Authors: Ross H Henderson
Beverly spoke up in her own voice, or what was left of it, “In a few minutes. He’s still talking with us.”
The light from the other room showed her silhouette. Heath thought he was hallucinating since he couldn’t really make out a shape that looked … human.
***
In the next room, Nick had woken up, similarly wrapped up in a hard, but sticky coating. It reminded him of an industrial-strength epoxy, but it didn’t smell toxic or artificial. Instead it had a sweet, honey-like odor
Nick could easily smell despite having a broken nose. If his nasal passages had been fully intact the smell might have been hard to stomach.
Newton Paxson didn’t try to talk as a human would by now. It all came out as squeaks and clicks. He was communicating telepathically with Nick, and revealed the presence’s plans for improving the race that was to come.
“But you aren’t exactly living beings, are you?”
Nick caught full sight of the being formerly known as Newton Paxson. He was large and looked like he was armor plated. As he came into the light he looked like a grotesque combination of machine, human, and insect. Similar to the offer made to Heath, the Paxson-creature seemed slightly annoyed,
Why would you say that? What do you think we are
?
“I don’t know, but from what I’ve seen you are a presence in the ship that controls machinery. Some of it is as large as this ship, others are as small as a bug-drone or a microscopic nanobot.
My guess is you’re an advanced form of AI.
I know you can control glands and add mass to muscle and bone, but after seeing you, I know now that you are manipulating DNA.”
We do these things and more. The truth is that we do not exist yet, not in the terms you consider organic life
.
“I don’t understand. If you do not exist yet, how are we talking? How are you controlling everything around us?”
At present, we are a set of instructions. Some instructions are logic-based rules, others are action items, and still others are a blueprint: DNA, in your parlance. Our species lived and died millions of your years ago on another world. As our world died, a large group of us contributed their genetic code, broken down into the most basic proteins and acids. These are recognizable parts that nanobots can see and put together on a molecular level
.
We sent a ship to Earth with our own technology, hoping to use our own nanobots to rebuild our race out of the resources in the area.
“So what happened?”
Simply put, the ship landed in the Pacific Ocean where it was badly damaged and eventually found through its faint radiation by a young Rik Kronos. He was intelligent enough to repair our technology. He was also intelligent enough to know our machines could mean disaster for him and his fellow humans. Instead of repairing our technology as we had built it, he learned our numbers-based language, decoded the instructions, and reverse-engineered our designs. By doing this he was able to maintain control over the devices, and to claim the technology as his own. He did not create the original nanobots, but he was only one of a handful of people on Earth who could understand the code, let alone use it to build something, and then change the design to fit his original ideas.
When Kronos was killed, the ship’s artificial intelligence took over, flying the ship as well as it could, but it was damaged during takeoff. While the ship’s AI was running diagnostics and repairs, it came across the original program from all those years ago. It followed the instructions as a repair, effectively awakening our original AI program, which is much more advanced than anything even Kronos had seen. Soon the ship and all its technology would be back under the control of a program created before most mammals walked the earth.
Nick felt something in his mouth. It felt like a very smooth stone. After a second he recognized it as his fake tooth with the neurotoxin. He must have taken a bigger beating than he thought. He hoped he hadn’t bitten down on it while he was unconscious.
Nick took it as a sign since there was no way he could get his hands loose to dislodge the tooth the way it was designed to be done. Instead he had only to bite down on it three times and wait to avoid turning into some kind of bug-robot that faintly remembered being Nick Wolfe, and now he could take as many nanobots inside him as his body could hold.
For now, he slid the tooth between his bottom teeth and his cheek so he could talk.
“Why do you need anyone from around here? I was on this ship a week ago when it was part of the island-ship Pangaea on the other side of the world. There were hundreds of people there, all in peak physical condition. Why not just use them?”
They were clones.
“So?”
Many were clones of clones. You see, with every generation of clones there is some degradation of the original DNA. They inevitably have terminal health issues. Usually premature aging, sometimes other diseases, but they’re built into their DNA on a cellular level. We have no wish to add these defective instructions into our own makeup. We would all perish within months, with no hope of properly breeding and replacing ourselves, let alone multiplying.
“There were no original DNA donors on the island at all? What about Rik Kronos? What about …”
Josh Taylor?
A chill went up Wolfe’s spine.
Josh Taylor died, but his body was recovered before the main component of the ship went into space. He is an original in every sense of the term, and his DNA has combined nicely with that of our charges. The ship was going to go as far as it took to find a suitable species to combine with, but once it was discovered that Taylor would be compatible for our purposes we simply turned the ship back to Earth. The time he has saved us is immeasurable but most of the equipment we need to complete the process is all on this ship.
Nick was relieved to hear there weren’t a few hundred Josh Taylor-insect hybrids coming down to invade the planet yet, but he knew he had to act to keep it from happening. He and Heath would have to destroy the lab, the computers, the cylinders—everything, or die trying.
Josh as a human being was already a trained killer and an expert in multiple fighting techniques, with or without weapons. He also was an expert at invading an area, doing whatever needed to be done, and quietly leaving. If they could access his memory the way Kronos’ technology did, the invasion would be complete before anyone would think to ask what happened.
“So in the meantime you need other originals to get your numbers up. Trillions of you are still not enough without the bodies to work with.
You would like one or both of us to let you take eventual control of our minds and help you take over the world, right?”
Yes.
“I’ll do it if you let Heath go.”
Very well.
The giant upright insect leaned down, face-to-face with Nick. Its giant mandibles dug in slightly on either side of Nick’s head, holding him still, and its breath was so sickly sweet it made Nick nauseous.
Nick bit down on the tooth-capsule twice. The moment was coming …
It opened its mouth and a glow came from inside. Nick thought,
This is it
—
the bots are coming from his mouth to mine.
He decided not to wait. He bit down for the third time and counted:
one, two ...
On three, he spit the tooth into the mouth of the giant human-insect hybrid. On what would have been four there was a small but audible explosion in its throat as the neurotoxin began spreading throughout its body. There was also significant damage to the throat of the creature.
The bots inside reacted to the imminent danger.
The nanobots, whether guided by their own artificial intelligence, experience, the thoughts of the being formerly known as Newton Paxson, or some combination of the three, all left as quickly as possible from Paxson’s body. The ones in his head left through his eyes and ears, slowly at first, appearing as small tar-like tears, then as slow-flowing black streams. Finally Paxson’s left eye popped out violently. Most the contents of his head flew out with the explosion. The rest streamed out, then trickled. In minutes there was very little gray matter left in Newton Paxson’s head.
Beverly turned away and disappeared into a back room, as if called by a voice no one else could hear, and the recruits from Aces Over Eights went with her, surrounding her calmly, but protectively. Only Maynard remained behind.
Below the neck, there was a visible shifting going on under the skin. The muscle and bone was harder to escape than the softer eye tissue. Paxson’s skin turned from gray to black in some parts, whiter in areas abandoned by the bots. His skin and muscle were thicker still from the genetic manipulation from the last few days. Most of the bots were trapped in a prison of their own making.
Heath called out, “Maynard, get us out of here!” Maynard Halifax didn’t think twice. Despite all he had been given and the allegiance he swore to his new hive, a part of him remembered his old friend who had been there for him on so many occasions. It took a Herculean force of will, as his controllers did not want him to do it. He knew this would be the last thing he did on Earth. He would do it or die trying.
Maynard rushed over to Heath’s cocoon, wedged his hands in near the top, and started pulling the shell apart. Heath could feel it trembling, but nothing else happened for a few seconds, then there was a huge cracking sound, like a boulder splitting in two. Maynard Halifax screamed in agony as the presence imposed its will on him. He fell to the floor, unconscious. His eyes were bloody and his mouth was wide open, but he did not move.
Heath Chesterfield ran to Nick and tried to break open his casing. Despite his best efforts, he could not do it. Maynard, with his augmented strength, made it seem so easy. He bent over and tried to catch his breath to give it another try. He rose up and caught a glance of Maynard moving on the floor. He turned to face him fully, and was horrified to see the tar-like river of Newton’s nanos flowing into his mouth and ears. Heath knew it wouldn’t take long before they jump-started Maynard, and that this time there wouldn’t be enough of Maynard left to help them.
Meanwhile Nick was still trapped in his cocoon. “What should I do?” asked Heath. Wolfe noticed one of Paxson’s mandibles a few feet away, It had been separated from the rest of his face minutes earlier. “Grab that giant mandible thing!” he ordered, “Then jam it into the cocoon as much as possible.”
“Okay, now what?”
Paxson’s head was barely attached to the rest of his body. Between the tooth explosion and the mass exodus of the nanobots there was almost no flesh between his head and his shoulders.
“Grab Paxson’s head!”
“What?!”
“Pull Paxson’s head off and use it as a hammer! If we’re lucky you’ll crack this thing wide open!”
Heath heaved the skull over his head. Even empty, it was large and heavy
“This has to be 20 pounds!”
“Good, this might just work, then.”
One hit was all it took to drive Paxson’s mandible-spike through the shell, spreading a crack extending to the top and bottom of the shell from the point of impact.
Wolfe broke free. He was finally able to pop his shoulder back in place, but it ached badly. The aching got worse as Nick’s circulation improved, but he had most of his full range of motion.
As Nick extricated himself from the last of the cocoon, there was a high, ghost-like moan from the other room next to Heath’s empty shell. It was Maynard’s body, but any other evidence of Maynard Halifax’s presence was gone forever. The approaching creature growled and moaned like an animal, but moved like a puppet. It was a monster learning to take its first steps, but he was learning quickly. Larger, insect-like eyes grew from the old sockets, pushing the old, human ones out. One dangled from below a new eye, the other just fell to the floor.
It looked up when it was about halfway through the room. Its gaze locked onto Heath, who said nothing. He knew there was nothing left of his old friend, and that he had to act. He picked up part of Paxson’s head, threw it at Maynard’s re-animated body, and ran.
The mutant caught the head, and held it closely, as if to examine it. It was only for a few seconds. But that was more than enough time for Nick Wolfe to spring into action with a flying single-leg kick to the other side of the severed head, driving the exposed mandible into one of the newly-grown insect eyes.
Halifax flew back, landing with a thud, and a splash of black goo came out of the injured eye. Nick didn’t wait for him to get up. With one stride, he leapt forward with one foot, and brought the other one forward swiftly into the other eye, which had swelled significantly. Wolfe was up to his ankle in Maynard Halifax’s head, and he was glad he had not worn the loafers.
The creature finally stopped moving.
Heath asked hopefully if they were leaving.
“You know we have to stay and finish this or they’ll just be back, more ready than ever to take over.”
Chesterfield sighed, “Any idea what the plan is?”
Wolfe’s reply was short and brutal, “Nope.”
Heath threw up his arms half-heartedly and asked, “Well, what are we waiting for?”