Quantum Troopers Episode 22: Epilogue

By Philip Bosshardt

Episode 22, Final Episode of Quantum Troopers. Johnny Winger has been regenerated from loose atoms, scattered after a previous mission. Now what’s left of Red Hammer and rogue Chinese generals are rebuilding their alliance. They want to regain contact with their alien benefactors, the Old Ones. Something is stirring beneath the icescape of Jupiter’s moon Europa and it may be a new portal to the aliens. Quantum Corps races the new alliance Soldiers of Harmony to find out what is happening. In the final clash, Johnny Winger undergoes an encounter that will change him forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Bosshardt
• Release date: Mar 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370728411

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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Quantum Troopers

Episode 22: Epilogue

Published by Philip Bosshardt at Smashwords

Copyright 2017 Philip Bosshardt

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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

A few words about this series….

*** Quantum Troopers is a series of 15,000- 20,000 word episodes detailing the adventures of Johnny Winger and his experiences with the United Nations Quantum Corps.

*** Each episode will be about 40-50 pages, approximately 20,000 words in length.

*** A new episode will be available and uploaded every 3 weeks.

*** There will be 22 episodes. The story will be completely serialized in about 14 months.

*** Each episode is a stand-alone story but will advance the greater theme and plot of the story arc.

*** The main plotline: U.N. Quantum Corps must defeat the criminal cartel Red Hammer’s efforts to steal or disable their new nanorobotic ANAD systems.

*** Uploads will be made to www.smashwords.com on approximately the schedule below:

Episode # Title Approximate Upload Date

1 ‘Atomgrabbers’ 1-14-16

2 ‘Nog School’ 2-8-16

3 ‘Deeno and Mighty Mite’ 2-29-16

4 ‘ANAD’ 3-21-16

5 ‘Table Top Mountain’ 4-11-16

6 ‘I, Lieutenant John Winger…’ 5-2-16

7 ‘Hong Chui’ 5-23-16

8 ‘Doc Barnes’ 6-13-16

9 ‘Demonios of Via Verde’ 7-5-16

10 ‘The Big Bang’ 7-25-16

11 ‘Engebbe’ 8-15-16

12 ‘The Symbiosis Project’ 9-5-16

13 ‘Small is All!’ 9-26-16

14 ‘’The HNRIV Factor’ 10-17-16

15 ‘A Black Hole’ 11-7-16

16 ‘ANAD on Ice’ 11-29-16

17 ‘Lions Rock’ 12-19-16

18 ‘Geoplanes’ 1-9-17

19 ‘Mount Kipwezi’ 1-30-17

20 ‘Doc II’ 2-20-17

21 ‘Paryang Monastery’ 3-13-17

22 ‘Epilogue’ 4-3-17

Chapter 1

Ship of Theseus

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

Louis Pasteur

Mesa de Oro

Yucatan State, Mexico

December 30, 2049

1230 hours

Dr. Ryne Falkland pointed to the imager display, revealing a faint scaffolding in the center of the screen.

General Wellman Kincade, base commander, squinted at the sight. Looks like a flower trellis. What’s that dark mass…looks like a bunch of grapes.

Falkland tweaked the resolution of the imager. We’re growing a new Johnny Winger in there, General.

Kincade made a sour face. I don’t suppose it’s like growing tomatoes, is it, Doctor.

Not exactly. In fact, it’s quite a process. First we have to build the core module, with all the memory modules, the buffer, the config translator. Then comes the main platform and actuator mast, the casing and all the effectors, sensors, the propulsors. It’s pretty involved.

What kind of time frame are we looking at?

Falkland gave that some thought. If all goes well, probably a week. And then come the tests…learning in the comm centers, basic replication, launch, recovery, elementary swarm ops, that sort of thing. It’s a bit of an art form, General.

Kincade growled. I’ll never get used to this…,growing nanotroopers like geraniums. What’s that ship model about? He indicated a small wooden model of a Greek trireme on top of a nearby cabinet.

Falkland chuckled. A bit of joke, I’m afraid. That’s the Ship of Theseus.

Kincade was puzzled. What’s that…a Caribbean cruise ship?

Not exactly. More of a philosophical conundrum. The ancient Greeks had a ship called the Ship of Theseus…a famous craft that they really treasured. They wanted to keep it up, so from time to time, they had to replace the ship’s planks. The philosophers got into an argument about whether, if all the planks were replaced, was their ship still the same ship?

Kincade scowled. What’s that have to do with Major Winger?

Falkland shrugged. Not much. Some have made the same argument about angels and nanobotic creations. Once I re-grow Winger, is the new model the same as the old one? That’s the conundrum.

Kincade said, Thinking like that makes my head hurt. I’ll stick to commanding this base. Keep me posted, Doctor.

Sure thing, sir.

The general left the containment cell, cycling himself out through all the locks and biometrics and headed up to the Ops Center. It was sunny, hot and humid for the day before New Year’s. Kincade had about a million things to do and reports to write for UNIFORCE, dealing with the aftermath of the Himalaya Strike mission. He wanted his 1st Nano commander, Major Winger, back whole and hearty for the days of debriefing that he knew would be coming.

Even if Winger had to be grown from a vat.

The big day came and Kincade gathered with Dr. Falkland outside the containment chamber. Inside the chamber, a small bed had been placed, for Johnny Winger to lie on when ‘he’ was fully assembled and formed. Just in case, electron beam injectors were primed and ready.

We can’t violate safety protocols, even in this situation, Falkland explained.

Kincade rubbed his sandy moustache nervously. He glanced up at Falkland. I know you’ve done this before, Doc, but I’m still not quite sure how to feel about it.

Falkland nodded. Of course, I understand completely, General. It’s natural to feel a little…nervous? Is that the right word? Perhaps, a mixture, I think. Something between fear, anticipation, anxiety and hope. A cocktail. Shaken not stirred. He smiled at his own little joke.

Kincade was doubtful but said nothing, while Falkland scanned his board and made some adjustments. I’ve got the Config Engine loaded now. From the scans we did before, we have lots of data. I had a quite a time massaging and tweaking and converting all that data, trying to get something clean. You don’t know it, but I’ve already run some tests…yesterday. Things looked promising.

Kincade was curious. What kind of tests, Doc?

Falkland was reluctant to go into details now. Clients were sometimes sensitive about these matters. Oh, just little tests. I extracted some of the data and ran it through the Config Engine…you know, assembling small things, simple structures.

Of Major Winger? What kind of simple structures?

It was just a test—

What kind of structures, Doc? Kincade asked, a little more firmly.

Falkland shrugged, went back to his instruments. A finger here, a hand there. Really, it went well.

Kincade nearly choked. A finger? You assembled one of the fingers? And a hand? What happened—

The test went fine. The Config Engine performed as expected. I examined the…er, the structures and found them well formed, molecularly correct, consistent with the templates from your data. It was…what can I say?…a finger.

And a hand.

Exactly.

What did you do with them?

Falkland looked surprised. Sometimes, he figured it was better if the clients didn’t know all the details. People reacted differently. I let it go. That is, the Config Engine broke them down, disassembled them. Back into feedstock.

Kincade swallowed hard. Maybe Falkland was right. Normal commanders shouldn’t be able to just conjure up limbs and fingers of their troops. But then again, since nanobotic assemblers had been invented, maybe they could. It was all very confusing.

Okay, Doc…I guess I really didn’t need to hear about that. What’s next?

Falkland turned back to his control station. Next is releasing the feedstock into the chamber. He pressed a few buttons and on the monitor, a faint mist began issuing from a row of ports. The chamber quickly filled with the mist. Just raw stock. A bunch of atoms and molecules…standard stuff…oxygens, irons, phosphorous and nitrogens…you name it. Ingredients for the cook…. Immediately he wished he hadn’t said that. Every client reacted differently. And this one was base commander at Mesa de Oro.

The filling took about three minutes. All the templates of Major Winger are loaded in the Config Engine now. When the previous…uh, version was scanned and disassembled, I took a memory field map of all those atoms in structure and created these templates. We should be able to put together a new Johnny, better than ever.

Kincade just shook his head. This is just creepy, Doc, hearing one of my troopers talked about like this. Get on with it—

Of course. Falkland pressed a few more buttons.

Inside the containment chamber, the master assembler had just been released. The master was a nanobotic device that orchestrated assembly of feedstock atoms and molecules into whatever structures were contained in the template.

The monitor showed a mist filling the chamber, like an early morning fog, only this mist sparkled as if a billion fireflies were embedded. The mist thickened until the bed was lost to view. Minutes passed. Falkland followed his instruments, adjusting the Config Engine on the fly.

Threshold density, he announced. Memory field steady….all parameters in the green.

The first hint of structure emerged from the fog, in the form of a faint, translucent, almost ghostly hand, alongside the edge of the bed. Fluctuations in the fog caused more structure to become intermittently visible: several fingers, part of a forearm, a brief glimpse of a knee. From these structures, Kincade silently estimated where Johnny’s head and face should be. But nothing was visible yet.

More minutes passed. Then, the general sucked in his breath. He pointed.

The barest outlines of a face materialized into view, slipping in and out of the fog like a wraith. There was the upturned nose, the same mole beside his nose. And the lips—

"It’s him!" Kincade watched in amazement as more and more structure came into view. From everything he could see, it was Johnny Winger. He knew how the technology worked. Falkland had done this before, several times. He understood how assemblers slammed atoms together according to a template. As base commander of a battalion of nanotroopers, he’d run more configs than Falkland had ever dreamed about. But this…this was different.

The thing seemed as real as the wooden Ship of Theseus model on the cabinet.

Falkland watched the monitor and his instruments carefully, making some minor adjustments. Config still stable. No alarms…no issues. He’s coming in beautifully. Everything within tolerances, right in the middle of the band. I’m adding more feedstock… we’re approaching minimum density….what do you think, General?

Kincade let his eyes play across the prostrate form of his company commander, inside the containment chamber. Part of his mind told him this couldn’t be Winger…it was a sim, a near-perfect likeness, but still a likeness. But his own feelings overruled that hard logic