The Nano Experiment

by Wid Bastian

  “But you have battled The Plague?” Neron persisted.

  “Yes, twice. The first time was in Scotland foraging for supplies. We need all sorts of things on our island. That day we were looking for metal, steel pipes. We had air support and two platoons of soldiers, but… it was horrible. I barely made it back to the helicopter. I lost three good friends that day.”

  “The Plague is all over England?”

  “They rule England and Ireland. When people try to build and settle there they are always killed.”

  “Have the other students experienced battle?”

  “Maybe half of them. I know you’ve probably heard this all day but Neron… Is it true what they say? You can kill The Plague just by stabbing them with your arm?”

  “I think so. It all happened so fast - my arm, the battle, being brought here – I really don’t know what I’m capable of doing.”

  “If you can kill The Plague… my God, do realize what that means? For you? Maybe for all of us?”

  “I try not to think about it too much.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Cenik said. “Hey have you ever played target ball?”

  “Now you’re speaking my language,” Neron said as his face lit up.

  “We play every Tuesday and Saturday. Would you like to be on my team?”

  “Are you sure? You’ve never seen me play,” Neron said.

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re any good. We can carry you. Me and the boys, we’re the best there is.”

  “I’m sure you are, Cenik,” Neron said.

  “Hey, let’s really move it. If we get done early, I’ll go find the janitor and I’ll bet he’ll release us.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Neron said.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  “Can we speak? I don’t get a chance to speak aloud much anymore,” Kano asked.

  “If you insist,” Cassia answered.

  “Why are we meeting here?” Kano asked.

  “We are close to our target. To the south the government is only probing. They do not appear to be mounting any type of serious offensive against us.”

  “Your spies in the Capitol? Are they still operative?”

  “Two are, three have been discovered and executed. I need you to go in there, Kano. This boy requires your personal attention.”

  “What do you want me to do? Kill him?”

  “Eventually, but not yet. I intercepted this from government transmissions.” Cassia touched a button on a portable video display unit and set it down on a rock. A holographic image popped up and a scene came to life before them. The image was fuzzy and poor quality, but it was obvious what was happening. This boy, Neron was his name Cassia now knew, was laying waste to the infected.

  “What is the nature of his weapon?” Kano asked.

  “I don’t know. But we must act quickly. Our plans are in jeopardy. I cannot attack their capitol without knowing whether or not they have a new weapon.”

  “So, exactly what am I -.”

  “See what they are doing with him. Watch him for a few days. Listen, learn, probe. If he is an isolated mutation, we must kill him before they can discover a way to duplicate his abilities in other soldiers. If they are already creating an army with Neron’s abilities, then we must prepare accordingly.”

  “Their defenses, Cassia. You know they can track me, at least in a limited way. I’m no longer invisible to their sensors – I’m hard to detect and follow, but not invisible.”

  “Try the new method. Get inside and then appear as one of them.”

  “You want me to use the necromancy technique, but I despise having to -.”

  “Your feelings are unimportant. I do not care what you dislike. Our survival is paramount.”

  “When should I go in?” Kano asked.

  “Now,” Cassia said.

  “Alright, anything to get out of here,” Kano said. He hated being underground. Cassia liked to meet in abandoned sewers and this one, near the old city of Montreal, was a particularly nasty and rank place.

  “Also, I want close up pictures of Neron. I need to see his face and his body in detail. Understood?”

  “Understood,” Kano said. The infected gave way as Kano made his way out. There was over three thousand of The Plague in this man made cave surrounding their queen, protecting her and awaiting her orders. They made soft clicking sounds periodically. The sounds echoed off the walls creating an eerie cadence.

  ^^^^^^

  The minute he saw her, Neron had only one thought, Shayla. Ezsra was about his sister’s age and she had Shayla’s general build, but it was Ezsra’s eyes, her bright, light blue eyes that mesmerized Neron. They were Shayla’s eyes.

  “Hi,” Neron said. “I haven’t had a chance to meet you yet.”

  “Hi back,” Ezsra responded. “You’re the new guy. Neron, right?”

  “That’s me. What are you doing?”

  “Writing a new program for the building’s heating system. Simple stuff. The old codes been modified so many times it’s gotten quirky. Sometimes it’s better just to toss an old program and start over.”

  “I know little about computers,” Neron admitted.

  “Then this class is just what you need,” Ezsra said. “You’ll be starting from scratch. I can help you, just ask.”

  Neron and Ezsra were in the computer lab. Ability was the criteria, not age, for inclusion in the class. While Neron had no real experience with computers, his information processing aptitude test scores were very high.

  “How old are you?” Neron asked as he sat down next to Ezsra.

  “I just turned thirteen. And you?”

  “Fourteen. I’ll be fifteen next month,” Neron answered.

  “Would you like to use a voice recognition program? It might be easier for you to learn that way. I mean, your right hand isn’t exactly… well, you know.”

  “Sure. Yea,” Neron said, holding up his right arm, “it’s kinda hard to use a keyboard with this glove on.”

  “Does it hurt?” Ezsra asked.

  “Like all the time? No. It feels like I still have fingers, but I don’t.”

  “Can I see it? Your hand I mean.”

  “Sure, but be careful, its sharp. You shouldn’t touch it.” Neron unbuckled the straps and showed his hand to Ezsra. She was fascinated and touched his fingers with a pencil.

  “Your hand is maybe the neatest thing I’ve ever seen,” Ezsra said as Neron put the glove back on and tightened the last strap.

  “Thanks, I guess. I’m still getting used to it.”

  “You’re from Alaska, right?”

  “Yes,” Neron said. He was hoping not to have to discuss the slaughter at New Fairbanks again, but he understood that all the kids were very curious.

  “I’ve heard about life in the colonies. I grew up here in the city. My parents are agriculturalists. They run a huge greenhouse full of fruit and vegetables. Wanna come see it sometime?”

  “I’d love too.”

  “Let’s do it then. We can -.”

  “Miss Leigh, are you assisting Neron or just jabbering?” the instructor asked.

  “Ah, I’m helping him,” Ezsra answered in the most convincing voice she could muster.

  “Then get him set up on a machine and have him start the basic tutorial. You two can get better acquainted later on your own time.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Ezsra answered.

  Ezsra went to the front of the room and got Neron a portable computer. She set it up for him on the desk next to hers and then she pulled their desks together so they touched. She turned on Neron’s computer and typed in the instructions for the computer to use voice recognition.

  “Here,” Ezsra said, handing Neron a small microphone. “You need to speak into this. The mic dampens all the background noise. After a minute or so it will respond only to your commands. You have to be very specific; you can’t talk to the computer like you’re talking to a person, because it won’t work.”

  Neron tried it
with success. He easily navigated to the beginning of his first tutorial. After a few minutes, he glanced over and noticed Ezsra was looking at him fondly.

  “What?” Neron asked.

  “I like you. There is something very different about you. I can’t quite say what it is, but you’re unique.”

  “Thanks for helping me. What are you doing for lunch, want to sit with me?” Neron asked.

  “I’d love to.” Ezsra took Neron’s left hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Shayla used to do the very same thing to him, squeeze his hand like that. Neron loved it. He felt at peace with Ezsra, as if he was exactly where he was supposed to be and doing what he was supposed to do.

  Maybe Mom was wrong about the government, Neron thought. This place isn’t home, but it’s wonderful.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Kano watched them carefully. He needed to pick the right donor. The man had to be about his same general size and in decent physical shape. If he chose a donor who was too small, he wouldn’t fit and it would look unnatural. If he picked someone too large, he could end up looking like a Shar-Pei with folds of loose skin he would have to tuck in his clothing to avoid standing out.

  The crew was busy taking soil samples. Understandably they were not concerned about being attacked here, a hundred miles west of the capitol in the middle of a mountain range. It was very cold, around zero degrees Fahrenheit. Kano was warm thanks to the transparent heating gel he was wearing; the same magical liquid plastic like goo that kept The Plague’s blood flowing and joints working when the thermometer dipped below freezing. What he needed was for his prime candidate to isolate himself for only a minute or so. Finally, it looked like he was in luck.

  The young soldier was walking away from his comrades towards a rock outcropping. No doubt nature was calling. He stood by the rocks undoing his zipper. Kano grabbed him and knocked him unconscious. None of the other crewmembers saw him disappear, but the clock was ticking. Kano had to work quickly.

  In order for the suit to be properly applied the donor had to be conscious when his skin was removed. The process of peeling the skin off a live human was probably the most painful form of torture ever devised. But it had to be the skin of a living man. If the skin were taken from a corpse it would be too stiff and pale. Kano injected his victim with drugs to prevent him from making any noise or movements and went to work.

  First he stripped the soldier and laid him out on top of his own clothing. He took out his kit and removed a palm sized device. It was such a small thing, yet incredibly useful. Beginning with his feet, he held the device’s blue rays over his donor’s body and slowly moved up.

  The soldier was awake now, his eyes expressing a mixture of terror and excruciating pain. As the blue beam passed over his body, the donor’s skin was carefully detached. It hung limply over his sinew and bones. When the blue ray reached his shoulders, the skin covering his back began to separate, splitting in two from the shoulder blades to the top of his head. This allowed the skin to be removed and placed on Kano’s body.

  Kano could hear the other soldiers shuffling near their aircraft. No one was looking for the missing man yet. No doubt they assumed he was still relieving himself or perhaps collecting one last soil sample. With the skin loose, Kano turned off the blue beam and switched on the green beam, setting the device carefully on the ground beneath his legs. The skin was moved from the donor to Kano in a quick exchange – the green beams lifted the skin from the victim and moved it in position for Kano to slip inside. Kano had to place his feet just so in the loose pile of skin. When he was properly situated a red beam then lifted the skin on top of his, covering his body with his donor’s skin. The entire process took only two minutes.

  While it didn’t hurt, putting on another man’s skin was a repulsive thing to do. Adding to the discomfort the heating gel was now dissipating through Kano’s temporary flesh shell. After the skin fully merged with his own, he started putting on the donor’s clothes. He could hear one of his fellow soldiers calling out to him, “Hey Gordo, where the hell are you?”

  Once fully dressed, Kano walked back toward the aircraft. He finished just in the nick of time because two crewmembers were headed in his direction.

  “Where the hell have you been?” a soldier, a sergeant from his insignia, asked Kano.

  This was the tricky part. The skin suit technology took a reading from the donor’s vocal chords and could usually loosely match the donor’s speech patterns and tones, but this process was not foolproof.

  Kano coughed and cleared his throat. “Takin’ a leak. I think I’ve got a problem. It burns when I piss. My plumbing ain’t right,” Kano answered. While his voice was not his own, there was no way to know if it was Gordo’s true voice.

  “You’re squeaking like a schoolgirl too. If you were sick, why didn’t you report to the infirmary?”

  “I’m not a shirker, Sarge,” Kano said. “Can we just get out of here? I’ll go see the doc as soon as we get back.”

  “Let’s go. Everything is loaded. We’re waiting on you.”

  The six man crew got back into the aircraft and took off. Hover jump jets were awesome, Kano remembered. The government had not modified them much since Kano had flown missions on them fifty plus years ago. The plane was capable of setting down almost anywhere and then lifting off and roaring away at Mach 1. They were back in the Capitol City in less than twenty minutes.

  During the short flight, Kano went through Gordon Tremonton’s papers. He was a corporal who still lived in the barracks. Perfect, Kano thought. I’ll go to the infirmary, get a medical lay in and then disappear for forty eight hours. With any luck at all, no one will be the wiser until I’ve done what I came to do.

  ^^^^^^

  “Are you ready, Neron?” Nebo asked him.

  “As I’ll ever be, I guess,” Neron answered.

  “The Plague is completely immobilized. You can trust us on that my boy. We’ve been capturing the nasties for decades and studying them. He cannot break free of those restraints,” Nebo explained.

  “I believe you. I’ve been coming down here for the past few days and looking at him, at it. I’m not afraid,” Neron said.

  For the past month Neron had been adjusting to his dual role as H-TEC student and lab rat. When he wasn’t in school, Neron was often required to be in the lab, where various white coats tested him, took samples from his body and then tested him some more. He was growing tired of being the experiment du jour. Nebo assured him after this test the medical people would “leave him alone for a while”.

  It was simple really. Neron was to walk up to the cage and thrust his right hand into the thorax of the captured nano monster. While he had regained most of the memories from his battle with The Plague at New Fairbanks, he could not recall the sensation, the actual experience, of turning a beast to dust. He had some vague fear of what this process would do to him, but he could not define his concern.

  The lab was all set up. Neron was attached to various monitors that would record changes to his physiology before, during and after his assault on the creature. Several armed guards were standing by just in case. A group of generals watched from seats in the Observation Deck, their presence obscured and unknown to Neron.

  “Proceed,” Nebo said.

  Neron walked up to the reinforced titanium cage. The Plague was tied down – every appendage strapped to a reinforced post. The creature hissed at Neron as he approached the enclosure. The sound triggered Neron’s memories.

  The Plague made this hissing sound when they were agitated. Or when they were stabbed, Neron recalled. Closing his eyes for a second, he took himself back to New Fairbanks. He saw himself slashing the creatures over and over as they turned to powder before his eyes. Then he saw Shayla and thought about holding her lifeless body in his arms as he screamed. He imagined The Plague killing his mother and feeding on her body or, worse, turning her into …

  Neron thrust his hand into The Plague. He could feel a tingling, a transfer, f
rom the creature to himself. After one last dying hiss, The Plague turned to dust. The execution was over in seconds.

  The room was silent. Although this was the outcome everyone was expecting, indeed desperately hoping for, it was amazing. Never before had anyone seen a nano monster literally obliterated by anything other than a direct hit from a radiation beam.

  For a moment, Neron wondered if anyone was going to come and take the monitors off him. When they finally did free him from the cables Neron noticed the black ring on his palm was flashing rapidly. He felt stronger too, as if by killing The Plague he had taken some of its energy.