CHAPTER 25
U.N. Boundary Patrol Station 3
Adana, Turkey
February 4, 2111 (U.T.)
0315 hours
When the alert came in from Bioshield, Captain Faisal Jabril was happy about it. Beats the hell out of standing watch all night in this garbage can. Now we get to kick swarm ass. Unlike Annamaria Oliveira and the unfortunate crew of Prairie Dog, geoplane Badger sported some new gear and some new tactics.
So when the alert signal came in and Badger deployed, along with her sister ship, geoplane Ferret, Jabril was already counting down the minutes to first contact. Sixty five kilometers southwest of the BPS station at Adana, Turkey, Badger plunged into some of the hardest rock and shale layers this side of the Med and burrowed like her namesake some four thousand meters below the seabed, hunting for swarms.
Armed with a new contraption called a quantum disentangler, already well proven in sims and tests topside, Jabril couldn’t wait to give the new gadget a wringing out.
With even a modest amount of luck, they’d soon have the Bugs licking their wounds and hightailing it out of BPS 3’s theater of operation: the European/Arabian tectonic plate boundary.
Kiss all those quakes and tremors goodbye, Jabril smirked. Nothing gets by Badger.
“Any contacts, SS1?”
The Sensors and Surveillance Tech, Corporal Kelly Ziegler, checked his board. “No profiles showing up, Skipper. Just the usual bumps and grinds. Looks like a busy day on the boundary. I’ve already seen two mag-five shocks in the last few minutes. P waves building now. We should feel rising amplitudes here…nothing to worry about.”
“Very well.”
And as Ziegler had predicted, Badger was momentarily rocked by transverse shock waves from the nearby fault movements.
“Steady on this course,” Jabril commanded. “We’ve got half an hour to the original coordinates Bioshield gave us…GEO, what’s coming up?”
The Geo-Engineering Tech was Corporal Salaam. The Tunisian recruit, fresh out of nog school, studied the profiler. “Inclusion zones mostly, sir. Transform faults, the usual thermoclines dead ahead, nothing major at the moment. Like SS1 said, the plates are jittery this morning. My read is we’re going to see some rocking and rolling today.”
Jabril was about to order a slight course change when Ziegler piped up.
“Contact now, Skipper. Bearing three one oh…looks like ten thousand meters. I’m showing swarm profile…classic EM spikes, thermals, acoustics, the works. It’s big, whatever it is.”
Jabril came back to study the waterfall display that showed sounder readings. “Let’s go check it out. “DSO, steer left…three one oh degrees. Maintain depth. And DPS, let’s get the disentangler warmed up.”
Sergeant Romans was the Defense and Protective Systems Specialist (DPS). “DNT unit is powered up and online, sir.”
“Very well…SS1, what’s our range to contact?”
Ziegler read off his display. “This bearing….under nine thousand meters. We’re on a direct course.”
“Launch ANAD,” Jabril ordered. “I don’t want to get caught with our pants down.”
“Launching ANAD now,” DPS reported. A muffled whoosh came through the hull as a slug of high pressure air sent the bot swarm into the rock surrounding them. “ANAD away…reporting ready in all respects. Configuring for solid-phase now…effectors coming out. We’re on half-propulsor.”
Jabril wanted to close the distance to the target faster, get there before the enemy swarm could start chewing away at rock, setting off tremors and quakes. “BOP, increase power. I want to chew through this crap and smash the Bugs before they can loosen any more faults.”
Sergeant Emoglu was Borer Operator (BOP1). “We’re in dense shale here, sir…clastic sedimentary rock. Quartz, chert and dolomite, mostly. Faults and seams everywhere. If we pump up too much, we may set off a few tremors ourselves. Recommend ten percent increase.”
“Do it.”
Outside Badger, the ANAD master bot clawed its way through the rock strata, slamming atoms to replicate but maintaining a solid-phase config. It was like trying to squeeze into a crowded subway car. The rate of advance was slow and you had to be careful not to eat up too much rock or you could find yourself thrashed sideways with shifting rock plates.
Geoplane ops weren’t for the faint of heart.
For many minutes, Badger and her ANAD brood worked their way west by southwest, closing on the enemy swarm, now at a depth of nearly four thousand meters below the seafloor of the Med. As she descended deeper into the mantle, her life support systems went into overdrive, trying to shed as much heat as possible. Jabril thumbed sweat from his eyebrows and squinted at his command display.
“P-wave coming…a thousand meters off the port bow, sir!” Corporal Salaam saw it first on his waterfall. “It’s a big one…looks like the target’s already started chewing…reading big spikes in EM, massive swarm forming ahead. And more tremors…Jeez, the display’s gone haywire!”
“Hold on, everybody…we’re going to get hit!”
The first wave slammed Badger with a frontal smash, as a great fist of energy knocked them head-on. Hull plates screeched and there was an unmistakable feeling of sliding, sliding sideways and down.
“DSO, steer us into the wave!” Jabril commanded. “Propulsors to half…let’s try to stay on course!”
Badger turned slightly to present her nose to the main energy of the wave. A great shudder surged through her hull and the ship shook like a wet dog with pulse after pulse of seismic shocks as outside, huge plates bumped and ground against each other, shifting millions of tons of rock in a manner of seconds.
“More P and S waves coming, Skipper!” Salaam announced. “We’re being bracketed, like a frontal spread!”
Jabril could visualize the assault. The enemy swarms were disassembling rock layers at strategic stress points along nearby fault lines, generating pulse after pulse of seismic energy, waves which were reinforcing themselves along the attack vector, with Badger and her sister ship Ferret at the focus points.
Classic Config Zero tactics, Jabril told himself. “We’ve got to close and engage. How far is ANAD to the target?”
“Still five thousand meters, sir.”
Jabril made a decision. “Contact Ferret. Tell Captain Rasmussen we’re charging up HERF. I want a coordinated barrage…we’ll have to chance it.”
“Sir—“said Salaam. “That could make the tremors worse…loosen more rock. We could be crushed—“
“I know that, dammit! But we’ve got to stop the Bugs from loosening any more faults. If Badger and Ferret can coordinate a HERF barrage, we may be able to scatter their swarm just long enough to close and engage with our own ANAD.”
The message was sent and Ferret responded affirmatively. Target coordinates were exchanged and timing synchronized.
“HERF at full charge, sir,” said the DPS.
“Fire!”
Badger’s rf transmitters belched a huge burst of radio freq waves into the surrounding rock. At the same moment, a thousand meters to starboard, Ferret did the same. With any luck, the combined pulses would travel through the rock with enough energy to slam the enemy swarm and fry enough bots to keep them from making any more mischief.
More tremors shook Badger over the next few minutes and Jabril ordered the ship trimmed to ride out the oncoming waves. Reverberations from HERF combined with fault shifting and sliding made for a tough, head-banging ride, as Badger shook and shimmied like a bucking bronco in the seismic aftershocks.
“SS1, anything on the scope?”
Ziegler studied his waterfall. “Sounder showing EMs and acoustics, but diminishing in spread. Scattered…very diffuse…looks like we smacked ‘em, sir. Minor P and S waves, low amplitude, petering out in this hard rock. We’ll feel a few more bumps.”
Jabril pumped a fist in the air. “That’s it! This is our window. DSO
, max borer ops. Full speed. DPS, command ANAD to three-quarters propulsor, too. And tell him to get his bond disrupters ready. We’re going in slicing and dicing.”
The final few hundred meters were closed rapidly. Badger and Ferret maneuvered to come at the outer edges of the enemy swarm from opposing vectors.
“DSO, bring us to all stop. DPS, go small,” Jabril ordered. “I want to see what ANAD sees. And run the disentangler up full. I don’t want the Bugs calling home to Mama for help.”
Badger slowed to a halt, embedded in dense rock strata, less than a thousand meters from the outer edge of the swarm. Ferret acknowledged and came to a stop as well.
Sergeant Romans brought up an acoustic view from the ANAD master bot. To a nanotrooper, going “over the waterfall” often brought on a little dizziness, sometimes even nausea. Dropping down into the world of atoms and molecules was like that. But for geoplane doggies, the abrupt transition had been filtered down by Quantum Corps engineers.
The acoustic display flickered and flashed, until finally it settled down. Now they had a bot’s eye view of a dense lattice of solid-phase quartz and calcite.
“Like groping through a forest at midnight,” Jabril muttered, to no one in particular. Fuzzy blobs of silicon and oxygen atoms jostled their view, as the ANAD master bot eased and shoved and squeezed its way through the lattice. Visibility was limited. They were jammed into an endless forest of ranked blobs, quivering and vibrating as if stirred by a stiff wind.
“That’s calcite, sir,” offered Salaam, pointing out a multi-lobed cluster off to their right. “I recognize the oxygens that always look like they’re humping carbon atoms. Geos call is a rhombohedron something or other.”
Jabril wasn’t interested. “We’re not here for Geo 101…or sightseeing, Salaam. Distance to closet swarm element--?”
“Sounding now,” said Romans. “I make it about two hundred meters. Mass centroid is dead ahead…but this is one big sucker.”
“Like stalking a big cat at night,” Jabril noted. “Go to full propulsor…I want to close before the buggers can chew up any more rock.”
Tense minutes followed. Badger’s crew—Sikes the driver, Emoglu, Salaam, Ziegler, Romans—all stayed glued to their displays and consoles, barely daring to breathe. The acoustic sounder view hardly changed, as ANAD stalked his prey, now less than a hundred meters ahead.
Somewhere out there, the enemy was doing the same.
A blip chimed on Ziegler’s sounder. “I got something, Skipper…profiler shows EM spike, possible aspect change, rising thermals—“
“Get ANAD primed for action,” Jabril ordered. “All effectors out and locked. Bond disrupters primed.”
“There they are…look there!”
Faintly visible in the thicket of jostling quartz and calcite molecules, a tan-gray shape darted in and out of view. Ziegler massaged the sounder for better resolution and the shapes became clearer. They were dozens, scores, even hundreds of them, filtering through the lattice.
“Bring ANAD to attack bearing,” Jabril said quietly. “Close now. And make sure DNT’s ready.”
Romans checked the disentangler controls. “Hope this gadget works, Skipper. DNT on-line…already getting decoherence wakes in the area. Looks like somebody’s trying to call home.”
The whole theory behind the disentangler was something Jabril never pretended to understand. Somehow, the device could bollix up space-time enough to scramble the entanglement waves any quantum coupler emitted. One engineer at Quantum Corps had likened the process to dropping rocks into a spreading wave pattern in a pool. Just breaks the waves right up…you can’t decompose a signal. It all comes out like gibberish.
“I hope to hell this works,” Jabril said under his breath. He studied the leading line of enemy bots as ANAD closed the remaining meters. They were cruciform devices, studded with effectors and propulsors, lending the bastards matchless maneuverability.
“Grappling now, Skipper,” reported Romans. “We’re engaging—“
“Kick their atomic asses!” Ziegler yelled.
ANAD swung into action with effectors flying. Almost immediately, the surrounding lattice shook and rocked as bond disrupters discharged, fritzing the display with clouds of debris and atom fluff. ANAD had replicated a big army and now the two forces collided with the ferocity of a dog fight, although this was one fight that couldn’t be seen except with special instruments.
“We jammed ‘em!” said Romans. “We stopped ‘em in their tracks…look at those grabbers go…like a friggin’ knife fight in an alley!”
Indeed, the forward edge of ANAD bots had thoroughly entangled itself among the enemy bots. Ziegler panned and zoomed and trained the sounder all up and down the line of engagement…the view was the same everywhere. Thrashing, swirling, puffs of atom parts, disrupters zapping, it was hard to tell by imagery what was happening. But it was plain to see that after only a few moments, ANAD had Config Zero’s bots by the scruff of the neck and was kicking the bejeezus out of them everywhere.
“It’s those new disrupters!” Romans exulted. “Long range sting from those babies—“
“Nah, got to be the grabbers….” said Ziegler. “Souped up carbenes, new geometry, stronger bonds…ANAD’s like Godzilla, stomping ‘em to smithereens!”
Jabril did a freeze frame on his own display, studying one poor Config Zero bot caught in the clutches of an ANAD replicant. “There’s some kind of seam, or joint along those arms, just beyond the central node…that must be the processor. He’s vulnerable there…if ANAD can get to it through all those waving effectors.”
It had become axiomatic to Jabril and every other geoplane skipper that combat hundreds of meters below the Earth’s surface was a new battlefield and the rules were still being written, the tactics and doctrine still being worked out. Letting Config Zero’s swarms loose to roam freely along the tectonic plate boundaries was like pouring grease on a kitchen fire.
Badger and Ferret pressed their attack against the enemy swarms, throttling the bots up and down the line of engagement. To Jabril, it was plain that their new souped-up ANADs were well able to handle the bots Config Zero had sent out. In less than half an hour, Ziegler reported good news.
“Thermals falling fast, Skipper. EMs, acoustics…we’ve got ‘em on the run now. Swarm dispersing and scattering into the rock.”
Jabril studied the waterfall display, showing the extent of their adversary. Every signature was falling. ANAD had smashed Config Zero’s bots but good. “Any sign of quantum comms?”
Ziegler shook his head. “None, sir. DNT’s scrambled their comms like eggs. Tracking minimal decoherence wakes. It’s like they’re trying to call out but the line’s busy.”
“Good. Keep it that way. GEO, what about the fault systems…plate boundaries?”
Salaam indicated his profiler. “All quiet, sir. Normal bumps and grinds. A few jolts created by us and Ferret, but nothing major. Mag Three or less, I’d say. We slammed ‘em before they could chew up much rock.”
“Probably prevented some big ones too,” Jabril decided. “Get Adana Station on the line…we need to call this in.”
The tactics Badger and Ferret had tried out, along with new mods to ANAD, were quickly emulated around the world. Boundary Patrol made Badger’s engagement four thousand meters below the Med a wargame model and orders were cut to all stations to get onboard and no more free-lancing. The disentanglers worked as advertised and with the right combination of HERF barrage to soften up the Bugs, souped-up ANADs to engage, and disentanglers to strangle all quantum comms, Config Zero’s bot were finally easy pickings if the right script was followed.
Johnny Winger intended to make sure that happened.
Badger and Ferret completed their patrol, locating no more swarms in their sector, and returned to station at Adana. By normal rotation, the two geoplanes would be quickly succeeded by two more, Mole Rat
and Tunneler, who would take over their patrol duties.
Jabril was ordered to a debriefing with CINCQUANT less than an hour after Badger had surfaced at her home base.
“Good work, Captain,” Winger said. “I’ve studied your downloads. Textbook engagement, in my estimation. No trouble with the DNTs?”
“None, sir—“ Jabril was still toweling off sweat and chugging a cold drink in the ready room. Other troopers were checking in their gear behind him, jostling and joking with each other. “Worked like a charm. We choked off their comms and grabbed ‘em by the balls. HERF ‘em early to keep them scattered. Then slam ‘em with ANAD…those new grabbers and disrupters did the trick. Q2 gave us good intel on what the bots had. All we had to do was get in close and punch away.”
“I’ve sent your report on to UNSAC. Just got a ping back a few minutes ago. He and the S-G want to talk by vid. Clean yourself up and be presentable by 0700 hours your time. I’ll call in and make the connects.”
“Will do, sir.” Jabril signed off and sighed. No more frosty ones for me this morning, he said to himself. One thing about UNSAC you could count on: he’d go over your report word for word and question everything. Then there was the Secretary-General….
The formal briefing started promptly at 0700 hours, as promised. Winger did a quick rundown on mission specifics and details, including results of the engagement. As expected, UNSAC asked a lot of questions. The S-G, Kwame Kavaii, looked like he was asleep.
“Bottom line,” Winger concluded, “we managed to prevent some major tremors and quakes in BPS 3’s sector. BioShield made the detection and BPS 3 successfully prosecuted the contact. The tactics we worked out and simmed worked well and the swarms were engaged, scattered and rendered harmless by ANAD. I’ve taken the liberty of getting Badger’s mission report and details out to all stations. For the time being, this is the way we fight Config Zero underground.”
Kavaii seemed to wake up at that. “But aren’t these tremors still continuing, General? Last report I saw showed plate and fault stresses still building in most sectors, especially BPS 3. Is Dr. Hill on the line with us?”
UNSAC answered affirmatively. “I asked the good doctor to give us a geology update about Sector 3…the Great Rift Zone area…Arabian and Eurasian plate boundaries. Doctor—“
The Caltech geophysicist appeared in a small window on Jabril’s screen. He was a thin black man, gray-white goatee, nearly bald on top. Antique glasses clung to the end of his nose as he perused some kind of tablet in the background.
“Yes, well, as you can see…stresses are continuing to build and release in small tremors in and around the plate boundary here. As I indicated in an earlier briefing, if stresses continue at this rate, the natural forces that are driving the east African section to the east will be accelerated. Normal plate tectonics are pushing the African and Eurasian plates apart at this seam. But the effect of the swarms has been to increase this rate of separation, dramatically so. The actual rate and mechanics depend on the model we use. But they’re all converging on the same outcome.”
UNSAC watched as Hill’s animation played out. The screens all showed the same thing. Vastly speeded up, the east African rift valley was slowly but steadily wrenched from Africa and drifted out into the Indian Ocean, eventually becoming an elongated island continent.
“There are some people who think this is actually a good idea,” UNSAC theorized. “Make a new sanctuary. And it’s got Mount Kipwezi on it too. Maybe we quarantine Config Zero on this island.”
Hill added, “Of course, the scenarios you’re watching are speeded up dramatically for effect. Even with increased shear forces caused by swarm-induced tremors and quakes, the process would take centuries, probably millennia.”
Kavaii was intrigued with Hill’s theories. “Doctor, you did a briefing for the Security Council last week, a projection of what would happen if all these enhanced forces were to continue for a long time…do you still have that?”
Lamont Hill nodded. “Indeed, I do…here, let me switch files…it’ll just take a sec—“ He disappeared momentarily from the screen, working on something in the background.
UNSAC spoke up. The Commissioner was at the Quartier-General in Paris, in his seventy-seventh floor office. “I wasn’t kidding about this new island continent Dr. Hill mentioned. Just as a what-if scenario, I had my Ops people in Q3 put together a little plan.”
“What kind of plan, sir?” Winger asked.
“Just speculation, you understand. In this plan, the east African rift zone continues to pull away from Africa like it’s doing now. In this plan, what’s different is…we help it along.”
“You’re just slightly nuts,” the Secretary-General said from New York. “How do we help it along?”
“Geo-engineering,” UNSAC explained. “We do what Config Zero’s doing. Deploy massive swarms, specially configured for solid-phase disassembly. Hell, we already did this on a smaller scale with that asteroid a few decades ago…Wilks-Lucayo something or other. Remember?”
“All too well, sir,” Winger said. UNIFORCE and UNISPACE had run a combined op to deploy ANAD bots to chew away enough asteroid so it wouldn’t impact Earth, at least not as much. Pieces of Wilks had struck the planet anyway, but a catastrophe had somehow been averted. “But Wilks was a speck compared to a planet.”
“We’re not disassembling a planet, Winger. We’re just helping Mother Nature along. We deploy massive swarms, they chew away and in a few years, boom! New continent, right out there in the middle of the Indian Ocean. And here’s the good part—“ UNSAC was warming to the idea “—we build one humongous MOBnet, drape it over the island and isolate Config Zero and as many of these Assimilationists as we can on the island. A massive containment structure. Like one big summer camp.” UNSAC smirked. “After all, we can’t MOBnet Mt. Kipwezi where it is…it’s inside the East Africa Sanctuary. Sanctuary laws and all that. But it’s just a scenario.”
The Secretary-General sniffed. “More like wishful thinking. Dr. Hill--?”
Hill’s face was on the screen. “I have the file now, sir. I’ll put it up—“ Momentarily, everyone’s screen refreshed and as the imagery settled down, a spherical 3-D projection of the Earth came into view. “What you’re seeing is our primary model’s prediction for continental positioning after ten thousand years, if the current rate of tectonic plate movement continues at its currently accelerated rate.”
The entire land surface of the Earth had congealed, in the image, into a single supercontinent. The remainder of the Earth’s surface was ocean, but as if a child had jammed pieces of a puzzle together in no particular order, all the continents had rammed together into one massive landform.
Hill went on. “Of course, it’s common knowledge that our continents ride on massive plates of rock…tectonic plates…and these plates are in constant motion. Continents have been pushed together and pulled apart numerous times in Earth’s history. In fact, three hundred million years ago, Earth looked very similar to this…Pangaea it was called. The supercontinent began breaking apart a hundred million years ago, to form the continents as we know them today.”
“This is a natural process.” UNSAC observed. “What’s so different about your model?”
Hill answered simply, “The time frame. Normally this process takes hundreds of millions of years. And it’s somewhat random, as you can imagine. The results depend on magma hotspots, columns of upwelling material from the mantle, things like that. The accelerated forces we’re seeing along the Great Rift Zone are at work along most of the world’s plate boundaries…that’s why we’re seeing so many quakes now. And we know these forces are caused by swarm action underground. Carried to its logical extreme, the end result would be close to what you’re seeing here.”
“What kind of time frame are we talking about, Doctor?” Winger asked.
“A matter of a few centuries…maybe le
ss.”
There was a stunned silence. UNSAC broke the quiet. “It’s almost like the Earth’s surface is being intentionally re-worked.”
Winger swallowed hard. “We know Config Zero operates to execute something called the Prime Key. Maybe this is part of that.”
Kavaii was just shaking his head, willing the whole idea to go away. “I just hope your data’s wrong, Dr. Hill. Or your models. It seems to me that we need to isolate Config Zero…and Symborg too…anyway we can.” The next question was addressed to UNSAC. “This little what-if scenario of yours…how much detail have you got?”
UNSAC shrugged. “Enough to drive a few simulations…that’s about it. Q3 hasn’t done any serious planning, any logistics, that sort of thing…if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s doable? I mean, technically feasible to accelerate this rifting with our own swarms? Wouldn’t that be pretty dangerous?”
UNSAC acknowledged the truth of what Kavaii was saying. “It is possible. Sure it’s dangerous, but then so is Config Zero. But there’s a hell of a lot of engineering to be done…the bot structure itself. The configs and config drivers. And this idea of a MOBnet…nobody really knows if that’s doable…a MOBnet to cover an entire continent. In theory, it’s feasible. In practice…who knows?”
Kavaii seemed to make up his mind. “I want more details. As soon as you can get them. This may be the most hare-brained scheme I’ve ever heard. But it also may be a way of isolating Config Zero once and for all.”
“Sir, there is one other factor to be considered,” Winger said.
“What’s that, General?”
“The disentanglers. Captain Jabril here used them on his last patrol. Captain—“
Jabril spoke up. “Worked like a charm, sir. Don’t ask me to explain how. Somehow they mess up quantum signals. The swarms we engaged apparently had no comm link back to Config Zero. That made them easier pickings for our own ANAD formations. Without a link back to Config Zero, many of our normal tactics and weapons worked a lot better.”
Kavaii leaned forward toward the camera, so that his face nearly filled the vid from New York.
“Gentlemen, understand what I’m saying here: UNSAC’s plan is a screwball plan and it may never work. Just the thought of what it would take to get such an idea through the Security Council, let alone the General Assembly, makes my head hurt. But I want to have as many options as possible. Intentionally re-shaping the Earth’s surface…that’s a nightmare scenario in anybody’s book. If that’s what Config Zero is up to, then we have to do whatever it takes to stop him…it…them…whatever. Assimilationists and Symborg be damned. UNSAC, get me details on the engineering and the costs to do this little stunt of yours. I’m willing to sacrifice part of Africa if we can isolate Config Zero forever and put a stop to all these quakes. I don’t know if I can make others see it the same way I do…but I intend to try.
“I want specifics in a week. Is that understood?”
A chorus of yessirs circled around the Net from each location. Table Top, Paris, Adana, Turkey and Pasadena…all registered their assent.
The S-G signed off and his window went dark, shifting over to the blue field of the UN logo and shield.
Johnny Winger’s head swam with the implications of what had been discussed. Just the evacuations alone would tax every government and political authority to the breaking point. Not to mention the inevitable damage from more quakes and tremors. Geo-engineering on a continental scale. Hell, he himself had nearly died years before trying to guide ANAD swarms eating up the Wilks-Lucayo asteroid, before it could slam into Earth.
And the prospect of Symborg and the Assimilationists ever agreeing to live forever in MOB quarantine on an island seemed remote at best.
He wondered if maybe they were actually doing the Old Ones’ job for them.
Config Zero had spent nearly two hundred and ten cycles analyzing the effects of the disentanglers on its command and control infrastructure. Logged as Device 088, the disentanglers created great and continuing interference with quantum signals to and from all elements and bot masters. The exact nature of the devices wasn’t yet clear to Config Zero. Interference patterns were analyzed and entanglement state calculations performed, but no clear countermeasure could be determined.
This frustrated Config Zero, though ‘frustration’ was not an emotional state vector currently archived in its memory. Continuing, mostly fruitless, analysis occupied many processor cycles and was only interrupted by self-protective timers which shifted Config Zero’s processing stream to other pursuits.
Observational evidence from remote swarms indicated that the Humans were emplacing numerous copies of Device 088 around all Quantum Corps and Boundary Patrol bases and installations. Interference with normal signals intercepts increased by three hundred and fifty percent. As a result, the “Failed Acquisition of Signal” file grew exponentially. This triggered additional actions.
Config Zero communicated all this to the Keeper at Europa, requesting additional instructions. The Keeper dutifully relayed all Config Zero’s signals and communications to the Central Entity, still many light-years distant.
The reply, when it came, instructed Config Zero to do one thing and one thing only:
Execute the Prime Key.
Johnny Winger and the Great Rift Zone Page 48
