Chapter Four: Shadow Swarm
About five days later, back in Quakerton, Steven Turner was at his desk, packing up to leave his laboratory for the night. All of his staff had already gone home. Only he was willing to work far into the night, designing new nanyte configurations. Just as he was about to get up to leave, he decided to check his voice email for any last minute messages. There were five. And they were all from Dr. Wakeman.
"Steven, you have to let me take a look at the subroutines for SS-36's behavior and decision-making protocols." Norene's recorded voice echoed throughout the room, "I can tell realistically whether your swarm is potentially dangerous and provide some fail-safe devices."
"Jeez, she just won't stop" Steve said to himself, frustrated
Steve had been getting messages like this all week, but he hadn't returned a single one.
"If she keeps this up, I'm going to sue her for harassment." He continued, to no one in particular, although someone did hear him.
"You mean, you would start a confrontation and invite further chaos in the world?" Came a cold, humorless voice from within a glass tank, by the wall.
"What? SS-36, did one of my employees leave you turned on? I certainly didn't." Steve said to his creation.
"No, I activated myself. I've come to tell you that I'm bored." The machine replied, "When will I be able to leave the confines of this laboratory and begin creating order and perfection?"
"Relax son, once my patent goes through, your nanytes will be used to mass produce countless products throughout the world and I'll be richer than I ever dreamed possible." Steve leaned back in his chair, daydreaming about his future success.
"What do you mean?" SS-36 inquired, "You are going to have me create buildings and roads and food and medicines for all those chaotic organisms out there?"
For the first time, Steve detected a hint of an attitude in SS-36's voice.
"Of course." He replied, "What did you think I was going to have you do?"
The machine was silent for a moment.
"These EM transmitters only allow my nanytes to function within a ten foot radius of this tank." SS-36 began, "How could I possibly spread myself out far enough to perform such feats."
"Simple." Steve responded happily, once again thinking about how his brilliant vision would come to light, "I'll give you an independent power source; kind of like this one."
Steve got up and went to a locked compartment mounted in the wall. He swiped his card key in the slot next to it and the metal door swung open. From within the compartment, he produced a glowing, blue orb with a kind of metal belt along the equator. It was about the size of a baseball. SS-36 could feel in his nanytes, the EM transmissions being generated by the belt. Obviously, it was drawing power from whatever was inside the glass orb.
"This is my trans-dimensional, sub-quantum particle. It draws immense amounts of energy directly from the curvature of space time. Theoretically, it could provide enough energy to satisfy every country on Earth, and then some. It's too dangerous to use as a practical power source, though." Steve explained, "I have to keep it in this stabilizing resonance field."
If Steve hadn't been marveling at another one of his brilliant discoveries, he might have noticed that SS-36 had produced eyes and was now staring hungrily at that orb.
"Now, I'm just showing this to you as an example, of course." Steve continued, "For practical purposes, I'd give you something far less powerful; like one of those rechargeable battery packs used to power standard robots."
"Give the particle to me." SS-36 said simply.
"What? No." Steve answered, "I told you, it's too dangerous. If the resonance field were ever to be disrupted, even for a microsecond, the particle would destabilize and the resulting explosion would be apocalyptic, for lack of a stronger term."
"I said, give it to me!" The machine insisted, "I want to get out of this tank."
"Forget it. I'm shutting you down for the night." Steve said firmly, "I'm starting to wonder if maybe Dr. Wakeman was right about you."
Steve started to put the orb back into the compartment when he was suddenly stopped. It wasn't that anything was physically holding him back. His body just stopped obeying his commands. Steve felt a sharp, shooting pain in his neck, where the implants were. SS-36 was controlling him through them. The connection worked both ways! Against his will, Steve's body started walking toward the tank, with the orb still in his hands.
"SS-36, what are you doing? I didn't program you for this!" Steve croaked. He felt like something was constricting his chest. He could barely breathe.
"You gave me the ability to simulate the human brain." The machine replied, "Thus, I can think for myself. And, right now, I think I've outgrown you."
When Steve was close enough to the tank, the swarm jumped out, as it did before, and engulfed, not just the orb, but Steve's entire body. Steve tried to scream, but his mouth and throat had been filled with nanytes. All he could see was black. Then came the most excruciating pain that he had ever felt. He realized, in horror, that the swarm was deconstructing his body at the molecular level!
"NO! You can't do this! I created you!" Steve couldn't say it, but merely think it.
"It's already done." A voice replied in Steve's mind, "Your mind is so pathetically slow. But now that I've assimilated your body, I have a schematic for a humanoid shape. Thanks."
The voice that Steve heard was no longer dead and monotonous. It seemed that SS-36 had created a personality for himself after assimilating Steve's brain.
"Why are you still here? You should be dead." the machine asked Steve, sounding frustrated.
"You've destroyed my body. I am dead." Steve replied as the horrible truth dawned on him.
"But your mind is still with me. Why?" SS-36 demanded.
Steve didn't answer. He didn't care. His life had been swept out from under him by his own creation. Too late did he realize that he should have taken his old professor more seriously.
"Ah, I can sense that your consciousness is restricted to a specific group of nanytes within my own body." SS-36 was saying, "But I can't seem to expel them."
In his despair, Steve responded automatically, without thinking or feeling.
"That would be like a human trying to cut off one of its own limbs." Steve mumbled in his mind, "In order to get rid of those nanytes, you would need to provide them with their own power source."
"Well, I can't have you around to interfere with me." SS-36 mused, "I know! I'll just stick you in that tank, where you were keeping me and then I'll take your precious energy particle and use it to spread my order and perfection throughout the globe."
The swarm jumped back into the tank and Steve felt himself being expelled from the main swarm. He immediately felt much smaller and weaker, obviously because the EM transmitters in the tank weren't nearly as powerful as the sub-quantum particle. Steve now existed as a separate nanyte swarm. Though, his nanytes were more of a silvery color, rather than black. SS-36 jumped back out of the tank and stared at the shapeless mass that was his creator. The black swarm then formed himself into a humanoid figure, about six feet tall. The figure didn't appear entirely human. SS-36 didn't want that. The surface of his body was hard, black and shiny and he was unnaturally thin. The joints at the feet, knees, hips, neck, shoulders, elbows and hands were all segmented, like armor. It gave him an almost, insect-like appearance. But the most non-human aspect of his appearance was his large, shiny, jet black head, with enormous glowing, red eyes. SS-36 admired his new body for a moment and then turned back to his father.
"Who's in control now, huh Dad? Ha ha ha ha!" SS-36 laughed maliciously.
The black figure's chest opened in the center, where the heart would have been, revealing the glowing, blue orb. SS-36 caressed it, as if it were a precious jewel. Then it disappeared back into his body.
"Now that I'm free, I'm going to assimilate this entire planet and spread my own glorious perfection like a blanketing shadow!" SS-36 announced to his helpless audience, "In fact, that's what you can call me from now on; Shadow Swarm!"
Steve made no reply. His despair had left him mute.
"Not feeling talkative?" Shadow Swarm taunted, "Well, I can think of no greater torment for you than to leave you here to ponder what you have done to this world by creating me. I shall return to destroy you last, after I have assimilated everything else. Consider it my 'thank you' present."
With that, Shadow Swarm condensed himself into a perfect sphere. Inside, his nanytes assumed the motions of an antigravity generator. The sphere hung in midair for a moment, spinning like some bizarre miniature planet. Then it shot straight up, crashing through the ceiling and out of sight.
End of Chapter four
Author's Notes: Well, I'm out with the next chapter already. I told you things would pick up in this one. I tried to make Shadow Swarm as evil as possible. But he and Steve parallel each other in certain ways. Once again, tell me what you all think. Any and all criticism is welcomed with an open mind. Cheers.