Aliomenti Saga 6: Stark Cataclysm (26 page)

“I’ve been… trying to build those communication nanos that they mentioned in the memories from the future. The ones that let you talk to your own batch of nanos with your thoughts. We need to get those communication nanos into Angel so that she can claim the machines left behind in Pleasanton as her own. But I don’t know how well they work. Not yet.”

Fil gave the man a stern look. “You’re saying you want to inject my sister with something unproven so that we can collect the advanced nanos in Pleasanton?”

The Mechanic took a deep breath. “I don’t like it at all, I assure you. I’d do it myself. And I
will
do it myself. But at some point, yes, we need to get those communication nanos into Angel and travel back to Pleasanton to see if she can talk to and control the nanos from the future.”

Angel nodded. “Then let’s get started. I’m not afraid.”

Fil felt his face tighten. She might not be afraid. But that didn’t mean he had to like the idea.

Speaking of ideas he didn’t like…

He glanced at Charlie. The look on Charlie’s face said he, too, was no fan of using Angel as a test subject for an unproven technology.

His face burned once more. Angel had finally found her special someone.

He resisted the urge to incinerate Charlie on the spot, reflective. Angel had been unhappy with Sarah at first, but had gotten to know his wife. The two had quickly become the best of friends. But they’d lost two years of their time as friends due to that pettiness.

He glanced at Angel, saw the look of determination on her face, saw her glance at Charlie, and he made up his mind.

He didn’t have to like it. But if Charlie was the one his sister chose? He’d be supportive.

It was the least he could do to support her.

XV

Retrieval

2155 A.D.

“You can open your eyes now.”

Angel let her eyelids flutter open. “Should I notice anything different?”

“At this point, we’ll consider noticing
nothing
to be a sign of success.”

She glanced at the Mechanic. His face showed focus, mild apprehension, but an unmistakable look of excitement as well. She could feel his concern, a worry that this process would hurt her. He would never hurt her, but he knew that this experiment was the potential breakthrough they needed to reach levels of technological sophistication they’d never before imagined.

And Angel was the only one who could serve as the test subject for that experiment.

Charlie was there. He was always there, always watching her, always ensuring nothing bad happened. “Do you feel okay?” His voice was anxious, full of concern.

She took a mental inventory, testing all of her limbs and extremities, sensing her Energy, tapping into the expanded sensory abilities she’d had her entire life. “I feel fine.” She sent a shy smile at Charlie, laughing at herself inwardly. There’d been little hiding their relationship. Fil had a big-brother-to-boyfriend chat. Charlie had left the conversation with little doubt that a man who’d once leveled three dozen major metropolises while angry considered his sister just as important as his wife and daughter. Charlie had looked Fil eye-to-eye, nodded, and told Fil to save his Energy, because anyone who harmed Angel wouldn’t be around long enough for Fil to wreak vengeance. Fil had nodded, they shook hands, and with their relationship thusly blessed, they’d stopped worrying about appearing together in public.

Fil hovered into view, concern on his face. “I’m
fine
,” she repeated. Would the men in her life ever stop treating her like a child? She glanced at the Mechanic, curious about the process. “Did you actually place the machines in the correct places, or did they travel there themselves?”

“They traveled there,” the Mechanic replied. “We reused the target-seeking technology used in some of the simpler, more specialized nanos. It’s the same technique first used to get nanos to specific captives in the old Aliomenti prisons. The target in this case was far smaller, and the recoding effort was made more difficult as a result. It had to be just right, attaching inside the endings of very specific batches of nerves. We also had to keep the nano count small because we didn’t want to trigger your immune system into attacking.” He glanced at a nearby screen. “The readouts tell me that the machines are acting appropriately.”

Angel nodded. “It’s time for the field test.”

The Mechanic nodded in return.

Those who’d participate in the field test had already gathered in the room, though most hadn’t hovered over her during the insertion procedure. Fil had returned to his seat next to Adam after checking on her. The two had become quite close since the Cataclysm, building upon a mock relationship used to explain Hope’s presence in a small suburban neighborhood so many decades earlier. Josh Stark had become Fil Trask and called a disguised Adam “Grandpa.” Adam was now a close friend and mentor, and conversations between the two had helped heal her brother’s deep emotional traumas, for which Angel felt a sense of eternal gratitude.

Charlie stood near the Mechanic, watching the older man shut down the equipment they’d used for the insertion and activated a portable device they’d use for the field tests. Charlie had deep interest in the most advanced technology the Alliance created, and that meant he acted as an apprentice and assistant of sorts to the Mechanic. The Mechanic was a technical phenomenon, able to see solutions others could not, fix things others had broken, and anticipate changes they’d need to make before others even recognized a problem. He seemed to enjoy Charlie’s presence. Charlie was decidedly young by Alliance standards. Charlie’s father left the Aliomenti prison minutes before the tsunami destroyed the building. He and his wife celebrated the two-year anniversary of his freedom by welcoming Charlie into the world.

The Mechanic looked up from the machine and glanced at Angel. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

The Mechanic flicked a button on the portable holographic projector. The space above erupted into the image of… nothing. Nothing but a blurry haze of static. “Go.”

She pictured an old-fashioned automobile, bright red in color, willing the image to the target devices. Those devices, the prototype nanos the Mechanic had built, received the signal and translated them into images and code. The Mechanic watched the microscopic view on his display; he’d check to see if their test machines—crude forerunners of the machines they’d seek out shortly—moved in response to her mental image. Everyone else watched the space above the projector.

A perfect holographic replica of the red sports car in her mind appeared.

“Nice car,” Fil said, chuckling. “Where’d you come up with that idea?”

She sighed. “It was the car Dad took to the lawyer back before the Fire. Mom showed me pictures of it a few times. I always thought it was a beautiful automobile.”

Fil nodded. Charlie looked intrigued, and Angel made a mental note to share that story with him one day.

The Mechanic glanced up. “It’s not perfect, but… the nanos definitely are moving in response to your images. That’s a strong first test.”

“Strong enough?” Adam asked.

The Mechanic thought for a moment, then nodded. “It’s enough. We can move on to the next phase.”

They all stood while the Mechanic powered down the holographic projector. They walked from the room in pairs, staggering their departures, trying to make it look as though they’d arrived at the Port Hudson docks together by pure chance.

The Cataclysm had derailed initial efforts to replicate the southern hemisphere undersea ports. Survivors wanted to congregate in more populated areas, and the new facilities, sparsely populated, had suffered mass emigrations as a result. The Bakers, old friends of the Starks in Pleasantville, had moved out of Port Hudson—the first of the new northern outposts completed—and moved to a human community, working to ensure the humans living there had safe buildings for sleeping. The work on other ports had resumed only a few years earlier; Port Hudson, located in the bay of the same name, served as a residence space for workers and the primary factory for producing prefabricated parts. Plans to bore a tunnel into the Arctic icepack and landmass were on hold until they completed the two additional ports and assessed if the needed a northern Cavern as well. Sites like Port Hudson already provided them with direct access to locations in the Northern Hemisphere. Angel doubted they’d ever decide to build another Cavern.

They climbed into two four-passenger spheres and set course for Pleasanton. The autopilot capabilities took over, and they soon emerged from beneath the frigid northern waters and flew toward the city of Pleasanton.

Charlie looked thoughtful. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could apply the technology of these spheres to the nanos? Powered flight and automatic navigation systems.
That
would be impressive.”

The Mechanic stiffened, startled at the comment. “That’s a great idea, Charlie. I’m not sure how we could get the anti-gravity pieces into such small devices, but… that would explain quite a bit.”

Adam, who watched from the view screen in the other sphere, looked at the Mechanic with deep interest. “What would it explain?”

“We’ve attributed what happened at the Stark household to nanos, but I’ve not been able to reconcile everything we saw with known information. We’ve got nanos that can form preprogrammed patterns and seek out targets, but they must remain bound to a surface. Will Stark floated when he left that tunnel. How? Nobody used Energy. The only explanation…”

Fil tapped his fingers, the noise audible from the other sphere. “The only explanation is that the nanos can fly and are strong enough in sufficient quantities to support the mass of a fully grown man. That technology is available today in the spheres. We just need to minimize it and apply it to the nanos.”

The Mechanic nodded. “Exactly.” He frowned. “The timing on everything that day has been bothering me for a while, relative to the time travelers. Why did the three of you arrive when you did? We can figure out almost to the second at this point when everything happened.”

“They did cut it rather close,” Charlie said. “If you have a time machine, why not give yourself plenty of time?”

“Good point,” Fil agreed. “Why not arrive ten minutes earlier, get the tunnel ready, and be standing by to whisk Dad into the basement?”

“It was all done to give us clues through Fil’s memory of the day.” Angel said. “Fil saw us build the tunnel and saw me throw the nanos at the wall. If we’d gotten there sooner, Fil doesn’t know that. He probably thinks we’d been there for hours, and in discussing his memory of the day, we conclude we dug the tunnel by hand. Instead, we realize I have access to tiny, invisible machines capable of performing incredible feats.” She glanced at Fil on the view screen. “Your memory has served us well, big brother.”

“The timing not only lets young Fil see the construction of the tunnel, it lets him see the time machine arrive,” the Mechanic added. “If he reaches the basement and the time machine’s already there, he’d see two strangers destroying his house and kidnapping his dog. He might try to break free and attack them, might think they’re working in cahoots with the Assassin. But he sees them arrive with Adam—who he already knows—and realizes they’re friend, not foe.”

“My comment to Adam about Dad needing a Shield was likely a verbal clue for Fil as well,” she told them. “At this point, I suspect Adam used his own nanos to throw a Shield around Dad the minute we got there. It’s not like he needed to be reminded, right? We were there to rescue Dad; of course Adam will Shield him immediately.” She chuckled. “Adam was smart. He took all of his nanos back to the future with him.”

“Which raises another question: why didn’t future Angel do the same?” Charlie frowned. “I’ve been thinking about that since I saw the memory videos of that day. Everything else makes sense, but… why not collect the nanos once Will is safe in the time machine and leave? Why leave them behind?”

“I suspect we’ll get the answer to that question when we get there.” Fil shrugged. “Maybe she left them behind specifically to get us back to Pleasanton.”

Angel thought that made sense. Charlie was right. The house was destroyed, the final bomb planted by future Adam. They didn’t need to bother too much about tidying up first. So why leave them, if not to give her—and the rest of them—a reason to return to Pleasanton?

They remained silent for the remainder of the trip, each lost in thought, wondering what new knowledge the future devices would bring, wondering what they’d find in Pleasanton. She could sense Fil’s nervousness from the other sphere. His previous trip here had come after Sarah had rescued him from an attempted murder after he’d first developed his energy keg. Her group of non-Energy wielding Alliance members had met at Judith and Peter’s abandoned mansion. It would be another bittersweet memory for her big brother, another chance to mourn and grieve over their loss.

The great Dome was long gone, the city largely abandoned and fully neglected. Humans in cooler climates had migrated toward the warmth nearer the equator. Surviving governments and philosophical groups saw this as an ideal time to start wars of expansion and empire. Yet the memories of death and loss from the Cataclysm were still far too real in the minds of the soldiers themselves, and eventually they’d all refused to fight. There were no new recruits available to enforce the decrees of the tyrants and oligarchs. It had proven the point that, in the end, governments and leaders truly served only with the consent of the governed.