Von Neumann’s War

by John Ringo

  “The airframes and control systems were built by Scaled Composites out in the Mojave. The engines were delivered there and the aircraft were assembled and then flown here,” John said.

  “Yeah, but why didn’t the bots eat them?” Gries asked.

  “Magic?” Belgian RAF Flight-Lieutenant and Bull’s right hand Rene Lejeune asked and shrugged his shoulders. “Luck?”

  “Actually, y’all can blame the sergeant major there.” Alan grinned and nodded to Top.

  “No sir. I had nothing to do with such black magic and evil wizardry,” Cady asserted.

  “Well, Top, you remember talking about that ceramic car engine you saw on television back when I showed you the ceramic jet-propelled bullets for the M-240B?” Alan asked Top.

  “Vaguely, Alan. I think that part of my memory got frostbitten in Greenland.”

  “Well, I didn’t go to Greenland so I remembered it just fine. Dr. Pike, Dr. Fisher, and I came up with a ceramic aircraft engine design. They’re actually jet engines. The control surfaces are controlled by Kevlar wires and graphite composite pulleys and gearboxes. We also had a few larger cargo and troop transports delivered. The only metal in the whole thing is in the tiny computer chip that controls the ignition system and the ignition system itself. Alice used the same kind of design that she used for the little picosat. There ain’t no more metal in this thing than in a dollar’s worth of change.” Alan waved his arms a bit and smiled.

  “And, they flew tree-top high from California to here without getting compromised by the bots,” Fisher added.

  “No shit!” Gries said. “Good work, Sergeant Major Cady!”

  “Sir!”

  Alan and John seemed chagrinned. Of course it was Cady who sparked the idea in Alan, and Roger had told Alan to figure out how to build composite aircraft — completely composite. But had Cady not mentioned the ceramic engine he had seen on television years back they just might not have figured it out. Gries had to give Cady credit anyway just to goad the eggheads.

  “So when do we get to try them out?” Rene asked.

  “Thought you were never going to ask,” John said. “The crew that flew them in are inside ready to debrief you and then take a well-deserved nap, I guess. Go get debriefed and then shake them down. These fighters belong to your squadron, Colonel. I suggest you start training in them. Scaled’s test pilots also sent some information and video training guides. I suggest you take a look at those also.”

  “Hot damn! Rene, gather the clans,” Bull ordered his sidekick.

  “Yes, Colonel.” Rene saluted and the two of them rushed toward the hangar where the debriefers awaited them.

  “Wheeeww,” Gries whistled. “You really outdid yourselves didn’t you?” The major turned to Alan and Dr. Fisher.

  “Oh, we’re not done with you yet,” Alan said. “Get back in your Humvee and follow us.”

  * * *

  They drove back to a larger hangar building on the south side east of the airport. After they parked the vehicles, Alan and John led them inside to a row of motorcycles, buggies, and all-terrain-vehicles of various sizes and shapes.

  “They’re composite. Down to the lug nuts.” Alan waved his arms at the vehicles.

  “And they’re yours,” John added.

  “That’s right. Equip them however you see fit. This is the motorpool for these vehicles. If you want to do something to them, the mechanics here are the ones to help you out. I will say this: be careful about drilling holes and how you mount things without asking first. Composite structures are funny and one hole in the wrong place and the entire vehicle might collapse. We did put hardpoints throughout them though, because we figured you’d want to mount stuff to them.”

  “Uh, Alan,” Cady interrupted.

  “Yeah, Thomas.”

  “These ceramic motors. What do they run on?”

  “Ditto,” Gries said.

  “Oh, they run on regular gasoline, or kerosene, or alcohol, or just about anything that will combust good. They don’t need oil either since the ceramics are already godawful slick.”

  “Sounds too good to be true.” Gries seemed concerned.

  “Oh, not at all,” Dr. Fisher interjected. “There have been functioning ceramic engines for at least a decade and most of them can run on almost any combustible. You see, ceramics don’t need the cooling that metal engines do so they can run a lot hotter.”

  “Uh huh.” Gries and Cady nodded.

  Surprise is in the mind of the combat commander, Gries thought to himself. He had to remind himself that it didn’t matter why these tools worked. What mattered was how he was going to use them to win a war against alien machines that ate metal. They just might offer an advantage. What that advantage was he had no idea. But he would figure it out.

  “As the colonel said, Sergeant Major, ‘Gather the clans’!”

  “Yes sir!”

  * * *

  “Well, I think the DNA analogy is correct, Traci.” Alice stood at the end of the conference room in front of the big screen nodding at Traci Adams. The PowerPoint slide showed images from the bot nucleus analysis.

  Around the conference table were Dr. Ronny Guerrero, Dr. Roger Reynolds, Traci Adams, Alan Davis, Dr. Tom Powell, Dr. John Fisher, and a speakerphone. On the other end of the speakerphone were colleagues at redoubts across the country. They were also receiving pseudo real-time Internet video of the conference as well. There were several other scientists and engineers and technicians across the country at military locations and shelters listening in on the conversation via the Internet.

  “Alice,” Ronny said slowly, with his Cuban/American accent barely creeping through, “how does that help us?”

  “Well, once I realized that the replication process of the probes is more like biological fission than anything else, the question of how they know how to replicate arose. Biological things have DNA for blueprints and this analogy led us down the path that the bots must have blueprints as well. Now what if, what if, mind you, we somehow figured out the bot DNA and mutated it?”

  “Uh, Dr. Pike, this is Dr. Forrester in the AFRL redoubt in Albuquerque…” interrupted the speakerphone.

  “Go ahead, Dr. Forrester.” Alice said a little too loudly.

  “I’ve reviewed the data and can’t figure heads or tails about how the so-called DNA might work. Do you have any ideas there?”

  “Unfortunately, no, Dr. Forrester. But, for now, let us say that we figure it out. Then say we mutate the bots to eat themselves only and then release them back into the wild.”

  “Brilliant!” Roger slammed his hands down on the table. “That’s it, Alice, THAT IS IT! Fight fire with fire, absolutely. We should focus all our efforts on doing just that! How do we figure out the bot DNA code?”

  “Search me. Again, I say that Dr. Richard Horton was doing some things along the lines of machine DNA, and there is a chance he might have figured it out, but as for me I have no idea. I’m not giving up and I have some ideas, but I recall Dr. Horton really having a knack for this line of thinking.” There was silence for a moment.

  “This is the Wheeler Labs redoubt at Princeton. We knew Horton as you did, Alice. We wouldn’t put much stock in what that crackpot has to say.”

  “This is DEPUTY SECRETARY REYNOLDS. Does anybody else at Princeton have an idea of how the bot DNA works?”

  “Uh, sure we do, I mean…”

  “Let’s hear it now, then,” Roger practically yelled into the speakerphone. Ronny grinned at him. Alan sniggered out loud. Traci patted his leg underneath the table.

  “Uh, we’d have to think about it a bit more and get back to—”

  “People, I’m not going to say this again. Most of the world has been eaten by alien machines. Hell, most of the solar system has been eaten by alien machines. And I will not for one second allow academic bigotry and egotism stand in the way of any possible idea or asset no matter how odd or wild it might seem. Even if it’s a long shot billion to one chance of it working.
What else do we have? Not a whole helluva lot that’s what. At this point I’d piss on a sparkplug if I thought it’d help. Understand me?” Roger clenched his jaw, wishing he had that arrogant Ivy League prick on the other end of the speakerphone close enough to choke. His face was red and his head pounded and there was no telling what his blood pressure was.

  There was no response from the other end of the line.

  * * *

  Ret Ball: My friends you will not believe this but I have the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Advanced Defense Concepts and Testing, Dr. Roger P. Reynolds online with us this evening. Great to have you here on the Truth Nationwide, Mr. Deputy Secretary.

  Caller: Thanks, Ret.

  Ret Ball: Why are you contacting us tonight, sir?

  Caller: Well, you see Ret we have posted all the information we have on the alien menace on our website at www.neighborhoodwatch.gov. Again, that is www.neighborhoodwatch.gov. We would like all the smart folks across the globe that can still access it to look it over. If you have any insights please contact us immediately through the contact lists on the site.

  Ret Ball: That doesn’t sound good, Mr. Deputy Secretary. If the United States Department of Defense is asking for help what does that mean?

  Caller: Just the way it sounds, Ret. More than half, nearly two-thirds of the world, our planet, has been overtaken by these alien machines and we have lost contact with those occupied regions. We have rallied our troops, evacuated our cities, and gathered as many brilliant minds as we can find to help solve the problem and stop these alien machines. But we aren’t certain of our chances and will listen to any, and I mean any, advice.

  Ret Ball: I see. Anything else?

  Caller: Yes Ret, there is one more thing. We desperately need to speak with one of your regular callers. He uses the name Megiddo on your show. We have reason to believe that Mr. Megiddo is actually a quite brilliant scientist and would very much like to speak with him.

  Ret Ball: You heard it fans. Megiddo, if you are out there, your country, no, humanity needs you…

  Chapter 22

  Richard and Helena had spent the better part of the last two weeks moving everything they wanted to keep — and everything the Von Neumann probes hadn’t taken — into the mine. Richard patched the hole in the cabin where the stove had been but did not see the need to waste further time on fixing the interior. The cabin had been a convenience and a temporary location from the beginning, but Richard just could not see leaving a gaping hole in the side and roof for the weather to intrude through. It was still a decent shelter and had taken him months to find, fix up, and move into.

  After her conflict with the alien machines, Helena had come around on the subject of leaving the cabin for more underground digs. The mine suited her just fine, although she did insist on carrying a large piece of stove wood around with her everywhere she went. She had even carved and sanded down one end of it for a handle and wrapped it with cloth and tape.

  Richard at first had thought Helena would be a humorous sight wielding her oversized handmade billy club. But there was something about her slender five-nine Russian frame and accent, her long black hair, her insistence on wearing low cut worn-out jeans and skin-tight tank-tops, no bra, canvas sneakers, and toting around a mammoth war club that gave her a “warrior princess” quality that really got Richard going.

  Other than science and solving problems, getting Richard excited was usually a hard thing to do. He even debated with himself at times whether he actually loved her — though he knew it was quite likely that she didn’t really love him. Mutual convenience best described their marriage. He had needed companionship and she needed to get out of Russia. But he found he liked it a lot when she wandered around with her club.

  The mine was fully operational at least to within the limitations of the power available by the waterwheel. The little hydroelectric plant that Richard had put together would power the water heater, refrigerator, freezer, a few lights, a television, a computer, and maybe one piece of scientific equipment at a time. Using the backup battery systems at the same time enabled him to power a few more of his scientific instruments. The batteries had to recharge all night. He had hoped for a little more horsepower out of the underground stream, but the flow rate was just too low to create enough torque for instantaneous power needs.

  “I wish I could have found enough fissile material to go nuclear,” he said to himself. As it was he didn’t have the power to drive the electron microscope. “Would be nice to do some X rays and some microscopy of your friend.” He nodded at the bot laid out across his workbench at the edge of the entrance into the lab shaft from the main chamber.

  “You don’t tink dat you could’ve stolen plutonium and gotten away with it?” Helena peered over the book she was reading and glanced at Richard. He had been quietly working for some time now, but when he spoke out loud to himself Helena had a hard time ignoring him. He was her entertainment.

  “Huh? Plutonium? Oh, no. If I did, we would have it, ” he said nonchalantly and smiled through his thick, unruly graying beard at her. “Maybe I’ll figure something else out.”

  “Well, de goddamned robots fly. Dey must have batteries or someting in dem.” She popped a handful of shelled pecans in her mouth from the Ziploc bag on the folding end table near the couch. “Ought to use de goddamned ting for sometin,” she said through a mouthful, brushed her bangs from her forehead, yawned, slipped her shoes off letting one dangle from her left big toe, and went back to reading.

  “Yes, yes, power. They must have power, but where and how…” Richard had been examining the bot that Helena had killed for him but was not progressing as fast as he had hoped. He needed X rays and electron microscopy and he didn’t have the power for those machines. So, he didn’t have that detailed of data. That is, until he heard the latest posts on the Ret Ball show.

  Fortunately, most of the data he wanted had been measured and compiled by a government program and was posted on a website for everyone to see. And oddly enough, they particularly wanted him, Dr. Richard Horton, a.k.a. Megiddo, to look at it and get back to them. Irony.

  But Richard didn’t trust the government. No sir, not as far as he could throw them. He knew that they had been covering up the knowledge of the alien probes for a long time. That was no different than the other conspiracies they had performed. There was the Kennedy assassination, the real reason behind Viet Nam and the Gulf Wars, Roswell, the giant floating black triangles, the secrets of the pyramids around the world, remote viewing, Watergate, alien stealth technologies discovered at Area 51, the real reason for double blind drug testing, and countless others.

  Their mishandling of these technologies and this knowledge now had humanity in a bind. It was their fault. And now they wanted Megiddo to bail them out. Why didn’t they want his help when he tried to operate within the confines of the system? Why had academia run him out of the community? It was their fault — a conspiracy to keep the truth from humanity! But Megiddo was a bigger man than that and he would save Helena and the rest of the world. Well, Helena probably didn’t need saving, but the rest of the world most certainly did.

  So he had downloaded the information carefully, analyzing it for government imbedded spybots and other tracking software. Fortunately, he didn’t even have to use the government site. As soon as it was posted, it had been mirrored across multiple servers, including two in which he had inserted trojans that gave him full security control.

  Once he had scrutinized it and was convinced that the data was real and bug free, he started studying it. He studied it intensely for several days, stopping only occasionally for a snack or a nap. Helena mostly ignored him and went about her business, but every now and then she would check on him or offer him a sandwich or tell him that he should come to bed.

  Sleep was the last thing on Richard’s mind. Occasionally Helena would bait him to come to bed with the allure of sex, but even that — as exciting and enjoyable as it was — was merely a distraction from st
udying the bots. In fact, his mind was so hot with new ideas and sizzling from the new information he had gotten that the pleasure he got from studying the details of the bot was perhaps even more enticing than Helena. Perhaps. If only I had more power to drive my equipment.

  The government report was actually really good science and reverse engineering, but there was nothing there that Richard saw as the shining tidbit of information that would save humanity. It was only the groundwork. But somebody had to do the groundwork and having it already done and wrapped up in a nice four-hundred-and-seventy-three page pdf file package made getting to the real part of the work happen a lot faster.

  There was a significant portion of the government research that seemed… familiar… to him. For some reason it triggered a sense of déjà vu. He couldn’t really put his finger on it and he wasn’t a hundred percent sure why at first until he came across the proposed idea that the bots used a form of machine DNA encoded at the subatomic level. He remembered one of his students from years ago at Princeton really intrigued by his work on that subject and this report had that kind of flare.

  Richard followed that line of reasoning for a few days and finally he began to understand a general idea of how the alien machines system hierarchy and architecture flowed. There was a central nucleus that was the real controlling mechanism of the individual bot. Like a single celled organism this nucleus was where the replication blueprints resided. It was also there that the “messenger RNA” — an analogy of course — delivered instructions throughout the rest of the bot to the subsystems.

  The actual messenger RNA were something rather amazing. Richard had a wild-ass-guess that the instructions were actually delivered via some sort of controlled nuclear decay process. How the bots kept the “pebbles” of unstable elements from decaying until they needed them to was a technology beyond anything humanity had discovered, but he was certain that was how the instruction packets were sent throughout the bot. His former student — what was her name? — was onto something there, but that was a harder problem. Then there was this tube the government had first wrongly labeled the “brain tube,” which wasn’t a brain tube at all. The government’s second guess was a communications device.