Post #15 January 25, 2016

As mentioned in previous posts, I’m currently writing a science fiction novel called The Farpool.  This story is set mostly in the 22^nd century, Earth time, but also on an ocean world called Seome six thousand light years away.  It’s a story about the adventures of Chase Meyer and Angie Gilliam.  Here’s the original book description:

Two teen-agers, Chase Meyer and Angie Gilliam, witness a curious waterspout off the Gulf Coast hamlet of Scotland Beach, Florida.  After the spout disappears, they take Chase’s boat out to investigate an unusual and persistent whirlpool in the ocean.  They spot two marine animals, clad in what looks like suits or armor.  The creatures blind them with some kind of device.  The creatures then disappear into the whirlpool.  The teen-agers find themselves trapped in the same vortex and wind up catapulted six thousand light years and hundreds of years into the future, to an ocean world called Seome. 

The whirlpool is known to the Seomish as the Farpool.  It’s a wormhole through space and time.  Chase and Angie arrive in this ocean world, riven by conflict and wracked by terrible sound and vibration from a weapons base on a small island, a base set up by Umans, star-faring descendants of the very human race the teen-agers come from.  The weapon is called a Time Twister.  The Umans are using it to fight off a malevolent enemy race called the Coethi; one of the side effects of the Twister’s operation is a wormhole that the Seomish have termed the Farpool. 

Now Chase and Angie find themselves in the midst of Seome’s existential crisis.  The Seomish realize that the teenagers are intelligent beings related to the Umans and prevail on Chase and Angie to undergo surgical modifications to be able to survive in the oceans of Seome and to negotiate with their Uman descendants to shut down or move the Time Twister.  But the Umans are desperate themselves and initially refuse to cooperate.  Now the Seomish have to take matters into their own hands.  Worse, Angie’s homesick and wants to go back through the Farpool, even modified as she is, back to Earth of the 22^nd century. 

Now Chase and Angie are in a race against time and destiny.  Chase wants to stay behind, to learn more about this amazing world and its marine civilization, and to work with his new–found Seomish friends to help the Umans dismantle the Twister and relocate it before the Coethi attack again and destroy Seome.  But the challenge is this: the Farpool depends on the Twister working.  If it’s shut down, no one knows if it will operate the same way again.  The Farpool may disappear.  Chase and Angie now must make a decision: stay with their new found Seomish family, or attempt a dangerous re-modification and try to go back through the Farpool before it is gone forever.

The decision they make may send them back through time and space to their home world and time.  But that same decision may well doom their Seomish friends to complete annihilation at the hands of the Coethi.

It will be the hardest decision Chase and Angie have ever made.

To provide a little information about the world they wind up in, here are some details from the Appendix about Seome….

The Language

Seomish is designed phonetically to carry well in a water medium. Hard, clicking consonants are common.  The ‘p’ or ‘puh’ sound, made by violent expulsion of air is also common.  Modulation of the voice stream, particularly at high frequencies (sounding much like a human whistle) produces the characteristic “wheeee” sound, which is a root of many words.  Translation from Seomish to human languages like English requires some inspired speculation, since so many Seomish phrases seem to be little more than grunts or groans, modulated in frequency and duration.

Most Seomish words are grouped according to several characteristics: (1) Who is speaking (the personal); (2) who is being spoken to (the indicative); (3) state of mind of the speaker (the conditional); (4) the kel-standing of the conversants (the intimant).

Each classification has a set of characteristic pre-consonants, to indicate the nature of the coming words, etc. Thus:

1.     k’, kee, t’

2.     tch, g, j, oot

3.     m’, p’, puh’ (both anger, dislike, distaste, etc), sh, sz (both joyful)

4.     each kel identifies itself with a unique set of capitalized consonants, like a vocal coat of arms.  Example: t’milee, or CHE’oray…Seomish  versus Timily or Chory…English.

 

The World

 

Here’s a map of Seome.  This was previously posted last October, 2015, in a separate post about world-building.

 

    Seome is a planet somewhat smaller than Earth, 98% covered in water.  There are approximately 30 islands that comprise the total land mass of the planet.  Most of them are only a few kilometers wide but about ten exceed 50 square kilometers in size.  Most of the islands are clustered near the equator, or branch out in chains or arcs from the cluster, often following the submerged ocean ridges that trisect the waters.

    Seome is one of four planets, two large gas giants and two smaller terrestrial rock-core worlds, orbiting the star-sun Sigma Albeth B.  The other planets are uninhabited.

       Neither small planet has any natural satellite but both gas giants have literally scores of satellites in orbit about them.

       Seome is about 11,500 kilometers in diameter and its gravity is slightly less than Earth’s.  Of particular note is the planet’s perpetual cloud cover, permanent except for one location: the summit peak of the island of Ordeld in the northeastern sea, at certain times of the year.

       Seome has two seasons: high storm and low storm, roughly corresponding to periods of greater and lesser storm activity.  The planet rotates nearly twice as fast as Earth, so the “day” is only half as long.  However, the low light level doesn’t really reflect the speed of rotation.  It is uniformly low.

       The planet has a magnetic field and an iron core.  Earthquakes are common, often creating tsunamis that dwarf anything seen on Earth.

       The period of solar revolution is about 18 Earth months, 50% longer.  In other words, one Earth year is 2/3 a Seome year.  A Seome year is called a mah and it corresponds to one complete north-south-north migration cycle of the planktonic mah’jeet organisms. 

        Seomish Physiology

        Although the Seomish resemble dolphins and porpoises externally, they are not mammals.  They are fish, true marine creatures.  They average about 3 meters in length and possess two forearms that have evolved from pectoral fins into prehensile limbs approximately ½ to ¾ meter in length, with five fingers and one opposing thumb at the end of each arm.

       The Seomish breathe through gills, extracting oxygen from the water that is strained through gill slits on either side of the head, which is really only an extension of the main body trunk.  The body is streamlined for speed (up to 20 km/hr for healthy males at maturity) which is generated by lateral undulations of the caudal, or tail fin.  The peduncle is the muscle that moves this fin.

       The Seomish have two dorsal fins, one over the midsection and one just forward of the peduncle.  Along with a pair of anal fins (beneath the second dorsal), a small pair of vestigial pectoral fins attached to the forearms (above the wrist) provides anti-roll stability.  The arms and the tail give maneuvering and braking power and the arms are tucked against the sides of speed.

       The Seomish have evolved an internal gas bladder, dorsally located, to help them maintain buoyancy.  The presence of this organ limits the depth and vertical range of their natural movement but technological developments can overcome these obstacles.

       The Seomish have relatively poor eyesight, good vision not being essential in the often dark, murky waters of Seome.  They have no tear ducts or eyelids.

 The Seomish senses of smell and hearing are keen, however.  A great deal of the standard Seomish language is concerned with scent information and is unconveyable by sight or sound.  There is an olfactory vocabulary of chemical odors that are often captured and stored in scentbulbs, called ot’lum, in the spoken vernacular.

The Seomish can smell the difference not only in body odors but in various kinds of water, according to its salt, dirt, or nutrient content.  They have words for all these.  Because olfactory impressions tend to disperse slowly, the Seomish do not separate the past from the present as readily as humans.  Instead, they view the past as living in the present, as a shadow or ghost or alternate spirit of the present.

The Seomish sense of hearing is acute and far-ranging.  Just below the mouth, at the rear of the throat and forward of the gill cavity, is a small bag-like organ, called a soundsac, or shkelt.  It is an echo-location system that emits low-frequency waves that can carry for upwards of thirty to fifty kilometers, depending on the location of the deep-level sound channel (the ootkeeor, or “discovering water”).  Much of the Seomish language consists of grunts, whistles and clicks, all sounds that travel well in water.

The Seomish also possess a pressure-sensitive lateral line organ.  The organ functions as a true sixth sense and is sensitive to low-frequency vibrations.  It is used for short-range guidance, collision avoidance and for determining the present state of the ambient water as well as local currents.

Seomish are heterosexual and reproduce by copulation, the female bearing live young after a gestation period of about one and a half mah.

Seomish males usually live to an average age of 150 mah (see Seomish time-keeping) and females somewhat longer, 160 mah.

The Seomish have silvery-gray skin, smooth, non-scaly at maturity.  They are born pinkish-white and aging gradually darkens the skin.

Average weight for a mature Seomish male is 230 kilograms.  Females weigh somewhat less.

Seomish Timekeeping

Time on Seome is defined by the period it takes for the vast hordes of planktonic mah’jeet to complete one pole-to-pole migration cycle.  This basic unit is called the mah and is equivalent to about eighteen Terran months.

The mah is further subdivided into six parts, one for each of the Five Daughters and one for the Father Shooki.  These subdivisions are called emtemah and each is roughly equivalent to about three Terran months.

The Seomish have no astronomical concept of a “day” (having no knowledge of a sun or planetary bodies or motions) but they are aware of variations in light which penetrates the water.  A day-night cycle to them means one cycle of light, then no light, then light again.  The words are puh’kel and puh’tchoot.  The popular explanation for light is that the surface is full of floating luminescent creatures which shine their radiance into the depths to create the day and then sleep to create the night. 

The Seomish call each one thousand mah period a metamah, or epoch.  These periods are usually named for the oldest Metah in the world at that time.  The current epoch is 735 mah old and was given the designation Tekpotu, for the reigning Metah of Ork’et at that time. 

The six emtemah are called, in order: Shookem, Omtorem, Skortem, Epkosem, Orketem and Ponketem.

The Seomish have two other words which they use to divide the year into halves.  These words refer to the condition of the water at the time of the mah’jeet migration.  They are lit’kel (clear water) and mah’kel (fiery water).  Since mah’jeet can be dangerous, mah’kel is a time to remain in the cities.

In the Terran-Standard numbering system, the current Seomish mah would  be written as follows: 735.5 Tk, meaning the fifth emtemah of the seven hundred thirty fifth mah in the epoch of Tekpotu. 

Following is a brief timeline of major events in contemporary Seomish history.

Highlights of the Current Historical Epoch of Tekpotu

Mah                     Event

22.1                      The Peace of Tekpotu…putting an end to a 30-mah long period of isolation and border disputes between Omt’or and Ponk’et.

105.6                    Extraction, isolation and synthesis of the memory drug tekn’een by Omtorish scientists

357-9                    Metah of Sk’ort dies; Eepkostic plot charged; live k’orpuh released in Kekah--many deaths; Skortish retaliate by melting ice; truce comes

405.2                    Berserk seamother kills pilgrims at Pillars of Shooki; extermination attempt fails when beast leaves water (first recorded case in current epoch)

622.1                    Discovery of Unknown Relic in Opuhte of Ponk’el; disputes over custody; theory of ancient, unrecorded marine civilization

628.4                    Ponkti restrict access to Pillars, leading to confrontation at Serpentine; sporadic clashes

629.6-630.5          Ponk’et agrees to discuss situation, leading to Shrine Treaty and Agreement of Puh’t

649-651                Pal’penk herds decimated by disease, traced to new mutation in mah’jeet; Seomish deaths lead to antidote after Ponkti efforts to exterminate mah’jeet are blocked by Omt’or

700-705                Potu shortage as a result of Orketish kip’t accident, spilling toxic wastes into potu beds; monetary panic ensues and inter-kel trade drops off until stocks increase

719.1                    Death of Hildrah tu, Metah of Omt’or; succession of Iltereedah luk’t

 

So this is a little primer about the world that Chase and Angie find themselves on when they fall into the Farpool.   Fortunately, the Farpool works both ways.   But you’ll have to read the finished novel to find out what happens to them.  Look for it this spring or early summer, initially at smashwords.com.

The next post comes on February 1. 

See you then.

Phil B.

In this post, I’ll excerpt the first scene from “Nanotroopers”, Episode 1, which was just uploaded to Smashwords.com last week.  Here it is….

“Colorado”

Colorado Springs, Colorado

August 2, 2047

2:15 p.m.

Johnny Winger was in Net School, working with Katie Gomez on some algebra problems, when he learned his mom had been killed in a car crash.  The message was from a deputy at the El Paso County Sheriff’s office…one of the worst crashes we’ve seen in years, a deputy had said on the vidpost.  Car went off a cliff, rolled down an embankment, burst into—your father’s at the hospital now--

Johnny snapped the post off.  He didn’t want to hear any more.  He just wanted to go.  Be there. See for himself. 

The school let him out without any questions. Principal Costner tried to be sympathetic.  “Go on, son …get out of here.  We’re praying for you—“ He swung his legs over his turbo and fired it up, gunning the engine angrily.  Then he scratched off out of the parking lot and made his way screeching and sliding through several traffic lights to the autoway, heading north.  Dad was alive, barely.  In a hospital.  Colorado Springs. 

He just had to be there.  And he wasn’t going to give up control of his turbo to the autoway, not today of all days.  He needed to be in control, feel the road vibrations and the wind, know for sure there was something he could control.  Johnny Winger steered into the manual lane and cranked his bike up to just under a hundred.  Cars and trucks and road signs flashed past.

He made the Sisters of Mercy Hospital in about half an hour.

The hospital was a Greco-Roman institutional brick pile, all fake columns and turrets and gables, some architect’s wet dream gone awry.  The ten-story main building poked up above a small forest of aspen and birch trees, in a hundred-acre park-like setting out along Powers Avenue.  Johnny skidded his turbobike to a halt and parked in a delivery van’s spot, then hustled inside.

He found his sister Joanna in the CCU waiting room.

Joanna was an inch shorter, short blond hair with some locks hanging over her right eye.  “They just brought Mom in.”  She held up her wristpad.  “I was just talking with the funeral home…she died quickly, Sheriff’s deputy told me.  They’re taking the body over there this afternoon.”

Johnny felt a hard lump in his throat.  His eyes were dry, for the moment.  Joanna’s were red.  He figured tears would come later.

“What about Dad?”

“Just out of surgery…skull fracture…he may have some brain trauma, the docs said.  He also has a broken arm, some spinal contusions…Johnny, it’s a miracle he survived.  From what that deputy said about the crash scene—“

Johnny put both hands on her shoulders.  “I heard.  Let’s do details later—“he stopped when the door to the waiting room opened.  A nurse in blue scrubs poked her head in.

“You two can make a short visit now…very short, like five minutes.  Your Dad’s semi-conscious, just coming out of sedation.”  She held the door back and they went in.

The Critical Care Unit was on the fifth floor, north wing.  The waiting area had been half full, with small knots of people engaged in whispered conversation, two children joysticking remote action bots along the wall, and a wraparound active display showing live scenes from Vail and Aspen and Steamboat Springs.  The nurse showed Johnny and Joanna down a hall to the Active Care Unit.  Through the bioshield, a sort of containment zone inside of which active nanodevices were at work, Johnny came up to the bed where Jamison Winger lay enveloped in thick ganglia of wires and hoses.  Joanna hung back, her hands to her mouth.

A faint coruscating blue glow surrounded the bed, the inner containment field pulsating with active nano to protect the patient from further infection.

A swarthy Egyptian doctor, Sethi Hassan, attended a small display, with imaging views showing what the bots were seeing.  Two nurses also attended.

Dr. Hassan sensed the presence of someone new, but did not at first look away from the screen.  His right hand manipulated a tiny trackball and the view on the screen changed with each manipulation. 

“How’s he doing, Doc?” Johnny asked.

“About as well as could be expected,” Hassan said.  He had just finished some tests and scans, looking for peritumoral edema, any headaches, intracranial pressure, hemiparesis, tremors.  Every test had turned up better than expected.  “Frankly, Mr. Winger here’s doing a lot better than he should be.  We still have some work to do, more surgery, basically repairs and reconstructive sessions.  He’s suffered substantial trauma to the frontal and parietal lobes.  After that, more tests…memory function, basic motor skills.  You’ve got five minutes, no more.”  With that Hassan retreated to a small control station by the door.

Winger bent over the bed, pressing lightly against the field.  A keening buzz changed pitch and invisible forces pressed back against his fingers, forcing his hand away.  Standard mobility barrier, he told himself, almost without thinking.  He’d read about bots like this on the Net just the other day.  He moved aside to let Joanna come closer, then drifted toward Hassan’s station.

“Doc, what do all these bots do?”

Hassan sighed, flexed his fingers around the trackball at his panel and did some more manipulations, delicately driving the medbots under his command. 

“Two hours ago, we perfused his brain with a small formation of neurocytes…these neurocytes are working now.  I detached a small element just an hour ago, got them into position to block a serotonin avalanche that was firing off inside his limbic system…some kind of seizure, that was.  We got the convulsions mostly stopped…although there’s been some leakage into the hippocampal regions.”

Winger studied his father’s face.  His eyes were screwed shut, tension lines all converging along his forehead.  He was clearly still in pain.  His lips trembled and a rhythmic twitch made his fingers and feet move in fits of shaking.  His head was wrapped in bandages.

Mr. Winger started to convulse—his arms and hands went rigid, then spasmed fluttering off into the air, brushing against the barrier.  The mechs buzzed back.   Beside the bed, Hassan busied himself driving the herd of neurocytes onward, tracking down the errant discharges.  Seconds later, as he swarmed the ‘cytes toward the center of the convulsion, the spasm gradually died off.  Mr. Winger’s arms dropped, his fists unclenched.  The doctor looked up; his eyes saying that was too close.

“We’re running the latest here at SOM…Mark III medical autonomous assemblers.  AMADs.  Most of the exterior trauma’s already stitched up…that went pretty well, I must say.  But hunting down these spasms and figuring out the firing patterns, timing the cascades and the uptake rates…that’s taking time.  I’ll get it figured out eventually…if we can keep him stable for the time being.”

Joanna leaned over the bioweb and sighed with sadness.  “Brad’s flying in from Frisco tonight.  One of us needs to pick him up at the airport.”  Brad was the oldest of the Winger kids, now a resident at Stanford Medical. 

“I just have my bike…Brad won’t want to ride that.”

“I can go,” Joanna offered.  “If you’ll stay here with him…you’ll have to sign some paperwork when they bring Mom in.  And Dr. Hassan may have questions about further treatment.”

That’s how it was decided.  Joanna and Johnny ate a quick and tasteless meal at the commissary, consoled each other for a few moments over cake and coffee and then Joanna was off.

Johnny went back to CCU.  Slouching on a beat-up vinyl couch, he googled ‘AMAD’ on his wristpad and studied the images and the reports, browsing and skipping quickly through the details.  At any moment, he expected to get another five-minute visit with his Dad and he had a few questions for Hassan and the second shift surgeon, Dr. Morse.  He kept one eye on the double-doors to the trauma suite and one eye on his screen….

‘Autonomous nanoscale assemblers…the bots sport quantum processors…unique operating parameters…surgeons need special skills to run the bots…working at the scale of atoms takes a different mindset…it’s like a carnival ride down there, with van der Waals forces and Brownian motion….’

Winger watched a small snippet of video, taken from a bot’s acoustic sounder inside a living brain.  Someone was narrating….

“Right now, Dr. Volk is steering AMAD into the vascular cleft of the membrane.  He’s twisting his right hand controller, pulsing a carbene grabber to twist the cleft molecules just so, now releasing the membrane lipids, slingshotting himself forward.  Now, AMAD seems to be floating in a plasma bath…there are dark, viny shapes barely visible off in the distance.  The plasma is a heavy viscous fluid.  Dr. Volk is tweaking up the propulsor to a higher power setting and taking a navigation hack off the vascular grid….”

  Johnny found himself mesmerized by the scene.  That would be so cool to do that, he told himself.  Just a few weeks ago, he’d met with the guidance counselor at Pueblo Net School, Mr. Holley.

To say that Mr. Holley was fat was like saying Mt. Everest was tall.  He squinted through folds of fat around his puffy eyes at a small tablet.  “It says here on your forms that you’re interested in Engineering.  Mr. Winger, I’m sure others have told you that to get into Engineering school, some place like Stanford,  Cal Tech, Michigan and so forth, you’ll have to get those marks up.  To be honest, Mr. Winger, most of the basketball team has higher marks than this…especially in Math…what is it with Math anyway?  Don’t you like numbers?  Your whole ten years at Net School, you’ve struggled.”

Well, he had only heard that about a million times.  He’d developed a set litany of responses.  “Numbers don’t like me, Mr. Holley.”  That was Number Fourteen.  He had dozens more. 

Now, watching the video on his wrist, watching some surgeon whose name he couldn’t even pronounce, joystick his way through a living brain, riding heard on a platoon of nanoscale bots like really small cattle, Johnny Winger had a moment’s inspiration, a vision handed down from the future he would tell himself later, of doing the same thing.  Grabbing atoms and fighting off viruses and disassembling oligodendrogliomas like the U.S. Cavalry…that he actually could see himself doing.  Numbers…shmumbers…maybe this was something he ought to look into.  After all, Dad had been beating on his head that he had to start thinking about his future after Net School.  Maybe this….

Dr. Morse, the late-shift surgeon, cleared his throat.

“Ahem…Mr. Winger….”

Johnny jumped a foot.  He didn’t even realize someone had been standing next to him.

“Huh--?”

“You can visit your Dad for several minutes, if you want.  He’s resting now…”

Johnny went in.

The bioweb was still up, flickering a faint white-blue.  Johnny knew he couldn’t physically touch his Dad.  Jamison Winger’s head was half-covered in a sort of helmet-like device.  Johnny looked up questioningly.

“A docking station for medbots,” Dr. Morse explained.  He stepped away from a rolling console that was positioned next to the bed.  “We’ll be doing an insert in another hour, trying to hunt down and fix neural pathways that were damaged… imagery shows some pretty serious peritumoral edemas in several regions.  We’re going to try and fix them tonight.”

Winger leaned over to look at Morse’s console.  “I was just watching a vid about bots like this.  This is pretty new stuff.”

“State of the art,” Morse told him.  “We’ve been using medical nano-robots for surgeries for several months now.  It’s cleaner than invasive, more accurate that endoscopic.   In fact, we’re still training our staff…there’s an artificial body just down the hall…in the training suite.”

Winger looked over his Dad.  His face seemed at rest.  No more tension lines, no more tightened lips or strained cheeks. There was really nothing he could do at the moment anyway…but pray.  And hope Morse and his staff knew what they were doing. 

“You expect to be using these bots more and more.”

“Sure,” said Morse.  He went back to his console.  “Once we get all the kinks worked out…oh, don’t worry…we’re not doing anything unusual tonight.  We’ve used bots to repair neural damage dozens of times now.  In fact,” Morse kind of half smiled, “Sisters of Mercy knows more about these bots than just about anybody…and that includes Quantum Corps.”

Johnny’s eyebrows went up.  “Quantum Corps…I’ve heard of them.  Some kind of UN agency?”

“Exactly.  They use bots all the time…in fact, that’s their mission, from what I hear.  But we’ve got way more experience with this kind of stuff than they do.  In fact, I just saw an ad the other day…they’re looking for applicants now.”

“Really.”  Johnny stood up and went to take a closer look at Morse’s console.  “Can you show me what these little buggers can do?”

Morse studied the teenager closely.  “I can do better than that.  There’s a training session scheduled for second shift tonight…around 2100 hours, I think.  If you’re around CCU, come down to room 5125.  I’ll give you a temporary password.  We can do a little demo for you…show you what’s happening with your Dad later.  It’s really quite extraordinary.”

Johnny looked at his Dad.  Recovery would take weeks, maybe months, and that was if Morse could make his repairs.  Then would come months of rehab.  “I’ll be around most of the night.  My sister’s picking up my older brother at the airport tonight.  They’re coming straight here but it’ll be several hours.”

Morse deftly shoo’ed Johnny out of the room.  “Go get something to eat.  Then come to 5125.  I think you’ll be impressed.  Your Dad’s getting the best care we can provide…come watch.  It’ll put your mind at ease.”

Johnny promised to do just that.

 

The training suite was down the hall and around the corner from CCU Critical Surgery.  Johnny got through the security barriers with Morse’s temporary password with no trouble.  He came into a room dominated by a large hemispherical tank, draped with thick ganglia of cables and tubes, surrounded by control panels and consoles.  Overhead, a tray of strange gun-like devices hovered over one end of the tank.

“Electron beam injectors,” said a voice from behind him.

It turned out to be a white-jacketed technician.  His name plate read Stefans.  He was a burly and bearded fellow, clad in latex gloves and a white cap as well. He was built like a lineman, which he had once been eons ago.  Now there was a substantial paunch around his belly; what had once been muscle was now sagging into middle age.

“You were wondering what that was,” Stefans went on.  “Protective measures…in case the little critters get loose…and start multiplying.”  Stefans stuck out his hand and formally introduced himself.  “Dr. Morse told me you might show up…sorry….about your Dad, I mean.   But he’s in great hands down the hall.”

Johnny looked around.  “This is all for training…on these bots?”

Stefans nodded proudly.  “Want to give him a test drive?”

Johnny looked over the console.  “Can I?  For real?”

“For real.  Sit there.  I’ll go over the basics.”  Stefans explained that the tank was a containment structure and inside was a device called an Autonomous Medical Assembler/Disassembler.  “AMAD for short.  Here, I’ll show you—“

"I don't see anything."  Johnny stared intently at the imager screen. 

Stefans sat at a console next to the tank.  “We call it TinyTown.” He tweaked the sensitivity controls of the quantum flux imager.

"Keep watching, son…you will, soon--"

The image on the monitor sharpened slightly.  In focus in the center of the screen was a rectangular grid, wavering in the aqueous solution in which the grid was submerged.  Johnny studied the image carefully.

"Deflection at the probe tip is steady," Stefans muttered.  "That's about as close as we can get.  The grid is ready.  Let me check a few things…solution parameters are normal.  Pressure is twenty point two bars.  Temperature right on the curve.  PH normal.  Concentration gradient is what we expected.  You ready for the ride of your life?”

Johnny nodded.

Stefans rubbed his gray moustache.  "Activation instructions are coded and set for transmission.  Replication factor set for the template that's loaded.  Safety systems armed."

Stefans scanned the panel displays.  Poised around the periphery of the insulated tank in which the grid was suspended, were three rows of six electron beam injectors each.  At the slightest hint of trouble during operation, Stefans would quickly toggle the firing switch on the control panel.  Several million electron volts of energy would flood the tank, stripping atoms from molecules, and electrons from atoms.  Only a cloud of nucleus fragments would remain.

"Now we’re set…injectors are ready,” Stefans said.  He pointed to a small joystick.  “You drive AMAD with that.”

Johnny wrapped his fingers around the small stick.  He indicated the device on the screen, clinging to a scaffolding like grapes on a trellis.  “I’m driving that?”

“You will be a moment.”

Johnny flexed his fingers.  He was practically licking his lips at the prospect of playing with this thing.  "You said you've improved a few things.  What exactly do you mean?"

Stefans pointed to fuzzy projections on the screen.  "Along with a new processor, AMAD has stiffer diamondoid effectors.  More reactive or 'stickier' covalent bond ends too, basically carbenes and hydrogen radicals.  That lets him grab atoms and move molecules more securely."

"I can actually grab atoms with this thing…like sling ‘em around?”

Stefans smiled proudly.  "A little trick we've patented.  You can grab atoms and put them wherever you want.  You can also replicate…make as many copies of yourself as you want.  AMAD’s got new carbon group fold lines.  Basically a new type of architecture more easily cleaved and collapsed.  For patients like your Dad, it makes tracking down and removing damaged cells, tumor cells, whatever, much easier.”  

Winger tried out the control sticks on the panel. 

Stefans continued.  "This guy’s a real hot rod…optimized for faster folding and unfolding.  A very ingenious design, I should add…based on ribosomal proteins…nature's own assemblers of proteins from DNA instruction.  AMAD can break bonds much more rapidly, under quantum-scale control.  Orders of magnitude faster than ribosomes, I'm certain.  And he's got new fullerene 'hooks' for more secure grasping and attaching, which makes for better accuracy."

Johnny was anxious to get started, get a feel for this wonderbread gadget Stefans was so proud of.

"Am I powered up?  How do I start this thing?”

"Fully powered.  Just select a mode--here--" Stefans fingered a side panel.

Johnny settled into his seat, let his reflexes take over.  Though he didn’t know it, it was a basic axiom in nanoscale work that you didn't so much 'fly' the buggers as 'feel' them.  Stefans knew that to a rookie, dodging molecules and groping van der Waals forces was like playing dodge ball with a sleet of sticky balls.  It took timing and finesse, something that could only come with time.

"Layout's pretty straight-forward," Stefans went on.  "Operation controls you have your hands on are for the propulsors.  AMAD’s beefed up to sixty picowatts power.  Six degrees of freedom in attitude…that's your left hand plus translation control in your right."

"Feels jumpy," Johnny reported.  He twisted both sticks and the imager scene careened crazily.  "The slightest touch and he just takes off."

"I'm sure you'll get the hang of it.  I've got the gain boosted up high.  Imager is acoustic feedback.  You can overlay heading, attitude and state data on the image."  Even as he spoke, Johnny already had the imager screen tiled with shifting mosaics of information.

"You seem like a natural at this,” Stefans observed.  “Let's try to dock with something," he suggested, spying a few molecules drifting by. 

Johnny tickled the imager for better resolution and clucked at the view.  “There’s some kind of molecule floating by—“

"Why that looks like an old friend of ours.  Mr. Acetylcholine Molecule.  What say we scope him out for a parking place?  Go for it, son. Give it a try.  By the way, that's a covalent bond--"

"Oh--!"  Johnny grunted sheepishly.  The acetylcholine's carbon 'fingers' flicked AMAD away.  He'd approached on a poor vector and gotten bounced by the stiff bond forces.  "I'll just try--" Johnny grimaced, trying to regain control of the device.  "That's weird--molecule just up and spun me around…what gives?”

Stefans sniffed.  "Something new."  He pressed a few buttons on the keyboard.  "AUTO-RESET.  With something like acetylcholine, dopamine--complicated structures like that--it's best to let AMAD do the piloting.  This is fly-by-stick, electronically controlled.  It seeks equilibrium and calculates resistance instantaneously.  Let the computer and auto-maneuver system do the work now.  AMAD knows what to look for.  You sure you haven’t done this before?  It’s like you’re born to this.”

Johnny frowned.  "It seems easy…just twist here and it does that—“

On the imager, AMAD careened around like a beach ball.

"It’s not easy but some trainees just have a better feel for the forces involved. Frankly, what you’re doing right now is pretty amazing.  And working AMAD this way saves molecules from being smashed to bits by hotshot doctors.  Before, doctors would just fly in and smash and grab molecules. Bust up everything in sight.  Trust me, molecules don’t like that.  Now, with AMAD, docking with a molecule is essentially automated."

"What else can this thing do?"

Stefans pressed a few more buttons to inject additional molecules into the solution.  "Say you're in an alien medium.  Parameters unknown.  Try a basic replication cycle."

When Johnny looked puzzled, Stefans pointed out the right buttons and switches.

Then, with Stefans’ help, Johnny scoped out the medium with AMAD's sensors: pH, concentration gradient, pressure.  He toggled the 'rep' pickle on the left stick, one cycle.  In the blink of an eye, the imager screen jostled slightly.

"I'm waiting…nothing seems to be happening."

Stefans smiled.  "You missed it, son."

"What?"

"AMAD’s already replicated.  Check your state vector…here--" he pointed to a screen of dials and columns on the left.  "See what I mean?"

Johnny was dumb-founded.  "I'll be damned--this baby's a real hot rod.  And Dr. Hassan’s using this on my Dad…?”

“As we speak…he’s more experienced than you, of course.  But you’ve got talent…that much I can see right now.  You seem to be a natural at working with atoms and molecules.  It takes a special touch…not every doc or intern can come here and do what you’re doing right off.”

The thought had been forming in the back of Johnny’s mind for a few minutes.  “You mentioned that UN agency—“

“Quantum Corps?  Sure, they use the same technology.  I’m not sure exactly what they use it for…we sometimes run demos and seminars for them, advise them on things we’re doing here.”

Johnny studied the little device now caroming around the imager.  “I need to find out more about them.”

Stefans went over to a desk and pulled out a small disk.  “Here’s a little training vid we did for them…I think there’s some contact info on it.  It should run on your wristpad.”

Johnny pocketed the disk.  He would definitely check this out.  Maybe this Quantum Corps was the answer to all the questions that hippopotamus Mr. Holley had been throwing at him: you’ve got to make some decisions soon, son, about what you want to do with the rest of your life…Jeez.  Really, Mr. Holley?

 

A month later, Jamison Winger had been discharged from Sisters of Mercy and was back home again at the North Bar Pass ranch a few miles outside Pueblo.  And Johnny Winger had applied for an interview and a test at Quantum Corps.

Mr. Winger sat a bit unsteadily on a stool in the barn he had converted into a lab and workshop.  The bench and surrounding tables and shelves were crammed with parts, pieces of parts, loose wiring, circuit boards, and assorted actuators, motors and things that looked like disembodied legs and arms.  There were even a few robot heads stashed around, leering down at them like Halloween masks.  Jamison Winger was forever a tinkerer, even when he was supposed to be in rehab.

“I want you to do whatever your heart tells you to do, son… but Quantum Corps?  Really?  Do you even know what they do?”

“Sure I do…they operate the same bots that the doctors used on you…the ones that fixed all your injuries.”

Mr. Winger went back to a circuit board he was soldering.  “Not quite all of them…but I know you always liked bots.  You realize what this means…Quantum Corps is a military outfit.  You apply and get accepted and you’re committed for several years, at least.  Is this what you want to do?  Your Mom and I always figured you’d go to engineering school, maybe Stanford, like your brother…or Cal Tech.”

Johnny sniffed at that idea.  He’d fight to do anything other than what Brad had done.  They were always comparing him with Brad.  “I can get my schooling with the Corps…Dad,  I can go to the Academy.  I’d be an officer.  I’d travel around, see things.  Work with bots.  Grab atoms and fight off viruses, things like that.  It’s way better than—“

Mr. Winger put down his soldering gun, flipped up his safety glasses—you could still see a scar where the melanocytes hadn’t quite finished their work on his face—and said, “Than what, son…than this?  Working like a dog on the ranch—“

“Dad—“

But they were both interrupted by the clatter of hooves outside the barn door.  Soon enough, Misty, their brown and white Arabian poked her big snout in, guided by Joanna.  His sister had taken Misty out for a short ride along the lower passes.

Jamison Winger motioned his daughter over, after she had secured Misty and set her up with water and oats.  He explained what Johnny wanted to do.

Joanna just rolled her eyes.  “So what is this, some kind of glorified Cub Scouts?  Do you run around in uniforms and play shoot-em-up with the bad guys?”

Mr. Winger held up a hand.  “Jo…that’ll be enough of that.  It’s what he wants to do.  I just wanted to let you know…I’ll email Brad…he’s still stuck in residency at Stanford Medical.  If John here wants to join Quantum Corps, hey, I think that’s great.  I just want to make sure he knows what he’s getting into.”

Joanna wasn’t convinced.  “Mom would never go for this.”

Johnny came back, “How do you know?”

“Kids, kids…no more, okay.  The Old Man needs some peace around the barn…I’m working on a new flyer design…it’s no bigger than a fly.  John, go do your application.”  He turned to Joanna.  “And as for you, young lady, how about finishing what I told you to do...clean up the kitchen and the living room.  Then you can groom Misty and Marcy.  I might even go riding with you after lunch.”

Joanna agreed with that and Johnny sprinted back to the house.  An hour later, he had finished his online application to Quantum Corps and submitted it.  By supper time that evening—over beef barley soup and sandwiches—Johnny reported that the Corps had responded back.

He read the reply over the dinner table.  “It says ‘Report by 0800 hours on 22 June, 2048 to the Recruit Processing Center, Table Top Mountain, Idaho.  Bring all applicable identicards listed below, including a current healthchip and a week’s clothes.  Your contact will be Lieutenant Jeremy Wormer.’  Dad, can I take my bike, huh… what about it, huh?”

Jamison Winger sopped up some soup he’d dribbled on his chin.  He crammed a square of cornbread in his mouth and chewed, thinking.  You knew he was thinking when his eyebrows started canting down toward each other. 

“You’ve finished all your projects for Ms. Gomez?  Net School’s done?”

“All done.  My certificate’s already posted on their web site.  I can print it—“

Mr. Winger took another bite and sighed.  “No need.  I just wish your Mom were here.  You know she’d give you a big hug and a kiss.”

“Yeah, a big wet kiss.”

Joanna could just imagine it.  “Like Misty gives you, all tongue and teeth—“

“Okay, that’s enough.  Johnny, this is serious business.  You’re sure about this?  You’re sure you don’t want to shovel hay the rest of your life.  Or tear up all my inventions?”

Johnny knew a gotcha from his Dad when one came.  There was a kind of twinkle in his eye, a slight smirky lift to his lips. 

“I’m sure, Dad.  I know what I’m doing.”

Jamison Winger put his spoon down and arranged the utensils just so.  He’d always been a neat freak but after Ellen had died—well, it was one of a lot of things that had changed around the place.  “Then, don’t forget to write, son.  If they give recruits the time to do things like that.”

“I won ‘t, sir.”

The next day, Johnny cinched up a bag to the back of his turbo and sped off down the twisting gravel drive of the ranch.  He picked up I-70 a few minutes later and headed north for Denver.  And no autoway this time either.  He wanted to be in control of something…he’d always liked to be in control of things. 

Idaho was two states west, up through the Front Range and one state north.  The trip would take the better part of two days.  But he had his gear and he didn’t plan on sleeping any longer than necessary, just enough to rest up from the road. 

Table Top Mountain, here I come.  He throttled up the bike nearly to redline rpms and sped off toward the mountains, still snow-capped even in summer and silent, now beckoning him on to new and unknown places. 

***

So, now you’ve looked at the first scene of “Nanotroopers” Episode 1.  Let me know what you think.  You can read the whole episode at Smashwords.com.  By the way, it’s free.  And Episode 2 is only a few weeks away.   The early volume of uploads is good.  Episode 1 had started out strong and there seems to be a lot of interest.  Plus if you upload it, you'll see the  publishing schedule for the other 21 remaining episodes.

On my next post, I’ll detail what’s happening with my other major effort for 2016, my new science fiction novel called The Farpool.  I’ll give you a peek at what this series is all about and what you can expect to come in follow-on stories of the series. 

That’s it for now.  See you on January 25.

Phil B.