“Okay,” the lieutenant replied. “One…two…three!”
Old-timer released the shielding, and the rifle fired a bullet toward the yellow implant. In the instant after the bullet left the gun, several nans flew through the barrel and attacked Lieutenant Patrick’s flesh. Old-timer closed the hole in the shield as the bullet pierced the implant’s skin and the nuclear reactor housed underneath. A magnetic pulse, too brief to be registered by the human eye, was sent out in waves in every direction, flowing through the trillions of nans and the robotic bats sending them plummeting to the earth. The area around the refugees suddenly resembled the eye of a massive hurricane. It was clear for hundreds of kilometers in every direction, but death was still not far away.
Thel flashed her energy at the nans that had torn apart Lieutenant Patrick’s skin, leaving his face bloodied. “You did it,” she told him as she helped him to his feet.
Old-timer and the others disengaged their magnetic fields and surveyed the destruction. The ground was covered in nans, forming a thick layer of gray goo, several centimeters deep. The robotic bats were clumps of black on nearby hills. A few more seconds, and they would have been within firing range to deactivate the shield.
“That was way too close,” Rich observed.
“Get these people inside!” the general shouted.
People suddenly began to move quickly, realizing there was little time to lose.
The general placed his hand on Thel’s shoulder. “Thank you for saving us…and I am sorry for your loss.” Thel’s eyes met his for a moment, but she was too stunned to assemble a response.
The general turned away from her and began directing people into the now open complex.
Thousands of miles away, the A.I. registered the loss of its nans, which had failed to destroy the last of the humans. Against fantastic odds, James had succeeded. The A.I.’s face remained frozen, expressionless. “This is not the end.”
PART 3
1
There was no rest for the weary. Thel and her teammates were the last to enter the complex after all of the Purists were safe.
“The A.I. knows we’re here,” Rich informed the general. “It’ll attack this complex relentlessly until it breaks in. It’s only a matter of time.”
“We’ll put up a brave fight. Of that you can be assured,” the general replied.
“You have nothing to fight it with,” Old-timer replied. “We can fight him for you for a time, but he’ll eventually break our defenses.”
“It’s not over yet,” Thel interjected. “Remember what James told us.”
“‘Don’t give up Venus’?” asked Rich, confused. “Thel, I don’t think that was a message. He was rambling while he was trying to regain control of his body.”
“He didn’t say, ‘Don’t give up Venus.’ It was two different sentences. He told us not to give up, and then he said ‘Venus.’ Don’t you see? He was telling us what to do.”
“I don’t understand,” Old-timer admitted.
“I second that,” Rich added.
Djanet, in contrast, suddenly gasped. “Of course! Venus! Think about it! What’s on Venus?”
Old-timer’s eyes widened as the realization registered. “Zeus!”
“Excuse me?” the general asked, inserting himself into the conversation when it began to seem as though he had been forgotten.
“General, the Zeus cylinder is a massive electromagnetic fan we were testing on Venus. Its purpose was to remove the atmosphere of Venus—as part of our terraforming project,” explained Old-timer.
“But imagine what it could do to these machines,” Djanet added. “We could plant it here, and you’d be safe. None of the A.I.’s robots could hurt you.”
“That won’t work,” Thel disagreed.
“Why not?” Djanet asked.
“The A.I. will simply design nans and robots capable of generating a protective field. If we planted Zeus here, it would only delay the inevitable.”
“Then what are you suggesting?” asked the general.
“I’m suggesting that we use the Zeus to go after the A.I. mainframe in Seattle.”
“That’s…insane,” Rich immediately responded. “The A.I. can already generate a protective field. It will just protect itself until you run out of power or the Zeus malfunctions. When that happens, we’ll be sitting ducks!”
“Not if James figured out a way to lower its defenses,” Thel replied.
“That’s a big if,” Rich responded dubiously.
“James wouldn’t have told us to do this unless he knew what he was doing,” Thel said in defense of the plan—and of him.
“Okay. If it actually is James’s plan—and I am not convinced that the gobbledygook that came out of his mouth actually was a plan—we’ve already learned not to put all our trust in James’s infallibility, haven’t we? I mean, excuse me for my insensitivity here, but he did just get himself killed, didn’t he?” Rich desperately retorted.
Thel grabbed Rich by the collar and pushed him back against the wall. “He sacrificed himself to save us all!”
The general, exasperated, turned to Alejandra for advice. “I don’t know, General,” she told him, without him having to ask the question aloud. “They each sincerely believe they are right.”
“Then what is your feeling?” the general asked her.
Alejandra drew her eyes up to Old-timer’s; he knew she was reading him.
“I think we have nothing to lose. Our best chance is to confront the A.I. directly,” she told the general.
The general nodded and leaned wearily against the wall of the complex entrance. “So what is the plan?”
“Old-timer and I will set out for Venus,” Thel explained.
“What about us?” Djanet asked.
Thel released her grip on Rich and looked him squarely in the eye.“These people will have no protection. It will take at least an hour for us to get to Venus and back. It will only take the nans a matter of minutes to reconstitute. You have to protect these people for as long as you can. Okay?” she asked Rich, sternly.
She was right: It was the moment Rich had feared his entire life—the moment when he’d have to face all his fears and insecurities head on. The Purists’ lives depended on it. He straightened his collar and sighed. “Okay. As if I had a choice. But you better kill that thing once and for all, or my name is gonna be mud—not to mention the rest of me.”
“Okay,” Thel said after taking a deep breath. She turned to Old-timer. “You ready?”
“Just one minute,” he responded as he stepped toward Alejandra. He grabbed her in his arms and kissed her passionately for several seconds before gently pulling back. “I’ll be back,” he told her before exiting the entranceway with Thel.
Thel and Old-timer lifted off from the lifeless earth outside the complex and immediately saw the spider tendrils of the nan storm only moments away from reaching the complex. “We have to hurry,” Thel said.
They ignited their cocoons and blasted into the stratosphere.
2
Rich and Djanet stepped outside the complex and stood together as the massive black fingers of the nan cloud inched toward them from all directions.
“How’s your aim?” Djanet asked Rich.
“Not great. I think you better play shooter.”
“Okay.”
Alejandra, Lieutenant Patrick, General Wong, and Private Gernot stood near the entrance of the complex.