Johnny Winger and the Serengeti Factor

by Philip Bosshardt

CHAPTER 12

  “In nature’s infinite book of secrecy, A little can I read.”

  William Shakespeare

  Table Top Mountain, Idaho, USA

  September 21, 2062

  7:45 a.m.

  Dr. Irwin Frost tapped a short sequence of instructions on the keyboard. Inside the containment cylinder, ANAD responded to the command, readying itself for launch.

  "ANAD reports ready in all respects," came the high-pitched voice.

  Frost suppressed a slight smile. "The little guy sounds like a teenager on his first date."

  "Sounds pretty eager to me," Johnny Winger admitted. Winger was alongside the interface controls, watching everything Frost did.

  General Alexander Kincade, commanding general of Quantum Corps' Western Command, rubbed a hand across morning stubble on his chin. "More eager than I am. You sure this'll work, Doctor?"

  Frost nodded. "It is a new technique but we've proven it at the Northgate lab many times. I've trained Lieutenant Winger here in all the details. Shall we get started?"

  He moved aside, indicating that Winger should take his position at the controls.

  "Gives me the creeps, I don't mind telling you," Major Kraft admitted. "Invading someone's mind like this--"

  "It's just a high-powered lie detector," said Major Lofton, Security Branch chief.

  "Let's get going," Kincade growled. "If Caden's got anything about Serengeti swarms or Red Hammer, I want to know it. It's too late for legal niceties now. Permission to launch."

  Strapped to a gurney next to the containment cylinder, Nathan Caden had been sedated and prepped for ANAD insertion. His body was surrounded by a fine mesh of sensors--the vascular grid--that would precisely locate ANAD inside the Lieutenant's body, once the mech was inserted.

  Moby M'bela patted down the incision that had been made in Caden's neck. "Okay, Lieutenant, subject's prepped and ready."

  Dr. Frost handed him the injector tube, attached by hose to the containment cylinder. Inside, ANAD ticked over, ready to be launched.

  "Steady even suction, Sergeant," Frost reminded him. "ANAD, report status--"

  The teenager's voice crackled over the circuit. "ANAD effectors safed for launch. All parameters normal. Internal bonds and states are stable. Sensors primed and registered. Core functions initialized…I'm ready to fly, fellows--"

  Frost glanced up at General Kincade, an embarrassed smile on his lips. "The assembler uses a small percentage of his computational ability to simulate emotional states…sometimes, it correlates, er, inappropriately."

  "Get on with it," Kincade ordered.

  "Vascular grid?" Frost asked.

  "Tracking, Doctor," said M'Bela. He tuned the grid to pick up the mech as soon as it was inserted.

  "Let's go, then."

  The insert went smoothly enough. A slug of plasma forced the master replicant into Caden's capillary network at high pressure. Winger watched his board and quickly got an acoustic pulse seconds later. He selected Fly-by-Stick to test out the controls. A few minutes' run on propulsors brought ANAD to a dense mat of capillary tissue.

  Frost studied the sounder image. "Looks like you're ready for transit, Lieutenant. You can force those cell membranes any time."

  Winger told ANAD to probe for weak spots in a clump of lipids, clinging like a bunch of grapes in the middle of the wall. "I'll try there first--"

  He steered ANAD toward a cleft in the membrane lipids, pulsing one of the carbene grabbers to twist a nearby molecule just so, then released the lipid and slingshot himself forward through the gap. Seconds later, ANAD was floating in a plasma bath, dark, viny shapes visible off in the distance. He tweaked the picowatt propulsor to a higher power setting and took a navigation hack off the grid.

  "Aortic cavity, Doc. Just past the Islet of Duchin, I'd say. Looks like we're in. Where are we going now?"

  Start Fourier Transform;

  Start Delacroix Transform;

  Start Trace Matching….

  Windsinger pulls back his jacket sleeve and presses a stud on a wristpad. The wind noise dies off and the night sky shimmers with iridescent speckles. A camou-shield has been erected around the back of the truck.

  "You were under surveillance," Windsinger says. "My own mechs detected it…you carried nano on you."

  "Impossible. I swept myself several times before I left Table Top."

  Windsinger is not impressed. His weathered face is a map of lines and creases. "You were bugged." He turns slightly, inclining his massive head. "All of us have a halo. A personal shield that goes wherever we go. Makes sure we do what we're supposed to do. When you came into the hotel, my halo told me you weren't clean. That's why we ride in the back of the truck."

  Hands reach out and sweep around the truck bed. "Your halo, too?"

  Windsinger shrugs. "I think and my halo acts. Like the great spirit of the mountains, always watching over me. My shadow, my armor…even my soul." Windsinger smiles faintly. "The price of membership in Red Hammer. Why did you send for me…against all warnings to avoid--"

  (The imager blurs, shot through with streaks of light, peculiar starbursts and fragments of hazy, out of focus visuals, all jumbled up. The speaker crackles with static--)

  Johnny Winger fiddled with his joystick, tried tweaking the gain on the signal. "Looks like we lost that trace, Doc. Just fizzled out."

  Major Kraft glared in disgust at the IC panel. "Can you get it back, Lieutenant?"

  Winger shook his head. "Faded out, Major…we didn't have a good gradient to follow. I'll backtrack--"

  Lofton was there too, standing beside Kraft. "Eerie, isn't it? Seeing things through another man's eyes."

  "Gives me the creeps," Kraft admitted.

  "It seems to work well enough," Lofton said. "Couldn't tell you the theory behind it."

  "It's a damn circus trick," General Kincade growled. "We can really play back someone's memories like a recording?"

  "Not exactly, sir," said Winger. He was helping Dr. Frost sniff out new traces for ANAD to follow. "We just put ANAD inside the suspect and replicate a few trillion times. Then we put the whole herd in 'bloodhound' mode and go hunting."

  "What exactly are you hunting for?"

  "Everybody makes memories the same way. It's called Long-term Potentiation. One of the chemical signatures of LTP is a molecule called glutamate…helps open a second voltage-gated channel inside the post-synaptic membrane--"

  Dr. Frost intervened. "Allow me, Lieutenant. In plain English, General, what it boils down to is that we can construct crude renditions of memory traces existent in the subject's brain, up to ten to fifteen days after the memory trace is laid down. We've been doing it experimentally at Northgate for the last six months. ANAD shuttles around inside the subject's head like a bunch of bees, sniffing out calcium sinks in every neuron, looking for equal concentrations, down to the parts per trillion. Everywhere that concentration is equal is a pathway, burned in, a memory trace. ANAD follows it, sends back data on whatever it finds--calcium levels, sodium levels, activation times, lots of stuff. We can re-construct a very crude version of what originally laid down that track. Then we put it on the imager, cobbled out of visual and auditory sensory traces in this particular case. They're the easiest."

  "It's sort of like painting somebody's portrait from their shadow," added Major Lofton. "I've been to the Northgate lab. They actually used me as a guinea pig too. Kind of an echo of a memory, if you like."

  Kincade was dubious. "Sounds pretty nebulous to me. Why did we just now lose the trace?"

  "Unknown," said Winger. His fingers were flying over the keyboard, managing ANAD's configuration, checking its parameters. "Somehow, we lost the trace…just petered out. It happens. All you can do is backtrack to a known point and start sniffing again."

  Kincade stared from the imager display to Caden's still body, lightly breathing, and back again. He half expected
to see the traitor twitch or move a leg or something. "So where is ANAD now?"

  Major Kraft was keen to keep the upper hand in this demo. Winger and Doc Frost occasionally drifted off into outer space with all their explanations. It took an old infantryman to keep their feet planted firmly on Earth. "Here's the vascular grid, General--" he fingered the IC display to the side of the imager. The grid was a 3-D iconic image of Caden's skull. "--I'd say…right about here…basal hippocampus region. Most of the swarm's about a hundred thousand microns anterior to the lateral septum."

  "We're picking up something," Winger muttered. As Kraft watched over his shoulder, hoping to learn something more to impress the General with, Winger steered through a dense bog of dendrites. Thickets of axon fibers clouded the imager, now slaved to ANAD's electromagnetic sounder. "--strong trace…this one's holding, looks like--"

  "Stay with it," Dr. Frost encouraged him. He leaned over across Winger, to massage ANAD's configuration, souping up the sensors.

  "I'm altering config--" Winger said in a low voice. "It'll help us sort out the traffic--lots of chem around here--"

  Caden stirred lightly on the gurney, until M'Bela and another tech steadied his body. "He's coming back through Level 4," Moby muttered. "We'd better hurry, if we're going to get anything out of this--"

  "I'm trying, Moby." Winger glared at the imager, flexed his fingers around the hand controllers. He let ANAD finish changing config, noting that all the other trillion mechs slaved to the master had done likewise, then maneuvered the device into the lee of a dendritic 'breakwater'…sniffing for calcium, sodium, anything it could follow, grabbing molecules left and right, until at last, Winger cracked the barest hint of a smile. Deep inside the unconscious brain of Nathan Caden, the Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassembler blazed away at incredible speed, spasmodically sorting and advancing along the barest whiff of a chemical highway.

  Seconds later, a green light illuminated alongside the screen. The sparky haze began to part--ANAD sent back a signal indicating readiness--

  Start Trace Matching….

  Wei Ming's face hardens. "What happened at Lion's Rock? You were supposed to have stopped them--"

  Hands twitch nervously, kneading fingers so tightly they hurt. "You don't understand…there were factors beyond my control…Lieutenant Winger--

  Wei Ming interrupts with a wave of her hand. Her face has changed again…morphed into something hard and impassive, an angry clown. Was it the light…or maybe the nanoderm patches again?

  "This is no good." The undulations on her cheeks and forehead seem to settle down, taking on a new firmness. She frowns. "With one of our mechs, they will surely develop countermeasures."

  "But it'll take some time--"

  Now she is visibly angry. Her face kneads itself into a hard fist. Her cheeks bulge slightly, a lioness with a fresh kill in her mouth.

  "They're not stupid, Caden. Don't make that mistake. You've made enough already." Her cheeks then return to normal planes, sleek and alabaster. "Serengeti must be allowed to develop and expand globally. The Project depends on it."

  "Maybe if I knew more about--"

  But she isn't listening. "You're being well-paid for your services, Lieutenant. Yet you continue to fail us."

  "I can't work miracles."

  "Leave the miracles to us. Just do your part." Her voice deepens, combining new frequencies, new tones, now multiple echoes overlapping. "You must sabotage any more efforts to develop countermeasures. ANAD must not be allowed to interfere with the Project. This is a critical time now."

  A hot flash of nerves. Throat constriction….

  "That's not the agreement…I only agreed to provide intelligence, not sabotage. It's too dangerous--"

  "Your mission is changed…as of now. You'll be--"

  Johnny Winger tweaked ANAD again, but the trace was gone.

  "What happened?" Kincade asked. He was growing more and more annoyed with this harebrained stunt.

  "ANAD lost the trail, sir," Winger said. "I'm trying to get it back now…"

  Frost changed ANAD's config slightly. "I'll see if dropping a radical off this arm helps--"

  Lofton was thoughtful. "I'd say we have enough right now to charge Lieutenant Caden. Conspiracy to commit espionage, sabotage, treason, for starters."

  Kraft was uneasy with the whole technique. "Even in the Corps, a man accused has a right to counsel."

  "It won't help," Lofton told him. "He's just admitted working with Red Hammer, receiving payment to sabotage ANAD."

  "Admitted under duress," Kraft reminded him.

  "Now is not the time to be splitting legal hairs," Kincade told them. "If what we're seeing is half of what really happened, Mr. Caden's in a mountain of trouble. Dr. Frost, just how reliable is this stunt? How do you know this isn't something out of the man's imagination?"

  "That would take some explaining, General, but the basic answer is in the details of the glutamate molecule, and the trail it lays down. There are subtle differences when the long-term potentiation is activated from direct sensory input--from external events, as it were--and when it's internally generated. We've tuned ANAD pretty finely to be able to detect the differences."

  Kincade gave that some thought. "How much further can you go with this? Can you reconstruct everything?"

  Frost shrugged. "Practically speaking, no. The more convoluted the traces become--the more they become abstracted into higher levels of the brain--the harder it is to follow them. There's a practical limit on the concentrations of glutamate that ANAD can follow. Usually memory traces older than a few weeks are pretty much impossible to follow consistently. And there is the matter of damage as well."

  "Damage? What kind of damage?"

  Frost wanted to be precise in what he said. "Every time ANAD follows a trail of glutamate molecules, he slightly damages the molecules in the process of examining them. We call it a fragmentation trail. The subject's memories are slightly altered with each probe."

  "So this can't be done accurately again, after this probe?"

  Frost nodded imperceptibly, admitting the truth of what the General was saying. "Let's say the accuracy of the reconstruction suffers with each 'reading' of the trail."

  Major Lofton was anxious to continue to exam. "General, every bit of evidence helps the investigation. May I remind the General that this man holds information vital to defeating the Serengeti infestation that's sweeping the world. Now is not the time to be squeamish--begging the General's pardon--about molecule fragments."

  Kincade glared at Lofton as if he were some kind of slug to be stepped on. "I agree with the Major. Continue the exam."

  ANAD sniffed for the better part of three hours. When Frost became convinced that Caden's hippocampal tissues were scrambled enough to prevent any further accurate readings, Kincade ordered the examination terminated.

  Lofton and the General reviewed the record of what ANAD had found so far. The latest readings had been the most revealing.

  Kincade scanned the transcripts. "Nathan Caden was originally suborned into Red Hammer two years ago--"

  Lofton agreed. "Looks like he was TDY'ed to service with Eurocorps in Paris in '60."

  Kincade clicked through the record on his reader, tapping the screen for emphasis. "This is what intrigues me…if it's true. The reading shows memory traces of a visit to Vivonex in Basel…"

  "--and that was before the recon mission a few weeks ago," Lofton nodded. "From what I can see, this trip to Switzerland was even before he took up his assignment with 1st Nano here at Table Top."

  Dr. Frost was reviewing the same readings on his own device. "General, I'm still not quite sure what to make of these fragments…the ones listed 0011 through 0023 in the file."

  Kincade and Lofton scanned the snatches quickly. Kincade's face was a big question mark.

  "Who is this Holweg fellow, anyway?"

  Frost ran a hand th
rough his thinning white hair. "If it's who I think it is, he's Dr. Rolf Holweg. Chief scientist at Vivonex."

  "Then, this trace's saying Holweg was briefing Caden…on something." Kincade scrolled rapidly through snippets of recalled memory, crinkling his nose as he read. "Doesn't make any sense to me."

  Frost said, "It does to me, I'm afraid."

  "Care to enlighten us?"

  Frost was fatigued from the session. He sat down in a chair and flipped back and forth through the reader files, trying to piece together some sense of what Caden's memory seemed to reveal. The three of them had retired to an office outside the containment chamber, while inside, Johnny Winger and Moby M'Bela safed ANAD.

  "The traces are sketchy," Frost admitted. "I'll have to see if this can be corroborated…maybe Macalvey can shed some light on the details. I'm not fully versed on viral structure…or genetic programming."

  Kincade was getting impatient. "What does it say, Doctor? It's all gibberish to me."

  Frost shrugged. "Seems Holweg was explaining something here to Caden--see the references to Serengeti. And this--this seems to be the key--" Frost highlighted a stretch of memory, with visuals and audio traces annotated--his highlighting was immediately flashed to Lofton's and Kincade's devices. "The reference to Engebbe, I mean."

  "What's Engebbe?"

  "It's a dig site, in a remote corner of Tanzania. Not far from Olduvai Gorge, in fact. Near a lake. According to what Caden heard from Holweg, Engebbe is the real source of Serengeti."

  "I'm afraid I don't get it," Lofton said. "What's an archaeological dig got to do with a global pandemic like Serengeti?"

  Frost took a deep breath. "I'm not completely sure, but if I'm interpreting these snatches correctly, Holweg is saying that a team of archeologists found some ancient fossils at Engebbe--ancient hominid bones, several millions years old. It looks like Holweg pioneered a way of lifting DNA fragments from the bones and polymerizing them to study the sequences. Those sequences are somehow incorporated into the basic program of the Serengeti device."

  Kincade felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "Why would that be a problem?"

  Frost looked straight at the General. "Because Holweg found remnants of an ancient virus in that DNA. Remember that Serengeti is a treatment for Human Neuro-Receptor Inhibiting Virus--HNRIV. Serengeti is supposed to be programmed to seek out and destroy the HNRIV virus. But no one's been able to prove where HNRIV came from, so Stuart Macalvey tells me."

  "The program of Serengeti is based on a virus?"

  Frost nodded. "If I'm reading what Holweg told Caden correctly, yes. Serengeti is so powerfully effective--so powerfully addictive--because it replicates and modifies the genetic structure of a virus that attacked and killed human-like beings, man-apes if you will, five million years ago. Wiped out a whole evolutionary branch, just like that. Serengeti, and possible HNRIV too, are based on a virus that evolution has completely removed from the scene…because it killed every last host it infected five million years ago."

  Lofton's blood ran cold. "So modern humans have no immunity whatsoever from it."

  "Absolutely none."

  "And Vivonex has known this all along," Kincade concluded. "They launched HNRIV into the population, knowing what it would do. Then, after enough people had died, and millions more had suffered, they came up with an antidote."

  "Vivonex…and Red Hammer," Lofton reminded the General. "Caden's shown us how deeply he's involved with them."

  Major Jurgen Kraft came by the office, to report that ANAD had been safed and their suspect, Nathan Caden, was coming around.

  Kincade filled in the commander of 1st Nano on what they had found.

  Dr. Frost was firm. "The only way ANAD or anybody can permanently defeat these Serengeti swarms is to go back to the source. Quantum Corps will have to go to Engebbe, locate the fossils with the DNA encoding for the index virus and determine what the genes code for, what they do biologically."

  "And then find out how Vivonex and Red Hammer have modified them. We've never been able to grab a full Serengeti mech and keep it intact for more than a few seconds," Kraft reminded them. "Only the kernel. At Lion's Rock, ANAD grabbed a few Red Hammer screening mechs…they may be similar but they weren't Serengeti."

  Frost agreed. "This ancient hominid virus clearly has the genetic code to effectively attack and wipe out an entire race, an entire branch of our evolutionary tree. That same genetic code is now programmed into Serengeti. I'm not surprised ANAD's been unable to defeat it. The thing has tactical capabilities and defenses nobody's seen for five million years." Frost switched off his reader and sat quietly, staring ahead at something only he could see, perhaps a glimpse of the desperate struggle still to come.

  "Gentlemen, Engebbe is the answer. I'm sure of it. Only with the knowledge of that ancient DNA coding can ANAD be tuned to fight this menace."

  Kraft's face hardened. "General, with your permission, I'm organizing another task force from 1st Nano and other elements. Force recon to Engebbe, Tanzania."

  "I'll cut the necessary orders," Kincade said.

  Frost stood up and pocketed his reader. "I'd better get back inside, start tinkering with ANAD. Time is short, gentlemen. I get a daily update from WHO and WCDC. Macalvey keeps me current and the news isn't getting any better. Supercolonies of Serengeti mechs are replicating in the earth's atmosphere all over the globe. More and more people are becoming infected, either directly taking the Serengeti treatment for HNRIV, off the black market, or being directly infected by the airborne variant. Morbidity and mortality statistics are skyrocketing."

  "It's a global pandemic of infection," Kincade acknowledged. "With Red Hammer somehow in control. A world security threat like we've never seen before."

  Frost was grim. "If Quantum Corps can't stop this pandemic soon--"

  Kraft had no need to hear the rest. "I'm on my way to Ops, General. First Nano's got a hell of a lot of planning and packing to do. Dr. Frost, you're going along too. Consider yourself drafted into Quantum Corps. Auxiliary nanotrooper. I'm calling this mission Delta Helix."

  Irwin Frost could only stare helplessly back at Kraft and General Kincade.

  While Kraft made plans for the deployment to Engebbe, Winger and M’Bela finished safing ANAD.

  “Make sure he’s stable,” Winger said. “He’s been through a lot lately…check his core program against the template, every config, line for line if you have to. And cycle all effectors and probes…I want to make sure everything works like it’s supposed to.”

  Moby M’bela was about to reply, but he was interrupted by Lieutenant Dana Tallant, who had poked her head into the containment chamber.

  “Hey, Wings…got a minute…?” she nodded for them to meet outside. “It’s kinda important.”

  Winger followed Tallant into a nearby corridor.

  “There’s some news for you—“ she handed a printed sheet to Winger. “Just came over comm two…the duty officer said you should get this right away.”

  Winger took the note and quickly scanned it. “What is—“ but he stopped in mid-sentence.

  The message was from Denver, Colorado. Sisters of Mercy Hospital. He read, his heart growing heavier with each word—

  Jamison Winger was admitted to the Critical Care Unit yesterday at 1730 hours, with uncontrollable seizures and convulsions. Neurospasms continued overnight. Preliminary diagnosis is massive HNRIV infection or S-Factor cytotosis…Serengeti envelopment. Mr. Winger has been moved to the Active Care Unit of CCU for probable neurocytic therapy, as soon as he can be stabilized. Prognosis is guarded.

  All family members are advised to come immediately to the hospital. Notify Sisters of Mercy CCU Nurse Admin at somccunurse.med/active as soon as possible.

  Johnny Winger looked up. Blood had drained from his face. “Dad--?”

  Tallant nodded. “He’s in good hands, Johnny. I’ve already given t
his to the Major as well.”

  “I’ve got to be there…leave…I need family leave—Major Kraft?”

  “He went back to Ops.”

  Johnny Winger bounded out of the Containment center and sprinted across the quadrangle to the Ops Center. His feet hardly touched the ground. He knew he didn’t have a minute to lose.

  Denver, Colorado

  September 22, 2062

  6:50 p.m.

  Johnny Winger arrived at the hospital shortly after sunset. The Critical Care Unit was on the fifth floor, north wing. The waiting area was half full, with small knots of people engaged in whispered conversation, two children joysticking remote action bots along the wall, and a wraparound active display showing live scenes from Vail and Aspen and Steamboat Springs. The admin nurse showed Winger down a hall to the Active Care Unit. Through the bioshield, a sort of containment zone inside of which active nanodevices were at work, Johnny came up to the bed where Jamison Winger lay enveloped in thick ganglia of wires and hoses.

  A faint coruscating blue glow surrounded the bed, the inner containment field pulsating with active nano to protect the patient from further infection.

  A swarthy Egyptian doctor, Sethi Hassan, attended a small display, with imaging views that looked familiar to Winger. Two nurses also attended.

  Dr. Hassan sensed the presence of someone new, but did not at first look away from the screen. His right hand manipulated a tiny trackball and the view on the screen changed with each manipulation.

  “Lieutenant Johnny Winger,” the nanotrooper announced himself. “This is my father—“

  Dr. Hassan stole a quick peak at Winger’s black and gold Quantum Corps uniform. “I imagine you’ve seen this kind of gear before, Lieutenant.”

  Winger bent over the bed, pressing lightly against the field. A keening buzz changed pitch and invisible forces pressed back against his fingers, forcing his hand away. Standard mobility barrier, he told himself, almost without thinking.

  “How is he, Doc?”

  Hassan sighed, flexed his fingers around the trackball and did some more manipulations, delicately driving the medbots under his command.

  “Stable…for the moment. Two hours ago, we perfused his brain with a small formation of neurocytes…you’re no doubt familiar with the technique?”

  Winger nodded. “Quite familiar. Is it Serengeti?”

  Hassan took a moment to tap out a few commands on a nearby keyboard. Probably changing config, Winger noted from behind his back.

  “Seems to be. Whatever it is, his brain’s infested with active nanodevices, viral programming from the looks of it. These neurocytes are hunting now. I detached a small element just an hour ago, got them into position to block a serotonin avalanche that was firing off inside his limbic system…nasty buggers, they were. We got the convulsions mostly stopped…although there’s been some leakage into the hippocampal regions.”

  Winger studied his father’s face. His eyes were screwed shut, tension lines all converging along his forehead. He was clearly still in pain. His lips trembled and a rhythmic twitch made his fingers and feet move in fits of shaking.

  Dad…Dad, I’m so sorry. This shouldn’t be happening to you…to anyone. You don’t deserve this—

  “You’ll have to engage them close up, Doc. I’ve battled them myself. These neurocytes…what’s the core version?”

  Hassan shrugged. “Our unit grew them from a config we got from Northgate University, about six months ago. Mainly they’re antivirals…you know: Alzheimers, meningitis, that sort of thing. Fellow from Northgate came by a few weeks ago, when we started to get a lot of cases like this. He tweaked the program.” Hassan seemed at a loss. “All I can do so far is keep them from spreading. The ‘cytes can find them, and I engage when they do. But…well, you know how HNRIV is, how S Factor is.”

  Winger wanted so badly to touch his father’s face. The shield wouldn’t let him. It was the only thing keeping the enemy mechs contained.

  “My guess is the neurocytes don’t have the programming to deal with Serengeti. You don’t have bond disrupters, enzymatic knives…that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t have military nano here at all, Lieutenant. I’m trying to save lives.”

  “That’s what it takes to deal with Serengeti, Doc. You’ve got to be nimble and ruthless. You’ve to be able to close on them quick and sling atoms like a banshee. And it doesn’t hurt to be kind of sneaky too. Serengeti’s program seems able to counter pretty much any kind of normal assault you’d make. It seems to know what to expect from garden-variety bots.”

  “So how do you fight it?”

  “You do the unexpected.”

  Jamison Winger stirred slightly. His eyes fluttered half open. They focused on Johnny’s face for a moment, then recognition sank in. His trembling hand lifted, bumped against the inner barrier and quickly dropped, as the shield bots buzzed back.

  “Dad…Dad, can you see me? Can you hear me?”

  Jamison Winger smiled weakly. “Is that you….Johnny—“

  “Dad—“ Winger bent as close as he dared to the barrier. He could feel the sting of the mechs tickling his chin. “Dad—I—how do you feel now?”

  Mr. Winger summoned his strength and replied. “Like I’ve just been to about a hundred New Year’s Eve parties—“

  “Dad…it’s S Factor…they’re inside you…inside your head.”

  “I know—I hear ‘em. There’s a lot of horns going off all the time. And my arms—“

  “—you’ve got neurocytes inside you, too. Dr. Hassan’s driving. He’s hunting down the mechs, rooting them out.”

  “—making a hell of a racket doing it…if you ask me—“

  “Dad…you’ve got to hang in there—remember when you got the patch…remember what the doctors told you?”

  Mr. Winger started to convulse—his arms and hands went rigid, then spasmed fluttering off into the air, brushing against the barrier. The mechs buzzed back. Beside the bed, Hassan busied himself driving the herd of neurocytes onward, tracking down the errant discharges. Seconds later, as he swarmed the ‘cytes into a herd of Serengeti mechs, the spasm gradually died off. Mr. Winger’s arms dropped, his fists unclenched. The doctor looked up; his eyes saying that was too close.

  “The patch…that was different…just chemicals—“

  “I know…but you had to go through hell while they went to work. Remember what Doc Givens told you? ‘Imagine climbing a mountain…that’s how the dopamine sponge works. It’s easy at first, then the hill’s steeper and you think you’ll never make it, you think you’re going to slip back, maybe even fall off. Then, all of a sudden, if you can just hold on, you’re there. You’re at the top. And that’s when the view is so great. You’ve finally made it. You just have to have faith, faith that there is a top up there somewhere…”

  “You always had…a better memory…than me, son.”

  Johnny gritted his teeth. If only I had ANAD here…I could smash those bastards for good…yank the lot of ‘em out of Dad and give him his mind back. He knew what his father was feeling, what it was like to have a billion needles jabbing into the back of your head, what it was like to have a puppet’s arms and legs, jerking out of control so hard you were lucky you didn’t break a bone.

  The truth was he’d done a hell of a lot of growing up, after his mom had died. That had been 2047, just a few days after he’d graduated from Pueblo Netschool, two days after his Worldnet wizard Katie Gomez had awarded him a citation for excellent work. Mr.and Mrs. Winger had been so proud of their son. Then Ellen Winger had driven to Colorado Springs, just visiting friends, bragging about her boy. On the drive back late at night, her car had been sideswiped by a truck and she’d lost control. The police had estimated the ravine was about seven hundred feet deep…there hadn’t been much left of the car when it stopped rolling.

  Those four years from ’47 to ’51, had been hell for Joh
nny, for the whole family. Mr. Winger had been devastated by the loss; in some ways, you never got over something like that…you just wore the pain like an old shirt, eventually, even deriving a bit of comfort from the hurt, like a scab that wouldn’t go away. Each of them—Mr. Winger, Johnny, his brother Bradley, his sister Joanna, dealt with grief in their own way.

  For Mr. Winger, that meant long hours alone in his barn, behind the house. He’d always been a tinkerer, and the barn had long been his lab and shop. Now, without his wife, he just tinkered with a ferocity they’d never seen before, seldom coming out except for dinners and essential matters. Jamison Winger had made a lifetime of working on inventions and gizmos and gadgets that never had any future and he did so with a single-minded determination now that was at times a little scary.

  For most of that four-year period, at least until Jamison Winger had gotten the patch treatment for depression, Johnny and Brad and Joanna had pretty much run the ranch business. Johnny had put off any further thoughts of more school and settled in with grim determination to learn the business of ranching through and through.

  The most difficult time of all came in midsummer of ’50, when drought and low beef prices caused the Winger kids to have to sell off more than half of the North Bar Pass Ranch to a resort developer. The developer then proceeded to put in place a faux ‘dude’ ranch-Wild West showplace called Highhorn, catering to rich city people. Johnny had hated himself for agreeing to that decision ever since. Just seeing the stylized Highhorn signs and billboards and all the para-sailors wafting overhead on mountain thermals near the ranch perimeter made him sick.

  It wasn’t too long after Jamison Winger had gotten the patch treatment that Johnny had seen on Worldnet some stories about a new organization called United Special Operations Force. They were offering scholarships, for a six-year hitch.

  “Dad—“ he called through the flickering bioshield. “I’ve got to go on another mission…we’re fighting Serengeti, same as you are. I wish I could stay—we’ve got equipment that would help…but—“

  Jamison Winger smiled up gamely at his son. “A lot of people…a lot…are depending on you, son.”

  “You depend on me, too, sir.”

  Mr. Winger nodded. “I always have…since your mother died. Come closer—did I ever tell you—“

  Johnny bent down as close as the shield bots would let him.

  “—tell you…” he stopped, shuddered for a moment, then squeezed his lips into a tight line and fought back against the wave of pain—“did I ever…tell you I know…what you did…what you did with old Bailey--?”

  Bailey? He hadn’t thought of the old flyer for several years. Bailey had been his favorite pet, a constant companion out on the ranch, helping him herd the cattle to and from their grazing fields.

  “Dad…where is old Bailey…what’s he doing?”

  Mr. Winger shook his head, or was it a shudder? It was hard to tell. “Bailey’s crapped out…just sitting in the corner of the barn. Needs a new motor…fandrive gave out, son. When I opened…him up, I saw what you’d done—the new sensors and stuff…really souped him up, you did—“

  Johnny reddened. Bailey the flyer bot—he’d always called him Bailey the Flying Dude—had been one of his most loyal companions as a child. Unknown to his parents, Johnny had often opened up his second-floor window at home and by remote-control, teleoperated Bailey right into his bedroom. The flyer had spent many a night in that room, either hovering gently in the corner, its red eye winking on and off, or sitting on the luggage trunk at the end of his bed, whirring softly in sleep mode.

  Johnny had always liked to tinker, especially with Bailey. There was one trait he’d definitely gotten from his Dad. He’d thought for years his father had never known. While he was growing up at the ranch, Johnny had spent countless hours modifying Bailey’s processor, giving him greater memory, teaching the bot to respond only to his voice, adding sensors, and souping up the propulsor motors. Bailey was at the same time Johnny’s hot rod and pet. He’d always loved the bot like the little brother he never had.

  “—I loved old Bailey, Dad…we were close, like brothers.”

  “I know…” Something pained Jamison Winger. His lips twitched, words ready to spill out, but held back somehow. Another spasm? He looked over at Dr. Hassan. “—I know, son. Come…” his hands beckoned Johnny closer. But the bioshield buzzed, keeping them apart. “—I wasn’t very good, son…I’m sorry…I wasn’t a very good father—“

  “What are you saying? You taught me a lot…you were—“

  “—always in the shop…always in the barn, wasn’t I?” His father tried to force a brave smile, but gave up. “Kind of like Bailey…I just… sort of crapped out. Gave up the ghost.”

  “Don’t say that, Dad—“ he looked at Hassan again. Was it the ‘cytes? Was it Serengeti, squeezing some circuit, making him say things? Maybe the patch was wearing off. “Don’t be silly…you taught me how to work on things. That’s how I got Bailey all fancied up. He could fly circles around any other bot out there.”

  Mr. Winger closed his eyes, sighed, his forehead wrinkles finally relaxing. “I love you, son. I’m…very proud…very proud of you.”

  Dr. Hassan had been driving a flock of neurocytes through Jamison Winger’s limbic system the whole time. He didn’t like what he was seeing.

  “I’m sorry…I think it’s best if you leave now, Lieutenant. I’m going to have to replicate more, expand my zone of operation a bit. The infestation’s spreading—see for yourself. I’m afraid the buggers are into the limbic striatum…volition and intentionality circuits. He may not—“ Hassan stopped, waggled his hand, not quite willing to go on.

  Johnny Winger swallowed hard, watched his father lying inside the bubble, seemingly at peace. But a war was raging inside his skull and the outcome was in doubt. Winger wiped away a tear. Instinctively, he touched the shield, until the bots pressed back. He knew he couldn’t touch his father. That made it worse.

  “I’ve got to go, Dad. Got a mission. Fight ‘em…fight the buggers hard. I’ll be fighting ‘em too. At least, we can be together that way.” He turned to leave. “I want to be kept up to date on his progress, Doc—“

  Hassan gave him the net address. “I’ll post anything new. Any changes, I promise you’ll know.”

  That was good enough. Johnny Winger took a last, tearful look at Jamison Winger. His arms were shriveled like old tree branches. Every few seconds, as the S Factor bots steadily took over, he shuddered and a low moan escaped his lips.

  Johnny Winger couldn’t watch any longer. He screwed his eyes tightly shut to choke off more tears and left the room.

  One way or another, I’ll lick this bastard menace, if it’s the last thing I do.