Nanotroopers Episode 2: Nog School

by Philip Bosshardt

slug of plasma forced ANAD into Johnny Winger's carotid artery at high pressure. Gibby got an acoustic pulse seconds later. A half-hour run on its propulsors brought ANAD to a dense mat of capillary tissues: the blood brain barrier.

  "So far, so good," Gibby muttered. Mighty Mite Barnes stood alongside the IC panel, ready to help with anything. The van swerved slightly as Deeno took another turn through Bamako's narrow, dusty streets.

  "Reticular lumps," Gibby pointed out on the imager. "I'm transiting…now--" With a deft touch on the controls, Gibby squeezed the ANAD master through a cleft in the capillary barrier, shoving aside a curtain of lipid molecules, and entered the bloodstream of the brain. "We're in…going to half power on propulsors…give me a navigation hack."

  They hadn't had time to put up the tracking grid. Barnes scanned the Winger’s brain with a low-power quantum flux scope, got a rough fix and gave it to Gibbs.

  "I'm picking up density at about two hundred microns anterior to the minor mesostriatal projection…right about here--" she fingered an approximate location on a chart the IC was displaying. "It's probably ANAD."

  Dark viny shapes and dense fiber growth clouded the view. "--must be approaching a duct…could be projections to the nucleus accumbens."

  "Follow that," Mighty Mite suggested, studying the cortical chart as well. "Looks like it traces down into the ventral tegmentum. That's where you want to be--" she stopped in mid-sentence, as the van sped up. D’Nunzio's voice crackled over the intercom.

  "Sorry about the rough ride, guys but we've got police in pursuit. I want to lose 'em in the city, before we head to the airport. Hang on--"

  "Great," said Barnes, rolling her eyes. "Just great--"

  "I'm heading down this fiber--" Gibby pointed out a sinuous projection from the medial forebrain deeper into the limbic tissues of the midbrain. "It eventually ends up inside the ventral tegmentum. Loading templates now--I'm replicating a small force, just in case our buddy's set up an ambush."

  The imager view careened slightly as ANAD maneuvered through heavy fiber mats, swinging first to port, then to starboard, as Gibby drove the assembler deeper into Winger's brain. His face was pale and dry. Only minor tremors tickled the ends of his fingers. He was secured with makeshift straps to a foldout chart table, breathing shallowly. His lips moved in barely perceptible quivers…he seemed to be trying to say something--

  Neural discharges roiled the image, as flickering projections lit off nerve signals from one synapse to another. Each discharge set off cascades of other discharges, a lightning display inside the mind. Maybe a thought, perhaps a dream image, there was no way to know for sure. ANAD navigated the mind storm carefully, flitting from one branch to another, always careful to sound ahead for non-fiber returns, for density too high, evidence of something other than nerve cells drifting in the dim shadows ahead.

  "Nothing yet--"Barnes said quietly. She took another reading with the flux scope, and estimated ANAD's position. "You're about here--" she tapped the point with nervous fingers. A large irregular patch of nerve fiber bundles lit up on the chart. "Anterior convergence, it's called. Kind of like a big train station for axon fibers. Entorhinal cortex, lateral septum, central amygdala and prefrontal striatum…they're all here. It's a big switchyard."

  Gibby was barely breathing. He watched the rep counter carefully. Not too big a force yet…don't want to give us away. Deep inside the anguished brain of Johnny Winger, the Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassembler blazed away at incredible speed, grabbing loose molecules and atom fragments from the plasma and building exact copies of itself like some frantic brickmason.

  "I'm moving forward…now--" He tweaked the propulsors down to twenty percent, and steered ANAD through the dark undulating forest of fibers, pressing through curtains and showers of dendritic branches, easing forward, slowly forward--

  It was Barnes who saw the first blip on the imager screen. "Sounding something, Gibby. You've got a return…something ahead, through that jungle right there--"

  ANAD eased forward, his small brood of replicants hovering and maneuvering in unison nearby. Sheer translucent mats parted as the assembler steered ahead. Through the convergence, the density of fiber dropped off and vast, elliptical shapes loomed out of the mist ahead.

  "Ventral tegmentum," breathed Barnes. "Six thousand microns ahead…my God…look at them…they're everywhere--"

  Just ahead, dark oblong globes hung from a vaulted ceiling. Each globe was enveloped with axon fiber, as if confetti and streamers had been strewn about light fixtures in some mad New Year's Eve party. Flashes and flickers pulsed along the streamers, all converging on the globes, which periodically erupted in a brilliant burst discharge, before sending the signal further along different sets of streamers.

  And there dimly seen in the shadows, hovering about each globe like so many whaleboats dismembering a prize catch, a fleet of HNRIV mechs scuttled back and forth, steadily insinuating themselves in and among the fibers. Steadily diverting the discharges and signals, patching in, snipping off, splicing themselves in between the globes to control the direction and strength of each signal.

  The mechs were slowly but surely seizing control of the entire region.

  Gibby gritted his teeth and pulsed the joystick. ANAD maneuvered into position.

  "ANAD defenses up and armed…enzymatic knife, electron bond disrupter, grabbers and effectors--"

  Mighty Mite checked the board for the IC1. "Green and mean, Gibby. Go get the bastards."

  "I'm engaging…right now."

  ANAD and the small force of assemblers jetted forward….

  A low moan escaped Lieutenant Winger's lips as nightmarish dreams cascaded through his mind. Deeno D'Nunzio found a wet rag and pressed it to his forehead. It felt warm, feverish.

  "Hold on, Wings…just hold on," she murmured, bending close to his ear. "We're coming--"

  "Less than two thousand microns," Mighty Mite Barnes said.

  Gibby pressed the attack.

  "Now!" Barnes yelled. "Reconfig now! Assault One…give 'em a taste of knuckles and fists!"

  Deep inside the limbic system of Johnny Winger, ANAD started gathering and bending atoms furiously as the last few microns were closed. Even as ANAD fashioned an arsenal of weapons out of its effectors--electron lens, bond disrupters, enzymatic knife--the HNRIV mechs went about their business. Almost at the point of engagement, a small detail detached itself and flew up to challenge the intruders.

  The result wasn't pretty.

  Newly armed and replicating to outflank the enemy, ANAD's reconfig surprised HNRIV. The defensive detail stood off momentarily, feinting warily while its pilot tried to figure out what to do next.

  "You've got him snookered, Gibby," exulted Barnes,

  "Maybe…" Gibbs tweaked his joysticks, maneuvering just out of reach of the enemy. "I'm going to try and outflank these bastards, go for the main force." Gibby pulsed ANAD's propulsors, then turned sharply around a clump of axon fibers and bored headlong into the enemy horde, slashing left and right.

  ANAD slammed into the enemy, seizing a phosphor group on the nearest carbene and twisted atoms until the enemy mech's bond broke. Liberating thousands of electron volts, the disrupter zapped the mech and shattered its outer shell, ripping off probes left and right. HNRIV shuddered and spun with the pulse, then re-engaged to fight off another bond snap. Throughout the ventral tegmentum, trillions of ANAD replicants duplicated the same tactic.

  The cytoplasm churned and frothed with furious combat.

  Slowly, with a few setbacks, methodically, with grim determination, Gibby and Barnes worked their way through the enemy horde, rapidly disassembling, zapping, twisting and snapping mechs left and right. The assault was essentially over in ten minutes, though HNRIV made several counterattacks.

  Barnes slapped Gibbs on the shoulder. "You did it, Gibby!" You clobbered 'em!"

  "For the moment--" Gibby agreed.
"We've got to make sure, though--do a little recon and root out any last resistance. If even one mech's left intact--"

  "I know, I know. But you smashed 'em good…that's the first time."

  "I got lucky. Wings would have done better."

  It hadn't been easy, but Winger's training regimen for the Detachment had paid off. Debris and fragments clotted the axon forest; only loose atoms remained. Gibby cruised through the flotsam, as the imager view jostled and careened with stray electrons roiling the plasma. Throughout the whole area, HNRIV had been cut to pieces by ANAD's disrupters…and the last-minute config change that Winger had taught them.

  The tactic had worked--finally--but they had to be sure.

  The van swerved once more, then dipped as D’Nunzio cut their speed. "Airport lights ahead," he announced over the intercom. "We've managed to ditch the pursuit. Charioteer's in view. How's it going back there?"

  Barnes was wetting down Johnny Winger's hot forehead. "He's been twitching a lot…maybe dreams, micro-spasms--"

  "Back-signaling to some motor circuit, somewhere," Gibbs said. "Involuntary reflex, most likely. I've just trying to make sure we don't have any more mechs hiding anywhere…this place is like a jungle. A million places to lay low."

  D’Nunzio understood. "If there's even one processor core, the bastards can replicate all over again."

  "Or re-config to something that looks natural…like that dendritic branch