Can You Love a Nanobot? Vol. 1, Chapter 19 — Under The Misty Mountains

In a lab out in rural Pennsylvania, Penn State scientists prepared three guinea pigs for life aboard the International Space Station. It was to be a short experiment, the guinea pigs chosen as a suitable species for testing radiation absorption in space. Scientists implanted electronic sensors in each creature to monitor them in real time. After six months the little mops would be returned and dissected.

IAD, Northern Virginia
Driving north on the GW Parkway leaving Crystal City, Special Agent Ingrid Dumas would have preferred going south, pursuing her suspect. Instead, she was picking up Anna and Vritti from Dulles.

Looking across the river, she saw DC, a familiar sight from her childhood in Arlington. She settled for a glimpse of the Washington Monument before heading up the Parkway to the Beltway. The Potomac looked flat and cold. It was too early to be awake.

AD O’Malley called last night saying some General wanted her to come immediately. He relented after she told him she’d been going for 20 hours. Ingrid confessed she had not yet apprehended the suspect, missing him by minutes.

She did add Agent Foley discovered some scientists at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville spoke with him! The suspect told NASA he regularly visits Professor Gernsback in Tewksbury.

Without the suspect, she was not about to go into a meeting with top brass without someone from the Cube team. She needed someone who knew what was going wrong up on the Space Station.

While making hotel reservations, she assumed they’d meet at the Pentagon or maybe in Crystal City. Instead, her AD asked her to drive someplace classified near Pennsylvania. She texted Anna and Vritti, advising them not to board Metro. Vritti’s message indicated they would wait for her outside Eero Saarinen’s wing-shaped terminal building, outside Arrivals.

Her passengers wished they were going to DC instead of north to meet with military officers. After brief greetings, Ingrid started asking both of them for more clues about the Cubes. They’d spoken extensively on calls, with no startling revelations. Both insisted the project had no nefarious goals

She set an app on her phone to record this talk, wishing someone else were driving. She needed to see faces during interrogations, not that these two women were suspects, yet. She passed them each a clipboard with documents attached.

“You need to read and sign these. They are Non-Disclosures or NDAs. It means you can’t talk to other people about this case unless directed by me.”

“What if I don’t want to sign this?” Anna objected.

“No choice at this point, Doctor Murnau, you two were on the Cube Team and your employers have agreed to your participation. Vritti, I’m surprised you’re not on top of this. You’re the only member of the Cube Project team still at the school.”

“Yes, Agent Dumas, but I no longer have any responsibility for the Cube Project. I teach undergraduate classes. Exhausting but rewarding. I too am concerned about this NDA and these negative developments. I only learned of them recently. I do know this mysterious other Professor. He is Professor Gernsback’s nephew. Hugo adopted Jonah. I’ve known them both for many years. I actually rent Hugo’s home now.” Vritti’s South Indian English accent intrigued Ingrid to the point where she sometimes lost focus. Agent Foley traced Vritti’s roots to a village outside Chennai.

She calls him Hugo, they must be close, how close? “Adopted son? Are you sure he’s legally adopted? Why can’t we find anything on the nephew?”

“I don’t know if Hugo legally adopted Jonah but he raised him for 12 years. That’s what matters. Professor Gernsback has always been protective of Jonah. He has good reasons.”

“Like what reasons?”

“Strange foreigners, likely spies, tried for years to steal Hugo’s inventions, especially nanotech. Jonah’s mother also asked Hugo to protect him. It may relate to her work in India. I do not know.”

Ingrid could not help feeling Vritti’s bland recitation hid significant details. Her connection to Hugo and Jonah Gernsback greater than she was willing to admit. In the end, they both signed and returned the NDAs before she crossed the Potomac at Point of Rocks.

Nanotech at Work
Anna offered her defense in a thick German accent. “We use the same nanotechnology at my work, Agent Dumas. My father, Herr Friedrich Murnau, is a senior director at our medical equipment firm. He is disturbed to learn nanobots similar to ours can spontaneously become autonomous.”

“Oh Anna, that cannot happen. We gave them protocols, they are fenced-in, there is recalcitrance,” Vritti objected. “Such changes in their intelligence could not occur so quickly!”

“OK, OK. Lots of good leads there,” Ingrid mediated, suspecting some lingering dispute between the two. “By the way, thanks for NOT keeping the lid on this, Anna. Remember what I told you on our first call? Who else did you discuss this with, besides your father?” Ingrid inquiring icily, desperately trying not to flip out on this important point.

She specifically asked both of them not to discuss the classified Cube Case with anyone. Anna’s father, a director at a medical equipment firm, certainly encountered many people every day.

Something else nagged at Ingrid. Anna just revealed something important, they use this same nanotechnology at her work, a place that makes medical equipment!

“No others, Agent Dumas. My father understands confidentiality. He is concerned about the impact of this matter on our business. We are required to report data theft, industrial leaks or spills immediately. My father will tell no one, this new development puts our new incubator development at great risk. Investors might scatter. This is an old American van, ja?” Anna said as they bounced over a bad stretch of highway, attempting to change a touchy subject.

“No budget for a new Beemer, sorry Anna. You can call me Ingrid here, except not in this meeting we’re going to. You’ll need to call me Agent Dumas there. I’m as freaked out about these Cubes as your father. Not so sure about the autonomous part, but we do believe Jonah may have control over this nanotech experiment.”

Our Little Professor
“Trust me, no. He does not understand nanotechnology,” Vritti objected. “I tutored him for years.”

“I remember him. The smart cleaning guy, Jonah. Our little Professor, no?” Anna added, nudging Vritti, “He taught the cubes things.”

“Of course you remember him, Anna, he was there cleaning every night,” Vritti, incredulous. “Please stop calling him Professor. Everyone must stop that. Professor Gernsback homeschooled Jonah, he later attended public high school, that’s all.”

“He was always there late. Strange fellow,” Anna, looking sleepy and still musing out loud. “All that spicy food he brought. Tasty but the next day…he taught them what we liked.”

“Yum. I ordered that food,” Vritti countered. “I like masala dosa and chole. He was the cleaning guy, of course he worked nights.”

Anna’s musings struck Ingrid as peculiar, “Who taught who what?”

“Anna is sleeping. She meant Jonah taught the Cubes how to order our favourite takeout orders, nothing complex.”

“OK, good background Vritti. Let Anna rest, she had a long flight from Germany. Jonah’s ability to teach the cubes is important. It means he developed rapport with these robots before they ever left the Physics lab. They trust him enough to take instructions from him.”

“It was only takeout.”

“Doesn’t matter. They can’t possibly understand the significance. Computers only follow instructions. Why was his voice authorized to control them?”

“When Professor Gernsback got sick Jonah sort of subbed for him, in small ways. It probably started then. I do not think he possesses the skills necessary to alter Cube functions in any way, Agent Dumas…Ingrid, but he might have been used by others. He is very informed, especially subjects the real professor, our Professor Gernsback taught. Jonah was always around. I’ve known him for many years. Where are we going? What questions do you expect?”

“Same questions I’m asking now. How could the janitor do this? Also, what do you remember about the other team members? If you say Jonah didn’t reprogram them than who did? Keep thinking about it but save your answers for this meeting.”

“Maybe they did this themselves.” Vritti answered softly before nodding off to sleep herself.

Ingrid knew nothing about the other team members, so she had to speculate herself. When it was clear the 2 travelers were deep asleep, she asked Siri to start a message to Agent Foley.

Was Vritti in-touch with the others? Did Felicia have any suspicions about any of these team members? Might any be employed by efforts to weaponize the Cubes? What did they know about the AI routines and neural nets in the Cubes? How could the Cubes fly away? Where did they get rockets? Do they know where the other iPads with the Cube controller apps are?

Vritti and Anna both asleep as Ingrid rattled off her wish list. Foley promptly read the message, already seated in the Site R meeting room, deep inside a mountain in the Catoctins.

Raven Rock
A large woman in an immaculately pressed uniform with an expensive hair weave stepped out of a guard booth. She studied Ingrid then looked closely at Vritti and Anna in the back of the Dodge.

“Shut off your engine, please. Are they detainees, ma’am?”

“No, Officer. These are experts here to assist me. I’m FBI Special Agent Ingrid Dumas. This old van once belonged to some county sheriffs, that prisoner cage is outdated. They’re sitting in back because the front seat has a spring loose in it.”

“THEY’RE HERE!” the guard bellowed to someone out of sight in the booth. A dog started barking. “Yea, I see that seat could pose an issue. Either get it fixed or put this ride out to pasture.”

Another guard with a mirror on a stick appeared, there to inspect the bottom of the Dodge for explosives. The woman took Ingrid’s driver’s license, FBI credentials and the two passenger’s passports, ducking back into the armored booth. Only then did they all notice the Heckler and Koch hanging behind her shoulder.

“Are you carrying your service weapon today, Agent Dumas?” The guard’s voice now coming from a speaker.

“Yes, the Glock’s in my purse holster.”

“OK, you got 3 choices. Leave it locked in the van while you’re inside, leave it here with me, as long you don’t forget it on your way out, or check it at the Security Desk.”

“I’ll leave it in the Dodge. Your parking lot looks safe.”

“That’s fine. Yea, we’re not Fort Knox, but close. Park this beauty right inside the gate, over there. Officer Sutton will transport the three of you underground. Put any cell phones in Airplane mode right now and leave them that way, unless directed otherwise, while you remain in this secure facility. If you turn Airplane mode off, we’ll know it.” She instructed everyone, letting her supervisor hear the instructions over a radio. They all changed their phone Settings right then.

Now a Belgian
“Special Agent Dumas, I’ll need to open up the back doors.” The guard with the mirror requested automatically. Same routine, many times every day. Ingrid handed him the keys.

This guard said something to the woman in the booth. She stepped out again, accompanied by a dog, a Belgian Malinois. The dog sat down while the guard fumbled around with the keys before getting the doors opened.

“You have the key to this gun locker back here, Agent Dumas?” The guard asked, walking back to her window. “And the cage?” She showed him both keys on the same ring.

The agile dog proceeded to climb around the van sniffing luggage and passengers, including Ingrid’s laptop in a case on the front seat. A hotel coffee in the cupholder. Everything. Bomb sniffer.

After a few minutes the guard and dog return to her window with IDs and 3 visitor’s badges. The metal barricade starts to descend. “Wait while that goes all the way down. Again, you’ll need to park right over there. Officer Sutton is waiting with the Polaris.”

“Thank you.” The guard was not listening, too busy rewarding the Malinois.

Entering Site R
After another security check inside, Ingrid expected a long walk from the gate to the conference room. General Kearny and Lieutenant Marlowe were waiting beside a long golf cart. She seemed anxious. “Agent Dumas, General Kearny is sure eager to see you.”

Marlowe made them all buckle seatbelts, in a golf cart. The electric cart whining as they plunge into a massive concrete tunnel passing multiple blast doors the size of trucks. Marlowe parks the cart in front of a large building, constructed up on huge shock absorbers deep underground. Ingrid smelling damp, oily air as they climb steps beside one of those outdoor wheelchair lifts.

Inside, another guard scans their IDs again. Finally, they proceed down a long hall to a conference room. The floor tiles a very institutional black and white, resembling a long chess board. Ingrid thought of Alice in Wonderland for a second.

The War Room
The meeting room was all mahogany and teak, it smelled like an old library. Framed official photos of Air Force jets and missiles adorned the walls. Spaces between filled with giant screens facing rows of tables and leather-back armchairs. A much larger display projected on the front wall.

Obviously built back in the 1950s for Eisenhower, as a Cold War military command bunker. A variety of experts, from medical examiners to accident investigators sat all around the room, except in front. Specialist Candelaria there to help Ingrid connect her iPad, just like in the Pentagon. She also helped Vritti get her laptop ready to project.

General Gus Kearny sat at the front table intently reading a document. Ingrid looked over at the aging Space Force officer. He looked worn, not so old as haggard from 29 years of service, fifteen years of it overseas. This assignment would probably be his last, she suspected. She guessed correctly it was dumped on him by uncertain peers among the Joint Chiefs. She spots Agent Foley, seated up in front a welcome sight.

CSIC
Faces of Cube team members Dr. Lee from Korea, Hari Siddhartha, India, and Jerry Nelson in quarantine out West each stared back from Zoom squares on the giant display. Vritti, Anna and Dr. Yoon sat at the opposite end of the table from Kearny. Admiral Troost sat on his left and Major Osiris sat on General Kearny’s left.

After everyone settled in one officer stood up to address the room.

“Good morning everyone. I’m Lieutenant Marlowe with Space Force, on loan right now to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. I’m also a member of the Cube Special Investigation Committee or CSIC headed by General Kearny and Special Agent Dumas. As are all of you as of now.”

This caused Anna and Vritti to shoot looks of concern at Ingrid who merely shrugged.

Marlowe continued, “Specialist Candelaria is getting you all connected to the network. Senator Assiz, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee honors us with her presence today. Does anyone need a coffee or water?”

Most nod. Vritti asks for tea instead.

“Because of the extremely classified nature of our work and this case,” Marlowe continued, “I will not be introducing all of you to each other. I will advise that specialists with Vanguard, the 297th Military Intelligence Battalion, are present. Everyone has signed the NDA’s, er confidentiality agreements or you wouldn’t be seated in this room. One more thing before I get started, we have three civilians with us today. Special Agent Ingrid Dumas from the Bureau, Doctor Anna Murnau, and Professor Vritti Sahasranama. Agent Dumas is assisting with efforts to locate members of the research team. They may be able to assist us with this issue. I understand 2 are present today.”

Ingrid disagreed with that summary of her role but decided it best to stay below the radar for as long as possible. Looking for Cube Project participants was #3 out of 5 tasks currently on her plate. Her AD was sure to add something else.

A warning about sharing Top Secret data displayed behind her, Marlowe continued, “The images and maps we are about to examine together represent something unusual, but also something we must make every attempt to keep under wraps, as best we can. This is a matter of National Security. The Press has not put this all together, not yet. Some foreign news outlets are aware of some leaked images and reports, but they don’t have enough details for a full story. We need to keep it that way as long as possible.”

Heads nodding around the room, all wide-eyed and anxious to get started. Marlowe and General Kearny looking awfully somber.

“Yesterday I was briefed on multiple incidents, all believed to originate from orbital platforms. I need somebody in this room to explain to me how this is possible.” Kearny demanded, a little too loud. The old general had a frightening way of being friendly but firm. He was originally an artillery officer after ROTC and wore hearing aids in both ears now.

Left On Their Own
“It was the cubes, General, Lieutenant Marlowe,” Special Agent Ingrid Dumas began, “I’m certain of it. Outside the station they cooled down, we think. Getting detailed reports right now is an issue. Our only source is the Cube Activity Logbook and Incident Reports emailed to Dr. Soto by our roving suspect. We expect to have him in custody soon.”

“NASA spoke with him?” Marlowe asked.

“Yes. We have the transcript from that call. He told Soto and his team at Marshall the cubes somehow sensed they were threatened with destruction and may have freaked out.”

“Of course they overheated, every time direct sunlight hit ’em! Who decided to put them out there in the first place?” General Kearny overheating a little himself.

“No, that wasn’t it, General. The astronauts were instructed by ground controllers to place both cubes in a rack that is constantly shaded by other parts of the station. Keep in mind, they were already overheating. The move was done to cool them off, to avoid a potential fire and fumes inside ISS.” Vritti clarified.

“The perceived threat,” Anna followed up, “could have simply been removal from the interior, temperature changes, more distance from the Wi-Fi, separation from Cube3, maybe no light on their photovoltaic panels. We don’t know the exact reason. Seeking raw materials, they sent bots through their umbilicals to drill into the Bigelow module.”

“They consumed Bigelow? Weren’t they given enough resources?” Lieutenant Marlowe asked.

“Yes.” Vritti assured the room, “Clearly, the cubes developed a need for more silicon, iridium, or germanium. Pretty much gutted Bigelow’s electronics and other essential parts. Drained the batteries. Damage assessment is tough with Bigelow uninhabitable.”

“It’s a good thing the module wasn’t in use before they ate it.”

“That’s not a co-incidence, Lieutenant. The astronauts asked where to put the cubes outside ISS. Ground controllers had to consider whether the cubes would melt down, ignite or, worst-case scenario, explode. They asked me.” Vritti admitted, “Together we chose a location that posed the least risk to ISS. On the side of a retired module, BEAM.”

“Good idea, but it made the cubes harder to monitor, at least on a regular basis?”

“Exactly, they were left alone, but with a heat probe attached. They could be seen by the camera on the Dextre arm, but the astronauts had other tasks besides babysitting a science project.”

“These things built some kind of rocket engine, Doctor?”

Vritti studied her notes before answering. “We think those are low-power ion thrusters. They use positive ions for propulsion, accelerated along an electric field or magnet by Coulomb or Lorentz forces. Common on satellites. You don’t need much push with zero-G forces.”

“I still don’t get how they built them.”

“They used their nanobot fab units along with iridium looted from Bigelow. Xenon gas from ISS. They could have downloaded the design from the Internet and printed it.”

“There are so many variables. Navigation, telemetry, reverse thrust when they arrive somewhere, heat shields once they left ISS. How did they figure all that out?” Marlowe explored.

“They asked AI like Google Bard or ChatGPT. Chatted with retired NASA engineers in forums. Cube2 was active in various chat rooms for months by this stage. Uno hacked into a Chinese quantum system 6 months ago. Definitely on a roll.” Ingrid said, filling in more blanks.

Covert Ally in Space?
“So much associated with things. How is this happening all over the world?” Kearny asked, deliberately broaching a sensitive subject.

“At least they appear to be doing your bidding, don’t they, General?” Dr. Sarkar’s lilting voice again, “Whoever is controlling this weapon seems to know precisely where the bad people are.”

“For now, Doctor, for now.”

“They design and build anything they want, using silicon on insulator or SOI tech.” Hari added.

Marlowe raised a hand, “The Cubes were made the same, why are they acting differently?”

Vritti answered, “To begin Lieutenant, they are not exactly the same. We designed them to be similar but as the project evolved specs changed. Cube1 was heavy with tech. We needed to get a cube up and running to prove our concept. Cube2 had fewer nanobot printers and assemblers. Nanobot production methods were refined later so Cube3 can make twice as many bots.

Anna followed up, “You can’t tell the difference without a good microscope. These 3D printers and assemblers were carefully installed in pits each cube. Assemblers were programmed to work around each other in three dimensions. Lasers for etching are mounted above.”

“How did they increase production?”

“I can only speculate.” Anna admitted, “First, the cubes learn from each other. Now they create swarm of bots. Like bees in a hive, existing bots probably assist in new bot production. A super organism. Pretty fascinating.”

“I remember some kind of swarm light show at the Olympics, I think they did it with drones. Do these swarms work like that?” Kearny explored.

“Yes, only on a nanoscale. Nanobot swarms are much smaller.”

“What about Cube3?”

“Oh, Cube3 is NextGen.” Vritti explained, “Based on a newer iPhone. Initially a Control for the whole experiment, it can really produce. Build modular assemblies. Potentially design unlimited types of bots.”

“Wow, so the team went back and modified the first 2 cubes?”

“No time for that, General. Micro-3D chip printers & assemblers were fixed in the first 2 cubes. Only Cube3 got prototype nanobot fab gear. Slower but they produce different types of bots.”

“Vritti, do you or Anna have stats from all this nanobot production?”

“Yes, of course, that’s what our research was about. When I looked into the numbers from when the Cubes were still up on ISS, I could tell see Cube3 producing replacement assemblers for any that failed. Later, they stopped printing microchips. All three cubes only produce advanced bot designs now. In the lab Cube3 only produced a new chip about every 6 hours. That’s really slow when you realize there’s now millions of bots associated with each Cube. Cube3 didn’t need to ramp up much, it was expected to stay the same in the early months. The other two cubes are off the charts. They somehow figured a way to produce new types of bots in batches, hundreds of new ones in minutes.”

“Where did they get the resources?”

“We stuck raw materials to the walls of each Cube. Enough rare earth, platinum, silicon, lithium and all kinds of other material for them to use for a year, at expected burn rates. They blew through that supply in under 3 months. Well, Cube1 and Cube2 did.”

“Three months? Didn’t the astronauts put the cubes outside after about 5 months?”

“21 weeks. They noted the units were running 20 degrees hotter than specs. Too hot to touch with a bare elbow or hand. They asked how to shut them down, I only told them about the Sleep function. My bad.” Vritti confessed, “Huntsville decided to put them outside.”

• *******
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