NanoSymbionts

by Joseph Philbrook

  “You BITCH!“ He screamed as a flow of energy leaped from his body and pushed Sandra against the opposite wall where her body slid up it until her feet were nearly a foot from the floor. “Don't you ever even think of doing anything like that to me again!”

  “I'm sorry Jake,” Sandra gasped. “But you said I should do whatever it took...”

  She started slowly sliding back down the wall until her feet were about three inches from the floor. At which point the energy field emanating from Jake collapsed around him. Sandra stumbled slightly as she fell the remaining distance to the floor. Jake was no longer glowing.

  There were some serious looking burns scattered over most of his body. Though they were visibly healing before their eyes. Jake seemed unsteady on his feet. He now looked more exhausted than angry. Though he still sounded pissed when he replied.

  “Yeah I guess I ‘did’ say that,” he admitted. “But I sure didn't mean... ‘that!’”

  “I said, I'm sorry Jake,” Sandra said. “It was only supposed to last long enough to detect your nanite's reaction to your feelings and stop before you were even sure what it was.”

  “Well that sure as hell wasn't what happened in there!” Jake retorted, as the rest of his burns finished fading away.

  Meanwhile Sandra had been looking at a small display screen attached to a wide wrist band she was wearing.

  “This doesn't make sense,” she said. “There is no way your nanites could have already developed sentience. Yet somehow it seems, you succeeded in using them in a coordinated strike against the pods. It appears to have started with the control systems Jake. You must have pushed back against that last simulation so hard that the pod couldn't even disengage it. Then your nanites tapped into the pod's power systems, using most of the power to rip apart the whole pod system. There is no way you should have been able to do that. Not yet anyway.”

  As she listened, Cindy's feelings ran though all the extremes of surprise and fear and then anger.

  “What exactly did you do to him anyway?” it was the anger that showed in her voice as Cindy demanded an answer.

  Sandra just looked at her. Her mouth opened but no words came out. Jake however explained.

  “If you must know Cindy,” he said. “I was stuck in a virtual reality sequence, where it somehow felt like I was actually enjoying having sex with a couple of guys.”

  “I can't begin tell you how sorry I am Jake,” Sandra spoke up again. “It really wasn't supposed to be that intense. Will you ever forgive me?”

  “Don't know! Ask me next week,” Jake said. “In the meantime, It would be best if you kept your distance while I take few training sessions with Stephanie and maybe a few with Jess.” As he said this he looked around at the room and added, “Damn! I trashed this lab but good.”

  Suddenly the doors to the outer corridor opened and a half dozen heavily armed guards sprang into the lab.

  “Nobody move!” their leader commanded, as the overhead lights in the main corridor clicked back on. At which point their ears were assaulted by several emergency sirens and horns.

  “Stand down boys,” Sandra responded. “This was an accident. There aren't any hostiles here.”

  “That's not what the sensor logs said,” the head guard said as all of them kept their weapons aimed at Jake.

  “Before you do something stupid,” said Jake in an obviously irritated voice. “I suggest you find out who I am.”

  The guard gestured at the undamaged identi-screen in the outer vestibule. Jake quickly palmed it.

  “Intruder identified,” the mechanical voice said. “Command level omega zero recognized.”

  The guards immediately lowered their weapons. As most of the alarms fell silent.

  “Sorry sir!” said the lead guard. “But your not wearing your day pass sir.”

  “Then you better get me a new one, hadn't you?” replied Jake.

  “I'll get right on it sir,” the guard replied. “If you'd be so kind as to wait here for a minute or two, it would be most helpful.” Then he spoke into a communicator on his wrist. “Dispatch a detail with a portable day pass generator to the remains of the biofeedback lab on the 15th floor. An omega class officer is waiting.”

  “Yes SIR!” was the crisp response that emanated from the wrist mounted communications device.

  Sandra looked around at what was left of the lab and shook her head.

  “Yes I'd say you sure did a good job of trashing this lab Jake,” Sandra said. “It will take some time for it to be rebuilt. Fortunately I have a few more biofeedback units scattered through some of my other labs, so there won't be a problem with my using one of them to finish Cindy's speed learning lessons.”

  “Oh yes there will!” said Cindy, while looking pointedly at the ruins of the lab they were in. “I think, I've had my last biofeedback pod session for a while.”

  A squad of guards in dress uniforms arrived. One of them was carrying a cube shaped ten inch box. The side he presented to Jake, had an identi-screen on it.

  “Would you be so kind as to scan your palm into this portable pass generator,” he requested.

  As soon as Jake complied, a new day pass was dispensed from an opening in the box. The guard held it out to Jake like he was offering to clip it on for him. An expression of horror crossed the guard's face as he realized that Jake's state of undress, meant there wasn't any cloth to clip it to. At this point the guard who had summoned the detail walked back into the lab carrying a long white lab coat which he wordlessly offered to Jake.

  Jake attached the pass to the lab coat as he slipped it on but he didn't bother to pull it closed. At this point Jake turned to face Sandra.

  “I'm surprised your so calm about this Sandra,” he said. “I mean I might have killed you.”

  Sandra looked him squarely in the eyes.

  “No Jake,” she said. “I don't see it that way. You of course ‘could’ have done so. Still could. But you chose not to. When you used the surplus energy you acquired from the pods to generate the force field that pinned me to the wall. You did it so gently that I wasn't hurt. What's more, when that energy began to run out you tried to set me down gently.

  When it turned out that the energy was so depleted that the force field collapsed, your nanites protected me from getting burned by the residual energy discharges. Even though that meant they didn't have enough energy left to protect you from the same.

  That fact, is the most impressive part you know. Your nanites would normally protect you first but you even managed to override that.”

  “I do seem to have more control over them than before,” Jake confirmed. “I can feel the nanites now. I can feel them coursing through my body. More importantly I can feel them respond to my will.”

  “I'd like to hear more about this Jake,” Sandra interrupted. Then with a pointed look at the ruins of her biofeedback lab, she continued. “But frankly I'd be more comfortable if we finished the conversation someplace else?”

  “Actually I think it's time Cindy and I took a transit pod back to Hillside Sandra,” Jake said with a slight grin. “But if you'll accompany us to the transit tube, I'll explain a bit more about that on the way.” Jake gestured towards the open access way saying, “Ladies first.” Then after he followed the girls into the main corridor, he continued. “I've even begun to feel my surroundings through them. For example Sandra, I can sense what must be electrical energy, flowing through the wires in the walls around us. I can also feel my nanites drawing a small trickle of power from it.” Then he suddenly stopped short.

  “I've just noticed that my nanites have detected some pain impulses coming from the nerve cells in your ankle,” Jake said with a sudden frown. “Did you twist it when I dropped you?”

  Sandra opened her mouth to say it was only a little bit stiff and that she had some available standard medical nanites that could heal it in less than an hour. However, Jake continued before she could speak a word of it.

  “I can't have that Sandra,
” he said. “Especially since I can fix it.”

  With that he suddenly reached out and touched Sandra's arm with the tip of his finger. It took only 3 seconds for the pain to disappear completely. Meanwhile Jake continued talking.

  “I felt them rush to your injury,” he informed her. “Then I felt them healing it.”

  Sandra just shook her head. That's when she started noticing odd stares in their direction from some of the Micronic personnel that passed by them in the corridor.

  “You know Jake, the dress code here is a bit more restrictive than it is at Hillside,” she said.

  “Yeah that sounds right,” Jake replied. “I was just wondering how long it would take for someone to mention it.”

  As he spoke Jake pulled the lab coat shut and fastened two of the velcro fasteners to keep it that way. This technically covered but did nothing to hide Jake's erection.

  “I'm still not sure how your doing all this Jake,” Sandra said as they continued walking towards the elevator. “I'm going to have to do some research on it. I'll let you know what I find out.”

  They stepped inside the elevator and Sandra palmed the identi-screen.

  “Transit tube level,” she requested.

  “Authorization confirmed,” a mechanical voice responded as the elevator began it's descent.

  Jake turned towards Cindy.

  “If your still up for it, I think we should go find Sam,” he said. “I'm still lusting to watch you wear him out. If I pay attention, I should be able to keep from twisting anybody's minds this time.”

  Chapter 12 The People

  The people had never had any use for personal names. They referred to each other by rank, as defined by whichever one of them was currently in charge. The people itself didn't have a name either. They call themselves ‘people’ because they consider anyone else that may exist to be nothing more than animals. This includes even those of their own species who were not part of the ‘people's’ culture when the people embraced their destiny to have dominion over all things, everywhere.

  The people did not offer the others of their species any opportunity to join with the people. The ‘others’, as the people called them, were considered to be nonpersons. These ‘others’ were simply confined in medical isolation systems that force fed them whatever nutrients and drugs the medical computers decided would keep them viable enough to be used as test subjects for medical and bio-weapon research.

  They were also considered a source of replacement parts. Whenever one of ‘the people’ were in need of replacing a limb or an organ due to injury or disease, the needed part could be harvested from the most compatible ‘other’ in the isolation chambers. Though it was rare that any of the people that were sufficiently sick or injured to need this survived long enough to do so. It was more likely that it's infirmity would render it vulnerable to attack from another one of the people.

  The medical units were able to override the other's brain functions enough. So that depression and a lack of desire for continued existence, could have no undesirable effect on it's body. Not even an active desire to discontinue it, on the part of an other, had any effect. The suffering the others were forced to endure was not something any of the people cared about.

  Their species had never developed any compassion for each other nor for any of their offspring. Their method of reproduction was quite violent. They were not separated into separate male and female individuals. Each adult's body produced both eggs and sperm on a cyclic basis. Both body functions were also separated by several membrane layers. Though it's sperm packet would develop much closer to it's universal orifice than it's egg packet. The only time when an adult's internal egg packet ever became nonviable was when it's active male cycle began. Which state was only detectable by it's actions when it would select a brood mate. Then it would reach inside it's own universal orifice with one of it's chewing claws and tear it's sperm packet from it's own body, causing itself no permanent injury. At which point it would use the same chewing claw to shove it's sperm packet deep enough inside it's brood mate to penetrate it's egg sack.

  The brood mate would be mortally wounded by this but would survive long enough for it's own fertilized eggs to hatch and consume it's body from within. In the event that the effective male was the larger, stronger individual and it turned out it's victim was itself in the middle of it's own active male cycle it would then make a meal of it's intended brood mate. It was not common for one in an active male cycle to select a brood mate that it couldn't physically dominate because then, even if it succeeded, it would become it's brood mate's last meal.

  The people were even less considerate of the needs or wants of other species. Except when they perceived it could improve a captives usefulness as a slave or their nutritional value as a food source, then the people would allow a minimalistic level of comfort for their captives.

  Their slaves soon learned that if they served their masters well, they were somewhat less likely to be eaten by them. Which was a fate more terrible than anything else they were likely to be subjected to. For the people ate only live food.

  They were also borderline empaths, who relished the terror and pain their food felt during the feeding process. They had even devised a variant on a medical support system that kept their prey alive and conscious as long as possible during the feeding process.

  The people had developed an advanced science of energy field technology. They could do more with complex force fields and energy constructs, including pseudo-matter, than any other known species. They had perfected a form of pseudo-matter that let them store a great amount of energy in a small amount of liquid volume.

  This resulted in that they had eventually attained interstellar space travel using a form of subspatial drive. Because they were able to produce a defensive energy screen that was 99.9% effective against the ill effects of the unpredictable energy patterns found in subspace.

  The use of this concentrated energy also provided their ships with such massive power reserves as to have a nearly insurmountable edge in battle. The otherwise nameless commander of such a ship would simply be called ‘One’ when onboard the ship.

  As the ship approached it's target planet, it's commander felt elated. The sensor readings indicated a world full of useful resources. It grasped the command circuit microphone with one of it's six, four digited appendages.

  “Navigator will establish a standard reconnaissance orbit,” One roared into the command circuit. The commander didn't wait for this to be accomplished to issue his next command. “Tactical officer will perform a comprehensive surface scan. It will immediately report any items of interest to me, without waiting to complete it's formal analysis.”

  Both junior officers knew better than to reply before they had something to report. The Navigator's task was completed first. It picked up it's report microphone.

  “Navigation reporting to One,” it bellowed. “We have achieved standard reconnaissance orbit.”

  No sooner had it finished reporting when the tactical operations officer reported.

  “Tactical reporting to One,” it began. “This is a preliminary report. Early results indicate the presence of a pre-machine civilization. Biological scans indicate the dominant species is humanoid. Preliminary data analysis indicates 90%. probability that they have sufficient intelligence to make both useful slaves and a delectable food source. There are indications that one of the species the humanoids have domesticated may have sufficient intelligence to make them interesting as alternative food beasts. There is no indication of any technology capable of offering resistance. Further details will be found in my forthcoming formal report.”

  “The formal report can wait,” One replied. “There will be enough time to document the details on our return voyage. Navigator will plot optimum grounding trajectories for the reaper shuttles. Tactical Officer will initialize harvest protocol.”

  Chapter 13 Authority

  Jake kissed Cindy as he got up from their bed. She woke u
p enough to kiss him back. She suddenly noticed that while she was kissing Jake, who was now standing beside the bed to her left, her right hand had automatically started to gently massage Sam's tattooed snake. Which had started to harden again. She also noticed that Jake's somewhat bigger but less decorated tool was hardening as he noticed her activity. So she reached out with her left hand to play with it as well.

  Actually, she thought, it wasn't a very good idea to have more sex this morning. Last nights activities had involved several rounds of wild sex play. So this morning, her orifice was somewhat raw. She reluctantly let go of both of them with a sigh. At a questioning look from Jake, she silently mouthed the word, “Sore.”

  A small organized cluster of Jake's nanites suddenly anchored itself to one of the hairs in Cindy's ear canal. It configured itself into a sort of micro hearing aid which amplified Jake's subvocalizations.

  “If you like, I could tell my nanites to heal your chafed areas,” Jake's amplified subvocalization filled her ear canal. “While I take turns with Sam using the bathroom. But while I think Sam's morning wood would recover, he appears to be all tuckered out from what you did to him last night. So maybe you should just give that snake a farewell kiss, to inspire Sam's dreams. While we do something else with the day... I'll still have my nanites soothe those stinging sensations your nerve endings are complaining about. Then I think, we should both go have another talk with Sandra. She may have had enough time to figure something out. We can leave Sam a note in the kitchen. How about it?”

  For an answer Cindy tenderly kissed Sam's snake tattoo on the lips. Then she turned and blew a kiss towards Jake's erection and headed for the kitchen. Jake followed her.

  “Maybe we should call her first,” Cindy said. “I'm sure I have her number in my purse.”

  Jake pushed a button on the intercom.

  “Connect to Sandra Amlee,” he hadn't bothered with a command sequence but the house computer instantly responded to the command anyway.