Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin Page 12

  “PEOPLE OF KIBERA…THE TIME HAS COME FOR A CHANGE….” His voice boomed out across the rally ground and the crowd grew more and more frenzied, pressing ever tighter against the police cordon.

  “AND THIS MAN…THIS JULIUS NGOMBE…WILL BRING THAT CHANGE…THIS MAN, PEOPLE OF KIBERA…THIS MAN IS YOUR MAN, THIS MAN IS YOUR CANDIDATE….”

  Now, as if by unspoken agreement, Ngombe and his staff receded into the background and Symborg dominated the stage. The angel worked the crowd like a practiced stage actor.

  “PEOPLE OF KIBERA…WHAT IS IT THAT ASSIMILATION BRINGS?”

  The response roared up out of the crowd like a thing alive.

  “PEJERU…PEJERU…PEJERU!!”

  A radiant smile came to Symborg’s face, beamed by cameras to screens throughout the rally ground.

  “Peace. Ecstasy. Joy. Enlightenment. Rapture. Unity with the Mother Swarm. You are right!”

  The crowd roiled and throbbed like a frenetic horde, as one, surging again and again against the stage and the police barricade. Beside the stage, Kenya Police Inspector Shadrick Nziri barked more commands into a wristphone, re-deploying his men to tighten the barrier.

  Symborg went on. “This man--“ he swept his arm toward Julius Ngombe, who stepped forward to the microphone, a well-scripted and rehearsed bit of choreography “--this man will bring all that Assimilation can offer to you.” He wrapped his arms around Ngombe’s shoulders and drew him closer and it was only a few moments later that Dana realized that subtle changes had come over Symborg’s face. The morphing was so well done that no one detected it, but by the time the angel had embraced the beaming candidate, the face of Symborg was gone and the man now hugging the candidate was Jomo Kenyatta himself, or least a passable config of the father of modern Kenya.

  Stage cameras zoomed in to capture the moment. Dana wrestled an arm free to make sure her own dronecams did the same.

  Symborg, now morphed and configged to resemble the great Kenyatta, beamed and vigorously hugged Ngombe, the Founder himself endorsing this candidate as “the best man for the future of Kenya.”

  Dana couldn’t help but be impressed. Ngombe’s handlers had perfected the stage show to use Symborg’s talents, linking Kenya’s past, the beloved Kenyatta himself with the new candidate. It was a symbolic point lost on no one.

  Symborg went on, now releasing Ngombe, who retreated to a position on the side of the stage. The angel went to a bag held by one of Ngombe’s aides and withdrew a handful of dirt, which he raised for all to see. By the time he had done this, the Kenyatta morph was gone, and his face subtly altered back to its original config. Or was it the original? Dana couldn’t be sure. She suspected the crowd didn’t care. They were mesmerized, enthralled. And they wanted more.

  “The soil of Kenya!” Symborg announced. “This is what Assimilation brings…this is what Julius Ngombe brings!” Even as he spoke and the cameras zoomed in, Symborg’s right hand morphed from a palm with five fingers into a fuzzy, swarming cloud of bots. The bots swelled and enveloped the dirt in his hand. Unseen by the crowd, the bots slammed atoms and formed a faint but rapidly filling apparition that grew like a plant in fast-motion out of Symborg’s hand.

  In moments, the apparition had solidified enough to be visible…and recognizable. It was Kenyatta again, this time ‘in the flesh.’ The bots that Symborg spalled off from his hand grabbed atoms from nearby and assembled a reasonable facsimile of the ‘father of modern Kenya.’

  The crowd roared its approval.

  Symborg approached the mike again and told them how Julius Ngombe loved Kenya, no less than Kenyatta. How he loved his family and tribe, how he lived and breathed Kenya and always would. From down in front of the stage, Dana Polansky wriggled an arm free and pressed a few buttons on her wristpad, zooming in for an extreme close-up on the faux-Kenyatta, then on Symborg himself.

  Is that sweat on his forehead? She wondered if angels could even do that, then decided it was like everything else at the rally…part of the show. What she didn’t see was the faint trail of bots that drifted off Symborg’s hand and down into the crowd itself.

  Symborg continued his magic, his blurry hand by turns a cloud of bots, a magic wand, a djinn granting wishes, mesmerizing the crowd, plucking their emotions like a mandolin, first rising, then falling, cresting and receding. He was a master showman…Dana had to admit.

  What Polansky didn’t know was how well Symborg knew his crowd. The bots he had loosed into the crowd, unseen, were now embedded in the heads of scores of nearby faithful.

  Even as he dazzled the crowd, Symborg was receiving feeds from the bots that many of them had already ingested. A faint pall of fog wafted off the stage, sending more and more bots into recon mode among the rally. Processor module ANALYZE GLUTAMATE PATTERN MATCHING received results from the nanobotic sleuths even now burrowing into their brains, sniffing along highways of equal glutamate concentration, rebuilding memories from their chemical residues.

  Algorithms ran and massaged the data from the bots. The crowd was hooked, in synch with Symborg. Patterns matched with high confidence. Symborg saw 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, somewhere else.

  All this the crowd gave up to the bots in their brains, and to Symborg, who smiled back and went on with the rally. Behind him, the candidate Julius Ngombe beamed, and scanned the surging crowd uneasily.

  Now Symborg made config changes and the Kenyatta ‘angel’ began morphing once again. The din began to subside. Heads craned forward. People jostled and shoved to see better. Inspector Shadrick Nziri spoke into a lapel mike, calling up reinforcements for the police cordon.

  In moments, the Kenyatta angel had changed into something formless, a blazing, pulsating spherical ‘sun-like’ orb of nanobots. It shone with the brilliance of a miniature star, throbbing in time with music issuing from speakers nearby.

  “This is what Julius Ngombe means for Kenya…he is like Ngai, the Giver of All Things, an earthly reflection of the Mother Swarm.”

  Then the orb evolved again, this time growing, swelling, taking on structure. It became a small shelter, a composite shanty like the thousands that dotted Kibera.

  “This--” he roared to the crowd, “this is what Julius Ngombe and the Assimilationists can bring…this is what the Central Entity brings…shelter for all, food and life for all, embedded in the Great Mother Swarm.”

  And, as if to emphasize the point, the queues at the assimilator booths surrounding the stage grew and became gridlocked with even more people shoving and jostling to be next into the booths.

  Dana Polansky found herself shoved almost right onto the stage, pressed hard against the barriers, nearly face to face with a row of Kenya Police officers. The officers were shoving back just as hard at the crowd, batons and shockwands flailing. She wrestled her arm free and checked out the view from the dronecams on her wristpad.

  The crowd was surging forward, frenetic, screaming and fainting, pressing against the stage like ocean waves battering a beach. She was startled to see some of them climbing on the shoulders of others, launching themselves through the air.

  This is mad, this is insane, she told herself. Instinctively, she ducked down and started wriggling through tiny spaces and niches, close to the ground, worming her way away from the stage. Self-preservation took over. After a few moments, she found a void and surfaced, standing up between two obese women who were swaying and chanting as they gazed up at Symborg.

  She steered Dronecam Four as close as she dared to the stage. Symborg was performing more tricks, conjuring fantastic things from his bot-cloud hands like a true djinn. In the background, the candidate himself had left his seat and squatted down at the edge of the stage to have words with Inspector Nziri. Dana maneuvered the dronecam to catch what she could of the conversation.

 
It was clear Ngombe was spooked by the intensity of the crowd. Inspector Nziri had a warning for him. The dronecam picked up snatches.

  “…can’t hold this….-rimeter long…your people…the barrier won’t…could be a stampede--“

  Ngombe shook his head emphatically. “No…no…no…this is for me. These are my people--“

  That’s when Shadrick Nziri shrugged, threw up his hands. He got on his lapel mike, screamed commands to his force. Dana could see what was happening around the stage. The men of the Kenya Police were being crushed, swallowed by the great beast. Nziri was pulling his men out.

  Bit by bit, the police cordon shrank and contracted. Now Symborg had finished and with a flourish, waved his arms toward Julius Ngombe, who stood and beamed in the glow of the moment. Ngombe came to the mike, where Symborg embraced him. The crowd roared. The stage began to shake and the men stumbled momentarily. Symborg retreated behind, toward a row of seats on the edge of the stage. Ngombe seized the mike.

  His amplified voice screeched with feedback and was drowned in the deafening roar of the crowd, which surged forward with renewed fury. It was like a rock concert mixed with religious revival, amplified a thousand-fold. The dronecams captured everything: people wailing, fainting, shrieking, even dying in the crush. The crowd became a crazed, mindless thing.

  And no one was paying any attention to Ngombe.

  Finally, in order to save the situation for the candidate, Symborg was forced to leave the platform, under escort. As he did so, the crowd broke through the last barriers and pressed forward to try and touch the angel. Just when it appeared Symborg and his police protective detail, led by Inspector Nziri, were about to be crushed to death in the surging crowd, Symborg did what angels do…he dematerialized into a loose, amorphous swarm and disappeared in a faint puff, dissipating into the air above the stage.

  Dana Polansky captured the whole thing on dronecam video.

  And the rest of the police detail was left to fight their way out of the crowd, who become even more agitated at the disappearance of their hero Symborg. Soon, the stage collapsed completely and a full-scale riot had developed.

  Once she was well beyond the worst of the crowd, Dana collected herself, brushed her hair back and ordered Cam Four to zoom in on her face, which she hoped looked decent enough. Should have checked in my compact, she thought, but it’s too late now.

  Dana added some comments of her own to the footage…

  “Last month, Symborg launched another world tour for the Sons of Assimilation, as the church now styles itself. The original Church of Assimilation in the Kibera slums of Nairobi has become a shrine for all who are sympathetic to the Assimilationist view (transhumans, singularitarians, etc). Thousands make the pilgrimage every day, from all over the world, to Nairobi’s number one tourist attraction. Mostly, they come to see and touch Symborg himself, who because he is an angel, can be in many places at once. The tourist crowds are not disappointed.

  “They come to listen to him in rapture and to be assimilated (which means to be deconstructed as living human beings and re-organized as swarm-compatible formations of nanobotic elements). This reporter, for one, finds such behavior both bizarre and distasteful. It’s assisted suicide by other names. I have some personal experience with this…my own daughter Jana was one of the de-constructed. In fact, millions do believe and the authorities don’t seem to know what to do about it.

  “Efforts continue, both in official circles and otherwise, to discredit and destroy Symborg. All such efforts have failed so far and the popularity and influence of this so-called robotic Messiah has only grown more intense and widespread. Because he is an angel, Symborg can be found on every continent and in most major cities, as well as all popular media. Press coverage is intense, the crowds and the frenzy and fervor is insane. Symborg is something like a combination of rock star and evangelist, with elements of magician and healer thrown in.

  “He seems to become more powerful and influential with each passing day. Now, with the appearance of the Kuiper Belt One anomaly in the farthest reaches of our solar system, the frenzy and the insanity seems to be peaking

  “Some psychologists and sociologists have written that the coming of Symborg is a sort of mass hysteria, combined with a frenzied, almost hysterical worship of the Old Ones. Many cultures down through the ages have had myths about a Savior…someone who comes to save the people from themselves. In the past, saviors and messiahs have come from Heaven, appointed by God to turn people from their destructive ways and encourage repentance.

  “One psychologist (see Richard Espiritu, the World Journal of Psychological Phenomena, March 2099, pp81-89) notes that Symborg seems different. Additional finds of fossilized micro robotic remains among ancient Homo Erectus bones at the Engebbe dig site have swept the world of archaeology and anthropology like a hurricane. If these finds can be corroborated, then the conclusion that Symborg may be an evolved descendant of ancient extraterrestrials seeding the early Earth becomes harder to refute.

  “This makes his status as a Messiah all the more problematical. If evidence of such descent becomes overwhelming, according to Dr. Espiritu, Symborg acquires a level of authority and prophecy and wisdom that no Messiah in history could ever claim. To this point, Symborg has done nothing to discount such rumors but neither has he accepted the mantle of “Father of Humanity.” Still, the rumors, the commentary, blog posts and talk swirl around this idea like bees around a swollen flower.

  “Finally, the relationship (if any) of Symborg to Kuiper Belt One must be explained. Sources within UNIFORCE and other security and defense organizations have repeatedly claimed that Symborg is nothing but an offshoot of this distant astronomical phenomenon, an element of the same formation. Kuiper Belt One, whatever you call it, is considered by many to be a mortal enemy of Mankind. Others claim that Symborg is nothing short of an angel of the Lord, substituting the Old Ones for the Creator. Of course, the existence of the ‘Old Ones’ has never been definitively proven, but there is compelling evidence that something is “Out There.’ In fact, with KB-1, the evidence is harder and harder to refute.

  “So who or what is KB-1? Who or what is Symborg in reality? Are they part of the same phenomena? It’s a matter of documented fact that human beings created ANAD in the 2060s. If Symborg is an evolved descendant of that original autonomous nanoscale assembler/disassembler, then is a very real sense, Man created Symborg.

  “But if ANAD’s programming came in part from something dug out of the ground by Dr. Irwin Frost at Engebbe, and that something came from extraterrestrials that today we call the Old Ones, then who really created who?

  “There’s a logical time bomb ticking away at the heart of our relationship with ANAD technology, a technology that has become so much a part of our lives today, in the middle of the 22nd Century.

  “Man created ANAD. And now it appears increasingly likely that ancestors of ANAD created Man.

  “Is the continuing popularity of Symborg in our midst nothing more than the equivalent of an infant child discovering the infinite pleasures of looking in a mirror?

  “This is Dana Polansky, reporting from Nairobi, Kenya for Solnet and Special Report. Good night…and good luck.”

 

  SOLNET Special Report Ends

  “Insanity,” murmured the Secretary-General, Dr. Vijay Vishnapuram. His avatar floated before Komar’s desk, occasionally sliding in front of, even through CINCSPACE, who had been sitting across Komar’s desk. General Salaam thought it expedient to get up and move over to the windows. The SG had never been one for avatar protocol but no one said anything.

  Komar agreed. “It’s the same all over the world. Riots, mass hysteria, assimilator booths working so hard some have caught fire….”

  The SG’s face turned stern, even thoughtful. The avatar’s eyes narrowed, its face momentarily pixelating. “Earthshield’s done. What other course do
we have now? General, you may be right about saboteurs in our midst. Tomorrow, I’m going to put a proposal before the Security Council. We need to form a negotiating team, to seek terms of accommodation with the Old Ones.”

  “I’m not surrendering a damn thing,” declared CINCQUANT, General Quint. “As a matter of fact, I can announce that we have our own agent, right inside the so-called mother swarm.”

  Komar regarded Quint as if he were a five-year old with an imaginary friend under his bed. “Sure you do, Lamar. This is a serious meeting.”

  Quint nearly exploded. There were few things he hated more than to be patronized by bureaucrats. Bureaucrats didn’t fight enemies or win wars. Bureaucrats gave presentations.

  “For your information, I had a briefing with our agent just a few days ago. He’s ready to unload a ton of intel that may just be what we need to fight off the Bugs.”

  “And just who is this wondrous individual who can insinuate himself into a swarm?”

  “General John Winger. Or what used to be Winger.”

  For about five minutes, Quint had to deal with a level of incredulity and skepticism the likes of which he hadn’t seen in years of staff meetings.

  “General, to say that we’re dubious is something of an understatement,” Komar summed up the general attitude of everyone. “It’s well known that General Winger died in 2121, during his second mission to Europa. Shall I call up the General History of Quantum Corps Campaigns and Operations?”

  But Quint was insistent. “I’m telling you it was Winger. Somehow—don’t ask me to explain how, because I can’t—John Winger’s become a swarm himself, like an angel. At first, I thought I was seeing things, it was a dream, I’d had too much to drink, it was indigestion---you know how it is in the commissary. But, for the love of Mike, it was General Winger. Whatever it was, it knew everything you’d think Winger would know, right down to the most minute details. I asked a few questions. The damn thing knew all the answers, including things I didn’t know. Things only Winger could know. Maybe he’s one of them now, but I don’t think so. John Winger is an angel, a loose bag of bots and somehow he’s worked his way inside the mother swarm. He told me he’ll be dropping off some intel on tactics and weaknesses any day now.”