Johnny Winger and the Hellas Enigma

by Philip Bosshardt

  Winger found himself curled up like a baby, staring up at two swarthy, mustachioed faces.

  “Welcome to Bengali Djinn,” said the nearer face. “Help him out—“

  Strong unseen hands peeled away the remnants of the mesh and helped Winger stand upright. A few feet away, Dana Tallant was getting the same assistance.

  Winger wondered momentarily what had happened to ANAD.

  The MOB nets had been dragged into something resembling an office, with chairs, tables, a bare desk and some cabinets. Winger soon became aware of others in the room. Faces appeared, then more faces and it was then that he realized the faces were para-human swarms…nanobotic formations gathered into simulacra of human faces.

  Only faces. There were no bodies.

  Winger realized that he and Tallant were surrounded by two men and literally scores of swarm-faces floating about the room like disembodied spirits.

  Winger pulled the locator from his pocket and handed it to the one who had talked.

  “It’s from Najipoor Singh. Howrath Bridge. We’re interested in fabs. To sell in the Euro zone.”

  The one who had talked scowled back at him. His was a fleshy, saturnine face with slit eyes, black button eyes, and a twitch to his pock-marked left cheek. Marwari Barghan turned the locator over in his fingers like a winning card and thumbed a control stud on the side. Instantly, a 3-D projection of their encounter in Singh’s tent at the racetrack played out in mid-air.

  Barghan scowled and snapped the locator shut. “Singh is a fool. We knew you were coming.”

  “Hell of a reception, if you ask me,” Dana Tallant muttered. She picked off the last remaining shreds of the mesh and brushed herself off, but not before the other human had patted her down for weapons. He deftly removed her coilgun pistol from a front pocket and held it for inspection.

  Winger eyed the knots of nanobot swarms drifting like ghostly disembodied faces about the office. “Looks like we came to the right place. Those are good configs, from the looks of it. You can fab human forms as well?”

  Barghan stroked his moustache and strolled among the floating faces. They parted to let him by. He glared back at Winger with a suspicious look, his own face now wreathed by the swarm faces, like a funhouse mirror distortion.

  “Well enough. Dust and flies too. We don’t get many Euro customers here in Kolkata. At least, none that know what they are doing. How do you come to know of Bengali Djinn?”

  “We have sources. I ask questions, get some leads, put things together. There aren’t that many fab labs who can do what you do—“ He swatted at a persistent cloud of flies, and wondered if they really were flies. “Word gets around.”

  Barghan considered that. “I don’t do business with strangers. We should have just MOB’ed you up and dropped you in the river.”

  “Along with all the others?”

  Barghan sniffed. “In this business, personal contacts are important. Nothing is what it seems. So…you are here now. What is it you want?”

  “A license,” Winger told him. “In Euro, we don’t have the fabs you have here. Oh, we do basic replication…simple things like clothes, furniture, jewelry and appliances—but this—“ he indicated the floating faces “—there’s nothing like this in Euro. There’s a huge market, untapped, just waiting for the right supplier.” Winger thumped his chest. “I plan to be that supplier…get a lock on the market.”

  The fab lord’s face showed the barest hint of a smile. Arrogance and ambition…he could work with that. “Bengali Djinn doesn’t deal in—what do you call it?—the walk-in trade. Bengal has hundreds of labs, all over the delta. Why should I do business with you?”

  Winger had anticipated just this question. “Because you want to expand. Open up new markets. If you give me a license and I market your fabs throughout Euro, inside of a year, all other fabs will be obsolete. Four hundred million customers…a virgin market…can you afford to pass up a chance at that?”

  Barghan’s face was momentarily obscured by several floating faces. It was then that Winger realized that the floating swarms weren’t the only nano in the office. Barghan had hacked himself as well, or at least, had hacked his own facial neuromusculature. Even as Winger and Tallant looked on, the fab lord’s face kneaded itself like a pile of wet dough and formed a new face, still somewhat recognizable as Barghan but with puffier cheeks and fuller lips. The lips parted into a broader smile.

  “We take no chances in this business, Mr.--?”

  “Willoughby…Jacob Willoughby.”

  “Some of us have been treated. You might even say enhanced…do you like it? Some of us haven’t. It’s better for business if a fab lord has many identities.”

  “Keep ahead of the competition,” Winger agreed.

  “In a manner of speaking. BioShield sometimes makes business a challenge. A good fab lord has to accessorize, stay up with the fashions.” Barghan’s eyes narrowed. “You intrigue me, Mr. Willoughby. My…er, sources—“ he indicated the dozens of floating swarm faces “—tell me you could be a plant…or a spy. But my curiosity is piqued. You could also be just what you say…an opening into a new market.”

  “Then you’ll grant us a license?”

  Barghan chuckled. “It’s not quite so simple as that. You are not known to me, Mr. Willoughby. We’ll have to check you out, see for ourselves what you’re all about. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Could I see your lab? I could take a description, maybe some samples, back to Euro. Prep the market a little.”

  Barghan was skeptical. “Mr. Willoughby, you ask a difficult question. Perhaps you do business differently in the Euro. I’ll have to check with my partners. What you ask is…unusual, to say the least.”

  Bingo, Winger thought. “I’d just like to be able to jump start the market. Kind of an opening day promotion.”

  Barghan pressed a few buttons on his wristpad. Instantly, the floating swarm faces began to dissolve, swirling like hordes of fireflies in the air, and gathering into new forms and shapes before their very eyes.

  Winger and Tallant moved out of the way as the swarms quickly coalesced and began gathering into recognizable outlines of chairs and tables and even a small divan.

  The gathering and assembly of a formal parlor took less than five minutes. Winger and Tallant were amazed. When the config change had been done, the small spartan office into which they had been dragged now resembled a much more comfortable sitting room. Still materializing were divans and thick cushions, ornate tables and bronze lamps, complete with Victorian wall sconces and a massive oak desk along one wall, surrounded by embroidered tapestries. The place now looked like a parlor from a Thomas Hardy novel, circa 1895.

  “Impressive,” Winger admitted.

  Dana Tallant tried out the divan and found it springy and comfortable. She ran her hands along the still solidifying fabric. “Quick config change. And the textures seem about right.”

  Barghan beamed at the response his little demonstration had gotten. “Tea and scones, even a real Bengali treat…sev puri…will be on the table in about—“ he checked his watch “—two to three minutes.”

  Winger was amazed. “You can fab organic stuff? What kind of drivers do you have? Organics have always been too complex to fab with molecular assemblers.”

  Barghan offered a thin smile. “We’ve developed a few tricks of our own. If you will excuse me…Sevi here will see to your needs.”

  ‘Sevi’ turned out to be a para-human swarm, assembled to full-body dimensions and decked out to closely resemble a Bengali house servant. The swarm lurched forward with a tray of porcelain cups and a small filigreed tea pot, now steaming with hot tea.

  Tallant took one of the tea cups and gently sipped. Winger tried a scone and chewed thoughtfully on the hard bread.

  “Looks like this is the place,” Tallant said. She was aware that ‘Sevi’ and likely other invisible swarms were suc
king up everything they said. They would have to choose their words carefully.

  “Quite a setup,” Winger agreed, crumbs falling out of his mouth. He washed the bread down with tea. “They’ve got technology nobody expected.”

  The two of them prowled around the parlor, exploring the textures and surfaces of the newly formed objects. Most were solid as the real thing; for all practical purposes, they were the real thing.

  A few objects were like ‘Sevi’ himself…loose aggregations of nanobots with only a surface appearance of reality. It was clear that Bengali Djinn had somehow acquired technology that even Q2 and other Intelligence types at UNIFORCE didn’t know about it.

  Johnny Winger was carefully examining the outlines of ‘Sevi’ when a strange buzzing came into his head. He shook his head, thinking he had inadvertently breached some invisible barrier around ‘Sevi’ but the buzzing persisted.

  It was ANAD. The quantum coupler circuit.

  ***ANAD to Base…are you receiving this transmission?…ANAD to Base…***

  Winger looked up abruptly and caught Dana Tallant’s eye. The nanotrooper was turning over a crumbly scone in her hand, trying to figure out how Barghan and his hackers had managed to crack organics and config pretty tasty food.

  Winger pointed to his head and mouthed It’s ANAD…on the coupler. He shrugged, unable to explain how the ‘bot had managed to open a coupler circuit.

  It wasn’t necessary to vocalize when using the coupler. Winger knew he had to act as if nothing were going on. Both of them figured ‘Sevi’ was at least as much a spy as a house servant.

  ANAD, you old goat, where the hell are you?

  As the conversation unfolded, Winger continued a nonchalant tour of the parlor, idly examining pieces of furniture, turning over brass figurines in his hand as if studying their form and texture. He hoped ‘Sevi’ and any other swarms in the area would have nothing they could vacuum up to give away what was happening.

  ***ANAD configged as dust motes when the MOB attack came…attached to outer jacket surface of suspect human…ANAD now with suspect…active surveillance in all bands***

  Jeez, ANAD, you could have let us know. Tallant and me nearly suffocated in that MOB net.

  ***ANAD apologizes for confusion…opportunity came to recon suspect to support mission objectives…suspect now in a comm center…open link to other humans not in the area***

  Winger could tell that Tallant wasn’t receiving anything. Not surprising, as her implant buffer wasn’t tuned to this ANAD version. He went to her and silently mouthed what was happening, trying to shield what he was doing from ‘Sevi’. In the corner of the parlor, ‘Sevi’ stirred and began moving in their direction. Its metallic voice came out like a staticky buzz.

  “Could I assishht you in any way?”

  Tallant moved to intercept ‘Sevi’ and distract the para-human while Winger continued with ANAD.

  ANAD, what kind of link…what other humans?

  There was a short interval, then ***ANAD has detected several identifier words…transmitting string now…Souvranamh…resonator…parsing vocalizations for more identifiers now***

  ANAD’s report sent a chill down Winger’s spine. Souvranamh? There was only one man with that name and he was a card-carrying member of Red Hammer’s Ruling Council. One of the top neurotraficantes in all East Asia. Q2 had a file on the Thai crook a mile long.

  Are you sure about that, ANAD?

  ***Affirmative, Base…Souvranamh is vocalized twenty two times in the message string…ANAD attempting to gather acoustics and photons from return transmission…this will be a bit tricky--***

  Winger turned to let Tallant know the good news—that Bengali Djinn was either a front for Red Hammer or had links at highest levels with the cartel.

  What he saw made him look twice. Tallant was attempting to engage in some kind of distracting conversation with ‘Sevi’ but the para-human swarm was literally flowing over and around her and continuing on its way across the parlor toward him. Even as he watched, the structure of ‘Sevi’s’ face had begun to break down, like a mirror distorting an image. The swarm was changing config. Something had triggered a change.

  Winger grabbed Tallant by the arm and yanked her out of the way. He knew he had a basic ANAD master embedded in his shoulder capsule, but it had no bells and whistles. It was just a barebones master assembler and clearly no match for whatever made up ‘Sevi.’

  Better not to chance being discovered, he decided. He and Tallant moved to another corner of the parlor. The re-configuring ‘Sevi’ swarm changed course to follow them.

  What the hell was happening…another MOB attack?

  At that moment, Marwari Barghan came back into the parlor, this time with three other men. Real humans, Winger was sure.

  Barghan saw what was happening. Quickly, he pressed a few buttons on his wristpad and the ‘Sevi’ swarm began to dissipate into dust motes and twinkling pinpricks of light. Moments later, only a barely discernible fog hung in the air, a not-so-subtle reminder that Barghan wouldn’t tolerate any tricks from his guests.

  “What happened?” Winger asked. “Your servant started coming after us…bad config…something set him off?”

  Barghan sniffed. “A programmed maneuver, Mr. er, Willoughby. ‘Sevi’ is instructed to attend to all our guests’ needs and to see that they don’t…hurt themselves or anything else.”

  Winger held up his hands. “Honest, I didn’t touch a thing.”

  “Perhaps. In any case, I have consulted with my partners. They’ve agreed to your proposition. So, we’ll take a short tour of the lab here and give you some idea of what we can do with fabs. I think you’ll be impressed.”

  One of Barghan’s goons motioned them out, with the barrel of a coilgun aimed squarely at them.

  “I already am—“ Winger said. Tallant was right behind him. Meanwhile, the nanotrooper tried to get a link back with ANAD.

  Winger and Tallant were escorted at gunpoint deeper into the warehouse complex. They went down two flights of stairs and through a maze of corridors. From the street, the warehouse had seemed a simple enough commercial structure. But Barghan was showing them level after level. How far down did it go?

  For Johnny Winger, the trip brought back unpleasant memories of the Paryang monastery.

  Eventually, they came to a lab complex buried well below the warehouse main floor. Winger recognized the heavy doors, seals and shielding of some serious nanobotic work. The entire complex was one big containment vessel.

  “Our main lab,” Barghan announced.

  Winger received a nudge in the kidneys from the coilgun of his escort. He and Tallant went in.

  It was clear that Bengali Djinn had a well-equipped fab lab set up in this warehouse. Row after row of containment pods and control consoles were manned by scores of technicians, almost like an assembly line. He had to remind himself this was no legitimate business. The Djinn were distributing illegal fabs all over south Asia, bollixing up the atmosphere, the food supply and the water supply with uncontrolled nanobotic swarms. Local economies were being trashed every year, with things that people once bought now being made in insane quantities, flooding stores, street gutters, rivers and landfills with the detritus of fabricators gone wild. Images of cornucopias spilling mountains of goods and products into the streets came into Winger’s mind; he had already seen it around the Howrath Bridge, all throughout Kolkata. The Djinn’s fabs and swarms were rapidly wrecking economies and societies mired in poverty for generations.

  What once had been only a black market in unlicensed matter engines and fabs was rapidly becoming the only market. Money no longer had any meaning.

  “We handle the programming here, as well as assembly and testing.”

  Winger was impressed and intrigued. “Cores and drivers as well?”

  “All of it, end to end. Whatever the market wants.”

  “No matter the cost,” Wing
er observed.

  Barghan’s face darkened. “We’re in business, Mr. Willoughby, same as you. We provide something people want. What they do with it is their own business.”

  And that’s why UNIFORCE regulates fabs, Winger thought. But he couldn’t afford to blow his cover now.

  “I’m interested in getting a license to do cores and drivers.”

  Barghan was skeptical. “That takes special expertise. You have the programmers?”

  “I can get them.”

  “Atomgrabbers aren’t cheap, my friend. I hope you know what you are doing.”

  Barghan motioned them to a smaller lab, off the main complex. They went through heavy sealed doors. Inside, several techs were hunched over a console, manipulating something inside a containment vessel.

  “This is our enhancement station.” He tapped an older man on the shoulder. The tech was a sun-bronzed, wizened gray-haired man with a gray stubble of beard. “Rakeesh Dhara.”

  Winger shook hands with the man. Tallant did likewise.

  “Rakeesh is in charge of our neuro and genetic work.”

  “A twisthead—“ Winger said.

  Dhara’s face flushed red. “I’m an artist…this is my canvas—“ He pointed to the monitor. The nanoscale viewer showed a scaffolding covered with molecule groups, draped like grapes over a trellis. “Ribosomal modifications…it transcribes DNA like any ribosome. But it makes a few changes in the process. The proteins that come out are different from what your body makes.”

  “Rakeesh makes implants here. The incubator allows him to stitch together neural implants for just about anything…your brain, a dog’s brain, a fruitfly, a fish. Rakeesh has a real talent for doing angels…he’s the best.”

  “Angels? Some new kind of nano I’ve never heard of?”

  Barghan shook his head. “Bengalis are very spiritual people. We’ve configged our assembler swarms, like ‘Sevi’ here, to appeal to that love of spiritual things. Angels are simply para-human swarms designed and programmed to resemble family ancestors or loved ones, great swamis of the past—the one you see in containment here is the famous Swami Vivekananda—fantasy sex objects, even actual guardian angels. It’s a rapidly growing part of our business.”