***Detecting weapons cycling and charging effects now…it appears that the source is preparing to fire the weapon again…***
Winger knew he couldn’t let that happen. Without knowing how, he managed to trigger off a maximum rate replication cycle; at least, that was still working. His own effectors ramped up into overdrive and began slamming atoms like some brick mason on steroids, building mass, big banging in exponential overdrive.
Before Captain Zhao Zhiyang could fire his HERF weapon again, the bots that made up Johnny Winger were upon him.
That was the great thing about being an angel. You could take a blast and die, then come right back to life. No human being, no single-config entity, could do that.
Winger decided he was beginning to enjoy this.
For the next few minutes, the swarm that had once resembled Johnny Winger burned supernova hot inside Server Bank Eight, consuming everything in its path. One trooper after another was obliterated, destroyed, demolished, annihilated, systematically disassembled into its constituent atoms…there were a million ways to say the same thing. They ceased to exist. They were atom crap. They were chomped into loose molecules. Later, when investigators examined the carnage inside the cabinet room, one of them would record that ‘it looked like some kind of demented tornado had swept through…nothing bigger than a fingernail remained.’
Except for one man. Johnny Winger had left him alive, to bear witness.
Zhao Zhiyang shook off a coating of dust and smoking computer parts and squinted through the haze, bloodied and injured, lying on his side with a heavy rack careened over his broken legs. His weapon, what was left of it, was on the floor, too far to reach. Circuit boards and wiring and torn scraps of flashing display panels littered the floor.
Winger gathered his loose bots and enabled config C-2. Slowly, with Zhao’s eyes frozen in fear watching him, Winger assumed angel form, his torso and arms taking shape, then his legs and head, like an artist’s sketchy outline being filled in.
Winger stood before the prostrate form of Zhao, who was beginning to hyperventilate, as if he had seen a ghost. Perhaps he had.
“Captain…Captain, get a hold of yourself. It’s me. General John Winger. This is not what it seems. I know I look different (that was an understatement), but I’m still me. Just in a different form.”
Zhao’s mouth was moving but nothing was coming out. The man was literally paralyzed with fear. He started to slide away, using his hands and stump of a right arm, gasping for air, like a fish out of water.
“What are you…it’s a trick—“
“Look, Captain…it’s not a trick. This is going to take a lot of explaining—“
“Winger died…killed on Europa—“
“Winger did not die. Not like you think. It’s all different for me now. Let’s just say I changed shape. I was caught up in the Keeper…assimilated, some would say. But it’s still me.”
But it was like trying to explain differential equations to a two-year old. Zhao continued to drag his bloodied stump of a body across the floor, leaving a slick of blood and other things behind. He ran head first into a downed rack and realized he was trapped. A shudder went through his face, still oozing something from the bot attack.
“Captain, use your eyes. I’m an angel. You can see that, can’t you?”
A slight, unsteady nod. Yes.
“Just stay put…listen to me, will you? I was caught up in the Keeper. I’m an angel…but it’s still me. It’s too hard to explain. I had to defend myself when you attacked—“
That brought some color back to Zhao’s scraped and scratched cheeks. He wiped his hand across his face, and was quickly disgusted by what he saw on his fingers. “My men…four of them…gone…you didn’t have to—“
“I did,” Winger insisted. “I had to survive. Look, just listen to me: I’m not an enemy. I’m inside the …hell, I don’t even know how to describe it…I’m working inside the Keeper, they think I’m one of them, but I’ve managed to preserve what’s really me…don’t ask me to explain it. I can’t. I’m doing recon…looking for some way to defeat Symborg, defeat Config Zero, defeat the Keeper. I’m bringing back intel…you have to believe me.”
Zhao just shook his head. “You’re a cloud of bugs. That’s what I believe—“
“Go now. Here—I’ll help you to the lift---“ Winger reached down for Zhao’s arms and shoulders. The trooper flinched and shrank back, but finally let Winger take hold. Winger dragged the captain across the room and outside the wreckage of the door to a nearby lift. He punched a button and they both heard the thrum of the lift coming down from the surface. In all the chaos of the assault, at least this lift was still working.
Winger shoved Zhao onto the floor of the lift and stood in the door, holding it open. “Go now and tell CINCQUANT what you saw. Tell Argo what I said. It’s important that he and UNSAC know what’s going on.”
Zhao just stared at him, like he was a demon from hell. Winger could hear the captain muttering under his breath, muttering incantations, imploring his ancestors to forgive him. Winger punched the LEVEL 1 button and as the door whispered shut, he said: “Tell them what I’m doing. I’m inside…I’m gathering intelligence. I’m trying to sabotage the whole works, if I can figure out how to do that. Tell them—“
But the lift door had shut. The platform started up. Winger watched Zhao disappear, heading up toward the surface. When the lift car reached the surface, strong hands reached inside to help swing Captain Zhao Zhiyang onto a medevac litter. Faces appeared in front him. Questions were asked.
“Captain, what happened down there?”
“Where are the rest of the troops?”
“Did you slam ‘em? Did you fry ‘em?”
“What happened?”
Zhao looked up weakly, his eyes watering. He was going into shock and already the medbots were being injected into his neck to stabilize him, until he could be littered to better facilities.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Back in the server room, Winger surveyed the wreckage with a grim appraisal.
“Well, Doc, that went well, don’t you think? I guess I’d better get back into the Net.”