The black cloud was moving in and around the cameras. Rising up in front of each lens and then moving away.

“Oh no,” Maria said. “Not another one.”

“Another one?” Tariq asked.

“We had a run in with a swarm in the town of Hope,” I informed him.

“How did you evade it?”

“We didn’t,” I said. “Ben, the guy you patched up, he had an EMP spear gun. We were able to lure the nano-swarm into an EMP field and take it out.”

Tariq looked surprised. “Where and how did he come into the possession of an EMP gun?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Ben had it with him.”

“There are only ten of those particular weapons in existence,” Tariq said. “They are a prototype. Still in the testing phase.”

“He must’ve stolen one from the Fortress,” I said. “As you can maybe guess, he’s the kind of guy who plays by his own rules.”

Tariq raised his eyebrow. “You are lucky to be alive.”

“Yeah. I don’t think we would’ve made it if we didn’t have Ben’s help.”

“How did you get the nano-swarm to come within range of the EMP?”

“Ah, well, we acted as live bait.”

The swarm continued to move in and around each camera.

“What’s it doing?” Kenji asked.

“Hunting,” Tariq answered as he controlled the cameras.

“What?”

“Each swarm is made up of individual nano-bots. The main program function of each nano-bot is very basic.”

“And what’s that?” Kenji asked.

“It is a hunter-killer program. Search and destroy.”

“Doesn’t look like it’s hunting,” Jack said.

“Trust me, it is. The nano-bots were programmed to find the Oz virus in the host body and destroy it. Essentially, they were programmed to be apex predators. As you can see from this footage, they are executing their programming to perfection. And now that these swarms have gone rogue, well, we are essentially witnessing the evolution of the nano-bots. And it is occurring at an extremely rapid rate.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jack asked.

“Now that the nano-virus has been released,” Tariq continued. “Now that it is out in the real world, we are discovering the nano-bots have an amazing ability to adapt and evolve. To learn.”

“And that’s not a good thing?”

“No. Not at all.”

“So wait a minute,” Jack said. “They programmed these little robots to destroy the Oz virus, right?”

“Yes.”

“But now they’ve turned against us, they’ve turned hostile.”

Tariq nodded.

“And there’s no way we can control them?”

“Like I said, they are programmed to be apex predators. We are merely part of the food chain.”

Jack was still trying to get his head around what Tariq was telling us. “So you’re saying, they tried to fix this whole mess, they tried to cure the Oz virus and get rid of the infection, and they what? They completely screwed up? They released a mechanical, robotic virus, which will not only destroy the Oz virus, but every other living thing on the planet?”

“They will ultimately achieve a state of equilibrium with the environment,” Tariq answered. “It is known as homeostasis. Well, that is what we hope will happen.”

“Hope?”

“There is really no way to be sure.”

“Like we didn’t already have enough to worry about,” Jack said. “How the hell did this happen?”

“It was rushed through. Everybody panicked. The military. The government. Everything was given the green light. They wanted this virus stopped. It posed too much of a threat to the rest of the world. That is why the green light was given for Project Salvation.”

I was getting déjà vu. The way he talked about the nano-swarms and Project Salvation reminded me of Doctor West and his explanation of how they messed up with the Oz virus. You think they would’ve learnt from their mistakes.

“I can’t believe this,” Maria said. “Two viruses? We can’t keep doing this. We can’t. Why did they do it? Why a nano-virus? Why a mechanical plague?”

“The nano-virus had been tested on cancer patients and other viruses. In the lab, it had proven to be extremely effective. The nano-bots would enter the blood stream, find the viral cells and destroy them. With cancer patients, provided the nano-bots were injected into the cancerous cells early enough, they would eat the tumor. Completely.”

“Wait, are you saying they’ve cured cancer?” I asked.

“No. It is merely a different form of treatment. A more effective form of treatment.”

“Did they test it against the Oz virus?” I asked.

“It was tested against an earlier strain.”

“What are you saying?”

“Like I said, they panicked, they rushed it through. The nano-swarms were released into the atmosphere before they really knew what would happen. And as a result, it did not work out as planned. Project Salvation failed.”

“How did they release it into the atmosphere?” I asked.

“Obviously we could not inject the nano-bots into each infected individual. So the plan was to release it into the atmosphere, like spraying a pesticide over vegetable crops. As I said, the nano-bots were programmed to find the infected hosts and destroy the virus. They were like, microscopic heat-seeking missiles. We released the nano-virus over the middle of Sydney and other population centers along the eastern seaboard. But in Sydney, something went extremely wrong. There was an explosion. We think the nano-virus reacted with the jet fuel of the B-2. We think it did this on purpose.”

“Wait a minute,” Jack said. “We actually saw that explosion. Well, we didn’t see it. But we heard it. It was massive.”

“Yeah,” Maria agreed. “Louder than anything I’ve ever heard before. And what was the deal with the dust storm?”

“You must understand, nothing went to plan. We do not know exactly what happened, but it appears the nano-bots are acting on their own now, outside of their original programming. The dust storm was completely unpredicted. But we think it was a survival mechanism of the nano-bots.”

“Survival mechanism?” Maria asked.

“Essentially they spread out as far and as wide as they could. They increased their surface area to the absolute maximum.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They have the ability to store and convert solar energy. The dust storm; it was the nano-bots absorbing the sun’s energy.”

“But we were covered in dust, in nano-bots,” Maria said worriedly. “Are we going to die?”

It was such a blunt question. Full of fear and paranoia. But Maria was right. We had been covered in dust and nano-bots for weeks. We had walked right through the middle of the storm, breathing them in. We all looked at Tariq at that moment. He had our undivided attention.

“Truthfully, I do not know.”

Not the answer we were looking for.

“It would seem doubtful,” Tariq continued. “If you were to die, it would have happened already. The nano-bots, the first generation of nano-bots, were designed to invade the body of an infected person. A person with a normal, healthy immune system would be in no danger.”

“Wait, what do you mean by, ‘first generation’?” I asked.

“And the dust storm covered the entire country,” Kenji added. “How many nano-bots did you release into the atmosphere?”

“Trillions.”

“That’s a lot of goddamn microscopic robots,” Jack said.

“Yes. But even that amount is not enough to cover the entire country,” Tariq pointed out. “Something else is happening. Something else we did not, could not prepare for.”

“And that is?”

“The nano-bots are reproducing.”

“Reproducing?” Jack said. “You mean like, making babies? Baby microscopic robots?”

“Not exactly. We cannot be certain, but it appears the nano-bots have learnt how to build, to manufacture and replicate.”

“Like an actual virus,” Daniel said.

“Yes.”

“So why did the dust storm suddenly disappear?” Daniel asked.

“Next stage of life. The next stage of evolution.”

“Stage of life? What do you mean? How many stages are there?”

“Stage one, invade. Stage two, multiply and spread. Stage three, adapt and survive. Not long after we released the nano-virus, we started getting reports of rogue nano-virus swarms and other anomalies. The swarming, the other behavior, it was completely unpredicted.”

“Oh great,” Jack said.

“So what now?” Kenji asked. “What do we do? We need a plan of action.”

“They are self-replicating, self-sustaining,” Tariq answered. “They can manipulate metal at the atomic level and they are programmed to hunt and kill. We need that EMP field up. It is the only way to stop the nano-swarm.”

“The only way?”

“Yes. It can penetrate through almost anything. An airtight, vacuum sealed room will keep it out initially, but eventually the nano-bots will eat through metal or concrete or reinforced glass. It does not matter.”

“So basically, what you’re saying is, we need the EMP field on,” Jack surmised.

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s get to it.”

Tariq typed in a few commands. The monitor now showed footage of the Humvees, and the tank that were parked around the facility. Three Humvees. One tank. Each vehicle had a satellite dish attached to its roof.

“There,” Tariq said. “The dishes, they emit the EMP. We need to turn them on.”

They sat there, quietly and dormant. They were smack bang in the middle of no man’s land.

It was up to us to go out there and turn them on.

Out there in the desert.

With the nano-swarm

With the infected.