting. The truth was he had no idea what it felt like to be an angel. He could only guess. “It’s just normal procedure, Val. I’ve got to have you contained in a small space, to insert you aboard Sweeper One. You know that. Nothing new. And we just got the signal from Table Top. The lifters are on their way.”

  Patrice was outfitted in something resembling a uniform…light blue pants and dark blue top, field boots, some kind of padded headgear. Of course, it was all for show. As an angel, she was about to change configuration, morph into a tiny ball of bots the size of a few atoms, something that could squeeze into the packet cruiser Sweeper One. What she wore didn’t matter but a girl’s got to look good, doesn’t she?

  Patrice took another deep breath. “You know, James, there are some things good about being an angel. And some things bad.”

  Tsu was checking his console, readying the chamber to receive its guest. “So what’s good?”

  Patrice shrugged, started drifting into the chamber. “You can be anything you want. I could be a fairy princess. I could be a dinosaur. I could be that chair over there. It’s all a matter of config changes. That’s pretty slick, in a way.”

  “And the bad side?”

  Patrice was now fully inside, poking around, sitting herself down on the stool, patting her pants down to smooth out some wrinkles. “The bad? I don’t feel anything. Nothing. Doesn’t matter whether I’m a princess or a dinosaur or a chair or a fly…I can’t feel a thing. Maybe the eggheads need to work on that some more…you know: feelings, emotions. Right now, there’s nothing.”

  Tsu tried to ignore her. “I’m cycling the hatch now.” He swung the heavy door shut and the latches engaged automatically with a staccato series of thumps.

  “In you go…feelings, huh? Probably just need a few tweaks to our primary configs, that’s all.”

  Patrice was visible inside the chamber through a small porthole. “If you say so.”

  Tsu checked parameters on his panel. “Everything’s clean and green from here. I’m sending the config…now.” He pressed a button.

  In moments, Valerie Patrice began to disassemble. Devolve. Deconstruct. Nobody had come up with a better term. Tsu watched a monitor, checking occasionally in the porthole.

  Patrice began dissolving, as if she were being bleached away, like some kind of stain. In less than two minutes, her general form was still visible, but she was mostly tr
anslucent. Then, the form was gone.

  “Config two now running,” Tsu announced. “I’m hooking up the transfer line.” He attached a small tube that lay draped over the chamber hatch to a connection on the side of the chamber, making sure there was a good seal.

  Patrice’s voice sounded like it was coming out of a barrel. “Ready…just make sure the damn line’s clear, will you? Last time, I ran into some kind of debris.”

  “Will do.” Tsu cycled ports on each end of the line. Lights flashed red, then orange, then green on his board. “Okay, Val…you’re good to go. Passage to Sweeper One open…and clear.”

  The transfer took about five minutes. In that time, the thing that had once been Valerie Patrice, and was now a loose formation of nanoscale robots, engaged its propulsors and puttered down a long tube, from CyberLab’s containment chamber to a small port in a computer rack by the wall. Inside that port, the packet cruiser Sweeper One was docked, ready and waiting for its sole occupant, its sole pilot.

  Patrice’s voice came back a few minutes later.

  “Okay, James…home sweet home. I’m here.”

  Tsu checked another small panel nearby, showing status of all Sweeper One systems. “I’m showing everything nominal. Containment bay, lockout bay, power, propulsion…no flags are showing. How about your end?”

  To Valerie Patrice, being aboard the packet cruiser felt like when she was a child, strapped in a car seat. Snug didn’t begin to describe it.

  Look at me, she told herself. I’ve got ten arms and legs. I’ve got jets for feet. I can zap anything that gets in the way. How come I don’t feel like Wonder Woman?

  “No flags or cautions here, James. Everything’s just peachy. Ready to rock and roll.”

  “Okay, just hold your horses. I’ve got to load the flight config. Get your destination code, IP addresses, routing, all that stuff. It’s loading now.”

  Sweeper One was fueled and ready. Patrice shook her head…at least, that’s what it felt like. Did she even have a head? James was always by the book: ticking off every system and every switch from a long list of switches and systems. It was like reciting a dictionary.

  Processors…nav pack…protocol manager…checksum generator…hop counter initialized to zero…acceleration scaffold…How’s that feel, Val?...hatches…and on and on and on.

  “James, light the engine. Let’s go,” That sounded more like it. More like a Cyber Corps packet cruiser pilot, ready to go pound cyber ass. “The war’ll be over before you finish your checklist.”

  Tsu hurried through and presently announced himself satisfied. “Sweeper One ready in all respects, Val. Pilot ready?”

  “Jeez, the pilot was ready ten minutes ago. Kick it, will you!”

  So James Tsu took one last look and pressed a button. In that instant, the port at CyberLab computer rack two, node twenty seven opened and Sweeper One was off. Operation Cyber Sweep was underway.

  The whole trip to Buckland Center took seven point three seconds.