***I currently maintain over two hundred thousand separate configurations in my database*** The Doc swarm flickered with what Liam figured was something like pride.
But to Winger, this was something new and disturbing in Liam. He was appalled.
“How can you say that? I’m against everything Assimilationists stand for. We can’t give in to Config Zero…or the Old Ones.”
“The Old Ones?” Liam smirked. “That’s a myth, Dad. It’s a fairy tale, made up by Quantum Corps and UNIFORCE to scare people. To justify themselves.”
Winger was getting annoyed by the way this conversation was going. “Liam, I spent forty years in the Corps. I’ve been all over the world, been inside atoms from here to Jupiter and back. You don’t have any idea of what you’re saying. You haven’t seen it.”
“I see it all the time on the Net, on vids. I deal with these bots in my work. I’m not afraid of them. I’m just saying: Assimilationists are the future. Dad, it’s evolution. Survival of the fittest. We’re not the fittest anymore. Garden-variety, unenhanced, single-configuration people like you and me…we’re history. Multi-config is the way to go. Much more adaptable. How can you not see that?”
“I know what I’ve seen, Liam. I’m not saying some of what you’re saying isn’t right. But Assimilationism? That’s suicide. Murder even. Listen to what they say: ‘Let us de-construct you. Be absorbed into the mother swarm. Join the cosmic All’. That’s bullshit, Liam. We’re just helping Config Zero de-populate the earth. It’s what they want. It’s what the Old Ones want.”
Liam was getting exasperated. He put down his drink and went to the door. “The Old Ones are a fantasy, Dad. You know that. The Old Ones are just us, our own paranoia about the future, reflected back to us. Bogeymen to project our fears onto.”
“Yeah? Then what about the Keeper on Europa? What about Sedna and Pluto and the loss of Michelangelo years ago? Did I imagine that? Was that fantasy?”
“It was an accident…even the Board said as much. There never was any believable evidence of extraterrestrial races coming here. Human error. Somebody screwed up. That’s what happened, Dad. And that Keeper you ran into on Europa…come on. I mean, I’m sure places like Europa have all kind of phenomena we can’t explain yet. But a portal to the Old Ones--?” Liam chuckled. “Hansel and Gretel for the 22nd century…that’s all that was.”
Winger couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Liam, what the hell’s gotten into you? University life has fried your brain. Maybe you’re an angel too. A bag of bugs, masquerading as my son….”
“Maybe I should be. I think I need some air—“ He left the study, went downstairs and left the house. It was dark out, snowing harder, but Liam didn’t care. He stalked off toward the woods behind the house, opened the gate and disappeared into the trees.
Winger stood there, frozen in disbelief at what had just happened. The Doc swarm gathered itself into a simulation of old Doc Frost. It shaped its ‘face’ with wrinkles of grandfatherly concern.
Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary Page 5