Nanotroopers Episode 14: The HNRV Factor

by Philip Bosshardt

  ***ANAD…ANAD to Base…it’s…this is…controls are…I am weakened…cannot activate…the Prime Key--***

  “ANAD…is that you…ANAD…this is Base...listen to me…ANAD…can you hear me?”

  The whisper was weak but there. Winger flailed his arms blindly, gesturing the other troopers away from the dig. “ANAD…listen to me…you’ve got to shut down…cease replication…command override…Excalibur Alpha X-ray…command override…Excalibur Alpha X-ray—“ He hoped the old reset command would still work. He’d learned the trick from Doc Frost himself, months ago. He had just told ANAD to shut down all comm links and effector controls…he hoped.

  But it wasn’t working. The dig pit continued to glow bright blue-white. Tendrils and ghostly fingers of bot swarms continued seeping along the ground, consuming rock and rubble. The other troopers backed further away, aiming HERF and mag guns point blank at the swarm, ready to open fire.

  “Got to hurry now!” Winger realized.

  “ANAD…execute omega one…full shutdown…all links, all effectors, all sensors and probes…ANAD, I’m coming to you…I’m taking over—“

  The voice link was weakening. ***ANAD cannot respond…comm one and comm two down…effect—disabled…main core active in Config Zero…all overrides inhibited…ANAD activating internal inhibits--***

  The eyepiece image was like driving a hundred miles an hour through an Idaho sleetstorm. Polygons and spheres and cubes streamed past at high speed. For a moment, Johnny Winger was disoriented.

  Then he was at the master assembler. Its effectors were a blur…grabbing atoms and tearing apart solid lattice structure faster than his imager could process. The assembler at the heart of the swarm was stripping and chewing and disassembling its way outward from the dig…consuming everything it touched.

  “ANAD…this is Base…cease replication program…assume stable config one…I’m overriding all other instructions—“

  But the assembler had already inhibited all comm links.