The Nano Experiment

by Wid Bastian

  She was confident to the point of certainty that she would be able to kill all five guards and techs in less than a minute. She needed to get to a control panel and she needed access codes to the main system. That meant finding one or more of the scientists. Their offices were not on this floor, but she did recall a lab only a few doors down where Dr. Leavitt often worked. If she caught a break, Leavitt might be in that lab right now waiting to process her latest sample.

  Once she had access to a control panel, she would gas the entire underground facility except for the Supersoldiers’ quarters. She knew that she could not gas the first floor and that undoubtedly the underground portion of Forged Bay would be sealed off before she could start the process. She had a plan for reaching the surface – actually she thought that might prove to be the easiest part of the operation.

  Hearing muffled sounds outside her door, Cassia opened three eyes. She focused one eye on the door and the other two on her right hand. Because it was new to her, she wanted to reassure herself that she could independently track and react to vision in all of her eyes.

  “Evening, Cassia,” the tech said. He was a slight man, bald perhaps fifty. He had always gone out of his way to be polite to Cassia, whether out of pity or fear she wasn’t sure.

  “Hi,” Cassia said, almost sweetly. Until they removed the catching device, she needed to appear as unthreatening as possible. Both techs and the three guards were wearing full protective suits and would not take them off until the catching device was removed, secured and another one was put in place.

  The tech began to dismantle the catching device. He did so by entering a series of codes which loosened seals, three distinct barriers between her arm and the environment.

  “Have you eaten anything today?” the tech asked as he opened the second seal.

  “Not much. A protein shake.”

  “You should try and eat more,” he said as he loosened the third and final seal. For a second Cassia’s arm was free. That’s all she needed.

  With her left hand, Cassia reached up and snapped the tech’s neck. At the same time she swung her right hand, the tips of her fingers were razor sharp, and she slit the second tech’s throat. From a seated position, she jumped two feet in the air and planted her left foot in the face of one guard and her right foot in the chest of the other. Spinning as she did, Cassia then thrust herself feet first into the head of the third guard who was trying to bring his Light Rifle to bear on her.

  The whole confrontation lasted less than twenty seconds. As soon as the third guard was unconscious, Cassia felt a surge of power emanating from her hand. She instinctually swiped to claw one of the guards and as she did she left a trail of mist that caused the three guards still alive to hyperventilate. As she was leaving she heard the alarm sound and noticed that the guards were now thrashing around in her quarters, slamming against the walls.

  Having not had the opportunity to test her new abilities, Cassia was amazed at how quickly she could move. She felt like she was flying as she tore down the hall to where she remembered seeing the lab.

  She was in luck. Dr. Leavitt was inside the lab preparing to receive the sample. Not more than fifteen seconds passed between the sounding of the alarm and Cassia bursting through his door. Before he could reach for his control panel, Cassia had him pinned to the ground.

  “I guess my death will have to wait a bit, Doctor. Yours, however, is imminent,” Cassia said.

  The look in Cassia’s eyes removed the snobbery from Dr. Leavitt’s voice. He tried his best to sound confident when he said, “Right now this facility is being sealed off. Escape is impossible. Hundreds of soldiers from carriers stationed offshore will descend on this place in an hour. You are going nowhere, Cassia.”

  “I need the access codes to the control panel, Leavitt. I need them now.”

  “There are no access codes.”

  Cassia reached down with her left hand and snapped Leavitt’s leg in two just above his knee. He screamed in pain. Cassia slapped him so hard she nearly broke his neck.

  “The access codes, Doc.”

  “There… are … no… more …codes,” Leavitt eked out.

  Maybe he is telling the truth, Cassia thought. At one time the scientists were using codes to access their panels, but right before they had quarantined her Cassia remembered Dr. Black using a retinal scan to access his panel.

  “Retinal scans,” Cassia said.

  Leavitt nodded his head.

  Moving on top of Dr. Leavitt, Cassia straddled him and forced his head down with her left hand. Using the index finger of her right hand, Cassia cut out Leavitt’s left eyeball with near surgical precision. Leaving Leavitt writhing in agony, Cassie took his eyeball and placed it in front of the control panel. Just as Dr. Leavitt said, the panel lit up.

  To her delight and slight surprise, the control panels had not yet been deactivated. Perhaps it was assumed Leavitt would be locked away in a safe place. Regardless, Cassia used her opportunity to the fullest and let the deadly gas loose on every level other than one she and the Supersoldiers currently occupied.

  Removing a small container from the lab table, Cassia put Leavitt’s eyeball inside and sealed it for safekeeping. Seeing a small messenger bag, she put the control panel and the container in it and headed for the door. But before she left she remembered Dr. Leavitt was still lying on the floor in agonizing pain.

  Her hand was tingling again. She dug her nails into Leavitt’s chest and came almost face to face with him. Drawing close to his ear she whispered, “Remember me.”

  They were waiting for her outside. Although Cassia was not consciously expecting them, as soon as she laid eyes on the three nano monsters she knew exactly what they were and what they wanted.

  They resembled something human only in the vaguest sense of the word. Their posture and limbs were contorted causing them to walk on all fours. Their skin was a metallic gunmetal colored shell with only a few visible soft spots. At their center was something that looked like a malformed human head. Their eyes had been replaced by two small blue strips that extended all the way from the back of their skull, down their spine and then split, running down each leg. They backed away when they saw Cassia, clearly deferring to her, waiting for her orders.

  Without speaking a word, Cassia gave the command in her mind, “Follow me. Kill anything that moves.” One of the nano monsters moved to the front, and two trailed behind as they moved quickly towards the Supersoldiers’ quarters.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cassia and her nano monster escort encountered no resistance as they moved toward the Supersoldiers’ quarters. The alarm stopped blaring; no doubt the generals on the first level knew Cassia was loose and on a rampage. After disabling the gas delivery system, Leavitt’s control panel became useless. She guessed the security encryptions had been changed, but it really didn’t matter now.

  His eyeball still came in very handy. She was able to unlock all the access points she needed. She wondered if the generals knew anything about what happened to Leavitt. She doubted he would be able to talk with them even if he was alive - right now he was transforming into one of her servants. She took pleasure in knowing this and expected to see the new and improved Dr. Leavitt crawling toward her at any moment anxious to do her bidding. Hopefully his vital signs were still registering on the system; she needed them to, without his retinal scan she wouldn’t be able to gain access to the Supersoldiers’ complex.

  Holding Leavitt’s eyeball up for rental scan, Cassia heard the locks of the doors disengage. So far, things were going her way. She knew only extremely bad fortune put her plan at risk. Telepathically she ordered her servants to stand by and keep the door open. If anyone approached the quarters from the outside they were to be attacked and killed on sight.

  Colonel Lancet was the first to greet her. “Cassia, what’s going on? We thought there had been an accident in the main lab or an attack by the East. The com is dead.”

  “Is everyone here?” Cassi
a asked.

  “General Alandreian is locked in his quarters. The rest of us are all roaming around freely in our expansive cage.”

  “It’s time we left this place. We’ve been imprisoned for too long.”

  “I’ll second that. Where is Leavitt or Romero or the other white coat?”

  “Dead, I assume.”

  “Who killed them?” Lancet asked.

  “I did,” Cassia said as she walked into the open area of the Supersoldiers’ complex.

  Plopping down in front of her from his perch on the roof Lieutenant Carter said, “Cassia! You’re alive! We feared the worse.”

  Carter was extremely loyal to Cassia. They had served together for many years. His transformation was complete now - Carter’s body was translucent and flexible. He could bend at will, stick to anything and lift over a ton.

  “Carter,” Cassia said. “I need your help.”

  “Anything,” Lieutenant Carter said.

  “Stay close to me. I need you to watch my back.”

  “How many un-friendlies are we expecting?”

  “I don’t know until I say what I’ve come to say.”

  Kano whizzed by Cassia. She could not see him clearly, but she sensed him with her third eye. She had a feeling Kano might be the most sympathetic to her cause and her inescapable logic. Mason jumped from the pool and landed with a thump twenty feet from the edge. Halverson disengaged from his flight simulator. The rest of the Supersoldiers gathered around Cassia.

  “We have been deceived,” Cassia began. “The generals have lied to us.”

  “What exactly have they lied to us about?” Halverson asked. “We all signed up for this duty. We’ve started weapons training. It seems to me they’ve been as straight as they could be.”

  “How many people have you killed in the name of the Empire, Commander?”

  “That’s impossible to say. I drop bombs from the sky or low orbit on military targets.”

  “Perhaps a hundred thousand, maybe more?”

  “Your point, Cassia?”

  “Who are you fighting for, Commander? Our entire lives we have obeyed orders and made sacrifices too hard to bear. And for what purpose? All we have done is perpetuated an unending dance of death. We have been fighting for the wrong side.”

  “Are you suggesting that we should be fighting for the East?” Lancet said.

  “No, they are just as corrupt as our masters. We should be fighting for ourselves,” Cassia said.

  “What does that mean?” Kano asked. She saw the nanites pumping through his body outlining his frame.

  “It means that we have been given a gift by the generals. We answer to no one now but ourselves,” Cassia argued.

  “I guess I missed the memo. Could have sworn we were all still officers in the Armed Forces of the Western Alliance,” Halverson said, now becoming wary.

  “I can make you even better. My contribution to our evolution is my ability to take you beyond where you are now, to magnify your improvements.”

  “Cassia, what have you done?” Lancet accused. “Where are the soldiers, the lab techs, the scientists?”

  “As I told you Colonel, they’re all dead. There are still plenty of soldiers on the first floor and hundreds more will be here within the hour. They have only one mission, to exterminate us.”

  “Why would High Command want us dead? They’ve invested a huge amount of resources and time into us and in this facility. We are close to becoming the assets they were hoping to create,” Halverson said. He too was getting nervous. Cassia was openly discussing high treason.

  “Look, there isn’t much time. It has come down to kill or be killed. They will not be taking prisoners or listening to explanations. They want to burn us to a crisp and start over. I was minutes from my execution; now we are all in the same boat.”

  “We need to free Alandreian,” Corporal Parsons said. Captain Mason made a noise that signaled his agreement.

  “Where is he?” Cassia asked.

  Lancet escorted Cassia to Alandreian’s sleeping pod. There was an access panel on the door. She tried Leavitt’s eyeball, but the computer did not respond. Captain Mason then moved towards the door and Cassia stepped aside.

  Mason’s legs, like the rest of his body, were now hardened with a substance at least as tough as steel. Getting a running start of twenty paces, Mason flung himself at Alandreian’s door. He bounced off it and tumbled to the floor. The door seemed unaffected.

  “Mason, focus on the access panel. Just crack it a bit and I’ll do the rest,” Cassia said.

  This time Mason did not get a running start. He simply took two steps back, swung his right arm in the air like a sledgehammer and pounded the access panel. He did it again, then again, then a fourth time.

  The fourth swing did it and the panel cracked. Mason stepped back and Cassia stepped in. She released the silvery liquid into the panel. A few seconds later the door opened and General Alandreian stepped out.

  “Sir,” Cassia said. “I hope I come as a pleasant surprise. I’m afraid that I could not go willingly to my own execution.”

  The General did not say a word for a minute. He walked out into the main room of the complex and took stock of who was present. He noticed the open door.

  “I assume they will be coming. At full force, sooner rather than later?” Alandreian said.

  “Yes, General. We need to talk, I’ve tried to explain to the men that -.”

  “You and I need to speak, privately. Men, stay away from that door. Arm yourselves with whatever weapons you can gather. Be prepared to repel an incursion.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Report,” Alandreian ordered as soon the two of them were out of earshot. Leaving the disabled entry door open, he and Cassia went inside his sleeping pod.

  Although she had been ordered by a superior officer hundreds of times to report, Alandreian’s one word command did not sit well with her. She was finished reporting to the officers of the Western Alliance. From now on, soldiers reported to her.

  Despite chafing at the General’s command, Cassia knew that she was far better off with Alandreian as an ally. The other Supersoldiers, the vast majority anyway, would follow his orders because not only was he one of them he was also the ranking officer in the group.

  “They came for me. I do not wish to sacrifice myself for the Empire. What I, what we, have become is too important to be destroyed. They will kill you now too, General. When I refused to be euthanized, I set events in motion that cannot be reversed.”

  “Do you know why they felt you needed to be killed?”

  “Yes. They fear me. They know I have certain unique abilities that set me apart.”

  “What abilities?”

  “I have been given the gift of creation. What I expel from my hand is partially me, partly nanites, or so I believe. When it is exposed to any living organism, it transforms them.”

  “Like the nanite injector process we all went through?”

  “Sort of. Better to show you than tell you, General.”

  Cassia led Alandreian towards the open entrance of the level. They heard clicking noises as they approached. Cassia gave the command in her mind, “Stand down. The General is not to be harmed.”

  Seeing the nano monsters Alandreian reacted instinctively and recoiled, looking around for any type of weapon he could use to defend himself.

  Cassia said, “Relax, General. They will not harm you, just the opposite. They exist only to protect me and you. In close quarters combat they will be formidable.”

  “My God! You created these things? What were they? Human?”

  “They were the three guards who came for me. Now they are my soldiers.”

  “Your soldiers? They respond to your commands?”

  “Mine and no one else’s. I believe that I can create thousands, perhaps millions of these creatures. Exactly how powerful I can become I’m not sure, but that is why the Empire wants me dead. For the first time in a generation, there is
a force on this planet to be reckoned with other than two governments.”

  Now Alandreian understood what General Larsen was trying to tell him. Cassia had changed and she was still changing. He wasn’t sure about her ability to create ten more of these abominations, much less thousands or millions, but he was sure of one thing – they were not human.

  Was Cassia human? Part of the person he loved like a daughter had to be in there, or so he hoped. Could he reach the human Cassia? If he could then maybe he had a chance. His Cassia would do anything required of her if she were convinced it served a higher purpose, the greater good.

  “Cassia, do you realize what’s happened, what is happening to you?”