Nanotroopers Episode 16: ANAD on Ice

by Philip Bosshardt

  Evidence shows Johnny and ANAD growing closer together, forging new links across the coupler circuit.

  Symbiotic life forms evolve greater dependency over time, even in areas of vital functions.

  The nature of endosymbiosis is that a new organism originates from the fusion of two existing organisms, or more precisely, two independently evolved organisms become a tightly coupled system and eventually just one organism.

  Such symbiotic mergers have been common in the evolutionary history of life on Earth; actually, it accounts for life as we know it today. The ancestors of all life are bacteria.

  Life can be viewed as a plan for bacteria to exist forever: bodies are desirable as food sources for bacteria, so one could view the evolution of bacteria into such bodies as a plan by bacteria to create food for themselves. See my attachment: Hive Minds: On the Prospects for Autonomous, Quantum-Coupled, Nanoscale Assembler Swarms.

  It’s the nature of symbiotic systems that they become ever more dependent on each other. It’s a process that we can’t really predict or control very well.

  Major: For the Symbiosis Project to succeed, this development must continue…without hindrance.

  Kraft angrily closed down the diagnostic. He fired back a response to Doc II over the same channel:

  “Doc…this project is interfering with my mission. I need a fully functional Johnny Winger now…even if it means not implanting or coupling with ANAD…”

  Kraft shut down the side channel to Doc II. I don’t need any more distractions.

  “Winger, it’s going to take nearly two weeks to regenerate another ANAD master assembler. We don’t have the luxury of waiting that long to engage the enemy.”

  Johnny had seen the displays at McMurdo City. “The BioShield people said the real problem comes when the smaller swarms converge into big ones.”

  “UNIFORCE agrees. I saw the latest intel this morning: Red Hammer swarms are on the move around the globe, not just in Antarctica. In the Congo rain forest, the south Pacific, the Caucasus Mountains, swarms are forming and moving and coalescing, spinning off daughter swarms and linking up with them again. They’re wreaking havoc everywhere, relentlessly modifying the planet’s atmosphere. And frankly, right now there’s not much we can do to stop them.”

  “Is anything working, Major?”

  “Not much. Intel says the cartel’s success depends on the speed of replication and maneuver of these swarms. Now this new ‘pulser’ thing gives them the ability to generate swarms seemingly instantly at a great distance and create angel armies everywhere, almost like those Keeper devices. Q2 says the pulser may be an offshoot of the Keeper units. Winger, your mission in the Antarctic was the first time we’ve been able to penetrate the swarms to any degree and get data on their bots from inside. It’s also the first time we’ve seen Red Hammer supporting the swarms…direct evidence of this pulser projecting new swarms seemingly out of nothing. That’s a new factor.”

  Johnny Winger recalled the interior of the Red Hammer bot cavity that ANAD had probed.

  “We can beat the buggers, Major…I know we can. They may be big and fast, with propulsors and effectors like the dickens, but they’re still nanobotic mechanisms. When ANAD was inside that bot, I got the feeling the thing was nothing more than a big dumb brute…a dinosaur at nanoscale dimensions. Fast and maneuverable as hell, to be sure…he could rep like a madman, but brains—processor capability—I’m not so sure. The right tactics, Major…with no outside interference and I’m sure we can smash the bejeezus out of ‘em.”

  Kraft found Winger’s attitude a refreshing change from the steady defeatism he’d been hearing all morning.

  “You’ll have a chance to do exactly that soon enough, Lieutenant Winger. Get your ass back here to Table Top. I’ve got Q2, Doc II and all the labs working on new tactics twenty-four hours a day. If we don’t find a way to block this pulser and push these swarms back soon, we’re in for a time that’ll make the Black Death look like a picnic.”

  Chapter 3

  “Northern Lights”

  U.N. Quantum Corps Base

  Table Top, Idaho, USA

  July 10, 2049

  2230 hours U.T.

  Johnny Winger watched the 3-D sim dance on a pedestal atop Major Kraft’s desk. Kraft stroked his chin while the scenario played out. On the opposite side of the desk, Doc II hovered like a ghostly apparition, visibly resembling Dr. Irwin Frost, but translucent and filled with pops and flashes of light.

  The sim showed a satellite in orbit, circling the globe, firing beams at a target on the ground. The target was a roiling cloud swelling out of the South Pole, an ersatz Antarctica smothered with lakes and rivers of melting ice while vast swarms engulfed the continent and spilled northward.

  Lieutenant Gabrielle Galland was also there. She clucked at the sim as the beams steadily shrank the ersatz swarm rolling across the icescape. “Some kind of magic hocus-pocus, Major? Or is this just an engineer’s wet dream?”

  Kraft smirked. “The idea came from Doc II over there. Why don’t you explain, Doc?”

  The swarm brightened and thickened, as its constituent bots grabbed atoms to maintain structure. The voice, when it came, sounded as if it were coming out of a metal tunnel.

  ***Surely, Major Kraft…this idea is known as Quantum Sword. After detailed analysis of recent engagements—signature analysis and config study in the lab, we determined that the Red Hammer swarms are more vulnerable to large-scale effects rather than frontal engagement at the molecular level. Their new config pulser allows them to send a config remotely, and gather and template large swarm formations remotely, across thousands, potentially millions of kilometers. Almost like a quantum device. But with Quantum Sword, we can negate this advantage. Your own historical nanowarrior Sun Tzu once said: ‘Know yourself and know your enemy and you need not fear a hundred battles.’ “

  Winger watched the sim play out. “The beams are coming from above? What kind of beams are these?”

  Here, Kraft interjected. “Doc has developed a way of creating, collimating and focusing particle beams with a particularly nasty bite, tuned to certain wavelengths and frequencies, that can disrupt any Red Hammer swarm. He’s proposed putting the beam emitters on UNIFORCE killsats. Quantum Sword is a mission I’m proposing to take a detachment into space and equip all of our killsats with these emitters. Of course, we’ll have to coordinate with UNISPACE. And I don’t have approval yet from UNSAC, but that should be a formality. Winger, you’re CC1 on this mission. Galland’s your CC2.”

  “And ANAD, sir? What about ANAD?”

  Kraft’s face took on a darker look. “Doc II here will help you with the re-gen. ANAD will help assemble the emitters, assist in testing and calibrating and provide effective defense against enemy actions…you know, it’s just possible Red Hammer may be able to pulse an enemy swarm right onto one of these killsats. ANAD will be your defensive shield. And you’ll be leaving smaller ANAD swarms behind as a protective measure.”

  Doc II added ***Currently UNIFORCE operates eighteen killsats, six in each of three orbital planes. One or more killsats can be over any point on Earth in less than half an hour. The beams we have developed are nearly one hundred percent effective against known Red Hammer botswarms and configurations. Combat simulations have shown swarm formations can be shrunk to fractions of their original dimensions in a matter of days. Once this effect becomes well advanced, BioShield can then go about restoring the atmosphere in affected areas***

  Kraft checked the time. “In fact, there’s a small-scale test going on now right now up in Greenland. Toxic air bubbles and swarm damage has recently developed around the towns of Nuuk and Sisimuit, along the Stromfjord. We’re operating a hyperjet overhead, equipped with a prototype of Doc’s beam emitter…let’s see if we can get the signal—“ Kraft fiddled with some buttons on his deskpad. The 3-D pedestal, where the sim had just collapsed to dark, suddenly erupt
ed into life again, sparkling and flashing as an image pixelated and filled out.

  It was an aerial image from a pod mounted in the belly of the hyperjet. Data blocks of status information floated inside the image, fed from the jet’s instruments. Beyond, black mountains rimmed the horizon and waves of frozen sastrugi undulated across the blue-white tongue of a glacier, slowly meandering its way down to Baffin Bay. Mists and fogs rolled across the icescape, but a closer look revealed that the fog wasn’t fog at all…pinpricks of lights and roiling palettes of colors made an almost pointillist painting of the scene. The swarm was spreading, triggering streaks of lightning all around. Down slope from the glacier, a small fishing village lay directly in the path of the onrushing swarm.

  Kraft checked a test sheet on his deskpad. “According to test protocol, Apollo should be engaging just about any moment now—“ he stopped abruptly when the icescape suddenly flared into sunlike brilliance, too bright to look at directly.

  For a few seconds, the entire scene was washed out and devoid of contrast. Two more bursts of light erupted, each time washing out the image. When contrast returned and filters were lifted, the scene on the ground slowly materialized into view.

  “The swarm looks different,” Galland noted. She got up to walk around the 3-d image, studying it from every angle. “More transparent…you can see right through to the ice. It’s all broken up too—“

  “And smaller, looks like,” Winger added. “Before, it spanned both sides of that glacier. Now, it’s just one on side, and further up the slope. The beams have really slammed that swarm…it’s breaking down into smaller elements, even fading….”

  Doc II drifted closer to see for himself. The swarm image of Doc Frost swelled and curled around a chair opposite Kraft, while grabbing photons from the projector pedestal to analyze the imagery.

  ***The Quantum Sword beam is tuned to the exact wavelength of the average size of the swarm elements. Analysis showed the bots were averaging a hundred and twenty nanometers in major dimension. Quantum Sword is putting two hundred million megajoules of particle beam energy into each cubic centimeter of the swarm. Few structures larger than a virus can withstand that impulse***

  “Quantum Sword really slammed ‘em,” Winger said. “And this same device is being put on every killsat?”

  “That’ll be your job, Winger,” Kraft said. “And Galland’s. Get up to Mission Prep now and start drawing equipment. Pick a detachment that works. You’re going to be on a hyperjet to Kourou at 0600 hours tomorrow morning.”

  The ride into space aboard spaceplane Archimede was a teeth-rattling journey for 1st Nano but the ship made it to orbit in good order and set sail for her first target, Killsat K-6. After a few phasing burns, Archimede began closing rapidly on the satellite and the ship’s captain, UNISPACE Commander Leland DeLong, soon made an announcement over the 1MC.

  “Objective in sight…we’re tracking at a hundred kilometers range. Proximity ops begin in two hours.”

  In the crew compartment, most of the Detachment was occupied with the novelty of weightlessness and the view out of the portholes.

  “Hey, I can see my garage,” announced Taj Singh.

  “No, you can’t, you dork,” said Mighty Mite Barnes. “That’s Italy down there…didn’t you ever study geography?”

  “Watch me eat this candy bar right out of mid-air,” said Joe McReady, “…no hands.” The chocolate was soon smeared all over his lips and nose.

  “Okay, kids,” Winger announced, “playtime’s over. Spivey, you and Hiroshi get ANAD checked out. I want full diagnostics on everything. Reaves and Barnes, get RUFUS checked out too…make sure all three of them are set to go. I don’t want any robots free-lancing around these killsats. Gibbs, Simonet, look after the rest of our gear, especially the suits. We’ll be holding class for RUFUS 1 in less than an hour.”

  The nanotroopers set to work, hustling back and forth between the crew compartment and the lockout chambers aft, checking gear, testing seals and connections, powering up and following checklists. Winger wanted everything done by the book on this mission. The success of Quantum Sword depended on split-second timing and everybody being on the same page. Mistakes and oversights just couldn’t happen when you were working with UNIFORCE killsats. Nobody wanted a few cities vaporized because some clown skipped a step.

  Quantum Sword had to work; there was no Plan B. The idea was simple enough to brief but damnably hard to execute. Archimede would take the detachment into orbit and would track down and rendezvous with three killsats initially, K-6, K-1 and K-2. At each sat, hypersuited nanotroopers trained in extravehicular ops would depart the spaceplane, accompanied by one of the RUFUS robotic servicers. Once they had translated over to the sat, they would install a new beam emitter module, download new control software and, as a final measure, deploy an ANAD master bot in its containment capsule. ANAD, once installed, would replicate a defensive shield that would protect the sat from any interference from Red Hammer including, it was hoped, any new pulser assaults. Nobody at Table Top or UNISPACE Paris wanted Red Hammer to be able to send remote configs to a critical satellite and bollix up the works, or take control of the thing.

  Each RUFUS servicer was deployed with a strong AI processor. The nanotroopers had only to show RUFUS exactly what to do, step by step, in order and RUFUS would ‘learn’ the right sequence for later installations. The nanotroopers wouldn’t have to visit each of the eighteen killsats. After K-2, one of the three RUFUS servicers would know enough to take over completing the installation and checkout of all remaining killsats, with help from its buddies.

  That was the plan. Major Kraft was initially dubious but had been convinced it was the best way. “You realize,” he had told his engineers in a final briefing before 1st Nano departed for the Kourou launch site, “that there are only about a million things that could go wrong with this stunt.”

  “We think this is the best way, Major. Given the time constraints and the need to act quickly to push the Red Hammer swarms back and contain them, there aren’t too many other alternatives, sir.”

  Kraft was forced to agree.

  Winger had been reviewing the ANAD deployment sequence outside the starboard lockout when Lucy Hiroshi drifted up, bearing a small tablet. Hiroshi was one of two CQEs in the Detachment, along with Ray Spivey. She looked after ANAD and all its support systems.

  “Lieutenant, I thought you should see this—“

  “What is it?”

  “Final status checks on the ANAD master bot, sir. Corporal Spivey and I were running down the checklist…propulsors, sensors, probes, actuators…and we were doing a line check on his basic rep cycle controller…and these anomalies got flagged. Neither of us knows what to make of them…ANAD checked out clean and green at Table Top but something in his core’s gone belly up since then.”

  “Maybe the launch,” Winger suggested. “Let me take a look—“ He studied the screens and displays on Hiroshi’s tablet, running a finger down each line of the replication cycle code…sure enough, there were lines and commands he didn’t recognize at all. “What the hell is this crap? Did someone toggle off a rep while were underway?”

  “I don’t know, sir…nothing like this showed up at Table Top. If the replication engine’s hosed, he won’t be able to—“

  “I know, I know…” Winger didn’t need to hear Hiroshi’s concerns. No replication, no protective shield at the killsats. And with Red Hammer’s new pulser device, that could only mean trouble…big trouble. You just couldn’t have killsats in orbit operating outside of their normally very tight command and control systems. Sure, there were checks and checks of checks and all kinds of redundancies and backups. But only a wacko would want killsats loose in orbit.

  Maybe I’ll ask Doc what he thinks. Winger cocked his head just so, opening the coupler link. He had his own embedded ANAD, still buried in the containment capsule in his shoulder. The Doc II swarm a
nd master was in its own containment station, located in a small pod on his hypersuit web belt.

  “Doc, what do you make of this? ANAD checked out fine at Table Top. Now he’s got all kinds of garbage in his replication code. Could you take a look for me?” Winger reached down with his hand and thumbed a control stud on the side of the pod. Instantly, a faint mist began issuing from a port on top of the pod.

  Five minutes later, a reasonable facsimile of Doc Frost’s face and shoulders drifted on faint air currents over their heads. The likeness was crude; Doc had detected urgency harmonics in Winger’s voice and dispensed with the usual config details.

  ***Johnny, I’ve already detached a sub-element for analysis…open your capsule port and I’ll do a Level 3 inspection…***

  Winger opened his shoulder port and Doc II’s sub-element cruised inside. It was like watching smoke issuing from an open fire…in reverse.

  A few minutes later, Doc II offered an analysis.

  ***Detecting non-standard code blocks in replication module…recommend taking ANAD offline to perform step test…executing this code may result in unanticipated effects…cannot yet determine cause of bad code…Johnny, I am also detecting deviations in config pattern buffer, actuator control and propulsor modules***

  Lucy Hiroshi looked puzzled. “Lieutenant, we did a full-up systems test at Table Top. I don’t understand it…none of this showed up then.”

  Winger had already decided to safe ANAD and withdraw Doc II as fast as he could. “Doc, get out of there, right now. This may be a pulser effect from Red Hammer. Intel says they can transmit bad configs remotely, even replicate swarms from a great distance. I don’t want ANAD going off big bang-style without controls.”

  ***Understood, Johnny. I have detected that the config pattern memory is currently in an overflow state. We should investigate…***

  “Negative, Doc. Just evacuate and recover to config one yourself. We’ll have to chance it with ANAD as he is. Quantum Sword can’t wait.”

  He wasn’t sure that was the right decision to make but Major Kraft never gave him hell for trying to complete a mission. ANAD was programmed to be a protective shield for the modified killsats, a sort of security guard to keep out unwanted intruders. He wasn’t sure what they would do if the intruders were already inside.