Harvest

by Olga Werby

  “We’re here to do a job,” Matteo said. “Nothing changed.” He tried to sound soothing, but Sophie was practically hyperventilating. He caught her staring into space every few minutes—he guessed she kept trying to turn her D-tats off. Sophie’s cyberhumatics would have to be surgically removed, ASAP.

  Sophie backed away from them and practically collapsed into a chair against the far wall, as far away from the corpses as possible, hugging herself for comfort. Matteo let the woman fight her grief. He and Phoebe could do the cleanup without her, giving Sophie space to come to terms with what happened to her fellow Seeds...and her own body.

  “Everything changed!” she shrieked. “We’re under attack! Every human on Earth will end up like…like…like that!”

  “Not everyone,” Phoebe said softly when they moved out of Sophie’s hearing range. And Matteo knew just what she meant. The dead researchers had PCD implants, which made them particularly susceptible to the alien nanobots. The Seeds from the Vaults that eschewed D-tats would be better protected...theoretically, anyway.

  “There’s no choice; we can’t quit,” Matteo said. “We can’t leave this facility—we’re under full lockdown. No more additional resources, no more assistants, not even food deliveries. We are on our own.” Fortunately, they had received resources for a much larger group—it would be many months before food became a problem.

  While Sophie rocked her sorrow and panic in the corner, Matteo and Phoebe put away the specimens. They would keep those in deep freeze so that the bots couldn’t remain active. While the nanobots stopped all motion at -120° Celsius, at -200° Celsius they lost their coherence and fell apart. Even warming them up again didn’t trigger regeneration. It was one of the first things Matteo learned—how to kill the alien bots. Deep freeze was a method to completely destroy the nanobots—though not applicable to living hosts. The bodies of Slev, Viktoria, and Weehun were a different matter. Those needed to be frozen solid...as one thing. Matteo allocated a full freezer, now a morgue, just for those. He and Phoebe worked silently to maneuver the large mess of strangely entangled human tissues into cold storage; he tried not to think...not about these dead. Are there more out there? No. He stopped himself. He had to focus on what he could do for his little girl. Every problem he solved here on Earth gave her a chance to survive out there in space.

  The bots’ reaction to cold was also a clue to their initial transport into the Solar System and eventually Earth. The temperature of interstellar space was -270.45° Celsius, so the nanobots’ delivery vehicle had to generate at least seventy-one degrees of heat above that to keep the bots from falling apart. That or send instructions for manufacturing the bots once they arrived at their destination. Either way, the nanobots weren’t just floating in space like interstellar dust. This was one bit of useful information Matteo managed to pass on to the Elders already. Not enough, but something.

  After about an hour, Sophie recovered herself enough to help. Still, it took all day to clear the lab and another full day to disinfect. They froze different sections of the building in succession—first the storage areas, then the main lab, and lastly the living quarters. Matteo’s lab was designed like a spaceship—sections could be completely cut off from each other, and the whole facility could be sealed off from the outside world, much like the Vaults. Most of the tech in the lab was Vault-built. The Elders must have foreseen the possible need to completely isolate Matteo and his people. Though no one could have known it would happen so soon, leaving only three researchers to do all the work. They had initially planned on having over twenty scientists in total; those plans were now scrapped.

  Matteo, Phoebe, and Sophie stayed in hazmat isolation suits at all times. Even as they cleansed the lab, they took time to filter each other’s blood in their extra-corporeal plasmapheresis suite and to repeatedly disinfect the suits.

  The blood filtering worked well enough to get the free-swimming nanobots out of their bodies, but those that clustered around Sophie’s D-tats were more problematic. By the time they were done with disinfecting the lab, the most abundant source of the nanobots remaining was inside Sophie. Without discussion, they immediately began preparations for her D-tats removal surgery.

  “It’s been two days, and we haven’t heard anything more from the outside, other than to go on lockdown,” Sophie fretted.

  Matteo knew she was just nervous. The surgery was very risky. He’d heard how badly it had gone for Alice, and she’d only had the D-tats for a few days. Sophie had them for years.

  “Elder Alaba didn’t even send an all-clear for the other Vaults,” Sophie said. “My Seed-family might be in trouble.”

  “He might not know,” Phoebe said. She was readying herself to perform the surgical procedure—between her and Matteo, she had the most hands-on experience. “But I’m sure the Australian and Luna Vaults are doing everything possible to free their Seeds from the nanobots.” Luna-based Seeds had opted into D-tats from their very founding. Life in space was hard enough as it was; they saw D-tats as a necessary adaptation.

  “Slev, Viktoria, Weehun.” Sophie had been reciting the names of the dead researchers like a prayer, over and over. “What’s the point of all this? What do these aliens want?”

  Matteo knew it was his job to find those answers; and his daughter’s job was to find solutions. He wondered what she knew. What messages had her ship received from Earth? He had notified the Elders about the deaths in his lab right away; had they in turn told Vars and Alice about what the nanobots had done to his researchers? Had they passed on the information about nanobots and freezing temperatures? It would be easy to freeze the bots out in space—just push them out of the airlock. Well—you’d still have to get them out of the people first.

  Sophie’s arms were restrained and packed with ice, and her blood was continuously churned through the scrubber and cooled—not low enough to neutralize the bots, but enough to slow the buggers way down. They hoped that by taking these precautions, they would be able to keep ahead of bot regeneration. Keeping the body on the verge of hypothermia also reduced the chance of brain damage during surgery.

  “Matteo!” Phoebe called out almost as soon as her laser knife penetrated the first layer of Sophie’s left jaw implant. They had chosen to remove the D-tats on her neck first. As that was the most delicate operation, Phoebe wanted to be fresh for it.

  “What?” But one glance told Matteo why she’d cried out. The boundaries of the cyberhumatics were enlarged and significantly deepened. The nanobots had attached and built upon the original D-tats, greatly expanding the implanted cybernetic material around Sophie’s jaw. No wonder the kill switch didn’t work—it was gone!

  “I don’t know how deep to go,” Phoebe said, her voice breaking.

  “You go as deep as you have to,” Matteo said. “We have to take it all out.”

  “She’ll be disfigured for life.”

  “It can’t be helped.”

  Phoebe sighed. “I don’t even know if I can get it all. There’s so much.”

  “Then get all that you can. We’ll try to freeze or burn the rest.”

  Matteo monitored Sophie’s vitals while Phoebe cut and burned. As soon as she removed a chunk of circuitry, Matteo deposited it into an incinerator—extreme heat was just as effective at destroying the bots as extreme cold. Periodically, he also emptied the nanobots that had collected in the blood scrubber; he burned those too. But the ones that were stuck around the implant sites were more difficult to get. Phoebe obviously didn’t want to make the incision too wide—she worried about damaging or even killing Sophie. And the bots were like cancer cells; some metastasized around the implant sites and others floated around the body looking for new places to start building.

  It took over an hour to remove the left neck/jaw set of Sophie’s D-tats. The right side went faster, but Matteo could see Phoebe was getting fatigued already.

  After a while, she
pulled back. “Check the first site,” she said. “I think I need some coffee.”

  While Phoebe sipped the warm liquid caffeine through a thermos straw, Matteo moved the imager back over Sophie’s left side. Even before he was able to get a clear focus, he could see something was wrong. All along the edges where Phoebe had scraped off the cyberhumatics, new structures were forming.

  Phoebe leaned over to look for herself and cursed under her breath. “No! There was nothing there. You saw it—it was a clean excision. Matteo—”

  “I know.” Matteo was sure she was right. Phoebe had taken everything out. She was careful. She’d left a clean site. He saw it. But now it was teeming with nanobots rebuilding new...alien cyberhumatics connections, using Sophie’s own flesh as building material.

  “They’re not recreating her old D-tats,” Matteo said after a few moments of inspection. The structure that was forming right in front of their eyes had started on the same repeating pattern they’d seen in the lab a few days ago—a fractal arrangement of boxes within boxes.

  “What do you think they’re building?” Phoebe asked.

  Matteo noted that her hands shook slightly; it was the first time he had ever seen his Seed-sister so freaked out. Even when they had discovered the fused bodies, Phoebe had regained her calm almost instantly.

  “Whatever it is, we’re putting a stop to it,” he said. Matteo grabbed some dry ice and applied it directly on Sophie’s skin. His own hands shook, too, and he dropped some crystals on the ground.

  “Careful, or you’ll destroy her healthy tissues,” Phoebe said. Her voice was even once more. She was amazing like that.

  “I don’t see any other choice. If she lives, she has to do it bot-free.” Matteo moved the scanner to the other side, where Phoebe had just been operating. There, too, the bots were returning. He layered more solid carbon dioxide over the area. Then he looked down at Sophie’s arms. “I suggest we move more quickly. Let’s get the big chunks of D-tats off her, and then see about icing the rest.”

  Phoebe went back to work. She was still methodical, but she moved faster and her excisions were bigger. Sophie would be severely disfigured and impaired at the end of this, but it was the only way to ensure her nanobots were exterminated.

  Each time Phoebe moved to a new region of nanobot infestation, Matteo set to work freezing the last area with dry ice. At -78.5° Celsius, it still wasn’t cold enough to kill the bots, but it sure slowed the ghastly things down. And a significant portion of the dislodged nanobots got sucked out with the scrubber. The result was fewer nanobots on the whole. He had to hope they were making progress for all the pain and damage they were inflicting.

  After forty minutes of cutting and freezing, Matteo became convinced they were gaining an upper hand on the bots. There were definitely fewer of them now. Phoebe remained laser-focused on her work, which wasn’t surprising; she’d always had incredible focus. And that’s why she was able to stay in the Vault so easily, thought Matteo. Even if Vars hadn’t been a factor in his life, Matteo knew he didn’t have the temperament to live out his life in a closed underground community, in isolation from the rest of humanity. But Phoebe thrived in there.

  The thought reminded him of their quarantine. The truth was he was locked away right now, isolated even more than he had ever been in the Vault. He felt panic rise up, and it took all he had to remain in the moment and to continue to help Phoebe cut away the alien-infected cyberhumatics.

  Phoebe suddenly swore—this was twice in a row now. Not that he was counting, but it was very unusual for her.

  “What now?” Cold sweat dripped down Matteo’s back.

  “The structures on her left wrist are just too thick. If I remove it all, she’ll lose all function in that hand.”

  “Keep working on it,” Matteo said, but he saw what she meant. The nanobots’ constructs went deep into Sophie’s flesh, to the bone...into the bone. There was no removing them all. Not without…

  “Just cut the whole thing off,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You said she would lose function anyway. Cut it off. To the elbow.” Matteo hoped he was making a reasoned decision and not just letting his fear drive him. It comforted him to know that Phoebe wouldn’t follow stupid directions unless she agreed with them.

  Which apparently she did.

  She took off Sophie’s left hand, then started slicing up the arm, looking to see how far the alien structures went. “It just keeps going!” she said. “It must have formed connections with her neck implants.” She cut more. And more. And... “No, wait. We have… Bring the tissue imager. I think it ends here.”

  Matteo pushed the imager over the incision area. It was clear. He exhaled.

  “So they were trying to make the connection,” Phoebe muttered. “They just hadn’t made it far enough yet.” She continued cutting. When she was done, Sophie had lost her left arm up to three inches above the elbow.

  “She still has her right arm,” Matteo said. He meant it as encouragement, though whether it was for himself or for Phoebe, he wasn’t sure.

  “Freeze the stump,” Phoebe said. Matteo applied the full -200°C to the final cut. “At least she’s free of them on that side.”

  “The right side doesn’t look too bad,” Matteo said. “The nanobots are no longer swarming there.”

  “I don’t think they can replicate at these temperatures,” Phoebe said.

  If that was true, that was another discovery they could use to fight these things, these invaders. Something else he could give to Vars.

  It was many hours later when Phoebe made her last cut, sat down, and surveyed Sophie’s mutilated body. They decided to keep Sophie on ice even after the surgery. It would slow down her recovery, but it would give them a chance to observe the nanobots’ reaction. And the low temperatures might actually help stabilize her, prevent her from going into shock.

  They both watched the scanner as Matteo rotated the views from Sophie’s left side of the neck and jaw to her right side and then to her right arm and the left stump. There were no new formations. The blood scrubber whirled and whizzed, and there were fewer and fewer bots. The surgery had been a success…if you could call what they had done to Sophie a success.

  As Matteo continued to monitor the scanner, his mind wandered randomly between thoughts. But there was one thing that kept bothering him. Why are we on lockdown? That thought swirled continuously just below his awareness, popping up now and then with a shock. It couldn’t just be the deaths of the Australian researchers. Their research was far too important to be hampered even by such a horrific event. The Elders would have insisted on getting more researchers into the lab—individuals without D-tats. Frankly, given the nanobots’ obvious threat, the Elders should have sent even more people than originally planned. There was just too much at stake.

  Something must have triggered a worldwide nanobot attack, Matteo thought. Perhaps the bots reached a critical mass? Like what happened to Sophie’s left arm? Or perhaps they were all activated somehow by some signal?

  Matteo wished he knew more about what was happening on the Luna and Mars colonies. Most living in Elfy projects and the builders of Malfies were heavily implanted with cyberhumatics. What is happening to those people? And what about the ships in space? Are any of the remote EPSA probes acting funny? He had no way to know. What’s the purpose? Why now? But most of all, Matteo worried about Vars.

  He felt himself losing control over the direction of his thoughts—a sign of an impending panic attack. Panic attacks were common among the entombed kids until they learned how to control their minds and emotions. Matteo now did what he had been taught to do back in his Vault as a small Seed: he tried to meditate. He focused on his breathing, slowing down his heart rate. He was always told that if he did it long enough, he would feel better.

  Twelve hours passed.

  Matteo stopped the
scrubber when it indicated three consecutive passes without picking up a single nanobot. He didn’t fool himself into thinking that Sophie was bot-free now, but he had to stop the process at some point. In a few days, he would make them all go through the scrubber again. It would be like dialysis—do or die.

  Without the blood-cooling, Sophie could be brought back to consciousness—slowly, of course. There was no rush now. They were in full isolation and had no outside connection to the world; the Vaults and their wardens’ stations went silent. And they had a job to do. Matteo had Phoebe, and with luck, Sophie. As long as there were at least two of them, they’d have someone to monitor while the other underwent a de-botting procedure. If they dropped below two…well, he’d come up with something.

  “How’s Sophie?” Phoebe asked. She had slept right there in the lab and was now getting together some food rations. Unlike regular humans, Seeds were comfortable with using survival rations indefinitely.

  “She should be coming around soon,” Matteo said.

  Phoebe sat beside him next to the operating table. “What do you think they want?” she asked.

  Matteo knew who she meant. “What would you want if you came across a habitable and inhabited planet?” he countered.

  “It depends on what I was looking for. If I was looking to find companionship, I would try to send emissaries and make inroads into friendship.”

  “And if you just wanted resources?”

  “Only bad science fiction posits intelligent creatures ready to plunder worlds for resources across interstellar space.”

  Matteo nodded slowly and sucked his coffee through a straw—he wasn’t ready to take off his bio-isolation suit yet. Phoebe was still wearing hers too. Better safe than sorry.

  “There are many potentially habitable worlds,” he said. He always believed it was good to think out loud. “Based on our observations, we’ve guesstimated about ten billion terrestrial planets across our galaxy. Of those, about fifteen hundred are within a fifty-light-year radius of Earth.”