“Morning, gentlemen.” Vice President Atkins smiled and put on his glasses as Larenmore handed him the CIA briefing folder. “Please sit and be at ease. I’m still hoping that I can escape being a permanent occupant of this office.”
“Of course.” General Norman smiled also, sitting down on the edge of the other sofa, his back straight.
Atkins marveled how military personnel, never did quite seem to stand, or sit at ease in this office.
“What do you have for me today? Any good news?”
“Well, it seems as if our Wheaties Team made it through Hamid’s security and are in place.”
“Do you really think they can pull off this crazy thing?” Atkins sighed. “I mean, how much confidence can we have on a bunch of ordinary people?”
“Well, sir,” Larenmore said, “I think they’re more than –”
“Oh, I’ve read their dossiers.” He threw the briefing packet over on the other side of the couch. “How can the United States of America’s future ride on a bunch of people who couldn’t care less if the President gets beheaded or not?”
“What other options do we have, sir?”
“General?”
“At this present time, we have two carrier battle groups in the vicinity and several nuclear submarines guarding the straits of Hormuz. We have three full teams of Navy SEALs briefed and ready to go for an all-out assault on Hamid’s base should the Wheaties Team fail.”
“In a nearly certain suicide mission, right?” Atkins asked.
General Norman nodded. “But, every single one of them knows this and are well aware of every aspect of the operation. They are all volunteers, sir. They all know what they’re signing up for.”
“Brave heroic men,” Atkins said sincerely. “I’m glad to know that, but I’m hoping we don’t have to use that option.” He turned to Larenmore. “But, what about our ordinary heroes out there? What can they really do?”
Larenmore took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Honestly sir – it’s the best bad idea we have at the moment.”
“Great.” Atkins shook his head. “You know; I’m still wondering how they’re going to get the President out of there. I know that in our earlier briefing, I was told somewhat brusquely that it was best I didn’t know. But I think it’s best that I do know.”
“They’re going to fly him out, sir.”
“Oh yeah? Just like that, huh? In what? A cardboard box, with wings painted on the side?”
“No sir.” Larenmore said. “They’re going to fly him out in a World War II P-51 Mustang.”
“A what?”
“It’s a World War II fighter plane.”
“I know what it is! How do you get one of those things out in middle of the Iranian desert?”
“Oh it’s already there. Hamid’s got a museum on that base of his, that he’s vowed to fill with the ‘swords and shields,’ of his conquered enemies, as he puts it. He’s got a bunch of antique biplanes, tanks and even a very rare Tokugawa samurai sword.”
“Yeah, but a P-51? Are you all insane over there at CIA? They’ll shoot it down before it even takes off from the runway! According to your own wizards of smart, Hamid has the most sophisticated air defense system in the world. Or didn’t you think about that?”
“Oh, yes sir!” Larenmore said testily. “We thought of it, and we have a way of knocking it out completely.”
“Really. Well now, that is something I’d really love to hear about! How?”
“Nanomist.”
General Norman looked at Larenmore and frowned. “I wasn’t aware that the Nanomist weapon system had progressed beyond the testing phase.”
“Yes. It has. We were able to cut some corners and got it into a deliverable device. The Wheaties Team leader Brian Handly has it in his possession right now.”
“He does? Is he aware of its characteristics?”
“Yes, he’s been briefed.”
“And you’re absolutely certain that you’ve taken adequate steps to assure that a grey goo scenario isn’t going to happen on us?”
“Oh absolutely. We wouldn’t have let it out into the open, unless we had that aspect under complete and total control.”
“I’m sorry,” Atkins interrupted, annoyed. “What are you two talking about? What is this Nanomist and grey goo scenario?”
“Nanomist is the name that’s given to a small cloud of extremely tiny nanomachines all working together,” Larenmore explained.
“Nanomachines? Never heard of them.”
“No, sir,” Norman said. “Of course you haven’t. It isn’t supposed to be even out of the genie’s bottle yet. But it seems as if our good friends over there at CIA have uncorked that bottle and let it loose.”
“Why? What’s it supposed to do?”
“It has the potential of destroying every single living thing on Earth in a three-day period. That means every single man, woman, child, animal, bird, fish, bacterium and blade of grass that exists on the planet would be gone. Nothing could stop it.”
“What?” Atkin’s eyes widened.
“No, no, no. Mr. Vice President.” Larenmore shook his head. “The general is giving you the absolute worst case scenario.”
“Well, that sounds pretty bad to me! That makes a thermonuclear holocaust look like a pleasant afternoon! What is this thing?”
“It’s a bunch of microscopic machines about the size of a red blood cell, all programmed to do one thing together.”
“Do what one thing?”
“Whatever we program them to do. At that size, they can destroy every single cancer cell in a human body, build you a new heart or kidney, and even restore eyesight and hearing.”
“How can they destroy the whole world then?”
“Well, one tiny little machine is so miniscule it’s trivial. Even a thousand don’t mean much. But take 200 billion of them and that’s some real power.”
“A couple of hundred billion? How long would it take to make that many?”
“A long, long time if you were doing it one at a time. If you built them at the rate of one a second, it would take you 6,000 years to make 200 billion nanomachines. That’s longer than all of recorded history.”
“Okay, it doesn’t even sound possible.” Atkins relaxed a bit and took of his glasses. “Why would they be a threat to the world then?”
“You program them to build copies of themselves,” General Norman interrupted. “One makes two, two make four, four makes sixteen, and so on. 200 billion of them can be made in a very reasonable amount of time. It’s an exponential growth.”
“Okay, it’s possible. But, how can you shut them off when you get to the right number?”
“That’s the problem.” Norman answered.
“You simply isolate them from any further supply of raw material,” Larenmore said. “If there’s nothing to disassemble and build with, they just stop working.”
“That’s the theory, yes,” Norman said. “But, if you let just one of those nearly invisible things out and it gets into the open, like I said, it’ll reduce Earth’s entire biosphere to dust in a matter of only two or three days. You won’t be able to stop it. That’s why it’s called the grey goo scenario, because that’s all that will be left afterward.”
“But this horror is out, already?” Atkins looked at Larenmore, as if he were insane.
“No, no, no. This is different stuff. These machines are programmed to do only a very specific job and then they all shut off and die within ten minutes.”
“Are you a 100% sure?” Atkins frowned.
“I am absolutely positive sir.” Larenmore nodded confidently. “We have tested Nanomist over and over again and gone over computer simulations thousands of times.”
“Those computers wouldn’t just happen to be the very same ones that predicted global warming would cause the sea level to drown out Bangladesh, and Miami by 2010, would they?” Norman asked.
Larenmore glared at him for a long moment, and turned back to the Vice President. “Sir, I watched a secure negative pressure room, as it was filled with this Nanomist. In five minutes, the nanomachines completely disabled a high-tech radar set by eating up all the insulation and shorting out the circuits. Ten minutes later, I watched as a technician entered the room dressed in street clothes and picked up the grey goo in his hand. He was just fine.”
Atkins took a deep breath, and frowning let it out again.
“Well, okay. But next time, let’s get something like this cleared through me first. Okay?”
“Yes sir,” Larenmore nodded his head.
General Norman sat impassively. He always remained silent when he knew that someone in a high government position was lying and there was nothing he could do about it. There was less blowback that way when things went south. Besides, if the little Pac-man monsters were already out, it was way too late to stop them from eating up the whole world now. He shook his head and sighed. That was not a good way for a soldier to die.
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