Nanotroopers Episode 21: Paryang Monastery

by Philip Bosshardt

  Technicians brought ‘Johnny Winger’ into the chamber in a small pod, well secured with MOB capability and electron beam injectors, in case anything went wrong. Falkland looked over the pod, then fastened it to some scaffolding inside the containment chamber. He exited the chamber and dogged the hatch shut. Then he ran a sweep, just to make sure all security systems were armed and ready.

  Falkland did a quick scan of his board. “I think we’re ready. Here goes—“he pressed a single red button, unsealing the pod inside the chamber.

  For a few moments, nothing changed. Then a faint mist-like smoke began to appear, issuing in a steady stream from the side of the pod. The mist sparkled like dust motes in strong sunlight. Winger knew the master assembler had been released and was executing its basic instruction set, replicating structure, slamming atoms like some mad brickmason, hopefully re-building Johnny Winger atom by atom, molecule by molecule, according to the scan pattern. One wag had called it like being conceived and born again, but at hyperspeed.

  Johnny Winger gradually took shape before their eyes. First his head gained form, then his shoulders, with the blond buzzcut assembling right in front of them. Winger had always loved short hair.

  Brad Winger shivered in spite of the pixelated creature taking shape before his eyes. Somehow this wasn’t right. It had never been right. And I’m not sure a hotshot whizbang new memory field will ever make it right.

  The entire process took about five minutes. Brad Winger looked through the porthole, along with General Kincade. To all outward appearances, the thing inside was Johnny Winger. It had the buzzcut. It had the blue eyes. The crooked grin and the mole beside the nose. Dimples. High cheeks. Kincade felt a chill travel down his spine. An exact replica.

  But still a replica.

  Kincade found that Falkland had rigged up a system to communicate with the subject. “How do you feel, son?”

  “Like I want out of here. Can I get out?”

  Even the voice tugged at Kincade’s heartstrings. It had the same timber. The same huskiness. He told himself that he wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real. Yet Falkland had assured them he could make Winger more real than ever.

  “Major, you’ve got to stay in there awhile longer. Dr. Falkland here—“ he stopped, unable to finish.

  The Winger-thing twisted on its seat, rubbed at its eyes. Every motion seemed real. No edge effects. No blurring and smearing or translucence of the hands. Solid tracking everywhere…Johnny seemed more real than ever. Maybe it was hope. Maybe wishful thinking.

  Dr. Brad Winger just stared at the scene, saying nothing. To see his own brother like this come back from the dead, after all the messages, after all the phone calls….

  Johnny got up from the seat and came over to the porthole. He pressed a hand against the cover. Faint sparkles could be seen in his palm, almost as if you could look through it if you tried hard enough. Like stars in a nighttime sky, seen through your fingers. No veins, no palm lines, no blemishes. Just little sparkles.

  “He looks so real,” Brad said. “I could just reach through and touch him.”

  “Have you changed the config, Doc? Or is there something in the containment chamber?”

  “This containment system has filters. That may be what you’re seeing…some filtering of the config as it executes. I haven’t run the pattern buffer at all.”

  “How long is this going to take?” Brad Winger asked. He wanted to reach through the porthole too and hold his brother. That’s not Johnny in there, he told himself. That’s not Johnny.

  Falkland gave that some thought. “The database is full. There’s a lot of data to massage. I’ve got to put all that data through some filtering of its own. Then I have some transformations and conversions to perform, to setup up things in the right format for the pattern buffer…the memory field. It’ll be a day or two. Then I load the pattern buffer with the revised configuration and see what happens.” Falkland gave them a brave smile. “I’m sure we can make your brother almost as good as new.”

  “Almost,” Brad said back. He looked over at General Kincade.

  “We have to try, Dr. Winger. We have to give it a try. It’s critical to UNIFORCE.”

  It was the uncertainty of it all that bothered Brad most. Not knowing. No way to be sure. Was it even worth the effort?

  “I suppose you’re right. But that’s not Johnny in there. That’s not my brother.”

  Falkland wasn’t sure which would be harder: getting the new configuration right or getting the others to accept the new configuration. The memory field needed a human test…of that, he was sure. It couldn’t be proven to UNIFORCE standards without the data from a human test. There was no chance of defeating Red Hammer if he couldn’t prove he could re-assemble a deconstructed human being.

  Jiggs and Simon had been a hell of a lot easier to deal with than this.

  Dr. Ryne Falkland spent the next two days massaging config scan data, using multiple interview sessions with Brad Winger, to fill in gaps in the scan and make a more accurate representation of what brother Johnny had been like. The next step was to put the Config Engine to work with this digital model of Johnny and see what it could create.

  He had warned General Kincade, along with Brad, that multiple iterations might be needed. Someone had mentioned Frankenstein as a crude analog of what they were trying to do.

  The big day came and Brad Winger gathered with Kincade and Dr. Falkland outside the containment chamber. Inside the chamber, a small bed had been placed, for Johnny to lie on when ‘he’ was fully assembled and formed. Just in case, electron beam injectors were primed and ready.

  “We can’t violate safety protocols, even in this situation,” Falkland explained.

  Kincade rubbed his sandy moustache nervously. He glanced over at Brad Winger. “I’m not quite sure how to feel about all this.”

  Brad Winger nodded. “A mixture, I think. Something between fear, anticipation, anxiety and hope. A cocktail. Shaken not stirred.”

  Kincade was doubtful but said nothing, while Falkland scanned his board and made some adjustments. “I’ve got the Config Engine loaded now. From the scans we did of you before, we have lots of data. I had a quite a time massaging and tweaking and converting all that data, trying to get something clean. You don’t know it, but I’ve already run some tests…yesterday. Things looked promising.”

  Kincade was curious. “What kind of tests, Doc?”

  Falkland was reluctant to go into details now. Clients were sometimes sensitive about these matters. “Oh, just little tests. I extracted some of the data and ran it through the Config Engine…you know, assembling small things, simple structures.”

  “Of Major Winger? What kind of simple structures?”

  “It was just a test—“

  “What kind of structures, Doc?” Kincade asked, a little more firmly.

  Falkland shrugged, went back to his instruments. “A finger here, a hand there. Really, it went well.”

  Kincade nearly choked. “A finger? You assembled one of the fingers? And a hand? What are—“

  Brad Winger cut in. “What happened?”

  “The test went fine. The Config Engine performed as expected. I examined the…er, the structures and found them well formed, molecularly correct, consistent with the templates from your data. It was…what can I say?…a finger.”

  “And a hand.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What did you do with them?”

  Falkland looked surprised. Sometimes, he figured it was better if the clients didn’t know all the details. People reacted differently. “I let it go. That is, the Config Engine broke them down, disassembled them. Back into feedstock.”

  Winger swallowed hard. Maybe Kincade was right. Normal families shouldn’t be able to just conjure up limbs and fingers of their loved ones. But then again, since nanobotic assemblers had been invented, m
aybe they could. It was all very confusing.

  “Okay, Doc…I guess we really didn’t need to hear about that. What’s next?”

  Falkland turned back to his control station. “Next is releasing the feedstock into the chamber.” He pressed a few buttons and on the monitor, a faint mist began issuing from a row of ports. The chamber quickly filled with the mist. “Just raw stock. A bunch of atoms and molecules…standard stuff…oxygens, irons, phosphorous and nitrogens…you name it. Ingredients for the cook….” Immediately he wished he hadn’t said that. Every client reacted differently. And this one was base commander at Mesa de Oro.

  The filling took about three minutes. “All the templates of Johnny are loaded in the Config Engine now. When the previous…uh, version of Brad was scanned and disassembled, I took a memory field map of all those atoms in structure, combined it with similar data scanned from you the second time, and created these templates. We should be able to put together a new Johnny, better than ever.”

  Kincade just shook his head. “This is just creepy, Doc, hearing one of my troopers talked about like this. Get on with it—“

  “Of course.” Falkland pressed a few more buttons.

  Inside the containment chamber, the master assembler had just been released. The master was a nanobotic device that orchestrated assembly of feedstock atoms and molecules into whatever structures were contained in the template.

  The monitor showed a mist filling the chamber, like an early morning fog, only this mist sparkled as if a billion fireflies were embedded. The mist thickened until the bed was lost to view. Minutes passed. Falkland followed his instruments, adjusting the Config Engine on the fly.

  “Threshold density,” he announced. “Memory field steady….all parameters in the green.”

  The first hint of structure emerged from the fog, in the form of a faint, translucent, almost ghostly hand, alongside the edge of the bed. Fluctuations in the fog caused more structure to become intermittently visible: several fingers, part of a forearm, a brief glimpse of a knee. From these structures, Kincade and Brad Winger both silently estimated where Johnny’s head and face should be. But nothing was visible yet.

  More minutes passed. Then, Brad gasped softly. He pointed.

  The barest outlines of a face materialized into view, slipping in and out of the fog like a wraith. There was the upturned nose, the same mole beside his nose. And the lips—

  “It’s him!” Brad breathed.

  “I see it, son…I see it.” Kincade watched in amazement as more and more structure came into view. From everything he could see, it was Johnny Winger. He knew how the technology worked. He understood how assemblers slammed atoms together according to a template. He’d designed and ran more configs than Falkland had ever dreamed about. But this…this was different.

  The thing seemed as real as Brad Winger standing next to him.

  Falkland watched the monitor and his instruments carefully, making some minor adjustments. “Config still stable. No alarms…no issues. He’s coming in beautifully. Everything within tolerances, right in the middle of the band. I’m adding more feedstock… we’re approaching minimum density….what do you think, Dr. Winger, General?”

  Brad Winger let his eyes play across the prostrate form of his brother, inside the containment chamber. Part of his mind told him this couldn’t be Johnny…it was a sim, a near-perfect likeness, but still a likeness. But his own feelings and Kincade’s reactions overruled that hard logic and he felt a lump in the back of his throat. It couldn’t be Johnny.

  But it was Johnny.

  To keep control of himself, Brad focused on the instruments, on the swarm inside the vault, on critiquing the process, on config stability, anything to smother all those feelings that were bubbling up.

  “How long, Doc?”

  Falkland studied the board, watched as more and more of Johnny emerged from the mist into solid structure. “Well, scans are showing about sixty-five percent complete. This should be done in about two more hours. After we reach target density, I’ve got to run some tests. See how stable the config is. Make sure the pattern buffers are cleared out. And we’ll spot check the config against the original memory field. Plus there’s still loading from the file Doc II made…neural patterns of memory and personality. That’ll be another hour.”

  “This is unreal,” Brad said. “He looks so lifelike. I just want to get in there and hug him to death.”

  By mid-afternoon, Falkland pronounced himself satisfied. Looking through the portholes of the containment chamber, Johnny Winger was lying on his side on the bed, seemingly asleep. He seemed to be breathing; his chest rose and fell with a rhythmic pattern. Brad Winger knew full well that it was part of the config, in effect, a breathing simulation program was running on the main processor. But the physical impression was so real, it was so easy to imagine—

  “I think it’s safe to let him out now,” Falkland decided. “The loading from Doc II’s file seems to have gone okay…I’m not detecting any anomalies so far.” He enjoyed the look of anticipation on Brad Winger’s face. He also took a quick peek at the electron beam injectors, just in case. Angels sometimes developed glitches and hiccups in their program during assembly. It happened. You couldn’t take too many chances. “I’m shutting down security systems. Latches coming un-done.” A few clicks, pops and squeaks sounded at the hatch. Then a hiss, as pressures equalized. Falkland went over and dogged the hatch open.

  Winger pushed past him with Kincade right on his heels. Brad could hardly believe his eyes.

  His brother was sitting up in the bed, looking around. It was Johnny, in every way he could tell…the same blond buzzcut, the same blue eyes, angular cheeks, the mole by his lips. Except….

  When Johnny reached up to brush back a lock of hair, the tips of his fingers sparkled and flashed, as the bots didn’t quite track accurately. A faint trail of light swirled across his face.

  Falkland cleared his throat, a bit embarrassed. “I can fix that…just some tweaks to the algorithms.”

  Kincade came up. “How do you feel now, son?”

  Johnny Winger shrugged, jammed his hands under the covers. “Maybe a bit spacey, General. Like I’m not all quite here.”

  “Well said, son…well said. Dr. Falkland, is he up to a little walk? We’ve got a mission to lay out and I need his knowledge from Paryang.”

  Falkland studied a portable scanner in his hands, probing the instrument up and down the length of the angel. “I don’t see why not. Give me five minutes to adjust some things and I’ll do a limited release…Sergeant Givens can go with him…just in case.”

  Falkland spent the next five minutes, after shooing everyone else out of the room, modifying the replication routines in Johnny’s master processor. “It’ll smooth out some of the jerkiness, Major. Your core is solid, but some of your extremities aren’t tracking smoothly.”

  Winger lay back on his pillow, trying to put into words what it felt like, to be an angel.

  “It’s like floating in a warm bath, Doc. I really don’t feel anything.”

  “It’s all in your basic algorithms, Johnny. We’ve spent weeks trying to get those right.”

  Shortly after two in the afternoon, Falkland authorized the Johnny Winger angel for release. Sergeant Ed Givens, one of the containment techs, would accompany him. Givens carried a portal config generator to change and adjust Johnny on the fly. He also carried a concealed HERF side arm, just in case.

  On his way out, Johnny met up with his brother Brad. Brad leaned forward as if to hug, then thought better of it.

  “J, you look like a ghost, if you don’t mind my saying so. I can almost see right through you.”

  “Where have I heard that before, Brad? But thanks for coming…I guess for once I can say you made me what I am today.”

  “Yeah…half there and half not. J, I don’t really know what to say. I’m glad you got
back. Glad you’re alive…you are alive, aren’t you? What are you, like a shadow of your former self?”

  And so it went, banter and cuts and quips, until both brothers grabbed each other by the shoulders.

  Brad said, “Never thought I’d have an angel for a bro.”

  “Dr. Falkland says I can be anything I want. Betcha can’t say that, huh? Dad always used to say that to us.”

  They gave each other a sort of half-hug, the way brothers do. Then Brad left.

  Kincade met Johnny Winger in the lobby. Givens was right behind him.

  “Walk with me up to Ops, Major. I’m meeting with Lofton at 1600 hours. We’ve got a mission to put together.”

  They left and headed out into late afternoon clouds, boiling up from the southeast. There was a smell of rain in the air and lightning already veined gray-black clouds beyond the Mesa. The deluge wouldn’t be long in coming.

  As they strolled up the pebbled walkway between Containment and the geoplane hangar, Kincade took note of how troopers and pedestrians inevitably saluted the General and then gave them a wide berth, trying to study the Winger angel without seeming too obvious about it. Occasional quips and mutters came on the breeze.

  “—looks like a ghost—“

  “Is that really the Major?”

  “What the hell are they thinking in there--?”

  A pair of troopers who had been jogging around the track at Kraft Field came up. It turned out to Mighty Mite Barnes and Taj Singh. They saluted Kincade, then fell in with the group.

  “Major, how do you feel, sir?” Barnes asked. She wore a gray sweatsuit with a headband around her forehead. The headband twinkled with lights, recording all her bio readings as she jogged.

  Winger walked on as if nothing had changed. “Actually, I feel fine, Mite.” What do you want me to say: that I’m half here? I just a fraction of what I used to be? I’m not the person I once was? Brad had been full of quips and Johnny Winger knew he’d hear a hundred more before the day was out. “Really, I do feel okay. Just treat me like normal, like any other nanotrooper.”

  Taj studied Winger’s configuration control with a critical eye. “Skipper, you’re tracking pretty well, from what I can see. No latency I can detect. Does it feel solid to you, sir?”

  Winger wanted to punch him. “As solid as you feel, Taj. Really, guys, give it a rest. The General says we’ve got a mission to put together. That’s what’s important.”

  “Indeed,” Kincade cut in. “I want you two along as well. See me in my office at 1600 hours.”

  “Yes, sir,” Barnes and Singh saluted in unison. They jogged off to resume their run around the Mesa, turning back from time to time to stare at Winger as he made his way up to Ops.

  In Kincade’s office, Major Lofton was firm on what their goal should be.

  “I don’t see any way to permanently sever the link between this Config Zero character and his offworld friends than to create some kind of malware, a virus of sorts, and find a way to insert it into his master processor. He is a swarm of Bugs, is he not?”

  Winger agreed. The commanding officer of 1st Nano was seated across from Kincade and Lofton, along with Mighty Mite Barnes and Taj Singh. Reconsat views of Paryang danced in 3D on a pedestal on Kincade’s desk.

  “Do we know where his master processor is?”

  Lofton sniffed. “I was hoping that you could shed some light on that, Major. You were there, along with your troopers.”

  “We were in some kind of space,” Barnes related. “Mostly projected, so I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t. Config Zero’s a swarm of bots, I’m sure of that. But it showed itself in a variety of disguises.”

  “Sure,” added Singh. “One minute, it’s configged like a Hindu priest. Then, it turns into a Buddhist rinpoche. It stands to reason that the processor is somewhere in there. We might be able to locate it by triangulating decoherence wakes. If it even works that way—“

  Kincade turned to Winger. “Major, what about your embeds? Doc II may have some ideas.”

  Winger admitted that Sergeant Givens, now just outside Kincade’s office, had Doc II in a capsule he carried. “I no longer have a shoulder capsule that works, sir.”

  Kincade ordered Givens inside. “Launch that bot, Sergeant.”

  “At once, sir.” Givens extracted the containment capsule and thumbed a control stud on top. There was a faint hiss and the air around the sergeant was soon filled with a flickering mist. For the next few minutes, they watched as the embedded swarm formed up into a ghostly likeness of Doc Frost, head and shoulders, hovering overhead like a dream.

  Johnny Winger was sobered at the sight. That’s what I am now. I can do that too. And then they can make me go into that capsule anytime they want.

  Being an angel could be good and bad.

  “Doc, display all files from time stamp 111049.000 to current time…highlight electromagnetic, thermal, acoustic and decoherence wake sources.”