Nanotroopers Episode 9: Demonios of Via Verde

  ***Just getting a tickle now…see those shadows up ahead…here…I’ll maneuver sideways…get a better angle…***

  And then he saw it, materializing into view like a battleship in a fog bank.

  Straight away, Johnny Winger knew in the pit of his stomach what he was staring at…Del Compo’s demon itself…the master nanobotic device, hove to like a menacing predator coiled to strike.

  Roughly cylindrical, with pyramidal diamondoid bases, the bot was festooned with uncountable effectors, cilia, propulsor banks, peptide chains wavering in the currents, pyridine probes and bond disrupters lining every available space like so many cannon ports. The thing resembled a great dreadnought, primed for slaughter.

  And ANAD was closing fast.

  “Config One!” Winger ordered. But he didn’t have to. ANAD was already deploying to engage.

  A furious combat ensued. The enemy was one hell of a big bot but surprisingly nimble for so much mass. Surrounded by daughters, it grew and retracted appendages and surface structure with blazing speeds. Even as Winger watched, the master bot discarded an armful of carbon monoxide molecules it had been altering and prepared to engage.