Wed 10/16 18:20:11 CDT_Nanobots, Murder, and Other Family Problems

Decision time. The edge of the crawling swarm is less than ten meters from the edge of the firebreak. It’s right there, just steps away from where I sit. If we’re going to clear another block of firebreak, we need to do it soon. The swarm will be able to grow faster with our attention and bots diverted to demolition and cleanup, so it needs to be now if we’re going to do it. Not that there’s a lot of potential bot-hull material left after we’ve been at it for this long. Maybe it’s not even worth it to clear. It’s hard to tell since I can’t probe much without pulling my efforts from the front line.

To Louise: ETA on that help?

From Louise: Almost ready. Two minutes.

I forget about expanding the firebreak. If whatever Louise is planning doesn’t work, we’re done anyway. I focus on pushing against the encroaching swarm instead. Two minutes feel like two years. The sun shield has gone from a disk in the sky to a wall to the west as the sun creeps toward sunset. The day’s light will be gone soon.

A nagging sensation from back in my flesh reminds me that humans need water. It’s dwarfed by the blinding pain of the headache, but it’s a need that will have to be addressed at some point. I don’t remember when Lin found the dusty blanket that now envelopes us both. I do remember for a moment that I have eyes. I open them. The light sensitivity isn’t as bad now, the repairs to the ruptured blood vessel must be going well. I see that she or someone else has provided the rest of my group with blankets too. Hopefully, the rest of the family have also found ways to not freeze.

I feel Louise’s influence rejoin the fight. Her cloud lets me retract from the vast curve to my right, focus more of my bots on the area in front of me. The swarm’s progress drops back to a near standstill.

From Louise: Ready now.

I feel a new bot signature from Louise’s side. Then another, and another. Soon there are more of the new signatures than there are signatures I recognize. Dozens. No, hundreds.

To Louise: You didn’t!

From Louise: I did. Desperate times.

To Louise: Who?

From Louise: A big part of the New Orleans Fire Department. All their first responders and anyone else they could get here.

I feel the host of new bot wielders pushing in. We’re making progress for the first time since we arrived. The swarm recedes before the new wave. I push with renewed vigor, managing my trillion tiny battles with precision and finesse. It’s still a standstill here in front of me, but with the new force extending along the line, I feel a renewed sense of hope. I push the fact that what Louise did opens up many new and dangerous doors to the back of my brain to worry about later. We can sort that out some other time, if the world exists as more than a swarming ball of dumb bots.

I let my focus slack just enough to ease the splitting pain in my head. I’m still micromanaging wide swaths of the line, but I’m not pushing myself as far past my limits anymore. The new firefighter clouds integrate seamlessly with each other and with the efforts of the Doctors and Roadbuilders. Together, they compensate for my decreased effectiveness. Like Lin, they should just need to continuously approve the app’s recommended actions when dealing with a known threat like this.

I retract some of my cloud from the defensive perimeter, and smile as the new clouds continue to make up the difference. I feel out to get an idea of how the other fronts are faring. Andrea’s side took the least damage, next to mine. They also held to their first firebreak, but just barely. With the reinforcements, they’re holding steady now just a couple of meters from the next row of rundown apartments buildings. Evan’s side had to level a second row of city blocks around the center of his line. The damage on the eastern side is by far the worst. Louise took a big risk with her plan, but their four-block wide firebreak is slowly expanding now, reclaiming the area and revealing a shallow slope down into the chaos.

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It’s going to take forever to actually eliminate all of these things. Longer than any of us will be able to stay conscious or remain here in the freezing cold. I can feel fatigue setting in for me, and I’m pretty sure I’m the most conditioned of any of us to doing this kind of thing over long periods. Most of the Geologists look exhausted. Marc needs to stop soon, tears are frozen down his cheeks and he’s barely able to stand. Evan and Louise look tired but still determined. Andrea is still standing strong, but even she is showing some fatigue. The Doctors and Roadbuilders seem to be doing the best of any of us, probably because without the implant, their interface is less taxing on the brain.

The firefighters and paramedics, all in uniform with many sporting protective gear, have come up near where my siblings are holding the line. They look fresh and seem to be adapting well to their new contact interfaces. Louise is amazing for getting all of them set up as quickly as she did. That crate she brought must have been full up with preinstalled SynTech phones and nanobot starter packs.

What to do next? We can’t just keep battling directly unless we want to conscript the city’s police force next. Not something I want to do if we can avoid it. Bad enough we’ve already given the interface out to hundreds of people that we haven’t vetted at all yet. If Antonio’s people were close enough to be helpful any time soon I would be able to sense their ship by now. There’s got to be a better solution. With the spread stopped, I can focus on finding it.

Mostly, I need some kind of material that I can use to encapsulate the area. Something that presents a surface that’s harder for the wild bots to chew through than it is for me to put up. Something hard and abundant and useless as a material for making more bots. Lin’s teeth chattering echo mine. Maybe I could think better if it weren’t so damn cold here.

Duh.

I’m an idiot. I should have thought of this a long time ago. Not that I had a lot of brain matter free for thinking, but still, it’s so obvious now. I retract even more of my bots from the front line. The firefighters hold. Their clouds have been growing. Their collective total cloud size is larger than mine now. Good. I have enough slack to work with.

I start digging a sloped trench underneath the mass of the swarm while I form the pipes I’m going to need going back towards the Mississippi. I crack through the river’s surface ice and push an intake pipe into the water. I select the most powerful pump in the construction library and start the water flowing this way. As the water pours into the trench, I line the edges with my bots, sucking heat, quickly freezing it and creating the perfect barrier. I slide my bots in deeper, hollowing out openings for more water underneath.