Swarm

-17-

I awakened a new man. This might sound like a good thing, but it wasn’t. I felt different, as if parts of my body had been sawn off and sewn back on again. My skin was different. It felt stiff—and when I shifted and groaned in discomfort, my skin resisted my movements. It felt like—like I was wearing a wetsuit, perhaps. A wetsuit made of stiff, unyielding fabric.

I lifted my hands to my face. On each forearm I saw a white circle. I nodded to myself, grimly. The nanites had repaired the hole they made. But they left their odd, tell-tale scars, just as they had on Sandra’s severed fingers.

I looked around for Sandra. I was still lying stretched out on my easy chair, where I’d been spending too much time lately. Sandra wasn’t in the room. I frowned. How long had I been out? I opened my mouth to ask the Alamo.

Two hours, twenty-six minutes.

I jumped. I looked around, my eyes rolling in my head. It had been the Alamo, and her voice had spoken in my head. Was my hearing different now?

Alamo, can you hear me? I thought.

Yes.

Very startling. I wasn’t sure if I liked this. Was I part of some nanite nation now? Could I hear what they were thinking? Obviously, they could hear me.

“Is this telepathy or something?” I asked aloud.

No. We have installed mental interpretation circuits in your brain. The electrical behavior of your brain is then converted into a radio signal for unit-to-unit transmission.

“Thanks for telling me about that part in advance.”

No attempt was made to inform you.

I sighed. I figured that sarcasm would forever be lost upon the machines. They just didn’t have a sense of humor.

I heard something fall to the floor, and before I knew it I was up and standing.

“You’re awake!” said Sandra from behind me. “And moving very fast. I was worried. I figured you’d die on me and leave me alone on this damned ship. Did you ever even think of that?”

I looked at her. She had come out of the kitchen chamber. She had been carrying a beer, but must have dropped it when she saw me. The beer had made the noise that had made me jump, I realized. The can rolled on the deck, glugging out its foamy contents. Each glug didn’t stain the floor, however. Days ago I’d built a program into the Alamo to go porous and let liquid waste dribble out of the ship when we dropped it. As a messy person, I found this very convenient.

But I was still puzzled over my speedy jump to my feet. I barely had the thought of getting up, and I’d vaulted to my feet. It felt strange, almost as if my muscles hadn’t done the work. Almost as if some other force had propelled me, as if a kid’s hand worked my legs and I was some kind of doll.

“You spilled your beer,” I told Sandra. I tried a smile. It didn’t come easily, but I figured she’d earned one out of me by now.

She snatched it up and handed it to me, half-empty. “This one’s yours.”

I drained it. “That was exactly what I needed,” I said. I looked at her and she smiled, almost shyly. She took a step backward. Something was different.

Then I had it. She didn’t have any snake-like arms wrapped around her. For the first time since the ship had revived her, she was free to move about and do as she pleased. No wonder she was smiling.

I had another impulse then. The impulse to grab her up in my arms and kiss her. It’s funny, the way humans behave when trapped together and stressed. We tend to bond. It’s only natural, I suppose. We’d fought and survived together. We’d seen plenty of each other’s skin and been intimate in a dozen ways, living close together for days.

She smiled at me with half her mouth. I took it as an invitation.

Then my body launched itself at her.

I almost killed her, I think. It was a close thing. The second I realized I was airborne, traveling the short distance between us in a single bound, I gave the mental order to halt, to desist, to avoid crashing into her.

I jerked away as if swatted by a giant’s hand. I flew into the far wall, the one that crawled with golden beetle ships. I hit the wall, and it hurt—but only a little. Something had cushioned my landing. I turned my head to see what I’d landed on. There was nothing there but the metal of the ship’s hull.

“Are you okay?” asked Sandra, coming after me. She laid her hands on my arm. “What the hell was that?”

“What did it look like?” I asked, gingerly touching the back of my skull where I’d crashed into the wall. There was a small bleeding spot in my hair. I touched the wall with probing fingers. It didn’t feel soft at all.

“You just suddenly leapt at me,” said Sandra. “It was amazing. Then you changed directions somehow and twisted in mid-air. Then you crashed into the wall as if someone had fired you out of a cannon.”

Alamo, I thought, when I’m not in a combat situation, please tone down these improved reflexes I seem to have. I don’t want to hurt my own people.

Settings can only be adjusted by the operator.

Great. I had to use self-control. I got to my feet experimentally, half-expecting to launch into the ceiling. Things progressed much more smoothly this time, however. I noticed that Sandra stood well back when I got up. She watched me with big eyes.

“I’m okay,” I told her. “I think something the injections did to me caused this. I think they made me stronger.”

She nodded, pursing her lips. I walked toward her, slowly, stiffly.

She watched me.

“I’m controlling it now. I’m new to this. I’m going to try to touch you as gently as I can, okay?”

She blinked. She extended a hand toward me.

Oh great, I thought, now she’s scared of me. A perfect romantic moment had been ruined.

I took her hand and kissed it gently. “See?” I said. I studied her face, looking for signs of pain. Was I holding her fingers too firmly? Was I grinding her bones together? I almost couldn’t feel her hand in mine.

She smiled back. “Okay,” she said. “I’ve got an idea. Just stand there. Close your eyes. Try not to react.”

I did as she asked and she kissed me. It felt good. She followed the first with more of them. Her kisses were gentle, more faint and tickling than I remembered kisses were supposed to be. Her skin felt papery, thin, and delicate against mine. I told myself I was going to have to go very slowly with Sandra. I had to keep control of myself.

We only kissed for about two minutes. I wanted to do it for two hours. But finally, very gently but inexorably, I pushed her away.

Alamo, I thought, are we still following the ship—the one now called the Delta?

Yes.

“I have to go,” I told Sandra.

“Don’t go.”

“Is that why you’re kissing me? To distract me?”

She gave a tiny shrug. “Maybe. I don’t want you to leave me here and get yourself killed.”

“I don’t think I can die easily, now,” I told her.

She nodded. “I suppose you’re right. What are you going to do when you catch him—if you catch him?”

“I’m not sure,” I lied.

“I see.”

“Alamo,” I said, speaking aloud for Sandra’s benefit as much as anything else. “What is the Delta doing?”

“The Delta is engaged in its primary mission.”

“Is the ship still seeking command personnel?”

“Yes.”

“Good. When it stops over a building and sends down its main arm to grab someone, I want your arm to place me there. I want the Delta ship to pick me up.”

The ship hesitated. “Your instructions will place command personnel in extreme danger.”

“Do my instructions contradict your programming?”

“No. Not directly.”

“Then follow my instructions, Alamo.”

“Enter the area named: cargo bay.”

I stood. I kissed Sandra one more time.

“I want to know one thing,” she said. “How the hell are you going to get back aboard?”

“I can communicate to the ship directly now. It was part of the improvements.”

She nodded, impressed. “Go then,” she said, taking her hands off me at last. “That ship is still killing people down there. Maybe you can save a life or two if you hurry.”

“You’ve changed your mind?”

“You’re going to do it anyway. I can tell. Just go.”

I stepped into the cargo bay. The hugely thick, black arm hung down from its root in the ceiling. The door in the bottom of the ship opened. The smell of a summer night in Virginia swept up into my face. It was refreshing, full of humidity and the varied scents of living things.

I could see Pierre’s ship, hovering very close to ours. It ignored us. It was dedicated to its task of rooting about in smashed-out windows. As I watched, someone was hauled up into the belly of the ship. My heart pounded, but I knew of no way to save them. They had to fall, then I would be next, if I was close by.

Sandra leaned up behind me. “You better come back and not leave me trapped up here.” she said.

“Alamo,” I said, “if I’m killed, place Sandra safely on the ground.”

“Program set.”

“Now,” I said, “put me on the roof of that apartment building below us.”

The arm came up, and the three black fingers gripped me. Each finger was as thick as a fire hose. I was swept out into the open sky. With alarming speed, I was dropped toward the roof. It felt like a bungee-jump.

I had a sudden, alarming thought as I dropped down to the roof. What if there were snipers watching the ship? Or helicopters, following us around? There was no reason to think the assassin had been working alone. The Pentagon or their spooks could have decided to take us out by any means necessary. I hoped I wasn’t delivering myself in their hands somehow.

After a sickeningly rapid descent, my feet thumped down on the cement and tarpaper roof of a large building. There were bricks chimneys all around me. I looked up at the two Nano ships. From here, they looked identical.

I took a deep breath, and smiled grimly. Even if I died soon, at least I’d gotten the privilege of standing on my own world under an open night sky one more time. I’d been stuck aboard the Alamo for a week. I decided that despite the pain I’d experienced, so far the injections had been worth it.

But I didn’t know all the details yet.