“Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin”

The final title in my science fiction series Tales of the Quantum Corps is entitled as you see above.  I plan to start it in August or September 2016 and finish the first draft in late spring 2017.

What’s it about?  Here are my notes for the Prologue and the first 2 chapters…

PROLOGUE: (March 20, 2155)

Johnny Winger finds himself on the ‘planet of bots’ where he believes he has been before.  Is this a dream?  Is he disembodied, a virtual avatar?  The planet is covered with open fields of plants that are nothing but bots.  Winger is actually a swarm entity now. In the middle of this vast field, he comes to an open lake, with a small white wood frame bridge, where a whirlpool is churning.  Jumping into this whirlpool transports Winger to a time and place in his childhood when he and his Dad were at a fishing camp in Colorado.  Late at night, Johnny Winger and the other kids are supposed to be asleep. But they sneak to the edge of a room, where several tables are set up and Jamison Winger is playing cards with other men.  One of the card players is out of view, in shadow.  The kids call this player the Shadow Man.  For every question Johnny has in his mind, this shadowed player talks to Jamison Winger or the other men in such a way that it is clear he is answering Johnny Winger’s questions.  The questions have to do with who is The Shadow Man, is this fishing camp real? is this actually the ‘planet of bots?’, am I dreaming?

Remember that Winger’s original identity is maintained by the ANAD clone Doc III in a small, non-descript file in his swarm config buffer module. 

The Shadow Man informs Jamison Winger (actually Johnny Winger) that he has an important mission to perform.           

CHAPTER 1 (March 25, 2155) Farside Observatory, Korolev Crater, the Moon

The story opens in late March, 2155 A.D. as astronomers at Farside observe the approach of the Old Ones’ Mother Swarm with growing dread.

Astronomers Nigel Course and Lilly Fong received a Sentinel system alert.  It’s an all- sector alarm…something big has appeared in the outer solar system.  It’s billions of kilometers away but coming this way.  Course and Fong manipulate Sentinel to get a better view and discern the nature of the object or objects.  They eventually decide, from analysis of their readings and running the data through the computers (the system is called ALBERT) that the detected anomaly is a diffuse mass of small particle-size objects with a thermal signature consistent with a large swarm. 

ALBERT has concluded that the anomaly, provisionally known as KB-1 (Kuiper Belt One) may well be the leading edge of the Old Ones mother swarm, moving toward the inner solar system.  Course and Fong send an advisory to UNISPACE, per protocol.  The UNISPACE Watch Center, at Gateway Station, advises them to activate Sentinel defenses as a precautionary measure.  Course and Fong do this.  Sentinel Defense 3 is set (SenDef 3).

CINCSPACE General Mahmood Salaam, attending an awards dinner and function in Paris, is also advised.  CINCSPACE returns immediately to his suite of offices at UNIFORCE Hqs at the Quartier-General in Paris to monitor the situation and issue orders.

CINCSPACE orders immediate preparations be made at Phobos Station (Station P, Mars orbit) and at Titan Station (Station T, Saturn orbit) for two UNISPACE frigates to get underway.  The frigates were built, equipped and staffed for just this purpose: reconnaissance and initial probes into any swarm mass moving toward the inner solar system.

The frigates, UNS Korolev (from Station P) and UNS Tycho (from Station T), get underway. 

 

In another scene, outside Paris, reporter Dana Polansky is arguing with her daughter Jana about attending an Assimilationist rally in Paris.  Dana thinks her daughter has been brainwashed by the Assimilationists.  Jana thinks it would be cool to be deconstructed and become an angel, a para-human swarm of nanobots.  The argument grows heated.  Jana storms out of their apartment.  Dana is livid…and worried Jana might do something drastic.  She has previously arranged through contacts at UNIFORCE to plant a spybot on Jana, something she can’t detect and wouldn’t suspect.  Now, with Jana gone, Dana calls up the spybot and sees Jana is indeed heading right for an Assimilationist “church” in a Paris suburb.  She debates on whether to engage the spybot to morph and change configs to a personal MOBnet, containing her daughter where she is, until Dana can get there.  She decides to engage the MOBnet feature and watches from a dronecam overhead as Jana is ensnared right on the doorstep of the Assimilationist church.  She dashes out the door to retrieve her estranged daughter. 

CHAPTER 2 (March 26, 2155)  UNIFORCE Hqs, the Quartier-General, Paris

            General Lamar Quint is in the middle of composing a report to UNSAC about what Sentinel has detected beyond Pluto when an apparition appears in the corner of his office.  At first, Quint thinks he is imagining this, but the apparition grows into a recognizable human form.  It’s clearly a swarm that has somehow breached UNIFORCE security screens.  That alone is cause for concern and just as Quint is about to sound the alarm, the form becomes recognizably Johnny Winger…a blast from the past.  Winger was thought to have died on Europa in 2121, during the Jovian Hammer mission.  But here is a swarm likeness, an angel, showing up 34 years later.

            The angel appears real and insists it is Johnny Winger, in fact.  But Quint is dubious, to say the least.  The angel reports that Winger is alive and well and working as a spy and saboteur inside the mother swarm of the Old Ones, to prevent the Old Ones from destroying or absorbing Earth .   The angel wants to deliver some intel on the intentions of the Old Ones in the coming months, now that the mother swarm has reached the outer solar system.  Winger describes the Prime Key and what it will mean for Earth and all life on the planet, and also describes the Old Ones’ plans to build a forward base on Mercury and a ring to intercept much of the Sun’s output to facilitate their disassembly and absorption of the solar system.  He indicates that he has some room to maneuver inside the mother swarm and that he can do things to sabotage these plans.  But the intel needs to get to UNSAC and plans should be gotten underway to equip and launch an expedition to stop these efforts.

            Quint is dubious, thinking he’s dreaming or had too much to drink, but promises the angel that he’ll pass this intel on to UNSAC.  When and how can he be in contact in the future? The Winger angel says he’ll let Quint know; he’s running a grave risk doing even this much, but he has to do what he can to stop the Old Ones.  Then, the Winger angel disperses and Quint is left wondering if any of what happened actually happened.

            He goes upstairs to UNSAC’s suite and requests a meeting with Angelika Komar, the Security Affairs Commissioner.  Quint is shown into the UNSAC suite of offices and Komar offers him a drink.  Nighttime Paris is on display outside and they step out onto a veranda, protected by the faint veil of a nanobotic barrier.  Quint describes what has just happened.  Komar is doubtful and thinks Quint has imagined the whole scenario.  She tells Quint it’s either a trap laid by elements of the Old Ones or a stress reaction to all that’s going on.  “Sign yourself into sick bay tomorrow for a checkup, Lamar,” she orders.  “We need our top staff whole and hearty for the days ahead.”

            Quint leaves.  He thinks maybe UNSAC’s right.  “I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately.  And with what Sentinel is now reporting, anybody would be spooked.”

            He resolves to do as UNSAC has suggested and returns to his quarters, intending to take something to help him sleep. 

            As this is going on, Dana Polansky has arrived at the doorsteps of the Assimilationist church to find her daughter, whom she thought was caught in a MOBnet, nowhere in sight.  She goes into the church, asks some questions, receives noncommittal and evasive answers, and comes back outside with the dawning suspicion that Jana has already gone off somewhere and been assimilated.  But how to find her?  How to find out?  Dana is frantic.  She decides to follow the recorded footage of the dronecam.  Studying this, she finds that several people from the church have collapsed the MOBnet, rescued Jana and taken her inside the church.  The church claims not to know anything about her.  But the video evidence proves otherwise.

            Furious, determined to get to the bottom of this and rescue her daughter, Dana barges back inside the church.

 

This story will bring Tales of the Quantum Corps to an end, at least for the time being.  As I indicated in a post several weeks ago, there are some loose ends that need to be tied up to successfully close the series…that’s the nature of series writing.

In this story, our intrepid hero Johnny Winger now exists only as a para-human swarm entity (this happened in Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary).  What’s it like to live life as such a being…not human, but resembling human?  Read Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin next spring to see for yourself.  And stay tuned to The Word Shed for notes and excerpts on this and other upcoming works.

The next post to the Word Shed will be on August 8.  In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the central enemy of my Farpool series…a race of machine entities called the Coethi.  They seem a lot like the Old Ones from Tales of the Quantum Corps.

Hmmmm….

See you on August 8.

Phil B.