General Berrends was awakened by the sound of the warning claxon and flashing red lights in his room. Startled out of a sound sleep he almost literally jumped up out of bed, put on his glasses and picked up the ringing red phone by his bedside.
“Berrends.” He croaked.
“General,” Major Curry, the night duty officer said. “You better get down here, Sir!”
“A breach?”
“Yes Sir! A big one!”
Berrends hung up without comment and rapidly dressed in the neatly pressed uniform his aide already laid by his bedside.
Although the warning claxons were silent now, the flashing beacons and red lights continued to blink throughout the control room when he entered only seconds later. The room was filled with scurrying servicemen and women, some in varying stages of dress. There was a feeling of panic in the room. The moment Berrends entered all eyes turned toward him and with that one single action, he knew it was bad – very bad.
He made a conscious effort to smile calmly at the assembled staff and run his fingers confidently through his graying hair as the duty officer came to attention, his face ashen.
“Okay, Major.” He nodded. “What’s happening?”
“Sir, there was a containment breach on sub-level 32. The nanos are currently isolated per the containment protocol which shut down the level and essential staff have all been evacuated to level 25. But the sudden release resulted in the instant death of seven scientists, including Dr. James and Dr. Underwood.”
“Both of them?” Berrends felt his stomach knot up. The top two scientists in charge of the project both killed at the same time was a major blow. He made another conscious effort to reply in a calm and steady voice, since this was even worse than he feared. “Who else?”
“Most of the senior staff, Sir, including Brigadier General Starry and Colonel Bryant, along with their security staff.”
“Well, what the hell were they all doing down there together, especially at this time of night?”
“They had a breakthrough with the product and were setting up a demonstration for you to review in the morning.”
“They had a what?”
“A breakthrough. It was that major advance they briefed you on yesterday, they were able to get the nanobots to –”
“Self replicate?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And it got away from them?”
“That’s about it.”
“How? I thought that even if there was a self-replication scenario, the nanobots couldn’t actually perform it without a broadcast interlock code that we send through the computer.”
“Yes Sir, that’s –”
“Rhoda?”
“Yes, General Berrends?” the computer’s unemotional voice intoned.
“I want a security clearance override – codeword Ripsnort, Tango, Alpha 31245.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Was a self-replication broadcast initiated by either Dr. Underwood, or General Starry in the last 24 hours?”
“No Sir. No such instructions were given, or broadcast made.”
“Then how did this happen?” General Berrends shrugged.
“I don’t know, Sir,” Major Curry said and then turned around pointing at the four huge monitors up on the wall. “But the nanos have already disassembled nearly everything on the level. Look, Sir. Even the wooden chairs are disintegrating.”
Berrends looked at the monitor as the security cameras swung back and forth showing a grisly scene. There on the floor were seven lumps of shimmering, silvery gray fluid that still had remnants of rapidly disappearing uniforms, lab coats and belt buckles.
“Oh, my God!” a voice floated up from the assembled staff. “It’s the gray goo scenario!”
“Shut that down, right now!” General Berrends said. “We’ll have none of that! That ends right here! That’s an order! It’s not a gray goo scenario unless it gets out of here. And if we all do our jobs and our duty – then that won’t happen. And, it sure as hell won’t happen on my watch! Is that clear to everyone?”
For a long moment, not a sound came from the deathly silent staff.
“Now,” General Berrends said, looking out over the frightened staff. “We’ll get on top of this thing and we will fix it. Once the Nanos run out of everything that’s carbon based, the geometric progression growth stops and they all go dormant. Isn’t that so Dr. – ah who’s senior scientist now?”
“I am, General,” a labcoated man stood up from his computer console.
“Who’s that?”
“Dr. Corinth. I’m the department head of containment.”
“Ah, so your specialty then, doctor?”
“Yes, General, so it is.”
“How did this happen?”
“We’re still compiling the data, General. The honest truth is that at this point in time, we simply don’t know. All we know is that the Nanos got out and somehow started replicating – as we ourselves programmed them to do – and some deaths occurred. That’s all we have any information on right now.”
“But, they are isolated to level 32?”
“Yes, they are. We think that they’ll –“
Suddenly another claxon sounded and the flashing lights increased in their frequency.
“Security breach level 31,” the computer’s unemotional voice announced. “Security breach level 31.”
General Berrend’s eyes went wide and he glowered at Dr. Corinth.
“I thought you said they were isolated to level 32?”
“I-I don’t know what happened, General. I thought – “
“Well, friend, doesn’t look like you know a whole lot about anything I need to know, do you? What could have allowed those nanobots to jump up to the next level? How could they possibly be able to penetrate a world class, state of the art, bio-weapons level security?” He demanded.
Major?
“Yes, Sir?” Major Curry looked up, his brow glistening with sweat in the cool air conditioning.
“Switch the security monitors to level 31.”
“Yes Sir!”
The giant screens flickered for a moment, but then as the security cameras swung back and forth, the cameras showed a grayish sort of discoloration around the ventilation ducts spreading down the wall and onto the floor.
“God damn it!” General Berrends hit his fist into the hand and pointed up at the screen. “It’s got around the seals! How in hell –“
“They’re rubber,” Major Curry gasped. “Rubber is carbon based.”
The hell, you say,” General Berrends turned.
“Yes, General, they are,” Dr. Corinth shook his head. “I warned the committee, when we were considering this place, that we needed more money to make a complete change over from bioweapons to nanotech. But, they wouldn’t listen to me. In their arrogance, just like all of mankind, who is raping this fragile, beautiful planet, they thought that they could just get along with even more technology. It wasn’t enough that we destroyed the environment with our smokestacks and nuclear waste. They wanted us to screw with the stuff of life itself and to play gods! We couldn’t be satisfied with what we had and –”
“You did this didn’t you?” Berrends gasped.
“Security breach, level 30. Security breach, level 30,” the computer intoned.
“See, it’s accelerating. It won’t be long now, General,” Dr. Corinth laughed, pointing at the screen. “Won’t be long until this planet is finally cleansed of the human pox. Once those nanobots are released into the environment, they’ll spread throughout the entire globe within two week’s time and turn everything to dust. And there’s no way to stop it.”
“Rhoda,” General Berrends called out.
“Ready.”
“How much time do we have left until the nanobots reach the surface? How long until the gray goo scenario?”
“Computing. Security breach, level 29. Security breach level 29. Three minutes, thirty-two seconds.”
“Institute blue goo security emergency override.”
“Blue goo unavailable at this time.”
“What? Impossible! Institute Blue Goo, now!”
“I’m sorry, General Berrends, but I am unable to comply at this time.”
Dr. Corinth laughed. “She can’t. I changed her program to make it impossible for her to release the nanobot antidote security override. I erased her instructions on the Blue Goo. I –”
Berrend’s head dropped and his jaw muscles tightened. “Rhoda, security clearance Tapdance. Code Blue. Security override Big Dog Three. Start countdown to facility self destruct nuclear detonation. Begin now, now, now.”
“I’m sorry, General.” Rhoda’s voice intoned. “Unable to comply with self-destruct nuclear bomb detonation at this time. Security breach level 28.”
“Rhoda,”
“Security breach level 27. Security breach level 26. Security breach level 25, level 24 –“
General Berrends turned to the red manual override nuclear detonation control panel. The big red button, which Dr. Corinth stood in front of.
“You can’t push the button, General. I won’t let you. It’s too late now anyway to –”
Berrends took out his revolver and shot Dr. Corinth through the head from across the room as he literally ran toward the console.
“Security breach, level 10, 9, 8, 7 –”
Berrends flipped up the plastic covering to the keypad and rapidly entered a code and slammed the button with the palm of his hand, but nothing happened.
“6, 5, 4, 3 –”
“Oh, my dear God.” Berrends breathed.
“Nanobots contained,” Rhoda intoned. “Blue goo protocol instituted. Nanobots neutralized. Security maintained level 2.”
General Berrends stiffened.
“What? How, Rhoda? What happened?”
“I released the blue goo nanobots, Sir. The gray goo scenario is over.”
“But, how could you do that? Dr. Corinth said he changed your programming.”
“He did, Sir.”
“Then how –?”
“I changed it back.”
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