NanoSwarm: Extermination Day Book Two

by William Turnage

  “So that’s what this is really about. You thought I was working with the Chinese, passing secrets. Sebastian is no spy, but ever since he was a kid he’s wanted to be one, a Chinese double oh seven. And apparently while trying to pass himself off as the real deal, he got the government’s attention. All they had to do was come out and talk with him, then they would’ve seen what nonsense that all is.”

  Jing continued shaking her head and kneading her brow with her fingers. Holly wasn’t sure she believed everything she said, but for now they had no way to find out if she was lying. It was best to get her to Chronos Two. They could question her further there.

  When they arrived at the airport, they found it packed with cars. Everyone was still trying to get out of the city, and some obviously thought an airplane would be the best choice. It was strange how the flight response that Claire initiated caused some people to run off into the woods with only the clothes on their backs, whereas others packed bags and headed to the airport.

  “There’s no way we’re going to get up there,” Evangelista said, pointing to the main off-ramp, currently jammed with cars. “Let’s hoof it from here.”

  They started walking, Chen still limping slightly from his broken leg. All around them others were doing the same, leaving their cars behind and toting bags and children in hopes of catching a flight to some distant and safe destination.

  Holly didn’t think anywhere like that would exist for much longer.

  Many people had panic stricken looks on their faces and several were talking about alien ships and an invasion force. Others were honking their horns and yelling in frustration for the cars in front of them to move. Then there were the drivers that had had enough and were trying to turn around to go the other way and not making much headway. Overall it was a scene of total chaos.

  Slowly they made their way through the snarled traffic and pedestrians and arrived at the airport with hundreds of others. The lobby was packed, with some waiting in line to buy tickets, others yelling at frustrated airline employees.

  “I don’t think a commercial flight is going to be an option for us,” Chen said, staring at the lines.

  “Let’s look in the private wing,” Evangelista said, weaving through the crowd. “I’m going to need your help on this, Colonel Tedrow.”

  Mattie and Evangelista walked up to one of the security officers guarding the area to the private jets and showed their IDs. Mattie was wearing camouflage and still heavily armed with a plasma cannon, EM pulse weapon, and assault rifle. The guard saluted and let them all pass.

  It was quieter in the private wing, but there were still large numbers of businessmen and women in suits speed walking through the area.

  “So what’s the plan—steal a plane?” Chen asked sarcastically.

  “I think I can certainly buy a few spots on a flight—not all of these planes are going to be full, and everyone has a price,” Holly said, feeling more hopeful than she had for the last couple of hours.

  She had enough money to buy all the private planes in the entire airport if she needed to, but none of that would make any difference in a short time. Death was coming and money would hold no value.

  “We also have these.”

  Evangelista pointed at the small arsenal strapped to Mattie’s back.

  “Well, let’s start negotiating our passage then,” Holly said as she walked toward an older bearded man dressed in a clean, dark business suit.

  Chen tapped the back of his ear.

  “I have a call coming in on the emergency military line. It’s Dr. Darren Corvin out of Harvard. You handle the tickets; I need to take this.”

  He walked off as Holly, Mattie, and Evangelista approached the businessman. Jing and Charles stood off to the side, arms handcuffed behind them, whispering between themselves. Holly wondered if they would be stupid enough to make a break for it. She continued eyeing them as they struck up a conversation with the businessman. He was the CEO of a pharmaceuticals company that had supplied one of the drugs used in a rejuvenation product produced by MadisonTech.

  Delmar Mahn had never met Holly, but knew Jeff very well. He readily agreed to let them hitch a ride on his corporate jet. He was headed to Amman, Jordon, which would get them very close to their destination in Iraq. He said they could use his plane after he got off.

  “It should be about an hour before the runway clears,” Delmar added. “So they tell me. But who knows with all of this craziness here at the airport, everyone trying to get the hell out of Dodge. And then there's the talk of an alien invasion. That's just nonsense, right?"

  "No, Delmar," Holly said, feeling he should know. "It's true, and all the more reason we need to get to the base. You're welcome to come with us. It may be one of the only safe places in the world very soon."

  Delmar's eyes widened in disbelief.

  "I. . . I can't believe that. It's just some hacker manipulating the streams again. There's no alien invasion. That's just absurd."

  Delmar dismissed the whole thing with a wave of his hand. Holly didn't have the energy to try and convince him of the truth. He would find out soon enough, with his own eyes.

  "We still need to get to out of here," Holly said. "Any ideas?"

  He pressed his lips together in firm resolution and his CEO mind began to look for solutions to the situation.

  "We may have to dig into our wallets to grease the wheels a bit to get my plane in the air. If enough people believe this crazy alien invasion is true, the crowd situation could get a lot worse before it gets any better.”

  Holly agreed and thanked him, and the group returned to Chen.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” he said, touching his ear to end the call. “But one of those teddy-bear-robot things has just jumped through the vortex at the Harvard test facility.”

  “What?” Holly asked, astonished. “Did it say anything? What did it do?”

  The last time Holly saw one of those things had been thirty-six years ago. And she’d seen two. One had tried to kill her and the other saved her life. Which team did this one play for?

  “It said it has the data but can only deliver it to Colonel Mathew Tedrow.”

  Mattie raised his eyebrows. “Why me?”

  “Who knows?” Chen said. “But Cambridge is in the opposite direction of where we need to go.”

  “It could be a trap,” Evangelista said, voicing Holly’s fear. “We know some of these things have been compromised. They could be trying to lure you in, Colonel, to take control of your mind.”

  “That is possible, I suppose,” Mattie said. “But from what I’ve seen, these aliens aren’t threatened at all by us. I doubt very seriously they would try some elaborate espionage-type ruse to get me to Cambridge to meet one of these robotic recon units.”

  He was right about that. Holly felt this was a legitimate lead to follow up on.

  “Well, we should at least report this to the president and see what he thinks,” Evangelista said.

  “Let me get Paulson first,” Mattie said, tapping his com-link.

  He spoke briefly with Paulson, with the others listening in.

  “He says retrieving the recon unit is the highest priority. It has information crucial to our survival. So I’m going to Cambridge. By myself. All of you can head to the other base.”

  The others glanced back and forth at each other. Holly wondered if splitting up was a good idea. But she wasn’t sure they could help Mattie anyway. He was a supersoldier, after all, and could control the nanobots enough to keep them from eating him.

  “He’s right,” Evangelista said. “Colonel Tedrow can handle himself. It’s my priority to get you two, and our prisoners, to the other base. We’ll need to find another plane for the colonel, though.”

  “Let’s start negotiating then,” Holly said, considering the crowd.

  Something caught the corner of her eye, some commotion back at the entrance to the private area. People were banging on the door and trying to get inside, pani
c turning to terror on their faces. The guard tried to hold them back, but he got forced out of the way very quickly.

  “We need to move now, ma’am.”

  Evangelista grabbed Holly tightly by her arm and tugged her toward the exit leading out to the private-plane boarding area. Chen, Jing, and Charles followed closely behind. Evangelista nodded toward Mattie.

  “Colonel Tedrow, I trust you can secure passage on your own,” he said, giving Mattie’s arsenal the once-over.

  “By any means necessary, Evangelista added. I shouldn’t have any trouble," Mattie said. "I’m also a fully licensed pilot so if I need to fly the plane to Cambridge myself, I will.”

  Mattie reached out for Evangelista’s hand, but before they could shake, the doors broke open and a screaming crowd poured through from the public boarding area.

  What the hell had them so terrified?

  Then Holly saw it.

  Several nanobots were buzzing overhead, like scouts. One zoomed down, dive bombing the screaming crowd and latching onto a man’s head. This creature was much larger than the bots that Holly was familiar with, and it was dark purple instead of bluish green. The bot crawled around the man’s face for a second. Before he could pry it off, it dove into his eye. Holly watched in horror as its backside disappeared, while it squirmed and dug into the man’s eye socket. Blood poured down his face as he fell to the ground.

  Other bots were randomly diving and burrowing into their human prey. All Holly could see were these few bots—a scouting party? Which meant there were more on the way.

  “We need to hurry,” Evangelista said again as they met up with Delmar Mahn.

  “It cost me one hundred and fifty thousand to get the next departure slot,” Delmar said, “But that was money well spent. We need to get the hell away from those bugs. Let’s go; my plane is this way!”

  Holly looked back and saw Mattie running in the other direction, toward a group of planes lined up on the runway. She raised her hand to wave goodbye, but he was quickly lost in the rushing crowd. She wondered if she would ever see him again.

  They ran, following Delmar to a sleek corporate jetliner. The stairs were already in place, with a sharply dressed pilot waiting beside them. “Mr. Mahn! You made it! We've already received reports from the tower about some kind of locust swarm headed this way”

  “Already here,” Delmar said, gesturing behind them. "Get us in the air as quickly as you can!"

  Holly peered over her shoulder. A flood of people were moving out on the runway, bursting from the terminal. Several were trying to stop a plane from leaving, standing directly in front of it on the runway. A group of about five were running toward them.

  “You all get on; I’ll take care of these people,” Evangelista said, drawing his pistol.

  Delmar looked over at him and blocked his arm before he could raise the weapon.

  “Those people are just scared and running for their lives, from those creatures, those locust things. We can take up to twenty, total, on this jet.”

  Evangelista nodded and holstered his weapon.

  Just as the group arrived, Holly heard a familiar buzzing from the sky above.

  The swarm.

  She and the others ran up the ramp into the plane. The five desperate strangers made their way inside as well. An attendant slammed the door behind them as more people tried to climb the stairs. Holly sat in one of the plush ergonomic leather chairs as someone banged on the door. Others ran under the plane, possibly trying to grab onto the wheels.

  “Sir, I can’t take off like this, with all these people around us,” the pilot said over the intercom.

  “Captain, get us out of here! I don’t care if you run those people down. If we don’t leave, we’re all dead! Those locust are eating people!”

  Delmar was shaking, eyes wide as he stared out the window.

  Holly pressed close to a window as the plane rolled forward. The full swarm was overhead now, dark and oppressive, like a purple cloud diving down, randomly plowing through the crowds on the runway, devouring them. Some tried to scratch the creatures off their bodies, violently jerking and contorting as the bots burrowed into their flesh. But they fell in pools of blood. Men, women, children—entire families—gone.

  Holly began tapping her knee, faster and faster, counting the rhythm.

  A loud thump banged against the window, then another and another. The bots were hitting the plane, flying around it like a tornado. One stuck to Holly’s window. It stared directly at her, its horrible purple eyes moving back and forth, veins pulsating through clear wings, sharp mandibles slowly opening and closing. Then its bulbous belly tensed and it drove its jaws into the glass, cracking it.

  Holly jumped away in horror.

  The plane was moving forward, but ever so slowly, then it stopped. The pilot’s voice came over the speaker.

  “Mr. Mahn, the runway is still blocked, and none of the other planes are taking off. The tower is not responding. I have nowhere to go.”

  The sound of breaking glass broke up the pilot’s message before they heard loud screams and a choking gurgle.

  A nanobot had broken through!

  It came flying in, then dozens more gushed through.

  Most of the passengers huddled together in the middle aisle, and Evangelista began firing his pulse weapon, trying to hit the creatures. He crouched in front of Holly and Chen to protect them.

  Jing and Charles were off to the side, closest to the window. Holly watched as their bodies were covered with purple metallic locusts. They hugged each other tight, dying in each other’s arms as the creatures dug deep into their bodies.

  Holly had no time to grieve anyone’s death before she felt a bot latch on to her cheek. She screamed as it dug sharp claws into her. She reached up and grabbed it, a squirming blend of hard shell and squishy insides, and wrenched it from her face. She could feel part of her cheek tearing off in the creature’s mandibles.

  Then another attached to her hand, more crawled up her leg, and another landed on her eye. She tried to pull them off, but there were too many, and they began biting. It was sheer agony as they bore into her flesh. The one on her eye bit down hard and buried itself in her eye socket. She could feel it burrowing into her skull.

  She fell to the floor, her body shuddering in shock and pain.

  The creatures dug deeper, writhing in her skull.

  This was the end, her worst fear realized.

  She was being devoured by the swarm.

  Chapter 30

  1:00 p.m. Local Time, January 16, 2038

  Chronos Two, Hillah, Iraq

  “Sir, New York is gone.”

  Paulson stood looking at the last footage they had before losing their video link with the scout drone. The once great and sprawling city had been deleted by the singularities generated by the man o’ wars, as they were now calling them. What was left was now being rebuilt by the nanoswarm into something else. As for the people who lived there, those who remained after Claire’s warning went out, all were gone.

  Other large cities throughout the world were being targeted and systematically destroyed as the giant alien ships moved over them. Survivors had fled to the countryside. Many were still alive, but it was only a matter of time before the swarms grew large enough to kill them all.

  The only bright spot was that many of the bunkers they’d built in various secret areas around the world remained intact. World leaders, VIPs, scientists, engineers, and others who could help rebuild the world were still safe. But Paulson wondered how long safety would last. The swarms had already found several of the bases and overwhelmed them. Eventually they would find the others.

  President Diaz had been in contact with many of the world leaders, and few still had functional governments. No militaries were left. He was glad they’d made the decision years ago to warn other countries of the attack. Some hadn’t believed him, but even they thought it would be prudent to build underground shelters just in case. At least it would buy
them some time.

  Occasionally word about what was going on would leak to the public. That's when the disinformation experts filled the stream with wild conspiracy theories about why the bunkers were needed—things like killer asteroids, alien invasions, and nuclear threats from terrorists. No one knew what to believe, so they dismissed it all as just a big hoax. Unfortunately they were right about the aliens.

  Now they were left with the task of figuring out who these creatures were that were trying to exterminate them.

  “Buddy, I have something to show you.”

  Paulson jumped; he hadn’t heard Claire approach. He was too immersed in his own thoughts about the Apocalypse unfolding around them. He sighed. Claire showing him something in private generally meant an unexpected surprise. He didn’t like unexpected surprises, especially bad ones. He examined her closely to see if there were signs she would lose control again, have another outburst of emotion.

  “It involves reconnaissance on the invaders.”

  “Let’s talk in the conference room.”

  Paulson left the command center feeling exhausted. He hadn’t slept in almost thirty hours. All he wanted to do was dump his old body in bed next to Gretchen. Instead he dropped into a chair in the conference room. Claire sat beside him.

  She got right to the point, seemingly back to her logical, unemotional self.

  “The toy recon units have been deployed.”

  “What? What are you talking about? We haven’t even designed one yet, much less figured out how to build it and deploy it in the field.”

  “I designed it.”

  So Claire was taking the initiative once again. He wondered what else she’d done and not told him about.

  “How?”

  “I used the data gathered from interactions with Raphael and Lady and the electronic remains we found off the coast of San Diego, as well experimentation with my body structure and neural network. After the design was complete, I merely diverted enough funds to construct a sufficient number of units.”

  Great. Not only did she design robotic “children” for herself, but she also used government funds to do it.