Johnny Winger and the Amazon Vector
Copyright 2014 Philip Bosshardt
“The role of the infinitely small is infinitely large.”
Louis Pasteur
Prologue
Village of Via Verde
Republic of Valencia, South America
Fall, 2068
For Dr. Hector del Compo, the trip up the Yemanha River came at a particularly bad time. Work was piling up at the Ministry, his eldest daughter was set to be married in less than two weeks, and the Deputy Minister had just rejected his choice to head up the public health lab, the dolt. So when U.N. BioShield advised the Ministry of some kind of ‘disturbance’ in the vicinity of Via Verde, “unusually high nanobotic activity” was the way the report had phrased it, del Compo gritted his teeth and organized a quick expedition to see what BioShield had detected. Maybe it would be a distraction from all the politics back at the Ministry. After all, it wasn’t everyday you got a message from BioShield that some kind of mass casualties had occurred way upriver in the black heart of la selva, the rain forest that covered the western two thirds of Valencia.
“Esta aqui?” came a voice from the back of the boat. It was Montoya, sergeant of the Guardia Nacional detail that was accompanying the scientists from the Ministry upriver. “The village is nearby, no?”
Del Compo watched the coffee-colored waters of the Yemanha River slide by. The two-boat fleet had chugged nearly forty kilometers upriver from Afalamos, heading for the last known encampment of Xotetli Indians, a place called Via Verde, the locus of the ‘disturbance’ according to BioShield. The sun was high in the sky—it was just after noon locally—but the light had fallen off in the dense canopy of wiry pandanus and tapang trees, now forming a cathedral arch over the sluggish river.
“Just around the bend, Sergeant,” Del Compo called out. “Let’s maneuver closer to shore.”
Montoya waved acknowledgement, then barked, “Watch for logs and shoals! De reche…steer toward the shore!”
The two boats slowed and shifted course, their props thrumming and churning water as the helmsmen turned them to starboard. The prow of the lead boat nosed around the curve of the shoreline, through swarms of buzzing insects and the first crude thatch lean-to’s of the Xotetli village came into view, perched on a shelf of cleared ground. Smoke issued from a smoldering fire in the center of the circle of huts.
Montoya snapped off more orders and the boats were poled to the river banks, their engines turned off. The Guardia detail climbed out and quickly secured a perimeter around the village, nosing briefly into the forest, poking bayonets and mag weapons into the huts, looking for anyone.
One soldier, Corporal Quinones, gave a shout.
“Aqui…aqui! Pronto!...” The corporal waved the others over.
Del Compo scrambled over the makeshift gangway and clawed his way up the bank. The village of Via Verde was little more than a collection of crude thatch huts and log lean-to’s, gathered in a circle around a firepit that was still smoldering.
Even as del Compo and his fellow scientists approached, they could see the legs of prostrate humans, sticking out of the huts.
Texeira bent to examine the nearest body. Quinones shone a flashlight on the face of the Xotetli Indian….it appeared to be a young male, otherwise healthy and uninjured, but indisputably dead. He had died with his eyes open. The young male was covered with painted tattoos and his lips and nose were pierced with tiny bone ornaments.
“What happened?” asked del Compo, noting at least four other males lying nearby.
“I’m not sure, but—“ Texeira turned the body over, looking for lividity and other signs of external trauma. “No open wounds…poison, maybe.” They both knew the Xotetli fashioned curare for their darts and arrows from the leaves and stems of chondrodendron vines.
“Gonzalez!” del Compo called back to the boat. “Bring the equipment…we need to do an autopsy.”
Gonzalez waved back, then hoisted up a crate and lugged it on shore, carrying the crate up to the village.
As the scientists set up, Montoya and his detail did a quick reconnaissance of the village and surrounding jungle. He came back after a few minutes, his face grim and pale.
“Profesor…the whole village…they’re all dead—“
“What?’
Montoya unholstered his own pulser and pointed it toward the huts opposite the firepit. “Come…see for yourself—“
Del Compo went with Montoya around the village, where the rest of the Guardia detail…Herrera, Uruguin, Fuentes and Goncalves…were systematically probing every hut and bush, turning up bodies by the dozen, slumped, sprawled and folded in every conceivable position.
Del Compo bent to examine an older man, maybe the curaca, or chief. He was adorned with a complex cape of vines and strips of tree bark. His face was hidden behind a mask of feathers—when del Compo peeled the mask back, he saw a middle-aged face staring up at him, eyes open. His lips and cheeks were noticeably blue.
The exam was interrupted by the sound of a heavy thud. Del Compo and Montoya both turned, and saw two of the soldiers had dropped to their knees, and were having trouble breathing…both were heaving deeply, gasping for air.
Del Compo got up and went to Herrera and Uruguin. “What is it? What’s wrong—what is it?”
Uruguin was young, his eyes wide. His hands fluttered about his chest. “I don’t know…I can’t breathe…my lungs…no air…” He gurgled and throttled, then pitched onto his side, his mouth working up and down like a fish out of water.
Del Compo bent down to examine the soldier’s face. It was turning pale, somehow he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. He started to probe around the soldier’s mouth, but stopped, feeling light-headed himself. Startled, he stood up abruptly.
“Texeira—“
The chemist had already uncrated the autopsy-bot and had set it to work on the dead man by the firepit. The bot attached itself to the man’s chest and neck with programmed efficiency and extended forceps and probes as it deftly sliced into the corpse.
“Texeira…the air…it’s bad! There may be an underground leak, toxic gases venting—“
Texeira nodded, quickly reading results from the bot. “Asphyxiation, senor Profesor…I thought so…blue lips and cheeks. The CO2 level’s way too high in his bloodstream….if this thing is right, it reads better than twenty kilopascals.”
Del Compo was now coughing as he came over. Others too…Montoya was already tending to Uruguin, even as two more Guardia soldiers collapsed.
“Hypercapnia…there’s too much carbon dioxide around here,” del Compo croaked.
“That’s…that’s not all,” said Gonzalez from the shoreline. He was struggling with more instruments, taking measurements from the riverbank. He swayed dizzily, then clung to a vine of strangler fig for support. “The air…she’s crazy…look at this! Not just the carbon dioxide is loco…it’s everything. Chlorine…fluorine…methane…this isn’t normal air, profesor! It’s crazy—“
“Poisoned--” Del Compo breathed out. His own lungs were on fire. “Something’s in the air…we’ve got to get out of here!”
Montoya signaled for the detail to return to the boats. The soldiers stumbled, coughing, clawing at their faces and chests, as they fell down the riverbanks and into the boats.
Del Compo sucked, coughed and wheezed as he helped Gonzalez get his gear back aboard. Montoya helped his own men and the boats were started up, their engines chugging against the water. Moments later, the craft eased out against the current, heading further upriver. Against Sergeant Montoya’s wishes. del Compo wan
ted to track the boundaries of this ‘bubble’ of bad air.
“If I’m right,” he wheezed, panting for breath, “it’s some kind of rogue nanobotic action, altering the air right here.”
“Or maybe toxic gases,” suggested Texeira. His face was still pale and beaded with sweat and he sat heavily in the stern, still gasping for breath. “---venting from an underground reservoir.”
The fresh breezes helped and by the time the detail had rounded the next bend, the worst of the toxic air seemed to have fallen behind. Del Compo and Gonzalez studied their instruments, increasingly uneasy at what they were finding.
“A zone of death,” Gonzalez said. “All around Via Verde…maybe that’s what killed the Xotetli.”
Del Compo nodded, studying the low hanging clouds that were scudding over the tree tops. “A protected tribe…gone. Maybe it was loggers…or ranchers.” There had been incidents before.
“Or worse,” added Texeira, mopping his forehead with a wet handkerchief.
Gonzalez tuned the detectors. “It doesn’t make any sense. Look, profesor…at the riverbank, the air quality is poor…even the basic percentages are all wrong. See—?” he pointed to several displays on the instrument face. “Ozone levels practically at zero, partial pressure of oxygen falling, CO2 rising…”
The small fleet rounded the bend and Montoya shouted aft. Del Compo followed his pointing arm.
On the riverbank, were more Xotetli, apparently dead, draped over fallen tree stumps and sprawled at the foot of trees. Ten or more bodies. Animals too. The decaying carcass of a sloth lay half buried in the muck.
“…but here in the middle of the river…the air improves.” Del Compo saw he was right. The instruments reflected it…oxygen and nitrogen levels approaching normal, the further they got from the banks.
Del Compo signaled to Montoya. “Pull up to that grotto!” he yelled over the wind noise. A dank cavern of limestone overhung the river ahead of them and to the left, covered with boughs of moss and fallen branches of screw pine. To Gonzalez: “Watch the instruments as we approach.”
The boats eased landward, bouncing through a small hydraulic foaming around a tree stump and nosed toward the cavern. Bats screeched inside, fluttering the air, with the drone of a thousand wings.
Del Compo felt light-headed as they bumped against the limestone outcropping. The instruments didn’t lie…even as he watched, the oxygen levels had begun falling off. Carbon dioxide had already risen well beyond fifteen kilopascals, high enough to impair judgment. Trace constituents were all wrong, like some kind of pall of pollution had fallen over the grotto…it was crazy.
Ashore, when their eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom of the lighting, animal carcasses by the dozen littered the bare rock sides of the limestone cliffs.
Something was altering the air and, in his imagination, del Compo thought he heard the faint keening whine of nanoscale robots above the screech of the bats. Gonzalez was right…a bubble of noxious, deadly air was swelling up from this grotto and around the village of Via Verde, killing every living thing as it expanded outward.
A gas vent underground, perhaps? It had happened before, and killed thousands in Africa last century. A new strain of virus, mutated or genetically altered to affect air molecules themselves….was that what BioShield had detected?
Or perhaps a baby reservoir of nanobots sown by unscrupulous ranchers and loggers, trying to clear another swath of the upper Amazon basin for production.
The soldiers were already coughing and gagging and del Compo realized with a start that they’d have to vacate the area and come back with the right protective gear…and the Guardia Nacional as well. They didn’t have the equipment to fight this.
“Let’s go back!” del Compo decided, rubbing the temples of his head. He had a fierce headache splitting the back of his head, like needles being driven into his skull. “Downriver…head back to Afalamos!”
Montoya gave the order gratefully but before the two boats could turn about, the river water began foaming and bubbling between them, sending huge waves washing over the gunwales. Something thrashed just below the surface and as Corporal Fuentes bent over the rail to investigate, a pair of mottled green arms breached the surface and wrapped themselves around the soldier’s neck.
Instantly, Fuentes was pulled from the boat and into the midst of the foaming water!
“Fuentes! Uruguin!” Montoya stumbled as the creature bumped against the boat, rocking them sideways. The sergeant scrambled across the deck, fumbling for a weapon, a machete, a pulser, anything—
At the same time, more creatures breached the surface, snagging the second boat with their arms—tentacles—trunks…it was hard to see in all the foaming, thrashing water.
“Watch out!” yelled Texeira, as del Compo lost his balance, thudding heavily to the deck. He slid to the railing, as the boat tilted, just as a third creature reared up in a spray of water, and for a second, the profesor was face to face with the black button eyes of a demon from the depths of Hell itself.
It was taller than a man, but thinner, vaguely human in general shape, with a leathery head bristling with black fuzzy hair. Tiny slit eyes dripped or oozed black silt from the riverbed and below what passed for a neck, five or six arms or appendages flailed against the side of the boat with the ferocity of a crazed beast.
“Demonio!” yelled one of the soldiers. The crack of magpulser fire stitched a line of death across the chest of the demon and it fell back with keening whine, more black oozing from the gaping wound across the bony breastplate of its chest. It sank quickly beneath the water, even as del Compo scrambled to his feet.
All around and between the boats, the demonio had surged to the surface, thrashing and slamming against the two boats, pitching and tossing them as if they were small rafts. Soldiers stumbled and clung to whatever they could find. Fuentes was gone. He’d never surfaced. As del Compo watched, Uruguin took dead aim with a pulser at the face of one, trying to climb aboard the boat from the stern, and sliced a slash of black death across its bony head. It screeched and clawed at the air for a moment, then pitched backward into the river.
“There’s dozens of them!” Herrera yelled.
“We’re outnumbered!” someone else screamed.
Montoya was already ducking into the pilothouse, gunning the engine of his boat, while Gonzalez was nearly pulled from his perch along the starboard rail. Green mottled arms wrapped themselves around his legs and were pulling him inexorably toward the edge.
‘Help! HELP ME!!...”
Del Compo dove for the nearest thing he could find…a fire ax mounted on a bulkhead behind the pilothouse. He scrambled forward and swung with all his strength, striking the green arm with the ax edge.
Black fluid exploded in the air as he severed the arm from Gonzalez’ leg. From the side of the boat, a bony head appeared momentarily, its face scrunched up in pain, as it reached out for something else.
Again, del Compo swung the ax like a halberd and struck the creature on the side of the head, cleaving its skull with a sickening thud. It clawed the air, thrashed wildly, then slipped off the gunwales and slid beneath the water.
“GET US OUT OF HERE!” del Compo yelled at the top of his voice. Headache still pounded his own skull, though the demonio seemed unaffected. Texeira had made it to the pilothouse and was already turning them downriver, even as the engines rumbled to life.
But the water all around them was thick with the creatures.
“There must be hundreds!—“
“We’re surrounded--!”
Pulser fire stitched and ripped the air, as beams crisscrossed the small grotto. Del Compo saw two more demonio clambering aboard their own boat, as Texeira rammed the throttles forward. They clawed their way up onto the stern deck well and began crawling like huge, dripping spiders up the incline of the stairs. Twenty feet away, from the stern of Montoya’s boat, Corporal Quinones saw w
hat was happening.
He took dead aim with his own weapon and let fly a magpulse at point blank range, burning off half the creature’s back and head.
It reared up in pain and lost balance, pitching sideways into the river, where it was promptly struck by the surging bow of the boat.
The second creature scuttled forward a few more feet, but this time del Compo and Gonzalez were ready, with fire ax and fathoming pole. As soon as the creature scuttled within range, they attacked.
Del Compo managed to sever two of its appendages by the time Gonzalez had clubbed the thing into a semi-conscious stupor. It slid back down the stairs and lodged in a seething heap in a corner of the deck well, oozing life. Neither man saw the ragged stumps where its tentacles had been hacked off…starting to regrow, starting to regenerate.
The other boat pulled alongside, with Quinones and Fuentes both taking dead aim at the still moving creature.
“WAIT!” yelled del Compo. “Don’t shoot…!”
“Are you loco, profesor…this thing is the devil itself!”
“Don’t shoot…” del Compo held up his heads. “Maybe we can tranquilize it, immobilize it. I want to take it back to the city. To my lab.”
The two Guardia soldiers looked at each other, each thinking the same thought. El profesor es loco… They shook their head, partially lowered their weapons.
“At least the air’s getting better, eh?” shouted Texeira from the pilothouse. He dropped the throttle and the boat slowed, with Montoya’s boat slackening off as well.
Soon the small flotilla was chugging downriver at a more manageable ten knots. Montoya directed his pilot, Private Uruguin, to bring them alongside. When the boats were only a few feet apart, he leaped to the deck of the scientists’ boat and landed on all fours. He stood up and regarded the wounded demonio shaking and moaning in the deck well. A blurry cloud, like a horde of flies, buzzed around its severed stumps.
“We can’t take that thing back with us…too dangerous,” Montoya decided. He withdrew his own pulser sidearm and dialed it up to maximum, taking aim at its oozing head.
“Don’t shoot it,” del Compo pleaded. “Let’s restrain it, throw some netting over it. Gonzalez…you have serum in that kit of yours? Maybe we sedate it.”
Johnny Winger and the Amazon Vector Page 1