Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary

by Philip Bosshardt

  ***Affirmative, General…detecting swarm configuration with ninety eight percent commonality to yours***

  It was Dana. Somehow, in ways he couldn’t explain, he knew. It was like when you lie in bed at night and a presence came into the room and you knew right away who it was: the way they smelled, their motions, the creak of a knee joint, the snap of a toe, the pattern of a breath, the gurgle of a stomach. Everything converged on a familiar pattern.

  It was Dana Tallant.

  “Dana, is that you? Are you there? It’s me Johnny…Wings—“

  The reply came back. He didn’t know if it was an acoustic signal, an electromagnetic signature, a cluck of a tongue, or what.

  “It’s me, Wings. It’s really me.”

  The trouble with being a disembodied swarm of bots inside WorldNet was that you couldn’t hug your girl. You couldn’t feel her lips, smell her hair. All you could do was probe with sensors. To hell with that.

  “Dana…I…we’ve got to…let’s go big, okay? You understand what I’m saying?”

  Again, the voice that wasn’t a voice. Just a presence. Maybe his processor was creating a voice from sensor readings.

  “Wings, I need to see you…in some way, I want to see you in person.”

  “Me too.”

  So by agreement, they engaged different configs and exited Port A, Node 27356, Server Bank One in a fine twinkling fog. Each had chosen a config that would gather its constituent elements and form up a reasonable facsimile of a human body. An angel.

  In this way, they could at least look upon each other.

  Server Bank One resided midway up a rack along one wall of Aurora’s Tier 1 complex. Two techs lounged at a console nearby. Parsons was flipping through a readpad of some Japanese anime comics, snorkeling at the poor translation his device had just given him.

  “Hey, man, this is hosed…what was that translator you used last week--?”

  Meyers was in a chair next to Parsons, stomping on three-headed Trantorian tree-people as a squad leader for the Phantom Battalion…he’d already reached Level Four and was close to capturing the Silver Sceptor. The game squealed and screeched as he swung his battle axe around and scythed off the head of anything that moved.

  “Jeez, Vic, look at the way their heads explode…um…translator? I think it was—“

  He was suddenly interrupted by a master alarm. Both techs looked up and saw what they thought was smoke issuing from Server Bank One.

  “Christ! A friggin’ fire…fire in the racks!” Parsons stabbed the General Alarm button and rocketed up out of his seat, his readpad clattering to the floor. He bounded out of the control room and headed for the fire extinguisher mounted on the wall. At that same time, sprinkler heads and CO2 streams jetted down from dispensers overhead. Dry retardant blanketed the aisles between the wall and Bank One with foam.

  Parsons stopped short when he got to Node 27356. It wasn’t smoke at all. It was some kind of mist. Even as he watched, the mist accumulated into clumps, then odd shapes. Before he realized it, Parsons found himself staring at a human form…there was the torso, a leg, part of an arm, a shoulder, now a—

  Materializing right in front of him.

  “Jesus H. Christ, what the—“ He knew he shouldn’t have had that extra chalupa for lunch.

  Seeing some kind of twinkling mist emerging from Server Bank One and coming to life was enough to give anybody the chills.

  Parsons fled the server room screaming at the top of his lungs. Meyer stumbled right after him.

  The forming took about ten minutes. When it was done, Johnny Winger stared hard at Dana Tallant, two angels resembling the human beings they had once been. Their configs were nearly perfect. Only edge effects, a slight blurring at their hands and feet, disrupted the illusion.

  They hugged each other tightly, kissing hard.

  Winger held Dana at arm’s length, a big grin on his face. “That tasted good…”

  Dana nodded. “Not quite the same though…your lips are a little fuzzy.”

  “Yeah, we both are…is it really you?”

  Dana nodded. “It’s me. I didn’t know…I mean, about you…when…?”

  Winger said, “On Europa. The Keeper. I decided…it was the best thing…”

  Dana looked around the server room. Racks of computers were humming, lights were flashing. They were alone.

  “Isn’t it wonderful…it’s a whole new way of living…you can be anything…do anything…go anywhere…I mean, we do have a job, but—“

  “Dana, it’s not what it seems…look…I’ve got an idea—“ Winger decided the server room just wouldn’t do. “We need something a little more intimate.”

  Dana had a sort of half smile. “Wings, what’s going on in that feverish brain of yours--?”

  “Just watch.”

  Winger spalled off a stream of bots from his arm. He took Dana’s hands, drew her into a corner of the server room. The bots continued streaming off his arm twinkling, flashing, forming something, some kind of structure. Dana let herself be embraced in his arms as she watched the scene.

  Inside of five minutes, it was clear what Winger was doing.

  “Wings, it’s our old apartment…the terrace…looking out over the Jardin du Luxembourg…”

  The bots had formed a simulation of their seventy-fifth floor apartment at La Tour St. Vincent, where they had lived and raised Liam and Rene when Winger was posted to UNIFORCE, stationed at the Quartier-General.

  Even as she watched, the living room and terrace gradually took shape, materializing as if out of a fog…the floor-to-ceiling windows, the recliner Wings always loved, where he had often bounced Liam on his knee, the outside terrace with its wrought-iron chairs and table, the ornate railing with Louis XVI flourishes. And most of all: the view of nighttime Paris.

  They walked out onto the terrace.

  “Look…the Boulevard St. Michel—Wings, I’d forgotten how beautiful it was—“

  Rivers of light coursed along the streets and boulevards of the 5th Arrondisement. Jetcabs and drones flickered across the night sky in thickening streams, at times blotting out the Eiffel Tower.

  “Hey, the Bordeaux is waiting…let’s sit a spell.”

  They took seats and tried out the wine. Both angels were, of course, aware that all of this was a simulation. They couldn’t drink wine. But they could make believe. Winger found that if he didn’t look directly at Dana, he could almost ignore the slight fritz of edge effects, her hands and face not quite tracking accurately, the terrace railing faintly visible even through her neck and shoulders. Shadows made it better and he sent a brief command to the simulation bots to lower the light level. On the small table, simulated candles guttered slightly and grew fainter.

  Dana looked at him. “I missed you. When did you…you know, change--?”

  Winger shrugged. “Awhile ago. It doesn’t matter. I knew you were an angel for months. I even discussed it with Liam. When did it happen for you?”

  Dana closed her eyes, let the aroma of the wine fill her nose. “I don’t know, Wings. I went to sleep one night. There was a storm, I remember that. Hail, lightning, rain pelting down. The window blew open. I woke up. Everything was different. I saw light and thought lightning had hit the house. Then I thought I had died. But, you know—“ she had that cock-eyed grin on her face that Winger loved, the little smirk that said I know things you wouldn’t believe. “—you know, after I got up, it was all okay. It took me awhile to realize…what had happened.”

  Winger knew some explanations were needed. “Dana, it’s not what you think. Yeah, I’m an angel too now. But when I went through, when I changed, not all of me changed. Dana, I had to do it. The Keeper was coming at us, we had no chance. I told the others to get out, get away. I charged right into the Keeper, trying to distract it, give my men a chance. But Doc III grabbed some patterns, some traces and preserved them. Hid th
em in a small file. The Keeper doesn’t know…at least, I think it doesn’t know—“

  Dana looked puzzled. “What are you saying…you’re just like me—“

  “I’m not just like you. That’s what I’m saying. I am an angel. But my original patterns, my original memories, at least most of them, didn’t change. Doc hid them. Dana, I’m doing this to work from the inside, defeat the Keeper. Defeat Config Zero. I’m a sort of spy. Sending intel back to UNIFORCE…how the Keeper works, what its plans and tactics are. It’s the only way…otherwise—“

  Dana put down her drink carefully. She regarded Winger evenly. “Wings, don’t bullshit me. You never could bullshit me, you know that.”

  Winger leaned forward, tried to take her hands, but she slipped free. There was a slight buzz and a residual trail of bots as she withdrew them. “Dana, the Keeper is coming to Earth. It’s already happening. I’ve got to stop it. I don’t know how, but I have to try. Dana, come with me. We can fight this.”

  He could tell she was skeptical. The bots were good at that, morphing her face swarm to show by turns doubt, fear, skepticism, some things he couldn’t identify…maybe glitches in the algorithm. She wanted to believe Winger. But something…maybe it was the control program, something the mother swarm had downloaded into her…kept her from agreeing.

  “Wings, I can’t…you know I can’t. Something big’s coming. Symborg told me about it. Or maybe it was Config Zero. Or, hell I don’t know…maybe I just knew it somehow. I don’t know how any of this works. The Sun Ring…you know about it?”

  “I know a little. I have to let UNIFORCE know—“

  Dana shook her head. “Don’t, Wings. Don’t do that. I’m supposed to be part of this thing they call the Sun Ring. Maybe you are too.”

  “I intend to stop it, Dana. I’m doing everything in my power to stop the Keeper, stop Config Zero, give us a chance.”

  “Us? You are us, you dope. Don’t you see that? Johnny, there’s some sort of paradise coming. I know it. I feel it—“

  “Dana, you feel it because it’s in your program. You don’t feel anything other than what’s programmed. That’s where we’re different. Doc made sure of that…I’m like you and not like you. I’ve got separate memories to fall back on.”

  “Wings, don’t fight this. There’s no reason to fight this. There’s a peace now, a serenity I can’t explain…everything’s provided. No more 0400 hour briefings, no more midnight hyperjet hops to places I can’t even pronounce, no more long distance kisses on the vid, or absentee husbands or screaming kids and cranky housebots. This is where I belong. That’s become more and more clear to me. You too, Wings. Look—“ she started to rise, spilling her drink. Instead of liquid flying off the table, the bots that had formed the drink shifted into a different algorithm and dissipated into thin air, leaving only a faint trail behind. “—look, maybe I should just leave…we always argue…can’t you just listen to me for once--?”

  Winger got up too. They stood there facing each other, the Paris backdrop wavering slightly, breaking down at the edges as if moths were eating a stage set. He resolved to learn her pattern, her config. Learn it so he could find her whenever he wanted.

  “Dana, I don’t want to lose you. Not again. I don’t know what I have to do, but I need to keep your config up here—“ he tapped his head. “—I’ve lost Rene. I’ve lost Liam. I don’t want to lose you too—“

  For now, they understood it was best if they parted. Maybe it was the program, something in the Prime Key that pushed them apart. Individuality was an enemy. The collective was everything. The mother swarm would look after them.

  Winger kissed her. It’s never the same with angels. Lip to lip, it looks good. But Winger, at least the part that had been Johnny Winger and was now residing in a small, nondescript file somewhere in the greater swarm that made up the angel, knew a kiss wasn’t supposed to feel like this…it was like kissing sand. The bots that had formed up the Dana angel were even now breaking down, delinking, disassembling, throwing off atoms and molecules, re-configuring.

  In moments, she was gone. Winger took a deep breath and let the fabbed Paris go too. The simulated backdrop, the Eiffel Tower, the terrace, the railing and the table and the wine, all of it dissolved way too fast.

  He knew now what he had to do. It came to him, the way commands always came to him, that Symborg was his main contact. The Keeper had downloaded to him that he would get his instructions and missions from Symborg.

  The Johnny Winger angel heard sounds from somewhere outside the server room. There were shouts, heavy objects being overturned, the door was flying open. He let the angel form go and started dematerializing, breaking down, fading like the proverbial Cheshire cat.

  The door burst open. Parsons stood there but was quickly thrust aside. Security officers shoved their way in, officers clad in black armor and helmets, armed with carbines, mag pistols, all kinds of weapons.

  They found nothing but a faint mist drifting like dust motes in the air between the server racks.

  “Go right!” the lead officer yelled. “Cover that side…I’ll take left!” Men poured into the server room and streamed up and down the rows of cabinets, with their humming computers.

  They would find nothing. The mist had dissipated.

  The Winger angel was a loose swarm now, already entering Port A, Node 27356, Server Bank One.

  It was time to ride the packets. Surf the Net. You had to smile at a saying like that. If only the Normals knew.

  The Winger swarm had the correct Net address, the correct configuration to find Symborg. It would only take a few seconds, riding this super-duper train system that made it so easy for Mother’s bots to get around.

  The Winger swarm had instructions to travel the Net and arrive at a certain address. It was to exit the Net at that address and assume angel configuration. His program called it config C2.

  When he reached his destination, and drifted out of the server port at that location, he found that Symborg himself was already present.

  He had already assumed config C2 himself.

  Epilogue

  Nanatuvik, Alaska

  November 30, 2121

  1645 hours

  They met on a low hill overlooking the Inuit village. Smoke from fires streamed skyward in the fading twilight, twisted into braids by winds coming off the sea, itself only a few hundred meters to the south.

  Symborg was a lean dark-skinned man of medium build, with a thin moustache and a goatee. He wore sealskin mukluks, a fur-lined parka and heavy gloves, although angels didn’t need such things. It was just for show. There were no edge effects Winger could see.

  He couldn’t say the same for himself. He knew he was in config C2, but there were always blurred extremities in such configurations. Winger avoided examining his own hands for effects, but concentrated on paying attention to Symborg.

  No sense giving him anything to suspect.

  Symborg was talking. “The Central Entity is coming. A base must be constructed. It will be on Mercury, at a place called Caloris Basin. You will be a key element in this effort. You will help oversee assembly of this base.”

  Winger was acutely aware that, although he was outwardly an angel, he still maintained his original identity; somewhere in an obscure file in his processor, Doc III had hidden the details. He hoped it didn’t show. He hoped he could pull this off. He listened to Symborg carefully, but part of him was struggling not to give anything away.

  “…you will have special access to the archives of the Central Entity. I will give you these codes.”

  Winger had a question. “How will I get to this base…to Mercury?”

  Symborg replied, “I will give you a new Net address. You will assume configuration C1 and travel through the Net to this location. The destination is a server at a rocket launch site in China. You will exit the Net at this location
and penetrate the circuitry of a new satellite the Chinese are getting ready to launch.”

  “What kind of satellite?”

  Symborg’s face seemed to morph slightly, his cheek planes becoming harder. Perhaps it was the shadows. The sun was low, streaming through clouds hanging low over the sea.

  “A satellite which the Chinese call Tiansun-jise. It means Heavenly Sungazer. They intend to send this satellite into orbit around Mercury, to study what we are doing with our Sun Ring. You will ride this satellite to its destination; I will download the proper configuration. Once at Mercury, you will begin gathering feedstock and, with configurations sent from the Keeper, begin forming the base at Caloris Basin. The Central Entity will need this base when the mother swarm arrives. We will need much of the Sun’s energy to begin re-configuring this planetary system. The base you help build is part of this effort.”

  Winger had about a million questions. He needed as much intelligence as he could get on the Old Ones and their plans. Then he had to somehow get that intel back to UNIFORCE. He hadn’t figured out how yet. He would just have to play along and hope Symborg and the Keeper didn’t become too suspicious.

  So he acknowledged Symborg’s orders. The angel laid a firm hand on Winger’s shoulder and he immediately felt a cold chill course through his body, a shudder as if he had a fever. Symborg’s eyes penetrated deeply into his eyes and Winger soon broke off eye contact, looking down, hoping Symborg couldn’t read the truth of what he was. He’d have to be careful about that.

  “I have now downloaded all codes and access privileges for you to use the archives of the Central Entity.” Symborg indicated the Buckland Data Center lift gates, off beyond the hill behind him. “Go back to Server Bank Eight. You know the node and the port. Enter the Net there.”

  Winger nodded and with that, Symborg began dematerializing. First there was a translucence, then a faint outline, then…nothing. He was gone in less than a minute, scattered in the stiff breeze that was coming off the sea.

  Winger stood there for a few moments, wondering. Had he fooled Symborg? The robotic messiah had given him special access to an intelligence gold mine. The question was how best to use it. How to get the details back to UNIFORCE, without being discovered? He had to figure out a way.

  Johnny Winger walked toward the small village. Nanatuvik was a scruffy gathering of tents and careened qajaks, with cooking fires spotted through the settlement. Bloated carcasses of walrus and seal were lined up between two larger tents.

  Winger saw a man shuffling through the snow as he approached. He was short, dark-skinned, enveloped in a heavy qaspeq parka and hood, with bone necklaces rattling around his neck as he approached. Another angel? It was hard to tell.

  The man spoke something, though Winger couldn’t hear over the whine of the wind. He realized the man was Nanatuvik’s angakkuq, the shaman. He was gesturing at something in the sky.

  Winger looked back over his shoulder. It was late afternoon, with the sun low, but already he could make out the shimmering veil of the aurora borealis hovering over the distant mountains.

  The angakkuq approached Winger and stopped, placing a hand on Winger’s shoulder.

  “The peril of our existence lies in this fact: we eat souls. Everything we eat has a soul. All things have souls. If we hunt and fail to show respect for the souls of our prey, the spirits will avenge themselves. See in the sky…the Old Woman of the Sea is already disturbed. In the days to come, we must be careful.”

  With that, the shaman ambled off toward a nearby hill.

  Johnny Winger knew he had his work cut out for him. Already he had enough intelligence about the Old Ones to make life difficult. He just had to find a way to get it to UNIFORCE. He hoped Captain Zhao had informed CINCQUANT and UNSAC of what he had said. He hoped he could somehow search out the Dana Tallant pattern again.

  Mostly he hoped he could block the Central Entity from executing the Prime Key.

  Maybe, somehow, in ways he could now only dimly perceive, he could block the Prime Key himself.

  That old shaman was right, he told himself. He would have to be careful in the days and weeks ahead.

  It was a new life he was living as an angel. The rules were different here. He’d have to watch his step.

  He knew UNIFORCE needed every scrap he could give them if the Normals were to have any chance of resisting the Old Ones. He hated himself for using that term but the truth was he was half angel, half-Normal himself, one foot in each world, pulled in two opposite directions at the same time. He supposed that spies and saboteurs had always dealt with that.

  But he had to remind himself of something Liam had once said. “Being an angel is so cool. You can be anything, you can go anywhere, you can’t die….”

  Already he could feel the same pull Liam talked about. But he had to resist. He had to win this battle. Not only was it a battle between Normals and angels, between humans and the Old Ones.

  It was a battle within yourself. That was the hardest part. Somehow, he’d have to do what Liam and Dana and millions of others hadn’t been able to do. Win that battle and save the small kernel of his own identity, his own memories that Doc III had managed to squirrel away in a small, nondescript file somewhere in his config manager, to live another day.

  The Normal part of him was just a few bytes at the end of that file.

  But it was the only human part left. And that was the part that had to survive.

  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 over 20 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.