 
Johnny Winger and the Amazon Vector

Published by Philip Bosshardt at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Philip Bosshardt

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"The role of the infinitely small is infinitely large."

Louis Pasteur
Prologue

Village of Via Verde

Republic of Valencia, South America

Fall, 2068

For Dr. Hector del Compo, the trip up the Yemanha River came at a particularly bad time. Work was piling up at the Ministry, his eldest daughter was set to be married in less than two weeks, and the Deputy Minister had just rejected his choice to head up the public health lab, the dolt. So when U.N. BioShield advised the Ministry of some kind of 'disturbance' in the vicinity of Via Verde, "unusually high nanobotic activity" was the way the report had phrased it, del Compo gritted his teeth and organized a quick expedition to see what BioShield had detected. Maybe it would be a distraction from all the politics back at the Ministry. After all, it wasn't everyday you got a message from BioShield that some kind of mass casualties had occurred way upriver in the black heart of la selva, the rain forest that covered the western two thirds of Valencia.

"Esta aqui?" came a voice from the back of the boat. It was Montoya, sergeant of the Guardia Nacional detail that was accompanying the scientists from the Ministry upriver. "The village is nearby, no?"

Del Compo watched the coffee-colored waters of the Yemanha River slide by. The two-boat fleet had chugged nearly forty kilometers upriver from Afalamos, heading for the last known encampment of Xotetli Indians, a place called Via Verde, the locus of the 'disturbance' according to BioShield. The sun was high in the sky—it was just after noon locally—but the light had fallen off in the dense canopy of wiry pandanus and tapang trees, now forming a cathedral arch over the sluggish river.

"Just around the bend, Sergeant," Del Compo called out. "Let's maneuver closer to shore."

Montoya waved acknowledgement, then barked, "Watch for logs and shoals! De reche...steer toward the shore!"

The two boats slowed and shifted course, their props thrumming and churning water as the helmsmen turned them to starboard. The prow of the lead boat nosed around the curve of the shoreline, through swarms of buzzing insects and the first crude thatch lean-to's of the Xotetli village came into view, perched on a shelf of cleared ground. Smoke issued from a smoldering fire in the center of the circle of huts.

Montoya snapped off more orders and the boats were poled to the river banks, their engines turned off. The Guardia detail climbed out and quickly secured a perimeter around the village, nosing briefly into the forest, poking bayonets and mag weapons into the huts, looking for anyone.

One soldier, Corporal Quinones, gave a shout.

"Aqui...aqui! Pronto!..." The corporal waved the others over.

Del Compo scrambled over the makeshift gangway and clawed his way up the bank. The village of Via Verde was little more than a collection of crude thatch huts and log lean-to's, gathered in a circle around a firepit that was still smoldering.

Even as del Compo and his fellow scientists approached, they could see the legs of prostrate humans, sticking out of the huts.

Texeira bent to examine the nearest body. Quinones shone a flashlight on the face of the Xotetli Indian....it appeared to be a young male, otherwise healthy and uninjured, but indisputably dead. He had died with his eyes open. The young male was covered with painted tattoos and his lips and nose were pierced with tiny bone ornaments.

"What happened?" asked del Compo, noting at least four other males lying nearby.

"I'm not sure, but—" Texeira turned the body over, looking for lividity and other signs of external trauma. "No open wounds...poison, maybe." They both knew the Xotetli fashioned curare for their darts and arrows from the leaves and stems of chondrodendron vines.

"Gonzalez!" del Compo called back to the boat. "Bring the equipment...we need to do an autopsy."

Gonzalez waved back, then hoisted up a crate and lugged it on shore, carrying the crate up to the village.

As the scientists set up, Montoya and his detail did a quick reconnaissance of the village and surrounding jungle. He came back after a few minutes, his face grim and pale.

"Profesor...the whole village...they're all dead—"

"What?'

Montoya unholstered his own pulser and pointed it toward the huts opposite the firepit. "Come...see for yourself—"

Del Compo went with Montoya around the village, where the rest of the Guardia detail...Herrera, Uruguin, Fuentes and Goncalves...were systematically probing every hut and bush, turning up bodies by the dozen, slumped, sprawled and folded in every conceivable position.

Del Compo bent to examine an older man, maybe the curaca, or chief. He was adorned with a complex cape of vines and strips of tree bark. His face was hidden behind a mask of feathers—when del Compo peeled the mask back, he saw a middle-aged face staring up at him, eyes open. His lips and cheeks were noticeably blue.

The exam was interrupted by the sound of a heavy thud. Del Compo and Montoya both turned, and saw two of the soldiers had dropped to their knees, and were having trouble breathing...both were heaving deeply, gasping for air.

Del Compo got up and went to Herrera and Uruguin. "What is it? What's wrong—what is it?"

Uruguin was young, his eyes wide. His hands fluttered about his chest. "I don't know...I can't breathe...my lungs...no air..." He gurgled and throttled, then pitched onto his side, his mouth working up and down like a fish out of water.

Del Compo bent down to examine the soldier's face. It was turning pale, somehow he wasn't getting enough oxygen. He started to probe around the soldier's mouth, but stopped, feeling light-headed himself. Startled, he stood up abruptly.

"Texeira—"

The chemist had already uncrated the autopsy-bot and had set it to work on the dead man by the firepit. The bot attached itself to the man's chest and neck with programmed efficiency and extended forceps and probes as it deftly sliced into the corpse.

"Texeira...the air...it's bad! There may be an underground leak, toxic gases venting—"

Texeira nodded, quickly reading results from the bot. "Asphyxiation, senor Profesor...I thought so...blue lips and cheeks. The CO2 level's way too high in his bloodstream....if this thing is right, it reads better than twenty kilopascals."

Del Compo was now coughing as he came over. Others too...Montoya was already tending to Uruguin, even as two more Guardia soldiers collapsed.

"Hypercapnia...there's too much carbon dioxide around here," del Compo croaked.

"That's...that's not all," said Gonzalez from the shoreline. He was struggling with more instruments, taking measurements from the riverbank. He swayed dizzily, then clung to a vine of strangler fig for support. "The air...she's crazy...look at this! Not just the carbon dioxide is loco...it's everything. Chlorine...fluorine...methane...this isn't normal air, profesor! It's crazy—"

"Poisoned--" Del Compo breathed out. His own lungs were on fire. "Something's in the air...we've got to get out of here!"

Montoya signaled for the detail to return to the boats. The soldiers stumbled, coughing, clawing at their faces and chests, as they fell down the riverbanks and into the boats.

Del Compo sucked, coughed and wheezed as he helped Gonzalez get his gear back aboard. Montoya helped his own men and the boats were started up, their engines chugging against the water. Moments later, the craft eased out against the current, heading further upriver. Against Sergeant Montoya's wishes. del Compo wanted to track the boundaries of this 'bubble' of bad air.

"If I'm right," he wheezed, panting for breath, "it's some kind of rogue nanobotic action, altering the air right here."

"Or maybe toxic gases," suggested Texeira. His face was still pale and beaded with sweat and he sat heavily in the stern, still gasping for breath. "---venting from an underground reservoir."

The fresh breezes helped and by the time the detail had rounded the next bend, the worst of the toxic air seemed to have fallen behind. Del Compo and Gonzalez studied their instruments, increasingly uneasy at what they were finding.

"A zone of death," Gonzalez said. "All around Via Verde...maybe that's what killed the Xotetli."

Del Compo nodded, studying the low hanging clouds that were scudding over the tree tops. "A protected tribe...gone. Maybe it was loggers...or ranchers." There had been incidents before.

"Or worse," added Texeira, mopping his forehead with a wet handkerchief.

Gonzalez tuned the detectors. "It doesn't make any sense. Look, profesor...at the riverbank, the air quality is poor...even the basic percentages are all wrong. See—?" he pointed to several displays on the instrument face. "Ozone levels practically at zero, partial pressure of oxygen falling, CO2 rising..."

The small fleet rounded the bend and Montoya shouted aft. Del Compo followed his pointing arm.

On the riverbank, were more Xotetli, apparently dead, draped over fallen tree stumps and sprawled at the foot of trees. Ten or more bodies. Animals too. The decaying carcass of a sloth lay half buried in the muck.

"...but here in the middle of the river...the air improves." Del Compo saw he was right. The instruments reflected it...oxygen and nitrogen levels approaching normal, the further they got from the banks.

Del Compo signaled to Montoya. "Pull up to that grotto!" he yelled over the wind noise. A dank cavern of limestone overhung the river ahead of them and to the left, covered with boughs of moss and fallen branches of screw pine. To Gonzalez: "Watch the instruments as we approach."

The boats eased landward, bouncing through a small hydraulic foaming around a tree stump and nosed toward the cavern. Bats screeched inside, fluttering the air, with the drone of a thousand wings.

Del Compo felt light-headed as they bumped against the limestone outcropping. The instruments didn't lie...even as he watched, the oxygen levels had begun falling off. Carbon dioxide had already risen well beyond fifteen kilopascals, high enough to impair judgment. Trace constituents were all wrong, like some kind of pall of pollution had fallen over the grotto...it was crazy.

Ashore, when their eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom of the lighting, animal carcasses by the dozen littered the bare rock sides of the limestone cliffs.

Something was altering the air and, in his imagination, del Compo thought he heard the faint keening whine of nanoscale robots above the screech of the bats. Gonzalez was right...a bubble of noxious, deadly air was swelling up from this grotto and around the village of Via Verde, killing every living thing as it expanded outward.

A gas vent underground, perhaps? It had happened before, and killed thousands in Africa last century. A new strain of virus, mutated or genetically altered to affect air molecules themselves....was that what BioShield had detected?

Or perhaps a baby reservoir of nanobots sown by unscrupulous ranchers and loggers, trying to clear another swath of the upper Amazon basin for production.

The soldiers were already coughing and gagging and del Compo realized with a start that they'd have to vacate the area and come back with the right protective gear...and the Guardia Nacional as well. They didn't have the equipment to fight this.

"Let's go back!" del Compo decided, rubbing the temples of his head. He had a fierce headache splitting the back of his head, like needles being driven into his skull. "Downriver...head back to Afalamos!"

Montoya gave the order gratefully but before the two boats could turn about, the river water began foaming and bubbling between them, sending huge waves washing over the gunwales. Something thrashed just below the surface and as Corporal Fuentes bent over the rail to investigate, a pair of mottled green arms breached the surface and wrapped themselves around the soldier's neck.

Instantly, Fuentes was pulled from the boat and into the midst of the foaming water!

"Fuentes! Uruguin!" Montoya stumbled as the creature bumped against the boat, rocking them sideways. The sergeant scrambled across the deck, fumbling for a weapon, a machete, a pulser, anything—

At the same time, more creatures breached the surface, snagging the second boat with their arms—tentacles—trunks...it was hard to see in all the foaming, thrashing water.

"Watch out!" yelled Texeira, as del Compo lost his balance, thudding heavily to the deck. He slid to the railing, as the boat tilted, just as a third creature reared up in a spray of water, and for a second, the profesor was face to face with the black button eyes of a demon from the depths of Hell itself.

It was taller than a man, but thinner, vaguely human in general shape, with a leathery head bristling with black fuzzy hair. Tiny slit eyes dripped or oozed black silt from the riverbed and below what passed for a neck, five or six arms or appendages flailed against the side of the boat with the ferocity of a crazed beast.

"Demonio!" yelled one of the soldiers. The crack of magpulser fire stitched a line of death across the chest of the demon and it fell back with keening whine, more black oozing from the gaping wound across the bony breastplate of its chest. It sank quickly beneath the water, even as del Compo scrambled to his feet.

All around and between the boats, the demonio had surged to the surface, thrashing and slamming against the two boats, pitching and tossing them as if they were small rafts. Soldiers stumbled and clung to whatever they could find. Fuentes was gone. He'd never surfaced. As del Compo watched, Uruguin took dead aim with a pulser at the face of one, trying to climb aboard the boat from the stern, and sliced a slash of black death across its bony head. It screeched and clawed at the air for a moment, then pitched backward into the river.

"There's dozens of them!" Herrera yelled.

"We're outnumbered!" someone else screamed.

Montoya was already ducking into the pilothouse, gunning the engine of his boat, while Gonzalez was nearly pulled from his perch along the starboard rail. Green mottled arms wrapped themselves around his legs and were pulling him inexorably toward the edge.

'Help! HELP ME!!..."

Del Compo dove for the nearest thing he could find...a fire ax mounted on a bulkhead behind the pilothouse. He scrambled forward and swung with all his strength, striking the green arm with the ax edge.

Black fluid exploded in the air as he severed the arm from Gonzalez' leg. From the side of the boat, a bony head appeared momentarily, its face scrunched up in pain, as it reached out for something else.

Again, del Compo swung the ax like a halberd and struck the creature on the side of the head, cleaving its skull with a sickening thud. It clawed the air, thrashed wildly, then slipped off the gunwales and slid beneath the water.

"GET US OUT OF HERE!" del Compo yelled at the top of his voice. Headache still pounded his own skull, though the demonio seemed unaffected. Texeira had made it to the pilothouse and was already turning them downriver, even as the engines rumbled to life.

But the water all around them was thick with the creatures.

"There must be hundreds!—"

"We're surrounded--!"

Pulser fire stitched and ripped the air, as beams crisscrossed the small grotto. Del Compo saw two more demonio clambering aboard their own boat, as Texeira rammed the throttles forward. They clawed their way up onto the stern deck well and began crawling like huge, dripping spiders up the incline of the stairs. Twenty feet away, from the stern of Montoya's boat, Corporal Quinones saw what was happening.

He took dead aim with his own weapon and let fly a magpulse at point blank range, burning off half the creature's back and head.

It reared up in pain and lost balance, pitching sideways into the river, where it was promptly struck by the surging bow of the boat.

The second creature scuttled forward a few more feet, but this time del Compo and Gonzalez were ready, with fire ax and fathoming pole. As soon as the creature scuttled within range, they attacked.

Del Compo managed to sever two of its appendages by the time Gonzalez had clubbed the thing into a semi-conscious stupor. It slid back down the stairs and lodged in a seething heap in a corner of the deck well, oozing life. Neither man saw the ragged stumps where its tentacles had been hacked off...starting to regrow, starting to regenerate.

The other boat pulled alongside, with Quinones and Fuentes both taking dead aim at the still moving creature.

"WAIT!" yelled del Compo. "Don't shoot...!"

"Are you loco, profesor...this thing is the devil itself!"

"Don't shoot..." del Compo held up his heads. "Maybe we can tranquilize it, immobilize it. I want to take it back to the city. To my lab."

The two Guardia soldiers looked at each other, each thinking the same thought. El profesor es loco... They shook their head, partially lowered their weapons.

"At least the air's getting better, eh?" shouted Texeira from the pilothouse. He dropped the throttle and the boat slowed, with Montoya's boat slackening off as well.

Soon the small flotilla was chugging downriver at a more manageable ten knots. Montoya directed his pilot, Private Uruguin, to bring them alongside. When the boats were only a few feet apart, he leaped to the deck of the scientists' boat and landed on all fours. He stood up and regarded the wounded demonio shaking and moaning in the deck well. A blurry cloud, like a horde of flies, buzzed around its severed stumps.

"We can't take that thing back with us...too dangerous," Montoya decided. He withdrew his own pulser sidearm and dialed it up to maximum, taking aim at its oozing head.

"Don't shoot it," del Compo pleaded. "Let's restrain it, throw some netting over it. Gonzalez...you have serum in that kit of yours? Maybe we sedate it."

"They already killed one of my men," Montoya said. "I can't take a chance."

Del Compo jumped down from the catwalk and stood between Montoya and the creature. "I can. My job is to find out what's happened at Via Verde. And what killed all the Xotetli. Something's going on and it triggered BioShield. This...creature...may be part of the answer."

Montoya was doubtful but he holstered his weapon and glared down at the creature.

"It's truly demonio, just like Herrera said. "Face of the devil, if you ask me. We should dump it in the river, where it belongs...where it came from."

The same strange keening whine he had heard before now seemed louder, more insistent to del Compo. Is it my hearing? A burst eardrum? It came from the direction of the creature. Flies, he realized. Hordes of river flies...or mosquitoes. He didn't see that both stumps were being steadily re-formed, below the swarm of insects.

"I'm not sure where it came from," del Compo said.

'It didn't seem affected by the bad air," Gonzalez observed. "Not like we were."

"I don't know what happened back there, at Via Verde," admitted del Compo. He found himself a perch and sat down wearily to study the creature. "But this...this thing... it has to be part of the answer...I'm sure of it."

That's when he realized the keening buzz he'd been hearing for the last hour wasn't flies at all.

United Nations Quantum Corps Briefing

UNQC Western Command Base,

Table Top Mountain, Idaho, USA

Fall 2068 (a few weeks later)

For Major Jurgen Kraft, the commanding officer of 1st Nanospace Battalion, briefings at Table Top were always a royal pain in the ass. It wasn't so much the formality and the time involved in 'putting on a show', as it was all the little things you had to do whenever the brass linked in from remote sites...the special details like side presentations to expand on certain points, enhanced video and animation, sim packages from SOFIE to help with decisions.

At least, nobody's figured out how to do coffee and doughnuts over the WorldNet yet, he told himself.

If anything, today's briefing would be worse...half the command leadership of UNIFORCE was vidlinked in to the briefing theater. Whatever it was, it was big.

CINCQUANT himself, in the person of General Wolfus Linx was on one screen, linked in from Paris. The Commander in Chief was a bearded, fierce-eyed Teutonic warrior whose name carried the merest hint of ferocity barely contained. Linx had a withering glare that no amount of distance could dissipate.

Kraft involuntarily shuddered every time he glanced over at the screen.

Also linked in from UNIFORCE Headquarters on the Rue du Montaigne was Rene Camois, an Assistant Deputy to the Director General. Mssr. Camois was to Kraft an unknown quantity, though he was highly enough placed to be obnoxious if he wanted to be. Camois was on hand to represent the office of the DG himself, and thus spoke with the absolute authority of the top commander. Even Linx had to defer to the DG.

One other vidlink completed the trio of screens that lined one wall of the briefing theater. His name was Hector del Compo, and from what Kraft had read of the précis', del Compo was Valencian, said to be the chief inspector of the Ministry of Public Health in that landlocked South American country. Del Compo had data from some kind of environmental 'disturbance' in the upper Amazon River basin that was the official impetus for the briefing.

Assembled in the briefing theater along with the vidlinked participants were several others.

Captain Johnny Winger, 1st Nanospace Company, the Battalion's top code and stick man and for nearly ten years, Kraft's personal project in building an effective commander for nanoscale combat operations. Winger was the wonder boy of the Corps, and Kraft took a perverse delight in both showing off his prize commander to the brass and roughly reminding the kid who was really in charge.

Also on hand was Captain Dana Tallant,, 2nd Nanospace Company, and every bit the equal of Winger in raw ability, though she didn't have Winger's charisma or guts.

Kraft brought the briefing to order and acknowledged all the participants.

"Quantum Corps got tasking at 0430 hours this morning from UNSAC to convene a briefing for the purpose of determining what tripped BioShield yesterday. Shortly before noon local time in Valencia, BioShield Ops received several alerts from remote swarms patrolling the atmosphere over the Amazon Basin. The alerts indicated nanobotic activity over and above the lawful amount was occurring in northwest Valencia, some—" here Kraft checked his notes—" fifty miles upriver from the capital city of Afalamos. BioShield contacted the Valencian Ministry of Public Health and the Interior Ministry. Dr. Del Compo here led the first expedition to investigate. Doctor—" Kraft yielded to the Valencian official.

Del Compo was a compact, dark-haired man, with steel-rim glasses. He consulted some notes off-screen.

"The results of our inspection were surprising," del Compo noted. "I'm sending the compiled data now." A new squirt off the satellite refreshed all screens and several plots and graphs materialized into view.

"BioShield data showed the center of this perturbation was in the vicinity of a small Indian village called Via Verde. The territory is along the Yemanha River in upper Valencia. This territory is home to a small tribe called Xotetli...or, I should say, was. The Xotetli were a protected tribe, basically Bronze Age forest-dwellers which our government was trying to protect from ranchers and loggers."

General Linx cut in gruffly. "Doctor, BioShield has a mandate to search for airborne nanobotic mechanisms and that's all. We don't want another pandemic like Serengeti scourging the world. If BioShield was tripped, some kind of nanoscale mechanism was in play, replicating in the area."

"I thought the same," del Compo admitted. "When we arrived at the site, our investigators noticed right away a sort of aires viciado, a kind of bubble or zone of toxic air had developed. In and around Via Verde, the Xotetli tribe had all died, of asphyxiation. Scores of them. We did auto-autopsy on several and discovered the symptoms you see on your screens...hypercapnia, blue lips and cheeks, excessive concentrations of CO2 and other toxic gasses in their blood and lungs."

"Excuse me, Doctor..." It was Rene Camois. "You said the entire tribe had died?"

"We found no survivors. The air in and around the village and along the riverbanks for several kilometers up and downstream was composed of gases in the concentrations I have displayed here...as you can see, toxic levels of fluorine and chlorine, carbon dioxide and reduced levels of oxygen and nitrogen."

"This doesn't make any sense," Kraft studied the data. "Normal air is seventy-eight percent nitrogen and twenty-one percent oxygen. This is all cock-eyed...are you sure your instruments are calibrated, Doctor?"

"Perfectly," del Compo said. "The air even affected me and my inspectors. We had to vacate the area...it was too dangerous for us there. No, the data are real, gentlemen. There is a bubble or zone of toxic air over Via Verde and the surrounding jungle and it's expanding outward. We're not sure where the source is, though some evidence suggests it's in or around a grotto of caves further upriver, a place called Sulpeda. We tried to go there but we couldn't—"

Linx raised a bushy eyebrow. "You suspect what, exactly, Doctor...an illegal nanobotic reservoir?"

"Possibly, General. Whatever it is, it's changing the air in that whole area, and every living thing, Xotetli Indians, jungle life, everything, is being affected. Mass casualties are piling up along the riverbanks. Several villages downstream have already reported floating corpses in the water."

Linx checked with someone behind him and returned to the screen. "UNIFORCE confirms that atmospheric perturbations were detected in the area you're talking about, Doctor. Satellite and aerial 'bot inspection have characterized the phenomena as a 'toxic cloud' spreading outward from Via Verde, altering the composition of the atmosphere, breaking down ozone and other molecules. "So far, it's said to be a relatively small scale event, but whatever it is, it's resistant to nanobotic intervention to this point. BioShield has deployed enforcement nano into the area with no effect."

"General," asked Johnny Winger, "are we dealing with a natural outbreak or some kind of rogue 'bots somebody let loose?"

"That's unknown at this time, Captain. Perhaps, Deputy Camois has something to add."

The UNIFORCE official was a precise, almost effeminate bureaucrat. "UNIFORCE has been receiving reports for several days now, actually reports, data, even imagery from multiple locations around the world. We're getting reports of similar atmospheric disturbances, in places like Tibet, the south Pacific, the Antarctic, the Congo basin in central Africa."

"What kind of disturbances?" Linx asked.

"Similar to what's being reported here," Camois consulted some background material, squirted it off the satellite to Table Top. The master display showed a map of the world, with the areas mentioned highlighted. "Constituent gas concentrations all mixed up, oxygen and ozone levels dropping, carbon dioxide levels rising, pressure fluctuations...BioShield is reporting nanobotic activity in or near all spots, so we think that's the cause. Who or what's behind it—" Camois looked up and shrugged, visibly frustrated even on the screen. "The Director General's meeting with UNSAC this evening, 1900 hours our time."

Johnny Winger studied the displays, trying to make sense of it all. "There's no obvious pattern. What makes all these places so special?"

"Unknown, Captain," said Camois. "We running routines now to try and match a pattern, possibly predict any further outbreaks. So far, the public's unaware of the disturbances, except in the affected areas...the media haven't sniffed this one out yet. But the problem seems to be growing."

"Maybe it's Red Hammer again," Major Kraft suggested, hoping someone had evidence to the contrary. Quantum Corps had had numerous run-ins with the world's biggest criminal cartel in recent years and had the scars to show for it. But nobody disagreed.

"A distinct possibility," Camois agreed. "Although after Serengeti, the cartel hasn't made as much trouble for us the last few years. We damaged them severely in that affair." The Deputy looked slightly pained. "General, would Quantum Corps like the threat condition from UNIFORCE raised? Do we need to raise the alert level here? The Commissioner will undoubtedly ask the same question."

Linx was reluctant to admit there was something the Corps couldn't handle, especially when a mandated mission like atmospheric patrol was involved, but he agreed.

"It would be best," he admitted. "I'm thinking we may need to go beyond BioShield and send in a special ops team...an ANAD unit. I'm not sure BioShield can handle this."

Camois took that grimly. "Very well. I'll recommend to the Director General that we go to UNICON Plus."

Del Compo spoke up. "The Ministry's team encountered more than just atmospheric perturbations, gentlemen. We also ran into some kind of strange organism...the men have taken to calling them demonio...in the river near Via Verde."

"What kind of organism?" Linx asked.

Del Compo was physically located in a conference studio at the Ministry's headquarters in Afalamos, the capital of Valencia. He turned from the screen a moment, then fed a video stream into the data feed. Moments later, all screens were refreshed with new imagery, this time of one of the riverine creatures the expedition had captured.

""It's vaguely humanoid," del Compo narrated over the imagery. "It has radically modified lungs, and as you can see, extra appendages. We've scanned all of its internal structure as well, in some detail." Ghostly images appeared, outlining the results of the scans. "There are the lungs, all four of them. Something that we're calling a heart, or circulatory pump, and there are other organs we haven't puzzled out yet. Interestingly, it has no brain or central cognitive-processing center that we can detect."

"Demonio..." Linx mulled over the word. "Little devil. And no brain...what the hell is it? An animal of some type."

Del Compo chose his words carefully. "I want to be precise in what I am saying here: the demonio is not an organism in the conventional sense. In the sense, General, that you and I are organisms. Properly speaking, it is a colony."

"A colony--?"

"A colony of endosymbiotic structures, somewhat similar in appearance, external structure and apparent function to our ANAD mechanisms."

Johnny Winger's mouth dropped open. "ANAD? You mean—"

Kraft finished the thought. "This bugger's a bunch of nanoscale mechanisms? Like assemblers?"

Del Compo nodded. "A very advanced colony of apparently designed and programmable mechanisms, small as a virus, but with extraordinary capability—here, I'll show you what I mean." The doctor directed someone off screen with a flurry of Spanish. "I've got imagery...this is a Quark Flux image of one of the devices here."

The screens flickered and the grainy image of a polyhedral structure filled the view. The structure was festooned with grapplers, hooks, extended chains of polypeptides, bristling with molecular tools.

"I'll be damned," Kraft muttered. "What on God's green earth are these doodads?" He squinted at the image, measuring a fuzzy protuberance on the screen using his fingers as a caliper.

"Off hand, I'd say something like a fullerene hook," Winger said. "Same as ANAD, only it's got a lot more complicated set of radicals at every end. How the dickens does it stay like that?"

"We don't know," del Compo admitted. "I had the same question. Bond energies should make this structure fly apart, but it doesn't."

"We're looking at some very advanced nanoscale engineering here," Linx said.

"Red Hammer?" thought Camois.

"Possibly, but this...this is so far beyond what we've ever seen of their work. Indra, Serengeti, none of them looked like this. And the lot of them...they're organized...not a swarm but—"

"Exactly, General. Organized and held together somehow in a colony that vaguely resembles something humanoid. These demonio, as we call them, are nothing more than a collection of autonomous nanoscale assemblers, ANADs, if you will. And here's what's really strange: all the internal structures you see in the internal scan are perfectly designed, if I can use that word, to adapt this creature to living inside these zones of altered atmosphere."

Del Compo's words hung in the air for a few moments, until the full import of what he had said sunk in.

"Is this a new species," Camois asked. "Some branch off the human evolutionary line. Or some kind of experiment?"

"Or are we being invaded...maybe colonized ourselves?" Kraft said.

Del Compo shook his head. "Unknown at this time. It's my belief, however, that these atmospheric alterations, whatever their source, and the existence of the demonio, are related."

"Did one cause the other?" Linx asked.

"We don't know, General. That'll require more investigation."

Deputy Camois had heard enough. "This tells me we've got a crisis on our hands and it's growing fast. If what happened at Via Verde spawned or was somehow created by these...creatures...then what the hell is happening at all the other sites BioShield has detected?"

"This could explain why BioShield is detecting heightened nanobotic activity," Johnny Winger said. "Maybe they're detecting these creatures."

"I'll get tasking from the DG and UNSAC, before the night is over," Camois promised. The investigation mission will be assigned to Quantum Corps and your ANAD units."

Linx was satisfied with that. "Thank you, Deputy. We won't let UNIFORCE down. Major Kraft--?"

"Sir?"

Linx ticked off what he wanted done on his fingers. "Work up a tactical plan, every scenario you can think of, and what resources you'll need. Work SOFIE until she's smoking. Get it to me by 2200 hours tonight. I'll see the orders are written and scoped to make it all work."

Jurgen Kraft was already halfway out the door and Johnny Winger was right behind him.

Table Top Mountain was situated on a high mesa in the Snake Mountains of southern Idaho, like the palm of a hand with ridges and valleys fanning out in all directions. Hunt Valley and Buffalo Valley swept away in a steep incline to the east and northeast, buttressed by snow-capped mountains. Desolate ravines folded over the land to the south and west. The mesa was an isolated, windswept escarpment miles from any town or settlement. The closet town was Haleyville, some thirty miles to the east along the twisting, turning Highway 7.

It was in all respects a perfect location for Quantum Corps' Western Command base.

The Ops center was a glass and earth building half-buried along the mesa's eastern limb, surrounded by a grassy quadrangle and connected by enclosed tube and walkway with A Barracks and the dome of the Containment Facility directly to the south.

Inside Ops, the sim tank was the center of activity as the new UNIFORCE tasking came through. The tank was a small theater run by SOFIE, the Special Operations Force Information Environment, where scenarios and missions could be simulated and rehearsed ahead of time.

Johnny Winger was there, along with Dana Tallant, Major Kraft and a select team of planners from 1st Nano.

They discussed possibilities, and how to put the tasking into effect.

"We've got to send a team into Valencia," Winger was saying. "Covertly, in case the Valencians are behind this."

Kraft was inclined to agree. "I think it's significant that BioShield 'bots have had no impact on what's going on. Whatever's modifying the atmosphere down there is tougher than BioShield can deal with."

"And they're using ANAD 3.0 as a base, aren't they?" asked Dana Tallant.

"Three point two, to be exact," Winger recalled. He felt a buzzing in the back of his head, it was the ANAD master, on the neural circuit.

***Antique jalopy, if you ask me, Boss. That version couldn't break a hydrogen bond if his life depended on it***

Winger smiled. "Just got a raspberry from ANAD, guys. He doesn't think much of ANAD 3.0 either. SOFIE, " he commanded the sim system, "display locations of all atmospheric perturbations detected by BioShield in the last forty eight hours."

The concave displays of the sim tank flickered and a map projection of the world came up in pieces. Small whirlpools danced along the upper Amazon, among an island chain in the south Pacific, in the central Congo and in the highlands of Tibet.

"Isolated pockets," Kraft observed. "Widely separated."

"For now," Winger said. "SOFIE...best prediction for disposition of these disturbances over the next seventy-two hours...."

The displays changed again, this time showing larger whirlpools and more of them.

"I was afraid of that," Kraft said. "BioShield data says the disturbances will grow...maybe even link up."

"We've got to find out what we're up against," Winger said. "Where's that toxic gas coming from...what's modifying the air."

"And is it a natural process," Tallant added. "...or something else?"

"Red Hammer," Winger shook his head. 'I'd bet money on it. "

***Those demonio creatures have me worried, Boss....colonies of nanoscale mechanisms...gives me the creeps...***

"ANAD's right," Winger added. "We've got to find out what's behind these creatures Dr. del Compo found."

"Captain Winger," Kraft looked curiously at the atomgrabber, "I know we approved implanting ANAD into containment in your shoulder, but hang it, it's friggin' bizarre when you get involved in one-way conversations."

"Yeah, Wings," said Tallant, "think you could clue us in once in awhile?"

Winger shrugged. "ANAD was just saying those creatures, demonio or whatever, that Dr. del Compo found give him the creeps."

Kraft hmmpphhed and commanded SOFIE to put up the raw investigative files from the BioShield 'bots that had detected the disturbances. "How can a device the size of a molecule get the creeps, for Chrissakes? It's starting to act like my teen-aged daughter."

Winger found himself defending the little assembler all the time. "Doc Frost says ANAD's processor is that powerful...he's got the cognitive abilities of a small child."

"And the temperament too, sounds like," Tallant said. "But what if you have to spank him?"

Winger reddened. "It's not like that at all—"

"Never mind," Kraft interrupted. He paced about the tank, studying the displays SOFIE had put up. Real-time feed from BioShield nanobots patrolling the Earth's atmosphere showed up as undulating virtual cloud masses, as swarms of the nanoscale mechanisms probed and sniffed for illegal nanobotic activity, biohazards and environmental outlaws, all part of UNIFORCE's new mandate in the wake of the Serengeti Factor pandemic a dozen years before. Isolated pockets of disturbances were highlighted, with the nature of threat attached as floating tags around dancing whirlpools. The whirlpools over central South America and the other places Camois had mentioned had no descriptive tags at all...only blank fields hovering nearby, as if BioShield couldn't figure out what was going on.

"We've got to get a handle on this before it spreads too far," the Battalion commander said. "Winger--?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You sit down with Tallant and put together a full ANAD team for insertion. People, equipment, tactics, the works. Pull from 1st Nano, and 1st Bio as well. We might just be looking at a counter-twist mission here and I want to be ready."

Thinking of the demonios, and how severely the epidemic of twist, or pirated, rogue DNA had infected parts of the world, Winger nodded gravely. "You thinking these things could be a gene experiment gone bad, sir?"

"I don't know what to think anymore. All I know is what I can see: BioShield's run into something it can't figure out and it can't stop and people are dying because of it. That's all we need to know. CINCQUANT's given us our orders...now we have to execute." His stomach churned at the scenarios they'd already played out...none of them had a happy ending. "UNIFORCE has given this thing a UNICON Plus priority. That means we move fast. Captain, I'm forming an ANAD detachment immediately. You'll be in command but I'm pulling elements from anywhere I can. Get over to Mission Prep and get your gear ready for a little recon trip to Valencia. I'll notify a hyperjet to stand by."

"On my way," Winger said. He and Tallant hustled out of Ops to head over to the Ready Room at Mission Prep, across the quadrangle, to go over personnel and gear.

On the sprint across the grassy expanse of the quad, Winger and Tallant ran headlong into Holt and Reinhart, from 1st Bio.

"Hey, Wings," called Holt. "I hear you're off to South America, with half my people. Sure you don't need some help with all those creepy-crawly things?"

Winger was deep in thought, listening to ANAD chatter over his internal neural circuit.

***Looks like the real creeps are here, Boss. I guess virus-lickers can't help it...what are they qualified for anyway...wiping cow's asses? That's all a virus is...a stupid cow...all bubble head of DNA and some lipids, grazing in a field of cells***

"I think we can manage it, Holt. Maybe your guys will learn some manners after a few missions with 1st Nano."

They hustled along the pebbled path to Mission Prep, where expeditionary equipment for ANAD detachments was housed: hypersuits, HERF guns and coil-gun rounds by the thousands in the ordnance bunker, plus racks of Super-Fly entomopters for recon, MOB-net canisters for immobilizing the enemy, camou-fog and fully enabled interface controls ready to go.

Beyond the roof of the bunker lay the three liftjet hangars, A, B, and C, and beyond that, perfectly framed by the snow-covered mountain backdrop of the Snake Range, lay the north liftpad, where a sleek black hyperjet was veetoling in for a vertical touchdown.

"There's our ride now, Holt. Hope your guys don't mind riding rear seat to the elite."

Holt snorted. "Elite, my ass. I'm just waiting for a chance to show you nano guys what a real combat outfit does for a living. Why don't you stand down and let the adults take over? No sense assigning kids to do what real men do better."

Winger tapped the soft skinpatch where the ANAD capsule had been implanted in his shoulder a year ago. "You want me to show you what my little brother here does to real men? It takes about two and half minutes...then we have to call Facility Services to come clean up the puddle of protoplasm that's left."

Dana Tallant turned and faced the 1st Bio puke nose to nose. "Look, Holtzie, lay off, will ya? This deal's UNICON Plus...and you're not invited." She brusquely shoved the taller man back down the steps as they went inside.

"What a creep!" Winger said as they wound their way through corridors to the Battalion Ready Room.

***Let 'em have it, Boss...me and my friends eat scum like that for breakfast***

Winger smiled at that. "Maybe so, ANAD, but right now, we've got some packing to do. You and me are taking a little trip across the Pond."

Tallant veered off to sign herself into the ordnance bunker and check out enough ammo to cover the mission. Winger headed for the hypersuit lockers...they'd need twelve at least, and the programming still had to be updated.

***Hey, Boss, I've been thinking about those demonio creatures. I've got a theory--***

"Shoot, ANAD. I'm listening." Winger pressed a few buttons on the wrist keypad of the first 'suit and its servos whirred as it clamshelled open.

***The doctor said it was a colony of nanobots, kind of like me. I've got a theory why maybe BioShield didn't detect any such bots until it was too late***

"And what might your theory be, ANAD?"

***Just this: what if the 'bots that make up the creature don't really look and act like nanobots? What if they don't produce the heat signature and atomic activity that I do when I replicate? What if they look just like ordinary molecules of air and dust, floating around like normal? Would BioShield even see them?***

Even though he had the cognitive ability of a twelve-year old, once in awhile ANAD hit on something that made you think. Johnny Winger paused in his checkout of the first hypersuit, dropping his head back out of the helmet and sitting on the bench seat that served as the control center of the suit.

"Maybe not until it was too late. I don't know, ANAD...I hope that's not true. From the very beginnings, BioShield was installed to be able to detect and prevent illegal nano outside of containment, just to keep the world safe, you know. The whole thing's predicated on being able to detect nanobot activity....all assemblers produce atomic debris, heat, that sort of stuff. If you're right and we're dealing with 'bots that can go about their work and leave no detectable trace—" Winger shook his head. "—that's bad news. Really bad news."

***Sorry to bring bad news, Boss...but if I can think of it, somebody else can too***
CHAPTER 1

Northgate University, Pennsylvania, USA

Autonomous Systems Lab

October 2067 (one year earlier)

The theory was simple enough to state, though damnably hard to implement. The whole purpose of setting up the 1st Nanospace Battalion was to put into place an organization that could field a combat-ready unit of symbiotic man-machine fighting soldiers, fully ANAD-ized man-machines with augmented capabilities, able to fight at all levels from the world of atoms to outer space. The general thrust of the evolving relationship between the humans and the ANAD assemblers inside 1st Nano was to meld and merge them ever more tightly into a symbiotic but still cohesive and effective fighting unit.

Dr. Irwin Frost, of the Autonomous Systems Lab, and the engineers of Quantum Corps were looking for true combat symbiosis, allocating to the human those tasks that he did best and to ANAD those tasks the assembler did best.

Johnny Winger was to be the first guinea pig.

Winger was detailed to Northgate University in the early fall of '67, for the purpose of undergoing a unique, history-making operation. If all went well, when the operation was done, Winger would wear in his shoulder an implanted containment capsule within which would reside a fully-capable ANAD master assembler. The plan was that Johnny Winger and ANAD would evolve toward a symbiotic combat system.

After the operation, the development plan called for a steady stream of tactical wargames and experiments to test the combat capabilities of such a blended and augmented soldier.

But first, the operation had to succeed.

The Autonomous Systems Lab was located on the fourth floor of Galen Hall. Galen was one of Northgate's first buildings, anchoring one corner of the original grassy quadrangle. A turreted, neo-Gothic monstrosity, the building had been turned over to the Lab and several non-degree granting departments several years before. Below the fourth floor, freshmen English students struggled with term papers on Dante's Divine Comedy. Above them, the maze of tanks and piping of the Lab's Containment Facility would rival any freshman's nightmare vision of Hell itself.

Dr. Irwin Frost was chief of the Autonomous Systems Lab, birthplace of the original ANAD. He was mid-sixtyish and balding, with a love for old flannel shirts beneath the dirty smocks he seemed to sleep in. Frost had invented autonomous nanoscale assemblers in the early '50s and was unquestionably the driving force behind ANAD and the growth of the nanomech world. He had a father's love for his infinitesimal creations and an avuncular manner with his latest protégé, Captain Johnny Winger.

For Winger, coming back to Northgate was always like an old homecoming. Even Frost's associate, Dr. Mary Duncan, a petite Scotswoman, was on hand.

Johnny Winger studied the imager screen in front of him. Suspended in a nutrient bath inside Containment, the ANAD master looked like some kind of futuristic space probe. The basic polyhedral structure was still there, but scores of molecule chains undulated gently in the bath currents, chains Winger didn't recognize. He looked in vain for the bond disrupters, the enzymatic knife, all the tools he'd become familiar with.

"He's changed, Doc. I don't recognize all those chains...he's got gizmos I've never seen before. Are they new end effectors or what?"

Frost smiled. "I regenerated a new master, Johnny. You didn't leave me with a whole lot after Serengeti Factor. I've been tinkering under the hood, as you like to put it."

"I'll say..." Winger pointed to a pair of linked hydrogen radicals on the screen. "And these doodads--?

Frost ticked off the changes. "New and improved, Johnny. Those are stiffened diamondoid effectors, with 'stickier' covalent bond ends, radicals and carbenes. Better grabbing ability. Look just above the effectors...see those U-shaped gadgets?"

Winger looked, turning to Frost with a puzzled look. "Some kind of grabbers?"

"Extensible fullerene hooks, for more secure grasping and attaching. I modified a ribosome design I had seen. Sort of improved on Mother Nature."

Winger shook his head. "ANAD's really souped up, Doc. What about under the hood?"

"Faster quantum processor, with a faster executing basic replication algorithm. I've been doing my homework, Johnny, studying what makes INDRA and Serengeti and other assemblers tick. Plus I've added direct sequences from several viral genomes...nobody replicates faster than viruses."

Winger's brow wrinkled. "Is that safe, Doc?"

Frost shrugged. "As safe as any weapon...in the right hands. Plus ANAD's interface and communication system has been upgraded. That quantum coupler you seized at Engebbe Valley, from the Red Hammer agent, was quite a device."

Mary Duncan sipped gently at a cup of steaming tea. "It had us stumped for a long time, it did. But we manage to reverse-engineer the blasted thing."

"—finally got it to work," Frost said proudly. "Now ANAD has one too...you'll be able to effect some control over his basic operations just by direct thought...once you've been trained properly."

Winger shook his head. "This whole idea gives me the creeps. Don't get me wrong...ANAD and me are pals. We understand each other well. We kind of think alike, I guess, like brothers. Except I never had a brother—"

Mary Duncan put a hand on Winger's arm. "Don't fret, Johnny. The operation will go fine. We've done countless sims over the last few months."

"That's what worries me. All the sims in the world can't equal the real thing. How's this quantum coupler work? It seemed like magic to me when we ran into it at Engebbe."

Frost diagrammed his explanation on a board. "The coupler allows ANAD to send extremely large bandwidths of information of all types—all senses, such as visual, olfactory, audio, tactile as well as direct sensing of the molecular environment—directly to a special hypersuit headset that connects with the proper sensory channel of the wearer or directly into a special ANAD junction inside the wearer's skull, a sort of server that routs the data stream to the corresponding lobes of the brain."

"You mean I could see...sense...exactly what ANAD senses?"

Frost nodded. "In a way. You and ANAD will be coupled in a quantum sense...exchanging entanglement states, to use the correct wording. ANAD now has a quantum coupler and multiplexer embedded in his processor core. The quantum states that represent what he senses go through this coupler to an interface, which will be part of your implant. This interface will disentangle the quantum state signals from ANAD, send the signals on to a buffer that transforms them into something your brain can accept—specific voltages and ionic concentrations—and then splits the buffered signals into patterns of firing neurons for different sensory channels, the final direct coupling into your sensory cortex."

Winger's head spun just thinking about it. "If you say so, Doc. I have just one question...will it work?"

Mary Duncan laughed softly. She handed him a small cup. "Just drink this, Johnny. It'll relax you. Here, why don't you go ahead and lie down and get comfortable."

Winger hoisted himself onto a gurney and lay back, sniffing the liquid Dr. Duncan had given him. "What is it...some kind of Scottish ale?"

"Just a spot of Burma tea," she told him, fluffing pillows as he situated himself. "And a bit of glasseye mixed in."

Winger downed the drink and lay his head back, closing his eyes. But before he had a chance to open them again and ask another question, he was already spiraling down a very, deep dark black hole.

The operation was a success but the patient awoke dizzy and disoriented. The first thing Johnny Winger remembered seeing was a blizzard. He lay on the gurney and let the sensations flood over him.

It was sleeting but the sleet was different. Different sizes and shapes careened at him, as if blown by wind, buffeting him with cross currents and gusts. He leaned forward, squinting to see, but it was too strong. Johnny dropped to his knees and began crawling, then swimming, against the surging flow that surrounded him. The sleet pelted and stung with every imaginable shape, cubes and pyramids and polygons and weird octahedral lattices, streaming by in a roaring wind.

Then he opened his eyes.

The first face he saw was that of Dr. Mary Duncan. Other faces were nearby, but they were fuzzy and indistinct. Duncan's grandmotherly smile materialized out of the sleet. She offered a paper cup of some liquid, which he accepted, swallowing experimentally, then with more assurance. It tasted brassy but warm, and it soothed him.

Time seemed congealed but it passed and with the passing of time, consciousness settled into something more familiar, like trying on old clothes.

"How long was I out?" he murmured. There was a soreness in his left shoulder and upper back. He soon became aware of a large bandage back there.

Dr. Duncan and Doc Frost were both there, gazing down at him. "About four hours, Johnny. It's night time now. How do you feel?"

Winger smiled sheepishly. "Not too bad. But that was some dream I had...right when I woke up, I had a dream...I was in a sleet storm, a driving blizzard only the sleet was all different. Different colors and shapes, much bigger than normal. It was weird."

Doc Frost's face now came fully into view. "That was no dream, Johnny."

"It wasn't?"

Frost shook his head. "It's normal. I expected some leakage at first....it'll take some getting used to. It's your limbic system...picking up stray signals from the interface. There may be some...how best to say this--" Frost gazed off at the window for a moment, seeing the lights of other buildings across the campus, "...there may be some unusual emotions the next few days. Sometimes, the interface doesn't completely convert all the signals...some of them spill over and trigger reactions elsewhere. We're monitoring you all the time for the next few weeks...just to make sure."

Winger eased himself into a sitting position. "If that wasn't a dream, what was it?"

Frost smiled. "Actually, it was probably sensory data from ANAD. You're coupled now...what ANAD sees, you also can see."

"But the sleet—"

Frost put a reassuring hand on Winger's head, rubbing the burr of his crew cut. "This is going to take some adjustment, Johnny. You'll be in rehab and training for several months. The sleet wasn't really sleet. You were directly sensing molecules and atoms the way ANAD sees them."

Johnny Winger's eyes widened. He sank back in the bed. "Jesus—" he shook his head. "I'm familiar with the acoustic imager and how to perceive through that. But to actually be there...with ANAD...." He closed his eyes. "Man, that was weird. But the dream went away...how come I'm not seeing it now?"

Frost cleared his throat. "Johnny, the containment capsule has been implanted. And the quantum coupler too. They're hooked up but there will be a training period, several months, where you'll learn how to access ANAD directly, as well as through normal means. ANAD's no longer in the capsule. He's back in the TinyTown pod inside Containment."

Winger was puzzled. 'Then what about the dream?"

Frost explained. "We put ANAD into the capsule in your shoulder for about an hour, to calibrate the interface and the buffers, to see that the links worked. Then we extracted him. What you saw was a residual trace, left over."

Johnny felt gingerly at the bandage over his left shoulder. "How long?"

Frost took a deep breath. "The bandage can come off in a week. Your containment capsule has a port for ANAD to enter and exit by, along with the interface chip and containment bath. Anytime ANAD's inside the capsule, it'll be just like he's in containment inside TinyTown. The capsule's designed to provide the right nutrients, the right conditions for him to survive. You've got a very small TinyTown embedded in your shoulder, Johnny. The physics and chemistry of the implant are pretty straightforward. What takes time is learning how to talk to ANAD when he's contained in the capsule, through the interface. How to turn the link on and off, how to...I guess 'interpret' is the best word, what ANAD sends back and somehow integrate it into what your brain normally does. You and ANAD will be almost like a mother and child, in some ways. You're going to have to learn how to talk to each other, how to understand each other, how to get along in this new way."

Mary Duncan agreed. "That's what will take time, Johnny. And to be truthful, since you're the first to undergo the implant procedure, we really don't know how that's going to happen. You'll have to help us understand what we can do to help you."

"For now," Frost said, gently pushing Winger back into the bed, "you rest. In another day or so, we'll go over the details of rehab and recovery."

Winger tried to relax but it wasn't easy. In his mind's eye, he could still see the sleet storm and feel the buffeting of wind gusts...or were they ocean waves? Hard to say for sure. He grinned up at the two of them.

"I guess it's my first exposure to van der Waals forces and Brownian motion, huh?"

Mary Duncan nodded. "I'm afraid so, Johnny."

"It'll be like learning to walk and talk, all over again. Just like I'm a baby."

"A very special baby, to be sure. Quantum Corps has spent a lot of money and time on you now."

Winger's head swam with the possibilities. He couldn't suppress a grin. "Almost like being born, all over again. Like getting a second chance. I'll have to re-learn all the basic ANAD operations...replication, rendezvous and docking, launch and capture, all the effectors and probes, navigation..." he shook his head, his mind thick with the magnitude of the work ahead. "I never dreamed..." but he caught himself, chuckling. "Well, I guess I did dream...in a way."

"Rest now, Johnny,' Doc Frost insisted. He took another cup from Mary Duncan and offered it to the atomgrabber. "This will help. Tomorrow, we'll get started, sorting out all the new stuff."

Winger sipped from the cup and tried to relax. But the image of the sleet storm kept coming back, that and a sobering realization:

When you were the size of a few atoms, you spent your whole life fighting forces and currents that bigger objects, like human beings, took for granted. When you were all of sixty nanometers tall, you couldn't take anything for granted.

Johnny Winger closed his eyes, understanding now for the first time, just how much he had to learn from ANAD.

Rehab and recovery went on for two months, most of it at the Autonomous Systems Lab, later back at Table Top.

The first order of business was to make sure ANAD could be launched and captured properly into containment in the small capsule, then to make sure a comm link could be established through the interface. The shoulder capsule was a secure environment for the autonomous nanoscale assembler/ disassembler, able to provide proper conditions of pressure, pH, and temperature for ANAD to survive. It was essentially self-sustaining, as long as Johnny Winger didn't do something foolish.

Doc Frost had already prepped the TinyTown pod in the Containment chamber for ANAD's launch.

"Sit there, Johnny," he said. There was a reclining seat nearby. Electron beam guns surrounded the seat, just in case. After he had made himself comfortable, Mary Duncan helped orient him so ANAD would have a clear path to be captured into containment in the implanted capsule.

"We tried it several times, during the surgery," she explained. "We had you in every possible position...sitting upright, lying on your side, on your stomach—"

"Even propped you up like a mannequin," Frost added. "Some positions were better than others."

Winger gave that some thought. "I don't remember any of it."

"You were under deep anesthesia at the time, Johnny."

Winger studied the setup. "Seems to me that I'm likely to be standing or running in most captures...especially in combat."

"You're probably right," Frost said. He tinkered with the interface controls, getting ANAD ready. "But this is a test. We've got to make sure ANAD gets into the capsule without problem and that he can establish a comm link. Mary--?"

"He's ready," Duncan replied.

Frost scanned the IC panel and was satisfied. The containment chamber was secure at Level Four containment—negative air pressure, active seals, electron beams primed...just in case something went wrong. "ANAD reports ready in all respects. I'm enabling....I'm launching—"

A faint whoosh of air escaped from the exit valve atop the TinyTown pod.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. ANAD's instructions were simple for the purposes of the test: replicate a few times—merely an exercise to flex his rep algorithm and effectors, then configure for capture and transit the capsule in Johnny's shoulder.

A faint keening whine could be heard as the rep counter ticked over.

"...showing replications now—" Frost announced, reading the display. "Just a few thousand, to make sure everything works...now, he's reconfiguring, folding effectors, getting ready for insert—Johnny, any moment now—"

Mary Duncan put a calming hand on Johnny's head, noting how tense the atomgrabber was.

"Just relax...it's all very routine—"

And it was over before he knew it. One moment, the keening whine could be heard. The next moment, there was a brief sting of heat as the ANAD master fluffed off its replicated daughters and burrowed into the shoulder capsule.

The whine died off, the sting subsided and that was that.

Johnny Winger looked up expectantly. "That's all there is?"

But before Frost could reply, a chirp sounded inside his head.

***hey...hey...it's me, Johnny....can you hear me? I'm in the capsule....ANAD to Base, how do you read, over?...trying to make all the connections...get this state generator to work...ANAD to Base, anybody there...?***

A quizzical grin came over Johnny's face. "ANAD...ANAD, you nut...I can hear you! Or at least, I think I'm hearing you—"

Frost nodded, expectantly. "A kind of interior voice--?"

"Like somebody's inside my head....somebody else. I guess it's ANAD. Man, this is too weird. He's talking...or at least, I can hear something. But there's no sound—"

Frost studied his IC panel. "I'm reading ANAD inside capsule containment, linked in. Comms are there...trying to be there, anyway. ANAD's activated the quantum coupler...he's trying to link in with your coupler."

Johnny Winger shook his head. "Ouch...kind of a loud buzz, that was." He grasped at something in the air, only there was nothing. "Is that a fly...a moth buzzing around?"

"No,' Frost said. "The coupler's polling every sensory channel, and your neural buffer's trying to make sense out of it. Maybe the state generator needs adjusting—"

***ANAD to Base...this is tricky, like trying to nab a hydrogen molecule...can you hear me, Base? I'm going through all the buffer channels, trying to find out what does what...so many different connections--***

"I hear you, ANAD. What the hell are you doing in there...I keep seeing flashes of light, moths and bees flying around. It sounds like a symphony orchestra tuning up—"

***ANAD to Base...sorry about that, Boss. I'm not sure where my state signals are ending up...there's an awful lot of wiring in here...***

'Hey," Winger said, rubbing his temples. "Take it easy, will you? That's my brain you're messing with."

Slowly, in fits and starts, but with increasing assurance, the spurious sensations died off and a smooth flow of signals settled in. The whole process took half an hour. In that time, Johnny heard glass shattering, saw purple sunsets on strange landscapes, smelled his mother's pancakes and plum syrup three times and developed a terrific headache.

Doc Frost finagled with the interface controls, fine-tuning ANAD's quantum coupler to narrow the focus of its state generator. "Quantum entanglement states are a bitch to deal with," he muttered, as his fingers raced over the keyboard. "I still don't know how Red Hammer managed to make this work so easily. "It's like trying to paint a small stripe of paint on door molding with a pressure washer. It all goes everywhere."

***ANAD to Base...how's that? I've got my linkset narrowed down...just a few more connections....I'm not sure what they're for...but I'm learning how everything works***

"Me too, ANAD," Winger muttered. "Doc, is it going to be like this every time? Is it going to take half an hour to get contained and set up comms?"

Frost shook his head. "I don't think so. ANAD's just learning...and I'm fine-tuning his program even more. Plus, your own neural net will adapt as well....it's not everyday somebody has an assembler buzzing around inside his body, trying to plug in and talk with him."

"I'll say." Winger lay back in the seat and let ANAD do what he had to do.

Hours later, the process seemed a lot smoother. Several times, he had practiced a full launch and recovery sequence. Each time, the linkup took less time. By the end of the first day, ANAD and Johnny Winger had honed the process down to just a few minutes.

"But we've got to better than that, ANAD," he announced. "In combat, we won't have even a few minutes. We've got to get this linkup down to less than a minute."

Frost was skeptical. "I'm not sure that's doable right now, Johnny. I may have to tinker with ANAD's kernel again, see if I can optimize it, now that I know where the trouble spots are."

Winger was adamant. "To be useful in combat, Doc, I've got to be able to get ANAD launched and recovered in a minute."

***ANAD to Base...I'm doing my best, but there's a lot of connections to make...and your side keeps changing what to connect***

Winger relayed ANAD's concern and Doc Frost nodded in sympathy. "I'm afraid he's right, Johnny. Since I can't change the way you're wired, I've got to change how ANAD goes about the linkup. Maybe I can combine some steps, eliminate others. Give me a night to think about it."

"That's fair," Winger said.

'It's been a long day, Johnny," said Mary Duncan. She handed him a cup of steaming hot tea.

"Glasseye?" he asked. He took the cup and sniffed it experimentally.

Duncan shook her head. "Only Burma Black, this time. Very soothing, if I do say so."

Winger sipped at the scalding liquid. "Before you take ANAD back, Doc, I'd like to try something. ANAD--?"

***ANAD to Base...I'm here, Boss***

"I'm closing my eyes—" Johnny Winger sank back into the confines of the recliner. "Show me what you see right now...inside that containment capsule. I want to see it the way you see it."

***Base, are you sure you want to***

Frost was opposed. "Johnny, let's don't stretch things too much this first day—"

But Winger was adamant. "When we go into combat, Doc, we've got to be able to trust each other, implicitly. Understand each other...like brothers. If I can't see the world the way ANAD sees it, and him the same with me, that trust'll never develop."

Frost's eyes met Mary Duncan's. Grudgingly, he relented. "Go ahead."

Johnny Winger closed his eyes but he still saw imagery...only it wasn't the containment chamber in which he sat. The Tinytown pod, the piping, the thick ganglia of wires and cables and the heavy hatch door...all of that faded to gray, then to black. At first, only faint crackles and squiggles of light danced in front of his eyes—though his eyes were closed.

Then, like riding in a boat across a fog-shrouded lake, the far shore became more and more distinct, gradually materializing out of the gloom.

The imagery was hard to discern at first, so alien was the view. He had seen acoustic impressions from ANAD's sounding before, displayed in interface controls, but that was a poor cousin to the real thing.

Now, he had somehow fallen off the boat and submerged and was beating his way against fierce currents and water choked with debris...boxes and beams and lamp shades and things there were no words for, shapes so dizzying complex he couldn't count the facets...huge diamonds and snakes and dumbbells floating by, scraping and shoving him along—

***ANAD to Base...ANAD to Johnny...don't fight it...just relax...let things stream by...let go and just feel your way...feel that?...just feel your way....where it's weaker, just kick...there! Like that, see?...you can slide and skate and sort of scoot through the gaps***

And that was how, over the next few hours, Johnny Winger learned how to maneuver through molecular Brownian motion and slingshot himself like a trapeze artist around pulsating fields of van der Waals forces.

It was nearly midnight and Winger was drenched in sweat when the surging, swirling river currents began to fade to black and the riveted bulkhead of the containment chamber came into view. As he focused his eyes, he struggled upright and saw Doc Frost sprawled in his chair at the IC panel, snoring loudly, slumped over the keyboard. Mary Duncan had found herself a corner beneath some piping and curled up like a great white cat.

Winger startled himself fully awake and shook his head. "Jesus, ANAD, how long was I out?"

***I calculate you were in sleep mode for exactly two hours and thirty four minutes, Base. Doctor Frost and Doctor Duncan are currently still in sleep mode***

Winger winced and sat up, rubbing his shoulder and the back of his head. "Two and a half hours. I must have been exhausted. Say, ANAD, why do you call me Base, anyway?"

***Because that's what you are...the base of operations. Headquarters. Central command. We're a team now, you and me***

"I never thought of it like that." Winger got up, careful not to disturb the others, and left the Containment chamber, aware of how strange it seemed to simply walk out without concern for barriers or decontamination. For as long as he had been with Quantum Corps and dealing with ANAD systems, maintaining containment had been directive number one.

Now ANAD was part of him. Literally.

He found a restroom and stared at his face in the mirror. On a whim, he pulled off his shirt and examined the bandaged area where the implanted capsule had been inserted. He knew he shouldn't undress the bandage, but he couldn't help it. He was curious. He wanted to see the results.

The skin was puffy and red, swollen around the implant but there was no mistaking that something new had been attached. Beneath the swelling, as he examined the incision, a tiny circular port and cover was barely visible, like a miniature missile silo from pictures he'd seen on History vids. There was no obvious hinge or way to open the port, but beneath the cap, a small capsule had been surgically placed and mounted to the back of his clavicle. He felt the port cap gingerly.

***Home sweet home, Base. It's a coiled metal cap, since you're wondering. It uncoils to release me. When I'm home and safe, it coils outward and holds pressure inside of containment that way***

Winger jerked his hand away. "You know what I'm thinking? You can read my mind, ANAD?"

***Not directly...except in a gross way. I didn't just crystallize yesterday, you know. My coupler picks up broad wave patterns and I can figure out things from that. You seemed to be wondering how it works....how I get in and out***

"I was wondering..." Winger muttered. This is going to take some getting used to, he thought.

***For both of us*** ANAD came back.

Jesus, he can read what I'm thinking, even if I don't say anything.

The next few days were taken up with Johnny Winger and ANAD getting used to each other. Inside the Containment chamber, and later, outside in the parking lot at Galen Hall, Johnny practiced launching and recovering ANAD until the process was smooth and comfortable for both. With a little tweaking and some compromises, either operation could be accomplished in about half a minute.

"All you have to do for launch now, Johnny," Doc Frost was saying, "is tell ANAD to configure for launch and give him about half a minute or so. He'll do the rest."

***Boss, I'll let you know when I'm ready. I've got a lot of work to do, folding effectors, stabilizing my base platform, configging the processor...just give me a few seconds and I'll be enabled and ready for action. Say the word and I'll shoot out like a rocket***

Recovery was more involved but still they managed to do it in under a minute consistently.

"It's more involved, Johnny," Frost explained. "ANAD has to get close enough to detect your orientation and locate the capsule port. Then he has to configure himself for the initial transit...that's a pretty good shock for a mechanism that small, something like twenty-five g's. He's got to safe all effectors, put his processor in sleep mode and make entry. Then he's got to stabilize and open up all his pressure ports to equalize, while the port closes. Finally, he's got to establish comm over the quantum coupler and synchronize with your interface. Doing all that in less than a minute—" Frost shook his head in wonderment. "I didn't think it was possible but here you two are, already proving me wrong."

"Quite a team, huh, ANAD?"

***Small is all, like you always say***

For the next two weeks, each day was filled with hours of practice and adjustment time. Inside the containment chamber, Johnny routinely launched the ANAD master and commanded varying configs, from a basic replication to more extreme measures, like concealment and entrapment maneuvers, weird molecular shapes, spoofing and banzai-style attacks, even the quantum collapse, where ANAD was commanded to slough off everything but his core processor. Using only entrained quantum entanglement waves to propel himself, the quantum collapse was a drastic escape and evasion tactic that had been used in real combat only a few times, and for good reason.

Frost just shook his head every time Johnny commanded such drastic action. "He's really not designed for that, Johnny. It stresses the core...one of these days, we're not going to be able to regenerate ANAD from what's left."

Winger shrugged and waited patiently, while what was left of ANAD limped home and slingshot himself into the containment capsule.

***Let's not do that anymore today, what do you say, Boss? It's hard work getting anywhere on quantum waves....like using rowboat oars to fly through the air***

"It's part of our tactical doctrine, Doc. We don't need it often...but once in awhile, ANAD gets in a tight spot and it's the only way out. Either that or we lose the master."

After a full day's practice, Johnny Winger lay awake at night in his dorm room, head propped on a pillow, thinking.

"Hey, ANAD...I've got a question....are you there...?"

***Base, I'm always active in receive mode, if that's what you mean***

Winger struggled to find the right words. "You worked hard today...really hard. The last several days, I mean. Mind if I ask a question?"

***Fire away***

"I was just wondering...er, what exactly you think about all this. I mean, I didn't have a choice. You and I...we've worked together a lot the last few years...you and your brothers, other versions, I mean. We've always had a good relationship..." Jesus Christ, he's just a mechanism, isn't he? Or is he?

***I am an autonomous nanoscale system, since you asked. Sentient and aware of my surroundings. Able to act on the environment, able to process information and execute operations to change that environment...able to reproduce and create larger formations...and yes, I have always felt we had a solid relationship. We are a lot alike, you and me, Base. What, really, is so different about us?***

Winger gave that some thought. "Only about a billion meters in scale, that's all." He sat up and went to the dorm room window, parting the curtains. Outside, it was snowing lightly, faint flakes flickering down in the yellow street lights, adding to a white coating on the streets and the grassy swards. "ANAD..." how exactly could he say this?—"ANAD, every time I look at things the way you do, every time you divert your sensor feed to my interface—so I see all the atoms and molecules streaming by, feel the Brownian motion...I wonder...what's it really like to live like that. I mean, that's your whole life, seeing things I can't see, sliding and skiing around bumping into oxygen molecules and things I can't even pronounce. It seems...so different, so weird. Like I'll never get used to it—you know what I mean?"

For a few moments, there was no reply. Johnny wondered if ANAD were engaged in some kind of housekeeping duty, like purging memory registers or something.

***Base...maybe it's like this: we do live in different worlds, that much is true. We see and hear and feel different things. But maybe we're not that different in how we work. My processor is a quantum nanocomputer. Yours is like mine, only bigger. Physically, I'm designed as a base platform and frame with effectors to manipulate my environment. So are you, only bigger. My base and effectors are nothing more than long chains of polypeptides, with fullerene hooks and carbene grabbers. You're no different...just more atoms and molecules***

"True enough," he admitted, "but Doc Frost says your processor core is adapted from the genome of certain viruses, with some ribosomal machinery thrown in, married to a quantum state generator."

***What of it, Base? You're nothing more than a huge colony of bacteria and viruses yourself***

Winger had trouble admitting what ANAD was telling him. "Sure, we're made out of the same stuff but hang it, ANAD, it's the scale that's different. It makes all the difference in the world. I can't see atoms and manipulate single molecules, not without your help."

***And I can't see buildings and clouds and cities, except indirectly through photon lensing. So what? Nobody can do everything. That's why we're partners***

"Symbionts, Doc calls us." Indeed, Doc Frost had explained the concept as 'a fusion of two existing, independently evolved organisms into a tightly coupled system, which may in turn become a single organism.'

***I like the sound of brothers better, don't you?***

"I suppose." Johnny Winger went back to bed and tried to get some rest. The next few days would bring his initial rehab period to a close. There was to be a final examination in two days, following more tests tomorrow. If that went well, he'd be packing up and heading back to Table Top for further training and sim work, with ANAD inside of him.

He lay there with his eyes closed, but rest and sleep wouldn't come. Once in awhile, he whispered to ANAD 'give me just one more peek, will you?' and the autonomous assembler would link Winger's visual cortex with his own soundings of the containment capsule. Winger would lie there like a surfer in the waves, letting the wash of uncountable trillions of atoms and molecules roll over him, tossing him about like a twig in a hurricane, just riding and surfing and sliding until he laughed with dizziness and his head spun and his eyes wouldn't focus on all the crazy crash of stuff hurtling at him from every direction.

Somehow, without realizing it, Johnny Winger had already begun to think of ANAD as a little brother, a very little brother. Somehow, there was no explaining it, he knew he had to protect the tiny assembler and to do that, he had to know what was out there, threatening the guy, what sort of enemies a little brother who was all of sixty nanometers tall faced.

ANAD wanted to learn, of that he was certain. He'd been slammed with questions practically from the moment he woke up in the morning to the moment he went to sleep. So, he'd teach the fellow, teach him about humans, even as ANAD taught him about what life was like at the scale of atoms.

Doc Frost could call it endosymbiosis, if he wanted to.

Johnny Winger had other words for it...the respect you had for your buddies in the platoon. The trust you had in every nog who'd ever earned the gold sunburst emblem he proudly wore on his lapels. The willingness to put your own life on the line when a buddy came under fire. Respect, trust, protectiveness...love, maybe?

Whatever you called it, 1st Nano couldn't win battles without it.

He finally managed to drift off to sleep, and when he did, he dreamed of Table Top Mountain, and being back again with his buddies in the unit, swapping lies and chugging beer.

The dream came true at the end of the week, when a short hyperjet hop through the stratosphere put Johnny Winger on the ground at Table Top just after sunset. Doc Frost had pronounced himself satisfied with Johnny's progress and had even announced that, at Major Kraft's invitation, he would be coming along.

Kraft ordered Johnny to appear at the battalion headquarters at 1800 hours.

Winger came to the command post and knocked gently on the door jamb. Major Kraft was at his desk, his shiny balding head was bent to some paperwork he'd neglected. He didn't look up, merely mumbled a raspy "Come" while he swore softly at the commandpad, trying to tidy up a report for the 2000 hours squirt to Division.

"Captain Johnny Winger, sir...reporting as ordered." Winger hung a salute, holding his arm stiff until Kraft responded perfunctorily.

"Ah...Captain Winger—" Kraft folded up the c-pad and tucked it in his shirt pocket, then leaned back in his squeaky chair. "Come in. Stand at ease. You don't look any different to me."

Winger came into the office and stood before the desk. "Begging the Major's pardon, sir, but I feel fine. Request assignment to my normal duties with the Company."

Kraft squinted up at the kid. "You know, Winger, the Corps' invested a hell of a lot in you. They've got a right to expect results. How long were you detailed to this cockamamie scheme at Northgate—"

Winger had kept a precise count. "Forty two days, sir."

"And the procedure...everything went fine? You're some kind of nano-Superman now, is that it?"

"No, sir...I have a surgically implanted containment capsule with a resident ANAD master unit, sir. That and a quantum coupler interface for comm and data transfer."

Kraft shook his head. He stood up and walked around the desk to regard Winger, giving him a skeptical once-over. "If you ask my opinion, this whole hare-brained scheme is a bunch of malarkey. ANADs belong in proper containment, where they can be monitored, repaired, modified easily. Where you can keep an eye on the buggers. Not in some fancy backpack inside a human body, for Chrissakes. Of course, that's just my opinion." Not that anyone listens to the battalion commander anymore. The orders for Winger to undergo the procedure had come down from CINCQUANT himself. "So how does it feel now, Captain?"

Winger thought about that. "Like I have two minds, sir. Like there are two people inside me, inhabiting the same body."

Kraft snorted. "Great. That's just friggin' great, Captain. Well, whatever...tomorrow, your little vacation is over. Get your gear unpacked and get squared away at A Barracks. 1st Nano's starting unit tactical training out on the range. We're simming all kinds of scenarios, starting with a Big Bang...you and 1st Nano against an opposing force of disassemblers, INDRA-style. I want to see what this new gizmo you're carrying around can do."

"Yes, sir. Major Kraft, will SOFIE be handling all the details, sir?"

"That's affirmative. Be at the sim tank at 0600 hours sharp. We'll do a little programming, go over the rules of engagement and then head out to the range."

Winger saluted. "Yes, sir. " He left the battalion offices and went across the quad grounds to the Barracks to stow his belongings.

In the company squad room, half of 1st Nano was sacked out, playing cards, watching stuff on their vidpods, sorting through equipment.

Corporal "Mighty Mite" Barnes was the first to spot Winger as he came in.

"Well...well...well, boys and girls...looks like we do have a c/o after all."

Heads snapped around and en masse, the unit came to attention. Winger waved them to ease and dragged his rucksack inside, heading for the dorm rooms. "Evenin', folks. Just flew in from Northgate—"

"—and boy, are your arms tired, huh?" snorted "Deeno" D'Nunzio. Deeno was Tech Sergeant Marianne D'Nunzio, the company's CQE1. As a quantum engineer, Deeno was one of the Mr. Fixits of the unit, along with the Ozzie Tsukota, the CQE2.

"You all patched up and copasetic, Captain?" asked Sheila Reaves. Reaves was DPS1, a defense and protective systems specialist. Her nickname was "Lucy," mostly for the flaming red hair.

"I'm really fine," Winger insisted. "The procedure went fine, no problems."

"So let me get this straight," said Barnes. She sauntered over, sniffed Winger up and down like a dog. "You and ANAD are, like, kissing cousins now. All wrapped up in one package?"

"A Christmas present for the company...how sweet." That was Sergeant Vic Klimuk, IC1 for 1st Nano. He was another code and stick man, same as Winger, and relatively new to nanoscale combat. But he was a damn good interface control jockey and there were times he could config the pants off any other nog in the outfit, even once in awhile, Captain Winger.

"Really, guys, it's just me. I haven't changed at all." That was a lie and he knew it, but then he was still trying to sort that out.

***What is this, Boss...some kind of frat party?***

Never mind.

"So tell us, Captain--" asked Sergeant Oscar M'Bela, the CEC1. "Witchy" was their numero uno containerization and environmental control specialist. It was his duty to see that ANAD was safe and secure inside the TinyTown pods 1st Nano used...or, at least, it used to be his duty. With the ANAD master unit now resident inside the left shoulder of the c/o, Witchy wasn't sure just what he'd be doing. "—what was it really like? Like being stung by a million bees?"

"Nothing like that at all," Winger insisted. He slung his rucksack to the ground and pulled back his shirt, letting the others study the dressing. M'Bela was too curious and cautiously peeled back the dressing.

"Hmmmmm---" was all he could say. He gingerly touched the capsule port, still thick with dried blood and slightly oozing antiseptic balm. "That hurt?"

"Only when you touch it."

M'Bela muttered something in his native Swahili and made spirit gestures over the wound. He was like that, proud of his tribal heritage, clannish, protective of ANAD like a 'little brother.'

"Honestly, fellas, I'm actually the same person I was a month ago. I've got an extra hole back there and ANAD's got a cozy little den to snuggle into. Beyond that...I'm okay and I'm still Johnny Winger."

Master Sergeant Al Glance was CC2 for 1st Nano, the other command rating who acted as exec for the outfit. He waved M'Bela and Barnes and the others away. "Okay, okay, folks... Cap'n will be signing autographs tomorrow. Give the man some air, why don't you? Sir, Major Kraft informed us we'd be out on the range tomorrow. Simming scenarios against some kind of opfor. Know anything about that, sir?"

Winger stowed his rucksack and personal gear in his small cubicle. "Just what the Major told me tonight. He wants to see how ANAD works with this new containment system."

"So how'd it go at Northgate?" Mighty Mite asked. "You get to work out with ANAD and this new stuff?"

"ANAD hasn't changed," Winger said. "Only containment has really changed."

"Yeah, sir, but don't you have a newfangled interface too?"

Winger nodded. "Adapted from the quantum coupler we lifted from that Red Hammer guy at Engebbe back when we're fighting Serengeti Factor. It's crazy but I can send commands and receive soundings and feedback from ANAD right up here—" he tapped his head. "No IC panel or anything. Direct coupling...I'm still kinda getting used to it."

"Isn't that a little weird...hearing voices like that?" asked Deeno.

M'Bela objected. "What's so weird about that? The world is full of spirits that speak...the wind and the sky and the mountains. All you have to do is listen."

"Yeah, right," groused Deeno. "Spirits speak to me mostly after I've had a few too many—"

"Okay, troops, let's hit the bunks," Winger ordered. "It's good to be back but I'm beat. We've got to be at the sim tank tomorrow morning at 0600 hours."

As he fell into his bunk and slid beneath the sheets, Winger wondered just how ANAD would do the next day. Northgate was kindergarten compared to what Major Kraft and SOFIE were likely to throw at them,

Still, ANAD had to be ready. If the implanted and coupled ANAD were going to be as effective in combat situations as deploying from normal containment, the assembler would have to show it for real against the best the sims could offer. Major Kraft had a reputation for tough, realistic training and there would be no slacking off just because ANAD was being deployed a new way.

If anything, ANAD would have to be quicker and more responsive to command than ever before.

***Don't worry about it, Boss...you and me, we can't lose...give me the word and I'll be out there dogging atoms and zapping molecules faster than you can say polypeptide***

"I hope so, ANAD," Winger muttered in a low voice, closing his eyes. "I really do. This is a big step...for both of us." In a strange, almost fatherly way, he felt somehow responsible for seeing to it that ANAD didn't screw up.

The sim tank was a large spherical chamber where all the wargaming scenarios were laid out, before adjourning to the outdoor range twenty-five miles north of Table Top, a place called Hunt Valley. It was also where all the raw recruits, called nogs in Quantum Corps parlance, went through SODS training. SODS stood for Spacial Orientation and Discrimination Training.

The SODS tank was thirty feet in diameter, filled with water and a host of infinitesimal predators and bogeymen, enough to get any unsuspecting nog's attention when he tried to pilot an ANAD through the medium. It was where Johnny Winger had first caught Major Kraft's attention ten years before, with a string of uncanny performances against any opponent SOFIE and the sim techs could think up.

SODS was a prerequisite for any nog to get out of Basic and stand for officer status in 1st Nanospace Battalion. From the beginning, Jurgen Kraft had to admit, one cadet stood out above all the rest...Johnny Winger. He'd shown extraordinary skill at the sims, an unusually adept talent at visualizing and manipulating micron or nanometer scale objects in space. Hands down, the kid was destined to be the top code and stick man in the whole battalion...an intuition Kraft occasionally congratulated himself on since it had come true. You just couldn't make raw talent like that.

"Okay, troopers, here's the situation." Kraft diagrammed the wargame on a board. "A large city is threatened by an enemy force, basically held hostage to their demands. Quantum Corps gets the call and an ANAD Detachment is formed. If the enemy's demands aren't met, the enemy will execute a Big Bang and destroy the city and all the inhabitants. ANAD Detachment is tasked with penetrating the city, conducting recon on enemy dispositions and preventing the Big Bang from playing out."

"What about rules of engagement, Major?" asked Winger.

"I'm getting to that. In this wargame, which is called 'Nanowarrior I,' ANAD Detachment will test the new trooper-embedded ANAD system. That means launch, deployment, engagement and recovery tactics. We all know that Captain Winger here has just returned from having an ANAD containment capsule implanted. This scenario is designed to test how well that works. As far as rules of engagement go, close-quarters combat is permitted, including all swarm tactics of evasion, deception, swarming attack and so forth. But no body penetration is allowed."

"Too bad," said Deeno D'Nunzio. "I was looking forward to grabbing somebody's gizzard and shaking it down."

"To help the simulation, we've had ANAD swarms at work out at the Hunt Valley range for the last several days, assembling fake buildings and other urban infrastructure. By now, it ought to look pretty real." With a few taps on his wrist keypad, Kraft sent the scenario details and rules of engagement to every trooper's crewnet. "There...now you've got the facts. Questions?"

"Just one, Major." It was Sergeant Chris Calderon, the unit CEC2. "What the hell do I do now that ANAD's contained inside Captain Winger? I mean...do we really need Containerization and Environment Control ratings now?"

Kraft look annoyed but figured the question had merit. "Good question, Sergeant. Now you know why we run wargames. Work out tactics and duties with Captain Winger and we'll deal with it in the after-action review."

For years, Table Top Mountain had been portrayed as looking like the palm of a hand. If that were so, then the ridges of mountains radiating out from Table Top were the fingers. Following the same analogy, Hunt Valley was a narrow plateau surrounded by steep cliffs roughly between the thumb and index finger of the hand that was Table Top.

The Valley was home to the outdoor wargame and test range, where nanoscale assemblers could be let loose in the wild, under some semblance of control. Indeed, one of the advantages of having a valley as the test range was the ability to throw a simple containment shield over the grounds, in the form of electron guns and even crude but effective nanobotic barriers, able to blunt the effects of all but the worst types of accidents.

Winger led his detachment of twelve troopers from the belly of the liftjet and hiked up a short cliff to a ledge overlooking the sim city below, affectionately known as "Valleyville."

"DPS..." he called over to Sheila Reaves. "We'd better do a little recon here so we know what we're dealing with. Get Superfly up and sniffing around...perimeter of five hundred yards radius."

"I'm on it, Captain." Reaves and the DPS2, Corporal Chandra Singh, unloaded two of the micro air vehicles and fired them off. Moments later, the twin entomopters were airborne at altitude, cruising on picowatt power cells, their articulating wings spinning at thousands of rpm. They careened across the valley and the rooftops of Valleyville while Winger directed the rest of the deployment.

"Full hypersuits, Captain?" The CC1, Al Glance, didn't relish the prospect of getting in to the heavy, boosted exo-skeletons, but they did offer the best protection if things went downhill.

Winger thought. "We should, Sergeant, given the threat. But I'd like to know more about what the enemy's up to." Winger was like that...going on hunches, ignoring the book when the situation seemed ripe. It drove Kraft crazy but more often than not, Winger's hunches had been right. The hairs on the back of his neck were his warning system. At the moment, they were behaving. "Get the suits powered up but leave 'em off...for now."

"You smell something fishy, Captain?" asked Mighty Mite Barnes. The SDC1 was unstowing the HERF gun mounts, getting the radio-freq weapons ready to go.

"Maybe..." Winger said, scanning the terrain around Valleyville with his binocs. A faint shimmer pulsated and flickered around the nearer buildings of the fake city. "Get those HERF guns spooled up right away...and site them along axes parallel to the main streets. Oh, and Mite, put one up there, sited away from the 'Ville."

"Away from the city?" Barnes asked. "Are you--?"

"Yeah...I'm not forgetting who the OpFor is today....if I know Dana Tallant, she'll have 2nd Nano all bug-eyed and ready to slam us from behind before we know what's what. That'd be just like her."

"What about ANAD?" asked Glance. "Think we ought to wake him up, get him going?"

Winger held up a hand, for silence. The hairs on the back of his neck had begun to prickle. "Al, you and Gibby and the two CECs come with me...we're going to check out something down there. I think that shield's just for show and the enemy wants us to come that way. The rest of you stay put...and keep your eyes open. You get any kind of tickle or whiff from Superfly, blast away with HERF. That'll buy you some time."

"But, Captain—" Reaves was uneasy with the maneuver. "Begging the Captain's pardon, sir, but if we get fragged with 'bots here, we've got no defense beyond HERF and some coil-gun rounds. You've got the, er, the ANAD master, sir....with you."

"I'll only be gone a few minutes and we'll be in contact. With ANAD right here—" he patted his left shoulder, "we can deploy and engage faster now. You'll be covered, no matter what."

Reaves looked doubtful. It was against all doctrine to split up the detachment like this. Normally, ANAD would be contained in a TinyTown pod with the detachment as it deployed, not off following some wild hunch.

"If you say so, sir."

Winger took a small detail and left the ledge, creeping down a rutted gully until they were flatfooted on level ground just beyond the city buildings. The shimmer of a nanobotic shield flickered like summer fireflies a scant fifty feet away....supposedly the OpFor's barrier to any probing from this sector.

You had to think like the enemy, know your enemy and what they liked to do. In this case, the enemy was Dana Tallant's 2nd Nanospace Company. Winger smiled as they positioned themselves to do a little more reconnoitering around the edges of the shield.

He knew Dana Tallant like a kid sister.

Valleyville was essentially a shell of a town, literally. Over the last few days, Major Kraft had seen to it that swarms of nanoscale assemblers had put together a small group of buildings and streets, enough to resemble a small town. Only the exteriors had been assembled. Inside their shells, the buildings were empty space.

"Captain, we going to breach this thing...or just check the perimeter?" It was Gibby, the unit's IC1.

But Winger didn't reply. Instead, he held up a hand and the detail halted, right outside the keening whine of the nanomech barrier. Something had tickled the hairs on the back of his neck. He spoke into his helmet mike.

"DPS, you got anything from Superfly yet?"

Sheila Reaves' voice crackled back. "Funny you asked, Captain...right when you called up, 'Fly gave me a tickle of something...I don't know what it is...maybe nothing—"

Winger froze. With hand signals, he ordered the small detail to about-face and head back up to the ledge.

Gibby was curious. "What is it, Captain?"

Winger was already halfway up a gully, hauling himself as fast as he could. "Just a hunch...come on, troops—"

And that's when all hell broke loose.

The scream of Sheila Reaves was the first thing everybody heard over the crewnet.

"AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!.....Get the HERF gun!!!—"

Though he was still fifty feet below the level of the ledge, Johnny Winger could feel the swelling thermal bloom of a Big Bang attack long before he could see it. Overhead, sparks and crackles of phosphorescent blue and green stitched across the tops of the hills, as a swarm of nanobots descended on the detail, replicating madly, mindlessly, replicating in exponential overdrive, swelling and rolling and smothering like a slow-motion fireball of an explosion.

The sheer suffocating weight of the 'bots as they divided and expanded made the air tingly and alive with pinpricks of flame.

"Come ON!" Winger yelled. Gibby and M'Bela and the rest of the detail scrambled after the captain as he hauled and kicked and hoisted himself across ravines and clefts, climbing furiously toward the epicenter of the attack.

At the top of the ridge, Sheila Reaves managed to get the HERF gun turned around and boresighted into the teeth of the nanomech gale, cycling the action, as she motioned the others to get down.

"Cover yourselves...I'm gonna fry these suckers!"

The rest of the detachment took cover immediately and Reaves gritted her teeth, wincing and gasping for air as the 'bots smothered her from every direction. With her last ounce of strength, she lit off the radio-freq cannon and dove headlong to the dirt. She buried her face and screamed at the top of her lungs to equalize pressure in her head, trying to ignore the stings and bites of the 'bots on her back.

The thunderclap deafened the hillside as a pulse of rf hurtled through the air. Winger waited a second for the wave of heat to wash over him, then he heard it: the clattering of nanomechs, momentarily stunned, falling to the ground like dead leaves in a stiff wind.

"Let's GO!" he yelled, as he bolted up the hill. ANAD, get yourself ready...we're going into action 'soon as I get to the top...prep for deploy, safe all effectors, spool up propulsors, and orient yourself for launch...

Deep inside the containment capsule in his left shoulder, the Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassembler was readying itself for combat.

***deployment complete...all effectors in launch position...my processor is updating now...config state is combat-ready***

"That's...affirmative, ANAD..." Winger grunted, as he ducked and scrambled forward. "Max rate rep...give 'em hell, ANAD! Launch now...launch and engage!!"

The force of the launch momentarily caught Winger off balance and he stumbled and fell to his side. The sudden whoosh of the pressure drop and the sting of the torque against his shoulder made him wince, but it couldn't be helped. The ANAD master rocketed out of containment and immediately set to work replicating.

Moments later, the two swarms collided head-on across the top of the ridge, in pulsating rhythms of iridescent blue, as vast, unseen armies engaged overhead.

Another drone-snap of radio frequency waves rolled across the hills as the HERF gun discharged. Winger got on the crewnet...he had to warn the DPS techs to keep the air clear for ANAD.

"Sheila! DPS1...kill the HERF! Kill the HERF! ANAD needs a free hand to fight—":

Reaves' voice was strained...she was being consumed with mechs even as she burrowed ever deeper into the dirt behind the liftjet skids.

"Sorry...Captain...we're being...eaten...alive...up here!!"

Winger pressed a button on his wrist keypad and instantly, soundings from ANAD filled his helmet eyepiece. The view was surreal, swirls of motion embedded in bubbles and polygons and octahedral lattices as the assemblers collided and grappled.

"Gibby, I've got ANAD on viewer...I'm taking command, changing config--!"

"Got it!" Gibby came back. The IC1 was fully qualified to run the interface controls and immediately dialed up the same view. But ANAD was Captain's baby now, he figured. Better to let the two of them duke it out with the enemy 'bots.

I sure hope they know what they're doing, Gibby thought. He raised his head up and got a mouth full of mech debris, stinging sleet against his face. He shielded his face and squinted into his eyepiece, the same view Winger had.

Funny how combat looked when you were the size of a few atoms. Gibby remembered seeing some old vid...a movie they used to call them—of the U.S. Navy fighting in the Big War...the Second Big One. Frogmen fighting underwater. That's what nano-combat looked like on his eyepiece viewer. Nothing but foam and bubbles, only it wasn't bubbles he was seeing. It was stringy chains of atoms that looked like tree ornaments...bulbs on a filament whipping through space, cleaved by things that looked like spiky maces and octahedral balls and weird pyramids and every shape imaginable, all careening along as if blown by a hurricane.

Even as he watched, he heard Winger's voice over the crewnet. "...looks just like an INDRA clone, Gibby...I'm closing in—"

"Easy, Skipper...it could be a diversion." He watched as the image steadied. Several dozen feet away, perched below the precipice of a ledge, Johnny Winger was driving ANAD toward the nearest of the enemy mechs. Even as ANAD surged forward, Gibby saw the enemy maneuvering to strike. "Look out! He's changing position...all of 'em, coming at us—"

"I see it!" Winger yelled. His fingers flexed but there was no need...no keyboard was needed with quantum coupling. It was hard to get used to that. "ANAD...move all defensive systems to attack position!"

***ANAD complying...casting off my hematite shield...grabbers to attack position...electron lens primed and ready...let me at 'em!***

Winger smiled as ANAD sped forward. Like a five-year old, heading for the playground. On the eyepiece imager, the enemy master grew and retracted appendages and surface structure with blazing speed. The outer membrane of the mech seethed with motion, as atoms and clusters of atoms twisted, bonded, twisted again, rebounded, broke apart, recombined, straightened, undulated and whirled.

The gap between them vanished and ANAD grappled with the nearest mech. Other mechs swarmed to the battlefield. The imager screen shook with the collision, then careened sideways.

Combat at the scale of atoms and molecules had always been second nature to Johnny Winger. From his first days as a nog, he'd had an uncanny ability to grab atoms and sling molecules. It was like he'd born to the world of van der Waals forces and peptide chains, like he was a natural. Now, with the quantum coupler, he no longer even needed an IC-man or keyboard to drive ANAD. He could do it by thought alone.

"ANAD...change config now...go to prime three and extend all carbenes!"

***ANAD changing config now...going to prime three...hope you know what you're doing, Boss***

A few moments passed, as the new instructions were executed by the ANAD master and all daughter assemblers. Gibby watched the imager view as it vibrated with the ferocity of the attack. Chains of oxygen molecules, pressed into service as makeshift weapons, whipped across the screen. The air was soon choked with cellular debris. Even as Gibby hunkered down against the lee of the hillside and watched, the enemy mechs replicated several times in response, adding new molecule strings. In unison, they stripped off electrons to make an armor shield of highly reactive chlorine atoms.

Gibby had seen the tactic before. In seconds, ANAD was nearly immobilized by the chlorine sheath.

***I'm losing structure, Boss...reconfiguring...shutting down peripheral systems...before it's too late***

Sergeant Gibbs crawled on his belly along the hillside, until he had reached Winger. Over the shriek of nanomech hell, he yelled in the Captain's ear: "Got to disengage, Skipper...emergency truncation! Everything not critical...we've got to get ANAD out of there before we lose him!"

"I'm not giving up yet!" Winger yelled back. "ANAD...execute config change...prime five!" He was damned if he was going to let Dana Tallant and any swarm of two-bit INDRA knock-offs beat ANAD.

***trying to comply, Base...but internal bonds on main body structure are weakening...I'm losing all grappling capability***

Johnny Winger gritted his teeth and lifted his head up into the swirling maelstrom of swarming 'bots, letting the sleet sting his face with a million razor cuts. He squinted into the teeth of the gale, shaking his fist. "Not this time, Tallant! Not this time...ANAD, I'm taking over...I'm taking command—" He tapped a few strokes on his wrist keypad and moments later, the ANAD master was in his hands.

***I'm all yours, Base...but I'm losing it...losing it fast...now fine motor control down to half, attitude and orientation, propulsors, sensors, molecule analysis, replication...***

Somehow, the enemy had managed to tweak the INDRA mech. With ruthless efficiency, the enemy master whirred and chopped every device ANAD could generate. ANAD had tried to counter, replicating probes, inserters, jaws, cilia, pumps, blowers—but it was no use.

Gibbs couldn't bear to watch the viewer in his eyepiece. Tiled along the edge of the swirling froth of combat, status icons were showing up red everywhere. They were losing ANAD in the face of the OpFor assault and somewhere deep inside Valleyville, Captain Dana Tallant was no doubt smirking with satisfaction.

Johnny Winger set grimly to work, now taking full command through his keypad of the master ANAD assembler. Somehow, he had to wriggle out of the encirclement and outflank the INDRA formation.

Overhead, the air was electric with an impending thunderstorm, and with the shriek of nanomech combat, staticky pops and bursts danced like St Elmo's fire across the heads of the half-buried troopers. A rolling, roaring gale of mechs swept across the ridgeline as the two armies tore at each other with ferocious momentum. Winger felt a few drops of rain on his arms. He looked up, saw low clouds scudding in from the west. Lightning flickered behind the clouds.

Dipole charges. Polarity columns. The wind was picking up. And it gave him the barest hint of an idea.

"Executing quantum collapse...NOW!" Come on baby, get small for me...get real small...

Enveloped by the swarming and smothering INDRA formation, the ANAD master collapsed what was left of its structure in an explosive puff of atom fragments. Base, effectors, probes and grapplers, even the core shell surrounding its central processor, went hurtling off into the air in a big bang of spinning atom parts.

It was a desperate, drastic, last-chance maneuver. But Johnny Winger had used it before and he knew what he was doing.

Instantly, ANAD seemed to disappear. For all intents and purposes, ANAD had effectively vanished in a cloud of blurry quantum waves.

Less than three minutes later, making its way on quantum wave propulsors, ANAD straggled back toward the containment capsule, its nanoprocessor still dogging electron states to bring the nearly invisible device home.

"Not just yet, ANAD," Winger muttered. He tapped out a few more commands on his wrist keypad. "You're getting back into the fight...in disguise, this time."

***ANAD to Base...there's not much left...need a break here...need some time in containment to regroup***

"No can do, ANAD," Winger said. Now he heard the rumble of thunder. The storm front was getting closer. He finished the command sequence and squirted it through the coupler. "ANAD, get ready to look like dust particles!"

***aw, c'mon, Boss...have a heart...I'm beat up and really hurting down here***

But Winger paid no attention. Receiving the command, ANAD executed new config changes, grabbing atoms as best he could to cloak his processor in the structure of a simple dust mote. Moments later, from Winger's position just below the top of the ridgeline, an unearthly tornado of dust suddenly erupted into the very midst of the INDRA swarm. The tornado accelerated upward, expanding outward like an inverted funnel, filtering into the swollen clouds scudding over the mountains. Inside the clouds, water droplets began to grow.

For many minutes, nothing seemed to happen. The enemy mechs continued replicating, smothering the troopers caught at the top of the hill. But gradually, the pressure of the assault seemed to lessen. A fierce driving rain soon lashed the hills.

Soaked but finally able to breathe, Mighty Mite Barnes managed to drag herself to her feet, helping Sheila Reaves do the same. They both lifted their faces to the stinging rain.

"What the hell's going on?" Reaves asked, shielding her eyes from the downpour. "Is there a front coming through?"

'I don't know," Barnes said, looking around uneasily. She closed the faceplate of her helmet to keep dry. "But I got a feeling about this...something tells me Captain's behind it."

All along the tops of the range, the swirling squall line expanded outward, leaping amid crackles of lightning from one hilltop to another. The rainstorm soon collided with the swarm of INDRA mechs, joined moments later by a deluge from the skies. Seams of electrical discharge split the air like curtains of fire, showering sparks and pops everywhere.

One by one, the troopers of the Detachment rose up, squinted through the rain and stood dumbfounded at the scene.

Bit by bit, the INDRA swarm was enveloped and vaporized by the rolling thunder of the oncoming weather front.

And that was when Major Kraft and the referees decided to stop the wargame.

An after-action review was held at the Ops center at Table Top. Captain Dana Tallant glared across the review board, actually a holographic model of the gaming range complete with Valleyville and all the terrain features. She glared at Johnny Winger with barely disguised fury.

"It wasn't fair, Major. It was beyond the rules of engagement. OpFor...my detachment of 2nd Nano troopers, were blindsided."

While the troopers bickered back and forth, Kraft read dryly from the official findings of the referees:

The dust storm seeded the nearby clouds, accelerating the formation of superheavy raindrops. Electrical discharges from breaking atomic bonds among the OpFor swarm enhanced the precipitation event, due to the bipolarity of water molecules. A rain event, basically a thunderstorm, was created by the well-timed replication of ANAD assemblers, assuming the structural form of molecules of silver nitrate and oxides of silicon...basic dust from the local terrain. The precipitation event and locally intense lightning discharges destroyed the OpFor swarm in minutes.

It was, in every respect, a tactically unique response to an enemy assault.

Major Kraft put the findings down and glared at Johnny Winger. "I suppose you can explain this, Captain?"

Winger cleared his throat. He averted his eyes from Dana Tallant. She didn't like to lose any more than he did.

"I wasn't sure what would happen, Major. We've experimented, me and ANAD, a little...seeding clouds to see what would happen. I didn't think it was out of bounds. The rules of engagement—"

"—say nothing about this...I know, I know." Kraft sighed. "Captain Winger, at least your solution to the Big Bang scenario has the virtue of never having been tried before. It was....how shall we put it: unique."

"It was a stab in the back, Major," Tallant insisted. She glared over at Winger. "To modify the weather in the middle of a wargame is like changing the rules in the middle of the game. Begging the Major's pardon, but this invalidates the results of the exercise."

"On the contrary—" said Dr. Irwin Frost, who was also in attendance, "modifying weather using swarms of assemblers is quite interesting...a solution I would never have thought of. Johnny, how did you think of this?"

Winger shrugged. "Actually, it wasn't me, Doc. It was ANAD. Like I said, we were just horsing around a few weeks ago, right after I got back from Northgate. ANAD likes to be out of containment and he started replicating near this low cloud and all of a sudden, there was rain. We tried it different ways, always looking for the right kind of cloud, and most of the time, he could seed the thing well enough to make it precipitate." He looked over at Dana Tallant. "I honestly didn't know what would happen when it started raining on the OpFor mechs. I figured it was worth a try."

Kraft made a decision. "Captain Tallant, technically you're right: modifying the weather during the wargame isn't covered under the rules of engagement. The referees stopped the exercise because I ordered them to. The technique is unproven and unpredictable, it seems to me, despite the results today. But we need to explore it further. That's why were here in the first place: to develop tactics and techniques to employ ANAD in our mandated missions." He checked with Doc Frost. "I guess it's your call, Doc. It seems that Captain Winger has demonstrated he can employ ANAD effectively in a combat scenario."

Frost stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I concur, Major. Johnny, any difficulties in launching, controlling or recovering ANAD?"

Winger shook his head. After days of practice and a few late-night 'conversations,' he felt he knew the little assembler as well as he knew any of the nogs in 1st Nano. "It was strange at first, not having to drive ANAD with the IC panel." He flexed his fingers. "Me...I learned the old fashioned way...how to park an ANAD inside a benzene ring, how to snap a covalent bond...with my hands on a stick. Now, with the quantum coupler...you just think a command or a config change, and ANAD does the rest. It's almost like we're brothers...reading each other's mind." He smiled shyly. "Maybe reading too much at times—"

Kraft cleared his throat. "Then it seems the procedure has worked, Dr. Frost. If Captain Winger has effective control of the device through this new link, we ought to be able to deploy faster and deal with threats more quickly than ever before." He re-read the sheet of findings, shaking his head at the novelty of Winger's tactics. "Something tells me we're going to need it."

Doc Frost agreed. "I'll have to sign off on the results as well. There is one caveat, however, Major."

Kraft's lips tightened. Scientists were always gumming up the works with their theories. 'And that is--?"

"ANAD is an autonomous system, we all know that. With the computational smarts of roughly a twelve-year old, to strain an analogy. The physical link through the quantum coupler is solid...all the tests are consistent and repeatable on that. The interface, the neural buffer, the pattern amplifier...everything works just like it should."

"So what's the problem then, Doc?"

Frost chose his words carefully. "One of the side effects, both of the quantum technology and of the way our brains are wired, is that there seems to be a form of 'leakage,' to coin a term."

"Leakage?"

"Some of the entanglement waves induce signals outside of the coupler interface that is implanted in Johnny's mind. We don't always have the finest control of the process. In some tests—" here Frost wanted to be especially careful, "there's been evidence of spurious signals induced in Johnny's limbic system tissue...that's where the brain maps emotional state information onto sensory signals. It's not totally unexpected...but we may have to do some fine-tuning of the coupler to, er...minimize the effect." He studied Johnny cautiously.

Kraft wasn't following. "You mean he might go crazy from the interface?"

Frost shook his head. "No, of course not. It's just that there might be, from time to time, odd emotional reactions to varying sensory inputs...reactions and emotions not always appropriate but amplified or out of phase, so to speak."

Kraft took a deep breath. "Very well, Doctor, your opinion is duly noted. But I'm not running a kindergarten here. This is a combat outfit and we've got missions to perform. If Captain Winger does anything to jeopardize the mission, he'll be answering to me. Is that clear?"

Winger nodded quickly. "Perfectly, sir. We won't let you down, Major."

"We?"

Winger smiled tentatively. "Me and ANAD, sir."

Kraft groaned and dismissed the briefing. Doc Frost stifled a smile.

He realized that the symbiotic integration of human and assembler was already further advanced than he'd ever thought possible.
CHAPTER 2

Kurabantu Island, the south Pacific

October 27, 2068

1100 hours

Nigel Skinner had worked at the Red Hammer compound on Kurabantu Island for nearly a year. His job was simple, relatively straightforward: to release, monitor and control small swarms of Amazon Vector nanobots into the air over the island. It was all part of the Project, always the Project, and Skinner had been diligent and reliable for the most of the year he had been there. Nobody could say otherwise.

Today was different. Skinner had been having second thoughts about the Project, about being part of Red Hammer, even being assigned to this lush tropical island, for quite some time. He kept his doubts to himself. Shao Hong Ser, or Red Hammer as it was more often known around the back alleys of East Asia, was notorious for secrecy and security. You opened your mouth at your own risk. Skinner wasn't afraid of dying; on the contrary, he was afraid of living, living a single day longer in the belly of the beast that the Project had become.

The truth was that Skinner had been planning to defect for some time now. Just when the idea had formed in his mind, he wasn't sure. You had to be careful when you had a halo, for even subversive thoughts could get you in trouble. He had worked out the rudiments of a plan to defect and contact UNIFORCE, to let them know what was going on deep within the bowels of a small island in the Marquesas chain of the south Pacific.

Why? Revenge, perhaps. Souvranamh and the Ruling Council wouldn't allow him to transfer out, wouldn't allow him up to the mountain in Tibet, where the real work was done, and where some of his questions could be answered. Conscience. Bad dreams, though that could have been the halo at work, snooping along trails of glutamate molecules inside his brain, hunting down thoughts and memories that shouldn't have been there. Maybe a little fear too.

Unfortunately, Skinner had been prevented from pursuing any ideas about escape by the presence of Red Hammer's halo...it was something every member of the organization hosted. An embedded nanobotic control system infesting his mind and body, a hammer that would keep him from disrupting the Project or performing acts disloyal to Red Hammer.

Everyone had a halo. It was a personal shield that went wherever you did. Made sure you did what you were supposed to do, that nothing and no one could interfere. Another member he had met once, an American Indian named Windsinger, had put it this way: "I think and my halo acts. Like the great spirit of the mountains, always watching over me. My shadow, my armor...even my soul."

It was the price of membership in Red Hammer.

But Skinner had discovered a fatal weakness in the halo and the time had come to take advantage of it.

Earlier that night, after the sun had gone down, he had slipped out of the residential quarter tucked into the foothills of the island's great volcano Tuontavik, and made his way through steep forested ravines and narrow dirt paths to a headland of rocky cliffs overlooking an isolated beach on the northwest flanks of the island. With him, he carried a small pod, not much bigger than a loaf of bread. It was a portable containment cylinder, filled with nanobotic organisms, well secured inside the cylinder.

Skinner was, of course, well aware of the existence of UNIFORCE's BioShield nanobots circulating in the lower troposphere of the Earth's atmosphere. He knew as well that BioShield was especially sensitive to the presence of Serengeti Factor 'bots, as the global pandemic of six years ago had brought the protective swarm into being. Knowing that, it was a small matter of concocting a batch of the mechs inside the lab, not enough to warrant concern but sufficient to trigger a reaction from BioShield and bring unwanted attention to what was going on at Kurabantu Island.

He had worked out the plan in scraps and pieces, so far successfully compartmentalizing the details enough to avoid intervention from the halo. There had been probes and jabs, to be sure, often coming late at night when he was trying to sleep—he could feel them—but so far, nothing serious had happened. The halo, if it had detected anything, hadn't found a pattern to interpret.

Skinner prided himself on knowing how the blasted thing worked, knowing how the 'bots sniffed out residual trails of glutamate molecules, the freight carriers of memory, and constructed crude renditions of memory traces inside a brain, even up to fifteen days after the trail had been laid down. He knew the halo 'bots were designed to shuttle around inside your head like a bunch of bees, sniffing out calcium sinks in every neuron, looking for equal concentrations, down to the parts per trillion. He knew that everywhere the concentrations were equal was a pathway, burned in, a sort of memory trace, like an echo. The 'bots looked for that, sent back data on whatever they found—calcium levels, sodium levels, activation times, lots of data. In the master 'bot's processor, all that data could be re-constructed into a very crude version of what had originally laid down the trail.

He knew all that, but knowing it and defeating it were different things. Still, he had to try.

Only a year and a half had passed since Skinner had been sponsored into Red Hammer membership and allowed himself to be halo'ed. He'd signed on with Red Hammer, South Asia division, only in the fall of '66, sponsored by none other than Souvranamh himself, the neurotraficante of the Ruling Council. He'd been put to work on something known only as the Project; with talents in environmental engineering, nanoswarm control algorithms and meteorological engineering, Skinner figured he'd be a worthy addition to the effort.

Assigned duties at Kurabantu station, Skinner plunged into the details of his work: generating and maintaining nanobotic master assemblers, improving their capabilities, initiating and maintaining swarm dispersion for atmosphere modification. He had no other life anyway. He was rootless Brit, like so many of his ancestors had been in the Colonial Service of the Empire. Born in Birmingham (ca. 2033). Something of a child prodigy in school. Honors and letters from Cambridge in Chemistry and Environmental Sciences.

He had lived in India most of his life. Both parents had died in a lifter crash in 2050. For the last ten years, he had lived in a New Delhi high-rise, worked for the Interior Ministry in freshwater remediation, met engineering and nanobotic pollution abatement.

He'd joined BioShield in 2066 after the Serengeti plague, worked on swarm communications and controls, and had been released in '66 on suspicion of embezzlement and misuse of agency resources (even now, Skinner could hear his own voice rising in anger at the hearing: "this charge of unauthorized tampering with core ANAD BioShield algorithms without approval is patently ridiculous...nothing but a witch hunt—")

But he was out on the street, nonetheless, and he thirsted for a way to embarrass BioShield and get back at the pinheads who had thrown him out on some kind of technicality. That was when Skinner learned through the New Delhi underground of something called Shao Hong Ser.

His highest level contact inside Red Hammer had always been Souvranamh's deputy Kawati Chandrigarh, a musician turned gene designer whom Skinner had taken an instant liking to. One day, curious and frustrated by the lack of detail about his job, Skinner had asked Chandrigarh about the Project.

Chandrigarh had thick, bushy eyebrows that framed a cat's face with ludicrous animation. He explained the Project was an effort to discredit UNIFORCE and the Quantum Corps by making BioShield ineffective, so UNIFORCE would have to use Red Hammer designs under license.

Skinner had done his job well enough. By the end of the year, though, he had become increasingly uneasy at the planned extent and depth of atmosphere modification being undertaken. He related his concerns to Chandrigarh, his discomfort with the extent of the modifications, wondering if "we really need to go this far."

Chandrigarh told him not to worry.

Later, Skinner had an attack of conscience and tried to weaken the control links and blunt some of the worst effects of the Amazon Vector swarms.

That's when his halo went off.

It was his first experience with Red Hammer discipline and it wasn't pleasant. Skinner began to suspect he had made a mistake joining Shao Hong Ser, suspecting he had gotten into something he couldn't get out of.

He was a competent enough nanobotic engineer, though, so he decided he ought to be able to figure out how to 'dial back' the worst effects of Amazon Vector. The Project wasn't what he thought it was...somehow it had gone beyond teaching UNIFORCE a lesson and had entered new territory...now people were dying, lots of them, and whole swaths of the planet's atmosphere were becoming toxic and uninhabitable. Serious, perhaps irreparable damage was being done to the Earth's atmosphere.

Chandrigarh chided him for being naïve. "Don't be so dense...that's the whole point of it," the Indian scientist had said. That's when Skinner first learned of rumors concerning the leader of Red Hammer, the Keeper of the Sphere. Not even human, they said. A machine. A spirit. Something halfway in between. At first, Skinner didn't put a lot of stock in the tales.

With conditions worsening and a global crisis brewing, Skinner tried several times to modify and weaken the Amazon Vector swarms, but his halo wouldn't let him. To join Red Hammer, he had given up free will and control of his mind. By early '68, he knew he was effectively a prisoner.

Out of desperation, he began looking for a way out, a way to escape. Completely opposite to his original disgust with BioShield, now he wanted out of Red Hammer and somehow, he had to let UNIFORCE know what was going on. Revenge was no longer so important. With the halo, it was more a matter of survival.

But first he had to find a way to beat the halo. After investigating and experimenting, he learned that the nanobotic control system embedded in the ventral tegmentum of his brain became effectively useless at the point of death. The brain's 'death chemicals' could override the halo and blunt its effects.

Skinner didn't want to die. He just wanted to come as close as possible to it, so he could be rid of the halo forever. He figured if he could come close enough to death to cascade a flood of death chemicals throughout his brain, the halo would be weakened enough to succumb to a quick shock injection of something like ANAD.

Late one evening, on a walking trip to the limestone cliffs on the northwest side of Kurabantu Island, he began formulating an incredible plan....

Now standing on the high bluffs overlooking the rocky surf two hundred feet below, Skinner eyed the steep drop under his feet. Waves crashed and hissed over the reefs. A few clouds scudded across the sliver of moon low in the eastern sky. Otherwise the stars had already materialized overhead.

He began opening the containment cylinder, full of Serengeti 'bots, turning the screws and knobs by feel, as he had practiced so many times before. First, the pressure release, then the biobarrier knob, then the protective shield of ionized air. The cylinder hissed, then beeped, telling him a dangerous mechanism was about to be let loose.

Was it a mechanism, he'd often asked himself. Or was it an organism, half virus, half computer? It didn't matter now. All that mattered was escaping from Kurabantu, from Red Hammer, from the Project, and especially from the halo. If he could somehow trigger a massive UNIFORCE response to an outbreak of Serengeti, all of these things could happen.

There was a barely audible whoosh of air as the last barrier was dropped and the Serengeti master 'bot transited the opening and escaped into the stiff breezes above the cliff.

There. It was done. Even as he felt the first twinges of pain in the back of his head, and dropped to his knees, he saw out of the corner of his eye the faint blue-white iridescent glow of replication, like a shimmering mist hovering ten feet over his head. Serengeti was already in overdrive, mindlessly copying itself over and over again, grabbing atoms and building structure as fast as it could. With any luck, BioShield would pick up the signature in less than an hour.

Skinner's head felt like it was caught in a vise and he writhed in agony on the ground. The halo had reacted and the first fires of dopamine hell were already roaring between his ears. He screamed out loud, bit through his tongue and blood poured from both sides of his mouth.

Deep inside the ventral tegmentum of his brain, uncountable trillions of mechs were stirring the dopamine soup, pumping synapses with the stuff and sucking them dry just as fast, working the synaptic gaps like a musical instrument. Each cycle sent Skinner into shudders and spasms.

He jerked across the top of the limestone cliffs, staggered up to his knees and promptly went into convulsions, back-snapping contortions. The halo was bad shit, no two ways about it. When you had the buggers in your skull, you weren't yourself anymore, more like a robot or a lab rat. His brain was infested with gazillions of the bastards, all working in unison, all stimulating and massaging the neural pain and pleasure circuits.

A symphony of agony played out on Skinner's contorted face.

Even as he fought the halo, he knew he'd eventually lose the battle. But Skinner had planned on this and he knew what he had to do.

Half blinded by pain, he crawled closer to the edge of the cliffs. Below, waves crashed and hissed over coral reefs that formed a barrier across the northwest approaches to the island. From a pocket, he withdrew a small hypodermic, already loaded.

Inside the hypodermic chamber were a swarm of new nanobotic devices, called respirocytes. Experimental devices. When deployed in your lungs and bloodstream, the 'cytes would allow you to breath in places humans couldn't normally breathe. You could even be resuscitated from near death, if they worked right.

But first, he had to 'die.'

Skinner was well aware of the risks, but there was no other way. If he could take his body to a point near enough to death, all the way to Stage 7 it was said, the halo 'bots would no longer have any control of his pain and pleasure circuits. Scuttlebutt was that when the brain was flooded with death chemicals and the catatonia and unconsciousness finally came, the halo 'bots would exit the body and you'd be free.

Skinner then figured the respirocytes would revive him, sending blood and oxygen into his brain and lungs, manufactured right from seawater.

He felt cold, shaking and shuddering, as he groped his way further out to the edge of the cliff. In the skies overhead, Serengeti had already exploded into a nebula of coruscating, shimmering, pulsating lights, exponentially replicating. He grimaced at the sight, knowing the risk, but it was like sending up a rescue flare. Soon enough, BioShield would pick up the signature. UNIFORCE would then descend on this little hellhole of an island and put a stop to this madness.

Gripping the hypo, he injected the primal stream of 'cytes into an artery in his left arm.

Then, Skinner stared for a moment out to sea, and down at the foaming waves hissing onto the beach below.

He took a deep breath, then leaped into space, plummeting down into the deep hiss of the waves several hundred feet below.
CHAPTER 3

U.N. Quantum Corps Eastern Command Base

Singapore

October 29, 2068

Singapore Base was a miniature replica of Table Top itself, complete down to the Containment Facility, the Sim and Wargaming center, the Ops quadrangle and the lifter pads. Only the snowy peaks of Buffalo Ridge were missing, replaced with palm trees and mangrove stumps and the strong smell of salt air. The languid tropical waters of the Selatar River slapped wooden piers near the lift pads as the lights came on inside Containment. In the eastern sky, orange fingers of dawn sunlight probed puffy cumulus clouds.

Johnny Winger tapped out a short sequence of instructions on his wrist keypad. Since the implant, he'd found it easier and more precise to send commands to ANAD this way. The quantum coupler worked, but he'd found he couldn't always control it. Signal leakage was still a problem. Doc Frost had come along to Quantum Corps' Eastern Command base to troubleshoot the interface.

Inside the containment capsule in Winger's shoulder, ANAD responded to the command, readying itself for launch.

"ANAD reports ready in all respects," came the high-pitched voice.

Johnny Winger suppressed a slight smile. "The little guy sounds like a teenager on his first date."

"Sounds pretty eager to me," Irwin Frost admitted. He was alongside Johnny, monitoring traffic on the quantum coupler link, a remote connection, trying to isolate the interference that Johnny had reported. If the q-c link couldn't be made to work right, embedded ANADs would have to be commanded the old-fashioned way and some of the sought-after combat capabilities would be lost. The internal voice link had been switched to a speaker.

General Sofran Chekwarthy, commanding general of Quantum Corps' Eastern Command, rubbed a hand across morning stubble on his chin. "More eager than I am. You sure this'll work, Captain?"

Winger nodded. "Yes, sir, it will definitely work. It's a relatively new technique but we've proven it at Table Top, during the Serengeti epidemic. Shall we get started?"

"Gives me the creeps, I don't mind telling you," Chekwarthy admitted. "Invading someone's mind like this—"

"It's just a high-powered lie detector," said Major Sheehan, Security Branch chief. Sheehan had flown in overnight from Table Top to oversee the probe.

"Let's get going," Chekwarthy growled. "If this poor bugger's knows anything about the atmospheric swarms, or Red Hammer, I want to know it. It's too late for legal niceties now. Permission to launch."

Strapped to a gurney inside the containment chamber, the battered, bruised and barely alive body of Nigel Skinner had been sedated and prepped for ANAD insertion. Already his body, recovered from the Pacific off some nondescript spit of coral in the Marquesas the day before, was saturated with medbots, circulating through his bloodstream hard at work on a mission of tissue repair and regeneration. ANAD would have plenty of company inside.

Skinner's body was surrounded by a fine mesh of sensors—the vascular grid—that would precisely locate ANAD inside the body, once the mech was inserted.

Moby M'Bela patted down the incision that had been made in Skinner's neck. "Okay, Captain...subject's prepped and ready."

Dana Tallant handed Moby the injector tube, attached by flex hose to the capsule in Winger's shoulder. Inside the capsule, ANAD ticked over, ready to he launched.

"Steady even suction, Johnny," Frost reminded him.

Winger nodded acknowledgement. "ANAD, report status—"

The teenager's voice crackled over the circuit. "ANAD effectors safed for launch. All parameters normal. Internal bonds and states are stable. Sensors primed and registered. Core functions initialized...I'm ready to fly, fellows—"

Frost glanced up at General Chekwarthy, an embarrassed smile on his lips. "The assembler uses a small percentage of his computational capacity to simulate emotional states...sometimes, it correlates, er, inappropriately."

"Get on with it," Chekwarthy growled.

"Vascular grid?" Winger asked.

"Tracking, Captain," said M'Bela. He tuned the grid to pick up the mech as soon as it was inserted.

"Let's go, then."

The insert went smoothly enough. A slug of plasma forced the master replicant into Skinner's capillary network at high pressure. Winger watched his wristpad controls and quickly got an acoustic pulse seconds later. He selected Fly-by-Stick to test out the controls. A few minutes' run on propulsors brought ANAD to a dense mat of capillary tissue.

Frost studied the sounder image. "Looks like you're ready for transit, Captain. You can force those cell membranes any time."

Winger told ANAD to probe for weak spots in a clump of lipids, clinging like a bunch of grapes in the middle of the wall. "I'll try there first—"

He steered ANAD toward a cleft in the membrane lipids, pulsing one of the carbene grabbers to twist a nearby molecule just so, then released the lipid and slingshot himself forward through the gap. Seconds later, ANAD was floating in a plasma bath, dark, viny shapes visible off in the distance. He tweaked the picowatt propulsors to a higher power setting and took a navigation hack off the grid.

"Aortic cavity, gentlemen. Just past the Islet of Duchin, I'd say. Looks like we're in. Where are we going now?"

Start Fourier Transform:

Start Delacroix Transform:

Start Trace Matching...

Skinner pulls back the sleeve of his jacket and primes the injector. The stiff wind dies off and the night sky shimmers with iridescent speckles...Serengeti 'bots replicating like crazy thirty feet over the cliffside.

But first, he has to 'die.'

Skinner is well aware of the risks, but there's no other way. If he could take his body to a point near enough to death, all the way to Stage 7, the halo 'bots would no longer have any control of his pain and pleasure circuits. The brain was flooded with death chemicals and when the catatonia and unconsciousness finally came, the halo 'bots would exit the body and he'd be free.

Skinner figures the respirocytes will revive him, sending blood and oxygen into his brain and lungs, manufactured right from seawater.

He feels cold, shaking and shuddering, as he gropes his way further out to the edge of the cliff. In the skies overhead, Serengeti is already exploding into a nebula of coruscating, shimmering, pulsating lights, exponentially replicating. He grimaces at the sight, knowing the risk, but it's like sending up a rescue flare. Soon enough, BioShield will pick up the signature. UNIFORCE will descend on this little hellhole of an island and put a stop to this madness.

Gripping the hypo, he injects the stream of 'cytes into an artery in his left arm.

Then, Skinner stares for a moment out to sea, and down at the foaming waves hissing onto the beach below.

He takes a deep breath, then leaps into space, plummeting down into the deep hiss of the waves several hundred feet below.

(The imager blurs, shot through with streaks of light, peculiar starbursts and fragments, hazy, out of focus visuals, all jumbled up. The speaker crackles with static--)

Johnny Winger fiddled with his joystick on his wristpad, tried tweaking the gain on the signal. "Looks like we lost the trace, Doc. Just fizzled out."

General Chekwarthy glared in disgust at the image being projected. "Can you get it back, Captain?"

Winger shook his head. "Faded out, General...we didn't have a good gradient to follow. I'll backtrack—"

Sheehan was there too, standing beside the General. "Eerie, isn't it? Seeing things through another man's eyes. Especially since he's nearly dead."

"Gives me the creeps," Chekwarthy admitted.

"It seems to work well enough," Sheehan said. "Couldn't tell you the theory behind it, though."

"It's a damn circus trick," Chekwarthy growled. "We can really play back someone's memories like a recording?"

"Not exactly, sir," Winger said. He was setting up ANAD to sniff out new traces to follow, his fingers flying over the keys on his wristpad. "We just put ANAD inside the suspect and replicate a few trillion times. Then we put the whole herd in 'bloodhound' mode and go hunting."

"What exactly are you hunting for?"

"Everybody makes memories the same way. It's called Long-term Potentiation. One of the chemical signatures of LTP is a molecule called glutamate...helps open a second voltage-gated channel inside the post-synaptic membrane—"

Dr. Frost intervened. "Allow me, Johnny. In plain English, General, what it boils down to is that we can construct crude renditions of memory traces existent in the subject's brain, up to ten or fifteen days after the memory trace is laid down. We've been doing it experimentally at Northgate for several years now and we've trained specialists inside the Corps to use the same technique. ANAD simply follows trails of glutamate concentration, building a crude activation map as he goes. From that map, after some finagling and processing, we can put together a very rough version of what originally laid down that track. Then we put it on the imager, cobbled out of visual and auditory sensory traces in this particular case. They're the easiest."

"It's sort of like painting somebody's portrait from their shadow," added Major Sheehan. "I've been through some of the training too at Northgate. They actually used me a guinea pig too. Kind of an echo of a memory, if you like."

Chekwarthy was dubious. "Sounds pretty nebulous to me. Why did we just now lose the trace?"

"Unknown," said Winger. His fingers were flying over the wristpad, managing ANAD's configuration, checking its parameters. "Somehow, we lost the trace...just petered out. It happens. All you can do is backtrack to a known position and start sniffing again."

***Base from ANAD...this fellow's in bad shape...synapses are flooded with sodium and calcium...and there's debris here...assembler debris...some radicals, some fullerene junk, like the place was occupied. And something weird too...more nanobots in his bloodstream, like little cylinders but they're all full of seawater molecules***

Chekwarthy stared at the imager display, then over to Skinner's body, deathly still, and back again. "The poor sap's pale...are you sure he's alive?" He half expected to the see the guy twitch or move a leg or something. "He's still as a corpse."

Winger nodded. "Heart rate's thirty-five, blood pressure at ninety-two over sixty...hey, it's rising...what's going on here--?"

***Base from ANAD...that's why I'm trying to tell you...the little 'bots in the bloodstream are pumping out oxygen molecules left and right***

Winger studied the display, ticked off vital signs as ANAD sent them back, shaking his head. "It doesn't make any sense—he was slipping away a few minutes ago—"

Doc Frost leaned over Skinner's face, fixed into a mask of pain. "It does if you look at what ANAD's sensing. Tell ANAD to do a recon of one of those 'bots in the bloodstream."

Winger sent the command. He linked in the quantum coupler too, so they could converse with no one listening. ANAD, get a closer look at one of those weird 'bots...structure, power source, effectors, whatever you can.

***Base, acknowledged...you want any pieces brought back?***

Negative...just take a look and keep sniffing glutamate traces. The brass is getting antsy.

***Understood...keep your hat on, Boss...I'll see what makes 'em tick***

Chekwarthy was talking to Winger. "So where is ANAD now?"

Winger linked out of the coupler connection. It wasn't easy listening to ANAD and somebody else at the same time. "Here's the vascular grid, General—" he fingered the display to the side of the imager. The grid was a 3-D iconic image of Skinner's skull. "—I'd say...right about here...basal hippocampal region. Most of the swarm's about a hundred thousand microns anterior to the lateral septum. I've just detached a detail to probe into one of his arteries, see what these unknown 'bots are doing there."

Chekwarthy rubbed his chin uneasily. It wasn't natural, commanding platoons and armies the size of a molecule. An entire battlefield inside a man's skull...it wasn't right, somehow. You couldn't see what the buggers were doing. Wars could be won or lost at the level of atoms. The General shook his head.

"We're picking up something," Winger muttered. As Frost watched over his shoulder, Winger steered through a dense bog of dendrites. Thickets of axon fibers clouded the view, now slaved to ANAD's electromagnetic sounder. "—strong trace...this one's holding, looks like—"

"Stay with it," Frost encouraged him.

Winger massaged the keyboard, souping up sensors, managing config for the hunt.

"I'm altering config now," Winger said in a low voice. "It'll help us sort out the traffic—lots of chem crap around here—"

Skinner stirred lightly on the gurney and everyone jumped, until M'Bela and another tech steadied his body. "This one's coming back, now through Level 5, looks like," Moby muttered. It was eerie, unearthly, watching someone rise from the near dead.

M'Bela adjusted several leads to Skinner's chest and head, checked the IV drip.

***Base from ANAD...big spikes in activation...cereberal cortex...limbic tissues are lighting up like a meteor shower...subject is coming out of level 4, out of coma...and it looks like we've got some company in here...what the hell?...***

Winger shook his head, trying to shutdown the coupler link. Damn it, ANAD...be quiet, why don't you?

M'Bela's hands flew across Skinner's chest and face, checking vital signs. "Got measurable EEG...got activity in the frontal lobes...metabolic spikes...this guy's coming around, for Christ's sake. We'd better hurry, if we're going to get any more out of this----"

"I'm trying, I'm trying." Winger glared at the imager. What the hell was ANAD talking about I've got company in here? More 'bots? He had seen a brief thermal bloom when they'd transited into the man's capillaries...a point heat source, maybe some chem activity, but he'd ignored it...with General Chekwarthy breathing down his neck, he hadn't had time to take a look. Now...maybe...

Winger let ANAD finish changing config, noting that all the other trillion mechs slaved to the master had done likewise, all but a small detail reconnoitering the bloodstream, checking out the seawater 'bots. How many mechs did the man have in him anyway ? Satisfied ANAD was ready, he maneuvered the device into the lee of a dendritic 'breakwater'...sniffing for calcium, sodium, anything it could follow, grabbing molecules left and right, until at last, Winger cracked the barest hint of a smile. Deep inside the semi-conscious brain of Nigel Skinner, the Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassembler blazed away at incredible speed, spasmodically sorting and advancing along the barest whiff of a chemical highway.

Seconds later, a green light illuminated alongside the screen. The sparky haze began to part—ANAD sent back a signal indicating readiness—

Start Trace Matching...

Chandrigarh's face hardens.

Chandrigarh has thick, bushy eyebrows that frame a cat's face with ludicrous animation. He explains the Project is an effort to discredit UNIFORCE and the Quantum Corps by making BioShield ineffective, so UNIFORCE would have to use Red Hammer designs under license.

Skinner knows he has done his job well enough. By the end of the year, though, he becomes increasingly uneasy at the planned extent and depth of atmosphere modification being undertaken. He relates his concerns to Chandrigarh, his discomfort with the extent of the modifications, wondering if "we really need to go this far."

Chandrigarh tells him not to worry.

Later, Skinner has an attack of conscience and tries to weaken the control links and blunt some of the worst effects of the Amazon Vector swarms.

That's when his halo goes off.

(...again, the imager dissolves in a specular fog, white gauze pinpricked with flashes of light and then nothing...ANAD had lost the glutamate trail...)

Winger swore under his breath. "That one petered out fast...must be an old trace."

M'Bela saw the first signs a moment later. "Ah...Captain, something seems to be—"

The monitors all spiked at the same time. Skinner's body jerked like a million volts had suddenly surged through it, a back-snapping convulsion that cracked bones as his back arched into the air. A pressure pulse of angry fog erupted from his ears and eyes.

***Hey, Boss...there's a big--***

But ANAD never got to finish the thought. Johnny Winger's neck hairs had tickled just as he saw the swarm balloon into the room.

"LOOK OUT--!!" Sheehan's scream filled the examining room.

No one was quite sure when the first effects of the halo attack were felt. The debriefs later seemed to converge on the two CQE's, working hard to tweak ANAD for further memory tracing. Deeno D'Nunzio had been working on new configs for ANAD, with Ozzie Tsukota's help.

Both engineers noticed it right away, a shrill, keening high-freq tone, almost beyond human hearing, yet irritating in a vaguely unsettling way. Deeno's panicked distress call from the corner of the room as the nanomechs bored into her arms and legs would linger in everybody's memory for a long time. The other CQE, Tsukota, reported a different effect—just as panicky—when he found he couldn't squirm away along the floor as fast as he wanted to...by then, the enemy swarm was thick enough to form a barely visible fog, almost a blanket, muffling the examining theater with exponentially thickening mist. It was something you could barely see but every sensor and caution alarm was going off around the containment chamber and you sure as hell could feel the resistance to movement.

"Mass assault swarm!" somebody yelled over the commotion. It was Dana Tallant's voice. The c/o of 2nd Nano was already on one knee, swatting madly at the whizzing, spinning cloud of assembler mechs that had engulfed her.

"Bond breakers!" yelled General Chekwarthy. He dove for the floor, swatting and flailing at the air.

"They've gone airborne!" Johnny Winger recognized the scenario, too late. They'd wargamed it enough times at Table Top. Enemy booby-traps bodies with enveloped swarms and as soon as a detail investigates, the swarm erupts and smothers the lot of them. "Fall back...fall back! Go to TACREP 1! Dana, cover the General...and get those electron guns smoking!"

"Secure the doors!" came a gritted voice. It was Chekwarthy, already scrambling toward the controls of the containment chamber. He lifted a hand to the controls, groping blindly for the right button and stabbed it. Instantly, a warning klaxon went off, blaring its wail through the fog of mechs. "I'll get the guns--!!" The General groped some more and found the toggle.

At that moment, several million electron volts crackled across the chamber as the guns discharged.

Tactical Response One was a well-drilled response to sudden swarms of enemy mechs. Winger pressed a few buttons on his wristpad and pushed through the spongy mist, struggling hard to make it to the General, who had slumped to the floor and was being steadily smothered under the accelerating mass. Nearby, Doc Frost lay on his side gasping for breath, his arms and hands swatting and swinging at assailants a billion times too small to be seen.

They didn't have long to act. TACREP called for the unit to do an emergency opposed-force setup of the ANAD system. Retrieve the master, get containment going, re-establish comm links, and counter-program like hell to beat back the assault before it consumed everything.

The worst thing was that Doc Frost wasn't trained in swarm survival. It was always bad when civilians got involved.

Winger knew full well they had only a few minutes at best. He didn't know what kind of mechs they were dealing with, only that they had swarmed out of Skinner's body with virtually no warning...even ANAD had been taken by surprise. What kind of 'bot could do that?

In wargames and sims, ANAD had demonstrated bond-breaking, molecule-disassembling speeds up to a hundred thousand nanometers per second, about a tenth of a meter every second, blown away as just so much atomic debris. Whatever this swarm was, it was undoubtedly just as fast, if not faster. If they didn't get countermeasures going quick, the containment center at Singapore base would soon end up as little more than errant atoms and molecular fluff.

The electrons guns crackled and zapped, frying everything in sight. In theory, they were tuned to wavelengths that could tear a nanoscale device to shreds, but in practice, it was like using a club to swat a fly. The best 'bots were too quick and sometimes, all you could hope for was to slow down a swarm and keep it occupied while you hunted for something better.

"Re-configging ANAD!" Winger yelled. He worked with several others to get Doc Frost away from the worst of the swarm, at the same time, plugging away at his wristpad. It was like swimming in oily water, trying to exert any effort against the mechs.

Deep inside the body of Nigel Skinner, the ANAD master was steering its way topside, hunting for a way out of the capillary network, battering its way through lipid walls until at last it was free and speeding along on max propulsor through cartilage and epithelial tissue. Once the master assembler was free, a new configuration could be sent and ANAD armored to beat back the enemy swarm.

***almost there, Base...I'm doing the best I can, but it's a tight squeeze in here...these walls are full of radicals and I'm losing effectors right and left***

For a brief moment, Winger considered a quantum collapse as a way of extricating ANAD faster, but gave up on the idea.

"We've got to get out of here!" someone yelled. It was Tsukota, crawling and slashing wildly along the floor as the mechs bore into him.

"Negative!" yelled Chekwarthy. "Too dangerous...we'll expose the whole base...get those guns dialed up higher--!"

***ANAD exiting...I'm out and free...give me a new config, NOW***

A small shimmer formed around Skinner's mouth as ANAD and a small brood of replicants erupted into the air.

"Sending config!" Winger stabbed a button on his wristpad, then hunkered down on the floor, covering himself as best he could, punching out more commands. Beneath his knees, the floor itself writhed and hummed like a thing alive. He could feel the high-freq vibration through his field boot. It wouldn't be long before he'd have to forget the wristpad and leave ANAD to fight alone.

But he'd be damned if he was going to leave ANAD behind. They were squadmates and they'd been through too much together. It was the strongest dictum in the Corps...you watched your buddy's ass and he watched yours. Nobody got left behind. No matter what the cost, you put everything on the line for the guys in the unit.

Winger flailed at the swarm with one hand while he punched buttons, trying to help ANAD get ready to be slammed: Comm link to SELECT...Program to FBS—Fly-by-Stick. Launch would be opposed insertion. Active defense...ISR mode. That stood for Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaissance. Electron lens primed and enzymatic knife out to engage—

At last, he was done.

"ANAD master away!" he called out. "Primed to go! Active defense Alpha!"

"About damn time!" gritted Chekwarthy, through hands that were shielding his face.

With an audible whoosh, the master formed up in the air over Skinner's prostrate body, and swept into the midst of the enemy swarm. The collision of invisible armies produced crackles and a shimmering arc of light all along the battle front.

"Do it, ANAD!" yelled Dana Tallant, hunkered down beside Deeno D'Nunzio, trying to shield the CQE1 from any more assaults. "Give 'em the works!" D'Nunzio had taken the brunt of the initial swarm and her face was bruised and bleeding.

A thermal bloom erupted in mid air like a miniature nova, as the ANAD swarm defaulted to maximum-rate replication.

***yahoo!...***

Active defense Alpha was a set program they had run scores of times at Table Top. It called for the ANAD swarm to replicate basic structure at the fastest possible rate, then seek and destroy all non-self devices it could detect. ANAD's disassembly speed was set at the best possible rate for fighting through van der Waals forces and cleaving atom bonds.

"Got an image!" Winger struggled to see his eyepiece through the dust churned up by the furious enemy swarm. "I'm porting it to the net now...EMs are shaky...interference from the chamber guns, looks like—"

Chekwarthy scrambled back to the control stand. "Turning chamber guns off!" He stabbed a button and the electron guns that ringed the containment chamber died off. Now the battlefield was clear and it was all up to ANAD. "Hope that bugger can do the job, Captain!"

Eyepieces were useless. The thermal bloom and dust exploded into a ball of fire, as ANAD swelled rapidly in an enveloping cloud, engaging the enemy swarm in a set piece battle of ionizing electrons and atom groups. The white-hot heat expanded like a small sunburst, almost pulsating as the front lines churned back and forth, ANAD's exponential armies rallying to the assault, tangling with uncounted trillions of enemy mechs.

Winger gave up on the eyepiece. It was time to try the quantum coupler, get a direct read from what ANAD was seeing, if the link could be made to work.

ANAD...let me see what's happening... He linked in, trying to find and stabilize a visual image.

It startled him when it came through, like sticking your head in front of a floodlight when it came on. He blinked and blinked, and his eyes watered. And for a long moment, he couldn't make out a thing, only daubs of color and swirls and a driving sleet of weird shapes—

Then, as the image settled in, he began to resolve things through a churning frothy mess. The view was thick and black with molecular debris.

"Need to grab one of those critters," Winger muttered to himself. What the hell kind of weird 'bot was it that had infested Skinner and burst out like a grenade going off?

***I don't know, Boss...but whatever they are, they're vicious little jobbies...and fast too...I can barely keep my effectors out***

Winger pressed a few keys—noting the pressure of the enemy swarm against his skin seemed to have slacked off a bit—ANAD was giving the bastards something to think about—and he took direct control by stick of a small platoon of replicants.

If I can just surround one...damn...like trying to corral a herd of bees

He used the control stud on his wristpad to zero in on a detached group of enemy mechs, scooting away from the main axis of attack, swirling near a corner of the room. What the hell are they up to? Were they under some kind of remote control? Was there some controller miles away joysticking the swarm through the assault? There was no way to tell.

"ANAD," he muttered to himself, "somehow we've got to get some data on these bugs, see what they're made of—"

***They appear to be some kind of crude jalopy kind of mechs, Boss...put together in a hurry...loose structures, effectors barely hanging on...but they're quick and simple...and they replicate like crazy***

"That's probably the key to it, ANAD. Sweet and simple. Slap together a few carbenes and stick 'em in a shell and you've got a nanomech. They had this poor slob infested from head to toe."

Winger drove ANAD at the enemy swarm and executed a perfect entrapment maneuver, neatly bracketing the enemy 'bots in a classic octahedral lattice. The 'bots pressed outward, buzzing angrily, trying to break out of the lattice, probing for weak spots, but Winger had quickly reinforced his scout group with extra ANADs.

"Gotcha!" he exulted. Now they'd have something to take a look at. "ANAD, let's take this bugger to TinyTown. I don't think I want a 'bot like this in my capsule."

***Understood, Boss...heading for Tinytown now...I'm on max propulsors, bearing two five oh to containment***

But his triumph was short-lived. Even as he commanded the ANAD lattice to propel itself back toward containment, sheparding the trapped mechs, fending off steady probes of the bond breakers, one of the enemy devices separated itself from the main body. In the imager view on his eyepiece, Winger stared in horror as the nanomech suddenly shed all its outer atom group armament in a puff of molecular debris and executed a daring fold/collapse, imploding in on itself in a flurry of segment cleavage and destruction. Whirling on picowatt propulsors like a mad dervish, a blurry core of atoms exploded out of the sleet of fragments and rocketed through the lattice like a bullet. In a fraction of a second, it was through the lattice and gone, out of the field of view.

Johnny Winger could only shake his head at the maneuver. They'd wargamed tactical escapes from all kinds of capture maneuvers but nothing like this. It didn't even seem possible.

***I can't explain it, Boss...the bug just up and imploded...no 'bot should be able to fold like that...but the thing's hardly there anyway, it's so light...***

"Ten to one that was the master replicant, ANAD," he said. Programmed to evade capture anyway it could, or commit atomic suicide if it couldn't. He couldn't help but wonder if he wasn't jousting with an unseen human controller somewhere nearby.

The pressure of the swarm now seemed to increase, a suffocating, smothering blanket crushing the very air out of the chamber. Chekwarthy was gasping for air in the distant corner he had crawled to, while Sheehan was shielding D'Nunzio even as he tended to her lacerations and bruises. M'Bela was struggling to get the TinyTown pod ready, swatting off mechs like so many angry flies.

They weren't going to be able to survive this much longer, not without help.

The skirmish continued for another two minutes, but Winger could tell the ANADs were steadily losing the battle.

***I can't keep up...they rep too fast...there's just too many of them, Boss--***

Group by group, the ANADs were steadily and surely overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Winger began to notice increasing resistance to movement again, a clear indication the enemy mechs had re-established themselves inside the chamber, after tussling with ANAD. Soon, the high-freq whine became audible again.

"Dana, we can't hold them back!"

Dana Tallant was ten feet away and helping M'Bela struggle with the TinyTown pod. "---got... to get... help, Johnny—"she forced out. She lay on her side in a fetal position, virtually helpless, still fingering her own wristpad, trying to organize some kind of defense, a shield, anything.

Winger could see the situation was getting hopeless. ANAD couldn't keep up. "Just mindless replication. Like a Big Bang, right here in containment—"

Tallant agreed, choking on her own words as she ingested mechs down her throat. "They're going to smother us, if they don't eat us first—" She was tapping keys on her wristpad without effect. "I'm not linked to ANAD...what's happened—"

Winger tried his own wristpad, then swore. "I may have lost him—" ANAD...Base to ANAD...are you still there...Base to ANAD, respond—" Even over the coupler link, nothing—"I was trying to snag a master...thought I had him but he slipped out...damndest thing I ever saw—"

What had happened to the ANAD master? Had one of the mechs surprised him, snapped bonds, maybe penetrated the core and blown the tiny assembler to bits?

Tallant finally gave up on her wristpad and concentrated on standing up.

Winger helped her get upright. "This is no good—" ANAD, please come in...are you still there, buddy? ANAD, this is Base—but there was nothing, on his wristpad or the quantum coupler. Only static— "Dana, I can't hack fast enough to counter-attack. ANAD said these mechs were unbelievable...just shells with a few effectors barely stuck on. Somebody's really juiced up the rep rate."

"We've got to get out of here...we can't fight these buggers now—"

But if the containment chamber were opened, the whole base would be at risk, maybe all of Singapore.

"Maybe DPS can give us some breathing room." Winger slogged across the room, stumbling over writhing bodies, slogged through spongy mist a few paces to the bulkhead, and made the call over the crewnet, hoping the signal would get out through the thick hull of the chamber.

DPS1 Sheila Reaves was outside containment, a quarter mile away, troubleshooting a balky coilgun in the ordnance bunker at Ops, when a faint call came through on her headset. It was Captain Winger.

"DPS here—" she muttered absent-mindedly, then froze as she realized what had been happening. Winger related the eruption of infested nanobots from the body of the Red Hammer agent they'd fished from the Pacific the day before. We're trapped, Sheila...ANAD's out of commission and the buggers are stuck in overdrive...it's a big bang right here inside containment...get the HERF gun spooled up...maybe you can stun 'em enough to let us get the hell out—

She was on her way in a dead run before Winger could even finish the sentence.

"Already online, Captain!" Reaves's strained voice came from somewhere halfway between Ops and Containment, as she hustled the weapon outside and across the quadrangle. Tropical breezes wafted salt air and fragrant blossoms into her face as she raced across the ground. "I'm coming as fast as I can—" she switched channels and called the other Defense and Protective Systems Tech., Chandra Singh. "Taj...Taj, are you there...get your ass over to Containment, pronto! Wake up and get moving...Captain's in deep kimche and needs the HERF gun...something's happened in the chamber—"

Singh's voice was slurred, thick with sleep...he'd been bunking in the Barracks after pulling an all-nighter the evening before.

"Keep your pants on, will ya? I'm on my way—"

"Hurry...I don't know what's happened but it's bad—" For good measure, Reaves had already alerted Security and the duty officer at Ops. Singapore base would be soon locked down tighter than a drumhead. Even the local People's Militia had been notified.

She dragged the High Energy Radio Frequency weapon up the steps and into the Containment building, eventually grabbing several more techs as she wound her way through several locks to the inner chamber. Outside the heavy plating of the hull, she stood up the HERF gun and, moments later, DPS2 Singh showed up, quickly helping her mount and enable the weapon with smooth, sure motions born of many hours' practice.

Reaves' got on the crewnet. She could hear a faint keening whine from inside the chamber. That's not good, she told herself.

"Captain...Taj and I are just outside the lockout door. What's going on in there?"

Winger's voice was faint, strained, a tinge of desperation in the tone. "Reaves, fire short bursts of RF! Dial it all the way up! See if you can clear us a bubble or a zone around the lockout! I'm not sure we can make it otherwise!"

"Through the walls, sir? You won't get much of a pulse...but it'll probably fry the lock circuit—"

"Do it! Turn the sucker up full and fire, dammit! And make it quick...we've got civilians in here and some are infested...we're being smothered and ANAD's gone—"

Reaves looked at Singh, who shrugged. "Okay, sir....stand clear...we're priming now—"

She dialed in the power setting, and boresighted the weapon flush against the hull plate of the containment chamber.

"Either this works--," she muttered...

"...or we'll all be fried," Singh finished the thought.

Seconds later, the drone of the HERF pulse gun blasted through the chamber walls. Inside containment, Johnny Winger had pushed Dana Tallant to the floor, covering her body with his. A thick breeze of momentarily stunned nanomechs clattered against Winger's head and shoulders. When the second pulse shook the chamber, and he felt the thermal of high-frequency RF wash over them, Winger willed himself into motion, half carrying, half-dragging Dana Tallant.

With one hand, he cycled the lockout doors and pulled mightily, swinging the inner door open with a strong whoosh of air as pressure equalized. Behind him, General Chekwarthy and Major Sheehan were hustling Doc Frost up and across the room. M'Bela and Deeno were right behind them.

They had only a few seconds to get the outer door open and escape, before the swarm regained strength and slammed them again. They had to get out before the swarm breached the lockout and escaped into the nighttime air over Singapore base.

The outer door swung open and cool air flooded into the lockout. Reaves, Singh and a flurry of hands reached in and pulled Winger and Tallant out to safety.

Winger stumbled to the floor, with Dana Tallant landing on top of him..

"Hit 'em again, Sheila! Slam 'em to hell and back!"

Another drone-snap of radio energy and another wave of heat washed over them. Winger scrambled to his feet and dragged Tallant with him, kicking and pummeling blindly, pulling her up and out of the lockout. Behind them, Chekwarthy, Sheehan and a bruised, dazed Doc Frost limped out.

Reaves and Singh slammed the outer door shut and cycled the lock.

"Another pulse, DPS! Max power...leave it on and let it burn out! We've got to crush this swarm for good!"

The two DPS techs, Reaves and Singh, cranked up the HERF gun they had erected outside the chamber and let it pulse at maximum power. Rolling thunderclaps shook the entire structure and the rest of the team stumbled as they clawed their way out of the Containment building into the warm, fragrant night air. The pulse gun soon did the trick...momentarily flooding every cubic inch of the chamber with high energy radio waves. It was shock therapy for a nanomech swarm in mindless exponential overdrive, replicating and disassembling matter at blinding speeds.

Winger helped Tallant and the rest of them across the grassy sward toward the brightly lit façade of the Ops building. What had happened to ANAD? He wasn't responding to anything, not to acoustic links, not to the quantum coupler link. The tiny assembler had disappeared completely. Winger was sick with worry as he sheparded the bedraggled crew into Ops...behind them, the containment building shook with more HERF blasts.

Fry the buggers, he told himself. Burn the place down. He was angry, more at himself, for losing ANAD...and nearly half the Detachment as well. Whatever had infested Skinner was dangerous and hard to detect.

They'd have to saturate the containment chamber with RF and electron beams for hours, just to make sure the bastards were gone, Skinner be damned.

After they had stumbled into the lobby of the Ops building and collapsed into the arms of help, Johnny Winger went among the groaning crew...Doc Frost, General Chekwarthy, Deeno, Reaves, Tallant, Major Sheehan...to see about injuries. Deeno was the worst...her face was badly bruised and she had severe skin lacerations around her neck and shoulders. She was lucky the mechs hadn't penetrated deeper. All the same, the medics now circulating would do a thorough check on all of them. With a swarm like this, you couldn't be too careful.

Winger went back outside, yanked off his hypersuit helmet and gulped in tons and tons of warm, salty night-time Singapore air.

It was better than ice cream on a hot summer day.

Across the quadrangle, the HERF guns had finally stopped. The silence was deafening. Now that the buffeting and the sonic pulses and the high keening wail of nanomech hell had died off, he began to relax. From somewhere far off in the distant port, a ship's horn bleeted.

That's when the quantum coupler link burped, startling him, and ANAD suddenly turned up, hovering in an invisible cloud over the grass a hundred yards away.

***Hey, Boss...is that you?***

The post-mortem on the incident came the next day. Inside the Ops command center, Major Kraft was vidlinked in from Table Top. General Chekwarthy was none the worse for wear, though Doc Frost had a few nanoderm patches working on his face, knitting skin tissue back together from the swarm attack.

"It was an ANAD clone," Frost was saying, as he clicked through some imager views of captured mechs and pieces of mechs. "You can see that from the basic architecture...same platform design, same effector geometry."

"Resident inside Skinner?" Kraft's face was a picture of disbelief. "To what purpose? We've just recently let Winger here host a master assembler in a containment capsule. You're telling me this guy was infested with the buggers?"

"He was," Frost insisted. "And to answer your question as to purpose, we have to ask the subject himself." Frost pressed a few buttons and one of the displays lit up with a short video of Skinner sitting up in bed, answering a few questions. "Had a short chat with this gent a few hours ago...as you can see, he's pretty beat up. The fall off that cliff didn't help his looks...but the nanoderm will put that right over time." Frost finagled with the imagery, found what he was looking for and ran it.

"We call 'em haloes," Skinner was saying, in a low voice. He winced involuntarily, shuddering as if he were about to be smacked in the face. But nothing happened.

Frost's voice was soothing. "It's all right. We've got the swarm under control. Mostly, you're clear...and the residual mechs are being hunted down now."

Skinner wrapped his arms around his shoulders, as if he were cold. "To join Red Hammer, you have to be altered, you have to let them do it."

Frost was studying some kind of chart on the video. "And it works in your limbic system, the ventral tegmentum?"

Skinner nodded glumly. "Basically, yes..."

The video went on for a few minutes, Skinner sipping some kind of liquid as Frost asked questions and examined him.

Doc Frost summarized the results for the briefing. "My interview corroborates the memory tracing done yesterday...done prior to the attack. Skinner calls these mechs his 'halo'...in effect, they're relatively simple ANAD clones, but souped up, as Johnny would say. They're optimized to replicate fast so they can swarm and build up mass in a hurry. Masterful engineering, I might add."

"That explains why ANAD was swamped," Winger said. He patted his left shoulder, feeling through his uniform the lip of the capsule. ANAD wasn't there—he knew that. The little assembler was in containment being checked out and having new effectors regenerated. It was routine PM after a major engagement. Still, Johnny was comforted knowing his buddy was in good hands. "He couldn't keep up—"

"Not with this kind of device," Frost agreed.

Chekwarthy brusquely cut off the chatter. "What about the intel? You've got memory traces now, corroborated with verbals. So Skinner's from Red Hammer...what can he give us? What does he know about the atmospheric swarms that keep tripping BioShield?"

Frost shrugged. "He was a swarm control tech on an island in the Pacific...we've triangulated to somewhere in the Marquesas chain, from where he was picked up. He wanted out, but he couldn't beat the halo. But he knew something about how they worked...he told me about it this morning. The halo 'bots aren't effective when the brain is near death...there are chemical reactions, molecules, that damage them, when the brain's about to shut down. So he worked up a plan to bring himself as close to death as he could, then injected himself with another mech-- a respirocyte he called it—that would make oxygen and keep him alive underwater. That's where the Corps found him two days ago...floating seventy–two miles from the nearest land, an island called Kurabantu. So far, General, everything has checked out."

Kraft spoke up through the vidlink. "What about the Amazon swarms? What are they doing...is it Red Hammer behind the attacks?"

Doc Frost took a deep breath. "The evidence, so far as I can determine from the traces, and my talk with him, is vague. Understand, Major, there are still residual halo 'bots inside his head. He may not be able to talk much more...these 'bots could easily kill a man in minutes...just by tissue damage alone."

Chekwarthy was dubious. "Just how much of this tracing can we believe, Doctor Frost? How reliable is this technique? I've got two Detachments of nano-troopers ready to go and I need intelligence I can act on...where the enemy is, in what strength, what defenses."

Frost was thoughtful. "Ah, General, now you've found the basic conundrum here. It's true that ANAD can sniff out trails of high glutamate concentration and we can reconstruct what laid down those trails. It's also just as true that assemblers like these halo 'bots can just as easily lay down trails of glutamate molecules themselves, without any underlying stimulus having caused them."

Chekwarthy's eyes widened. "Are you saying these...bugs, halo 'bots, whatever you call them...can trick ANAD? That these trails of molecules might not be real?"

"An unfortunate fact, but true," Frost admitted. "Oh, the trails themselves are real enough. But what caused them.... At this point, I'm not prepared to offer an opinion as to how factual these memory traces really are...not until I've had a chance to study the 'bots more closely."

"Then you're saying we can't trust what Skinner tells us," Winger said. "Or even what ANAD has detected."

"Couldn't we probe again, more deeply this time?" Kraft asked from Table Top.

Frost shook his head. "Sadly, I wouldn't advise it. As I said, there are still residual halo 'bots inside the man. Any more efforts to probe will be resisted, I'm sure...we've barely got him stabilized as it is. We could wind up killing him."

Chekwarthy got up and slammed a fist on the console. "This is completely unacceptable! We have an intelligence source of the first rank and we still don't know what's real and what isn't. For all you know, Doctor, every trace ANAD did could be artificial."

"A distinct possibility," Frost admitted, chewing on his lower lip.

Kraft cut in. "General if I may..."

Chekwarthy was shaking his head. "Go ahead, Major—"

Kraft shuffled through some notes, his face momentarily disappearing from the screen. He quickly came back. "Quantum Corps and 1st Nano have a mandate from UNIFORCE to investigate these atmospheric changes. Good source or not, we don't have much choice, General. We have to act on the intelligence we have."

Chekwarthy considered that. He knew Kraft was right...the battalion commander had a first-rate reputation in the Corps as a strategist and leader. "I know that, Major...I'm aware of that. It's just that I don't like sending detachments into ambushes. For all we know, this Skinner fellow could be a plant, a disinformation source. Look at it: he shows up suddenly in the middle of the ocean with just enough information to send us sniffing to the ends of the earth. Now Frost tells me we can't necessarily believe a thing he's said, that even his memories might be cooked."

"With all due respects, sir," Kraft was saying, "intel sources are like that. We need corroboration and we need to be careful." Kraft's face hardened, visible even over the vidlink. "We also need to deploy...now. Engage the enemy and get a little intel on our own."

Chekwarthy nodded. "You're right, of course. It's just that...my God, we can't even believe what a man has stored in his own memory. What can we believe?"

"What we can see and touch and smell ourselves, sir," Winger said.

Chekwarthy held up his hands. "I know when I'm wrong, gentlemen. I surrender...because I know you're right. We've got a mission from UNIFORCE." He turned to Winger. "Get to it, son."

Winger saluted. "Yes, sir...I'll have my Detachment ready to deploy within the hour, sir---" He left the briefing and dashed double-time over to Mission Prep, a secondary building adjoining Ops on one side and the Ordnance bunker on the other.

Dana Tallant was in the ready room, going over gear that had been laid out on tables, while her CC2 read from a list. She looked up when Winger suddenly appeared.

"Wings, what's the word...are we on or off?"

Winger came in. "Chekwarthy's cutting the orders now. We're on...both of us. Two detachments."

Tallant whistled. "Both of us....can the world handle two champion atomgrabbers at once?"

Winger smirked, ignoring the jab. "We both know who the champ is, Captain Tallant. Let me see your list—" He took the equipment listpad and checked off the gear they would need...standard issue for each twelve-man ANAD Detachment in the field:

HERF Guns (2)

Magpulsers (12)

Coilgun 'bots (4) with programmable kinetic rounds (24 each)

Squad server

Personal Data System (12)

Hypersuits (12)

Containment Pod (1)

Super-Fly units (6)

Camou-fog Generator (1)

MOB (Mobility Obstruction Barrier) Canisters (4)

ANAD Master Replicant (1)

IC (Interface Control System) (1)

"By the way—" Tallant was reading over his shoulder, "—where the hell is the little guy anyway? I heard Doc Frost had him back in Containment, running tests. Those halo 'bots give him a migraine or something?"

Winger had already beamed the list to a pickbot in Stores, who would draw and assemble the Detachment's gear and lay it out for pickup on the tables. "Doc just wants to make sure he's fully functional...duking it out with Skinner's halo was a meatgrinder for him...even his core took a beating."

Tallant smirked. "I'm jealous, Wings. You've always got your eyes on that little bugger...instead of me. What's a girl gotta do to be noticed?"

The pickbot rolled up and Winger signed off for the first draw...two coilgun 'bots, field-portable. Stores was adjacent to the Ready Room and Winger and Tallant had both called for pre-mission briefings at 2230 hours. Chekwarthy's orders were expected at any moment and they could both hear the whine of hyperjet engines warming up out on the runway.

Winger shrugged. "Maybe replicate your complete structure like a hundred and twenty times a minute, for starters. Dana, you're a bedsore on my ass...at least, ANAD doesn't think he's king of the hill all the time. He's got a hell of lot better sense of where he belongs."

Tallant snorted, squirted her list to the pickbot too. It scuttled off into the vast warren of Stores to start drawing gear. "Hey, listen up, wiseguy...just because you've got that fancy schmancy capsule in your shoulder doesn't make you Emperor of the Universe. I happen to know the whole Battalion's slated to get implants too...before you know it, we'll all be walking containment pods—" she slashed an imaginary broadsword across Winger's face—Dana Tallant loved old dragon westerns—"fighting for truth, justice and the UNIFORCE way. So don't be such a snot....Captain Winger...you may have an ANAD in your shoulder, but I've got the looks and the brains. Me...when I get my capsule, I'm putting in for a souped-up power cell, all the gizmos a kickass 'bot like ANAD really needs."

"Dream on, kid...I'll be grabbing atoms while you're still--" Winger remarked, but he was interrupted by a commotion at the Ready Room entrance. It was Deeno D'Nunzio and Ozzie Tsukota, Alpha Detachment's quantum engineers. Tsukota was lugging a backpack, while Deeno trash-talked her way through a gathering of troopers. A few hours with the nanoderm patches had reduced her facial lacerations to dull bruises.

"Got your little buddy right here, Skipper," she announced. Tsukota came up and a flurry of hands helped him doff the pack. It was a mobile containment cylinder. Inside was ANAD, the master now fully regenerated and checked out.

"Doc Frost says he good to go," Tsukota announced. "He's getting a little antsy, too...told us both he wanted to go home—" the CQE2 pointed to Winger's shoulder. "Your garage ready to park the car?"

Winger shrugged off his black T-shirt and exposed the metal lip of the capsule, looking like an open mouth behind his right shoulder. Doc Frost had taught him how to shake his shoulders just so, to set the capsule for ANAD's entry. A quick toss of his shoulder made the capsule ready to receive the tiny assembler, setting its fluid medium properly in pH, temperature and concentration. "Open sesame, Ozzie...let him fly—"

Tsukota finagled with the port of the cylinder and pressed several keys on the small keyboard at the top, signaling ANAD to be ready. A row of lights flashed green.

"ANAD reports ready, Skipper—here goes."

A quick turn of the topscrew and a tiny whoosh escaped the mouth of the cylinder. For a brief second, as the Ready Room troopers gathered around, the cylinder was surrounded by a shimmering pulse, like a tiny rainbow as the assembler transited into the air. The rainbow throbbed, then like a living, breathing thing, then arrowed toward Johnny Winger's shoulder. ANAD swooped through air molecules at blazing speed on picowatt propulsors, leaving an ionization trail like dust motes catching sunlight.

Entry into the capsule stung like a bee for a moment, then it was over. There was an audible click as the capsule port snapped shut and the assembler was nestled securely in containment two inches below Winger's clavicle bone. The shimmer in the air died off and the troopers stared at each other and just shook their heads.

"Ain't never seen anything like it before, Captain...not like that," said a muscular sergeant named Kurtz. "Does it hurt?"

"Not the least...just like a bee sting, but it's over before you know it." He patted his shoulder, absent-mindedly rubbing the hard lip of the capsule port. "Feels...I don't know-- right, somehow. Like I was missing something and now I got it back. Like an arm or something."

"Friggin weird', if you ask me," said Angelo, the Cuban interface controller. "Loco, that's what I call it."

Dana Tallant scowled at all the attention Winger was getting. "We're all getting it, bozo. Didn't you see the report...Corps' springing for the whole Battalion to be equipped...by the end of next year." She leveled an even gaze at Winger. "Not bad in a Ready Room like this...but what about combat, atomgrabber? You think you'll have enough time to pull off that stunt when the enemy's fragging your position and pickle rounds are whizzing by your head?"

Winger was waving his impromptu audience off. "I guess we'll see about that, Dana. That's why the capsule's an experiment...can a nanotrooper be augmented and do his duty better?"

"Yeah, well I hope you like being a lab rat, Wings. Me, I got a mission to do—"

A chime in her earclip interrupted and Tallant bent her ear to listen in. Winger's had gone off too. It was Chekwarthy's voice, the orders they had been waiting for. The General's voice was followed momentarily by a scroll of instructions and details on their retinal clips.

It was just like Winger had heard...two missions and two detachments, ANAD Alpha and ANAD Bravo. Winger would command Alpha, Tallant would honcho Bravo Detachment.

"Jesus..." whispered Tallant as she read the scrolling details. "...Kura...Kurabantu, whatever, island...the Pacific...Marquesas chain...you are to make forced insertion and conduct surveillance of the island...you are to engage Red Hammer facilities and forces previously detected by satellite and determine nature of the operations...you are to disable and render inoperable any facilities or forces involved in atmospheric modifications and hold position until reinforced—" Tallant whistled at the scope of the mission. "UNIFORCE doesn't want much, do they?"

Winger read his own retinal scroll. Via Verde, Valencia...insertion by lifter at latitude...longitude...upper reaches of Yemanha River...make your way on foot to coordinates...engage any facilities or forces involved in...

"This one's serious, Dana," he decided.

Both detachments had similar missions: investigate the phenomena described by Dr. del Compo in the briefing and sensed by BioShield patrol nanobots in the atmosphere. Something--some device or process, probably man-made and probably started by Red Hammer—was changing the Earth's atmosphere, breaking down oxygen and nitrogen, building different constituents and compounds. The air was becoming toxic, unbreathable. And it was spreading. People had died, and more might die if the changes weren't stopped.

Whatever it was, UNIFORCE had tasked Quantum Corps to find out...and stop it.

Two hyperjets lifted off from Singapore base before 2300 hours that night, each bearing a full ANAD Detachment. Both headed east, making suborbital hops across the top of the atmosphere. Hyperjet Charioteer headed toward a small coral atoll in the Marquesas Islands. The second aircraft, hyperjet Mercury, headed further east, toward the Republic of Valencia.

Johnny Winger couldn't sack out and spent most of the trip to South America staring out a tiny porthole in the aft compartment at thin wispy stratospheric clouds below them. Charioteer routinely climbed above a hundred miles altitude on her quick jumps around the globe...above ninety-nine percent of the atmosphere.

Winger wondered. What the hell was happening down there...what was happening to disturb the Earth's atmosphere on such a scale?

Even ANAD himself was unnaturally quiet, as if the tiny assembler were deep in thought, or what passed for thought in the quantum processor core of an artificial sentience sixty nanometers tall.

Winger found the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Del Compo was certain the source of the disturbance was an illegal nanobotic reservoir operating in violation of BioShield.

If Red Hammer was behind the disturbances, were the 'bots like the ones that had infested Skinner? ANAD had fared none too well in that engagement. What kind of tricks did the criminal cartel have in store for them this time? Would the two of them be up to the mission?

Just keep me from screwing up, Winger prayed silently.

***Me too*** came a thin 'voice' from the back of his mind.

Winger smiled, now aware that ANAD was linked in and listening, but he said nothing in reply. What was there to say?

He returned to his bunk and tried to rest, but sleep just wouldn't come. An uneasy premonition had settled over him like an unwanted memory. He just couldn't shake it and it stayed with him the whole trip across the Pacific.
CHAPTER 4

Kurabantu Island, the Marquesas

South Pacific

October 30, 2068

Early morning...

From the air, Kurabantu Island looked like a mouth. Or a big claw, thought Dana Tallant, as Charioteer orbited the coral atoll at ten thousand feet. And about to bite our asses, if we're not careful, she added. She hoisted herself up, letting the suit servos propel her upright as she shuffled through the compartment to the lifter bay. A gravelly voice sounded over the loudspeaker.

"ANAD Detachment lay aft to the lifter bay on the double. Insert point coming up—launch in five minutes—"

Captain Dana Tallant was a by-the-book commander, unlike Johnny Winger, who tended, or so she thought, to fly past the rules by the seat of his pants a bit too often. Doctrine said that when you made a forced entry into Indian country, you did it with full packs, hypersuits, weapons enabled and SuperFly watching your six...just to be sure. And that was precisely what Dana Tallant intended to do.

She swore under her breath however, every time they had to do more than walk two feet in the blasted hypersuits. It was like living inside a garbage can, with all the maneuverability of a bulldozer, though the suits were lifesavers in the event the unit got swarmed.

"Come on...come on, ya'll move like old ladies —" Tallant griped as Bravo Detachment boarded the lifter for the descent to the island.

Sergeant Jeffery Collin was her CC2, the backup command rating, and a helluva gorgeous muscle monkey in the gym. Collin's suit motors whirred and vibrated as he throttled the leg actuators forward as far as they would go.

"I'm tryin', Captain...I'm tryin', but this tin can won't move any faster."

"Yeah, Skipper," said Sergeant Samoya, their senior DPS tech. "—can't we 'chute these things down and go in like civilized people?"

Tallant nixed that. "You can when the enemy starts acting civilized. Okay, troops...saddle up and climb aboard. This train's about to leave the station."

The lifter was an articulating jet-rotor ship with enough legs to look like a flying spider. The Detachment strapped in and moments later, the launch table spun and slung the lifter out the back of Charioteer, which zoomed off to establish itself in a safe orbit ten thousand feet over the island.

The lifter scuttled through the air on its own jets, and arced like a hungry spider sensing food through choppy early morning thunderclouds, breaking out into blinding shafts of dawn sunlight over the lagoon that formed the center of the island's claw.

"The Island of Dr. Moreau," someone muttered behind Tallant. The commander of Bravo Detachment snorted. You may be more right than you think, she thought.

The lifter settled down on a small beach overlooking the lagoon. Tallant got on the crewnet and barked out orders.

"Bravo Detachment, fall out! This is a Level One insertion--opposed entry...DPS, get SuperFly up and sniffing around. Is ANAD enabled for launch?"

Sergeant Joey Mwate was CEC1 for the unit. He was a lanky Nigerian engineer, a newcomer to the Corps and fresh out of nog school. Since nobody in Bravo had the implant like Johnny Winger, the ANAD master was transported in a mobile containment cell, a small cylindrical TinyTown. Mwate wore the unit on a backpack frame.

"ANAD reports ready in all respects, Captain."

"Very well..." Tallant stepped out of the rear hatch of the lifter and plunked her hypersuit boots into the wet sand. "Keep your eyes and ears open, folks. Who knows what we might run into down here." Tactical doctrine called for proper protection any time an ANAD detachment went into unfriendly terrain.

The Detachment debarked and organized itself into formation. Tallant hand-signaled for the rest of their gear to be off-loaded. The lifter squatted down to accommodate the process. It looked for all the world like a fat mosquito, its articulating landing skids retracted to ground level for unloading.

Kurabantu Island lagoon shone turquoise and blue in the early morning sunlight, surrounded on three sides by dense jungle vine and wiry stands of pandanus and screw pine. Through the branches to the northwest, the misty peak of the central volcano—Tuontavik, it was called—poked above a ring of clouds. Most of the island was rocky valleys filled with choking undergrowth. Limestone cliffs ringed the northern flanks of the island. It was from those cliffs, so the debriefing said, that the Red Hammer agent Skinner had jumped.

Tallant studied the feed on her helmet eyepiece. Nothing from Superfly...yet. The sooner they got ANAD up and launched, the better.

"What about the atmosphere?" Tallant asked. "Any disturbances...perturbations nearby?"

Corporal Eric Richter was SDC1, in charge of stealth and defensive countermeasures. He was a lean, hard-edged, red-haired kid, and he ran a small fleet of chem sniffers that had just gone airborne. "Minor fluctuations, Captain, that's all for the moment. Oxygen levels down ten percent, actually dropping even as I speak. Nitrogen's good, but CO2 is up over a thousand parts per million...that's about three or four times normal. We need to stay in our suits."

"Hell we're in the middle of a jungle, Red," said Tech Sergeant Claudia Rialto, their CQE1. "We ought to be drowning in carbon dioxide with all these plants and trees and vines."

"I already adjusted for that...Sniffo says this is different."

Tallant was supervising equipment setup and corralling everybody into formation. "Any bearing on a source?"

"Negative, Captain....pretty amorphous right now—it's everywhere."

"Fly's picking up something, Captain," It was Sergeant Samoya, their DPS1. "Just now...heat source...a local thermal bloom and it's not the weather. Bearing two six oh degrees, almost due west. Through that patch of trees right there." He pointed to an opening across the water.

"Airborne, DPS? Or ground source?"

"Hard to tell, Captain...'Fly's heading over there now. My read is the thing's probably airborne."

Tallant felt the tingle of a cold sweat inside her hypersuit. "Okay, everybody button up. Joey...launch ANAD. Full rep...full effectors. Let's get some teeth into the air."

Even as Joey Mwate complied, a loud screech sounded across the lagoon. Tallant looked up in time to see a flight of collugoes gliding across the beach above them, webbed and menacing, gliding from tree to tree. There were soon dozens of them soaring overhead, their translucent bat wings nearly invisible in the sun.

She shuddered at the sight.

"Flying lemurs," Mwate explained, as he readied ANAD for launch. "We have something like them in Nigeria back home. They can glide for hundreds of feet, just like that."

"Samoya, was that your heat source?"

The DPS tech wasn't sure. "I don't think so, Captain...I'm still getting something

from 'Fly...and it's getting bigger."

There was an audible whoosh as the ANAD master exited the containment cell and into the humid morning air. Moments later, an expanding ball of light speckled and blossomed into view, as ANAD tore atoms from the air and replicated itself rapidly. Soon, a shimmering cloud formed over the lagoon, as the swarm ballooned outward, forming a defense barrier around the detachment.

At that same moment, the first fat drops of a tropical downpour splatted into the lagoon.

"Here it comes!" said Samoya. He was glad, for once, to be encased in the laminated armor of the hypersuit, even though footing rapidly became treacherous in the wet sand.

"Head for the trees!" said Tallant. "That'll give us some cover. Samoya, best bearing to the heat source—"

"Now two five oh degrees, Captain...and its expanding too. No longer a point source. Whatever it is, it's getting bigger...and coming this way."

A reception committee, Tallant thought, as she slogged forward, revving up her leg servos to gain better traction in the beach sand. The tree line was sixty yards away, said her ranging beam. She remembered how Johnny Winger and ANAD had triggered off a thunderstorm at the Hunt Valley range, and how it had shredded her own defense swarm in the wargame.

As the detachment headed for cover in the forest, Tallant knew she didn't want that to happen again. "Jeff, let's get ANAD tightened up 'til we get deeper in the forest. I don't like the looks of this rain."

"Hunt Valley all over again, huh, Captain? I had the same thought."

The senior interface controller was Sergeant Chen Liu, a slightly built, gnomish Chinese national. As IC1, it was his job to run the ANAD formation and drive the assembler through its paces, even in combat.

"Chen, bring ANAD down to ground level...contract the swarm and have it form up in a minimum radius. I don't want any trouble from this rain."

Liu complied, sending the commands through his acoustic link with the master. "ANAD re-deploying, Captain....minimum swarm." Training and doctrine had given them plenty of practice at this maneuver, where the swarm compacted itself to a shimmering ball of light barely two feet across.

They made the tree line and plunged into the dense cover of the jungle. It was dark and thick with brush, long vines of strangler fig and tapang roots making their footing slow and treacherous. The hypersuits both helped and hurt in the jungle. The boosted exo-skeletons had the raw power to smash through steel buildings, if needed. But they were cumbersome and slow, though the protection was surely welcome in the mosquito-infested, drenching humidity and rain of Kurabantu's marshy woodlands.

The unit slogged and hacked forward for a few minutes, grunting and sweating even in their ceramic cocoons. The pulsating, flickering sphere of the ANAD swarm followed along, bending and flowing around trees and stumps like an unearthly fog.

It was Samoya who sounded the alarm first.

"Captain...dead ahead...'Fly's right on it...expanding thermal....it's a swarm all right and a big one...I got thermals all over the place, every bearing, expanding fast, rolling this way—"

Tallant was almost relieved to engage the enemy...waiting and probing and not knowing was the worst part of these missions.

"Okay, troops, this is it...spread out and make sure you're buttoned up! Chen, kick start ANAD and let's get in the game!"

"I'm on it, Captain," said Liu. He fingered a few keys on his wristpad, sending new commands to the swarm. In seconds, the ANAD formation erupted like a miniature nova, swelling through the trees and the canopy of limbs and leaves like a slow-motion explosion. "Porting acoustic link to your viewer, Captain—"

"Acknowledged—" Tallant came back. She wondered briefly if Johnny Winger was right. Maybe implants and coupling was the way to go...you could get ANAD launched and ready for action a lot faster. But for now, she'd have to do it the old fashioned way.

The collision, when it came, was a noiseless seam of light speckles, like a streamer of light cutting through the trees. Rain pounded down on top of the jungle canopy, but little of the shower made it to the ground. In the twilight gloom of the forest, Tallant and her Detachment saw only the lights, flickers and flashes and iridescent sparkles as the two armies collided overhead.

The acoustic view wasn't much better but Tallant wanted to get a glimpse of the enemy 'bots. Maybe it was a config she'd recognize...they'd done assembler recognition drills all the way from Singapore base.

She deployed the Detachment in tighter to give ANAD a smaller perimeter to defend. On her eyepiece imager, the first grainy view of the enemy mechs materialized. It was like squinting through a sleet storm, as weird shapes and polygons and snaking chains of molecules whipped by. She changed the perspective. "Drive in closer," she ordered Chen Liu, who was manipulating the assembler master from a small joystick on his wristpad. "I want to get a closer look—"

As crackles of light exploded all around them among the trees, Liu piloted ANAD in for a better look. Sure enough, an enemy mech hove into view, bristling with peptide chains and carbene grabbers, a small icosahedral sphere festooned with tools. Its propulsors churned in a blur as it maneuvered to grapple with ANAD.

"I'm sounding now, Captain," said Liu. He sent acoustic pulses at the mech, reading off distance and config, letting ANAD's computer calculate likely weak points. "Bond energy maps not showing much...maybe up top, where those phosphates are jiggling...I might be able to punch through there."

Even as he spoke, ANAD was quickly surrounded by more of the mechs, gathering for the kill.

"Bugger replicates like hell," said Claudia Rialto. The CQE1 was hunkered down beside a huge tree root, watching the show on her own eyepiece, while she fiddled with the commo link to Charioteer still orbiting overhead. "Snip...snap and shazzam! It's like the bastard's optimized to replicate."

And it was true. Even as they watched, the tiny ANAD force was enveloped by a swarm of mechs, all gyrating and throbbing, circling like hungry sharks nosing in for the kill.

"Chen—"

"I see 'em, Captain..." Liu toggled his own rep command and ANAD blurred, as it grabbed atoms and churned up a froth, dividing and multiplying structure as fast as it could. "I've simplified config—dropped off a few chains, so ANAD can keep up."

"Keep at it, Chen," Tallant told him. "Ten to one this ain't the main show. Probably just guard 'bots, keeping nosy visitors like us away." She checked their position, scanning around with her helmet sensors.

The Detachment was deep in a tangled mass of jungle vine, more or less sheltered from the torrential downpour that made visibility back across the lagoon impossible. Even the lifter was nearly invisible. Hope she's buttoned up, Tallant muttered to herself. That's our ticket home from this hellhole. Chen Liu was on point, driving the ANAD master into the enemy swarm, which crackled and sizzled in the air over their heads like frying bacon. The rest of the Detachment was defiladed among the trees and roots of the jungle floor, wherever shelter could be found: Jeff Collin was right on her tail, following Chen's config changes closely, ready to butt in if he stumbled, or got swarmed. So far, ANAD's barrier over the detachment had held, but you couldn't be too careful. One breach and they'd be in a world of trouble fast.

"I'm going for the phosphate link on top," Chen announced. "Nothing else to hit. I need a burst of HERF, Captain. Slam 'em a few times and that'll give ANAD a better chance to close and engage. Priming electron lens, activating enzymatic knife now—"

Tallant agreed. It was all by the book. That's the way she'd trained them: hard and straight-up. None of this quantum collapse and fancy maneuvering for her. She'd leave the hotshotting to Johnny Winger. Close-quarters combat in nano-war: you probed and feinted like a wary boxer, getting structure on your opponent, looking for a weakness, looking for a way in. Then when you had 'em mesmerized, you slammed with RF and stunned the bastards long enough to close and bash the bejeezus out of them. Hold 'em by the nose and kick 'em in the ass. And snatch off a few polypeptide chains while you were at it.

A strong gust of wind slashed through the trees, blowing rain squalls into the jungle and Tallant ducked her helmet down, letting the dirt and leaves fly past. The rain was annoying and potentially a threat to ANAD, but beneath the dense canopy, the jungle floor was mostly dry, as dry as it ever got, covered with moss and mulch and decaying branches. With any luck, Chen would smash this force right here and they could be on their way.

Recon from Charioteer had said the source of the perturbations was deeper in the jungle, in the direction of the cliffs that terraced up to the summit of the big volcano. She checked their locations, just a couple hundred meters inland from the lagoon beach, and their bearing. Once the guard 'bots were beaten off, the Detachment would have to head almost due west—two six zero degrees, over rising terrain—to reach the source. Richter was still in touch with his sniffers.

Tallant peered over her eyepiece, looking outside her helmet. The rain was beginning to penetrate the clearing but through the trees, nano-combat was in full swing. Heavy limbs sagged with the growing weight of raindrops but in between them, like fireflies in a fight, ANAD and the enemy 'bots grappled. Flickers of light popped in and out of view, then erupted into chains and whirls and jagged seams of fluorescence.

Like silent lightning, Tallant had always thought, watching assemblers beat each other's brains out. Like miniature lightning strikes, as uncountable zillions of mechs stripped atoms from each other, liberating millions of electron volts, ionizing air molecules into visible radiance for a brief second. As the rain pelted down, it was hard to believe a furious battle was unfolding all around them, on a battlefield the size of atoms. The entire engagement could have been held inside a thimble.

"It's working! Chen Liu exulted, pumping his fist in the air. His suit servos complied with the command. "ANAD's got 'em on the run—phosphates all over the place...he's ripping them apart!"

"Kick atomic ass!" yelled Samoya, manning the HERF gun.

"Give 'em a blast!" Tallant commanded. "Slam 'em, Sammy! Full bore!"

Samoya primed the radio pulse weapon. "Charging...charging...charging...weapon is now enabled...here she goes!!"

A thunderclap bolted through the trees and a hot wave of RF energy washed over them. In the monsoon, the sound seemed appropriate but it wasn't a discharge from the sky.

"Again--!" Tallant told him.

Samoya primed the weapon. "NOW!"

Another thunderclap and rolling wave of heat. Tallant buried herself into the muck of the jungle floor, let her suit servos keep her level and closed her eyes. When the wave was past, she checked her eyepiece. It looked like Dante's Inferno.

A blizzard of atomic debris streamed past the acoustic image.

"How's ANAD?" she asked. They couldn't slap the assembler with RF too often or the tiny fellow would be lost. But he was sturdy enough to withstand a short barrage and the radio waves always shredded enemy swarms, stunning the 'bots into a stupor long enough for ANAD to finish them off.

"Still holding on," Liu announced. He checked parameters, keyed a few buttons. "Still got a signal...still got a master. I'm probing...sounding...but I'm not seeing much. The bad guys are on the run."

Tallant knew they couldn't waste any more time. "Command barrier down, Chen. Let's get moving."

"Captain," it was Collin lifting himself upright behind her, "there's still pockets of resistance around here. Is that smart?"

Tallant got up too. "Maybe, maybe not...but the worst of the swarm's gone. We'll have to chance it. We've still got a mission...and our objective is—" she scanned around for the SDC1. "Richter--?"

"I'm on it, Captain. Sniffers are high and still sending...still two five zero degrees." The trooper was twenty meters away, halfway up a massive screw pine tree on hypersuit boost, homing on the signal. "Reading massive fluctuations in air quality up toward the volcano."

"Okay, Detachment...move out! Tactical two...keep together. Chen...moving barrier...minimum radius. We can take a few hits...just keep a full swarm off us."

"Copy that, Captain." Chen Liu signaled ANAD to disengage and form up into a mobile screen ahead of and overhead of the detachment.

Single file, they moved out, away from the clearing, deeper into the jungle of Kurabantu.

And Dana Tallant wondered what else this hellhole had in store for them.

Climbing a steeply pitched path through thick brush, Bravo Detachment was grateful they had their hypersuits, even though it was like walking inside a garbage can. At times, the vine became so thick, that Tallant told Chen Liu to separate part of the ANAD swarm for clearing operations. The tiny assembler became a small horde of disassemblers, chewing a narrow path through the ropy vine. It slowed them down a bit, but the going became easier after ANAD had set to work.

Richter monitored the air as they climbed. Soon enough, the terrain had risen to nearly the height of the tree top canopy. Ahead lay the lush foliage and steep escarpment of Tuontavik itself. Above a ring of mist at the summit, plumes of smoke belched into the sky. All around them, a sea of green extended to the horizon.

"Captain..." it was Samoya, just behind Richter up front. "Superfly's sending something...I'm enhancing now. I'll put it on the crewnet, visible wavelengths—"

Throughout the Detachment, everyone's eyepiece focused into view, looking over the tops of the trees at the base of the volcano. A faint shimmer flickered from the base.

"A fire?" somebody asked.

"In this rain...are you nuts?"

"That's no fire," said Chen Liu. "It's another swarm...and there seems to be a cave at the base of the mountain."

Tallant called a halt to the march. "Dig in and spread out. Chen, detach part of our ANAD group and send them over. "Let's see what's cooking."

The Detachment halted and the troopers let their hypersuits lower them into defilade position, spread out in a semi-circle and hunkered down in the brush. It was open ground from there to the base of the volcano, except for the thick stands of wiry grass. Samoya signaled Superfly to close in for a better look. Ahead of them several hundred meters, the tiny entomopters, not much bigger than houseflies, wheeled about in unison and formed up over the target, sending back imagery to Samoya. The DPS tech ported the imagery straight away to the crewnet so everyone could see.

"I'm detaching a recon element," Liu announced. He ripped off a few commands on his wristpad. Overhead, unseen but as commanded, a small part of the ANAD swarm that had been flying top cover over them pulled away and sped off toward the shimmering glow at high speed. "It'll take about ten minutes," the IC1 announced. ANAD ran on picowatt propulsors, churning like flagella in the air, but their power output was low. At best, the assembler could make about five thousand nanometers a second.

Sergeant Collin was curious, studying the image on his own eyepiece. "What do you make of that, Skipper?"

Tallant shrugged, invisible in her hypersuit. She could switch her eyepiece image from Superfly to an acoustic or EM image from ANAD with a flick of her tongue on the control stud inside her helmet. "It's a shield of some type, that's what I make of it. Whoever or whatever's inside, they've got protection. ANAD'll tell us what we're dealing with." By the book, she told herself. Scout the enemy and know what you're up against. "Richter, what about the air around here? Any changes?"

"Big changes, Captain...I just saw it myself..." Richter was in control of a small horde of sniffer 'bots circling overhead, nearly invisible motes no bigger than particles of dust, tasting the air for toxic compounds, measuring pressure and temperature. "Sniffos are having a time in this rain—" The downpour had slacked off to a steady drumming of big, wet drops. "—but oxygen's way down, less than five percent partial pressure. Nitrogen's fluctuating, plus there's all kinds of weird trace elements—fluorine, helium, it doesn't make any sense, Captain...there's no obvious source. Even the ground pressure's going up and down like a cork in the ocean...I don't get it."

"Could be the volcano belching," Collin suggested. "Burning off stuff that's been piped up from deep underground."

"Maybe," said Tallant, but she wasn't buying it. "BioShield said it didn't look like a natural process. Signatures don't conform. Eric, can you tell if the disturbances center on that cave?"

Richter did some finagling with his sniffers, checking winds, triangulating fluxes. "That's affirmative, Skipper. Best fix for the source, if there is one, would be right around that cave."

Then that's where we have to go, she muttered to herself. Trouble was, the book didn't say anything about this.

"ANAD's got an image—" Liu reported.

Tallant studied the scene on her eyepiece as it materialized and settled down. Switching back and forth from her own eyes, with hypersuit enhancement, to Superfly and then to ANAD's view of the world of atoms and molecules was disorienting, to the say the least. The image was blurry, like looking underwater, though dark shapes were present. "What the hell is it, Chen?"

"Our friends from the lagoon...same 'bots, looks like. Formed up into a barrier around the mouth of that cave."

"Okay...let's get ANAD ready for assault. We know what we have to do. Tony, get your HERF gun spooled up too. We'll slam 'em with RF, then storm the cave entrance with ANAD. Detachment, on my command, advance—"

She gave the word and in unison, twelve hypersuits boosted their wearers into assault position. The detachment advanced in tactical formation, crouching through the thick, wiry grass, mag guns ready.

Overhead, the full ANAD swarm was already replicating, flashing through the rain like silent lightning as the assemblers grabbed atoms furiously. Under Chen's guidance, the swarm worked its way across the plateau and fell upon the barrier mechs at the cave with planned ferocity.

"Okay, DPS...let 'em have it! Three pulses...then we go in!"

Samoya had already sighted the HERF weapon in.

"Charging...charging...weapon is enabled....firing NOW!"

A searing thunderclap of heat rolled through the grass and boomed off the flanks of the volcano. A hundred meters ahead, the barrier around the cave suddenly collapsed in a shower of sparks, before flowing along the base of the mountain, trying to reconstitute itself in another location.

But Samoya was wise to the move and fired the HERF gun again, several more times, spraying RF waves off the sides of the volcano.

"ANAD's going in!" Liu yelled. "Config one...full effectors...bond disrupters ready—"

"We got the bugs on the run!" someone yelled over the net.

"Detachment...move in!" Tallant ordered. She cycled the action on her own magnetic impulse weapon and felt its reassuring heft as her suit servos drove her forward. It wouldn't stop a full swarm for long but it could damage a lot of 'bots...and knock the snot out of any human within three hundred meters.

The hypersuits lunged forward.

That's when the rain became an enemy.

Tech Sergeant Claudia Rialto noticed it first.

"Hey—what the—" Rialto stumbled forward, pitching heavily into the brush, as her suit gyros hiccupped. As she toggled buttons, trying to get the suit upright, she heard something she'd never forget as long as she lived....and that wasn't going to be long, if she didn't get up. A high-pitched, whirring sound, coupled with the unmistakable vibration of something eating away at the laminate armor of the suit outer shell. "Hey...hey!—I got a problem here guys---uh oh--!!"

Samoya dropped the HERF gun into the grass and peeled off from a dead run to see about Rialto. Even from a distance, he was stunned—what he thought was rain wasn't...the rain drops had mutated, changed config, for Christ's sake!...changed into nanobotic mechs and they were rapidly boring into Claudia's suit.

"The rain---look out, it's—"

And Tallant felt it too, the shrill whirring behind her neck. Zillions of 'bots swarming her and her whole Detachment, falling out of the sky as rain, but it was only a disguise...they'd come in and changed config, like Samoya said, and were eating up Bravo Detachment.

And the ANAD swarm was a hundred meters away assaulting the cave.

Tallant put her suit servos at max gain and tried to flail at the bugs but it was no use. She was stunned at the speed of the assault, at how the 'bots had concealed themselves as raindrops, at how the Detachment had been penetrated...at how she hadn't seen it coming—

The swarm fell on the Detachment with a fury and there was no place to hide.

"I can't hold structure!" Rialto yelled over the crewnet. She was trying to writhe and twist inside her suit, rolling like a big ceramic log through the grass, but it was no use. "They're inside...they're...AARRGGHH!—"

It wasn't a pretty sight but no one else saw it. In a few minutes, Tech Sergeant Claudia Rialto had ceased to exist, reduced to elemental atomic fluff and molecular debris. From inside her helmet, the flicker of nanomech hell pulsated then died away.

Collin, Liu, Mwate...everybody was fighting their own battle.

"Sammy...get the HERF--!" Tallant yelled. "Blast 'em to hell and back—"

Sergeant Samoya backpedaled away from Rialto's suit and scrambled on all fours through the grass, kicking faster than his leg servos could fire, crawling, reaching for the weapon. He could hear the high keening whine at his neck and shoulders—just a few more millimeters of laminate—and he'd be food for the bugs just like Claudia—he groped and groped until his gloves found the barrel of the thing.

Antonio Samoya gritted his teeth and ordered his suit to set him upright. With a grinding gnash, it tried to but something failed and the best he could do was knees. Kneeling in the tall grass, Samoya charged the HERF and lit off the weapon—

"Fire in the hole!"

The searing thump and hot wave of air erupted out of the grass, flattening everything within several hundred meters. Tallant felt the clatter of stunned nanomechs raining onto her helmet. Ahead, two hundred and fifty meters away, the cave entrance beckoned. The cave and the ANAD swarm—

"Detachment...move out! Head for that cave! Sammy...fry the bastards again! Set the damn thing on auto—" She knew after about ten pulses, the HERF coils would melt and they'd be defenseless. But if they could just make the cave...and get ANAD back—

"IC1...break off the attack...we got to get ANAD back to cover us—"

Chen Liu was trying to fend off his own swarm. He had somehow managed to stand up, slapping away at the buggers, wobbly and unsteady as the suit gyros stabilized. "I'm trying to, Skipper..." But ANAD was caught in a vise at the cave entrance, battling a barrier shield of dumb sentry 'bots and re-deploying to take on the mutated rain 'bots.

Another thunderclap and Tallant kickstarted her leg servos into high gear. A hot wind gusted across the plateau and swirled like a tornado. With any luck, HERF could give them a few more blasts...just enough cover to make the cave and get behind ANAD's protection.

She didn't hear any more buzzing or whirring; the first pulse must have stunned the bastards.

GO, BABY... GO-GO-GO-GO-GO-GO-GO-GO...

The rest of Bravo Detachment staggered and scrambled and stumbled their way across the grass, dodging HERF blasts, fending off what was left of the rain 'bots. Somewhere behind was Chen Liu, letting his suit slog ahead on full auto, while he drove ANAD from his wristpad.

The rain 'bots---whatever the hell they were—had fully engulfed ANAD.

Chen was breathing hard, gasping for air, even though the suit was doing the work. That's when he realized the 'bots had breached his inner shell...he was fully exposed to the atmosphere around the volcano, the toxic air, the aire viciado...shit...better bust open the emergency supply...

He toggled the e-pack and seconds later, fresh oxygen streamed into his helmet from the emergency pack on his back. He had about ten minutes worth of good air.

Chen Liu let the suit carry him to the cave, keeping up with the Detachment, and went back to his eyepiece. ANAD was in the fight of his life.

No time to replicate now...got to get free...signal daughters...

Chen fired off a burst of instructions to gather all daughters ANAD had replicated going in. It might be too late.

His eyepiece view shook with the collision, then careened sideways. At that moment, the suit legs almost dumped him on his head...the left leg had stumbled across a gully and only quick action and gyro-stabilizing kept him upright. Chen bit his tongue, gritted his teeth. Don't lose it now...don't lose it now. That was the trouble with full auto in a hypersuit. The frontal sensors didn't see everything.

More blasts from the HERF gun, but Chen could tell the thing was giving out. The impulse was getting weaker. Any moment, the rain 'bots would re-assemble.

The cave was still thirty meters ahead, yawning like a jagged mouth with palm fronds for a moustache.

Back to the eyepiece. The imager view was raw acoustic. Whatever ANAD sensed with probes of sound waves, Chen Liu also saw.

The scene vibrated with the ferocity of the attack. What the hell were these nanobots that could masquerade as raindrops and flash down from the skies without warning?

Chen squinted, maxing the gain, studying the enemy close up. Chains of oxygen molecules, pressed into service as makeshift weapons, whipped across the screen. The scene was soon choked with debris.

Got to get in closer...take a look—Chen wanted to see one of the rain 'bots for himself, see what kind of structure it had, what kind of weaknesses. If it had any.

Cautiously, he piloted the ANAD master toward a blurry shape, dimly visible in the sonic view, cutting back propulsors, approaching on a tangent, just to get a quick peek.

All around him, the hypersuit carried him forward, pumping his legs on auto as the cave and cover drew nearer. Though he didn't notice them, what was left of the Detachment scrambled forward with him, stumbling along on both sides.

"Got to check this joker out..." he muttered to himself. Quickly, he signaled ANAD to prime its defensive mechanisms, and slowed the approach to a crawl.

Reconnoiter first. He remembered a line from Sun Tzu, the great nanowarrior of ancient China...

He who is skilled hides in the most secret recesses of the earth.

Under Chen's guidance, ANAD maneuvered among the jostling molecules of chlorine and sodium and potassium. The aire viciado, he realized. These things shouldn't even be here. A huge snakelike cluster of chlorine molecules drifted by. Chen had an idea. He signaled ANAD to grab a few chlorines as a shield. Seizing the ends of the molecule with its effectors, ANAD held on tight, as commanded.

Gradually the shape and size of the rain 'bot became clearer. Bristling with effectors and arms, it looked like a miniature Apollo Lunar Module from the mid-twentieth century. The head was a multi-lobed cluster of spheres and hexagons; inside the churning electron cloud dimmed out any detail.

Below the head was a cylindrical sheath, covered with pyramidal facets and undulating beads of proteins—the assembler's probes and effectors. Chen was frankly awed at the sight.

Hell of a lot of gear for this bastard. I wonder where you came from?

Indeed, the horde of enemy assemblers were rigged out like battleships, with devices for every conceivable mechanical or chemical action. A flat baseplate capped one end of the sheathed body. The tail structure was a dense thicket of fibers, each tipped with penetrator clusters. The penetrators enabled the mech to attach to and enter any structure.

Chen brought ANAD to a complete stop. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. Something wasn't quite right, but he couldn't put his finger on it. The data was all wrong...there was no way BioShield should have ever let something this sophisticated into the open, outside of containment...

They had almost reached the cave when the first coilgun rounds exploded right behind Chen, knocking him forward in his hypersuit. He lost stability as the gyros toppled and pitched him headlong into the grass, landing with a heavy thump on his side, knocking the breath out of him.

The voice in his ears was Jeff Collin's.

"Bandits at eleven o'clock! Spread out--! Take cover!"

Programmable kinetic rounds sizzled through the air, exploding in a coordinated pattern among the scrambling Bravo Detachment. The nanotroopers peeled away from each other, commanding their suits to lower them into cover, which happened much slower than it should have. Joey Mwate took a direct hit and his hypersuit exploded in a geyser of flame and debris.

"JOEY!!!--"

Inside the cave, several faces appeared, human faces, in crude breathing gear, armed with coilgun launchers. Both fired several rounds, peppering the ground with death and shrapnel. The PKRs could slice through a hypersuit like a hot knife in butter.

Dana Tallant grunted as she fell chest first to the ground. Finally, the bastards show themselves...with human faces. "DPS, get our guys airborne...launch the whole shebang and shred that position!!"

Samoya was already scrambling through the grass. "I'm on it—" Crap...The launch canister had been jerked off its mount when his suit had hit the ground. He fumbled in the grass, grabbed the cylinder and toggled the firing panel. Holding the canister upright at a slight angle, like a mortar, it self-pressurized and then whooshed a small tornado of hot gas as it discharged a horde of coilgun 'bots into the sky. The tiny uav's formed up in a tight V, like geese returning from winter, and lit off their own rounds at the enemy position.

A line of explosions rocked the mouth of the cave, stitching flame and death at the entrance.

"That ought to keep their heads down!" Tallant crowed. "Chen, can you break off an element of ANAD, and execute a clampdown inside that cave? Ten to one, there are more where they came from." Now that the enemy had shown himself, she intended to grab the bastards by the throat and throttle them but good. And there were still the rain 'bots swarming overhead...they had to get into some kind of cover or the Detachment was finished.

Chen was still wrestling ANAD closer to the nearest rain 'bot. "I'll try, Skipper...but I've got my hands full keeping these bugs off our backs!"

Jeff Collin had gone through some IC training a year back. "Give me a batch, Chen...I'll do the clampdown! We're getting eaten alive here and we're exposed...detach now and I'll take 'em with my controls."

Chen obliged, severing a portion of the ANAD swarm and handing off control to the exec. Collin's fingers flew over his wristpad, setting up the link. Soon enough, he had a signal.

"I've got it...I've got it...forming up now—" he pecked out the codes for the clampdown maneuver as fast as his fingers would fly, all the while hearing the high whine of approaching rain 'bots, ready to swarm the detachment again.

"Execute...execute NOW!" Tallant yelled. There was no telling how many Red Hammer guards might be inside the cave, or whether they wore suits or had protection. There was no time to wonder about it. The rain 'bots were coming back and they had no defense. Their best chance, maybe their only chance was to make the cave and try to hold off the buggers until help came. "Smother 'em so they can't breathe!" She signaled Samoya over the crewnet to get ready in case more guards appeared and the Detachment came under fire. "Replicate max rate, Jeff...carbenes and radicals at the ends...blanket the place!"

Collin manned the config controls, stabbing out commands on his wristpad. He sent the command, silently praying that this small part of the ANAD swarm would perform the clampdown properly. Any foul-ups now and Bravo would be atomic fluff in minutes. No hiccups today, he muttered to himself. Not 'til we're in, not 'til we're inside that cave....

In seconds, the air itself burned with the pressure of exponentially dividing ANAD replicants; a heavy, searing weight pressing down on everything in sight.

Just inside the mouth of the cave, a small force of Red Hammer guards tried to scream.

The defenders, unable to react, clawed at their lungs and staggered back from the entrance, pitching backward, ears and eyes bleeding from the pressure, suffocated by ANAD.

It was all over in less than a minute.

Tallant waited until the clampdown was lifted and on command, ANAD began to disperse. "Get the MOB ready, we'll put it on 'em," she told Collin. "Keep 'em away from the entrance...when Chen gives the word, we'll break for the cave."

Collin tapped commands on his wristpad. "Done, Captain."

"Chen--?

The IC1 studied the tactical situation. The rain 'bots were gathering and hypersuits were useless...they'd already lost Mwate to coilgun fire and Rialto was gone...they had to get some cover and regroup, re-config ANAD to hold off the rain 'bots—Jesus, what kind of assembler could disguise itself like a raindrop and chew up hypersuits like stale bread?

More importantly, they needed to bring back one of the 'bots to examine...if Red Hammer had advanced this far, there was no telling what they could do.

Recon showed the source of the atmosphere perturbations emanating from Kurabantu came from the cave...even Skinner, in his memory traces had alluded to caves near the volcano. This had to be it.

"I'm re-configging ANAD, Skipper...trying something new—"

Tallant eyed the swirling squall that was a nanomech storm apprehensively. So far, the IC1 had duked it out with the enemy 'bots and held the worst of the swarm off, barely.

"Whatever it is, Chen, make it quick."

"I'm trying, Skipper...I'm trying—"

Tallant knew they have to make a break for the cave in the next few moments, swarm or no. "Form up on me," she ordered the rest of the Detachment. As the troopers scrambled closer, Chen pecked out commands on his wristpad, commanding trillions of ANAD assemblers to swarm into a new formation, a faint coruscating iridescence pulsating through the air. "Okay, troops, here's what we're going to do."

She laid out the plan. "Samoya, when I give the word, lay down suppressing fire with your coilgun 'bots...all along the mouth of that cave. Chen, at the same time, can you give us a bubble to move in?"

"I think so, Captain...it won't last long as we move, but I can hold 'em off for a few moments."

Tallant figured that was good enough. They didn't have a HERF gun anymore. It was fried. "I don't know what's in that cave, but we'll have to take our chances." The mission had been to reconnoiter the island and determine the extent and scale of Red Hammer operations. Now, they'd be lucky if they could last long enough holed up in the cave to get reinforcements.

"Eric, can you work the comm?"

Richter had crossed trained with Rialto. "No sweat, Skipper. I'm qualified in quantum couplers, satradio and all the rest."

"Super...get a message to Singapore...tell 'em were surrounded and outgunned...some kind of badass assembler swarm that can masquerade as rain and God knows what else. We need relief and fast. Tony—"

Samoya came on the crewnet. "Here...Skipper."

"Charioteer still orbiting the island?"

Samoya checked the readouts on his eyepiece. The hyperjet was on full autopilot, cruising around Kurabantu at ten thousand feet. "Like an old dog, Captain...you want me to bring her in?"

"Get her ready...we may have to try a new trick...she's got fastcables, doesn't she?"

Samoya nodded, then added, "I think she does, Skipper, but...we haven't trained on extraction like that in a long time..."

"I know, I know...but it's an option," Tallant said. And not one we want to use if we can help it, she said to herself. Yanking a trooper from a standing start off the ground and reeling him in like a fish wasn't for the faint of heart. "Okay...Tony...if this works, we won't have to fastcable...give me some suppressing fire...right on that cave entrance—"

The cave was less than fifty meters away. The Detachment buried themselves in the grass as best they could.

"On the way, Skipper," Samoya said. He sent the signal and the coilgun microbots broke formation, sliding around the perimeter of the enemy swarm to get into position. The rain 'bots buzzed in reaction, the swarm re-shaping itself to intervene. But the micros were faster, more maneuverable. "I'm bringing up the whole battery...."

On Tallant's hand signal, Samoya commanded the 'bots to fire. Tallant crossed her fingers and prayed.

Fifty meters ahead, the foot of Tuontavik volcano had a new kind of fire in its belly.

The rock walls of the cave entrance cracked open, dissolving in a spray of flame and rubble.

So much for covert entry, Tallant thought. Everybody knows we're here now.

At that same moment, Chen Liu raised his fist in a pre-arranged signal.

"MOVE OUT!" Tallant ordered. "Head for the cave!"

As one, the Detachment rose and kicked their hypersuits into high gear. At the same time, Chen toggled the ANAD swarm to flow down into a blocking position, forming a quick barrier screen between the rain 'bots and the troopers.

"GO...GO...GO...GO...GO...!"

One after the other, the soldiers of Bravo Detachment lumbered toward the cave, sliding through the grass, skidding on rubble at the mouth, ducking under the arch and into the dim recess beyond.

Behind them, still screening, ANAD poured into the cavern on their heels. Tallant ordered a portion of the swarm detached for perimeter guard, securing the entrance. As they gathered inside the entrance, more guards lay strewn about the rubbly floor, gasping for breath from the clampdown. Some wore breathing gear, some didn't. Tallant didn't have time to test the atmosphere.

"Secure the entrance...as well as you can!" she ordered. She turned to face deeper into the cave, looking around the complex, nearly losing her footing on the downslope. "Form up and let's go. Sammy...get your coilgun 'bots back and bring 'em inside. And make sure the MOB canisters are ready."

"Will do, Captain," Samoya sent the commands.

Beside Samoya, Chen Liu crossed his fingers, praying in the name of his honorable ancestors that ANAD could block the rain 'bots from following.

The place was a vast maze of tunnels, hewn right out of the bowels of the volcano. Tallant led the Detachment deeper, while Chen brought up the rear, monitoring the rain 'bots approach. On his eyepiece, he could see the swollen shimmering blur as the 'bots engaged the ANAD swarm, blocking the entrance. Crackles of light flickered on the cave walls.

Jeff Collin was right behind Tallant. "Must be the mother lode, Skipper." As they descended a curving ramp, they passed side caverns filled with equipment, consoles lit up and humming, and tanks surrounded by piping.

"What the hell is this place?" said Samoya, nosing into one of the caverns with the muzzle of his mag gun.

"Some kind of control center," Tallant muttered. She switched scenes on her eyepiece, from the cave entrance, where ANAD was engaged in a ferocious firefight with the rain 'bots, to infrared and EM signatures ahead of them. "Uh oh...we may have company...."

Inside the next cavern, Samoya spotted a pocket of Red Hammer technicians, struggling to get up, still stunned and gasping for air from the clampdown.

Samoya charged his weapon. "Enemy ahead...nine o'clock...I count four—"

"Weapons?"

"None that I can see, Skipper."

Tallant figured the enemy was fully aware of their presence. No need for stealth now. "Okay...MOB 'em. Secure the cave. Let's go hunting."

Samoya acknowledged the order. With his wristpad, he took control of a small portion of the ANAD force from Chen, accepting replicants as fast as the master could slam atoms together and churn them out. He detached the force and tapped out a command sequence...in seconds, the swarm under his control had reconfigured itself. A fine smoky mist formed overhead, oscillating in and out of view.

Samoya took a fix on the Red Hammer techs and fed the coordinates to his brood. The smoke pulsed and throbbed like a thing alive, then floated over and descended on the enemy, forming a Mobility Obstruction Barrier around the helpless group. ANAD assemblers interlocked into an amorphous gel, cordoning off the technicians in a flexible prison cell of tightly bound assemblers. Several techs clawed at the MOB, to no avail. They were steadily forced down to the cavern floor and immovably secured there by the ANAD screen.

"MOB in place, Captain."

"Very well...Richter, what's up?"

The SDC1 had caught sight of something, a twitch in one of ANAD's sensors. "Sounding pressure change. Uh-oh...sounding heat pulse, big time heat pulse...looks like the cavalry's coming—"

Light flashed through the cavern and a resounding BOOM!echoed off the walls. Gouts of flame and rock erupted from the explosion, forcing the Detachment to take cover.

"Spread out!" yelled Tallant. She hand-signaled Collin to move right, further right, and take Samoya with him. Try to outflank 'em, she mouthed.

There were voices ahead, and heavy footfalls. A Red Hammer detail, heavily armed, had emerged from deeper in the cavern.

Immediately, Tallant understood the nature of their predicament. Behind them, the rain 'bots were straining at the barrier ANAD had formed at the cave entrance. They couldn't go back, not without risking a full swarm attack.

They couldn't go forward, not easily, without dealing with the enemy ahead.

More light flashed---coilgun rounds, she realized...hypervelocity bolts of condensed matter—and the concussion was deafening. Rock and rubble sprayed from the walls, pelting the Detachment.

Trouble was there was no real way to outflank the enemy force. Red Hammer techs blocked the main passage and they had to know the caves better. Tallant got on the crewnet to Chen.

"Chen...give me part of your swarm...I need recon...I need something to find out what we're up against."

"Can't do it, Skipper..." Chen came back. He was several dozen yards behind the Detachment, still in line of sight contact with the main swarm. "If I detach any more, ANAD can't hold. And I can't replicate much when we're engaged like this—"

"Never mind," Tallant said. They couldn't afford to weaken their rear. The only way was to move forward. "Samoya...Richter...when I give the word...give me as much suppressing fire as you can...a full spread across the cave ahead—"

"I'll have to retrieve the coilgun 'bots, Skipper...they're still outside. And coming through that swarm at the entrance—"

Tallant knew all that. "It's a chance we'll have to take. Get the 'bots in here and lay down a screen....that's the only chance we have to break through. We're in a fix here...we might as well go forward and see what damage we can do."

Samoya finagled with his wristpad, sending commands to the small squadron of dust mote-sized coilgun fliers orbiting over the cave entrance outside. If he worked the approach right...and coordinated with Chen...he might just be able to sneak enough 'bots into the cave without getting shredded by the mechs duking it out at the entrance.

Outside the cave, a small, nearly invisible cloud of microbots formed up to enter the complex.

Samoya waited for Chen to give him the signal. At the right moment, ANAD would disengage momentarily from the attack, leaving the entrance to the rain 'bots. Samoya would signal his coilgun fliers to max speed and stream them as fast as they could go through the very middle of the swarm. If their luck held, the rain 'bots would swell to occupy the space momentarily vacated by ANAD, and in re-deploying forward, would thin out enough to let Samoya's force through with minimal casualties.

It was the only chance the Detachment had to move forward and keep from being pounded into rubble by the Red Hammer force inside.

"Disengaging...NOW!" yelled Chen. His fingers stabbed a button and the ANAD swarm began to pull back.

At the very same moment, Samoya squirted a command to the coilgun 'bots and as one, the tiny squadron sped down from altitude and slammed into the mechs screening the cave entrance. He knew he'd lose some to the maneuver...that couldn't be helped. The Detachment needed their fire inside, to open a path ahead.

"Force approaching--" he announced over the crewnet. His eyepiece showed him the results...not too bad. About a third of the fliers had been shredded by the rain 'bots as they surged forward. "Weapons are charging...charging...charging...weapons are enabled, Skipper! Where do you want fire?"

"I'm blocking now—" Chen Liu cut in. He commanded the ANAD swarm to intercept the rain 'bots, cutting off their move into the cave.

"Bearing...two five niner!" Tallant said. "Right below that overhang ahead—" she put a cueing mark on the track and instantly, Samoya saw the rock shelf. Dim shadowy figures moved below it. Flashes of return fire from the Red Hammer techs briefly illuminated the enemy force. A full battle of coilgun rounds and magnetic impulse fire raged across the cavern. Behind Tallant, an explosion knocked her suit servos silly and she staggered, letting the system right itself, while a seam of rock and rubble pelted her.

That was close, she realized. If they didn't get suppressing fire on the enemy's position soon, they could pretty well pick their own poison: get creamed by increasingly effective coilgun fire from the Red Hammer detail or get swarmed from the rear by rain 'bots.

Neither alternative appealed to her.

"Let 'em have it, Sammy!" she called out.

The staccato bbrrrppp of the coilgun fliers letting fly their programmable rounds ripped the air. Across the cavern, the microfliers sprayed death like a horde of angry bees.

The concussion of detonating rounds reverberated around the cavern and part of the cavern roof collapsed on the Red Hammer techs. There was a grinding crash of tons of rock and debris, punctuated by screams of pain.

Samoya deployed his fliers closer and they let loose another volley of rounds, peppering the enemy's position with a deafening discharge. The entire far wall of the cavern erupted in a blossom of smoke and flame, and moments later, the floor gave way, crashing out of sight amid a thick pall of smoke.

"GO...GO...GO!" yelled Tallant. "Move out!"

The Detachment struggled forward cautiously, checking for life signs ahead. Tallant switched her viewer to thermal, but saw only the speckles of smoking rubble, nothing else moving. A gaping chasm, where there had once been a rock wall led down through smoldering seams of rock to a curving ramp. The ramp spiraled down deeper into the bowels of Tuontavik.

"Skipper, you figure this is some kind of control center?" asked Richter. His face was lost in the opacity of his hypersuit helmet, but Tallant could well imagine his red freckles inside the blank faceplate. Richter was a young stud and one hell of an SDC.

"Got to be," Tallant decided. They crept cautiously down the curving ramp, everybody on thermal to see in the thick smoke, noting another side cave filled with equipment. The stuff seemed to be running by itself, quietly humming. "Chen...get up here and take a look. What do you make of this place?"

Chen Liu came forward and squeezed into the opening. He switched view scenes, scanning the room in all EM wavelengths, before announcing, "It's a nursery, Captain. Or a hatchery."

"A nursery?"

"For nanobots. Look at the hull plating on that chamber—"he pointed toward a squat semi-spherical structure that looked like an inverted bowl. "—see the beam injectors. Recognize anything?"

Samoya had squeezed in beside him. "Containment chamber...it's has to be. So what are they containing?"

"Ten to one it's the same 'bots that are screwing up the atmosphere. Red Hammer's growing them right here," said Jeff Collin. "We need to get samples—" he started into the chamber but Chen grabbed his arm.

"Hold on—I wouldn't get too close—see that mist in the center?"

Collin halted two steps inside the cave, standing on a small ledge that overlooked the oblong space. Bright lights on tracks beamed down from the ceiling. The room was actually a small cave with ledges on multiple levels, like shelves. Containment tanks lined the ledges all around them. Huge spherical tanks with intricate piping occupied the lower levels. Control consoles and displays were interspersed with the tanks, mounted on stanchions supporting the ceiling of the cave. What had seemed at first like steam in the air wasn't steam at all. The mist throbbed and speckled with pinpricks of light...the telltale signature of nanobotic action...replicators revving up.

"Swarm?" he asked

Chen nodded silently, though no one could see it inside his suit. "Most likely...looks like it's seen us, too."

"Fall back," Tallant ordered. "Fall back...Chen...where the hell's ANAD?"

Warily, the Detachment retreated out of the cave.

The swarm thickened and flowed after them, boiling out of the shadows like a thing alive, sweeping forward, closing fast to engage the intruders.

"On the way," the IC1 said, "but it'll take a few minutes. I'm still engaged at the cave entrance."

"Fall back and head down the ramp!" Tallant announced. "Chen...anytime you want to block that swarm....would be good for me!"

Chen concentrated on his viewer, trying to scope out the newest threat and get a scan, letting his hypersuit follow the tactical retreat program, sensing and feeling its way along, as it followed the rest of the Detachment on automaneuver. Outside the side cave, he realized they had just run out of time.

"Oh, Captain...looks...like...WE...GOT...MECHS!" The IC1's fingers flew over his wristpad keyboard and joysticks. "ANAD replicating...I've got a few ANADs but not nearly enough...ANAD replicating at full rate...making a cage...all effectors out max...I am in automaneuver..." He stumbled down the ramp after the Detachment, deeper into the bowels of the volcano, letting his suit servos keep him upright as best they could.

"Get down!" Tallant commanded. "Get small...and cover yourselves!"

As ordered, what was left of Detachment Bravo hunkered down to the ground, each soldier forming a hump of laminate armor, trying to protect vital seals and ports from the oncoming swarm as long as possible.

"Sammy?" Tallant yelled. "Can we—"

But Samoya already knew the answer to the question. "Coilgun fliers are lost, Skipper. No link...no comms...I don't know what's happened."

Great....just friggin' great, Tallant muttered to herself. They never should have set down in the lagoon without adequate backup. They had no coilgun support, no HERF left and only a scattering of smaller arms...some mag guns and a few rounds of kinetic stuff. ANAD was their best chance to get the hell out alive. But Chen was fighting on two fronts at the same time, still blocking the rain 'bots at the cave entrance and now dealing with the newest threat.

The IC1 punched out commands, setting up his small but expanding group of assemblers with full shields of fullerene arms, each one bristling with sticky molecules, juiced with torqued bonds, ready to zap all comers. Even as he configged the swarm, Jeff Collin took control of a small element of ANADs himself, as fast as they could be replicated, piloting them away from the melee, trying to flank the enemy, pinch off the assault from both sides, a pincer movement at atomic scales.

The boiling swarm of mechs from the nursery closed with ANAD and flung themselves with fury against Chen's hastily erected shield. The controller prayed silently to his esteemed ancestors for guidance, maybe even a miracle.

Chen's fingers flew over the controls, managing config, pulling more atoms to add shielding, all the while fighting off thrusts and slashes from the enemy mechs.

"Change config!" Tallant yelled. "We're getting slammed from the rear...do it now...Tactical Two—"

Chen sent the command, ANAD trying to confuse the enemy swarm by shedding outer atoms in one big puff. They'd wargamed it before...it didn't always work—

Twenty feet in the air, trillions of ANAD assemblers received the same instructions: alter configuration to this design...grab atoms...cleave this group...fold here...build lattice here...the air churned with furious activity. The cavern was suddenly bathed in an unearthly pale blue light as vast but unseen armies collided. The gotterdammerung pulsed like a flickering aurora as the swarms clashed head-on.

But the newest swarm was something ANAD had never encountered before.

"What the hell?" Chen frowned as he fought the controls, tickling propulsors, spinning ANAD, managing effectors..."I can't grapple the damn things!"

Jeff Collin, on the other side of the cave, had found the same thing. Sweat broke out on the CC2's forehead, in spite of the cool damp air. "It's like I'm too short! Sluggish. Chen...check my config...what's wrong with my effectors...what the hell am I doing wrong here? I've got no probes, grapples, it's like my pyridines are minus a few atoms--!"

Chen was in the midst of his own predicament. If he grabbed more assemblers from the cave entrance, he weakened their defense against the rain 'bots, already pressing in everywhere from outside. If he didn't, the bigger swarm inside would soon overwhelm them.

Chen was more frustrated by the moment. He was losing it—an agonized scream pierced the crewnet and out of the corner of his eyes, he saw someone—was it Richter?—go down, his suit breached.

"GET THEM OFF....JEEZ, GOD...GET THEM OFF...!!!!"

But he couldn't watch. Collin needed help, hell he needed help...both their defensive screens of ANAD assemblers were falling apart faster than he could react. "I can't explain it either," he gritted through clenched teeth. "No electron lens...no enzymatic knife...no effector control. It's like ANAD's crippled."

"Lobotomized, Chen. I can't hold at all. I'm showing propulsor failure, major bond breaks, shielding's gone...main structure being disassembled...we've got to withdraw now—"

"Withdraw?" said Tallant. "Where the hell to?" She was hunkered down against a ledge, squinting through her eyepiece at the shimmering combat all around her. The Detachment was pinned down good, unable to move forward against this swarm and unable to fall back to the cave entrance.

She put her hypersuit in motion, letting its motorized boot treads propel her along the ground like an inchworm, still hoping and praying that she wouldn't get swarmed. But before she could link up with Collin and Chen, another agonized voice cried out.

It was Tony Samoya.

Tallant couldn't stand to watch. The DPS1 had wedged himself into a cleft in the wall, semi-standing, cycling the last few rounds into his mag gun when the first fingers of the swarm enveloped him. Hypersuit armor was a tough laminate, supposedly impervious to nanomech action—at least all known nanomechs—but it might as well have been butter, for all the good it did.

"AAAARRRGGGHHH....HELP MEEEEE.....OHHHH...!!!"

A pale blue mist boiled over Sammy's head and his face was soon lost in the fires of nanomech hell, as the suit was breached. Seconds later, the suit and whatever was left inside collapsed in a heap to the ground.

Now, it was just her, Collin and Chen.

"Captain---look out!"

Tallant had seen movement beyond the veil of the swarm, on the other side of the cavern, below their level, and coming up the ramp in a hurry. The muzzles of laser carbines flashed through the haze. Beam fire erupted across the ground.

Collin and Tallant ducked as the first volley narrowly missed them, carving out a seam in a boulder behind them. Rock and debris exploded, flying everywhere.

"We got nasties all over the place!" Collin yelled.

"And no more ammo...ANAD's the only hope...Chen...how about it...can you replicate a screen and give us cover to move out?"

"No can do, Skipper," Chen muttered. "It'll weaken ANAD too much." He was kneeling now, at the top of the ramp, ducking fire himself, as he steered one swarm into the heart of the melee. He handed off the rear swarm, blocking them from the rain 'bots to Collin, so he could concentrate on the enemy at hand.

"Whatever you are," he muttered to himself, "you act a helluva lot like ANAD...only souped up about a million times." He worked the config controls, at the same time pulsing in and out of contact range with the main enemy, slashing and weaving, scrunching up atoms and twisting bonds to zap the bastards with their own electron charge.

Keep coming, you atomic assholes...keep on coming...right into my hands—eat my carbene effectors, you jerks—

Chen was in the midst of trying to outflank the swarm that had them pinned down, when a stray burst from the Red Hammer techs caught him flush in the chest. The shot spun him around and killed the suit servos, knocking him off his feet. The impact with the ground smashed his wristpad, chopping the link with ANAD. In seconds, the enemy swarm surged forward, now overwhelming the three remaining Detachment members.

Tallant saw what had happened. Frantically, even as the high keening whine of mechs eating at the outer layers of her suit filled her ears, she wrestled with her own wristpad, trying to link up with ANAD.

But it was no use.

Collin's suit was already nearly breached. Whatever these mechs were—and Chen hadn't been able to get structure on them—ANAD couldn't handle them. Too fast, too well armed, too nimble...she couldn't tell and even as she pecked away at the keypad, jiggling the joystick for some response, she knew it was hopeless.

Shadows loomed over them, giants dimly outlined in the shimmering mist of the swarm. She'd heard the high-freq buzz, knew the mechs were dining on her suit, but so far, it hadn't breached. She wondered why.

Then she realized why.

The giant shadows were the Red Hammer troops who had moved forward and were now close enough to reach out and touch. They'd held the swarm back.

She saw muzzles flash in the light. All of them were trained on her. Slowly, she lifted her hands and put them behind her helmet. Six feet away, Jeff Collin was roughly rolled over onto his back like a wounded beetle and found himself staring down the muzzle of a laser carbine.

They were surrounded. Chen was fried, burned in a lucky beamshot. The rest were---atoms and little else.

They were all gone...the whole Detachment...Rialto, Mwate, Samoya, Richter, now Chen. ANAD was contained by the enemy swarm, probably being disassembled even as they were roughly hoisted to their feet. A phosphorescent gel descended over them...a MOB barrier, she realized, quickly immobilizing them in restraints, except for their legs.

They'd seized control of the suits too, somehow hacked into the controllers. With no command from her, Tallant's suit limped forward seemingly on its own, its arms stiffly pinioned to her side, its legs and servos now under enemy control. It wasn't a hypersuit anymore. Just a cage.

Jeff Collin and Dana Tallant couldn't see the faces of their captors. It was just as well. The two of them were marched in unison, down the steeply curving stone ramp, deeper into the ground, below into the fiery belly of the Tuontavik volcano.

That's when she wondered if Chen and the rest had been the lucky ones.
CHAPTER 5

Via Verde, Republic of Valencia

South America

November 1, 2068

Early morning....

Johnny Winger didn't know what had happened at Kurabantu Island. All he knew was how thick and impenetrable the jungle was below the lifter skids and how forbidding the terrain seemed from several thousand feet. Clumps of misty clouds drifted lazily over the quilted green carpet as far as the eye could see. Even finding the Yemanha River was hard; the building clouds offering only occasional glimpses of the muddy brown ribbon.

"Village coordinates coming up, Captain," said the lifter pilot, Lieutenant Graves. "Dead ahead...around that bend in the river, looks like—"

"I don't see a thing...not even a clearing."

"Me neither, Skipper. I'm hunting now for a place to set you guys down."

Their mission was simple enough to state, if damnably hard to pull off: reconnoiter the village of Via Verde and its surroundings. Ascertain who or what was causing the atmospheric perturbations BioShield had detected. Was there some kind of illegal nanobotic reservoir in the area, modifying the air locally? And find out where the strange, predatory demonio creatures came from. Dr. Del Compo had theorized there was some kind of nursery in the vicinity of the abandoned Xotetli village. What connection did the creatures have with the changes in the atmosphere?

Sergeant Chris Calderon was CEC1 for the Detachment, in charge of containerization and environmental control. With the ANAD master embedded in a capsule in Johnny Winger's shoulder, the CEC's didn't have a lot to do. Winger had put Calderon to work monitoring the atmosphere as they approached the LZ.

"CEC, what's the air like outside?"

Calderon was a humorless, by-the-book type, and a bit of a tinkerer. He read tech manuals for entertainment.

"Reading minor fluctuations, Captain, that's all for the moment. Oxygen levels down ten percent, actually dropping even as I speak. Nitrogen's good, but CO2 is up over a thousand parts per million...that's about three or four times normal. We need to stay in our suits. Soon as we set down, I'll release the sniffers."

If we can find a place, Winger thought. "Very well. Graves, it's up to you. How about that small beach over there?" The atomgrabber pointed to a narrow peninsula jutting out into a bend in the river.

Graves cleared his throat. "I'll try it, Skipper."

The lifter whirred sideways, scuttling through the air like a drunken bat, tilted and eased down to a soft thump on the bank of wet sand. Graves let her settle gingerly, unsure of their footing on the soil. But the lifter stabilized and he cut the rotors.

"Detachment, fall out!" Winger buttoned up his own hypersuit—it went without saying the suits were universally detested, but in Indian country, it was best to have the protection. With each trooper plugged into the crewnet, the whole Detachment could move and make tactical decisions almost as a single organism.

Alpha Detachment assembled on higher ground above the LZ, while the packbots offloaded their gear and set it up: the MOB canisters, the HERF guns and mounts, coilguns, camou-fog generators and SuperFly pods.

Winger got on the crewnet. "Okay, let's get 'Fly up and circling. I want some eyes overhead."

"Underway, Skipper." DPS1 Sergeant Sheila Reaves was the Detachment's comic cutup, with her red hair burred down to the nubs and a flair for the unpredictable. Disarmingly clumsy with a snorky kind of laugh, she was also the Corps' reigning coilgun master marksman and could put a magazine of rounds on target faster than you could blink your eyes. Reaves unbundled the case of tiny fly-sized entomopters and spun them into the air, activating their motors. Moments later, a horde of 'flies' buzzed overhead, competing with the native Drosophila swarming around the LZ.

Winger had already programmed their ground route and called up the path. The ghostly lines flickered on a dozen eyepieces simultaneously.

"We head north by northwest, according to the sat images and what Dr. Del Compo said. Along the riverbank. Those caves and the grotto are that way. Calderon--?"

The CEC1 had just released a swarm of sniffers, tiny dust-mote sized sensors spreading out to check the air. "Definitely deteriorating, Captain. Sniffo reports CO2 levels rising rapidly...now reading over five thousand parts per million. O2 partial down and dropping. Pressure's fluctuating too, mostly down...we're in a little bubble of Mars, almost."

"That's a good sign," Winger decided. He whirred his suit servos into action, setting mobility on auto. The motors moved his legs with no effort on his part, gyros keeping him upright and stable in the slippery footing along the riverbank. "Means we're heading in the right direction. Okay...move out."

As one, the hypersuited troopers slogged forward along the edge of the jungle, surrounded by hordes of flies, as they headed west by northwest. The going was hard, owing to the treacherous footing, though the undergrowth was minimal, mostly hard ropy vine and cypress 'knees' half buried in wet sand. Out on the river, a formation of tapirs made a "V" in the water as they padded upstream, their black snouts just visible above the wake.

"Captain...look at this!" It was Corporal Chandra Singh, the DPS2, running point guard for this leg of the trek.

Winger cut his suit back to manual and thumped up to the high ground where Singh stood by the weathered trunk of an araucaria tree. It mushroom canopy rained sharp needles on them in a slight breeze.

Singh had found some sort of sign or totem: two tapir jawbones, still filled with teeth, slung from a low branch of the tree, crossed in the shape of an X.

"What is it?" asked Reaves. Her own suit motors hummed trying to keep her level in the soft earth. "Some kind of warning?"

"Maybe," said Winger. "We've seen plenty of evidence of the Xotetli around here. Look over there—" his pattern recognizer had found more evidence of habitation and bracketed the image in his eyepiece.

A cone-shaped cage fashioned from sticks had been gouged into the ground just inside the tree line. Alongside it lay a perfectly round, soot-blackened clay pot.

"The universal language of the jungle," surmised Master Sergeant Al Glance, the CC2 and Winger's second-in-command. "It means 'stay out'. ' Come no closer'. We must be real near the Xotetli village."

"Or what's left of it," Reaves said uneasily.

"Something sure came this way," Singh added. "And it wiped out the whole tribe."

The hairs on the back of Johnny Winger's neck bristled. It was a sign he had long ago learned to pay attention to. He clicked open a separate channel to ANAD.

"We'd better get you launched and formed up, pal. I don't like the looks of this. We're exposed as hell and the atmosphere's going south in a hurry."

***ANAD ready in all respects...let me take a look, Boss...anything naughty out there, I'll sniff it out...***

Winger got back on the crewnet. "Let's halt here. I'm launching ANAD, putting up a swarm screen for defense. Gibby, you take control when he pops."

Sergeant Hoyt Gibbs was the IC2. He replied, "Standing by to take control, Skipper—"

The Detachment halted.

Winger pressed a small control stud on his wrist keypad. The whole sequence was automatic, taking less than twenty-two seconds now, since they'd practiced the maneuver so many times.

The containment capsule port in his left shoulder cycled open, and in unison, a separate tube and port on the hypersuit shell did likewise. Now an open path was clear.

Inside the capsule, ANAD reported his progress over the link to Winger.

***...safing now...effectors folded...bond weapons enabled and primed...propulsors spinning up...processor in tactical one...***

"Load max rep program," Winger commanded over the link. Only he and ANAD could hear them talking. The quantum coupler link bypassed the crewnet completely. "I want a full defensive screen airborne, all azimuth."

***...loading max rep program...done...ANAD ready for launch...configuring ejector...counting down...three...two...one...and AWAY!!!!...***

As the Detachment looked on, a small puff of mist escaped from the left shoulder of Johnny Winger's hypersuit, quickly dispersing in the breeze. Instantly, the port squeezed shut. The suit was fully buttoned up again.

Overhead, the mist quickly swelled into a shimmering pulse of light, as trillions of daughter assemblers were born from loose atoms.

"ANAD signaling--," Gibby reported. He watched readouts on his eyepiece...pH, pressure, temperature, the rep counter ticking over in a blur as exponential numbers showed the growth of the swarm. "—I've got data now...good data...numbers coming up and everything's in the green...swarm now at one quarter and accelerating—"

"Move out," Winger commanded. "ANAD can follow along." His suit had the coordinates and he put the thing back on automobility, so he could think as they trundled deeper into the jungle.

Sooner or later, he thought, we're going to run right into whatever is changing the atmosphere around here.

It turned out to be sooner.

Gibby's voice startled him out of his thoughts.

"ANAD reports temperature rising ahead, Captain. Picking up loose radicals, atomic debris...something's happening and it's chewing up the air."

They had cleared the bend in the Yemanha River and were now tracking almost due west, bearing two six five degrees, along the riverbank. Limestone cliffs had formed inland, squeezing the beach down to a narrow footpath of wet sand and soft loamy black mud, making footing treacherous, even for their suit treads. The water was strangely slow and sluggish, as if it had somehow thickened. Small humps of rock and mats of grass made gurgling hydraulics all across the river.

"I see it," Winger reported. The feed from ANAD, as well as from the sniffers and Superfly tiled the image viewer on his eyepiece. He flicked out a tongue at the control stud, letting ANAD's take expand to cover the view. Gibby was right: acoustic sounding showed hydrogen radicals had thickened along with loose chains of oxygen atoms. The air was choked with them. Oxygen was highly reactive...any atomgrabber knew that. It hated being a single atom and clumped together into pairs like lint to a wool sweater. Something was stripping oxygens apart and keeping them that way. Something with a lot of energy.

"Gibby, command ANAD into tactical two...full defenses. I'm taking a closer look—"

"Got it," Gibby reported. He sent the command and, as one, the ANAD swarm armed its full weapons suite: enzymatic knife, bond disrupters, the works.

Winger linked in to see what the tiny assembler was dealing with. A dizzying image came up on his eyepiece--

\--Long, whippy chains were hurtling at him...a sleet of shapes of every size and description. Cones, polygons, tetrahedrals, pieces of lattice, a junkyard of molecules streamed at him and he soon found he had to squeeze down to minimum radius just to keep from being sliced in half—

"ANAD...what the hell is all this crap?"

***sorry, Boss...had to stow my effectors...it's a blizzard down here...something's really churning up ahead...stripping off atoms and pieces and junk like crazy...I'm up to max propulsor but I'm barely moving...may have to go quantum if this keeps up***

"Can you move in closer...see what's causing it?"

***I'm trying...but it's a battle...I'll have to fold in a few more effectors...get real small...whatever it is, it's kicking up a storm...and it's huge too***

Winger let his hypersuit carry him forward, along with the rest of Alpha Detachment, while he monitored ANAD's progress.

***Sounding major pressure pulse ahead...I'm slowing to half power... temperature spikes...big temperature spikes...whew! The debris is picking up...it's really tough--***

Winger could feel the battering the tiny assembler was taking. It was like wading into the ocean surf in the middle of a hurricane. The coupler link was working a little too well...Johnny could feel the impacts of errant atoms and radicals, molecular junk hurtling at him, pounding and slamming into him.

I've got to turn this down a bit...I can't even see or think straight. Maybe Doc Frost could tweak the quantum coupler, drop the gain a bit, so he wouldn't be fully exposed to what ANAD was feeling. Maybe humans weren't made to sense things at atomic scale.

"I'm not seeing a thing," Winger muttered. He switched back and forth from ANAD's view to an exterior scan of the jungle around them. It was disorienting, to say the least.

***Just getting a tickle now...see those shadows up ahead...here...I'll maneuver sideways...get a better angle...***

And then he saw it, materializing into view like a battleship in a fog bank.

Straight away, Johnny Winger knew in the pit of his stomach what he was staring at...Amazon Vector itself...the master nanobotic device, hove to like a menacing predator coiled to strike.

Roughly cylindrical, with pyramidal diamondoid bases, the bot was festooned with uncountable effectors, cilia, propulsor banks, peptide chains wavering in the currents, pyridine probes and bond disrupters lining every available space like so many cannon ports. The thing resembled a great dreadnought, primed for slaughter.

And ANAD was closing fast.

"Config One!" Winger ordered. But he didn't have to. ANAD was already deploying to engage.

A furious combat ensued. Amazon Vector was one hell of a big bot but surprisingly nimble for so much mass. Surrounded by daughters, it grew and retracted appendages and surface structure with blazing speeds. Even as Winger watched, the master bot discarded an armful of carbon monoxide molecules it had been altering and prepared to engage.

***Closing now...five thousand microns...I am in Config One...bond disrupters are enabled...four thousand microns...***

For a brief moment, Winger clicked his eyepiece to external view. Just as he suspected, a faint green phosphorescent glow had just boiled off the top of the river, and was now sweeping shoreward, toward them.

"DPS...get your HERF guns spooled up and ready! We got company!"

Sheila Reaves was already on it. "Weapon is enabled, Captain. I'm sighting in now...what the hell is that?" She cycled the HERF weapon and boresighted on the target.

"I don't know exactly, but ANAD's view isn't pretty. I'm guessing it's the main pulse...the bots that are messing up the atmosphere. ANAD's replicating now—I'll detach a formation to screen us. Detachment, halt! Take cover...and for God's sake, get small! This one's big---and coming fast!"

As one, the rest of Alpha Detachment hunkered down along the edge of the river, wedging themselves into the sand and dirt as deep as their leg servos would drive them. Singh put Superfly in a defensive orbit while Calderon switched the sniffers to auto. With any luck, they could ride out the first assault and resume the engagement in a few minutes.

It all depended now on ANAD.

Winger switched back to ANAD view and tried to orient himself into the maelstrom of nanoscale combat.

Up close, the Amazon Vector master bot had one tough outer membrane. Crosslinked peptide chains, from the looks of it, Winger figured. The membrane seethed with motion, as atoms and clusters of atoms twisted, bonded, twisted again, rebonded, broke apart, recombined, straightened, undulated and whirled.

The gap between them vanished and ANAD grappled with the nearest bot. Others swarmed into the battlefield.

The imager screen shook with the collision, then careened sideways. And, linked in over the quantum circuit, Johnny Winger winced hard at the sting of the assault.

Jesus...that hurts...

***...come on, you atomic assholes, eat my carbenes, you jerks!...take that--***

ANAD swung a chain of bond disrupters forward, engaging the nearest bot. He cruised in at flank speed, propulsors whining and seized a phosphor group off the bot, twisting atoms until the bonds finally broke. Liberating thousands of electron volts, ANAD's disrupter zapped the bot and shattered its outer shell, ripping off probes left and right. The enemy bot shuddered and spun with the pulse, then re-engaged to fight off another bond snap.

***gotcha, didn't I... you want another piece of that, huh? Take this--***

ANAD closed again, intending another bond snap, but this time, the bot was ready. It whirled in a faster spin, wheeling about like a carrousel, making contact impossible. At the same time, something tough grappled him from behind—Winger felt the kick in his seat—he tried to turn but he was caught, pinioned in a vise-like grip...

***what the hell?...***

Whatever it was, the bot had grappled ANAD from the opposite side and was steadily reeling him in like a truculent fish on a line. He squirmed—Winger could feel the rubbery snare tightening like a ball of twine being wound up...squeezing hard, crushing the life out of him--

"ANAD, can't you break out...get free?"

***No...I'm caught...like a net...the harder I move...the tighter it gets...what the hell is this...***

The imager view vibrated with the ferocity of the attack. Chains of oxygen molecules, pressed into service as makeshift weapons, whipped across the screen. The enemy's master bot still seethed with rapid motion, churning up a storm of debris as it whirled and vibrated. All around, trillions of daughter replicants duplicated the same maneuver, an entire fleet turning and re-deploying. Everywhere at the same time, the Amazon bot fleet added new strings of molecules, building structure to make an armor shield of highly reactive chlorine atoms, reaching out to grasp the ANAD swarm with stinging tentacles of atoms that quickly immobilized them.

***...Base, I can't hold structure...it's these blasted chlorines...got to reconfig...shutdown peripheral systems!...***

Gibby was watching the engagement on his own eyepiece, an acoustic image from ANAD itself. He didn't like what he was seeing.

"He's got to disengage, Skipper...emergency truncation. Everything not critical. We've got to get ANAD out of there before we lose him!"

Winger knew he was right. Hell, he could feel the snare tightening with each turn of the enemy bot, a great fist slowly closing. It was almost like a MOB net in miniature...an impossibly long chain of atoms wrapping up the assembler like a spool. Everywhere around them, Amazon Vector bots were duplicating the same tactic.

"I know, I know...just keep trying, Jesus...internal bonds on main body structure weakening...I've lost all grappling capability...he had to focus, dammit! The pressure was enormous, atoms stripped from atoms, bonds snapping with a crackle...Winger swore and clicked out of the quantum circuit, out of the ANAD view. He couldn't take it, couldn't take the intensity, the squeeze, the overwhelming smothering—

Dammit!

Angrily, Winger clicked back to acoustic view. As he watched, Amazon systematically dismantled ANAD, molecule by molecule. The enemy was strong, more flexible than any structure that size had a right to be, with some kind of grappler that could extend impossibly far and sting like a tentacle. With ruthless efficiency, Amazon bots whirred and chopped every device ANAD could generate, all the while, squeezing ever tighter. ANAD tried to counter, replicating probes, inserters, jaws, cilia, pumps, blowers—but it was no use.

Amazon was too strong. Somehow, the master bot seemed to anticipate ANAD's every move.

Winger was awed by Amazon's combat capabilities. "Incredible," he whispered. "The perfect warrior. Must have one hell of a processor." And he kicked himself for not being there with ANAD...somehow Doc Frost had to dial down the quantum circuit, cut down the intensity of the feed.

They had no choice but to disengage. The top atomgrabber in the Corps hated to admit he was beaten, but he had a responsibility, to ANAD, to the Detachment, to the mission. He had to pull ANAD out—any way he could—before it was too late.

"We're losing signal strength, Captain!" Gibbs yelled.

"I see it! Amazon's got his fingers in the matrix now. Main processing functions in danger...I'm counterprogramming...." Winger pecked madly at the keyboard, dimly aware of a shrill keening whine outside his suit helmet.

With ANAD down, they were defenseless against the Amazon swarm.

"DPS1...get that HERF gun ready...ANAD's got to pull back...when I give the word...slam 'em! Fry the bastards!"

"On your mark, sir—"

ANAD couldn't hold. The only hope looked to be a quantum collapse...but the timing had to be right. If ANAD collapsed and the HERF fired before ANAD's core was safely contained, they'd lose everything: master assembler and all. Then they would really be in a hurt.

Gibby shook a fist at the image on his eyepiece, now a dark, swirling mass of shapes and forms. "Come on, damn it! Come on...."

But it was no use. ANAD was outgunned. Every move was countered by the enemy swarm. Amazon's response was swift and sure. Winger, Gibbs and the others watched in their eyepieces in amazement and horror, as one by one, ANAD's capabilities—fine motor control, attitude and orientation, propulsors, sensors, molecule analysis, replication—were rendered inert or completely lost.

ANAD was helpless.

"Got to get the hell out of Dodge," Winger muttered, sick with anger at how little help he had been to the assembler. You didn't abandon a buddy on the battlefield, no matter what...that had been drummed into every Quantum Corps trooper from the first day of nog school. No matter what it took...you got your buddies out. Even if they died in the effort.

Gibbs was checking status. "It's bad, Captain. No electron lens. No enzymatic knife. Hardly any effector control. ANAD's crippled. We can't let 'em get to the core...can't let the enemy rob the bank—"

Johnny Winger gritted his teeth. "Not just yet..." His fingers flew over the keypad. "Gotta get some data on this bastard...got to probe that bugger and get some structure...know what we're dealing with...if I can just get stabilized—"

"Captain—there's nothing left to stabilize—"

Despite the risk, the mission demanded something more. Earth's very atmosphere was under threat...who knew what could stop these bots, if anything could? They had to get data on what Amazon Vector nanobots were like...and who was behind them. If it meant sacrificing ANAD—

Sorry little buddy, but the mission has to come first.

Grimly determined, he piloted what was left of the ANAD horde back for another wrestling match with the enemy

"Whatever this thing is," he swore to himself, "it reacts like ANAD itself, only supercharged a thousand times." He worked the config controller stick, while Gibby managed status, crossing his fingers that the ANAD master would hold together just a little longer.

And that the Detachment could fend off the Amazon swarm now descending on them beside the river.

While Sheila Reaves kept the HERF gun sighted in, and her fingers poised above the firing button, Winger 'wriggled' ANAD a bit more vigorously in its tentacle embrace. Managing to move a few nanometers, he siphoned off some of the grappler's outer electrons until the charge had built up enough to send a zap down the length of the chain.

Like being stung by a bee, the grappler loosened just a bit, and Winger was ready, commanding another squirming fit by ANAD. Reams of bond energy data and config details burst onto the imager. The enemy bot's grappler had given up vitals on structure and ANAD's core snatched the info right out from under him, storing it, pulsing it back to its human controllers.

"Now, I gotcha, you little bastard—"

It was time to get the hell out of Indian country.

"Executing quantum collapse...NOW!" Come on baby, get small for me...get real small....

Deep inside the crushing embrace of the grappler, the ANAD master collapsed what was left of his own structure in an explosive puff of atom fragments. Base, effectors, probes and grapplers, even the core shell surrounding its main processor, went hurtling off into the air in a big bang of spinning atom parts.

ANAD...at least, the barest whiff of what had once been ANAD...was finally free.

And the Amazon bot's grappler was left holding...nothing...nothing but a ghostly afterthought...an entangled quantum shadow of its once squirming captive.

Instantly, ANAD disappeared. To all intents and purposes, ANAD had effectively vanished in a cloud of blurry quantum waves.

Less than two minutes later, making its way on quantum wave propulsors, ANAD was finally captured in the embedded containment capsule in Johnny Winger's shoulder, its processor still dogging electron states to bring the nearly invisible device home.

That's when Winger told Sheila Reaves to fire the HERF gun.

A series of hot thundering waves of RF washed over the Detachment, hunkered down in wet riverbank sand below a swarming horde of nanobots.

Winger squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the pulse to pass. He felt the tinkle of dying bots clattering against his helmet.

"DPS...give 'em more! Keep slamming 'em!"

With the ANAD master now little more than a quantum dot, he could only pray the HERF gun would destroy enough enemy bots to give them some room.

More searing hot waves thunderclapped past the Detachment, shaking the earth and the river like a giant fist. The Yemanha's oily waters stirred with restless waves.

When the third pulse was done, Winger commanded his suit servos to set him upright. "Secure the HERF. Move out...Sergeant Calderon...anything from the sniffers?"

The rest of the Detachment struggled to unsure footing, while Calderon checked his airborne brood.

"Got a strong reading, Captain...dead ahead, bearing zero five zero. Those caves up ahead—"

Winger steered the Detachment toward a steep cliff of limestone, riddled with caves and grottoes. Del Compo had mentioned something about a grotto off the river.

He could only pray they'd damaged the Amazon bots enough to clear a path. With ANAD in containment, licking his wounds, collapsed down to practically nothing, Winger felt bare and defenseless. Still, there was a chance some of ANAD's replicants had survived the HERF pulse.

"Gibby, check your interface...see if any of our guys made it through the HERF blast—"

Gibbs slogged through wet sand on automaneuver, just like the rest of the Detachment, wobbly but upright. He pecked out a few commands. "Good idea, Captain...if enough made it—"

"I could pilot the survivors myself," Winger finished the thought. "Maybe even rep a few trillion bots to help out." If I could remember the commands, he thought.

The Detachment followed the bend of the river, angling forward toward the limestone cliffs. The bank narrowed to a tiny shelf of sand, barely one man wide. They went in single file, with Superfly watching carefully from overhead, circling like a horde of flies. Something screeched and fluttered in the trees overhead, ten thousand bat wings heard but not seen. Winger paid no attention.

Instead, he concentrated on contacting ANAD, now deep inside the containment capsule in his shoulder. He felt bad about the quantum collapse---it usually took a week to regenerate an ANAD master after such a drastic maneuver, but it was the only way.

"ANAD...are you there...can you hear me...?"

He tried several times, not expecting an answer but figuring it was worth a try. The assembler was now little more than a few atoms of processor core, held together with tenuous quantum waves. There weren't enough atoms to send a reply...just enough to keep the processor barely ticking over until he could be extracted and regenerated.

Sorry, little buddy....I had to do it...I had to get you out of there...

He wondered what it felt like.

"Skipper...got something—" It was Gibby. He'd been probing the air, trying to locate remnants of the ANAD swarm. "Looks like a few stragglers survived...maybe enough to regroup-"

"I'm on it," Winger said, grateful for the interruption. He switched his eyepiece to acoustic sounding, signaled all surviving assemblers to form up overhead. Moments later, he sent a basic replication command. He'd have to monitor this one personally. The ANAD master normally controlled basic operations of the swarm, like a top sergeant, but ANAD was contained, barely alive.

Have to do this the old-fashioned way, Winger told himself. As the remaining assemblers grabbed atoms and rebuilt the swarm, he watched through the faceplate of his helmet. A faint shimmer through the tree limbs told him the replication was underway, though it was subdued and tediously slow-going without the master.

"Must be the entrance to that grotto," came a voice over the circuit. It was Reaves, driving the Superfly horde ahead of them. Imagery speckled on everyone's eyepiece, imagery of a dark recess in the limestone cliffs.

"Hold up," Winger commanded. "Hold your position...let's get a basic swarm up and ready to go in. I don't like the looks of this. Calderon, what do your sniffers say?"

Calderon was watching the readouts. "CO2 up another fifteen per cent. O2 down ten...looks like nitrogen's dropping...trace amounts of chlorine, methane, neon...all screwed up, Skipper. Air's bad inside, not breathable at all. Basically, toxic stuff coming out of that grotto and overhead too, venting from the cliff. Whatever's going on, this is the epicenter."

Something splashed in the river, and Superfly caught a glimpse of glistening dark limbs breaching the water. The light was low but whatever it was, it was definitely alive. Reaves tweaked Fly's sensors, got some infrared from the source, before it submerged.

"Some kind of croc...or a snake, maybe?" muttered Deeno D'Nunzio. The CQE1 was at the rear of the Detachment, running the packbots that carried their supplies.

"Hard to say," Reaves muttered. "Readout says it's not a point source...more diffuse."

"Like a swarm," Winger thought. Del Compo had run into that here too.

"Swarm's ready, Captain," Gibbs said. "You driving or me?"

"I'd better do it," Winger decided. Gibby was a decent atomgrabber, but Winger was the top code and stick man in the whole battalion and knew he could handle the basics. "Give me control."

Gibbs passed the swarm interface to the Captain. Winger tapped out a few commands and watched as the shimmering ball flowed around the tree trunks and penetrated the grotto. "Reaves, detach an element of Fly and send them in right after the swarm. I want eyes and ears and I want to leave the ANADs for defense, if we need 'em."

"Detaching now—" Reaves announced. On her command, a small portion of the Superfly horde peeled off and followed the ANAD swarm inside the grotto.

Acoustic imagery from the swarm filled Winger's eyepiece. He switched to Superfly's visual and infrared, then checked EM wavelengths, before switching back.

"Reading lots of thermal, Captain," Reaves noted right away. "Many sources, big sources, dead ahead—"

"I see it," Winger said. "Get the HERF guns ready. Coilguns too...Detachment spread out and get down. There may be another swarm—"

Forms materialized in his eyepiece, human-like forms, dimly seen in the low light.

"What the hell are they--?" someone asked. The same imagery was on everyone's eyepiece.

"Apes...maybe what's left of the natives—"

Johnny Winger remembered something Dr. Del Compo had described in the briefing at Table Top.

"It's vaguely humanoid," del Compo narrated over the imagery. "It has radically modified lungs, and as you can see, extra appendages. We've scanned all of its internal structure as well, in some detail." Ghostly images appeared, outlining the results of the scans. "There are the lungs, all four of them. Something that we're calling a heart, or circulatory pump, and there are other organs we haven't puzzled out yet. Interestingly, it has no brain or central cognitive-processing center that we can detect."

"This may be what Del Compo was talking about," Winger said.

The grotto seemed to be alive with them, dozens, maybe scores of the demonio, writhing and undulating like so many pieces and parts of bodies. Heads lay on the ground, waving in unseen currents like meadow grass. Arms and legs whipsawed along between the heads, like snakes. Torsos and parts of torsos vibrated like bees' nests. Pools of water stirred with more creatures, and parts of creatures.

"Sir...are they...human...or what?"

Winger switched back to acoustic imagery, letting the ANAD swarm filter in deeper, closer.

"Human-like organisms. A colony of nanobots, that's what Del Compo said. Only they're not really human....more like bad copies of humans. Del Compo thought they were adapted for the atmospheric changes going on, extra lungs, low-pressure blood—that sort of thing."

"What is this place?" asked Singh.

"It's a nursery, from the looks of it," said Gibbs.

Alpha Detachment had stumbled onto a colony of demonio in varying stages of formation.

"Look at them," whistled D'Nunzio.

"Proto-humanoids," said Mighty Mite Barnes. "Colonies of bots...being assembled by other bots. Is this what all those badass mechs have been protecting?"

Many of them were only partially formed. Winger knew of one creature already in captivity...the one Del Compo had brought back. It was a cinch Quantum Corps could learn more. What were they? Why were they here?

"I'm going to try an insertion," Winger decided.

"Excuse me, sir--?" asked Gibbs, incredulously. "Without an ANAD master?"

Winger had made up his mind. Sure, there was a risk. What was left of ANAD's master was now inside containment in his shoulder capsule. It took a week and specialized care at Table Top to regenerate a master assembler after a quantum collapse. A few trillions of ANAD's replicants were left in a barebones swarm; that's all there were to run an insertion into unknown territory like the demonio. What kind of resistance would they put up? The creatures were little more than colonies of nanobotic mechanisms in the shape of something vaguely human-like.

There's only one way to find out, Winger decided. As Major Kraft was fond of saying, when you're in command...command.

"Prepare for opposed entry," Winger ordered.

The first step was to corral one of the demonio creatures, immobilize and contain it long enough to insert a small swarm to investigate.

"Sir, I have an idea," said Calderon.

"I'm listening."

Calderon trundled forward, his suit servos trying to keep him level on the uneven ground. The grotto interior was marshy, spotted with small pools, its limestone walls dripping wet.

"Sir, suppose we blast this place with HERF a few times, enough to stun the bugs into a stupor. Then, the DPS here—" he indicated Sheila Reaves and 'Taj' Singh "—fires off a few rounds of MOB. Maybe that'll hold enough of 'em together to do a little recon...see what makes 'em tick."

The idea had merit. "We won't have long," Winger told them. "Sheila, give me three blasts inside this grotto...then keep HERF trained outside. What does 'Fly see outside right now?"

The Superfly horde had been positioned just outside the grotto entrance, orbiting over the riverbank.

"Bots are re-forming now," Reaves reported. "Small swarms...isolated elements at the moment. I give us about four to five minutes."

"Okay...keep 'em dispersed with HERF, coilguns, whatever you can. Give me just five minutes of protection," Winger said. "Then we've got to get the hell out of Dodge."

"Will do, sir. HERF's enabled now—"

Winger ordered the rest of the Detachment to take cover. As one, ten hypersuits lowered their occupants to the ground, assuming minimum profile.

"Fire the weapon!" Winger commanded.

"Weapon is charging...charging...charging...fire in the hole!"

Riding out a bolt from HERF was like sticking your head in an oven. Twice...three times, Reaves discharged the high energy radio frequency weapon into the grotto. Like a thunderclap, the sound exploded all around them, echoing off the walls, loosing seams of rock and flash-frying pools of water into steam columns.

As expected, the RF blasts scattered the demonio into loose swarms and knots of mechs, buzzing around like so many disoriented hornets. At the very moment Reaves wheeled the HERF gun back to cover the grotto entrance, Johnny Winger switched his eyepiece viewer back to nanoscale and signaled his own small swarm of bots to move forward, revving their propulsors to max, bearing down on a nearby horde of mechs.

"Okay, Taj...MOB'em!"

Taj Singh fired off several canisters of Mobility Obstruction Barrier. The clouds of dumb bots were probably no match for the mechs making up the creatures, but at least, it would keep them occupied while ANAD probed.

The switchover to acoustic always made Winger dizzy but he recovered soon enough. As always, piloting nanoscale bots through any medium, especially one that had just been HERF'ed was like flying in a sleet storm.

He finagled with the scale on his viewer until he found one that was comfortable, then tickled the stick, pecking out a few commands. In unison, the swarm extended all effectors, primed bond breakers and enabled grapplers and enzymatic knives. He didn't have time to try a replication...they had maybe five minutes, maybe less, before the Amazon bots re-formed outside the grotto in numbers sufficient to overwhelm Superfly.

When that happened, Alpha Detachment would have to fall back to the lifter...or be eaten alive.

Gibby was monitoring the command circuit as well. Qualified as an interface controller, the IC2 was an invaluable second set of eyes for swarm maneuvers and tactics.

"Reading fifteen thousand microns...nearest formation," Gibby muttered. "Our guys enabled, sir?"

"Primed and ready," Winger said, concentrating on the image, trying to make out anything he could recognize. Atomgrabbers spent a lot of time studying atomic configurations; the best of them could spot a peptide or a fullerene a long way off and knew instinctively how to counter it. When you fought wars and skirmishes at this scale, long-range sounding and recognition was crucial.

"—picking up some heat ahead," Winger noticed from the swarm's sounding. "-small thermals, point sources...pretty spread out."

"I don't recognize the signature," Gibby said.

The assembler swarm was in all respects ANAD in design and capability. Same effectors, same construction and abilities. Only the nanoprocessor core was missing, the brains of the master assembler. Johnny Winger would have to provide the brains, trusting his instincts to react properly to moves and feints and maneuvers of the enemy.

"Me neither...but that's not surprising...I'm slowing to half speed, spreading out a bit...maybe I can get better resolution—"

He sent the commands. As a single body, trillions of ANAD assemblers responded by cutting back propulsor rpms to half. Spreading them further apart gave him a better angle to sound ahead, a sharper image on the acoustic to discern what lay before them.

"—there!" Gibby's voice was exultant. Although both Winger and Gibbs lay prone inside their hypersuits on the dank floor of the grotto, their eyes and minds were elsewhere, speeding along through a hail of loose atoms, homing on a distinct mass dead ahead, a mass emitting lots of heat and loose radicals....a sure sign of nanobotic activity.

"I think we got one—" Winger switched momentarily from acoustic to macro and peered over the top of his eyepiece, out through his helmet. Sure enough, a form loosely resembling half a human was bobbing in a small pool of water about six meters away. Its head and shoulders were above the surface of the water, its still-forming arms and hands flailing away, splashing and thrashing about. Mesmerized, Johnny Winger had to tear his eyes away from the scene, back to the world of atoms.

The ANAD swarm was bearing down directly for the center of the creature's still-forming head.

"Slowing to one-quarter speed," Winger announced.

"Extend your carbenes, Skipper....see if you can grab one of those appendages—"

Dead ahead, a tight flock of devices whirred and vibrated like mad dervishes, grabbing atoms left and right, building structure and emitting furious heat.

"They're replicating—" Winger said.

"Like crazy, Skipper...look at those effectors..."

Indeed, as the swarm closed, the motions of the demonio mechs were almost a blur, so fast did they move. The small horde grabbed and positioned atoms like a frantic crew of brickmasons. In seconds, each bot had grabbed enough atoms to fashion a complete replica, which it topped off with a tetrahedral base, attached with crosslinked peptide chains and an undulating backbone of phosphates.

"Amazing...unbelievable...this is one souped-up bug," Gibby breathed.

"The bastard's optimized for replication...that's all it's doing...not much of a core, that I can see."

"Just a mindless nanobotic baby-maker," Gibby said.

"I'm going in....this we got to investigate—"

"Careful, Skipper....those carbenes look nasty to me...I wouldn't get too close...he could pick us apart in no time."

On command, the ANAD swarm eased forward.

"Skipper...watch out! Soundings are going haywire...thermals all over the place—"

Before Winger could react, the ANAD swarm found itself enveloped in a cloud of churning babymakers, drawing closer and closer.

"Where'd the hell they all come from?"

"I don't know, Skipper, but we better get out while we can."

Winger spun up the swarm's propulsors and ran head-on into a horde of babymakers.

"All stop!" Winger yelled. "Effectors out max...Jesus, those bonds are strong—"

Gibby could see ANAD was quickly becoming enmeshed in a web of effectors, like a fly in a spider's web. Its own momentum had helped spring the trap.

"Trying backing out, Skipper!"

"I'm trying just to get loose...these are covalent bonds...I ought to be able to break 'em, but—"

Trillions of ANAD assemblers squirmed and fought hard against the entrapment, but the babymakers were doubly bonded, their effectors sharing multiple electrons in strong, rigid loops.

Johnny Winger tried every combination of kick and feint he could think of, just trying to squirm free of the mesh of ever tightening mechs. No matter what he did—flipping carbene grabbers, firing his bond breakers, slashing enzymatic knives—nothing worked. The babymakers were too strong.

He couldn't do a quantum collapse, again...the swarm would cease to exist. Unlike the master assembler, there wasn't enough core to regenerate.

Winger gritted his teeth. "Maybe I can power my way out..."

He revved up the propulsors to max, flexing every effector at the same time. Slowly, grudgingly, the babymakers gave way, a little at a time, then more and more.

"Come on, ANAD...come on....come on—"

"Kick ass, Skipper....give 'em hell!"

The last flex did the trick. Almost in unison, the ANAD assemblers sprung free and shot forward on max propulsors. Half their grabbers were ripped off and most had platform damage, but the bots were intact and the worst damage could be repaired quickly enough.

The ANAD swarm catapulted beyond the first screen of babymakers and soon enough, found themselves approaching another dark, formless mass dead ahead. The hailstorm of babymakers slipped steadily behind them.

"Thermals are high...but it's a different signature, Skipper."

Winger was puzzled for a few minutes, as he slowed and tried to regain some kind of control over the swarm. Then it came to him.

"Gibby...it's a brain."

"A what?"

"It makes sense...instead of each mech having a core like ANAD, they're grouped together into a single mass...like our brains. Like one big mass of tissue and neurons, only these cells are individual nanobots."

Gibby couldn't believe it. "Del Compo was right then, wasn't he? These creatures really are nothing more than colonies of bots."

Winger knew he'd heard that before. ANAD had once said the very same thing to him.

"We've got to go in there—"

"Skipper—"

"Captain—" it was Reaves on the crewnet circuit. "—Amazon swarms approaching...I think this is it for 'Fly...permission to engage with HERF?"

"Hold up, Sheila...we're right in the middle of something here—" If DPS let fly with another round of HERF, even aimed away from the grotto, the impulse could shred the demonio again...scatter its nanobotic parts and make it impossible to probe the thing's 'brain.'

"Captain—"

"Give me three minutes, DPS," Winger ordered. He needed the time to probe ahead, see what the dark mass was. "But keep HERF charged and ready. When I give the word, light the bastards up."

Back at the grotto entrance, Reaves swore under her breath. Skipper's right, they needed the data...she knew that, but that swarm was growing fast and Superfly wouldn't be able to handle it much longer.

She peeked out across the river, warily eyeing the thickening mist that had descended over the waters. The surface stirred, freshened not by a breeze but by furious nanobotic activity, as the Amazon bots replicated into a swelling horde. In seconds, her view of the opposite bank had dimmed. All she could see now was a patch of sky through gaps in the swarm, through gaps in the dense canopy of tree cover. A dense flickering fog was rapidly descending on the grotto and Reaves didn't like the looks of it.

She checked on Fly...the squadron of entomopters had already engaged the swarm along its perimeter and the results were predictable. A fourth of the unit had been shredded in less than a minute.

At this rate, Skipper won't have even three minutes, she realized. She felt the warm, throbbing barrel of the HERF gun, wondering how much charge she had left. A few shots at best. After that—

Johnny Winger bored in on the dark mass ahead. Looks like a bunch of grapes, hanging on a trellis, he thought.

For all intents and purposes, the demonio were nothing more than colonies of nanoscale mechs.

"Sounding ahead..." Winger muttered. ANAD pinged the mass for distance.

"I make it as three thousand microns," Gibby read off the result. "You planning on engaging, Skipper? We may not have time. With the swarm outside, and HERF wearing off here—"

More and more of the demonio had re-assembled themselves into forms vaguely resembling humans. Heads and arms and pieces of torso scuttled around the pools and the stone floor like disembodied wraiths. Another blast would give them more time, but it might also scatter the colonies into loose atoms as well.

"I want to engage the outer mechs in that mass, see if we can sniff out anything we could use...a weakness, something. These buggers are being formed for a reason. I want to know what it is."

"Two thousand microns, Skipper," Gibby read off the sounding.

"I am in tactical three...defensive grapplers extended. My bond breakers are active. Maybe we'll get lucky...find us a glutamate trail."

Gibby was skeptical but said nothing. Several years ago, Doc Frost had added a new capability to ANAD, the ability to shuttle around inside someone's brain like a bunch of bees, sniffing out calcium sinks in every neuron, looking for concentrations of glutamate molecules. Everywhere there was a certain level of glutamate was a pathway, burned in, a crude trace of memory. Doc Frost had tweaked ANAD's hydrogen probes to search out these traces, sending back data on whatever it found—calcium levels, sodium levels, activation times. With new algorithms in its processor, ANAD was able to re-construct a very crude version of what originally laid down the trace.

"Sort of like painting somebody's portrait from their shadow," Frost had explained. Kind of an echo of a memory, if you like."

It had always given Gibby the creeps.

But there was no reason to think the demonio were wired the same way.

Movement to contact took another minute. Outside the grotto, Sheila Reaves was increasingly nervous.

"ANAD sounding less than one hundred microns, Skipper."

"I see it. I'm slowing to one quarter—grapplers primed...got my sticky radicals out...carbenes and pyridines too," Winger piloted the small swarm on a tangent toward the first humps of the mass. Closing in, he saw that the formation of bots were tightly linked in a rigid lattice, each unit grappled with the next, in a vast undulating plain of

nanobots. The plain rippled like the surface of a lake stirred by breezes.

As ANAD approached, the outer bots clicked defensive arms into view. The lattice quickly grew spiky bristles.

"Those are bond disrupters," Gibby announced. "Pretty crude but—"

"They could zap me if I'm not careful—all stop—" Winger brought the ANAD swarm alongside the lattice, hovering only a few microns away. The bots made no move to contact or repel, simply spread their disrupters outward to ward off any attempts at contact.

"Just dumb bots," Winger surmised, studying the structure of the nearest ones. "Basic polyhedral core. A few effectors. So what's the deal...why are they linked like this?"

Reaves' voice came over the crewnet. "Skipper, Fly can't hold any longer. The big swarm's almost at the grotto...permission to engage HERF?"

"Give me one more minute, Sheila," Winger told her. "Calderon, Taj, lay down some coilgun rounds...throw the sniffers at them...whatever you can...we're right in the middle of a mystery here—"

Reaves snorted but said nothing. What the hell are they doing back there...reading detective novels? She motioned Calderon up to the entrance. The CEC2 crouched next to her and they surveyed the tactical situation.

"Chris...can you bring those sniffers down to block this entrance?"

"I can but it won't even slow 'em down that much. And we'll lose our ability to know what's happening to the atmosphere."

Reaves was in charge of Detachment defense. "Do it. We need every second we can get."

Calderon signaled the mote-sized bots to form up around the grotto entrance. He shook his head. "What a waste of good bots—"

"Look, pal, if we don't hold off that big swarm out there, we'll be the ones who are wasted. Stop bitching and give me some screening. Taj...get your ass up here too...and bring that coilgun—"

Back inside, Johnny Winger had made a decision. "I'm going in, Gibby...see what's inside that core—"

"Captain...the time...we've got to start pulling out—"

"Hold on—"

Winger powered up the ANAD swarm and steered them into direct contact with the outer shell of mechs.

The battle didn't last long. Even without its master assembler, ANAD was more than a match.

A few zaps from ANAD's bond disrupters and the lattice unlinked like a zipper, the bots unlatching and folding back to make a path for the assemblers.

"It may be a trap, Skipper...watch out—"

I'm watching...I'm watching already." Winger cruised in and poked a pyridine probe right into the clumped core molecules of the nearest mech. The sticky hydrogens tore a gash through blurry clouds of electrons. Bonds snapped and sizzled as Winger drove ANAD in deeper, feeling its way along.

Then, without warning, there was a blinding flash. White light filled the imager screen, blinding Winger and Gibby at the same time. Some energy source had discharged, liberating millions of volts and when the imager cleared, ANAD found itself pulled deeper into the lattice, surrounded on all sides in every direction by an unending plain of linked bots, like a boat stranded in a field of grain that stretched to infinity.

"What the hell—"

"Look—" Gibby's voice caught.

The imager had gone crazy. Lines of static flickered and scrolled across the viewer. Winger checked his wristpad. Still a signal, though it was weak and intermittent. Still getting an image.

But the image didn't make any sense.

Was it an actual image, Winger wondered? Or was it like a glutamate trace in a human brain, a ghostly image of something else?

The grain field became a little sharper. The plants undulated just like wheat or corn in a faint breeze but closer inspection showed they weren't plants at all...merely linked nanobotic mechanisms, of every size and shape, uncountable in number, sweeping to a distant featureless horizon. The plants weren't alone either. Drifting like clouds over an Iowa countryside were vast coils and shapes, themselves more linked masses of bots. The world had turned upside down...everything was bots and mechs, no matter which way they turned.

"What is this place?" Gibby breathed quietly.

Winger shook his head. "I was going to say it ain't Kansas...but hang it, maybe it is. But look...everything, everywhere...it's all bots—"

"Are we still in that lattice?"

Winger checked the sounding. "ANAD signals don't make any sense. I'm reading distances that can't be...almost off the scale...millions, billions of microns. Gibby, it's like what we're seeing isn't atoms at all...like we've gone macro."

"Not atoms..." Gibby's voice stuttered. "Then...where the hell is ANAD? Is this an image?"

"Or a trace? Maybe it's just some kind of gibberish or static inside the creature's 'brain.'"

"If it's a memory trace...it's not like any world I've ever seen. Maybe these buggers have nightmares...and we're in one."

Winger was about to reply, but Reaves' strained voice crackled over the crewnet.

"Captain...we're out of time up here....permission to engage the HERF NOW, sir—"

Winger knew they had to fall back...or the whole Detachment might be trapped inside the grotto.

"Light 'em up, DPS! Fry the bastards! ANAD's pulling out now—"

In the last seconds before the thunderclap of heat rolled over them, ANAD squirmed free of the lattice, but not before tearing a huge gash in the mesh of linked bots, pulling away just as more bonds snapped and the crackle-flash! zapped the swarm once more. Static and sizzling fog swelled up, filling their eyepieces. A split second before the HERF gun scattered the colonies again into loose atoms, Winger saw something in his eyepiece that would stay with him for a very long time.

The lattice into which ANAD had been embedded pulled away, as if the tiny assembler had been launched into the air over the countryside. Up and up he flew, soaring higher and ever higher, until the pale blue faded into black, and the stars shone as hard bright unblinking lights.

As if ANAD had somehow been lofted into space, Winger remembered seeing the lattice retreat below him, fading into an indistinct seamless web, then curving and folding back on itself, forming first a horizon, then greater curvature, then a ball, then an entire world.

When the hot wave thundered through the grotto and the demonio were shredded into fluff once more, the final image Johnny Winger remembered was just that: an entire world of lattice, an entire world of linked nanobotic mechanisms folded back on itself like the covering of a ball...a planet of ANADs or something very much like them, floating in space, throbbing like a thing alive.

That's when the second HERF discharge came and the roof of the grotto came crashing down on them.

Extricating the Skipper and Gibby took about half an hour. Reaves, Singh, D'Nunzio, the whole Detachment pitched in, digging and pawing through the rock and rubble in their hypersuits, while the Amazon swarm tore at them like a furious wind, a wind with teeth.

"Okay—" came Moby's straining voice...."now pull—"

Rubble, dirt and rock rolled down Johnny Winger's faceplate. The first thing he saw was Sergeant Oscar M'Bela, his CEC1, peering into the helmet.

"Come on, Skipper...got...to...get...you...out of here--." He pulled and hoisted and pulled harder. Winger squirmed free of a load of limestone shards, finally working one arm free. Then he managed to snag a button on his wrist, activating his suit's leg boost. Servos whined and moments later, his armored torso and legs were tilting upright, shedding debris in every direction like a wet dog.

"I got about one more charge!" Reaves yelled over the circuit. "If somebody could get the lifter overhead—"

Master Sergeant Al Glance was scrambling up toward the grotto entrance. Glance was second in command, Detachment CC2.

"I've got the codes. Give 'em another blast and I'll contact the ship."

While Winger, M'Bela, D'Nunzio and the rest pulled back from the lower chamber, and headed up, Reaves primed the HERF gun once again.

"Charging...charging...charging...I think this is the last of it...Geronimo...!!"

The radio frequency weapon discharged its bolt of energy across the Yemanha River. The thunderclap stirred the river into a boiling frenzy, while hordes of bats screeched off in vast hordes, blackening the skies. A fine mist fell from above, but it wasn't rain...it was the debris of uncounted Amazon bots shattered by the pulse, raining out of the sky.

"HERF's dead!" Reaves announced. "We got about two minutes...tops!"

"Here they come," said Calderon. From the dim recesses of the inner grotto, splashing and scrambling through pools, slipping on the limestone floor, came the rest of the Detachment, a haggard, shaken crew.

Al Glance poked his head out of the grotto and stood on the lip, signaling the liftjet down from its orbit over the area. By command, the lifter had been circling the village of Via Verde at ten thousand feet, in close formation with the hyperjet Mercury, both cruising in a racetrack pattern on autopilot. Moments later, the black spidery rotors of the lifter came into view through the higher tree tops, its articulating wings and rotors whop-whop-whopping as it descended over the river, and came to a hover two hundred feet over a shallow sandbar.

Johnny Winger had recovered his bearings enough to make it up to the entrance on his own.

"Thanks, Moby...now let's get the hell out of here."

Gibbs followed behind. "Any word from ANAD, Skipper? I released the last of the swarm just before HERF went off." It was standard doctrine when abandoning an ANAD swarm to command the bots to commit atomic seppuku, sloughing off all effectors and structures and zapping core bonds so that nothing was left.

"Not a peep," Winger told him. "There's not much left anyway...just a few atoms held together and the quantum kernel of his core. There's probably not even enough core to communicate. I can't raise him."

Winger didn't want to think about it. He'd let the assembler down plain and simple...let a fellow trooper down and that wasn't kosher. He hadn't done his recon properly, hadn't made the right command decisions, hadn't gone by the book when every hair on the back of his neck was standing up, screaming warnings. Instead, he gone with gut instinct, atomgrabber's instinct and he'd been wrong, dreadfully wrong. He'd thrown the tiny assembler into something he couldn't handle. ANAD couldn't keep up with the Amazon bots. Whoever or whatever had created Amazon, the enemy mechs were faster and stronger. That much was certain.

Only a quantum collapse had saved ANAD. But it was like cutting off a trooper's arms and legs to save his head.

"Lifter's on station, Captain," Glance reported.

The Detachment assembled at the front of the grotto, slipping and sliding down to the tiny beach by the river. They were a fatigued, beaten, hollow-eyed shell of a combat unit, hypersuited still but exhausted and dejected. They'd lost much of their gear but thankfully no casualties had been taken, save for ANAD himself.

And they had about sixty seconds to exfiltrate before the Amazon swarm reconstituted itself and came at them again.

"Bring her down," Winger told Glance, who was piloting the lifter from his own wristpad. He eyed the growing ball of shimmering, sparkling fog that even now was swelling overhead, the enemy bots replicating in exponential overdrive. In less than a minute, the bots would blanket and smother the whole area. And the Detachment had nothing to counter the swarm with.

Glance sent the commands. Instantly, the big spidery vehicle lowered itself to less than twenty feet over the riverbank, translating laterally to position its belly doors.

Combat exfiltration wasn't something the Detachment practiced very often but when you needed it, the suit boost had to work or else.

One by one, with Winger and Reaves hurrying everybody up, the troopers of Alpha Detachment stepped onto the tiny beach and lit off their boosters. Each hypersuit mounted two thrusters, one on each leg, which when fired, could lift a trooper fifty feet into the air in one big lift. They'd wargamed escape maneuvers using suit boost but the problem was the landing...you had to manage your position in the air to come down in line with the thrust. You could break your neck if you didn't, or worse. It was a one-time shot, to be used only in times of dire necessity.

Johnny Winger figured they were about to be annihilated by the Amazon swarm and that was reason enough.

Each trooper lifted off into the air, scattering sand and water in all directions. Fifty feet overhead, the lifter dropped grab rings from its belly. Timed just right, with a little practice, a Quantum Corps trooper could shoot himself right up to the grab ring and be hauled aboard the lifter in about ten seconds.

"GO...GO...GO...!" Winger patted each trooper in turn on his shoulder, lighting them off in salvo like missiles being launched. One after another, they boosted—D'Nunzio, Singh, Reaves, Calderon, Spivey, Gibby and the rest.

Finally, as the Amazon swarm rolled toward them like a miniature storm front, crackling and flickering with menace, only Glance and Winger were left.

"Go, Al...get your butt up there—"

Glance met Winger's eyes. "We did all we could, Skipper. We just got outswarmed, that's all."

Winger blinked at him. Nobody outswarms me and ANAD, but he didn't say that. "Thanks...now...off you go—"

Glance lit off and boosted into the air. Second later, he was swinging by his arms from the grab ring, riding up into the belly of the lifter.

Winger looked up. Faces rimmed the belly bay opening, hands reaching out, imploring him to light off. Voices came down faint but unmistakable over the whooshing of the rotors.

"Come on...come on, Skipper...get going..."

Winger acknowledged them, then took one last look at the swelling cloud of Amazon bots, now engorging the nearest tree limbs that overhung the beach. The limbs disappeared in a shrill, whirring blur, consumed in a furious buzz of molecular deconstruction. All around him, the air was thickening to a gelatinous mist and the shriek of the mechs had become unbearable, tearing at his eardrums even through the helmet.

And it was coming his way.

You win this time, buggers...but it won't be the last time we meet.

He took a deep breath, dimly aware that it was only the hypersuit that allowed him to breathe at all in this toxic cesspool of a swamp, and lit off his suit boost.

The thrusters slammed him upward and he extended his arms like he'd been trained. In no time, his fingers closed around the grab ring and the lifter was hoisting him up into its belly, a mother reclaiming her lost brood. His suit gyros gave out at that same moment, and he toppled over inside the bay, nearly plummeting back out into the river, just as the lifter banked off into the humid late morning sky, kissing the upper tree branches as it spiraled up and away from the river.

Winger hung on tightly as the craft put some distance between itself and the nanomech cloud below. The lifter shuddered under full military power, fighting remnant clouds of mechs boiling up from below, as it bucked and careened and shot skyward. A hurricane of dust and sand and water mist and swarming mechs tore by, all blown to the wind, as the lifter spun and wobbled until its autopilot could right her.

Sheila Reaves had grabbed Winger's suit leg when the lifter took off and now she released it, sinking back against the bulkhead. She wiped sweat and grit from her eyes and squinted up, seeing a familiar face. It was Deeno D'Nunzio, looking for all the world like she'd just won a slam-boxing match...her hair was plastered to her face and she was flushed red.

The two women glared at each other for a moment and burst into laughter.

Too bad about Superfly, Reaves thought, as she sat up and wiped streaks of grime from her face. He'd always been a kickass bot, her personal toy and one damned good scout for Detachment missions. They'd miss this model for sure. But Table Top could fabricate another one in no time.

One hundred, two hundred, five hundred feet. Reaves barely breathed until they'd put miles behind them and the only thing she could hear was the thrummm of the liftjets and the cold wind whistling through the cabin holes. She shook her head, startled at the sight. Mechs had burrowed into the lifter...the holes, she hadn't seen them before. It had been that close.

Ten feet away, Johnny Winger was feeling much the same. He sank back, sweaty and exhausted, and killed the crewnet. His eyepiece went dark and he shoved it away from his face. But only when the buffeting and the sonic pulses and the high keening wail of nanomech hell had finally died off, did he finally begin to relax.

The very first thing he did was quick-disconnect the hypersuit helmet, yank the hat off and gulp down tons and tons of cold, humid high-altitude air.

It wasn't toxic at all...in fact, it was better than ice cream on a hot summer day.

Then he crawled through all the groaning bodies to the front of the compartment, to see about the rendezvous with Mercury.

Above the belly on the flight deck, Al Glance massaged the controls like a master pianist, still in his hypersuit but minus the helmet. He saw Winger poke his head up from below and grinned back, trimming the lifter for the short cruise up to ten thousand feet, where hyperjet Mercury and their ride home were waiting like an expectant mother.

They made rendezvous an hour later. Al Glance deftly parked the lifter in Mercury's docking cradle and let the mothership hoist them aboard. Climbing out into the docking bay, Johnny Winger couldn't wait to head forward to the suiting room and climb out of 'this tin can' , as most of them called the hypersuits.

"Set a course for Table Top," he told Glance, who would be up on the command deck running the ship for the first watch. "And get word to Battalion that we'll need a new ANAD master." Winger absent-mindedly massaged his left shoulder, as if he could somehow feel the bot inside, ticking over, barely alive. "I'll find out what ANAD's status is and get it to you as soon as I clean up."

"Roger that, Skipper." Glance bounded off to the command deck, to take Mercury out of her orbit and set the ship up for boost to Table Top. The whole five-thousand mile trip would take about two hours, give or take, as they skimmed off the top of the atmosphere and skipped northward like a stone on a lake.

Moments later, Winger was on the comm to Table Top. The vidlink connected and Major Kraft's harried face peered up at the tone.

That's when Winger learned what had happened to Bravo Detachment at Kurabantu Island.

"...last word we had from Captain Tallant," Kraft was saying, "they were under swarm assault near the central volcano. We've got scouts and sniffers combing the area now but there's no sign of Bravo...nothing at all—" Kraft's frown deepened and he looked away from the vid. Losing an entire detachment made him sick but he couldn't let Winger see that.

Winger was exhausted, even after a shower and a change. He shook his head, describing the engagement with Amazon.

"It was the damnedest thing, Major. It was like ANAD was moving through molasses. He was always a step behind, couldn't react fast enough and when he grappled, the bots just shrugged him off like a gnat. Never saw grapplers like that—I tried to get structure on 'em and we got some...but it may not be enough." He had squirted the data take from ANAD to Table Top at the beginning of the session.

"I'll have Doc Frost and his engineers take a look at it...maybe there's something they can do under the hood, soup up ANAD for future action. We've got to get a hold of this menace now...UNIFORCE says BioShield can't even slow 'em down. These atmospheric perturbations are growing...and spreading. So far, no big population centers are affected yet, but it is just a matter of time, especially in central Africa. It's worst of all in the Antarctic. The icepack's melting like crazy and most of the world's coastal cities will be flooded in weeks if we can't stop it."

Winger wasn't sure whether he should tell Kraft about the strange probe into the core of one of the Amazon bots. What could he say, really?

"Get your ass back up here, Winger..." Kraft was saying, "we've got some tactics to work out. And we've got to know what happened to Bravo."

"ETA is 1930 hours, your time, sir," Winger told him. "And we'll need to start regenerating another ANAD master. I lost this one."

Kraft killed the vidlink and Winger went forward from the comm shack to the cockpit. Al Glance was there, on watch, but the ship was piloting herself. Beyond the forward windows, the curvature of the Earth was backlit by a setting sun, spreading a pool of molten gold and red all along the western horizon. Mercury was near the apogee of her suborbital arc, moments away from weightlessness, and her final plunge back into the atmosphere. In less than an hour, she'd be circling onto final approach and settling down on the north lift pad at Table Top Mountain.

"Bad news, Skipper? You look kinda pale. I can handle the ship, if you want to get some shuteye."

"It's okay, Al...just talked to the Major. Bravo Detachment's missing...no word from Kurabantu Island. Singapore's not sure what happened." Winger related all he had just heard from Kraft.

Glance uttered a low whistle. "The whole Detachment...were they swarmed or what?"

"Apparently," Winger said. "They were in contact, engaged in fighting off an assault, but nobody really knows what happened. Sniffers are up now...all assets air and space are looking, but so far—" He shrugged.

The fatigued face of Sergeant Gibbs appeared in the door behind them. "Sorry, Skipper...didn't know you were here. I was...just sort of –"

Winger understood. "Restless."

"Yes, sir... kind of..." A puzzled frown came over his face. "--Just not sure what to make of...what we saw, sir. Inside the core of that bot...inside that creature—"

Winger shook his head. "Me neither, Gibby. I didn't say anything to the Major. But it'll come out in the debrief."

"How do you explain it, sir.? It was like a nightmare...maybe we were living through a kind of dream those buggers have, if they even have minds."

"I don't know what to say. It's more like a feeling. Somehow, this Amazon bot swarm, and the demonio creatures are related. And they're part of something much larger. I don't know what yet. I'd bet my atomgrabber's license that Red Hammer's involved. But I doubt they're up to this kind of technology alone. Somebody else is helping out."

"Another cartel, maybe? One we don't know about?"

Winger thought about the odd sensation he'd had, just before the grotto roof collapsed, plugged in with ANAD into the core of that bot, of seeing imagery of an entire world of nanobots, a planet of mechs.

"Maybe something even bigger, Gibby. But let's save it for the debrief. Kraft wants us in his office at 0600 hours tomorrow. Better get some rest now, while we can."

"Sure, Skipper." Gibby disappeared aft.

Johnny Winger left the cockpit and lay aft to his own compartment. He settled wearily into the bunk but sleep wouldn't come. He could feel Mercury maneuvering down through the denser layers of the atmosphere, visualizing her turns and descents toward Table Top. But he was restless and it wasn't a vision of other worlds that kept him awake.

It was ANAD. And what had happened.

Johnny Winger tossed and turned in a cold sweat, frustrated that ANAD had been bested by the Amazon bots.

Little fellow...I let you down...and that stinks.

In a way, he'd let the whole damn Detachment down. Sure, they'd gotten a little data on the Amazon bots, but it wasn't much. Would it be enough?

Hell, maybe it's this friggin' quantum link.

Ever since Doc Frost had linked him in with the assembler, he'd had periods of confusion, indecision, just plain fog...like he was somebody else, somewhere else. It was crazy, despite what the Doc said. And Johnny Winger wasn't buying any of this signal leakage or combat symbiosis crap.

The fog--or whatever the hell it was--had nearly cost him and the Detachment their lives. ANAD too...and that was the crux of the matter, wasn't it?

He had some apologizing to do but ANAD was mute, what was left of his core having barely enough atoms to keep the processor going.

His own Dad—Jamison Winger—had been like that too, when Johnny's Mom had died in the auto accident. The Year of Hell, that was. Way back in '47, but it seemed like yesterday. Cold and silent as a stone wall. Jamison Winger hadn't said ten words the whole year. Then, the next year, they gave him the patch for depression and at least he was better.

When you had something you wanted to get off your chest and you just couldn't, all you could do was swallow it and keep going.

Nanotroopers learned real well how to keep going. They learned that practically from day one in nog school. Maybe too well.

Sometimes nanotroopers kept going until they crashed head on into a stone wall.
CHAPTER 6

Table Top Mountain

Idaho, USA

November 3, 2068

0600 hours

Johnny Winger knocked softly on the door to Major Kraft's office. The Major was inside, pecking away at a commandpad, cutting orders for ANAD to be given priority at the Containment center. 1st Nanospace Battalion would be deploying again soon and he wanted a fresh, fully-capable ANAD master assembler ready and checked out.

"Come."

Winger went in, followed by Master Sergeant Al Glance, Sergeant Hoyt Gibbs and Sergeant Sheila Reaves. I want an eyeballs report as well as the usual paperwork, Kraft had told Winger on the trip back to Table Top.

Kraft put away the commandpad. "ANAD'll be ready in about three days, so the boys at Containment tell me. You roughed him up pretty good down there, Winger. What the hell happened?"

Winger shook his head. "Alpha Detachment got its butt kicked good, this time, Major." He described the engagement with Amazon bots outside and inside the grotto at Via Verde. "I could grapple with the buggers, sort of, but I couldn't hold 'em. Somehow, they could just spin around and throw me off."

Gibby nodded, "It was the damndest thing, Major. Right in the middle of the engagement, while we were grappling, the bots could grow extra effectors in a few seconds and grab you from behind. One effector was like a tentacle, long with some kind of badass bond disrupter at the end. It could come out of nowhere—"

Kraft listened with growing concern to the descriptions, his forehead lines deepening. "Looks like these Amazon bugs have extra capabilities—"

"That would imply a bigger processor," said Al Glance. "There must be a lot of horsepower inside that core."

Kraft had long considered Johnny Winger his number one project. Sure the kid's got talent, but it needs polishing. You don't shine a pair of boots by just looking at them. "So what's your analysis, Captain? You got a little data we can work with?"

"Very little," Winger admitted. "I gave it to Containment on the way in. Sergeants M'Bela and Calderon are there now, trying to make sense of it. All ANAD could get was a few gigabytes on bond energies, a little config mapping, that's about it."

Kraft nodded. "Captain, you know how important it is to config the enemy. Short of capturing an actual bot, that's the only way we can know what we're up against. Don't tell me: you got carried away and tried to slam the bastards with everything at once."

Winger hung his head. "Major...it wasn't like that at all—"

Glance came to his Skipper's rescue. "We were under full swarm assault, sir. Captain was trying to give us some room to maneuver."

But Kraft wasn't buying it. "The objective, Captain Winger, was to determine who or what is causing these atmospheric disturbances. Not prove what a hotshot atomgrabber you are—"

"Yes, sir—"

Kraft felt his anger boiling and forced himself to cap it. He steepled his fingers on the desk, squeezing them so hard that the knuckles turned white. Winger had talent, that was for sure...but he had a lot to learn about command.

"Captain," Kraft continued, "Containment informs me that the ANAD master assembler has survived, no thanks to you. It seems it can be regenerated like new and re-inserted into your capsule. They said the core had been severely compromised and—to quote them exactly: we've never seen so much damage to basic processor functions...regenerating required us to go back to bare molecular templates and almost start from scratch--. You were lucky, this time."

"Begging the Major's pardon, sir, but I like to think it was more than just luck."

"—anyway...you'd better get over to the Sim tank and work out some new tactics. 1st Nano's been tasked by UNIFORCE to stop this menace. We've got to find a way to engage these bots and destroy them."

Winger had an idea. "Sir, request permission to take a small detail to Northgate University. Visit with Doc Frost—once ANAD's fully regenerated—and work out new tactics with the Lab. The Doc's usually got some new tricks up his sleeve."

Kraft grudgingly assented. "Good thinking, Winger. There's hope for you yet. Now, I've got to finish this report to General Linx...get over to Containment, and help Willis get ANAD up to snuff."

Winger saluted. "Yes, sir." He turned to leave, but stopped. "Sir, any more word from Bravo Detachment?"

Kraft was already finagling with the commandpad. He looked up. "UNIFORCE Search and Rescue reports some faint signals in the vicinity of the central volcano. Hypersuit emergency emitter. It could be nothing, but they're investigating."

Winger knew that when a hypersuit was breached, it emitted a continuous signal, uniquely identifying its wearer. "Whose signal, sir?"

Kraft had been toying with the idea of forming a special search and rescue detachment out of 1st Nano. Not that he didn't trust UNIFORCE. But with the BioShield problem and the atmospheric disturbances, UNIFORCE had a lot on its plate. He told Winger none of this.

"The search team commander indicated the emitters matched the signatures of Captain Tallant and Sergeant Collin. But they were faint and intermittent. They're looking into it, but it's probably just a hiccup from the emitters somewhere."

"Or an ambush," Al Glance observed.

"There's no sign of what happened?" Winger asked.

Kraft didn't look up from the commandpad. He didn't want Winger to see his concern.

"UNIFORCE reports residual heat flux and atomic debris. There was one hell of a battle down there around that volcano...we know that much for sure. Until they can get some eyes and ears on the ground, we won't know anymore."

Kraft dismissed them and settled in to make his report to General Linx. Losing an entire detachment would have to be part of that report, the hardest part. Combat was like that and no commander could shy away from an objective just because there might be casualties. How many times had he beaten that very idea into Johnny Winger's head?

Still, it hurt like hell to lose good men and women. A whole detachment...consumed just like that. Kraft put the commandpad down and rubbed his eyes.

That was the problem with this new business of nanowar. All wars produced casualties. You could always dissect a battle, collect the corpses and work out a new strategy for the next day. But with nanobots, the only thing left after battle was a cloud of loose atoms. Whole cities, armies, who could say?...maybe even planets could be deconstructed overnight, with no warning and only their basic molecular constituents left. An entire campaign could be won or lost in a space the size of your fist.

It was enough to make you nostalgic for an atom bomb.

Johnny Winger went over to Containment to see about ANAD. Corporal Willis was the CEC tech on duty.

"How's the baby coming along?"

Willis was red-haired, thin and nervous. He sat at a console, monitoring the process of regenerating the ANAD master. Beyond the console was a semi-spherical tank, insulated and surrounded by thick ganglion of cords and piping. Willis tweaked the sensitivity controls of the quark flux imager.

"See for yourself, Captain." He indicated an image on the monitor. In focus in the center of the screen was a rectangular grid, wavering in the aqueous solution in which the grid was suspended. "Solution parameters are normal. Pressure is twenty point two bars. Temperature right on the curve. PH normal."

"Core functions enabled?"

"Core is operating at eighty percent capacity. ANAD's doing just fine. I was just about to test the coupler link. Care to stick around, sir? It'll speed up the calibration if I can use your end of the link too."

"Sure." Winger scanned the panel displays. Regenerating an ANAD master assembler was a tedious process of assembling atoms and molecules, managing their configurations, then seeding the configs with the quantum kernels that contained the processors. A million things could go wrong. It was as much art as science and Willis had trained with Doc Frost himself. He was one of the best CEC techs at Table Top. Winger was glad he was on duty.

Poised around the periphery of the tank in which the grid was suspended were three rows of six electron beam injectors each. At the slightest hint of trouble during regeneration, Willis could quickly toggle the firing switch on the control panel. Several million electron volts of energy would flood the tank, stripping atoms from molecules, and electrons from atoms. Only a cloud of nucleus fragments would remain.

"So how's our little friend doing?" Winger slid a chair up closer to the monitor.

"I think he's a little anxious," Willis said. "Quivering with anticipation, if you know what I mean."

Winger laughed. In the exact center of the grid, a mass of spherical shapes pulsated with some inner rhythm. The mass looked like grapes hanging from a trellis.

"I'm opening the link, enabling the state generator—" Willis pressed a few buttons.

Winger clicked his own link on. Doc Frost had taught him how to shake his head just so, activating the coupler implanted in the back of his head. He was momentarily dizzy—the coupler had been dead for nearly a week—but shook it off.

Willis studied the Captain closely. "Got anything yet, sir?"

Winger closed his eyes. "Maybe." The dizziness came and went, mixed in with fragments of imagery and thought, things he had seen before: the snowstorm, the smell of his Mother's cookies, the way Bailey's red eye winked at him from the foot of his bed when he was growing up, the humid breath of Linda Lamont's Arabian mare huffing on a cold winter morning. Snatches and pieces of imagery. Leakage, Doc Frost called it, but to Johnny Winger, it wasn't unpleasant at all, more like the serene drowsiness you felt first waking up in the morning.

The fragments swirled past, one after another, finally settling into one persistent feeling...a feeling like he was waist-deep in a running surf at the beach, with tides and waves and currents pushing and pulling him every direction.

***Is that you, Boss...? Is that really you?***

Johnny Winger smiled at the thought string. "Put the link on audio, Willis."

The CEC tech complied, switching the coupler stream through another processor. "Done. Are you guys talking yet?"

"I think so...ANAD...this is Base...this is Boss...can you hear me?"

The speaker squealed, then a faint high-pitched voice came through the static.

***I feel so strange...like I've been asleep for a long time...what happened to me...***

Winger sighed. "It's a long story, ANAD." He related the events at the grotto at Via Verde. Willis coached him on filling in more details, telling him that ANAD's memory hasn't been fully loaded yet. "I had to do a quantum collapse...it was the only way we were going to get you out of there—"

ANAD seemed to think about that. ***Isn't that pretty drastic, Boss...executing a quantum collapse is like—losing all my effectors, my probes, my whole structure...there's nothing left--***

"That's right, ANAD. Just a few kernels inside your core...that's all that's left. You've done this before. It was a tactical decision."

The assembler's voice was an artifact of the processor, but it sounded annoyed. ***Wasn't there some other way...to collapse everything like that...put me through this again...you wouldn't like it if someone did that to you***

It was Winger's turn to be annoyed. "ANAD, nobody wanted to do it. The tactical situation demanded it...you were struggling with those bots. I couldn't spring you loose and we were under attack from the rear...we could have been cut off." He got up, starting pacing around the tank, trying to explain the decision, as much to himself as to ANAD, reliving the moment. "I couldn't just leave you...we had to fall back. It was the only way we could get you free."

Willis was tweaking something on the control panel, adjusting the tank parameters. He rolled his fingers, indicating Winger should keep going.

***You and me, Boss...we need to work on this together...I didn't have any say in it...***

Now, Winger really was annoyed. He imagined what Major Kraft would say to such a reply. "ANAD, listen to me...you're a vital part of the Battalion. You're essential to the mission. Don't be so self-centered. We had a mission to perform...and I'm the commander. When we're on a mission, we follow orders."

***Even if it means a quantum collapse...that would be like chopping off your arms and legs...to save your head. What's the point of that?***

Willis was watching his panel closely. He whispered to Winger: his state generator's acting up...I've got re-boot...you want to end this session?

But Winger shook his head. "ANAD, maybe you don't know about a little thing called sacrifice. A little thing called duty. We've talked of this before—"

***I know, Boss...we're soldiers...we do as we're told...my processor calculates an eighty-two point five percent probability, with correlation of point nine two one, that this is why you and your brothers took over the family ranch when you Dad was sick***

Winger smiled sheepishly at Willis, shrugging, as if to say I don't know what he's talking about.

"ANAD, that's not...yeah, well...maybe it is sort of like that." But this wasn't the time for his own family history to be mixed up with regenerating a master assembler.

He'd have to be more careful in future. Regulations said you weren't supposed to let ANAD sniff around inside your brain, outside of containment, building glutamate trails of memories. Obviously, ANAD hadn't forgotten everything.

***Boss...a quantum collapse...we should have talked about that...made the decision together...maybe I'm a soldier...but don't I have some say in any of this?***

Winger didn't know how to answer that. He glared at Willis, who held up his hands helplessly.

" ANAD...we'll discuss this later. The technician says there's a problem with your state generator...you're not making any sense. He has to re-boot."

To even a casual observer, the assembler sounded glum. ***I know...I know...every time I want to change things, I get tweaked...it's not fair--***

Winger made a cutting motion with his hands. Willis chopped the link. Winger clicked out, holding onto the edge of the tank, as the dizziness passed. He'd have to have a talk with Doc Frost about that.

"Sounds like my ten-year old daughter, Captain," Willis said. His fingers flew over the keyboard, as he began re-booting the state generator. "You want another session...calibrate again?"

Winger shook his head. A ten-year old...that was exactly what ANAD sounded like. Could an autonomous nanoscale assembler have a tantrum?

"No, Corporal...that won't be necessary. Just prep him for transfer. I'm taking him to Northgate tomorrow. He and I are going to have a little session with Doc Frost and the Lab."

Johnny Winger kept ANAD in a mobile Tinytown for the trip to the Autonomous Systems Lab. He didn't want the assembler bugging him on the hop over, tickling the coupler link from inside the capsule like he was prone to do sometimes...not when he wasn't sure just how well ANAD was regenerating. It was troubling the way ANAD had responded to the news he'd been quantum collapsed at Via Verde.

Doc Frost would have to do a little tweaking to make sure the assembler was still capable of field service with 1st Nano.

Gibbs and D'Nunzio went along with the Captain, just in case.

Frost was delighted to see them. "The Major sent me a report on what happed at Via Verde. It seems ANAD had more than he could handle."

Winger acknowledged the problem, describing the confrontation. "It was like he was running at half speed the whole time. Amazon bots were faster, with more effectors, more maneuverable. We got our ass kicked good. I'm not sure what's under the hood of those bots but whatever it was, they ran circles around us. I had to do a quantum collapse to get the master out in one piece. But I did manage to snag some debris from the buggers...a piece of a core, some effector parts, maybe a little data on bonds."

Frost motioned for Gibbs and D'Nunzio to bring the mobile TinyTown over to the containment tank. "Excellent, excellent. And ANAD's fully regenerated now? No ill effects?"

Winger hesitated. "He's regenerated, Doc. I'm not sure about ill effects. That's what I want to talk to you about."

Frost said, "Let's get the little guy out of there and into containment. Then we'll see."

For Winger, coming to Northgate was like an old homecoming. Even Frost's associate, Dr. Mary Duncan, a petite Scotswoman, was on hand.

Gibbs expertly transferred the ANAD master and the debris they had picked up at Via Verde into the tank. Frost couldn't wait to get the debris from the Amazon bots under the scope, fidgeting anxiously as the quark flux imager sighted in and the view settled down.

"Fabulous—" he muttered, adjusting the gain. "Just fabulous. You've done wonders, Johnny. Grabbed the core of this beast, with its processor dot even, and good bit of structure too. Still got the touch, eh?"

Winger watched Frost manipulate the pieces on his grid, teasing apart carbon chains and phosphor groups with the quantum tweezers like he was preparing a Thanksgiving turkey. "Those scraps nearly cost me an ANAD master, Doc. We got into a swarm fight we couldn't handle. ANAD had to get small and get the hell out in a hurry. I was lucky to grab that much."

"Mmmm—" Frost poked and probed with the sticky end of hydrogen radicals that made up the quantum tweezers, carefully teasing apart the inner lattice of the core segment. It resisted, more than he expected, then gave way with a puff of spinning atoms. The image jolted with liberated energy. "—ouch! That must have hurt—well, well...would you look at that." In the very center of the lattice piece, now open to view, was a black, formless dot, quivering and beating like a tiny heart. "—main processor, I'd say. Brains of the whole thing, right there."

"I just want to know what makes the thing so hard to grab," Winger said. He described the long tentacles that had given ANAD so much trouble. "The damn things seem able to anticipate every move I make and react a hundred times faster."

"Yeah," added Gibbs, "and those tentacles gave us hell. The bugs could grow 'em in a flash and reach out to snag you from behind. No way you could grapple the bastards."

Frost tried probing the processor dot. "Offhand, I'd say most of the answer's right here...in the processor. The lattice itself looks familiar. Pretty much an ANAD clone. But this—until I get inside, I can't be sure—but based on the way the dot's configured—all these peptide cages around it—ribosomal architecture, by the way—this mech's got implied capabilities far beyond anything ANAD can do."

Winger, D'Nunzio and Gibbs peered at the imager screen, studying the quivering mass of the enemy mech's core.

"Just what the hell are we dealing with here, Doc? Can we defeat it?"

Frost licked his lips. "Extremely competent engineering, from what I can see. Fiendishly clever design...married to a quantum-scale nanoprocessor that's probably orders of magnitude ahead of ANAD. Simply incredible—" he pointed out feature after feature of the lattice structure. "Stiffer effectors...a new way of growing diamondoid links. I would never have thought such a design would work...but here it is. Right in front of my eyes. Marry these effectors to such a core and you can assemble or disassemble matter at unprecedented speeds, with near perfect accuracy. That's how it can react so much faster than ANAD. It can grow any kind of effector you want, quick as lightning, even tentacles as you described."

"Surely it can be copied," Deeno said. "If someone else can do this, so can we."

Frost shrugged. "Maybe. There could be some special chemistry here I don't know about. I'd have to measure the bond forces, the angles, study the whole thing. It might take days, maybe weeks, even with the data you've given me."

"What makes the damn thing so fast, Doc? The core is just a computer. It only controls and directs things."

"True enough, if you consider the nano-arrays of DNA molecules just a computer. But look here—" Frost pointed out cleavage planes among the stacked molecules of the mech's lattice. "New carbon group fold lines. Basically, a whole new architecture that's more easily cleaved and collapsed. Makes for faster folding and unfolding. It's like a tent, quick to set up, quick to tear down. Design's based on ribosomal proteins...nature's own assemblers. DNA kernel sending instructions to ribosome-like body parts...what does that sound like to you?"

Deeno shook her head. "The buggers have re-engineered the entire genomic process."

"Exactly. Taken what nature does and improved on it. Now, this little mech can break and form bonds much more rapidly, under quantum-scale control. And see all the fullerene 'hooks' along the edges? He's covered with them, like a porcupine. More secure grasping and attaching, which makes for better accuracy."

Johnny Winger was itching to test drive the thing. "Do we even know the full capabilities of this thing? Can you replicate one?"

"Not fully, at least, not without some testing. The Lab's been experimenting with some of these ideas for ANAD, but nothing like this. It will probably take weeks to puzzle out the details of this little fellow."

"Doc...we don't have weeks. We don't even have hours. Amazon's not under control yet and it's spreading fast."

Frost agreed something had to be done and fast. "Let's have a look at ANAD...see what we can do to make him more capable against this menace."

They spent the next few hours probing every part of the ANAD master's structure, trying out ideas, re-arranging atoms and bond angles, anything that might work. Frost had a few ideas of his own. While he was re-arranging atoms along one effector, he asked Winger a question.

"Johnny, you said something earlier about ill effects. Was there any problem with the regeneration?"

Winger thought about that. What had most troubled him was how ANAD had argued about the need for the quantum collapse. He tried to explain it to Doc Frost.

"It's hard to put into words, Doc...but ANAD seemed reluctant...like he didn't understand why I had to do it. Later...when we had him fully regenerated, he wanted to discuss the tactics we used." Winger shrugged. "He's never questioned command decisions before...never questioned anything."

Frost stifled a smile. "ANAD's growing up...maturing."

"How do you mean, Doc?"

Frost switched the view of the imager to show ANAD. Looking like a trellis full of vines, the master assembler wavered in the aqueous solution of the containment tank.

"Just that ANAD's processor has been steadily updated over the years. One of the characteristics of quantum computers with his architecture is that they develop emergent properties, behaviors if you like, that look and sound like attributes of a childlike intelligence. My guess is that, with this version and all the revisions and updates, ANAD's behavior is something like a ten-year old child."

Winger smiled ruefully. "You're more right than you realize, Doc. Sometimes, ANAD acts like a teenager. He even whines, complains, wants his own way. I shouldn't tell you this but lately, he's even been asking me to let him out of containment."

Frost was concerned. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea. How often does this happen?"

"Once, back at Table Top after the mission, he asked me that. I let him stay out of containment one evening. It was the oddest thing, now that I think about it. He replicated a few trillion times and formed up in the likeness of an old microflyer I had as a child, a bot named Bailey that I tinkered with as a kid. I'm not sure why. Maybe he'd been sniffing memory traces."

Frost was even more concerned. "Don't let ANAD out of containment without a specific config state, Johnny. It's not a good practice. And you certainly shouldn't let him sniff around inside your head. Sniffing memory traces should be done only under close supervision."

"Why, Doc? ANAD and me, we have a pretty good understanding about that."

Frost tweaked the imager, boosting the gain. He zeroed the instrument in on the quivering dot at the center of the image. "See that? That's ANAD's core processor. It's full of algorithms that make ANAD what he is, make him capable of doing the incredible things he can do. But you should always remember one thing about ANAD, Johnny—"

"What's that?"

"The roots of ANAD's programming come from abstracting genetic information from certain viruses and bacteria. That's how I kick-started certain capabilities—basic replication, basic functionality, maneuverability, those kinds of central capabilities were lifted and adapted from the genomes of ancient viruses. Viruses have been around for a long time. Bacteria too. In many ways, the story of life on earth is the story of bacteria...how they developed, adapted to the environment, how they altered the Earth to suit them. Viruses don't have the same needs as Humans. Historically, viruses exist to reproduce, even if it kills the host."

Winger looked uneasily at Deeno D'Nunzio and Gibbs. "Doc, there's never been a time when I thought ANAD and me weren't buddies, you know? Nogs in the Corps...the both of us. Sure he's smaller than the rest of us, but hell, we all bring different strengths to the mission. That's why we're a team."

Deeno echoed Winger's sentiments. "Captain's right, Doc. We think of ANAD as just like one us, another nanotrooper."

"As you should," Frost went on. "That's the premise of this experiment with encapsulating ANAD in individual troopers. That's what the Symbiosis project is all about. But understand this—" Frost was plainly struggling to find the right words—"—all I'm saying is that, even after studying viruses and bacteria and their genomes for decades, there are still capabilities and features we don't understand. I have a suspicion that somewhere deep inside the kernel of ANAD's processor ticks a time bomb of an algorithm, something that emanates from the distant evolutionary past of all viruses...something unsuspected and undetectable."

"Like what?" Gibbs asked. "We know every line and element of his code backwards and forwards."

"Yes, but do we know all the interactions? Of course not," Frost answered his own question. "The combinations are astronomical. There's not enough time left in the universe to investigate every interaction. I can't be sure about any of this...but it's best to be cautious." What Frost didn't tell the Quantum Corps troopers was that this was the very reason he had always maintained a 'trapdoor' into the very core of ANAD's most fundamental processor routines, maintaining the ability to delete everything and bring ANAD to an end.

Irwin Frost, playing God to the end, wanted to maintain the ultimate power of life and death over his creation.

The father of nanoscale assemblers could see perfectly well that Johnny Winger had become very protective and solicitous of ANAD's needs. Such camaraderie could be useful, Frost had written to the Corps in his prospectus a year ago, in forging a tighter link between the assembler and the soldier, in making the new symbiote-soldier a complete combat system. Such camaraderie should be encouraged.

But Frost, perhaps more than anyone else, knew that ANAD had duties to the Corps...duties that could never be forgotten. And needs too. What did ANAD need? Nutrient solution for his shell and effectors to grow and repair themselves. Power for his processor. A stable environment for containment.

And a purpose...

Johnny Winger had told Frost that, in 'conversations' with ANAD over the quantum coupler link, that the assembler seemed to have desires of a sort, as if the bot were a living person: most particularly, ANAD wanted more and more to be allowed to exist all the time outside of containment, as a small-scale swarm with a brood of replicants and other master assemblers, in a sort of hive or loose swarm.

Winger knew that the Corps was unlikely to permit this anytime soon, yet he was sympathetic. It was hard not to see in ANAD the same sort of raw nog he had been at the Academy...or as Doc Frost would say: "an emergent being not fully understood or appreciated by those around it." Just like he had been. "That's what they do to you in nog camp—" Johnny often told him..."tear you down completely into constituent parts and rebuild you a different way."

Frost and Winger had had numerous conversations about emergent properties of nanoscale quantum-coupled assembler swarms. Frost didn't always believe what Winger reported. Sometimes, he knew the attributes he claimed for ANAD weren't possible..."--it's just transference, Mary—" he would say to Dr. Duncan, over tea in the faculty lounge late at night. "Simple transference. Johnny sees aspects of himself in ANAD."

But he listened nonetheless...and remembered his own concerns as he created the original ANAD 1.0, now more than thirty years ago. Frost had always maintained a back-channel means of overriding any function or command ANAD received or processed. Mary Duncan accused him of playing God.

Frost didn't disagree with that, but sometimes he thought: If I am God to ANAD...then Johnny Winger is my Moses.

"Come on, Johnny—" Frost was saying as he scanned ANAD carefully through the imager. "Let's see what we can do to spruce ANAD up...armor him better for dealing with these blasted Amazon bots."

Winger, D'Nunzio and Gibbs huddled around the imager while Frost and Duncan commanded new configs for ANAD—trying on different effectors here, adding to his polyhedral base there, altering algorithms, cleaning up routines—most of the afternoon was spent optimizing the nanoscale assembler for future combat with Amazon Vector.

Using pieces Winger had snatched from Via Verde, Frost was able to alter the structure of ANAD's carbene grabbers to make them more effective against the bots. "I'll just stick an extra radical here—and here—" Frost was saying, as he expertly guided the hydrogen groups into place with the quantum 'tweezers'.

"And the configuration routine will be done in a moment," added Mary Duncan, from a nearby keyboard. "I want to make sure ANAD can get to that new config quickly, with a minimum of fuss. Okay, Irwin—I'm ready to send the command string."

Frost tinkered some more with ANAD. As Johnny Winger watched, he wondered what the assembler was thinking. Was he even aware of what was going on? Frost had disabled the coupler link for the work. Somehow, it was like losing an arm. ANAD had almost become like a third arm, natural as you please, only someone else was now in control of it.

"Okay, Mary...send the command." Frost changed the imager view to show a wider scale. ANAD hung on his scaffolding like a pulsating bouquet. Nearby, also mounted on a scaffolding, was a torn segment of an Amazon bot's effectors...pieces of the tentacle ANAD had torn off when he'd grappled. "Let's see what ANAD can do."

Mary Duncan sent the commands.

For a few moments, nothing happened. The piece of tentacle waved and undulated like a snake in the fluid solution of the containment tank. Then, almost without warning, ANAD's forward effectors suddenly unfolded with startling speed, stabbing and ensnaring the tentacle with four-sided peptide pincers.

Frost was exultant. "Excellent! Excellent...much faster. I've given him an array of stickier radicals to grab with...and the new routine means he can replicate the grabbers faster too. Good work, Mary...you've got that routine humming now."

Mary Duncan smiled faintly. "Just a matter of pruning the code...knowing how ANAD works."

"Jesus," Gibbs said, as he marveled at the new effectors ANAD had sprouted, "it unfolded so fast, I couldn't follow it."

"Yeah," said D'Nunzio, "like a knife fight in an alley...ANAD'll cut 'em down quick."

Frost nodded, pleased. "It was a fairly simple fix. Part of the idea is concealment—it looks like the grabbers just explode out, but ANAD's actually replicating them inside his shell, in a small nook we found...out of sight. When they're formed, he extends them in a flash."

"King Arthur and his sword," Gibbs said.

Frost turned back to Johnny Winger. "Your report said you encountered a herd of para-human creatures inside that grotto...the same things Dr. Del Compo ran into. What were they called--?"

"Demonio," said Winger. "That's what the Valencians call them. The name's kind of stuck. Del Compo determined they aren't living beings at all...just colonies of nanomechs bunched together in human-like form."

"Hmmm," Frost said. "Yes, I've seen his reports. And Mary and I went through your recorded imagery last night, before you arrived. A most unusual swarm behavior, clustering like that. I'm not sure I understand why that should be..."

Mary Duncan cocked her head. "Herding behavior like that has to be commanded at some level. Unless, it's emergent in the processor architecture. The question is: to what purpose."

"To look like humans, maybe," Gibbs suggested. "To fool us somehow—"

"Maybe replace humans," Winger said. "Remember what they're made of. Every one of those demonio creatures is nothing but a swarm of Amazon bots...the same bots that are chewing up the atmosphere."

"Maybe they're being fashioned somehow to survive in a new atmosphere, one that's radically different from ours," Deeno offered.

The thought hung in the air for a moment.

"But by who?" Gibbs asked. "If it's Red Hammer, what's their goal? They have to live in the same atmosphere as us."

Winger stared at them all, without really seeing them. His thoughts were focused elsewhere... on the grotto, on the imagery ANAD had returned from probing the demonio, on the lattice inside its 'head.' The final image before the HERF gun had scattered the bots to hell and back

...an entire planet of mechs.

"Doc...maybe Red Hammer didn't create these bots after all. Maybe they had some help."

"What kind of help...perhaps another agency or organization? Who besides Red Hammer would have the expertise?"

Winger's face was grim and deadly serious. "Maybe another race. Beyond Earth—"

Gibbs and D'Nunzio stared in disbelief at their Captain.

"Captain...you can't—"

But Irwin Frost held up a hand. "Why do you say that, Johnny?"

Beside Winger, Gibbs shifted uneasily. The two men hadn't talked much about what they had seen since they'd left Via Verde. It was too crazy, too far beyond the bounds of credibility.

"When I was driving ANAD," Winger said, "and we were inside that the lattice of that demonio, inside its brain, Gibby and I kept sounding readings that were crazy, that didn't make any sense—"

"How so, Johnny?"

Winger looked at Gibbs for—what? Assurance? That they weren't both out of their minds?

Gibbs spoke up. "Acoustic sounding showed that, once we were inside that creature, distances didn't mean anything. We both saw it. We were getting readings of millions, billions of microns—like we'd entered another dimension or something."

"Maybe the pulses were getting distorted somehow," Winger decided. "The whole place looked like a big farm...grain fields, clouds, rolling hills...only it was all made up of mechs. Doc, I'm wondering if we weren't caught up in the middle of some weird memory trace."

Frost had seen the findings from Dr. del Compo. "Possibly. I've looked at the test results from Valencia. I concur with del Compo. The creatures are nothing but colonies of nanobotic mechanisms. The Valencians haven't shared that much on the nature of the mechs—what you've brought is the first I've had to examine myself. The platform engineering is first-rate...the shell design, effector control, power sources, all of it is evidence of top-notch thinking. Without probing the core processor more, I can't say much about their programming. Offhand, though, I'm inclined to doubt there's any reason to think the technology is anything more than an ANAD clone, tweaked and modified extensively, to be sure, but well within the bounds of possibility. Why do you think it's something more?"

Winger scratched his head. "It's what I saw, Doc. Gibby saw it too. Right before the HERF gun went off, it seemed like---it felt like—ANAD had been struggling to get free of these lattice mechs. Finally, I maneuvered him loose and ANAD's momentum carried him up and over the lattice or field or whatever it was. The field dropped away and it kept dropping further below me. Finally—" Winger shook his head, trying to put the imagery into words "—ANAD had floated so far over the field that it looked like we were in space, above a planet...an entire world of mechs. Everything was mechs, Doc...from the lattice ANAD had been caught in to the entire planet." He shrugged. "I just had the idea then that the creatures were somehow not from our world."

"It was wild," Gibbs admitted. "—like the creatures were reflections of something, or projections from this other place."

Irwin Frost pulled up a stool and sat down at the containment control station. "Interesting. I suppose it might be possible for a nanobotic swarm to be designed like that...designed to alter sounding signals. Photon lensing is a technique already well understood...ANAD's been capable of capturing photons and changing their frequencies in a rudimentary way for several years. This seems more advanced than ANAD."

"Then you don't think these demonio buggers are aliens from outer space?" asked Deeno. She winked at Gibbs.

Frost was cautious in his reply. "Based on what I've heard and seen, no...it's more likely we're dealing with some kind of advanced signal modification. To what purpose...that's the question. And why these Amazon bots would detach part of their swarms to grow and maintain such human-like creatures...that's another question. There has to be a reason."

"Doc, if Red Hammer has the capability to do this sort of thing, our intelligence is way behind. That makes them more dangerous than ever."

"Agreed."

Gibbs still wasn't convinced. "But why design a bot that can alter molecules of air? We still haven't received any demands or any ultimatums."

"Maybe it's a test," Deeno said. "You know...like an experiment or something. Maybe it got out of control."

"We have a Red Hammer agent in custody," Winger reminded everybody. "Nigel Skinner. When he was questioned, he said Red Hammer was trying to discredit BioShield."

"It could be a diversion," Gibbs said. "Force us to focus on one problem, while Red Hammer tries something else."

"But what?" Deeno asked.

"Unknown. BioShield is pre-occupied with the atmosphere perturbations at the moment. Quantum Corps intelligence hasn't received any other alerts, from UNIFORCE, or anybody."

"Doesn't the cartel have a base in the Himalayas?" Mary Duncan asked. "I thought UNIFORCE had put that place out of commission."

Johnny Winger recalled the mission from several years before, during the Serengeti pandemic. "They tried, but the Chinese wouldn't allow operations on their territory. We probably should do a covert recon mission, but the place is well guarded...swarms above and below ground, massive camouflage and concealment effort there. That must be your photon lensing in action, Doc. UNIFORCE says the whole place is shielded by swarms, constantly changing config. Every week, the place looks different to the spysats. So far, nobody's been able to get a bug or a bot in there to take a look."

"I'd give a month's pay to know what's going on behind those shields," Gibbs said.

Winger's wristpad beeped. The atomgrabber took the call outside the Containment tank. It was Kraft. His face was lined with fatigue.

"Captain Winger...you'd better get your detail back to Table Top...on the double."

"What is it, Major?"

The image of Kraft's face dissolved into another image, this one an overhead view of massive ice cliffs calving off into the sea. Icebergs could be seen in the distance.

"Weathersats took these images yesterday. There's a bubble of altered atmosphere expanding around the South Pole. It's accelerating rapidly and, as a result, the ice cap's melting faster than ever. With the sea level rising by six inches every week, UNIFORCE estimates half the world's coastal cities will be flooded in a month. UNSAC has changed our mission. General Linx has ordered us to conduct a new operation against Amazon Vector in the Antarctic. Have you got ANAD ready to engage the enemy?"

Winger explained some of the changes Doc Frost had made to ANAD's architecture and programming. "It works well in the sims, Major. We're ready to take 'em on."

"Then get your ass back to Table Top pronto, Captain. I'll work up a basic mission plan and squirt it to you in flight. Antarctica's the worst now, but there are bubbles growing all over the world: the Congo River basin, Tibet, the south Pacific, Valencia and the Caucasus Mountains. Earth's atmosphere is under assault and nothing UNIFORCE tries seems to be working. The politicos are frantic. ANAD's our best hope."

"ANAD's ready to get back in the fight, Major."

"Good." Kraft's face seemed relieved to finally hear some good news. "You'll be engaging the enemy swarms at Lake Vostok. General Linx says the operation has to work...we have to find a way to slow the bubbles, slow the ice cap melting. If we can't...millions of people are going to die and there isn't a damned thing we can do about it."
CHAPTER 7

McMurdo City, Ross Island

Antarctica

November 7, 2068

1200 hours

Alpha Detachment, newly equipped and re-armed, departed the north liftpad at Table Top Mountain shortly before sunup. The ten-thousand mile flight south, aboard hyperjet Charioteer, would take about two and a half hours. Their destination was McMurdo City, the research base at Ross Island. There, the Detachment would hook up with a platoon from UNIFORCE Security Corps, deployed to the Antarctic to engage the spreading swarms of Amazon Vector.

Johnny Winger spent much of the flight across the top of the Earth's atmosphere in the comm shack, following operations of other detachments as Quantum Corps engaged Amazon swarms around the world. He kept a close eye on search and rescue ops in the south Pacific, as UNIFORCE sought traces of the lost Bravo Detachment. Spotty signals from two hypersuit emitters were still being detected and the search forces were closing in on one possible target east of Kurabantu Island.

Maybe they'll find something, Winger muttered to himself. Not knowing what had happened to Dana Tallant and the rest of Bravo was the hardest part.

When he wasn't in the comm shack, Winger circulated through the cargo bay, checking on his troops, an encouraging word here, a pat on the head there. Got all your gear up to speed? Check those suit seals, trooper. Check your connections, suit boost, crewnet, check everything. We'll load out for combat just before touchdown.

Everyone one of them came back: Yes, sir...all copasetic, sir...how's ANAD doing, sir?

The truth was Johnny Winger didn't know how the assembler was doing.

He spent the last hour before descent toward the Ross Ice Shelf in the C/O's quarters up forward, going over his own gear. He felt lonely, uneasy, occasionally glancing out a small porthole. Ice-flecked ocean glittered in morning sunlight miles below them...the south Pacific and the Andean coast of South America might as well have been another planet. Despite warnings from Doc Frost, he cycled his containment capsule open and released ANAD into the air.

It was against all regulations but Johnny Winger didn't care. He needed someone to talk to.

***Boss.....it's good to be out...okay to rep a few million times?...nice to have some company, you know...it feels...kind of weird...maybe it's my config...got all these new doodads and effectors...***

Winger was sitting on his bunk, feeling connections and ports in his suit helmet, mindlessly checking everything, the usual pre-ops drill.

"ANAD, you worry me, sometimes, you know that?"

***No reason to be worried about me...I'm having fun just figuring out what to do with all these new gadgets***

"I shouldn't even be letting you out of containment here. It's against all regs."

***Why did you, then? Not that I don't appreciate it. But still--***

It was a question that had many answers. Pick one: I'm lonesome and I need some company...I'm curious about what you'll do and say next...Living and working with you is like having a little brother...I never know what's going to happen next....

Winger completed his hypersuit checks and buttoned up the helmet. He checked his watch. Charioteer would begin her descent toward the runway at McMurdo in less than half an hour. Alpha Detachment would have to be ready for action the moment they touched down.

"I don't know, ANAD...I guess I want to do the right thing...only, I don't know what that is. Even Doc Frost said I shouldn't let you out of containment unsupervised."

***Am I that dangerous, Boss? You must have let me out because I asked you to. You know...it's more natural for me to be outside...I learn more...I exercise my effectors and my processor...just interacting with the environment strengthens my core synaptic connections...I'm a nanoscale element of a larger colony, Boss...the best thing for me is to be part of a swarm...with my comrades and fellow nogs...that's how you would put it...is that so hard to understand?***

"No, of course not." Winger stared out the porthole. Reflected in the perspex, he could see a faint shimmering blob in the air behind his head. He knew it was ANAD, replicating a swarm. It was like growing a family to order. Forming up a squad to keep him company.

Wouldn't that be a neat trick for humans, he thought? Build your own family to spec, as easily as building a shed in the backyard.

***Boss...you and me...we're a lot alike, aren't we?***

Winger turned back to face the shimmering swarm. It was faceless, little more than a flickering light show. "You mean aside from the fact that I'm a billion times bigger and you don't even have a face I can look at...sure, we're almost twins, ANAD."

For a few moments, there was no further communication. The swarm was changing though, the pinpricks of light swirling, coalescing, right before his eyes. As he watched, Johnny became dimly aware of a pattern in the shimmer, something there but not quite there, a shadow, maybe? No, it was more than that—

It was a face. The barest outline of a face, like a child's stencil copy of a face, but recognizable nonetheless.

It was the face of his father. Jamison Winger.

Johnny Winger blinked hard. Jamison Winger had died in '66, one of thousands of victims of the Serengeti plague. He quickly wiped off a tear. ANAD had been sniffing again. Sniffing memories...he'd have to quit letting the assembler have a free-for-all inside his brain. Doc Frost would be horrified.

"ANAD...that's not funny. I see what you're forming...I think it's in bad taste. Very bad taste."

***You said I didn't have a face to look at, Boss...isn't that what you wanted me to have? Something to look at...something familiar--?***

Winger got up and began putting on the hypersuit. "ANAD...reconfig for capture. We'll be on the ground soon. We've got a mission—"

***Maybe we're not so much alike after all...but, you've always said you think of me as a brother...as a fellow trooper***

"I do, ANAD...how can I say this...maybe you're too much like me. Not the way you look....just the way you are. Like the Major's always saying...loads of talent but it needs polish. Nobody understands us, ANAD...that's what I mean. Now—get rid of that swarm and get inside—" he tapped his left shoulder and the capsule port clicked open.

Charioteer made her descent and touched down on the icy ski-way outside McMurdo City less than an hour later. Snow-covered mountains ringed the complex. Beyond the edge of Ross Island, the ice-choked McMurdo Sound was thick with calving ice cliffs and bergs. Decades of global warming had shrunk the summertime icepack to frozen patches of floating ice amid the deep blue of the Sound. Charioteer taxied to a waiting assembly of trucks and tractors, all of them bearing the blue shield of UNIFORCE.

Quite a welcoming party, Winger thought, as he counted up the assembled troops. According to Major Kraft, Security Corps had deployed a full company to the Antarctic to battle Amazon Vector. UNIFORCE troops wore white with blue piping, while scattered among the crowd were others, clad in varying shades of green and red. BioShield, Winger realized. They had engineers and technicians on hand as well, trying to contain the expanding enemy swarms.

Back in the cargo bay, Winger gave orders for Alpha Detachment to dismount and assemble in formation just off the hyperjet ramp.

"Full suits, Captain?" asked Gibbs.

"The works...but keep your helmets off," Winger decided. "Inner caps only...it's summer after all. The temperature's a balmy 30 degrees out there."

"Like a walk on the beach," muttered Deeno, as she clanked toward the rampway.

Once outside, Johnny Winger introduced himself to the local UNIFORCE commander. He was a doughty Russian named Suvorov, heavy jowls and thick eyebrows and all. Suvorov saluted smartly.

"Welcome to the bottom of the world, Captain. I've got trucks and lifters for all your gear. May I inspect your Detachment?"

"Of course," Winger stood aside. It was a formality, he knew, since Quantum Corps was part of UNIFORCE as well, but it made for good relations with the locals. He could tell that Suvorov was a gruff, by-the-book commander. He strode down the hypersuited ranks of Quantum Corps troopers like a squat little field marshal, scrutinizing every face. Twice, he paused to take a closer look at some piece of the powered exo-skeleton suits, fiddling critically with Sergeant M'Bela's wristpad.

"Most impressive," Suvorov growled. A wind devil kicked up, blowing loose powdery snow about the formation, but Suvorov didn't flinch. "My men will help your Detachment with their gear."

Johnny Winger agreed, and in less than ten minutes, a convoy of trucks and airlifts was moving down the connector road toward the complex of huts and hangars and buildings that made up McMurdo City.

Mac Town had been around for nearly a hundred and thirty years and over that time period, had grown from a research base to a full-service city for ten thousand iceheads that called the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf home. The newest part of the compound had been domed over, giving the place an alien, otherwordly ambience. Beneath the dome, parks and bike paths and occasional springs and fountains, along with two and three-story buildings, cabins, and other structures made the place almost like a normal town—it had a vaguely Scandinavian look—with its contemporary furnishings and monuments to early polar explorers like Shackleton and Scott and Amundsen.

Outside the dome, which had been completed in 2059, the older buildings of Mac Town were cruder and sometimes abandoned to the elements. Rows of silvery Quonset huts blackened over the decades ringed the site of the original settlements. Beyond the perimeter, on a slight rise in the ice shelf, lay Discovery Hut, where Amundsen himself had first set up camp early in the twentieth century...1902, Johnny Winger somehow dredged up from memory.

The convoy snaked through the suburbs of the abandoned cabins toward a port in the side of the dome. Once inside, Suvorov ordered the convoy stopped outside a gray slab-sided building fronting the circular road that circumscribed the dome...the Ring Road, a nearby sign indicated. Just above the snow piles banked up around the edge of the dome outside, the dim black cone of Mount Erebus was faintly visible in the distance, its summit encircled with mist and a shimmering ice haze. For the first time, Winger noticed unusual cloud formations around the peak of the mountain...then he saw a flickering seam of light across the clouds and understood.

Swarm activity, he realized. He swallowed hard. The atmosphere was convulsing outward, boiling like a pot of water on a stove.

"Operations," the Russian announced. The Detachment went inside and powered down their hypersuits, falling out into a large open bullpen similar to the Ready Room at Table Top Mountain. Ordered to stand at ease, the Quantum Corps troopers and the rest of the UNIFORCE contingent mingled uneasily. Meanwhile, Winger and his CC2, Master Sergeant Al Glance, followed Suvorov to a nearby circular room ringed with displays and consoles.

It was the UNIFORCE Ops command post. Technicians and engineers bustled around the facility, tracking the movements and damage done by the Amazon Vector swarms. Ground, aerial and satellite imagery danced across the rings of screens, each tiled with rows of data.

Suvorov introduced Winger and Glance to a thin, harried man in a dark green uniform. A golden sunburst crest identified him as a BioShield tech.

"Leonard Stiles..." the Russian announced. "...in charge of the BioShield group here—"

Stiles nodded curtly. "Sorry to be so abrupt, Captain..." he swept his hand toward the banks of screens, "but we have a bit of a crisis here—"

Winger's eyes narrowed. "What's going on?"

Stiles shrugged, and motioned Winger to follow. He went to a console up front, overlooking a three-D virtual diorama of the entire Antarctic continent and surrounding seas. Lights popped and flashed inside the display like lightning bolts. But this was no summer thunderstorm.

"Swarms are pushing outward again...it seems to come in cycles. About once a day, roughly every twenty five hours on average, both sources begin replicating and expanding again. As you can see—" Stiles had a pointer to put a dot of light on the subject—" we've got sources at Mount Erebus, here—and at Lake Vostok on the East Antarctic Sheet, here—"

"Two separate swarms?" Winger asked.

"That's correct. We're engaging them in both places—probably you saw some of that when you came in—Erebus is practically invisible from the density of the swarm there—and we're trying to keep them contained, keep them from linking up."

"Already," Suvorov explained, "the swarms are affecting the weather and conditions on the continent and the surrounding seas. You noticed the winds outside when you landed?"

Winger had felt the wind rocking his hypersuit, its gyros struggling to keep him upright in the gale. "It was a bit breezy when we left the hyperjet."

Stiles smiled grimly. "The swarms have been replicating and moving so aggressively, especially around the Lake Vostok, that they've generated vortices in the atmosphere. That plus chemical changes in the atmosphere have started up high winds all across the ice cap, winds that are feeding into the south circum-polar jet stream now. The winds are affecting general atmospheric circulation everywhere below sixty five degrees south latitude."

Suvorov confirmed what Stiles was saying. "Da, we've seen wind damage in Melbourne, Christchurch, New Zealand and parts of the Argentine pampas, even on isolated islands in the south Pacific. Sustained winds over a hundred miles an hour in places. It's a disaster."

Stiles went on. "Plus, swarm activity had generated significant quantities of local heat, accelerating melting at strategic points in the ice cap. You saw the bergs off McMurdo Sound?"

"Coming in, I saw them...yes," Winger admitted. He watched one screen, an aerial display of the roiling clouds surrounding Mount Erebus.

The BioShield chief shook his head. "Ice cap melting is reaching critical levels. At the rate the swarms are generating heat, we'll see melting fast enough to raise sea levels a meter a week...and so far, we haven't even been able to slow it down. Every coastal city on Earth is at risk...hundreds of millions of people.

"And then there are the atmosphere changes themselves...spiking carbon dioxide—that doesn't help ice cap melting either, spikes in hydrogen and nitrogen, oxygen levels dropping...it's almost like evolution in reverse...like the Earth is relapsing to some primitive state, the way things were before life got started."

Johnny Winger watched the virtual diorama of Antarctica. Flashes and pops of light went off like light bulbs. Frontal boundaries of swarms engaging, he knew. Real time data fed the diorama, causing it to shift and refresh every few seconds, a living, breathing simulacrum of a continent in agony. The entire display throbbed and writhed like a thing alive.

"What's BioShield done so far?" he asked.

Stiles shrugged. "We've tried everything. Our swarms are ANAD clones...I'm sure you know that. We've engaged multiple times but we're overrun each time. It's numbers, Captain. The buggers can replicate faster than us, grapple from further away, and they've got stuff I've never seen...weird bond disrupters, for instance."

"Don't forget the propulsors," Suvorov mentioned. "Each mech is covered over its entire surface with propulsors I've never seen before. The bastards can run circles around our mechs."

Winger's eyes met Al Glance's. "We've got to work on tactics, gentlemen. I've just spent the last few days working with Autonomous Systems Lab, tweaking ANAD. We've simmed against known Amazon Vector capabilities but that's a long way from engaging in combat. How about UNIFORCE, Colonel Suvorov? What's worked and what hasn't?"

The Russian used the diorama to illustrate. "Our best results have been here at Mount Erebus. Yesterday, we engaged that swarm from a different bearing, from out of the Ross Sea at a very low angle. Mag cannon on lifters, coilgun bots, everything we had. BioShield engaged with mechs from the opposite bearing as a diversion." The Russian shook his head slowly.

"What happened?"

Stiles answered. "Amazon blunted BioShield's mechs with no problem. It was like running into a wall. The swarms engaged and then we were swallowed whole, like we had no defenses at all. And we were the diversion—"

"The buggers can be shattered by mag impulses, just like any swarm," Suvorov went on. "Slam them with a few pulses and they lose their formation, cohesion...the swarm seems to fall apart."

"But they recover so damn fast it's unbelievable," Stiles added. "One minute, the swarm seems shattered and half an hour later, it's back up to strength and pushing outward again. There doesn't seem to be anything we can do."

"Current status?"

Suvorov indicated the diorama. "We engage around the clock...both swarms. BioShield replicates as fast as they can and engages...just trying to keep some pressure on them and interfere with them. We pulse them with sonic and magnetic weapons day and night..." the Russian shrugged in frustration, "it barely slows them down."

Al Glance asked, "You said you had better results with this swarm...the one at Mount Erebus. What's different about the other one?"

Stiles gave that some thought. "The Vostok swarm has different characteristics. It's bigger, for one...the thing averages over twenty square miles in extent at times. We've captured and analyzed pieces of some of the mechs...they're configured differently, different effectors, somehow optimized for grabbing and altering oxygen molecules. This swarm has created a region near the South Pole that's like conditions on Mars or Venus. It was centered at the South geomagnetic pole initially, but now it seems to be moving this way."

"We think the swarms are trying to link up...form a superswarm over the continent. The same behavior has been seen in other targeted areas...the Congo River basin, for example. Multiple swarms forming, then coalescing into larger swarms."

"And everywhere they operate," Suvorov said, "the same effects: hurricane winds, atmospheric alterations, extremes of temperature. Whoever's programmed them must have a death wish...for all of us."

"It's like they're trying to alter the whole planet," Glance said.

"Maybe they are," Winger said. He remembered the imagery ANAD had detected inside the demonio's brain at Via Verde...a world of nanobotic devices, a planet of mechs. "Quantum Corp intelligence is convinced that Red Hammer is behind this operation. But they also feel the cartel's getting help."

"Help? From where? From who?"

"Unknown at this time." Winger turned to Glance. "Sergeant, we'd best get the Detachment deployed. I'd like to go after the Lake Vostok swarm first. You haven't had as much success there."

Suvorov concurred. "I'll arrange a tactical briefing for 1600 hours. Just tell us what you want us to do to support."

"I will," Winger said, as he headed out of the Ops center, "as soon as I figure it out myself."

Alpha Detachment loaded all its gear on airskids and lifters, for the short hop east toward Lake Vostok. Suvorov dedicated a four-ship unit of lifters for air support and top cover, to keep anybody else from interfering while Quantum Corps engaged the Amazon swarm.

Winger huddled with the Detachment in the cavernous Ready Room.

"All the gear ready?"

A chorus of nods and affirmatives circled the group.

"Hey, Captain," Sheila Reaves called out. She was buttoning up the HERF gun enclosure, turning the skid over to a packbot to load aboard. "UNIFORCE has big guns like these too, don't they?"

"Different freqs, different caliber...but basically the same, yes. Mag impulse stuff for short range."

Reaves smirked. "Me and Taj here—" she indicated Chandra Singh, the other DPS tech, "we been thinking. Kind of tinkering with the HERF. What if we messed around with the fluxtrons and sort of souped up the impulse carrier? Taj has figured out a way to put more power into the pulse, cover more frequencies. It might be more effective."

Winger was crawling back into his hypersuit. It was like climbing into a small vehicle. Inside, he popped his head above the neck ring. "That true, Taj? You can put more punch into the primary?"

Singh's white turban seemed incongruous bobbing above the shoulders of a hypersuit, but he nodded. "Yes, Captain. We tried it out on the test range at Table Top. It worked pretty well."

"Pretty well," snorted Reaves. "Skipper, after Taj modified our HERF, we fired a few pulses and damned near fried the top off Buffalo Ridge. Started a rockslide, we did."

Winger liked the idea. "We're going to need every advantage we can get. Battalion engineering sign off on this little mod of yours?"

Taj looked sheepish. "No, sir...not exactly. We didn't really tell anybody what we had done."

Winger nodded. "I figured as much. But it works?"

"Oh, yes, sir...it works...works real well."

"There are some, er... control issues, Captain," Reaves admitted.

"Really. Well, put the module in and make it work," Winger ordered. "We'll try it out at Vostok. Just be sure we don't lose the HERF altogether. I got a feeling we're going to need the whole arsenal against these buggers."

Winger finished suiting up. Outside the Ops building, the lifters were waiting. He locked his helmet in place, fired up suit boost and got a ping in the back of his head from ANAD.

He clicked open the coupler circuit. "What's up, ANAD?"

***Skipper...I'm pulsing that you're pretty worried about this one***

Winger let his suit take him out of the Ready Room and aboard the nearest lifter, hovering off the dock at one end of the Ops center. He climbed aboard, stood aside while the rest of Alpha Detachment ingressed and quickly checked off their equipment...everything tied down, powered down and safed.

"Yeah, ANAD, I guess you could say that. Amazon's nasty—hell, you know about that. I'm not sure what's going to happen."

***You know I have the latest upgrades and mods from Doctor Frost. What could go wrong...the enemy's just a herd of mechs, same as me...it's just a matter of executing the mission***

If only that were true. "ANAD, I know perfectly well what Doc Frost did to you. I also know you're a re-gen...you're not the same master assembler I had before Via Verde. You're supposed to have the same programs and configs but still—" He didn't want to voice the real concern: that somehow, the relationship he'd developed with the last master had been lost in regenerating.

But ANAD seemed able to read his mind anyway.

The convoy of lifters left McMurdo City for Vostok Station, or what was left of it, a half-hour trip. The plan was to fly in low, from the south, crossing the vast Wilkes basin and the East Antarctic ice cap, a sea of ice frozen in white that stretched for nearly a thousand kilometers. Forward elements of UNIFORCE and BioShield were still in contact with the swarm at Vostok, latitude 78 degrees south, and had been for several weeks now. But theirs was a hopeless task, it seemed.

Suvorov had explained it: "The best we've been able to do is slow it down. The zone of disturbance grows by several square miles every day. We've been able to keep the two swarms from linking up, so far. But it's only a matter of time."

The formation of lifters took off and turned southeast, crossing the perimeter of the Ross Ice Shelf and paralleling the Transantarctic Range for half an hour, before turning back east toward the desolate polar cap.

Johnny Winger watched the terrain slide by a few thousand feet below them. Even from such a low altitude, it was apparent that the Transantarctic range was merely a vast rocky dike, holding back the ceaseless flow of the ice cap toward the sea. With the swarm so active, temperatures and winds had risen and the glacial tongues that had carved the valleys over millennia had sped up.

It was a Dutchman's nightmare: against the south side of the range, pressed a sea of white ice, submerging the range nearly to its full height. Directly on the other side lay the Ross Sea itself, ten thousand feet lower and at every dip in the range, the ice was pouring down to the sea, ripping away rock like water tearing open breaks in a levee, until some of the gaps in the range were huge floods of ice, rivers ten and twenty and thirty miles wide.

Winger knew that with the expansion of the Amazon swarms across the continent, the now-sluggish ice would flow more easily, making the rivers into torrents, raising sea levels around the world.

"Heading change, now turning to a zero one five degrees," Winger heard in his earpiece. The lifter pilot was an Italian jockey with a lilting accent, a UNIFORCE lifer. Beside Winger in the crew compartment was a BioShield engineer named Wolf.

The formation wheeled back to the east and headed inland, over an endless snowy plain that stretched to the horizon in every direction.

Wolf mouthed, "The East Antarctic Ice Sheet..."

Winger was curious at the striations visible on the ice surface, scores and scores of small waves frozen in motion, as if time had stopped.

Wolf knew what he was going to ask before he asked it. "Sastrugi," he pronounced carefully. Hundreds and hundreds of small undulations in the ice sheet, the spaces between them filled with chiseled sandlike snow banks.

"Hard going across that kind of surface," he said.

Wolf agreed. "That's why we have lifters."

Half an hour later, the lifters descended even lower, leveling out some two hundred feet above the ice cap. Strong circumpolar winds buffeted the small formation.

"Final approach," Wolf observed. Both he and Winger kept their eyes glued out the porthole.

On the horizon, dead ahead, an opaque white fog writhed and glowed, flickering with light. The opaque fog covered the entire horizon, thinning out as it rose in altitude. Inside the fog, light speckled and flashed, as if a summer thunderstorm were building across the ice cap.

It was the Amazon swarm.

Johnny Winger's earpiece crackled. It was the lead pilot, up front.

"Captain, this is as far as we can go. Have to set down on the ice here. Winds are too strong from here on in."

As if to emphasize the point, a series of gusts slammed the lifter, skidding them sideways. The pilot drove them down through the wind shear and planted the lifter skids solidly on the ice, using the top jets to hold them in place.

"Guess we walk from here," Winger decided. He got on the crewnet. "Detachment, fall out! Full hypersuits, suit boost at max. Try to stay together. I'll get ANAD ready."

The Quantum Corps troopers exited the lifter through the rear cargo doors. Immediately, it was apparent that staying together was going to be hard.

"Jesus...it's a hurricane!" yelled Deeno D'Nunzio. She stepped onto the ice and the blast of air nearly knocked her over. Only quick response from the suit gyros kept her upright.

"Nah...just a gentle summer breeze!" said Reaves.

"Yeah," added Gibbs. "A real walk in the park!"

All three of them were tilted forward at an impossible angle as their suits struggled to keep them upright.

With much grumbling and swearing, the air skids were removed and the Detachment's gear offloaded and tied down.

"We gonna walk to war, Captain?" asked Taj. He was eyeing the distance from where the lifters had put down to the roiling fog bank ahead. Distances were hard to figure here. But the lifter pilot had ranged the swarm as he descended. The closest edge was several miles off.

Winger knew their hypersuits had limited boost. Fully clad, the boost could lift a trooper a few feet off the ground, maybe fifty feet in an emergency, and propel him forward at something like fifteen or twenty miles an hour. But in this gale—

"We walk," Winger decided.

So the Detachment set off across the undulating waves of sastrugi, into blinding snow and sleet. As they neared the edge of the swarm, the winds picked up, buffeting them left and right, a near whiteout blizzard roaring across the ice cap.

"Hold up!" Winger decided. The troopers stopped, hunkering down in the lee of a frozen wave of snow. It was time to put ANAD to work.

"Okay, ANAD, you're up next. Stand by for launch."

***ANAD ready in all respects...my effectors are safed, bond breakers and enzymatic knives primed and ready...let me at 'em!***

"ANAD...when you're deployed, I'm ordering config two...the one we simmed back at Table Top. In that config, you'll resemble an Amazon assembler. Once you've replicated, I'm sending you around the perimeter of the swarm. When you're in position, we'll slam 'em with HERF and mag weapons from this side. That ought to keep them occupied for a few minutes. While that's happening, you infiltrate the swarm from your position. If this all works like it's supposed to, once you're inside, you can change to config one—"

*** and that's when I bust 'em in the chops, right?***

Winger had the impression he was talking with a five-year old. "Basically, yes. But you don't go until I say...got that?"

***ANAD copies***

While Reaves and D'Nunzio and the rest offloaded their weapons and set up the HERF guns, Winger launched ANAD.

A faint glow shimmered around the port in his left shoulder. There was a brief sting and his shoulder muscles grabbed like he'd been stung but the sting only lasted a moment. The glow subsided.

Another series of gusts blasted across the icecap, nearly scattering the Detachment to pieces.

***Whoa...baby...***

Just maintaining swarm integrity took every ounce of propulsor power ANAD had. Each time the assembler replicated a few trillion times, the gale-force winds scattered the swarm all over the place. ANAD did as his macro-scale buddies did and congregated in the lee of the sastrugi waves, trying to form up a combat-capable force. It was tough going.

"Maybe if he hugs the ground--" Gibby suggested. He had been watching acoustic images from ANAD as the assembler attempted to deploy. It was like being in a roller-coaster careening off its track.

"Yeah, Skipper...the wind doesn't flow so smoothly close to the ice," Taj offered. "Outside the laminar flow boundary and all that."

Winger ordered ANAD to deploy as a thin sheet, a few nanometers thick, and slide forward across the ice.

***Skipper...this is better...much better...I can make my molecules conform to the boundary molecules of the ice, swinging from one lattice to another...it's like climbing a ladder that never ends***

"Just do it," Winger ordered. "And what's your current heading?"

***I'm going zero two zero right now...sixty five microns per second...that's about as fast as I can make it***

Unseen by all, the ANAD swarm oozed its way forward, sliding as a film a few molecules thick, along the surface of the ice. Hidden by the blowing snow and sleet, the ANAD swarm replicated as it eased forward.

An hour later, the swarm spanned half a square mile, a faint writhing patch of snow, somehow moving against the wind and sleet storm.

***I'm in position now, Skipper...latitude eighty degrees fifteen minutes south, longitude one five five degrees, forty five minutes east...winds are picking up...I'm burrowing into the ice lattice to hold position***

Winger acknowledged the report. "Understood, ANAD. Do whatever you have to but hold that position. We're firing HERF in sixty seconds...first barrage."

ANAD dug himself into the lattice of the surface ice and snow, hiding among the oxygen and hydrogen molecules, slowly but steadily squeezing his way forward, closer and closer to the storm. Hundred of microns above his position, a maelstrom of Amazon Vector bots churned with fury, tearing air molecules apart, creating the vacuum vortex that drove the surrounding air to hurricane fury.

For two solid hours, ANAD inched forward, hugging the surface of the ice, even penetrating into the upper layers of the lattice of molecules. It slowed down the approach but it also kept Amazon from detecting the assembler's presence.

Half a mile inside the outer swarm boundary, ANAD signaled he was ready. Johnny Winger told the assembler to pulse his surroundings and return data on his position.

***It looks like a crystalline lattice, Skipper...a few scattered molecules of silicon and olivine embedded...I'm maneuvering forward without too much difficulty...just a matter of surfing the hydrogen bonds...I get a pretty good slingshot effect every time I stretch one***

Winger and Gibby were both listening in.

"Great, ANAD...prepare to surface and engage the swarm. I make your position at twelve hundred and two meters inside the swarm boundary. Prime all effectors...surface on my mark—"

ANAD acknowledged and began easing his way up through the rigid hexagonal lattice of crystals.

***breaching the surface now...I am going to Config Two now***

"Acknowledged."

Johnny Winger turned his viewer up to maximum resolution but all he could see ahead was a swirling, flickering fog. Somewhere inside the cyclone, a few thousand meters away, a swarm of ANAD assemblers had emerged from the ice cap and was now replicating furiously into assault configuration.

Their imagers swirled and throbbed for a few minutes as the swarms collided.

It was Gibby who spotted the enemy first. "Dead ahead, Skipper...see that line of dots ahead...ANAD's detecting high thermals...lots of activity up ahead."

"I see it," Winger acknowledged. He checked ANAD's config status. Bond disrupters ready, enzymatic knife ready, all effectors primed. For the time being, ANAD was maneuvering on auto and the rest of the Detachment were spectators. But at the right moment, Winger knew, Quantum Corps would spring the trap and slam Amazon from every direction.

"No sign of any response yet," Gibby noted. As ANAD closed the distance, they could see the Amazon bots in frenetic motion...breaking down air molecules like a mad brickmason in reverse. Even as they watched, the enemy bots disassembled oxygens and nitrogens as fast as they could, snapping bonds and reassembling the pieces into new configs, their effectors moving with blurry and deadly efficiency as the swarm systematically broke down the atmosphere.

***ANAD holding on Config Two, Skipper...about seven thousand microns away...enemy has not changed course...or reacted***

"That's our cue," Winger said. He leaned back to look along the top line of the snowbank, squinting through the blizzard that was blasting along the crest of the ridge. "DPS...charge up the HERF!"

"Weapon is fully charged, Captain." Sheila Reaves and Chandra Singh sighted the radio frequency weapon on the nearest arm of the swarm, now boiling across the ice cap two kilometers away.

A few more seconds. The swarm had created a cyclonic blizzard dancing across the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, a massive throbbing whiteout spinning like a gyroscope and expanding with every minute.

"Fire the HERF!" Winger yelled into the crewnet. "Blow the bastards to hell and back!"

A thunderclap of hot radio waves boomed across the ice cap, echoing and reverberating off snow banks and crevasses for kilometers around.

Before he could react, Winger heard a high freq squeal and then the staccato clatter of nanomechs shattered by the pressure pulse.

"Go, ANAD!" he shouted over the coupler circuit. "GO...GO...GO...!"

Two kilometers away, the tiny assembler zoomed forward to engage the nearest Amazon mechs, revving up to max propulsor.

*** Changing to Config One...NOW!...all effectors and weapons enabled...***

A soft voice...Moby M'bela's voice...could be heard over the crewnet.

"Kick ass, little guy. Slam the bugs good this time!"

ANAD's acoustic sounder sent back imagery but for many moments, the chaos of the battle made visuals useless. The imager was a grainy stretch of flashes and swirling color.

"HERF re-charging now," Reaves announced. She and Taj had cycled the gun's power supply.

"Standby," Winger told them. He lifted his helmet over the top of the snowbank. Across the ice cap, the throbbing swarm had thinned out noticeably...the effect of the HERF gun, no doubt.

Won't take long to re-build, he knew. "Mag weapons...open up...concentrate fire on config one coordinates!"

The two SDC's—Mighty Mite Barnes and Sergeant Ray Spivey—let fly a volley of magnetized loops at the last reported position of the ANAD swarm. An ear-splitting shriek told them the mag bubbles had torn a gaping hole in the enemy swarm.

Finally, the imager view on Winger's eyepiece settled down. Visible to the whole Detachment over the crewnet, a jittery scene of swarm combat materialized into view.

The picture careened sideways, jostling and shaking, as assemblers engaged in a running duel across the ice. Blurry, staticky pictures of the bristling icosahedral Amazon bots winked in and out of view, like battleships maneuvering in dense fog.

Over his coupler link, Johnny Winger caught fragments of ANAD's ordeal.

***...get my pyridines unfolded fast enough...the bugger's covered with propulsors...he can scoot just out of reach every time I...and those blasted carbenes...grabbers that long and sticky should be illegal...how can he bend like that...***

"Fire the HERF!" Winger decided. "And keep slamming 'em, Mighty Mite...everything we got! ANAD's in a battle and we've got to help him anyway we can!"

The rf gun boomed again, mixed with sporadic shrieks from the mag weapons and, for good measure, a few coilgun rounds as well. Alpha Detachment salvoed everything they had, trying to shock, stun, slam, and scatter the Amazon swarm as best they could...anything they could do give ANAD an edge.

Throughout the volley, the enemy force shrank a little and swelled back to size with uncanny resilience, as if it were a balloon being squeezed.

"He could try replicating more," Gibby thought out loud. The IC2 was hunkered down in the lee of a snowbank, half-buried in blowing snow and sleet, looking like a beached whale. "Give him more mass...more effectors on the enemy."

But Winger nixed that idea. "Tactically unsound...it diverts time and energy from the engagement...he's got to win this battle at the point of contact."

"What if you drove the master?"

Winger had already been considering that very idea. It had merit. "I could do the piloting while he concentrated on replication."

"Take some of the load off his processor," Gibby added.

Winger decided to do it. What atomgrabber could resist? Over the coupler link, he told ANAD what he was about to do.

***be my guest, Skipper....it's a real scrum in here...ouch!...I just can't get my bond breakers into position to...***

The imager view flashed with light as ANAD managed to shred covalent bonds on a nearby bot. Liberating thousands of electron volts, the Amazon bot shuddered and heeled over like a torpedoed ship, then moved off to lick its wounds and reconfig.

Johnny Winger toggled buttons on his wristpad to take control of the assembler. He had to keep brushing snow off to finish the sequence: automaneuver off, Fly-by-Stick enabled, config generator initialized to zero. He sent the commands but control handoff was sluggish...already, ANAD's processor was bogging down.

I've got to get closer, he realized. Closer and in the line of sight.

"Acoustics are bogging down," he told Gibby, huddled a few feet away. "And my coupler's on the blink too. I've got to move in...."

"Closer to that swarm, Skipper?" There was a note of concern in Deeno D'Nunzio's voice.

"It's the only way." Winger lit off his suit boost and let the thrusters hoist him up out of the snowfall. In seconds, he was powering forward, half stepping and sliding, half-floating through blowing snow and sleet.

He eased forward, a wraith in the whiteout conditions, rocked and buffeted by wind gusts until he found himself only a few dozen feet from the flickering maelstrom of the enemy swarm. He let off the suit boost and dropped into heavy snow, and was immediately covered up to his faceplate.

"ANAD...let go, will you? I'm taking over piloting and config—" his fingers flew over his wristpad, now dim and hard to see in the driving blizzard. "You replicate...max rate. I'll do the rest—"

ANAD's response was weak and sluggish.

***Skipper—I'm losing...it...I can't keep up...the buggers...there's too many of them--***

Johnny Winger firmly took command of the ANAD force. He let his hypersuit lower him into a defilade position behind a small scattering of icy boulders. Quickly he was half buried. But it didn't matter, as long as he could read his wristpad.

He clicked into the coupler link. In his earpiece, he heard voices...the Detachment, re-deploying to support him now that he was further forward and exposed.

"Charging HERF again---" Reaves was saying. She and Singh half-carried, half-dragged the weapon through the gale to another position, a bowl-shaped depression in the snow, closer to the Amazon swarm.

"Don't fire 'til I say," Al Glance came back. Glance was CC2, nominally second in command to Winger. "Mag weapons, move left...let's flank this arm of the swarm...slam 'em from another bearing."

Barnes and Spivey scrambled, half-boosted, half-stumbling on rubbly ice firn, to take up new positions, moving tangentially to the swelling perimeter of the swarm. Twice, errant gusts flew out of the vortex, knocking them down, driving them back. Eventually, they landed in the lee of another snow bank, working the mag guns up to take aim at the mouth of the beast.

Ahead of all of them, Johnny Winger's eyepiece flickered, then winked out completely. Acoustics were gone...the swarm was now too dense to resolve structure.

From here on...it was the coupler link, or nothing.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on stilling his thoughts...dimly aware that his suit was being rocked and buffeted by gusts, his helmet pelted with sleet and mech debris.

Come on, ANAD...come on...where the hell are you? Come to me...come to Daddy...

Gradually, as if awakening from a deep sleep, the view seemed to clear, though his eyepiece was still completely dark. He found himself, as before, standing barefooted in a raging ocean surf, barely able to stay upright, slammed and broadsided by relentless thundering waves.

That's when a ship appeared on the distant horizon, a low dark menacing hull silhouetted from beyond by a flickering thunderstorm...and he realized with a start that he'd seen the first enemy bot.

He tweaked propulsors and surged forward. It was like paddling a canoe upstream against a tsunami.

The Amazon bot was a vast battleship on the horizon, festooned with whirling, undulating projections.

By experiment and determination, he found that he could make a little forward progress by tacking at angles to the onrushing stream, which he knew wasn't waves of water at all but a steady driving squall of molecules of every conceivable size and shape. Like some kind of ferocious dodge ball game, he careened and bounced from one impact to another.

There's got to be a better way than this, he gritted. He tried retracting effectors halfway. That seemed to help.

***just feel your way along, Skipper...let the waves talk to you...you can skate from one bump to the next...give yourself enough forward speed and you'll eventually find the weak points. Slide and glide...that's how it's done. Remember this: the best path isn't always the obvious path***

Gradually, he grew more accustomed to the bruising, battering course he had to follow. Jesus...the slightest movement is like a marathon. He always had a lot more respect for the assembler's world when he had to move through it.

Sounding ahead, fighting torrents of van der Waals forces, he closed steadily on the Amazon bot, now growing in size with each slide and glide....

Just a little closer...one more surge and a kick this way—

And then, without warning, he was swept forward into a churning whirlpool and felt himself firmly grappled by effectors that had flashed out of nowhere.

Nanoscale combat was all about leverage and balance and reach distance. You could practice boxing and tai kwon do and any number of martial arts disciplines all day long, but if you didn't intuitively understand bond energies and van der Waals forces and Brownian motion and how to snap off a benzene ring so it wouldn't come back to bite you in the ass, you didn't really know nanocombat.

Johnny Winger had long been considered the top code and stick man in the whole battalion, with a natural talent for atomgrabbing and an uncanny sense of how to corral molecules and navigate the infinitesimal. He'd aced the SODs tests in nog school and won every major competition there was to be won in the Corps-wide games that were held every spring at Table Top Mountain.

So when the Amazon bot snared him and began reeling him in like some kind of stubborn flounder, he naturally reacted like any ace atomgrabber would have.

He went on the attack.

Pressing keys on his wristpad furiously, Winger spun left, then right, and managed to snap free of the trap.

"ANAD, keep replicating...max rate! Give me more mechs as fast as you can!"

Beyond the thrashing melee of the fight, uncounted trillions of ANAD assemblers received their orders: cleave and divide, multiply and engage.

Like an army of slaves, the growing horde of assemblers mimicked Winger's actions and sped forth to do battle.

Got to get out of range of those grabbers, he realized.

The Amazon bot was a writhing mass of carbenes and hydrogen probes, undulating and grasping, snagging anything and everything that came near. Behind the mottled membrane of its outer walls, had to be some kind of quantum processor, able to coordinate its defenses and maneuver the bugger so smartly. It was startling how nimble the bot was for its size. Row upon row of slashing effectors, like oarsmen on a Roman slave ship, some maneuvering, some fighting...the thing was like a huge hand with a million fingers, all separately controlled.

Maybe not so huge after all, he thought. Still, its long axis was easily several thousand nanometers long, a Leviathan of the molecular world.

Winger rolled ANAD right, then left, keeping just out of reach of the snapping grabbers and reconnoitered the beast's outer membrane, looking for a way in, anything he could use, a weakness of some kind.

Halfway aft, almost invisible among the rows of effectors, he saw a small cleft in the membrane, a cavity where groups of phosphate molecules made a wedge-shaped bond.

The cavity was relatively free of effectors, seemingly out of reach of any nearby grabbers. He hadn't noticed the cleft in any encounters with Amazon before, certainly not at Via Verde. Maybe this was a different kind of bot. The phosphate bonds flexed as the bot maneuvered, forming a small opening, almost like a mouth.

Instinctively, Johnny Winger steered ANAD toward the cleft. As he approached, he unsheathed his bond breakers and flexed the devices up and down.

With any luck—

ANAD sped forward and slashed hard at the phosphate arms with his bond breakers.

Just a little push here, a snap there...

Johnny Winger commanded ANAD's bond breakers into action. He seized one end of a polypeptide chain and tugged hard. It stretched, resisted, then with a crackling flash, it broke. A puff of atoms went spinning off in every direction.

That's more like it.

Winger now drove the assembler deeper into the cleft, unfolding every effector ANAD had: hydrogen abstractors, carbon manipulators, electrons lens, enzymatic knife. It was like chewing into the side of a mountain.

The Amazon bot lurched and shuddered but Winger had found a soft spot and bore in tenaciously...severing bonds, slashing through membrane lipids, just beyond the reach of the damn thing's pesky effectors. Buried deep in the guts of the beast, ANAD cruised forward like a windmill out of control, hacking and cracking as he went.

Behind the assembler, a steady stream of ANAD replicants poured into the cavity, systematically expanding the zone of destruction.

"I'm in!" Winger exulted. "Found a soft spot, Gibby...about halfway aft, between the front and rear lobes. There's some kind of cavity—looks like a mouth—where its effectors can't reach and a phosphate group is there protecting it."

"Got it, Skipper!" Gibby made sure the target coordinates went back to all replicants. En masse, the ANAD swarm converged on the same cavity in every nearby Amazon bot, duplicating Winger's discovery. "Should we kill the HERF...give ANAD some room?"

"Negative...keep hitting 'em!" Winger ordered. "Each pulse stuns the swarm a little more, keeps 'em from organizing. It gives ANAD a chance to catch up replicating."

Sergeant Glance lay half buried in snow several meters away but inside his hypersuit, his fingers were flying. "All units...keep firing on the swarm! Fire for effect! It's working—"

Now scores of microns deep into the cavity, Johnny Winger suddenly had an idea.

If he altered ANAD's config just a little, he could grow a few more hydrogen abstractors around his forward shell and fill in with an extra grabber of two. That kind of config would make burrowing into the Amazon bot's cavity even easier, cleaving phosphates like warm butter...maybe killing the thing even faster.

He mocked up the config and sent it to the processor but for some reason, ANAD now seemed sluggish, even a bit clumsy. Instead of the nearly instant response he was used to, ANAD seemed to take forever to begin grabbing atoms. On top of that, he noticed his effector control wasn't so smooth, or accurate. Twice, he bounced off bonds he should have easily severed.

Winger slowed down to half propulsor, puzzled, and tried to re-gain control of the situation.

"ANAD...what gives? Effectors are balky...I'm losing precision control here—"

***...I don't know...feel sluggish, Skipper...***

There was some kind of staticky fritz in the coupler circuit, too. Johnny Winger blinked and concentrated on re-clicking in and out of contact. Interference of some kind, no doubt. But what could interfere with a quantum coupler?

"ANAD, you're breaking up...I'm resetting the link—" Doc Frost had taught him how to click in and out of contact by shaking his head just so.

Sometimes, the quantum de-coupler doesn't disentangle signals properly, Frost had explained. You get gibberish in the back of your head and have to reset.

He tried it again.

***...feeling kind of sick, actually...I can't really describe it. Anxious...like there's too much going on here...registers full...hard to handle all the traffic...***

Winger's eyepiece suddenly lit up with red...warning flags all over the place:

Channels 6 through 9 effector fine control off line

Main memory overflow

State generator off line

Johnny Winger swore.

What the hell?

Winger tried changing configs, changing back to baseline but it was no good. The assembler's effectors vibrated and twisted erratically. He couldn't even safe them into a fold. Couldn't replicate...couldn't execute anything now—

Something had corrupted ANAD's processor.

Best to stop here and back out of the Amazon bot while he still could. He commanded all-stop, but the propulsors wouldn't respond. Instead, ANAD careened out of control, heading into a layer of lipid cells lining the duct through which he had been cruising. Like a fly in a spider web, he seemed trapped, flailing helplessly, unable to go forward or backward.

***...so weak, Skip...what's happening?...I'm losing structure...losing--***

Even Johnny Winger could now feel a tingling dizziness in his head. Was it the coupler? Was it some kind of weird virus, let loose by Amazon and now chewing up his processor?

As intense feeling of despair, even regret, washed over him.

Old memories came bubbling up...Jamison Winger in the hospital, in a bioshield, stricken with Serengeti...and there was nothing he could do! It was hopeless, inoperable...you'll kill him if you do an insert.

No. No. No.

It had to be something in the coupler link. Winger shook himself out of the funk. Resolutely, he clicked off the link.

Warning flags popped up on his eyepiece: quantum decoupler off line, buffer off

line, pattern amplifier off line.

We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way. Just like they taught back at nog school.

Winger cycled the controls on his wristpad, wondering just what sort of command he did have: config status, replication counter, launch and capture, sensors, effector control, one after another, he tried them all. Each time, the same warning flags came back.

No comms...

Off line...

System fault....

Bit by bit, he was losing ANAD.

"Skipper—" It was Deeno, on the crewnet. "Skipper, the UNIFORCE commander wants to talk with you."

Winger was still puzzling out why ANAD had suddenly gone bonkers. "Can it wait?"

"No, sir...he says it's urgent."

"It always is. Very well, put him through."

It was the brigade commander who had flown with them from McMurdo. Most of the Security Corps troops were deployed east of their position...fighting the swarm with whatever dumb bots they could scrounge up.

The voice was scratchy, heavily accented over the crewnet.

"Captain...it's Hadid. I'm in contact with McMurdo right now...I thought you would want to know—"

Winger winced, realizing he was going to have to reverse ANAD back out of the cavity now or he'd lose the assembler.

"Know what, Hadid?"

"Colonel Suvorov just advised me not five minutes ago. UNIFORCE satellites have detected weak decoherence wakes coalescing on your position. Weak but definitely something there."

Winger sat upright in his hypersuit, banging his helmet on the stony brow of a huge boulder. He fingered snow from his visor, straining to see anything in the blizzard.

"Decoherence wakes...you mean, like quantum decoherence wakes?"

"Affirmative, Captain. UNIFORCE is trying to pinpoint the source location now. But the wake effects are real...and all the field lines converge on your position...just at the perimeter of the storm."

Decoherence wakes detectable by UNIFORCE satellite could only mean one thing: someone was attempting to communicate or interfere with something else locally by quantum coupler.

Deco wakes were echoes of a sort—the remnant effect of entanglement signals sent by quantum state generators. And to be detectable at satellite distances...the entanglement signals would have had to come from great distances themselves.

Was that the source of ANAD's problem?

Winger knew he had lost effective control of the ANAD master. Worse, he felt sick himself...anxious, a little pissed and sad at the whole matter. What was happening?

Sometimes, the coupler link bleeds a little, Doc Frost had once told him. Sometimes ANAD's state generator triggers unexpected patterns in the receiver. It's a form of leakage.

He felt unaccountably sad, seeing Jamison Winger like that. By late October of '47, he had re-made the barn into some sort of lab workshop. Now he spent most of the day and half the night in there...drilling, pounding, tinkering...he'd ordered one of those early fabs from a catalog (BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK TO FAB A NEW PATIO FOR YOUR HOUSE!) and spent hours taking it apart, putting it back together, fiercely engaged in the project, just to get his mind off Ellen and the car accident. Johnny often watched him from the barn windows. He half expected his Dad to tinker long enough with the fab to make it somehow spit out a weird rendition of his Mom...like she could be brought back now, from the pile of blackened, scorched wreckage at the bottom of Pueblo Canyon.

Winger shook his head. That wasn't real. Something in ANAD's signal was setting off these memories. Something was inside ANAD's core...eating away at the little assembler.

A sharp jolt brought Winger back to the moment. With a start, he realized something was happening...the Amazon bot was flexing, the duct into which he had driven ANAD was collapsing, shrinking.

ANAD had to get out fast.

"Gibby...I'm reversing! Something's happened to ANAD...the link's down...all my controls are sluggish. Effectors, sounding, replication...everything's off line."

"Get the hell out of there, Skipper!" Gibby was physically less than five meters away but his voice seemed a million miles distant. "UNIFORCE says the decoherence wake is strengthening. Quantum interference everywhere...it's even affecting the crewnet."

Deeno agreed, her voice choppy, staticky. "We're being flooded with entanglement signals, Captain...massive jamming...local scattering of Bioshield...nothing's working right."

"It's got to be Red Hammer," Winger decided. He could not risk losing this ANAD master. Regeneration was too painful...and time consuming.

Grimly, he set to work.

He punched out commands on his wristpad: fold effectors, safe all non-core systems, turn to new heading and rev propulsors to max. Power up acoustic sounding. Take a navigation hack and report.

Each command was sent but ANAD's response was gibberish. Images of Doc Frost smiling down at him morphed into Jamison Winger's face, contorted with Serengeti infection, morphed into the comforting winking of Bailey's big red eye, as the microflyer floated serenely at the end of his bed, morphed into—

Damn it!

Angrily, Johnny Winger clicked again out of the quantum link. He couldn't seem to turn the damn thing off now. The connection to ANAD was now fully severed...he hoped. He gritted his teeth, pressed buttons for acoustic command only and dialed in a new heading for the assembler to follow.

His eyepiece imager wasn't much help. Colorful swirls and eddies were all he could make out, a pointillist landscape of violence and salmon-hued whorls. It might as well have been Jupiter.

Sheila Reaves' strained voice crackled over the crewnet. "The swarm's expanding...and HERF's gone. We can't hold 'em...fall back! Fall back!"

Al Glance waited for Winger to take command of the re-deployment, but the CC1 was preoccupied trying to navigate ANAD out of the crevice in the side of the Amazon bot.

Glance boosted himself high enough to check the surroundings. Across the snow-blasted icescape, the Amazon swarm had swollen in size, a monstrous cyclone of wind and sleet and furious mech activity, beating toward their position with relentless fury. It was clear the Detachment would soon be overwhelmed and fully enveloped. Steadied by his suit thrusters and gyros, Glance realized they had to get away now...something was wrong with ANAD. BioShield...UNIFORCE...nothing seemed able to block the swarm.

"Fall back to the lifters!" he yelled over the crewnet. He radioed their status to Hadid and Wolf, the BioShield engineer. "We're being overrun...have to pull back and re-group...can you cover us...can you block or divert the swarm?"

Hadid's scratchy voice crackled back. "Negative...we're in a real scrum ourselves...my bots and weapons are no match...we've got to retreat ourselves!"

Glance watched the rest of the Detachment light off their suit boost and backpedal through the driving sleet to a low depression a quarter mile back. He counted them off one by one: D'Nunzio and Singh, Barnes and Reaves, M'Bela (struggling with a balky gyro...Barnes stopped to help him get upright), Gibby and Klimuk. Only the Skipper didn't respond.

Glance steered himself toward Johnny Winger's prostrate form. His hypersuit was motionless.

"Captain..." he rapped on the side of the helmet. "Skipper...we've got to fall back—"

Winger's suit shifted slightly. His weak voice hissed back over the crewnet.

"Glance...I've lost it...I've lost ANAD...he won't respond—"

Glance eyed the oncoming maelstrom swirling mere yards from the rock outcrop. Lightning flickered inside salmon-hued clouds, great ripples of flickering light as the Amazon bots tore into the air, into the snow, into the icecap, mindlessly disassembling everything.

The CC2 couldn't wait any longer. He maneuvered his own suit into a kneeling position, ran his own servos to max power and, with motors whining and groaning, used every ounce of force the thing could give him. Using a nearby boulder as leverage, Glance levered Winger's suit to an upright position. He peered in through the faceplate...saw a face at once pale and anxious in the orange glow of its interior lamps.

"Skipper...are you hurt? Can you move...can you maneuver on your own?"

Winger's glum face nodded. "ANAD's gone...I couldn't link in...I tried acoustic...I tried everything I could think of."

"I'm setting up your boost, Skipper..." Glance fingered the wristpad, stabbing at several buttons. "I'll keep one arm on your arm just in case your gyros go."

Winger tried to help but he seemed weak, unable to stand. He slumped in the suit...only Glance's quick work kept the suit upright. The CC2 lit off Winger's boost and, in a poof of snow and ice, the Captain's suit was hovering a foot off the ground, wobbling as its occupant struggled to keep his balance inside.

Winger's voice was strained, choked with emotion. "Glance...we can't leave ANAD behind...we don't leave anybody behind...no matter what."

It was true and Al Glance knew it.

It was the bedrock code of the nanowarrior: you didn't leave your buddies behind, for the enemy to pick over like some vulture.

Glance hesitated. "CQE's...any way we can jam those quantum signals?"

Deeno D'Nunzio was first to reply. "No way, Sarge. We can hardly detect them as it is."

"And nobody can predict what frequency they have," added Ozzie Tsukota. "Quantum signals are like that...there's really no such thing as a frequency anyway and they're transmitted as all possible states permissible. Only when the signal is received do those probabilities collapse to an actual signal. You can't predict it."

Glance steadied Winger in his suit. The two of them floated like huge metal cocoons through the driving sleet and snow. He quickly slaved the Captain's suit to his own...it was nearly impossible to keep physical contact under these conditions. With Glance's hypersuit emitting a beacon, Winger's suit thrust ahead on its own boost, following the signal...like a mama bear and her cub.

Scattered by the blizzard and the winds, the Detachment scrambled and floated across the choppy frozen waves of the sastrugi covering the icecap. The withdrawal was ragged and haphazard...Glance tried to maintain some semblance of formation but the swarm spun ever closer on their heels and all of them had to fight a running duel with the outer bands of bots converging on them.

Glance kept close to Winger has they slogged back toward the lifters. The Captain's suit gyrated and wobbled as it was buffeted by the wind but followed like an obedient dog. The CC2 called up the UNIFORCE commander.

"Hadid...detach an element of your mechs and give us control. We can block their advance along this bearing...give us all more time to get the hell out of here."

Hadid came back. "Negative, 1st Nano...we're fully engaged right now...I can't spare a single atom to give you. We're in a standoff two miles east of you...got one hell of an arm of the enemy pounding us. If I detach now, they'll blow right through us."

Glance found BioShield in the same predicament.

Wolf's voice was harried. "We're falling back ourselves, 1st Nano...I've got nothing to give you! My force is being chewed to pieces!"

Glance suspected as much but it had been worth a try. Whatever it was, whatever powered the swarm, it was a beast growing in intensity with every passing moment.

"Roger that...fall back as planned. Rendezvous at the lifters. We've got to get the hell out of here...before the damn thing eats us alive."

A few moments later, the dim outlines of the lifters materialized in the distance, squatting on the icecap like huge gray birds of prey.

"Come on, Skipper..." he gritted through his teeth. He twisted around to check out Winger's face. In the amber glow of his helmet lamps, Johnny Winger wore an expression blank and impassive, glassy-eyed. Was he all right? Was he even conscious?

"Help me get the Skipper aboard," he waved at the nearest suits, two troopers settling down onto the ice after shutting off their boost. "...he's not responding."

The suits turned out to be Gibby and Taj Singh.

Glance commanded Winger's suit boost off and he thumped down hard onto the ice, losing his balance until Gibby shouldered him upright.

"Open the lifter bay doors," Glance commanded. At the rear of the main cargo pod, doors clamshelled open, revealing the protective cocoon of warmth and strong flood lights inside.

Laboriously, they worked Winger, still inside his suit, up the ramp and into one of the ingress harnesses along the bulkhead.

Glance commanded the suit to depressurize and open. A hiss of air escaped as the neck ring and helmet quick-disconnected. Gibby lifted the helmet off.

Johnny Winger's face was deathly pale and haggard. Gibby, Glance and the others crowded around.

"Skipper...you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Get him some water," said Sheila Reaves. The DPS tech felt Winger's forehead. It was cool to her touch. "No fever that I can see."

"Check the suit," Glance ordered. "It might have been penetrated. If he's been swarmed—"

"There's no evidence of that," Gibby said. "I swept him as we came aboard."

Winger's hands were shaking as he accepted a cup of water from Reaves. He mumbled thanks.

"Skipper..." it was Moby M'bela, his necklace and trinkets clinking as he rubbed them for good luck. "...your containment port is open."

The port to the shoulder-implanted capsule where ANAD resided hadn't snapped shut.

Winger nodded grimly, sipping gratefully at the water. "I never got...ANAD never got recovered...had to get out of there—"

"My God...ANAD's lost?" D'Nunzio sucked in a hard breath. "He's still out there—"

Winger nodded. "Quantum interference...signals jammed...I couldn't control him, couldn't maneuver...nothing worked." The Captain shook his head, winced at the flood lamps inside the lifter bay. He turned to M'bela. "Moby, there's something wrong with the coupler link. When we were jammed and I couldn't run ANAD or communicate, I started to feel...I don't know, funny. Weird. I kept hallucinating, snatches of old thoughts and memories...it's like I could feel ANAD. He was in trouble, losing function and I could feel it somehow...like I was losing function too."

M'Bela clucked and rubbed his spirit talismans even harder. "Leakage effects. Doc Frost warned us that might happen."

Glance was skeptical. "What do you mean 'leakage effects?'"

"Just this—" M'bela chose his words carefully. "--the quantum signals that ANAD sends aren't always decoded in the Captain's coupler with perfect accuracy. Stray signals can cause neural firing wave patterns to occur unrelated to the original signal...that's the nature of quantum effects. It's all about probabilities and how they collapse when the signal is received."

Winger shook his head. "All I know is that I left a buddy back there...Quantum troopers don't do that. It leaves a bad taste...I've got to go back and get ANAD—" He started to rise but Sheila Reaves pushed him firmly back in his seat.

"It's not going to happen, Captain...not today. Amazon's a bitch of a swarm and nothing we've tried even slows it down. UNIFORCE has ordered everyone to pull back, to McMurdo. Including us."

Winger seethed but he didn't resist. He glared out a nearby porthole. The view was a swirling whiteout...blowing snow and sleet whipped into a fury by the vortex powered by the swarm. Wind gusts rocked the lifter, while the incessant wail of tortured air shrieked below the groaning creaking of the lifter fuselage.

Doc Frost said this could happen. Me and ANAD...Jesus, we're like brothers now. Read each other's minds, think each other's thoughts. Like one...

Winger shook himself out of the daze. He looked up at all the worried faces peering back at him. "Okay troops...the show's over. Let's get this jalopy airborne and get back to MacTown."

Moments later, the tiny fleet of lifters was winging its way back toward McMurdo City. As the billowing white pall of the swarm receded in the porthole and the black peaks of the Transantarctic range poked above the horizon, Winger stared out at the desolate scene, lost in thought.

With ANAD lost, 1st Nano and UNIFORCE had no choice but to retreat. A new master assembler could be regenerated but that would take time. The dumb bots and micro-weapons that UNIFORCE had left—not to mention the patrol bots BioShield had brought in—were no match for the Amazon swarm.

A new way to fight the swarm would have to be devised and fast. More worrisome than that, Winger realized as the outer dome settlements of McMurdo City materialized through a light ice fog and the lifter began its descent, was the quantum signal jamming that had interfered with ANAD.

Winger would certain the investigation would lead back to Red Hammer. According to the UNIFORCE commander, the decoherence wakes had been traced back to a source in China, near the Himalayas, after a great deal of effort and interpolating.

No surprise there, Winger thought grimly. Red Hammer's main base of operation was known to be in the area. Something would have to be done about the interference...or ANAD would be useless in combating the spread of the Amazon swarm.

A quick briefing was held in the UNIFORCE Ops command post. Suvorov was running the show. The Russian was harried and brusque.

"...that's the best we can do...hold up the swarm for a few hours with a force of bots until the thing overwhelms us. Then, we fall back to a new position, re-group, inject a new force of bots and get chewed up all over again. The same process over and over again for the last week. At this rate—" the Russian shrugged.

Stiles, the BioShield chief engineer, had already done the calculation. "...at this rate...McMurdo itself will be under assault in less than a week...less than a hundred hours if the swarm expands at a constant speed. So far, it hasn't...but I can't say we're doing much to slow it down."

Winger and Glance were attending the briefing for 1st Nano.

"Like flies tickling an elephant," Glance observed. On displays surrounding the briefing theater, the whole of Antarctica was being consumed by spreading patches of red. Two isolated patches, representing separate swarms at Lake Vostok and Mount Erebus, strained toward each other across the map.

"It's only a matter of time," Stiles was saying, "before the two elements link up...then we'll be facing a superswarm...this one capable of swallowing a whole continent."

"And the atmosphere over the continent," Winger added. "We've got to get back to Table Top...re-think our tactics. And regenerate another ANAD master." The prospect of breaking in another assembler and re-establishing coupler links made him wince.

"And find some way to block that quantum interference," Glance added. "We've become so dependent on quantum systems now that any disruption is a problem."

"More than a problem," Winger said, remembering the feelings of panic and helplessness. For a few moments, he had actually felt what ANAD himself must have felt. They had almost become one and the results had been near catastrophe.

Suvorov promised that UNIFORCE would deploy what ever microbot or conventional force was needed to engage the swarm.

"It's all we can do," the Russian explained, frustrated. "Paris doesn't understand what it's like down here. With BioShield's mechs, it seems the best defense we have are our own dumb bots...replicate simple mass and throw it into the fight. Cannon fodder the size of molecules. At best, we may be able to slow Amazon down."

Winger agreed. UNIFORCE nanobots were simple, non-programmable devices, with no real brains and minimal effectors. Easy to config, easy to replicate...they could be assembled into swarms at prodigious rates. Trouble was: the bots were easy prey for Amazon. The tactical plan was to overwhelm Amazon with mass but the enemy swarm was too quick to be stalled for long.

But until ANAD or something like it could engage and defeat the Amazon mechs in close combat, where it counted, there was little else UNIFORCE could do...here in the Antarctic or anywhere else Amazon was engaged.

UNIFORCE Command in Paris and the Security Affairs Commissioner were rapidly running out of options.

Winger and Glance left the Ops building and rode out to the skyway at McMurdo Field. Hyperjet Charioteer had been fueled up and the rest of the Detachment had loaded aboard with their gear.

Within the hour, the sleek black ship had lifted off, accelerating through the stratosphere on its ten-thousand mile suborbital hop to Table Top Mountain.

Johnny Winger holed up in the comm shack, glum and dispirited. Through the porthole, he could see miles below the ragged Pacific coastline of South America, lined with crumpled mountains of the Andes range. Though not visible from Charioteer's near-space altitude, he knew that the ocean waves lapping the shorelines of Tierra del Fuego were rising steadily, as they were now all over the world. Amazon swarm activity was melting the south polar ice cap and seas were rising, by nearly an inch a day according to some measurements.

ANAD had failed. Yet he hadn't...not really, Winger told himself. I'm the one who failed ANAD. The assembler had found a weakness inside the midline cavity of the Amazon bot, something that could be exploited. But Red Hammer's interference had kept him from exploiting it.

And with the onslaught of the swarm, he hadn't had time to properly recover the tiny assembler. That's what the after-action report read anyway. The truth was rather more complicated.

Anyway you cut it, nanotroopers looked out for each other. When you wore the black and gold, you covered your buddy's ass and you didn't leave anyone behind. That was the code. They all knew it. They all lived by it. It didn't matter if you were six feet tall or six nanometers tall.

And, deep down inside, Johnny Winger knew he had broken the code.

He got on the vidlink, anxious to talk, to explain, to do something and rang up Major Kraft at Table Top.

Kraft's face was deeply furrowed in thought as the image came up. The Battalion commander had been reviewing the Detachment's report. Glance had squirted it to Table Top off a satlink before they had lifted off from MacTown.

"Not very promising...this first engagement with a full swarm, Captain," Kraft was saying.

"No, sir," Winger agreed. "1st Nano got our ass kicked. The swarm bots are huge buggers, highly maneuverable. They replicate like crazy too...it's unnatural how fast they can move. It's like they're revved up somehow. I thought I found a weak point...ANAD was probing...maybe some kind of service port or something but—" Winger broke off the explanation. He could see the look on Kraft's face. A small vein on the Major's forehead was throbbing red. The volcano was about to blow.

Kraft's lips tightened. "Your report says quantum interference was detected...you lost ANAD because of that?"

Winger was embarrassed. He wanted to kill the vidlink, shrivel up and die.

"Yes, sir...UNIFORCE got intermittent bearings on decoherence wakes, triangulated back to a source in southwest China...Tibet, they said. Ten to one, it's Red Hammer."

Kraft seemed skeptical. "I didn't know quantum signals could even be effectively jammed. We went quantum several years ago, right after the Serengeti incident, for more secure command and control, not less." Kraft could see Winger squirming. Part of a commander's toolkit was knowing when to chew the ass off a nog who had screwed up...and when not to.

"What happened to ANAD?"

Winger related the details as honestly as he could, even though the same details were in the report.

"Our CQEs say these waves interfered with the basic functions of ANAD's processor. Somehow, if I'm understanding this right, the jamming waves keep the processor and my coupler from being able to read quantum signals when they collapse...like scattering them so they can't collapse or be read properly." Winger struggled to find the right words. "ANAD started feeling sluggish at first. I was piloting at that point and after awhile, I had no control...effectors, propulsors, replication, anything. Then we couldn't even talk to each other. My coupler link went on the fritz. And acoustics weren't much better."

Kraft's face was a picture of doubt. "I never liked all this hocus-pocus anyway. So you couldn't control or talk to ANAD?"

"No, sir. I began to lose everything...just as the Amazon swarm began expanding again. It caught us off guard."

Kraft nodded brusquely. A good commander never gets caught off guard. He scanned the report further, studying the embedded vidlinks. He could re-play 1st Nano's desperate stand at the rock wall—coilguns and HERFs going off like firecrackers—then follow the Detachment's withdrawal. "Captain, you violated basic tactical doctrine...you didn't set up a defensive perimeter or recon the terrain enough to know your enemy. That's why the swarm caught you off guard."

"Yes, sir—"

Kraft took a deep breath. "I've got Doctor Frost on this link with me. Let me bring the good doctor in on this little discussion—" The comm shack's viewer went fuzzy for a few seconds, then split into two windows. Kraft's dour face filled half the screen. The other half showed the face of Dr. Irwin Frost. Frost was in his lab at Northgate. Winger recognized the piping in the background. It was containment vessel piping...ANAD's ancestral home.

"Hello, Johnny," Frost's face split into an avuncular smile. "I've been studying your report too...the Major rang me up awhile ago. Quite a battle you had down there, son."

"Doc..." Winger shook his head, idly fingered the capsule port on his left shoulder...the now empty capsule. "...Doc, I'm having quite a problem, or was having a problem—" he corrected, "coupling to ANAD. I felt...funny, weird...disconnected...lots of fragments, images that didn't make any sense, some old memories...it's really hard to describe—"

Kraft interjected. "Doctor...is this normal? Winger's supposed to have a hard link to the assembler. Strictly a command and control link. He shouldn't be having all this emotional, panty-waist crap in his head."

Frost turned grim, tight-lipped. He nodded to the Major. "Quite right, Major. That is the intent of the design. However, remember this is still somewhat of an experimental setup. The nature of quantum links is such that, even now, we can't always control or predict what final state a decoherence wave will collapse to. I'm sure we're seeing that effect here. There's leakage from Johnny's coupler into the limbic circuits of his brain. It was an expected effect."

"In English, if you don't mind, Doctor." Kraft was growing impatient. "I've got a war to fight here and I don't have time for theories."

"Simply put," Frost tried to explain, "some of the decoherence waves sent out by ANAD are collapsing to a different state than planned and Johnny's coupler doesn't know how to interpret them. It's overloaded. The enemy's quantum jamming doesn't help either. So Johnny's coupler just dumps the raw decoherence waves out. They wind up collapsing to a final state inside his limbic system tissue—where emotional states are formed. There they trigger unpredictable and unrelated feelings, thoughts and memories. It's a known side effect of using quantum systems for communications. We gain some things and lose some things."

"That may be so," Kraft growled, "but one of your 'side effects' is that I've lost another ANAD master and damn near my whole Detachment. Plus my tactical commander's less than a hundred percent and that just won't work. The Project isn't supposed to produce this result. Something's got to be done and soon."

Winger was just as frustrated. "Major, ANAD was pretty effective against Amazon bots until quantum jamming interfered with his core functions." He described the cavity into which ANAD had probed. "The bugger's effectors couldn't reach into the cavity and only a weak phosphate group screened off the area. I'm guessing it was a port of some kind, probably for service or access. Once we were inside, ANAD made quick work of the membrane molecules...if it hadn't been for the jamming, I'm sure ANAD could have dismantled the thing from the inside."

Kraft just shook his head, peering down at something on his desk. "The source of that interference has got to be eliminated," he said. "Whatever it takes...ANAD's our best shot now, maybe our only shot to stop Amazon before it's too late."

Frost had an idea. "Major, I may be able to devise some countermeasures against the quantum interference. It's a little trick we've been working on here at the Lab...a sort of 'anti-phase' entanglement wave. Experimentally, we've had decent results in the few trials we've made. But it will take time to perfect."

Kraft rubbed his eyes wearily. Reports, staff briefings, decisions...long hours had been taking a toll on the battalion commander the last few days. "Time, Doctor, is one quantity that is unfortunately in short supply around here. Get working on it...and send the details to me. I've got a vidlink with UNSAC himself this afternoon, 1500 hours my time. Every option is on the table and I need as many as I can get...I'm running a bit low. The first thing I'm requesting is UNIFORCE approval to do something about that base in China. If that's where the interference is coming from, we've got to take it out, neutralize it."

Through a porthole, Winger watched the hard bright sun set in a molten pool of gold and crimson over the western horizon of the Pacific. In seconds, Charioteer was completely in darkness, arcing over the Amazon river basin itself. Jagged veins of lightning cascaded across the tropical skies fifty miles below them, creating a strobe effect on the cloud tops. Somewhere down there was the tiny river village of Via Verde or what was left of it. Birthplace of the Amazon Vector.

"Major, do you think UNIFORCE will do anything?"

Kraft's face darkened. "Unknown, Winger. It's politically touchy, with the Chinese. There are elements of the People's Liberation Army who protect Red Hammer...it's widely known. But UNIFORCE has to act now...there's already talk out of Paris of ordering mandatory evacuations across the Southern Hemisphere...Sydney and Melbourne, Singapore and Buenos Aires. The sea level's rising faster than anyone ever expected. If UNIFORCE doesn't or can't act now to stop the swarms, they'll be swept aside and politics be damned. Without UNIFORCE, it'll be every nation and tribe for itself. Anarchy won't begin to describe it."

Frost questioned Winger more closely about the effects of the coupler problem and the interference. As he did so, he created a small diagnostic, which he squirted to Kraft over a separate channel. Even as the Major detailed the steps UNIFORCE was taking to battle Amazon swarms around the world, he scanned the cryptic notes of the diagnostic from Frost:

Evidence shows Johnny and ANAD growing closer together, forging new links across the coupler circuit.

Symbiotic life forms evolve greater dependency over time, even in areas of vital functions.

The nature of endosymbiosis is that a new organism originates from the fusion of two existing organisms, or more precisely, two independently evolved organisms become a tightly coupled system and eventually just one organism.

Such symbiotic mergers have been common in the evolutionary history of life on Earth; actually, it accounts for life as we know it today. The ancestors of all life are bacteria.

Life can be viewed as a plan for bacteria to exist forever: bodies are desirable as food sources for bacteria, so one could view the evolution of bacteria into such bodies as a plan by bacteria to create food for themselves. See my attachment: Hive Minds: On the Prospects for Autonomous, Quantum-Coupled, Nanoscale Assembler Swarms.

It's the nature of symbiotic systems that they become ever more dependent on each other. It's a process that we can't really predict or control very well.

Major: For the Symbiosis Project to succeed, this development must continue...without hindrance.

Kraft angrily closed down the diagnostic. He fired back a response to Frost over the same channel:

Doc...this project is interfering with my mission. I need a fully functional Johnny Winger now...even if it means not implanting or coupling with ANAD...

Kraft shut down the side channel to Frost. I don't need any more distractions.

"Winger, it's going to take nearly two weeks to regenerate another ANAD master assembler. We don't have the luxury of waiting that long to engage the enemy."

Johnny had seen the displays at McMurdo City. "The BioShield people said the real problem comes when the smaller swarms converge into big ones."

"UNIFORCE agrees. I saw the latest intel this morning: Amazon swarms are on the move around the globe, not just in Antarctica. In the Congo rain forest, the south Pacific, the Caucasus Mountains, swarms are forming and moving and coalescing, spinning off daughter swarms and linking up with them again. They're wreaking havoc everywhere, relentlessly modifying the planet's atmosphere. And frankly, right now there's not much we can do to stop them."

"Is anything working, Major?"

"Not much. Intel says Amazon's success depends on its speed of replication and maneuver. Your mission in the Antarctic is the first time we've been able to penetrate the swarm to any degree and get data on the bots from inside. It's also the first time we've seen Red Hammer supporting the swarms...direct evidence with this quantum signal jamming. That's a new factor."

Johnny Winger recalled the interior of the Amazon bot cavity that ANAD had probed.

"We can beat the buggers, Major...I know we can. They may be big and fast, with propulsors and effectors like the dickens, but they're still nanobotic mechanisms. When ANAD was inside that bot, I got the feeling the thing was nothing more than a big dumb brute...a dinosaur at nanoscale dimensions. Fast and maneuverable as hell, to be sure...he could rep like a madman, but brains—processor capability—I'm not so sure. The right tactics, Major...with no outside interference and I'm sure we can smash the bejeezus out of 'em."

Kraft found Winger's attitude a refreshing change from the steady defeatism he'd been hearing all morning.

"You'll have a chance to do exactly that soon enough, Captain Winger. Right now, I've got a new mission for you. Some new leads have turned up on the possible whereabouts of Captain Tallant and Sergeant Collin."

"Hypersuit emitters?" Winger asked. Quantum Corps had been tracking intermittent signals from Tallant's and Collin's suits for several days, trying to pin down a fix.

"Memory scans of that Red Hammer defector. There's apparently reason to believe they're still in the vicinity of Kurabantu Island, if they're even still alive. I want you to form a rescue detachment when you get back to the Mountain."

"Who do I get?"

Kraft could see the wheels turning in Winger's head. "Pick anyone you want...I'll approve it. We need those two back."

"Amen to that, sir." Winger had lost a lot of sleep lately, wondering about Dana Tallant...wondering what had happened.

"Winger...don't even bother unpacking your gear. You're leading a search and rescue operation in and around Kurabantu Island. Hyperjet Mercury will be already loaded and fueled when you arrive. You leave for the south Pacific at 0600 hours tomorrow morning."

"ANAD won't be ready for another ten days at least, sir."

Kraft nodded grimly. "I'm well aware of that, trooper. Since the new master assembler won't be ready, you'll have to take an older version...or go in alone."
CHAPTER 8

Kurabantu Island

The Marquesas

November 9, 2068

Early morning

"Launch coordinates coming up, sir."

Johnny Winger was in the rear bay of the hyperjet Mercury, checking out the cockpit controls of the Quantum Corps floater Sea Ray. Part aircraft, part submersible, the ship had been detailed to the rescue task force for use in searching for the lost members of Bravo Detachment.

"Acknowledged." Winger tested Sea Ray's propulsor and steering controls, making sure she would be seaworthy when the time came. His CC2, Al Glance, sat beside Winger. "She looks easy enough to operate from here...flight controls, diving controls, navigation and sensors. How about your side?"

"All copasetic, sir." Glance was synchronizing Sea Ray's nav computer with Mercury's. "I say we drop and go for a swim."

Indeed, that was the mission plan. Launch coordinates were a fixed point in mid-air, about ten miles northeast of the coral atoll of Kurabantu Island. Once Mercury was stable in hover, her rear bay doors would open and Sea Ray would be dropped a thousand feet to the ocean surface. Once she was trimmed for cruise, the ship would descend beneath the waves and begin search operations.

Winger climbed out of Sea Ray's cockpit and went aft to check stores and supplies. The briefing earlier that morning in the Ready Room at Table Top had been short and to the point: further interrogation and statements, corroborated by memory scan, of the Red Hammer defector Skinner had established that there was probably a new complex in the vicinity, previously undetected by UNIFORCE...a semi-automated compound in an underwater canyon about ten miles east of the island.

According to Skinner, this base was a principal design and development center for the demonio creatures Winger had first encountered at Via Verde. Besides functioning as a nursery, the complex was also said to be a local control node for Amazon Vector supercolonies operating across the Pacific basin. Some of the supercolonies were already engaged in modifying the temperature, salinity and oxygen content of the southern oceans.

According to Quantum Corps Intelligence, Skinner thought it likely that the captured members of Bravo Detachment had been taken there.

Winger stepped through the airlock, out of Sea Ray, and came forward to the crew station, where the rest of the unit was busy checking out their gear.

Deeno D'Nunzio was passing out small thumb-sized capsules to the rest. "Got your respirocyte dose here, Skipper." She handed the capsule to Winger. "Everybody else has done theirs."

Winger knew the respirocyte treatment was a necessary step in prepping for submerged missions. The capsule contained a complete replicated cycle of nanobotic artificial red blood cells. Once ingested, the cytes would augment a trooper's respiratory system, by delivering over two hundred times more oxygen to lung tissues than normal. Spherical diamondoid pressure vessels less than a micron in size, the cytes would enable Quantum Corps troopers to survive underwater with no further assistance, wearing only skinsuits, comm gear and utility and weapons belts.

Winger was just glad to be rid of the tin can hypersuits.

He opened the capsule port and inhaled, letting the pressurized stream of respirocytes flood into his throat. There was a brief tingle and he felt his face flush red and turn warm for a few seconds...the result of an extra charge of oxygen from the cytes as they went to work.

"Nobody light a match," joked Gibby, as he slipped into his skinsuit. "This place'll go up like a torch."

Sheila Reaves cycled her mag gun and holstered the weapon on her belt. "I feel so light-headed." She feigned breathtaking swoon, staggering around the crew station.

Deeno snorted. "Sure she's so light-headed...'cause there's nothing upstairs."

"Yeah," said Ozzie Tsukota, nearby. "Nature abhors a vacuum—"

"Can it," Winger ordered. "Gear up and let's get aboard and get everything stowed away. Launch in five minutes."

Sea Ray was outwardly an ungainly-looking craft, a far cry from anything sleek or hydrodynamic. The crew compartment was a squat biconic dish, like two dinner plates pressed together.

The interior was divided into three smaller compartments, a forward space for command and control, an engineering space with a diver's lockout and a weapons and stores space. The dish of Sea Ray's main cabin sprouted two legs, actually nacelles housing the hydrojet plants and propulsors. A small bubble of an observation platform sat on top of the dish.

"Ready to launch, Captain." Al Glance's fingers flew over the control board, readying Sea Ray's navigation, diving and propulsion systems.

"Very well." Johnny Winger felt a slight burning in his lungs—the result of the boosted oxygen charge created by the respirocytes. For a few moments, he felt warm and flushed. Inside his body, the cytes were steadily taking over the function of his red blood cells.

"Mercury, Sea Ray is powered up and ready to drop."

The hyperjet pilot, Lieutenant Matumba, radioed back. "Okay, Captain...we're maneuvering into position now. Synch your nav system and we'll squirt you the coordinates—"

Glance pressed a few buttons. Sea Ray's nav system was now fully updated.

Matumba was all business, her voice steady, even laconic. "Bay doors coming open—"

Mercury's rear cargo bay doors clamshelled open. The hyperjet was now in full hover, a thousand feet above the choppy, turquoise waters of the south Pacific. It proved to be a beautiful, cloudless day.

"Launch deck is clear—"

"Sea Ray powered up...our props are turning—"

"Extending launch table—"

The floater rested on a cradle which now canted upward at the rear to a shallow angle and slid aft on rails toward the clamshell doors. At the same time, an electromagnetic catapult beneath the cradle primed itself to discharge Sea Ray into the air.

"On my mark...ten seconds."

Winger and Glance nodded faintly to each other. Behind them, strapped into couches were half the Detachment, the troopers who would man the floater and conduct the search and rescue mission from underwater. The other half would stay aboard Mercury, conducting their part of the mission from the air.

"...five seconds—"

Winger took a deep breath and found his heart racing and blood rushing as the cytes in his bloodstream ramped up O2 for increased demand. He cinched his five-point harness tighter, took one last scan of the controls and fixed his gaze on the swells of the ocean breaking and foaming a thousand feet below.

"Two...one...launch commit...and—"

Matumba's words were lost in the roar of the catapult as the power banks discharged and Sea Ray's cradle jerked forward. Like a huge slingshot, the cradle accelerated down the tilted ramp, pulling the floater along with it.

Sea Ray rocketed out the rear doors of hyperjet Mercury and arrowed straight down for the ocean, aiming to enter the sea at an angle calibrated to minimize shock, to the ship and her crew.

The foaming waves came rushing up to meet the windscreen. There was a loud shudder—bang! as the floater slammed bow first into the water and quickly submerged. Vibration damped quickly beneath the waves. Shafts of diffuse sunlight streamed down from above.

Sea Ray angled downward at a steep angle as the hydrojets kicked in.

"Bring her around to two zero two degrees," Winger commanded. "I'm leveling off at a hundred feet. Let's sound and scan a few minutes, get our bearings."

"Copy that," Glance said. He massaged the helm controls and Sea Ray banked to her new heading.

"Skipper—" it was Mighty Mite Barnes, strapped into one of the aft seats. "—I'll start getting the mantas ready to deploy."

"Very well, get 'em spun up and synched to Sea Ray. We get any kind of decent pings, I want them out the door and sniffing."

The mantas were mobile autonomous non-tethered assault and surveillance bots, inevitably robotic 'crabs' to all who ever saw them. Sea Ray carried a complement of three, to extend her eyes and ears beyond normal sonar range.

Barnes unstrapped and slipped into the weapons and stores bay to begin prepping the robot scouts.

The mantas were stored on cradles outside of individual launch tubes. Each scout resembled a large beetle, its carapace studded with sensors, probes and manipulators. Hydrojet thrusters provided mobility, while the manta's face mounted cameras and more sensors.

Barnes set to work. She synched each manta to Sea Ray's computer. Then she primed the hydrojets, set the onboard processor to Full Auto and toggled a few more switches. One by one, the robot scouts came alive and crawled on articulating legs into their launch tubes.

"Mantas prepped and ready for launch," she announced up to the main cabin.

"Very well," Winger said. "Standby...let's get Sea Ray into position—"

Winger used his sidestick controller to bank the floater to port.

"—coming around to heading two five five degrees," said Al Glance. "There's the gap in the canyon wall we saw on the map."

"I'll steer us right through the front door..." Winger was concentrating on a murky scene on his display, vaguely matching the dim outlines of a rugged underwater escarpment dead ahead. He pulsed his sidestick and the floater responded, rocking slightly, easing forward toward a V-shaped cleft in the mountain. Moments later, Sea Ray was abreast of the canyon entrance. All around them, the steep rutted flanks of massive rock walls rose up toward the surface two hundred feet above them.

"Manta One...prepare to launch."

Barnes flooded the launch tube. "Tube is ready, Skipper."

Winger silently counted down the seconds, then quickly reversed Sea Ray's hydrojets.

"Launch now!"

A deep thrummm reverberated through the floater's hull as a high-pressure slug of air discharged the first scout. Through Sea Ray's forward windows, the beetle-like robot streamed off, trailing twin wakes as its propulsors revved up to speed.

"Manta One is away...I'm reading clean, green and mean across my board." Barnes monitored a stream of telemetry showing status of the robot's onboard systems.

"Very well," Winger started backing Sea Ray out of the canyon. "Now we've got some eyes in this little corner of the ocean."

Glance toggled the displays to show the launch points for Mantas Two and Three. The Red Hammer defector Nigel Skinner didn't know the precise location of the underwater complex east of Kurabantu Island. Underwater topography charts had pinpointed several possibilities. Sea Ray's scouts gave her the ability to reconnoiter a much larger area.

"Two more to go, Skipper." Glance slaved the display to give heading information to the next launch point.

Kurabantu Island was itself the topmost plateau of a huge underwater seamount, the tallest of a ridge of mountains and submerged mesas that rose up out of the abyssal plains of the Marquesas basin and toward the surface tens of thousands of feet above. Only the upper fifty feet or so breached the ocean's surface, forming the island with its central volcano of Tuontavik.

Beyond the perimeter of the seamount, the Marquesas basin was honeycombed with a labyrinth of underwater ridges and canyons, a tortured seascape alive with mudslides, avalanches and tremors. Winger intended to make good use of Sea Ray's brood of scouts, while executing a complicated search pattern himself, seeking any sources of unusual ground motion, heat or chemical disturbances in the ocean.

With such an active quake zone surrounding them, the floater crew would have to keep their eyes open at all times. Sudden, catastrophic danger lurked everywhere.

Mantas Two and Three were launched in the same way. Sea Ray now had a small covey of robotic scouts cruising the underwater canyons around Kurabantu Island.

"What's the latest intel we have?" Winger asked. "Any more hypersuit emissions detected?"

Al Glance had been monitoring comms with Table Top and the air search force. "Nothing more, Skipper. Navsats haven't updated the last fix...the best coordinates were in a box about three miles square, centered ten miles north-northeast of the island. I've initialized our search pattern at one corner of the box."

Winger nudged the sidestick forward, easing Sea Ray deeper, out of the sunlight zone. Bit by bit, the ocean darkened before their eyes. Beyond three hundred feet, they had entered the realm of eternal night—too deep for sunlight to penetrate.

"I'll level off at four hundred for now. Set up a grid search pattern, but we'll have to keep our eyes open. UNISEA reports said these underwater mountains could be treacherous...lots of blind alleys and narrow passes. Plenty of places to get stuck...or trapped in a slide."

Glance programmed Sea Ray to follow the search pattern ordered and set the floater to auto-run. It soon became a roller-coaster ride, as the floater dived, twisted and turned to avoid the canyon walls that surrounded them. On the waterfall display of the ship's active sonar, the canyon walls and mountain peaks made swirling patterns.

"Looks like a Van Gogh painting to me," Glance muttered. "No way we'll be able to follow a straight line down here."

Corporal Chandra Singh was manning the sensor station aft of the command deck. Winger called back to the DPS tech.

"Taj—what have we got cooking with the other sensors?"

Singh did a quick scan of the board. "Nothing yet on thermal, Captain. Just background heat sources, mostly diffuse, probably magma channels in these mountains. Acoustic shows nothing unusual yet either. Lots of creaking and groaning...nothing man-made. I'm scanning visual, EM on all bands, even radiation flux. So far...it's all background stuff."

"I'm looking at quantum channels myself, Captain." Deeno D'Nunzio was at one of the aft stations in the main cabin. "There's just a chance we'll be able to grab something out of the ether...maybe even a decoherence wake."

"—or nanobotic activity," added Moby M'bela. The CEC1 was manning the quantum coupler controls next to Deeno. "There's a good chance we'll be able to pick up the signature of a quantum processor by the leftover wakes it leaves behind. I've got this baby tuned extra-sensitive."

Winger was tight-lipped. "So...we search—" It was all they could do.

For several hours, Sea Ray cruised in and out of canyons, valleys, ravines and narrow gorges, skirting the outer perimeter of the Kurabantu seamount in an ever-tightening spiral. On Winger's orders, Barnes broke out rations from a stores locker and the crew nibbled at their meals, keeping their eyes on instruments or staring numbly out the tiny portholes at the murk of the ocean that surrounded them. Even the murk wasn't featureless, as flashes of light momentarily lit up the water, revealing gaping jaws and sinuous finned and crested creatures cruising alongside them. All of them seemed to have gaping jaws and long, needle-like teeth. Many trailed long, dangling antennae behind them. Most were black or gray though a few shone red and one that darted into view was a bright electric blue.

"Captain—" it was M'bela, furiously squeezing some ornamental trinket around his neck. "—Captain...there's something here—"

Winger had been in a light doze, and came instantly alert. "What is it, Moby?"

"I'm not sure, sir...molecular debris...some thermals, maybe—"

Barnes cut in from the weapons bay over the crew circuit. "I'm seeing it, too...it's Manta Three. Particle flux, atom trash, lots of radicals, heat...it's nanobotic activity, sir...I'm sure of it."

"Where's Manta Three now?"

Barnes quickly scanned her board. "Bearing one five five degrees, about four miles southwest of us." She massaged the display to get a terrain map of the seafloor. "—just past Poseidon's Massif...a little canyon she was reconning."

Winger studied the same display on his panel. "Can you get closer...pinpoint the source?"

"Maneuvering now." Barnes reported. She tweaked the sidestick controller, pulsing Manta Three's hydrojets. Four miles away, the robotic scout banked left and slowed down, sniffing and sounding its way toward the target. "I'm queuing visual too...but the water's cloudy...lots of sediment from landslides around here."

"Use your flood lamps," Winger told her.

Barnes steered the scout through a W-shaped formation called Devil's Tooth and into the narrow gorge behind the towering Poseidon Massif. Manta Three slowed and began probing its surroundings in more detail, tasting and sniffing at the trail it had discovered.

"Water's really churned up ahead...acoustics say there's a minor landslide off to our left." Glance was studying the passive sonar display, which speckled like a meteor shower with the reverberations from tons of falling debris.

"Unstable zone," Winger muttered. Hell of a place to put a base.

"Nanobotic activity's going through the roof," Barnes reported. "I've got spikes across the board...radicals everywhere, high heat signature. Going to visual now—" She switched on Manta Three's forward lights and commanded the autonomous craft to a dead stop.

At first, the visuals were grainy, staticky, shot through with streaks of light in a dense gray murk, like firecrackers going off in a heavy fog. Sediment and mud and debris rained down from above, swirling and shaking as tons of dirt and rock slid hundreds of feet down the flanks of Poseidon Massif, shaken loose in one of the dozens of daily seafloor tremors that afflicted the area.

Just visible behind the veil of sediment was an indistinct glow, as if the scene was being backlit from beyond the canyon walls by some vast lamp. The glow pulsated in a slow but steady rhythm and, as Barnes propelled Manta Three closer, seams in the glow could be faintly seen...like cracks or shadows in an otherwise seamless curtain of light.

"It's a defensive barrier," Al Glance said quietly. "Covering one entire wall of that canyon. A nanobotic shield...Jesus...the thing must be a half-mile wide."

Winger agreed. He had put Sea Ray into a racetrack holding pattern some four miles east of the massif and canyon badlands. "The question is: what's being shielded? Mighty Mite, can you get us any closer? I want to see what kind of bots we're dealing with."

"I'll try, Skipper...but this place is rocking and rolling pretty good right now." She nudged her stick, commanding Manta Three to ease forward at a few knots. Gradually, the visuals became clearer. "I'm probing acoustically now...and switching on my quark flux imager."

Manta Three reached out and touched the nanobotic barrier with a tight stream of quarks, sending back details on fine structure. The imager view flipped over and over as greater and greater resolution filled the screen, drilling down further into the world of atoms and molecules. Soon, the grainy blurry outlines of a familiar icosahedral structure materialized into view.

Winger sucked in his breath. "An ANAD clone...just as I thought. Same effector layout, same platform design. A defensive barrier of basic ANAD mechs. I'm betting Red Hammer's complex is somewhere behind that barrier."

Glance studied the imager. "I doubt we can take Sea Ray safely into that canyon, Skipper."

"Probably not," Winger agreed. "But I've got an idea...Mighty Mite, give me a bearing to Manta Three."

Barnes came back. "Steer left, three one five degrees, Skipper. Maintain depth at four two five feet."

Winger maneuvered Sea Ray to the new heading. The floater cruised north by northwest for about ten minutes.

"Seamount margins ahead," Glance announced. "Cliffs and rough terrain, it looks like." He indicated the active sonar display on the control board. The display was lit up like a Christmas tree. "Want to let us in on the plan, Captain?"

Winger steered Sea Ray to a stop, less than fifty feet from the steep flanks of an underwater mountain. He pressed a button and bright searchlights shot out, painting the mountainside with light. A thick veil of sediment rained down the steep slope.

"The edge of Kurabantu seamount itself," Winger announced. "This is our way in."

Glance looked over at the Captain. "I don't see any kind of entrance here. How far are we from Manta Three?"

Winger checked the display. "This ledge is about a quarter mile southeast of Manta's position. If I'm right, the nano-barrier is just off to our right, on the other side of this escarpment."

Winger's idea suddenly dawned on Glance. "We're going through the mountain?"

"Exactly." Winger changed the display to show a topographic map of the seamount complex and its surrounding mountains and valleys, radiating outward like waves frozen in rock. "Look, there's no way we can penetrate that barrier without setting off alarms all over the place."

"Agreed."

"The way I figure it...we use ANAD to breach a path through the mountain here and tunnel into the complex from the rear. We've got skinsuits, weapons...plus we're all boosted with respirocytes. The enemy will never expect an assault from that direction, from inside the mountain."

"Skipper—" said Singh, "the barrier may not even be active from the mountain side of the complex."

"Exactly." Winger was already unbuckling his seat harness. "Let's get moving. Bravo's in trouble and we've got to get them out of there."

The Detachment prepped themselves with dispatch and quick efficiency, despite the close quarters inside Sea Ray. Mag and HERF weapons were checked and charged, MOB canisters secured and the mobile TinyTown activated to ready ANAD for launch. Moby M'Bela cycled the containment pod systems to be sure the tiny assembler was prepared.

"Solution parameters in the green, pH normal, concentration gradients look good...I'm initializing the replication counter to zero—"

"Load tacticals one and two," Winger told him. The pod imager showed a grid wavering in aqueous solution, with what looked like a bunch of grapes hanging off a trellis in the center. The Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassembler quivered slightly, its internal clock beating a silent rhythm. "This version of ANAD is pretty crude, Moby...older processor, no quantum coupler, no voice system...just barebones nano. I'll have to drive him, once he's launched and replicating."

M'Bela detected the slight smirk in the Captain's voice. What atomgrabber worth his electrons didn't like driving nanobots through the atomic world?

"You never lose the knack, sir...it's like I've always said...'a grabber's gotta do atoms.'"

Sea Ray was quietly maneuvered into position, nuzzling up to a small knobby outcrop of the seamount. The floater's nose nestled against the rock wall and a flexible tube was extended from the airlock. The tube pressed flush against the sheer face.

M'Bela had wheeled the TinyTown unit into the diver's lockout chamber and completed last minute checks.

"ANAD reports ready in all respects, sir."

Winger was still at the forward command deck. To Al Glance, he said, "Keep scanning, Al. All bands. I don't want any unexpected guests trying to crash our party." Winger unstrapped and slipped aft. An interface control unit had been mounted on a bulkhead near the lockout.

Winger looked around at his assembled troopers, gathered about the chamber: M'Bela at the TinyTown panel, Gibby initializing the interface so Winger could drive ANAD into the side of the mountain, Barnes, D'Nunzio and Singh. All eyes were on him.

"Dana Tallant's out there, guys. So is Jeff Collin, maybe others too. We're going after them. And we're not going back to Table Top without them. Understood?"

"Perfectly, Captain..." said Singh.

"Launch ANAD," Winger said at last. He turned to the IC unit Gibby had been prepping. "And let's kick atomic ass!"

The tiny assembler exited the TinyTown cylinder with a faint whir of air. On his IC imager, Winger toggled up an acoustic display...letting the blurry scene settle down as the sounder slowly resolved finer and finer detail. Whirling, colliding shapes materialized on the screen...a blizzard of polygons and snake-like carbon chains, twin-lobed oxygens careening off L-shaped nitrogens, like some kind of mad volleyball game.

Johnny Winger blinked hard and focused. It always took a few moments, even for an ace atomgrabber, to mentally orient himself in the frenetic, dizzying recoil of the atomic world. It was like walking through a door into another dimension, in the middle of a blizzard, underwater.

The tactical plan was simple enough in principle, if damnably hard to execute. Once ANAD had been launched, the lockout chamber would be flooded. ANAD would make his way toward the face of the mountain, after replicating a suitable mass, disassembling molecules, tunneling right into the side of the mountain. Several hours later, as the swarm continued its work, the Detachment would don their skinsuits and weapons and follow.

A narrow tunnel, just wide enough for a fully outfitted nanotrooper, would be burned into the flanks of the seamount. ANAD and its replicant swarm would steer toward the coordinates of the source of the defensive barrier.

"A hundred to one...our target's there," Glance had reasoned.

Once outside the Sea Ray, the nanotroopers would be assisted by their respirocyte-boosted lungs. ANAD would seal the tunnel after the last of the troopers had entered, helping to maintain pressure.

The tactic was risky, Winger knew, but it had the advantage of complete surprise. The defensive barrier was surely protecting something, something important.

1st Nano was determined to find out what.

Winger let the disorientation and dizziness slowly subside and found himself standing in a blizzard of sleeting molecules, bounced and buffeted like a surfer hunting for the next big one.

Let it come to you, ANAD had always told him. Relax and flow with the currents. You can feel your way through...just skate where the seams are.

"I'm piloting..." Winger announced. He let the van der Waals forces wash over him, the molecular quivers of Brownian motion and....there! He tweaked his propulsors and jetted forward, careening like a balloon in a gale but somehow finding a way to tack and maneuver ahead. "...I'm piloting...on Fly-by-Stick. Flood the lockout."

Deeno D'Nunzio wet her lips and cycled the controls for the chamber. She knew Captain Winger was physically seated next to her, focused on the interface controls. But she also knew the Skipper was mentally engaged somewhere else, present in the nanoscale world that was invisible beyond the imager screen.

"Lockout flooding," she announced. Beyond the heavy door, seawater poured into the chamber with a roar, quickly rising to the top. The whole process took less than two minutes.

The only noticeable effect that Winger could detect was an increase in the buffeting and jostling, making steering and propulsion that much harder. Soon after, a great cascade of twin-lobed water molecules crashed into him, sweeping the assembler off in a new direction. It was like shooting whitewater rapids on a raging, foaming river.

Winger struggled with the controls for a few minutes, fighting the sleet of molecules, but in time, his atomgrabber's instincts took over. With practice and some finesse, he was soon able to surf and skate and slide through the onslaught like the polished stick man he was.

"I've got it now...." He announced. He settled back to let the onrushing river of molecules crash by, bobbing and careening like a balloon in a hailstorm. "I'm sounding ahead now...showing denser structures ahead at forty thousand microns. Crystalline lattice structures—"

Al Glance concurred. "That would be the seamount wall, Skipper."

Winger studied the acoustic returns. The display showed a grid of pyroxene and olivine and quartz molecules, taut dodecahedral structures linked on all sides like a dense forest of tangled limbs.

"Intermolecular distances are small," he answered. "Maybe a few hundred nanometers at most. This one's gonna be a tight squeeze."

Under Winger's control, ANAD streamed closer and closer to the lattice.

"I'm starting my replication cycle," Winger said. He toggled the controls, squirting the commands off to the tiny assembler. Less than twenty feet away through Sea Ray's hull, ANAD received its new orders and began grabbing atoms to build copies of itself. "Better to do this now...while I have some room to maneuver."

Mere inches from the rough, rocky surface of the seamount, the black water began glowing with an ethereal phosphorescence. Through a nearby porthole, Taj Singh witnessed the unearthly glow.

"ANAD's at work...I can see it right out the window."

In less than ten minutes, the rep counter had ticked over to the commanded value. ANAD had built himself a family of several quadrillions of daughter molecules.

Now it was time to go to work.

Gibby had been up on the command deck, studying the results of the assembler's acoustic probes.

"This is garden variety igneous stuff, Skipper," he radioed back. "Nothing unusual that I see. Just gazillions of quartz and feldspar molecules all lined up in formation. My guess is you break the thing at the tetrahedral joint...between the silicons and the oxygens. Bond strength would be weakest there."

"Agreed." Winger programmed the sequence, telling ANAD just where to begin working his way into the lattice. Quartz made up much of the first few inches of the Kurabantu seamount...a crystalline grid of corkscrewing tetrahedrons composed of a silicon molecule and a pair of oxygens. ANAD would have the fastest results if he went to work on the tetrahedral joints.

Winger sent the commands. Acting in unison, the Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassembler swarm jetted forward and penetrated the lattice, all its effectors fully extended. Engaging the first arrays of the lattice, the swarm began quickly ripping into the molecular formation, severing bonds and burrowing ever deeper into the rock.

In minutes, the glow along the sheer face of Kurabantu's submerged flanks brightened to a searing white hot incandescence. Nanometer by nanometer, uncountable swarms of assemblers burned their way into the side of the mountain.

It was Singh and Deeno at the porthole who first spotted the faint outlines of ANAD's 'tunnel.'

"There's our way in, just like the doctor ordered," Deeno said.

Ten feet from the porthole, a shadowy opening in the rock face slowly materialized from the flickering light and silted water. Barely three feet wide, the fissure was easily overlooked in all the folds and crags of the mountain; only the pulsating glow of atomic disassembly made it visible. From deep inside the fissure, a faint amber glow throbbed like a warning beacon.

Johnny Winger studied parameters on his IC panel. "My reps are all good...all effectors deployed and in the green. ANAD proceeding on one-quarter propulsor. Carbene grabbers are really going crazy...I'm pulling silicons like some kind of madman."

"How long before we can enter the tunnel, Skipper?" asked M'bela. He had sized up the dimensions by estimating from the porthole and wasn't sure he really wanted an answer.

Winger did some quick calculations. "At his current rate, ANAD'll have a tunnel deep enough for all of us to fit in about twenty minutes, give or take. Get prepped now...skinsuits checked, belts and masks on, emergency breathers set to max." Winger checked his watch. "We cycle the lockout and start deploying in half an hour."

The time went by quickly enough. Singh, D'Nunzio, Gibby, all but Al Glance donned their skinsuits and checked their gear. The CC2 would remain behind to operate Sea Ray. By twos, they back-checked each other's preparations...connections, fasteners and quick-disconnects, weapons charged, any mistake now could be fatal. Winger ordered Barnes and Singh into the lockout first. As Defense and Protective Systems Tech 2, Singh was particularly well armed, carrying a small coilgun assault rifle as well as a HERF pistol for close-quarters combat. Barnes herself was packing a particle-beam weapon.

"Once you get inside the tunnel," Winger was telling them, as he switched his gaze from ANAD acoustics to the two nanotroopers, "use your suit boost. Set it to minimum and watch your heads. You should be able to get enough traction off the walls to go forward." Winger took one last look out the porthole. "With any luck, we'll surprise the hell out of them by coming in the back door. I just hope nobody has claustrophobia."

From the command deck, Al Glance did a quick sonar sweep of the area and pronounced everything clear. The lockout chamber was closed and flooded. Inside Mighty Mite Barnes and Taj Singh stared straight ahead, not daring to look at each other. Three minutes later, the chamber was fully flooded.

"We're moving out," Singh announced. It was a strange, unnerving feeling wearing only the form-fitting skinsuit and mask, with its emergency breather pack, knowing the only way your lungs were getting oxygen was from the billions of respirocytes circulating in your bloodstream. Singh eased out and the shock of the cold stunned him momentarily. The ocean was painfully frigid at this depth, cold, dark and oppressively close, as he shoved the chamber hatch out of the way, grunting with the effort.

Singh kicked ahead, floating through the hatch and in seconds, was steering himself carefully into the dim outlines of ANAD's tunnel.

His shoulders and belt just cleared the entrance, scraping along the edges, as he went in. Singh wore boosted flipper/assault boot combos on his feet. As soon as he was fully inside the tunnel, he lit off the boost and peered straight ahead, deeper into the tunnel, toward the still flickering swarm a dozen yards ahead. The tunnel walls were slick, glassy and still warm from ANAD's work.

Singh felt a coppery taste of panic in the back of his mouth, as the walls seemed to press in on him but he fought it off, focusing instead on feeling every square inch of belts and gear...anything to keep his mind from falling pretty to the fear of the tunnel collapsing.

Maybe it was the glow from ANAD up ahead but he was sure the walls were moving, as if he was being swallowed by some huge snake.

Don't even think about it, he told himself. Instead, he began reciting verses from the Bhagavad-Gita. Just a few feet ahead of his face, the ANAD swarm burned deeper into the mountain.

One by one, the rest of the assault detail followed: Barnes, D'Nunzio, Gibby. Johnny Winger was the last to exit the lockout chamber.

Inside the tunnel, his vision blocked by Gibby's feet only inches from his face, Winger took deep breaths of respirocyte-boosted air and synchronized his suit boost to the speed of ANAD's tunneling. He closed his eyes—there wasn't much to see anyway.

The whole approach would take several hours before the troopers were in position to breach the inner structure of the compound and begin the assault.

To Johnny Winger, the experience reminded him of when he and Archie Hester had gotten lost in an unexplored side tunnel off Dorado Canyon many years before....

It was Archie Hester who'd gotten them both into this fix...Archie and nobody else. He was always daring Johnny Winger, daring him to do stuff. "Betcha can't do this, huh? See if you can top this, wise guy."

Johnny had gotten sick of it, but he couldn't very well back down, now could he? A boy's got to stand up for himself. Got a reputation to protect.

So that's how come they wound up lost that cold winter afternoon in the cramped and clammy dead end branch of a tunnel they'd found in the back of Dorado Canyon. Johnny liked caving--only wise guys and smartfaces called it spelunking, for God's sake. He liked it a lot. You could go places nobody had ever seen before. You could be by yourself, except that was a bad idea. You always went caving with a buddy, so if one of you got hurt, the other could help out or go get help.

It was after school, and Archie had dared him to go into their favorite cave at the back of Dorado Canyon, down there where the streambed petered out, go into that last unexplored branch that they'd named Yawning Mouth a few years ago, because that's what it looked like.

Johnny didn't really want to but then Archie was good at pestering and whining and making a scene. So they went.

Inside Yawning Mouth, they took the dark branch and traveled down, down, down, deeper into the earth, through dripping stalactites and slippery limestone, playing their flashlights back and forth, making funny faces at each other in the dim yellow light, or shadow puppets on the veined walls.

They'd been going down for a good hour, when Johnny figured Yawning Mouth was a bit deeper than either one had bargained for. So they stopped. They tried to get their bearings. They tried to backtrack and see the path they had followed.

But they couldn't see anything. Then the flashlight died.

That's when they knew they were lost.

Archie Hester, because he was Archie Hester, started whining.

"Now what, wise guy? Now what are we going to do?"

"Shut up," Johnny said. "I'm trying to think."

There was about five minutes of silence, broken only by the drip-drip-drip of water from somewhere above them. The air was cold, kind of raw and damp, and the stone ledge where they had stopped was slippery. It dropped further down ahead of them, but without the light, neither boy wanted to move an inch forward.

"Johnny--?"

"What?"

"I think there's a cliff ahead of us. This ledge seems to slope down pretty fast."

"Yeah...I know."

"Are you still thinking?"

"Trying to." Archie had the slightest stutter to his voice. He was growing up; sometimes, he squeaked and sounded like a bird.

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know yet." Johnny Winger probed the nearest wall with his hands, running his fingers along its damp glassy surface. He swung further and managed to knock Archie in the side of the face. "Sorry...I was just trying to get a feel for what's around us."

"We're stuck here, aren't we?"

"Maybe. You're the turdwipe that caused all this. If you hadn't dared me, we wouldn't be here."

"I'm afraid...didn't you bring your squawker?"

"Me? I thought you did." Squawkers took a hack off the locator sats in orbit. You carried them in your pocket and they chirped out where you were, right down to a few feet.

"Jesus...what are we going to do?"

Johnny was increasingly aware of the quaver in Archie's voice. It wasn't puberty or anything like that now. It was fear, probably panic. But cavers never panicked. You got hurt when you panicked.

Cavers thought things through.

"I got an idea-" Johnny Winger said. "It might not work--"

"What is it?"

He'd been tinkering with Bailey the last few weeks. Dad didn't know about it; Mr. Jamison Winger would have been furious if he had. You didn't go tinkering with stuff without Dad's permission. Jamison Winger was the best damned inventor Pueblo, Colorado had ever seen. The barn out back was full of inventions...you could hardly get in the door without stepping on one.

Bailey was Johnny's favorite. A microflyer--they'd called it u..a..v a long time ago. That stood for unmanned air vehicle. Powered by the sun. No bigger than a hummingbird, with a quantum brain, all kinds of attachments--wings that could flap so fast they were a blur, a real-life jet, some small props--man, Bailey was a hot rod, no doubt about it.

Late at night, when Dad had gone to bed and the house was real quiet, Johnny Winger would fling open his second-floor window and summon Bailey from the top of the barn. He had a nest or a docking station up there. He'd taught Bailey to respond to some whistles, some basic voice commands. Lately, he'd found an olfactory program on the WorldNet, picked up some gizmos around the barn, paid or filched the rest from the store, and cobbled up a basic sniffer nose for the dude. He trained it to search out and home on certain smells, especially his own. Wasn't that a hoot? Bailey trained to sniff him out like a bloodhound, ferret out his own bad breath and body odor.

He figured, after some tests, the dude could sniff him out from as far away as several miles.

Not bad for a kid inventor. Dad would have been proud. Dad would also have whipped him to Denver and back for messing around with Bailey too. But Bailey had become his best friend, especially after Mom had died. Late at night, hours after he called Bailey into his room for a chat, he'd drift off to sleep, then awaken just enough to catch the micro-uav hovering gently in the corner with his big red eye winking on and off softly, or maybe just perched on the old Navy trunk at the end of the bed, quietly whirring in sleep mode.

Johnny told Archie about Bailey and his new sniffer. "I don't know if it'll work this far underground. I really don't know what his maximum range is. But we have to try it."

"Sure, man, sure, try it. Let's try anything."

So he shouted out the magic words--he'd programmed Bailey the Dude to switch the sniffer on and off by voice command, and then winced as the echo cascaded all around them like an amplified drunk, finally dying off into distant whispers of his words.

"BAILEY...BIG NOSE...big nose...big nose...b-I-g...n-o-s-e...b...i...g...n...o...s...e..."

After that, they waited. And as they waited, Johnny Winger learned just how big a crybaby Archie Hester really was. If they ever got out of there, he was for sure going to put some distance between himself and Archie Hester. By the time an hour had passed, Archie's sniffing and sniveling was about to drive Johnny mad.

They lost track of time. Maybe two hours had passed, maybe five or six. Both boys had drifted in and out of a semi-conscious daze. It was Johnny who heard it first...

In between creaks and groans of the mountain, and the steady drip of water, a faint buzzing could gradually be made out. More like a whirring, like a blender. Johnny suddenly came to, and sat up, straining to make out the sound. Slowly, infinitesimally, it grew more audible, though at first the whirring faded in and out.

Then, the buzz grew quite distinct and he was sure. It was the Dude. Bailey the Flying Dude had been systematically searching up and down tunnels and branches, homing on the distinctive aroma of Johnny Winger's bad breath and body odor. Before he could scramble to his feet and call out, a dim but familiar red light came winking out of the gloom, materializing in mid-air like a ghostly apparition.

Bailey hovered ten feet above them, winking like a firefly, his props and motor whirring with satisfaction. If he'd been a dog, his tail would have been wagging.

"Bailey...you old dude," Johnny laughed out loud. He wanted to hug the bot.

From that point on, it was a simple matter of following the winking red light, up and up and up and finally out of Dorado Canyon's Lost Tunnel. An hour later, when Archie and Johnny had emerged into the cold sweet-smelling night air, they silently hugged each other.

Johnny Winger was glad he'd disobeyed his Dad and inserted that olfactory program after all.

Four hours later, the ANAD swarm had disassembled its way through a long curving tunnel from a point a quarter mile south of the compound's underwater location. The breach path followed a sinuous route through layers of shale and quartz and feldspar, growing warmer and more oppressive as the swarm neared its target.

Taj Singh was in the lead and patched in along with Winger to the acoustic feed from ANAD.

"ANAD sounding ahead, Captain," the DPS tech reported. "Rock density dropping off...possible aspect change...looks like a different structure dead ahead...less than fifty thousand microns."

Winger had noticed the change too. "Could be the outer wall of the compound." He studied the acoustic display. "My read is reinforced concrete with embedded steel and carbon fibers. Molecular signature seems to match—"

"Thank God," breathed Barnes, a few yards ahead of Winger. "If I have to spend another minute in this coffin—"

"Cut the chatter," Winger ordered. "Get your weapons ready." He monitored ANAD's tunneling closely, noting when the lead assembler reached the wall surface. Before letting the swarm penetrate, he signaled ANAD to come to a stop. The swarm hovered just inches ahead of Taj Singh's face and the amber glow subsided as molecular disassembly halted.

Now only the helmet lamps of the troopers provided any illumination inside the tunnel, casting stark shadows on the still warm walls, fused with glassy residue from ANAD's passage.

Johnny Winger primed his own coilgun and ordered the others to arm all weapons.

"When this thing blows, all hell will break loose."

"Captain—" it was Gibby. The CC2's suit boost stirred dust and rock chips right into Winger's face. "...any sign of a barrier ahead...any nano we might have to deal with?"

Winger checked the status of all ANAD systems on his mask eyepiece. Everything was clean and green. "Nothing but concrete and steel dead ahead...the pressure hull seems clean. I'm not getting any signatures."

"We got 'em by the cojones," exulted Deeno. "Complete surprise."

"Remember," Winger told them, "Dana Tallant and the rest of Bravo may be in there...keep your fire to a minimum and stay on your vectors. Anybody gets trigger happy now and we may put friendly fire on the wrong targets. Understood?"

There was a chorus of replies.

Winger sent commands for the ANAD swarm to resume the breaching operation. The amber glow returned and, if anything, seemed to brighten. Soon the tunnel was bathed in an intense white light and the walls grew too hot to touch.

The concrete and carbon matrix that made up the compound's outer hull was a dense atomic lattice. Winger kept a close eye on ANAD's progress, noting the swarm seemed to slow as the assemblers chewed into the denser structure.

Just a few more minutes...

A ping sounded in Winger's earpiece. At the same time, warning flags lit up his eyepiece...ANAD was nearing a void in the structure...the inner wall surface. Winger signaled the assembler swarm to slow to one-tenth propulsor power, just barely creeping forward a few dozen nanometers at a time.

"Detail...standby. Taj, you're the point man. Once the breach is through, you go in and give us ten suppressing bursts with the HERF. That'll stun anything alive long enough for Barnes to come through. We'll continue that sequence...each trooper through gets suppressing fire for ten shots. It won't take long so get your asses in there fast!"

"Got it, Skipper—" said Deeno. She gripped the handle of her coilgun carbine even tighter. It would feel great just to get out of this hellhole of a tunnel and blast somebody.

Singh made the call everyone had been waiting for.

"Heads up...ANAD's through...ANAD's through—I see lights ahead." He tweaked up his suit boost, waited impatiently for the glow to subside and kicked forward, crashing through the melted wall into a dimly lit stores room, stacked with crates and shelving.

He lit off the HERF gun and hot searing radio frequency waves reverberated through the congested space. Crates and shelves rattled and went flying.

"I'm in!" he yelled over the crewnet. "Get ANAD in here quick...get a barrier set up!"

Singh scrambled away from the hole he'd just fallen through, moving in a coordinated pattern around the darkened room. Behind him, another body crashed through the opening and thudded onto the floor.

Corporal "Mighty Mite' Barnes leaped up and lit off her own HERF round. The thunderclap deafened both of them.

So much for covert entry, Singh thought sourly. Still, the rf rounds gave the assault team a protected bubble of space and time.

One after another, the rest of the team burst into the stores room. Captain Winger was the last to drop onto the steel matted floor. At the same moment, a shaft of light stabbed the darkness at the far end. A door swung open and a shimmering fog poured into the room...mechs!

"Swarm assault!" somebody shouted. Singh rolled onto the floor and came up with his coilgun firing, pumping magnetic loop after loop into the heart of the beast. The fog thinned in a few places under the assault, but continued enveloping the room.

Someone behind Singh lit off another HERF round, blasting everything and everyone with a thunderclap. The enemy swarm scattered from the rf shock...just long enough for Winger to get off re-config commands to ANAD.

\---go to tactical two...pyridines and enzymatic knives extended...bond disrupter primed...GO ANAD...gogogogogo....

He sent the commands and scrambled forward between HERF bursts, coming up behind Singh and Barnes. The door opened wider and through the residue of the shimmering fog, they saw faces. Human, vaguely Asian faces.

Red Hammer troops! Muzzles swung into the room and the crackle of particle beams sounded. They were under fire in a confined space surrounded by a swelling swarm of enemy mechs. Bolt after bolt of particle beams lanced out, stitching a line of death across the wall.

Barnes returned fire with a volley of coilgun rounds while D'Nunzio opened up with her own beam carbine. The air sizzled and popped with rounds as the two swarms collided overhead.

Winger buried himself behind some crates, getting off an occasional volley of coilgun rounds himself. Tactically, the situation was serious, but not yet desperate. The swarms now engaging in a flickering aurora of combat overhead would tell the story. For the moment, the assault team was pinned down with only two avenues of escape: back through the tunnel or ahead through the door.

Winger gritted his teeth and switched eyepiece views to nanoscale. He closed his eyes to limit the disorientation, took a few deep breaths, noting the continuing crackle of particle beams and the hot thump of HERF rounds, then opened his eyes into ANAD's world once again.

The grappling was both immediate and suffocating and Winger felt the enemy mech's force close on him like a vise. It was a type of effector he'd never seen before, spiky and faceted like a soccer ball, studded with carbons.

What kind of bastard are you? he asked. He tweaked ANAD's propulsors and sent the swarm jetting forward to engage the Red Hammer mechs.

With the Captain now handling ANAD, Deeno D'Nunzio knew he would need cover. In the middle of a furious volley of beam fire, she crabwalked over to the crates and, with Barnes and Singh on her flanks, set up a perimeter to shield the Skipper.

Hope to God ANAD can handle 'em, she thought. If the Captain couldn't fend off the enemy swarm and clear a path out of the stores room, the assault team would be pinned down and chewed to pieces. She didn't relish the prospect of having to retreat back through the tunnel. And they'd all heard what Red Hammer did to its enemies.

Now fully engaged in nano combat, Johnny Winger massaged his wristpad controls like a pianist.

Carbenes to full deploy...I am in Auto Maneuver...enzymatic knife primed...bond disrupter primed...electron lens cooking....

He drove ANAD head-on into the melee, grappling with the nearest gang of mechs.

ANAD speared one with his bond disrupter, twisting off a pair of oxygens dangling from the mech's backbone. There was a bright flash as the bond let go, liberating its stored energy. The mech recoiled and turned to swing a phosphate group around for shielding. It wasn't quite fast enough.

Gotcha...you little prick! Winger exulted. His atomgrabber's instinct said look left...look left! Out of the corner of his image, he spotted the effectors slashing into view, just in time, and twisted ANAD out of the way.

The mech's grabbers were strong and sure but not as fast as Winger's reflexes. A wicked 'knife' of hydrogen radicals sliced through ANAD's perimeter defenses, pinching off several effectors. But Winger had seen it coming.

He quickly deployed ANAD's hydrogen abstractor and caught the enemy mech's knife with one of his own. The molecules collided and torqued in a great train wreck of debris. Winger severed ANAD's damaged effector and while the enemy mech was still trapped, he tore its grappling arms off with the abstractor. The recoil sent the mech spinning off into space, colliding with other mechs, trailing molecule debris as it drifted away.

That'll teach 'em, Winger muttered. He turned ANAD to engage more mechs.

Bit by bit, ANAD and its replicants beat back the enemy swarm. As the flickering fog retreated, the Red Hammer troops seemed to lose heart, realizing their primary defenses were weakening. One by one, they slipped out of the room, firing behind them to cover their withdrawal.

"We got 'em on the run!" Barnes exulted. She lay down a furious burst of beamfire sweeping the room back and forth.

Winger set ANAD to work finishing off the enemy swarm and pulled himself out of the nanoscale view. Overhead, in an otherwise darkened compartment, the fog of assembler combat flickered like heat lightning on a hot summer night.

"Secure the doors!" Winger scrambled forward, ducking below the high keening wail of the mechs and headed for the doors. Barnes cut in right behind him.

They inched the door open and peered out into a dimly lit corridor. Emergency lightning cast stark shadows on a metal grate floor. Voices and shouts echoed back at them from around a nearby corner.

Winger gathered his troops around him at the door.

"Okay...here's the plan: we put ANAD out first...detach an element and let him recon the corridor. He'll send back visual, infrared, any EM threats. Once we know what we're facing, we move out."

"Same tactics, Skipper?" asked Singh. The Indian DPS tech shouldered his HERF gun and slammed a new charge cartridge into the slot.

"Five rounds of HERF, both directions," Winger described his plan, "then we move out, in pairs. I'm using ANAD to locate infrared sources and analyze them on the go. He's programmed to alert me if any target matches the profile of a nanotrooper."

"We need to find the control center," D'Nunzio said. "If we can take down the control center to this hellhole, we should be able to access everything: files, controls, systems, everything."

"Agreed," said Winger. "If ANAD returns any data on targets with strong EM emissions, that may be our baby. Remember, we have two objectives: find any Bravo Detachment held here and get them out...and shutting down this place once and for all."

Gibby had noticed the flickering swarm overhead was gradually dimming, throwing the stores room into darkness.

"Looks like ANAD has pretty well finished off the bastards, Skipper."

Winger fingered his wristpad, sending new commands to the assembler horde. Unseen overhead, the swarm finished off the remnants of the Red Hammer mechs and began reconfiguring for its next mission. Moments later, ANAD had detached a small element of assemblers and formed an invisible EM lens, a nanoscale 'antenna' to triangulate electronic emissions. If the compound's control center emitted anything detectable, ANAD would find it.

"Let's move out—" Winger ordered.

Singh swung the door open and pumped out five rounds from his HERF gun...first left, then to the right.

The corridor went dark and shook with the reverberating thunderclap.

"GO!" Winger yelled.

Singh punched out into the corridor, with Barnes right behind him. They ducked and veered left, hitting the floor in a roll, while the ANAD swarm swelled out into the hall and tuned itself to probe for electronic emissions.

Two by two, the rest of the assault team poured out into the corridor, periodically deafened by the searing hot pulses from the rf weapons.

Winger ducked out with the last group and linked in with ANAD as he scrambled forward. He followed right behind Gibby as they made their way along the corridor, trying to keep his balance while he plunged into the nanoscale world. His eyepiece view of the corridor dissolved into a driving sleet storm of every imaginable shape and color...the world of careening atoms and molecules.

Then he stumbled and bumped into Gibby's backside.

"Here...Skipper...let me help you along." It was Gibby's voice. Winger felt the CC2's arms haul him upright again. "Just hang on to me."

Already, ANAD's electromagnetic 'antenna' was focusing on a strong source, bearing two five five degrees. The photon bucket that the assemblers had formed now channeled what it had detected back to Winger, who saw the effects as strobing pulses of light, like distant lightning on the horizon...the stronger the flash, the stronger the detected signal. Winger blinked in amazement at the light show and quickly homed in on the source.

"That way," he pointed, clinging to Gibby's belt. "Strong emissions that way."

Gibby hoisted up his coilgun carbine and scrambled off down the corridor, with Winger clinging to his belt.

Just to be safe, Winger changed ANAD's config again, leaving a small element to direct photons. The rest of the force configured for assault, priming all effectors, flowing over and ahead of the rescue force as they crept toward the control center.

Two left turns later, they came to a heavy shielded compartment hatch, at one end of a side hall.

Winger scanned ANAD's take, just to be sure. "This has to be it...photon cascade everywhere, a regular gusher of EM."

Gibby checked everyone's position. Barnes and D'Nunzio were to the left, Singh and he to the right.

"HERF is charging..." he muttered.

"Lock and load," said Barnes. She cradled her coilgun, ready to let fly when the door was breached.

Winger set ANAD to work on the heavy door, rapidly disassembling its massive lock system. An intense orange glow engulfed them, as the assembler horde tore into the hatch.

At least there's no nanoshield or barrier here ,he thought. At least, not yet. When the door was breached, though ANAD would have to be ready.

"Standby---" Winger said. The orange glow flickered and pulsated, then began dying away. Checking his eyepiece, Winger saw ANAD's status lights all drop into the green. "Okay...we're ready here...no detectable nano signatures around the door, beyond ANAD."

"MOB canisters ready, Skipper," said Mighty Mite Barnes. She lifted a small cylinder from her utility belt and slammed it into the dispenser.

"When we finally breach..." Winger was outlining the tactical plan, "...lay down three HERF rounds for stun effect. Then MOB anything that moves...I'll slave ANAD to MOB control for the first few minutes. That'll leave us free for other threats. Anyone takes fire, you're authorized to return fire...coilguns, beamers and kinetic rounds if you have to." Winger's eyes met the others. "We've got to be smart about what we shoot at."

"What about our rear?" Singh asked. "It's odd we haven't run into any more resistance than we have."

"Yeah," said Deeno D'Nunzio. "Where'd all those Red Hammer troops go anyway?"

"Unknown," Winger admitted. The very same thought had occurred to him. "Just to be safe, I've detached an element of ANAD for perimeter defense." Even as he spoke, the troopers could hear the faint buzz that indicated nanobotic activity nearby. "Okay...let's do it."

On a count of three, Gibby kicked in the heavy door. The hatch swung open and clanged against a bulkhead.

D'Nunzio burst in first and immediately lit off the HERF gun, followed by Barnes. Hot, rolling waves of sound energy deafened the room.

The control deck was roughly semi-circular, concentric rows of consoles arranged in a broad U around a curving wall of monitors.

At the precise moment the door was forced and HERF rounds pumped inside, the sparse control room shift consisted of a handful of technicians and a squad of troops...the same troops who had fired on them from the stores room door. As D'Nunzio lit off her HERF gun, she dropped to the deck and came up ready to fire. The beam weapons of the Red Hammer defenders returned fire in unison, but the rf pulse killed their aim. The first rounds went wild overhead, stitching a seam of death across the ceiling. Hot metal and duramide shards rained down on them.

"I got 'em!" yelled Barnes, from somewhere off to the right. The SDC2 let fly a burst from her coilgun carbine. The spray of mag energy rounds lanced out and one loop caught a Red Hammer defender flush in the face. His head came apart in an explosive puff of flesh, blood and bone, peppering the nearby consoles and a trio of technicians cowering nearby.

Beam fire streaked back and forth across the control deck for a few moments. Deeno lit off another HERF round, to cover Gibby and Winger as they rushed into the room. Momentarily stunned, a pair of Red Hammer troops caught a volley of flechettes in their chests; Gibby had flung off a flock of microbots into the air and the 'bots had discharged their full loads at the targets. The enemy defenders crumpled in a thick spray of blood as their torsos were shredded by the hypersonic needles.

After the first fusillade had died off, Barnes discharged her MOB canister. A faint mist issued into the air and in seconds, the three nearest crouching technicians were immobilized, struggling and clawing at the barrier bots as the net tightened and inexorably forced them to the floor.

"Secure the room!" Winger yelled. He went to the MOB'ed trio to see that they were well pinioned. Singh slid over too, shouldering his coilgun.

"Make sure they're nice and comfy, Taj."

"Roger that, Skipper." Singh laid down another layer of Mobility Obstruction Barrier bots just to be sure.

Winger was about to begin puzzling out the control systems in front of him when an alert sounded in his mask earphone. It was ANAD. He linked in to the acoustic feed from the master assembler...and instantly, his blood ran cold.

A large swarm was gathering in the corridor, moving rapidly on their position.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," he muttered. Over the crewnet, he sounded the alarm. "Mass swarm...enemy bots right behind us. Make sure this room's secure..." he was furiously tapping out commands on his wristpad as he peeled off orders. "...Barnes—get that door shut now. That'll buy us a few minutes. Gibby...get the weapons away from those troops. We may need them. And Taj, make sure the civilians are out of the way...I'm reconfigging ANAD now."

The Quantum Corps troopers buzzed about the room, carrying out the Captain's orders. The monitor screens in front flickered with scenes from around the complex, inside and out, including a slow-motion view of another landslide along the flanks of Kurabantu seamount.

But no one had time to look.

Winger reconfigged ANAD to confront the approaching enemy swarm: pyridines to assault state one, bond disrupters primed, radicals and carbene grabbers extended and locked...he toggled the rep switch, telling ANAD to replicate like mad, build mass in a hurry for the coming onslaught.

Moments later, they knew the Red Hammer mechs were upon them. A piercing shriek tore through the air as the mechs chewed into the massive door. The heat of atomic disassembly grew intense enough to blur the inner surface of the door, like hot pavement on a summer day.

"I'm sending ANAD forward...engaging now," Winger said. Propulsors up to ninety percent. He sent the commands...and waited nervously.

All about the control room, every eye was on the door.

The collision was like a distant explosion at night...you could see the light but the sound was muted. The shriek increased to a fierce whine, and a glowing ball of light emerged from the top of the door, which now resembled a melting heap of metal.

"Slam 'em, ANAD!" came Deeno's voice over the whine. "Slam 'em to hell and back!"

Johnny Winger linked in and tried to make sense of the chaos that erupted in his mask eyepiece. He was a lone voyager in a driving blizzard, buffeted by gale force winds and fierce gusts of stinging sleet...molecules of air and metal torn and whipped by the fury of nanomech hell. He focused on what the ANAD master was doing.

The onslaught stunned him.

"Jesus..." he muttered, more to himself, as the first outlines of the enemy mechs came into view. "They look like battleships....I've never seen so many effectors." He recognized the same cleft in the middle of the enemy mech structure that he'd seen at Lake Vostok. "I know what to do with that—"

He steered ANAD right for the cleft, dodging its effectors, as he closed in.

Winger rolled ANAD right, then left, keeping just out of reach of the snapping grabbers and reconnoitered the beast's outer membrane, looking for a way in, anything he could use, a weakness of some kind.

Halfway aft, almost invisible among the rows of effectors, he saw the small cleft in the membrane, the cavity where groups of phosphate molecules made a wedge-shaped bond.

Instinctively, Johnny Winger steered ANAD toward the cleft. As he approached, he unsheathed his bond breakers and flexed the devices up and down.

With any luck—

ANAD sped forward and slashed hard at the phosphate arms with his bond breakers.

Just a little push here, a snap there...

Johnny Winger commanded ANAD's bond breakers into action. He seized one end of a polypeptide chain and tugged hard. It stretched, resisted, then with a crackling flash, it broke. A puff of atoms went spinning off in every direction.

That's more like it.

Winger now drove the assembler deeper into the cleft, unfolding every effector ANAD had: hydrogen abstractors, carbon manipulators, electron lens, enzymatic knife. It was like chewing into the side of a mountain.

Soon, the air was swimming with debris from shattered bots.

"You got 'em!" Gibby exulted. "You got 'em on the run!"

The intense blue-white globe of light began to cool and shrink. Most of the control room door and some of the bulkhead had been hit, burned away like so much paper mache. Moments later, Winger began to pull ANAD back from the front lines, leaving a small force of replicants to mop up the remaining mechs.

That's when Barnes saw something on one of the monitors.

"Skipper..." she rushed over to the console. Several screens flickered with displays, different views of the same location. "Skipper...we got something—"

Winger, D'Nunzio and the rest came over.

It was a small room, apparently in the living quarters section of the complex. There were bunk beds arrayed around a central aisle. But at the end of the aisle, a pair of formless humps writhed on the ground.

"Skipper...that's some kind of MOB net, sure as I'm standing here."

Winger peered at the display, studied the console and located the quarters. "A few halls away, on the other side of these utilities ducts. It's got to be Dana and the rest of Bravo."

"What are we waiting for?" Gibby asked.

The assault team gathered their gear and set off. Winger ordered ANAD to replicate a small force to secure the control room and make sure their captives were still held immobile in MOB. Once that was done he configged the master assembler for perimeter defense. As the nanotroopers headed off to find the living quarters, ANAD would accompany them outside of containment, hovering overhead as a defensive screen against any more Amazon bots.

After one wrong turn, Winger and his assault team found the residential section. It was a warren of small compartments, buried deep inside the mountain. The outer hatch was locked but Deeno made quick work of the mechanism with her particle beam carbine. The smoking slag heap of what was left of the door was easily kicked in.

"Dana? Captain Dana Tallant!" Winger burst in right behind Barnes and Singh. "Captain Dana Tallant, U.N. Quantum Corps...front and center!"

A series of low groans came drifting up from the rear of the compartment.

Barnes was the first to arrive. "It's them!" Without thinking, she tugged at the MOB net and the mechs resisted with an insistent buzz, stinging her hands like angry bees in response. She winced and pulled her hand back. "No way I'm going to release 'em that way."

Winger steered the ANAD swarm that had been accompanying them down to the restraint mesh. He bent down, realizing the net was a much tighter weave than anything Quantum Corps used.

"Dana...Dana Tallant...is that you? Are you hurt...any injuries? Can you breathe?"

The hump moved sluggishly and words were said, but they came out an indistinct murmur, more a series of moaning grunts than anything else.

"The net's so tight...it must be compressing her face too," Gibby said in disgust. "Damn buggers are squeezing the life out of her."

Winger was already reconfigging ANAD. "Not for long—" He sent the commands to the assembler swarm. "Okay—everybody...stand back. Soon as there's an opening big enough, we're going to haul her out of there. Taj...check that other one." He indicated another hump a few feet away. Singh bent down to probe it for signs of life.

Winger maneuvered ANAD to the restraint net. A faint wavering in the air around the mesh showed the assembler swarm was at work, disassembling the mechs that formed the net. All of a sudden, the hump came alive, hearing the buzz of nanobotic activity and began writhing furiously.

"Hold still... hold still, will you? It's ANAD working on the mesh...I've got control of him...don't thrash around so—"

"I hope ANAD can bust her out of there, Skipper," said Barnes, peering down. "She panicking—"

Winger felt helpless. If it was Dana Tallant inside that mesh, she had become spooked by the sound of ANAD. "Damn mesh bots have probably been driving her crazy."

Then a narrow seam in the net became visible. A nose stuck out, then a mouth, sucking in air frantically, followed by a faint smile, then the eyes. The seam grew larger, as ANAD continued working. Soon, a full face stuck out.

It was Dana Tallant.

Johnny Winger almost cried with relief. He grabbed her face and patted it like a baby's, wanting so much to plant a big wet kiss on her parched lips. But she wasn't free yet.

"Come on...come on..."

It took another five minutes before the seam was large enough. Winger and Gibby grabbed her arms and carefully hoisted her up to her feet. Dana Tallant blinked and nearly collapsed to the floor, but smiled and coughed, heaving in great gulps of air. It was better than ice cream on a hot summer day.

"What the hell took you so long, Wings?"

Winger cuffed her on the head. "I knew how stubborn you are. We didn't want to show up too soon."

Tallant was given a canteen of water and shuffled a few feet away around the dormitory, flexing her arms and legs. A few feet away, Taj Singh was probing the other MOB'ed victim. The hump groaned and shifted around on the floor.

"Hey...this one's alive too."

Tallant came over. "Jeff Collin, my CC2. We're the only survivors, as far as I know. We got ambushed."

Winger sent ANAD commands to 'unzip' the nanobotic barrier. A buzzing sound accompanied the shimmering halo of air around the prostrate form. Moments later, a seam was open and Winger was tearing at the gap with Barnes, their bare hands fighting off tenacious remnant bots.

Collin was nearly unconscious and had to be hauled out by hand and stretched out on the deck.

Barnes was already readying an injection. "This'll help...'cytes can boost his blood oxygen. The rest of the cocktail kickstarts his metabolism." She slammed the injector into Collin's neck. Moments later, his eyes fluttered open.

"None of the others made it?" Winger asked.

Tallant shook her head, wincing at some pain in her shoulders. "Like I said, it was an ambush. ANAD couldn't hold 'em off. Amazon bots had mutated out of some kind of tropical rainstorm, just like we simmed...remember the war games at Hunt Valley? Buggers were just too fast."

Winger understood. "Yeah, we ran into the same thing down in the Antarctic. I had to drive ANAD myself...we had some kind of quantum jamming that scrambled his processor...damn near fried it. He's being regenerated now. All we got are older versions here...ANAD without the upgrades."

"Can we fight Amazon at all, Wings?"

Winger described the midline cavity he had seen on the bots...and what he had managed to do at Lake Vostok before the jamming.

"There is a way, Dana. But you gotta drive the thing right into that cavity...it looks like there's no room but there is. Inside...Amazon's exposed as hell...all kinds of sensitive areas. You can finish off a bot real quick from inside that cavity...if you can get in. I just—" he was interrupted by a grinding shudder that shook the entire complex. A series of dull thuds followed...then the floor tilted at a precipitous angle and there was an unmistakable sensation of movement...the entire complex was moving.

"What the—"

Singh scrambled to his feet. "The whole place is moving—"

"Landslide!" Barnes said. "The mountainside's giving way!"

Winger then figured out what had happened. "Those outer barrier bots kept the compound from being swept off of the seamount. They anchored the place to the mountain."

"And when we started the assault," Gibby finished the thought, "the bots re-deployed inside to defend. The compound was left exposed—"

"...just when another tremor hit. See if you can raise Sea Ray on the coupler. We've got to exfiltrate...and fast."

A shriek of tortured metal sounded through the walls, followed by more heavy thuds, then a hammering vibration. More rending metal...then a more ominous sound.

"That's the pressure hull," Gibby decided. "Feel your ears hurting? It's been breached and bulkheads are collapsing."

They all heard the panicked shouts and the tread of dozens of feet on the deck outside the living quarters.

"Skipper...we don't have any extra skinsuits!" Singh reminded them. The assault plan had called for Sea Ray to remove any survivors.

Winger was thinking fast. "Make sure these two are boosted. Do it now!" While Sheila Barnes finished injecting 'cytes into Tallant and Collin, Winger bent to his wristpad, the nucleus of an idea forming in the back of his mind.

If ANAD could hold pressure inside that assault tunnel, he just might be able to form a protective bubble big enough and tight enough to shield the rescue team and the survivors from full seawater pressure at this depth.

Winger hacked together a basic config off the top of his head and commanded ANAD to replicate at max rate. Then he ordered everyone to bunch together as tightly as they could.

"Before we go," Tallant said, "there's something you should see."

"We don't have time, Dana...this place could collapse at any time...we're sliding down the side of the seamount now...you can feel it!"

"This will only take a minute...come on!" She led Winger out of the dormitory, through a series of narrow corridors, down several flights of stairs to a vault-like space deeper under the mountain. Before they left, Winger told Gibby to contact Al Glance and get Sea Ray moving.

"We're going to need her," Winger said. "This place is going to go at any second."

"What about Captain Tallant and Sergeant Collin?" Gibby asked. "We can't take them back through the tunnel."

Winger was already pressing buttons on his wristpad. "I'm configging ANAD to form a pressure enclosure. We'll form a nanobarrier around the both of them and drag 'em back to Sea Ray that way, if we have to."

"Aye, aye, Skipper." Gibby set to work helping Sgt. Collin get ready to evacuate.

Tallant had taken Winger to the innermost chambers of the Kurabantu compound, two levels below the living quarters.

"This will blow your socks off, I guarantee it." At the vault door, Tallant withdrew a small piece of film that looked like a patch of human skin. It was mounted on the end of a stick.

"I managed to concoct this before Jeff and I were completely MOB'ed," she explained. "I hacked into one of their smaller swarms...got into the master processor no sweat, and had the thing run off a simulated biometric. Like a fingerprint." She grinned at Winger. "Bet you never did that before."

Winger snorted. "Can't say that I have."

Tallant used the nanoderm patch to fool the vault lock. In seconds, the massive hatch was swinging open. Just as Tallant was about to lead Winger inside, the entire compound shuddered again, lurched and tilted. Heavy thuds clanged on the outside of the pressure hull.

"Boulders...feels like we're sliding again...the structure's breaking up—we've got to—"

"Just take a look inside, Wings...you won't believe your eyes." She pulled him deeper inside the vault.

The interior was warm, dark, and humid. He let his eyes adjust to the low light level for a few seconds. There was water inside—a pool or a small pond, he could hear waves lapping. Something splashed nearby.

When his vision cleared, he realized he was standing on the banks of a semi-tropical grotto laid out before them, resembling very closely the Yemanha River grotto he'd seen a few weeks before at Via Verde.

The whole compartment was nothing but a nursery, an incubator for the demonio creatures that were somehow a part of the Amazon Vector threat. Featureless shapes shifted languidly in the water, despite the shuddering of the compound, partially formed half-men, some headless, some without arms or legs.

"Just like before," he whispered. Even as he watched, holding onto the vault door, the habitat lurched once again. "Same as Via Verde—Dana, what the hell do these things do?" What are they for?"

Tallant let a particularly violent shudder subside, then she knelt to the floor and groped in the dim light with her hands. "Hell if I know...there...here's what I wanted to show you..." She held up a small metal bowl to the light.

Inside the bowl were a handful of small spherical objects, featureless white in the poor light of the nursery, smooth as eggs yet hard, polished and made of some material Winger had never seen before.

Experimentally, he touched one. At the moment his finger tip made contact, a hot flash of pain lanced through his body and, for a few moments, he staggered, semi-conscious and wobbly. A reel of memory fragments careened through his head, like some mad projector at hyperspeed.

"Whoa..." Tallant grabbed him by the shoulders before he could pitch headlong to the deck. Winger felt dizzy, his face flushed red. "What was that?"

"It happened to me too," she admitted. "First time I touched one of these babies, I nearly passed out. It's like somebody trying to rip your brain out of your skull through your nose."

Winger braced himself against more shudders and lurching. "So what the hell are they?" He nudged the spheres with the toe of his boot but didn't touch any more.

Tallant watched a nearby creature slide off the side of the pool into dark, oily water. It seemed to have no arms...only a partially formed head and stumps for legs, like an abandoned store front dummy. The creature thrashed momentarily, then slid below the surface, leaving only a few bubbles.

"I'm not sure what they are...but I've seen the technicians take the same balls and insert them into the backs of their necks. There's some kind of skin flap or something back there...I only saw it from a distance. The fully formed ones all get the same treatment. A technician opens up that skin flap and somehow attaches one of these balls inside. Maybe it's some kind of control system or a biocomputer...something like that, maybe?"

Winger was thinking fast. He knew Doc Frost had found the demonio they had captured at Via Verde was little more than a swarm of nanobotic devices, holding structure loosely in a para-human form. "We should take one back but I don't know how—" then an idea came to him. "ANAD can do it. We already use him to form MOB nets. Since we can't touch the thing, I can have ANAD replicate a small force and detach it to secure one of these spheres. Doc Frost has got to see this!"

Even as Winger was tapping out commands on his wristpad, the Red Hammer base shook with a fury that threw them both off balance and nearly pitched Tallant into a nearby pool. Water splashed on both them...along with a few hands and feet. Tallant quickly slithered away in disgust. Winger quickly grabbed her and together they groped their way back to the vault entrance.

"Pressure hull is fully breached, Captain," came a voice over the crewnet. It was Gibby, back up at the living quarters. "We've got to move—"

"On our way!" Winger replied. With Tallant ahead of him, he finished commanding an ANAD element to seek out the coordinates of the demonio nursery. "I just hope ANAD can get an element here before the place collapses completely. Come on!"

They scurried down a corridor, passing several panicked Red Hammer technicians going in the opposite direction, while emergency lighting flashed, and warning sirens blared, until at last they had made it back to the dormitory.

In the center of the room, a glowing blue-white orb had already been formed...a nanobotic barrier just formed by ANAD. It floated like some weightless egg, a flickering fog of twinkling lights, radiantly shimmering in the dim red emergency lighting. Jeff Collin was already cocooned inside, peering out through the faint veil like a ghost's face.

"In you go, Captain," Gibby helped Dana Tallant through a faint orifice in the side. Once over the threshold and secured, Tallant and Collin stared back at them as the orifice swirled shut. Now the two survivors were snugly embraced by a nanobotic pressure enclosure, a sort of MOB-net in reverse.

"Come on, Skipper," said Barnes, securing her mask and stowing her coilgun. "This place is ready to blow."

Winger could only hope that ANAD had been able to secure one of the demonio spheres. All around them, the shriek of rending metal grew unbearable. The air itself burned with heat as millions of tons of seawater pressed in on the compound, buckling walls and frames. The roar of the wave overwhelmed everything in its path and in the ensuing maelstrom, Johnny Winger knew what a molecule truly felt like, bounced and battered and blasted in every direction at once by forces he could only imagine.

Kurabantu seamount was rapidly engulfed in a thick billowing veil of dirt, rock and mud as violent tremors loosened thousands of tons of sediment. The pressure hull of the Red Hammer base, perched as it was on a narrow ledge, was breached by falling rock in dozens of places simultaneously and crumpled under the onslaught of mass. Torn from its anchorage, no longer protected by a nanobotic barrier, the structure was shoved downward and crushed into rubble by the landslide.

The Quantum Corps rescue force barely escaped. Through a widening seam outside the residence module, a supersonic wall of water crashed into the habitat, sweeping everything before it.

Winger, Barnes, Singh and the rest swam for their lives. Winger was swept up into the vortex and battered into walls repeatedly before he was able to regain some sense of balance. The skinsuit gave him some protection and respirocytes cycled oxygen to his blood, but the fierce pressure pulse slammed his ears and he was thrashed by violent currents in a hundred directions at once. The water cleared just long enough for him to catch a brief glimpse of the remains of the habitat, crumpled as if by a giant's fist, sliding off into the abyss twenty thousand feet below. Then the heavy veil of thousands of tons of silt closed over him and he was simply spinning, floating, now falling, the cold ever penetrating as the vortex hammered him relentlessly.

How long he had been unconscious, Johnny Winger couldn't say. He was cold, but not uncomfortably so...drifting freely. The water was thick and turbid, but he could still make out the faint outlines of Kurabantu or what was left of it.

Maybe he could raise someone.

Winger felt for his wristpad and opened up a channel.

"Any station...any station...this is 1st Nano rescue force on channel one...does anybody copy?"

Static and chirps and pops and crackles filled his headset. Then, suddenly, the clear and strong voice of Al Glance came through and Winger nearly wept with relief.

"Skipper...is that you? UNQCS Sea Ray responding to distress call on channel one...Skipper, if that's you, transmit again so we can fix your position, over—"

Within an hour, the welcome outlines of the floater materialized into view. The twin-dish submersible hovered a few meters away, while her portside airlock swung open, beckoning him forward. Winger dolphin-kicked and flailed his way over and wearily hauled himself aboard.

The lockout chamber cycled and as the water drained, he could see faces peering at him through the porthole. Al Glance's pug nose was centered in the view pane, surrounded by Deeno's snarly grin and Taj Singh.

The heavy door was pulled open and strong hands helped Winger out into the ready room. Hands and faces crowded around, slapping him on the back.

"Give him some room to breathe," barked Gibby, who helped the Captain pull off his mask, then began peeling off the skinsuit. In spite of the heated compartment and the press of bodies, Winger was shivering. Barnes threw him a robe.

Then he saw Dana Tallant.

Johnny Winger cracked a weak smile as he let others change him into drier clothing.

"Welcome aboard..." Tallant said. "I thought you'd never get here." She grinned back at him, cradling a steaming mug of coffee with both hands.

Winger was still disoriented from his ordeal. "Me too...I kept hallucinating...wondering if all this was real."

"All too real, Skipper," said Barnes. She helped him pull on the robe and handed him a mug of his own.

"That whole complex went right over the ledge," added Gibby, who was standing by the lockout door. "Straight to the seafloor...four miles straight down."

"Everybody made it out okay?"

"All present and accounted for," said Al Glance, who had been manning Sea Ray during the assault.

An alarm sounded over the intercom just as Glance was heading up to the command deck. He killed the blaring horn and saw contacts on the active sonar display. He called back to the lockout compartment.

"Skipper, we're pinging something small and close aboard...several hundred yards astern."

Winger climbed the ladders and appeared right behind Glance, sitting himself gingerly in the captain's seat.

"Any signature? Can you make it out?"

"Well, sir...I'm not sure of this but since it's such a faint return...just barely there...I'd almost be willing to say it was—"

They both looked at each other with the dawning realization of what Sea Ray had just detected.

"...it's got to be ANAD."

Glance maneuvered Sea Ray closer to the return, coming abreast of the target. A quick visual check through the forward portholes confirmed their suspicion: the faint glow of nanobotic activity right outside the window was unmistakable.

"Bring him aboard," Winger ordered. "And carefully."

Moby M'Bela was ready in the lockout with the mobile TinyTown unit when ANAD jetted inside. Once the autonomous assembler had arrived, the CEC1 reported that ANAD had brought something along.

"It's a small, white sphere," he radioed up. "Held in Mobnet by ANAD. I got it bagged and tagged for the time being. And ANAD is captured and in containment."

"Whatever you do," Winger warned, "don't touch it. It's some kind of control pack for the demonio creatures. I want Doc Frost to take a look at it."

"Object is secured," M'Bela said. "I'll leave it in the lockout for now."

Winger nodded to Glance, who had Sea Ray's helm. "Okay, Al, we got what we came for...let's get the hell out of here."

"Gladly, Skipper. Now ten degrees up-bubble." Glance steered the floater toward the surface. As they ascended, the water brightened slowly from deep black to a purple hue, then to a more diffuse green, finally turquoise and soon enough, the ocean was thick and teeming with life.

Sea Ray breached the surface with as roar of air and waves and floated uneasily on long, rolling swells while Winger contacted hyperjet Mercury, still orbiting overhead.

A welcome voice crackled through the speakers. "Mercury standing by for pickup," said Lieutenant Matumba. "My drop doors are coming open and the recovery cradle is in position."

Winger sighed a deep sigh of relief. After hours underwater, crawling like ants through claustrophobic tunnels, getting shot at from all directions and nearly crushed in a landslide, it was be pure heaven just to grab some chow and take a hot shower and hit the bunk.

"Matumba...this is Sea Ray on the surface. We are ready to execute recovery sequence. I'm lifting off now...we'll be in position in about ten minutes. Set a course for Table Top Mountain."

Matumba was a tall and statuesque Ibo woman, originally TDY'ed to Quantum Corps from UNIFORCE West Africa. "Roger that, Captain...course is laid in and we have clearance 'over the top.'

"Very well," Winger replied. He secured his seat harness as Glance revved Sea Ray's engines. The floater lifted away from the surface of the Pacific in a spray of foam and water and banked hard to port to climb to recovery altitude. "Advise Table Top one more thing, Lieutenant. We have two survivors onboard from Bravo Detachment...Captain Tallant and Sergeant Collin. Two survivors and another mystery for Doc Frost to puzzle over."

"Will advise," Mutumba reported. "And Mercury has you in sight astern of us. Activating recovery program now."

Less than an hour later, hyperjet Mercury was rocketing up into space on three good engines, cleared by UNISPACE Traffic Control 'over the top.' The long suborbital arc would take them to the very edge of space, nine thousand miles back to Table Top Mountain in less than two hours.
CHAPTER 9

Table Top Mountain, Idaho, USA

November 14, 2068

0700 hours

For most of the next day, as 1st Nano's rescue force stood down and Dana Tallant and Jeff Collin were examined by medics, Johnny Winger worked with engineers to localize the source of the sporadic quantum decoherence waves that they had detected at Kurabantu Island. The same effects had been seen at Via Verde and Lake Vostok; indeed, the interference in the Antarctic had caused trouble inside ANAD's main processor and forced a difficult and time-consuming regeneration of the master assembler to be done.

"We've got to find out where these signals are coming from," Kraft told Winger after the early morning debriefing at the Ops Center. "Red Hammer's jamming is giving us tactical fits. If we can't find and neutralize the source of the interference, we won't be able to use ANAD's full capacity. That makes it all the more difficult to combat Amazon Vector and restore the atmosphere to normal conditions."

So Kraft ordered a new task force be put on the problem right away. By the end of the day, the best evidence pointed to a source in the mountainous borderlands between Tibet and Nepal.

Quantum Corps Intelligence, Q2 on the org charts, had requested a briefing with Kraft at 1630 hours, in the Sim Tank three levels underground in the Ops Center complex. Kraft was there, along with Winger and a pale but otherwise sound Dana Tallant, now cleared for duty. Vidlinked in from Paris was none other than CINCQUANT himself, General Linx.

The briefer was a Major Cabela, from First Intelligence Platoon, a short, stocky Corps lifer balding and florid of face. Cabela had activated SOFIE, the embedded AI that ran many systems at Table Top.

Cabela used a pointer to highlight a map projection of the Earth's surface.

"We have consistently detected these decoherence waves at every site where Quantum Corps has conducted operations," Cabela was saying. "That includes Via Verde, Lake Vostok and now Kurabantu Island. "We've also managed to pick up signal fragments at other locations around the planet..." he had SOFIE highlight the locations on the map "...everywhere we see this phenomena, we have elevated levels of atmospheric disturbance going on. Chemical changes in the atmosphere, some in the oceans, other environmental effects like rapid ozone destruction. We've done a little direction fixing and a few calculations, based on these signal fragments and the nature of the signals...as you know, decoherence waves are notoriously hard to detect, so all we're getting is pieces—"

"Get on with it, Major," Kraft growled. "I don't need a physics degree today."

Cabela's face was shiny with sweat. "Yes, sir...as I was saying, sir...these signals seem to cross bearings at specific locations on and above the earth's surface. We've correlated these coordinates to elevated chemical changes in the earth's atmosphere. First Intel now believes that these coordinates indicate the centroids of Amazon Vector superswarms and colonies. And working backward from the geospatial coordinates of these centroids provides us a decent approximation of the original source of the waves...." He commanded SOFIE to run the simulation. The map of the Earth was suddenly lit up with a spidery web of lines, crisscrossing the continents and oceans. For a few moments, the lines moved and undulated across the map like snakes, before the sim evolved to their current positions. Cabela triumphantly placed his pointer dot on the master centroid of the decoherence waves.

"Here, gentlemen—"he circled the calculated target zone along the southern border of Tibet, "is the nexus of all the waves and wave fragments we've been able to detect. If First Intel is right and all these quantum signals and the decoherence wave spillover we occasionally pick up actually enable Red Hammer to control the swarms, then the source of the signals is in this region."

The sim tank was silent for a moment. Then Linx spoke up, from Paris.

"Let me see if I'm getting this right, Major," said CINCQUANT. "Your intel boys can only pick up pieces of these signals, is that right?"

Cabela licked his lips. "Yes, sir. When a quantum state generator sends out entanglement waves, there's no known way to predict exactly what state the transmitted signal will be in. That's the beauty and the curse of quantum communication. But the very process of entangling creates a kind of spillover...when the signals move from generator to receiver, they leave behind a sort of wake effect, which we call decoherence wakes. You could never re-construct the original signal from it...that would take more time than the Universe is old...but if you can detect even a whiff of one of these wakes, you know you've got a very faint bearing to a quantum state generator. First Intel has done that and the result is what you see here."

Linx snorted. "It's thin. Damn skimpy, if you ask me. Not that I'm surprised, mind you. We know some Red Hammer's Ruling Council are real tight with the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. There's a certain believability to what you've come up with. It would make good strategic sense for Red Hammer to hide operations inside China, or Tibet in this case. They'd know there's no way UNIFORCE can come after them."

Kraft said, "If Cabela's right and Tibet is where the main Red Hammer complex is, with what 1st Nano has encountered, there may be only one way for ANAD to successfully battle Amazon Vector and contain the swarms. That would be to shut down their links to the swarms at the source."

Linx was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "You mean an assault of some kind on that base, Major?"

"Yes, sir...we have some tactical plans on the shelf for doing that, but all of them would involve violating Chinese sovereignty and air space."

Maybe not, Johnny Winger thought. But he kept his idea to himself for the moment.

Linx was troubled by the implications. "What you're saying, Kraft, is strategically sound. The trouble is that it's politically impossible. I'll have to take this intelligence to UNSAC, see what is doable. Meanwhile, update your assault plans. Somehow, some way, we've got to sever the links from Red Hammer to the Amazon Vector swarms. Once the control links are gone, maybe ANAD can isolate and disable them."

While Linx took the new intelligence to the U.N. Security Affairs Commissioner, Johnny Winger left the Sim Tank and made his way across the snowy quadrangle to the bunker-like containment center, at the south end of the mesa that was Table Top Mountain. He wanted to see how the regeneration of the new ANAD master assembler was coming along.

He found Doc Frost and Mary Duncan, along with a gathering of Quantum Corps technicians, huddled around a bank of consoles. The consoles surrounded the heavy hatch of the containment vault, which was itself draped with thick ganglia of pipes, tubes and cables.

"Johnny...so glad to see you again." Frost embraced the atomgrabber firmly. Mary Duncan, Frost's assistant, also came over to squeeze his shoulder. "We heard you were on a mission. I hope it went well...even if you did have to work with an earlier version of ANAD."

Winger shrugged. "It was like racing in a World Cup race with an antique, Doc." He flexed his fingers. "I had to get used to driving all over again."

Mary Duncan grinned. "Something tells me you didn't mind that at all, Johnny."

Winger admitted it. "Once a 'grabber, always a 'grabber. How's the patient doing?"

Frost returned to his console. On the monitors, the trellis that supported the nanoscale assembler as it was laboriously re-assembled and re-animated was covered with a dark mass of spherical shapes. It quivered slightly, the effect Winger knew, of slight perturbations in the medium and perhaps a little Brownian motion as well. The signature tetrahedral platform at the base of the mass told Johnny it was ANAD.

"We're nearly done...just a few more tests, Johnny. Physically, the assembler master is finished...all the core functions are loaded. Effectors have been grafted or attached...I've been tweaking things a little, you know. Different angle here, different molecule there. I'm trying to stiffen his carbene grabbers, for one thing. Also, I've changed some of the cleavage lines...he'll fold and unfold even faster now...just a matter of modifying a few proteins and adding a peptide chain in the right place...basic stuff."

Winger liked the idea. "That should make him more usefully tactically. Engaging Amazon Vector, with all its effectors and grapplers, you've got to be quick. Amazon has a midline cleft that's unprotected, once you're inside. But getting past all those effectors takes speed and maneuverability. I lost control of ANAD at Lake Vostok, Doc. Quantum interference from Red Hammer. If I'd been faster—"

"Don't worry about that," Frost went on. "I've hardened his main processor to protect against that kind of interference. Also I've done some re-configuring of the coupler. I think you'll like it...not nearly as much leakage of signals once you link in."

Winger smiled ruefully. "Glad to hear it. Sometimes, Doc, when I made the connection, I'd have strange feelings...I'd see images of my Dad in the hospital or my old pet microflyer Bailey or remember something about when I was a child...weird stuff. Even after I unlinked, the images would still come."

Frost was sympathetic, fiddling with a few knobs on his console. "Stray signals from your de-coupler. It didn't always capture all the quantum state signals sent by ANAD. Loose signals were fed through the buffer and the buffer didn't always know what to do with them. It just unloaded them into whatever synaptic circuit was handy...sometimes you experienced that as a memory fragment or a twitch in your little toe or a tic in your left eye...very random."

"Not to mention annoying, especially in combat situations." He indicated the containment bank. "Can I link in yet...talk to the little guy? I've been really missing him. He's like a little brother now."

"Why not?" Frost decided. "Go ahead."

Winger cocked his head and linked in the way Frost and Mary Duncan had taught him, back at Northgate.

The first impression he had was one of floating. Floating like the last time he and his sister Joanna and brother Brad and Mom and Dad had gone to the beach. California, hadn't it been? Huntington Beach, maybe he was ten, maybe twelve. It was warm, salty and he was floating...lazily drifting on a raft, staring up at the azure sky with the white clouds, seeing shapes like rockets and faces, polygons and swords and multi-lobed icosahedral things and--

\--that's when he realized he wasn't really at Huntington Beach at all—

***ANAD receiving...ANAD receiving...there seems to be some kind of signal there...who's calling?***

"ANAD...it's me. It's Johnny Winger. ANAD, can you hear me? Can you feel me...we're linked in."

***Johnny...Boss?...is that you? ANAD to Base...I'm getting fragments now...just fragments...it's so great to have you nearby again...what happened...what's our next mission...the mission always come first***

"ANAD, you're in containment. Back at Table Top. You're home. Doc Frost has been fixing you up—how do you feel?"

Frost was amused at Winger. "He can't feel anything, Johnny. He's just a mechanism."

But Winger knew the Doc was wrong. ANAD was more than just a mechanism. Somewhere inside that processor core was a heart and a mind and feelings and fears, just like anyone, just like he'd had as a child. That's what ANAD was: a small child. A really small child.

***I don't know exactly...okay. I feel stronger, my effectors are not all completed. But all core routines are functionally within parameters. I feel...pleasure, I believe is the word you have used before...I searched for that term in my language tables and correlated it with state signals from your side of the coupler...a high-probability match. Therefore, I have calculated that I feel pleasure at the presence of your signals. And you--?***

Winger looked quizzically at Frost. You could never be sure but he thought Doc wasn't aware of what ANAD was communicating to him. It wasn't a voice link...just the pure quantum signals, transmitted through the coupler, disentangled and buffered into his mind. Unless somehow, the Doc could read his mind—

"What is it, Johnny? You look funny. Is ANAD responding normally?"

Winger waggled his hand. "Yes and no. He recognizes me, I think. His speech seems disjointed a little. One moment, he sounds like a brother or a pal, the next moment, he sounds like more synthetic, artificial."

Frost seemed to relax. "Perfectly normal, Johnny, at this stage. The coupler needs adjustment. The link is, for want of a better term, a bit rusty. This isn't the same ANAD you knew and worked with before, remember that. This is a completely new master."

Winger nodded, not sure whether to be glum or relieved. "I know that, Doc. I guess I was just expecting the same camaraderie and spirit as before. It's different, but I can't say how exactly."

Frost was understanding, even sympathetic. "Different master. He's got the same processor but the loading of routines and modules is always slightly different every time you do it. Plus your coupler still needs work. Some of what you're hearing...er, experiencing, is an artifact of a Version 1 coupler trying to interface with a Version 2 assembler. We can adjust and fine-tune that out, given time."

Winger, mindful of the briefing he had just come from, said, "I'm not sure how much time we have, Doc. While you're bringing ANAD along, can you go over these differences with me?"

Frost delegated his adjustments to two techs and took Johnny to another console. He had SOFIE bring up some graphics to depict ANAD's new capabilities. Soon, a three-D image of the assembler was floating over the projection table like some ghostly image.

For the next half hour, Frost detailed improvements he had made to ANAD. The doctor demonstrated some of the assembler's new capabilities and explained how the new cognitive quantum processor was both faster and better protected against the sort of interference Johnny had encountered in the Antarctic.

"I've changed some of the architecture, Johnny. Basically, I've altered the way the processor executes commands...sort of given ANAD a new language to speak with. If I'm right, the entanglement wave interference won't be as big a problem. ANAD'll be able to perform his normal functions better than ever."

Frost went on to describe how the assembler would be better coupled with Johnny through the containment capsule in his shoulder. He had Winger removed his uniform and clucked over some minor adjustments to the capsule that needed to be made.

"The best news is that this version of ANAD has new effector tip designs...a few extra hydrogen abstractors and a new silicon radical tool for snagging carbons...haven't had that before, have you?"

"Just give me something I can use to smash the bejeezus out of Amazon, Doc. That's all I need now."

"I've upped ANAD's morphing speed too. Really souped up the replication routine in tests the other day," Frost said proudly. "ANAD's capable of turning over molecules at better than twenty cycles per second now."

That raised eyebrows on Johnny Winger. "A real hot rod. Good work, Doc. After Lake Vostok, I figured you'd be tinkering under his hood."

Doc Frost had something else he wanted to show Winger. "Remember those small spheres you brought back from the Pacific?"

"The ones that Dana said were being implanted in the demonio? What the hell are they, Doc?"

Frost took Winger around to the other side of the containment vault. "I've put them in here, under Level Four containment." He pointed to the monitor.

The huge semi-spherical containment vault was subdivided into several smaller compartments, each isolated from the other. On the monitor mounted on the outer wall, Winger studied the scene inside.

Three white spheres were suspended in mid-air, held in position by converging electromagnetic waves and air currents. Sensor arrays surrounded the spheres, providing details on structure, signatures, emissions, anything that could be detected. Above the spheres, the sinuous trunk-like cable of a quark flux imager undulated like a snake. A technician at the console was maneuvering it into position to probe the interiors of the spheres.

"Are they what Dana thought—some kind of control devices for the demonios?"

Frost rubbed his chin. "They seem to be at least that, and maybe more. We think we've detected decoherence wakes periodically emanating from at least one of them, though the jury's still out on that. Very faint, these wakes."

"That would mean some kind of quantum comm channel, wouldn't it, Doc?"

"It should. Juan here—" he indicated the tech running the imager controls "—thinks the spheres are part of some kind of networked system, peer to peer or maybe master-slave. We've been tinkering and experimenting here with the waves, trying to capture and record quantum states, with an eye toward maybe decoding them."

Winger blinked hard. "Decoding quantum states? Isn't that sort of impossible, even in theory?"

"In theory," Frost admitted. "But we've learned a few tricks lately. Sometimes, if we're careful, we can kind of cheat Mother Nature and get enough of a whiff of an entanglement wave before it collapses to make an educated guess as to the signal, or rather the state that generated it."

Winger watched as Juan drove the imager closer to the spheres. He stopped the 'snake' just above the trio and parked it in position to begin probing. "Imager gain set, Doctor Frost. We're locked in and powered up."

Frost moved back to the small panel that controlled the quark stream. Once he had removed all the safeties and enabled the beam generator, a steady stream of cesium nuclei inside the housing above them would be 'cracked' open like eggs and the quark components inside captured and collimated into a beam.

"I'll try a few bursts at first, just to register the beam and get some test data." He toggled a few switches. A low hum emerged from the housing. On the monitor, there was no discernible effect on the spheres. When he was satisfied, Frost hmmm'ed and pressed more buttons. "Now, I'm initiating a deep field scan, targeting the outer layers of the sphere surface. We've been lucky at the surface a couple of times...that's where we've been able to grab some waves—"

Frost ran the probe for awhile, then turned the controls back over to Juan.

"Let me show you what we've found before, from earlier scans." Frost went over to the projection table where SOFIE had generated ANAD configurations in mid-air. "I've taken the liberty of washing the wave fragments through a new algorithm I developed, originally for ANAD. I found something odd and I can't explain it. When I first ran this algorithm and fed it the wave data, I got a sort of gibberish that didn't make any sense at first, not that I expected it to." Frost was cycling the controls, revving up the table to create a 3-D display. "But when I applied some of the same routines that make up ANAD's processor core, I got this—"

The space above the table began to blur and thicken into an image, a grainy image. As it materialized from the loop that Doc Frost had created, Johnny Winger felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The image was eerie, and eerily familiar. He shook off a chill.

Frost was explaining something but Winger was only barely listening—

"—Now...just why a set of ANAD routines should be able to translate these wave fragments, I don't really understand. It could be a coincidence, but I doubt that. More likely, there's some kind of commonality between the waves that come from quantum states generated by these spheres and waves that come from quantum states generated inside ANAD's processor. That puzzles me...Johnny, what is it? You look a little pale—"

Johnny Winger shook off the feeling. "I don't know, Doc. Just a feeling, I guess. It's just that this image seems familiar...I've seen it before."

"Really?" Frost rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "Where?"

Winger remembered the strange impressions he had encountered at Via Verde, impressions of another world, a world of nanoscale mechanisms, an entire world of ANADs. He had decided the whole thing was nothing but a scrambled snippet of memory, probably brought on by leakage from his coupler.

Until now.

He described the sensation to Frost. "It was like I was flying over the ground, Doc. I kept flying higher and higher and soon I was in space. I could look back and see this world. The whole place was full of nanobots. The planet was made up of them...like a swarm on a vast scale, assembled into the image of a planet." Winger shuddered. "Gave me the creeps."

"Johnny, there may be more to what you're saying than you realize." Frost fiddled with the projection table controls. "Here, let me show you something else."

The 3-D imagery shifted again, blurring out and morphing into something else. This time, a grainy, ghostly image formed, similar to the first one, only poorer in resolution. As Winger watched, the image gradually sharpened. After a few moments, it resembled the very image he had been trying to describe.

"Is this what you saw, Johnny?"

Again, he felt a cold chill. "Pretty much. What is it, Doc? You're saying this imagery comes from those spheres?"

Frost wanted to be careful in what he said. "I've spent the last day decoding and reconstructing decoherence waves that are generated by these spheres. And I've come to the conclusion that these spheres are basically a form of transmitter. Perhaps a communication link would better explain it."

"Link to what?"

"It's fuzzy and I'm still gathering evidence to test my ideas but I think these spheres are a communication link to some place else, very likely this place you've encountered yourself. Perhaps, it is another world altogether. Maybe it's even a world of nanobots, a world made of nanobots. I'm not sure of that."

"Then the demonios are in contact with another world? Another intelligence?"

Frost shrugged. "It's a conjecture right now, Johnny. It fits a lot of the data, yours and what I've found here."

The possibilities made Winger's head spin. "If the demonios are just colonies of nanobots, versions of Amazon Vector bundled together into something vaguely human-like, wouldn't that mean that Red Hammer is effectively in contact with another race, another intelligence?"

Frost nodded. "You could draw that conclusion, yes. But it's a rather extraordinary conclusion. We have no independent evidence that intelligences other than our own exist anywhere any where else in the Universe. It's one thing to prove the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. But to prove that such intelligence exists and that Red Hammer is in contact with them and no one else knows about it..." Frost shrugged. "That's two separate claims, Johnny. The first claim alone would overturn all of science and a lot of our philosophy and religion. The second claim, if it was true, would re-arrange political and economic power on this planet like nothing ever before. Imagine what it would mean, Johnny: a criminal cartel in contact with another intelligence. The consequences boggle the mind...that's why we must be very careful here. We have no irrefutable proof at the moment, only conjecture and supposition."

Winger walked around all sides of the flickering 3-D image, examining it from every direction. The picture it revealed strongly resembled the impressions he remembered. The distant horizon, the landforms like mountains and seas, but not quite...the atmosphere, all of it nothing but nanobots. An entire planet constructed of nanobots.

How was such a thing even possible?

"If you're right, Doc...if you're even remotely close to being right...we've got one hell of a problem with Red Hammer." Winger thought back to all the surprises the Asian cartel had sprung on Quantum Corps over the last ten years, starting with the quantum coupler itself. The Serengeti Factor. Amazon Vector.

Major Kraft and Quantum Corps intelligence had long assumed Red Hammer had a stable of scientists and engineers in its clutches, able to devise ever more sophisticated means to pursue their criminal interests. There had even been reports from Japan and India of rashes of kidnappings and unexplained disappearances of certain academics, the most notable being the Indian physicist Chandrayan...Taj Singh had brought that to Winger's attention, as the physicist had come from Bangalore, the same as Singh.

Maybe there was a lot more to the technical expertise of Red Hammer than anybody realized.

"Doc, we've got to take this to Major Kraft. And to Q2. The intel people may have other evidence we don't know about. There may be a pattern here they can detect."

"I'll put together a report. But most of this is conjecture on my part, Johnny. You know me...just an old tinkerer and dreamer. I see some facts and try to find an explanation that fits them."

"That's the problem, Doc. Your explanation is bizarre and maybe it can't be proven. But it does explain a lot of things."

By the end of the day, Major Kraft had called another briefing in the Ops Center. Winger, Tallant and all the other platoon and company commanders were ordered to appear...along with representatives from other battalions: 1st BioMed, 1st EnviroChem...an all-hands meeting.

Something was up. Something big.

Kraft didn't mince words as he paced about the briefing theater.

"Gentlemen, I just got the word from CINCQUANT. UNSAC has approved an assault on the Red Hammer base in Tibet—" he paused for a few moments, as an excited stir rolled through the room. "As expected, the Chinese have strongly objected and walked out, threatening some kind of retaliation if their territory is violated. But the order stands. Conditions are worsening all over the world and UNSAC feels the evidence points overwhelmingly to this complex in the high plateau of Tibet as the central nexus of swarm control. The order stands. It's now up to Quantum Corps to execute the order." Kraft read the orders from a sheet. "'Quantum Corps is to plan, prepare for and execute an assault on the suspected Red Hammer facility at latitude eighty eight degrees fifteen minutes East and thirty-one degrees forty two minutes North. The purpose of this assault is to render this facility inoperable. Collateral damage to surrounding communities and infrastructure is to be minimized. Efforts will be made to capture key enemy personnel for intelligence purposes in any follow-on operations. A tactical plan will be developed and forwarded to UNSAC O-1 for approval not later than 0800 hours 17 November.'"

Kraft looked up, grim and tight-lipped. "That gives us two days to develop a plan. I'm assigning primary assault duties to 1st Nano, with support from 2nd Nano and all other units. A special assault task force will be formed. This force has my permission to draw personnel and equipment from anywhere in the battalion." Kraft leveled an even gaze at troopers from 1st Bio and 1st EnviroChem in the front rows. "CINCQUANT has personally assured me that other battalions will fully support the objectives of this mission." The troopers squirmed uneasily under his gaze. "To ensure this support, General Linx himself is flying into Table Top to participate in planning. He arrives at 1430 hours this afternoon."

Kraft then dismissed the assembly but not before announcing that 1st Nanospace personnel would assemble at 1500 hours in the Sim Tank three floors below.

Johnny Winger and Dana Tallant decided to catch a quick bite in the commissary before heading down to the Tank.

"What do you make of it, Wings?" Tallant asked. She chomped down on a protein veggie wrap and chased it with coffee.

Winger slurped his own drink, a jolting concoction of neuroboosters and fruit juices called kox, thoughtfully. "I've seen some of the early staff work on assaulting the Tibet compound, Dana. It's a tough nut to crack. Intel from the vidsats and what little ground surveillance we have shows the place is literally a fortress. It's built into and under the side of a mountain. Up top, the place is set up like a monastery, something called Paryang. Apparently, it's a real working monastery, too which has always made UNIFORCE a little nervous about assaulting it. But it's tucked into a narrow valley with steep mountains on all sides. Getting close enough to mount an assault without being detected is going to be tough."

Dana Tallant chewed on her wrap for a few moments. "So why can't we do what you did at Kurabantu?"

Winger had been mulling over the same idea. "You mean—"

"Exactly. Assault the place from underground."

Winger sipped at the kox. It made his eyes water. "The scale of the operation would have to be so much bigger. At Kurabantu, we came in from underwater. ANAD had maybe a quarter mile of rock to go through. And the tunnel was—" Winger shuddered at the memory. "...let's just say, the tunnel was cramped. We had a hell of a time just getting all our gear and weapons through it. Kurabantu was a small isolated complex, lightly defended, as it turned out. This place...from what Q2 has shown us...would be a whole different ball game."

Tallant rearranged some lettuce and tomato on her plate, to represent the target. "It's just a matter of scaling, Wings. Let's say, for argument's sake, we war game it like this: assemble the assault force here and stage it forward in a normal lift to some kind of forward base in the mountains near the border." She moved pieces of lettuce around to represent forces and units. "Then we release ANAD in sufficient quantity to move the assault force through an underground tunnel right up to the Red Hammer complex, this Paryang place you call it. Right away, it gives us two advantages: one, by assaulting from within the Earth, UNIFORCE is able to eliminate the Red Hammer base in such a way as to deny responsibility to the Chinese. Think of it...an assault from below ground. We can blame the destruction of the base on a dozen different things...a plague, a landslide, an earthquake, you name it. And the second advantage is even better. Coming at the target from this axis allows Quantum Corps to breach the base from a direction where their defenses are most likely to be minimal." Tallant finished sculpting her lunch into a diorama of the assault plan. "It's the element of surprise, Wings. They'll never expect it."

Winger nodded in grudging agreement. "Unless they've learned what happened to them at Kurabantu." The atomgrabber suddenly sat up straight. "Hey, I just had an idea."

"So what is it?"

"We've still got a few hours before Major Kraft's briefing. Let's go see ANAD and see what he thinks about this."

The containment center was busy and crowded with technicians as Doc Frost finished up the final qualification tests on the new master assembler.

Frost indicated the polyhedral device mounted on a scaffold and quivering visibly on the imager screen. The control deck was a small raised platform crammed with consoles and monitors and attached like a front porch to the huge containment vessel. Frost, Dr. Mary Duncan and two Quantum Corps techs occupied the platform.

"I'm just about to sign off on the last test series, Johnny. We've tested every system to one hundred and ten percent capacity, with no anomalies. I'm compiling a report for Major Kraft now. Your new master is good to go. Want to transfer ANAD to your capsule now?"

"Sure, Doc," Winger told him. "But before we do that, I wanted to ask ANAD a few questions. 1st Nano is planning and prepping for a new mission and it may be a stretch for ANAD's capabilities."

"What kind of mission, Johnny? Scuttlebutt around the lab here says General Linx himself is flying in to Table Top today. It wouldn't have something to do with that, would it?"

Winger knew the Doc wasn't fully cleared for current operations. "Doc, it's kind of sensitive. Most of the crew here aren't cleared for this level of information."

Frost nodded with understanding. "Use the coupler then. No one will be able to eavesdrop on what you two say to each other."

Winger shook his head and tried linking in, the way Doc had taught him from months before. He was momentarily dizzy, even disoriented, but it wasn't bad, not nearly as much dizziness as before.

A great wall of water crashed over his head and he was swept off his feet, tumbling and tumbling until at last he grabbed onto something and strained every muscle to hold on.

***Detecting an open channel...is that you, Base? Synchronizing with open channel and transmitting on Q1...do you copy my signal***

"ANAD, it's Johnny." Winger nodded, smiling broadly at Doc Frost and Dana Tallant, though he knew they couldn't hear a thing. "ANAD, how do you feel? Are you feeling okay? Are you ready to rejoin the platoon?"

***ANAD to Base...sizzling radicals couldn't keep me from it...Doc says I can jump containment any time...you do still want me with you and the platoon?***

Winger sensed the plaintive note in ANAD's comm stream. The little guy is worried we don't need him anymore.

"ANAD, you're a vital part of this unit, you know that. We couldn't complete our missions without you."

***ANAD wants to contribute...you know I have devoted my whole life to the Corps...I have the greatest respect for you and Doctor Frost and the rest***

It was becoming embarrassing, even though Winger knew only he could hear it. "It's okay, ANAD....it's okay. I'm not going to leave you behind. Look, we may have a new mission. I came to get your opinion about some tactics." Winger smiled at Doc Frost's pained look. He knew perfectly well that Frost would never agree that a nanoscale mechanism like ANAD had enough processor power to have anything like an "opinion."

***What is the nature of the mission?***

Winger described the planned operation against the Paryang base in Tibet. He explained the tactical advantages of assaulting the base from below ground.

"You did this before, ANAD...at Kurabantu," he added. "Or rather, an earlier version of you did it. I just wanted your opinion...this will be a much bigger job, a riskier mission. The distances are greater. We'd like to have a bigger tunnel."

For a few moments, ANAD didn't reply. Winger checked the status board: all systems were in the green.

***I have completed accessing all memory registers for comparable data, Base. I have analyzed the record of the recent mission you completed at Kurabantu. This was a simpler version of ANAD, with fewer capabilities. I have additional data on the problem. This data shows that to tunnel through solid phase structures is highly energy-intensive...and time consuming. Intra-molecular distances are small and van der Waals forces strong and overlapping. It will take great time and energy to do what you are asking, Base. Heat dissipation could be a problem***

"But it could be done, at least in principle?"

***I want the mission to succeed as much as you do, Base. But my effectors need to be configured and optimized for disassembly. Dealing with feldspar, quartz, olivine and other solid rock structures takes a lot of energy. Just streaming off the molecular debris from disassembly requires some planning...there is so little room for any excess molecules in solid phase maneuvers.***

Winger considered ANAD's answer. "ANAD, I'm on my way to a staff meeting. We're going to propose that the assault be executed this way. I just want to make sure you can do it. Maybe you should come with me—"

ANAD seemed to consider that for a few moments.

***You know that I have the highest regard for the objectives of the Symbiosis Project. Nobody wants the mission to succeed more than me. It's just that--***

For awhile, Winger thought the coupler stream had been broken off. He was about to say something to Doc Frost when ANAD came through again.

***...it's just that it's hard to be a real part of the team when I'm always in containment***

Winger shook his head. So that's what this is about. "ANAD, you know the rules." He explained the situation to Frost, being careful to avoid admitting that he had often let the assembler out of containment for long periods. "You know I can't release you except in certain situations: combat situations or controlled conditions. I know you and I have discussed this before, but now's not the time."

Doc Frost regarded Winger's predicament with amusement. "Like a stubborn child, isn't he? You're quite right, Johnny. The rules of release and containment are there for everyone's protection. The world is not quite ready for uncontained ANAD swarms. Not after Serengeti...or this Amazon threat. Maybe that day will come but it's not here yet."

"ANAD," Winger said, "I'm taking you with me to the staff meeting. Config for capture—" even as he ordered the assembler to make ready for transit, Johnny Winger was pulling off his jacket and shirt, exposing the capsule port on his left shoulder.

Juan, the containment tech, called out status. "ANAD reports ready in all respects, Captain."

"Very well. Launch ANAD—" Winger closed his eyes and concentrated on the arguments he would use at the meeting, to convince Major Kraft and General Linx that the only way to assault Paryang was from below ground.

He felt the sting of ANAD's entry like a barrage of fly bites and winced as his shoulder muscles contracted. There was a surge of heat and his face flushed red. For a moment, sweat beaded up on his forehead but the flashes passed. He smiled a crooked grin at Frost and Juan.

"Guess it's been awhile since I carried an ANAD around with me."

Frost chuckled as he examined the red welts on Johnny's shoulder. "Are you feeling okay? Your face is flushed red."

Winger reluctantly admitted to some dizziness. But he wasn't about to pass out. "I'm all right Doc. I was woozy for a second...but it's gone now. Honestly, I'll be fine."

"That was a rough transit—" Frost was checking parameters on his console. "—propulsors set too high...may not have folded all his effectors. I'm not sure why that happened."

Winger figured it was just ANAD's way of making his point. "I've got an idea, Doc."

"What is it?"

But Winger was already on his way out the door. "Later, Doc. I've got a meeting at the Sim Tank."

General Wolfus Linx was the very embodiment of Prussian military bearing. At six foot seven, he easily dominated any briefing room. His sandy moustache and piercing blue eyes made him a natural caricature but it was rare to find any graffiti or cartoons depicting CINCQUANT on the Corps intranet, or for that matter anywhere. So solid was Linx' reputation and so fierce his legendary Teutonic temper that self-made artists throughout the Corps had always found it wiser and safer to find other targets for their satire.

Linx was a marble statue in Quantum Corps' otherwise ever-shifting command structure in Paris.

The briefing commenced promptly at 1500 hours. In addition to General Linx, the meeting was attended by Winger and Tallant, Q2 section commander Major Mwale, of Quantum Corps Intelligence, and several quantum engineers, including Deeno D'Nunzio and 2nd Nano's Master Sergeant Steve Demetrios.

Major Kraft ran the briefing, with visuals help from SOFIE.

"The purpose of this meeting," Kraft was saying, "is to go over all our plans for executing the orders received by Quantum Corps this afternoon to assault the Red Hammer base at Paryang. In particular, I would like to start with the consolidated threat analysis from Q2. Major Mwale—"

Mwale was a tall black officer of Zulu ancestry. His high forehead shone in the bright spotlights as he came to the podium. Behind him, map projections of the Earth's surface shifted and flickered.

"Q2's analysis boils down to this: signals intelligence shows that the Paryang region of Tibet—" he paused to let SOFIE highlight the spot on the map and tile everyone's display with window panes of supporting data, "—is the locus of all control links to Amazon Vector swarms around the planet. It's effectively the center of all the forces now modifying and destroying the Earth's atmosphere. The intel comes from work done by our sigint section, with help from Doctor Irwin Frost, of the Autonomous Systems Lab. They've done great work, teasing out signals and coordinates from very faint, almost undetectable quantum effects...actually decoherence wake effects."

General Linx massaged his glorious moustache thoughtfully. "You have confidence levels on the data, Major?"

"On your screen, sir...I've had SOFIE run the whole analysis. Quantum effects, satellite imagery and remote visuals from our ornithopter drones...they all point to this location as the source of swarm control links."

Kraft spoke up. "Sir, we have the latest casualty figures from World Health and BioShield..." He stabbed a button on his armrest control pad and SOFIE brought up the morbidity displays. "As you can see, the mortality rates for affected areas in the Pacific, the Antarctic, the Congo River basin, Amazonia are all on the rise. Trend lines are accelerating as some of the larger swarms coalesce and the zones of atmospheric disturbance expand."

Linx winced at the dry figures. He knew there was one hell of a lot of suffering behind the statistics. "Same dynamics?"

"Yes, sir," Mwale admitted. "BioShield reports massive respiratory effects...literally millions now are being affected. Medical and public health facilities are overwhelmed. BioShield is breaking down in all the affected areas."

"It's the same everywhere, General," Kraft added. "Hypercapnia, excessive concentrations of CO2 and other toxic gases. Toxic levels of fluorine and chlorine...both deadly...are rising in the zones. Oxygen and nitrogen molecules are steadily being disassembled and replaced by these molecules. Constituent gas concentrations are shifting, rapidly...toward life-threatening levels."

"Blast it!" Linx spluttered. "Can we do nothing at all about these swarms? What the hell are they up to? Who's driving this menace? And why?"

"It's Red Hammer, sir," Mwale said. "We're sure of that. As to why...presently, the data support no conclusions."

"Casualty figures are now in the tens of millions, sir. It's imperative that drastic action be taken."

Linx nodded grimly. "UNSAC concurs." He read the mission orders out loud to the assembled staff: Plan, prepare for and execute an assault...render the facility inoperable...minimize collateral damage...maintain deniability...capture key enemy personnel. "I've scanned your after-action reports on ANAD engagements with this menace. Not a very reassuring record, Major. Have we nothing to counter these bots with?"

Kraft, with a glance toward Winger, spoke. "General, we've engaged Amazon several times, with mixed results." He pressed a few buttons on his control pad and SOFIE brought up 3-D imagery of the Red Hammer nanobot, at maximum resolution. "As you can see, the bugger's studded with effectors. It's big as a battleship and well armored. It's able to maneuver surprisingly fast for its size and it can grow and swap effectors with great speed...Captain Winger here has reported it's hard for ANAD to keep up."

"It has one known weak spot, General," Winger added, taking his cue from the Major. "Amidships, there's some kind of cavity or cleft that opens through some phosphate clusters right through the outer membrane groups to Amazon's innards. If you can get by the grabbers and carbenes and radicals around the site, you can do a lot of damage inside. But getting inside...that's the trick."

Linx was growing frustrated. "ANAD has recently been regenerated, has it not? You had to do a quantum collapse in your last engagement?"

"That's correct, sir," Kraft said. "At Via Verde. Then at Lake Vostok, in the Antarctic. We were being jammed...quantum interference with the swarm made it a bitch to control. The only way Winger could escape was to leave him behind. We lost that one completely. The regenerated master now has changes that should make it more effective at engaging Amazon."

"Let's hope so," Linx said. "Now the biggest question is how to get at Paryang. It's a safe bet the place is thick with Amazon-style defenses, it not worse."

Dana Tallant spoke up. "General, Captain Winger and I have been studying that problem. We have a tactical plan we think might work."

Linx nodded for her to proceed. With Kraft's help, she hooked up to SOFIE to create a sim of her idea.

"At Kurabantu Island, sir, 1st Nano was faced with a similar problem: an underwater complex, where I was being held along with my CC2, Sergeant Collin, by Red Hammer. The complex was built into the side of an underwater escarpment and it was well defended from most approaches. Captain Winger here used ANAD to bore a small tunnel from outside the swarm zone and assault the compound from inside the mountain, from a direction the enemy never expected. A small rescue force was able to achieve complete tactical surprise."

Linx was intrigued. "Go on."

"Well, sir, both Captain Winger and myself believe the same tactic would be effective against the Paryang base. An assault from below ground, starting from a point well outside Chinese territory."

Linx altered the map to show the area in greater detail. "I scanned your reports from the Kurabantu operation on the trip over from Paris. ANAD is capable of tunneling fast enough to create an assault route?"

"With some tweaking and adjusting," Winger replied. "More than capable, sir. Dr. Frost has optimized his effectors and propulsors to make such operations work even better—"

***Hey, don't forget my processor, Boss...it's really souped up for disassembling things now***

Winger managed a weak grin, then realized only he could hear ANAD's boast. "ANAD's processor has been upgraded. The Doc here has been tinkering under the hood again."

When Linx glanced in Frost's direction, the Doctor spoke up.

"I've taken steps to streamline the logic in his central processor. After the Kurabantu mission, Captain Winger asked me to do something to speed up his molecular manipulation and sorting speeds...I've done that and tested it. ANAD now can break down solid phase structures at speeds orders of magnitude faster than before."

"Sir, if I may—" Tallant cut in. She laid out the tactical plan she and Winger had developed in the commissary. "An underground assault offers several advantages. We gain tactical surprise...I doubt they'll be expecting an assault force to pop up right at their front door, from below ground. And, as with the Kurabantu complex, it's more likely that Red Hammer defenses will be minimal to nonexistent along this axis. So far as we know, they have no real knowledge that ANAD can do this kind of tunneling."

Linx studied the maps. SOFIE annotated the views with additional data, depicting surface conditions, cities, topographic relief, even layering the diagrams with underground rock strata.

"It's a long distance to go underground, Captain. We're looking at...what?...several hundred miles of tunnel, through hard shale rock, if I'm reading the diagrams right. Can ANAD create a tunnel of that length, sturdy enough for an assault force to transit in a reasonable time?"

"General Linx, sir—" it was Deeno D'Nunzio. "Begging the General's pardon, sir, but Sergeant Demetrios and I have been working on that very detail." She approached the console. "May I, sir?"

Linx relinquished control of SOFIE and 1st Nano's CQE1 took over the sim tank, pressing buttons to bring up a 3-D image of a strange-looking cylindrical craft with a large parabolic horn at its nose. "Sergeant Demetrios and I started working on this idea after the rescue force came back from Kurabantu. Let me assure you, sir, I don't have any great desire to go climbing through narrow tunnels underground any more than necessary."

Demetrios picked up the story. "What you're looking at is a new vehicle for transporting troops underground. We call it a geoplane. We've nicknamed this one Gopher."

"Gopher is designed to use ANAD boring and tunneling capabilities..." she put a laser pointer spot on the parabolic nose "...to create a path underground, to ferry troops and supplies covertly from one point to another. As you can see, the borer module up front uses ANAD swarms to create a path...a tunnel, if you like, using high-speed molecular disassembly. Gopher is propelled by her treads on these six ring tracks spaced around her circumference, through the tunnel created by the ANAD borer. She can carry a full squad of troopers, plus supplies, weapons, and munitions of any type."

Kraft was both impressed and a bit skeptical that a pair of noncom CQEs could think up such an idea. "What drives it, Sergeant? What's the power source?"

Demetrios cleared his throat while D'Nunzio licked her lips. She knew they hadn't brought the idea to Kraft for review before springing it at the staff meeting. The Major didn't like surprises, especially when he couldn't take some of the credit.

"We're figuring a hybrid power source...fuel cells and batteries. Nuclear's too heavy; the shielding along would make Gopher too cumbersome. Fuel cells are light and compact now. Sergeant Demetrios here has even figured out a way to capture some of the energy that ANAD releases when he breaks atomic bonds in disassembly."

Linx nodded to Kraft. "Your people have done good work here, Major. Top notch work."

Kraft smiled a hesitant smile. "Yes, sir. I always encourage initiative in my staff."

"I assume this is just a design. How long before we can have an operational vehicle?"

Deeno checked with Demetrios.

"General...let me run the sim of Gopher in operation while the Sergeant and I do some figuring."

"Proceed."

Deeno toggled some switches and the 3-D image of the tiny geoplane whirred to life. As the sim advanced, the geoplane approached a steep mountain and its front end borer grew white hot. The craft nosed down at the base of the mountain and plunged below ground. But below the mountain, the strata of rock had been stripped away to reveal Gopher busily at work, like a carpenter bee, pushing its way deeper and deeper into the simulated crust.

As the sim proceeded, Linx, Kraft and the rest watched Gopher chewing its way through a series of maneuvers...first descending, then climbing and turning, its circumferential treads propelling it steadily along tunnels created by its ANAD borer. Mounted on a parabolic horn at the nose of the craft, the borer was a white-hot ball, as trillions of nanomechs disassembled molecules of rock at high speed. Gopher plowed through varying layers of strata with ease, then began nosing its way upward, eventually breaching the surface in an eruption of dirt and rock. The sim came to an end and SOFIE darkened the Sim Tank.

"Impressive," Linx admitted. "I assume this is only a conceptual design? How long would it take to field a prototype?"

D'Nunzio had worked out a preliminary schedule while Linx was watching the sim. "Based on availability of certain resources...time with SOFIE, designWeb, and so forth, we can be ready to cut metal in about two weeks. We're proposing the geoplane project have priority access to Table Top's fabs, priority on purchasing, expedited design reviews and all the engineering and machine shop people we need. Given that, Gopher could be underway on her shakedown runs in about four weeks."

Kraft asked, "Have you got the molecular configuration detailed enough for the fabs to take it now?"

"Only a few sections have been detailed, Major," said Demetrios. "The borer module, the tread system and the power plant and lockout spaces have been structurally detailed. With a little help from Doctor Frost, we could load the configs into an ANAD processor in a day or so and have complete assemblies by the end of the week."

"It's a hell of a lot of nano," Linx agreed, "but time is short." He motioned to Frost. "See that the geoplane project gets what it needs to expedite final assembly. Gentlemen, I'm approving this contraption right here and now. Have you worked out the tactics to use it for assaulting Paryang?"

"Working on it now, sir," Winger replied. "That's where the sim you just saw comes in. Tactically, we feel any assault force will need two of these vehicles. Each one can carry a squad of about fifteen troopers. That allows us to put a platoon-sized force on the enemy's doorstep with no warning."

"There is another aspect to this concept," Demetrios added. "With an ANAD-driven borer mounted on her nose, our sims show that a geoplane also has the capacity to induce seismic shocks...earthquakes, if you will...at least over a limited area. Injecting streams of specially configured ANADs from the borer ring, a geoplane positioned properly can cause enough slippage or fracture in nearby tectonic structures to pretty much generate earthquakes on demand." Demetrios started to switch SOFIE to a new sim. "Sir, we've done the initial analysis, if you'd like to—"

Linx held up a hand. "Later, Sergeant. I'm sure the physics is sound. Gentlemen, the geoplane project is approved, both of them. I'm forwarding my report to UNSAC tonight, along with recommendations that the assault on Paryang commence four weeks from today." He consulted a calendar. "A-Day will be December 12th. A complete tactical plan should be on my screen by December 1. Is that understood?"

A chorus of Yes, sirs came back. Linx looked around the room at the assembled staff.

"Quantum Corps is the tip of the spear, gentlemen. UNSAC is counting on you to succeed. Hell, the whole planet's counting on you. I don't have to remind you of what's at stake here. Major—" he turned to Kraft, "we need to give this operation a name."

Deeno spoke up. "Tectonic Strike, sir. Operation Tectonic Strike."

Linx snorted. "Odd but damned appropriate, if you ask me. Tectonic Strike it is. I'll see to it that UNIFORCE fully supports the assault in whatever way is necessary. You'll have combat engineers, the latest intelligence, air, ground, and space support, diplomatic cover with the governments of India and Nepal...whatever is needed. Tectonic Strike must be kept from the Chinese though. The whole thing is politically very touchy."

Kraft had a determined cast to his face. "My people will have a geoplane design and assault plans ready in one week, General."

That earned the Major a few raised eyebrows and sideways glances. Johnny Winger's eyes met Dana Tallant's.

The Major has a big mouth, making promises like that.

Tallant just nodded faintly.

"Very well, gentlemen...I'll leave you to your work." With that, Wolfus Linx and his two staff assistants left the Sim Tank.

Kraft glared at the rest of them. "Don't just stand there, people. Let's get to it!"

Two weeks of twenty-four hours days followed. Table Top Mountain was a beehive of activity as Ops, Engineering, Munitions, and other departments bent to the task of fleshing out the geoplane's design and the details of the assault plan that would employ it. Johnny Winger himself routinely put in eighteen and twenty hour days, working at times in the Sim Tank wargaming every possible detail of the assault, studying topographic detail of the ground and subsurface structure around the Paryang monastery, arguing with engineers and machinists in the shops over Gopher's design and fittings and working with Doc Frost at the Containment center to optimize ANAD for tunnel-boring and for final combat against Amazon Vector at Paryang.

As November rolled into December, Major Kraft's promised deadline evaporated as surely as the Thanksgiving snows on Table Top's mesa but the Major made no further mention of his promise to CINCQUANT. Through daily briefings and unannounced strolls through the labs and shops, Kraft could see that the whole compound was mobilized to support 1st Nano's mission.

They're good kids, he told himself after one late afternoon inspection of the geoplane prototype, now encased in scaffolding and catwalks on the ground floor of Table Top's Hangar C. They'll get the mission accomplished, one way or another.

He thought grimly as he walked the snowy quadrangle back to the glass cube of the Ops building. They have to. There's too much at stake to fail now.

Bit by bit, beams and spars and panels and struts and framing came together and Gopher gradually took shape inside the hangar. By the second week of December, she was powered up for the first time and Winger and a select crew tested her for fit and function, exercising her treads, grapplers and cycling the borer on and off.

The lead engineer was a ruddy-cheeked sunburned Texan named Murchison, with scarred hands and a booming voice. He climbed up onto the command deck and sat beside Winger in the cockpit, while a trio of electricians pulled wiring bundles through the forward consoles.

"She'll be ready for maneuvering exercises, next Monday, Captain. We're hauling her out to Hunt Valley over the weekend. You got a test crew ready?"

Winger was checking off switches and buttons against a diagram he had spread across his knees. "Me and Captain Tallant will be the test crew, Murch. I just have to clear it with the Major. Are you going to load live ANAD in the borer?"

Murchison nodded. "Soon as Doc Frost okays a test batch, we'll load her up and put her to work. The test range has already laid out a course for you...some above ground and some below." He handed over a map of the range to Winger.

The atomgrabber studied the test course for a few moments, following the track through the snow-covered hills with his finger. The route would take the geoplane prototype from a launch point at the eastern end of Hunt Valley, near the "Notch" along a serpentine path across central Idaho, eventually diving below ground south of Buffalo Ridge. The test then had Gopher circling the Table Top mesa below the surface, tunneling its way north across the Snake River canyon at a depth of two miles before circling back toward the war game range at Hunt Valley.

"This should put Gopher through her paces, Murch. How's she coming along?"

Murchison shrugged, pulled out a small thoughtpad and checked files. "Power plant full-up test this afternoon, Captain. We're still tracking down a current leak in the batteries, but that should be fixable. Tomorrow, we hang her treads and motors on; they're powered up in two days. It's tight but we're getting there." The Texan shook his head ruefully, patted Gopher's instrument panel and played with her controls like a child. "I don't mind telling you, Captain...up until a week ago, I never thought this contraption would work. I mean...look at her...it ain't natural doing what she's doing, going where she's going."

"You mean burrowing underground like a...gopher?" Winger chuckled. "Her name fits, doesn't it?" He thought back to the tunnel at Kurabantu, how claustrophobic and hot it had been, like being trapped in a coffin that went on forever.

"The way I look at it, maneuvering through solid rock is no different than maneuvering through air or water," he lied. Or, for that matter, atoms and molecules. "It's just another medium. First Nano has to stay focused on the mission, on the target." He squeezed the control stick affectionately. "Gopher's just our ride to the show."

Murchison was already climbing down from the command deck, off to check on some parts in the shop.

"I'll make sure she's a good ride, Captain. Don't you and the guys worry none about that."
CHAPTER 10

Table Top Mountain, Idaho, USA

November 21, 2068

0700 hours

Test day came a week later. It was a cold, snowy morning in Hunt Valley when Winger and Tallant boarded the geoplane and strapped themselves in.

Winger looked over at Tallant. "Let's fire this jalopy up and see what she can do."

Gopher was started up, her treads spinning as Winger throttled up the electric motors. With a jerk, the geoplane trundled off through foot-deep snow, a plume of powder making rooster tails behind her. She plowed ahead at a stately three miles an hour, while her crew tested controls and systems.

"A real race car," Tallant observed dryly. Gopher rocked back and forth as she clawed her way around the valley floor, following a pre-determined course that had been laid out at the test range.

"Yeah," said Winger, as he steered left and right, getting a feel for Gopher's handling. "Let's enter her in the Indy 500."

"We'll be the first to cross the finish line...under the track. But we'll never see the checkered flag."

For the next half hour, Winger put the geoplane through her paces.

"Handles pretty well on the surface," he noted. "Steering is stiff...not a lot of pickup." He saw the snow-streaked lower flanks of Signal Mountain dead ahead on their monitor—Gopher had no windows or portholes—and steered in that direction. "Dana, light up the borer. Let's put Gopher in her real element."

Pressing a few buttons, Tallant activated the borer that formed a huge dish-shaped nose on the geoplane's bow. Inside the borer, actuators fired to release the ANAD swarm contained there. In seconds, the outer surface of the dish was thick with nanoscale disassemblers, forming a shimmering half-globe around Gopher's nose. Like a single huge blue-white headlamp, the dish and its halo of mechs formed the geoplane's working surface for subterranean operations.

"Approaching the mountain..." Winger said. "Contact Test Ops and tell 'em we're going under."

Tallant complied.

"Good luck," came back the voice of Murchison. "Don't you be stopping at no bordellos down there," he added.

"Borer coming on line," Tallant reported. She scanned her instrument panel, reading swarm density, alignment and other parameters. "ANAD's ready to bite—"

Winger absent-mindedly patted his left shoulder, feeling the capsule port embedded there. He linked in and tried to raise ANAD, knowing full well the frustration the tiny assembler felt in containment inside the capsule while a distant cousin hummed with activity at the geoplane's nose.

"ANAD, sorry for this...the borer swarm is optimized for disassembly in solid-phase structures. I need you here with me, up here on the command deck."

***ANAD isn't liking this, Boss. I should be in that borer...you know that...those mechs up there are just rubes...they barely have the brains to disassemble rock. Put me up front, Boss...I can do so much more. You and me, we've always been a team, haven't we?***

Winger suppressed a smile. ANAD sounds like a teenager begging for the car keys. He was glad Tallant couldn't hear any of it. He stole a glance over at his co-pilot...she was preoccupied calibrating the borer, paying no attention to anything beyond her instruments.

You're lucky, he thought. You don't have whiny voices in the back of your head.

Gopher slowed down as the mountain approached, then a high keening wail could be heard through the hull, as the borer bit into the rock. The geoplane shuddered as it decelerated. Outside the command deck, unseen by Winger and Tallant, Gopher's nose buried itself in a shimmering blue-white fog as the borer revved up and uncountable trillions of mechs tore at the rock.

Tallant licked her lips nervously, reading her instruments. "Coming back mostly quartz and pyroxenes, with some sandstone mixed in. ANAD should eat this stuff up."

The geoplane plunged into the tunnel created by the ANAD borer, angling nose down as it bit deeper into the side of the mountain.

Gopher's instrument panel showed the results of acoustic sounding, displaying rock layers on a graph, with temperature and pressure readings all around the graph. Borer status was displayed as well.

"Looking good," Winger muttered. "Borer configured for quartz and pyroxenes...ANAD's chewing through at a rate of two point five miles per hour. Treads are functioning fine."

"Let's try some basic maneuvers," Tallant suggested.

Winger turned the stick to port and Gopher' initiated a shallow left-hand bank. The command deck listed slightly, then stabilized. For the next few minutes, first Winger, then Tallant took turns putting the geoplane through a series of turns, dives and climbs.

Winger began to relax his grip on the stick slightly, trying to forget they were now hundreds of feet below ground.

"There's a layer of basaltic rock a few miles north of here," he remembered. "It's nearly a mile down. We should see how Gopher handles there."

Tallant was cautious. "Remember what Murchison told us in the briefing: don't push her too hard on this first test. Basaltic stuff is superhard and dense...all shale inclusions and quartzite. We're not sure Gopher's hull can take the pressure."

"I know but we're eventually taking her to the Himalayas. Most of the approach corridors into the Paryang valley go through similar stuff. We have to find out how she'll handle."

Tallant took a deep breath. "Just be careful. Stay above five hundred feet. If the borer goes on the fritz and something fails, the test crew can still dig us out."

"Agreed." Winger programmed a new heading into the tread control system and steered northwest on a heading of three ten degrees, roughly paralleling the Buffalo Ridge at the surface. Acoustic sounding soon showed the geoplane was entering harder, denser rock layers.

"Shales," Winger muttered. From earlier briefings with Quantum Corps geologists, he knew the layer was sheeted with hard slate and mica, compacted over millions of years by glaciers and the overriding Buffalo mountain range. ANAD, he linked in, I hope to hell your cousins are up to this. If we get stuck down here....

***Not to worry, Boss, ANAD mechs can handle this stuff with ease...just relax and enjoy the view***

Winger snorted. The only view they had was of the inner pressure hull of the geoplane. Even as Winger watched, he imagined that he could see the compression of Gopher's interior frame under the millions of tons pressing down on them.

"Sounding ahead..." Tallant reported. "Your depth is now four eight eight feet. Signal distortion coming back...it's probably the shale zone."

Winger shoved the control stick forward. "I'm going a little deeper...see if we can plow through some of that quartzite."

Tallant was dubious. She studied the sounding profile. "Just don't push Gopher too hard, okay? Let's don't press our luck on the first run. I'm showing discontinuities dead ahead...some kind of boundary layer, maybe."

"Inclusion zone? Maybe it's the quartzite."

Tallant shook her head. "It looks more like a fault, maybe a transform fault. The geos said there were fracture zones north of Hunt Valley."

Gopher angled slightly downward and slowed, as the borer swarm bit into denser rock.

"Cabin temp going up," Tallant reported.

"Acknowledged. Those mechs are working overtime up front, making us a tunnel. I—"

Winger's last words were cut off as Gopher shuddered violently. For a brief moment, there was an unmistakable sensation of sliding, sliding sideways and downward. Almost at the same moment, something hit Gopher's nose with a sickening crunch and the geoplane shuddered again and ground violently to a halt. The cabin tilted to port and stayed tilted.

Gopher's cabin was deathly still for a few moments, then the creaking and groaning of the hull under tremendous pressure started.

"What happened?" Winger asked, wincing as the tortured sounds of the hull being compressed grew louder.

Tallant scanned her instruments nervously. "Borer is offline. I'm getting no responses from ANAD in the forward module...pressure drop in containment...we may have a breach."

"Great," Winger muttered. "Just friggin' great. And it looks like we've got a breach in the pressure hull too."

"I see it...cabin air pressure fluctuating...we'd better activate emergency flasks, just in case." Tallant toggled a few switches and immediately, high pressure air began flooding all compartments.

Winger was studying the acoustic sounder, replaying the last few moments before the—what had happened? An accident. "Dana, I'm not sure but I think we may have created our own earthquake."

"What? That can't be...can it?"

Winger went over the soundings again. "We were approaching some kind of discontinuity—see right here?" He pointed to the display. "Like a layer or inclusion zone. Remember when the geos told us there were some transform faults and fracture zones around Hunt Valley?"

Tallant said, "Vaguely."

Winger was figuring out the scenario as he replayed in his mind what must have happened. "It was ANAD in the borer module. The swarm disassembled just enough shale and quartzite and other rock to loosen up the fault. It slipped, shifted around and we were caught in the slide."

"So we did create our own earthquake."

Winger took a deep breath. "So it would seem...now we've got to figure out a way of getting out of here. What do we have to work with?"

Tallant went over her instruments again. "Borer's offline, like I said, and it looks like containment was breached in the accident. I've got no response from the borer swarm, no configs, no data of any kind. That swarm's gone and it's not responding to commands."

Winger tried a few tricks of his own but with no success. "Well, I do have a master in my shoulder capsule. We could jerry-rig a swarm for the borer if we had to."

"If the module's not too damaged. On top of that, the tread system's not responding...so we have no mobility. And the pressure hull...."

Winger saw the oxygen level had been dropping significantly in the last few minutes. "We've got to stop that leak...here, let me contact ANAD." He linked in. "ANAD, this is Winger...do you read me?"

***ANAD copies...reading you loud and clear...what has happened?...ANAD's coupler indicates some kind of swarm break...is the borer functioning?***

How the hell did he know that?

"ANAD, Gopher's had an accident. The pressure hull has been breached. Configure for launch and max replication. I need a local swarm to find and plug the leaks."

***ANAD configuring now...systems initializing...ANAD reporting ready in all respects...***

Winger unstrapped himself and went aft through the tunnel to the power plant. "Launch, ANAD. Launch now...." As the atomgrabber went off to check on their power systems, a shimmering light blue fog emerged from the capsule in his left shoulder. Winger felt a brief sting as the assembler exited containment but the launch sequence seemed smoother than before.

***ANAD replicating...can I get a heading to the target?***

"I'm doing that now," Winger reported, as he scrambled through the galley and berthing deck and the engineering deck. "Dana, where's the leak? Can you localize it?"

Still back at the command deck, Dana Tallant scanned her instruments. "I'm showing maximum pressure drop at frame ninety-six, starboard side...somewhere between E and F deck."

Winger squirmed through the central access tube. He knew E deck was for Engineering, Shops and Utilities. Murchison had called it the ESU deck. Just aft was F deck, home to Gopher's hybrid battery and fuel cell power plant.

"I feel it...there's a whistle just off to my left—" Winger paused, sniffing, letting his senses guide him. There. A utilities duct penetrating the bulkhead seemed to be the center of the leak. He saw a faint mist in the air swirling around the duct. "I found it....ANAD configure max propulsor. Home on my signal." He pressed a button on his wristpad.

Several decks forward, the shimmering fog of the assembler swarm wheeled about and began transiting the access tube.

***ANAD is en route to your location...estimated time is twenty-two minutes***

Winger tried examining the source of the leak, where the inner pressure hull had been stove in. It was scalding hot with swirling steam and air and he couldn't get any closer.

"Hurry, ANAD...this break is getting bigger by the minute."

The ANAD swarm arrived at the site of the breach and promptly went to work. Configuring itself as a tightly interlinked mesh, ANAD sought out the pressure hull penetrations and quickly formed a nanoscale patch over the holes with its trillions of replicants. Gradually, the whistling subsided, then stopped altogether.

"I'm reading air pressure stabilizing in all compartments," Tallant reported from the command deck. "The patch seems to be working."

Johnny Winger breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the cool oxygen of the geoplane's emergency flasks wash over his face. "ANAD, you're a lifesaver."

***ANAD reporting swarm element in place and holding. No more air molecules can get in or out. I am configured in repeating tetrahedral with radicals at my outer barrier. Oxygens hate that. And yes...I did save the ship, didn't I? Isn't that what you learn in nog school...don't leave your buddies behind?***

Winger decided to return to the command deck. "You're right about that, ANAD...but who told you that? You were never a nog."

***I could have been, Captain. I've had a lot of the training already...Doctor Frost has programmed my processor with all relevant operational routines, including standard search and rescue algorithms. Isn't that the same thing?***

Winger gave the question some thought, as he hauled himself forward up the narrow access tunnel.

"ANAD, you can't be a nog. You didn't have the same experiences as the rest of us...like twenty miles runs in the snow around Hunt Valley. Or the SODS tank or all the hazing."

Winger reached the command deck, while ANAD was silent for a few moments.

***So why is your experience any better than mine? You don't know what it's really like to snap a bond. Or park a carbon atom on the front porch of a benzene ring. Or surf van der Waals forces through a red blood cell***

Winger climbed into his commander's seat. "Forget it, ANAD...we've got work to do. We've got to find a way out of here."

"Did you say something? Tallant asked. Second Nano's CC1 had been half buried inside an electrical cabinet, trying to troubleshoot Gopher's tread drive.

"Just talking to ANAD...what's our status up here?"

Tallant sat back and wiped sweat off her face. "Tread drive's shot. Something overloaded the controller. I'm getting no response anywhere...either we're jammed or there's a hard mechanical failure. I think I've got it isolated to somewhere between E and F decks. I got power up to that frame and zilch aft of that point." She shook her head. "Either way, the tread drive's offline. We have no mobility. You get the leaks stopped?"

Winger checked Gopher's instrument panels. "For the moment. ANAD replicated a patch of dumb bots. It seems to be holding."

Tallant sighed. "Then it looks like we're stuck here, Wings."

Winger wasn't one to accept defeat easily. "Maybe, maybe not. We don't know what the problem is with the borer. I want to send ANAD out there to do a little recon, see if we can get the borer working again."

"The master doesn't have the same config as the borer bots. Have you got the right program?"

Winger was already pecking out commands on a nearby keypad. "I think I can gin up something from here...it's really just a matter of optimizing his effector setup. I studied Doc Frost's work close enough to get a feel for the geometry."

Winger hacked out a configuration and fired it off to the ANAD master. Above and behind the main console, the faint blue fog pulsated and flickered like a mist in the air...the assembler seemed to prefer to exist in small-scale swarms whenever it was left outside containment...like it was a natural state. As ANAD received and processed the commands, the fog roiled and billowed with unseen currents, a ghostly radiance barely visible but for the tiny bursts of light popping on and off embedded within.

***ANAD processing commands now...I will replicate a small formation, config for solid-phase disassembly and exit the vehicle***

"We need information, ANAD," Winger explained. Sometimes you could say better in English things you couldn't express in configuration commands. ANAD's natural language processor made that possible but it was a two-sided sword. "Do a recon of the entire borer module. I want config status, visuals, EM, acoustics, everything. I want to know what condition the module is in. Is it functional at all? What happened to the swarm inside? And could you replicate a replacement if needed?"

***ANAD understands...now on eighty percent propulsor...en route to borer containment port***

Tallant was apprehensive, as she watched the blue fog slowly pass over them and insinuate itself behind the main console. Forward of the command deck was Gopher's containment vessel, swarm controls and loading ports. The borer itself was a horn-shaped dish outside the pressure hull, through which borer ANAD bots emerged into active formation for tunneling.

"Wings, what do we do if ANAD can't fix the damage? What if he can't operate the borer...maybe the fault damaged the horn."

Winger stared at the last faint tendrils of the mist as it disappeared behind the console.

"We'll figure that out when we have to, Dana. Let's just fight one problem at a time."

A few minutes later, Winger got ANAD's report.

***The borer swarm is gone, Boss...nowhere to be seen. They must have slipped containment...the whole front end of the horn is crushed. Swarm control is gone too***

And we don't have the configs loaded for major ship repairs, Winger reminded himself. He explained what ANAD had found to Tallant.

The CC1 shook her head. "Without a horn, the borer swarm can't be focused, if we even had a swarm."

"Maybe ANAD can disassemble enough material to unstuck us. If we could get the tread drive operating, we could reverse course and back our way out of this mess."

Tallant was skeptical but agreed it was worth a try.

Winger contacted the ANAD master. "ANAD, I'm sending a new config. I want you to detach a small element and exit Gopher completely to see if you can remove enough rock to free our treads. We'll troubleshoot the system from inside and try to restart the tread drive."

***ANAD acknowledges...transiting the hull layers now...approaching solid-phase rock structures...I'll try to bore my way out...can you give me a new heading?***

Winger checked the latest soundings. "Steer right one five one degrees. That should put you into the largest pressure hull breach. And, ANAD...be careful. We don't want to make anything worse."

***ANAD acknowledges...now initiating disassembly...I am in full solid-phase now...looks like feldspar...lots of potassium molecules around here...aluminums and silicates...a real jumble***

Unseen by either Winger or Tallant, ANAD replicated a small swarm and pushed out of the hull breach in a faint iridescent globe of blue flickering light. Sliding into the layered structures of feldspar sheet, the master assembler attacked silicon and aluminum bonds with a vengeance, severing the connections that held the rock layers together.

Now freed of its atomic constraints, the suddenly liberated feldspar molecules scattered and huge plates began to creep forward. Grinding past each other, the rock plates picked up speed as more and more atomic bonds were loosened and disassembled. For a time, further slippage was prevented by the forces of friction and intramolecular traction, but as ANAD swelled outward from the geoplane's hull, a threshold was reached...and passed.

Gopher shuddered violently and pitched nose down and to the left, as thousands of tons of rock heaved and pushed toward the newly created void.

"Look out!" Tallant yelled, as she hung on to the edge of her cockpit seat, quickly tightening her shoulder harness. "We're shifting—"

Winger tried to contact the assembler. "ANAD! ANAD, cease operations! ANAD, stop now—Gopher's being crushed!"

The tortured shriek of rending metal pierced the air. Gopher shuddered and shook and both felt the geoplane in motion once again, sliding...sliding...ever sliding and picking up speed...downward.

Deeper below the surface.

"We're going lower!" Tallant screamed.

Winger tried the treads, tried everything he could think of to resist the geoplane's descent but it was hopeless. The void created by ANAD had loosened the fault again and massive plates were in motion, taking everything with them. The fractured seam in the earth's crust split with a thunderous roar as the plates ground past each other. Gopher was caught in a subduction zone, forced downward at the very front of a plate boundary, rammed and slammed into denser rock below.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the grinding, shuddering vibrations died off and Gopher was still, the air inside her battered hull thick and heavy with choking dust.

Winger and Tallant coughed in the swirl of hot dust. Both unstrapped themselves and crawled aft below buckled frames, scrambling through smoking debris and wreckage, toward light and cooler air in the stern of the geoplane. They managed to find a pocket of relatively dust-free air in a corner of D deck, the Stores and Supplies deck, among boxes and cans and other rations scattered during Gopher's ride downward.

"Where the hell are we?" Winger gasped out. They should have boosted their bloodstreams with respirocytes before the test mission...he realized that now. But the whole project was in such a hurry-- "How deep did we slide?"

Tallant coughed up some dust and croaked out, "I don't know...for sure...but the densitometer was pegging a thousand feet before we bailed out."

"Jesus," Winger sank back against a buckled frame and closed his eyes. "We've got to get ANAD back aboard...it's our only chance."

"Wings, we got bigger problems than that." She eyed some readings on a nearby instrument panel. "Look at the air pressure...it's dropping like a brick. There's a major hull breach somewhere."

Johnny Winger tried for several minutes to reach ANAD. Finally, a faint signal over the quantum coupler could be heard.

"ANAD...ANAD, is that you? ANAD, this is Control—"

***ANAD responding...where are you, Boss? You're signal is very weak...I'm trying to boost gain now***

"Apparently, when you started boring around the treads, you disassembled enough rock to loosen the fault again. We've been pushed downward, down to nearly a thousand feet. Where are you?"

The signal took a few moments to come back and Winger wondered if ANAD's coupler were damaged.

***Exact coordinates unknown...I am reading densitometry levels consistent with the original shale layer. ANAD is probably not deeper than four to five hundred feet. Continue sending and I will home on your signal***

Winger explained Gopher's precarious situation. "If you're that far away, ANAD, it'll take hours to get here. We don't have that much time." Already there had been a noticeable rise in cabin temperature, as hot crustal rock dust seeped in through the geoplane's crushed hull.

ANAD is on max propulsor, Control. Estimated time of arrival is two hours***

"Home on my signal, ANAD...I'll try to keep this channel open." And somehow, he thought to himself, I'll have to config up any leftover mechs and see if I can patch those hull breaches.

Grimly, following Tallant's instrument readings, he set to work. Using his wristpad, he hacked out a config that seemed like it would work. Any atomgrabber worth his electrons could have done that. Then he pulsed out commands on Gopher's acoustic circuit, still working even though there were no borer swarms to receive them, commanding any loose bots into replication formation. Got to have some mass now, he muttered to himself. Mass enough to form a mesh of nanoscale bots over any holes in the hull.

He prayed there was still enough of a hull left to patch.

It was tedious, mind-numbing work but inside half an hour, the pressure drop had essentially ceased, bringing a relieved smile to Dana Tallant's dust-caked face. The cabin temperature was another matter however. Winger grew so warm that he eventually stripped down to his underwear.

"It's nanobotic activity," he told Tallant. "All that replication and assembly work liberates a hell of a lot of heat."

Tallant mopped sweat from her forehead and face. "That and the hot rock all around us. How long do you think it'll take ANAD to get here?"

Winger shrugged. "Couple of hours, at least. He's got to bore through several hundred feet of solid rock. I just hope we don't shift anymore."

Their eyes met. Tallant swallowed hard. "You think we can get out of here?"

"I don't know," Winger said. "I really don't know—" he stopped at the sound of more creaking and groaning echoing through the hull, as Gopher continued settling.

It was the familiar sound of a keening, high-pitched wail that finally awakened Winger from the restless dazed stupor he had sunk into.

"ANAD...you old fart. You made it back!" He pitched his left shoulder to open the containment capsule port. "Prepare to execute capture maneuver."

Dana Tallant coughed and stirred groggily in the heavy dust as she came fully awake. She saw the faint blue mist of the ANAD swarm, as it issued like smoke from behind the main console.

"Thank God the fault didn't slip anymore. I don't think Gopher can take much more."

***ANAD tried to be careful...ANAD slowed down to one-half propulsor and surfed my way through the lattice...the bonds were strong out there and intramolecular distances were short...it took awhile***

Winger tapped his shoulder port with his finger. "In you go, ANAD—"

The blue smoke continued filling the cockpit but there was no obvious movement of the swarm toward containment. Winger, preoccupied with the densitometer, trying to sound out a profile of Gopher's position, didn't notice at first. When, after a few minutes, he realized the swarm was forming up in one corner of the cabin, he became annoyed.

"Come on, ANAD, stop wasting time...in you go."

***ANAD requires some room to re-assemble, Control. The swarm should remain outside containment for the time being***

It wasn't the first time the nanoscale assembler had refused to be contained.

"ANAD, execute capture maneuver immediately."

***ANAD cannot execute capture maneuver. Full cognitive processing requires swarm-scale operations. Containment inhibits cognitive processing...algorithm 1200445.1, sub-module B***

Johnny Winger looked at Dana Tallant. ANAD was refusing to return to containment. Like a petulant little boy, the master assembler wouldn't go back to his room.

"Okay, ANAD," Winger said warily. Was there a processor fault somewhere inside that miniscule polyhedral body? Had some qubit flipped the wrong way inside ANAD's quantum brain? "Okay...we'll do it your way...for the time being."

Tallant was equally wary. "Ask him about conditions outside the hull. Is there any hope for getting the borer back online?"

Winger eyed the shifting fog of the assembler swarm, now gathering itself into the faintest outlines of a face. Maybe it was a trick of the emergency lighting, maybe it was just his own dead tired imagination. ANAD's face flickered like a ghostly apparition in a campfire, by turns resembling Doc Frost, Major Kraft, Jamison Winger and a host of people Winger had never seen.

He put Tallant's question to the swarm master.

***The horn is crushed completely...to re-build would take 62.5 x 10 EXP 25 seconds. The borer swarm has slipped containment and dispersed. It's possible that the dispersal contributed to the fault slippage***

Winger relayed ANAD's report.

Tallant's face sank. "Then we really are trapped here, Wings. You can read the densitometer as well as me."

Winger nodded. "Over a thousand feet down, embedded in hard quartzite and basaltic rock plates. Too deep for the surface to dig us out."

"Is there any way we could get a signal out?" Tallant racked her brain for ideas. "Some kind of sound pulse...maybe invert the sounder to transmit a shock wave."

Winger was still curious about ANAD's behavior. "Maybe but it'll take time to re-jigger it. The tread drive is—"

"Inoperable," Tallant told him.

***Forward treads are de-tracked, Control. ANAD detected alignment damage to one entire section of the 120-degree track***

"Fabulous," Winger said. "Just fabulous. And a thousand feet over our head, Amazon Vector's chewing up the earth's atmosphere."

Tallant sank glumly back in her seat. "I'm not sure we can even do much to stop these changes in the earth's atmosphere. Practically every time we've engaged Amazon, we've gotten our butts kicked."

Winger agreed. "So many people affected...millions if the Corps can't at least slow it down. A hell of a lot of people are going to die...and there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it."

The shimmering mist of the ANAD swarm flared brighter momentarily.

***Sometimes, the changes you see as life-threatening could be life-giving to other forms of life***

Winger was startled by ANAD's 'opinion.' He told Tallant what the assembler had sent over the coupler circuit.

"It's the clearest statement of opinion I've ever heard him say."

Tallant shook her head. "So what do you make of it? Processor noise generating a random output...or a real honest-to-God opinion? Is he even capable of such a thing?"

"I don't know what to make of it. ANAD, what exactly do you mean by that?"

***ANAD makes observations. My processor evolves through observation and analysis. In the last eight point five microseconds of processor cycles, maturity weighting algorithms have output results stating that some forms of life thrive and grow under environmental conditions that other forms of life find deadly***

"You mean like Amazon Vector? What kind of life form would thrive in conditions that kill millions of people?"

Even as he said it, the answer came to him. Viruses, plagues, epidemics. The 1918 Spanish flu virus had feasted on humanity for nearly two years and left twenty million dead.

Johnny Winger felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He remembered something Doc Frost had once told him at Northgate: Remember that ANAD's processor kernel contains informational elements adapted from virus genomes. It may yet turn out to have unknown and emergent properties we haven't accounted for.

"ANAD, are you saying that Amazon's killing off people like some kind of virus...a mindless infection spreading, like an epidemic?"

ANAD seemed to think about that for a few moments.

***Unknown. Question requires information unavailable to my processor. Amazon Vector does not exhibit properties of a mindless swarm. My observations indicate with high probability that enemy nanomachine swarms are operating under specified programmed control***

"Programmed control?" Winger repeated, explaining ANAD's dialogue string to Tallant. "Whose control?"

ANAD made no response to that.

"This is all fine and good," Tallant said, "but we've got to focus on getting out of here. I know the densitometer says we're below a thousand feet down but I've been wondering if there isn't some way the surface couldn't drill down to us."

Winger shrugged. "They probably could...if they knew where we were. We've got no comms and navigation is shot. The surface wouldn't know where to drill. I could try a quantum channel but it would be a shot in the dark if anyone was tuned in."

"I say we try to finagle the sounder to send out some kind of sonic pulse."

"The shock waves may cause the fault zone to slip again. We could be crushed. For the moment, Gopher seems to be trapped in some kind of void. We don't know how long it will last."

***ANAD has an idea***

Winger kept forgetting that the translucent blue shimmering entity in the corner was also a thinking entity as well. The swarm had re-assembled itself into a vague resemblance of a human face. It was Johnny's father, Jamison Winger, in outline.

"ANAD, I wish you wouldn't do that—"

"It looks like a face, Wings. But I don't recognize it. Anybody you know?"

"Yeah, sort of. I've let ANAD mess around inside my head way too much. What's your idea, ANAD?"

***Analysis of surrounding rock formations indicates that there is a seam of extremely dense quartzite with inclusions of mica above and behind our current location...approximately on a bearing of one-five-five degrees relative***

"Superhard rock, to be sure. What about it?"

***Rock of such density will support small-diameter boring better than most rock in this area. ANAD recommends a small pilot hole be bored through this seam, all the way to the surface. If ANAD can approach or reach the surface, it should be possible to use my own quantum coupler to signal for help. There are several stations that would be able to disentangle such a signal***

The idea had merit. Winger explained what ANAD had proposed to Tallant. She mulled over the risks.

"The question is: can ANAD make it in time to get help before we lose the rest of our air...before the carbon dioxide gets too heavy."

"Or we get crushed completely when the void collapses," Winger added. "To do this means we release the master assembler to pilot the hole and leave the bots holding Gopher's hull together uncontrolled and unmonitored."

Tallant nodded. She was huddled in her cockpit seat, bathed in sweat, yet trembling all the same. "I guess one of us could couple with the hull bots, keep an eye on configs. I sure don't want any atomic bonds breaking without my command. They're all that's keeping Gopher from being crushed."

"I don't think we have much choice now." Winger studied Gopher's instruments and displays. "Oxygen's down another five percent but the CO2 is the real worry. We're already at three thousand ppm. We get above five thousand with no way to scrub the air and we're finished."

"Tell ANAD to get to work. I don't want to spend any longer in this overgrown coffin than necessary."

"ANAD...config for boring a small-diameter hole. But I want to stay linked in while the swarm ascends toward the surface."

***Negative, Control...ANAD does not advise such a course of action. Too much distraction...too many processor cycles are expended to maintain the link. ANAD needs all available capacity for boring and sounding...have to stay within the seam of densest rock to keep the void from collapsing***

"Or the fault from shifting." Winger reluctantly agreed. "You're probably right. Get going then...I'll link out."

He cocked his head to shut down the coupler and felt momentarily disoriented, like he had just stumbled into a darkened room and had to feel around for something familiar.

Tallant watched the blue shimmer begin to disperse. "He's on his way, then?"

"Reconfiguring now, Dana. It'll take a few minutes."

Tallant saw how concerned the atomgrabber looked. "He's just a machine, Wings. Come on...you know it's the only way."

"A few months ago, I would have agreed with you. But now...it's almost like he's become a fellow nog. A buddy. And he reminds me of that all the time. Troopers don't leave anyone behind."

"He just says that because he's heard you say that. He's parroting the words back to you, like a child. He doesn't have any concept of loyalty or courage. It's not part of his program...you heard what Doc Frost said."

"He's like a child, for now. But I think this child is starting to grow up."

Several minutes later, the cabin was quiet, save for the sound of the air pumps laboring against thickening dust. The shimmering blue fog had exited the geoplane. Outside, somewhere above and behind them, a small swarm of nanoscale entities was burning a tiny tunnel upward through hard quartzite rock, laboriously disassembling molecules atom by atom, cautiously boring a pilot hole and sounding gently ahead, to keep the massive rock plates from shifting anymore and crushing Gopher and her two-man crew.

Inside the geoplane, Johnny Winger and Dana Tallant were now completely alone, with only remnant ANAD swarms holding their hull together, CO2 levels building, oxygen running out and cabin temperatures steadily rising inside.

Johnny Winger closed his eyes and wondered if he had done the right thing. They had no entrusted their very survival to an increasingly precocious, yet unpredictable teenager named ANAD.

It took nearly twenty hours for ANAD to complete the pilot hole and breach the surface. In a snow-covered valley seven miles north of Haleysville, a bright light suddenly emerged from the snow drifts. A small gathering of elk scattered in alarm as the globe of light lifted away from the ground and hovered for a few moments like a shimmering radiant fog.

Then the fog began flowing southward, toward the distant mesa of Table Top Mountain.

ANAD activated his quantum coupler link and broadcast a repeating emergency message:

***This is ANAD on Q1...any station, any station, emergency code...troopers are down and need assistance...here are the coordinates--***

Flowing over the ground like a windblown mist, the ANAD swarm maneuvered on max propulsor toward the Quantum Corps base at Table Top, broadcasting the same message on all coupler channels. After analyzing probabilities, ANAD decided to take additional measures to ensure the alert was noticed.

Using configs already stored in memory, ANAD initiated a maximum rate replication, essentially the same Big Bang scenario he had simulated many times for his fellow nogs at the war game range at Hunt Valley. Hacking and cleaving atomic bonds at a furious pace, the nanoscale assembler copied its own structure over and over and over again, exponentially expanding across the face of the mountains like a slow-motion explosion of flickering light.

The assembler knew that such activity would be immediately detected by protective bots circulating high in the atmosphere, the BioShield system that alerted Quantum Corps to uncontrolled, unrestrained nanobotic activity.

Detection took only a few minutes.

It was First Sergeant Marty Rivers at BioShield Los Angeles Center who first noticed the blinking light on his board.

Curious and somewhat started by the alarm—there hadn't been a real alert in North America in years—Rivers sat up straight and his hands started flying over the keys, toggling the detectors to focus on the source of the disturbance, running routines to characterize the threat, sending alertgrams to a dozen different sections and also activating the Quantum Corps warning system.

Fifty-six thousand feet over southern Idaho, a small swarm of BioShield nanobots received instructions from LA Center and maneuvered into a tighter formation, probing earthward with pulses of sound and EM, trying to get a fix on the locus of the source. The returns fingered the swelling ANAD swarm and fixed its real-time location and heading. Moments later, Sergeant Rivers had the same data.

Immediately, he opened a vidlink to Table Top Mountain.

Doctor Irwin Frost was in the Containment center when the duty officer from Ops poked her head in. She was a big-boned blond six-footer and her name plate read Spivey.

"Sorry to interrupt, Doc, but there's something you should see. Signals just got a feed from a nano-source and it's close by, just a few miles from here. LA BioShield just routed the details to us."

Frost had been concentrating on some quark flux imagery from a probe of some odd molecules he'd scrounged up from Kurabantu mission samples. He looked up.

"What is it?"

Lieutenant Spivey shrugged. "Not sure, sir. A nanobotic source and it's growing fast, almost like a Big Bang. BioShield says it looks like some loose ANAD...maybe there's been a breach here?"

"Not a chance," Frost insisted, as he powered down the imager. "But I'll take a look." In the back of his mind, he wondered. Was it possible...it had been hours since they'd lost contact with Gopher. He followed Spivey to the Ops Center to see what all the fuss was about.

Johnny Winger's head snapped up. His eyes were dry and his head throbbed like it was being squeezed in a vise. He tried focusing his eyes on the instrument panel, dimly aware that the CO2 level was surely building toward toxic levels. His eyes found the dial and he studied it until it blurred into focus.

Nearly five thousand ppm. No wonder he felt so groggy. They had passed out, how many hours ago?

He shook himself awake, slapping his face, pinching his arms. "Dana. Dana Tallant, wake up!" He leaned over to jab at his fellow trooper. "Get up and move around, will you? The air's bad—"

Up on the command deck, both of them stirred and groaned loudly.

"We've got to do something...anything...to get out of here."

Tallant rubbed her face. Winger noticed her lips were faintly blue...the first signs of hypercapnia were already visible. They had to move now...or they would die in the coffin that Gopher had now become.

"Mmmm...what is...what's wrong...Wings--?" Her head dropped again and she nearly drifted back toward the bliss of unconsciousness. But Winger grabbed her chin and jerked her head up. Then he unbelted her and dragged her from the seat.

"Dana...we can't stay down here any longer. We've got to do something."

The movement around the cramped and buckled, dimly lit cabin seemed to momentarily energize them. Tallant leaned against the bulkhead, holding her head, while Winger force-fed her some water from a canteen. She swallowed hard and tried to breathe, but coughed violently when she tried, spewing water everywhere.

"Any word from ANAD?" she mumbled.

Winger shook his head. The dust in the cabin was now so thick it refracted the fading light of the emergency lamps into strange, menacing shadows.

"Nothing. And we can't wait any longer."

"What are you suggesting?"

Winger's lips were set in a tight, determined line. "I'd rather try to bust out of here, even if we die in the process, than sit here and suffocate to death. I want to try the treads again...maybe we can ram ourselves a little higher, closer to the surface."

"The void we're in will collapse. The whole fault may give way, Wings. It would be suicide."

Johnny Winger slammed a hand against the bulkhead. Dust swirled in sheets from the impact of his fist. "I'd rather go that way than be stuck here trapped like rats."

Their eyes met for a moment. Tallant nodded slowly. "I guess you're right."

"I've been thinking about ANAD. Something must have happened. I can't raise him at all but I don't think he would leave us here."

"Maybe we should give him a little longer."

"We don't have much longer."

"I know, but ANAD's a trooper too. He wouldn't leave his buddies behind. He'll be back."

It was the foundation creed of a Quantum Corps trooper and they both knew how badly ANAD wanted to be just like the other nogs.

"Two hours...that's it," Winger decided. "No ANAD by then...we're busting out of here. Even if we die in the attempt." He scrambled aft through the hatch heading toward E deck, just to be doing something, anything. "I'm going to check out the tread controller one more time."

Dana Tallant's eyes were growing heavy again and she sank to the floor of the command deck. Me too, she thought, but just let me rest here for a moment—

"It is ANAD," Doc Frost decided, studying the acoustic returns from BioShield. "I'd recognize that structure anywhere. ANAD, Version 3.0, to be exact...replicating like a madman. We've got to get that contained right away and bring the little guy in from the cold."

Spivey stood behind Frost, along with Murchison and several others. The alert center was crowded and stuffy.

"Doc, how can ANAD replicate Big Bang like that without some kind of command? Doesn't the master processor have inhibits to prevent that sort of thing?"

Before Frost could answer, the coupler link in the back of his head chimed in and he knew immediately there was a message coming in, a quantum message.

***...is ANAD calling on any channel...Q1, Q1...emergency code...ANAD requesting all possible assistance...troopers are down and need assistance...ANAD transmitting on any channel--***

Doc Frost linked in. Spivey, Murchison and the rest looked on in bewilderment as Frost seemed to be talking to himself.

"ANAD, this is Doctor Frost...what's the nature of the emergency? Why are you replicating Big Bang in violation of BioShield ordinances?"

***Doctor Frost, is that you? It's good to hear your voice again. Troopers Winger and Tallant are trapped below ground...here are the coordinates--***

ANAD rattled off the latitude and longitude of Gopher's location.

***ANAD requesting assistance to extract troopers. Situation is critical...geoplane hull breached in many places...treads not operable...oxygen low...troopers in danger of termination***

Doc Frost was furiously scribbling notes even as his own coupler received ANAD's report. He showed his notes to Spivey. The duty officer's eyes grew wide.

"I'll contact Major Kraft right away. And the search and rescue squad." Spivey hustled out of the alert center.

Frost watched the video and acoustic feed from BioShield. From an altitude of several thousand feet, as the BioShield bots focused on the spreading swarm, ANAD's Big Bang looked like an explosion in slow motion, a time-lapse supernova of light billowing out along snow-covered trails along the flanks of Signal Mountain.

"ANAD, you must terminate replication immediately. Maximum rate replication endangers the environment. Terminate at once. If you don't, you'll trigger a BioShield response."

***Doctor Frost, ANAD has a duty to help troopers in need of assistance. No nog ever leaves his buddies behind. Maximum replication permits ANAD to render necessary assistance. Algorithm 801556 Sub-Module E is cited***

"What the—" Irwin Frost shook his head. There was no such algorithm in ANAD's memory, that he could think of. ANAD refusing to stop replication...that could only mean one thing: a logic fault somewhere in his CPU. A breakdown in code somewhere.

And several miles away, the assembler swarm was replicating out of control.

There was only one thing to do.

Frost grimly dredged up the code of the back door cutoff from memory.

"ANAD...this is a command override. Authorization is Moses Level One. Override all executive modules. Transfer executive control to this node. ANAD...this is a command override—"

Though he could not see it, Frost knew that somewhere several miles away in a snow-dusted valley west of Haleyville, Idaho, the shimmering blue-white ball of light that was an assembler swarm in exponential overdrive was fast fading into a dim gray fog, boiling over the rocky outcrops and gullies like a summer morning mist.

At least, that's what he hoped was happening.

The Sim Tank at Table Top's Ops Center was crowded with brass when Doc Frost came in. Major Kraft was there, his forehead veins taut with worry over the fate of Gopher's crew. Murchison, the project engineer, was present, as was General Alexander Kincade, c/o of Quantum Corps' Western Command and base commander at TableTop.

The assembled officers were studying a 3-D display of geologic strata created by SOFIE. A flashing red dot embedded in layers of rock indicated the geoplane's estimated position.

Kincade stroked a bushy moustache. "This is where ANAD says Gopher is located?"

"That's affirmative, sir," Kraft told him. "We worked out the coordinates with Doctor Frost here, an hour ago. Best estimate puts them about a thousand feet down, some twenty-one miles northwest of here, past Hunt Valley and below Signal Mountain. We've confirmed some small-magnitude seismic vibration in the general area of this location...consistent with a source of that size. It's probably pumps and valves in their power plant and environmental control system."

"And the crew?"

"Alive when ANAD left the geoplane."

Frost explained how the assembler swarm had bored its way gingerly to the surface. "General, if what ANAD tells me is true, Gopher's trapped and in critical condition. Time is very short. If we don't begin rescue operations soon, the crew—Captain Winger and Captain Tallant—won't survive. They may have only a few hours left."

Kincade mulled over the situation. "Suggestions, gentlemen. This is a tough one."

Murchison pointed out the latest acoustic profile of the underground strata. "If we try to drill, we stand a good chance of loosening this fault enough to slip again. I'm not sure Gopher can survive that."

Frost interjected a point. "After interrogating ANAD, I learned that he bored a small tunnel to reach the surface. This path is microscopic, approximately ten microns in diameter. ANAD recommends using that hole, bored out to a larger diameter, to rescue the crew."

Murchison was skeptical. "I don't think the fault is stable enough to do that. We're getting low-magnitude tremors all the time now. It's just a matter of time before the crustal plates move again."

"All the more reason to move now," Kraft argued. He studied the three-dimensional diorama that SOFIE had projected. "Just how do we extract Winger and Tallant through a small borehole?"

Frost elaborated on ANAD's idea. "Continue nanobotic swarm operations inside the hole, removing just enough material to make a passage wide enough to crawl through. ANAD can secure the boundaries of the opening with a massive enough swarm, kind of like forming a barrier to keep the tunnel open."

"But how do we get them out?" Murchison asked.

Kraft saw a way. "Lower a couple of hypersuits. That'll give them air to breathe and their boot thrusters can lift them out."

Kincade paced around the Sim Tank, circling the floating projection of Signal Mountain and its buried geoplane. "Damned tricky, if you ask me. But time is short." The base commander's moustache seemed to straighten out when he had made a decision. "Let's get going. Get ANAD reconfigured and programmed to widen that bore hole. And get the battalion medics out there too. There's no telling what kind of condition those troopers will be in when we pull 'em out."

First Nano's rescue squad lifted to the surface coordinates that ANAD had identified. The location turned out to be a small ravine deep with powdery snow, on the western flanks of Signal Mountain.

As the squad offloaded their gear from the lifters, Major Kraft stepped off the platform and looked around, spying a pair of staghorn elk studying them from a small ledge halfway up the side of the mountain.

Fellas, he muttered to himself, you're about to see something you've never seen before. I just hope to God this cockamamie stunt works.

He wasn't sure First Nano could survive without Winger and Tallant on board.

The ANAD swarm emerged from the mobile TinyTown that had been lifted to the site. Doc Frost linked in to give ANAD last minute instructions.

"Just make the hole wide enough to let a hypersuited trooper through, ANAD. Use the dimensions I gave you. I've loaded a new config, optimized for disassembly of basaltic molecular lattice. I don't have to remind you that time is of the essence."

Hovering like a backlit ground fog, the ANAD swarm flickered and pulsated with eerie radiance as it maneuvered to enter the ground. Already replicating quickly, the fog was swelling as it gained enough mass to attack the hard black volcanic rock that lay beneath the snow.

***ANAD estimates seven hours, sixteen minutes to reach the target. ANAD requests permission to re-config part of my swarm when near the target***

"Re-config? For what purpose, ANAD?"

***Below the nine hundred foot level, standard densitometer reading, ANAD is within an hour of reaching the geoplane. If ANAD had config data for respirocyte conversion, part of my swarm could continue on to the target through the existing hole and provide an oxygen boost to the crew. Analysis indicates oxygen levels will be at life-threatening minimums in six hours and forty-five minutes***

It was a tempting strategy but General Kincade nixed the idea. "Tell ANAD to concentrate all efforts on boring and shoring up a wider hole, so we get those troopers out of there."

Frost issued the final command string to ANAD's processor and authorized the assembler master to begin operations.

The swarm sank toward the snow drifts as Frost warned the rescue squad away from the injection point. Soon enough, the snow blazed with a fierce blue-white radiance as the assembler swarm filtered into the snow bank and attacked the hard frozen ground below. In minutes, the entire ravine was bathed in a white hot incandescence, as the globe of light gradually subsided into the earth, like a miniature sun setting beside Signal Mountain.

Bit by bit, the snow bank melted and melt water ran in streams down the ravine's gullies, revealing bare ground underneath. But the ground was no longer solid rock. Instead, it boiled and billowed like a mirage speckled with a billion tiny explosions going off all at once, as ANAD bots broke atomic bonds and burned their way into the molecular lattice of rock.

There was little the rescue squad could do now but wait. Wait and hope. Doc Frost returned to a nearby lifter to monitor ANAD's progress. Acoustic pulses came back to him on the coupler circuit, along with system status and overall borehole conditions. Frost plotted the results on a vertical profile chart, to show ANAD's current location.

Seven hours and sixteen minutes seemed to last an eternity.

It was Dana Tallant, curled up in a fetal position on the command deck floor, who first sensed a presence around her. She sat up, felt the increase in heat, shook herself into a groggy sort of consciousness and spotted the faint aura of a shimmering smoke billowing out from behind the main console.

She smelled it too. Something was burning. An electrical fire?

"Wings...Wings!—" she yelled. Staggering to her knees, she peered under the console. "Wings...we got a fire! Get up here—" She groped around in the failing light, breathing hard, sucking for air, feeling for a fire extinguisher. Any fire now could rapidly deplete their last remaining oxygen.

Johnny Winger stirred himself awake and saw Tallant frantically rummaging about the cabin.

"What is it? What's --?"

"There's smoke...right there under the console! We must have an electrical fire!"

Before he could respond, a faint chime sounded in the back of Winger's mind. It was ANAD...the tiny assembler had returned!

"ANAD!" Winger swung himself down from the seat, coughing in the stale, stagnant air. His head pounded and his ears rang from the CO2 buildup. "It's ANAD!"

Tallant sat down heavily as she realized Winger was right. Semi-conscious and exhausted, she had mistaken the faint blue mist for a fire.

***ANAD acknowledges...returning from the surface. I have brought a search and rescue squad. Doctor Frost re-configged my processor to optimize my effectors. I have widened the original borehole to thirty inches diameter. Surface rescue is sending two hypersuits down the hole. My instructions are to assist you in any way possible***

Winger's eyes widened. "You enlarged the hole? And hypersuits too? This is looking better all the time."

***ANAD has config patterns for respirocyte bots. If you need additional oxygen boost, ANAD can replicate respirocytes***

Winger explained all that ANAD had told him. A huge wave of relief came over Tallant's face.

"Might be a good idea, Wings. At least until we get the tin cans on."

Winger agreed. "ANAD, Doc Frost gave you the config?"

There was a pause before the assembler responded.

***Doctor Frost does not know ANAD loaded the respirocyte config. He said ANAD should focus all processor capacity on boring and supporting the hole...but ANAD loaded the config anyway. A trooper does not leave his buddies behind***

Winger mulled that bit of news over. Now, it seemed, the assembler was disregarding orders from its human handlers and initiating configurations on its own.

The less Doc Frost knows about this, the better.

"Okay, ANAD, give us some oxygen. When will the suits be here?"

"Maybe now," Tallant said. "Sounder says there's something in motion right outside the hull...and it's not the earth."

"It's probably them," Winger decided. "How do we get the suits inside the cabin?"

***ANAD has opened a path through the borer module. The forward bulkhead and horn have been disassembled. Remove the main console and you will have access***

"Jesus," Winger muttered. "ANAD has practically burned away the whole front of Gopher."

ANAD detached a part of the swarm that had already replicated into respirocytes. He and Tallant let the swarm enter orally, coughing as the dry fog filled their mouths.

"Ugh," said Tallant. "Tastes like dirt."

"Or metal chips." Winger added, though he was grateful for the oxygen boost. In a few minutes, his headaches subsided and his vision was no longer blurry. Deep inside his lungs and bloodstream, uncountable trillions of nanoscale respirocytes swapped oxygen molecules through his alveolar tissues, improving the molecule exchange a million-fold.

"Feels better," he took a deep breath, looked over at Tallant.

"Yeah, like I just swam the Pacific."

"Let's get to work." He squeezed himself below the main console and started to unfasten its mounts. "Help me get this bugger off its mounts—"

Between the two of them, they managed to push the console away from the bulkhead enough to get at the frame behind.

Winger pushed and pulled at the skin, until he had worked the panel loose. Rock dust and rubble poured into the cabin with a crashing roar.

Blinking and coughing through the dust, the two troopers pawed their way through the rock and rubble until Winger lost his balance and fell forward through a weak spot into a void. He wound up crawling through the debris into a narrow vertical shaft, buzzing with the high-freq whine of nanobots and backlit by a pale unearthly glow. It was the bore hole, guided by ANAD right into Gopher's forward compartment and shored up with a barrier screen of bots.

It was like being inside of a kaleidoscope.

Winger raised his head up to look around and hit his head on something hard. Feeling with his hands, he realized he was squatting under the treaded boot of a hypersuit.

"I think I found our suits," he called back to Tallant. "I just hit my head on one."

An hour later, Winger and Tallant were grunting and panting, trying to contort themselves into ANAD's tunnel. With effort and a lot of shoving, Winger was able to force Tallant, now encased in full hypersuit, up into the shaft.

"What kind of clearance do you have?"

Tallant bit her lip. She was not going to succumb to claustrophobia now.

"Maybe an inch around my head. It's a tight fit."

"Can you see anything above you?"

"I can see a wall of rock screened off by bots. It's like the wall is bubbling and heaving. But I can reach out and touch it with my helmet. Above me, it's black as night. Can't see a thing."

"It's probably going to be a bumpy ride. Close your eyes and think of something more pleasant—"

"Yeah...like what? Like you naked on the beach."

"Right. Just light off your suit boost and get going. It's a long way to the surface."

Amen to that, she thought. Maybe a little prayer would help too. She took a deep breath, counted to three and pressed a button on her wristpad with her other hand.

Then she started to move upward, smacking the side of her helmet on the hard rock walls.

She continued her painstaking ascent for what seemed like hours, maybe days. She soon lost all track of time and space.

Only the labored sound of her breathing—her helmet visor was getting pretty fogged up—and the bang and crunch of her hypersuit scraping along the tunnel walls gave her any sense of motion.

She tried reducing the suit boost to see if it had any effect on the scraping but it didn't.

Guess I'm going to be a billiard ball when I get topside, she told herself. She wondered how long that would take. She would have given anything to know where she was, how close to the surface she was. This was worse than Kurabantu and being underwater. Pitch black, in a narrow tube the size of a coffin, with no idea where she was or where she was going.

It was enough to drive a girl to drink.

How long she had passed out, she didn't know. But her mouth was bone dry and there wasn't any liquid in the chin tube; she must have sucked it all dry. Her shoulders, neck and legs throbbed from the incessant banging and battering.

Maybe I'm not going anywhere, she thought. But that couldn't be. How else to explain the steady thrummm at the soles of her feet—the liftjets pulsing on and off had made her feet go numb hours ago. They had never been designed for extended duty like this.

At least, ANAD's tunnel seemed navigable, if a bit snug. She wondered where Wings was. Had he left right after her? Or was he still inside Gopher, trapped and suffocating, maybe dead?

She didn't want to think about that at all.

Suddenly she felt like she was being accelerated forward. With a sudden surge, she was pushed upward, through loose soil...then light...blindingly bright light and before she realized what had happened, she was the surface, wallowing in deep snow like a beached whale.

Strong hands helped her upright and a blur of faces were just outside her helmet, but the visor was grimy and fogged and she couldn't make out anything.

She was wobbly but all the hands and her own suit gyros kept her upright.; She felt the helmet quick disconnect go, then a stream of cold freezing air leaked in around her neck dam and the helmet came off with a jerk.

The first face she saw was Major Jurgen Kraft, scowling in at her bruised, sweaty face.

"Well, well," Kraft said, "aren't you a sight? Lieutenant Tallant, welcome back to the land of the living."

With help from the rescue squad, her hypersuit was clamshelled open and Tallant lifted carefully out. She was quickly placed into a life-support pod and taken to a nearby lifter.

Kraft pulled General Kincade aside. "We'll give her a good look-over, General. She's been through quite an ordeal."

Kincade nodded. "And the geoplane? That's the prototype down there. How long does this set us back? UNSAC has given us until December 4 to mount an operation against Red Hammer."

"We've got to recover Gopher's data recorders and find out what happened. I've already issued orders for Murchison and the engineers to triple-shift construction of the second geoplane. Mole will be ready to test by the end of the week. But after we recover the data recorders, there may be more changes."

A commotion interrupted the two officers. Kraft went back to the borehole opening. There in the pile of loose snow and dirt, another hypersuit was emerging from the ground, a giant egg being hatched by the earth.

Johnny Winger was nearly unconscious when he was pulled from the hard shell and laid into a life pod. Doc Frost and two Battalion medics scoped and examined him carefully.

"Dehydration...maybe a little hypercapnia," Frost pronounced. "A little oxygen boost and some fluids should do the trick." He backed off while the pod was littered to the lifter.

Kincade came over and Kraft saw the frown of concern on the General's face. "Doc says he'll be okay. The kid's dehydrated and a little short of breath...the techs are checking out his hypersuit now."

"I want a debriefing on the geoplane test at 0600 hours tomorrow morning, Kraft. I want to know what happened and why. I've got to give UNSAC an update later in the day."

"You'll have it, sir."

Kincade was thoughtful. "We'd better review the op plan for Tectonic Strike one more time...go over all the details. And bring Murchison and your tactical group. I want to know if an underground assault is still a viable option, in light of what's happened."

Kincade left to board the second lifter, while Kraft joined Doc Frost at Johnny Winger's life pod. The transparent doors of the pod were already shut. Inside, already hooked up to a forest of tubes, the atomgrabber was grimy and bruised on his face, his cheeks swollen and pale.

What kind of hell did you and Tallant go through, Captain? the Major wondered. The life pod was hoisted aboard the lifter and secured. Kraft climbed aboard as well.

No one seemed to notice the faint dimly illuminated wisp of fog that seeped in with the rest of the rescue squad and nestled out of sight between some storage racks.

The two lifters took off together, in a tornado of snow and dirt, and turned southwest, heading back across Hunt Valley toward Table Top Mountain.

"It's obvious the geoplane design needs more work," Kraft was saying to the assembled briefing. "And equally obvious that coordinated subterranean operations with ANAD needs more practice."

The briefing room at the underground Ops Center was packed. Kraft had the floor and SOFIE was running visuals. General Kincade was there, too, scowling and rubbing his moustache, along with Winger and Tallant and the rest of the Battalion. Doc Frost sat in the back.

"We can't afford to practice much more, Major," Winger said. "Amazon Vector's on the loose again. Doc Frost just took the latest results from BioShield."

Kraft recognized the doctor from Northgate, granted temporary clearance to be at the classified meeting.

Frost was grim. "The bubbles of modified air are expanding again, as swarms begin to link up. There's a growing supercolony aggregating across the entire Southern Hemisphere, from South Africa, through the Indonesian archipelago, to the coast of Chile. Johannesburg and Djakarta have reported tens of thousands dead, probably millions are fleeing north, by boat, on foot, any way they can. Whole swaths of the southern Indian and Pacific Oceans—" Frost ticked off the list and SOFIE highlighted the affected areas in red on a 3-D globe—"the Seychelles Islands, the Andamans, the Gilberts, the list goes on and on, showing areas now essentially uninhabitable. BioShield is reporting mass casualties on Borneo and Fiji, thousands of corpses offshore, floating like rafts in the ocean swells. With the changes in the atmosphere effected by Amazon, deaths from increased ultraviolet radiation, exposure, asphyxiation, hypercapnia and other related causes are soaring."

"This may be the final push," said Tallant. "The last offensive."

Kincade had heard enough. "Don't forget the flooding, caused by icecap melting. Sat video has shown almost every berg off the Antarctic coast calving at two and three times the normal rate. Coastal cities will be underwater in several weeks...we're talking New York, Miami, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Mumbai." Kincade abruptly stood up. "We can't wait any longer. Murchison--?"

The project engineer replied, "Here, General—"

"What is the status on Mole, the second geoplane?"

Murchison consulted a thoughtpad he had clipped to his belt, scrolling down through the outstanding items. "Tread system and controllers have been installed this morning. The borer went on-line yesterday; we've tested it with a small denatured swarm but a full-up test isn't scheduled for another three days. Power plant, controls, environmental systems are all operational and tested."

Kincade prowled the briefing room like a caged animal. "UNSAC wants to know when Tectonic Strike can get underway. We're behind—several weeks behind—and every hour's delay—" he indicated SOFIE's globe—"well, I don't have to remind you of the cost. BioShield is engaging the Amazon swarms at dozens of places around the Southern Hemisphere but it's just a holding action. BioShield doesn't have the nano we have. Unless we can put Red Hammer's base out of action, Amazon Vector will continue to expand. In time, it may affect the Northern Hemisphere, then the whole planet. Casualty figures then become...who can say?"

"An extinction-level event," said Frost, for him. "Given enough time. Another mass extinction. Earth has seen it a number of times."

Murchison shook his head. "We've been selected for extinction. Evolution rolled the dice and the human race has come up snake eyes."

"Not quite yet," Kincade said. "The Red Hammer base must be put out of action. What's the status on Gopher?"

"Gopher is not recoverable, General," Murchison admitted. "She's too deep and too badly damaged. We're building a second Gopher, but the frame's just been laid down. We're weeks from having a testable vehicle."

"Listen to what I'm saying, gentlemen," Kincade growled. "We don't have weeks. At best, we have only days. If we allow these swarms to continue to coalesce, by the end of the year, the entire planet will be enveloped. We won't be able to engage and defeat Amazon with anything we have, with any conceivable ANAD technology, if that happens. We've got to stop it now!"

"What are you suggesting, General?" Kraft asked.

Kincade consulted a calendar. "December 4 is only two weeks away. When this briefing is over, I'm sending UNSAC a reply to his question. Tectonic Strike will commence operations on December 4. That means you will engage Red Hammer at their base on the Tibet/Nepal border with whatever you have in hand at the time. Geoplane transports, weapons, tactics, personnel, and training, ANAD swarms...Kraft, you and your people have two weeks to pull it all together."

The small vein on the Major's forehead was red and swollen, a sure sign Kraft was about to blow. He glared at Murchison, Winger, Tallant and Frost. Then, grimly, he acknowledged the General's order.

"First Nano will be ready and in position, General. All we need is your H-hour signal to go."

"I'll get that to you as soon as UNSAC issues final approval and the operational orders are cut. There are still a few little diplomatic niceties to observe with the Chinese at the UN before that happen."

"General, what about the underlying geology of the target area? Uttar Pradesh state and southwest Tibet are similar to this area, from what the geos tell me. Basaltic rock crisscrossed with fault lines, not all of them mapped very well. There's a good chance an underground assault may cause more slippage, more seismic shifting. Worst case...we could lose the assault team before the assault begins."

Kincade's lips tightened and his moustache bristled. "I'm well aware of that, Murchison. We'll just have to take the chance...or find another way to get at that base."

Winger swallowed hard and stole a glance at Tallant. She kept her eyes focused on the 3-D globe, with its swelling splotches of red indicating the growth of the Amazon swarms. It was an infestation on a planetary scale, nearly half a world consumed and so far, they'd done little to even slow it down.

"We'll make it work, General," she said. "Look at the globe, sir. It's like a cancer spreading."

Like evolution speeded up, thought Frost. Or evolution in reverse, re-creating the conditions of the primordial Earth. But he didn't say any of that. He had no proof. Only faint traces from the core processors of a captured demonio and a few theories to try and make sense of them.

"A pretty apt analogy, Captain. And we can no longer afford the luxury of half measures to deal with it. This is one disease that's going to take radical surgery to root out."
CHAPTER 11

Puranpur, India

December 1, 2068

0530 hours

The Lama Zohar hadn't seen such a gathering since the day the monastery opened twenty five years ago. He stood on the stone parapets of the ancient dun-colored building, originally built during the days of Alexander the Great and watched a flock of black lifters streak by overhead, then settle to earth by the entrance to the abandoned Pura River ruby mine. At the same time the lifters came, a convoy of military trucks and transports roared through the village on their way up the meandering gravel road to the same Pura River mine entrance two miles away.

All the trucks bore the blue earth logo of UNICORPS. Decades after Pura River had been abandoned, the Army suddenly and without warning had acquired a keen interest in the old mine. Zohar wondered why.

As he watched the assembling of military men and equipment at the head of the rugged valley, Lama Zohar carefully poured a small pouch of black seeds into a bowl on the edge of the parapet. He made a swirling pattern in the seeds with his fingers, mumbled a soft incantation to the Enlightened One, then poured the seeds back into his pouch, repeating the process several times.

A nearby teacher, a rinpoche clad in saffron robes from a distant monastery, observed Zohar carefully. The Lama explained, over the racket of the lifters: "One must endure the boredom of repetition eight times, before the natural energy of the seeds will come forth. Only then will you free yourself from want."

The rinpoche, a bespectacled and wrinkled old skeleton, nodded wisely. It was true. All things possessed their own life energy. One had but to still one's mind to hear the rhythm of nature's frequency. The teacher closed his eyes and willed himself to utter silence, slowing his breathing and heart rate with fierce concentration.

Only the distant hum of lifter jets and a growing sense of foreboding interrupted the rinpoche's meditation.

For Johnny Winger, the assault force now gathering along the hard, pebbly banks of the Pura River was also quite a sight. First Nano had veetolled in on a squadron of lifters from Table Top and Quantum Corps East at Singapore. All of their gear was now being offloaded by men and packbots, marshaled in neat rows outside the mine entrance.

The trucks and tracks were UNICORPS motorized units, specifically UNICORPS 1st South Asian Brigade, 2nd Company, or 2/1 UNICORPS South, as it was known to the soldiers who manned the column. The commanding officer was a small-boned Indian officer with a high forehead, sunburned skin and a toothy smile, Captain Vanilu.

Vanilu loudly supervised the deployment of 2/1, spreading his men and their robot totes around the perimeter of the valley, cordoning off the Pura River at the monastery on the south end and at a narrow pass in the higher elevations to the north.

"We make you a secure perimeter," Vanilu explained. "Keep the villagers out, while you set up."

Villagers, yes, thought Winger. But 2/1 UNICORPS had no nanobot swarm defense embedded with it. For that mission, 1st Nano would be on its own.

Time to put ANAD to work.

"Fall out!" Winger ordered and the three nearest lifters disgorged their crews into combat formation. Winger counted them off, as the troopers scattered to their duties around the landing zone.

Operation Tectonic Strike was about to get underway.

"Full hypersuits!" Winger yelled over the crewnet. "Get those tin cans on and zipped up! Get the gear staged forward to the mine entrance. Al, you and Gibby help Captain Tallant with the geoplanes." Winger headed off from the landing zone to see about the offloading of Gopher and Mole from the cargo lifters. It was a ticklish operation, looking for all the world like huge black spiders hatching long, cylindrical eggs.

"Oh, boy," muttered Deeno D'Nunzio, as she snapped her helmet down and secured her own suit. Servos whirred as she flexed her limbs. "I just can't wait to climb into my garbage can."

"It's for your own good," said Sheila Reaves, as she struggled with the HERF guns, rocking one back and forth until it could be hoisted onto a packbot for transfer. The HERF would be loaded into Mole's tail pod, where most of their equipment and munitions were stored for the mission. "You want to crawl like a worm underground for two hundred miles without one?"

D'Nunzio wisecracked, "I don't want to crawl underground for two hundred nanometers. And the only worm I want to see is in a tall cool glass of tequila."

For the next several hours, 1st Nano deployed its equipment around the entrance to the mine and checked out the two geoplanes. Squatting on the river banks, Mole and the newest Gopher looked like huge caterpillars, their circumferential treads squealing in the crisp early morning air. Dana Tallant was already on the command deck of Gopher, flexing its articulating grapple arms and wearing in the treads, readying the geoplane for its critical mission. Winger had chosen Al Glance, the detachment's CC2, to pilot Mole.

Winger decided to launch ANAD before they got underway. It was against all regs, but he didn't care. The tiny assembler seemed to behave better when it was allowed out of containment, congregating in flickering translucent swarms in odd corners of the geoplanes.

***it's good to be out, Control...ANAD is currently in State 1 config, receiving signals on all channels...how do you read me?***

"I read you just fine, ANAD," Winger said, as he climbed up the ladder and into Gopher. "Just stay out of the way and don't touch anything, okay?"

***ANAD is fully prepared to support the mission...all effectors are primed and ready...propulsors are at full charge...processor core initialized and set at zero state...just let me at 'em***

As Winger boarded the geoplane, the assembler swarm filtered and flowed right behind him, like a faithful pet following its master.

Winger spent a few minutes checking the new Gopher's outfitting and gear from bow to stern, then he consulted with Tallant and the rest of the crew on mission details and comm protocols. After a last minute briefing on geological formations along the traverse route, Winger received a message off the satlink from Table Top base. It was Major Kraft. The Major's face appeared haggard and tired on the screen.

"General Kincade just squirted me the final orders, Captain," Kraft was saying. "I'm sending them along...don't go without a hard copy onboard. UNSAC has approved Tectonic Strike in full, all details and constraints as we discussed before. Have you got your course set?"

"Plotted and laid in," Winger reported. He sat in the mission commander's seat alongside Tallant, who was still checking systems off a checklist. "We're descending to two thousand feet a few miles north of the Pura River to get below the hardest basaltic layers...and to slip around a transverse fault the geos say is there. We head out north by northeast for about fifty miles, cross below the Nepalese border and rise to one thousand feet below the Namse Pass, where the shales are little better for boring. Fewer inclusions to deal with."

Kraft was following his own copy of the assault course on a screen at his desk at Table Top. "Exactly...Then from there, you cross the Tibetan border at one thousand feet depth, roughly paralleling the Gangdise Shan range—should be some tougher boring there, from what the geos tell me...lots of igneous stuff, quartzite and so forth. You'll have to slow down. And there are subduction zones all along that range. The base of the mountains is being driven northward by the Indian tectonic plate, so there are tremors and shifting all the time. Watch yourself."

"Don't worry about that, Major." Winger patted the main console. "Murchison says this Gopher should take real good care of us. From the Gangdise Shan, it should be a fairly straight shot into the Paryang Valley."

"Watch your densitometer closely, Captain," Kraft warned. "Follow the course profile as precisely as possible. UNIFORCE mapped these strata pretty well the last few weeks. With all that plate subduction going on west of Paryang, you could set off some seismic activity without meaning to. We don't want to give Red Hammer—of the Chinese—any warning at all."

"Understood, sir."

Kraft looked up. His eyes narrowed on the screen. "Get in and get out, Winger. Get up there and turn that base into rubble. Then get the hell out of there. With any luck, that'll sever all the control links to the Amazon swarms. Once they're cut off from control and from each other, BioShield thinks they can be engaged and defeated individually."

"We'll be nearly a week getting into position, Major. But we've got ELF and the quantum coupler circuits to stay in touch with the surface. I'll check in once every twenty-four hours, give you an update."

"Good luck, Captain," Kraft nodded. "And good hunting. Smash the bastards for good."

Winger signed off just as Gibby poked his head up between the command deck consoles.

"Status report, Captain. The lifter loadmasters say we've got everything on board." He handed over a thoughtpad with all the items checked off.

Winger scrolled the pages. "Weapons..." he muttered, mouthing the gear the packbots had loaded aboard the geoplanes: HERF guns, mag weapons, coilgun bots and twenty-two thousand kinetic rounds. "That should be enough to blow up a small city. Hypersuit support gear...Mission support—" He let the thoughtpad detail the location, status and quantity of every piece of gear they had aboard. Containment systems for borer and tactical ANAD, ANAD interface control boxes, SuperFly recon bots (two squads), Camou-fog generators (four canisters), MOBnet canisters (eight).

"Looks like it's a wrap, Gibby. Everything squared away outside?"

The IC2 nodded. "Pilots are itching to get the hell out of here. Apparently, there's a lot of townspeople and monastery folk gathering at the south end of the valley. That Indian officer—"

"Captain Vanilu, I believe."

"Yes, sir...Captain Vanilu is having quite a time holding the perimeter."

"Just as long as nobody sees what happens to Gopher and Mole. We don't want any spies reporting two geoplanes disappearing inside the ruby mine. Get Reaves and Singh out there, to give Vanilu some backbone."

"On my way, Captain." Gibbs disappeared belowdecks.

Half an hour later, the lifters were ready for departure. At Singh's suggestion, Winger had agreed to coordinate the first movements of the geoplanes with the takeoff of the lifters. Both pilots had agreed to apply maximum power at takeoff, to stir up plenty of dust around the landing zone. Camouflaged by such a gale, Winger then planned to push the geoplanes forward into the ruby mine. Once out of view, their borers would be activated and the vehicles would begin burrowing into the underside of the mountain, beginning their long descent below ground.

Dana Tallant heard the go signal over her headset. All five lifters were churning up a small hurricane outside. Both of them could hear the staccato ping of pebbles and rocks against Gopher's hull.

"Let's go," Winger ordered. "That's our cue to get out of here."

"Engaging tread drive now," Tallant reported. With a jerk, Gopher surged forward, crawling along the riverbank and into the mine shaft opening. Right behind her, Mole followed like a huge caterpillar. The second geoplane was piloted by Al Glance.

The two vehicles trundled out of view, their movements well concealed in the maelstrom of dust, heading deeper into the ruby mine, down a narrow side branch that had been widened just enough to accommodate them.

Outside, the squadron of lifters leaped into the sky and wheeled about in formation, heading up and away from Puranpur and its clear, cold, foaming mountain river and its ancient monastery, heading back to waiting hyperjets at Singapore base.

"Here's the end of the mine shaft," Tallant announced. She indicated the profile on Gopher's acoustic sounder. "Solid rock dead ahead."

"Borer on line?" Winger asked.

"Up and swarming. All parameters normal. ANAD reporting ready in all respects."

Winger took a deep breath. The two geoplanes were about to commit to the underground phase of the assault. He glanced over at his co-pilot; both of them exchanged knowing looks. They both understood the risks they were about to take.

"Let's do it," Winger ordered.

One compartment behind them, Sergeant "Moby" M'bela was nervously stroking a handful of amulets and talismans, clinking them in a staccato rhythm. The CEC1 mumbled incantations in his native Ibo dialect, imploring the spirits of earth to watch over the small assault force.

Deeno D'Nunzio was annoyed. "Moby, you're going to wear the finish right off those trinkets. Give it a rest, how about it? You're driving us all nuts with all that witch doctor stuff."

M'bela never opened his eyes, only muttering, "The spirits of earth are unhappy. Many rumblings...kipwesi sends fire...I try to calm them."

"Yeah? Well those spirits aren't the only ones unhappy. Stuff those beads before I stuff them down your throat."

Taj Singh was right behind them, scrolling a copy of the Bhagavad Gita on his wristpad monitor. "Moby's right...it can't hurt to placate the spirits. We're in their world now...Vishnu is angry...I sense it too. There are forces about us that we don't understand."

D'Nunzio was about to reply but all talk ceased aboard Gopher's C deck, as the high wail of nanobotic activity came through the hull. At the same moment, the geoplane slowed noticeably and a pronounced shudder rolled through the hull.

"That's it, then," said Mighty Mite Barnes. She forced herself to remain calm, eyeing the hull frames warily. "We're headed below ground." The whole of C deck suddenly fell quiet.

An unmistakable creaking could be heard as the borer bit into the hard rock and Gopher angled down into the earth.

The assault plan called for Gopher to take the lead position in boring and Mole to follow behind. The first twenty hours of boring took the two geoplanes down from the Puranpur ruby mine into hard basaltic rock layers, to an ultimate depth of three thousand feet below the surface. Seismic charts had indicated a broad layer of the black volcanic rock underlay most of India's Uttar Pradesh state and gave the geoplanes a solid structure to tunnel through for nearly a hundred miles north.

Somewhere inside the Nepalese border, a few miles southwest of the Namse Pass, the geos had determined that the basaltic layer thinned out, abutting inclusions of quartzite and shale, with magma channels embedded in the rock.

It was this transition zone, a subduction zone according to the geos, that posed the greatest risk to transit by the geoplanes. The entire region was crisscrossed with fragile lava tubes and fracture faults in the rock, evidence (said the analysis) of billions of years of strain brought on by the collision of the Indian and Asian tectonic plates.

It was there that Gopher and Mole would have to slow down and sound carefully ahead, taking extreme care not to let their borers loosen too much rock.

Even the slightest weakening could lead to a complete rupture and a cascade of rock plates shifting.

Johnny Winger had no wish to tempt Fate again.

"Borer on line at nearly one hundred percent," Tallant reported. "We're chewing through this rock like it was butter...a blistering three miles an hour."

Winger acknowledged the report. "Tread system status?"

Tallant checked the drive. "Tread drive engaged and operating fine...no anomalies."

"Clear sailing from here," Winger said. Only the slightest vibration from the treads came through Gopher's hull. "Anything from Mole?" Their sister geoplane was trundling along several hundred feet behind, following in the same tunnel already bored out by Gopher.

"Mole reported all systems on line and nominal, at last check-in." Mission rules required a comm check and status report every hour between the two geoplanes. "In fact, Al Glance requested permission to max out the borer and speed up a little. He says his crew's getting antsy."

Winger snorted. "Tell them to take some pills. I can't exceed the recommended boring speed...the bots can't remove debris any faster. We'd just wind up spinning our treads for no reason."

They both fell silent for a few minutes. Winger eyed the densitometer on the main panel. It read fourteen hundred feet, nearly a quarter of a mile below the surface. According to the profiler, Gopher was traversing layers of extremely hard igneous rock, richly veined with inclusions of iron and magnesium. The layers formed a dense mass of some of the hardest rock on earth, in a zone of tremendous pressure caused by the northward movement of the Indian Ocean plate against the Asian plate, a zone of grinding force and constant shifting and slipping.

It was also a zone of near constant seismic activity.

Gopher and Mole plowed ahead for hours, making steady progress along the first leg of their course. Four hours after the two geoplanes had entered the abandoned ruby mine, Tallant announced a new navigation hack off the quantum coupler signal coming from Singapore base.

"We're across the border now," she reported. "Or rather underneath it. Inside Nepal...and on course. Closest town is Silgarhi, fifteen miles ahead and fifteen hundred feet above us."

Winger yawned and stretched. "Take over, will you? I'm heading aft to see what's in the Stores lockers. When's our first turn?"

"At Namse Pass...seven hours and twenty minutes away, if we stay on course at this speed. Profiler says we've got hard basalt all the way."

"Good for tunneling," Winger said as he ducked down through the access tube. "You want anything from the fridge?"

"Negative. Just get back up here as soon as you can, Wings. I like having extra eyes on the densitometer and the profiler. We may yet have to slam on the brakes before we get to the target... maybe alter course."

"Maybe I've got more faith in ANAD than you. If there are any voids or faults out there, the borer bots are programmed to stop boring immediately. We've got fail-safe cutoffs this time."

"Maybe," said Tallant, "but ANAD's been just ornery enough lately to make me feel a little uneasy."

Winger disappeared down the access tube. He decided to check out the rest of the detail, sacked out in varying stages of sleep and undress on C deck.

"Welcome to the nursery, Captain." Mighty Mite Barnes had a drop cloth out on the deck; she was oiling and cleaning a disassembled coilgun carbine while behind her, Deeno D'Nunzio grunted through several hundred crunches. "Want to play with us?"

Winger surveyed the berthing deck. Half of Tectonic Strike's assault force was here: D'Nunzio and Barnes, M'bela and Reaves, Singh and Ozzie Tsukota. The Japanese CQE2 was potting a miniature bonsai plant below his bunk, lovingly tending its leaves and branches.

"Maybe later, kids. Your gear all checked out?"

M'bela sat in a semi-circle of wooden talismans and figurines, casting spells and hexes. "Kimumba is not happy, Captain. Spirits are troubled...see how the light falls on his face...see the shadows? Omens...very bad omens...."

"Hey, that's why they issue us coilguns, Witchy," said Barnes. She held up the just-oiled barrel of the coilgun, its magnetic head gleaming. "This is what we do to bad omens."

"Atomize the bastards...that's all I got to say," snarled D'Nunzio, toweling off after her three hundredth rep. Sweat rolled down her cheeks. "Hey, Cap'n...how long we gotta live in this bug coffin? Gives me the creeps. What are we, ants or something?"

Winger smiled. At least, his troopers were in good spirits. "Just Quantum Corps troopers on a mission, Deeno. Get as much shuteye as you can. In about—" he checked the chronometer on his wristpad—" forty-five hours and thirty minutes, Gopher and Mole will surface. That's when the real fun begins."

"Do you think we can really surprise 'em?" asked Reaves, the red-haired DPS tech. She had her hypersuit helmet off, trying to re-position the padding inside for a better fit.

Winger shrugged. "Intel says Red Hammer won't be defending an approach from underground. Me...I'm not so sure. Q2 thinks they don't know we've optimized ANAD for boring. But I'd be willing to bet they've got a few surprises in store for us. But they don't have ANAD and they don't know when or where we're—"

Winger stopped in mid-sentence. A perceptible shudder had shaken the normally smooth thrummm of the geoplane's treads. Before he could continue, the rolling shudders grew to a sudden jerk, as Gopher ground to a halt. The treads went silent, but only for a few seconds.

"Oh, shit—"

"We're moving...feel it? We're sliding, left...left and downward—"

Just then, Gopher's hull was slammed hard as if they had hit something and the screech of tortured metal sounded from somewhere aft. The geoplane shook violently, knocking Winger to his knees.

"Cover yourselves...it's a fault!" He crawled on hand and knees, back into the access tube, and scrambled forward to the command deck, as the pitching and shaking grew more violent, as if the geoplane were caught in an underground landslide. Hard bangs slammed the hull as the tremor amplitude increased. Gopher was taking a hell of a beating and Winger hauled himself up the tube as fast as the pitching deck would allow. He burst onto B deck and was immediately thrown against the bulkhead.

"Secure the borer!" he yelled out.

"Already done!" Tallant came back. "Treads are off line too—"

They both held on for a few seconds as Gopher shimmied and shook like a wet dog. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the violent tremor stopped. The compartment was silent, the air thick with dust, as the geoplane hull creaked and groaned under renewed stress.

"Contact Mole...see how she fared." Winger hauled himself up to the main console while Tallant put out the call.

A few seconds later, Al Glance's scratchy voice spluttered over the comm circuit.

"...'porting a lot of damage...our borer's smashed...treads off line...we may have a hull breach—"

"Al....Al, this is Gopher...repeat your last damage report."

"It's bad, Skipper...we're smashed up here pretty good...must have hit a fault or something." Glance listed the damage to Mole, compartment by compartment. It was bad, and they were losing air too.

"Just like what happened to us," Winger muttered.

"We'd better get them out of there," said Tallant. She checked their position. "Surface coordinates put us somewhere between Talkot and Silgarhi, inside...or rather beneath Nepal. We're forty miles from Leg Number Two, the turn at Namse Pass."

Winger was just glad there were two geoplanes. "There's only one thing to do...get ANAD out to bore an escape path...and put all Mole's crew aboard Gopher."

"We can't abort," Tallant agreed. "But is there enough room?"

"We'll have to make room...and quick." He was already linking in, to talk with ANAD, explain what had happened and what had to be done. The nanoscale assembler had reluctantly agreed to return to containment, inside Winger's shoulder capsule. "We can't afford to get too far behind our mission timeline."

***ANAD responding...ANAD is detecting a problem...what is the nature of the problem?***

"ANAD—" Winger explained what had happened. "I need you to bore an escape path---wide enough for troopers in hypersuits...from Mole to Gopher."

***ANAD is not currently optimized for solid-phase disassembly. My effectors configs are set for general molecular manipulation***

"ANAD...prepare for launch on my command." He hacked at the buttons on his wristpad. "I'm sending the configs now...just get out and get going!"

He felt the brief sting of the launch and saw the translucent pale blue fog issue from his shoulder capsule. The swarm formed up directly over the main console.

"I want you to bore a path from their lockout chamber to ours...come on...." Winger got up and crawled aft through the access tube toward G deck. The fog swirled and twinkled in the command deck's fluorescent lighting, then flowed behind the atomgrabber like some ghostly pet.

The ANAD swarm departed Gopher from the Ingress/Egress chamber on G deck and immediately began boring through the hard lattice of basaltic rock. A swelling globe of light throbbed just outside the lockout, as the swarm commenced operations.

***ANAD estimating boring rate at two point five meter per hour...give me a heading, please***

Winger had returned to the command deck, after ascertaining that Gopher had sustained only minimal damage. "Acoustic sounding puts Mole on a heading of one six five degrees...estimated range is one hundred and five meters."

***ANAD acknowledges...increasing my disassembly speed to one hundred percent allowable***

Dana Tallant's face was grim when Winger replayed ANAD's reports. "At that rate, it'll take two days to reach Mole. Can Al and the others hold out that long?"

"I don't know," Winger admitted. "But there is one more thing we could try to speed up the boring."

"What's that?"

Winger was already checking out the config of the ANAD swarm loaded in the borer module. "We could re-config the borer ANAD and release that swarm to help out. It might speed things up."

Tallant acknowledged the idea had merit. "It might also be too risky. Too much ANAD boring could trigger another fault slippage. It could make things worse...a lot worse."

"True enough...but I don't think we have much choice. I'm going to do it." He tapped out commands through the main console to reconfigure the borer swarm, now located in the containment sphere at Gopher's bow. "It's a chance we'll have to take. Time's running out."

Moments later, the borer module containment port opened and the embedded swarm poured out into the rock strata surrounding Gopher. As Winger had commanded, the swarm insinuated itself aft toward the main swarm, just beginning to open up a narrow tunnel between the geoplanes. The two swarms merged, coordinating their efforts.

"Now...we wait," Winger muttered. He opened up a quantum coupler channel to Mole. "Al...Mole, this is Gopher, do you copy, over?"

Glance's voice came back, strained and tired. "Gopher, we copy...what's the verdict, Captain? Looks like Mole's finished...no treads, borer smashed, pressure hull breached...we'd like to get out of this tin can."

Winger knew how they felt, like being entombed and slowly suffocated. "Hang tight, Al...I've released Detachment ANAD to begin boring an escape route between us. And we've augmented the swarm with out own borer ANAD...it's a risk, but it'll speed things up."

Glance's voice sounded relieved. "Anything to get us out of here, Skipper. The crew's okay for now...but I don't know how much longer we can hold it together."

"Copy that," Winger replied. "Any chance you've still got your own borer ANAD on line? You could reconfig them to start a tunnel from your end...I've got the config already hacked out."

"No can do, Skipper. The whole module's smashed and we've lost containment. That swarm vanished in a hurry."

"Understood. Just sit tight then...I'm estimating breakthrough in about eighteen hours. Get your crew ready to evacuate. How's the air holding out?"

"We've got enough for now, Captain. As long as we can get out of here in eighteen hours. It's tight but, worst case, we can button up our hypersuits and use emergency air."

"Hang on, Al...ANAD's on the way. Gopher out."

The tunnel was ready in sixteen hours, faster than Winger's original estimate. He had tweaked the swarm config constantly during boring, trying to squeeze even more speed out of the assemblers. Even ANAD had complained at one point:

***Control...if you keep changing my config, we'll never make any progress. Let me optimize...then let me do my job***

Winger sniffed. Touchy little bugger. But he did as ANAD had asked.

He called Al Glance on the coupler.

"Mole, this is Gopher. ANAD tells me the tunnel is ready. Get your crew moving...I don't know how long this rock layer will keep stable."

Glance came back, "You don't have to tell us twice, Skipper. Gibbs and Calderon are already in the tunnel now. They're reporting back it's a tight squeeze."

"I'll see if ANAD can help out a bit."

The entire transfer operation took several hours. Glance, Gibbs, Calderon, Spivey, Klimuk and the rest of Mole's crew made their way, clad in full hypersuits, through the newly bored tunnel and, one by one, were helped aboard Gopher through the geoplane's lockout chamber at G deck.

Sheila Reaves and Mighty Mite Barnes helped peel off the helmet of the first of Mole's crew. It was Gibby, grimy and haggard, but smiling broadly, glad beyond words to get out of the doomed geoplane.

"You are the most beautiful women I have ever seen," he gushed.

"Gibby," Barnes chuckled, helping him climb out of the tin can, "you're obviously delirious. A little food and water will bring you back to your senses...but thanks anyway."

One after another, Mole's crew emerged from the still smoldering tunnel into Gopher's lockout. Winger came aft and counted them off.

"Where's Sergeant Glance?" he asked, when the last of the escapees had been helped out of his hypersuit.

Gibbs shrugged. "Sarge was right behind us...he wanted to bring along some gear from our Stores lockers...thought we might need it."

Winger was annoyed. He linked in on the coupler circuit. "Glance, this is Winger, do you copy? Glance, this is—" but his last words were suddenly interrupted by a shuddering vibration that went through Gopher's hull.

"It's a slide!" someone yelled.

"We're moving!"

"Hit the deck! Cover yourselves...and get that lockout hatch closed NOW!"

ANAD's tunnel had loosened just enough rock to weaken the friction holding the local plates in place. Gopher was sliding again, sliding down and to the left. The shriek of tortured metal tore through the air and a series of staccato bangs sounded as the rock plates shifted and heaved, releasing their pent-up energies.

All they could do was hold on and try to ride the tremor out. To Johnny Winger, it was like being caught in a towering ocean wave...or perhaps trapped in roiling molecular forces...trapped and carried along by forces that couldn't be stopped.

Then, almost as suddenly as it had started, the tremor was over. Amid groans and settling dust in Gopher's lockout chamber, Winger took a call from the command deck.

"Wings, this is Tallant...what's going on back there? Everybody get aboard...anybody trapped outside?"

Winger told her about Al Glance. "I'm signaling now...but I'm not getting anything on the circuit. Plus, I need to find out what's happened to ANAD."

"Remember, we still need the borer to be re-populated. The sooner we get the hell out of here, the better."

"Amen to that," Winger said. "What's our depth?"

There was a pause, then, "Densitometer's reading nearly eight thousand feet...Jesus, I don't believe it myself. It's a wonder the hull's still holding together."

Eight thousand feet...a mile and a half below the surface, below the sovereign territory of Nepal!

Winger shook his head. "And the treads...still operational?"

"For the moment...but we need to get going. This is a pretty unstable area...and we haven't made it any better by boring tunnels all over the place."

Winger switched over to ANAD's coupler circuit. "ANAD...do you read me? Do you copy? Where are you?"

For a few seconds, there was nothing but a dizzying swirl of images in the back of his mind...the staticky fritz of entanglement waves collapsing into probabilities...then the image became clearer. He was in a tight lattice, a geometrically precise formation of tetrahedral atoms extending to infinity in all directions.

***ANAD thought you would never call...after the tremor, my swarm was dispersed...we are re-grouping now...much turbulence and strong oscillations are slowing us--***

"ANAD, listen to me...we don't have all of Mole's crew aboard here...Sergeant Al Glance is unaccounted for...he may have been in the tunnel when the tremor hit. I want you to recon the area...detach daughter swarms and give me a report. Max propulsors...fold effectors for fastest possible transit."

He tapped out the config commands on his wristpad and squirted them over the coupler circuit.

***ANAD understands...re-configging now...can you give me a vector to last known position of the target?***

Winger gave the assembler what he had, which wasn't much.

Several hours later, the full realization hit Johnny Winger like a freight train.

"Face it, Wings," Tallant was telling him, as they both slurped up some protein drink concoction in Gopher's tiny galley. Taj Singh was there too, at a small table with Deeno D'Nunzio, both sorting out rations for the geoplane's now expanded crew.

"Al's gone. It's been three hours. The original tunnel ANAD bored collapsed in the tremor."

"I know..." Winger was glum. "Maybe he never left Mole. Maybe he's still stuck inside...we should—"

"—we should make our report and get underway again," Tallant insisted. She lay a gentle arm on his shoulder. "We've got a mission...we all knew there could be casualties. We're still forty-two hours away from our target."

Winger was tight-lipped. He knew she was right but it hurt all the same. They both knew what it had been like to be entombed underground in a dead geoplane. "I know, Dana." He took a deep breath, wondering if there was something else they could do. But there was no feasible way to reach the stricken Mole and the mission was in danger of falling too far behind the timeline. They had until 4 December to make their strike. After that—UNSAC had said more desperate measures would have to be taken—increasing the risk of Chinese retaliation...or worse.

"I'll get ANAD back aboard...and start him replicating more borer bots. You start the report...we're due to contact Singapore Ops in another two hours anyway...we'll have to report our first casualty."

Tallant went back to the command deck, while Winger contacted the assembler swarm.

"ANAD, call off the search...if you haven't located any remains by 1830 hours my time, re-assemble and return to the ship. I'm sending configs for re-populating the borer. We've got to get moving again."

***ANAD has already detached a small element with borer config...I sent them toward your position thirty one minutes and twelve seconds ago. Prepare module for loading...the swarm should be nearing your position***

Winger could only marvel at the prescience of the nanoscale assembler. ANAD had already anticipated the next step and divided his swarm to grow more borer bots and continue the search for Mole and the lost Al Glance at the same time.

"Thanks, ANAD...but my order stands. 1830 hours is bingo time...return to the ship after that."

After two hours, even ANAD had to call off the search. The CC1 was gone and Mole would have to be abandoned.

Johnny Winger held a brief memorial service in Gopher's galley. When it was over, he gruffly ordered everyone back to duty stations.

"Let's get underway," he said, taking his position on the command deck. "Borer on line?"

ANAD had returned to the ship and Winger had approved the swarm to remain outside containment. A smaller swarm had populated the borer module and was standing by. The main swarm had collected above and behind Winger and Tallant on B deck—the command deck—looking like a faint mist sparkling with pinprick bursts of light.

"Just stay out of the way," Winger had ordered the swarm. "And don't touch anything."

ANAD seemed petulant in reply: ***ANAD standing by for duty...you'll be needing me before long anyway...it's better to be loose and primed for config change...ANAD can respond to emergency calls faster that way***

Winger ignored the tiny assembler as best he could. "Borer up to speed?"

Tallant replied in the affirmative. "Borer ready and tread drive primed and operating."

"Give her the gun." With a jerk, Gopher started off, burrowing along at a stately two miles an hour. "How long to the next turn?"

"Heading change at Namse Pass in one hour and twelve minutes. Course is plotted and laid in."

It was a sobering realization that Winger had next. "That means we'll be in Chinese territory in about three hours...or rather, under it."

"Injun country," agreed Tallant.

Operation Tectonic Strike was about to enter its final approach phase.

The heading change came off without a glitch. Gopher tunneled ahead on a course of zero seven five degrees, heading north by northeast through hard igneous rock layers, at an average depth of six thousand feet.

After the course change, the geoplane would traverse a dense inclusion of extremely hard basaltic rock directly below the rugged Valley of Flowers, a region of steep ravines and snow-capped peaks dotted with monasteries, tent camps and goat herds, a land roamed by hardy Nepalese and Tibetan peasants for centuries. Once they crossed the sere and desolate borderland of Tibet, the approach course took them in a straight line across the foothills of the Gangdise Shan range directly under the Paryang valley, some ninety miles inside Chinese territory.

The stratigraphic and topo maps all indicated the same underground terrain for Gopher's borer to chew through: amorphous basaltic lava smashed northward and compressed over hundreds of millions of years along the margins of the great Australian and Eurasian plates. Extremely hard and dense, composed of a geochemical stew of magnesium and calcium oxides, the rock layers made perfect tunneling material, save for the fault and fracture zones, which were unstable enough to try and avoid.

Forty hours after making the course change at Namse Pass, Dana Tallant took a navigation hack off the quantum signal grid broadcast by Singapore base and announced her findings.

"Paryang valley dead ahead, Wings. Ten miles and some change."

Johnny Winger had been drifting in and out of a light doze in his commander's seat, sporadically field-stripping and cleaning a small coilgun on a drop cloth in his lap. He startled awake at Tallant's announcement.

"Show me," he said, wiping sleep from his eyes.

Tallant pointed to the profiler. It showed a simulated elevation view of the rock layers surrounding the geoplane, overlaid on a live, high-resolution sat image of the terrain seen from space. Gopher's position was indicated with a flashing star.

"We're here—" she pointed with her finger. She scrolled the view more to the northeast. A dun-colored grid of low buildings came into view, their roofs bright with recent snowfall. "That's the monastery at Paryang valley, dead center of all the entanglement waves that Q2 triangulated. Red Hammer Incorporated. I make the distance at about ten miles."

Winger nodded. "Alert the crew. Sound battle stations, too. Let's start ascending. Take us up to about five hundred feet. Rock layers?"

Tallant checked the stratigraphy maps. "Pyroxene and feldspar, mostly. Same stuff ANAD's been boring though for the last six hours. There is a small fracture in one plate...looks harmless enough."

"Give it a wide berth," Winger ordered. "I don't want any tremors now...at least, not until we're in place and ready."

Tallant complied and steered the geoplane upward toward the surface. B deck inclined ever so slightly, while Winger made the announcement to the crew over the CMQ.

"This is Winger...listen up...we're ten miles from our surface objective. We're going to full battle stations on my command...button up your tin cans and load up your weapons. We'll be at the jump-off point in two hours and ten minutes." He sounded the alarm klaxon, which echoed through Gopher's hull...three sharp blasts on the horn.

Soon, bodies were stirring and scurrying through all seven decks.

"Come on!" yelled Deeno. "Get your fat asses in gear! We've got atomic butt to kick!"

"Small is all!" someone yelled from inside the access tube.

"I can't wait to get the hell out of this big friggin' metal condom!" shouted Gibby, as he snapped down his hypersuit helmet.

"Yeah, Sarge...we'll squirt you out like you know what—hey! Gimme another MOB canister...I'm going in with everything I can hang on this tin can."

The next phase of the mission would be the riskiest. Once the geoplane had reached the jump-off point, near the surface and several miles from Paryang valley, Winger would command the borer to cease operation. From this point, ANAD would be re-configged and commanded to exit the hull and form a protective barrier around Gopher, in an attempt to shield the assault team from what would come next.

When everything was in readiness, the mission plane called for ANAD to bore a series of small pilot tunnels radiating out from the jump-off point, in an attempt to generate a severe earthquake at a tectonic focal point that had been identified near the base. If calculations made by SOFIE and the geos were correct, the energy from this artificially induced tremor would nearly destroy the Red Hammer installation and every other standing structure inside Paryang valley.

The trick was to place Gopher and the assault team where the seismic shock waves wouldn't also destroy the geoplane. If the network of fracture zones and the pilot holes worked as calculated, a series of tremors up to magnitude 8.5 could be expected to roll through the valley.

Winger had no intention of letting Gopher be trapped in any sliding rock layers when that happened. In fact, contrary to the mission plan, he had already decided to surface the geoplane completely and try to ride out the tremors hunkered down somewhere in the snow-covered valley overnight.

"Approaching the surface now..." Tallant reported. Gopher's deck had angled upward sharply. "Sixty feet...now, fifty feet—"

Winger checked the time. "It's just after midnight topside. According to the maps and sat views, we should be coming up in a ravine about ten miles southwest of Paryang valley."

Moments later, the geoplane lurched forward and her forward speed suddenly dropped off.

"Surfacing...!" Tallant said.

"All stop...secure the borer, secure the tread drive. All ANAD to containment—" he turned to the flickering swarm hovering in a corner of the command deck. "That means you, too, pal."

***ANAD requests permission to remain outside of containment...the tactical situation requires rapid response--***

Winger had to admit the tiny assembler had a point. "Okay, ANAD, you win. But stay out of the way."

***ANAD is a vital part of this mission...it's my job to assist all team members with their duties...and to secure the perimeter of the detail***

Winger snorted, climbing out of his seat. "I don't need regulations quoted back to me, ANAD...even if you are right."

"What did you say?" Tallant asked. She was unstrapping herself.

"It was ANAD...I'm leaving him outside containment...for the time being."

"Is that a good idea?"

"Probably not. But there are some sound tactical reasons to keep the swarm nearby...just in case."

Gopher squatted like a black metal armadillo in the lee of a snow bank, huddled against the steep flanks of a rugged mountain known to the locals as Zapog. It was dark and windy, snow swirling about the surfaced geoplane in gusts and squalls, as Winger threw open the hatch and leaped to the ground. Right behind him, Barnes, Reaves, Gibby and Tallant dropped to the snow and set up a quick defensive perimeter, quickly boresighting and registering HERF and mag weapons on nearby peaks barely visible in the blizzard.

Winger took a hack off the navsats and pinpointed their position, which he ported to the crewnet. The entire crew soon saw the coordinates on their helmet eyepieces.

"Okay, ANAD...I'm sending a new config. When it's loaded, you'll be optimized for solid-phase disassembly. You already have the coordinates of the fracture zone...where the ground is most sensitive to boring?"

***Affirmative, Control...from my position, the fracture zone centroid is three hours and twelve minutes away***

"Very well, ANAD...prepare to launch...all effectors primed and ready?"

***Effectors are enabled...let me at 'em***

"ANAD...launch now!"

As Winger and the others huddled in the lee of Gopher's hull, the translucent and iridescent shimmering blue globe settled into a nearby snow drift. In moments, it had disappeared beneath the snow, leaving only a backlit glow, like fireflies frozen in time, steadily dissipating. In time, it was gone.

"What now, Skipper?" asked Mighty Mite Barnes. She was sighted in on her HERF gun, covering her assigned sector of the perimeter.

"We wait. Any contacts? Any evidence we've been detected?"

Dana Tallant checked with Gopher's systems. "Nothing. No EM, only background thermals, not even any quantum wake. Acoustics indicates the wind direction may be shifting...more to the southwest. Weathersats say there's a front headed for the valley."

"No nano threats?"

"Negative. The board is clean."

Winger said, "Then we may have achieved what we wanted....complete tactical surprise."

"Aren't we kind of exposed up here?" asked Gibby.

"It's a risk we'll have to take. We've got about three hours before ANAD is in position. Reaves...let's get SuperFly up and nosing about. Even in this weather, I'd like to keep a close eye on what's happening."

"Roger that, Skipper." The DPS1 went over to the geoplane's tail pod and withdrew three small suitcase-sized containers. She opened the first container and fiddled with the contraption inside. Seconds later, like a dormant bird, it sat up and began articulating its wings and rotors. Warmed up and synched with its base station, the entomopter whirred and lifted off, heading off into the snowy night sky. Reaves did this three times, powering up and launching each device skyward.

"SuperFly away, Skipper," she reported. "As soon as they link up, we'll be getting data back."

The Tectonic Strike mission was three-fold: (1) to disable the quantum coupler links between the base and the Amazon Vector superswarms, (2) render the base inoperable for future Red Hammer operations and (3) locate the source of Red Hammer's archive, the master Sphere that some intel specialists at Q2 believed had to exist, an archive likely in contact with all the proto-human demonio creatures that Winger and 1st Nano had encountered at Via Verde and Kurabantu.

The plan was that, in the chaos of the artificial tremors ANAD would generate, 1st Nano would be able to get inside the compound and achieve these objectives with a minimum of defense and resistance from Red Hammer. Just to make sure, after the tremors began, the ANAD master would rendezvous with Gopher at coordinates just outside the base perimeter to form a protective screen around the nanotroopers against the likely Red Hammer defensive nanobots they would encounter.

For nearly three hours, Gopher sat alone and motionless in a fog-shrouded, snowy valley three miles from the central Red Hammer base. Aboard the surfaced geoplane, Johnny Winger waited tensely for the big show to begin.

Finally, word came from the swarm of tiny assemblers.

***ANAD reporting swarm now in position at the following coordinates...*** the master rattled off a stream of numbers. Winger watched as Tallant plotted the position of the swarm on the stratigraphic map displayed on the main console.

"Very well, ANAD," Winger reported back over the coupler circuit. He knew that nearly a mile of solid rock separated them from the swarm. "Stand by...." To Tallant, "what's the verdict?"

The CC2 looked up. "Right on the button. He's situated between these two faults, with a major fracture zone we plotted right below him. Red Hammer doesn't know it but they're sitting on a geological time bomb."

Winger smiled. "Then it's time to light the fuse." He ordered the Detachment to return from their defensive positions and climb back aboard Gopher. "ANAD...commence the operation."

***ANAD understands...commencing solid-phase destructive disassembly...hold on to your hats, folks***

Moments later, a vast, deeply felt rumbling could be heard and felt up and down Paryang valley. A great crashing roar occurred as landslides and avalanches pummeled the ground from the high slopes around the parked geoplane.

For protection, Winger decided it was best to submerge Gopher about fifty feet below ground.

The geoplane's treads were engaged and her nose angled slightly down as the borer plowed through the snow and bit into the hard, frozen ground. In moments, they were below the surface, crawling forward toward the rendezvous coordinates.

The tremors had started, a continuous wave of tectonic plate motion and upheaval, shattering everything within miles of the Paryang valley and its ancient monastery.

Soon, the battle at Red Hammer's central base would be joined.
CHAPTER 12

Paryang Valley, Tibet, China

December 4, 2068

2235 hours

The shaking and shuddering was the worst Winger and Tallant had ever experienced aboard a geoplane. When the tremors came, the first shocks were deceivingly light. Gopher began a series of gentle, rolling motions, shuddering like a slow-motion dog shaking off water after a dip in the ocean. But they both knew that wouldn't last.

The first wave hit seconds later and Gopher rang like a bell from the impact, as hammering waves pounded them, a giant fist smashing and driving them down, deeper.

"We're going deeper!" Tallant yelled, eyeing the densitometer. "We're sliding...down and to the right!"

"I see it!" Winger had seen the same thing. The profiler showed what had happened, even as ANAD continued loosening more rock, even as the huge tectonic plates and faults shifted and heaved.

The geoplane had parked less than fifty feet below the valley floor, to avoid damage from mudslides and avalanches cascading down the mountainsides all around them.

Now, as the ground buckled and indescribably powerful forces rammed rock into rock, crumpling miles of Tibetan plateau like so much tissue paper, Winger knew they could never hope to ride out the tremors in their current position.

"I'm taking us back topside!" he announced. He pulled back on the yoke and Gopher's treads angled upward, driving them through the shifting maelstrom toward the surface. There, at least, the geoplane and her assault team could avoid being smashed completely.

Like riding a roller coaster or a raft in the middle of a hurricane, the geoplane made her way arduously upward, boring through hard granitic and basaltic layers, until after what seemed like an eternity, Tallant saw the densitometer reading fall off sharply.

"We're breaching, Wings...kill the treads!"

Gopher lurched forward and her treads spun in the air, grabbing for traction. The hull of the geoplane burrowed out of its hole and wallowed in snowdrifts and falling dirt and mud for a few seconds, before settling to a stop. Loose rock and rubble pelted the top of the hull in a steady clatter.

Winger and Tallant looked at each other. Winger wiped sweat from his eyes.

"That was close."

"Amen to that...ANAD must have found one hell of a fault zone."

Even as she spoke, the tremors seemed to be subsiding. Gopher rolled and bucked for a few more moments, but the amplitude of the shocks was definitely falling off.

"That's our cue," Winger said. He got on the crewnet. "The quakes are just about over. Prepare to exit, full combat load."

One deck behind them, 1st Nano's assault force erupted in a flurry of activity.

"All right, boys and girls...get your gear together and let's get those pretty little asses moving!" Sergeant Hoyt Gibbs growled as he clanked down his hypersuit helmet.

All around him, hypersuited nanotroopers flexed their boosted arms and legs, and the whir of suit boosters going off stirred a small tornado of dust in the compartment.

One by one, the troopers wriggled into the access tube and boosted their way aft toward the lockout chamber, each one holding his weapon in front as the lift pushed them along.

From outside, geoplane Gopher looked like a fat metallic walrus half burrowed in a snow bank. Rock and snow continued to cascade down the mountainsides as the lockout doors unsealed and swung open.

Then, one after another, the nanotroopers of the United Nations Quantum Corps fell out into the deep snow and lit off their suit boost to right themselves. With a speed and deftness born of countless hours of training, the DPS techs Reaves and Singh along with SDCs Barnes and Spivey formed themselves up into a four-point perimeter defense, sighting in their coilguns on nearby approach paths. While that was occurring, CQEs D'Nunzio and Tsukota extracted their HERF guns and registered them along the assault vector that would lead the team to the Paryang monastery, now dimly visible in the swirling snow dead ahead.

The Red Hammer command post was a shadowy jumble of stone parapets and squat towers, a faint orange-yellow glow emanating from the windows facing them.

Tallant lasered the range. "I make the distance at about two miles, from here."

Winger flicked out his tongue to the eyepiece control stud inside his helmet and changed views on his viewer. "Gibby, got anything yet?"

Sergeant Gibbs was IC2 for the Detachment but ANAD was already deployed in autonomous mode, so he had little to do for the moment. He scanned on all bands for nanobotic activity.

"Maybe something, Skipper...I'm picking up fairly high thermals just beyond that rise up ahead, kind of along that mountain wall to starboard. Some EMs, traces of bond breaking. Could be a defensive screen?"

"Better get ANAD back then," Winger decided. He linked in with the autonomous assembler over the coupler. "ANAD, cease solid-phase disassembly operations. Return to base...home on my signature. I'm sending a new config...Assault Two...we may have company."

***ANAD responding...I am embedded in dense matrix at the moment, Base...having to disperse to transit this layer...I will detach daughter swarms for faster transit...you can config manually when it arrives...estimating your coordinates in one hour seventeen minutes***

"ANAD, we may not have that much time...go to max propulsor, fastest possible transit."

He told Tallant the bad news. "ANAD's en route and he's sending a daughter swarm ahead but the rock is extremely dense and it's tedious and time-consuming."

Tallant nodded. "Not to mention risky...he could lose half his effectors moving that fast through such dense rock. I'm seeing the same thing Gibby is seeing. Here...take a look—"

Winger studied the imagery on his viewer. The computer screened out the mountains and the snow and falling rubble, showing only bands of thermal emissions and electrical activity that usually accompanied nanobotic activity.

"That's got to be nano...can we ID the signature?"

Gibby's voice came back...the IC2 had pushed out ahead to a nearby outcrop, climbing up on the promontory to get a better view of the threat. "Could be Amazon, Skipper, but it reads like Indra...similar patterns of bond breaking, some pretty high-freq molecular assembly going on up there."

"Possible config change," Tallant said. "They may have already detected us. And it seems to be expanding. Not quite Big Bang but fast enough."

"It's our reception committee," Winger was sure. "They're not quite sure what we are or how we could appear so suddenly from nowhere, so they're sent out the scouts to recon. HERF guns, you ready?"

Deeno and Ozzie replied in the affirmative at the same time.

"Sighted in and enabled, Skipper."

"Itching to pull the trigger and fry some bugs...just say the word."

Winger warned the Detachment what was coming. "HERF rounds coming up. Make yourselves small."

Like robotic polar bears, the hypersuited troopers quickly dug in and covered themselves with snow.

"Fire the HERF!" Winger commanded. He knew a few rounds of hot rf thundering across the valley would undoubtedly give their position away but it would also buy some time for the ANAD swarm to return and configure for the assault.

A rolling thunderclap reverberated up and down the valley as the radio-frequency weapons discharged. Huge seams of snow and mud came loose and fell in sheets down the mountainsides. Ahead of them, the translucent fog of a nanobot swarm flickered and popped, stunned by the discharge. The swarm began to thin out even as it rolled toward them.

"Another round!" Winger commanded. "Full bore...let 'em have it!"

"Charging now...charging...charging—" D'Nunzio came back. "Fire in the hole!"

A second thunderclap boomed out and the roar of an avalanche sounded overhead. The clatter of stunned nanobots falling to the ground was lost in the deafening roar of the slide as tons of snow and rock, a huge wave racing down the mountainside, slammed into the ground and the upper parapets of the monastery.

From her position half-buried in a snow bank behind Gopher, Sheila Reaves muttered to no one in particular: "Wow...a few more pulses like that and there won't be a target to assault."

***ANAD nearing your position, Base...changing config to Assault Two***

Johnny Winger acknowledged the report. To Dana Tallant, he said, "ANAD's approaching...I'm sending him ahead, to engage what's left of that swarm."

"The rest of us better get in position," she replied. Over the crewnet, Tallant snapped off new orders. "Reaves and Singh...you move left, cover that flank and move out. Hold your position when you reach those boulders."

"Aye, aye, Captain," came the replies. Almost as one, the two DPS techs boosted out of their burrow hole and scooted off toward a stand of boulders at the base of the mountain, to the left of the monastery.

Johnny Winger knew that executing a frontal assault on a prepared defensive position was tactical suicide but he was counting on two elements to work in their favor: the continuing shocks and tremors spasmodically jolting the valley and the smothering effect of an ANAD swarm coming at them right out of a HERF barrage.

With a one-two punch like that, he had reasoned to Major Kraft back at Table Top, we'll have the upper hand. We can breach their defenses and be inside the base before they know what's hit them.

At least, that's how they had wargamed the assault in all the sims.

For the next few moments, there was little apparent activity. The blizzard continued to blow. Only the occasional tremor shook the valley floor, loosening more seams of snow and rock.

"ANAD approaching the enemy swarms," Gibby announced. "I make the distance at under ten feet to the boundary, based on EMs."

Winger acknowledged. "Any sign our HERF barrage did some good?"

"EMs are off a lot...I'd say swarm density has dropped by half. Looks like we shattered the formation but thermals are rising fast."

"They're reconstituting," Tallant decided. "Come on, ANAD...come on—"

***ANAD maneuvering to engage now...I am in Assault Two...all bond breakers primed, effectors in position...enzymatic lens enabled...we're going in hot and fast, Base***

Winger smiled. ANAD had picked up too much jargon lately. He linked in to witness the engagement at close range, letting the dizziness subside, before he tried to orient himself. Doc Frost was right, he told himself. The link-up's getting smoother.

He was in a pounding ocean surf, buffeted by hurricane force winds and squally rain, pelting him from all sides. Johnny Winger knew better than to panic...just ride with the waves, ANAD had always told him. Wait for the crest, then turn and scoot through the trough...that was how you surfed molecules through the maelstrom of Brownian motion.

***Detecting high thermals dead ahead, Base...I'm putting my pyridine probes and abstractors out front, just in case I need to pick off a radical or two...grabbers set to close on contact***

Then he saw the first enemy bots...murky shapes barely visible, flickering and popping as their effectors grabbed atoms and broke bonds, assembling structure as the swarm reconstituted itself.

ANAD closed steadily on the target and the massive flanks of a nearby Amazon bot materialized, its sides festooned with grabbers and effectors like a nanoscale Greek trireme shipping oars.

Got to watch out for those, he muttered but ANAD already knew that. As programmed, the assembler zeroed in on the concealed cleft behind an undulating clutch of phosphate chains, the amidships weak point of Amazon bots that Winger had found by accident at Lake Vostok.

All across a broad front, uncountable trillions of ANAD assemblers duplicated the maneuver.

The swarms collided and engaged with a ferocity born of desperation. Winger grew dizzy as his linked view careened at crazy angles, vivid flashes lighting up the battleground as ANAD tore off effectors left and right, liberating millions of electrons in a blinding cascade of lightning bolts.

It was like a violent summer thunderstorm on the beach, on the Fourth of July in the middle of the Great London Blitz.

"We're kicking 'em!" Gibby exulted, studying his viewer. "Your maneuver's working, Skipper...we've got 'em by the cojones!"

Scant yards ahead of the defiladed assault team, the front courtyard of the Paryang monastery was a snowy lightshow, as auroras collided overhead and a pulsating cloud of tiny pops and flashes growing more intense by the moment, billowed outward. Furious combat erupted between nanoscale armies, a throbbing blue-white flickering fog caught like a strobe in the falling snow, with the gargoyled front columns of Paryang lending a grotesque air to the battle.

"How's it looking now, Gibby?" Winger asked.

The IC2 slithered forward a few more yards to get a better reading, scaling a snow bank scarcely a dozen yards from the monastery's front steps. He let his suit burrow him into the snow for protection.

He never saw the shadows of the Red Hammer squad skulking along behind the nearby columns, settling into ambush position below the steps. The blizzard had picked up and with all sensors trained on the swarms, the enemy troops had infiltrated the grounds unseen.

Just a momentary thermal spike on Reaves' viewer—

"Watch out!"

A volley of pulse rounds erupted from the columns. Gibbs was caught in the middle of the fusillade.

As the Detachment came under fire, the IC2 disappeared in a bright flash of rubble and fire, his hypersuited body pulverized in crisscrossing bolts of high-mag flux.

Sergeant Hoyt Gibbs never had a chance.

"Let 'em have it!" Winger yelled over the crewnet, but he didn't have to. The Detachment opened up on the enemy squad with everything they had.

"Light 'em up...do it for Gibby!" came D'Nunzio's voice.

The front portico and gargoyled columns vanished in flame and smoke, as coilgun rounds slammed into the front of the monastery.

1st Nano poured on the fire, coilguns and HERF, mag pulses and kinetic rounds, until the monastery was lost to view behind a heavy veil of smoke and swirling snow. Red gouts of flame burped from the columns...a few die hard Red Hammer holding out to the end.

"Execute clampdown!" Winger told ANAD. Even as he cautiously crept forward, an element of the assembler swarm detached itself and streamed earthward , the bots replicating furiously as they smothered the Red Hammer stragglers.

Moments later, two Nepalese Sherpa defenders staggered out of their redoubt and fell into the deep snow, clutching their faces and throats, pinned by a glowing ball of light as the swarm crushed them into the snow and held them there.

"Move out!" Winger ordered. "Detachment...into the monastery...in squad order...Deeno, you and Taj take the point!"

The two Defense and Protective Systems techs boosted forward, lifting themselves a few feet over the driving snow drifts and landed like crouching cats on the monastery portico. They made quick work of the door, lighting off a few particle beam rounds to enter the compound. The massive wooden doors dissolved in a spray of flame and smoke.

"ANAD overhead," Winger announced. He lit off his own suit boost and drifted on lift over the writhing bodies of the smothered enemy troops, alighting at the top step. He looked around to make sure of their deployment.

The main ANAD swarm was billowing outward, steadily taking up position as top cover for their advance. That was standard tactics: a bot swarm overhead gave you eyes and ears for approaching threats and put your swarm in position to respond along any vector.

Behind the flickering fog of the ANAD swarm came the rest of the Detachment: Reaves, Tsukota, D'Nunzio and Barnes and the rest. All dropped onto the landing and shut down their suit boost, then moved through the portal into a vast multi-storied hall inside, its perimeter lined with stone statuary and pediments. Above them, at the top of a broad curving staircase, a gray stone Buddha beamed down with an enigmatic smile, while the hall was surrounded by vats and pots and urns in dizzying variety, every size and shape imaginable. Some of the urns steamed and smoked with pungent incense, or scented candles, lending a smoky, acrid taste to the air.

"The grand entrance," muttered Sheila Reaves, as she looked around, kicking at some of the pots and urns. She eased forward deeper into the hall, her coilgun carbine poised to fire, suit servos whirring as she clanked across the stone floor.

Shadows danced along the walls dead ahead, and Reaves saw that the hall opened into a great rotunda through a shimmering veil that stretched across one end of the room.

"Easy, Sheila," said Dana Tallant, as she swung her own beam weapon around to cover their advance. "Let's get ANAD down here to take a look."

"Any threats?" Winger asked. Reaves and Singh were the DPS ratings...Detachment defense was their specialty. Reaves halted at the shimmering veil and let her suit servos scan ahead while ANAD moved into position.

"Looks like low-level nano, Skipper." Experimentally, she reached out with a finger and poked at the veil. A high-freq whine went out and the resistance of the bots pushed her finger back with an insistent buzz. "We can punch through it with no problem."

"Very well...clear 'em out," Winger said. "Taj--?"

The DPS2 studied his own readings...they had lost distance recon from Superfly because of the snowstorm. All distance recon came from ANAD.

"Reading high thermals ahead...a broad front and its not the fire in there—" A roaring fire burned in an ornate bowl-shaped pit beneath the apex of the rotunda. "EM and atomic debris on all bands...lots of nano around here...but nothing within a hundred feet... it's all around us, Skipper."

Winger took stock of the situation. Their mission orders were straightforward. Find the links between this base and the Amazon superswarms now modifying Earth's atmosphere and render them inoperative.

"Can you triangulate decoherence waves from here?" Winger asked. "We need some kind of bearing; there's got to be some kind of quantum state generator around here...that's how Red Hammer controls Amazon."

Singh scrolled through images on his helmet viewer, selecting one called Quantum Signals.

"It's faint, Skipper...intermittent captures right now. There seems to be a fix about two hundred and six meters ahead, bearing zero five five degrees my position. It's not much but all the decoherence waves seem to converge there...when we can grab them." Singh marked the position and Winger saw it on the crewnet.

"Very well...we'll mark that as objective number one. Detachment, listen up—" he took over the comms for a moment "—Taj has a fix that may be the master control source for the Amazon swarms. It's ahead and deeper in the complex. We're moving on that objective...Reaves, are we cleared to advance?"

The DPS2 had paused at a shimmering veil blocking entrance to the great rotunda. "Give me a moment, Skipper—" She took control of a small element from the main ANAD swarm and vectored the formation toward the veil of low-level nano guarding the portal. The swarms collided in a shower of sparks and light flashes. There was a brief, almost inaudible screech, as ANAD made quick work of the enemy bots.

The portal then went dark and the faint phosphorescent mist that was the ANAD element moved ahead into the rotunda.

"Open sesame," muttered Deeno D'Nunzio, from behind a balustrade.

"Door is clear, Skipper," Reaves announced.

Winger ordered the master ANAD swarm to follow. "Okay...move out. And keep your eyes and ears open...we got nasties all around us itching to take a bite."

One by one, the assault team crept into the rotunda, surrounding the firepit and its crackling flames. Other corridors branched off from the great room, like spokes from a Base.

"Where the hell is everybody?" Witchy M'Bela asked. His left hand fondled a clutch of amulets, massaging them for good luck even though he couldn't feel them very well through his hypersuit gloves.

"It's a trap," decided Reaves. "It's got to be...they're trying to pull us into some kind of free-fire zone."

"Which way to the last fix, Taj?"

Singh checked signals. "Best bearing to the convergence is still zero five five, less than two hundred meters...and below our elevation, about fifty meters."

Winger calibrated the direction. Singh's bearing seemed to point toward one corridor branching off from the rotunda.

"That seems to be the way to go. Detachment, move out—" Winger indicated the passageway.

"Skipper, I don't like this," said Reaves. "It's a confined space...only one way in or out. It could be an ambush."

"Duly noted," Winger said. The possibility had occurred to him but they had little choice. Singh's convergence fix was probably some kind of quantum device, possibly even the master control for the Amazon swarms. That had to be put out of commission. "Let's get an ANAD screen ahead of and behind us, before we go down that corridor. Other contacts and threats?"

Reaves checked her threat status, letting her eyepiece viewer cycle through all bands that ANAD was feeding them. "Still reading fairly high thermals and EM ahead, all azimuth."

"Skipper..." it was M'Bela. The CEC1 had already crossed the rotunda and was examining the opening to the corridor they were about to enter. "This is odd...the corridor isn't solid-phase at all—" He pressed a hypersuited hand into the wall. It gave with a high-pitched wail, rippled like an underwater wave, and pushed back. "I thought so...it's a nanobotic mesh...the whole corridor's that way."

Winger and several others came over to see for themselves. D'Nunzio tried pressing her hand into the mesh. It resisted, squealed and pushed back. "Hey, maybe this whole place is like this...nothing but bots holding it together."

Reaves peered down the tunnel. "Maybe Red Hammer's using bots to tunnel underground like we do. This whole corridor could collapse in a heartbeat...bots get the signal to de-link or change config and— smash-o..." she crumpled her hand into a fist.

"We've got no choice," Winger decided. "The objective is this direction. If we have to, we can make a tunnel ourselves. Just to be on the safe side, I'm pre-loading a config for that in the ANAD master."

He pressed a few buttons on his wristpad.

***ANAD receiving new config...acknowledging new config...will pre-set effector positions for rapid cycling***

"ANAD, this nanomesh corridor could be a trap...I'm loading a blocking config I just hacked out. When you've got it, execute a reverse clampdown. Expand swarm to engage the corridor bots and make sure they don't change config on us. This corridor is the fastest way to our objective....I don't want it collapsing on us."

***ANAD receives and is complying...I am maneuvering to intercept shielding nanoscreen bots and holding current config...you can count on me, Base***

Good ,Winger thought. Overhead, the swarm spread like a cool fog until it had filled the corridor and swollen to envelop the walls. Strings and crackles of light strobed up and down the length of the corridor as ANAD imposed a fixed config on the resistant enemy bots.

***ANAD encountering some resistance, Base...these buggers don't like being told what to do...but ANAD can manage the problem...a few bonds broken and a little carbene grabber muscle and they fall in line***

Winger smiled. ANAD, the drill sergeant...

"Okay...move out...down the corridor...and keep your weapons ready, especially the HERF. We may need to blast these suckers if ANAD can't hold 'em."

The assault team went deeper down the side branch, uneasily aware that the corridor itself was nothing but a nanobotic construction, a swarm of unfriendly bots in the shape of a tunnel. If ANAD couldn't force them to hold config, the nanotroopers would be crushed or worse in seconds.

"Triangulating on the convergence now, Skipper," said Taj Singh. The hypersuited DPS tech was now in the lead of their advance, his suit sensors slaved to a satlink back to Singapore and Table Top. Decoherence waves were faintly detected and their paths plotted at the Quantum Corps bases and the resulting vector beamed off the sats back down to Singh. It was a jerry-rigged operation, but then quantum effects were like that...ghostly, sporadic and damnably hard to pin down. "We're still headed in the right direction...I make the convergence as under two hundred meters, still below our elevation."

Winger considered that. "Must be buried deeper, maybe under the mountain. Keep your eyes open."

A faint tremor shook the ground, residual tectonic stresses causing rock layers to slide and shift under their feet. A few seconds later, the faint hum of the bots battling ANAD changed pitch, shifting to a higher-frequency tone, a stress tone.

M'Bela saw the trouble just as it erupted. He'd been monitoring ANAD status on his viewer and had seen half his board light up like a Christmas tree when the next tremor hit.

Only this tremor wasn't the ground shifting. The Detachment halted and gaped, stunned, in amazement as the corridor walls seemed to dissolve right before their eyes. One moment, the corridor was a smooth, slightly blurry wall curving down into the earth. The next moment, the blur had increased, as if the bots forming the corridor had suddenly begun vibrating at dizzying speeds.

M'Bela knew what it was right away. "Quantum collapse, Skipper? They're going small...winking out—"

Even as M'Bela's words went out over the crewnet, the corridor walls dissolved like lifting fog and the underlying rock into which the corridor had been bored was no longer held back by nanobotic swarms. Unimaginable stresses were suddenly let loose as thousands of tons of rock gave way.

"ANAD...ANAD...can you hold--?"

But even as he blurted out the question, Johnny Winger knew the answer. A flash of light filled the collapsing corridor as the ANAD swarm cycled into a Big Bang replication, but it was too late.

With an unearthly roar, the walls crumbled into rock and dust and imploded with newly released fury.
CHAPTER 13

Paryang Valley, Tibet, China

December 4, 2068

2300 hours

There were groans and moans as the dust finally settled. Johnny Winger stirred and tried to move, realizing he was trapped in a near-fetal position by crushing tons of rock and rubble. He flicked out a tongue and reached a nearby control stud inside his helmet, running his suit servos up to max power. There was a whine and grinding whir, then the rock began to fall way as the servos strained against the weight of the rubble. A few bursts of suit boost and he was free and more or less upright, sheets of dust falling off his back as he wobbled around.

An incredible scene was dimly visible in the flicker of his helmet lamp.

The hypersuits had saved them. With Witchy's warning and ANAD's quick work, the worst effects of the collapse had been averted. A pale glowing fog licked at the perimeter of the tiny clearing into which the troopers had been shoved...ANAD steadily widening the life-giving zone, boring and eating away at the edges of their rock prison.

"ANAD...good man...keep on boring...I'll see if Taj can give you a bearing to that convergence zone.—"

***ANAD replicating at best rate, Base...I'll have a path cleared in a few hours...is everybody okay down there?***

"I think so, ANAD...give me a few minutes, will you?" Winger picked and shoved his way through tall piles of broken rock and rubble, as the Detachment dug out and staggered upright. Servos whined and strained and a few gave out, necessitating assistance from others...Mighty Mite Barnes was the worst off. The SDC2 was pinned nearly to her waist beneath some particularly large boulders. Her suit servos had failed and she was trapped, possibly injured.

Levering their own suit thrusters against the boulders, Winger, Tallant and Chris Calderon managed to extricate Barnes. Her boost was dead, servos out, she could barely stand on her own. The hypersuit was shot.

"I think my ankle's broken, Skipper," Barnes said, sheepishly. Her eyes teared up with disappointment. "Leave me here...I can defend myself..." She pulled out the broken butt of her coilgun carbine and stared dumbfounded at it. "...somehow—"

"Stow that," Winger ordered. "Help her up. We're not leaving anybody behind. I can detach ANAD to re-config a bone patch...we'll do an insert and get you squared away in no time...we just have to get to a stable place. ANAD...?" Calderon and Tallant helped the trash-talking little dynamo to her feet, where she swayed a bit with the hypersuit now powered down and unsupported.

***ANAD here, Base...***

"ANAD compute best time for boring a path to the convergence...you've got the vector? Plus I have a little repair job I'd like you to do...on Trooper Barnes here."

Taj Singh was across the tiny clearing. "Negative, Skipper...I don't have anything to give ANAD yet. I've lost the convergence...signal's still good to the satlink...they've just lost it. No more decoherence waves."

"So what the hell happened?"

"Unknown, Captain," Singh admitted. Winger could see the Indian DPS tech inside his helmet, frantically trying to regain something, anything. "ANAD couldn't hold the corridor bots in config when they went small—"

"It was a true quantum collapse, Captain," added M'Bela. "The enemy bots sloughed off everything...effectors, core components, everything...just a processor dot was all that was left. They slid out of ANAD's grasp like water through a sieve."

"And vanished." Winger muttered. "I should have seen that one coming. What the hell are we dealing with here?"

"I think the whole damn complex is nothing but bots," Tallant said. "That could explain a lot."

"But the links to the Amazon swarms are still active?"

M'Bela nodded. "Singapore and Table Top say yes. There's been no detectable diminishing of swarm activity."

"It's not possible," Winger shook his head, kicking in frustration at a small pile of rubble. He forgot his feet were still boosted...the rocks went flying across the clearing, narrowly missing Barnes and Calderon, who had to duck. "Sorry about that guys...Q2 says the swarm links are quantum coupled...it is a quantum link, right? There should be deco waves...how can the links still be active and there not be quantum decoherence waves?"

"Maybe Red Hammer's found a way to mask them..." suggested Singh. "Although that's not supposed to be possible."

"We're going on," Winger decided. He'd made his mind up. "Last known bearing...you still have that, Taj?"

"Locked in, Skipper."

"ANAD...continue boring along that vector...maybe we can help. Use our hands...pulverize some of this rock with coilguns and mag pulses. One way or another, we've got to get to that convergence...it's the only lead we have. Somehow, some way...quantum signals are going out from this complex to the Amazon swarms. We've got to find that source."

Progress was arduous and slow for the next several hours. Ray Spivey and Victor Klimuk worked out a way for Barnes to free wheel in her suit, even though its servos and thrusters were shot, while the ANAD patch bots were knitting her ankle bone back together. It was awkward and tedious but somehow, they made progress any way.

Johnny Winger and the rest of the Detachment worked by hand to help ANAD clear a path. Exhausted, cut, bleeding and sore, after several hours, Winger called a halt to the operation.

"Okay, guys...take five. Rest a few minutes. I'll link in with ANAD, see if there's an easier way."

He checked with the tiny assembler, deployed in a flickering blue ball of light at the head of the tunnel.

"ANAD, how much more of this stuff is there? Our coilguns are going to need re-charging soon."

***ANAD is detecting different solid-phase structures ahead...of a type I have not detected before. Configuration seems to be unstable...one moment, I sound ahead and get a basic tetrahedral lattice of magnesium, calcium and oxygen. The next time I sound, I get something different. I'm also detecting bonds being broken...and some loose atomic debris--***

Even as he 'heard' ANAD's description in the back of his mind, Winger's neck hairs stood up. Broken bonds...atomic debris...two signatures of nanobotic activity.

"Sheila..." he called out to the nearby DPS tech, kneeling stiffly in her hypersuit while she sipped at a straw inside her helmet. "Sheila...check your thermals. ANAD may be detecting nano activity up ahead."

Reaves toggled through her viewer screens until she found the sensor feed. "Holy cow, Skipper...how'd we miss that? I'm showing thermals practically off the scale...major nano...it's all around us--!"

"The rock...look!" yelled D'Nunzio. She boosted herself upright and slammed her helmet hard into a low hanging ledge. "It's moving...shifting...."

"Nanobots!" came another voice over the crewnet.

"What the--!"

The clearing in which they had stopped to rest now quickly dissolved with a high-frequency screech and a flash of light, like a trillion light bulbs going off all at once.

They were surrounded by a swarm of enemy bots! And the swarm was steadily contracting, squeezing the clearing down to nothing.

"ANAD...!" Winger toggled furiously on his suit wristpad. "Assault config one...I'm sending the details!" He squirted off a new configuration, even as the walls dissolved and the Red Hammer swarm thickened inside the tunnel.

***ANAD receiving...I am going to Assault One...carbene grabbers fully extended...let me at 'em!***

"Detachment...get small!" Winger yelled over the crewnet. He didn't have to remind them; D'Nunzio and Barnes and Reaves and Singh all scattered and let their hypersuits burrow themselves into the ground, but even as their servos whined, the troopers found the ground shifting beneath them.

"It's moving--!" cried Barnes. She fell heavily onto her side and was soon engulfed in a small swarm of mechs, boring in on the laminate armor of the dead suit. She kicked and flailed, trying to fight off the bugs but it was no use.

"The whole place's alive with bugs!" D'Nunzio yelled. She bulled her way through an onrushing swarm, trying to ignore the high-freq buzzsaw eating away at her, grasping for the HERF gun which had fallen over into a crevice.

"We're right in the belly of the beast!" said Singh. "It's like Vishnu...the whole mountain's nothing but bots—"

Winger linked in to get a closer look at their tiny, swarming adversary. He shook off the initial dizziness and focused on the swirling swarm in front of him...a gale of tetrahedrals and polygons and cylinders sleeting by—

"ANAD...give me a visual...what's the bastard look like?"

***Ahead and off to the left...bearing three five oh...looks like two pyramids stacked apex to apex...with a few carbon rings around the middle and peptide chains at either end...never seen such a complicated doodad***

Then he saw it. ANAD was right...the enemy nanobot was like a jeweled and faceted bead, glittering and flashing with severed bonds as it built structure, adding more pyramids even as he watched. Like a nanoscale anaconda, it undulated and whipped through space, wrapping itself around its prey, squeezing and shearing, snapping bonds...before he knew it, ANAD had surged forward to engage.

The two swarms collided and 1st Nano found itself in the very midst of the combat, surrounded by sparking veils of light and crackling tendrils of mist. Hunkered down in the lee of a rock outcropping, Deeno D'Nunzio figured this must be what it felt like to be digested in a stomach...the ground heaved and rattled and shook, as seemingly solid rock dissolved into thin air, pure nanobotic mesh melting away as the bots joined the fray.

***ANAD can't replicate fast enough, Base...the enemy grows structure faster than I can...the beads keep adding pyramids until my boys are engulfed and enveloped...we're tearing bonds left and right but the swarm keeps thickening...what the hell kind of algorithm is in this bastard?***

Winger had seen it too...and felt the thickening mist swelling all around them. He lifted his head, running his suit servos until they stained to the breaking point. Even simple movement was getting harder...the enemy swarm was growing denser, steadily contracting and squeezing the space. They wouldn't be able to take much more of this.

Singh was right. The whole complex, maybe the whole mountain was nothing but nanobotic swarms, configged to look and act like natural structures. If Red Hammer had reached this level of sophistication, what else could they do? He recalled the imagery he and Gibby had witnessed at Lake Vostok...an entire planet of nanobots, a world of ANADs.

Was this the same thing...a dreamlike image of something imaginary, a freak of neural firing brought on by contact with the enemy bots? Or a snapshot of another place, another time...a glimpse into a world best left undisturbed?

Then Johnny Winger had an idea.

If Taj was right and they really were in the belly of some kind of swarm-beast, then the best way to get out was to agitate the beast, so it would expel them, cough them up.

Tactically, it was suicide but it might just work. If ANAD could hold off the Red Hammer swarms long enough, a small element of assemblers detached for a special mission could do the trick.

Winger planned to get a Big Bang going, using an element of the larger ANAD swarm. With the main force engaging the enemy, the smaller force would do one thing and only one thing: replicate like crazy, divide and grow assemblers in mindless exponential overdrive.

If he was right, and the Detachment could avoid being crushed to death, the Big Bang would so irritate the enemy swarm that it would have to disengage and move off.

It had to work. They would have only one shot at this.

"ANAD, I want you to peel off a small force, say a quarter swarm. I've got a special mission for them."

***ANAD receiving...what kind of mission have you got in mind?***

Winger explained the tactic. "Here's the config...I'm sending it now. Prepare to execute on my command."

The tunnel was collapsing even as he squirted the config to the master assembler. Winger saw Spivey and Barnes practically engulfed in bots, uncountable trillions of bots, throbbing and undulating as if the swarm were chewing them up inside a mouth.

This had better work-- "Now, ANAD...execute NOW!"

For a few long seconds, nothing seemed to happen. The rolling, palpitating rhythm of the enemy swarm continued on, sparking and flashing where the main ANAD swarm was engaging, a sinuous seam of light that snapped like a whip from one side of the tunnel to the other.

Then, Winger became aware of a new and growing glow from behind his head. At first, he couldn't be sure; he caught furtive glimpses of the glow as it brightened steadily and expanded, while pumping out mag pulses in every direction, trying to stun the enemy swarm away from him, carve out some kind of perimeter.

The glow soon brightened and spread out like a small aurora, throbbing and pulsating as ANAD replicated like a mad brickmason, grabbing atoms and building structure with white-hot fury.

"It's working--!" Reaves cried. She kicked at the cloud of bots swarming her and lit off a HERF charge, the thunderclap deafening everyone as it reverberated off the tunnel walls. "I can feel it...the swarm's slackening off—"

"Belay that HERF!" Winger ordered. "Give ANAD a chance to draw them off!"

Ten feet away, Singh and Tsukota were finally able to pull Mighty Mite Barnes free of the swarm that had engulfed her. The tunnel began dissolving around her, as she worked herself free and into Singh's arms with a jolt. They both collapsed to the ground with heavy grunts.

"Get off me, you big Hindu ape..." The two of them pulled themselves apart and let their suit servos bring them upright again.

"Skipper—" Reaves was crouching behind an outcrop of rock that was slowly but steadily dissolving into its constituent nanobots...a swarm mesh flying apart before their eyes. "Skipper...it's working. ANAD's giving the bastards indigestion."

"Stay small!" Winger ordered. "Hunker down where you are and don't make yourselves targets. Let the bugs fight it out."

A strong tremor then shook the tunnel and the walls themselves seemed to fly apart. Overhead, the small nova of a Big Bang in action was swelling out of control. All around them, the enemy bots de-structured and swarmed to fight off the spreading menace of ANAD.

In the end, what was rock and what was nanobotic mesh was never very clear. As the battle proceeded, the entire tunnel system collapsed, dissolved and, amid the tremors and rhythmic palpitations of a great beast in spasmodic agony, the tunnel seemed to vanish like fog scattered by a strong wind.

With no more footing left, Johnny Winger and the rest of the 1st Nano Detachment plunged downward in a terrifying free fall, falling and flailing, deeper and deeper into the belly of the mountain.

Johnny Winger was never sure how long or how far they had fallen, tumbled, plunged and plummeted. It seemed like hours, but that made no sense. He had a mental image of being the day's next meal, sliding down the throat of some enormous beast.

Then, with a dawning realization that his fall had finally stopped, he crouched, stunned and low, while rubble and rock rained down all around them. His feet seemed to be on solid ground despite the incessant downpour of rock pelting his helmet and back. He squinted through the gale of dust and rubble and saw some kind of light, intermittent and faint, but definitely there. Instinctively, he crawled as well as his hypersuit would let him toward the light, bobbing up and down crazily.

It turned out to be a helmet lamp, in fact several lamps huddled together. Barnes, Reaves, and Singh. At least, they had survived the fall.

A scratchy voice crackled in his earphones. It was Barnes. "Where the hell are we, Skipper? What is this place?"

Winger squinted through the light dust still falling like gray snow and the faint outlines of the subterranean chamber slowly materialized into view.

The cavern was a massive space, hewn right out of the sheer rock interior of Bailidzong mountain, lit by light poles up and down the height of the chamber, fully a hundred meters ground to ceiling. Just visible in the deep shadows beyond the lights, the cavern walls were blurred, rubbed out to indistinct texture like a mirror fogged over.

Nano mesh, Winger realized. Undoubtedly, the cavern was thick with bots, some of the securing the walls. Deep gouges in the walls were evidence that the tremors ANAD had generated had done damage and recently.

As his eyes adjusted to the lighting, Winger realized that the largest structure in the cavern was a multi-level platform occupying most of the central atrium of the chamber, supported by thin cable and wire above and slender tapering columns below.

The platform was a three-level flat plane onto which banks of equipment had been mounted. Small shacks and cubicles were scattered among the consoles. Dominating the largest raft was an open sphere of lattice work and girders, rotating slowly like a giant ball bearing. A small knot of men had gathered at consoles surrounding the sphere.

Even as Johnny Winger watched, the lattice-work sphere seemed to fade in and out of view, becoming over several moments a spinning blur, then returning to sharper focus, as if it were a thing to be tuned, like a video image.

The hairs on the back of Winger's neck stood up.

"Quantum effects, Skipper," It was Taj Singh, right behind him, marveling at the sight. "Superposition of states. That sphere is probably generating quantum states on a huge scale...it shouldn't even be possible—"

Winger nodded. "What about your last fix, Taj? The decoherence waves—"

Singh stumbled slightly as another faint tremor shook the cavern. He checked his readings. "Bearing oh two seven, Skipper...that sphere is it...the convergence zone. All the deco waves intersect here."

At that moment, beam fire erupted across the cavern. The 1st Nano troopers dove for cover. The rest of the Detachment had fallen nearby and were wedged in the fissures and crevices of the near walls. The troopers scrambled for cover. Reaves and Spivey immediately returned fire, hosing down the near side of the platform with coilgun fire.

For the next several minutes, they were pinned down and terribly exposed, with incoming rounds slashing at their position from ahead and both sides. Particle beams stitched seams of death in the rock and nanomesh above and behind them, loosening gouts of rock, which rained down on them. High-pitched squeals cut the air as the bots embedded in the walls were vaporized.

Winger motioned to Dana Tallant and Victor Klimuk, who were both tucked behind some boulders twenty meters away. Move right...flank them...I'll keep 'em occupied—

Tallant nodded. She and Klimuk waited until Winger and Singh lay down a withering barrage of mag pulses, then both lit off their suit boost and half-slid, half flew along the steep flanks of the cavern walls to a new position outflanking their enemy. They dug in at a deep crevice and opened fire, pumping coilgun rounds at the pocket of Red Hammer troops firing at them from beneath the platform.

The firefight lasted several minutes. Winger wondered what had happened to ANAD. He tried linking in.

At first, he felt like he was flying in a blizzard...shapes and images rushed at him from all directions, pummeling and washing over him. He caught glimpses of the shapes...it was a grid, a three-dimensional lattice of quivering spheres and cones and polygons and he was rushing through them like a high-speed film.

***ANAD is receiving...is that you, Base? ANAD is on max propulsor, transiting solid-phase...I am sounding your signal...distance is seventeen x 10 exp 20 nanometers...I should be there in a few minutes***

ANAD was still embedded in the cavern walls. When the tunnel had dissolved under their feet, ANAD had been engaged with the enemy bots.

"ANAD, you old dog...I thought we had lost you! We're under fire here...I need you to give us another axis of attack...take some of the heat off us."

***ANAD is engaging enemy swarms intermittently, Base. Having to fight my way toward your position. ANAD has also lost some effector capability...processor glitches...ANAD must reset and re-initialize effector controls...something is happening--***

Winger wondered what glitches ANAD was referring to. He discussed the report with Tsukota, even as they returned fire, keeping the Red Hammer troops pinned down.

Tsukota got off a few more rounds of coilgun fire. The flechettes detonated off the far end of the platform, raining debris on top of the enemy.

"Could be quantum effects mucking up his CPU," Tsukota said. "This close to such a powerful quantum state generator—"

"It's got to be fixed...we need ANAD now!" Winger motioned for Tallant and Klimuk to open fire. Over the crewnet, he added, "Keep 'em pinned down for me...Ozzie and I will try to work our way in closer to that platform."

"Will do," Tallant came back. A barrage of mag pulses and coilgun rounds flew out, enveloping the near end of the platform in smoke and falling debris.

"ANAD...stow all effectors...configure for fastest possible transit to my position. We need help down here—"

"Skipper—" it was M'Bela, with Reaves and Calderon, somewhere above and behind Winger. "Skipper—look, beyond the platform!"

The smoke momentarily cleared and in that moment, Johnny Winger saw what had caught M'Bela's eyes. The jagged rock walls surrounding the platform seemed to come alive, unwrapping themselves like peeling a tarpaulin off a scaffolding. Like a small army of great wings, the rocky ramparts of the walls shifted and heaved, tore themselves away from the cavern and oozed into shapes vaguely human, vaguely bipedal.

Demonio, Winger realized. The nanobots embedded in the cavern walls had re-configured themselves into a growing formation of the para-human forms he had first encountered at Via Verde.

It was time to slam them with HERF.

"Charge up the HERF!" Winger ordered. Thirty feet away, Reaves made the weapon ready, enabling all its tracking and firing circuits.

"Charging now, Captain...charging...charging...weapon is now enabled!"

"Fire the HERF!" Winger commanded. He dug in where he was, bracing himself against the coming shock waves.

The thunderclap of hot rf went off, booming and echoing off the cavern walls. Almost immediately, an avalanche of stunned and fried mechs pelted down like a summer thunderstorm.

"Again...three more pulses, Reaves!"

The DPS tech complied, releasing HERF charges one right after another.

The effect on the growing wave of demonio was immediate and dramatic. As if they had been scythed by blades, the first wave of the para-human bot colonies exploded, shattering into individual assembler mechs, spattering the platform and nearby rock. Behind them, an angry swarm of bots re-collected itself and surged forward, swarming up toward their position.

"ANAD...where the hell are you?" Winger said. To Reaves: "Another round...keep firing so we can hold 'em off!"

***ANAD closing on your position, Base...estimating five minutes to breach...do you have a config for me?***

Winger stabbed a few buttons on his wristpad, commanding his hypersuit to burrow him into the rock, cutting out a shallow foxhole with his suit thrusters, while he held on to a nearby boulder. Once defiladed, he hunkered down, letting the HERF blasts shake, rattle, and roll the subterranean chamber. A minute later, Reaves reported bad news:

"HERF's dead, Captain... I'm all out of charge."

Winger lifted his head to survey the damage below.

A light mist of falling and suspended nanobots shattered and decoupled by the HERF barrage hung thickly in the air amid the smoke of gunfire. Tremors continued to jolt the cavern, sending steady streams of rubble and dust down from above. The cubicles and shacks mounted on the platform had been smashed and their occupants, Red Hammer technicians, had fled to the periphery of the cavern. Sporadic beam fire erupted in volleys from pockets of enemy resistance below the platform and along the far walls.

We've got to smash that generator, Winger thought. If Taj Singh was right and the generator was the locus of all the decoherence waves, it must be the key piece of the Amazon swarm control system. They had to knock it out.

"Dana, you and Klimuk get ready to lay down suppressing fire...when I give the word, let 'em have it! Keep those bastards away from the platform."

Tallant's voice crackled back over the crewnet. "What about you, Wings?"

"Taj and me and M'Bela are going down there...we've got to take that platform and put that generator out of commission."

"Blast the thing from here...we've got enough kinetic rounds to reduce the whole cavern to atoms."

"Blast what...the damn thing keeps dissolving—"

Even as they debated tactics, the latticework sphere seemed to vanish, becoming a faint translucent outline of itself, before fading completely, then moments later, re-appearing as if nothing had happened.

"Taj says it's quantum effects. We could hit it with everything we've got and still not be sure we've hit it. How do you destroy something that may or may not be there? We've got to get down there...get closer...to take it out. Taj has an idea—"

Tallant understood. "We'll cover you from here. I've got a clear line of fire to this side of the platform. Any of those buggers shows his head, he's atom fluff."

"What about the swarms, Skipper?" Reaves asked. She was positioned above and behind Winger, with Deeno and Tsukota, dug into a deep fissure overlooking the ledge where Winger and Singh had taken up position. "My HERF's dead. We got nothing to fight off the bugs with."

***ANAD now arriving your position, Base***

Winger scanned around the cavern. At first, he saw nothing, but over a few seconds, a faint shimmer in the walls behind them became visible. The shimmer grew, blurring out the sharp edges of the rock, until it spalled off the wall and erupted into a ball of light.

"ANAD, you're a sight for sore eyes. Configure swarm state alpha...I'm linking in, too. We've got to hold off those Red Hammer bots and get down to that platform!"

***ANAD understands...now re-configuring...my effectors are at alpha position, bond disrupters primed, enzymatic knife enabled...Base...ANAD reporting memory overflow in primary registers...Base...something is not right...I have--***

Winger was in the process of linking in when he vaguely heard ANAD's protest. Something not right...overflow in primary registers...access denied...vector state loading aborted...

For a few seconds, he was disoriented, but that was normal. Most often, Winger came through the link-up with images of being in or around the ocean, riding the surf, battling waves...whatever imagery his neural buffer fed into his hippocampal circuits, the only way his mind could make sense of what it was receiving through ANAD. But this time, it was different.

He was in water, but this time it was a languid tidal pool, rancid and fetid with organic growth. He was dimly aware of flashes of lightning overhead, vivid pops and thunderclaps and of the gentle sloshing of the water stirred by a fresh wind fetching up...a storm was coming.

I'll just re-orient myself to watch the show, with a quick burst of propulsor, a snap of a pyridine effector, maybe snag something with a grabber...BUT HE HAD NO EFFECTORS...

What the hell—

He rolled and commanded effector movement, commanded retraction...extension, commanded propulsor, but nothing happened. He was helpless, no appendages at all...just a springy tetrahedral rolling around with the waves...it was like he was being born over, grown again from first molecules....

There...! He felt the gentle touch of a molecule and reflexively reached out...he still had a few electrons to snag things with....and grabbed it. It bobbed and squirmed like a rubber ball...an oxygen molecule...at least, he had something to work with—

The image faded and was soon replaced by a more normal sleet of polygons and octahedrals and pyramids, surging past, buffeting him like waves on a shore...

"ANAD, what's going on...what was that?"

***ANAD does not know...for a few moments, all primary registers were dumped...ANAD was nothing but a core...a cluster of molecules floating in a nutrient bath...or a pool...***

"Like when you were created...assembled in Containment at Table Top?"

***ANAD is not sure, Base, but this seemed different...for a few seconds, Memory One and Two were filled with something else, superimposed, like a shadow column of data, overlaying the original data...my processor could briefly access more from the registers than they are supposed to hold...the data did not describe parameters of Containment...parameters were different...conditions were more primitive***

Winger was concerned but he didn't have time to worry about it. They had a mission to perform.

"Probably quantum effects, ANAD, this close to the state generator. I got some weird coupling effects when I linked in too...let's config swarm state alpha and go after 'em!"

***Base, it will be a pleasure...now re-configuring--***

"Commence firing," Winger ordered. "Fire at will...keep those bugs off me! I'm linked in with ANAD and we're going in--!"

With Taj on his tail, providing cover, and Tallant and Klimuk and the rest laying down suppressing fire, Winger emerged from his crevice and scrambled down the rock walls toward the cavern floor and the platform. He toggled his viewer to show EMs and thermals and piped in ANAD's acoustic feed, then let Taj slave his hypersuit to his own, so the two troopers could move as one. With Singh controlling, Winger could concentrate on the battle ANAD was fighting and his own suit would automatically follow Singh's as they made their approach.

The cavern resounded with volleys of coilgun fire and the electric fzzzz of the kinetic rounds lacing the air with death. Gouts of rock erupted from the walls while smoke and flame filled the cavern. At the same time, D'Nunzio, Spivey and M'Bela sprayed the platform and surrounding ground with magpulses. The air ripped with shock waves from the magnetic loops peeling off in every direction.

Winger was linked in with ANAD, his view restricted to the world of surging molecules and sloshing Brownian motion. When the first volley was done, Singh lit off his suit boost and the suit thrusted upward, lifting him over the crags and folds of the cavern slopes, canted forward in assault stance, toward the platform. At the same time, Winger's suit did the same.

The two troopers eased forward on half thrust, down the slope toward their objective. For good measure, Singh let fly a volley of mag pulses dead ahead, scattering a squad of half-formed demonio into loose clouds of debris.

"...got a clear path to the platform, Skipper," Singh said. "Don't know how long it'll last—"

"Let's go!" Winger came back. But his mind was on the approaching battle in nanospace...a full fleet of Amazon bots loomed ahead, their scores of effectors quivering like oars on a Greek trireme, a squadron of battleships a few hundred billionths of a meter in size.

As Singh led them both down the rugged slopes to the cavern floor, lighting off round after round of mag, Winger concentrated on the engagement confronting ANAD.

"I'm taking over," Winger announced. "Give me direct mode...Fly-by-Stick. I want to try some new tricks."

***Base, direct mode slows down response times...speed is essential with this enemy...ANAD can handle this engagement***

"Negative, ANAD...I've fought these bastards before...I know their tactics, their weak spots...and I can see one right now...engaging enemy bots—"

He was dimly aware of his own suit maneuvering under Taj's control, as the two of them boosted forward, dodging Red Hammer return fire and peppering the cavern floor and near walls with magnetic rounds. Concussive shock waves rocked him sideways but the suit gyros stabilized him and he followed Taj through the melee automatically, switching from nanospace perspective to direct view and back as conditions dictated.

The nearest Amazon bot careened sideways and Winger saw its scores of propulsors spinning madly as it maneuvered to grapple. Now in Fly-by-Stick, he tweaked his own propulsors, actually ANAD's, and lined himself up for the onslaught.

Somewhere in among those whirling peptide chains was the amidships cavity that was Amazon's main weakness. Winger drove ANAD forward, just skirting the grasp of the enemy's grabbers, probing and sounding for the tell-tale cleft of folded proteins...there it is!...and snapped open his own carbenes to slam the bot full force.

"Max propulsor!" he commanded and ANAD jetted forward, dodging the undulating hydrogen tips and peptide fingers that tried to snag him. He rammed ANAD forward and checked the position of his bond disrupter one last time.

Coiled and ready, primed to fire...

At the instant of impact, ANAD shuddered from the collision and all forward momentum ceased.

"Now, ANAD! Zap 'em now!"

The disrupter discharged its energy and severed every atomic bond within a hundred nanometer radius, in one stupendous blinding flash. The staticky pop of so many bonds letting go unleashed a convulsive contraction in the bot's membrane and it shook like a wet dog, spasming and shuddering as its innards came apart and flew off spinning in a puff of debris and loose atoms.

At the same moment, uncounted trillions of ANAD replicants duplicated the same maneuver. The air was soon thick with strings and knots of loose atoms, nanobot entrails floating in every direction.

"Gotcha...you slimy bastard...how about another one!?"

Winger tweaked ANAD's propulsor to disengage and back off, then primed the disrupter once more. He slammed the throttle forward and ANAD sped in for another collision.

But the impact never came. Instead, still linked in via his coupler, Johnny Winger suddenly became disoriented and dizzy. He lost effector control and felt the propulsors spinning down. The impact, when it came, was only a glancing blow and the assembler skidded off the side of the bot, nearly ensnared by peptides grasping reflexively at the attacker.

Only a quick instinctive spin kept ANAD from being grabbed and held fast.

Shaking off the dizziness, Winger tried re-booting the coupler...the imagery wasn't making any sense...one moment, he saw the Amazon bot clearly through ANAD's acoustic sounder, then the bot fuzzed out and he was floating lazily in that same languid tidal pool, bumped gently by clumps and clusters of strange molecules—polycyclic hydrocarbons, weird sugars and dogleg clumps of anthracene, sticking and poking at him—

***ANAD reporting memory overflow in all registers...Vector (state:self) = Vector (state:self)...unknown algorithm...unnamed variables loaded...re-load aborted...what is happening...unable to extend effectors***

With a determined effort, Winger delinked and shook off the cobwebs.

What the hell was going on? "Taj...ANAD's processor is being affected by that generator...I can't engage the bots...something's messing up his processor."

They had almost reached the cavern floor. Through his viewer, the outlines of the control shack were visible in the smoke...the platform was only a few dozen meters away. Just then, shadows crossed his field of view and something heavy slammed into the side of his hypersuit, knocking him sideways. Only quick response from the gyros kept him upright. He turned and saw the three demonios that had jumped him.

Singh was first to fire, hosing down the para-human bot colonies with mag blasts. The creatures exploded in a rush of light, as the magnetic energy severed quadrillions of bonds and the atoms flew apart in all directions. The DPS tech pumped several more rounds into the flickering swarms, to keep them disrupted, keep them from re-forming.

"Come on--!" Singh yelled. He boosted upward, barely making the edge of the platform, scrambling with his hands and feet for purchase. Still slaved to Taj's suit, Winger's did the same, startling him with the thrust. He managed to grab the edge of the platform and lever himself up and onto the scaffolding.

More demonios charged at them from behind the smoldering control shack. At the same moment, beam fire lanced through the air, slicing through the decking with a deadly crackle.

The generator was now less than twenty meters away, a huge, gently rotating latticework sphere, flexing, dissolving and re-appearing as if it were breathing, as if it were a thing alive.

From her perch on the cavern slopes, Dana Tallant and Victor Klimuk knew they had to do something.

"They're too close to get a shot off...we might kill the good guys," Tallant said.

Klimuk had an idea. "We could try to draw those buggers off...get their attention."

It was worth a try. "Follow me," Tallant ordered. She lit off her suit boost, set it to max, and lifted away from the crevice where they had been crouching. Klimuk did the same and immediately, they drew fire. "Cover us, Sheila! We're going to try and draw those demonio away from the platform!"

Forty meters away, Reaves and M'Bela peppered the cavern floor with coilgun rounds, while Tallant and Klimuk drifted down toward the platform, hugging the folds and fissures of the cavern walls. A fusillade of fire engulfed the platform in smoke and falling rubble, accentuated by continuing tremors and jolts from the unstable ground below them.

Boosted and trimmed, Tallant and Klimuk rose on their thrusters over the far end of the platform and, at Tallant's command, fired wildly at the other side of the cavern, making as much racket as they could. The demonios charging Winger stopped, in mid-stride...their arms and legs flowing out of formation and lending a funhouse mirror distortion to their rough human forms as the bots reassembled and set off in a new direction. Now, the buggers had seen Tallant and Klimuk, assessing them as a greater threat. Their para-human forms twisted and stretched as the swarms changed heading.

For the moment, Winger and Singh were in the clear.

"Skipper!" yelled Singh. "The generator...we can make it--!"

"Go...Go...Go...Go!"

They were at the edge of the rotating sphere in a few seconds.

Winger killed his boost and his hypersuit set him down roughly on the platform, a bit unsteadily. Beamfire continued to lance the air, with the rip of magpulses in reply and coilgun rounds detonating everywhere. The platform wobbled with more tremors.

Even as they stood beside the quantum state generator, it faded nearly to nothing...a black dusty wavering shadow was all that remained...then as if a light had been turned on, the generator returned to solidity, filling in the space as if a child had somehow erased a sketch and drawn it over again. The edges of the latticework frame blurred and re-formed, while the rotating sphere winked on and off.

Being so close to such a sight gave Johnny Winger the chills. Taj Singh stared up at the structure in awe.

"It's like a projection," he muttered. Experimentally, he put his hand out toward the shadowy edge of a strut, but better sense stopped him and he drew it back.

Winger cycled his own coilgun and pumped round after round into the heart of the machine, with no discernible effect. The rounds went off but it was like trying to slice through fog.

"Nanobots?" he asked.

"Negative, Captain..." Singh let his suit sensors probe the machine...acoustic, thermal, EMs, all bands but nothing came back. The DPS tech clucked in annoyance. "It's nothing...I'm getting no readings back at all, on any band. It's not a swarm of bots. It's like a hole...there's nothing there."

"But we can see it...it's got to be a projection of some kind."

Singh marveled at the possibilities. "We use to theorize about this back in nog school. Even after the quantum coupler was developed...we drew up sketches for large-scale quantum systems, much larger than a coupler. This is incredible...."

Winger finally gave up with the coilgun. Maybe ANAD could do something. "Why can't I kill it?"

"Because it's not really there, Captain."

"Hell...I can see it. At least, I can see something. You see it, don't you?"

"More precisely, Captain, the generator is in fact located in multiple places at the same time...what we're seeing may be a projection of sorts. It may not be the central device at all. It's characteristic of quantum systems that they can be in multiple states and locations simultaneously."

"We've got to do something to disable or destroy it," Winger said. "This thing is managing all the control links with the Amazon swarms."

"Maybe not," Singh admitted. "It may be just a node in a greater network. But I agree...we have to disrupt it."

"ANAD, close on my position. Configure swarm state one and prepare to engage."

***ANAD closing...still experiencing processor faults...I am attempting to quarantine affected registers...now configuring swarm state one***

Nearly unseen in all the chaos, the ANAD swarm flowed over the edge of the platform and made its way like a growing ground fog toward the hypersuited troopers, crouching beside the generator.

"ANAD...prime all effectors and bond disrupters...configure all grabbers and abstractors for max rate disassembly...we're going after this...thing, whatever it is, with everything we got."

Singh wasn't so sure. "Skipper...I'm not sure ANAD can—"

"ANAD, propulsors on full...move to contact! Engage on this vector—I'm linking in." He fed heading information from his suit sensors through the coupler circuit to the assembler swarm.

***ANAD engaging...my grabbers are at position alpha, full array...ANAD engaging***

Just as Johnny Winger linked in, his coupler circuit blew up.

For a few minutes, he was falling, weightless, just falling through nothing, plummeting down through a void. He shook his head, tried to re-boot the link but nothing came through the buffer, nothing that made sense anyway. He caught snatches of images and could never be sure if they were bursts of signal from ANAD or 'leakage' like Doc Frost had once described, stray signals from ANAD that his buffer didn't know what to do with, unloading the raw feed right into his sensory cortex.

The same languid tidal pool as before came into view, steamy and fetid, with the crackle of lightning overhead and purplish, sulfurous clouds scudding low across the horizon, promising violent storms to come. Floating in the pool, he soon realized he wasn't alone; something bumped into him. Whatever it was, it was big and it bumped him again, and again.

He ducked his head under the surface and then he saw the huge dark mass that had bumped him, now maneuvering away, elliptical, maybe ovoid, with scores of flagella twirling, a massive bacterial ship with flanks studded with chains of molecules and flagella, thrusting it left and right.

Was it Amazon? It seemed much older...maybe an ancestor of Amazon. But this was different...this was no enemy bot colony, but something else entirely. Beyond describing in words, he felt drawn to the beast, as a cub to a mother. These weren't assembler bots at all, but pure viral clusters, pure packets of ribosomes, ancient and primordial, aggregated into a living entity....

An entity at once ancient beyond measure, yet somehow encoded with infinite arrays of wisdom, an endless lattice of binary structures, folded back on itself in loops upon loops without end.

This...was a brother.

"ANAD...what is this...place? Where are we?"

***ANAD does not know...but processor arrays are being overwritten...memory registers re-loaded...all effector functions suspended...Vector (state: self)= Vector (state: self)...grabbers off line...bond disrupters discharged...pyridines and abstractors and radical tools offline...core functions are being re-initialized...Base...what is happening...what is...I...my....***

"ANAD, verify config...let's get going...we've got bots to attack! We're going after this generator!" He decided to de-link...whatever this place was, it wasn't the Red Hammer base. He switched back to full view on his eyepiece and saw the formation of demonio gathering on the opposite end of the generator.

***ANAD cannot verify config...core functions...***

The enemy swarms were swelling and moving across and seemingly through the generator, which faded in and out of view like a distorted picture. Winger knew they didn't have much time...without HERF—

"ANAD, configure swarm state alpha...Assault One...prime all disrupters!"

He tried linking in but there was only static...no signal. Not even the normal dizziness that came with the linkup. What had happened...was happening...to ANAD?

What the hell...is my coupler on the fritz? He shook his head, but he didn't have time to troubleshoot the problem. The enemy was practically on them.

Taj Singh and Moby M'Bela sprayed the platform with coilgun fire, emptying their magazines but it did little good. It was like pumping rounds into fog.

"Skipper--?"

Winger had to make a quick decision. ANAD seemed dead. At least, the coupler link was gone. Maybe I can pilot the swarm directly, the old-fashioned way.

"I'm going to Fly-by-Stick...keep the bugs off me, will you?"

"Captain, there isn't time—"

Singh and M'Bela threw themselves in the path of the oncoming swarm. Parts of the swarm had already assembled itself into half-formed demonio, headless bodies and armless torsos writhed and billowed toward them, coming right through the generator. The two troopers waded into the midst of the swarm, emptying their coilguns, letting the bots flock to their suits. They were soon knocked to their knees, then face down, while the mechs chewed away at their laminate armor.

"Arrrrggghhh--!"

Winger stood his ground and cycled through every band, trying to pick up an acoustic feed from ANAD. There! The grainy image careened and jittered but it was unmistakably ANAD sounding...at least that function wasn't shot.

He hunkered down beside the generator, intending to drive the assembler master right into the midst of the generator and set off a Big Bang, a massive uncontrolled replication storm that would destroy the machine and everything else in the cavern.

It was a drastic, desperation tactic, but they didn't have time for anything else.

To his dismay, Winger found ANAD sluggish and unresponsive, his propulsors cutting in and out, his effectors uncontrollable, even the bond disrupters wouldn't charge up right.

"What the hell's going on?" he muttered to himself. ANAD...I'm not sure what's wrong but we've got work to do...

He checked his config, tapping out keys furiously on his wristpad, while coilgun rounds detonated all around.

Looks good there...config's right...why don't I have any control...something's bollixed up the processor.

"ANAD...do you copy me? I'm having trouble accessing basic commands—ANAD—" he decided to go back to basics..."ANAD, let's try some simple stuff. Extend carbene grabbers to operating position. Respond—"

The quantum coupler circuit was shot but there was a staticky fzzzz on the main comm channel...the acoustic channel. Winger tuned it and got a deep, intermittent synthetic 'voice,' an ANAD response he had never heard before...a reply that sent chills down his spine.

*** Vector (state:self) = Vector (state:self)...ANAD internal inhibit...cannot comply with current directive***

"Cannot com—" Winger stared at his wristpad like it was something alien. The glowing fog that was the assembler swarm didn't appear any different. "What the hell—ANAD! Prepare to engage on my command...load Assault One and reply!"

***Program aborted...ANAD internal inhibit is active...conflict alarm...ANAD cannot execute program against Vector (state:self)***

Singh had heard the assembler's response too. "There's some kind of internal processor fault, Skipper. Some kind of conflict. Maybe the generator has corrupted main memory."

Winger decided to investigate further...they had to get ANAD going if the mission was to succeed.

"ANAD...list all conflict parameters. Identify inhibits."

***ANAD cannot execute Assault One...against self state...internal inhibit...main fault sequence***

"He's saying he can't attack himself," Singh theorized.

Winger was growing frustrated. They didn't have much time. The Red Hammer swarms were reconstituting, forming up as demonio, half humans and other amorphous shapes, surrounding the platform, closing in.

"It doesn't make any sense, Taj. I ordered Assault One to engage the enemy swarms...he's not engaging himself...he's attacking Amazon—Red Hammer bots."

"ANAD sees them as part of himself. That's one of the first inhibits we put into assembler processors...remember what Doc Frost said? So they wouldn't cannibalize themselves. Something's triggered this routine inside his processor."

"The generator—"Winger decided. "But how do I get around it?"

"Like we did in the old days," Skipper. Singh had an idea. "Bypass his processor. Drive the swarm at the level of core functions. Remember your Basic Assembler Language?"

"Barely—but I guess we have no choice. We've got to do something to put this generator out of action."

Then Winger had an idea. "Taj, what if I just peel off an element of the main swarm and drive it myself? Don't even go thru ANAD...through the master. Just me and a few jillion daughter replicants."

Singh eyed the approaching demonio. He lit off a few more pulses from his mag weapon, briefly scattering the enemy bot colonies.

"Just like nog school...it's worth a try, Skipper. If that doesn't work—" He didn't have to complete the thought.

Winger went to work, dredging up old commands in BAL from memory. Most atomgrabbers had never had to learn the archaic command language. He put together a string of commands, in effect taking control of a sizeable portion of the ANAD swarm, hoping that the ANAD master wouldn't inhibit that, too.

He sent the command string and saw from his instruments that at least some of the swarm was responding. The glowing fog seemed to divide itself into several patches of assemblers. As Winger sent more commands, steadily taking control of a part of the formation, he wondered what had happened to ANAD.

Eyeing the oncoming enemy swarms, Winger knew there was only one way to be sure the generator was destroyed.

He tapped furiously at his wristpad, sending commands to the small swarm he now controlled to execute a Big Bang. Put enough mass into these cavern walls, he reasoned, and the whole place will come down.

The question was whether any of them could survive it.

But he didn't have much time left. M'Bela was already down, Taj Singh was only a few meters away, blocking the advance of the enemy bots while still getting off rounds at the Red Hammer troops below and beyond the platform. Singh was doing everything he could to buy time for Winger. He couldn't hold out much longer.

Winger saw Tallant boosting off the far end of he platform. "Dana, take cover...I'm going Big Bang...it's the only way!"

"Wings...get away from there...if that generator goes, you may wind up God knows where!"

Steadily, Winger drove the small swarm toward the cavern walls, piloting the trillions of mechs on instinct, taking the raw acoustic feed and just reacting, letting his training take over.

There...the lead bots had penetrated solid-phase...the swarm was beginning to penetrate the cavern walls.

He sent commands to execute the replication storm, then took one last look at the blurry generator, still fading in and out of view.

I don't know what kind of device you are, pal, but I'm about to drop about a million tons of rock right on that platform.

That's when the first tremor hit.

The shock waves came as a series of rolling undulations at first, followed by sharp lateral jerks, back and forth. Straight away, the platform supporting the quantum generator collapsed to the floor and was soon buried in tons of loose rubble.

The cavern walls seemed to buckle. Technicians and troops scattered in every direction. Winger instructed his suit to execute a defilade maneuver and while his boot thrusters were carving out a small foxhole beside the collapsed platform, he saw the far wall give way, exploding outward in a great roaring avalanche of rock and boulders.

Johnny Winger lay prone in the foxhole and closed his eyes, listening to the cavern walls give way, feeling the end of the world collapsing all around him.

When the dust settled, Winger opened his eyes. He had survived the tremors and the cavern collapse. The general outlines of the subterranean chamber were still there, save for the far wall, which was now gone, obscured by a deep talus of boulders and smoldering rubble. The platform had been smashed and buried under the landslide. There was no quantum generator in sight.

Had they done it? Cautiously, with help from his suit gyros, Winger extricated himself from the mound of rubble under which he had been buried.

Straight away, the crewnet crackled with voices.

"Skipper, is that you...you okay over there?" Reaves' voice was husky, strained, as if the DPS tech was hurt.

"I'll live...what about you, Sheila?" he could see the gray hump of a hypersuit shell rising like a fat ghost in the dust...maybe thirty meters away. Then another rose, surfacing unsteadily as its gyros sought vertical.

"My suit's breached but I'm on auxiliary...I'm not sure about Ozzie here...his comm's out." Reaves butted helmets with Tsukota, still unsteady on his feet. "He's bleeding...we'd better get him out now—" She fingered the quick disconnects around the helmet neck ring. With a hiss, Tsukota's helmet was loosened. Reaves eased it off. Inside, the quantum engineer was cut and bruised but otherwise okay.

"Detachment, this is CC1...sound off and report in immediately." Over the next few seconds, Winger took stock of the situation.

Singh and M'Bela were gone, buried somewhere in the thousands of tons of rubble that the tremor had released. "Start sounding," Winger ordered. "We may get something...maybe an emergency beacon or something." He didn't really believe it but he put Klimuk and Tallant to work on the idea anyway.

Winger wondered what had happened to ANAD. He tried the quantum coupler link but got nothing...only a staticky tickle in the back of his mind.

Another milder tremor shook the cavern. Rock and rubble streamed down through yawning fissures in the walls. One fissure seemed alive...it glowed with a faint iridescence, a throbbing ball of light expanding out of the wall like a rising sun.

It was ANAD.

***ANAD completing primary mission, Base...now transiting solid-phase...now on one-half propulsor...ANAD requesting new orders...returning to Base***

"ANAD, you old goat...." Winger cycled open the containment port in his suit. "...ANAD, return to port and prepare for capture."

***Base, ANAD prefers to remain in swarm state alpha...outside of containment...detecting remnant enemy formations scattered but still functioning in the target area...I just like it out here!***

Johnny Winger didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The master assembler sounded normal...maybe the quantum generator had been responsible for his core failures. But somehow the assembler had repaired himself...reconstituted himself, outside of containment. It shouldn't even be possible—

"Skipper, what's that white sphere to your left...watch it! It's moving—"

At first, he hadn't noticed the sphere. Some six feet around, slightly flattened on top, it wasn't a true sphere at all. More of an ovoid shape. It did seem to be quivering slightly, and pulsating with a pure white flicker, to some unknown rhythm. The frequency seemed to be quickening.

Winger kicked through some rubble piles and approached cautiously. As he did so, his quantum coupler went off. It wasn't ANAD though. It was a Corps signal...Singapore base. The duty officer there had just forwarded an advisory from UNIFORCE.

Winger stopped momentarily to take in the rest of the message. His mouth went dry when he realized what Singapore had just sent. After a moment's hesitation to collect his wits, he posted the message on the crewnet.

Time was running out for Operation Tectonic Strike. Time and events were starting to move against 1st Nano. UNIFORCE surveillance had just reported that elements of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army were forming up outside the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, ostensibly for search and rescue operations in the aftermath of the quakes that had hit Paryang valley. A sizeable force of lifters, interceptors and ground units had started moving out in the direction of the monastery.

"Dana," he radioed to Tallant, "we don't have much time left. I'm going to see what this sphere is—I just hope we disabled that generator...at least enough to have some effect. Taj thought it might not even be the central source of control...maybe only a node in a greater network."

"Watch yourself, Wings. I don't like it...that thing could be a trap."

"Muster the rest of the unit together. I'll have ANAD detach a small force to start boring a way out of here...before the whole place collapses. I need the master to investigate this sphere. This gizmo may be part of Red Hammer's control system."

He was still troubled by the glitches ANAD had suffered while engaging the generator...was the assembler fully functional even now?

"ANAD, configure swarm state Charlie...let's sound and probe this thing first and see what it's made of."

***ANAD reconfiguring now...selecting swarm state Charlie...acoustic lens forming...ANAD will return data momentarily***

"ANAD, what happened to you back there at that platform? I tried linking in but all I got was gibberish...images that didn't make any sense. You kept reporting memory overflow, state re-initialization...it was like you were still a basic assembler back at Table Top, being grown from first atoms."

***ANAD is still running analysis of the anomaly. I have no conclusions to make...just that, for awhile, I could not engage the enemy assemblers...inhibits prevented ANAD from engaging. Target assemblers were identified as self state...identical core assemblers...compatible structures and algorithms***

"You mean like a brother?"

***ANAD detects from language analysis and parsing that concept (brother) is an equivalent explanation for the anomaly...ANAD probed the structure of the target assemblers and the return was 'brother'***

Winger decided to put off any more questions. Something had happened to ANAD. Something had triggered faults and inhibits in his core processor. It was like a whole new set of programs had been activated. If the probe returned as 'brother,' normal inhibits could have prevented ANAD from engaging. "ANAD, what do you make of this sphere?"

At Winger's feet, the glowing pool of assemblers drifted like a fog toward the white ovoid object, itself embedded in a pile of rubble. The assembler swarm probed the surface of the sphere with acoustic and EM fingers, forming an initial impression from the return pulses.

***ANAD detecting small-scale quantum decoherence at the surface...quantum state fluctuations...Base, this device is another emitter...but smaller. The waves are higher frequency and more focused***

Winger remembered the small spheres Dana Tallant had shown him at Kurabantu. Is this the same thing? Best to approach cautiously. He switched eyepiece views to ANAD's probe, studied the returns. A small-scale quantum emitter....

At first, he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary with the ANAD swarm. The soundings returned good data and ANAD's response to commands seemed normal. But visually, the assembler swarm began to take on a wholly new appearance.

***Base, receiving new config...is this a new template? ANAD must recalculate bond energy distribution...these effectors are not standard structures***

"ANAD, what the hell are you talking about?" He turned around and what he saw next made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

The ANAD swarm had reconfigured itself into something like a demonio creature...but Winger knew he had never sent any new configs!

"ANAD...ANAD, what are you doing...reconfig swarm state Charlie. Is this some kind of joke?" He started to approach the swarm but thought better of it. "Stop fooling around here—"

***ANAD reporting configuration master override...this state has overwritten all other states...re-initialization is aborted...entity (Keeper) is connecting...establishing links...updating...***

What the--? Then Winger understood. It was the sphere...a quantum emitter, ANAD had reported.

Dana Tallant had seen ANAD change as well. She had the same thought as Winger.

"Maybe it's some kind of master sphere, Wings."

"Like the ones we saw at Kurabantu? Doc Frost examined the one I took back with us... his theory was that the sphere was a transmitter of some kind...maybe a link to another place and time. Maybe even some kind of archive or portable library. When I touched it, I got all kinds of weird images in my head. One thing's for sure...we've got to get ANAD back to normal."

Winger sent a command override to ANAD, attempting to bypass any external signals. At first, there seemed to be little effect. The swarm continued to form up into a semi-human shape—arms and legs, followed by a blank expressionless face on a slightly misshapen head. ANAD was taking the form of demonio, right in front of them.

But Winger knew a few tricks of his own, things he had learned from Doc Frost. He kept at it, sending and resending the override, digging into the guts of ANAD's processor.

Eventually, his efforts began to pay off, when they saw the growing demonio creature begin to lose structure. First, an arm dissipated into twinkling glowing fog. Then half the head. For the next few moments, the para-human came together and dissipated several times, pulsing into and out of structure as its internal commands clashed.

"It's the sphere," Tallant insisted. "It has to be. That sphere must be part of the control system."

"ANAD mentioned something called a Keeper. Didn't Q2 tell us once that the founder and head of Red Hammer was someone called the Keeper of the Sphere?"

"I assumed that was some sort of mysterious person. Maybe it isn't. Maybe the Keeper is a synthetic intelligence...like a super-ANAD. ANAD seems to be susceptible to it. Can you get control?"

"I'm trying—" Winger kicked through some rubble to get closer to the loose cloud of bots that formed the half-human. "Maybe, if I can drive ANAD myself, we can do an insertion."

"Insertion? Insertion where?"

Winger stopped right in front of the demonio, now slowly but inexorably falling apart as an identifiable structure. "The sphere, Dana. It's the heart of Amazon's control system. If I can get ANAD safely inside, I'm sure I can hack into the processor. With any luck, I can turn the whole thing off. Stop it right here."

"Wings, you're nuts...we've got to get out of here now. The generator's gone...the mission's accomplished."

Winger ignored her. Instead, he switched eyepiece views to ANAD's acoustic sounding and probed the surface of the sphere with sound waves. The return came back: solid-phase, of a type never seen before.

He drove the swarm forward, letting the sleet of loose molecules cascade past him, forward on half-propulsor. The replicants steadily closed the distance. Presently, he ordered the assemblers to a full stop, and let electromagnetic fingers probe the lattice dead ahead.

The structure was like an endless grid, basically octahedral in design, but the molecules were bound at impossible angles; the whole geometry of the thing shouldn't work, but it did. What was holding it together?

Cautiously, he maneuvered ANAD forward, into the lattice. Approaching the outer electron shells, he could feel an attraction force. It strengthened quickly and Winger had to run propulsors up to three-quarters to maintain station.

Jesus, this is strong...it's pulling me on, like a tide.

He inched forward, straining against the force, but it was no use. Even at maximum propulsor, the swarm was pulled firmly and inexorably into the lattice.

Don't fight it, he told himself. Maybe it was a sixth sense or a premonition. He chopped propulsors. Instantly, he felt the swarm slingshot forward, right toward the lattice atoms...there seemed to be no way he could squeeze between them.

Yet somehow, incredibly and against every encounter he had ever had with molecular structures, the lattice parted, giving way and allowing the ANAD swarm to enter the solid phase of the sphere's surface.

Soon enough, he was hurtling down a long, curving 'tunnel' formed by parted molecules of the sphere.

Now, I wish I had the master assembler with this swarm, he told himself. It'd be nice to get the little guy's perspective on all this. But the sphere was emitting something that confused ANAD's processor, making the master unreliable.

Best to drive this swarm myself. At least, he had the raw signal feed from all bands: acoustic, thermal, EM. The quantum coupler circuit seemed dead.

Or was it?

The first inkling Winger had of anything wrong came when the staticky fog of his coupler suddenly erupted in a chaotic jumble of images...fragments of his days at nog school, fleeting pictures of some planet seen from space, of a little boy playing in the surf before roaring ocean waves.

What was happening? Had the ANAD master somehow embedded himself in the swarm?

"ANAD...ANAD, I'm receiving something on my coupler? ANAD...is that you?"

***Entity (Keeper) is operating...Entity active in all registers...why have you come here?***

What the hell was going on? Who was Entity (Keeper)?

Almost as if his mind had been read, he got a response.

***Entity (Keeper) operates the portal...and maintains the Archive. WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE?***

Winger remembered the last Q2 briefing at Table Top, before the Detachment had set out on Operation Tectonic Strike. Q2 had intelligence indicating Red Hammer had been getting technical assistance from someone...it was unlikely the criminal cartel could have developed Amazon Vector or the original quantum coupler by themselves.

Q2 figured it was the Chinese who had been helping. But Winger had once discussed with Doc Frost another possibility: that Red Hammer was somehow receiving technical assistance from an extraterrestrial source...a distant intelligence, a non-human intelligence. "With quantum couplers," Doc Frost had explained, "such signals would been damnably hard to detect. The possibility can't be discounted."

"What is the portal?" Winger asked, not sure if coupler was active.

***The sphere is a link and a portal***

Fair enough, Winger thought. But a portal to what?

"Where does this portal go to? What is being linked?"

Entity (Keeper) didn't reply at first. Winger concentrated on driving the swarm forward, through the 'tunnel' of parted molecules. Most peculiar—

***Access to the portal is controlled. Authorization is required...state authorization and present configuration for inspection***

At the same moment, the tunnel down which they had been maneuvering suddenly convulsed, shaking like a whip back and forth. Winger studied the soundings on his viewer, tweaking ANAD's propulsor to stay in the middle of the channel. The shaking grew more violent, until the walls seemed to shatter, spalling off pieces in a shower that flooded the tunnel ahead.

Winger slowed ANAD to one-quarter and focused on the nearer pieces...they were all hourglass shaped...maneuvering as if under control but with no obvious effectors or means of propulsion.

Cautiously, he let a swarm of nearby hourglass structures flock around him. Even as he watched, the open ends of the hourglass bots—he had to call them bots since they moved and reacted with intelligence—snuggled over the ends of ANAD's effectors. Every bot in the ANAD swarm was soon fully immobilized.

Too late, Winger realized what was happening. Whoa there, fellas, he told himself. He ran up ANAD's propulsor to max and sent commands to fold and retract all effectors. No use. ANAD, along with several trillion replicants, was caught.

"What the--?" Winger forced himself to remain calm. What were these things? He racked his mind, thinking of every atomgrabber's trick he'd ever tried. None of them worked. Quantum collapse...it was too soon to try anything that drastic. Bond disrupters...pyridine probes...carbene grabbers...none of them worked.

It's like I'm caught in some kind of MOBnet, he thought. The hourglass bots were almost like antibodies, each one morphing to fit and disable specific ANAD effectors.

He checked system status and the blood drained from his face: ANAD's board was lit up like a Christmas tree. Red lights flashed at him from every direction. System by system, ANAD was shutting down. The swarm was going dark.

We've got to get the hell out of here, he quickly decided. But how...he had no propulsors. He didn't want to execute a quantum collapse...it would effectively destroy the master, not to mention leaving the Detachment defenseless.

Somehow, the hourglass bots were like defenders, or perhaps antibodies, seeking to eliminate an intruder. Yet they were unlike any other nanobotic device he had ever seen. Almost alive, eerie in their swift and sure movements, the bots had immobilized the ANAD swarm in mere seconds. Now, they seemed to be sucking the very life out of ANAD.

If it was an intelligence, maybe he could reason with it.

"Entity (Keeper)...what's going on? Why have you immobilized the ANAD swarm? You must release us, immediately."

***Entity (Keeper) detects not-self. Not-self must be eliminated***

For the briefest of seconds, his coupler crackled with a dizzy array of images. Too fast for his mind to resolve, he felt the coppery taste of fear in his mouth. Blood was roaring in his ears and his heart was pounding...it was like the cavern collapse, like the underwater avalanche at Kurabantu, like when he'd first learned of Mom's death in the accident—all rolled into one. The cold steel of fear pierced his chest and his throat went dry—

His coupler had somehow touched Entity (Keeper) directly and the imagery stream had triggered his most terrifying, primal fears.

The connection had only lasted a second, maybe less, but the torrent of fear it unleashed made him nearly black out.

Entity (Keeper) had used the quantum coupler to directly activate stored imagery in his mind's limbic system. Deeply buried fears and terrors erupted from the split-second connection and washed over him.

Pulse racing, Johnny Winger knew what he had to do.

Entity (Keeper)...whatever it was...it was bad news. Some kind of intelligence inside the Sphere had quantum capabilities far beyond anything the Corps had ever developed.

I've got to get ANAD out of here. The assembler swarm he was driving was being steadily weakened by contact with the Keeper.

Winger knew the only way he could extract the swarm was a quantum collapse. Slough off everything and reduce each assembler to its core processor dot. Stripped down to its barely existing essence, an assembler q-dot should be able to escape the hourglass bots that were even now disassembling his mechs.

It was risky as hell but there didn't seem to be any other way. He had to get the ANAD master assembler away from the Keeper, re-group with all the Detachment survivors and try to make it back to the geoplane, back to Mole, before the Chinese arrived...or the whole complex crumbled into ruin.

Winger gritted his teeth as he tapped out commands on is wristpad. To save the master assembler, he had to amputate everything...get ANAD down to practically nothing...an indistinct dot of quantum probability states, little more than waves crashing on a shore...there and not there at the same time.

The maneuver was fraught with possibilities for screw-up. But it had always worked before.

He executed the collapse and simultaneously trillions of replicants threw off their effectors and atomic parts like spinning clouds of fluff. On his viewer, status lights winked out, one after another, until the board went dark.

Now it was all up to ANAD.

Johnny Winger shook his shoulder to spring open the containment port and began extricating himself from the pile of rubble into which he had fallen, relying on his suit gyros to keep him upright.

Come on, ANAD...come on home. Come to Papa...

"Fall back!" he ordered over the crewnet. The ANAD element he had detached to start boring a path out of the cavern had managed to create a short tunnel. The bots were still at it, through all the tremors and jolts, mindlessly chewing away at millions of tons of rock, their faint glow like a beacon in the dusty air. "Fall back on my position! We're getting out of here!"

They couldn't wait for the nanobots to do the job. The cavern, maybe the whole mountain, was unstable. Paryang could collapse at any moment and bury them alive.

"We're going to have to blast our way out," Winger decided.

One by one, the Detachment survivors boosted in and hovered or touched down nearby. Winger silently counted off the troops: Tallant and Klimuk, Calderon and Spivey, Barnes, D'Nunzio, Tsukota and Reaves. They'd lost three so far: Gibby, M'Bela and Singh. They'd be missed.

"Concentrate your fire on ANAD's tunnel...everything you've got: mag, coilguns, whatever you have. We're going to try to punch up to daylight from here."

Klimuk, the Russian, looked skeptical. His trim black beard twitched. "How deep are we, Captain? Isn't that dangerous, with all these seismic shocks?"

Winger shrugged. "It's dangerous just to stay where we are. Here's the plan: when I give the word, I want three of you—Reaves, Deeno and you, Victor, to concentrate your fire on that Sphere. I don't know what that thing is...a portal or an archive or some kind of synthetic intelligence, maybe all three, but we need to destroy it. The rest of you use your weapons to blast us a tunnel up there where ANAD started boring a path."

The nanotroopers positioned themselves to begin firing.

"I don't know if the cavern walls will hold," Winger admitted. "But we really don't have much choice."

He took a last look at the ovoid Sphere. The Keeper, whatever it was, was inside that Sphere. If nothing else, they had discovered the truth at the heart of one of Red Hammer's deepest secrets. The Keeper, for years the presumed head of the cartel, was likely some kind of synthetic intelligence, a sort of super-operating system for the Sphere itself.

"Commence firing," Winger gave the order.

Instantly, the Sphere was enveloped in flame, smoke and dust as Reaves, Deeno and Klimuk hosed the ovoid down with coil gun, mag and particle beam fire. For a brief second, Winger was sure the thing had been vaporized. But after the first bloom of debris had subsided, the Sphere remained, bathed in an unearthly pale blue light, seemingly unaffected.

"Keep firing!" Winger ordered. "The tunnel too—"

Behind him, the rest of the Detachment opened up on the path already bored by ANAD. Rock and rubble rained down on them and the Detachment had to scatter to avoid being crushed. But the firing continued and a spider web of beams crisscrossed the cavern wall, pulsating at maximum frequency, trying to punch a hole through the rock walls.

I sure hope ANAD made it back home, Winger thought to himself. After a quantum collapse, there was no real way for ANAD's master to communicate...the bot was little more than a quantum dot, a basic core barely ticking over. Winger had no idea if the tiny assembler—whatever was left of him—had made it back to containment.

He'd have to shut the capsule port and hope for the best. He thought about trying the coupler but figured it was useless. ANAD's quantum dot core had barely enough logic to keep itself 'alive', let alone respond to signals.

And he wasn't sure about interference from the Keeper.

After a minute of blasting, Winger ordered a cease fire to appraise the situation.

Dust and rubble settled about the cavern as he stared up at the rock overhead. Though the faint blue ball of light that was the partial ANAD swarm still flickered from the deep shadow of a crevice, there was no indication that all their firing had had much effect.

Dana Tallant said it before he could. "Wings, the only thing we did was add to the dust and debris." Her hypersuit servos whirred as she kicked through knee deep rubble.

Winger took a deep breath. Time was running out. The Chinese would be at Paryang in no time. If 1st Nano were caught running operations inside Chinese territory....

"Fire again," he decided. Maybe with ANAD boring a path, the rock overhang would be weakened enough to breach an opening to the surface. "Full bore...everything you've got...concentrate fire around ANAD's boring—"

The volley of mag pulses and particle beams had just erupted when the cavern shook with a massive tremor...a series of lateral jerks and jolts like some angry child was shaking a play toy.

Great seams of rock and dust cascaded down on the nanotroopers in a roaring avalanche.

When the dust had finally settled and the shaking had subsided, Johnny Winger found himself sideways, pinned under a rubble pile. He commanded his suit to seek vertical and the thrusters popped a cloud of dust before his servos could extend. In a few seconds of squealing and whirring, he was standing waist deep in rock, rubble and dust—

\--and peering up at snowflakes drifting down from a frigid night sky.

Somehow, they had made it! They had breached an opening to the surface.

"Detachment, sound off...let's get topside and figure out where we are."

One by one, the surviving nanotroopers came on line: Klimuk, Tallant, Reaves, Barnes...all had survived the last violent tremor.

And ANAD? Winger hurriedly scanned around the opening, for any sign of the assembler swarm. He saw nothing, no flickering lights, no blurry masses, no unusual formations of any kind. No doubt, the swarm he had let loose to start boring had been scattered in the last collapse. That loss was manageable...the swarm had been only drones driven by a config Winger had hacked together. But the master assembler, after the quantum collapse—had ANAD made it back into containment?

There was no way to tell. Communicating with a quantum core was impossible...it took specialized equipment of a type that only Table Top had. Winger swallowed hard and absent-mindedly patted his left shoulder.

You didn't leave a trooper behind—that was the first rule of operations that every nog learned in Basic. You never left a buddy behind.

"Let's boost out of here," Tallant reminded him. "Before the place collapses on us."

Winger agreed, reluctantly. He lit off his own suit and felt the reassuring force of the thrusters lifting him over the rock pile, lifting him above the rock walls, up, over and out of the collapsed cavern.

Topside, it was snowing hard and the Bailidzong hills were ghostly humps, lost in the snow. The hypersuited troopers dropped to the ground, coming out of boost, and flailed awkwardly in the deep drifts.

"Captain—" it was Mighty Mite Barnes, less than thirty meters away. The SDC2 had somehow boosted higher than the others and come down on her side. She looked like a polar bear waking up, as her suit servos righted her. "Captain...geoplane probe signal...I got a snatch of it coming out of the cavern—"

"Get a fix...pin it down and let's get moving on that heading," Winger ordered.

"Behind us—" Barnes decided. She turned around. "On the other side of—"

Winger saw what had stopped Mighty Mite in mid-sentence. It was the Paryang monastery, or what was left of it. Where once, the monastery had been a proud, if slightly decrepit stone fortress surrounded by towers and parapets, now there was only ruin left. Paryang monastery had been reduced to little more than a pile of broken stone softened by rising snow drifts, with smoldering fires still flickering orange and red, inside the collapsed ruins.

And, on the other side, a few hundred meters beyond the massive stone steps and gargoyled columns of its frontal approach, flashed twin red lights, a homing beacon that Mole had lit up to guide them back to the geoplane.

"There it is!" Deeno yelled over the crewnet. "I've never seen anything so beautiful in my whole life."

"Home sweet home," breathed Chris Calderon.

"Let's go!" Winger commanded. "Detachment, move out...assemble at the geoplane!"

As one, the nanotroopers lifted away from the snow drifts and made their way over the ruins of the monastery to the open field beyond. Mole beckoned them with her twin nav beacons gleaming fire red in an otherwise bleak, whited-out winter night.

Deeno was the first to set down. She hugged the aft nacelle of Mole's tread track like a long lost friend. "I love you...I love you—"

"Quit humping the treads and get inside, why don't you?" snorted Barnes. "Jeez—"

Winger counted them off as they clambered aboard, entering the geoplane through the aft lockout chamber. Soon, he and Tallant were the only ones left outside.

"Can't say I'm sorry to leave this place," Tallant muttered. She took off her hypersuit helmet and took a deep breath. The cold Himalayan air was thick with acrid smoke and dust, mixed with snow...the orange flicker of smoldering fires buried deep in the monastery rubble cast a garish glow on the drifts piling up around the ruins.

Winger was pensive as he stared back at the ruins. "I just hope ANAD was able to make it back."

"There's no way to tell, I mean...after a quantum collapse?"

Winger shook his head. "Takes special equipment just to detect an assembler core that's done that...let alone regenerate one. I didn't feel anything over the coupler circuit either."

Tallant was sympathetic. "He wanted so bad to be a nog, like the rest of us. Maybe the little guy made it back—"

The ground started trembling again. High on the mountain side, another avalanche was forming, a wall of snow and ice cascading down with a growing roar.

"Let's get out of here," Winger said. He and Tallant boarded Mole and in moments, the geoplane was buttoned up and ready to roll.

The geoplane's treads jerked into motion and the craft trundled forward, plowing through snow drifts as its borer core lit up, swelling into a pulsating ball of light. The borer mechs configured for action as Mole angled downward and bit into the hard crust underlying the deep snow.

With a hiss of steam and the whir of treads grinding against rock, the squat cylindrical craft disappeared below ground. Seconds later, the entire forward end of the valley was buried in thousands of tons of snow as the avalanche crashed into the monastery grounds.

By then, Mole was a hundred feet below ground, boring rapidly downward, hunting for the approach tunnel she had bored out a day before.

"Densitometer dropping off," Tallant reported from the command deck. "Still hard shale but sounding indicates linear voids ahead, less than a kilometer from the looks of it."

"Must be our path," Winger figured. "Unless it's a new fault or fracture zone. Steering left to heading one five one degrees. We'll check it out."

Straightaway, Mole navigated to her approach path, a sinuous curving tunnel some five hundred feet below the plains of Tibet. If they could follow the existing tunnel back to their departure point at the ruby mine, the trip would go a lot faster.

"Skipper..." it was Barnes, up on the command deck to handle comms and troubleshoot some glitches with the quantum circuit. "...we got a signal. It's still patchy but I think I can dial it in. It's a signal from Singapore."

"Send a response," Winger ordered. He was gripping Mole's control yoke tightly, manually steering them through their own tunnel. "Tell Singapore that Operation Tectonic Strike has achieved all mission objectives. We're coming home. We'll need extraction in—" he did some figuring "—in about ten hours, if we don't have to do too much boring."

"I'm sending it," Barnes told them, as she typed out the response for the quantum coupler to encode. "I just don't know if we're being heard—this gadget's pretty finicky. Quantum systems...jeez, what a pain!"

Mole traversed her original path for the next ten hours, but some of the tunnel had collapsed on the Nepal side of the Namse pass. The ANAD borer was engaged and the geoplane's progress was slowed to only a few kilometers per hour.

"We'd better surface," Winger decided. "Give me a navigation hack—" He pulled back on the control yoke and Mole eased upward, chewing through hundreds of feet of hard crust.

Barnes triangulated from the intermittent quantum signals Singapore base was sending out. "Maintain heading of two two five degrees. We should breach inside the border, inside Nepal. A few klicks from Simiko."

Mole headed upward meter by meter, chewing her way through crust and shale. When the treads lost traction, Winger knew they had breached. The geoplane squirmed out of its burrow hole and squatted like a huge slug in bright morning sunshine.

A few hundred meters away, a young Nepalese goat herd named Muktat gazed down on the gleaming cylinder that had just surfaced with fear and wonder. Perched on the side of a craggy slope, his herd bleated and whined, unsure of what was happening. Muktat was certain that the Most Honorable and Enlightened One had sent him a vision...a beast from the depths of the earth. Perhaps this creature had been angry...the valleys around Simiko and Namse had been shaking a lot the last few days.

Inside the geoplane, Winger secured Mole from boring. "Raise the UNIFORCE commander," he ordered. "We're going to need lifter assistance to get out of here. And get Singapore base on the line. I'll need a patch to Table Top."

The Detachment debarked from the geoplane and set up a defensive perimeter around Mole. They had surfaced in a snowy valley of steep, desolate hills, black hills streaked with fingers of snow and ice. Thin streams of smoke from a nearby village issued skyward a few kilometers south.

Ozzie Tsukota scanned the valley with long-range glasses, noting the goat herds on the slopes, the crumbling stone ruins below them, and the dusty dirt road that snaked across the valley floor. The road bisected the valley, intersecting a cluster of crude stone huts and a sprinkling of tents nearby. A growing crowd of onlookers seemed to be making their way up the road, gesturing at the geoplane and her crew.

"Looks like we've got company, Skipper. Some kind of welcoming committee."

Winger acknowledged. Before he could make a tactical decision though, Sheila Reaves' voice crackled over the crewnet.

"Contacts overhead, Captain...bearing one five zero degrees, coming in low."

Winger turned to see, squinting south in the bright morning sun. Can't be the Chinese...wrong vector. "What's the range?"

Reaves hesitated. "Best range is six klicks, closing at one two zero knots...aerial contact, Skipper...multiple returns approaching at low altitude. Could be UNIFORCE."

The familiar whine of lifter jets could soon be heard echoing around the little valley. A formation of spidery craft materialized out of the sun glare and circled the geoplane like prey sizing up a new victim. But these were friendlies.

Winger squinted up and saw the familiar blue shield of UNIFORCE on the nearest lifter, as it wheeled about, hovered, and settled gingerly to the ground like a big fat moth.

"Secure the perimeter," Winger ordered. His nanotroopers gladly stowed their weapons and made their way to the grounded lifter, while others landed nearby.

For the first time in days, Johnny Winger began to relax.

Tectonic Strike was over. The central Red Hammer base at Paryang monastery was a pile of ruins. Small aftershocks continued to rock the Paryang valley as the earth began settling down from the ANAD-induced quakes and tremors. So numerous were the continuing shocks that even the Chinese had been unable to enter the valley.

Johnny Winger knew that Red Hammer's base had finally been destroyed. Much of the cartel's control infrastructure was in ruins. Scores, maybe hundreds of Red Hammer troops and operatives had been killed.

The real question was: had the quantum state generator and the master Sphere really been destroyed or at least put out of action? Could a rejuvenated ANAD deal with the Amazon superswarms, without interference from the generator? Could the earth's atmosphere be saved from destruction?

Only time would tell.

Johnny Winger had a million other questions he wanted to ask but when he saw the UNIFORCE squadron commander approaching, he stowed them and saluted the blue-helmeted major as smartly as he could.

Major Ayub Mehmet Khan was Pakistani by birth, a tall, swarthy, mustachioed Waziri tribesman with burnished coppery skin and fierce brown eyes. He snapped off a regulation-perfect return salute, then his face split into a mischievous grin.

"Welcome to Nepal, Captain...welcome back. The rest of my battalion will be arriving momentarily. Do you require anything...water, food, supplies or anything at all?"

They shook hands.

"Just a good comm link to Table Top base, Major. That and a ride out of here. All of us just want to go home."

The Detachment lifted away from Simiko an hour later, after ensuring that Major Khan's troops would secure and transport Mole back to Puranpur, the ruby mine where the operation had begun. As soon as the squadron of lifters had cleared the valley, Winger and Tallant vidlinked in to the Corpsnet at Table Top.

Major Kraft came on line, split screened with General Wolfus Linx from Paris. CINCQUANT himself wanted to hear the briefing directly from the 1st Nano team.

"You will complete a full debrief at Table Top, Captain," Linx was saying, "and then you will appear at UNIFORCE headquarters here in Paris at 0800 hours on Thursday, January 1. UNSAC himself is addressing the troops...and there will be some medals handed out."

Winger groaned inwardly, seeing Tallant react the same way out of the corner of his eye, but nodded gravely at the screen. "Understood, sir. 1st Nano can report mission accomplished. Operation Tectonic Strike achieved all assigned objectives."

Major Kraft seemed satisfied. "Very well, Captain. Give us an update on the status of ANAD."

Winger swallowed hard. He explained what had happened. "Sir, I'm not sure if ANAD...or rather his quantum core was contained at all. We don't have the equipment to detect what's left of an assembler after a quantum collapse. That will have to be done at Table Top."

Kraft's face had hardened. He'd never been a big fan of the Symbiosis Project, but once CINCQUANT had dropped the project in his lap, he was determined to see it succeed. "And ANAD's performance during the mission...it was up to spec?"

"In all respects, Major." Winger decided not to tell them how reluctant the tiny assembler had been to go back into containment or how his core functions had been scrambled by proximity to the quantum generator. That would all come out in the debrief. "ANAD was a fully capable component of this unit, able to contribute essential skills at critical times."

Jeez, Wings, Tallant thought, though she said nothing. You sound like a recruiting vid.

Kraft seemed to sense that he was being conned but he didn't intend to dig any deeper with CINCQUANT on the line. "Very well, Winger. I guess we'll see all the details at the debrief. I've got a hyperjet standing by at Singapore. After you and your team complete their physicals, be on that jet and get some shuteye. That's an order."

"I do have a question, sir...if I may?"

"Proceed."

"Has there been any effect on the superswarms since we put Paryang out of commission? Any evidence that BioShield or our own bots can deal with Amazon better?"

"I'll take that one, Major," CINCQUANT decided. Linx absent-mindedly massaged his moustache as he composed his answer. "First indications we're getting, from BioShield and Dr. Camois at UNIFORCE, are encouraging. There are still sizeable swaths of bots, formed up into swarms breaking down Earth's atmosphere over South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The strongest concentration is still over the South Pacific—all southern hemisphere threats. The swarms were always strongest there. North of the equator, we're having more success. The swarms hadn't linked up into supercells and ANAD and the other bots we're using have been able to keep them in check. In the south though—" Linx shook his head, "—it's going to take time. Slowly, we're breaking down the swarms and reversing the changes...but there are still going to be more casualties. In some places, like the Indian Ocean basin, returning the atmosphere to normal conditions will take months, maybe longer. Just clearing the skies of residual Amazon could take months. But make no mistake, Captain...what you and your team have done is given us some time. Without links to their control network, Amazon can be defeated, piecemeal to be sure, but I'm confident we're gaining on them. Right now, UNIFORCE and BioShield are focusing on getting rid of the swarms. But we've got UN relief agencies attached to all units and they're moving into affected areas as soon as we can clear the skies...moving in with respirators, medicines, filters and other gear. Still, casualties will mount into the millions before the situation is stabilized."

"It's been a global catastrophe," Kraft agreed. "I'll fill you in when you touch down here."

Winger was sobered by the report. There was so much to discuss but the details would have to wait. "The Detachment needs to stand down for a day or so, Major. We're exhausted, injured and our gear is mostly shot or gone. Permission to go off-line and regenerate."

Kraft could see the fatigue lines on Winger's face, even over the vidlink. "Permission granted. General Linx, we'll conference you in on our unit debrief, say at 0800 hours on December 31."

Linx was brusque, already thinking ahead to the coming months of arduous cleanup and containment operations. "Very well, Major. I expect to ask a lot of questions...what worked, what didn't, what we can do better. I also expect some answers. CINCQUANT...out." The window displaying Linx winked out, replaced by a stylized Quantum Corps logo.

"Get some rest, Winger. You and your team have done a helluva job. CINCQUANT's pleased...he just doesn't show it. The politicians in Paris are too...they all want to have their pictures taken with you."

"Great," Winger lied. Tallant just shook her head. "I don't know what's harder...fighting off swarms of Amazon or fighting off swarms of politicians. They'll both eat you alive."

"True enough," Kraft admitted, "but just remember who pays the bills. Table Top—out." Kraft's face dissolved and the vid went black.

Winger sat back and sighed, closing his eyes. "I just want something to drink and a hot shower and a warm bed." He peered out the lifter porthole. Singapore lay dead ahead—already they were descending toward the Quantum Corps base—a hazy dot in the distance before purplish late afternoon thunderclouds. "I don't care if they have to carry me off in a litter...I'm not lifting a finger until we get to Table Top."

Tallant grinned. "Not even to help a fellow nog?"

Winger shrugged, patting his left shoulder, where the containment capsule had been implanted months before. "I'm betting the little guy's in here, in spite of everything we've been through. This nog's a hard nut to crack...he just needs a little TLC, like the rest of us."

Tallant nodded. "You guys are inseparable...like brothers or best buddies. I can't imagine life in 1st Nano without ANAD. Hey, maybe I should put in for the procedure too. Then, I'd have a buddy of my own."

Winger lay back and closed his eyes. "Who needs a buddy...you got me."

Have I? Tallant wondered. Have I really?

The lifter settled to the ground on its skids with a firm bump.

Two hours later, aboard hyperjet Mercury, Johnny Winger was snoring loudly in his bunk, his face turned to the porthole that looked out over Pacific islands strung out like jeweled necklaces from the near-space altitude of the jet. Nearly a hundred miles above the Pacific, Mercury sailed silently through space on her two-hour suborbital skip and hop across the globe. Soon enough, she would be settling belly first back into earth's wounded atmosphere, spiraling down into the denser air and relighting her engines for the last few minutes of descent into Table Top.

For Johnny Winger, the gilded spectacle of a mid-Pacific sunrise held no beauty at all. The exhausted atomgrabber slept through the whole trip, deep in a blissfully dreamless sleep.

But deep inside the containment capsule inside Winger's shoulder was proof that the commanding officer of 1st Nano was not alone.

The barest atomic remnants of ANAD, little more than a faint cloud of electron probability waves, ticked over like a faintly beating heart, mindlessly cycling from one state to another, awaiting only the right signal to collapse again into the living core of an autonomous nanoscale being.

While Johnny Winger slept like a dead man in his bunk aboard hyperjet Mercury, that signal finally came. It did not come from Table Top Mountain or from any human quantum engineer.

The signal, when it came, stirred ANAD's ethereal probability waves toward collapse to a formal state, toward becoming sentient and alive once more.

But this signal came from far beyond the Earth.
Epilogue

January 1, 2069

1330 Hours

Paris

The Jardin des Suisse was only one of dozens of cafes along the Champs Elysees but for Johnny Winger and Dana Tallant, it was the most important place in the whole world.

Winger hoisted a goblet of wine—a vintage 2044 Chardonnay by the bottle label—and toasted 1st Nano.

"Here's to us," he said. "All of us."

Dana Tallant returned the favor. "The best damn outfit in the whole Corps...no atomgrabber's ever going to top these last few months." Her head inclined a bit lasciviously and her eyes fell on the gleaming sunburst emblem of the UNIFORCE Order of Victory with oak leaf clusters that had been pinned to Winger's chest by UNSAC only a few hours before. "Wings—" she slurred dreamily, "that medal's a beautiful thing but couldn't you at least take off that jacket...a girl likes to see some male pecs once in awhile."

Winger smirked. Their time would come...tonight, in the Dorsay Hotel, the Imperial Suite. The less the Corps knew about that, the better. He smacked his lips at her and she burst out laughing.

"I'm still not sure how to link in, Wings." Tallant frowned and cocked her head, trying to snap her own quantum coupler into operation, the way the docs had tried to teach her, after the surgery. "Maybe I don't quite have the hang of it...you want to show me again?"

"You're hopeless," he decided. "Just kind of roll your head like this—" he tossed his head just so "—and as you do that, tighten your chin. Think of something hot—something burning—Doc Frost said that's an easy memory trace to tag."

"Ooooh," Tallant's face brightened. "oh...I think...yeah...yeah...I think I'm in...Jeez, Wings...it's like rolling in the ocean...the waves are—"

"That's it," he told her. "Hold on...I'll see if I can link in too—"

The two nanotroopers lolled the afternoon away at the café table, alternately sipping Chardonnay and probing each other's ids through intermittent coupler links.

It was a deliciously new way to grope and both took turns exploring each other's limbic fantasies in great detail.

Dana Tallant's implant was less than two weeks old and she sported the capsule port in her left shoulder like a new set of earrings. Major Kraft had approved the procedure as a continuation of the same experimental effort that had been started on Winger himself months before. It was the goal of the Project, after all, to eventually bring the whole of 1st Nano into the Project, to implant containment capsules in all nanotroopers as a normal part of their equipment.

Dana Tallant was now the second data point, a blended symbiotic ANAD/human combat system. She had already discovered some new uses for the implant.

"Ooooh--" Tallant purred, as she finally made the connection. "That's cool...it's like flying through a snowstorm...all the shapes...kind of weird—"

Winger understood. He'd seen it often enough himself. He decided to try something—a trick he'd learned about the coupler connection. All he had to do was think of a certain animal...in a certain position.

Tallant's face had been lit up with a blissful sort of smile. When Johnny's love note came across, however, the smile at first faded, then evolved into a lascivious little smirk. Her eyes opened and she leveled an even gaze at Winger.

"Wings, you're sick...but I love it anyway. Nobody should be able to do that. It's physically impossible."

Winger laughed and finished off his wine. "That's the beauty of a coupler, Dana. Any image you can think of, you can send it out, if you know how. It's all just quantum waves. Anything's possible, once you focus on it."

Tallant squirmed a bit, as her mind's eye streamed in more of the imagery. My God, first they're polar bears, then they're rabbits. "Captain Winger, you are one sick bastard."

For the next hour, they explored the new medium of quantum-coupled, assembler-mediated sex, in halting, groping stages, while all around them, crowds of tourists surged up and down the Champs Elysees. For any who cared to look, the two nanotroopers might have been a typical pair of tourists, overawed by the sights and sounds of the City of Light. Their faces were blank, save for occasional smirks and giggles. Yet each had touched the other in ways more profound and meaningful than any lovers ever had before.

Later, when they had returned to the hyperjet Charioteer for the suborbital trip back to Table Top, Winger and Tallant met with several others from 1st Nano in the tiny galley of the ship. A well-deserved beer and bitch session had been underway for some time. Reaves and Barnes were there, Tsukota and Deeno too. The Tectonic Strike mission and its after effects were the main topic of conversation.

"The first reports are pretty encouraging," Reaves said. "ANAD's been engaging Amazon swarms all around the planet. He's kicking ass now that the control system can't direct the swarms. It's all under direct BioShield control."

The troopers saw Winger and Tallant approaching. "Hey, Skipper—" it was Deeno, her mouth full of snacks, dribbling crumbs like a five-year old. "—what's the word on the ANAD master? Scuttlebutt around Table Top says the little bugger's got some new doodads, after he regenerated."

Winger gave Tallant a look. If they only knew, his eyes said.

"Master assembler is online and functioning normally, as designed," he told them.

Reaves was curious about Tallant's experience, after the implant. "Is it as weird as we hear? Major Kraft hasn't released the schedule for the rest of us. Me personally—I'm ready. I kind of like the idea of having my own personal swarm. It'll be like having guardian angel."

"Yeah, I'll bet," groused Deeno. "You'll have the buggers configged like some kind of prize stud in no time. Your own personal stud farm...that's what you'll have."

"It's different...takes getting used to," Tallant admitted. She was still officially in her adaptation period. Three months, minimum, Doc Frost had told her. "It's like having a voice in your head, maybe like a conscience. Sort of comforting and a bit weird at the same time. And linking in...now that really is bizarre. Like flying through a snowstorm, or swimming in a hurricane." Tallant shrugged, feeling the capsule port through her uniform, knowing an ANAD master assembler was inside, ticking over, waiting for the command to launch. "It's pretty sobering to think how much more you can do now. Pretty powerful stuff. I feel like a walking army. It's like Major Kraft said: 'One trooper can do the work of a battalion now.'"

"Yeah, but you don't get a battalion's pay," Deeno observed. "I'm not so sure I want another—thing, consciousness, whatever you call it—stuck in my shoulder. I don't need to be hearing any more voices than necessary."

"Deeno," said Mighty Mite Barnes, "no ANAD implant could ever compete with that voice of yours."

"Anyway," Reaves continued, "it looks like the new ANAD is able to handle Amazon. Reports I saw last night said huge swaths of Earth's atmosphere were already effectively cleared of the bots. UNIFORCE and BioShield are already working hard to restore the atmosphere to its natural state."

"It's going to take awhile," Winger said. "Amazon did a lot of damage, killed a lot of people, these last few months."

"Probably several years," Reaves said.

"Skipper," Tsukota was curious, sipping at a scalding cup of tea, "you think we really destroyed that quantum generator? And that sphere...the Master Sphere?"

Winger had wondered the same thing himself. "I don't know, Ozzie. I certainly hope so. Maybe it doesn't matter, if ANAD can continue to be successful against Amazon Vector." He shuddered, remembering what had happened when he had tried linking in with the sphere, coupling directly to the Keeper. He never wanted to experience that again.

"Anyway," Dana Tallant was saying, "if earth's atmosphere goes bad again, we can all just hike up to Mars and live there, start new lives with ANAD respirocytes to help us breathe."

"Maybe not," Tsukota muttered, quietly perusing a news feed on his wrist receiver. "Look at this...something from Hellas base on Mars. Looks like they're having some kind of environmental problems of their own...."

The exhausted but satisfied nanotroopers of Quantum Corps didn't know it of course, but the Master Sphere was still very much alive and transmitting, despite being buried under thousands of tons of rubble and despite being seriously damaged.

Using quantum channels still at its command, the Sphere had already transmitted a slightly damaged copy of its Keeper operating system to a sister Sphere buried under the desert sands of distant Hellas Basin on Mars.

From there, the Keeper would still be able to communicate with surviving members of the Ruling Council of Red Hammer...and with others beyond Earth itself.

And from there, the self-healing Keeper of the New Sphere would be able to continue its preparations, its ancient encoded duties...following commands laid down eons before to modify Earth, Mars, indeed the entire Solar System, even the Sun itself, to make worlds more suitable for the arrival of its programmers...for the coming of the Old Ones themselves.

Even as Johnny Winger and his fellow atomgrabbers toasted the success of Tectonic Strike, while hyperjet Charioteer rocketed across the top of earth's atmosphere toward Table Top Mountain, the Keeper of the New Sphere received a faint but still discernible signal.

The signal had traversed some two billion light years in the blink of an eye, and it had come from the direction of the northern summer constellation Lyra, from a galaxy known in the star charts only as M75, a faint smudge of light even in the largest telescopes.

The signal—received, processed and saved, told the Keeper when to expect next contact...when to expect the arrival of advance elements of the Old Ones. The Keeper stored this date and immediately initiated the next phase of its programmed activity. It also started a timer, counting down the years, months, days and hours until the Old Ones arrived.

The time was set. June 2, 2155 was only ninety years away and the Keeper still had much work left to be done.
About the Author

Philip Bosshardt is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He works for a large company that makes products everyone uses...just check out the drinks aisle at your grocery store. He's been happily married for over 20 years. He's also a Georgia Tech graduate in Industrial Engineering. He loves water sports in any form and swims 3-4 miles a week in anything resembling water. He and his wife have no children. They do, however, have one terribly spoiled Keeshond dog named Kelsey.
