***…loading max rep program…done…ANAD ready for launch…configuring ejector…counting down…three…two…one…and AWAY!!!!...***
As the Detachment looked on, a small puff of mist escaped from the left shoulder of Johnny Winger’s hypersuit, quickly dispersing in the breeze. Instantly, the port squeezed shut. The suit was fully buttoned up again.
Overhead, the mist quickly swelled into a shimmering pulse of light, as trillions of daughter assemblers were born from loose atoms.
“ANAD signaling--,” Gibby reported. He watched readouts on his eyepiece…pH, pressure, temperature, the rep counter ticking over in a blur as exponential numbers showed the growth of the swarm. “—I’ve got data now…good data…numbers coming up and everything’s in the green…swarm now at one quarter and accelerating—“
“Move out,” Winger commanded. “ANAD can follow along.” His suit had the coordinates and he put the thing back on automobility, so he could think as they trundled deeper into the jungle.
Sooner or later, he thought, we’re going to run right into whatever is changing the atmosphere around here.
It turned out to be sooner.
Gibby’s voice startled him out of his thoughts.
“ANAD reports temperature rising ahead, Lieutenant. Picking up loose radicals, atomic debris…something’s happening and it’s chewing up the air.”
They had cleared the bend in the Yemanha River and were now tracking almost due west, bearing two six five degrees, along the riverbank. Limestone cliffs had formed inland, squeezing the beach down to a narrow footpath of wet sand and soft loamy black mud, making footing treacherous, even for their suit treads. The water was strangely slow and sluggish, as if it had somehow thickened. Small humps of rock and mats of grass made gurgling hydraulics all across the river.
“I see it,” Winger reported. The feed from ANAD, as well as from the sniffers and Superfly tiled the image viewer on his eyepiece. He flicked out a tongue at the control stud, letting ANAD’s take expand to cover the view. Gibby was right: acoustic sounding showed hydrogen radicals had thickened along with loose chains of oxygen atoms. The air was choked with them. Oxygen was highly reactive…any atomgrabber knew that. It hated being a single atom and clumped together into pairs like lint to a wool sweater. Something was stripping oxygens apart and keeping them that way. Something with a lot of energy.
“Gibby, command ANAD into tactical two…full defenses. I’m taking a closer look—“
“Got it,” Gibby reported. He sent the command and, as one, the ANAD swarm armed its full weapons suite: enzymatic knife, bond disrupters, the works.
Winger linked in to see what the tiny assembler was dealing with. A dizzying image came up on his eyepiece--
--Long, whippy chains were hurtling at him…a sleet of shapes of every size and description. Cones, polygons, tetrahedrals, pieces of lattice, a junkyard of molecules streamed at him and he soon found he had to squeeze down to minimum radius just to keep from being sliced in half—
“ANAD…what the hell is all this crap?”
***sorry, Boss…had to stow my effectors…it’s a blizzard down here…something’s really churning up ahead…stripping off atoms and pieces and junk like crazy…I’m up to max propulsor but I’m barely moving…may have to go quantum if this keeps up***
“Can you move in closer…see what’s causing it?”
***I’m trying…but it’s a battle…I’ll have to fold in a few more effectors…get real small…whatever it is, it’s kicking up a storm…and it’s huge too***
Winger let his hypersuit carry him forward, along with the rest of Alpha Detachment, while he monitored ANAD’s progress.
Nanotroopers Episode 9: Demonios of Via Verde Page 10