Johnny Winger and the Great Rift Zone

By Philip Bosshardt

At the dawn of the 22nd century, nanobotic technology is critical to the global economy. Swarms are everywhere. Swarms can even resemble people...they're called angels. It's getting harder to tell them apart from Normals. Out of this chaos comes a robotic messiah, a swarm savior named Symborg, who promises a new kind of paradise through the Church of Assimilation. Along with some disturbing developments along the outer boundaries of our solar system, it seems as if the Old Ones have sent advance scouts to reconnoiter what they started a billion years ago...and fix it. Symborg may be one of them. General John Winger leads his harried nanotroopers into combat, on battlefields across the globe, around the solar system and inside the world of atoms and molecules. Fifth episode of the Tales of the Quantum Corps.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Bosshardt
• Release date: Nov 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310393846

Philip Bosshardt

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.For details on his series Tales of the Quantum Corps, visit his blog at qcorpstimes.blogspot.com or his website at http://philbosshardt.wix.com/philip-bosshardt.

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PROLOGUE

SpaceGuard Center, Farside Observatory,

Korolev Crater, The Moon

May 2, 2110 (UT)

Nightfall at Korolev Crater came abruptly, too abruptly, thought Percy Marks. He stared out the porthole of the SpaceGuard Center and watched the shadows drop like a black curtain across the face of the crater wall. Korolev was a massive place, fully four hundred kilometers in diameter, with stairstep rim walls and a small chain of mountains inside. Like a bull’s eye on a target, the crater lay dead center in the rugged highlands of Farside, forever banished from the sight of Earth.

Percy Marks watched the black creep down the crater walls and ooze across the crater floor like a spreading stain. Somehow, it seemed depressing…another two weeks of night with only the stars for company. Cosmic grandeur, my ass, he muttered to himself. Give me a beach in the South Pacific and some native girls and I’ll tell you a thing or two about cosmic grandeur.

Marks was pulling late shift today…tonight…whatever the hell it was. Tending the radars and telescopes of Farside Array, scanning sector after sector of the heavens for any little burp or fart worthy of an astronomer’s interest. The High Freq array had just gone through a major tune-up last week and it was Marks’ job to give her a complete shakedown for the next few days.

At the moment, she was boresighted to some distant gamma-ray sources somewhere in Pegasus…where exactly he’d forgotten.

Marks took one last look out the nearest porthole and begrudged the final wisps of daylight before Farside was fully enveloped in the nightfall. At that same moment, he heard a beeping from his console and turned his attention back to the array controls.

What the hell…

Percy Marks looked over his boards, controlling the positioning of the great radars out on the crater floor and the optical and radio telescopes that accompanied them. He quickly pinpointed the source of the beeping…Nodes 20 through 24…the south lateral array…was picking up some anomaly.

He massaged the controls and tried to focus the array better, get better resolution on the target. SpaceGuard didn’t beep without reason.

A quick perusal made the hairs on the back of Percy Marks’ neck stand up. The system displayed a list of likely targets, based on radar imaging and known ephemerides. He scanned the list, mumbling the details to himself.

Hmmm….right ascension 22 degrees, 57 minutes, 28 seconds. Declination 20 degrees, 46 minutes, 8 seconds--- Just as he was about to consult the catalog, SpaceGuard threw up a star map.

It was 51 Pegasi, in Pegasus. Over fifty light years away. A point source of energy had just spiked. Probably a gamma ray burster….

Marks studied the details. This one’s a doozy-- his fingers played over the keyboard, bringing all of Farside’s instruments to bear on the new source. The energy spike was showing up in all bands now: X-ray, gamma ray, infrared, even optical.

He stared for a moment at the brief flare that erupted on the screen in front of him. Must be one hell of a source.

Before he could decide what to do next, Marks was interrupted by the sound of a door opening…it was Max Lane, the shift supervisor.

I heard SpaceGuard got something-- Lane was short, big moustache, squat legs of a former weightlifter, now going soft in the Moon’s sixth-g.

Marks showed him the readings. "I’ve got it designated Delta P. Big sucker, too. Blasting out on all bands. See for yourself."

Lane examined all Farside’s instruments. Whatever it was, Delta P was a big gamma producer. He twiddled with his moustache for a moment. Maybe we got us a micro black hole. You know, Westerlund had that theory--black holes evaporating, Hawking radiation, and all that-stuff

Marks nodded. I’ll pull up the spectra, see what kind of match we get. The astronomer massaged the keyboard, calling up spectrographic profiles of presumed black hole radiation sources.

Anything in this sector before?

"Nada, Marks told him. 51 Pegasi’s been dead as a doorstop for years. How many planets is it supposed to have now?"

Last I heard, at least two or three Jupiter-sized places. Check Planet-Finder…maybe we ought to run a radial velocity scan…see if anything’s happened in the neighborhood.

They put SpaceGuard to work and the results came back in less than an hour. Marks superimposed the current velocity scan over the last one Planet-Finder had made a decade before.

Lane shook his head. I don’t get it. Something’s missing-- He fingered the absorption lines on the screen. Should be a tick right there…that was supposed to be where 51 Pegasi B…,what was it called?…

Bellerophon, I think--

Yeah, that’s it. Wasn’t it here?

Marks swallowed. Maybe the whole shebang got swallowed. Maybe a micro black hole ate it.

Lane stood up and went over to a porthole, which gave onto a constricted view of the nearest arrays of the Submillimeter Interferometer, and a shadowy backdrop of Korolev crater’s steep craggy walls beyond. A triangle of blazing sunlight still illuminated the upper rim, last gasp of the lunar day.

Maybe--Lane shook his head, turned back to the consoles. "But 51 Pegasi’s been quiet for years…SpaceGuard’s not showing anything. Now, all of a sudden, BLAM! Energy spikes in all over the place. We should have seen something before…rising X-ray, rising gamma levels, something. Black holes don’t just appear out of nowhere."

Marks shrugged, staring at the velocity scans superimposed on each other. If it’s not a micro, then what is it? What eats a whole planet?

The two astronomers both had the same thought at the same time.

Remember that report from UNISPACE a year ago? Marks asked. The one that speculated what effects we’d see if a massive nanobotic swarm starting plowing through dust and gas fields…and planets. What the absorption spectra might look like.

Lane nodded. "It was science fiction…just pure speculation, that’s all. I didn’t buy it then and I’m not buying it now. Go ahead, Marks, call it up. You’ll see. Run the spectra from UNISPACE against what we’ve got here. I’m betting Delta P’s nothing more than a garden-variety micro black hole."

Marks hunted in the database for the report and displayed the spectra against SpaceGuard’s results. Not a perfect match, but both men could see there were similarities.

Lane shrugged. Doesn’t mean a thing, Marks. It’s statistically insignificant. Run Statcheck…you’ll see what I mean.

Marks hesitated before running the statistical routine. You really want to do this, Max? What if Statcheck shows significance? How do we explain that?

Lane ran a hand through his thinning hair. We’ll make the numbers work out. This UNISPACE report is bunk…you know it and I know it. What do you want me to do: put out an alert: ‘Hey, guys, the Old Ones have arrived at 51 Pegasi and the Mother Swarm’s eating up all the planets.’ I don’t think so. I value my career too much. No, let’s get all the data we can and set up a vidcon. There’s some kind of weird anomaly going on out there, one with a perfectly reasonable explanation. We just have to find it.

Percy Marks started saving all of SpaceGuard’s data to a file called 51 Pegasi Anomaly.

It was just before dawn, right after the first call to prayer, that the initial tremors hit the city of Tabriz. The first tremor, a rupture along a twenty-mile strike-slip fault near the boundary of the Eurasian and Arabian tectonic plates, radiated out from the epicenter at six kilometers per second, engulfing all of northern Iran, Iraq and the southern Caucasus in seconds. Tabriz felt the first of the P-wave pressure shocks moments later, at an energy level initially estimated to exceed magnitude 8.

In less than two minutes, much of the city was a pile of smoldering rubble. Jason Ernst, one of two Solnet reporters aboard Liftbird One, saw the alert coming in from UNIFORCE stations across the Middle East. Jesus H. Christ, this is a big one. He got on the voicelink, consulted with his editors in London, and inside of a minute, the lifter was winging its way northeast from its racetrack monitoring orbit near Cairo. The bird was in Iranian airspace in half an hour and before they could even descend to proper altitude, he’d already toggled two dronecams to launch, punching out of their capsules into turbulent, dust-laden air toward the ruins of the city.

What he saw on the vidlink chilled him to the bone.

The first dronecam, nicknamed Pigeon by the Liftbird crew, barreled in on the Pasdaran Expressway angling along the northern flanks of the city. It dived below the cables of the Eynali chairlifts and skirted the foothills of Yousef Mountain, before turning southwest into the heart of the city. Ernst consulted a map of the area and joysticked the dronecam to a course along Mardan Street, heading right for the Grand Bazaar and the Blue Mosque. Everywhere the dronecam turned, the scene was the same: piles of rubble, fires burning out of control, soot, ash and dust thick and billowing from collapsed buildings. And the people, thousands of people milling in the streets, running, stumbling. And then he saw the bodies, already being stacked like firewood outside.

Jeez, great vid! he exclaimed to his colleague, Anna Kolchinova, who manned the other dronecam at her own console. Edit can add sound effects and graphics later…just get the raw feed now--

I’m heading down this street-- she squinted at the nav header on the screen, --says it’s Khayyam Street. Look at those buildings-- The vidlink from the dronecam autofocused on two ten-story apartment buildings, leaning like drunken sailors against each other…their foundations nearly destroyed. Hope there aren’t too many casualties from that--

The dronecams circled central Tabriz like vultures, zooming in on dramatic scenes of rescue and fierce gas-fueled fires raging out of control.

It was the Blue Mosque, hard off Khaqani Park near the Grand Bazaar, that drew a faint gasp from both of them. Now obscured in dust, the dome had fallen in, like a cracked eggshell and scores of people milled aimlessly like ants inside. Toppled statues and overturned lorries littered the streets around the park, thick with rubble, water spray from burst water mains, scores of fires and smothering the whole area in thick, turbid, choking dust.

Better not go any lower… Ernst decided. Power lines and cables drooped low and he didn’t want the dronecam to become snagged. He commanded Pigeon to gain altitude and was about to head further south toward the ruins of Takhti Stadium when Anna waved to get his attention.

"Jason…look…look at that building over there--" she pointed to her vidfeed, The second dronecam had been nicknamed Sparrow by the Liftbird crew and Anna had piloted the bird

along Farabi Street, heading in the general direction of Tabriz University and its once-ornate mosque. Along the street, where the road crested a hill, an office building had imploded into a dusty mound of brick and rubble, hovering over a narrow chasm that had opened up on the far side of the hill. The remaining shell of the building leaned toward the chasm and seemed in danger of falling right into the newly formed gorge. Worse, dozens of people were caught clinging to the skeleton of the building frame, stuck like flies in a spiderweb of girders, and rebar. It seemed at any moment, the remaining frame would topple over and spill all its survivors right into the chasm.

Ernst got up and came over to Anna’s station to watch. Christ, they’re trapped…and is that fire inside the dust cloud--?

A flickering fog had formed around the mouth of the fissure. Streaked with pops and flashes of light, the fog did not cover any fires. Nothing burned among the rubble piles on the ground.

Maybe some kind of lightning? Anna suggested. Let’s get closer. She steered Sparrow lower and zoomed in on the glowing fog, now billowing out of the ground fissure in great sheets. The fog spread and flowed over the hill, over the rubble, enveloping everything. Survivors had been working with ladders and pieces of furniture, trying to fashion a way to reach their trapped comrades. But when the fog approached, the survivors broke and ran, fleeing the ruins of the building in terror.

What the hell?

That was when Jason Ernst knew what the fog was. A cold chill ran down his spine again. He’d seen that kind of fog before. Anna, get the dronecam out of--

But it was too late. Sparrow had dived to less than fifty feet and was in autohover, building its database with establishing shots before turning to focus on specific images, as it had been programmed to do. The fog had swollen to blanket the entire hill and most of the rubble pile that had once been an office building. Sparrow swept through the upper tendrils of the fog and the imager view careened out of control.

It’s a botswarm! Get out of there--

Anna tried to regain control but the tiny ornithopter had already been set upon by the outer fringes of the swarm. Sparrow shed rotors and wings and cartwheeled toward the ground, plowing into a mob of fleeing survivors.

Jason Ernst had already returned to his own control station. He still had command of Pigeon, so he commanded the dronecam to wheel about and head for Sparrow’s last coordinates. The trip took less than twenty seconds.

Pigeon arrived and went into autohover at a thousand feet altitude, just in time to see the skeletal remains of the building buckle in the midst of the billowing fog. It swayed for a few seconds, then toppled over and slid side-first into the fissure, shedding trapped survivors like a horse shaking off flies.

And the fog, the swarm of bots, continued flowing up and out of the fissure, even as the girders and beams were still settling into the chasm.

CHAPTER 1

Mount Kipwezi, Kenya

May 5, 2110

1930 hours

The village of Kipwezi wasn’t on anybody’s tourist map, even though it was only a short thirty-kilometer ride from Kilimanjaro and the northern veldt countryside of the Serengeti. And that suited the villagers just fine. Mount Kipwezi, which hovered over the village like a protective mother was sometimes called Kidogo Ndugu, Little Brother, a tacit admission of the greater stature and fame of its taller neighbor Kilimanjaro. Nobody seemed to mind that at all.

Saturday was market day in Kipwezi and the bazaars were jammed with villagers, farmers, horses and cattle, goats and sheep, and wagons filled with produce from the farms that surrounded the village and cultivated every square inch of the hilly land of Induku ward. In the very center of the village, makeshift stages were often erected around the fringes of the bazaar, stages hosting dances, contests, magic shows, political speeches, where anybody with something to sell or an opinion to express could hold forth.

The bazaar was slammed with people, loud and chaotic, filled with smoke and pungent smells—the high-octane odor of masala tobacco was especially strong at the main entrance—and the air was thick with loose nano, clouds of bots mingling with incense, opium and scores of cooking oil fires. Vendors hawked grapes and mangoes, bananas and fabricator shells of every type, vials of rogue DNA called twist hung from clothes lines strung up between light poles and dilapidated tents. Women in sarongs with black teeth from chewing betel nuts zipped and weaved through the labyrinth balancing huge baskets on their heads, baskets filled with everything from buffalo patties to rebuilt matter compilers for the fabs that were on sale everywhere.

A large tent surrounded on three sides with tables and benches dominated the center of the bazaar. Flat screen displays hanging from poles flickered down on the crowd, with images of Bollywood action pics counterpointed by plaintive plucking from a mandolin player nearby. In the center of a knot of yelling, shoving, jeering customers, a swarthy man in a turban and dark green kaftan pecked at a keyboard. All around the park, throbbing globs of nanobotic swarms swelled and gyrated to the music. Masala smoke was thick and acrid in the air.

There was one stage in the back that lately seemed to attract more audience than all the others. The performer was a handsome, slightly swarthy young man, a strange sort of magician doing seemingly magical things for an audience of shoppers, visitors and tourists. It was clear he was an angel, a nanobotic swarm in the likeness of a human, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind. Children pressed in to get a peek, as the magician conjured up all sorts of toys and doodads.

His name was Symborg.

From the stage, the magician ran a demo in front of the crowd. He was a small man, with fierce, unblinking eyes, as his fingers flew over the table of tricks and props. Presently, he stopped and noticed a very young child, a small girl, standing shyly a few meters away from the stage, playing hide and seek in the folds of her mother’s loose sarong.

The magician, who sported a thick black moustache, beckoned repeatedly to the young girl. After a few minutes, her mother relented and let her child go. The girl inched her way into the clearing and stood in front of the magician’s table, to applause and approving shouts and chants from the crowd.

Symborg reached into a canvas bag and pulled out a trinket for the young girl. He handed it to her and she took it, shyly, turning the small cylinder over and over in her hand.

"You have a djinn in that cylinder, little one, Symborg announced, loudly enough for all to hear. A very powerful spirit. He can grant you any wish you want. Make a wish, child, and the djinn will bring it to you, right here—"

The girl’s name was Menaka and she had huge brown eyes. Sad eyes, thought Symborg.

Menaka twirled the cylinder as the magician had shown her and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. When she stopped twirling the cylinder, she felt it vibrate and was so startled, she dropped the cylinder to the dirt.

Instantly, the device was enveloped in a fine mist, a sparkling mist that billowed out and upward, swirling about the clearing in front of Symborg and his tables like a miniature cyclone. Gasps and shouts erupted from the crowd, and the spectators shoved back against each other, to give this growing apparition greater distance. On the stage, the angel gave a showman’s flourish to the spectacle.

"Now see what the young child has conjured for us—"

The mist gradually materialized into the faint outline of a man’s upper body, with a recognizable face, shoulders and arms crossed in front.

The ‘djinn’ then spoke out loud. "Little one, I have come from the clouds above to grant you a great wish. Make your wish now—" The djinn’s voice was a deep bass profundo, so deep it rattled the beaded curtains that covered Symborg’s merchant tent behind them.

Menaka stared wide-eyed, mouth open, at the apparition. She was speechless.

Go ahead, child, urged Symborg. "The djinn wishes you to make a wish."

Shouts of encouragement and support came from the crowd. Gradually, Menaka worked up enough nerve. Shy, haltingly, she asked for a new matatu for her father.

His bus is broken down, Great One, she murmured. "It’s the tires. They are bad. The bus is our livelihood. Father needs a new matatu to carry the tourists."

The deep voice rumbled again, a little reverberation adding to the sense of barely contained powers.

As you have spoken, child…so shall it be—

At that moment, the swirling, twinkling apparition of the djinn dissolved into a maelstrom of churning, roiling clouds, streaked with flashes of light. It was like watching a thunderstorm in miniature, from the inside.

The crowd murmured and moved back uneasily.

When the storm began to subside, the barest outlines of a structure could be seen enveloped in the thick fog. The fog dissolved, slowly at first, then with speed, to reveal the front hood and doors of a new minibus. Its wheels dripped with moisture and sunlight shone from the supple leather seats inside.

The crowd was silent for a moment, then erupted into cheers and gasps. Menaka stared wide-eyed at the new matatu, inching her way forward to tentatively put a finger along the fender, tracing the smooth curve of the metal.

For fun, Symborg reached inside the driver’s side window and honked the horn a few times, startling everyone. The crowd laughed.

"You see what a gift the great djinn has brought you, little one. The djinn I have in my possession can do the same for every one of you. Symborg pointedly stared at each face in the front row of the circle of onlookers. Such a powerful djinn, such a powerful servant is available to you, today, right now, for a very special price. You will not believe the deal I can make for you. My friends, you cannot leave this bazaar without experiencing what this amazing servant can do for you—the Assimilationists have brought this wonder to the bazaar just for today--"

The crowd surged forward, feeling the doors, the hood and side panels of the new matatu, pressing in on all sides of the stage. Symborg the magician basked in the admiration and proudly pointed out details on the newly conjured vehicle. Murmurs and laughter erupted. The audience was appreciative, adoring the magician. More shoppers came from the street to see what was going on.

A lone man in dark slacks and jacket, with an open-neck white shirt, at the very back of the crowd appraised Symborg with a critical eye, even as he was jostled and shoved about by the force of the crowd. His name was Cesar Seko.

Seko was a long-time friend and advisor to a former President of Kenya, one Julius Akamba. Seko was intrigued by this performer, the way he held the audience in his hand, his grasp of showmanship, his sense of timing. Even though he was an angel, he might be useful. There was an election coming up soon and Akamba was running again, hoping to regain his old office. A fellow like Symborg could turn out to be quite useful in the campaign.

And, as an angel, Seko figured Symborg would be a natural follower of the Assimilationists. How could he be otherwise?

As the show was winding down, Seko worked his way through the crowd and approached the stage. The magician was stowing gear, piling props and equipment into trunks and battered suitcases. Seko introduced himself.

The angel was good, Seko could see that. Very few edge effects…often, angels fuzzed out at their extremities, where the swarm didn’t have good config control. This one was tight and dense over its entire surface…only an occasional pop or flash in the torso area, one or two in the face, gave away the fact that the angel was a para-human, a swarm of nanobots configged to look human.

Symborg introduced himself in return. Seko was impressed with the magician’s ‘voice,’ deep, commanding, well-modulated. No question: this angel had stage presence. Something in the face…what was it? A bemused, almost knowing look…we both know what I am but let’s pretend anyway….

You have quite a way with the audience, Seko said. "Especially the children. Most of the bazaar came over to see you. That was quite a trick with the matatu."

Symborg smiled a radiant, symmetrical smile. The other vendors don’t like it. I take their business.

Seko glanced around. Crowds were filtering away from the stage, back toward the shops and stalls. Symborg… he tried out the name, twisted it around his tongue for a moment. Unusual name…is that Ndinka? Or maybe Kikuyu?

Symborg’s smile faded. He closed and locked the last trunk, then swung it easily down to a liftpad, hovering nearby. "It’s an acronym, actually. Stands for Symbiotic Organism. I’m an angel."

Seko smiled back. That much I could figure out for myself. And a very good one. I’m impressed. Who did the configs?

Symborg didn’t answer immediately. Would you like some tea? I’ve got Old Grey in the tent.

Seko accepted. "Surely…actually, there is something I’d like to discuss with you."

Symborg manipulated the liftpad out of the way behind some stacks of paneling and pulled the tent flap aside. Inside, the furnishings were sparse…some loose floor pillows, a table and chair. More trunks and cases, stacked in a corner, arranged to form a makeshift desk. Caftans hanging from a line stretched across the tent. Lamps and incense burners completed the interior.

Symborg went to the tea kettle and poured a small cup for Seko, who sipped gratefully. It wasn’t Old Grey, he was sure of that. The tea had a gritty, almost brassy taste. Moments later, Seko had a mild headache. He smiled weakly and nodded thanks.

Please…sit, Symborg commanded. Seko was momentarily dizzy and complied, plopping himself down on one of the fat pillows. The magician poured himself something else, from an unmarked bottle. Seko observed that it wasn’t tea. You had something you wanted to discuss?

Indeed, Seko found his mouth slurred and his eyes weren’t focusing. Something in the drink. He concentrated hard, found his senses were finally returning. Yes…I just wanted to ask something. Mr. Symborg…

Just… Symborg.

I’m sitting here trying to be polite to a swarm of bugs, Seko told himself. Yes…you know, you have great talents, great rapport with the audience.

You know I am programmed with configurations that are pleasing to many people.

Indeed, but your talents are wasted here in Kipwezi.

Symborg’s face tightened. How do you mean?

I mean this: Come with me to Nairobi. I want you to meet my friend Julius Akamba. There are bigger audiences to capture, bigger prizes…for all of us.

Even as he conversed with Cesar Seko, Symborg was receiving feeds from the bots that Seko had already ingested, in his ‘tea.’ Processor module MAKE CONVERSATION continued to carry on a dialogue with Seko, responding as designed, initiating dialogue according to configured protocols long ago programmed in. Processor module ANALYZE GLUTAMATE PATTERN MATCHING received results from the nanobotic sleuths even now burrowing into Seko’s brain, sniffing along highways of equal glutamate concentration, rebuilding memories from their chemical residues.

Algorithms ran and massaged the data from the bots. Seko was being truthful. Patterns matched with high confidence. There were snatches of memory, fragments of images…large crowds, banners and dancers, a train creeping into a station, belching smoke, brakes squealing. Some kind of rally.

All this Seko gave up to the bots in his brain, and to Symborg, who smiled back pleasantly as he studied the data.

There’s a rally coming up, Symborg offered.

Yes…in Nairobi…come with me and you can meet Julius Akamba. You have a great future with us…there’s important work for you in this election. Seko seemed to be a little more clear-headed. The bots had dropped into quiet mode now, Symborg realized. Seko went on.

It’s vital that Julius Akamba be re-elected. Vital to Kenya…vital to our future…our future is with the Assimilationists.

Symborg was already intrigued with the possibilities. Seko’s offer was timely. More importantly, Seko’s offer was compatible with the Prime Key. Correlation analysis had now proved that.

Then it’s agreed, Symborg decided. I would like to meet this Julius Akamba.

Less than ten kilometers away from the central bazaar of Kipwezi, along the snow-fringed heights of Mount Kipwezi, in a cavern buried deeply inside, Config Zero was awakening again, after nearly a decade of quiescence.

New command sequences had come from the Central Entity. Relayed through the Keeper unit at Europa, which had been damaged by Quantum Corps operations a decade ago, but not disabled, the command sequences awakened Config Zero from sleep mode and activated all systems.

The commands instructed Config Zero to perform several actions:

Execute Instruction Set 438991

Execute Instruction Set 605526

The first command sequence instructed Config Zero to create the swarm entity known to Humans as Symborg. That instruction had been performed. The entity was operating as designed, living among the Humans in a nearby village. No adjustments or updates were needed to its programming.

The second command sequence instructed Config Zero to plan and execute a coordinated assault on multiple tectonic plate boundaries around the Earth. Specially configured swarms would be used. The commands downloaded these configurations. This Instruction was consistent with the Prime Key, specifically Module 2: Alter the geology and meteorology of the Earth so as to create a more congenial environment for autonomous assembler swarms. This was also known as the Re-configuration module.

New config designs were relayed from the Central Entity via the Keeper. An early test of

these designs had already been performed along the boundary of the Eurasian and Arabian plates, focused on an epicenter near the Iranian city of Tabriz. To analyze the results, Config Zero scanned global newsvids and geophysical data from the tremors around Tabriz. It concluded from analysis that 72.2% of test objectives had been achieved. This result was returned to the Central Entity.

Now equipped with new commands and configs, the great master swarm decided that another operation would be needed. Config Zero coordinated the design and execution of a new configuration for a follow-on assault on the same tectonic plate boundaries. In addition, the next test would insert and activate swarms at seven other tectonic plate boundaries around the planet. The result would be a massive coordinated assault…and massive destruction, consistent with the Prime Key.

Config Zero began assembling nanobotic swarms from feedstock within the mountain innards of Kipwezi. Local geologists assumed from the rumblings and tremors and temperature spikes that a plume of magma had been displaced and was working its way up to the summit of the mountain. Warnings were issued that the long-dormant volcano that was Kipwezi might blow at any time. Villages and farms were evacuated. Travel was restricted. Survey drones were launched to keep an eye on Kipwezi.

All of this was noted by the great master swarm but largely ignored. Config Zero checked and re-checked the configs of its new tectonic swarms, then loaded the configs into newly built bot swarms, hordes of bots externally designed to resemble dust motes. These swarms were launched on a vector north by northwest, toward the Sahara desert.

Survey drones reported the launch. Scientists concluded that the volcano was releasing steam. Local villagers weren’t so sure.

A third signal was also received by Config Zero. It was a proximity signal, relayed through the Keeper at Europa. The proximity signal indicated that Subunit 99, Elements 10899773 through 4983376, had arrived in the vicinity of its target coordinates, after a long voyage from deep space. Subunit 99 established itself in heliocentric orbit about the Sun, nearly fourteen billion kilometers from Mount Kipwezi. A small, reddish planetisimal, Object 222876, orbited nearby.

A few kilometers away from the village of Kipwezi, in the veldt countryside around the mountain, a pair of cattle herders had managed to avoid the Army troops who had come by that morning with loudspeakers, ordering the evacuation. The herds needed to water and forage. If the herds didn’t get forage, there wouldn’t be any money or meat for the winter.

The herders found a campsite at a sharp bend in a narrow, nearly dry streambed, not far from a mound of rocks, known as kopjes in the local Masai dialect. After pitching camp, one of the herders noticed a strange glowing fog swirling around the summit of Kipwezi. The glow was a reddish orange, backlighting low-hanging clouds, like an aerial inferno enveloping the mountain top.

Both herders watched carefully, noting how the dust was caught by the wind and streamed off northward across the border.

The cattlemen concluded that Kipwezi and the gods were angry that night. They picked at the campfire and chewed on betel nut, speculating on what it all might mean.

CHAPTER 2

UNIFORCE Headquarters, Paris

May 10, 2110

0500 hours

CINCQUANT stood at the window of his office on the 66th floor of the Quartier General and stared out at the early morning sun rising over a timeless Parisian cityscape.

The Eiffel Tower dominated the northwest view, now covered with fixbots as it was nearing completion of the structural upgrade ordered by UNSAC a few months before. There was the Place Vendome and the low hill of Montmartre, thick with pedestrians and aircabs. UNIFORCE had been built forty years before on the Rue des Jardins, at a busy intersection off the Luxembourg Gardens, deep in the heart of the 5th Arrondisement. The mansard roofline of the Palais du Luxembourg filled his northeast windows.

A deep sense of foreboding washed over the Commander in Chief of Quantum Corps. He’d seen the intel boards earlier that morning and the signs were there for all to see. After nearly ten years of inactivity, it was evident that Config Zero was active again. An inexplicable series of earthquakes. Unexplained astronomical phenomena. More and more skirmishes with Sanctuary Patrols, especially in east Africa.

Lt. Gen Johnny Winger gathered his command tablet and headed up four floors, to UNSAC’s briefing room. On the lift, he ran into General Evgeny Orlov, head of UNISPACE. The two 09s rode up together.

Orlov was bald as an egg, his forehead creased with worry and lack of sleep.

UNSAC wants answers, Orlov mumbled, as the lift jerked to a halt. I’m not sure I have any to give him.

Me neither, Winger agreed. I want to see what Chekwarthy’s got. Sanctuary Patrol detectors seem to indicate a spike in quantum signals coming from somewhere off-Earth. I’m betting it’s the Keeper again. You know, we’ll never did completely disable the blasted thing ten years ago. It just went dormant somehow and we congratulated ourselves on a successful mission.

Orlov recalled Quantum Hammer and he knew Winger had led a months-long expedition to Jupiter’s moon Europa in an attempt to put the Keeper unit out of commission. It’s the intel from Farside that has me worried.

The officers reached UNSAC’s suite and were scanned in. A pair of servbots scurried around the suite, bearing trays of pasties and coffee, straightening chairs, setting up work stations. The UN Security Affairs Commissioner was deep in some kind of intense vidcon and waved the CINCs to some chairs beside his curving work console. Jurgen Steiner was the very picture of Prussian military bearing, with a thick head of silver hair and moustache to boot. Steiner was nominally a civilian advisor to the Secretary-General, but the S-G had plucked him from the ranks of the General Staff two years before. Formerly chief of UNIFORCE Ground Forces, Steiner was a stern, by-the-book commander and he ran the UNSAC shop the same way.

--just get me that report by 0900…not a second later. Squirt me the raw feed if you have to…but get me that report. Is that understood?

Steiner evidently got the response he wanted and closed down the vidcon with an angry wave of his hand. Sorry, gentlemen…bit of a flap over command jurisdiction. That was Chekwarthy…he’s on a lifter heading down to Africa now…trying to get some eyeballs on the situation in Kenya. What have you got for me? UNSAC grabbed a muffin and coffee off a passing servbot before the bot could even stop and unload its goodies.

Intel and analysis from Farside, sir, Orlov waved a cube and UNSAC pointed to a nearby slot.

Let GENGHIS have it. He can break it down for us, set up the maps and details.

Orlov popped the cube into a port. GENGHIS was UNSAC’s tactical AI, running all the displays and visuals on the briefing deck. Moments later, all the wallscreens flickered to life, detailing views of the Earth-Moon system, the Solar System in ecliptic projection and

grid plots of the earth’s surface itself.

What about all these earthquakes? UNSAC asked. He sucked loudly at the scalding hot coffee, his face wreathed in steam. The geos say the odds of this pattern of tremors being a natural phenomenon are a gazillion to one.

Johnny Winger said, We have the same intel, sir. There’s sigint from our quantum signals people that seems to indicate Config Zero is active again. Not fully decrypted yet…just snatches of decoherence waves, but a definite spike. I’m proposing a covert recon mission into the east Africa Sanctuary to insert better equipment, a new gizmo the lab boys just developed…try to grab more signals, see if we can pin down some entanglement states.

Work up a mission plan, the usual stuff, UNSAC said. What about Farside, Orlov? Some kind of weird anomaly, I heard.

CINCSPACE went over the details surrounding the discovery of the Delta P anomaly at 51 Pegasi. "There’s something new, sir. Just picked up yesterday by the Gamma Ray detectors at Farside. Not only do we have energy spikes in multiple bands at 51 Pegasi…some of the astros are saying it’s a micro black hole…nothing more. We’re also picking up less intense activity of similar spectra right on our own doorstep…something like ten billion miles from the Sun. There may be another Delta P out there, whatever that is…a little brother, so to speak. Farside’s refining their instrumentation now…we should have better data today."

Another micro black hole?

Possibly, sir. Not everyone’s convinced by that theory. But nobody has a better explanation at the moment.

UNSAC munched on a muffin, dribbling crumbs into his coffee. Speculation, gentlemen? Is this something astronomical…or something else?

Winger conveyed his own thoughts about the Keeper at Europa. Sir, if we can get better quantum signal detection near Kipwezi, we might just have an answer. If Q2 can prove that Config Zero’s talking to the Keeper again, I’m willing to bet these anomalies are something besides cosmic burps.

UNSAC leveled an even gaze at CINCQUANT. You’re talking about the Old Ones…or whatever we’re calling them today. That they’re real and they’re headed this way, if that kind of bedtime story can be believed.

Orlov and Winger had discussed this very point, knowing that UNSAC had never put much stock in the stories.

With all due respects, sir…I don’t believe we should discount any possibility.

UNSAC picked at his teeth with his fingers. "Suppose there is something to this Old Ones’ crap. Suppose the Mother Swarm has sent advance scouts and these buggers are poking around Pluto and the outer solar system…just for argument’s sake. Mind you, I don’t buy it, but just suppose--"

Yes, sir, Orlov and Winger said in unison.

--what exactly would we do about it?

Orlov figured that was his cue. He manipulated the displays that GENGHIS had brought up to show an overhead view of the Solar System, from the Sun to the Oort Cloud at the very edge of the system. A floating icon called Operation Sentinel hovered near the top of the display.

"Sentinel is what I’m calling our response, sir. Orlov guided the displays. We have to assume, as General Winger has said, that Config Zero’s active again. And we can’t ignore the possibility that someone…or something…is preparing a move against us in the outer solar system. There has been a lot of debate about the Old Ones: are they real? Are they out there? Are they some kind of mass hallucination? With what Farside has found and what’s happening here, sir, I think we need to take positive steps to defend ourselves."

"So what is this Sentinel?"

Sir, a line of detectors beyond the orbit of Pluto…detectors to search for unusual nanobotic swarm activity, unusual energy sources, gravitational disturbances, things we can’t explain but that could be early warnings of some kind of approaching force. We can’t completely discount the possibility that the Old Ones, whatever they are, are very real and headed this way.

UNSAC watched the diagrams as they unfolded. That’s a long way from here, General. It would take months, probably years, to put some kind of network in place that far out.

"That’s why I’m proposing a probe right away, sir. There are several exploratory assets already cruising the outer solar system. I checked with UNISPACE Ops just yesterday. One of them, Triton Odyssey, is in orbit around Neptune, with a mission to detach a lander to that moon. With your permission, sir, I could order a change in mission for Triton Odyssey: leave Neptune space and depart for the outer