“The End of Nanotroopers”

 

My serialized story “Nanotroopers” is finally coming to an end, after 22 episodes.  The final episode entitled “Epilogue” was uploaded on March 31 to smashwords.com and will soon be available to readers at fine ebook retailers everywhere.  Go look for it.

In this post, I want to provide an excerpt of this story, but before I do, a few words about the entire effort.

Twenty-two episodes have taken me about 15 months to write, edit, and upload.  As of this writing, there have been 4692 downloads reported by Smashwords.  Somebody out there is downloading and presumably reading these stories.  I undertook this project for several reasons: 1) to accept the challenge and the discipline of writing and uploading a new story every 3 weeks; 2) to keep my name and work steadily appearing before likely audiences; and 3) to extend and further develop the fictional universe of Johnny Winger, Quantum Corps and all the gadgets and adversaries implied or explained therein.  So how did I do on these objectives?

As to 1), I managed to slog through 22 stories, partly by cannibalizing text and characters from Tales of the Quantum Corps and partly by just bending to the task and banging words out on a regular schedule.  I learned a lot about myself as a writer, how to plot and write, how make every word count in stories that averaged 50 pages and how to start and end stories that were themselves part of a greater enterprise.  Time will tell (from readers) how well I did but the experience was valuable.

As to 2), that was definitely achieved.  As of March 31, and from January 2016, a new story by Philip Bosshardt (and a free story at that) was appearing on Smashwords every 3 weeks.  I am proud that I never missed a deadline.  From a marketing point of view, that should count for something.  I’m sure, from the numbers, that there are many readers who looked for my work and my name on a regular basis.  It was interesting to see just how quickly downloads started when I posted an episode on Smashwords…sometimes within minutes.

As to 3), I think I did explore more and more of the possibilities and ramifications of what life would be like as a nanotrooper where your enemies could be the size of molecules or viruses.  And without giving too much away, I enjoyed the challenge of having my main character, Johnny Winger, actually evolve into and become an actual nanoscale warrior.  I didn’t necessarily start out with that goal in mind.  In the end, it seemed inevitable.

So, here now is an excerpt from Nanotroopers, Episode 22 “Epilogue”:

 

Chapter 1

“Ship of Theseus”

 

“The role of the infinitely small is infinitely large.”

Louis Pasteur

 

Mesa de Oro

Yucatan State, Mexico

December 30, 2049

1230 hours

 

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

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

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

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

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

“What kind of time frame are we looking at?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sure thing, sir.”

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

Even if Winger had to be grown from a vat.

 

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

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

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

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

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

Kincade was curious.  “What kind of tests, Doc?”

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

“Of Major Winger?  What kind of simple structures?”

“It was just a test—“

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

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

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

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

“And a hand.”

“Exactly.”

“What did you do with them?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Of course.”  Falkland pressed a few more buttons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But it was Johnny Winger.

To keep control of himself, Kincade focused on the instruments, on the swarm inside the vault, on critiquing the process, on config stability, anything to smother all those feelings that were bubbling up. 

“How long, Doc?”

Falkland studied the board, watched as more and more of Johnny Winger emerged from the mist into solid structure.  “Well, scans are showing about sixty-five percent complete.  This should be done in about two more hours.  After we reach target density, I’ve got to run some tests.  See how stable the config is.  Make sure the pattern buffers are cleared out.  And we’ll spot check the config against the original memory field.  Plus there’s still loading from the file Doc II made…neural patterns of memory and personality.  That’ll be another hour.”

“This is so unreal,” Kincade said.  “He looks so lifelike….”

 

By mid-afternoon, Falkland pronounced himself satisfied.  Looking through the portholes of the containment chamber, Johnny Winger was lying on his side on the bed, seemingly asleep.  He seemed to be breathing; his chest rose and fell with a rhythmic pattern.  Wellman Kincade knew full well that it was part of the config, in effect, a breathing simulation program was running on the main processor.  But the physical impression was so real, it was so easy to imagine—

 

And that’s the excerpt.  Go to Smashwords, Apple ibooks or Barnes and Noble Nook books and download the entire story to see what happens.

 

The next post to The Word Shed will come on April 10 2017.

 

See you then.

 

Phil B.