CHAPTER 6
"Fear not the tyrants shall rule forever,
Or the priests of the bloody faith;
They stand on the brink of that mighty river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death."
--Percy Shelley
Hong Kong, Special Autonomous Region
People's Republic of China
August 30, 2062
Midnight
The recon mission was to be a covert one, using specially configured swarms of ANADs, controlled from a lifter parked surreptitiously at the top of Shih Ho Mountain, just outside Kowloon City. The purpose of the mission was to grab a few late-model Red Hammer mechs and gather all-spectrum intelligence on current Red Hammer operations. Full-scale assault on the complex was deemed too risky by UNSAC; Red Hammer had protection from corrupt but high-ranking military officers in the Peoples Liberation Army and UNIFORCE didn't want things to blow up…not just yet, anyway.
The job would have to be black and quick.
Winger and Sergeant Gibbs would be nominally in the driver's seat, controlling aspects of swarm operation, while Caden ran the intel side, studying the 'take' and directing where to go next. The biggest question now was: what kind of nanomech defenses did Lion's Rock have this time? Could ANAD breach them or slip through? They'd soon find out.
The final briefing was done on the liftjet's flight up to Shih Ho Mountain. Lion's Rock itself was an ancient Han Dynasty castle, a gabled and turreted monstrosity perched on a sheer rock precipice overlooking the walled maze of old Kowloon City. With a swooping roof of glazed tile, the castle perched on its ledge like a bird of prey, built on and into the mountain. Five hundred feet below, the city of walls and dark alleys seethed with noise and life, oblivious to the winged shadows above.
"What about defenses, Lieutenant?" Corporal Colleen Barnes--'Mighty Mite' to the rest of ANAD Detachment--interjected a question. "Scavengers, sentries, lookouts…any current intel on the environment?" Barnes would be SDC2 for the operation. That meant she handled stealth and defensive countermeasures for the unit; it was a job the trash-talking, loud-mouthed dynamo did well.
"Intel's sparse," Nathan Caden admitted. "Defender mechs are circulating throughout the neighborhood--we know that much from their heat signature. Pretty much like the guard dog leukocytes UNIFORCE uses in its biowar nets. Same capabilities…they can grind an intruder to pulp in less than a minute. Beyond that, no specific threats known."
"Which means we keep ANAD's eyes and sensors open all the time," Winger said.
"How long have we got?" Gibby asked. He would be IC2 for the operation, backstopping Winger himself on ANAD's interface controls.
"Maybe an hour. Not long enough. We've got our work cut out for us. Security Commissioner wants us out before a fight develops. We're just going in to look around."
"And pick their pockets," Gibby added.
"Piece of cake," said Mighty Mite. The rest of the Detachment chimed in their agreement. They were a tight unit, 1st Nano, and Winger wanted to keep it that way.
"Let's review the basic plan," Winger said. He took a quick peek at the outside video. The lifter had circled north of the harbor and was descending now, lights out, coming about for a covert veetol approach from the mainland. Ahead, Hong Kong harbor shone through light haze like a dazzling necklace of light, draped over the darkened shoulders and humps of the limestone cliffs.
Winger had SOFIE put up a timeline on everybody's crewnet eyepiece. "We'll do an airborne launch, after we sanitize the area, and then put the lifter down on top of the mountain."
"Full 'D', Lieutenant?" asked Sheila Reaves.
Winger nodded. "We're at Threat Con Red now. Full-D is authorized. Superfly, decoys, the works."
"Got it." Reaves made a few notes. Full-D was Detachment slang for maximum countermeasures suite--the whole ballgame: HERF radio-frequency guns, mag weapons, coil-gun bots with full rounds, plus their usual mission gear. Superfly would help too…it was damned hard to do anything now without the micro-entomopters sending back imagery from beyond the front lines. Reaves made a mental note to check out the camou-fog generator. The nanomech dispenser hadn't worked right in the last sim and 1st Nano had taken casualties meeting its objectives. The Lieutenant had taken a sizeable chunk out of her ass for that.
Winger stepped through the mission timeline, moment by moment. "We'll be at the objective at 0100 hours local time. I've already had SOFIE download schematics to the crewnet. You can access anytime after the briefing. Caden, you have the latest on defenses?"
Lieutenant Caden pressed a key on his wristpad. Instantly, everyone's eyepiece was filled with details. "This place is a fortress." He called up a layout of the complex and SOFIE ported it to all eyepiece viewers. "Red Hammer's got their own form of Superfly, just hordes of little micro-air vehicles buzzing around the mountain and streets below, sniffing out unwelcome visitors like us. And that's just the first layer. Tactically, as Lieutenant Winger has already indicated, our best approach is from above, down the northeast face of Shih Ho Mountain--" he let SOFIE highlight a path toward the top of the escarpment.
"After ANAD's launched, we'll do a minimum rep…just enough to give us some mass. When Mighty Mite has the landing zone cleared, we fastcable down to the top of Shih Ho and secure a perimeter for our little camp there."
"Hypersuits?" asked Buddha Nguyen.
"Vests and helmets only. We need speed and flexibility. We'll use camou-fog, let ANAD set up a screen to keep the 'flies' and mechs away. With luck, the camou will make us look like part of the mountain."
"I wonder how long that'll last?" Reaves muttered.
"Till you feel about a trillion mouths chewing on your ass, girl," said Mighty Mite Barnes.
They all leaned over as the lifter pilot swung them sharply toward the black hulk of Shih Ho Mountain. Ahead, in the video, Winger could see the dim outlines of the castle, crouching like a black vulture on top of the rock.
"Here's what we're going to do," Winger told them. He tapped buttons on his wristpad. Instantly, the crewnet beeped and dragged down a tactical map of Lion's Rock and the top of the mountain, flashing with symbols in everybody's eyepiece. "See the cursor? I've put it on a service entrance…halfway down the front face. That's our way in. DPS?"
Reaves was scanning the crewbay's sensor bank. "I'm on it, sir. Just as expected…flies and mechs all over the place. Camou-fog generator already enabled. They're swarming…not random, and I'm getting EM pulses…they know someone's here…just not exactly where yet." She looked up. "We're good to go anytime, Lieutenant."
"We'll have company pretty soon if we don't move out. Okay…same assault plan we simmed. Sergeant Gibbs, launch ANAD. Minimum rep. I want a perimeter guard around the unit while we get our gear set up on top of the mountain."
"Launching ANAD." Gibby was already setting up the interface controls. There was a subtle whoosh from the tubes, as the tiny swarm discharged into the air over the mountaintop. "What kind of config, sir?"
"Full engagement. The works."
The fastcabling ingress came off without incident. Even as the lifter settled onto the rocky escarpment beside them, 1st Nano was already setting out their gear, sighting in their weapons, dragging equipment to cover positions, while the faint keening hum of the camou-fog mechs swarmed less than thirty feet overhead. Even from the lifter cockpit, the outlines of the recon camp were only faintly visible, shimmering in a dark washed-out smear of light, blending in more and more with the shadowy crags and recesses of the mountaintop.
Below the cloak, the Detachment grimly set to work.
Ingress of the main swarm at the service entrance took less than a minute. Probing ahead for ANAD, Reaves and Nguyen ran a horde of Superflies down the mountainside for a last minute recon. Once the coast was clear, Gibby went to work, forming up the assembler group for quick and covert entrance through the door seals.
"No sign o
f any mechs," he muttered, as Winger hovered over his shoulders. "DPS must have given them something to chase." Seconds later, the first imagery fluttered into coherence on the viewer. Winger took a feed for his own eyepiece; he wanted to be able to move about the encampment as the situation dictated. "Seals are intact…just plain old garden variety polymer stuff. Big daddy molecules. I can squeeze through in a heartbeat, Lieutenant."
"Do it," Winger commanded. He swallowed hard, knowing full well they were in serious Indian country now.
Gibby did it. The assembler swarm dispersed and passed through the door seals like a faint breeze. Odd, he thought, that Red Hammer wouldn't secure such an entrance with a mech barrier of some kind. Maybe they aren't expecting company from this side. In less than five minutes, the entire formation was inside.
Winger checked his nanotroops' deployment all around him. Reaves and Nguyen were manning the HERF and mag guns, positioned at the perimeter of the camou field, ready to fry anything that popped up. Gibby and Caden were grouped around the IC panel, piloting elements of the ANAD horde. Mighty Mite and Deeno were managing the camou generator itself. They needed the cover to last long enough to grab a few mechs inside Lion's Rock and get some quick intelligence on Red Hammer operations.
And inside the liftjet, Moby M'Bela was casting hexes on all the bad guys in the neighborhood.
"We're in," Gibby exulted. "Forming up visual lens--"
Caden's lips tightened. It wasn't good that Quantum Corps could breach Lion's Rock so easily. Not good at all.
Winger let his eyepiece highlight the path ahead. Hundreds of feet below them, a portion of the ANAD swarm formed itself into a rudimentary lens, snagging stray photons and other EM from the cave, fashioning a crude, sparkly sort of image. Winger studied the view, overlaid with SOFIE's schematic, trying to make some sense of where they were.
SOFIE laid in a red dotted line. Winger agreed. "That way, Gibby…move out! Squad order!"
The formation of autonomous nanoscale assemblers eased forward through darkened chambers, sliding past air molecules big as beach balls, pushed by picowatt propulsors, down and further down a spiraling path into the mountain.
In seconds, they came to a stone staircase hewn out of the rock walls.
"Main ingress route, looks like," Gibby muttered. He was monitoring ANAD status from his wristpad, ready to toggle to a new config at a moment's notice.
"Same as the schematic…" Winger said. "SOFIE's right on target, so far."
According to the plans, the staircase tunneled down deep into the bowels of Lion's Rock, connecting five levels with a vast open complex in the very heart of Shih Ho Mountain.
"Where is everybody?" Gibby asked. "I'd have figured Red Hammer would be shielding every possible entrance."
"Maybe it's a trap," Reaves said, uneasily.
"Let's go--" Winger gave the order. "Down the stairs."
A moment later, Reaves saw an instrument twitch on her wristpad. "Uh oh--pressure pulse. Somebody…or something's ahead."
"I see it…"Winger steered the formation ahead cautiously. "Big spike…moving a lot of air molecules. People, most likely. More than one--"
"Disperse, sir?" Gibby asked.
Winger shook his head. "Guard detail, most likely."
"They may have detected us…" Reaves suggested.
And they had, for at that very moment, the visual lens was disrupted and the view was lost. Four guards had swept up the stairs, mag guns drawn, scattering the formation for a moment, notified of a breach at the northwest service entrance. If they got there--if they saw the MOBnet--the whole place could be alerted--
"Execute a clampdown!" Winger yelled. "Smother 'em so they can't breathe!" He signaled DPS to get ready in case the camp came under fire. "Replicate max rate…carbenes and radicals at the ends…blanket the place!"
Nathan Caden was manning the config controls. He sent the command, silently praying this version of ANAD would perform the clampdown properly. Any foul-ups now and Winger would notice for sure. No hiccups now, he muttered to himself. Not 'til we're in, not 'til the right moment….
In seconds, the air itself burned with the pressure of exponentially dividing ANAD replicants; a heavy, searing weight pressing down on everything in sight.
Deeper in the tunnel, a small force of Red Hammer guards tried to scream.
The defenders, unable to react, clawed at their lungs and faces and staggered back from the service entrance, pitching backward, ears and eyes bleeding from the pressure, suffocated by ANAD.
It was all over in less than a minute.
Winger waited until the clampdown was lifted and, on command, ANAD began to disperse. "Put the MOB on 'em," he told Mighty Mite. "Keep 'em secure right there. I don't want any more alarms going off."
Corporal Barnes tapped the commands on her own wristpad. "Done, sir
"Form up again," Winger told Gibby. The sergeant commanded trillions of ANAD assemblers to swarm into formation again, a faint coruscating iridescence pulsating through the air. "Let's move on--"
"Transiting, sir…transiting in motion. I have the formation…visual element up…" he squinted at the grainy image on the viewer, tweaked it a bit--"…looks like big doors ahead…"
"Very well." Winger checked his eyepiece. "SOFIE says it’s the growth complex. The scope works. If she's right, we could be in for a scrum, right here. DPS, SDCs, front and center!" And here's my chance to duke it out with enemy mechs. He had to remind himself they had come to take prisoners, not create mayhem. "Where are my coil-guns?"
"On the way, sir," Barnes said. She was running her own defense force behind and around the ANAD group…a team of coil-gun microbots hovering all around the assembler swarm. "I'm bringing up a whole battery…."
On her hand signal, Winger commanded the bots to fire. Barnes crossed her fingers and prayed.
Deep below them, Shih Ho Mountain had a fire in its belly.
The riveted polysteel doors ahead cracked open, dissolving in a spray of flame and splinters. Inside the huge cavern, sporadic small arms fire erupted but Winger had done his tactical homework. The shooters had nothing material to shoot at.
Reaves pursed her lips. "So much for a covert entry. I guess the neighborhood is awake now." She felt her neck hairs tingle. Combat did that to people, even when the enemy was a billion times smaller than a human being.
ANAD poured into the cavern. Winger ordered a portion of the swarm detached for perimeter guard, securing all ways in and out. "Let's you and me part company, Gibby."
Gibby acknowledged. "Executing swarm division now, sir." With a few commands, the ANAD horde divided itself into two groups, one piloted by Gibby, the other by Winger. The Lieutenant took a seat next to the sergeant, flexed his fingers, ready to joystick the troops into battle. He massaged the visual element a hair, taking a look around the complex.
The place was a vast cave, hewn right out of the bowels of the mountain. Rows of growth tanks lined the floor, wall to wall, with huge leafy plants suspended in each tank. It was the scope works, all right. The mother lode and Red Hammer's main bank, all in one. At the far end of the cavern, a pocket of Red Hammer technicians struggled to get up, stunned and gasping for air from the clampdown.
Gibby saw them first. "Enemy ahead…three o'clock…I count four--"
"Weapons?"
"None that I can see, sir."
Winger checked the time. Fifteen minutes. They'd made better progress than he'd hoped for. "MOB 'em. Secure the whole cave. Let's go hunting."
From her station behind the ICs, Barnes acknowledged the order. With her own wristpad, she took control of a small portion of the ANAD force, accepting replicants as fast as the master could slam atoms together and churn them out. She detached the force and tapped out a command sequence…in seconds, the swarm under her control had reconfigured itself. A fine smoky mist formed overhead, oscillating in and out of view.
Barnes took a fix on the Red Hammer techs and fed the coordinates to her brood. The smoke pulsed and throbbed like a thing alive, then floated over and descended on the enemy, forming a Mobility Obstruction Barrier around the helpless group. ANAD assemblers interlocked into an amorphous gel, cordoning off the technicians in a flexible prison cell of tightly bound assemblers. Several techs clawed at the MOB, to no avail. They were steadily forced down to the cavern floor and immovably secured there by the ANAD screen.
"MOB in place, Lieutenant."
"Very well…Gibby, what's up?"
Gibbs had caught sight of something, a twitch in one of ANAD's sensors. "Sounding pressure change. Uh-oh…sounding heat pulse, big time heat pulse…looks like the cavalry's coming--"
Even on the grainy image of the visual element, the throbbing mass forming in one corner of the cavern was evident. It boiled out of the shadows like a thing alive and swept forward, closing fast to engage the ANAD swarm, Gibby's swarm.
"Stay with 'em! Hold your position--"
Gibby's force took the full brunt of the assault.
"Oh, Lieutenant….looks…like…I…GOT…MECHS!" The sergeant's fingers flew over the keyboard and control sticks. "Making a cage…all effectors out max…I am in automaneuver…" He punched out commands, setting up his group of assemblers with full shields of fullerene arms, each one bristling with sticky molecules, juiced with torqued bonds, ready to zap all comers. Even as he configged the swarm, Winger piloted his own group away from the melee, trying to flank the enemy, pinch off the assault from both sides, a pincer movement at atomic scale.
The boiling swarm of Red Hammer mechs closed with ANAD and flung themselves with fury against Gibby's shield.
Gibby's fingers flew over the controls, managing config, pulling more atoms to add shielding, all the while fighting off thrusts and slashes from the enemy mechs.
"Change config!" Winger yelled. "Do it now…Tactical Two--"
Gibbs sent the command, ANAD trying to confuse the enemy swarm by shedding outer atoms in one big puff. They'd wargamed it before…it didn't always work--
Twenty feet in the air, trillions of ANAD assemblers received the same instructions: alter configuration to this design…grab atoms…cleave this group…fold here…build lattice here…the air churned with furious activity. The cavern was suddenly bathed in an unearthly pale blue light as vast but unseen armies collided. The gotterdammerung pulsed like a flickering aurora as the swarms clashed head-on.
"What the hell?" Gibby frowned as he fought the controls, tickling propulsors, spinning ANAD, managing effectors…"I can't grapple the damn things!" Sweat broke out on his forehead, in spite of the cool night-time air rolling up the mountain side from Victoria harbor. "It's like I'm too short! Sluggish. Lieutenant, check my config…what's wrong with my effectors…what the hell am I doing wrong here! I've got no probes, grapples, it's like my pyridines are minus a few atoms--!"
That's because they are, Sergeant. Nathan Caden busied himself with the IC beside Gibbs. "Re-checking config…re-checking templates." Caden himself had loaded Tactical Two back at Table Top. He made sure the template was corrupted before it was loaded. They were paying him well enough, to keep Quantum Corps out of their hair. A simple change, really…."I don't see anything, Sergeant--"
A voice behind them--"Lieutenant Winger, we got trouble." Corporal Nguyen had jogged back to the interface control station. "MOB net's wearing off. DPS1 just has enough for one more discharge. I'm out."
Winger looked at Buddha. "What the hell…those canisters were loaded full before we embarked. Caden…get over there…see what's going on?"
Caden's eyes never met Winger's. "Right away." He bounded off toward the edge of the camou field, and dived into the lifter, rummaging for fresh MOB charges.
"And we got company," added Mighty Mite. Corporal Barnes was tweaking a grainy image on her eyepiece, taking a feed from the scout mechs circling the top of the mountain. "Superfly says enemy force is outside the Rock, on the mountain top, closing on our position."
Just friggin' wonderful. "How many?" Winger asked, swearing as he fought the stick to free ANAD from entrapment.
"At least a platoon, sir. Moving across the top of Shih Ho from the southwest. Must be an exit we didn't map."
"Bots and HERF guns?"
"Already moving up, sir. We're strengthening our behinds too, just in case."
"Very well…stand by." Winger glanced over at Gibby. "Sergeant, any replicants working?"
Gibbs threw up his hands. "I sent the right command. Enemy caught me right in the middle of a rep. It's a friggin slaughter, sir…I'm losing signals everywhere--red across the board! Most of 'em didn't get fully assembled!"
Winger was growing more frustrated by the moment. Gibby needed help…but his swarm was falling apart faster than he could close the pincer. "I can't explain it either. No electron lens…no enzymatic knife…hardly any effector control. It's like ANAD's becoming crippled."
"Lobotomized, sir. I can't hold at all. I'm showing propulsor failure, major bond breaks, shielding's gone…main structure being disassembled…we've got to withdraw now--"
"Not yet!" Winger was determined, his face set in grim concentration, fingers flying over the keyboard. "Gotta close the trap…got to get in and get data…probe the bugger, get some structure on him…if I can just get my pyridines stabilized--"
"Lieutenant, look out!"
Across the base camp, a squad of Red Hammer guards had breached the camou field, slicing through the mesh in a flurry of arms and legs and shouts. The muzzles of laser carbines flashed in the faint light. Beam fire erupted across the ground.
Winger and Gibbs ducked as the first volley narrowly missed the IC station, carving out a seam in a boulder field behind them. Rock and debris exploded, flying everywhere.
Sheila Reaves and An Nguyen dove for cover behind the boulders. Reaves rolled, found an opening between the rocks and squeezed off a few coil-gun rounds. The programmable kinetic slugs slammed into the lead Red Hammer guards before detonating. The concussion was deafening as smoke and body parts scattered.
"Keep 'em pinned down!" Winger shouted. "I'm trying to help Gibby out--"
"Nothing left to pin down, Lieutenant," Reaves called back. Her aim had been true, sighting in the rounds after slaving the slugs to her tracker.
"Superfly's got nasties all over the place," Buddha Nguyen watched the remote infrared take on his own eyepiece. "All over the top of the mountain…they'll be on our perimeter in no time, unless we get some help from ANAD."
"ANAD's busy, Corporal." Winger told him. He brushed himself off, climbed back to the IC station and grabbed a joystick, maneuvering his force closer to what was left of Gibby's. The sergeant was still skirmishing with the remnants of the force. Good man…hang in just a few more seconds…."--got to map this sucker and fast, before he chews up ANAD for good. Just keep those Red Hammer scumbags off my back, will you?"
"Yes, sir…we'll sanitize the area right now." Nguyen and Reaves grabbed Mighty Mite and Sergeant Villa, the other SDC, to set up HERF guns covering every direction. With enough warning from Superfly, they could hold off a sizeable force for awhile using the radio frequency stun fields. But only for awhile.
Winger piloted his own swarm right into the heart of the melee.
"Whatever you are," he muttered to himself, "you act a helluva lot like ANAD." He worked the config controller, at the same time pulsing in and out of contact range with the main enemy group, slashing and weaving, scrunching up atoms and twisting bonds to zap the bastards with their own electron charge.
Keep coming, you atomic assholes…keep on coming…right into my hands--
He bored right into the heart of the enemy horde, slashing left and right.
Winger drove ANAD deep into the formation. He cruised in at flank speed, propulsors whining, and seized a phosphor group off the nearest mech, twisting atoms until t
he bond broke. Liberating thousands of electron volts, ANAD's disrupter zapped the mech and shattered its outer shell, ripping off probes left and right. The Red Hammer assemblers shuddered and spun with the pulse, then re-engaged to fight off another bond snap. Throughout the cavern, trillions of ANAD replicants duplicated the same tactic.
The air burned with furious combat.
Gibbs was exultant at the maneuver. "Eat my carbene effectors, you jerks!"
Winger grinned in spite of himself, deftly steering through the floating detritus of shredded assemblers. "Gotcha…" He changed config, realizing he had to grab one of the mechs before it was completely disassembled. "…right with your pants down."
Like a backhoe scooping up dirt, he closed on the nearest mech and extended his cage effectors to grapple. This command was not duplicated by the rest of ANAD; Winger wanted his army to finish off the enemy formation for good, while he grabbed a mech for analysis. He armed the ANAD master's carbene fingers and set to work, folding and tucking the enemy device neatly into a scaffold nestled in its base.
Like a carpenter fitting a door frame, Winger pronounced himself satisfied. He heaved a sigh of relief. Gibby's swarm was gone, nothing but atomic fluff now and his own force probably wouldn't be able to fend off another determined assault. For the moment, the Red Hammer swarm--Serengeti, INDRA--whatever they were--had been immobilized by the ferocity of ANAD's attack. Working with Gibby, he'd managed to pinch off a small portion of the enemy force and isolate it, then smash it atom from atom.
But how long would it be before Red Hammer regrouped?
Behind him, he heard more voices echoing across the boulder fields on top of Shih Ho Mountain. Distant beamfire ripped the air, just over the edge, as bots engaged enemy making their way up through the crevices and folds of the hill. Red Hammer was moving in and remote coil guns were going off all over the place.
Time to get the hell out of Dodge.
Winger sent final commands for all ANAD replicants but the master to commit seppuku, disassembling themselves into atomic fluff, and handmotioned Moby M'Bela to get TinyTown ready for a combat extraction.
"Quantum collapse, Lieutenant?"
Winger shook his head. "No way, Moby. I've got precious cargo with me…the innards of one of the mechs. We need it to study. Soon as ANAD's inerted, I'm pulling the plug."
"Understood, sir." M'Bela was already off and running, hustling the TinyTown unit into position by the edge of the mountain. In a few minutes, the ANAD master would be exiting Shih Ho's northwest service entrance in one hell of a hurry. It was his job to capture the master and secure it.
M'Bela moved the containment pod into position while Winger readied the assembler for the trip out. Speeding back up from the depths of the Lions Rock, a faint green phosphorescent glow boiled out of the side of the mountain. The green light became a fuzzy patch of fog and drifted upward toward the camp. As it came level with the camp, Moby M'Bela readied the pod for insertion, signaling ANAD to configure itself for capture. The coruscating green fog intensified in glow, becoming a pearly white, as ANAD shut down systems and sloughed off unnecessary atoms. Deep inside the master's carbene embrace, the kernel of the Red Hammer mech was still imprisoned, still ticking over, ready to burst out at the slightest chance. ANAD would not give the mech the slightest opening to squeeze out.
There was a breeze around the pod as the pressure pulse cleaved the air. In an instant, ANAD had transited the capture tube and plunged into the soothing homewaters of the TinyTown container, still clinging to its prey.
M'Bela capped and stowed the end of the tube and stabbed a button, sealing the tank. "Got 'em, Lieutenant! Safing now…pressure coming up, temps okay, pH in the green. ANAD's sealed in and safe."
"How about our little guest, Moby?"
M'Bela grinned. "Caught like a fly in a spider's web."
Winger was already snapping shut the IC panel, even as he powered down. He hung the control pack on a sturdy wire frame slung off M'Bela's back, buttoning down the catches. When he was done, he slapped Moby on the shoulders, then got on the crewnet.
"DPS1, what are our options?"
Reaves' voice was breathing hard. She had been sprinting from one weapon site to another around the mountain top, trying to keep the camou-fog up, the weapons trained, and the bad guys off the summit. "More company, Lieutenant. I'm down to a few charges left on the HERFs. Mags and coil guns are okay, but the camou's giving out. Red Hammer's pushing in a dozen places…some kind of mech attack…but so far, the barrier's holding. It won't last much longer."
"We've got what we came for," Winger said. "All hands…grab your gear…let's exfiltrate like hell!"
Buddha Nguyen was dismantling one of the HERF guns, to shrink the perimeter around the lifter, as the rest of the unit collected and stowed their equipment. The mission was done; now it was up to him and Reaves and their Superfly scouts to get 1st Nano out of harm's way.
They scrambled across the rocky escarpment, even as Red Hammer mechs probed the barrier around them. Seconds later, the first breach occurred as the camou-fog generator ran out of steam. A thick black horde darkened the night sky and trillions of enemy mechs poured through the gap.
"Fry 'em!" Reaves yelled back to Nguyen. Buddha re-sighted his HERF gun and lit off a charge. The thunderclap of the discharge sent searing waves of hot air roaring across the ground. Winger and the rest of the unit flattened themselves against the mountain top, letting the pulse pass. It was like riding out a tornado.
For the next few minutes, they fought a series of running duels with Red Hammer's flying mechs, all the way to the very edge of Shih Ho Mountain. Below and behind them, night time Hong Kong lay liked a jeweled carpet, Victoria Peak festooned with lights as the din of midnight traffic from the streets below wafted skyward.
"Bots!" yelled Nguyen as the first of the Detachment made the lifter with their gear. "Here they come…hit the deck!"
Johnny Winger swatted at the clouds of stinging mechs closing on their position. Red Hammer had discharged clouds of the mechs around the top of the mountain, hoping to penetrate the Quantum Corps barrier and snare the intruders before they could escape. ANAD had already been safed and inerted inside TinyTown. It was too late to launch countermeasures.
"Fall back!" he shouted, running for cover. "Fall back to the lifter!" He got on the crewnet. "Helix One," He yelled to the lifter pilot-- "get that jalopy spooled up fast! We're making a run for it!"
The Red Hammer horde of micron-sized bots fell on the Detachment with a fury.
"Arrrggghhh--my head--!" cried Deeno D'Nunzio. She stumbled across the rocky ground, slogging through the lifter's downwash, as she flailed wildly at the swarm engulfing her. "--my eyes!--"
Winger dove for D'Nunzio and flung her to the ground, covering her body with his. He heard the high keening whine of trillions of mechs buzzing at them. They were dumb bots, without the smarts or the assembler coding of an ANAD, but dangerous all the same. Unprotected, a soldier had about ten minutes before his skin was flayed open and he was sucked dry by the little bastards.
"Reaves? Where's Superfly?"
"Assembling now, sir!" DPS's voice was shaking, as she pecked out commands on her wrist keypad, calling the unit's own microfliers to the rescue. Superfly couldn't match the Red Hammer mechs in numbers, but it could drive a wedge in the enemy swarm, carve out a bubble and let the troops make it the last few yards to the lifter.
Reaves swung and swatted at the buzzing cloud around her head, finally sending the command to the lead bot. From well down the slopes of Shih Ho Mountain, a mass formation of mite-sized fliers formed up and raced up the escarpment, homing on Reaves' transmitter, seeking gaps in the camou barrier.
Deep in her bones, Reaves shuddered. Come on Fly, get…up…here…now….she could feel the mechs whirring away on her neck and forearms--"get the hell up here…."
Suddenly, the air thickened to a gela
tinous mist and the shriek of the mechs became unbearable, tearing at their eardrums. The nighttime glitter of Kowloon dimmed momentarily as Superfly swarmed onto the mountaintop and enveloped the Detachment. The shriek of the attack screeched into inaudibility, a scream of rage no longer heard but felt in the interstices of every bone of her body.
"Attack config--" she squeezed out, nearly out of breath, burrowing as deep as she could against the cold rock of the mountaintop. "Give it to 'em, Superfly! Right in the chops!"
The onslaught slackened just enough for the rest of the Detachment to make a final dash to the lifter. Reaves stumbled, crawling, pitching forward, pushing somebody along ahead of her. It was Deeno, bleeding badly from her forehead, dragging along her web belt of gear. Ozzie, Barnes, Villa, and the rest raced the last few dozen yards, beating against the lifter's downdraft. Caden and Gibbs helped Moby wrestle the TinyTown cylinder into its niche in the rear.
They fell one after another into the open deck of the lifter, rolling around like balls, as the pilot jerked the craft away from the landing zone. The lifter shuddered under full military power, fighting remnant clouds of mechs, as the craft careened and bucked and shot skyward. A hurricane of dust and sand and swarming mechs tore by, all blown to the wind, as the lifter spun and wobbled until the pilot could right her. Reaves wiped sweat and grit from her eyes and squinted up at the cockpit, seeing a familiar face. It was Angelo, the Cuban jockey who'd joined the Corps last year. Angelo, who'd veetolled them onto Shih Ho's summit a few hours ago. A welcome face. Reaves laughed in spite of herself.
Angelo pitched them up and away from the mountain slope, hauling the stick back full. They screamed across the night sky of Hong Kong like a bird of prey at max thrust…scattering mechs everywhere.
Too bad about Superfly, Reaves thought, as she sat up and wiped streaks of grime from her face. He'd always been a kickass bot, her personal toy and a damned good scout for Detachment missions. They'd miss this model for sure. But Table Top could fabricate another one in no time.
One hundred, two hundred, five hundred feet. Reaves barely breathed until they'd put miles behind them and the only thing she could hear was the thrummmm of the liftjets and the cold wind whistling through the cockpit holes. She shook her head, startled at the sight. Mechs had burrowed into the lifter…the holes, she hadn't seen them before. It had been that close.
Ten feet away, Johnny Winger was feeling much the same. He sank back, sweaty and exhausted, and killed the crewnet. His eyepiece went dark and he shoved it away from his face, pleased they'd been able to grab one of the enemy assemblers inside Shih Ho Mountain. That was a first for 1st Nano, and it was a sure bet Red Hammer would be scrambling in the days ahead to recover from the smash and grab.
Even more important, they had something now to compare with the Serengeti mechs that were running rampant around the world.
He glared over at Nathan Caden, now curled up in fetal position against the crew deck door. He looked unhurt and unaffected by the whole affair.
What are you up to, mister? What kind of game are you playing?
Winger could only wonder for the time being. He studied the grimy faces of the others, a gnawing, uneasy feeling in his gut. He had a million questions about Nathan Caden's role in this Quantum Warrior operation. Only a few had answers.
Winger and Reaves exchanged wry glances. DPS1 had been following Winger's eyes, from Caden to her face and back. She nodded silently; something was up, he could sense it. And Reaves knew about it too.
Whatever it was, it would have to wait. They had to make a stop at Chek Lap Kok and pick up Macalvey, then make the long haul to Quantum Corps' Eastern Command base at Singapore. Above their heads, massaging the controls like a master pianist, Angelo grinned back at Sheila Reaves and trimmed the lifter for cruise, settling in for a nighttime hop across the South China Sea.
Singapore Base was a miniature replica of Table Top itself, complete down to Containment Facility, the Sim and Wargaming center, the Ops quadrangle and the lift pads. Only the snowy peaks of Buffalo Ridge were missing, replaced with palm trees and mangrove stumps and the strong smell of salt air. The languid tropical waters of the Selatar River slapped wooden piers near the lift pads as the weary, bedraggled detachment dismounted. In the eastern sky, orange fingers of dawn sunlight probed puffy cumulus clouds.
The TinyTown cylinder was wheeled into Containment and ANAD commanded to disgorge its payload…a partially disassembled Red Hammer mech complete with processor kernel and base. Deeno D'Nunzio and Ozzie Tsukota ran the board, putting the little bastard into stasis, a carefully controlled environment armed with electron beam guns in case the thing started replicating out of control.
"I'm not entirely sure what we're working with here," Deeno said, clenching her teeth, "but it's best to play it safe. No sense taking any chances."
"Amen to that," Johnny Winger said. Dr. Macalvey was there too, studying the quantum flux imager view on the screen.
Macalvey scanned the Containment controls. "I don't see anything yet."
Deeno massaged a few keys. "Keep your pants on, Doc. Keep watching…if I'm right--you will soon--"
In the center of the image, the grid containing the Red Hammer mech wavered in the aqueous solution of the stasis, quivering slightly, as if it were ready to start grabbing atoms any second, the instant the stasis bath was removed. Macalvey studied the image carefully.
"Similar structures to ANAD…see the base? Same polyhedral design. Look--" He pointed to a fuzzy branch at the end of the mech's arm. "Covalent bond ends…I'd know that structure anywhere--we stole it from HNRIV back in '55, right after Pine Bend. Makes a sticky grabber, with all those carbenes and radicals."
Winger squinted. "Looks like an INDRA knockoff. See the fold lines…this sucker can collapse in a heartbeat, fold and unfold like the best ribosome."
Deeno manipulated a cursor over the screen. "Lieutenant, I'd bet a month's wages that's a bond disrupter, hiding behind those branches."
"So it would seem. So we've got an INDRA clone." Winger had a sinking feeling. "Can you run a compare of their processors? Program and architectures?"
"Already underway," Ozzie Tsukota said. He was scrolling down page after page of code, stepping line by line through the command functions that drove the mech. "This is Serengeti's basic drive on the left--" he indicated with a finger. "And this--" he tapped a screen to the right--"is the mech we've got here."
Winger and Gibbs both shook their heads at the same time. "Why am I not surprised?" Gibbs finally muttered. "Look at them--line for line--almost exactly the same."
Macalvey jammed an unlit pipe in the corner of his mouth, chewing on the stem nervously. "That cinches it then. Structures the same. The bugger looks like a nephew to ANAD itself."
"Program is basically the same," added Ozzie.
"We could put it through a few paces," Winger offered. "Test drive it through some basic reps, basic maneuvers, see what it can do."
"Lieutenant, we both know what it can do," said Caden. He rubbed his eyes. It had been a long night up at Lions Rock. He knew he'd be needing some sack time before long. "Red Hammer's mechs and the Serengeti device seem to be essentially the same."
The statement hung in the air for a long moment, full of menace.
Macalvey fiddled with the imager, zoomed in on the kernel of the enemy mech. It quivered like a ticking bomb. "A masterpiece of engineering, gentlemen. Look at it. The Devil's own hand…a perfect blend of man and nature. Quantum processor. Fullerene 'hooks' for better grasping, just like we did two years ago. Much more accurate. With ANAD's replication algorithm…damn thing's based on the same viral genome that powered the original HNRIV, before it got out of hand. Fiendishly complicated stuff but it'll blaze away replicating at mind-boggling speeds."
Winger was practically licking his lips at the possibilities. My fingers are just itching to grab a few atoms wit
h this joker.
Macalvey fussed with his pipe. His eyes met Gibbs, then Winger. "Here's the proof we need, Lieutenant. Vivonex built Serengeti to fight off the latest mutation of the HNRIV virus. And this mech comes from Red Hammer. Your own analysis shows they're one and the same."
Winger stared wistfully at the mech inside Containment, shaking his head. "That can only mean one thing."
"Red Hammer is implicated in the Serengeti disaster. They're in bed with Vivonex. And the odds are it's no accident. Serengeti's capable of engaging neuro-synaptic structures in the brains of its victims. The trajectory of the S Factor treatment is that HNRIV is defeated all right. And in doing that, the device seizes control of its victim's limbic system, and executes a program to enhance or inhibit stimulation, either directly, or under remote control. We know from direct analysis that Serengeti can and does do all these things."
"This mech has the same capabilities," Deeno said. "You can see it from the structure and the program. There's no substantial difference between them."
"Like I said before," Macalvey added, "it's addiction on command. "With an intelligent, adaptive, airborne-capable and mobile nanoscale device."
Deeno shuddered at the prospect. "And those Red Hammer thugs are the ones sending the commands."
Johnny Winger was thoughtful. "I'll satlink what we've found back to Major Kraft. UNSAC will want to know about this. I've got a feeling the whole ballgame has suddenly changed."
After putting the Red Hammer mech through a few routine reps and cycles, their worst fears were confirmed. Winger and Gibbs went with Macalvey to the Ops center to satlink with Major Kraft and UNSAC, hastily scribbling notes and squirting images onto their tablets as they went.
Sheila Reaves had been working with Buddha Nguyen on a balky coilgun bot in the shop behind Containment when the meeting broke up. She saw Lieutenant Caden heading off with several others, toward the O Club, located at the pier on the other side of the base. On her own, she decided to follow along. She didn't trust Caden. It wasn't something she could put her finger on exactly; she hadn't advised Lieutenant Winger of anything, but all the same, she was curious.
"Keep at it," she told Buddha. "I want to get this bot flyable before we ship out."
Nguyen was elbow deep in circuit boards, handling the quantum tweezers like the pro he was. "Sure thing, Red. Where the hell are you going?"
Reaves shook out her auburn hair and quickly toweled off her hands and arms with a rag. "For a walk. Fresh air. Whatever. Just get that damn thing working, okay?"
Nguyen looked up puzzled, pushing the mag lens away from his eye. "No sweat. I'll handle it." He preferred the shop to the club or the rec room anyway.
Reaves disappeared out the door.
In the Ops Center, Winger, Gibbs and Macalvey satlinked back to Table Top Mountain. Major Jurgen Kraft was deep in thought, his forehead deeply furrowed when the chime sounded. It was late afternoon, and thunderstorming across the mountains of northern Idaho. He looked up annoyed, saw the call was annotated AFTER ACTION REPORT and gruffly acknowledged Winger.
"What have you got for me, Winger? How'd the mission go at Lion's Rock?"
"Good news, sir. And some not so good." He squirted their reports Stateside and filled in the Major on the details. Gibbs added a few thoughts. Then Macalvey relayed what they had found.
Kraft's face hardened, visible even on the vidlink. A vein on his forehead reddened, as Macalvey detailed their findings.
"This will have to go to UNSAC," the Major said. "We're not dealing with a natural plague anymore. Or an accident. This is deliberate…a criminal act of the highest order. UNIFORCE will be getting involved directly."
"Major," Winger said, "permission to contact Doc Frost? I'd like to send a small team to the Northgate Lab. We're going to need help on this one. I've got about a million questions for the Doc."
Kraft nodded gruffly. "Permission granted. Since we can't seem to defeat or contain Serengeti anywhere we engage it, we're going to need every trick in the book and then some. Detail yourself and whoever else you feel would be useful. I want the rest of the Detachment back here at Table Top by 1800 hours tomorrow. We need to have a briefing with UNSAC, offer some options, work out a strategy to defeat this menace."
"I've got to get back to WCDC," Macalvey told them. "We're still working with Dr. Keino and WHO on the virus genome end of all this. If HNRIV was deliberately released into the environment, then Serengeti offered as an antidote, there has to be a connection between the two. HNRIV and Serengeti have to be like brothers and maybe there's a way to defeat the mechs by working from the HNRIV end. I want to be patched into SOFIE too. I'll need access to all the data on how ANAD handles both of them."
"Duly noted, Doctor." That'll take time to clear channels, he thought. Kraft hated having to fight a war with civilians tugging at you in all directions, especially scientists. ANAD had made a lot of the old rules of warfare obsolete. Nano was a blessing and a curse…mostly curse, he figured. The old truths he'd learned at the Academy didn't seem to apply anymore, not when the battlefield was the size of a thimble of blood and entire campaigns could be won or lost inside a corpse's brain.
"I'm activating the entire battalion," Kraft decided. UNSAC would undoubtedly mobilize the entire Corps when he was fully briefed anyway. "1st Enviro/Chem and 1st Bio too. Full packs for everyone. Get back to the States, Winger. Get to Northgate and see Frost. I need answers, options, something that'll work. And fast. I know UNSAC…he'll want a mission plan with all the dirty details spread out before him, probabilities, outcomes, what-ifs, the whole ballgame. Winger, you and Tallant work on scenarios on the way over. Work with SOFIE. I need specifics to show UNSAC."
"Understood, sir. We'll contact Doc Frost right away, advise him of what's happening."
Kraft signed off. Winger looked at Macalvey, his long red hair plastered over his forehead. The virologist glared back at him.
"Lieutenant, you and I must look like a pair of unruly bums.”
Winger half grinned. "I know, Doc. I know. I wasn't staring. What say we clean up and hit the O Club for something cold while Deeno and Ozzie get ANAD ready for transport? My treat!”
The Scotsman was halfway out the door already. "An excellent idea, Lieutenant. I could use a little whiff of the bottle to settle my stomach.” He scooted out of sight, Johnny Winger right behind him.
The Officers Club at Singapore Base was done up like a traditional Malaysian kampong, complete with thatch roof and palm tree beams. It was open at the back, where the bar curved away, giving onto a deck surrounded by a thicket of mangrove and pandanus vines, and the steady rush of the river behind that. A wooden pier had been built right from the back door out to the river's edge. Strollers had a good view of all the junks and sampans and assorted riverine craft and stilt houses that populated this stretch of the waterway.
Winger and Macalvey found a corner of the bar by the door to the pier and ordered up a couple of local beers. They both spied Nathan Caden at the other end of the bar, alone, nursing a potent brew of something vaguely Indonesian in a long-stemmed goblet. He scowled down into his drink, seeking wisdom in the reflections of the amber liquid.
"There he is," Winger said, sipping at his beer. "The very picture of military bearing…Quantum Corps' answer to Custer. A giant among men. A dashing leader, always looking out for his troops' welfare. Steadfast commander--let's see, have I missed anything?"
Macalvey sniffed at his beer. "I’ve noted some…how shall I say it?…animosity between you two lately.”."
"I don't trust him. He's in the Corps for all the wrong reasons."
Macalvey seemed to consider that. “I see. And what, in your opinion, Lieutenant, would be the proper reasons…to be in the Corps?”
Winger chugged on his brew. “The usual recruiting poster stuff, I suppose. Duty, honor, adventure.”
“And y
ou?
Winger shrugged. “I don’t know…I guess I was stuck, going nowhere. I needed a change.”
“And from what, exactly, did you need a change?”
Winger hadn’t really given it a lot of thought lately. “It was right after Mom died…car accident. That was back in ’47. It hit us all hard, Dad especially. He just kind of withdrew from us. Shrank into himself. Me and my brothers and sisters started running the place, the North Bar Pass Ranch, that is. Pueblo, Colorado.”
“Your father…he was—“
“—clinical depression…bipolar…whatever you want to call it. Just moped around in his lab, back in the barn. Tinkering. He always liked to tinker.” Winger half smiled. “Me too, I guess. I got it from him. Anyway, I was stuck at the ranch and we’d already had to sell part of the property to make ends meet. Developer came along, took a third of the range and re-named it Highhorn. Made it a fake ranch, for the city folks. After that, you didn’t see anything but billboards, and para-sailers and little clone ponies…makes me sick to talk about it.” Winger stared down into his beer, swirled it with a finger and licked the frosting off. “I saw this story on the net about a new force, a kind of combination military and police force, set up by the UN, trying to deal with small things, I mean, really small things. Viruses and plagues and nanoscale threats and such. That was right after Dad got the patch treatment and he was getting better, see. But I was just tired of ranch work, tired of seeing city jerks para-sailing over the Front Range, tired of everything. I wanted to get out, I suppose, see the world, get some kind of education. Besides—“ he looked over at Macalvey a bit sheepishly, “—I kinda liked to tinker. So I joined up.”
“So here you are, in Singapore, fighting rogue nanobots, having a beer with an overweight Scotsman who loves his whiskey.” Macalvey winked at him.
“Yeah,” Winger nodded. “Here we are.” He looked up, caught Caden’s eye.
The two Lieutenants tipped drinks at each other, acknowledging the other's presence. "Look at him, Doc. See how he's sitting all by himself. Ego bigger than a hypersuit. He knows I didn't want him on this mission. I told you that, didn't I?"
"I believe you did mention it."
Winger glared over at Caden, silently willing the O-3 to exit the bar. Major Kraft had his reasons for detailing Caden to Quantum Warrior. Not that they made any sense. He had gone to see the Major right before they'd left Table Top for Nairobi, less than ten days ago. The battalion commander was standing in front of a map of east Africa. Winger had knocked on the door jamb.
"Come."
Winger went in.
Kraft indicated the map. "Lieutenant, I don't have to remind you how critical Quantum Warrior is to the Corps. And to the whole world, for that matter. A hell of a lot of people are suffering because of HNRIV and Serengeti."
"Yes, sir."
"This op's got to go down smooth, like good whiskey. Is the Detachment ready?"
It was an odd question, but then Major Kraft was known for that. "Primed and ready, sir."
Kraft turned to face Winger, his jaw set hard. "Including Mr. Caden?"
Winger flinched. "Well, sir--"
Kraft didn't wait for an answer. "I know you didn't want Caden on the team. I ordered him assigned for a reason."
"Yes, sir."
"I don't owe you an explanation, son, but I'm going to give you one anyway. Lieutenant Nathan Caden needs field experience. He's a decent enough ANAD driver. But he's rough around the edges. He needs the kind of polish only a real live mission can give him. I can wargame and sim you guys all year long and it won't teach you a hundredth of what you'd learn getting your ass shot at for real."
"Begging the Major's pardon, sir, but Lieutenant Caden has repeatedly exercised questionable tactical judgment in recent exercises. His ANAD piloting skills are first-rate and the Detachment can use him. But his command skills…well, frankly, sir, he couldn't command a cat to climb a tree. Quantum Warrior is risky enough as it is, sir, without adding additional risk."
Kraft sized Winger up. "Strong words, Lieutenant. Specifics?"
Winger cited a recent Nanowarrior exercise. "The Detachment doesn't trust him, sir. Ask any of them. I know how that sounds, but it's true. There's a feeling, a perception--"
"A perception--"
"--that Lieutenant Caden does not always have the success of the mission or the good of the team at heart."
Kraft nodded gravely. "I know that, Winger. Why the hell do you think I'm putting Caden in? He's got to get his nose a little bloody…sometimes enemy fire can shake a man up the right way…get his head back on straight. Get his attention--the Corps' invested a hell of a lot in both of you. I'm looking out for that investment."
Winger was still uneasy at the prospect of having Caden as an attached CC2. "Yes, sir. We'll do our best, sir. First Nano won't let you down. It's just that--"
"That--what?"
"Well, sir…I'm sure you're right. It's just that I don't feel really cuddly about an exec I don't have confidence in."
Kraft had heard enough. No doubt Winger was spoiled, the darling of the Corps. It was as much the Major's fault as anyone's. "Well, get cuddly and fast, Lieutenant. Get your ass to Kenya and put Serengeti out of business."
"Yes, sir."
Winger left Kraft's office. He often had what he called a 'mouse in my stomach' right before a mission went down. Only this time, the mouse was doing backflips.
Macalvey glared over at Winger with a quizzical grin on his face. "And how's that little mouse doing now, Lieutenant?"
Winger shrugged, swirled his beer and finished the mug off. "I don't listen to him anymore."
Macalvey hmmphhed. "We should be getting back…I want to check on my patient.”
“Tell me straight, Doc. What’s going to happen to her? She’s going to get better, isn’t she?”
Macalvey was sensitive to his feelings. “You and Lieutenant Tallant…you’re close, are you?”
Winger shrugged, waggled his hands. “We were nogs together…same training camp. She thinks she’s a real hot rod, wants to be the top atom-grabber so bad, she can taste it. Me—“ he sniffed. “—I guess it just comes naturally. But yeah—“ he stood up with finality. “She didn’t deserve to get infested like that…it was my fault…I…I suppose I just care what happens. First Nano’s a tight bunch, like family. Like when my Mom died and Dad kinda withdrew…you know, sometimes, you got to get help when bad things happen.”
Macalvey squeezed the Lieutenant’s shoulders. “Hopefully nothing will happen to her. It’s too soon to say. She’s stable. Your solution to the infection seems to be holding for the moment. Early function tests are encouraging…I haven’t seen anything indicative of major trauma, major impairment.”
“When can she come back?”
Macalvey walked Winger firmly to the door. “When we know she’s out of danger…free of Serengeti and functioning normally. I don’t know how long that will take.”
“We need her,” Winger said softly. “The whole battalion needs her.”
On the hike back to Ops, they ran into Sergeant Sheila Reaves. DPS1 looked like a truck had just backed into her.
"What's the problem?" Winger asked.
Reaves glanced around to see who was nearby. Only a smattering of officers, and a squad doing double-time march toward the drill field. Even in Quantum Corps, some things never changed.
"I'm not real sure, Lieutenant. I wanted to speak to you."
"About what?"
Reaves licked her lips. She was known around 1st Nano as a comic cut-up, always doing impressions and snorking laughs at anybody's jokes. Superstitious too--that was Sheila Reaves. She'd spend hours of her downtime hanging out with Moby M'Bela, having various hexes and curses removed.
"Well, sir…it's about Lieutenant Caden, sir--"
Instantly, Johnny Winger was alert. "Walk with me, Reaves."
The three of them made their way around bougainvillea bushes toward the bland cube of the Ops center.
Reaves unburdened herself of all her growing suspicions about the CC2 that Major Kraft had detailed to Quantum Warrior.
"The weirdest thing, sir, is when we're under assault--nano-assault. Like at that village Uliba. Even at the hospital in Hong Kong. We're all hunkered down, zapping mechs left and right, getting our faces chewed up or worse, and both times, sir--both times--the little bastards haven't so much as pinched a hair on the Lieutenant's head. They just flow over, under and around him, like he was MOB'ed or something. Or they recognize him. Mighty friggin' peculiar, if you ask me, sir. I was wondering--"
Winger had noticed the same thing. He'd figured it was a fluke, a statistical anomaly of swarm behavior. Random perturbation.
"Wondering what, Reaves?"
"Well, sir--" Reaves didn't seem to know what to do with her hands. Finally, she jammed them behind her back, parade ground style. "--I was wondering if you knew any reason for it."
They reached the Ops center. The Detachment ready room was in the back. There, the rest of the Detachment would be readying their gear for boarding the hyperjet for the three-hour flight back to North America, a trip that would take them nearly to the edge of space, hurtling like a meteor across the upper fringes of the stratosphere at something like seven times the speed of sound. It was the only way for nanowarriors to go.
The truth was he had seen the same thing Sheila Reaves had noticed. Was it a fluke? Swarms of nanomechs didn't always behave in predictable ways; chaos stirred the pot and quantum effects had a way of mucking things up, stretching and twisting reality
into pretzels nobody could have foreseen. Maybe that was it.
But maybe there was something that needed looking into. Too bad the mouse was gone.
Winger studied Reaves' face for a moment, not sure what to say. She was a good kid, for all her cutting up and showmanship and snorky laugh that drove everyone crazy. Sheila Reaves was a dedicated, mean SOB of a DPS tech. She was the defending Corps-wide expert marksman in coilgun competition and she could massage a laser or e-beam her way through just about anything.
"Sergeant," Winger said, "I'm sure there's a rational explanation for what you saw. Probably just swarm effects. I wouldn't worry about it. I'll speak with Lieutenant Caden, see what I can find out."
Reaves appeared relieved. "Thank you, sir. I wanted to get this into the debriefs, but I wasn't sure how. I wasn't sure if I'd really seen it…what it could mean."
"Probably nothing. Get back to the ready room and get your gear in order. We liftoff at 2200 hours."
Reaves saluted and hustled off.
Macalvey and Winger stood outside the Ops center for a few minutes.
"You don't really believe that, do you?" The Scotsman stared off toward the bright haze of Singapore City, its skyline winking a dazzling pattern of lights through the mangrove trees.
Winger shrugged. "I don't know what to believe, Doc. Caden's bad. I feel it, I just can't prove it. I could almost believe my own explanation if it had happened once."
"Swarm effects…you and I both know that's baloney. You've got better command of your mechs than that. You can bet the enemy does too."
Winger nodded. "I know. Once could be a fluke. Twice…that's a signal."
"Perhaps, but a signal of what?"
Winger was already through the doors, heading for the ready room. "I don't know, Doc. But I intend to find out."
Johnny Winger and the Serengeti Factor Page 8
