Nanotroopers Episode 16: ANAD on Ice, Page 3

  Maybe ANAD’s got some ideas, he thought.

  They finished their meals and headed out of the commissary. “Sweet dreams, Lieutenant,” Galland told him as they headed down the walkway to the O Quarters.

  “Don’t spend too long primping yourself tomorrow morning, Lieutenant,” Winger said. “Nobody’ll see it when you’re in a hypersuit.”

  “Hey, my hypersuit can run circles around your hypersuit,” she said back. “Any time, Wings, just say the word…any time.”

  Winger went to his quarters, finished some last minute packing and brushed his teeth. He stripped down to its civvies and lay in the cool of the bunk for a few minutes, lights out.

  On impulse, he decided to launch ANAD from his shoulder capsule. It was against all regs and wasn’t even a good idea the night before a mission but he didn’t care. He needed someone to talk to.

  The discharge stung a little but the faint flicker of the building swarm soon hovered over the bed. Config One, he saw. Like a small cloud of fireflies, winking on and off, as ANAD grabbed atoms and built structure to maintain himself. He decided to leave ANAD loose, as the little guy always preferred.

  “ANAD, I think Gabby Galland is kind of special. I like her. But I don’t know what to do about it…or even how to feel. She’s like so many of the troopers…she thinks you’re just a device. Or a weapon. A formation of robotic elements. But I don’t see you that way…does that make any sense?”

  ***Parsing interrogative, Config Winger, J….detecting increased galvanic skin conductance, elevated heart rate, sebaceous glands discharging extra matter…is Config Winger, J experiencing distress?***

  Winger laughed. “No, ANAD and yes, I am a little sweaty. Maybe I should go take a shower, huh. It’s just feelings, that’s all. Feelings I don’t know what to do with.”

  ***Perhaps Config Winger is experiencing stress related to the upcoming mission. To engage adversaries with unknown capabilities can lead to elevated cortisol levels and increased serotonin and dopamine uptake in your limbic system, with attendant surges in hypothalamic activity and associated cerebellar functions***

  “No, ANAD…I mean, yes, you’re probably right. I always have some jitters about any mission. But…it’s not really the mission. I have feelings for Lieutenant Galland…I don’t think you have any configs or programming to analyze that—and I don’t know what to do about them.”

  ***Stress reduction exercises can be performed that will reduce cortisol levels by measurable amounts…perhaps I could enumerate techniques for such exercises…I have programs for several dozen such protocols…the Doc II configuration does not maintain such inventory for trooper personal improvement therapies…I am programmed with multiple procedures and methods….***

  It wasn’t the first time Winger had detected the slightest bit of—what could you call it?—jealousy? Competitive streak? Mistrust? Suspicion? Protectiveness? In recent sessions outside of containment, the nanoscale assembler had occasionally offered phrases and words that seemed to Winger to border on jealousy about Doc II. How could that be? Maybe there was something glitchy in the latest re-gen of the master bot.

  How could a nanobot be jealous of another nanobot? It shouldn’t be possible. Or was he just imagining it…projecting feelings about Gabby Galland onto the tiny mech?

  Was some kind of conflict developing between Doc II and ANAD? Would that affect ANAD’s performance on the mission? He decided to address the matter directly.

  “I’m sure you’ve got lots of techniques, ANAD….not just now, thanks. And as far as Doc II goes, you and I have a different relationship than Doc and me. Doc’s like a teacher. Or a mentor. He teaches me things. ANAD, I think of you like a trooper. You’re one of us…that’s what you always wanted to be anyway…to be another nog like Gabby, or Sheila Reaves or Gibbs. Don’t get so snippy about Doc…there’s room for both of you.”

  For a long moment, the ANAD swarm said nothing. The coupler link buzzed with static as the swarm roiled slightly and thinned out, almost like it was dispersing. Then…

  ***ANAD seeks to maintain self-config. Maximum dispersion is the highest state, consistent with energy demands. Retrieving declarative statement from Doc I original configuration dated 28 May, 2046…processing…processing…”Mary, assemblers like this ANAD will always have to be kept in strict containment…there are unknown factors and interactions in the code…I just can’t be sure yet…we’ll have to run more tests—“…Config Doc II maintains equivalent programming...over two thousand one hundred conflicts logged with current processor architecture***

  So that was it. ANAD had in memory many instances of Doc Frost warning about unknown aspects of his original ANAD design. To be safe, he had always insisted on proper containment. Yet ANAD seemed to have evolved away from Doc’s earliest design parameters….into something else. Maybe the re-generation process was flawed. Now ANAD thought that Doc II was just the latest iteration of Doc Frost and wanted to cram him back into containment.

  Winger took a deep breath. It was too late now to do anything about this little budding conflict. He would just have to be careful where and how he interacted with Doc II. Reaves and some of the other troopers had even said as much. The mission in Antarctica couldn’t be jeopardized.

  Now I know how a parent feels with two kids arguing about everything….

  He ordered ANAD back into the capsule and breathed a little easier when he felt the sting of the port snap shut. Then he closed his eyes but sleep just would not come. ANAD…Doc II…Gabrielle Galland…images came and went like a vid at high speed, a blur he could never resolve. To get his mind off the turmoil, he turned on a small bed lamp and dug out his wristpad, snapping it on his wrist in one smooth motion.

  For the hundredth time, he scrolled uneasily through the mission parameters for Operation Quantum Ice, looking for something, anything, that he might be missing.

  He couldn’t find anything.

  Chapter 2

  “Phase Change”

  McMurdo City, Ross Island

  Antarctica

  July 7, 2049

  0600 hours U.T.

  “The role of the infinitely small is infinitely large”

  Louis Pasteur

  Alpha Detachment, newly equipped and re-armed, departed the north liftpad at Table Top Mountain shortly before sunup. The ten-thousand kilometer flight south, aboard hyperjet Charioteer, would take about two and a half hours. Their destination was McMurdo City, the research base at Ross Island. There, the Detachment would hook up with a platoon from UNIFORCE Security Corps, deployed to the Antarctic to engage the spreading swarms of Red Hammer bots.

  Johnny Winger spent much of the flight across the top of the Earth’s atmosphere in the comm shack, following operations of other detachments as Quantum Corps engaged Red Hammer around the world.

  When he wasn’t in the comm shack, Winger circulated through the cargo bay, checking on his troops, an encouraging word here, a pat on the head there. Got all your gear up to speed? Check those suit seals, trooper. Check your connections, suit boost, crewnet, check everything. We’ll load out for combat just before touchdown.

  Everyone one of them came back: Yes, sir…all copacetic, sir…how’s ANAD doing, sir?

  The truth was Johnny Winger didn’t know how the assembler was doing.

  He spent the last hour before descent toward the Ross Ice Shelf in the C/O’s quarters up forward, going over his own gear. He felt lonely, uneasy, occasionally glancing out a small porthole. Ice-flecked ocean glittered in morning sunlight kilometers below them…the south Pacific and the Andean coast of South America might as well have been another planet. Despite warnings from Doc II, he cycled his containment capsule open and released ANAD into the air.

  It was against all regulations but Johnny Winger didn’t care. He needed someone to talk to.

  ***Boss…..it’s good to be out…okay to rep a few million times?...nice to
have some company, you know…it feels…kind of weird…maybe it’s my config…got all these new doodads and effectors…***

  Winger was sitting on his bunk, feeling connections and ports in his suit helmet, mindlessly checking everything, the usual pre-ops drill.

  “ANAD, you worry me, sometimes, you know that?”

  ***No reason to be worried about me…I’m having fun just figuring out what to do with all these new gadgets***

  “I shouldn’t even be letting you out of containment here. It’s against all regs.”

  ***Why did you, then? Not that I don’t appreciate it. But still--***

  It was a question that had many answers. Pick one: I’m lonesome and I need some company…I’m curious about what you’ll do and say next…Living and working with you is like having a little brother…I never know what’s going to happen next….

  Winger completed his hypersuit checks and buttoned up the helmet. He checked his watch. Charioteer would begin her descent toward the runway at McMurdo in less than half an hour. Alpha Detachment would have to be ready for action the moment they touched down.

  “I don’t know, ANAD…I guess I want to do the right thing…only, I don’t know what that is. Even Doc II said I shouldn’t let you out of containment unsupervised.”

  ***Am I that dangerous, Boss? You shouldn’t be listening to that cloud of bugs. You must have let me out because I asked you to. You know…it’s more natural for me to be outside…I learn more…I exercise my effectors and my processor…just interacting with the environment strengthens my core synaptic connections…I’m a nanoscale element of a larger colony, Boss…the best thing for me is to be part of a swarm…with my comrades and fellow nogs…that’s how you would put it…is that so hard to understand?***

  “No, of course not.” Winger stared out the porthole. Reflected in the Perspex, he could see a faint shimmering blob in the air behind his head. He knew it was ANAD, replicating a swarm. It was like growing a family to order. Forming up a squad to keep him company.

  Wouldn’t that be a neat trick for humans, he thought? Build your own family to spec, as easily as building a shed in the backyard.

  ***Boss…you and me…we’re a lot alike, aren’t we?***

  Winger turned back to face the shimmering swarm. It was faceless, little more than a flickering light show. “You mean aside from the fact that I’m a billion times bigger and you don’t even have a face I can look at…sure, we’re almost twins, ANAD.”

  For a few moments, there was no further communication. The swarm was changing though, the pinpricks of light swirling, coalescing, right before his eyes. As he watched, Johnny became dimly aware of a pattern in the shimmer, something there but not quite there, a shadow, maybe? No, it was more than that—

  It was a face. The barest outline of a face, like a child’s stencil copy of a face, but recognizable nonetheless.

  It was the face of his father. Jamison Winger.

  Johnny Winger blinked hard. Jamison Winger had died in ’48, one of thousands of victims of the Serengeti plague. He quickly wiped off a tear. ANAD had been sniffing again. Sniffing memories…he’d have to quit letting the assembler have a free-for-all inside his brain. Doc II would be horrified.

  “ANAD…that’s not funny. I see what you’re forming…I think it’s in bad taste. Very bad taste.”

  ***You said I didn’t have a face to look at, Boss…isn’t that what you wanted me to have? Something to look at…something familiar--?***

  Winger got up and began putting on the hypersuit. “ANAD…reconfig for capture. We’ll be on the ground soon. We’ve got a mission—“

  ***Maybe we’re not so much alike after all…but, you’ve always said you think of me as a brother…as a fellow trooper***

  “I do, ANAD…how can I say this…maybe you’re too much like me. Not the way you look….just the way you are. Like the Major’s always saying…loads of talent but it needs polish. Nobody understands us, ANAD…that’s what I mean. Now—get rid of that swarm and get inside—“ he tapped his left shoulder and the capsule port clicked open.

  Charioteer made her descent and touched down on the icy ski-way outside McMurdo City less than an hour later. Snow-covered mountains ringed the complex. Beyond the edge of Ross Island, the ice-choked McMurdo Sound was thick with calving ice cliffs and bergs. Decades of global warming had shrunk the summertime icepack to frozen patches of floating ice amid the deep blue of the Sound. Charioteer taxied to a waiting assembly of trucks and tractors, all of them bearing the blue shield of UNIFORCE.

  Quite a welcoming party, Winger thought, as he counted up the assembled troops. According to Major Kraft, Security Corps had deployed a full company to the Antarctic to battle Red Hammer. UNIFORCE troops wore white with blue piping, while scattered among the crowd were others, clad in varying shades of green and red. BioShield, Winger realized. They had engineers and technicians on hand as well, trying to contain the expanding enemy swarms.

  Back in the cargo bay, Winger gave orders for Alpha Detachment to dismount and assemble in formation just off the hyperjet ramp.

  “Full suits, Captain?” asked Gibbs.

  “The works…but keep your helmets off,” Winger decided. “Inner caps only…it’s summer after all. The temperature’s a balmy 30 degrees out there.”

  “Like a walk on the beach,” muttered Reaves, as she clanked toward the rampway.

  Once outside, Johnny Winger introduced himself to the local UNIFORCE commander. He was a doughty Russian named Suvorov, heavy jowls and thick eyebrows and all. Suvorov saluted smartly.

  “Welcome to the bottom of the world, Lieutenant. I’ve got trucks and lifters for all your gear. May I inspect your Detachment?”

  “Of course,” Winger stood aside. It was a formality, he knew, since Quantum Corps was part of UNIFORCE as well, but it made for good relations with the locals. He could tell that Suvorov was a gruff, by-the-book commander. He strode down the hypersuited ranks of Quantum Corps troopers like a squat little field marshal, scrutinizing every face. Twice, he paused to take a closer look at some piece of the powered exo-skeleton suits, fiddling critically with Sergeant Ray Spivey’s wristpad.

  “Most impressive,” Suvorov growled. A wind devil kicked up, blowing loose powdery snow about the formation, but Suvorov didn’t flinch. “My men will help your Detachment with their gear.”

  Johnny Winger agreed, and in less than ten minutes, a convoy of trucks and airlifts was moving down the connector road toward the complex of huts and hangars and buildings that made up McMurdo City.

  Mac Town had been around for nearly a hundred and thirty years and over that time period, had grown from a research base to a full-service city for ten thousand iceheads that called the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf home. The newest part of the compound had been domed over, giving the place an alien, otherwordly ambience. Beneath the dome, parks and bike paths and occasional springs and fountains, along with two and three-story buildings, cabins, and other structures made the place almost like a normal town—it had a vaguely Scandinavian look—with its contemporary furnishings and monuments to early polar explorers like Shackleton and Scott and Amundsen.

  Outside the dome, which had been completed in 2039, the older buildings of Mac Town were cruder and sometimes abandoned to the elements. Rows of silvery Quonset huts blackened over the decades ringed the site of the original settlements. Beyond the perimeter, on a slight rise in the ice shelf, lay Discovery Hut, where Amundsen himself had first set up camp early in the twentieth century…1902, Johnny Winger somehow dredged up from memory.

  The convoy snaked through the suburbs of the abandoned cabins toward a port in the side of the dome. Once inside, Suvorov ordered the convoy stopped outside a gray slab-sided building fronting the circular road that circumscribed the dome…the Ring Road, a nearby sign indicated. Just above the snow piles banked up around the edge of the dome outside, the dim black cone of Mount Ereb
us was faintly visible in the distance, its summit encircled with mist and a shimmering ice haze. For the first time, Winger noticed unusual cloud formations around the peak of the mountain…then he saw a flickering seam of light across the clouds and understood.

  Swarm activity, he realized. He swallowed hard. The atmosphere was convulsing outward, boiling like a pot of water on a stove.

  “Operations,” the Russian announced. The Detachment went inside and powered down their hypersuits, falling out into a large open bullpen similar to the Ready Room at Table Top Mountain. Ordered to stand at ease, the Quantum Corps troopers and the rest of the UNIFORCE contingent mingled uneasily. Meanwhile, Winger and his CC2, Master Sergeant Hoyt Gibbs, followed Suvorov to a nearby circular room ringed with displays and consoles.

  It was the UNIFORCE Ops command post. Technicians and engineers bustled around the facility, tracking the movements and damage done by the Red Hammer swarms. Ground, aerial and satellite imagery danced across the rings of screens, each tiled with rows of data.

  Suvorov introduced Winger and Gibbs to a thin, harried man in a dark green uniform. A golden sunburst crest identified him as a BioShield tech.

  “Leonard Stiles…” the Russian announced. “…in charge of the BioShield group here—“

  Stiles nodded curtly. “Sorry to be so abrupt, Lieutenant…” he swept his hand toward the banks of screens, “but we have a bit of a crisis here—“

  Winger’s eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”

  Stiles shrugged, and motioned Winger to follow. He went to a console up front, overlooking a three-D virtual diorama of the entire Antarctic continent and surrounding seas. Lights popped and flashed inside the display like lightning bolts. But this was no summer thunderstorm.

  “Swarms are pushing outward again…it seems to come in cycles. About once a day, roughly every twenty five hours on average, both sources begin replicating and expanding again. As you can see—“ Stiles had a pointer to put a dot of light on the subject—“ we’ve got sources at Mount Erebus, here—and at Lake Vostok on the East Antarctic Sheet, here—“