Nanotroopers Episode 2: Nog School

by Philip Bosshardt

all the residents out of town half-naked, ignore the possibility of any hostages, and only then sanitize the objective with properly configured ANAD swarms?”

  Winger finally looked up and tried to meet Kraft’s fierce glare. He offered up a brief explanation of why Spider Squad did what it did. Under the withering look of old Ironpants, it sounded pretty lame even as it came out of his mouth.

  Kraft was undeterred.

  “Cadet Winger, in this business, sound tactical judgment is essential. So is following orders. This is not some game we’re playing up here. Follow orders and live. Disobey and die. It’s that simple. Winger, you continue to confound everything I thought I knew about you—“

  “Sir, we were about to conduct the sanitizing ANAD sweep when Cadet Ng…uh, well, sir, kind of…sort of disappeared…pixelated…sir.”

  Kraft sighed and rested his elbows on his desktop. He nearly knocked his commandpad off when he did. “Yes, son, I’m well aware of the reports. Q2’s investigating now. The word I’m getting is that Mr. Ng was not quite what he seemed. I think the term Q2 used was ‘para-human nanobotic formation,’ or some such. Some people are even calling them ‘angels’…there’s been intel on the boards for over a year that Red Hammer can do this…configure a swarm to so closely resemble a human being as to be indistinguishable. For our sakes, I hope to hell this is somebody’s wet dream and not actual intel.”

  “So Q2 believes this was Red Hammer, sir?” That made Winger feel marginally better.

  Kraft nodded. “Affirmative. They’re reporting that Mr. Ng, or whatever the hell he was, was in fact a spy, saboteur, agent-provocateur, you name it. The real problem is that your ANAD bot has turned up missing; likely that’s what Ng was after. Q2 believes Mr. Ng was sent by Red Hammer to capture just such an ANAD master and use it to improve their own ANAD-style systems. Or develop counter-measures for ours. Reverse engineering and all that. To put it bluntly, Mr. Winger, your CQE was duped. He never recovered anything…a few replicants, a dud, a blank copy. And now Red Hammer probably has one of latest and greatest ANAD masters.”

  Winger was stunned. “Sir, does Q2 have any leads…on where Ng might have taken ANAD?”

  Kraft looked like he was about to explode. “Mr. Winger, that is no longer your concern. As a matter of fact, that leads me to why you’re here—“

  “Sir?”

  “Ever hear of Mali?”

  Winger scrunched up his face…glad the conversation—it wasn’t really a conversation…more a dressing down disguised as an after-action debriefing. “Somewhere in Africa, sir?”

  “You asked where Ng went with ANAD. We’re getting reports out of Quantum Corps Central Command, Balzano, Italy, as well as UNIFORCE in Paris, of a growing epidemic of HNRIV in Africa and around the Med…ever hear of that?”

  Winger thought. He had seen something recently on the Solnet about a rising outbreak of some new disease. “A little, I think, sir. HNRIV?”

  “Human Neuro-Receptor Inhibiting Virus. Only the eggheads at CDC and World Health think it’s not exactly a virus. They captured some samples…it’s part organism, part mechanism. A programmable virus…like ANAD, in some ways. Addiction on demand—“ here Kraft was scanning some notes on his commandpad—“somehow it worms its way into your brain and inhibits dopamine re-uptake in nerve cells, nerve cells in the limbic cortex and the mesoencephalic brain stem, specifically the ventral tegmentum."

  "I’m not sure I understand, sir—“

  "Neither did I. In plain English…that's the area of the brain that generates pleasurable stimuli…the same area that addictive substances work on. Cocaine, jazz, twist, whatever…they all work the same way. Keep neurochemicals like dopamine from being re-used after every nerve impulse and you flood the nerve tissue with good times. Keep the nerve cells stoked with dopamine and pretty soon you got one hell of a lot of happy customers. It’s a bot with virus properties, Winger, and its exploding out of west Africa. Central Command…specifically 2nd Nano is overwhelmed. They don’t have the personnel or the expertise with ANAD we have here. They’ve asked for help. Our help. I have tasking from UNSAC in Paris to furnish that help.”

  Now Winger was intrigued, grateful for any way to get back in the Major’s good graces. “How can we help, sir? We’re just nogs. Not even full atomgrabbers.”

  Kraft sniffed. “Don’t I know that. But orders are orders. Winger, I’m forming a small detachment. Call it Detachment Alpha. The whole op has been tagged Atom Hammer by UNSAC. You’re heading up Alpha…a team of seven. Look, I know you’re not up to speed yet, Winger. You’ve got a problem with following orders. But you are resourceful…and energetic…and committed. Even I can see that. Alpha is detailed to 2nd Nano for a month. Your contact will be a Lieutenant Delforza out of Balzano.”

  “What’s the mission, sir?” Already, Winger was working out details in the back of his mind.

  “Work with 2nd Nano…Delforza’s boys—to locate, penetrate and render harmless a suspected Red Hammer base outside of Bamako, Mali…Q2 thinks there may be a lab there where HNRIV’s being developed, programmed and evolved. Hell, your ANAD master may even be there. Get over there, Winger, and smoke those bastards out. HNRIV’s nasty and it’s got to be stopped in its tracks.”

  “Sir, what about personnel? Equipment, transport, that sort of thing. And ROE, too, sir.” He thought he’d better add that in, since Kraft had a low tolerance for freelancing by atomgrabbers.

  “You’ll have a hyperjet on the runway day after tomorrow, 0700 hours. You’ve got one day—here, I’ll squirt the workups, ROE, personnel and equipment draw, TOE, everything, to your wristpad—“ he pecked at his commandpad and Winger’s wrist chirped with the received data a moment later. “You’ll have one day to pull it all together. Meet with your team. Go over the op orders. Answer their questions and get your equipment and weapons and ANAD systems and your ass in gear. You’re flying to Africa day after tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir—“

  “Oh, and Winger—“

  “Yes, sir?”

  Here Kraft had a pained look, like he was about to cry. The Big Moustache was twitching like a bird about to take off from his face. “Do us all a favor. Read the op orders and the ROE. And try to stick to them, okay? I don’t want any static from UNSAC or 2nd Nano about our guys turning into loose cannons. I realize this is highly irregular, sending nogs to do an atomgrabber’s job. But HNRIV’s a bad bug and you’ve shown me a level of grit and tactical resourcefulness—if I may use that term—that ‘s just what the situation requires. Get over there and make us proud, son.”

  Winger stood up and saluted. “I won’t let you…or the Battalion…down, sir. You can count on me, sir.”

  “That’ll be all. Dismissed!”

  Winger saluted again and wheeled about. As he headed out of the Ops building, he bundled up against a chill wind sweeping across Table Top off the snow-covered summits of the Buffalo Range nearby. Snow clouds scudded by low and swollen.

  He fairly sprinted across the grassy quad toward the Cadet Barracks, a million things on his mind.

  Detailed to 2nd Nano. A real, live op. Africa. Mali. Programmable viruses. Bastard ANADs. Johnny Winger’s mind swam with thoughts and ideas, swirling around like the snow that was even now beginning to fall…not unusual for the Buffalo Range even in September.

  He heard a loud roar off to his left and spied the sleek lines of a UNIFORCE hyperjet touching down on Runway 32 left, kissing the tarmac with a screech and a puff of smoke.

  Probably our ride to Mali, he surmised. He was looking forward to the suborbital hop day after tomorrow. Africa in two hours. You couldn’t beat that.

  Then Major Kraft’s words rang like a gong in the back of his mind: Do us all a favor. Read the op orders and the ROE. And try to stick to them, okay?

  Winger smiled in spite of the Major’s stern warning. “Sure beats the hell out of shovelin
g hay on a ranch.” He bundled up tighter and pushed through the doors into the Barracks.

  “Banikaiyan, Mali”

  Bamako, Mali

  September 28, 2048

  6:45 p.m.

  From a hundred kilometers altitude, west Africa looked like a gigantic sandbox, a dun-colored mass punctuated with orange and brown hills, surrounded by the blue-green arc of the Atlantic Ocean and a green ribbon that his wristpad map called the Niger River, snaking its way across the desert. Roaring down through re-entry aboard hyperjet Charioteer, Mali’s capital city of Bamako was a collection of low-rise adobe and mudbrick structures, interspersed with a few grandiose monuments and a smattering of taller buildings. Several bridges spanned the Niger and the whole city seemed clumped around the riverbanks like a fungus on the clear, pristine sands of the nearby Sahara.

  Lieutenant Delforza was there to greet Detachment Alpha as they deplaned on the tarmac at Bamak-Senou International Airport. Delforza was Italian—you could tell that from a distance—black wedge of hair on top, completely non-reg by Table Top standards, hawk nose, sharp blue eyes and hands that wouldn’t stop moving and gesturing.

  Winger saluted smartly. “Detachment Alpha on the ground, Lieutenant. Reporting for duty, sir.”

  Delforza was already shepherding them toward a convoy of Quantum Corps and Malian Army crewtracs and lifters parked a few