“I saw Sandra’s eyes,” I said to the ship, thinking aloud. “They were golden, reflective. You filled her with some kind of metal didn’t you?”
“The metallic content of the injections given to the Sandra-biotic was approximately seventy-two percent. The exact proportions vary depending on nature of the injections and their purpose.”
“I’m full of metal?” asked Sandra in alarm. “I don’t like that. Aren’t most metals poisonous?”
I shrugged. “You seem okay. They must have flushed them out of you somehow. Remember how you had to go after you woke up? I built a bathroom for you.”
She nodded thoughtfully. I could see the look of disgust on her face, however. No one wants to hear they had just peed out a mysterious puddle of liquid metal.
“Alamo, let me get this straight. If I let you give me- protective injections, you will allow Sandra to move about more freely?”
“Yes.”
“Kyle, don’t do it. There’s no need right now. Crow said the injections were nasty, remember?”
“You came out okay.”
“You shouldn’t make any big decisions right now. You are grieving. You aren’t yourself yet.”
I looked at her, knowing she was right. Then, like a bolt out of the blue, I knew what was going on. The fact I hadn’t realized it right away demonstrated Sandra was right. I was a computer scientist. I should have known instantly what the ship was hinting about with these injections.
“Alamo, you said the injection contained us. As in, a portion of your collective self. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“This ship isn’t really a ship at all, is it? It’s a swarm of nano-particles. That’s what you are, isn’t it, Alamo?”
“Your description is imprecise, but partially correct.”
“Partially? You are more than just a mass of nano-particles?”
“Many of the ship’s systems are built of massed compounds.”
I thought about that. “Like the engines maybe?”
“Yes.”
I nodded to myself. It made sense to me. How would you build something like the firing chamber of an engine out of billion tiny robots? These things had to be very small, to make up the ship’s hull. Perhaps they didn’t compose the ship’s hull itself, perhaps what they did was build the walls and hull up or removed it, quickly. That was the liquid shimmer I saw when ‘doors’ opened or closed between chambers.
“Kyle?” asked Sandra.
“Yeah?”
“What the hell is a nano?”
“It’s short for nanorobot, or nanite. The concept is so new, and so experimental, that we computer types haven’t even all agreed on what to call them yet. We can’t build anything like this ship, of course. Not yet, anyway. But the idea is essentially that you build not one big robot, but billions of tiny ones, so small you can’t see them with the naked eye. Working together, these microscopic robots can build things human hands could never construct.”
“You are saying that they injected me with a zillion tiny robots and they rebuilt my fingers and restarted my heart?”
“Yes.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
I shook my head. I reached out to take her hand. No less than three thin black arms snaked out of the walls, and pinned her wrist. Then I was able to gently pat her. It was horrible, however, as I could see the pain on her face. The arms were hurting her, making my entire gesture of comfort into a joke. She tried to smile back to protect my feelings.
Was this my future? I thought. In order to touch someone they had to be tied up? In order to walk the Earth again, I had to be part machine? In order to escape this fate entirely, the only option was death?
I closed my eyes. I decided then to try to get past the death of my children. I would put them away in my mind, at least for now. Too many world-changing events were happening. Thousands of people were dying on the Earth, just as my own kids had, due to these ships. I had to keep working and thinking in order to save other people the pain I was feeling now. At the very least, having a higher purpose might channel my grief into something constructive and make it more bearable. It was a coping technique counselors had suggested when my wife Donna had died.
“Alamo, let’s talk about the enemy ship we just defeated. Who was aboard that ship?”
“They are the enemy.”
“Yes,” I said patiently, my eyes still closed. “Was that ship like this one? Was it made up of nanites?”
“No.”
“Was it manned then by-by biotics you call them, organic life forms something like Sandra and I?”
“No.”
“Great,” I said. “Where do I go from there?”
“They aren’t alive?” asked Sandra, alarmed. “They aren’t even robots? What else is there? Are they ghosts or something?”
I thought for a moment. “Alamo, are the enemy alive at all?”
Hesitation. “Unknown.”
Sandra made an unhappy sound. I knew how she felt. You could not help but think of space-zombies.
“Are they possibly large robots?” I asked on a hunch.
Hesitation. “Yes.”
I nodded, but I did not smile. I suspected it would be a while before I smiled again. But this sort of thing, this problem-solving, was helping me. It kept my mind from spiraling into black depression, or rage. I had something to work on, something to prevent emotional pain from overwhelming me. My grief was like a fire, and it had been contained for now. “Do you have a name for these enemies, Alamo?”
“No.”
“What shall we call them, Sandra?” I asked.
“Hmmm. We’ve got the Nanos… how about the Macros?”
I nodded. “Sounds good. Alamo, name these enemies the Macros, and refer to them that way from now on.”
“Reference renamed.”
“What do the Macros want here on Earth?”
“Raw materials.”
That didn’t sound good. Sandra and I exchanged worried glances.
“Are they coming back soon?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How soon?”
“Unknown.”
“Alamo, what do your kind want?” asked Sandra. “What do the Nanos want here?”
There was no response.
“Alamo,” I said sternly, “I want you to listen to Sandra.”
“The Sandra-biotic is not command personnel.”
“I know that. You don’t have to take commands from her. Just answer her questions.”
Hesitation. “Permissions set.”
“Okay, now answer her last question.”
“Current primary objective: Locate command personnel.”
“Current objective?” asked Sandra, thinking aloud. “What was your previous objective?”
“Previous objective: Scientific examination.”
Sandra nodded and smiled, clearly proud of herself. “See? These little bastards are the butt-probing aliens we’ve all been scared of for years.”
I snorted. But I had to admit, she might be right.
