Nanomine
Sci-fi short story
This story is inspired by the June 7 prompt on ironage.media the dome
The mag-train car moved through the tube inside the asteroid. It contained a few people, a few families of miners, and a strange man. He was the only one of the groups who carried a bag with him. He also looked too well-groomed for a mining colony. In space, you need a community to deal with the vast nothingness, and finding someone who was apart was rare. The surrounding area was filled with dust despite the drones best efforts to clean it. Mining has always been a dirty job. From the Romans to modern space miners, there is always dust. The fashion was space suits with an auto fold-on helmet in case of a collapse of air pressure or some radiation issue. Most people took to stylizing them, but function was still emphasized over fashion, except this man. His style was almost unheard of in these parts. His suit conveyed a sense of business yet a type of decadence. He was a true eccentric for these parts, so no one went near him. For most people who lived in space too long knew that eccentrics could get you killed.
As the train stopped in the central hub of a rundown little area, all the passengers got ready to disembark. The man was in no rush, so he ensured he was the last person to get off the mag train. As he did, he was met by two people an older frail woman with white hair and a man with red hair that was tall and thin with as much muscle as his bones could hold onto. The woman looked disgusted at the eccentric and said, "I am Administrator Dana Fenric. I assume you are Mister Maximo. We welcome you to our little asteroid of 58961 Keplar or Pearl, as our ancestors called it. I see (as a screen pulls to her left eye) you have a twenty-four-hour pass for commerce and will only be staying with us 36 hours."
“Yes, Maxio Maximo or Max to my friend and favored customers, which I hope you will be first. Let me show you something for a hard-working woman like yourself.”
He takes a small stick from his pocket and, with a voice command, "Cumquat," extends to a pole about a foot and a half long. Then, the dust in the surrounding air and the air molecules themselves begin forming a poster with the color of a family of blonds looking at a circular ring station around a habitable world. Max explains, "This is Arron station. I know you may be looking to retire soon, and may I suggest this for your retirement? This is close to Kepler 442. And is ideal for relaxing and enjoying your grand old years of life filled with plenty of the latest advances in nanotechnology and medical advances. We can make those grand old years last for as long as you like. And there are plenty of activities to keep one active during your time there, from sunbathing to hover biking, and it being the region's cultural hub, there are always new entertainments created. I sell apartments, houses, and timeshares, all at reasonable prices. What do you say?"
Administrator Fenric annoyingly said, "Look, I intend on dying at my desk. It's a lot less paperwork for me. I took this meeting not because of your fancy dress or your timeshare but because you might have nanotech that might help us."
"Oh, in that case, may I interest you in the minocyite 8000 from Mojavi nanotech. It is the latest in mining for the modern asteroid. It will seek out the needed metal that is preprogrammed or multiple metals, ignore the organic matter and all that with radiation triggers so you can use low radiation levels to deter them from areas. Density isn't a problem. It is only a matter of time for these little bugs to break down the rock into a useable metal and leave them for pick up.”
“Can they be used to shape corridors and passages?” Fenric asked
"The 8000 is borrowed from Mojavi's successful constructor nanobot series that would regularly have to build structures out of waste material. Like my little poster here. They are super eff…"
Alarms start to blare.
The screen in the administrator’s eye flashes with a warning. She clicks a button on her collar. "All residents to hard shelter, ten minutes to solar storm activity." She clicked her collar again and began to move. "Mister Maximo, come with us. " The people move at a hurried yet serene pace to the bunkers. The administrator tells Max, "Leave the poster. We will come back for it after the storm.”
“But…” Max weakly retorts before being cut off.
“Come on, let's go." At that, Max is forced to drop the poster, being grabbed by the security guard. They all get to the titanium-lead lined bunkers quickly in time for the storm to pass. After about an hour, the storm passes. The Salesman does his best to do his job in that time without much luck. After the storm passes, the Administrator looks at her screen, looking at the radiation levels throughout the structure, and sees they are within tolerance. Before she can give the All Clear, bring life back to normal on the station, she detects movement near the cargo hold. She pulls up a camera and doesn't see anything.
"Echo team, you’re near the cargo hold, correct?" Dana tells her communication unit.
A static reply comes back, "Yes, ma'am, we are in the bunker closest to the cargo hold.”
“Take half your team to investigate the movement in the hold and seal the rest in that bunker to protect the civilians in case of boarders. I'm not seeing anyone on internal cameras, but they could be sending a false signal.”
“Copy that…on our…” static cuts it off.
A few minutes go by with nothing on the screen then. Dana carefully examines the room and starts to notice things dissolving into flakes. She realizes too late that the movement isn't boarders but nanomachines dissolving cargo, and they are spreading. She taps her com and screams into it, "Echo, pull back." But before her signal was received, the team had started to move into the room and be attacked. Imagine being attacked by a swarm of insects you cannot see, changing your body into its essential components of materials brick by brick several million times. That was the fate of these people. The swarm was beginning to build up, and it started to create critical mass and break down things more quickly now because more nanites were made every time it broke something down.
Dana turned to Max. "You said those nanites couldn't break down organic matter.”
"What….Wait, what's going on? My nanites got out of their cases. The storm must have activated them somehow. But they are designed with a hard code not to break down organic matter unless the entire system was wiped by the radiation on the right frequency, and it caused them just to reproduce.”
“How do we stop them, and how long do we have until they take over the place?”
“Well, my rod has the shutdown code. We just use that, and your problem is over. How long, I'm unsure because the grey goo simulation was simulated for planets for about a month. We figured we could get all the ore out with asteroids in about a day, but it varied due to rock density." Max exclaimed.
“That is, in a way. What I was looking for.” replying to Max. Tapping her com unit again, she explained. "Everyone, please remain calm. We have uncontrolled technology loose in the mine. Stay in your bunkers. We are working to resolve this as quickly as possible.”
She clicks some buttons on the console near the door to the shelter. "Max, you and me, let’s go," pointing at the security guard. “Seal it up.” The door opens, and the two rush out into the station. The shelter door closed behind them. They rush to the poster on the floor. However, the sign disintegrated into dust, and a small stick remained.
Dana asks in curiosity, "Wait, why is it like that? Will it still work?”
Max replies franticly, "I don't know. Maybe this will work. Maybe this part of the station was hit by more radiation. Maybe the case shielded the minocytes, giving them only the specific radiation to reprogram them and not wipe them out. When transported, they are shielded from radiation, so they don’t go crazy on a ship or get destroyed by the engines' radiation. I don't know, lady, I just sell the things. I don’t build them.”
Max quickly grabs the small rod and yells, "Hibernia!”
Talking in a much calmer voice, he asks Dana, "Well did it work?”
"I'm still detecting movement, and it is heading through the main corridors of the station.”
Max becomes frantic. "Hibernia, Hibernia, damn you!” to the device, he starts breathing heavily. And says, "I knew these things would kill me someday."
"Knock it off. I’ve got the idea we are still dealing with a solar storm outside. Come with me, I might need your help. Follow me to central control.” She begins to run at a fast pace, Max barely keeping up. As they get closer to the mine's central coordination center for the mine. Dana orders the computer to close bulkheads behind them for every minute they can buy in time, increasing the likelihood of success. After a twenty-minute run, they reach the heart of the mine. Central control shows the radiation levels to be slightly higher than normal but safe for humans. It also showed several structural collapses in several locations throughout the mine. Several sensors and cameras throughout the mine show blank screens on monitors.
Out of breath, Max asks, "Ok…hu..hu.hu.. What is the plan?”
Dana begins furiously working at the console. “Well, it looks like sealing the bulkheads was useless. They are in the main ventilation. We are starting to see structural issues there. Which means the damn things are everywhere in the mine except the shelters.”
“ Why not the shelters?” Max questioned.
Dana moved over to another console and began typing, "Ok, because shelters are self-sufficient, you separate them from the main system and make them able to last even if the entire structure collapses. That is why we build them every so often in the mine. And to answer” moving back to the original console, "your original question. I was trying to shut down the radiation shielding in the base and wondered if you knew anything that could help."
“Aren’t Iron core generators made so they can’t be shut down without deactivating power.” Explains Max
"I'm dumping the fusion core simulating an emergency ejection.”
"Are you insane? You will expose everyone to tons of radiation.”
“Nope, everyone is in shelters designed to protect from gamma-ray bursts. They will be fine. The only ones who will be dead are the man who brought the tech to the station and an old woman who should have retired years ago.” As she says this, they begin to feel burning on their skin.
“Is that the radiation or nanites?” Max, terrified, asks.
As Dana furiously pounded at the console's keys, she winced and spoke, “It’s the nanites our helmets would have activated for radiation. Come here. I need you for one thing the command to evacuate the core requires two people. Come over here. I need you to push a button.”
Max quickly moves over in a panic. "Which button?”
Dana types in here, the last command on a screen asking for command code "One second" Push the button with the plastic box over it. She goes for another on her side, “Now” at that. Power shuts down throughout the mine.
As the nanites consume them, their helmets activate as the radiation sensors show high radiation levels. They begin to feel the dust in their suits as millions of rads hit them like they were feeling a million X-rays simultaneously.
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It was a few days before rescuers got to the mine. They find everyone in the shelters safe and piles of dust throughout the mine. They see the internal logs of the mine and the bodies of the two heroes who stopped the nanites. The people are evacuated to Kepler 442, that paradise world.