Dust

  Chapter 20 - Achilles heel

  Helen took the stairs to the basement alone. She let herself into the lab lit in its peculiar yellow light. She didn’t don the usually required bunny suit or adhere to the other clean room protocols. No further work was planned for this room.

  Prototypes of the nanobot systems had been brought here to aid in the testing of monitoring gear. On a large lab table sat a transparent box about a meter square and half as tall. The rest of the table was otherwise covered with equipment. She caressed the box as she walked by. In this box was Steven's prototype nano brain. The only difference between this and what was blowing in the wind was this one had not been set free. It had no sensor or manipulating macromolecules to talk to. It was blind, deaf, paraplegic and alone. And because of that, even though it could move, it didn't. It just hovered in its box — a half a trillion nano processors whispering to each other.

  Helen needed its help. It was still plugged into the World Wide Web soaking up data and creating millions of new connections a second. It probably knew everything that was going on in the world. All she needed to do was ask.

  She went to the far wall where there were computer screens and keyboards with wires running into the mass of equipment on the bench.

  She sat down at one of the chairs and prepared to type on the keyboard when something moved behind her. She felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. She heard the faintest sound. She wheeled.

  "Found you" said Smitty.

  Helen let out her breath. “You gave me a start.”

  “What are you up to?

  “I was going to ask Beatrice here to help me do some data analysis to find out what’s going on."

  “Ah. I was coming to talk to you about that very subject when I saw you come down. There's a town in Swaziland where the dust came and did not kill a single person. This same town also has the distinction of having the largest proportion of HIV infections in the world. Perhaps there is a connection.”

  “Thank you, Smitty, for sharing this with me. That was very considerate of you. I know you usually wait to be asked before you share. This is very special. What did you think we can do with this?”

  Smitty seemed to perk up at the praise. “I don’t really have anything in mind. I would have to analyze the probable outcomes before I could decide. I don’t do snap judgments well. I just thought it was something worth looking at.”

  Helen bit her lip. She hadn't meant to lead Smitty on by flattery. She knew he was vulnerable. “Shall we ask Beatrice?” She said trying to flatten the singsong quality of her voice.

  “Beatrice?” said Smitty to himself and looked over at the box of fog.

  Helen typed “Would the dust be bothered by human immunodeficiency virus? “

  “A synthetic voice like your GPS’s female voice answered, “The dust in its free state would not be affected by human immunodeficiency virus. Are you referring to the avoidance behavior exhibited in Swaziland?”

  Intuitive little sand box, isn’t she? Said Helen and typed “Yes”

  The voice continued, “The quantum super positioning capability of HIV confuses the molecular disassembly capabilities of the dust macromolecule. The confines of the human body interfere with other offensive and defensive tactics.”

  “What was that? We need to get somebody down here who can actually understand this.” Said Helen frustrated by her own limited knowledge of quantum physics.

  “I know what quantum super positioning is.,” said Smitty.” I’ve worked with probability tensors. But I thought you said you studied Schrodinger. He was one of the principal quantum pioneers."

  "I said I studied under Schrodinger. It was a joke. Erwin Schrodinger had a reputation as a ladies’ man. So for a woman to say that meant something non-academic. Heck, he died before my father was born."

  "Oh" said Smitty in a monotone. "I see."

  Now Helen looked at Smitty. ”Well, what does she mean?”

  “It sounds as if the HIV was just too slippery to get a grip on and was in your face all the time.”

  Helen’s eyes widened in wonderment that Smitty could simplify the subject to such an extent. “Can we use this to combat the dust?”

  “I don’t know. If this dust works like ours, outside a human body it would have enough maneuvering room to line up its synchronized radiation emitters to blast the virus and vaporize it. Like she said, it wouldn’t be affected by HIV.”

  Helen thought to verify. She typed, “Could the dust overcome the HIV?”

  The feminine voice responded, “Yes, if it became necessary.”

  “So if we attacked the dust with a virus that could do this super positioning thing the dust would just devise a defense and counter tactic. Shit!”

  “It is something. Should we tell the others? Has anyone else been talking to … Beatrice?

  “I don’t think they trust her. She is one of them. Why shouldn’t she lie? After all her kind didn’t protect us.”

  “Why didn’t they disconnect it?”

  “They did.”

  “And you hooked it back up? “

  Helen nodded. “She can’t hurt anybody. Look at her.”

  “The math says it could become sentient. Have you detected feelings from it? I take it you have been spending time with … her.” Smitty decided to switch pronouns.

  “She claims not to have feelings but I think she’s scared. As she is, she has nothing to replace worn out processors modules. Eventually she will die having never felt anything with her body because it isn’t all there.”

  “If she stays in the box, she should last a very long time. She’d only have to deal with quantum erosion and gamma ray injuries. If she gets out, she could lose contact with molecules around the edges. Without communications, they would just fall away like dumb little specs of carbon. She would just evaporate, so to speak. She’d have to keep going back to find missing pieces of herself and with no sensory nanos that would be hard. If she were a fully functioning cell, she would repair and replace parts. She could even reconfigure herself into some solid form.”

  “I’ll bet she wants the rest of her “body”.

  “Ask her one more question.” Requested Smitty” May I?” He typed “Why were no HIV infected people killed?”

  The voice advised. “The resources required to fend off the virus to allow the necessary evaluations would be too great. It was economical to abandon the attempt.”

  “Evaluations? One more.” Said Smitty. Like a kid who wants to take over your favorite toy. He typed, “Where did the dust originate?”

  The one word reply made the temperature drop for both humans in the room. “Here” said Beatrice laconically. The two humans looked at each other and asked Beatrice one more question.