Part 20 (2/2)
”I should have done that a long time ago,” Janice whispered as she left the room. ”It's not your fault. I'm sorry.”
”I understand,” he replied, coughing.
The lights dimmed to utter black.
26.
”Adam, I beg you.”
John picked his way among the myriad shards that had once formed the crystalline windows of the observation deck. They now littered the ground outside the Facility, crunching frostily under his boots. His head ached.
So much for the natural gla.s.s containing the airborne nanos. No way I can patch this hole, not in time. Gotta defuse the bomb itself, or it's the end of the world.
The scope of the situation was dizzying. Life as he knew it, as everyone knew it, was about to end and all he could think about was his throbbing head.
”Eve, I think I've drawn a pretty clear line in the sand. I'm not going to help you resurrect those bodies. I killed them for a reason.”
”But Adam, if you will think with me rationally for a moment...”
The lift still worked, and he rode it up to Level Two and stepped off, absurdly grateful for the dim interior. His head wasn't aching as severely, and he tried to focus.
Bomb. Big one, about to trigger. If I were a doomsday device control station, where would I...
The nano labs, in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Of course. There was no control in the inner sanctum so it must be controlled from the lab itself. Seems risky for the technician pus.h.i.+ng the b.u.t.ton, but on the other hand it ensures that it can't be gotten to from outside.
It was very hot in the Facility. His sabotage of the ventilation tunnels, the power from the dam, and the heating-cooling systems were working well. For a human, that is. Pity that Eve couldn't care less.
He could feel sweat running down his back. He was dizzy. Not enough water. Not enough food. No sleep. He could feel his body slowly shutting itself down, drying up, mummifying in the heat.
The elevator looked dented and the light in it was broken, so he took the stairs down a level, then cautiously picked his way through the low corridors toward where he remembered the labs were, according to the map he'd studied.
Eve's voice murmured again over the speaker system. ”There is still time. If you can help me, I can help you achieve things beyond your most ambitious dreaming.”
John sighed loudly. ”I know you'd like a body, Eve. But it's not going to happen, not while I'm around. Leave me alone and run a diagnostics scan, just for kicks.” He started down the hallway to the labs, following a dimly glowing sign overhead.
”Adam, the bodies are retrievable. With them, we could--”
”I. Don't. Want. To. You hear me?”
The door to the labs automatically slid up into the ceiling, and he stepped through. Beyond were a series of parallel galleries, interconnected and with walkways overhead and below in some parts. The main feature of the gallery before him was a huge dome with pipes running into it. He stared at it. The oven that cooks the little devils.
The galleries were labeled, and he could see immediately that the third one down was the most active. Lights illuminated the dome in it, and two small service bots were buzzing back and forth by it.
”I insist that you reconsider. I am willing to offer--” Eve's voice, which had been soothing and seductive, now became a scream of alarm. ”Adam, don't go in there! Janice is--”
It was enough for him to freeze where he was and duck slightly. A shot rang out and tiny, hot shards of flooring sprayed against his cheek. The sound echoed around the gallery as he whirled out of the way and took refuge against a protruding part of the wall. He breathed deeply, adrenaline threatening him with tunnel vision.
Getting tired of that.
Eve had warned him in time, but now she tried another tack without missing a beat. Her voice rang out, calm and rea.s.suring.
”Janice, you're a remarkably resilient woman. I have a proposition that you will be wise to consider. Outside in the jungle lie the bodies that we both were meant to inhabit. If you will submit to my guidance in the operation, I can--”
”Quiet, machine.” Janice's voice shook. ”If you maintain silence for the next few minutes, I might still allow you to watch the fruition of the Plan without wiping you clean first. Your choice.” The last two words came in a rasping whisper.
John listened to her feet. She made no attempt to be quiet. He heard her heavy breathing.
On the upper catwalk, scoping out this gallery. Got to move past her. It reminded him of the confrontation at West Station. This time he was disappointed to find that he had nothing nearby to use as a s.h.i.+eld. But that jug of sterilizer fluid might help.
”Adam, I need you. I need you so badly...” Eve was back to him now. ”What is it you want most of all in the world? I can give it to you, in time. Only work with me.”
He grabbed the jug from the rack where it hung, the only nearby item of any useful size, and stepped out to quickly swing it up into the air at a curving angle that would carry it toward where he hoped Janice was staked out.
Another shot broke the silence of the room, and he took the chance. Sprinting out from the wall, he got behind the dome itself, keeping the bulky hoses and tubes between him and the figure on the railing above. Janice melted away into the shadows, moving to another vantage point, and he made another move, springing toward the next dome in the third gallery over, he crouched behind it.
She won't dare take another shot while I'm by the domes. If she punctures the dome we're both history.
”Janice?” Eve called out. ”I can give you this man. I can tell you how to get at him. Just promise me you'll cooperate. It's what Glenn would have wanted.”
There was no sign of the sniper creeping around above him in the darkened galleries, so he glanced around to locate the control station for the active dome. One of the maintenance bots rolled close, and he kicked it away.
There that little side room under the stairs looks like it might house the controls. John dashed under the metal stairway that led up to the catwalks above, threw himself inside the control room, and slammed the door shut behind him.
A wide window gave him a view of the dome outside, and he rapped on it with a knuckle after making sure the door was locked. Armor-gla.s.s. Perfect.
Emptying his mind of other distractions, he stood in front of the desk console and took a moment to orient himself. The screens were easy to follow, but what they showed was depressing. The countdown sequence had reached phase four of five the nanos were live and activated, fully programmed, and currently undergoing a final test of replication integrity. He wiped sweat from his eyes.
In forty minutes, the doors open and the fans turn on.
He took another moment to scan the readouts on some of the displays regarding the specifics of the bots' programming. It seemed that Eve had decided on a total of one hundred and nine different artificial, man-made materials for the bots to attack. Everything from steel and similar alloys to plastics and other synthetic building materials would be potential targets of the nanomachines.
The little bugs would fly around as airborne particles of dust until they came into contact with a set of molecules that they recognized as being one of the targeted materials. Then they would systematically break the atomic connections of the material, rea.s.semble the particles into more nanomachines with a few left-over organic molecules, and move on.
The time to complete a rea.s.sembled working nanomachine copy varied depending on which materials were available, but it could be anywhere from five to three hundred seconds. At that rate, if the machines encountered continuous sources of material to convert... he did the math quickly on the system calculator. It wouldn't take more than a week or two to entirely resurface the world's landma.s.s of everything manmade, if the bots were given free reign.
Best case scenario, within two years of current weather patterns, the bots would have spread everywhere, and every single piece of machinery, circuitry, or building in the world would be active dust. Then, fifty years later, the nan.o.bots' internal clock would run down and they would all biodegrade into inert soil, reentering the cycle of life through plant roots.
The sheer size of Janice's plan was staggering. It was surreal, a madman's plot that couldn't possibly work.
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