Chapter 25 : Grey Goo

Location : Orange Triangle Franchise, near Eagle City, Meridiani Planum, Mars
Era by Mars Calendar : Sol Solis 15 Kanya MY183
Era by Earth Calendar : Thursday 16 March 2299CE

<I can fix it. She will need water, as much as everyone can spare, > sent Mark stepping forward quickly.

<Oh fuck no!> wailed Tânia. <This just keeps getting better.>

<I’m going to need medical admin rights to your frame, > requested Mark.

<No, No, No! Fuck that for a joke, > refused Tânia.

<You have a grey goo infection. That’s an aggressively self-replicating automata ecology that lacks proper limitations and safeguards.>

<I know what grey goo is, > retorted Tânia.

<You don’t have much time. You need to trust me, > insisted Mark. He placed his hands over her entry wound and sprayed a fine mist from his finger tip bee-sting launchers. There was a flash and a pop as the mist hit the damaged skin. He continue to coat the skin around the wound circling outwards.

<That’s probably the last words that a prison guard wants to hear from her prisoner, > complained Tânia. <What are you spraying on me?>

<Anti-goo. Someone give her water. I’ll probably need some more feedstock. I am going to need to manufacture a lot of this stuff. Your medical admin rights! Quickly!> urged Mark.

<What are you planning?> asked Nadja

<Ramp up her immune system to max, then cut it out of her, > sent Mark.

<You will cook her brain, >

<Not if I am quick, > sent Mark. <Tânia, when I do this it is going to get very hot in there. Do what you can to keep your temperature down. Vent if you have to. Now is not the time to conserve water. Where is that water?>

<I think he’s right Tânny and by my estimate you only have about 5 minutes, > sent Nadja. Finally Tânia’s teammates threw her some water. She caught three containers one after another, and screwed them into her inlet ports.

Tânia slapped something on his chest. Mark didn’t need to look to know that it was another tase grenade. With it came an encrypted token for Tânia’s medical administration rights. <I didn’t expect thanks, but... > to Mark’s intense annoyance he didn’t have time to express just what he thought of her. Not if he wanted to save her life. <Everybody keep back.>

His nano-blade flicked out with a twitch of his muscles. He drew a line on her skin with a corrosive which was designed to weaken it. He linked with Tânia using the token she had given him and transmitted a pre-programmed package of instructions that had been written by Varija when she had been a part of the Anti-Sequestration League. The nano-blade swept out a second time tracing the same path as before only this time the blade plunged through her skin and sliced across her stomach. The nano-blade bent and the tip of the blade snapped off, it had not been designed to withstand that kind of punishment, but it had lasted long enough. Pink sealant foam gushed out of the wound carrying with it the grey goo. The goo burst into flames attacked by the anti-goo mist that Mark was spraying on one side and the tarka embedded in the foam on the other.

The toxic mess landed on the sponge and started eating into the floor. Hot glowing gases escaped the bubbling mess in tiny flaming jets before being rapidly dispersed in the thin atmosphere. Black smoke spread rapidly from the goo and foam mixture filling the corridor.

Mark dragged the staggering Tânia away from the still dangerous goo. Her skin was bright in the infra-red and hot to touch. She was venting steam. Inside her, two opposing armies of nano-bots were locked in a battle for survival, however now that the main body of the goo had been ejected from her body, her tarka now had the upper hand over the enemy stragglers. The conflict and mutual destruction was generating an enormous amount of heat and thanks to Mark increasing the aggressiveness of Tânia’s immune system the good guys were doing almost as much damage as the bad guys.

<How are you doing for water?> asked Mark.

<So hot!> slurred Tânia, who staggered and ended up leaning on Mark.

<Does anyone have any more water?> asked Mark. Silva tossed him a canister. Mark caught it and screwed it into one of Tânia’s free inlet ports.

Mark continued to spray anti-goo at the bubbling mixture on the floor.

There was a flash and pop as a particle of goo hit his leg. Mark cursed and sprayed Tânia. A couple of pops and flashes told Mark that she had been splashed on the legs as well. <Everyone get back, > Mark warned. He tried spraying the entire area. There were flashes where the mist hit goo. He finally managed to convince Monika of all people to give him some of her spare feedstock. <This is bad. It’s a lot more aggressive than I thought. It’s completely slipped any limitations that were placed on it by whatever incompetent engineer cooked this automata up. You need to call a code lilac. Make sure that they know that Deirdre Ayers is responsible for this outbreak. That smart dart gun is evidence. No-one should use it. That ammo will need to be treated very carefully.

<Code lilac. That’s something from the Sequestration Wars, > sent Nadja.

<Every decade or so some idiot manages to recreate goo by accident. Even rarer is when someone is psychotic enough to create it on purpose. Ayers needs to be questioned. We need to find out where she got the payload for her darts and if there is any more of this stuff out here.>

<How did you know what to do?>

<I spend a good deal of time with someone who is obsessed with preventing a second lot of Sequestration Wars. Naturally she taught me how to deal with many of the main weapons of the last Sequestration Wars, since she is convinced that they are about to make a big comeback.>

Mark dipped his broken nano-blade into the now black sludge and stirred. There a burst of activity, then it quietened down. <I think that that’s it. This whole area will need to be decontaminated just to be sure.> He gave everyone a final once over with the anti-goo just to be sure.

Glancing over to where Tânia sat with her head between her knees, Mark asked, <Are you okay?>

<I’m alive, whether I’m okay is another question.>

<Can you walk? I’m not willing to stick around to talk to the Jedwar’s goons, > sent Tidir.

<Her temperature is coming down.> sent Nadja as she helped Tânia up. Tidir paced as Nadja bound Tânia’s wounds in tape

They continued on towards Boomerang territory, leaving Félix and his friends to the tender mercies of the code lilac response team.

<I don’t understand why Félix risked so much to try to get you back. Grey goo that’s... > sent Tânia.

<It’s horrifying. But I think the Grey goo was a mistake. The smart dart’s payload had an escalating response, every time it failed to take you down, it tried something more extreme. Eventually it escalated past its own safety mechanisms. There is a reason why only experts are allowed to mess with self-replicating automata. There is a reason the safety protocols are so rigid. The person who created that payload was less of an expert than they thought.>

<They are going to kill Ayers. Aren’t they?> asked Silvia.

<Releasing grey goo is a capital offence, yes. They won’t execute her before they get every speck of information out of her though, > sent Mark.

<Why would she talk if they are going to kill her anyway?>

<They will lie. Give her false hope.>

<That’s horrible, > objected Silva.

<More horrible than grey goo? Any grey goo incident is a potential extinction level event. The goo we just destroyed attacked bio-mechs only. If it has started using sponge as food?> Mark shuddered at the thought.

<What a depressing conversation!> Irina sent from where she was draped over Monika’s shoulder. Everyone stopped. Nadja examined her and pronounced her out of immediate danger. Irina insisted on standing on her own feet and everyone felt the need to hug her, pat her or kiss her. Mark stood awkwardly feeling like an outsider, while the others milled around reassuring themselves that Irina was okay.

Tidir bullied the others into moving again. Mark looked around, he had a sense that Tânia would normally be the one to get them back on task. He saw the green ‘Rang leaning against the wall. Nadja had done a good job taping her burnt chest and her slashed stomach.

<Are you okay?> asked Mark.

<What! Is this some sort of Chinese obligation? You save my life two or three times and you feel the need to look after me forever after?> asked Tânia.

<Do you feel like talking about it?> Mark helped steady her and she didn’t object.

<What is there to talk about? I was almost eaten by nano-bots and I had to be saved by the person I was supposed to be guarding.>

<If you hadn’t opened fire when you did, Félix would have fired that crystal shot and his friends would have gotten off many more shots than they did. They would still have been locked down, but we would have been cut to pieces.>