Mesa de Oro
Yucatan State, Mexico
November 21, 2049
1430 hours (U.T.)
Mighty Mite Barnes was the sole survivor of the Quantum Shadow mission team and achieving that distinction hadn’t been easy. With General Kincade and Major Lofton of Q2 looking on, Barnes recounted what had happened at the Paryang Monastery and how she had gotten away.
“After I escaped from the monastery,” she related, “I used the biomorphing bots I still had left. I hid in a supply truck that went up to Llasa, Tibet…nearly froze my butt off. Then, with the bots, I was able to look like a PLA officer and get a rail pass to Beijing. From there, I became a Malaysian businesswoman and got a flight to Kuala Lumpur. After that, Mexico City…and here I am.”
General Kincade had sparse sandy hair and a sandy bush of a moustache. He glared back at Barnes. “Sergeant, I’m glad you made it back but what you and Major Winger and Corporal Singh did was dangerous, illegal, against regulations and really pretty stupid. You could have set off an international incident with the Chinese…or worse.”
Lofton was more intrigued with what had ostensibly happened to Johnny Winger. “Sergeant, can I see that capsule again?”
Barnes pulled out the containment capsule she had used to snag what was left of Winger at Paryang. “I don’t know what’s in there, Major. Major Winger was consumed by that big swarm…Configuration Zero, I guess. He let himself be swarmed…it was voluntary…I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I swiped that capsule through the edge of the swarm and hoped to hell I grabbed enough of what was left…” Barnes shuddered at the memory. “It was bad, General…”
Kincade growled, “Sergeant, you could have died…for nothing.”
Lofton said, “Maybe not, sir…the Sergeant should be extensively debriefed…maybe even memory traced. There must a lot of intel inside that head. Plus I’m curious to know just what’s inside this capsule.” He took the capsule from Barnes, examined it end for end, and handed it to the base commander.
Kincade scowled at the thing. “Major Winger…inside this thing? Preposterous.”
Lofton just shook his head. “All these years, we figured Red Hammer was just another Chinese criminal gang, growing up out of the tong or some other secret society. You know, they grow like weeds in the Pearl River delta. Now—the whole thing is nothing but a front. A façade. Think of it: a cartel running scope and twist and fab operations around the world and the whole organization is controlled by some kind of extraterrestrial race of Bugs. An advance team for these Old Folks.”
“Old Ones,” Barnes corrected him.
“Right. Config Zero is head of this advance team and Red Hammer is nothing but a tool to prepare the way.” Lofton half-smiled. “It boggles what’s left of my mind.”
Kincade put the capsule down on his desk with exaggerated care, as if it might explode in his face. “Barnes, you’ll be facing serious disciplinary action for this little adventure of yours.”
“Yes, sir—“ Barnes’ face was glum.
“And Major Winger, too. Corporal Singh…we’ll give him a decent memorial service. Now, let’s go over to Containment and see what this doodad really contains.”
The Containment center was a dome-shaped bunker-like structure at the south end of the base, tucked in between the Training/Sim complex and Kraft Field, the parade ground.
Kincade, Lofton and Barnes cycled through the locks and scanned in through five levels of biometrics before entering Containment Cell 1, where several techs were already waiting to discharge the capsule into secure containment. The senior tech was a Sergeant Givens, balding and bespectacled, with a pencil moustache and a nervous tic to his lips.
Givens screwed the capsule into the loading port and opened the seal. Whatever was inside the capsule was then pulled into the tank by low pressure air and firmly contained. Outside the tank, as a safety measure, the electron beam guns were initialized and primed. If anything went wrong, the guns would rake the containment tank with millions of electron volts in seconds.
Givens warmed up the quark imager and a grainy view soon materialized on the display. A trellis-like scaffolding dominated the center of the view. Closer resolution produced a small dark patch clinging to the scaffolding…”a few bots,” Givens murmured. “Let’s check ‘em out.”
Kincade scowled at the image. “That’s Major Winger? Sorry, I’m having a hard time with the idea.”
Givens had an associate tech whose nameplate read Yang. She had close-cropped black hair and a porcelain face. “Sergeant, there’s something else there…I’m reading high thermals and electromagnetics along one edge…there—“ she pointed to a thicker patch of dark. “Increasing resolution to four hundred—“
The image shifted again, grew fuzzy, then with startling clarity, a small cluster of nanobots came into sharper view. They bore the diamondoid casing and effector and propulsor layout of obvious ANAD clones.
Barnes snapped her fingers. “Doc II! That has to be what that is. I must have grabbed him too when I swiped my capsule through the swarm.”
Givens said, “I’ll try the coupler…see if we can get anything.”
Moments later, a thin, whiny synthetic voice issued from the console speaker.
***Base…please reduce imager resolution and shift your boresight off axis…I’m being hammered down here. Recommend resolution at two hundred maximum. And could you adjust state conditions, while you’re at it…it’s brutal in this tank***
Givens and Yang made adjustments to bring conditions inside containment to a stable state suitable for Doc II. They also learned that Doc was cradling a few bot fragments in his grabbers.
Nanotroopers Episode 21: Paryang Monastery Page 5