Johnny Winger and the Serengeti Factor

by Philip Bosshardt

  ###

  A low moan escaped Lieutenant Winger's lips as more dreams cascaded through his mind. Deeno D'Nunzio found a wet rag and pressed it to his forehead. It felt warm, feverish.

  "Hold on, Lieutenant…just hold on," she murmured, bending close to his ear. "We're coming--"

  "Less than two thousand microns," Mighty Mite Barnes said.

  Gibby pressed the attack.

  "Now!" Barnes yelled. "Reconfig now, Sergeant! Assault One…give 'em a taste of knuckles and fists!"

  Deep inside the limbic system of Lieutenant Johnny Winger, ANAD started gathering and bending atoms furiously as the last few microns were closed. Even as ANAD fashioned an arsenal of weapons out of its effectors--electron lens, bond disrupters, enzymatic knife--the Serengeti mechs went about their business. Almost at the point of engagement, a small detail detached itself and flew up to challenge the intruders.

  The result wasn't pretty.

  Newly armed and replicating to outflank the enemy, ANAD's reconfig surprised Serengeti. The defensive detail stood off momentarily, feinting warily while its pilot tried to figure out what to do next.

  "You've got him snookered, Gibby," exulted Barnes,

  "Maybe…" Gibbs tweaked his joysticks, maneuvering just out of reach of the enemy. "I'm going to try and outflank these bastards, go for the main force." Gibby pulsed ANAD's propulsors, then turned sharply around a clump of axon fibers and bored headlong into the enemy horde, slashing left and right.

  ANAD slammed into the enemy, seizing a phosphor group on the nearest carbene and twisted atoms until the enemy mech's bond broke. Liberating thousands of electron volts, the disrupter zapped the mech and shattered its outer shell, ripping off probes left and right. Serengeti shuddered and spun with the pulse, then re-engaged to fight off another bond snap. Throughout the ventral tegmentum, trillions of ANAD replicants duplicated the same tactic.

  The cytoplasm churned and frothed with furious combat.

  Slowly, with a few setbacks, methodically, with grim determination, Gibby and Barnes worked their way through the Serengeti horde, rapidly disassembling, zapping, twisting and snapping mechs left and right. The assault was essentially over in ten minutes, though Serengeti made several counterattacks.

  Barnes slapped Gibbs on the shoulder. "You did it, Gibby!" You clobbered 'em!"

  "For the moment--" Gibby agreed. "We've got to make sure, though--do a little recon and root out any last resistance. If even one mech's left intact--"

  "I know, I know. But you smashed 'em good…that's the first time."

  "I got lucky. Lieutenant would do even better."

  It hadn't been easy, but Winger's training regimen for the Detachment had paid off. Debris and fragments clotted the axon forest; only loose atoms remained. Gibby cruised through the flotsam, as the imager view jostled and careened with stray electrons roiling the plasma. Throughout the whole area, Serengeti had been cut to pieces by ANAD's disrupters…and the last-minute config change that the Lieutenant had taught them.

  The tactic had worked--finally--but they had to be sure.

  The van swerved once more, then dipped as M'Bela cut their speed. "Airport lights ahead," he announced over the intercom. "We've managed to ditch the pursuit. Transjet's in view. How's it going back there?"

  Deeno was wetting down Johnny Winger's hot forehead. "He's been twitching a lot…maybe dreams, micro-spasms--"

  "Back-signaling to some motor circuit, somewhere," Gibbs said. "Involuntary reflex, most likely. I've just trying to make sure we don't have any more mechs hiding anywhere…this place is like a jungle. A million places to lay low."

  Barnes understood. "If there's even one processor core, the bastards can replicate all over again."

  "Or re-config to something that looks natural…like that dendritic branch over there." Gibby pointed to a tangle of fibers dimly seen in the murk. Faint flashes of electrical activity backlit the dense canopy. Gibby zoomed in for a closer look, navigating ANAD carefully through the dangling projections. As he scanned the cluster, the imager centered on the gentle arc of a planet's horizon, but this planet was a single synapse of a single nerve cell. Lightning flashed inside the translucent cell membranes on either side. Pyramids and polygons floated over the limb of the synapse-planet, shuttling between the membrane and other membranes out of view--molecular delivery vans bearing serotonin and dopamine and norepinephrine--to the outer cells of the membrane. The chemistry of thought itself--and ANAD cruised through the traffic at close range, careful to avoid interrupting any vital deliveries.

  "The truth is--" Gibby went on, "Serengeti could config itself to look like any of these structures--a dopamine cluster, a cell vesicle, axon chains, anything--and I'd never know it. We don't have the time or the resources to recon everywhere."

  "So what do we do?" Deeno asked. She was peering warily out the van's windows, as M'Bela drove them across the rain-slick tarmac of the airport toward the Quantum Corps transjet. "What can we do?"

  Gibby shrugged. "Wait 'til the Lieutenant comes around. Watch him closely for awhile, see if he's acting normally."

  "Normally? None of acts normally these days," Barnes said. "What the hell is normal?"

  "I'm sure the Major'll want to do a full neural function test back at Table Top, same as he did for Ozzie after we got creamed at Lion's Rock. Until then, the Lieutenant should rest."

  The van jerked to a halt. Moments later, the rear door slid open. Lieutenant Nathan Caden's face appeared.

  "Well…what happened? Is Winger going to live or what?"

  Barnes and Gibbs filled Caden in, as the rest of the Detachment began transferring gear to the jet. Its cargo hold was a cavernous open space, its nose swung wide like a gaping whale, ready to devour anything stuffed inside.

  Caden bent down to study the tense, pale face of Johnny Winger. The Project that Wei Ming had mentioned didn't depend on getting rid of Winger, but it would have helped. Caden silently willed more suffering and pain on the unconscious officer. Winger had made life miserable for Caden for years, going all the way back to their days as green nogs at recruit camp. He'd never have another chance like this. But he couldn't do anything, not with the others around, watching. Caden backed out of the van. His own reputation around the Corps had never squared with Winger's. Always one step behind, a little off the mark, not quite up to the same standard…it's always came out that way, didn't it?

  The best he could hope for was that Gibby and ANAD hadn't quite rooted out all the Serengeti mechs. There was still that chance, wasn't there?

  In any case, Winger would be kept under close observation for awhile, the same as Dana Tallant. When a man got infested like that, Major Kraft couldn't just throw him back into the fight. You had to be sure.

  Caden was still the ranking officer, CC2 for the Detachment. Time to take charge of this motley group.

  "Get the rest of this gear loaded, right away!" he snapped. "Major wants us airborne in an hour." He signaled Barnes, M'Bela and Gibbs over. "You three are detailed to get Lieutenant Winger into sick bay. Make him comfortable and get him whatever he needs. And you, Sergeant Gibbs, I'm assigning you to watch detail. I want a full twenty-four watch on this man until we get back to Table Top. No telling what that attack has done to his mind."

  Gibby was about to say Lieutenant Winger's mind was just fine, but he thought better of it. Caden was an O-3 and you didn't go around mouthing off snappy retorts to Quantum Corps officers, even pissant ones like Nathan Caden.

  "Yes, sir…I'll see to it, right away." He hustled off to make arrangements.

  The Quantum Corps transjet was airborne and winging its way over the darkened French countryside in less than an hour. In sick bay, Johnny Winger twitched and mumbled for much of the flight, silently watched by a rotating shift of Gibbs, Barnes, D'Nunzio and several others. Barnes pressed cool rags to his face and forehead; his skin was clammy though the bedscanner
showed no fever.

  What are you seeing, Lieutenant? What's happening inside that head? What nightmares are raging between those watery blue eyes?

  Nathan Caden came by only once, a scowl creasing his face. Grim and silent, the rest of the Detachment effectively drove him away with stares and long faces. He never came back to sick bay again.

  Gibbs and Barnes worked up an after-action report and, after several hours of rehashing the incident, pronounced themselves satisfied the report reflected what had happened as accurately as they could make it. Gibby squirted it to Table Top in a burst off the nearest satellite and went aft to the galley to find something cold to drink.

  He'd taken exactly three sips of some protein mush said to be a quick energy fix when Caden stuck his head in with a growl.

  "Major Kraft just called. Looks like we're not going back to Table Top at all."

  Gibbs was confused. "But the Lieutenant--"

  Caden shook his head. "We're being diverted. Kourou, French Guiana."

  "Kourou…you mean the UNISPACE Launch Center?"

  "The one. Seems the Security Commissioner tasked UNISPACE with a small job…taking out that Pharmex drug lab in orbit."

  "But that's UNISPACE…not Quantum Corps," Gibbs said. He put the protein mush down on the counter.

  "Doesn't matter," Caden told him. "We're going to Kourou. Winger's going to be airlifted to Table Top from there."

  "And the rest of us?"

  Caden's face had the faintest hint of a smile. "Major's detailed us to participate in a little operation. Enforcement platoon of space raider troops is making a little hop into orbit. They're going to shutdown all operations aboard Pharmex and take control of the lab. They need us for nano-protection…the Commish thinks Pharmex might have a Serengeti-style defense."

  Gibbs swallowed hard and it wasn't protein mush. Lieutenant Winger was down. Lieutenant Caden was in charge.

  And he, Sergeant Hoyt Gibbs, was the unit's ranking IC2. It would be his job to cover UNISPACE's fanny if Pharmex had any little nano-buggers up there, ready to chew up a platoon of space troops.

  Suddenly, Gibbs found himself wishing for something a lot stronger than protein mush.