A Question of Will

by Alex Albrinck

  Will glanced around. “Where are we, anyway? I’ve not seen any cities, or rivers, or anything else that gives me an idea where on the globe I am.”

  Adam turned a bit, partially glancing at Will over his shoulder. “Is it really important to know?”

  Will frowned. “Why is it such a difficult question to answer?”

  Adam grimaced. “I knew this would come up eventually. You see, there’s something you need to understand. It’s—“

  The craft lurched, thrown violently to the side. As the craft stabilized, Will saw the craft with Fil and Angel smash into one of the giant trees, then plummet to the ground. Adam righted their craft, and then leveled up and over the tree canopy, banking sharply to the right, away from Angel and Fil. “So much for hiding in the trees,” he muttered. “We need to distract the bad guys so the good guys can lick their wounds.”

  Will glanced out the side of the craft. He counted six different vehicles chasing them, and spotted the three Hunters piloting half of the squadron. They were dismally outnumbered.

  “Angel’s hurt,” Adam muttered. “Pretty bad, too.”

  A lump formed in Will’s throat. Angel had been his introduction to this new world, and had always treated him with kindness. If something happened to her because of his stupidity...

  “We need to go to her, then, and help!”

  “And do what, exactly? Fil’s there with her, and that’s the best we could hope for. It will do her no good if we get shot down as well.”

  Will shifted backward to watch the Aliomenti aircraft. “What are they made of?”

  “What?”

  “What are their aircraft made of? Ours are made of the nanos...what about theirs?”

  “Not sure. Some type of metal or plastic, I’d assume. Glass. Electricity for their various control systems. Not sure what the fuel is. Why?”

  “We need to get them heading away from Angel. I have an idea.”

  Adam shrugged. “I thought that’s what I was already doing.”

  “I know. Can you go faster? And a bit lower? Just skim the tops of the trees.”

  Adam nodded, not questioning his pupil’s plan, and the craft shot forward and banked down. “What are you doing?”

  Will grinned. “Playing a video game.”

  He turned around and faced the rear of the vehicle, spotting all six of the Aliomenti craft following. They’ve assumed the other craft is destroyed and the occupants gone, he thought, and then grimaced. I hope they’re wrong on that point.

  Will channeled Energy into his hands, forming it into a large ball, roughly the size of a bowling ball. He maneuvered it out of the craft, suspending it in the air, adding more and more Energy until it was the size of a small house. He then froze it in one place, rather than letting it move with the craft carrying him and Adam. Then he watched.

  The lead craft hit the Energy field and lost control, spinning wildly down into the trees. Two others crashed immediately after, following so closely that they could not react, and followed the rapid descent of the first craft. The Hunters veered wildly around the invisible barrier, but did not stop to check on their companions. Nice guys, real team players, Will thought. “Looks like Energy and their electrical systems don’t mesh very well.”

  Adam snickered. “Old-fashioned punks getting what they deserve, if you ask me. Are the Hunters still coming our way?”

  “Unfortunately. I’m thinking we may need to take the attack to them.”

  Adam nodded, and swung the craft around until he was facing the Hunters, then accelerated at them. Will shot bursts of Energy at the three aircraft, managing to strike Porthos and Athos. Both men gave looks of surprise as their aircraft plummeted down into the tree line. Aramis stared at Will as the Hunter flew by, his face a look of shock and fury. Will smiled, and flashed a taunting wave his way. Aramis decided better of it, and flew his craft down to check on his colleagues.

  “That should keep them busy for a while,” Adam remarked. “By the way, you’re leaking Energy. Get your Shield up.”

  Will’s hand shot to his mouth. “How long?”

  “I just noticed it in all the commotion, but...I suppose it’s possible that your Shield has been down since we left camp.”

  “No,” Will whispered. He’d led the Hunters to them originally. Had he set a trail for them to chase after them as well? He set up his Shield, and Adam confirmed that the Energy leak was stopped. Adam took a circuitous route back to the downed aircraft belonging to Fil and Angel, making sure that there was no actual Energy trail or direct path for the Hunters to pick up again.

  Fil held Angel in his arms, tears streaming down his face from behind his sunglasses. Angel looked horribly pale, her deep green bodysuit stained red. Will and Adam sprang from their aircraft and raced to them.

  Fil looked up at them. “She’s lost blood. I used machines to stitch her wounds and internal damage, but I can’t replace blood.”

  “I have type O-negative blood,” Will said. “That’s the universal donor type.” He pushed up his sleeve, and looked at Adam, somehow sensing the man could actually do something as obscure as a blood transfusion in the middle of a jungle. “Take mine. She needs it more. This is all my fault anyway. Take it all if you need to, but save her.”

  Adam nodded. He fashioned the necessary needles and tubes from nanos and fashioned a crude blood transfer link between Will and Angel. Will watched the young woman’s face, desperate to see her pale features gain more color. And gradually, they did, and Angel began to breathe more easily. Adam stopped the transfusion and began bandaging the wounds.

  Will insisted that Adam take more, as much blood as he needed. Adam shook his head. “She has enough. You’ve saved her.”

  “I owed her that much. She’s the closest thing to family I have any more. I won’t let someone else suffer for my mistakes again.”

  He was weak from the blood loss, and started to drift to sleep, but he caught the emotion from Fil without needing to focus on it. The emotion was powerful. And unlike previous emotional bombs directed at him by the man in the sunglasses, this emotion wasn’t one of fury, or rage, or anger, or even sadness.

  It was admiration.

  XVIII

  Reprogramming

  As had been the case for most of the unplanned relocations in his time with the Alliance, the Mechanic was the final member of the community to leave the original campsite, and also one of the last to arrive at the new. As his craft circled the clearing for the new camp, the Mechanic scanned the community and noted the familiar patterns. Many of the buildings had reformed in their usual layout, and people began to explore the environment around the clearing to locate sources of water and the foodstuffs they consumed. This was what the Alliance referred to as unpacking. There were a few minor injuries, but the healing nanos in each member of the Alliance could be seen working, knitting the various scrapes and scratches closed.

  As he descended, the Mechanic had a vision of something happening several miles away. It involved a small cluster of people, including Fil and Angel. Fil held Angel, who looked extremely pale and bloodied, while Adam and a third man stood nearby. He frowned, as he was uncertain who this other man was. He watched as Adam ran a tube between the stranger and Angel, and watched as the clear tube turned a deep red. The Mechanic nodded. Angel had been hurt and lost blood, and the stranger was providing a transfusion. She would be fine, and that made him happy.

  The craft landed, and the nanos surrounding the vehicle separated and formed into a building around him. The vehicle he flew was unique, as it was one of the few structures in the entire Alliance camp that wasn’t constructed of nanos; rather, this craft was formed entirely of “normal” materials. It needed to be, for it was a craft unique in the entire Aliomenti universe, and only a very few people knew its true purpose. The Mechanic needed to work on a few modifications he had planned over the next week or two, and was pleased to see that the craft had come through the escape and relocation without suffering any damag
e.

  The Mechanic opened the hatch and allowed the dog called Smokey to run loose. They left a patch of grass open through the floor of the building, a feat made simpler by the fact that the entire structure was built of intelligent machines. He also adjusted the building to allow in more sunlight, and Smokey indulged herself, sleeping on the grass as the rays warmed her dark fur. Pets weren’t officially disallowed in the community, but were avoided as a common practice, so the Mechanic made do for Smokey as best he could under the circumstances.

  His other house guest would not be quite so pleasant. He would need to prepare the appropriate materials before releasing the man from the trunk.

  In the rear seat of the craft were two cylinders, each about two feet tall and roughly a foot in diameter. These machines, like the vehicle they were in, were not composed of nanos, and as such were irreplaceable. He moved to the first of the machines, which was used to generate new nanos, and adjusted the settings to create a small, highly specialized batch of fifty million of the tiny devices. This batch of machines was unique, as he’d need to override a key portion of the standard code operating all of the other nanos, in order for them to perform the task he required.

  Most of the nanos he generated with his device were general purpose machines used to perform various tasks by Alliance members who owned them — such as shaping the buildings they lived in and the clothing they wore — and used the standard operating system coding image. That image could be modified to provide machines with more specialized, internal functions. There were images to create Purge nanos, immune system supplements, injury repair, sleep enhancers, and more. To date, the most challenging code image he’d built had been for the internal nanos that served as the communication channel between the brain and the general purpose nanos. The challenge there was ensuring that no one could use or control nanos not owned by them. Alliance members could “gift” each other nanos if it was necessary, but most simply came to him to produce more if there was a true need. The gifting process worked well for temporary projects, and since the Alliance worked to avoid waste, he usually only made a standard batch for new members and regular batches for the Purge.

  This set would be the most unique of the unique, building on the internal communication nanos code set. He only expected to create one batch of this type. Ever.

  It had taken time to get the code change just right, and he’d been working on it almost without interruption since The Assassin had been captured. He hadn’t gotten a lot of support for his idea since it was so unique and high risk, but he intended to press on and go through with it, knowing that it was a critical piece of the future. He was so close he could almost taste it. He used his general purpose nanos to form a small drinking glass to hold the custom nanos created just for The Assassin.

  It was time to get the test subject.

  The Mechanic marched to the rear of the vehicle and kicked the panel, which opened to reveal The Assassin, a highly trained and now highly irritated killing machine, who had seen better days. The Mechanic winced at the smell of the vomit inside the compartment; apparently, all of the changes of direction during the flight hadn’t been pleasant for his guest.

  The Assassin groaned and rolled out of the trunk, so disoriented that he forgot that it was several feet off the ground. Perhaps, given his nausea, he didn’t care. The Assassin hit the white surface with a resounding thud, and groaned again. The Mechanic chuckled. If he hadn’t known better, he would have interpreted the man’s actions as those of a drunk.

  On hearing the chuckle, The Assassin snapped off an intense stream of profanity.

  “Your language suggests to me that you may not like my accommodations,” the Mechanic stated, unable to resist adding an air of emotional trauma to his tone.

  “The current accommodations are reasonably spacious, if a bit restrictive on freedom,” The Assassin replied, his voice strengthening as his equilibrium returned.. “The accommodations just now ended resembled a coffin.”

  “I bow to your expertise on that front,” the Mechanic said, bowing.

  “What do you want from me?” The Assassin snapped, his frustration boiling over. “Why do you injure me and then heal me? If you want me dead, why not execute me and be done with it? Surely you realize that the instant I’m free of these restraints, free of this room, I’ll seek all of you out and kill you, right? So what do you want from me that you keep me alive, knowing that doing so means risking your lives?”

  “I want you to be my spy at Aliomenti Headquarters,” the Mechanic said, his voice quiet.

  The Assassin gaped at him for a moment, and then enjoyed a loud laugh at the Mechanic’s expense. “You can’t seriously believe I’d do that, do you? Or are you that big a fool? I admit that is a possibility; since you were the one foolish enough to leave me with my weapon. I promise that should your concentration wane for even a moment, long enough to crack that Energy shield you use on me, I will put you to the sword, you and that dog. Yes, Mechanic, you may come back here one day and find your smelly canine butchered in your home. I won’t soon forget, and will never forgive, the shoddy treatment I’ve been given here.”

  “Your complaints evoke little sympathy in me, as you’ve just expressed an earnest desire to kill me. You may recall that you were seized and brought here following your attempt on the lives of the family of one of our Alliance members here, and I dare say you won’t win sympathy there either.”

  The Assassin stared at him. “Stark is here? But the Hunters were after him.”

  “They, like you, failed in their mission. Will Stark was our extraction target that night, and we were successful. You were a nice bonus.”

  The Assassin glared at him. “How do you know I failed to kill them?”

  “You talk in your sleep. Nasty habit you should work on.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “What?”

  “What. Happened. To. Them.” He paused, and upon receiving no answer, continued. “The woman. The boy. How did they escape?”

  “How would you expect me to know that? I wasn’t part of the rescue team. I choose to believe that the woman and the boy — and our friend Smokey here — beat up the famed Assassin, and fled the house he’d set on fire, laughing all the way.”

  The Assassin snorted. “Hardly. Some powerful Aliomenti teleported them. I assume Stark did it before the Hunters trapped him; if Stark is here, I’m even more convinced that’s the case.”

  The Mechanic shrugged. “You have your story, I have mine.”

  The Assassin rolled his eyes and palmed his sword. “I repeat myself: what do you want from me?”

  “I have already answered that question. You are to become my spy — my eyes, my ears, my hands — inside the Aliomenti Headquarters. You will provide me with the information I need, and as I direct you, you will act. You will betray nothing you may have learned here to those at the Headquarters.”

  “On the contrary. I know that Will Stark is here. That’s useful information for the Leader, sufficient to earn pardon for my failures that night.”

  “The Leader already knows. Why else do you suppose we were attacked?”

  “It’s a moot point regardless. I will not do as you wish. You have no hold over me strong enough that you can compel me.”

  “I rather disagree,” the Mechanic replied. He directed his general nanos to form an exoskeleton around The Assassin, rendering the man immobile. The hatred in The Assassin’s gaze was haunting; even though the Mechanic knew he could not be harmed, the malevolence in those blood-red eyes startled him. He did not doubt that, at this very moment, The Assassin would strike him dead if the opportunity presented itself.

  The Mechanic picked up the concoction of specialty nanos and moved to The Assassin. “Bottoms up!” he said, giving The Assassin an evil look that mirrored the one the captive had leveled at him a moment earlier. He directed the exoskeleton to open the man’s mouth and hold his tongue down, which would force the man to swallow. The Mechanic pour
ed the solution down the man’s throat, watching The Assassin’s glare change from one of hatred to one of fear. He’d seen what these potions could do already in terms of healing injuries, and no doubt understood that the Alliance could create something far more frightening if they chose. Once the fluid reached the man’s throat, the Mechanic forced his mouth closed to ensure that the man swallowed the fluid, preventing him from coughing it back up.

  It was a cosmetic gesture to ensure that The Assassin believed it was a liquid formula. In reality, the machines had made their way to his brain upon entering his mouth, and he needn’t have waited that long. The customized nanos could have entered The Assassin’s body without any liquid at all. He released The Assassin’s mouth, and said mouth began spouting profanities at him once more.

  The Mechanic closed his eyes, and waited for the feedback signal. The Assassin’s flow of verbal abuse continued unabated, which was to be expected. After a few moments, however, the Mechanic could see something via the nanos he’d inserted into The Assassin’s brain: himself. The communications nanos were embedded and in place.

  The machines were in. That was the easy part. The behavioral modification test would be somewhat more unnerving. The Mechanic released the exoskeleton from The Assassin and reformed it around himself as a protective measure. He then walked over to The Assassin, who was just beginning to stretch his muscles after the latest confinement. The Assassin looked at him, puzzled, as the Mechanic punched the killer in the face.

  The Assassin roared in pain. “I’ll kill you!” he screamed. He drew his sword, but did not strike. The man stared at his arm as if it were no longer part of him. His arm was strong, and he’d swung that sword thousands of times before. Yet he could not move his arm to strike the Mechanic. He turned to face the Mechanic. “What did you do to me?” he whispered, his eyes fearful.

  “I told you: you are to be my spy inside Aliomenti Headquarters. I’ve simply made sure that you’ll behave and perform well in the role. It would hardly do for you to kill me, now, would it?” He chuckled, primarily because he knew The Assassin hated the sound being directed at him.