Nanotroopers Episode 5: Table Top Mountain Read online

  Chapter 2

  “General Quarters”

  UNIFORCE Headquarters

  The Quartier-General, Paris

  November 2, 2048

  7:15 a.m.

  To some wags, the seventy-five story tower located in Paris’ 5th arrondisement, near the Luxembourg Gardens and just off the Boulevard St-Michel, resembled a flower stem with the petal half torn off at the top. To others, it looked like a twisted shovel blade. Or an elongated clam with its tongue sticking out. Or maybe a sword bent at the top.

  To Major James Lofton and Lieutenant Johnny Winger, though, the tower was the Quartier-General, operations and command center, home and headquarters for UNIFORCE, the security and mandate enforcement arm of the United Nations.

  Lofton had been ordered to report in person to General Salah Salim, head of UNIFORCE Security and Intelligence (U2). Lofton twisted Major Kraft’s arm at Table Top hard enough to let him take Winger along for the ride. Lofton knew quite well that Winger had an embedded ANAD system in an implanted capsule in his shoulder. The Security chief figured that might well come in handy in the rat’s maze that was UNIFORCE.

  They made it to the Quartier-General in good order and after being scanned in, Lofton and Winger were escorted to a waiting room on the seventieth floor, outside the briefing deck. Word was that they would be meeting with U2 himself, General Salah Salim. Salim wanted to hear firsthand what had happened both at Lions Rock and subsequently, at Table Top. When Red Hammer managed to insert multiple agents inside Quantum Corps’ most secure facility, upper management took notice.

  The briefing deck was a circular theater-style facility, multi-level with screens and displays wrapped around the entire room. An oval of baize-covered tables held center stage with workstations at each location and a spherical display unit was mounted like a statue in the middle.

  Lofton and Winger had only a few moments’ wait before U2 came in, surrounded by staff aides, signing off directives and orders as he took his seat. He shooed the underlings out and greeted Lofton and Winger, returning all salutes briskly.

  “At ease, gentlemen…sit, sit…” Salim pressed a few buttons on his keyboard and the screens at all stations flickered into life. “GENGHIS, would you bring UNSAC on-line, please?”

  GENGHIS was the commandnet AI, running all displays and systems in the briefing deck. “Of course, General Salim. The Security Affairs Commissioner welcomes all participants and expresses his wishes for a productive and effective briefing. All stations are active and on-line.”

  Salim explained that the real UNSAC was in a separate meeting with the Secretary-General, in New York. His avatar on screen would stand in for the Commissioner.

  Salim had an olive face, thick black moustache and bushy, nearly non-reg hair spilling over his tunic collar.

  Lofton went over their findings from the incident at Table Top and the subsequent investigations.

  “Sheila Reaves wasn’t Sheila Reaves, sir. That’s the bottom line. She was actually a para-human swarm entity, a plant from Red Hammer. But the swarm was so well configured, so tightly controlled, that most people couldn’t tell the difference. She…it…was able to release daughter swarms around the base and these swarms configured to resemble ordinary structures—a trash can, a statue, a bench. At some pre-arranged signal, these swarms began to expand and before we knew it, the Mountain was being hit from all sides. It was dicey for awhile, General, but we managed to get them contained.”

  Salim sipped at a strong Turkish coffee, twirled and fiddled with his moustache. “So now, Red Hammer can produce and release swarms that look just like us? We’ve had intel on the boards for some time about this…now we have proof. Any results from the analysis?”

  Winger spoke up. “The bots we captured are ANAD clones for sure, sir, but they’re souped up under the hood. The analysis is on-going, but already we see structures and capabilities we haven’t been able to figure out. This incident has caused quite an uproar at Table Top. Now, Red Hammer’s got all of us wondering about each other, not really trusting each other, or what our own eyes see.”

  Salim hmmm’ed. “I’m sure that’s part of their plan. Quite a technical achievement this is…to create a swarm that resembles a human. In fact, gentlemen, that’s why I ordered you here. We may be facing the same situation within the Quartier-General.”

  That raised eyebrows on both Lofton and Winger. Lofton cleared his throat. “General, if I may, we know how to deal with this kind of threat. The Lieutenant here has an embedded ANAD system….it’s part of the Symbiosis project.”

  Salim nodded. “I’ve read the reports. How does that feel, son, with a brainy bot inside you?”

  Winger smiled ruefully. “Sir, with all due respects, it’s like having a little brother whispering in your ear all the time. Or having your mother look over your shoulder.”

  Lofton put out his proposal. “Sir, we’ve used ANAD, the Lieutenant’s embed, to create a modified bot we call TinyEye.” He described what the bot could do, how it could be configured for up-close surveillance missions, planted like an errant dust mote right on the body of ‘persons of interest.’

  Salim was well aware that the UNSAC avatar was still on screen, taking in everything. He would have to be careful in what he said. “There are some persons of interest around here. I’ll get with you about this after the briefing. For now, there’s someone I want you to meet—“ He pressed a button on his wristpad and a door behind the briefing tables opened.

  In came Sheila Reaves.

  Johnny Winger nearly fell out of his chair. Reaves saluted Salim smartly, then grinned at Winger and Lofton.

  “Are you for real?” Winger asked.

  Reaves’ grin grew wider. “All too real, Lieutenant.” The red-haired chatter box took a seat next to Salim.

  U2 enjoyed their consternation. “This is the real one, you can be sure of that. And I can explain—“

  Reaves stared right back at the officers. “You want to pinch me or what?”

  Salim explained, “Sergeant Reaves is working for me. On a mission for U2, top secret, Priority One. Only the Secretary-General and CINCQUANT know about this.”

  Now it was Salim’s turn to conduct the briefing. “Reaves has been TDY’ed to Paris for a little surveillance op. Her official purpose is serving as an Intelligence staff officer to the General Staff, kind of my right hand with the brass upstairs. Her real mission is to observe, gather intel, and ferret out spies and saboteurs inside the Quartier-General. You see, gentlemen, Table Top’s not the only target. We’re pretty sure Red Hammer’s got eyes and ears and who knows what else inside this building too. Major Lofton, I am fully aware of your TinyEye program. That’s why you’re here. But I don’t want to discuss the details of what I’m planning here---why don’t you meet me in the Officers’ canteen on the sixtieth floor in, say, half an hour?”

  That was agreed to. The UNSAC avatar signed off and Salim called a formal end to the briefing.

  Thirty minutes later on the dot, in an isolated corner of the Officers’ mess ten floors below, Salim appeared at Lofton and Winger’s table and sat down without ceremony. He let the servbot come by, ordered an espresso and croissant, and lowered his voice. Outside, the Eiffel Tower loomed in the distance, surrounded by an ever-present swirl of jetcabs and tourist lifters.

  “I think both of you know about the suspicions some people have about UNSAC.”

  Winger started to remind both of them that he’d encountered the Security Affairs Commissioner at Lions Rock…or at least, someone who looked like UNSAC. But he said nothing.

  “Yes, sir,” Lofton admitted. “I’ve heard the rumors. Is there any proof that UNSAC’s working for Red Hammer?”

  Salim shrugged. “That’s why you’re here. Sheila Reaves was a plant by us…bait, if you will. We expected something to happen when she was set up on liberty in Singapore. We didn’t know what exactly. We wanted
Red Hammer to think they had turned Reaves and could use her as their own agent. Meanwhile, the real Reaves was here, working undercover for me.”

  “Pardon me for saying so, sir, but if Table Top had been let in on this little charade, it would have helped matters.”

  Salim said, “The deception was necessary, Major, believe me. Otherwise Red Hammer wouldn’t have taken the bait. Now we’ve snagged some of their bots and we can take a closer look at them.”

  Lofton understood. “You mentioned TinyEye, sir. Am I correct in assuming we’ll be using Eye inside the Quartier-General? May I ask who the target is?”

  Salim’s face turned deadly serious. “The entire General Staff. And UNSAC. And that information doesn’t leave this table.”

  “So how exactly are we supposed to plant TinyEyes on an entire General Staff?”

  Salim looked Lofton squarely in the face. “That’s what we’re here to discuss and this is where Sergeant Reaves comes in.”

  The next General Staff meeting was the following morning, 0700 hours in the staff room on the seventy-first floor.

  Sheila Reaves had been designated staff support to General Salim. As such, she was given a console along the outer perimeter of the room, behind Salim. Other commanders had their own staff support, lining the circular walls of the theater-style room in similar fashion. But the other staff didn’t have a small capsule in their jacket pockets like Reaves.

  The night before, Winger, Reaves and Lofton had created a TinyEye station in one corner of Salim’s office suite. Winger had launched ANAD from his shoulder capsule and replicated a small swarm, only a few hundred bots. They had hacked out a modified TinyEye configuration and commanded all the replicants into the new config. Then a small containment capsule had been loaded with the swarm.

  Jiang Hao Bei was Security Affairs Commissioner of the United Nations, UNSAC. Jiang was short, rotund, balding on top with a thick black beard but no one called him Buddha, though he bore a passing resemblance to the Enlightened One. In his earlier years, he had been a world grandmaster in jujitsu (5th order) but those days were long gone. He had black button eyes—someone had once called them ‘shark’s eyes’, and a scowl that could melt lead. Jiang brought the weekly General Staff meeting to order and proceedings were underway.

  That’s when Reaves, sitting at her staff support console, pulled out what looked like a lipstick case and thumbed a small control stud on the side of the device. Unseen by anyone else, the lipstick case discharged a faint, barely noticeable mist. The mist consisted of the TinyEye swarm that had been configured the night before. The mist dispersed in seconds and seemed to be gone.

  One floor below, at the TinyEye station inside Salim’s well-guarded office, Johnny Winger and James Lofton, were in control.

  “TinyEye’s away, Major,” Winger reported. “Half propulsor…we’re separating clean…I’ve got seven groups all reporting back.”

  In the air of the General Staff room, among all the cigar smoke and coffee fumes, an invisible horde of dust motes divided themselves into seven distinct formations and wheeled about, homing on their respective targets.

  “Target One in sight,” Winger reported. “I’ve got a good photon lens going…porting feed to the monitor—“ On his console, the imager screen showed a grainy, streaky, but discernible image of Target One: General Safran Chekwarthy, also known as Commander in Chief of UNISPACE, CINCSPACE. Chekwarthy was puffing on a cigarette and sniffing at the rim of a steaming cup of tea.

  “Major, Target One has a full head of hair. I think that might be our best bet to land TinyEye One.”

  “Do it,” Lofton commanded. “We should be okay unless CINCSPACE decides to get a haircut.”

  “Steering for the head,” Winger said. He pecked out a few commands on his keyboard and thumbed the joystick forward. Unnoticed by Chekwarthy, a few dust motes drifted down from above and planted themselves firmly in his coiffure.

  “TinyEye One in place, sir.”

  Lofton checked the board. “Okay…now we’re getting feed. There they are…visual, olfactory, audio, haptic, everything coming in. We’re dialed in to CINCSPACE as long as TinyEye stays attached. Proceed with the rest.”

  One after another, Winger steered the remaining TinyEye swarms to their targets. Normal practice required him to put the Eyes on the physical person of the target. Clothes could be changed and contact might be lost. Even being implanted on their physical persons was a risk. Taking a shower or running through a heavy downpour could dislodge the bots. But that was risk Lofton and Salim were prepared to take.

  The trickiest approach and landing was UNSAC himself. Once Jiang had taken a seat and reports were coming in from around the table, Lofton and Winger debated the best landing spot on the Commissioner. Finally, it was decided that TinyEye would seek out a spot on the beard.

  Following the visual image fed back from TinyEye Seven’s photo lens, Winger approached, reconnoitered and hovered as if he were putting a lifter down in a forest. Finally, he found an open clearing and deposited the bot swarm in place.

  Then UNSAC scratched his beard briskly. It was like clinging to a tree in a hurricane. But TinyEye Seven stayed attached.

  The General Staff meeting came to an end and the targets dispersed to their daily schedules. Winger had worked on the TinyEye command workstation so that the feed from all targets would come in at once and be displayed on a tiled display, visual, haptic, olfactory…every channel that TinyEye could sense and report. It was a lot of data. Lofton worked with Reaves and Winger to man the monitoring station around the clock…Winger and Reaves would each take eight-hour shifts and Salim’s adjutant Lieutenant Micheletti the last shift.

  Certain actions, behaviors and locations were set up to be flagged immediately. Torrents and petabytes of data poured in over the next day as each target went about his business.

  CINCSPACE ate three baguettes at the Café Arronix a block east of UNIFORCE on the Boulevard St-Michel.

  CINCBIO visited a small hotel after his duty shift that evening, where he had a rendezvous with a well-proportioned Parisian working girl. It was known from his curriculum vitae that CINCBIO had been married for thirty years and had seven children and three grandchildren. The girl was not his wife.

  CINCCYBER groped a secretary in a booth in the Flag Officer’s Mess right after sharing a nice Bordeaux and some cheese with the girl during a mid-afternoon break.

  And CINCQUANT, who was well aware of the TinyEye operation, spent an inordinate amount of time in the men’s room of the General Staff suite, examining his hair, eyebrows, face and hands, no doubt looking for some evidence of what he knew had to be there.

  All this data and more poured into the TinyEye station. The first flag chimed late the following afternoon. It came from TinyEye Seven, the device planted on UNSAC.

  UNSAC was trying to establish a comm link via quantum coupler.

  “Where is he?” Lofton asked. Winger and Reaves were with the Major at the TinyEye station in Lofton’s office.

  Winger was manipulating the swarm’s photon lens to get a visual. “Looks like he’s in his office. We got an alert for quantum coupler operation. “He’s trying to open a link…I’ll see if I can get better audio. No bearings on the decoherence wakes yet….you know how hard that is.”

  UNSAC’s voice came through in a scratchy monotone.

  “Make sure this is recorded,” Lofton ordered.

  Over the next few minutes, it was clear that UNSAC was relaying the contents of recent General Staff briefings to someone. The snatches of voice were unmistakable…possible penetration op at Lions Rock…Red Hammer has bigger plans in mind…antidote to HNRIV that’s more than an antidote—that made Lofton sit up and take notice—a programmable device could make millions of addicts…operations in Nairobi….

  When UNSAC was done with his comm link, he shut it down and began reviewing staff notes and plans. TinyEye produced nothing
else that morning even remotely suspicious. But Lofton was already satisfied with what they had.

  “Ten to one that was a link to a Red Hammer site. This haul should raise some eyebrows with Internal Security.”

  Reaves was curious. “Major, what do you suppose this reference to Nairobi is all about? And some bigger operation. I haven’t seen anything on the boards recently.”

  “Neither have I,” Lofton said. “Lieutenant, I want to take a look at what’s on UNSAC’s workstation files. Don’t worry about authorization…I’ve got all I need from the S-G. Pinch off an element of TinyEye and let’s go hunting.”

  Winger knew it was possible for ANAD and, by extension, its TinyEye cousin, to probe computer memory files directly, right down to the level of molecule-sized bits on the hard drive disk. For several minutes, TinyEye read and copied the molecular dots of data on UNSAC’s computer drives.

  Lofton was pleased. “Internal Security will love this stuff. When this is all over, you two will get some kind of special commendation.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Winger said. He would much rather have been driving ANAD somewhere else, like against a real adversary but that was the thing with assembler technology. There were always more applications that could be thought up, more shadowy corners to be investigated.

  For several days, TinyEye followed the members of the General Staff and Reaves and Winger pulled long shifts, monitoring the status of the infinitesimal swarms, collecting the multiple feeds, advising Lofton of unusual discoveries and in general acting like atom-sized cops on a beat.

  It wasn’t exactly what Winger had signed up for. One evening during the hour-long shift handover, Winger and Reaves got permission to head down to the Officers’ Mess on the seventieth floor. They found a small table by the windows and watched tourist jetcab traffic circling the Eiffel Tower.

  Winger ran a finger around the rim of his beer mug, licking the frosting with a loud slurp. “I don’t know about you, Sheila, but this sucks. Spying on senior officers, watching them take a crap in the head—I’m surprised Lofton doesn’t want a sample of that.”

  “Hey, don’t suggest it, Lieutenant. It could happen. Bad enough we’re listening in on comms and reading computer files. I sure hope TinyEye is not the future for ANAD. You two still have heartfelt conversations late at night?”

  “Yeah, it’s like we’re frat brothers. Here, let me show you….” Winger tapped his shoulder capsule the way Doc Frost had shown him. The port opened. “I’ll launch ANAD now.”

  “Here?” Reaves looked around. The Mess wasn’t crowded, only a few other patrons were inside and nobody was nearby.

  “Sure…watch this—“

  From underneath Winger’s shirt, a faint glow emanated. Then a mist, flickering slightly as the swarm emerged, slamming atoms to build structure. As Reaves watched in amazement, the swarm issued out into the air, staying low at tabletop level and began forming up some kind of image. The process lasted three minutes. When it was done, a ghostly image of Doc Frost’s face and shoulders, in outline, had emerged, floating like an apparition just beside the salt and pepper shakers.

  Nobody seemed to notice.

  “He looks just like Doc Frost,” Reaves marveled.

  “Yeah, I hacked out a special config a few weeks ago. Not a bad likeness, don’t you think? I bring him out every now and then, late at night. We talk.”

  Reaves shook her head. “Boys and their toys. So what do you two talk about?”

  “I’ll show you—“ Winger pecked at a few keys on his wristpad. “I’ll put him in full audio…he’s using some of his elements to form audible sounds….ANAD, this is Base, report status—“

  The tiny swarm likeness flashed and popped and Reaves was sure that someone would notice but nobody did.