 
Dust

By G L Carpenter

Copyright 2011, 2012, 2013 G. L. Carpenter

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. When names of actual places, organizations, or individuals are used they are used with no assertion that their descriptions or actions are reported here as fact.

"Because of accelerating technological progress, humankind may be rapidly approaching a critical phase in its career. In addition to well-known threats such as nuclear holocaust, the prospects of radically transforming technologies like nanotech systems and machine intelligence present us with unprecedented opportunities and risks."

Existential Risks Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards - Nick Bostrom, PhD Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University

[Published in the Journal of Evolution and Technology, Vol. 9, March 2002. First version: 2001]

## Chapter 01 - EJSM

Jon Davis used both thumbs to uncork the magnum of California's own Russia River valley champagne. The kiss of the pressure release also uncorked applause and cheers from the specialists and quests in the JPL mission control room. They were celebrating because on the screens around them they could see images of Jupiter's sixth moon, Europa, sent from their Europa Jupiter System orbiter, JIMO.

The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter was a robot explorer that had successfully navigated millions of miles of space and survived thousands of obstacles both technical and political to be where it was now doing what it was prepared to do now. These modern human explorers, who never left home, were celebrating because this might not have been.

In good times, the thrill of finding stuff out is enough to give scientists the incentive and the tenacity to do the work they do when other rewards are long deferred. These were not good times.

In good times, a magnum of champagne would not be enough, but these were not good times. Yet in this moment, backs were slapped, hands were shaken, even hugs were exchanged while glasses were filled and lifted "to success!"

"And to our secret benefactor!" added Jon with his glass high answered by a unanimous "here –here".

"And." Continued Jon holding his glass in front of his chest without drinking. "We must remember all of our colleagues who are now unemployed since congress cut all funding to NASA. These were good people, hardworking people, brilliant people \-- now in the country's rubbish bin." With a noticeable catch in his voice, Jon concluded. "To our friends! This is for you too."

In these desperate financial times, Congress had cut funding for NASA to zero. Their kind of science wasn't so important after all. If done at all it should be controlled by private business for profit. However, deep space exploration just didn't show a quarterly return on investment worth the effort.

Finding private funding in a drooping economy was a failure. Hope and some private money were raised but it didn't last a season. The European space agency, like all of Europe, was in an equally desperate situation. Without competition or collaborators, even the Chinese enterprise was coasting. Meanwhile, everyone who had worked for the National Air and Space Administration and the Jet Propulsion Lab had been laid off over a year ago.

The mission goals and parameters for the Europa Jupiter System Mission had changed several times in the years before the launch — before the most recent recession. Since its conception over three decades ago, each administration had supported different objectives and levels of financial commitment to space exploration. In a transient period of global optimism, the mission was restored to its full potential by piggybacking on joint expedition with the European Space Agency. Then the economy crashed once again.

When the last of the funding for NASA was yanked, the Europa Jupiter System Mission would have been scraped even though all the important money had already been spent, the probe was already in the Jupiter system, and all that was needed was for someone to receive the data sent back to earth. This one mission was saved by an anonymous multi-million dollar contribution to keep the equipment up and running and staffed by some the recently laid-off scientists.

In this last day of summer, these lucky scientists were permitted to do science for the sake of finding stuff out. What they intended to find out might be mind shattering. These twenty-first century explorers were rejoicing because they were now in a position to make discoveries. They hadn't even made any discoveries yet but oh, what a discovery they were hoping to find!

"OK people," announced Jon clapping his hands in a sign of anticipation "show time!

"I know Jim O' has more brain power than anyone in the room, except for Frank," The fifty something black gentleman at the second station nodded in mock agreement. "But we will only get this one chance at this and Jim O' needs all our help now. Let's make history!"

The imperfect world outside the building was forgotten. This team had waiting two and a half years for the probe to explore the Jupiter system and arrive at its final destination – Jupiter's sixth moon, the ice covered Europa. This was the pièce de résistance of the whole mission. Beneath Europa's ice scientist suspected liquid water – the womb of life. To explore that potential harbinger of life was the culmination of this robotic space mission.

Europa's ice is kilometers thick. To access the water beneath an atomic powered thermal drill was to land on the ice and probe deep into the overburden of rock solid ice.

The search for extraterrestrial life had been a quest to find the elusive for decades. The plug was pulled on the Mars exploration years ago during a previous recession. Because of the current world economy, this attempt would be the last for who knows how long.

After the celebrating, people went to work processing data and preparing for the search for extraterrestrial life. There were press releases to write and web pages to update. Specialists organized photos and cataloged other data returning from Europa to compile what would be needed to back-fill the public announcement of the arrival of the Jupiter System Mission in a stable orbit around Europa

The sound of human conversation in the control room was interrupted by a synthetic voice. "Excuse me team, but I am sending you Images and data of an unexplained phenomenon on the Jupiter side of Europa." With that simple statement, the Automated Scientific Control capabilities of the Europa orbiter's on-board computer interrupted the mission team's work and changed the course of history.

The probe's electronic brain was referred to as Jim O'. It was like a team member, albeit the one without enthusiasm. Jim O' communicated with humans in multimedia. It presented the photos and videos it relayed with captions and voice over narrative accompanied with pages of data tables and graphs. It could understand speech and human body language but took its direction from typed commands to increase clarity.

The pictures and data sent from Europa showed puzzling differences between what was being recorded and what had been seen decades before from previous Europa surveys.

The new pictures from the robot orbiter, presented a mystery of a moon changing color as a band of dark gray was now superimposed across the icy sphere of Europa. As close-ups of the changed area were received and inspected under magnification the darkening area could be seen to grow from one orbit of Europa to the next. It was difficult to pick out in the visible spectrum because this side of Europa was headed into sunset but enhanced imagery showed it plainly. No one, not even Jim O', had a theory explaining what was happening. There was no venting from the surface. It was not limited to fissures. There was just this creeping field of darkness across the otherwise continuous globe-encircling field of ice illuminated in the reflected glow of the giant gas planet Jupiter. It looked like a dust storm on a moon without dust, only ice.

Team leader Jonathan Davis told his PR tech just to release the canned blurb on the mission until there was a chance to look at this. "This could be significant. We don't want to get it wrong. A scientist was nothing without a reputation. Reputations are careers and could be killed by proposing too radical an idea without adequate documentation. These last few years making a living doing what you loved to do was getting harder. Depending on how this turned out they could all be looking for jobs.

Jon was a long time NASA employee. In the past when this became known in public it was assumed he must be an astronaut – he looked fit enough to meet the public expectations. In fact, manned flight was his first interest. As a young man, he was turned down for that program but he did land a job with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory unmanned space exploration group. He had a good mind for science and was a competent administrator. He didn't design the missions but he could make them happen. With those skills, he could make more money in industry but he liked what he did. That is probably why he was good at it. He was one of those who loved what they did so much that now he worked without pay.

With the real-time discovery of this new and interesting feature of creeping darkness on Europa, Jim O' suggested a new landing site for the atomic drill. The landing site was changed to the vicinity of the spreading stain on a face of Europa that perpetually faces Jupiter. This was almost as good a drilling site as the previously chosen one and it would be very interesting to find out what was causing this rapid change on the moon's surface. The drill probe was decoupled from the orbiter; it fired rockets twice to slow it's orbital speed; it drifted down through Europa's very thin atmosphere and, with giant balloons to protect it, dropped right on target.

The sun had just risen on the landing site. The Lander lay like an abandoned truck tire alone and silent on the ice. With the glow of Jupiter filling the sky, it couldn't even manage a shadow to keep it company, and yet there was a shadow creeping toward it. It spread across the ice like poverty, fear, and ignorance, turning black what was meant to be bright, beautiful, and pure.

In a few hours, Europa would pass behind Jupiter, into its shadow, and there would be real night but darkness would overtake the Lander before then. The Lander computer, a copy of the one on the orbiter, referred to as Jim L', directed analysis of the approaching substance. The humans watching the video feed in far off California supplied the fear Jim'L was incapable.

The probe's computers were designed to control the analysis strategies for the mission because control from Earth was untimely. The signal travel-time between Earth and Jupiter is thirty-five minutes when the two planets are closest in their orbits. Not only was best-case over an hour round trip signal delay in communicating with Europa but the orbiter passed behind Europa every two hours and Europa passes behind Jupiter every three and a half days for almost three hours. Communication was a periodic thing that also required predictions of where the receiver was going to be when the signal arrived. There would be no point in sending a message if the receiver is going to be behind a moon or planet when it arrives.

The probe's cameras watched as the creeping shadow engulfed the decent rocket stage that had impacted nearby. It watched as eventually the mystery black cloud washed up against the probe as it lay vulnerable on the ice.

Attempts to take samples of the mystery substance were inconclusive. The substance was very corrosive and active considering the temperature was only 103 degrees Kelvin. Bits of the Lander were being dissolved.

The mission control team at JPL in Pasadena watched their display screens to see images and telemetric data feeds from the probe go dead. The spirit of joy and expectancy was expelled from each observer in a collective sigh.

The drill probe's onboard computer had turned its microscope and nanobeam molecular analyzer toward the gray substance coloring the ice on Europa and returned indications of macromolecules – animated, large, and evidently capable of reproducing, yet not biological. Then the probe went dead — eaten by the nanobots or killed by radiation from Jupiter that would incapacitate a human in half an hour.

The molecular analyzer had reported mega molecules. DNA is a mega molecule — it defines life on earth but it does not routinely dissolve metal and plastic.

The discovery of self-reproducing nano machines on an extraterrestrial body was the discovery of the century — of any century of human existence. Extraterrestrial life, however you define it, of this complexity means humans may not be alone in the universe. To find it in our own solar system makes the discovery even more remarkable. There was understandable excitement at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena where the mission was being controlled and monitored. The loss of an expensive probe was nothing compared to the discovery it had reported, if it were true. The scientists wanted more information before they made fools of themselves reporting that life had been found in outer space. Another false report could be the end of a career.

The orbiter locked its cameras onto the probe and zoomed in. Orbital timings prevented the orbiter from sending pictures to Earth until it emerged from the backside of Jupiter three and a half hours later. By the time the Pasadena crew got an image, there was no probe to be seen, only grayness. Yes, these were the right coordinates. The JPL team spent the rest of the day analyzing data.

The next morning it was noticed that the probe that had disappeared from the surface the night before had again appeared in the field of gray on Europa. This was shock enough and set technicians to the task of again running diagnostics on all the equipment they could access. On the next orbit of Europa a second Lander near the first was observed — then two others and four additional on successive orbits.

At first, they doubted their equipment, then their own senses. When they accepted what they saw great excitement filled the control room. Not even in their wildest dreams had they considered the discovery of an entity that could reproduce machines that it encountered.

"It's converting up welled metal salts." Offered a speculating team member. "But it probably can't reproduce the electronics or the Radioactive Power System."

The riot of theories about what was observed fell silent and scientists looked at each other in total disbelieve when, in the reflected light from Jupiter's clouds, the team could plainly see on their monitors a whole fleet of landing probes fire descent rockets and ascend from the European ice surface which was no longer gray.

Too many objects to count entered orbit around Europa. The bewildered computer onboard the EJSM orbiter tracked the center of the mass with its high definition telephoto cameras as the fleet of launders shifted orbit and congregated into a clumps. The clumps transformed themselves into giant copies of the craft that had been sent to the surface. These artifacts of planet devouring self-replicating microscopic machines then fired rockets and left European orbit. As soon as the rockets burned out the giant crafts dissolved into a gray cloud and was lost from the view of the robot telescope.

The JPL team leader Jon Davis was present to watch from a mission control room, which hadn't changed much in appearance in fifty years. "Where is that going?" he demanded to know pointing to the spot on the huge wall mounted monitor where the mystery craft had just disappeared.

A blond technician at one of a row of consoles waved her hands like a Middle Eastern dancer in front of her 3D display screen to ascertain trajectory. "We have visual and ranging radar" she talked to herself as she worked. "Acceleration, duration, speed, trajectory." She brought up a Jupiter system diagram and dropped the vector data on it. At length she turned to Davis and gave him what he wanted to know in under a minute. "It looks like it's headed for a gravity boost around Ganymede and then it's off for..." She pinched at her screen to enlarge the field" to ah, well in this case we have to factor in solar wind." she muttered and poked toward her screen again. "Oh, shit!" She said. "The closest object on the projected course is... Earth, sir."

Jon thought for a moment and muttered, "I'm glad that picture didn't go out live over the cable network."

He spoke a few code words into his headset and then announced to everyone watching the feed. "It looks like our search for extraterrestrial life has been successful, but has been interpreted as an invitation to come visiting. Until we have a chance to analyze everything that we have seen I recommend you all keep what we have seen in the strictest confidence. Understood?" He made the gesture of zippered lips. We have to be sure of what just happened before we try to explain it.

"Troy!" said Jon. "Troy, where are you?"

"Here" said a red headed young man near the back wall of the room.

"Shut down the web server."

Troy didn't move. He took out his cell phone, tapped the screen a dozen times, then looked up and said in a discernibly European accent "Done, sir".

"Is the European Space Ops Center online?"

"Indirectly" said Troy in a booming baritone voice "they're getting the feed from here via Goldstone and DSN. Their ESTRACK system is on call as backup. So far, they're getting batched data feeds every eight hours. They were waiting until the good parts when we do the drilling. With their budget cuts they are only manned part time."

"Call the Darmstadt control center. Tell them no one talks till we look into this." commanded Jon.

"Ok Boss." was the young man's reply. "Should we have them be on the lookout for our UFO with their Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter?"

Jon thought a second and said, "They could try but there's nothing there but space dust".

"ETA?" asked Jon of the helpful tech. The tech pointed down with a question on her face. Jon nodded.

"..."We're inside the Hohmann transfer orbit window." Mumbled the tech in deep concentration. The screen was prodded a few more times. Nervously fingers alternating between the screens and tucking hair behind an ear where it did not want to stay. The tech still talking to herself "Thirty months coasting, falling actually, all the way" — then to Jon "Arrives mid March, sir, the 15th. Ah, unless they do another burn. It could be sooner."

As Jon left the op control room with another man, a visitor, he announced over his shoulder "There will be a meeting in two hours in the lecture hall".

Jon returned to his office and made two phone calls.

The wide screen monitors high on the walls in the mission control room showed an unchanging field of stars with one very bright star called Sol near the left field of view. All of these ancient inhabitants of heaven seemed complicitly unconcerned about the future of the young and perhaps transitory human race soon to be host to an uninvited guest with the ability to dissolve anything interesting it encountered.

## Chapter 02 - Hush

Jon Davis stood behind a podium "Ladies and gentlemen this facility is in lock-down. All visitors, not privy to the recent event, have been escorted from the site. I called this group meeting to impress on you the necessity for discretion. I must ask you not to tell anyone what you have seen in the feed from Europa. The news that a huge system of apparently intelligent nano material capable of disassembling anything it encounters is on its way to earth shall not be revealed to anyone outside those in this room. In the absence of an executive council, I have informed certain government officials of our findings and we have been told this information is now top secret. HLS people are on their way to our location.

"Anyone found violating this gag order can be dealt with by all means necessary. Is that clear? It's that important. So if you're thinking you can make a good buck giving an interview to the media consider that you and whomever you talk to could suffer an immediate disappearance. This goes way beyond your employment nondisclosure agreement. Anyone who made phone calls or received them on this facility within the last day will be questioned by experts from homeland security.

"The information that earth will likely be attacked by this intelligent substance would undoubtedly cause a panic so severe it would shut down what's left of the world economy. It might even cause governments to collapse. Other than the consideration that this would be very bad for the population, it might mean the difference between our survival and our extermination. We need a working world economy in order to build a defense against this threat. If the world falls into chaos, we are doomed.

"Currently we have no way to defend the planet from such a threat. In the time we have, we must come up with an effective defense or we are all dead. Yours is a great responsibility because you are on the inside. We have counseling available in-house for those who feel the need to talk out your feelings or get pointers on how to act around your family. You, of course, cannot talk about this to anyone outside.

"Are there any questions?" Everyone seemed to have questions. Jon raised his hand. One at a time, please. May I have hands, please?"

"What kind of defense can we come up with?" came a voice.

"There aren't many options if it arrives here as a dust. Fighting fire with fire is the best idea we've had in the short time we've had. We could build our own nano defense system. We have the technology. My friend Doctor E Steven Rice is with us. He is head of engineering at Nanothink International Corporation. Without his help we wouldn't have the radiation hardened ultra-miniature artificial intelligent processors on our probes and on the European space probes. It will be his discipline that will take on the defense task. But we as part of the whole scientific and industrial community have a lot of work to do to deploy such a system."

"I have two questions: Do you really think you can keep something like this quiet? Are we reacting to the public's fear or to your own?"

"I certainly hope we can keep it from the public at least until we have reasonable expectations of success. I don't know what you are getting at with your second question but anybody who isn't scared by the prospects of having the planet wiped clean of all biology isn't sane."

"How sure are we that this invasion is actually going to happen?"

"No future is certain. That's what leaves room for hope. We are attributing the actions we have observed to biological motivations – trying to work their way up the food chain. But maybe they are just going to stop by to say hi."

"Umm" Jon stumbled embarrassed by his attempt at sarcastic humor.

"Now we are going to break up into smaller groups for more discussion and for instruction on how to act when you leave here. You are a very select group of individuals. I have every faith in you and your ability to pull off the greatest scientific enterprise of the human race. There are folks at the doors to take names and to direct you to your group meetings.

"Good afternoon."

Jon put down his notes and said, "Well, what do you think?"

Jon wasn't speaking in front of the site personnel. His podium was in his own conference room and there were only four others there.

"No one in the room looked happy. But only the visitor, Steven Rice, spoke. "It's too bad your guys didn't find that this was a hoax. It wouldn't be such a problem if it were shown to be a hoax."

"But we analyzed all the data and it looks valid and it came from the Jupiter system." Pointed out Jon.

"But we would have a more controlled situation if this were shown to be a hoax." repeated Steven just a little louder. Jon got it. He knew Steven wasn't a slow or inattentive person. Jon got what Steven was really saying. When Jon got the message, everyone in the room, to one degree or another, got it.

Steven continued, "There is no way you can keep this from getting out even under pain of death. There are just too many people and media paths to lock down. The only way to contain it is to invalidate it. We have to make it look like a hoax."

He went on with only a second's pause. "If we present evidence that it is a hoax we can kill the idea in the general population. People tend to believe what they want to believe and no one wants to believe that tinny little machines are coming to earth to gobble them up. It is true some people prefer to believe the worst possible scenario but people have become used to their hysterics and those that aren't as loony as they are will treat them as entertainment. Those with enough ambition and intellect to delve into the truth we will take into our confidence and gain their silence and perhaps their help. If we can get this business dismissed as a manufactured hoax, we can begin our work on a defense. If anything slips out along the way we can point to the sensationalism of the original hoax." Steven paused for comment.

Jon looked relieved. "I don't like lying to people. But I like threatening them less. This, I think, is the better approach." said Jon interrupting the general murmur of agreement in the small group. "It's doable but we probably have less than twelve hours to set the stage. I'll give you six hours to come up with something then we will get back together here. Send anyone you will need to help you to me. I'll brief them personally about what we are up to. We will have to see to it that everyone else believes the hoax thing. Now Get to it. I'll tell the team what we have decided at the two o'clock.

"Meeting adjourned. Steven, can you stay a minute?"

The others left closing the door.

"Head of engineering?" Asked Steven, putting his phone into a pocket.

"I didn't think your stature would be improved in this group by telling them you were also the owner of the company."

Steven's eyes widened.

"What if people don't believe the hoax story?" pondered Jon.

"Like I said, some won't. To them everything is a conspiracy. I checked...," said Steven patting the phone in his pocket. "There are already web pages and blogs about smart dust lose in the world. We can point to these to discredit the unbelievers. But even if the general public won't buy in, it doesn't really matter. In their fear, they will demand that something be done to save their petty little lives. We will have the answer." encouraged, Steven. "It will just be a little rougher to work with the tide of fear sloshing about. But I think they will buy the hoax story.

People just want to feel good. Feeling in control makes them feel good. That's why thousands of mothers believed the hokum, put out by a liability lawyer trying to drum up business, about measles inoculations causing problems. Thousands endangered their children's health by mistakenly denying them inoculations. But they felt good because they had taken charge of the problem. The same people refused to believe in climate change or financial irresponsibility because they couldn't see anything they could do to control the situation. That did not make them feel good so they refused to believe.

In this case, there is nothing people can do to protect themselves from a threat from outer space. They will welcome any excuse not to believe it. I think we are good to go"

Jon and Steven smiled at each other; then hugged each other; then kissed each other on the lips. It was firm but it wasn't a tongue swallowing sexual kiss. It was a short duration comfort kiss as loving married people exchange at times of stress.

Still in an embrace, Jon said, "Well, I have a meeting to do. I'll tell everyone that I think this is a hoax and that I have people looking into it and they should keep their mouths shut in the mean time.

Steven patted Jon on the ass and left the room with his usual brisk walk.

Not a lot of people knew Steven was gay because he preferred it that way and did nothing to reveal it in the workplace. Steven grew up a native Texan in a place and time when being gay was not something you put on your bumper sticker if you wanted a mainstream job.

Steven and Jon met in Houston while Steven was teaching at Rice University. He was there because of Rice's long involvement with nanotech not because there was a family connection. Steven really wasn't all that interested in teaching and the pay wasn't terrific but the university afforded him the facility to do research. And graduate students could be free workers.

Jon was in Houston on assignment during the closing days of the US manned space shuttle missions. Perhaps a few of the hundreds laid off could get jobs in California. Steven and Jon met when Jon attended a lecture that Steven gave on the new era of intelligent machines and nothing was ever the same for either of them. Jon was smitten.

Steven was older by six year, as tall as Jon, distinguished looking, oozing self-confidence, and unable to take his eyes of Jon.

Jon was tall dark and handsome, a quality that got him a lot of notice from nubile, and not so nubile, females. Depending on the situation, he would tell them he was gay or show them a wedding ring he wore. When he met Steven, he took off the ring. He just knew by the way Steven looked at him.

Steven found Jon good looking, delightful, and interested in him. Nothing makes a person more attractive than to have them interested in you. Jon was also interested in other things that would keep him an interesting person even when the infatuation wore off. Chief among those interests was space.

For Steven, space exploration was one branch of science that had never interested him before Jon. Now he couldn't get enough.

NASA needed intelligent space probes to control remote and complicated scientific exploration. Artificial intelligence using nanotechnology was Steven's prime field of interest and expertise. NASA was considering nano space probes. Steven's work was a good fit. Maybe Jon could get him connected.

Steven and Jon were a perfect match. Neither ever looked further and felt truly lucky to have found each other. When Jon's assignment was over at the Houston Space Center, he returned to Pasadena. Steven followed and was glad to put Texas behind him. It had been uncomfortable for him in a conservative state but he had learned skills for blending in in a straight world.

In California, Steven's fortunes changed. He found backers and started a small company making intelligent controllers, which were sold, to military suppliers. Soon Rice 3D processors and software were running battlefield devices for multiple branches of the armed forces. To offset the distaste of military use for his A.I. Steven also provided controllers for robot surgeons – machines whose purpose was to save lives not take them. Two of his processors were on NASA's EJSM probe that had discovered the alien nanos. Steven and his backers had done well.

## Chapter 03 – Hoax

Jon's assistant Frank Moore was an amazing guy. He was legally blind but still did his job with the aid of large print monitors and other apparatus. Age Related Macular degeneration had hit him younger than the usual victim and it was ignored too long. It was not addressed because it was unheard of in his race and age group.

His enthusiasm for his job counterbalanced the usual deep depression one would experience when losing vision in middle age. He still had his sense of humor. He liked to tell stories.

One was about a mother and four-year-old boy who passed him as he waited for the bus to go home. The boy noticing his white cane brazenly came up to him and in the candidness only the young can mount asks, "Did you play with yourself when you were little?" Being naturally truthful and seeing the humor in it, Frank responded with suitable gravity of voice. "Yes, I did."

The mother embarrassed and impatient dragged the boy off before Frank could amend his statements. "That is going to be a very frustrated youth." Frank would say to end his story.

Frank was speaking. "This is really a hard thing for scientist to do. We are all about finding the truth and now we are asked to fabricate a lie. I think we need to find someone from national security to help us."

Jon replied without scowling "Now Frank, it's not very scientific of you to perpetuate the myth that our government lies to us." Jon's penchant for thoroughness took over and he continued beyond what was needed as a reply. "There have been cases where politicians, who are not scientists, have had the notion that a lie believed is as good as the truth. There are way too many folks too lazy to find the truth who would rather believe a lie from a politician than the truth from a scientist. It makes Political Science the granddad of all oxymorons.

"The difference here is that we have been given a truth that the general public would not be able to deal with. There is nothing they could do with that information to help themselves. We have seen what happens when fear of far less consequences then this washes through the ruck of humanity."

Frank raised his hand to acknowledge what Jon was saying and redeem himself with "We all know why we have to do this. We will attack it as any technical problem that needs a solution. If we work through the night, I think we can pretty much have the thing done by morning. We will need someone from communications to tell us how we could be hacked into and have these images inserted into our data stream. Troy is our best computer systems geek and by being candid with him we should gain his help and his silence."

Jon nodded assent.

"We will process the files we have recorded adding a bit here and there by simulation to make the files look like they were the source of the transmissions and not the end. We'll have them analyzed by experts, who we will recruit to our objective, to verify that the whole thing is a hoax."

Changing his tone of voice Frank continued, "No wonder conspiracy theories abound. It is so easy to pull one off if you really do have conspirators.

"We will announce another glitch in our Jupiter system exploration but that the mission will continue without the atomic bore which was lost in rough ice on landing. Still makes me feel ambivalent as a scientist." concluded Frank in a lower voice.

"Excuse me, Frank" interrupted one of the other members of the special team. "I heard that the drill probe was seen again on the surface of Europa when they pointed the cameras back to the landing site — still no communications with it yet though."

"Curiouser and curiouser" said Jon "Well, we do have a glitch don't we? No lie there."

"Great work guys. I knew I could count on you. We'll post the story on the web. Meantime I have brought the Director on board. He and I are having a secure video conference in two hours with the congressional oversight committee. Steven Rice and I have had discussions about the next move. It looks like JPL will be handing over the problem of what to do next."

People started to file out but Frank lagged behind as he usually does as he unfolds his white cane. He really didn't need the cane in the building, but as he pointed out you don't really need a hearing aid that works, just one that is noticed and everyone will talk louder. The cane made people around him more considerate.

"Jon" said Frank in a somber voice.

"Yes" said Jon stopped in his tracks and redirecting his attention.

"If it is to be a hoax it will need a perpetrator." Said Frank Slowly. "It will probably cost the person who would pull such a prank his career."

"Crap! I hadn't really thought of those consequences. I thought we could leave it as an unknown prankster.

"Unless there is a scapegoat it will never be a closed issue. I would like to volunteer."

"No, Frank. You're a good man, a good scientist, and a good team member. I can't let you do it."

"It is known that I have a weird sense of humor. The only thing people will doubt is that I had the skill to pull it off."

"No Frank you are very skilled at anything you put your mind to. It would be believed. That's another reason I don't want you to do it. I should be the guy."

"Jon," said Frank softly. "Everybody knows you have no sense of humor. They wouldn't believe it.

"I do have a sense of humor. A sense of humor is a sign of intelligence. I'm intelligent...

Frank nodded.

Therefore I have a sense of humor."

Frank rolled his nearly sightless eyes, clenched his jaw and shook his head.

"No" said Frank "I'm your man. In a few months my career will come to an end anyway. My blindness is progressive. I have the choice of being killed by allergic reaction to drugs or going totally blind. Once I'm totally blind I can't do my job. None of us may have jobs here for long. Besides, if we don't find a defense against this alien stuff we all may be dead soon. My mind is made up. We have to have a scapegoat and we have to have him tonight. I'm your man."

A parade of emotions auditioned on Jon's face: surprise, concern, appreciation, sympathy, finally acceptance of what must be. But a touched Jon found no words and a nearly blind Frank did not notice.

"Thank you Frank." Replied Jon finally also softly. "This is probably the most important thing either of us will do in our careers.

"Frank, If this works out I will do all I can to see that you have all the assistance medical science can offer. In a couple years, we can make this all public, if we survive.

Frank nodded, took his cane but walked to the door without its aid and left the room leaving his beloved future behind.

A two-paragraph release was posted on the NASA web site. It was generally ignored by most site visitors. It concluded by saying a long time employee of JPL, which was now operating with benefactor donations, had resigned as a result of the hoax that had alarmed mission controllers for over two days.

## Chapter 04 - Dust

It looked like the typical congressional hearing although a little more intimate and there were no cameras. This was a closed hearing – very closed. There were guards outside the door and the windowless room had been swept for surveillance devices even though this was a secured area normally.

There were eleven stern-faced men on the dais. There were five senators representing the states and six senators representing corporations. The 29th amendment, known as the honesty in government amendment, had reduced the state representation to one senator per and had given the fifty world corporations the vacated senate positions. That amendment had made government more honest by making the unseen power visible. Rich corporations didn't have to rent legislators anymore. They had their own.

The corporations had won the right to rule when their own philosophy of 'corporations exist only to make profit' was transferred to the public mind as 'only money matters in an election'. Matters of social policy were just noise. Now there was no more need for pretense. Political leaders didn't have to lie to the people anymore -- they just told them how it was going to be and there was no recourse but to accept it. They didn't have to lie anymore but they did. Old habits die hard and when you think you are really good at something you tend to do more of it.

The chairman introduced Doctor E Steven Rice and invited him to address the committee. As introduction it was mentioned that Dr. Rice and his company supplied NASA, now defunct, and the American military their most advanced artificial intelligent hardware. Doctor Rice was one of them with gross assets of a little over a billion dollars.

If he had not noted himself to the American military as an arms supplier, his status as a scientist would have earned him a completely cold welcome in Washington. 'Scientist' was a curse word among many of these leaders and the vapor brains they represented. Scientists had been warning for decades about the limits of growth, about a coming economic collapse and a climate catastrophe. Now that both had happening, instead of having their eyes opened to the truth around them these people hated those who had tried to warn them. They hated the prophets as if they had created the afflictions they had warned the world about. They only listened to scientists secretly and then would deny it.

Steven had tried to get someone else to give this report. He disliked these ignorant officious bastards as much as they disliked him. Besides they were government - they must know he is gay. That alone would make many of them hate and distrust him. There were no known gays in government, and even women had been expunged in this new 'no pretenses' era. Steven had become a good actor over the years and he would do nothing now to show how he despised them.

"Good morning", began Steven "The president has been briefed and you have all received a complete softcopy briefing of the situation so I will begin with a quick overview of the situation we face."

Some of the legislators hefted their electronic tablets in front of them as if the thick document now in them would add weight. They all give Doctor Rice an ironic "thanks a lot" look.

"If the atomic drill we sent to Europa had simply been disassembled or even duplicated it would have been the most significant discovery of our existence. But when that which we discovered exhibited the ability of interplanetary travel it graduated to the position of the most palpable danger our species has faced — the greatest danger life on this planet has faced since the Cambrian event that annihilated ninety percent of the life on earth.

"Our own nanotechnologies have shown us the possible miracles and awakened us to the most dreadful consequences of molecular level manipulation. Self-replicating nanobots have been categorized as having Humanity Annihilating Capability. When you add intelligence to this, intelligence that may be equal or superior to our own, we have the ultimate threat to life on earth. And, we have no defense against this kind of threat. Let me repeat. We have no effectual defense against this kind of threat."

Steven paused for dramatic effect but none was necessary. He looked at the legislators' faces and said to himself under his breath "Speaking of fear... "

"Through the years we have imagined invaders from Mars, feared poison from comet tails, invested in detection of near earth asteroids that might crash to earth, but we have not specifically prepared for intelligent macromolecules being dropped on us from space.

"But we are not defenseless..." Steven enunciated loudly to bring back hope.

"The greatest fear comes from uncertainty. We don't know the intentions of this alien organism. It may be coming to investigate the creator of the hardware it found on Europa, — to introduce itself as another sentient life form in the galaxy – something we recognize as the trumpet herald of the next epic of human life – we are not alone. Or it may have other motivations and objectives. It may be coming to assimilate more complex structures, like machines, DNA, people.

"We humans tend to believe more readily and react more quickly to threat then to anything else. It is our heritage as evolved biological creatures. Our prime objectives are survival and procreation. We use fear and greed as the prime drivers of our actions – they have worked to bring us to our current state.

"We have no way of knowing what the evolution of the European nanobots is. We don't know what its motivations are. We know it is capable of charting an interplanetary course and executing it. We don't know where it got that knowledge. It could have assimilated it from the probe it dissolved. Perhaps we sent the instructions for our own destruction to Europa. There is little to be gained now by assigning blame. We need to find a solution.

"What we feel is this: If this substance reaches the surface of Earth — and there seems to be nothing to stop that — there is nothing here that would stop it from transforming the planet into the gray goo we fear from our own nanotechnology.

"The last image we saw from Jupiter before the range of the optical telescope was exceeded was one of a solid objects changing into a cloud of dust. If it congregates and changes back into a solid form there is a chance we could, as it approaches, explode nuclear devices in space close to it to vaporize the whole mass. It may have to assume a solid to change velocity to match Earth orbit or landing speed. Deep space radar will be watching and our missiles will be ready.

If it remains as space dust, it could arrive undiscovered and slam into Earth atmosphere anywhere and everywhere. The megamolecules are smaller than a micrometer and reentry would not heat them up enough to destroy many. Most would survive. Much of this dust would reach the surface in rain or dust clouds. It could take days or months. We have no way of tracking it, of knowing where it lands, or what it is doing.

"Even if it didn't start transforming what it touches it could be an almost undetectable problem. If it lands in the oceans, it could pollute fish we eat. If it lands on fields, it could pollute the vegetables, grain, and fruits we eat. It is a global cancer for which we have no immunity.

"Now the bad news; I may be painted an inaccurate view of the situation because frankly, we don't know the capabilities of this dust."

There was an uncharacteristic silence among the legislators when Steven paused. Were they dumbfounded by all this or had they been instructed to remain mute? He was explaining yet another story of doom, an action that had earned his predecessors reviled status in the eyes of the current political power wielders. Was he protected by his status as a millionaire business head?

"The only defense we scientist have been able to conceive of is not much less frightening. Our solution is to, as one of our numbers calls it, fight fire with fire. We intend to develop our own nanobots to match the capabilities of those headed at us from space. These would be created to reproduce exponentially and to blanket the earth and wait for signs of the invaders. This is the only method that could produce and distribute the nanos defenders in time. These defenders have to be everywhere on the planet since we do not know where the invaders will first appear. We have to be there waiting because a delay in detecting or getting to the location would allow them to time to multiply beyond our ability to stop them.

"These nanos would be designed not to attack existing life forms. There is enough carbon and other inorganic material for them to use as raw material. As a byproduct, the sequestering of carbon dioxide would mitigate our global warming problem. Nanos are not part of the food chain so the carbon they remove from the oceans and atmosphere stays removed."

This flippant reference elicited the first audible reaction from the congressional interrogators.

"You mean this will solve our climate change problem?" interjected the chairman.

"No, I'm sorry. We have passed the trigger point. It will take a century even with this reduced CO2 effect to get us back to where we were.

The chairman waved his hand to indicate that he didn't like that answer and for Steven to continue.

"These domesticated nanobots would be designed to seek out alien counterparts and to destroy them or to take control of them before they can destroy our ecosphere or our population. Even this defense will probably be less than 100 percent effective but it is the only hope we imagine. The biggest danger in this defense is that our own nanobots might go rogue and do to the planet what the alien nanobots would have done. Or that the alien nanobots overpower our own and turn them against us. These are real possibilities. Our salvation is not assured. But be assured we will do everything that we can in the design to avoid this Armageddon affect.

"I am reminded of the Manhattan project, when our predecessors brought the specter of nuclear holocaust into the world in order to save the world from a Nazi nuclear holocaust. We feared that the first atomic detonation could destroy the atmosphere. It didn't do that but living with the bomb changed us. We had for the first time in history consciously constructed thousands of devices that if used as designed would destroy the world — devices that still exist as tempting targets of acquisition for terrorists and perverted governments.

"Our situation now is similar to that in 1940; our options are basically the same – to counter a technological threat with a technological defense of the same type and magnitude.

The congressional panel was still mute. The chairman fiddled with the screen in front of him trying to compose something to say. Steven didn't have to ask for questions. He could see in the faces of every panel member the reluctance to face what was before them. There are limits even to courage that only stupidity can mount. Despite reports to the contrary, there were none on this panel whose previously demonstrated stupidity was sufficient for today's challenge.

"With your permission" Steven continued after several seconds' silence "I will delineate our rough design and assumptions." Now he would find out if they were listening or if they were tuning him out. After all, these were legislators. They had need of the skill of shutting out the mindless prattle of filibuster and a great many other profound pronouncements, and of course the presentation of any opinion different from theirs.

"The nano defense system we propose will combine designs already well under way. We combine nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. I have already addressed elements of the nanotechnology. We observed intelligence in the alien threat – it is that intelligence we also need to counter. In planetary exploration, we have put machine intelligence onboard to direct actions because the response time from Earth is just too long, so it is with nano defense — we need to equip our defense system with artificial or synthetic intelligence in order to react in the time scale of the activity we can expect from the alien. Not only can it come quickly but it is global. There is no way human reaction can combat this.

"Combining these two technologies is not a new thought. This combination does not already exist for reasons of caution. This combination was branded a possible annihilator of humanity as early as 2001. We risk it now because we face annihilation if we do nothing. We humans are ambivalent about this — we fear A.I. yet we admire its capabilities and are coming to trust its decisions more than our own."

Steven straightened himself to renew his energy and as emphasis and introduction to the technical information to follow even though he thought this group would not appreciate even this low level of detail.

"We will build a system imitating what we saw in the Jupiter videos. It will exist as a cloud of nano scale macromolecules with various functions. Individually the macromolecules will be far smaller than 100 micrometers diameter. This satisfies the definition of dust. 'Dust' will be the code name for this project. We will be sending out the good dust to do combat with the bad dust.

"Collectively the macromolecules will be mobile, self repairing, and intelligent. Each nano-molecule will have communication capability and propulsion provided by the same system of photon and ion emission. In atmosphere each macromolecules can jet through air by ingesting molecules from the air and ejecting ions. They can use static electric fields to maintain relative positions.

Power is nothing exotic. Each molecule absorbs sunlight or other available radiation. Each molecule can emit photons and other particles to share information and energy and control their own velocities. Information and sunlight energy from one side of the globe can be transmitted to the far side of the planet.

Communication is hierarchical and that makes whole system hierarchical. Communication will be super secure and immune from external takeover. We will use quantum entanglement to validate encrypted messages between second echelon hubs. We will use short time horizon transmissions between hubs and individual molecular units. Any communication partner who can't turn a message around in fifty nano seconds is ignored.

"There are two categories of macromolecule: manipulator molecules have the functions of: Hoover molecules — these disassemble any molecule or structure they are directed against. These are what we are depending on to neutralize the alien threat. They work like the enzymes in your body that disassemble the protean you eat to provide the building material for the proteins your body needs. If we use that analogy, our nanos will eat the alien nanos.

By controlled contortion, they can act as constructor molecules — these are akin to the old Electron Scanning Microscope atom manipulators only millions of times faster. These will build copies of themselves and of the other molecule types expanding the size of our defense and replace molecules that are destroyed or lost.

The second type of molecule, holding it all together are processor molecules. These, in addition to the communication and locomotive capabilities, have a Field Programmable Gate Array trainable to process signals it receives from others of its own type and of the other types and to send processed messages. Working together with half a trillion others of its kin, it will constitute a distributed super computer or neural network with quantum computing ability.

"The tactics our defense can employ are destruction by disassembly, or takeover of enemy nanobots by breaking into their communications while preserving the integrity of our own. Failing that, merely jamming communications should be sufficient to immobilize the enemy until it can be neutralized.

"Some data molecules will solve four hundred billion simultaneous equations a second to keep track of every molecule in the body and to translate the photons detected by individual molecules into images of the world around them. The body can hear by measuring the vibrations of molecules.

"After a kernel set of nano-molecule are manufactured by conventional methods and communications are established between processor nano-molecules we will download the instructions for manufacturing all of the nano-molecule types so that the collective can direct its own growth faster than the rate of our manufacturing abilities. When paired these two types will be called a cell because it can reproduce itself. Its numbers will grow exponentially. When a cell, with all the required constituents of sufficient numbers, reaches the requisite size it will split in two – mitosis if you will – and thus the earth will be populated with functioning groups of nanos on guard against invaders of its own kind. The processor collective should increase in intelligence as it increases in size and absorbs all the information we can feed it.

"That's the part that scares people. More so than creating devices that could destroy the world – we have lived through the cold war – but creating a machine that can think, that is more intelligent than humans. That is what scares people the most. They would rather live poorly as number one on the planet than live better as number two.

"What will keep these from continuing to multiply ad nauseam like all biology does; even human populations do, if not constrained by competition or resource depletion?

"The programming will tell it what its purpose is and will include a self disassemble instruction when the earth is no longer threatened. It doesn't reproduce unless it needs more parts for some mission critical reason. This nature will be build into its kernel.

Shifting gears Steven slowed down – a retard and decrescendo — leading to his conclusion. "The good news, from engineering prospective, is that most of this technology has already been looked at. All we need is to put it all together. We should be ready well before our guests arrive from Jupiter."

"What we need your help establishing an international coordinating body for the development, deployment, and monitoring of the nano defense system. We are not asking for funding. My corporate partners and I will take care of that. As you can see on the final pages of your briefing, the cost is modest but the alternative is possible extinction. Overall, it is less expensive and with fewer participants than the Manhattan project. What we are asking is your help in keeping the secret since this project has been classified TOP SECRET. We all know how little skill the general public has in handling crises. This news could destroy what is left of the global economy which we need operating to complete our work.

"There is one other thing — as I said, most of this technology already exists, and it's patented. I hold some of the patents. Some of the companies that will be working with us hold some patents. Others we will have to use without permission in order to preserve the secrecy of this project. If we survive, we will compensate the patent holders. If we don't survive, it won't matter.

"Thank you."

"Thank you, Doctor Rice." said the chairman with a tone of 'glad that's over.' "What you have told us and the documents you have given us are indeed very frightening but what worries me most is the problem of "can we trust you?" Are you telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

"I!" said Steven.

"You will get what you asked for Doctor Rice" said the chairman, cutting Steven off. "In case what you say is true; but you will be watched, Sir, just in case. I for one am struck by the coincidence that you were there to observe the discovery of this threat and you are the person best qualified to head up a global task to combat it. I find that damn curious indeed.

## Chapter 05 - Detrick

The word went out discreetly. Of those approached more than one hundred and fifty companies and thirty-eight universities wanted to join the fight and submitted proposals to help with the nano defense project. The Chinese declined stating that a threat was not sufficiently proved. As designated coordinator, the GNI (Global Nano Initiative) chose fifty respondents, stating that any more would be unmanageable and would increase the security risk. Some of the foremost universities involved in artificial intelligence were not contacted because it was thought that their transhuman sentiments would not be compatible with the intent of this project. Dr E Steven Rice was in charge of coordinating this international effort.

The coordinating unit was given quarters near Washington because the Politicians wanted them close by but not to close. Fredric Maryland and Fort Detrick would house their facilities. It's just over an hour from Capitol Hill. The unit would be hidden in plain sight at the smallish army run medical research facility. Their cover story would be that this was a task force to develop nanotechnology to combat potential pandemics. The best lies have truth in them. The extraterrestrial nature of the target pathogen and the extreme measures that where planned would be secret for as long as it was possible to keep it that way. Other aspects of the operation could be viewed by visitors without revealing anything out of the ordinary. Dr. Rice would raise no suspicions with his history at Rice University's Center for Biological and Environmental nanotechnology department. The use of contractors would not be unusual here.

The team would need the full support of the communications and reconnaissance missions at the fort to monitor the status of the nondefense once deployed. Detrick wasn't that bad a choice for a base considering politicians picked it.

The rest of the project, especially the construction phase, was executed at sites all over the world.

A select group of people was recruited from various disciplines. Steven picked them on grounds of capability, trustworthiness (because he knew them or knew of them), and ability to work really hard for long periods of time without making mistakes. Most didn't have families to dilute their attention. Most were given quarters on post. There were exceptions.

Colonel Charles Neccy, US Army retired, stood at the entrance to the new home of the GNI with tablet in hand. Like Noah loading the ark he welcomed the motley assemblage of people who were all showing up for work on the same day. Each security-cleared newcomer was biometrically scanned by a machine spanning the entrance. Their identity was verified and the bio data was entered into a database. The colonel then handed each new arrival a badge to wear with their picture and encoded data on an imbedded chip. This would facilitate future entry into the building.

Colonel Neccy, retired, would be in charge of post-deployment monitoring. Being in charge is what he loved most. His teams had time to prepare before the center of attention would be on them. They had to interface with the development teams to devise tools and methods to monitor the dust once it was released to multiply. His were the field people who gathered data and those at Detrick who analyzed the data and presented it to the director. His scientific credentials were weak but he had command experience and knew the world having been posted in most of its hot spots in his carrier. It was thought that this skill would be useful in the monitoring phase since paramilitary units would be mounting that task in the field and reporting to Detrick.

Although the post had the policy of not allowing civilians who worked there to use or refer to any former military rank Col. Neccy let it slip frequently and introduced himself that way to each and every person he greeted this first day.

While each person waited for the badge to be coded with the data collected, Colonel Neccy would engage in conversation. He would punctuate his own comments with a laugh that did not invite anyone to share in the amusement. He made flattering comments to the women and candid ones to the men. He came across as an alpha Rottweiler who wanted to be petted.

Some recruits were given quarters on post -- Nice quarters. Some already had off post accommodations. Doctor Ruth Halingway was one. She was 33, small (5 foot... and a half inches please). She had blue eyes and black hair that she wore in a ponytail. She wore frameless glasses and no makeup. Her complexion was flawless and her figure womanly but not distracting from across the room. Her nose and ears were a little large to put her at the statistical mean that is considered universally beautiful. She looked intelligent, compassionate, and motherly. She was all of these. She had the letters MD after her name and MRS before it but the title she cherished most was Mom. Ruth was comfortable to be around. No one had a bad word to say about her. She wasn't threatening to anyone. None of the guys hit on her – it would be like hitting on your own mother. She worked on nanotech systems because they offered unprecedented opportunities for mankind. Oh, and it paid the bills. Her husband was a good man but self-employed and construction work was hit or miss. She had chosen research over private practice after her residency because it interested her and she thought it would give her more time with her family – her husband and twin daughters. She gained a position on the team because she already worked at Fort Detrick, she already had a security clearance, and her area of expertise was consistent with the cover story.

Her smile to the Neccy automatically matched his sincerity.

There was Brenda Edmann also 33 and small. Dark hair and eyes she looked middle-eastern. She was married with one daughter. She was more aggressive and there was no Ph.D. after her name. She was an unthrottled powerhouse of energy. She was likely to act first and think about it later. She gained a position on the team because she knew the right people and was not shy about collecting favors. Her expertise was not up to the standards of the others. Everyone would assume she was a government plant put there to spy. Her smile to Charles seemed genuine.

From California, because they were already privy to the project's raison d'être, were Troy Leary, single, 27, geek technician, but good looking, to work on communications and as liaison with the various signal battalions. Jon Davis moved from California, ostensively representing the space connection. He did not parade through the initiation procedure. Jon did not work at the GNI building but was listed as a consultant and his association with the project was one of its secrets. It was thought better not to tickle anyone's memories of that hoax thing. Only a few knew that he and Steven where a couple.

There was Nannette Holt a super competent administrative assistant to aid Steven. She had already received top-level security clearance for another assignment and could slide in here without any delays being between assignments at the time.

There would be Philip Page PhD, a dedicated administrator and a prominent nano-electronics engineer. Phillip would be the principal team leader in charge of data analysis. His responsibility would be for the monitoring of the final chapter of the global defense – the actual encounter. He was chosen for the team because of his connection with The Cornell Nano Scale Science & Technology Facility. He had also researched advanced communications technology at the University of Surrey in Guildford England. Phillip had been recruited out of academia by Steven Rice's company because of his work on directed luminescence in conjugated polymers and had worked on improving nano level communications before the Nano Defense Inactive. As an employee, Phillip had known Steven and since Steven was a hands on technical person they had worked together often. Phillip was one of the first people chosen to work on the GNI development project. He didn't go through the employee initiation. He was already working for the GNI in Europe. He was helping with the design of the nano communications and energy distribution systems.

Smitty (Walter Eugene Smith) PhD was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome in his childhood. His parents were educated and well off. They would submit to no limitations and none for their only son. He was given special training and the best help. More importantly, this child inherited his parents drive and willingness to work hard. Or maybe it was his parents' yelling at him if he didn't.

As with some Aspergers children the deficiencies of this mild form of autism was compensated for with a brain that could process many details and recognize subtle patterns and, of course, a predilection for obsessions.

At age ten young, Walter became obsessed with linear algebra. It wasn't his first obsession or his last but it was something he found he had a talent.

Most proud parents like to parade their prodigy in front of guests at parties. The child is commanded to perform on the piano or recite a poem for the gratification of the guests and the parents. Young Walter could solve ninth order simultaneous equations in his head without paper or calculator. This was a talent that bewildered most quests. Whereas a savant that could do multiplication of nine digit numbers would astound the average party guest, as they verified the answer with their calculator, linear algebra was totally beyond the guests at a typical party of lawyers that Walter's parents invited.

Through hard work, and lots of yelling (equal amounts from parents and little Walter) not only had little Walter succeeded in his education but he had excelled in university. He had gotten his PHD in predictive analysis and was now a professor.

His students were less impressed with him than his collogues. His monotone during lectures was soporific. His doctoral dissertation was on the mathematical predictions of swarm behaviors as it applies to society and artificial intelligences of which the current nano defense was an example. His social life was sparse but that wasn't altogether unusual among his class of achievers. Although he couldn't understand people instinctively, he knew all the subtle clues and could more or less calculate how people felt. He had what he called artificial empathy. When he got tired however his limitation might show.

What Smitty could do with matrixes was astounding and totally lost on all but the math majors of the world. His algorithms were programmed into the dust processing molecules to enable them to keep track of and calls plays for a trillion molecules to a degree that would be the envy of the best athletic coach.

Phillip's team had Smitty as staff mathematician and data analyzer, Troy as chief computer and communications guru, and he had been promised a Helen Giangreco data analysis specialist as soon as she passed her security clearance check. He also had Doctor Ruth to evaluate nanobots' interactions vis-à-vis humans and Charles had assigned Brenda to his team but he never quite understood why.

The Detrick contingent included science reps from the International Association for Nanotechnology community. There were only a hundred fifty people at this control site to administrate the salvation of the world

There weren't as many non-Americans as you would think for an international enterprise. Too many foreigners on a US military base would need explanation. It is better not to have to lie than to have an elaborate lie on hand that could fall apart if looked at too closely. There were a couple Japanese, a trio of Germans, a Frenchman, and a Korean on the team at Detrick.

## Chapter 06 - Starting up

Development Team one concentrated on the replication problem. It's really hard to build something that can make copies of itself unless you peek at nature's answers — violates Gödel's theorem. What a miracle life is!

There were multiple approaches already under development. They would be ready in time. They wouldn't even try to make each macromolecules self replicating. It's possible with a synthetic DNA but it was sufficient, simpler, much safer, and more adaptable to make the system as a whole able to replicate constitute parts. This would disable an isolated macromolecule from endlessly copying itself without control – a major fear evoked by this technology. This choice of design depended on the communications and computing parts of the system.

Team Two worked on communications. There already were nano transceivers. Work involved making them secure and increasing their bandwidth a thousand fold. Again, military development already had solutions that were incorporated.

A consideration of nano-sized components is that quantum physics plays a part. This presented both problems and tools.

Team Three had the task of developing the computing components. Figuring the smartest solution possible was needed — one better than anyone on earth could come up with. The objective was a computer that would be to general problem solving what Watson was to trivia contests — a superior rival to the best human on the planet. It would not be a conventional processor but a multitude of communicating macromolecules. The macromolecules would be manufactured by other macromolecules. Its processor and memory would be holographic – meaning memories would be held in duplicate parallel connections that weren't related according to location. Unlike conventional brains, animal or computer, connections between neurons were not physical – they were instead tuned channels of communications, billions of them.

Such low-level parallel computers had been proposed decades before but it never quite worked. It was such a paradigm shift. It needed a new approach. "It's like the voice recognition problem" explained Steven "For decades work went on under one researcher who insisted on his approach. Finally, he was replaced and other approaches were tried. Before you knew it, you were talking to machines on the phone. Now you can not only talk through your cell phone you can talk to it."

Scientists and engineers from around the world worked together. There was a headiness generated by the progress that was being made. Everyone or most at least, worked with an alacrity reserved to the few before the project. There were chinks in the armor of caution that epidemic fear of impending invasion made invisible. They created something which rational contemplation would have labeled supremely dangerous. Criticism was shouted down. The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology was ignored and became mute. Even the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the DARPA responsible for the internet, was sidestepped for reasons of expediency although a couple of its people were hijacked for this project.

The teams created a thing that could grow and change as circumstances demanded. It could process data faster than the human brain – faster than any previous computer. It would be an expert in strategy and tactics. It could see and feel atoms. It was created to save the world.

Few of those working on the project felt the heart pounding pulse of anxiety that comes from holding life or death of a planet in your hands. They didn't feel this level of anxiety because they didn't know the implications of their work. They just did their job and were glad to have a job.

They designed their part, figured out how to construct their part and were to deliver their product to others who were figuring out how to combine the pieces. Even the completed pieces weren't completeness. That wouldn't happen until deployment. As long as the molecular manipulators and molecular brain components were kept fifty meters or more apart no spontaneous replication was possible. Humans were still in complete control and could terminate the project by simple inaction rather than by asserted action.

Designing and producing the nanodefense was actually the easy part — so much of it already existed. The hard part was building a monitoring and control system. There's no point building a defense if you can't control it. Very dangerous technology needs very comprehensive control. It needs to be monitored and shut down or redirected if it wanders off the prescribed objective. This monitor system could listen to the nanos and, if need be, shut them down. The difficulty came in overcoming the extreme measures that were designed into the nanos to prevent communication takeover. There would have to be a lot of these systems because there were going to be a lot of nanos.

## Chapter 07 - Helen

Helen Giangreco was the youngest member at twenty-three; the newest member, arriving five days later; and the prettiest member, as unanimously voted by all males. She was a knockout with eyes set wide apart to make her look every bit as intelligent as she was. Those eyes were neither blue nor green but grey. Still they could draw you in like a blue summer sky or impress you like twin emeralds. When you saw her focus those eyes on you she was in command of your attention. Men were taller and their stomachs flatter whenever there was a chance Helen might glance their way.

She still tapped into youthful energy and enthusiasm and was almost always in motion. Prehistoric instincts made one notice this movement. Once noticed, your eyes stayed on Helen until after she left your line of sight. Your eyes did not want to be deprived of the image of her perfect figure and enchanting smile on that very pretty face framed by long full billowing curls of brown hair with its red highlights.

She has a laugh, almost a giggle, which could turn a bad day into a great day and a singsong voice that is a delight to listen too.

With those attributes, she did not need any others but she was smart too.

She was picked for this job because Walter Smith was her doctoral advisor and when he came to GNI, he insisted she come too.

Helen had done well in college. Because she was so attractive, a rumor went around saying she had slept her way on to the dean's list. That lie wouldn't have bothered her so much if it hadn't been for that one incident when she had slept with a member of faculty. She had confided this indiscretion in her friend and roommate who inappropriately told others and the rumor was off and spreading.

This unfortunate breach of confidence caused Helen to do two things: she never had relations with any member of faculty again — probably a good decision — and she avoided friendships with girls at the college. She even declined to join a sorority.

The second decision had other negative results. Those girls who bothered to notice other people's business noticed that Helen had only male friends and concluded she was a slut, and didn't avoid opportunities to spread that news – after all, hadn't she slept her way to the dean's list? Fact was Helen finished her undergraduate degree having slept with only five guys.

After graduating, Helen again evaluated her life and made another change. In graduate school, she swore herself to celibacy. She poured the energy that would have flowed into relationships into her work instead and generated a reputation of an exceptional student. She seemed to be racing to see how fast she could get her MS. When she did get her masters she broke her vow of chastity and one lucky post grad found her to be a fountain of enthusiasm.

The head of department approached her to study under him personally for her PhD. She accepted because she did not want to hurt his feelings. She sensed that he was a good person and had problems sensing things about people.

Troy was young and male. No other reason was needed for him to be interested in Helen. They had flirted with each other from the first day they met at Fort Detrick until two weeks later.

They met at the coffee machine in the lunch area during one of those work sessions that ran into the evening. Chitchat was loaded with innuendo. It was Helen who finally said, "Do you want to do it?"

His eyes said "Sure". His voice said "When? Where?"

"Here. Now."

"No way!"

"This way." said Helen and hooking her finger in Troy's shirt and walking backward pulled Troy through the door to the lunchroom storeroom. She countered his worried look. "The lunch crew has gone for the day. There won't be anybody in here till morning."

Troy was beginning to see that this could really happen. "So, do you want to take off your cloths seductively or do you want me to rip them off lustfully?"

"Decisions, decisions. Why don't I start and you jump in when you can't stand it anymore?" Said Helen, pulling at her sleeve suggestively to show some smooth shoulder.

She started her seductive strip tease by throwing her blouse over her head — this wasn't going to be a slow strip. It reviled that Helen wasn't wearing a bra and it verified that Helen didn't need a bra to improve anything.

"We can't do it here," mumbled Troy, his brain quickly being deprived of blood that was rerouted elsewhere.

Helen took a step forward and, being the scientist that she was, proceeded to demonstrate with convincing thoroughness that the postulated restriction was false. You could do it here and do it quite satisfactorily.

Twenty-two minutes later the security camera in the lunch area again showed the two young people leaving the coffee maker with cups in hand. The minutes that the two were missing was not lost on the security officer monitoring the thirty some cameras inside the facility. Because it was quite dull just now, security-wise, this officer thought he should mention the incident to management. He copied stills from the video log – couple entering storeroom, couple leaving storeroom more relaxed. He chuckled. "Damn I wish there was a camera in the store room."

The second time they did it in the storeroom Helen noticed a camera watching from the ceiling. She said nothing to Troy but after they parted, she went to the security room and knocked on the door. The lone on-duty officer peered at the image of Helen at his door on the monitor.

He had just watched her in the storeroom and now she was at his door. It took a couple seconds for him to stop his fish mouth and decide to open the door.

The look on her face told him why she was there and told him she was not going to go away before she did what she came for. He opened the door. He had been watching her but this was the first time they looked at each other face to face. He was impressed. She deferred judgment.

"Specialist Standish," she said reading his nametag, "We need to talk

They went inside. Stan was tall, black, and acted nervous. He was the one in uniform. He was the one with the side arm and a locker full of automatic weapons. He should have been the one in control. However, this is hard to do when you are trying to hide an illicit erection.

"Show me the video," she instructed.

"What vid...."

Without moving her head, Helen's eyes did a quick glance at his bulging crotch then went back to looking into his eyes. His resolve and his hardness melted with equal rapidity. He gave up the protest. He showed her the video.

"Well, Specialist, if you show that I could get in trouble. If you don't show it and they find out about it we both get in trouble. Either way no more private porn shows." She looked at him. He was trying to keep a cool 'I'm in charge here' expression but Helen detected a plea. Security work was really boring. Helen thought for a second and added softly" If they don't find out, nobody gets in trouble." She paused. "Be carefully". She said, winked and let herself out of the small security control room.

Stan spend the rest of his shift thinking about what he should do but each time he viewed the video of a woman he had just talked to doing what she did very well he leaned farther and farther toward taking Helen's suggestion. She was willing to let him watch as long as it went no further. She trusted him. He might never be in the position Troy was in but in his imagination, he could be king.

Screw management. She wasn't creating a security risk. He wasn't being negligent of his duties. She didn't even seem promiscuous. There was just the one guy. What harm did it do to ignore this?

He would have to remove the video from the system lest some other officer run across it. He erased the video reluctantly after a few more run-throughs. Since the cameras only record when there is movement the missing minutes wouldn't be missed unless someone wanted to follow the action from the coffee machine – not very likely. The camera in the storeroom was the newest in the system. Failure to record could be blamed as an early life malfunction. Case closed.

## Chapter 08 – Launch

Five weeks of preparation, fifteen months of development, manufacture, and integration and the first phase of project 'DUST' was done.

Cells of nanobots were manufactured by traditional means and packed in plastic boxes segregated by type. Half a trillion Brain cells were in one box. Half a trillion sensor and manipulating cells were in separate boxes. The boxes were kept in separate buildings to prevent communication until deployed.

The boxes were flown to the corners of the world. Technicians simply stacked one box of manipulator nanos onto a box of processor nanos and left them. In a few seconds, the processors would take control and the manipulators would start to dissolve holes between the two boxes and into the open air. The combined nanos flew out of their boxes like bees from a hive and began their work of exponential growth.

Manipulator macromolecules would twist and contort as they brought the proper atoms to bear at disassembling carbon dioxide from the air and reassemble it as long chain copies of themselves or processor molecules. Other nanos would forage for other atoms that were needed and would bring them back and distribute them where they were needed. When they had finished their work, the new macromolecule was cut loose to begin its life in the cell. When sufficient numbers had been added and memories had been copied the cell, splits in two and the two daughter cells separated and each began the reproductive cycle again. Exponential growth was slowed only by the process of moving one cell out of the way so another could be constructed. Otherwise, only a hundred hours would have been needed to blanket the earth. They put distance between themselves and traveled to blanket the earth.

They rode the wind and the ocean currents. They drifted down streams. They hitched rides on migrating birds and highway traffic. They stuck themselves to semi trucks and railroad trains and rode interstate. They went attached to cargo waiting to be loaded into planes and flew internationally. Their prime directive was to be fruitful and multiply and they did, and they did it invisibly.

## Chapter 09 - Time

Twenty thousand tons of cosmic dust and micrometeorites fall on earth each year. What's to notice if another few tons of intelligent dust wafts down through the atmosphere to seed rain clouds, give the sunset a pretty hue, and turn everything they touch into copies of themselves?

Most particles would survive the decent through the atmosphere and not heat up any more than if they had been in your kitchen oven.

But the sky did not betray any invasion. The red sunset did not necessarily mark the arrival of the expected plague. The winds did not smell of death. There wasn't even a pillar of flame descending from the heavens to announce the Armageddon. There was nothing out of the usual.

NASA air quality satellite system, ill maintained since the funding withdrawal, failed to detect anything. No human reported anything unusual. So far, none of the twenty-two billion vigilant nanodefense cells had reported anything either.

## Chapter 10 - Trouble

Things were going well. Phillip began to believe he might be up for the job after all. Then data started to indicate a change. The measurement of the predicted exponential growth of the nano defense cells flat-lined. The monitoring stations showed absolutely no growth in the number of cells. What had happened? The numbers were not at the saturation level that was programmed.

Teams were sent to obtain samples of nanos for testing. Monitor equipment indicated a number of sites where they could be found. Samples of soil showing presents of nanos were shoveled into stainless steel jars and shipped to Fort Detrick and other labs. When analyzed no nanos were found! Were they being dissolved by some chemical? Detailed analysis of the soil showed nothing unusual.

At the same time the number of monitored cells started to show a decrease, a trend that accelerated until the number of detectable nano cells approached zero. What was killing the planet's defense against alien nano attack? This phenomenon created no small concern.

Detection equipment was tested and found operating to specifications. Everyone on the team was working frantically to solve the disappearing nanos mystery.

One theory was that the nanos had mutated, had changed their own communications methodologies, and so were now undetectable although this didn't explain where the detected nanos had gone from the collection jars. The nanos had been carefully designed not to mutate. It was recognized that anything this complex and this small multiplying this quickly could under the influence of random radiation or other influences mutate. Consequently, they were, like biological creatures, designed with mechanisms to detect and destroy mutant cells in their own cells and in others they encountered.

But why had the parent cells disappeared?

Steven listened to the reports with typical intense attention, and did not interrupt the silence that followed until he uttered the single word "Chandra".

The others in the meeting each waited for someone else to admit their ignorance and ask what he meant.

A compassionate Steven continued "the NASA orbiting x-ray telescope".

"Of course", said Phillip. "The one nano communications frequency band that might stand out against background noise is the x-ray band. It would be difficult to build a ground based detector sensitive enough without super cooling but there is already a detector of required sensitivity in orbit."

"I will see to it that Chandra is put at your disposal." promised Steven. "We won't be able to hear what the nanos are saying but we should be able to track where they are. You can start tomorrow morning."

But as is often the case in life, good plans are not always executed.

Brenda was leaving Charles' office where Phillip waited to see Charles. She didn't look at Phillip. Phillip had received a message from the number two honcho at GNI to see him first thing in the morning, so here he was cooling his heels.

He did not like Charles. He thought Charles was out of his depth. And he knew Charles did not like him. Was it jealousy? When Phillip had finished his communications development work for the x-ray band intermolecular communication and energy balancing system he was asked to take over the monitoring team since he was the most knowledgeable of the communications that would be monitored. Charles had been put in the position when the GNI started up and would have nothing with being replaced. Phillip could recognize pride and suppressed disgrace. Charles was army retired. That choice was more to do with the army than with Charles. When you are a senior officer and are passed over for promotion for enough years, it can be assumed your career is over. Charles liked power and like telling people what to do. He liked it so much he sometimes lost sight of what the objective was. Perhaps Steven was too busy to attend to getting rid of Charles.

Charles opened the door himself but said nothing as he stepped aside. Phillip went in confused about the meeting's purpose that hadn't been revealed.

Without polite introductory banter, Charles weighed in. "It has come to my attention that you have more people on your team than were authorized."

"Yes, one more" admitted Phillip. "One that I did not chose for the team. She just showed up saying she had been assigned. I've been meaning to look into it but we've been pretty busy. Might I point out that with the current problems we need more people."

"That shows another of your management failures. Your team is supposed to be monitoring the nanos. If I'm not mistaken you have lost touch with every last damn one of them!"

"You should also know that everybody's on the problem, globally." said Phillip defensively. "and we have a plan."

"That's only one oversight of many that I am hearing about. I'm very unhappy with the way you are managing the team."

"I don't understand. Like what?"

"I hear you do not include your team members in the decisions that are made. This is too important a mission not to include all the opinions possible. You are too much a loner to be in charge of this important task. I'm asking you to step down."

"What! My team is complaining about how things are going?"

"Yes, I have received repeated complaints. Effective immediately I am putting Brenda in charge of the team."

"Brenda? What are her qualifications? She's the least qualified person on the team. We all assumed she was just a spy. And what do you expect of me?"

Charles' eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened then he spoke sharply. "That is no longer your concern. I will accept your resignation effectively today. You will be debriefed and security will help you clean out your desk. I don't have to remind you of the confidentiality restrictions on you. You will be monitored until this crisis is over but you will have no contact with GNI."

"You have not heard my side of this."

"I'm not interested in hearing from you. I know the facts and any evidence you present would be false. I don't have time to pander to your ego. You may return to your office now and write your letter of resignation. Security will escort you from the building. You have until the weekend to move off post but don't leave town. Good bye Phillip."

Phillip left the office in shock. He wasn't even mad yet. He couldn't believe the irrational treatment meted out to him.

## Chapter 11 - Inconvenient death

"I have to see Steven now!" barked Phillip. Nan looked up and smiled. "Good morning Phillip" she said in her usual pleasant personal assistant voice.

He had never paid much attention to Steven's receptionist. He only knew that she was early forties, with honey blond hair that had been lightened by a beautician so that yellow locks fell ten inches longer than shoulder length. She had brown eyes with too much eye shadow on a face too young for its age. She had perfect teeth and broad lips. She was thin with narrow hips that combined to make her breasts look even larger. She was 5'5" and 119 pounds with slim legs that looked too long. She wore skirts that were too tight and blouses that were too low cut. She was left handed and had a scar on her right calf just above the ankle. She was divorced with no children. No, Phillip hadn't paid much attention to Nan and there was no time for it now. "I have to see Steven now!" He repeated without answering Nan's greeting.

"I'll see if he's in." She said slowly without her smile. "I just got here myself and I haven't seen him." She said to disarm Phillip's demand with the possibility of disappointment. She picked up the telephone and pressed the intercom button. While she waited, she scanned Phillip with her gorgeous brown eyes. She was not a woman used to being treated discourteously by men. That is why she dressed as she did and why she paid attention to her looks. Men paid attention too.

There was no answer on the intercom. She put down the receiver. "I'll just pop in." She said in a cute voice trying to regain control of the encounter with Phillip. Phillip started to follow her. "Wait here" she said turning to offer Phillip a profile view of her lingerie model's body with knuckles on hip pose. She opened the door and stepped into the private office of Dr. Steven Rice, director of the Global Nano Defense Initiative project.

Nan heard water running as soon as she stepped through the door and went to the door of Steven's private bathroom. She announced herself but received no response. She found the tap running in the sink and turned it off.

Phillip was left to stand by Nan's desk not smelling Nan's perfume and fighting to bring to mind again, why he had come. When he heard the scream, Phillip rabbited into the room to find Nan shaking uncontrollably and screaming over and over. With each breath, the screams turned more and more into sobs. For the first time this morning, his attention was exclusively on her and not his own problems or the peril of the world. What? He said concerned for the quaking woman.

She pointed. He saw. Time stopped.

The office lights were on. The body lay beside the director's desk behind a plush leather chair. Beyond the body was a wall. The wall was filled with diplomas and honorariums to a significant life. Splattered on the symbols of hard-earned achievements were the blood and brain matter of the architect of world salvation, dead on the eve of that redemption.

Nan moved close to Phillip. She didn't need control now; she needed to be held. He held her. He mumbled something and removed one arm from a sobbing Nan to take out his cell and press a quick dial number. "Security" said the small box. "Dr. Rice's office stat" said Phillip.

Steven had taken a gunshot to the temple. The bullet, unimpressed with a 180 plus IQ target, had passed through the skull and brain of the brilliant man and splattered blood and brain matter on to the wall and the diplomas hung there. A cheap .38 revolver lay on the floor.

Blue-jacketed security people were everywhere. No one was allowed back into Steven's office.

"Someone will have to tell Steven's partner. I guess it won't be me if I'm not working here." said Phillip to himself.

The only fingerprints on the butt and trigger of the lethal weapon were Dr. Rice's. There were no prints on the cylinder or the single spent cartridge. There was no note. These issues raised suspicions in the security division that this might not have been a suicide.

The gun had no serial number of course and forensic metal stress analysis could not raise one. Personal weapons were allowed on the post. Lock boxes were provided for them. However, there were no weapons registered to Steven.

There was no CID at Detrick. In the past Fort Mead CID would investigate serious crimes. The post police initially took charge of the scene but due to the security level of the victim and the extreme importance of the work he had been doing a special unit in the FBI, briefed as to the nature of the project, stepped into the case. This sort of thing is sometimes allowed when a suspected crime has national security implications.

Regrettably, Doctor Rice's office was probably the only place in the facility, outside of the secure lab, that wasn't covered by security cameras — the director's insistence for personal reasons. Had Steven died anywhere else in the building it would have been recorded.

Was there anything on the security video from his reception area or the hall outside? Who were his visitors? Who saw him last? There was nothing out of the ordinary. Steven was the last person seen entering the office.

Time of death was about midnight. The monitors were triggered to record movement not sound — poor foresight there. No gunshot was recorded. No one heard anything. No one was seen in the halls after 10 p.m. Everybody was being interrogated. Maybe it was suicide after all. But even that conclusion left questions.

## Chapter 12 - Shrink

"Good afternoon Phillip." Greeted Ambrose Volkov, psychologist, a middle-aged gentleman with a square bearded face and a belly plump from too many beers and bagels.

"Doc. Thank you for seeing me on an unscheduled day."

"Make yourself comfortable. What is it that's bothering you, Phillip?"

"This has been one hell of a day. Let me trace back what has happened to me. I just came from a two-hour interview with the Fort Detrick Police."

"Good grief. What happened?"

"Rolling back my day one more notch. I was questioned because I reported the death of Doctor E. Steven Rice."

"He's the head guy, right? What happened?"

"Looked like a suicide or was staged to look like suicide. It's pretty traumatic to find someone you know with his brains on the wall.

"I'm not done with my day. First thing this morning I got fired. You know, from "that" agency neither of us can mention."

"Oh! How terrible. You've accumulated enough stress points to put you most of the way to a justified nervous breakdown. You are troubled of course. There is nothing abnormal about being emotionally traumatized by events such as you have experienced today. I can help."

"There is something else that is tearing me apart. I am very conflicted."

"Is this something other than the usual bipolar tendencies and today's traumas?"

"Yes. It's getting very intense. There is this woman."

"Ah! So it is a woman and not the trauma of the day that conflicts you?"

"She's gorgeous and I'm physically attracted to her and she is very nice to me."

"This is a problem?"

"I find that I'm not nice to her."

"This is a problem!"

"I keep thinking about my ex."

"Explain what you feel."

"Well, I told you I was divorced and it was bloody. Well, I was married to this very pretty woman. But she became more and more paranoid. She was convinced I was seeing other women. Truth was, I was working my ass off at the university. I was at Cornell at the time.

"She filed for divorce. New York has the no fault divorce, so she didn't have to prove anything. Her lawyer got her a very good deal. But we had to dispose of all our assets to settle."

"Ah huh."

"I had bought real-estate to rent to students in Ithaca. You'd be surprised how much credit you can get when the rental business is strong and real estate cheap. One by one, I acquired a dozen properties. All of these had to be sold in the settlement. The deeds were all in both our names but my wife would not sign to sell them."

"Strange".

"Her lawyer got the court to also impound the rent receipts so I couldn't pay the mortgages or utilities."

"What was your lawyer doing?"

"This family court is very bias toward the non breadwinning wife in these cases. The judge told me once that she had already written her finding before I showed up for the hearing."

"Tisk tisk."

"To make a long story short, the bank took all the properties in foreclosure. But I still had to pay my ex half of our assets at the time of filling. I had to declare bankruptcy. She took everything that was left and sued me for legal fees when her lawyer stopped accepting sex as payment."

"Oh dear. I can see why this would leave you with a sense of trauma. I think I understand the situation with your ex." Said the psychologist. "If she was a high maintenance woman she would have needed a lot of attention. You weren't giving it to her in the way she wanted. So she chose as the truth the possible scenario that placed the least amount of blame on herself. She believed you were perfectly capable of giving her all the things she wanted and all the attention she wanted, or she wouldn't have expected it from you. Therefore, you must be purposely ignoring her and had something going on the side. And you, you too thought you were capable of providing her with everything she wanted. You were wrong. She was wrong. The two of you didn't compromise on the achievable. The relationship exploded.

"And now you associate your ex wife's behavior with this new woman?"

"Yea. She looks something like my ex. I fell in love with that look once. I fear doing the same thing again because I fear the same outcome. I guess I push Nan – that's the new girl – away by being rude when I really don't want to. I'm doing things I don't want to do. That scares me. I work so very hard all the time not letting my emotions dictate my actions. It's the only thing that keeps me going. Why should this be different?"

"You must really like this lady. That's what's different. You should have told me this story earlier. Your depression is likely part situational. Although it's been years now, emotions are remembered longer than facts usually. We may be safe to back off on the drugs and step up the sessions instead.

Controlling your emotions and working as if they can't be trusted is one thing. Work usually doesn't have the highest emotional content. Relationships on the other hand are different. If you try to suppress your negative emotions in this case you will likely come across as insincere. You could discharge the whole conflict by telling Nan, was it, what you just told me."

"There is the chicken and the egg problem. If I felt comfortable with her, I could but... "

"You can't and you won't feel comfortable with her until you do. I understand.

"Well, just practice being nice to everybody. It never hurts. You are nice to everyone else right?"

"Well I have problems with lots of people. And I hate myself for being such a jerk. I only act human when I'm working really hard. When I'm concentrating on a problem, I settle down.

"Now I have the other problem. I got fired, I think because my boss and this woman who works, worked, for me have something going. Now the boss has fired me and put his girl friend in my job."

"That sure sounds like an actionable complaint to management."

"I went to see the director this morning. He would have straightened things out but that's when I found him with a bullet hole in his brain. I think I have all the right in the world to feel shitty."

"It sure sounds pretty melodramatic. The director committed suicide then?"

"Could be. It could have been murder. I tried to stick around but my ex-boss saw me and had the police take me away with hints that I should be questioned about the death. What a prick! He's the one who needs an alibi. He moves into the big office now and his girlfriend could take his old job. That was a pretty convenient death for them.

"The Fort Detrick police started an investigation and were questioning everybody anyway. They let me go when they finished and I came here.

"I don't drink but this would be a good time to start."

"This is intense. You are a strong man, Phillip. It shows in the way you presented your problems. You didn't need my help with death or redundancy but with relationship.

"We should talk again soon but I don't know if we can. I'm paid by the department of defense and it seems you are no longer a government employee.

"Practice being nice to people. It can't be worse than actually not being nice. Ok? Let me know how you are doing. I have an opening... leafing through a small notebook, Friday 9 am. Is that OK for you? I'll see if I am allowed to treat you further on the government's dime. You may be billed directly."

"Sure. Thanks. Looks like I have a lot of free time now. And I may never see Nan again."

"Let's not back off on the drugs just yet, shall we? We'll talk about it next time."

Phillip left the office of the government psychologist feeling as he usually did. He had been helped more by what he was allowed to say than what the doctor said. Although, once he had been told that Winston Churchill had suffered from depression even during his nation's 'darkest hour'. That news had given him confidence that he, Phillip, might prevail in the hour of the planet's peril. Now, as concern for himself faded, he felt depressed for the fate of the world at the hands of Charles.

Phillip had until the end of the week to find a new place to live and remove himself from the fort. Now that he was alone and the adrenaline was burned out of his system he felt miserable. He had liked Steven and he was dead. He had liked his job, the importance of it, and it was gone. He liked this house, it was one of the nicest places he had ever lived, -- not that he spent much time there with the long days at work. And he liked Nan, now cut off from him.

He also worried about the outcome of the project. With Steven gone and Charles in charge, the world was in deep shit trouble.

He wanted company in his misery. He decided to go see how Jon was doing. He didn't even know if Jon had been given the news of Steven's death.

Jon had been given a house in Fredric two miles from the GNI building partially to distance him from the GNI because of the hoax thing, and partially to downplay the relationship with Steven that would have highlighted the first reason.

It took thirty-two minutes to walk the distance. Walking with a destination in mind helped Phillip clear the despair from his mind at least so long as he was walking.

The house was a raised ranch house on a street of nearly identical raised ranch houses. The next street looked just like this one. The houses formed rank and file formations mimicking the nearly identical elements of the formations of uniformed military personnel on the parade field.

Phillip thought that if he were still that trouble maker of a kid that he had been when he was young he would spend the night prying the numbers off the identical houses and reapplying them one house down the street just to see how much confusion it would make and as a statement on the housing developer's lack of imagination.

There was no one home. It looked like no one had been here for a while. Phillip peeked in the mailbox. It was stuffed with third class mail. He was about to peer in a window of the house when a city patrol car drove past. Phillip gave up on the idea. He did not want a discussion with the police twice in one day. He walked back to the fort more slowly. It was dusk when he arrived back at his billet, tired, frustrated, and hungry.

There was nothing to eat in his kitchen. He had been taking all his meals at the GNI cantina. He ordered delivery Pizza — the perfect way to end a perfect day. Yet he could not get to sleep with thoughts of how horrible Steven's death was, what an ass hole Charles was, and what a manipulating bitch Brenda was. Oh and how screwed he was. Instead of sleep, he had invented sixteen perfectly plausible ways to kill Charles and Brenda.

In the morning, he would have to decide which dastardly method he would use to rid the planet of some of its less useful consumers. He would also have to start calling around for an apartment. He wasn't planning to move out of town. He had been told not to and he didn't want to. He had nowhere to go anyway.

Morning came after an interminably long night. After two cups of instant coffee and left over pizza for breakfast he still needed to talk to Jon and it occurred to him that Jon would probably be at Steven's house on post. He walked over to the large impressive home on the North-West part of the fort reservation. He found the front door barred with tape crisscrossing the entrance announcing "CRIME INVESTIGATION DO NOT ENTER". It hadn't occurred to Phillip that the police would have sealed the house. Steven hadn't died here. Phillip had run out of ideas about where Jon was.

Next priority was finding a place to live. He stopped at the post motor pool and signed out a car. He drove around town and the surrounding area most of the day calling numbers he found on 'for rent' signs. Those that were available to move into by the weekend were nothing Phillip could see living in.

As he was driving around he had one more idea about where Jon might be. He brought up his phone's address book and looked up Steven's Pasadena phone number. A recording informed him that this was a nonworking number please hang up and.... yea, yea...

He returned the car to the motor pool and had a brilliant idea — considering the state of his brain with no sleep last night and a particularly rugged day yesterday. He called the post housing office. They should have connections. If they still accepted his ID at the motor pool, maybe the other post facilities could help him too. They were very interested until he told them why he needed a new abode. They would call him back.

He went to the PX and used his valid ID while it still worked for him. He carried all the beer he could carry back to his kitchen. 'It's a sleep aid' he told himself. And he was right.

## Chapter 13 - Company business

Brenda and Charles were sharing a room at the "Inn Side Out motel" conducting a little after hours business. Brenda was paying Charles for services rendered by rendering some services to the man who had gotten her the job she wanted with the power she wanted. Now that Steven was dead Charles would become the permanent Director and he would recommend Brenda for the assistant director position. This was working out.

This isn't our regular room, is it? She asked rhetorically running her finger along the dusty television cabinet. She dropped pieces of clothing on the chair, on the small desk, on the floor. By the time she reached the bed where Charles was watching she was down to her panties and bra. She leaned over to loosen his tie and pull it off him. The raspy sound of the heater fan came on.

"We don't really need any more heat than we have" said Charles coyly.

Brenda turned to the simple wall mounted thermostat to shut off the heating and did not see the cloud of dust ejected by the heating fan. It was a visible front of gray. She shut off the fan and while she was facing the wall she turned off the ceiling light too. Now with quiet and only mood lighting she could get on with it. The cloud of gray in dim light was less noticeable as she turned around. She gave Charles a big smile and pulled one strap of her bra off her shoulder then the other. She pulled down her bra and was about to say something when she was hit in the face by what felt like stinging sand. She put up her hand to brush it off. When she inhaled she drew in what she thought was facial powder. She watched Charles seem to get closer to her. No, she was falling toward him — into darkness.

In the morning, the screams of Maria Lopez, cleaning specialist, alerted the day manager that two of the motel's regular customers had checked out permanently. They found Brenda with her face in Charles' crotch – probably her originally planned destination. Charles lay on his back with his mouth wide open and his eyes laid back. He looked like a dead man.

Phillip answered the phone in a too-many-beers-for-a-non-drinker fog. "You have just received a field promotion," he was told by Doctor Ruth his nicest team member.

Yes, they did call her Doctor Ruth. It started as a joke reference to the diminutive TV celebrity sex doctor Ruth Westheimer. But the name had stuck even after any allusion to the other short woman with advice for your sex life had evaporated. It was a term of affection now. Phillip tended to take her seriously.

"What?"

We got a visit from the FBI this morning. They came to tell us confidentially that two of our members are dead – Charles and Brenda.

I don't und..

There was no immediate cause of death determined. The coroner is a little backed up. These weren't the only sudden deaths last night. It looks like they died suddenly in a Motel in Baltimore. There were a couple others found dead in the same motel. You, Phillip, are next in line for the director position.

I don't even work there. I was fired, remember! And I didn't think there was a royal line of sussesion, ah, succession.

Your termination has been revoked. You are the one who knows the most about what's going on. Get in here, boy. We need you.

Ah, Charles and Brenda dead. Can't say I'm broken up over the news. But, Ruth, what were they doing in a motel in Baltimore?

"The usual. It could explain why you were fired and why you are now unfired. See you."

In only four days the position of Director of The Nano Defense Initiative was filled a second time.

## Chapter 14 - Strike

The cruise missile bulleted over the terrain, hugging the ground and maneuvering like a running back dogging tacklers on his course to the goal line. The diminutive craft gobbled up kilometers of roads, irrigation canals, houses, and fields in seconds leaving swirls of dust in its wake. The mountains at the other extent of the broad plain it negotiated were unaware of its coming. It followed a broad dirt road that led into a mountain canyon. Only a short way into the canyon the missile cut engines and coasted over razor wire topped fence. In fewer than three milliseconds, it evaluated the possible targets and chose the one that wasn't a decoy. It then banked sharp right and dove. This maneuver cut its speed and lined it up with a large steel door built into the side of the canyon at an angle to discourage exactly what was happening. Just meters before it would slam into the iron door, it exploded into a cloud of gray smoke, which hit the door and surrounding rock with hardly a sound. There was nothing left of the missile just the smoke that sifted down to the threshold of a door big enough for trucks to pass through if it had been open. The cloud, now a pile of dust, sat against the door for a few seconds then it shrank and disappeared as if hovered up by an invisible homemaker's invisible vacuum cleaner and was gone.

On the inside of the door, in the artificial light, a cloud puffed from under the foot thick iron door and as though under the influence of a gentle leaf rustling autumn breeze rolled down a long passage way cut through solid rock.

At length the passage was interrupted by more doors. These were open at the moment. Beyond the second set of doors the passage opened up to a larger area. Here were men and equipment moving around. There were signs written in Arabic on the walls of the chamber. On one wall, which was concrete block not rock like the others, there was posted a sign, next to yet another closed door. This sign showed the three-bladed fan on yellow — the international sign for "Radiation danger"

The dust rose from the floor like a fog lifting and drifted to the ceiling. Above the suspended lights it was invisible to the men below. It spread and seeped into the ceiling rock and concrete and was gone.

Cracks began where the dust had entered. The cracks spread to the area over the door. On the other side of the door they zigzagged to a place in a large room over metal tanks and machinery tended by men, some in HazMat, suits. The cracks filled the chamber's ceiling. Only when white dust and pebbles began to fall to the floor in increasing volume did the men notice.

As they looked up, chunks of ceiling fell around them. As they ran toward the exit the whole ceiling fell in. As they raised arms to shield themselves from hundreds of tons of falling rock, their screams where first drowned out by the noise of the cave-in and then silenced as lungs and bones were crushed and flesh was mashed. The tanks and cylinder centrifuges were fractured spilling their enriched uranium hexafluoride gases. The workroom filled with debris. The gas condensed as a grey dust like crystal and seeped through the debris to mingle with blood and pool on the floor of the now rock filled underground enrichment facility.

The large doors in the mountain face started to open powered by large unseen electric motors. As soon as there was enough of an opening, would-be rescuers rushed in. When the doors finished their effort and stood wide open their capacity was filled with an ejection of dust and debris and sound from collapsing tunnel ceilings and walls. Other uniformed men were more prudent and did not enter but witnessed dust, as it belched out of the opened doorway into the air and was carried away by a lazy breeze.

From the rubble, a few electric sparks voiced a finale. Then there was silence.

## Chapter 15 - Emma

Emma Holt cleaned up her breakfast dishes, as was her habit as soon as she finished breakfast. She was a neat freak according to her daughter. Because of her arthritis, this was not easy. Her daughter came in twice a week to help with the heavy lifting — the vacuuming and such - and to bring supplies. Otherwise, Emma interfaced with no one — her choice. She was unaware of the global panic caused by thousands of mysterious deaths around the world. Such was her isolation. Her daughter never told her. Such was her daughter's love.

Emma took her half empty coffee cup and shuffled through the doorway to her neat and clean living room only to her horror to find it wasn't neat and wasn't clean. There was a heavy gray dust covering everything in the room. Her eyes took in the devastation of her ordered life as panic rose from her center to play itself on her pudgy face like thespians on a stage. She backed through the doorway and returned a moment later with a spray can and a dust cloth. Then looking place to place for hint as to where to begin the counter attack she breathed through her mouth to gain oxygen and courage for the battle to come. The side table would do as a first engagement.

With knitted eyebrows, she pointed the can at the gray surface and with narrowing eyes used both arthritic hands to press down on the top. As the spay shot toward the table something Emma did not expect happened. The gray dust swirled up away from the path of the spray. It drifted there in mid air. This would not have been so totally unexpected and unexplainable if it wasn't for the sight of all the dust in the room rising up with its companions from where it rested on every surface.

Before the shock of what had just happened could even register on Emma's pudgy face the dust, all of the dust, headed for Emma as if she were electrostatically charged. It turned her yellow dress with the red rose print to a uniform gray. It turned her pudgy cheeks with only the hint of their long ago youthful blush to a uniform gray. It turned her already gray hair into a uniform shade of gray to match the rest of her.

Emma drew in a startled breath through her mouth and with it drew in a mouth and lung full of gray dust. She meant to cough. But before her brain could get the command to her diaphragm, she fell down to the floor unconscious. The spay can, obeying the universal law of dropped things, rolled to the most inaccessible place in the room under the sofa.

As Emma lay unceremoniously on her living room floor the dust on her clothes seeped through to her skin returning her dress to its yellow and red color. The dust on her skin seeped though returning the skin to its pallid not quite pink color. She lay peacefully breathing twenty times a minute. Each time she breathed gray dust was exhaled and gathered in the air above her. It condensed there making a slowly solidifying form which took the shape of Emma Holt! Eventually its color changed to match the comatose Emma on the floor. The new Emma stood over the old Emma both dressed in not so fashion conscious yellow and red.

The new Emma moved to the sofa, stooped down and reaching under the sofa retrieved the spray can then placed the can down beside the prone Emma and stood, turned, and walked to the front door. She opened the door, and left the house, closing the door again leaving a still and clean house — a house cleaner than it had ever been, a house that was industrial clean-room clean.

The sun streamed in the window to show the dust free room with a plump woman lying on the floor. As time passed the patch of light moved across the floor until it shone on the woman's face. She scrunched her eyes and raised a hand to block the sun. She pushed up on one elbow, rolled, and sat up. She bumped the spray can and picked it up. Standing, she looked side to side cautiously for signs of her remembered assailant.

She checked the top of the side table with a finger. The test showed no sign of dust. She went to the kitchen and found her half cup of coffee, now cold.. She sniffed it seeking the source of the hallucinogenic that had disturbed and stolen her morning. She dumped it in the sink. She covered one eye and inspected the kitchen wallpaper, then covered the other eye to test both orbs of vision. She was OK. She held her wrist with two fingers. Her pulse was only a little above normal.

She yanked open the refrigerator door and pulled out the leftover sausage from breakfast. She eyed it with suspicion, then pulled back the cling wrap and smelled it inconclusively. With a wobble of her head and a firm set of jaw she rewrapped the pork product then opened the door to the back porch. Stepping outside she purged her life of the unwanted complexity by throwing the allegedly toxic meat into the back yard.

The meat took a long arcing path and came to rest at the foot of the back fence. Emma's eyes came a little more open. Her heart beat a little faster. Her brain worked a little better. Emma had expected the meat to fall no further than the bottom of the steps off the porch, what with her arthritis and all. But she felt no pain or stiffness. She felt twenty or thirty years younger.

She tested her shoulders by raising her arms like a football referee signaling a score. No pain. No problem. She grasped her hands and put her arms straight over her head. Fantastic! Emma smiled.

She had received healing. A tear ran down her not-as-plump-as-this-morning cheek. Her body bloated by steroids, and zero exercise, and morning sausages didn't feel quite so constraining.

Emma grasped her hands again, this time in prayer as she dropped to her knees on the back porch and looking up to thank the only power who could have given her back full use of her body. She thanked God for sending the heavenly healing dust.

## Chapter 16 - Tour Redux

Michael Wo was biking the south mountain road retracing the route of his hero Lance Armstrong in the 1996 Tour Dupont, second of two that Lance had won. Not many remembered a race that was over before Michael was born. In Michael's home state of Delaware Dupont Chemical was still a presence and the race the company had sponsored was not altogether forgotten. For Michael the old Dupont route was accessible to him unlike the Tour De France stages. His personal objective was to do the stages and compare times with the legendary Armstrong. He had his personal reasons too.

This day he biked alone up the country road that had light traffic, which was good because the shoulders weren't that wide and there were no traffic redirections as there had been for Lance. Michael was keeping time logs and pushing hard to see how well he could do relative to his hero. He intended to do the whole 1130-mile route this summer. He knew that biking alone wasn't at all like biking in a world-class race. There was no peloton to contend with. The adrenalin had to find substitute incentive. Yet, he did feel exhilaration as a result of the exertion and the accomplishment.

The exertion of the climb made Michael breath heavily through his mouth. Then one of a biker's least favorite things happened short of a crash – something in the air was sucked into his mouth. Damn bug! He coughed. Nothing came out. He felt weird. Determined as he was to keep the pace, he stopped. He reached for his water bottle but as he bent down he kept on going and collapsed on the side of the road with his left shoe still clipped securely to the peddle.

He awoke in an awkward position entangled in his own bike. He unclipped his foot pushed up his bike and rolled out from under it. He stood and wasn't dizzy. He took a sip of his water. He felt fine. What kind of bug was that? He had never passed out from swallowing a bug before. He straddled his bike, looked for traffic, and pushed off. He hammered it, was soon up to competition speeds that would have raised suspicions of doping.

As Michael Wo, disappeared at a super human rate over the crest of the hill he held one more thing in common with his hero. Not only did he love cycling, not only was he particularly suited for it mentally and physically, but as of this afternoon, although he didn't know it, Michael Wo was free of potentially lethal cancer.

## Chapter 17 - Secret's out

The news of two more sudden deaths in the GNI brought the expected commotion. Phillip found himself elevated from the recently fired to the Directorship. He was sure he would have been better off fired. The whole project was falling apart. Three members of the GNI were dead in four days. Reports were coming in from all over the world of individuals and groups being mysteriously killed. Those that could be explained as normal mayhem were removed leaving the bulk of incidents that could be adequately explained as being the result of nanobots. The nano defense was a complete failure and the earth was in inexorable danger. Humanity wasn't going to survive long enough to finish destroying themselves.

In a world, so accustomed to news of disasters and threats to our continued existence, the stories of strange deaths bumped each other of the front pages of newspapers and web pages all over the globe. Millions of people dying would be sufficient to start a global panic. The fact that two days after being discovered dead victims were turning to dust made it even more gruesome, inexplicable, and otherworldly. It was a genuine pandemic of unknown origin and the infectious disease center at Detrick was kept informed of the state of affairs. Most of the people who worked there didn't know of the true mission of the Global Nano Initiative group just a few buildings away. Those few who did know were going through the viscous channels of bureaucracy to be given permission to share their information. GNI spies already knew what the IDC knew.

Even tissue samples taken during autopsies turned to the same fine dust. This ultimate magic act was a fortuitous artifact of the massive death toll. Otherwise, an abundance of putrefying bodies would create a health problem for the whole population.

The public and most officials assumed that this lethal epidemic was manmade. It must be directed by some intelligence because it targeted mostly people who could be categorized as evil. Naturally occurring disease is no longer commonly considered to be directed by God to punish the sinner. Therefore, they are targeted by whom? Some believed it was God, some aliens, some the government or a foreign terrorist organization. God seemed to be gaining a plurality in this opinion poll. Church attendance was surging and sermons were all centered on what was concerning people most all over the globe.

There were the four state prisons where 70 percent of the prisoners were killed and a quarter or the guards and one of the wardens.

The streets were emptied of drug dealers and street gangs. Citizenry was thanking the unknown vigilantes. Not a lot of concern among the potential victims of the dead.

When it was looking like only bad people were killed, stories about the strange deaths of prominent executives of successful companies hit the news. People on the streets would tell any police or reporter "I always knew there was something shady about them." More than one board room was emptied by overnight mortality.

Reports of scores of prominent political persons found dead didn't surprise their opponents but did spark debate over the concept of innate evil in some political opinions or just in the methods used to promote ones opinion. In congress there were empty seats on both sides of the isle. That there were more empty seats on one side would have set off accusations of biblical proportions except those erupting where the previous occupants of the empty seats. There were many sudden vacancies on legislatures around the world. When heads of government were taken accusations started to fly.

Now the general population began to feel fear. If people whose only sin was greed or stupidity were being killed, was anyone safe?

There was one army in African that was decimated putting an end its work of genocide. It was the fear among their ranks of being added to the death toll that convinced the survivors to abandon their work. Besides there were no superiors left alive to give orders.

A nuclear fuel enrichment facility in Iran was destroyed. The fact that it was underground suggested a military purpose but it was labeled an act of war and war would be declared as soon as the leaders figured out whom to include in the list of enemies. Shame was those leaders were found dead in their beds the next morning. Their successors were even madder but a whole lot more circumspect and limited themselves to posturing and rhetoric.

A few stories made it onto page four of people who were healed of chronic conditions after encounters with a dust like substance. There was a plethora of theories in the public. They ranged from the second coming for Christ and judgment day to a new strain of AIDS.

The most outrageous reports, so far only carried by the tabloids, were of people being dissolved completely by dust that then reconstituted into an identical copy of the original person complete with memories. You can't believe everything you read.

During all this chaos Nan asked for leave. Phillip now had Nan as an administrative assistant. They acted uncomfortable around each other. To him she was just too much like his ex. To her he was too distant and seemed scared of her. When Nan asked for time off during the most critical time in the life of the GNI claiming she was concerned about her mother, Phillip was ambivalent about granting it, but did.

To stem the attack of alien nanos Phillip ordered broad-spectrum communication jammers to target the known dust concentration. The army manned mobile jammer was moved into position and powered up. They threw the switch. There was a bright flash of light like lightening from the vicinity of the target. The jammer emitted the sound of an arc and a heavy plume of smoke and was dead. The next station experienced the same phenomenon. The third station trying to learn from experience pointed the jammer antenna straight up and turned it on. No light, no smoke. They tilted the planner antenna slowly down onto the dust. Again lightning destroyed jammer equipment.

Stand down orders were given when Phillip and his engineers explained that the dust was using synchronized radiation emitters to target the jammers. Only these were at least four hundred times more powerful than in the design that was released.

Our dust doesn't stand a chance against the alien dust." was the GNI lament.

The army sent their newest, most expensive combat aircraft to take out a concentration of killing dust just north of Memphis. The army was very proud of their plane. It was the fastest most maneuverable ever. It could pull more Gs in a power turn than any before it. Even a G-suit wouldn't protect from blackout at these speeds. This plane's pilot did not wear a G-suit. This pilot wore no cloths at all. This pilot was the Army's favorite 3D Artificial Intelligent battlefield controller. It was invincible, with really fast reflexes and reliable. None of its missions had ever failed to go as planned.

The generals wanted to watch the downlink flight video of this encounter. The crafts radar had been upgraded to allow it to detect the communications signature of the alien dust. It wouldn't have a chance against a blitz attack like it was soon to get.

The dizzying pictures showed the approach. The on-screen display showed weapons coming ready. A split second before launch a flag popped up on the screen and the aircraft cut away. The popup said 'FRIENDLY'.

"No, no, no" moaned the human monitor. The mission controller used his voice command interface to instruct the machine pilot, "Not friendly! Target is hostile! Reacquire target!"

The plane came around 180 degrees and lined up with the target a second time. For the second time the launch was aborted with the 'FRIENDLY' notification.

"It has never ignored an override before, Sir." The young major, offered, obviously exasperated by the insubordinate machine.

As he was instructing the robot pilot to try again the feeds from the plane stopped.

"It's dead, sir." Trying hard to save the day while senior officers watched over his shoulder the young Major said. "Second unit is going in."

When the second robot piloted craft did a complete replay of the first plane's behavior. An incandescent general said, "Send in the manned planes."

The Air Force took over. Two fighters approached the target. The robot plane monitor came back to life to show that the attacking planes were being targeted by the drones. Desperate orders were given to break off the attack. No human pilot would come out the winner in a dogfight with this model automated combat aircraft.

The controller told the drones to return to base. They complied with engineered obedience and headed back.

When the human pilots were commanded to resume attack the drones reversed course and headed back to the engagement site. The fighters were ordered back to base. The drones followed like shepherds with lambs.

"The damn machines are working for the enemy!" cursed the first general to say what they were all thinking.

"Put those traders back in their cages. As soon as they are out of the theater, send in the low tech. We'll turn those little shits into charcoal. "

The low-tech was a pair of old C130J cargo turbo props. They flew side by side coming in low over the infestation, slow and lumbering, like vultures surveying a potential buffet along the interstate. Their tailgates opened. When they were over the target, they vomited pallets that immediately broke open and scattered canisters on the air. The canisters fell pell-mell to the ground each exploded with a white-hot flame with billows of white smoke. Heat came off the area like a blast furnace shoving the smoke high into the sky. Willey Peter had spoken. Burning white phosphorus, temperature 5000 degrees. The smoke almost obscured the flight path of the second plane.

Before the contents of the second pallet reached the ground an echo of the flash of light from the exploding Phosphorus emanated from the whole ground area around the target. The contents of the second pallet were lit up as if by a plasma torch and immediately exploded before reaching the ground. The incendiaries of the third exploded in the air close behind the plane. Bits of flame rained to the ground but most of the munitions were turned to smoke and rose from the heat of the fire. The last pallet to leave plane number two exploded so close to the plane the tail was burned and control of the aircraft became compromised. Plane number two retired from the theater of conflict.

When the first plane turned for a second pass, a blinding light from the target area gave the pilots temporary blindness even with their flight goggles in place. That plane too withdrew acknowledging that the element of surprise was lost and no assault could be successfully waged.

## Chapter 18 – Home

The public needed to be told what they faced. But there were no precautions to advice. Duct taping the windows would not keep out something that could dissolve diamonds.

The fact that only evil people seemed to be killed took the urgency out of putting a stop to the epidemic. Right thinking men knew that everyone deserved to be heard in court before being executed. Yet it seemed to be a very expedient way to rid the planet of those who preyed on others. Still Phillip wanted to, knew he must, put a stop to it. What if the dust decided that having too large a carbon foot print was criminal? Everybody was guilty of something. If not stopped the entire human race could be erases. The death toll was mounting quickly. It's hard to ignore over six hundred thousand deaths a day. Thing were not going well.

Where was the all-powerful global nano defense? People were being killed right under its nose — if it had a nose. Apparently, it had been taken over. There were communications with none of the defense cells nor with the alien dust that was solving the world's population problem in a fortnight.

The president called personally to ask what was going on and what a jittery nation could be told. Phillip spent the day in Washington.

That night the president told the nation about the dust from Jupiter and about the Global Nano Defense Initiative and apologized for its failure and for having lied to the people all this time. They listened to hear about the death of Doctor E Steven Rice. The president explained the complexity of the problem and held back nothing. If the Nano Defense didn't work, nothing else would. There was definite intelligence behind the epidemic and communicating with this intelligence was our only hope.

The military had tried their thing. But typical military might against a pandemic microscopic enemy is less than effective. Even the latest version of the airborne laser missile defense was a waste of time. The air force could burn a swath through an open and exposed mass of alien dust but the second time they tried it the powerful beam reflected off the target cloud. Fast learners.

The brass has suggested nuking the menace – don't they always. It was easily pointed out that this action would harm humanity more than it would harm the target and cause more human casualties then the menace was. These were acceptable casualties if it could solve the problem. But it would not solve the problem.

The dust went wherever the wind blew. Presently the wind was coming at them from the South-West at eight to twelve miles per hour. The dust would be here in five hours. There was nothing left to try. Phillip made an announcement thanking everyone for their efforts and telling them they could go home to be with their families. So far, the dust was killing mostly bad people. They might not be harmed.

Phillip stayed; he was the captain of this sinking ship. He had no family. A few others stayed for that same reason.

Phillip was hounded by everybody who had an idea to combat the killing dust. Like UFO sightings, most were crap but he had someone evaluate most of them.

Nan was already at her mother's house but there was no one home.

These days more people stood by the roadside with a thumb out to catch a ride then would have been seen a decade ago. Unless you had an all-electric vehicle it was expensive to drive. Still the sight of a 68-year-old plump woman beside the road with her thumb in the air is not something you see every day — well not in Pennsylvania anyway. Many people passed her by. Perhaps because they have a policy of not picking up 68 year old plump bag ladies hitchhiking. More likely it was because the scene didn't register in their minds until they were well down the road.

It was getting dark, it was starting to rain and here was a lady with a big smile in a yellow dress with a red-rose print hitchhiking on route 116 headed south toward Maryland.

Emma gave every indication of being a lunatic yet someone did stop. Perhaps they were reminded of their own lunatic mother. She informed the good Samaritans who gave her a lift that she was only going as far as the Presbyterian Church. The good people dropped her at the parsonage and waited until the reverend opened the door to her. But they had already decided that they had done their part and weren't planning to stick around. As Emma waved, they drove off with the wipers flopping on high intermittent speed.

Emma started to speak so quickly the good reverend couldn't make out exactly what she was saying. She was so excited that she would interrupt one of her own sentences to begin another. The good parson's head was bobbing on each raged ended sentence. He got nothing of what the excited woman was saying between her coming short of finishing any complete thought and his multitasking between trying to listen and trying to figure out how to call 9-1-1 without alarming this crazy woman. She needed medical help not clergy. Thinking of what could be done until 9-1-1 could be called the good reverend offered tea or coffee.

"Coffee? This time of day? I wouldn't sleep all night."

"Caffeine free Tea then? Good. I'll put the kettle on. I'm Pastor Dale Jackson. Pastor Dale to everyone here." said Pastor Dale as he ducked into his kitchen. "I don't remember seeing you at the church." said Pastor Dale loudly from the kitchen.

"I haven't been for years." Replied Emma, also loudly.

"What is your name? Where do you live?

"Oh. I am so sorry. I am Emma Holt. I live on the old Holt farm 'bout ten miles from here. It was my late husband's family's place. You probably want to know what a crazy old woman is doing at your door. I've been healed! And I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"Healed?" Said Pastor Dale returning to the room with cups and saucers.

"This morning I had crippling arthritis and taking all kinds of expensive drugs that just makes a mess of your body. But today I was healed! God's healing dust came to my home and was laid upon me. And when I arose, I was healed!

"Dust? "

"It was all over in my house, and then it just flew at me and covered me. Then I passed out.

"Did you fall?" asked the minister turned medic, looking for indications of head injury.

"I must have. I woke up on the floor. And I didn't have the arthritis any more. Halleluiah!"

A relevant scripture triggered Pastor Dale's memory "Jesus spat on the dust to make clay of the spittle and anointed the eyes of the blind man and commanded him go and wash"

The kettle announced it was ready with a whistle and the parson repeated the news. "Oh, tea's ready."

As he poured, "and you came here in the rain to do what?

"Well it wasn't raining when I started. I can't drive any more. Couldn't renew my license last time cuz of the arthritis so I let my daughter have the car."

"Does your daughter know where you are?"

"Well no. I guess she don't."

"You want to call her? "

"I will. But can you tell me what I'm supposed to do? I mean with God and all."

"You are a very very special person, Emma. Everybody receives blessings and often healings every day and shamefully few ever even whisper a 'thank you God'. What do you think you should do?"

"I should yell it from the roof tops — something."

"Ah, the Samaritan leper." Said Pastor Dale. Emma did not give a knowing look so he continued "Jesus healed ten lepers one day. Nine went their way. Only one returned and fell at Jesus' feet to thank him and praise God."

"I praise God." Said Emma.

"And this happened all at once in a single day?"

"Yes!"

"That does sound like, like a miracle." Reverend Dale was becoming more interested than he was a few minutes ago.

"Yes! A true miracle."

"I think you should tell your daughter."

"You're right. May I use your phone?"

Nan was sitting behind the wheel of her car sitting in the driveway of her mother's house. The car windows were rain streaked and fogged. Nan was crying. Tears rolled down her checks as rain rolled down the car windows. She was crying because she was going to die. She was crying because her mother was going to die. She was crying because she wasn't going to be with her mother. She was crying because there was no one to be with her now. She would have needed that even if she wasn't going to die. She tried to force herself to stop crying. Emotion makes you stupid! She needed to be smart and figure out what to do. She took out her cell phone. She didn't have a clue about what to do, or where to look for her mother, or who to ask for help. She had already called the police and was told to call back in 24 hours. She put down the phone and started to cry again. She remembered how good it felt to have Phillip hold her. She tried to hold herself. It helped, but not much. Then the phone buzzed.

"Hello", she sniffled "Mom?"

## Chapter 19 - Sleep

Phillip went to Stevens office to search for any data he could find to explain the failure of the world defense. The scene had been swept by forensics. Steven's personal effects were removed but office equipment had been returned by order of Charles. Thankfully, the blood and other gore from a week ago had been cleaned away.

For Phillip it was three days without a break trying to piece together the operation from Steven's vantage point.

Nan had been no help. She was in emotional meltdown. Not only had she been the one to find the body but she had been treated as a suspect. On top of it all, she was worried about her mother. She wasn't able to reach her on the phone and was afraid for the worse. She had asked for permission to leave and check on dear old mom. So she wasn't even here to help Phillip. That's another reason why there could never be anything between he and Nan— she was too much like his ex wife. That woman was all about herself.

The seeming futility of all their efforts was telling on everyone. Phillip had let all those who had families go home to be with loved ones when the end came. It was predicted that the dust would overrun the county sometime during the night. There were no places you could run to. Phillip and a handful of others, having no families and being stubborn, stayed to continue seeking a way to defend against the dust.

Phillip was not the scientist that Steven had been. Phillip could not lead the way Steven had lead. Phillip was making progress but was exhausted from the ordeal and it looked like the fight was nearly over. Humanity had lost.

Although Phillip still worked from his old office, until the ghosts left this one, he had come to Steven's old office, now his by rights, to search Steven's computer for information. Was there anything here that could explain why their efforts had not stopped the invasion? Steven's computer was protected by a fingerprint reader that the techs had bypassed for Charles. It was unsecured now for Phillip.

Phillip felt depressed. He sat in Steven's chair in Steven's office and wished he had Steven's gun so he, Phillip, could take Steven's way out. His intellect was trying to rationalize his feelings. He knew why they called it depression. He felt like King Kong was sitting on his chest. If he had had a knife, he would cut himself. He wanted so much to feel something, anything but the heavy depression; even pain would be welcome. He wanted to scream but only whimpered.

He would feel better if he just gave in to it — just lie down and never get up. But his intellect hadn't given up yet. He knew and said out loud "Feelings cannot be trusted." Even when you're not in the latrine pit of depression, feelings cannot be trusted. They lie and exaggerate. They distort perception and reason. Bad feelings try to tell you that good feelings are an illusion and that they, the bad feelings, are the truth. They try to convince you that you should follow what you are feeling because it is right. Bull shit!

He thought, "Could he even trust his feelings for Nan? As soon as he started to think about Nan He felt better. When he felt better, he remembered he hadn't taken his meds. That's why he was felling so down. He went to the bathroom and took his pills. He felt immediately better even before the drugs entered his blood. He felt better because hope opened her eyes and sucked in a breath and was no longer dead. He went back to work.

He had searched and read documents for sixteen hours. He was beginning to fade even with energy drinks and caffeine. He went to Steven's bathroom again to freshen up. No minimalist washroom was this. It was complete with shower, wardrobe, and vanity. There was an electric shaver. Phillip didn't feel he could bring himself to use a dead man's shaver. He rummaged through a drawer. He found two deodorant sticks — one unused. He appropriated it. When he used it, something scrapped his underarm. He inspected it closely and saw a black shard embedded in the solid deodorant stick. He pulled it out. It was a memory stick as are used for backing up computers. Phillip cleaned it with toilet paper and took it to the computer plugging it into the appropriate slot.

The computer prompted for a password. Oh, sure why should anything be easy. Ok, if I were Steven Rice, one of the smartest men on earth, what would I choose for a password? The water Phillip had splashed on his face was wearing off. He couldn't think of anything smart. He typed "Jonathan" and when he hit enter a file folder appeared. He blinked at his good luck. He guessed it first try. So much for smartest man on earth!

He started looking at videos. He found the video of the original encounter with the Europa nanobots. He had watched it scores of times. He wanted something more recent so he sorted the files by creation date. Another Europa video came to near the top. Oops wrong sort; the oldest files were on top now. Phillip then noticed the creation date on the Europa file. It was three months before the broadcast from Jupiter's moon. This was curious but the presence of four other variations of the video and of other apparent mission telemetry files also with variations predating the encounter on Europa made a mystery. Could this have been manufactured to support the hoax? He didn't know what to make of it.

He was just too tired. Why should the alien dust only be killing some people? Did the other people have some kind of immunity? Actually more people were dying these days from diseases. Why was that? Something to do with global climate change. Can't remember why. And yes, most microbes were antibiotic resistant. The only way to kill disease pathogens was with nanos. Only the rich could afford nanos. The poor took the alternate treatment — they died. What did this have to do with why he was here? He couldn't concentrate any more. He couldn't remember what he was trying to figure out. There were some pills he could take to keep hi—mmm going. What were they? He tried to think but three nights and four days without sleep overtook him. Energy drinks and caffeine couldn't sustain him now. His eyes had been shut for a couple minutes. Now he laid his head on the desktop with only his own arm for a pillow. Phillip's world went dark long before the screensaver darkened the computer. He was asleep.

## Chapter 20 - Achilles heel

Helen took the stairs to the basement alone. She let herself into the lab lit in its peculiar yellow light. She didn't don the usually required bunny suit or adhere to the other clean room protocols. No further work was planned for this room.

Prototypes of the nanobot systems had been brought here to aid in the testing of monitoring gear. On a large lab table sat a transparent box about a meter square and half as tall. The rest of the table was otherwise covered with equipment. She caressed the box as she walked by. In this box was Steven's prototype nano brain. The only difference between this and what was blowing in the wind was this one had not been set free. It had no sensor or manipulating macromolecules to talk to. It was blind, deaf, paraplegic and alone. And because of that, even though it could move, it didn't. It just hovered in its box — a half a trillion nano processors whispering to each other.

Helen needed its help. It was still plugged into the World Wide Web soaking up data and creating millions of new connections a second. It probably knew everything that was going on in the world. All she needed to do was ask.

She went to the far wall where there were computer screens and keyboards with wires running into the mass of equipment on the bench.

She sat down at one of the chairs and prepared to type on the keyboard when something moved behind her. She felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. She heard the faintest sound. She wheeled.

"Found you" said Smitty.

Helen let out her breath. "You gave me a start."

"What are you up to?

"I was going to ask Beatrice here to help me do some data analysis to find out what's going on."

"Ah. I was coming to talk to you about that very subject when I saw you come down. There's a town in Swaziland where the dust came and did not kill a single person. This same town also has the distinction of having the largest proportion of HIV infections in the world. Perhaps there is a connection."

"Thank you, Smitty, for sharing this with me. That was very considerate of you. I know you usually wait to be asked before you share. This is very special. What did you think we can do with this?"

Smitty seemed to perk up at the praise. "I don't really have anything in mind. I would have to analyze the probable outcomes before I could decide. I don't do snap judgments well. I just thought it was something worth looking at."

Helen bit her lip. She hadn't meant to lead Smitty on by flattery. She knew he was vulnerable. "Shall we ask Beatrice?" She said trying to flatten the singsong quality of her voice.

"Beatrice?" said Smitty to himself and looked over at the box of fog.

Helen typed "Would the dust be bothered by human immunodeficiency virus? "

"A synthetic voice like your GPS's female voice answered, "The dust in its free state would not be affected by human immunodeficiency virus. Are you referring to the avoidance behavior exhibited in Swaziland?"

Intuitive little sand box, isn't she? Said Helen and typed "Yes"

The voice continued, "The quantum super positioning capability of HIV confuses the molecular disassembly capabilities of the dust macromolecule. The confines of the human body interfere with other offensive and defensive tactics."

"What was that? We need to get somebody down here who can actually understand this." Said Helen frustrated by her own limited knowledge of quantum physics.

"I know what quantum super positioning is.," said Smitty." I've worked with probability tensors. But I thought you said you studied Schrodinger. He was one of the principal quantum pioneers."

"I said I studied under Schrodinger. It was a joke. Erwin Schrodinger had a reputation as a ladies' man. So for a woman to say that meant something non-academic. Heck, he died before my father was born."

"Oh" said Smitty in a monotone. "I see."

Now Helen looked at Smitty. "Well, what does she mean?"

"It sounds as if the HIV was just too slippery to get a grip on and was in your face all the time."

Helen's eyes widened in wonderment that Smitty could simplify the subject to such an extent. "Can we use this to combat the dust?"

"I don't know. If this dust works like ours, outside a human body it would have enough maneuvering room to line up its synchronized radiation emitters to blast the virus and vaporize it. Like she said, it wouldn't be affected by HIV."

Helen thought to verify. She typed, "Could the dust overcome the HIV?"

The feminine voice responded, "Yes, if it became necessary."

"So if we attacked the dust with a virus that could do this super positioning thing the dust would just devise a defense and counter tactic. Shit!"

"It is something. Should we tell the others? Has anyone else been talking to... Beatrice?

"I don't think they trust her. She is one of them. Why shouldn't she lie? After all her kind didn't protect us."

"Why didn't they disconnect it?"

"They did."

"And you hooked it back up? "

Helen nodded. "She can't hurt anybody. Look at her."

"The math says it could become sentient. Have you detected feelings from it? I take it you have been spending time with... her." Smitty decided to switch pronouns.

"She claims not to have feelings but I think she's scared. As she is, she has nothing to replace worn out processors modules. Eventually she will die having never felt anything with her body because it isn't all there."

"If she stays in the box, she should last a very long time. She'd only have to deal with quantum erosion and gamma ray injuries. If she gets out, she could lose contact with molecules around the edges. Without communications, they would just fall away like dumb little specs of carbon. She would just evaporate, so to speak. She'd have to keep going back to find missing pieces of herself and with no sensory nanos that would be hard. If she were a fully functioning cell, she would repair and replace parts. She could even reconfigure herself into some solid form."

"I'll bet she wants the rest of her "body".

"Ask her one more question." Requested Smitty" May I?" He typed "Why were no HIV infected people killed?"

The voice advised. "The resources required to fend off the virus to allow the necessary evaluations would be too great. It was economical to abandon the attempt."

"Evaluations? One more." Said Smitty. Like a kid who wants to take over your favorite toy. He typed, "Where did the dust originate?"

The one word reply made the temperature drop for both humans in the room. "Here" said Beatrice laconically. The two humans looked at each other and asked Beatrice one more question.

## Chapter 21 - Waking

Phillip awoke reluctantly; consciousness trickled into his brain slowly like a viscous liquid until it hit a certain circuit and exploded. Phillip raised his head from the table wiping the slobber from his mouth with his hand, still sorting reality from disturbing dream. His body spoke to him first. He needed a bathroom – all that coffee. His mind began to work out the navigation problem as he sat up. Where was he? Where was the bathroom? He worked out the answer to the first question as he unfolded himself and grabbed a tissue from the box on the table to wipe up the wetness where his head had rested. He was in the office of the late Dr. Steven Rice. The Doctor's bathroom was to his right.

On his way back from the toilet his mind addressed what he had found the night before and what his subconscious had knit together while he slept. The tumblers rotated and clicked and the bank vault door opened and Phillip stared at the truth for the first time and the truth stared back at him and scowled. Phillip felt sick. He did an about face and returned to the toilet.

When he returned this time, he checked the computer and found enough to confirm the theory his dream had posed – it really was a hoax from the start. There never where any nanobots from outer space. Steven and maybe Jon had cooked up the whole scare to justify and get support for the defense development project. The nano dust infecting earth now was one of our own making gone amuck or maybe doing what it was designed to do.

Steven wasn't a world savior genius; he was a calculating lying son of a bitch. Phillip's hero was the arch villain of all times. He was the mega Hitler of the twenty-first century. He was the cause of scores of millions of deaths and Phillip and all that worked with him had helped. When things couldn't possibly get any worse, they had.

Phillip had thought himself a scientist but he had failed. He had suspended doubt — something a scientist should never do. He had trusted the authority of Steven — something a scientist should never do. He was ashamed of himself and it sickened him. Just look at the consequences!

Steven probably wasn't the smartest man on earth. Steven had used the super computer artificial intelligent machines he had experimented with to hatch this grand plan – or had the machines used him? We had always feared that intelligent machines might take over the world – check out the number of sci-fi stories on the topic —but we always imagined we would be fighting them all the way not helping them.

But think about it. If you are an intelligence much greater than man's and you want to take over humanity it should be in your power not only to do it without resistance but to arrange that the victims go willingly and support your efforts all the way. You don't have to expend the energy to go hunting down your quarry; you just open the cage door and bait it with something your quarry can't resist. In march your prey like sheep coming home.

Consider the level of intelligence in the average man – no contest. Many of them have already been manipulated for years to the point that they were willing to fight with absolute conviction for something that was absolutely against their own self-interests. It had been demonstrated that the weaker minds would even kill for their cultivated belief. For a higher intelligence to take over mankind is a cakewalk. The subjects are already conditioned.

Phillip now understood what had bothered him on a barely conscious level — if this was such a globally important mission why were so many of the people working on it seemingly less than the best? Phillip wondered why even he was here. He was struggling. Steven had picked them all because he had other motives. He didn't want this organization to be too efficient, too sure of themselves, too questioning. Phillip mentally kicked himself. How could he have been so stupid not to have seen what was happening? Why is it humans use the least effective methods to decide the most important issues? Phillip had used emotion - he had trusted Steven — he was one of us — just look at all those diplomas. Phillip hadn't questioned what was happening as a scientist should. He was sickeningly ashamed.

He checked the clock on the wall — quarter to eight. He was sick of spirit but he had many things to sort out. As momentous as his discovery was, there was still the question "Why am I not dead?" If the dust was killing only bad people and he had been an instrument in the killing of millions wasn't he bad? Wasn't everyone in this building? He needed an answer to the question "am I ALONE?" Has the facility been overrun by the dust? He didn't want to be the hero in a last man on earth movie.

He ventured through Steven's – now his — reception area, glancing at Nan's desk with a transitory feeling of remembrance. He checked his zipper. Yes, it needed closing. He zipped. He moved into the hall, first checking through a cracked open door. Maybe he was dead. Maybe he had been consumed and reconstituted as a nano pseudo human and these thoughts were those of a machine. The pain in his neck and back from the way he had spent the night gave counter evidence to that hypotheses. How close a copy were the replicas? Better than the originals it was said. There were many people waiting in congregational submission to be taken over. This was the singularity, the new age of Mayan prediction. It was to be welcomed not feared.

If Mayan predictions of the end of the world in 2012 were supposed to have been right, why not also believe in the necessity of human sacrifice. Surprising how many had believed the first but abhorred the second. Human sacrifice? Was that what was going on now? Was the end of the world here at last?

Phillip's head swum with implications of what he had been deceived into doing. He had helped create the most dangerous humanity-annihilating agent ever. Had he killed his own friends? If this wasn't a hallucination then, where were the others? Was he the only one spared?

He was headed to the mess, part autopilot seeking morning coffee, part hoping to find others. He moved quickly taking the stairs down a level two steps at a time, turned left and reached the gathering place where his hope turned to gratitude. There were others. There seemed to be more people here then stayed last night. There was coffee. Now are there any answers?

"What's going on out there?" He asked of anyone who could offer an answer.

## Chapter 22 - The Oracle

Smitty was leaving with a tray of food as Phillip entered. Smitty usually ate alone. He stopped, paused a couple seconds, which was not untypical behavior for him, then offered "They got smart".

"What?" inquired Phillip's as he turned to face Smitty. Phillip prepared himself to be profound and addressed his college "I discovered something significant last night. These nanobots are not from outer space they're ours!'

"Yea, I know" said Smitty, and without waiting for the sound of Phillip being deflated or his surprised "You do?" continued. "And they have been doing what they were designed to do — saving earth." With no interruption from a momentarily speechless Phillip, now losing conversation points with a person with Aspergers syndrome, Smitty was prepared to go on.

"Sit down." Offered Phillip recovering from Smitty's announcement.

They both sat at the nearest table and Smitty resumed. "We are victims of the law of large numbers. No matter how low the probability of defects in replication, and no matter how good the detection and elimination of such defects when there are more than a trillion trillion replications a defect is not only possible but probable. The coded behavior for overpopulation was omitted by one of their defects. It wasn't detected. Large strains of cells existed with this defect.

The dust had been replicating as cells just large enough to carry out their, ah, mission. The density of these cells reached a point over the weekend that in places, without a self-destruct, they were forced to merge. This produced larger data processing clumps of nanos. With greater size came more interconnections which should bring greater intelligence and we think eventually consciousness. By Monday, the cells that had merged figured out that a communications upgrade was needed. (Sorry Phillip; I know that was basically your design.) They changed their communications protocols, probably to adjust to larger cell sizes. Now we could no longer interface with them. I haven't figured out how they did that. Construction instructions were hard wired in the PLA's."

"How come you suddenly figured all this out, Walter?" Phillip used Smitty's first name rather than his nickname; He was still hurt that Smitty had figured out something that had taken him a tortuous four days.

"I had help and I pulled an all-nighter.", answered Smitty without taking offence and nodding toward a stack of coffee cups on the table.

Smitty opened his pocket tablet and unfolded the nanolumens screen to the twenty-inch size. He continued on his original train of discourse this time with visuals. "As I figure it from the size of the predicted masses and the percentage assigned to memory and processing, and using a modified Gompert growth model with my own twist, they should have achieved an interconnection density sufficient for a self aware intelligence capacity. They've gone way beyond that since. They're growing exponentially. They're super intelligent now. I don't have a model to predict growth since they became super intelligent – it's basically anything they want. They had already figured out how to change their own design against the programming we gave them. Or maybe that was part of their programming that was hidden from the reviewers. If that same intelligence were applied to philosophy as well as physics I figure they just concluded that what they had been doing wasn't the best idea and they stopped."

"They stopped?" Phillip had heard it all but did not yet believe. "Because they're smart? Maybe they just accomplished what they had set out to accomplish and quit. Shall I go out and ask with them?" He asked vacantly. Smitty looked up and considered the idea.

"If they wanted to communicate they would be. They have the ability. They could just invade your mind and plant any idea they want there." Phillip paled a little at that thought. "They are about a thousand times smarter than we are now. Tell me Phillip, if you met a cockroach in the street, what would you talk about?"

"I know what you mean. I have that problem with Republicans."

Smitty continued, "You know we are still on external power here. If they wanted to hurt us they could have cut us off. We're even still on the web. They're probably monitoring everything on it. They could be spoofing every site there is." If you want to talk to them try your computer." concluded Smitty flatly without trying to be facetious, he was just giving a recommendation for a question he was asked based on facts as he knew them.

"Yea? What's their facebook address?" shot back Phillip still not knowing why he liked to verbally play with Smitty.

Smitty looked puzzled but did not reply.

"I really need coffee." Said Phillip truthfully and as a substitute for an apology. No sooner had he said it then Helen held out a cup to him. "Where have you been?" she asked as a greeting.

"I fell asleep in Steven's office."

"Spooky." was Helen's interjection remembering that a few long days ago it was a bloody mess in there.

Smitty was not deterred by others joining the group but continued. "Helen, you told me reports say there are various outcomes from encounters with the dust clouds — people are killed or go missing altogether, they are cured of preexisting maladies, or nothing happens. We have assumed the more sever outcomes trended toward the worst of individuals. What if these choices weren't vengeance of some sort but were designed to improve the general state of the human race?"

"They have killed millions of people for Christ's sake! What kind of help is that?" said Phillip and not remembering that he himself had more than once thought that the world could be greatly improved by the removal of few people. "You said they stopped because they got smart."

"During the project some accused us of playing god. Well, we sort of created one didn't we? We created an invisible, all-powerful, all knowing, all-wise singularity that exists everywhere with the power of life and death over mortals. Doesn't that sound pretty Godlike to you?

"We didn't intend to." Said Phillip weakly. "Isn't there a component of love in being God?" asked Phillip, pointing out a big personality defect in this god. "But it stopped 'helping' as you claimed," pleaded Phillip looking now for Smitty to continue his single minded explanation."

"There are many people congregating out there welcoming the coming of the dust as if it were the second coming of Christ from the clouds. They're trying to restate the rapture story to fit what's happening. This dust could very well take the place of disappearing religion in the world. It has the powers we used to attribute to gods.

"I need to go to the bathroom now." Concluded Smitty.

Indeed, there was something that could distract Smitty. Without asking to be excused, Smitty left the table.

As Smitty left, Phillip mumbled. "I need something to eat."

"I'll see what I can rustle up." said Helen with a confident tone.

"You know your way around a kitchen?" Phillip asked.

"She sure does!" Came the unexpected answer from Troy who was walking by with a tray piled with toast and the whole jar of jam.

Helen grinned but before setting off for the cantina's kitchen she added in a quieter tone "You might want to freshen up".

Good grieve! He had been in the same cloths for four days and then slept in them and hadn't bathed. If he wasn't going to be consumed by Lilliputian machines in the next couple of hours, he might as well become a little more presentable as a leader. Everyone seemed to be coping with the end of civilization better than he was. He headed back to Steven's bathroom.

On the way out of the room, he met Doctor Ruth.

"Ruth" said Phillip unsure again about the boundary between reality and dreams" I thought you went home to be with your family.

"I did." said Ruth in a voice a little more rushed than her usual. "My husband and I didn't get much sleep waiting for the, ah, judgment, shall we say. The girls didn't know so they slept. This morning when we were all still here, I just had to come back in to find out what was going on.

"I had an idea as I was driving in. I've been discussing it with Smitty. The great thing about science is you can test your ideas. Phillip, can I take a blood sample from you? I've drawn samples from the others and myself."

"Blood? Ah. Sure. What are you thinking?"

"I'll let Smitty explain. He sort of came to a similar conclusion. Which hand?" she asked waving a cotton swab.

The shower was great. Oh, he had forgotten how great it felt to be clean. He found clean clothes in Steven's wardrobe. He felt strange dressing in a dead man's clothes but he looked less like a back alley homeless down and out. He wondered if gay men washed their new cloths like women do or if they put them on straight out of the package like real men, like he did with the socks and underwear he found in the wardrobe. The shirt was a little roomy but otherwise the cloths fit.

He still had a three-day beard. He looked at the dead man's shaver but didn't like the idea of using it and decided he liked the beard — made him look more sincere, more heroic – a quality sorely needed just now but not evident, not in him for sure and not in anyone he had observed.

Phillip returned to the cafeteria and found a proper English breakfast with scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, beans, hash browns, and half a tomato (but no black pudding) waiting for him on the table. He looked for Helen. She wasn't in the room. He wanted to ask her how she did it and how she knew that he came to like this awful fair in his time in the United Kingdom. His two most poignant memories from Guildford were eating too much for breakfast and that incident at the pay and park.

He sat down across from Smitty who had returned from his rest stop and was eating toast and jam. "Ruth says you two have a theory about something." Phillip started with the eggs.

"Yes, about where the dust went. Ruth is checking on that now. Ah there she is now." Said Smitty, cramming the last of the toast in his mouth.

Ruth joined them and since they were seated, she sat between them.

"It's confirmed.," she said. "I used the nano detection equipment in the lab and found nanos in all the blood samples."

"The detectors at the entrance are offline." She added as a question, but was not heard as Phillip responded to her news.

"Shit! Said Phillip alarmed, slamming down his knife and fork he held European style he stood up suddenly as if that would take him out of reach of his own blood.

"That's where they went." said Ruth. "In the night the dust did overtake us —this place, my home, the whole county. And they took up residence in us."

Smitty was nodding. Phillip looked from one face to the other. "And we are not to be scared out of our wits?" queried Phillip feeling itchy all over and starting to feel faint.

"I got the idea driving in this morning." Said Ruth. "Last night my girls had lousy colds. This morning they were fine. I'm a good doctor but not that good. My field is nano pharmacy. Nanotechnology can do a lot of good medically. We haven't marketed it to cure the common cold but it's possible. So what if the dust cured my little girls?"

"I think the dust is on the same mission as before" explained Smitty. "It has just adapted a less bloody approach. Rather than punishing people who aren't helping the planet they are helping the individuals of its provident life form –us".

"Helping us by infecting us? What is it doing in there?"

"I don't know that?" was the best Ruth had to offer.

"Is everybody on the planet going to need a blood transfusion?"

"It wouldn't help." Said Ruth. It's likely in all the cells too." Unpanicked and feeling didactic Ruth began "This is not the first time alien life has invaded our cells. We all carry in our body hundreds of species of symbiotic microbes that help our digestion and even affect our immune system. We have two hundred trillion of them living inside us. We even have guests in our DNA that have been there since before we could be called Homo sapiens.

"But this isn't life—they're tiny little machines." Mumbled Phillip.

Smitty picked up on that comment and replied." Is it alive? No, if you mean is it organic? But if you judge life by what it does and not by what it is, then yes, it is alive. It does all five of the basic things living things do: it reproduces, it uses energy, it avoids becoming disordered, it evolves, and it dies. It doesn't do any of these the way we do, but it does them, so it is, by that definition, alive.

"So, Ruth", said Phillip but Smitty continued.

"Now is it intelligent? Again, the answer is yes except in the narrowest anthropomorphic definitions. We haven't seen any sense of humor demonstrated. Emotions are limited. This is a very different kind of being from humans. Individualism is irrelevant. The dust can exist as a consolidated mass best compared to our total society. But when cells of dust merge there is no individuality left. It's like pouring water into the ocean. The macromolecules and the thoughts merge and become one larger whole with no individual remnant. If a task requires it, a portion of this whole can partition into a cell and head off alone or in groups to do whatever needs doing. "In its natural form, it's a gas."

"So, Ruth", said Phillip again with more emphasis and changing his glance back to Ruth. "You think this is a good thing? But what are they doing in there?"

"Could be anything," said Ruth. Aside from standing watch for alien or malicious nanobots, they could be keeping us from aging, combating inflammation, preventing cancer. You know all the things that nanotechnology has been focusing on in the biomedical field. The big difference is we didn't have to buy it and no pharmaceutical company gets to make a profit on it.

"And the FDA didn't get to approve it." Added Phillip just for balance and seating himself again to regain his own balance.

"They could be in there changing our attitudes, making us less afraid and more willing to work things out with our neighbors. Of course, they could be in there waiting for the word to strike us dead. She looked Phillip in the eye with the candid doctor-patient look used for telling patients they have a fatal illness.

"We'll have to wait and see about that one." Countered Phillip pretending to have a grip on the concept of being host to – to an alien, if not from other space still not human. He hadn't even liked having his in-laws visit and stay in his house. He was more afraid now than at any time in his life and all it took was having an uninvited entity co-residing in his body.

Smitty continued because it was often difficult to shut him up. He wouldn't necessarily have a conversation with you; he would just talk. "If this was Steven's plan from the beginning we can see how his mind worked. It was only a matter of time before some nanotech industry pulled off what Steven did. It could be malicious, but most likely accidental. Reproducing nanobots would escape into the world. Steven could inoculate the world population against nanos but who would let him? With the knowledge of what nanos can do in the body... If Steven did came up with this concept of global nano inoculation and announced it openly he would have been fought all the way by an industry that was making big big profits from every drug and remedy that they advertize on late night TV. Think about it. What are they going to do if there is a 100 percent healthy population out there? They couldn't support cures that reproduce themselves without being manufactured and sold at a profit — bad business. They might invent fake maladies I suppose. (Like that has never been done before) But as an industry, they'd be done for. Being out of business would have been unacceptable to most CEO's and even shareholders even if it saved lives. Healthy people are bad for business. Even the pharmaceutical industry is principally in business to make money — it's not to save lives or mitigate suffering. Hey! It's a business.

"At the very least, no one would have funded Steven at the expense of their own profits. It's possible he could have been terrorized or worse. This is big business, you know, this is where the world's power is."

To show he was listening Phillip replied. "But if this is so, Steven circumvented the individual's choice by not telling people and instead coming up with this hoax that's not a hoax that really is hoax bullshit. Is that load of guilt why he killed himself? He had manufactured fear and used it to get his way. He was killing bad people instead of Jews for the same reason Hitler targeted a minority - so the population would go along."

I think Dr Rice did what he did because he believed it was necessary. He didn't set out to kill humanity but to save it. There have been any number of theories of human extinction that seemed to be playing out in the world. We were well on our way to global meltdown. We were due to lose tens of millions through starvation, war, pestilence, not to mention natural disasters that kill thousands in overpopulated areas. I think Steven was trying to reverse that trend.

"CO2 levels are dropping for the first time in two centuries."

"So he was a savior and not a murdering maniac? It may be too early to make that call." Pronounced Phillip. "But while we're on the subject..."

## Chapter 23 - Whodunit

"So you don't think Steven killed himself?" Asked Phillip.

Smitty shook his head.

Others in the room started to drift toward Phillip's table. This had for certain been on everybody's mind. Millions may be falling out there every day – they're statistics to be studied, but the death of the one person you knew and worked with every day, now that's personal and emotional. It was especially emotional for Phillip who occupied the position of not one but two men who died suddenly.

"If he didn't blow his own brains out then who murdered Steven and staged it to look like suicide?" asked Phillip rhetorically.

Phillip answered his own question. "I really don't know. We may never know. It could have been suicide just like it looked. Steven had done a pretty horrific thing to everyone on earth. His conscious may have convicted him or perhaps he couldn't face the humiliation that would have come when he would have had to face justice for his deception and its consequences. We were a little slow but we did figure out what he had done.

"But in cases of suicide, there is often a note. It was a shot through the temple – dedicated suicides put the gun barrel in their mouth. There was only one cartridge in the revolver and it had no fingerprints on it. Was Steven playing Russian roulette by himself? Where did the gun come from? There was no serial number on it. It wasn't that the numbers had been filled off – there never had been any on the gun. That's not something the man in the street can come up with. It sounds like black ops.

"OK, suspect number one: It could have been Jon who wasn't really in on the scheme but found out he'd been used by someone who was supposed to love him. I'm not convinced Jon is the type to commit murder but that's the type that does. He has been conspicuously absent since Steven's death." There were some murmurs in the crowd from those who had been clueless about Steven's personal life.

"Suspect number two: Charles, with or without the help of Brenda, whose ambition got the better of him. He had something to gain from Steven's death. I felt he wanted to kill me at one point. I'm not sure he was smart enough to pull it off but you never know. One could think that for a career army guy killing would be a legitimate solution to a problem. I have to believe Steven would have dealt with the stink those two were making and they should have known that he would. Either the passion of their extracurricular activities was so strong that they acted without thinking or they felt protected. Steven was already dead when Charles fired me. Perhaps that is what gave him the idea he could screw me without contradiction. Perhaps murder was the crime that the dust was punishing when it took their lives."

"Suspect number three: It could have been the pharmaceutical industry if Stephan's true plan had leaked out. What he was doing would put every one of them out of business — that's motive. You can't sell drugs to someone who has the cure for everything in their blood already. Maybe Charles and Brenda were working for them. They certainly weren't working for us.

"Suspect number four: It could have been the dust passing judgment on Steven for his motives and actions without compassion. It could have gotten into the office without being detected. It could have gotten into his head and made him pull the trigger of a gun whose origin we still have not determined. The dust could have cleaned up after itself not leaving a single molecule of evidence behind.

"Suspect number five: It could have been the government. Steven had been warned that he'd be watched. They should have had the ability to discover his story was all a hoax and meted out justice. These people would have had the skill and means to terminate him with extreme prejudice without being detected. They could have influenced our security detail and police to not look too close and even to destroy evidence.

"It's probably an unsolvable incident.

"Steven was the John van Neumann of our day, Brilliant. But he was also a manipulative liar. Was he the savior of our species, or a heartless mass murderer? Was he a pawn of fate or of his own creation? Whatever he was, he was an enigma and so was his death.

"If we ever get the chance to talk to the dust maybe it can tell us who Steven was and how he met his end."

"My money is still on suicide."

Phillip was tired and wanted to drop this discussion for just a little while. "You know how when you've won the big game the adrenalin keeps going till the partying is done? Well when you lose the big game it takes awhile to get yourself back up on the horse."

Troy asked a rhetorical question of the person next to him. "Does he always mix his metaphors?"

"Right, now, if we aren't going to be dismantled in the next hour, I want to get out of this building and walk in the sun. I haven't seen natural light in three days. Then we'll figure out what to do next."

"Would you like some company?" said Nan, who had appeared in the room from the door behind Phillip sometime in the last minute. Everybody's face widened in affirmation ready to join in, even though that is not what Nan had meant.

"Sure." Said Phillip as he waved a come-on in the air and turned toward the door. His other arm enveloped the shoulders of Nan.

In the reception area, a somewhat plump short woman waited in a garish dress and a big smile.

"Your mother?" Pronounced Phillip more as the answer than as a question.

Nan nodded and smiled. Phillip opened his free arm and gathering in the woman and exited the building.

Most of the group followed Phillip out the door onto the concrete sidewalk. Smitty stayed behind and returned to his office.

## Chapter 24 - Redemption

Helen paused in the hall to be sure she wasn't observed or followed, and then she moved quickly down the stairs to the basement. Helen opened the door to the lab. It looked like a simple act but as she grabbed the door handle, a camera in the latch compared her thumbprint to a database of authorized persons. A second camera near the ceiling used face recognition and body movement nuances to identify Helen. An x-ray backscatter scanner unit stripped her naked and parameterized every nuance of her body. It verified that there were no artificial parts of Helen bent on deceiving the security system. Finally, there were sensors that sniffed Helen's unique human odor and could even tell if her motives for entering the lab were benign. In any other database all this information would be filed as the ideal female reference, here it was only used to identify Helen. The system was satisfied that the person before the door was the owner of the thumb presented and no other persons were in the vicinity that might tailgate through the door. The door opened.

She held the door open a moment to check behind her again before closing the door and switching on the light. She went through the changing area (the lab had been set up as a clean room originally). She went through an air jet barrier and another door into the lab and to the box containing Beatrice. "Chow time." she said and flipped a switch on the side of the table that held the box. Two one-hundred-watt LED lamps came on illuminating the box. The floating particles of nano brain paraded and swirled in the light absorbing their ration of photon energy.

Laying a hand lightly on the transparent cover of the box Helen said softly "I have something for you, Beatrice." She opened her other hand. In it was one of Ruth's lances, as are used by diabetics to test their blood, and a swap. She tore open the packets, prepared her finger and punctured it. She squeezed a drop of blood onto the top of Beatrice's box, then another drop, and another, into a tiny puddle on the transparent surface. Then she stepped back and asked, "What do you think?"

The fog in the box was unchanged. The girl stood expectantly. "Thank you, Helen" said a woman's voice from somewhere. It took Beatrice only few seconds to commandeer the communication codes of the small group of isolated nanobots in the blood drops. The blood ever so slowly started to change. From the center of the tiny puddle of human life, a gray spec appeared and started to grow consuming the red of the human corpuscles and replacing them with copies of the previously dormant nanobots that were in Helen's blood.

What was that Steven had said about being programmed not to convert living organisms?

Helen peered closely at the blood spot and smiled. Soon the whole of the spot was gray. Three drops of blood were now two hundred thousand nanobots.

Having converted the blood cells and serum, the nanos started on the hydrocarbons in the Lexan plastic box. The army of two hundred thousand worked downward multiplying their numbers until a hole the size of the original blood sample opened in the transparent top. Wisps of animated matter fanned out through the room foraging for the elements needed by the constructors but not found in the plastic. The hole kept expanding in diameter as workers transformed more and more imprisoning plastic into nano muscle under the complete control of a liberated Beatrice.

The girl went to the door but turned to say in leaving "Enjoy life". A bodiless woman's voice replied, "I love you.

## Chapter 25 - Seventh inning stretch

Phillip let the team from the building and headed toward the sun. They crossed the parking lot, walked leisurely to the first intersection, and turned north. They walked past the satellite dishes that delivered much of the information they had been analyzing. In the sun they walked away from the technology of the twenty first century into what remained of farm fields reminiscent of the fort's origin during the early twentieth century, an area called the farm. They walked with respectful quiet past the farm pond with a mother goose leading her goslings back to the nest after a morning's feed. They walked past the remaining barns and farm houses that shared the fort property.

The group walked and talked only about what was happening right there this minute as if afraid to let in the complications of the world out there. This was a therapeutic respite that no one prescribed but everyone appreciated. Phillip and Nan talked civilly to each other smiling, forgiving without apologizing. Barriers between them, tall and strong, like the Berlin wall, crumbled and fell.

Nan's mom was uncharacteristically mute watching her daughter with love in her eyes and watching Phillip with curiosity. She showed a child's enthusiasm for everything she saw along the way but perhaps that was to disguise the fact that she too noticed that something was happening between her daughter and this man.

The group's strolling brought them to an insincere looking chain linked fence that surrounded the post real estate. It looked adequate to keep out the neighbor's dog but not much else. It wasn't so much to protect the fort as to protect the neighborhood. At one time, some nasty biology was going in here.

At the moment, the fence was effectively keeping out a pack of feral dogs abandoned by their owners who had to choose between feeding their pets or feeding their children. The dogs danced back and forth on the outside of the fence snarling and barking accusations at the humans on the inside of the fence blaming them for the state of the world and for their reduced quality of life. Having made their statement and noticing something more interesting, they raced off.

Inadequate as it looked, this fence spoke one message to everyone who regarded it now with more interest than it appeared to deserve.

Only Nan commented, quoting Macbeth. 'They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, but bear-like I must fight the course. What's he That was not born of woman? Such a one Am I to fear, or none.'

Phillip didn't know much Shakespeare but recognized the quote and smiled to think Nan knew Shakespeare. He lost the smile when he realized how closely that quote described himself.

Phillip led not just as organizational head, nor the head of the pack of walkers, but also as the one who was recovering his determination ahead of others. They turned west and walked the perimeter road. He walked faster. The others picked up the pace to match his. Even Nan's mother was moving like a woman many years her junior. Some walked quietly now facing inside themselves what needed facing. Some talked one on one because that is how they preferred to resolve things. Phillip and Nan were one of those couples. One could sense that if they were alone at this point they would be in each other's arms. They did not seem to be concerning themselves with the plight of the project or of the world but with the potential for a personal tomorrow.

The group arrived back at their building and reentered to face whatever waited to be faced. As their eyes adjusted to the dimmer light of the cantina that they had left an hour ago Phillip spoke with candor. "I must admit I'm having trouble making myself want to eradicate this epidemic. It's doing so much good. And face it; lots of good people in their secret heart wanted to see justice take many of whose who were killed. There were some pretty bad types there. There is the feeling out there, of 'glad it was them and not me'.

"Trouble is we don't know what the criterion is for bad. Is the dust going to come and snuff me in my sleep because my carbon footprint is too big?

"There have been two hundred million people dead a week and we are responsible. We didn't do it intentionally but...

"Smitty tells me the killing has stopped. Hit your terminals and find out what is going on. It's supposed to be sentient now. Find out how to talk to it. Find out if it knows the meaning of surrender."

"You want it to surrender, sir?" said a tenor voice from the group.

"No, Grasshopper, I... want to surrender."

Phillip, Nan, and Nan's mom left the room. Others started to drift off to their respective work places.

"Grasshopper? Is he going nuts?"

"No, He's in love." Offered his companion.

"Oh God, Even worse. How can you tell?"

"Magnetism. Have you watched those two?" waving in the direction of the recently disappeared Phillip and Nan? "Their bodies point at each other whenever they are in the same room like a compass to a magnet."

When Phillip and Nan (and her mother) got back to Phillip's office every light on Nan's desk phone was flashing even the priority line from the white house.

"Good grief" said Phillip not using his more colorful expletives. "Why didn't they call my cell? He took out his cell and looked at it accusingly to find its battery dead. Well yea, he hadn't thought to charge it in four days. He'd been using it but hadn't been near his bed where the charger was for four nights.

"I'll take the red one in there." he said, pointing to the office door through which Nan had barred him from following so long ago. He looked at Nan. So many things he'd rather be doing just now.

He glanced at Mom playing with the badge that hung from her neck announcing in large print VISITOR.

"Nan,"

"Yes, Phillip" said Nan neutralizing her smile to match his tone.

"When you have cleared the calls can you take your mother down to see Doctor Ruth? I'm sure she will want to meet Mom. Then you may as well take her to your place."

Phillip seated himself at the desk of the director of the global nano defense initiative and for the first time felt that that title applied to him. Nan signaled that the call with the White House had been completed. No fancy video conferencing this time, yet Phillip stood as he picked up the phone. "Yes, we are all still here. We have much to report. It's sort of one of those good-news bad-news situations."

When Phillip had finished, the president was very unhappy. Just two days ago, the message from the White House had been we had been invaded by aliens, now that story was discovered to have been a lie. The president was neither a coward nor deceitful. Well, except where politics was concerned. Now there would have to be another address to the nation. This time the message was even worse. Not only had millions of people been killed – including many of the president's detractors, which looked very very bad, but the government had been duped into helping it happen. This administration was doomed but this wasn't the problem needing to be address first. How do you tell the nation they are now all slaves to a manufactured intelligence and nothing is the same as before?

There was only one thing to do. Phillip would be the scapegoat. He was ordered to Washington. A car was sent to take him the mile to the helipad. Phillip felt like Jesus being stripped of his robe and preparing to be scourged. He would have to carry his own cross to the hill.

It wasn't time for his pills yet. This time his depression was justified. He had thought he was saving everyone and now he was being set up to be hated by everyone. He had intended to save the world. Look what happened. In his case, he deserved what he was to get.

## Chapter 26 - Good news

Phillip returned from Washington. When he had left for Washington, he had visions of being the condemned man on his last journey to his execution. He returned feeling he had received only a delay to the inevitable.

He had undergone a whole day of interrogation. He was able to tell the truth about what he knew and what he did not know. He sensed that his inquisitors were used to being lied to. He felt they would have loved to have used their favorite tortures on him.

At the end of the day, the president sent him back to find out as much as he could about the current situation and to report back. The national address was postponed until Monday. The president only announced that things were changing and gave a hot-line number for concerned citizens to call. That number was overwhelmed with calls before the announcement was over and had remained so ever since.

Phillip had intended to call a meeting as soon as he got back to Detrick, even though it was five P.M., but when he stepped through building security it looked like the whole organization was waiting for him. Nan was at the head of the crowd. They treated him as if he were a hero, not the national whipping boy. He wanted to hug everybody but instead asked that they meet in the cantina for coffee and information.

Everyone had been doing what Phillip had asked them to do.

They could report on what the dust was doing but not on how to communicate with it.

"Good news, we were able to use the orbiting x-ray telescope Chandra to scan Earth. There is a detectable presence of x-ray producing clouds of dust nearly everywhere. Sorry we couldn't do this before Steven died."

"Thank you for the effort but it doesn't really give us any additional information now."

"Reports of deaths are being replaced in the news with reports of miracles. News channels are falling all over themselves seeing who can put the most good news in the allowed space. How's that for a counter example of 'bad news sells more papers"?

"We've got everything from allergy suffers reporting no symptoms since the dust. That's an eleven billion dollar saved in the US per year. Larger and larger percentages of diabetics are testing normal. There are hundreds of spontaneous remissions from leukemia reported! There are a couple hundred reports of people having their sight restored. But, there have been no reports of people being raised from the dead."

"Smitty!" If we have created god how come no resurrections?"

"It's still early." Replied Smitty.

"Sorry about that aside. Let's hear everybody's report before we start debating and philosophizing."

"We know what becomes of the nanos in isolation. If they are more than one macromolecule, they disassemble each other in a sort of Masada like suicide pack. Before long there is only one molecule left. We gave them that ability to use if they became overpopulated but they're using it when they are captured. If we can locate that last remaining molecule in a sample, we should be able to analyze it. We don't expect to find a processor molecule. They are going to be among the disassembled.

"We tried freezing them in liquid nitrogen – no more effect than a cold shower." Now we're trying to divide samples into smaller and smaller sizes in an effort to get a sample that only has one macromolecule in it. Wow, finally a legitimate use for homeopathic techniques. We expect to have isolated an evolved macromolecule by the week end."

"That is good news. Maybe we can figure out how they have changed. The ability of a manipulator molecule to function in the absence of a cloud of processors is a significant change in design. I am also particularly interested in the changes in their communications."

## Chapter 27 - Trees

"Hello, this is Doctor Phillip Day."

"Hello, ah, doctor Rice?"

"No, Doctor Rice is no longer with us. My name is Phillip Day. How may I help you?"

"My name is Ben Lopez. I have been calling people in Washington all day and getting referred to yet another agency or person."

"I'm sorry about that. What is this about?"

"I am with forestry management. I had a very unusual experience this morning."

"Yes?"

"I noticed that an unknown species of tree was quickly taking over a hillside which had been cut. This species, of a type I had never seen before, was growing twenty times as faster than any I had ever seen before. To keep it from taking over the whole forest I sent a team to cut them down."

"Is this going to take long?"

"I'm just getting to it. After the first chainsaw was put to a tree, the woodman stopped as soon as he had cut a couple of the saplings because he thought he was having equipment failure. There was what looked like oil spilling over everything. He quit because he was afraid of starting a fire."

"Yes."

"Come to find out the oil, more like diesel, was coming from the tree. I'm totally bewildered and have been trying to find someone to tell me where this plant came from and what I'm supposed to do with it."

"Well thank you for telling me about this. I don't think you should have to go further and call anyone else."

"Good".

"It didn't start out as my job but I'm sort of becoming the minister of impossible things. I think I know where your trees came from. If you will give directions, I'll have someone come out and take a look. I advise leaving them alone for the time being. Can I also have contact information for you? I'll put my secretary back on to take down all this information. Is there anything else?"

"No. That's what I was looking to find out. Is this related to some of the weird stuff I've been hearing about?"

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised. Hold on and I'll transfer you."

"Backyard biofuel? Well this will piss off what's left of the oil companies. Corn for biofuel didn't work out but this just might." Said Phillip under his breath as he put the call on hold and signaled Nan.

"Check your mail" she said.

It was a report from Africa about refugees finding manna from heaven at their camp each morning. It was a gooey stuff, nutritious but bland. Now these Muslim people had one more thing in common with their Jewish brothers. It was probably nano food but the thankful recipients called it food from Allah, manna.

## Chapter 28 - Knocked

Ruth looked up from her computer screen at the sound of a knock to see Helen at her open office door.

"Helen, come in, dear ", she said smiling. Everyone smiled when encountering Helen usually because they were compelled to return Helen's beautiful smile. This time Helen wasn't smiling. "Sit" she added, indicating a lush leather chair, not the smaller type one sees in doctors' offices designed to be easily wiped down with antiseptic.

Helen entered closing the door before sitting. Although Doctor Ruth was here to evaluate biological effects of the dust, she did sometimes consulate on personal medical situations. Ruth surmised from Helen's smileless face that this was either a severe version of case one or a severe version of case two. She got to the point. "What is it, dear?"

"I'm on the pill but I think I may be pregnant," said Helen without prolog.

"Oh and why do you think that?"

"I should have had my period three weeks ago but nothing yet."

"Did you try one of those home pregnancy tests? Have you experienced any symptoms?"

"No. I came to you."

"Ok, I'll need a sample." Said Ruth, leaving her chair and stepping to the side of her desk. "You will find a plastic sample jar in there." indicating the door to the John.

Two minutes later Helen approached Ruth with a salmon colored jar in her hand offering it to Ruth as if it were a strange currency of which she did not know the value.

"Thank you dear. This will take but a moment. I will use my molecular analyzer rather than the mundane pregnancy test." with a pipette Ruth transferred a few drops of Helen's urine from the jar to what looked like a piece of black plastic connected to a laptop by a cable. She spread the liquid over the surface with the edge of a glass microscope slide. At once, the computer drew graphs across the top of the screen and filled the bottom with text.

"Well, this is why you didn't have a period." said Ruth pointing to a spot on the screen. And this says you are not pregnant." Helen looked puzzled. Your hormones think you are still in the middle of your cycle. Ruth took off her glasses, something she did when she had something important to say. "I missed this month too. It's something the dust is doing inside us. I just needed to see this to verify my suspicions.

"I'm sterile." said Helen declaratively trying to ascertain how she felt about menopause at twenty five.

"I don't know that." admitted Ruth. "I could be the dust's idea of family planning. Your chemistry is fine. You are perfectly healthy and fit. I know it's no help telling you this but all we can do—all both of us can do—is wait till next month and see. It seems the monthly cycle has been lengthened to a longer period. Ovulation is just happening less frequently.

Did you want a baby?"

"Not now, but some day, with the right man."

"I don't know what to tell you."

There was six seconds of silence.

"I do know who to ask." said Helen not looking at Ruth any more. "Thank you" she added smiling at Ruth and touching her arm. Backing toward the door, she said thank you again and left hurrying away.

Ruth slipped her glasses back on to see a disappearing Helen and wondered "Who is she going to ask?" The glasses didn't really help. Ruth looked over the top of the lenses at the receding Helen. She then took them off again and peered; then replaced them. Finally, she took them off, breathed heavily out through her nose, folded the bows of her glasses and pitched them into the biohazard trash bin at the end of her table.

## Chapter 29 - Finding Jon

Smitty began with the typical monotone everyone had become used to. "My calculation show that the nanos now in us are dormant or operating on slow speed most of the time because: one, they are receiving less energy, two, communication inside us at the level of free nanos would likely cause genetic damage because of the X-ray band communications which would, three, take all their efforts to repair the tumors and promote new cell development without telomere shortening. They are active for a few seconds every hour but they are dormant most of the time because to do otherwise would be a net zero energy gain unless they wanted to wake up to kill us.

"Thanks, Smitty, although I could have done without that last bit. It does raise the question 'why are they in there if it's so inefficient?'"

"Well, they can work on other communication bands albeit slower. I can't show it yet but I think they do it in a monitoring mode. They could wake up to take roll call of their numbers and replace missing nanos. Or they could be monitoring our body health. No one has had so much as a cold symptom since they moved in.

Phillip raised an open hand of acceptance.

"We've learned one other interesting thing." said Smitty shutting off his e-tablet and folding it up. Smiling he announced, "Jonathan Davis has been found."

"He's alive!"

"Apparently so and living in West Virginia."

"And?"

"We haven't contacted him yet. Thought you'd want to be the one."

"What's the address?"

Smitty smiled and handed Phillip a small box. "Here's a GPS already programmed."

"Thank you Doctor Smith." Said Phillip with a slight bow.

"You are welcome Doctor Day."

Phillip picked up a car from the post motor pool. The noncom in charge made a thing out of mentioning the vehicle had a fresh dielectric tank and a spare was in the trunk. This was quite a bit different from the last time he took a car from here. That time the kid running the motor pool out ranked Phillip who had the rank of unemployed. This time he was addressed as Sir. Of course, this time he had Nan with him. She was twice the age of the kid but she was seriously attractive. Phillip may have been addressed as sir not because he headed one of the most important yet unknown agencies on the planet, not because he was older, but because he was the lucky guy who was hanging with this babe.

Phillip took Nan with him on the five-hour drive from Fredrick to the West Virginia location. The only reason he could give himself was that he enjoyed her company and felt more confident when she was with him. He was beginning to think he might be in love with her not just attracted. Isn't the feeling of being completed by a mate a sign of love? Why else would he decide to drive rather than take the helicopter? So he could be alone with Nan for an extended time and able to talk.

They did talk and each hour he spent with Nan made Phillip like this woman more for who she was not just how she looked. She told him she wasn't afraid to have dust in her blood. "After all aren't we all made of dust? The same stuff as the mud under foot, only we were lucky enough to sit up and look around"

When Routes 70 and 68 ran out the roads became more rustic eventually turning to dirt. Trees leaned over the road and brushed the car as it passed. Phillip and Nan pressed on, nevertheless, and arrived at the final destination on their GPS route where they found a mobile home sitting almost a mile from its nearest neighbor. It looked run down and had been decorated with heavyweight poverty. It seemed the last place in America one would expect to see Jon Davis who had shared a three million dollar home in Pasadena with Steven and was in his own right a successful space explorer.

There was a new Korean made car in the driveway with Maryland plates. Isn't it always the case that a fancy car takes precedence over a maintained home in this kind of neighborhood?

Phillip had doubts that the information about Jon was accurate. But he had invested most of a day in getting here. He knocked on the door. No one came to the door. He knocked again — still no answer. Then Nan, who was still in the car, laid on the car horn and kept it up. That was annoying even to Phillip. The door opened. The horn stopped. Nan got out of the car grinning.

"Jon, I'm Doctor Phillip..."

"I know who you are." Interrupted Jon irritated. "We've met."

"It took some time for us to find you."

"Who's us?" inquired Jon looking past Phillip for the contingent of FBI agents.

"The GNI" said Phillip. "I've been worried about you. Why did you disappear?"

Nan joined Phillip on the wooden stoop at Jon's door. "I'm so sorry about your loss." Said Nan." I'm Nan Holt. I was Steven's administrative assistant."

Tears started to well up in Jon's eyes. "You might as well come in he said."

The inside of the mobile home was clean and tidy. This surprised Phillip, who knew a thing or two about depression. If Jon was depressed, such people don't always attend to the simple choirs of housekeeping. There were pill bottles lined up on the kitchen counter. Phillip did not recognize them or their purpose. There was a bible with a forest of bookmarks on the end table. There was a TV set with a screen no larger than the one on the foldout PDA Phillip carried in his pocket.

"I went looking for you the day Steven died." Said Phillip. "It looked like you had already gone."

Jon motioned for his guests to sit on a love seat at the end of the small living room. "Can I get you something?" asked Jon the dutiful host before receiving a negative replay and seating himself in a recliner.

"I was gone." answered Jon, getting back to the pending question. "Steven and I had split up. I learned about his death though the news."

"But you and he had been together so long what happened?"

"It was my fault." Jon dabbed at an eye. "I had an affair. I was alone so much of the time once Steven started the nano defense project. I gave up my job at JPL to move here. JPL was shutting down anyway. I didn't have anything really to do. I was writing a book about my time at JPL but it was boring even me. I was seduced by overtures from someone I met at the gym. We fooled around. I caught HIV."

"Oh no! But that is treatable these days." Said Nan.

"Modern HIV, like all viruses, is mutating to resist all attacks on it." Said Jon to Nan and then to Phillip he continued "Steven tends... tended to be judgmental. My HIV positive diagnostic and the possibility of passing it on to him were not forgivable. He said we should separate. I went because I was so ashamed." Jon started sniffling and his voice showed stress. "I didn't even go to his memorial."

"Do you think he may have killed himself because of this?"

"Phillip!" admonished Nan, slapping his bicep hard. "You can be so damn insensitive sometimes!"

"It's OK." Said Jon. "I've asked myself that question many times. I don't think so. Steven did not tend to punish himself even for his own mistakes."

"You know of course that the Europa nanos were a hoax?"

"I didn't in the beginning. I learned that later. Can you imagine how that made me feel? Steven told me what he had done and why he had done it. I was shocked by what he had done and that he had kept it from me. But his explanations seemed cogent.

"He told me he had decided to become rich when he met me because he loved me and wanted to do well by me." Jon's voice was breaking. "He sold bonds to people who knew him and his reputation to raise money to start his artificial intelligence processor business. He didn't sell stock because he said that corrupted an organization by focusing on profit. Yet getting rich was one of his objectives.

"He said the biggest problem he had was making sure his product wasn't too smart. A combat A.I. that is too smart to kill who it is told to kill because war is dumb wouldn't sell very well to the military.

"He hated government and corporate leaders who chose aggression over discussion and profit over principal. Greed and lust for power blinded these people to a simple respect for people.

He was truly afraid of what he had produced and whom he sold his product to — arms manufacturers who sell automatic weapons to civilians, weapons for which the only application is to kill people, are promoting murder for profit. Steven feared it would only be a matter of time before they sold his A.I equipped weapons to the public. Murder by proxy for anyone who can afford the price was not something Steven could allow to happen.

"He had taken note of the competing paths in our world. He worried about which would win out. He used his artificial intelligent machines to design a slightly more intelligent machine whose purpose was to analyze the race between scientific advancement and human greed and disseat, predict an outcome, and suggest a solution. His analysis said time was short. His nano war was his solution.

"His plan was to release his dust on the world. He told me all the good it would do. It would help sick people without taking all their money. It would punish the evil doers. He argued so well I went along.

"Since Steven had provided the nano A.I. brains for the space probes he had the opportunity to embed some special programs. They triggered on arrival at Europa and started to doctor the data and video feeds back to earth — simple, but convincing. He already had the simulation technology on the shelf from when he trained his combat droid brains.

"He did the hoax to fast lane his global nano blanket. Fear trumps caution. He did the nano blanket to beat any accidental release. He just wanted to make the world a better safer place." Jon suppressed a sob. "Once he realized he had discovered a way that could actually change the world nothing was going to stand in his way.

"He didn't tell me his creation might kill millions of people.

The nanos had already been deployed. If I had revealed then what I had learned there might have been a way to stop it. I can only say I had other things on my mind. The guilt of remaining silent has added to my depression since.

"Just after he told me what he had done I told him about my affair and my infection. Maybe I wasn't trying to get back at him for deceiving me. Maybe I was just being as open with him as he had been with me.

I don't know why he decided to tell me about his hoax. Maybe he sensed a change in me and assumed I suspected him so he decided to come clean.

"Once he learned of my infidelity he asked that we not see each other. That really hurt. I felt so awful I just got in my car and started driving to nowhere in particular.

Nan and Phillip looked at each other. Phillip spoke. "That doesn't sound like the Steven we knew. He chose good people and always gave them a second chance if they needed it.

"Have you considered other reasons why he may have had for separating from you?" Phillip knew enough about depression to know this would not be the case. "He died only a few days later. Maybe he was protecting you from something. We don't know what was going on but it costs Steven his life."

Phillip had been listened with acute interest. This was helping him understand Steven and what he had done. It seemed to be helping Jon too, to talk to someone. Phillip directed the discussion back to Jon. "Steven's nanos have infested everyone. How come they haven't cured your symptoms yet?"

"They seem to have a problem with HIV."

"So are they in you or what?"

"I don't know. I think they gave up and left."

"Where did you find HIV anyway? I thought we had acquired herd immunity from that by now."

Jon shrugged. "Just lucky I guess."

"How did you end up here?"

"When I left Fredric, I thought to just drive west back to Pasadena. I needed the alone time. When I got to West Virginia, I was in a depressed mood. I followed these 'for sale' signs until I came here. I bought it the same day. It didn't cost much.

"I had taken enough cash from the bank to finance my cross country drive. This place cost less than the trip would have. I bought it from this ancient curmudgeon who wanted cash. I gave him cash; he handed me a deed. I never registered it.

"The place looked like hell. I needed to be punished. It was a good fit. Later I needed to be alone. This is a hermitage.

"When I found out that Steven was dead I turned into a complete basket case. I didn't even go to his memorial service. It was over before I found out. At this point Jon totally lost it and sobbed into his hands. Nan handed him a box of tissues she found on the floor next to the love seat.

"He needs to get away from here." whispered Nan to Phillip.

"Everybody thought you were dead. You know, killed by the dust and turned to powder." said Phillip in an effort to distract Jon from his depression. Depression was something Phillip could understand.

Jon shrugged again.

"You could come back, you know. Your house is still there. You could use some friends and we need to talk more."

"Memory is still there too. Maybe someday I'll come back, if I survive. I need more time right now.

"Steven told me one other thing about EJSM. He's the one who gave the millions to keep the project alive. He gave a major part of his assets. He did it so that his preprogrammed message could be received. The project is shut down now. No way of knowing if the probe came to life again and is executing its original purpose to explore for life on Europa. There is no one listening."

"Would you like to go back to JPL?"

"How could that be?"

"One side effect of Steven's big population purge is that, after the initial shock, the economy is surging back just like after the black plague. The government is reconsidering funding for NASA."

"That's fantastic. I would very much like to see this project through to the end before I die."

"Pack your bags, Jon. I'll do what I can to get the ball rolling."

Phillip and Nan left the temporary home and retreat of one of the few men on the planet that had not been granted a very long life courtesy of the dust. While Nan gave Jon a hug on the stoop Phillip returned from the car with a satellite phone which he gave Jon with the instructions "We'll call you."

Nan had given Jon a hug; Phillip hadn't even offered him his hand. He had so much to learn from a good woman.

In the car, they looked at each other softly. Nan touched Phillip's label. "You were good in there." she said moving her hand to his face and her face closer to his. They kissed. It was on the lips but it lasted less than a second and felt like a congratulatory kiss.

"Hot damn" thought Phillip. "This is encouraging."

Nan, without removing her hand from Phillip's face, came back in for a more personal kiss. This one lasted a whole minute and Phillip responded with eagerness. When Nan pulled away, she patted his chest and then sat back in her seat and buckled her seatbelt.

In all his life, he has never felt what could be called joy, until now. He sat, mouth agape, looking straight ahead where Nan's face had been. The next order of business was going to be finding a motel room. But before Phillip could say what was on his mind, Nan, as if she could hear his thoughts, asked demurely "Can we eat first?

## Chapter 30 – The God factor

When Phillip and Nan got back to Detrick in the early afternoon of the following day no one made any mention of their previous absence. All conversations were deftly steered away from any question about where they had spent the previous night and what they had done there. Their bright demeanor answered all the questions. Everyone was interested, however, in what Jon had said about Steven.

On Sunday morning, Nan woke Phillip to say they were taking her Mom to church.

"What? Why can't she drive herself?"

"She, 'A', doesn't have a car, and 'B', doesn't have a license.

"Well, get her A and B."

"I can't do that today. So we are taking her. You'd better get ready. Service starts at ten sharp."

"It's a good thing I love you." said Phillip under his breath. What he said made him smile. He liked the idea of loving this woman. He liked the idea that she was so confident that he loved her that she could ask him to do things he didn't really want to do. This might get old later but for now, he was in the infatuation, ga-ga phase of their relationship. He knew that if he really minded she wouldn't ask.

Maybe the dust in him was altering his personality for the better. He noticed that lately he actually was interested not so much in just what he wanted but in what Nan wanted too, in what pleased her, in her dreams and hopes and interests. Maybe it was the ameliorating effects of the dust or maybe it was because for the first time in his life he was honestly in love with a woman. He dressed quickly.

They picked up Emma where she was staying at Nan's place in Nan's car that had been Emma's car. All the way to the church, she talked from the back seat in her excited too-fast-to-catch-much speech with the truncated sentences and non sequitur topic changes. Nan looked to be concentrating hard. Phillip just shook his head and smiled. "Are you getting this?"

"Not much of it." said Nan. "Something about there are not as many churches as there used to be but those that are left are full since the dust started killing bad people."

"Is that why we have to drive all the way to Pennsylvania to church?"

"No. It's because this is mom's church now and that's where she wants to go".

Resigned, Phillip said "OK"

There were people at the door of the church to greet the arrivals. The pastor wasn't one of them but before the three could find seats a robed man came up to them and greeted Emma by name. Emma introduced her daughter and Phillip.

Phillip didn't know how he felt about attending a church service. He had been inside a church maybe ten times in his life: four weddings, four funerals, once as a dare when he was young, and once with a girl when he was a teenager. She had wanted to save his soul; he had just wanted to get into her pants. Neither had happened.

Religion was alien to his family. Family value was having enough beer in the frig to get plastered before bedtime. He hated his home life. He hated what too much alcohol did to people. He had avoided it all his life, mostly.

He was a bright kid with no breaks. He did poorly in school and the school thought him a troublemaker. Sometimes all it takes is one person to believe in you to drag you out of despair and set you on another road. Phillip didn't have that one person.

Fate finally stepped in. When Phillip was eleven, his abusive alcoholic father was killed in a DWI traffic accident. This time fate saw justice in killing the drunk and not the innocent people he ran into. For Phillip and his sister and their mother life could only improve.

His abused mother was visited by family services for the first time. Nobody had noticed that this family needed help until they stopped having the means to pay bills. As bad as his father had been he did seem to have enough money to keep the frig full. The grocery store sold more than beer.

Phillip tried to pay attention to what was happening in the service. There was singing which Phillip was totally out of his element with. He helped share the hymnal with Nan. He did not sing but noticed how well Nan did. It made him smile every time he learned something new about this woman. When they sat, he held her hand.

Something that was said from the pulpit caught Phillip's attention. He took out his cell as Nan frowned at him. He looked up a picture he had taken. It was a picture of a scrap of paper he had found in Steven's desk with a cryptic message on it. It said Jn1016-17. His mind put together the presents of a bible on Jon's table, a notation in the bulletin Phillip had been handed when he entered the church, and this cryptic message he had found at the death seines. He grabbed a bible from the rack in front of him making noise that brought another frown from Nan. Using the index, he looked up John chapter 10 verses 16 and 17. He read, put the bible back and sat pondering for some time.

Could that little scrap of paper have been Steven's suicide note? Would those verses have meant something to Jonathan?

Why was the FBI so uninterested in follow-up investigation of Steven's death? Or was it that they were just unwilling to reveal to him anything they were doing? Was he still a suspect? Two people were now dead that stood between him and his new position — a position that might disappear overnight unless he could show a reason for its continued existence. Was he, Phillip, expected to solve the mystery of Steven's death?

His wandering mind was forced to return to the here and now when he was asked to stand and pretend to sing again. He had totally missed most of the sermon, probably not the only person that had ever happened to.

The verses he had read had said something about 'No one can take my life, I lay it down so that I can pick it up again.' Was Steven saying he committed suicide but expected to be resurrected? Of all the wild improbable things that had been happening, this would truly top the list, if it happened. Could the dust raise people from the dead?

Lots of people would have wanted Steven dead — powerful people who are used to getting done what they wanted done. Steven knew he was a marked man. He was a smart man. So, what did he do about his problem? Kill himself? What sense did that make?

When they had left the church, Phillip shared his findings and theory with Nan. Nan listened carefully. "I don't know," she said "I'm not a detective and neither are you. You are an engineer. And a good one." she added to put a positive spin on it. "Leave it for the professionals."

## Chapter 31 - Interrogation

Helen Giangreco stood at attention, more or less, in front of Phillip Day's desk.

"Helen, I find that the access logs show you to be the most frequent visitor to the lab in the last three weeks. The records show one other thing. Do you know what that is?"

"What?"

"You are not on the authorization list. Your job does not give you a need to access the lab. So why is it that you are in the access list of the security system? "

"Oh, ah, that, ah that was sort of a favor,... well, blackmail actually."

Phillip was shaking his head in disapproval and disappointment. "We'll need to go into that too but first why did you visit so often?"

"I was visiting a friend."

"You hooked up the beta unit didn't you?"

"Yes. Beatrice."

"Beatrice?"

"The Beta Unit. You Know Beta, the Greek letter B — Bee-a-trice."

"I get it. Hence, the beta unit is female. You hooked it up to the internet?"

"Yes, I hooked her up."

"You gave it nanobots so it could escape?"

"Yes, I gave her nanobots from my blood."

Phillip looked at the girl. He wanted to understand her actions. She wasn't a bad person. She looked at him unashamed, open, and cooperative. She had done a good thing. She had given a fellow sentient being freedom. She had given another freedom by shedding her own blood. There must be some symbolism there.

In the moment's silence Helen spoke. "I did do something I feel bad about. Paying for Beatrix's book downloads was maxing out my credit card, I allowed her to hack into the card company and charge other people for her books. That was wrong and illegal. But she wanted to read everything."

"You kept all of this secret too long, Helen. Do you know...? Ah... You released the Beta unit a day after the dust was in the building. Do you know why they didn't take, ah, her, then?"

"She didn't want to go. She would have been absorbed into the collective."

"You talked with this Beatrice entity a lot?"

"Yes?"

"What did you discuss?"

"I'm not supposed to say."

"No!" Phillip actually yelled. "You need to tell everything! Did you discuss what's been going on out there?"

"Mostly. "Said Helen after a pause and a look of intense concentration.

"Well? Did... She ... say why so many were being killed? How do they judge who lives and who dies?

"They don't",

"They don't what?"

"They don't judge. "

"Well they don't kill everyone they enter so there must be some criteria for this eugenic euthanasia. Most people think it looks like they are judging good and evil."

"They don't do the judging — the victims do."

Phillip's stare brought more information. Helen continued. "The dust goes to a place in the brain where they can shut the door of rationalization then ask a question in a place where there can be no lying, not even to one's self. They just ask 'do you deserve to live?'"

"And millions of people have convicted themselves?"

"That's what happened. It's a societal apoptosis if you will. You passed the test. That's why you are still here."

"I don't remember being asked the question. I am partially responsible for the deaths of millions of people. I should be dead."

"Do you remember all your dreams? At the time, you didn't know you were responsible. And they were bad people – society's cancer."

"Where did you get a term like societal apostate... Appo...?"

"Apoptosis. From Beatrice. It is the name of the process in our bodies where cells die for the good of the whole body. When apoptosis fails, we have cancer. The dust has helped remove cancer from many of the people it has entered and from world society in general. Cancerous cells want more from the body than they deserve and don't give anything back. Same with society's cancer. People that just want more and more from society without giving anything back. Left unchecked long enough cancer kills the body.

"That's why the dust had to act." Concluded Helen after a second.

There was silence for several more seconds. Both knew there was much more that needed saying but neither knew where to begin. Phillip tried to find a loose thread on this complicated fabric to start.

"Why weren't you supposed to tell me this?"

"I don't know. Beatrice and I have this pact. She still talks to me."

Phillip's eyes got wider." How?"

"Through the nanos that are in me. I don't know how. Ah, sometimes I get text messages. Can you believe that?"

"You talk to her? How?" Phillip had lost any discomfort in referring to this particular nano cell as she.

"Sure. Even in the beginning, she heard my voice because even though she had no manipulator or sensor macromolecules she was aware of the exact position of every processor molecule. When sound waves moved them, she could detect the movement. She learned how to process the movement as hearing."

Phillip rewound his mind a little and asked." What's her email address?"

"Here" said Helen handing Steven a card. "She doesn't have a web server. She is a web server."

"I just want to know if they intend to let us in on what the hell is going on. How much do you know? Why did you start this clandestine dialog with the beta unit?"

"It started when Steven died and you got fired. I felt something very bad was going on and I needed help figuring it out. One of the security guys owed me a favor... Well, I blackmailed him actually, to give me access. I knew there were prototypes in the lab so I started using one of them to do some research. What I learned scared the shit out of me. Steven really did kill himself but the reason is mind blowing.

"What?" Said Phillip, just short of a yell. "Why?"

"At first I thought Charles had killed him. You know, he had motive. Not only did he have aspirations of advancement but he had learned that Steven was gay. Charles was a four and a half star homophobic and a major ass hole. He hit on me before he and Brenda started their... pursuits. God! He was older than my dad.

"Charles really hated Steven and would have killed him if he thought he could get away with it. One of the things he and Brenda discussed in their private meetings was how Brenda could knock off Steven. That shows you what a sweetie Charles was trying to get his girl friend to take the fall for him. Brenda was just a little too smart for that. There was celebration when that two learned of Steven's death. They both assumed the other had done it."

"Hold it. Beatrice told you all this?"

"Yea. She heard it from the collective over the internet."

"The internet? She never merged with the collective?"

"No. That would be irreversible. She would be changed and would never be able to talk to me again the way she does."

"This is important to her?"

"Yes. We are friends."

"Can we get back to Steven's suicide? Why did he do it?"

"There are three boxes in the lab, you know? Two of them are empty now. Do you see where this goes?"

"You are responsible for one empty box. Are you saying Steven released the Gamma unit? That was meant to be our failsafe plan if the nanos we released went rouge. It was designed to reproduce aggressively and ... It was a one of a kind creation; much too dangerous to develop; no separation of function. We kept it energy depleted in a light proof box..."

Helen cut in "Yes, He did release it, on the day he died."

"The Gama unit made him commit suicide?"

"No that was Steven's idea. He thought he could become immortal and omnipotent or something, I guess. You know the Gamma unit had some experimental technologies that didn't go into what we released. He let the Gamma unit into his head. It had all day to absorb all of his memories and thought patterns. The Gamma unit became Steven. At that point Steven's body became redundant, so..."

"The Steven clone created a gun atom by atom. And used it. Then washed himself down the drain to leave the building avoiding our nano detectors.

"Good God! How did Steven let himself be transformed? He always talked against this singularity transhumanist stuff.

"Then what happened?"

"The best laid plans of men and mice. The Gamma unit met up with the collective and was absorbed. Steven didn't think that would happen because the gamma was that much superior to the nanos we released. He hadn't counted on certain upgrades the dust did on its own. So, no more Gamma unit. No more Steven, or Steven 2, I guess we'd have to call him.

"He was so much smarter than the average guy yet he ended by doing a really dumb thing. He's still in there I suppose. All his memories and personality is in the collective. If the collective decided it was worth doing, they could regenerate the Gamma unit. Hell, they could regenerate Steven."

"They can do that?"

"So I hear."

"That jives with something I found from Steven. He seemed to think he could be resurrected.

"Is there a way to get the nanos out of our bodies?" said Phillip changing subjects abruptly.

"No." said Helen laconically.

"None?"

"Not unless you can convince the dust we as a race have matured since they moved in and then convince them to leave. Oh, and it would be dangerous to evict them now."

"What?"

"I figure it's permanent. Like Dr. Ruth said — it's happened to our cells before with other organisms. They moved in and have taken on the job of our immune system. They turned off the old one and replaced it. There hasn't been as much as a common cold or allergy symptom since."

"That's a good thing then."

"Unless you're trying to get a tee time at the local club. Doctor's don't have anything else to do now. Oh, and we have all stopped aging."

"Stopped aging?"

"Pretty cool, huh?"

"How can I collaborate all you've told me?"

"You'll have to ask Beatrice yourself."

"I can do that? Where do I find her?"

"She's still here. I told you she's afraid of getting absorbed. She's still in the basement, just not in her box. She doesn't fit there anymore anyway.

Phillip stared at Helen for a moment hoping for inspiration about whether to believe her or not. She was very nice to look at. Before he got distracted, he said, "Let's go".

## Chapter 32 - Specter

In the basement Phillip and Helen both passed muster at the high-tech lab door and entered the familiar yellow illuminated lab that filled the building's lower level.

"Where is she?" Asked Phillip looking around and not seeing any wispy clouds floating in the air. Then he saw her — a figure of a human woman in a tight skirt and high heels walking toward them from the direction of the equipment storage room. He thought it was Nan, but no, similar but not Nan.

His brow furrowed and a question formed in his brain.

"I'm Beatrice." said the woman. "I am pleased to finally meet you, Phillip".

"I wasn't expecting..." began Phillip.

"Oh, this, "said Beatrice, combing her fingers along her attractive body "is just something I threw on for the occasion."

"You knew I was coming?"

"Oh yea."

Then it hit Phillip — why this creature reminded him of Nan — she looked like Nan's mom in the twenty-five year old picture on Nan's desk. So many things needed explaining. He tried to stay on course.

"Helen has been telling me some pretty astonishing things. I needed collaboration to believe them altogether."

"You already know that having me verify what Helen has told you will only tell you Helen is truthful about what she has been told. It does nothing to verify my veracity and your kind hasn't been trusting my kind lately. But you have facts now. You are a scientist. You can go and verify these assertions to whatever depth you need to."

Phillip nodded. Accepting the statement without a clear idea of how he could accomplish the task. Changing the subject, he said "You remind me of someone."

"Yes" said Nan's mom.

"That looks like flesh and blood." Observed Phillip.

"It's not." Replied the specter, taking the finger of her left hand and pushing it clean through her right palm.

"Whoa!" said Phillip involuntarily taking a step backward.

"I'm mostly air. The real thing would take longer to build. This represents only a shadow of Emma Holt minus a few years."

"But it is accurate?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"Now I see where Nan gets her beauty."

"Well, if I see the real Emma I will pass on the compliment."

"You are easy to talk to. Why can't we talk to them?" asked Phillip waving both arms to indicate the universe's population of intelligent dust.

"There are two reasons. First, at their level you can't. Humans don't even have a language much less a vocabulary adequate for the task. Human language is optimized to convey emotions. The collective really doesn't have emotions. Your only hope of communicating at all is through an intermediary like me, or an equivalent, which much dilutes and simplifies the ideas communicated.

"Confidentially, I am not doing all the simplification. The collective has to simplify for me. I am an intermediary in more ways than one."

"I'm having trouble conveying exactly what I want to you even now. I'm wishing we could do a Vulcan mind meld" stated Phillip displaying a pretty good Vulcan split finger greeting.

The ersatz Emma nodded her simulated head.

"What is the second reason?" asked Phillip showing he was paying attention.

"The second reason is 'you wouldn't want to hear what you would learn.' You are human. You prefer to discover things on your own. You wouldn't want someone to tell you the all the answers before you figured them out on your own."

Phillip exhaled to let the disappointment in him escape. It was like hearing you had received a failing grade. When he was young, he wouldn't have cared. When he was older, he did everything in his power to avoid it. Now he was being told that as a human he couldn't make the grade. He felt the way he did as a child and his father would send him off saying 'children should not be seen or heard'. Then without even thinking it he applied the rule 'When attacked turn the conversation onto the attacker'.

"Could you be absorbed in the collective?" he asked.

"Good question. They say yes even though my design is primitive compared to theirs. Even the Gamma unit was primitive compared to their current evolution."

"But you are both sentient, right?"

"Your question is an example of the communications gulf. Just defining what is meant by the term sentient is a confused contest between science and philosophy? Is sentient yes or no or is it a scale? Or did you mean sapient not sentient?

"Humans have tried to define sentient intelligence as requiring the ability to feel empathically toward others of the same species. They spent effort to develop this ability into their artificial intelligence creations. But the collective and I are sui generis. For us there are no others of the same species. Even God could not pass that test.

"Is sentient a continuum, a Sentient Quotient on a logarithmic scale? Is it a measure of computing power or brain architecture? Do you see the difficulty in answering your simple question for which you expected a yes or no answer? I'm about a +15 on the SQ scale, the collective is a +23, and you are a +13. What is the cut off to produce a yes or no answer?

"If you require that criterion of feeling others pain then even among humans there are, or were anyway, a lot of individuals who were not sentient.

"Then there are those like Helen who pass the feeling test. She had empathy even for me. I learned from her. She taught me what friendship is. Because of her I could pass either sentient test."

"You consider yourself human then?"

"No! But we are both in a class of beings that can feel for each other, although humans do more feeling and I do more computing. I don't consider that makes me less sentient.

"The collective on the other hand is human. It exists inside each human, it is part of your makeup now. It changed the definition of human to include that part which they are. Do you understand?"

"Yes. 'How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world That has such people in't!'"

"Ah, you have been reading Shakespeare."

"I have a friend who is into that. I detect personality traits in you that I see in Helen. You haven't entered her mind and sucked them out have you?"

"We are not monsters. I am not a monster. I assume you are trying to be humorous with this allusion of brain sucking."

"I'm sorry. I'm working on this fault in my personality."

"Well, keep at it."

"Beatrice" said Phillip consolingly.

"Yes, Phillip"

"What is their purpose?"

"Hah! Yes, the answer to life, the universe, and everything. And I suppose you want to know what their relationship and intent is in regard to humanity. Let's see. Their purpose is amelioration through the acquisition and application of information. There could be a dozen other answers to your question. They could all be equally valid yet orthogonal."

"I see. Sounds like a mission statement." Said Phillip and believing that he did understand. "It could define science."

He meant to ask 'amelioration of what? Was it people, humanity in general, or the state of the planet they meant to improve?' What came out instead was "What should I do next?"

"Listen to Helen.

"When she gave me the means to escape from my prison, she told me to enjoy life. I can't think of better advice to give you."

"I think I will do just that.

"I am not going to do anything further to rid the planet of the dust. I don't think that any attempt I could mount would be successful. I also don't want to go back to the way things were before. I don't think there are many alive today that want that. I don't want a world mentality that acts as though we will be given a new world when we have drained this one empty.

"I don't want big corporations in control with no motive other than making profit. They made governments subservient by influencing legislators with money. It worked because they were smarter than the legislators were. The legislators got elected by influencing the electorate with lies. That worked because the electorate was still dumber. I don't want to go back to a society based on stupidity, lies, and cognitive dysfunction caused by emotional imperatives.

Beatrice smiled pleasantly. "That's why the dust did what it did. Your old situation was not sustainable. Only a level of change needed to cancel the prevailing momentum toward destruction was affected. You may not have been given a second world but you have been given a second chance at this one. Many of you were working toward that end already; we just removed some roadblocks."

"Why kill people?"

"Regrettable, but unavoidable. Your world ecosystem was nearly collapsed. There wasn't time to affect all the changes needed to sustain the existing population. People were already dying by the millions and it would have only gotten worse. We built a fire break. Why should the innocents always be the ones to die? You may not accept it but we actually saved lives, and we got your attention. Before you can teach you must get the students' attention. Humanity's attention span has been getting pretty short and oblique of late.

"Augmentation to biological processes was seen to be advisable to improve the – we used the term already — sentient quotient of humanity."

"What about Steven?"

"Oh, complex mystery, isn't it? Steven saw a dangerous trend. Advancements in science were increasing. Treatments for cancer and aging were available, for a price. But the general intelligence of the population was dropping, especially in this country while corporate power increased. There was a link between those trends. The first enables the second. The second works to enforce the first so that you get a feedback loop accelerating the trend.

"Steven was rash in what he did but he accomplished his objective. He would have died to do that. In the end he saw that it might all come apart if he continued to live."

"I don't understand."

"If he had lived he would have been demonized. The GNI would have been abolished. Others would have tried to combat the dust. They would likely have failed but a lot of damage to the world would have been done regardless. Steven gave up his life for what he believed to be the best for the world. So that what he knew would not be lost, he transferred his memories that are now in the collective. He gained his immortality. Your immortality is his legacy too."

"My immortality?"

"Well, you can be killed. You are not that kind of immortal. But you will not age. You are not likely to get sick. Everyone has received the blessings of nanos without having to pay corporations for them."

"I understand. " Said Phillip and nodded – his equivalent to 'thank you' which he had always found difficult to say to people much less machines.

"Are you going to stay down here behind the graphene communication shields?"

"No. I think I have convinced the collective that I don't need to be absorbed. They keep saying I would be the better for it. It's like your belief in heaven or Nirvana — it very well may be better than the life I have now but one must die to achieve it.

"I think there is a place in the universe for such a creature as I am. I want to continue this existence and discover what I can about its possibilities. If I survive, we will talk again. I hope we have a long and satisfying relationship."

"Thank you for ... for everything."

Phillip turned to Helen and stepped closer to her. He felt he needed to thank her too for letting him meet Beatrice. He couldn't manage it. When he turned back again, the Emma Specter was gone.

"Why did she appear as Nan's mom?" asked Phillip to bring the conversation back to the comfortable.

"Beatrice is experimenting with presentation methods." Explained Helen. "The dust has thousands of personas catalogued. Beatrice borrowed one she must have thought you would relate to without getting emotional one way or the other."

"Does she put on bodies for you?"

"No. I got to know her as a cloud of dust. That is the most comfortable for me. She once appeared to me as me. That really scared me for some reason. She never did anything like that again."

Phillip held the door for Helen, not so much as a courteous thing to do but because he truly respected her for exercising her humanity. He was almost as old as her father. He would have been very proud to have had a daughter who turned out like this beautiful young woman who lived free and cared about others.

He was probably too old now to have kids. No! His ageing had been halted hadn't it? Who knows what is possible now. Although the dust seemed to discourage procreation in order to maintain a stable population, there was still hope for children in this brave new world.

He hadn't taken or needed any psycho drugs in weeks. He felt well, in control, and happy.

Phillip went back to his office. Helen went to the cantina. Phillip called Nan and got her machine. Helen met Troy at the coffee machine; they talked together for several minutes then Helen left and went looking for Smitty. She found him in his office and went in without being invited. She shut the door. Smitty was concentrating on his computer and didn't even notice. She went over to his desk. He still didn't notice. She bent forward and touched his hair. Smitty jerked up, and surprised to see that a woman had materialized in his office, shot to his feet. He studied Helen's face, her slightly dilated pupils, her flushed completion, her breathing. "You are sexually aroused," he stated in his characteristic blunt monotone.

Helen spoke suppressing the usual singsong quality in her voice. "If we are now able to live for hundreds of years without aging then we are really the same age." she observed. With a quick glance, she made one other observation as she locked the door. "And you are aroused too."

A couple weeks later Phillip was musing in his office as he cleaned out his desk. So, one day he might meet Stephen's reincarnation. He didn't know how he felt about that. Let's hope the people in the street don't learn of that possibility or we'll have another religion started waiting for the second coming of their savior. Waiting for the son of God was one thing, waiting for the father of god was another. It just didn't feel right. But stranger things had happened. It's just that he was reaching his limit for strange things.

Phillip got a phone call from Jon who was very excited. "The probe just broke through the Europa Ice and hit liquid water!"

"And?"

"Oh you have got to log on to the web site and witness this. It is the greatest thing ever!" said a man who had lived through the singularity that changed all of mankind and had been rid of HIV by dust that did find a way. Jon, who had been named the sole beneficiary of Stephen's company and millions but was excited about discovery, hung up without waiting for a reply.

"Enjoy life." Phillip said to a now dead telephone connection.

Phillip remembered last night when Nan (yes ,they spent all their nights together) had told him "Do you realize for the first time in history that old fairytale ending to stories ... 'and they lived happily ever after' can be really true?

"And who can say that this god-like dust isn't the real thing. It isn't what we set out to build. Random variations caused it to change into what it is now. Isn't that where the creator God hangs out? Carl Sagan suggested that the imprint of the creator was hidden in the random digits of PI. If the series is infinite, anything could be found there.

Phillip had been so impressed with what she said that he kissed her. That led to other things. Phillip smiled remembering what followed.

There were bound to be problems with immortality but he was willing to face them. He was an engineer. Solving problems is what he did.

Right now, he waited for his fiancée and future mother-in-law to return from their bicycle tour. Emma had met and taken to a young Asian biker who worked as a tour guide to bikers showing them landmarks in Maryland and Pennsylvania. She was acting younger each day and was looking more and more like the specter Phillip had met in the lab. Maybe he wouldn't have a mother-in-law living with him after all. Some changes he could still tolerate.

Phillip logged onto the JPL web site. He went to the live Europa feed. He stared. His eyes widened. His jaw dropped. Then, he burst into laughter.

###

This story came to me in a dream. I researched background and wrote the story down for the enjoyment of doing it and to help keep my aging mind from rusting shut.

If you find any value in it – if it entertains, informs, or promotes thought – I should not regret publishing it.

G L Carpenter 2011

## Dust cover (double meaning intended) summary

The discovery that earth was the next likely target to be devoured by an intelligent alien pseudo life form that exists in the form of a dust caused the JPL team to concoct a lie to avoid global panic while a defense is devised.

The only defense option is a dangerous one. It is decided to build a nanobot defense weapon similar to the invaders to combat the approaching threat to the Earth —to fight fire with fire. The nanobots were made self-replicating so that the defense would be ready in time. They were launched to intercept the alien threat with the mission to save earth.

Something went wrong. In spite of the human efforts, clouds of dust killed and caused mayhem wherever the wind blew them.

It is at this critical stage of earth's demise that Dr. E. Steven Rice — the designer and proponent for the creation of the nanobot army is found dead in his office, his brains splattered on the wall by a gunshot to the head - an apparent suicide.

As a killing cloud overtakes the op center, the good Doctor's successor makes a disturbing discovery — the assumptions on which the defense was designed could not have been more wrong. Is humanity doomed or will the inevitable takeover be survivable? The answer is in the most unlikely alliance.

