The Trillion-Tenant Apartment: A Science-versus-Runaway-Nanotech Adventure (Guardians Book 1) by Patrick J. O'Connor

Author:Patrick J. O'Connor [O'Connor, Patrick J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18: Mostly Harmful

Back on Mars, Doctor Schloss had been declared ‘infection-free’ and released to return to his career as chief medical officer on the Consociation Space Forces flagship, CSV Unity. Shortly after departure from Bradbury, he and the rest of the System received word about Alex Nolan’s role in what had happened to him and the Venture, simultaneously with the news of the attempted apprehension and its apocalyptic outcome, now being euphemistically called “The Dispersal.”

“Thanks to the outstanding work of Doctor Kilroy,” Schloss said to Captain Boris Ogarkov, “this thing was nipped in the bud on Mars, shortly after the landing, and everything was ‘scrubbed down’ by his ‘disassembler bots’ in order to prevent the initial ‘infection’ from spreading to the rest of the planet Mars.”

“Earth needs those ‘disassemblers,’ as quickly as possible!” the Captain exclaimed. Word was sent back to Kilroy’s office at Bradbury General Hospital. The doctor began coordinating with the Consociation Armed Forces for maximum mobilization.

An emergency call back to base, and an authorization under the Consociation’s Defense Production Act, was used to scale-up production of ‘disassembler bots’ in quadrillion-item quantities, under the supervision of Doctor Kilroy. Within ten hours, a fleet of 24 Consociation Merchant Fleet ships from Mars to Earth was sent on a 100-G race to drop their 24 cargo canisters into the atmosphere in a 200-mile-radius circle centered on the Patuxent River Consociation Spaceport and Naval Base.

The hope was to cut off the spread before it got to New York and Boston, although Washington’s DC Dome was already in the Hot Zone of the ongoing demolition. Philadelphia was ‘going under’ as the ships arrived, and the sideways spread had reached the outskirts of Baltimore.

Careful targeting burst the canisters into overlapping streaks of gray dust descending to ground level in a polygonal ‘circle’ with 24 corners.

The rescue ships awaited word that the metal-pocalypse had been arrested. The word did not arrive. These were not the sabotage-nanos that Kilroy’s ‘arrester-bots’ had been designed to ‘evict.’ The ones that had spread most widely were multiplying and disintegrating more than just iron-bearing minerals. They were un-recognizable to the ‘dis-assembler’ nanos.

The “no-no’s” that prevented the original ‘iron-eaters’ from cannibalizing iron atoms out of red blood cells, or multiplying without limit in a human body? The most prevalent variant of the invaders didn’t have those inhibitions. People who were inhaling the dust were going down within the hour, with lacy stainless-steel girders erupting out of their chests where they lay. Very Ridley Scott; very Alien. But these were no aliens designed by H. R. Giger. These monsters were down-to-Earth, home-grown murder-suicide in a bottle. And the bottle had been burst; no mosquitoes needed—

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