Free Nano by Sam Fisher

from the desert.
    ‘I have a horrible sense of déjà vu,’ Stephanie said, her words falling like rocks in a still lake.
    ‘Any info?’ Mark asked the nearest tech.
    ‘Just coming in, sir.’
    The wall screen split in two. The left half showed the view of the tower, the right-hand panel carried a stream of data.
    ‘Sybil,’ Tom said to the air. ‘Give us a rundown, please.’
    The E-Force computer network, known by everyone at Base One as Sybil, was the world’s only quantum computer. It, or she, as most of the E-Force team viewed the system, was millions of times more powerful and therefore faster than any other computer on earth. And in the year since E-Force had been operational, Tom had used all his considerable skills to help the techs at Base One enhance Sybil still further.
    ‘The target is the Cloud Tower, Dubai,’ Sybil began. The view in the left panel of the screen changed. ‘This was filmed 2 minutes 6 seconds ago by BigEye 17.’
    The screen showed a black missile screaming towards the tower, a jet of pinkish flame emerging from its rear. One-and-a-half seconds into the film, the missile slammed into the tower.
    ‘Missile make and model unknown.’
    ‘Any stats at all, Syb?’ asked Pete, the explosives expert of the team.
    ‘Missile is 3.36 metres in length. Speed at impact, 1005 kilometres per hour. Impact site on south-facing side of tower, epicentre Floor 191. Four floors above and six below have suffered Level 1 damage – complete destruction. A further six floors above 195 and four more below 185 have graduated Level 2 to Level 3 damage.’
    ‘Any chemical data?’
    ‘Spectroscopic analysis from BigEye 17 suggests the presence of high levels of carbon dioxide and water.’
    ‘What about nitrogen compounds?’ Pete asked, puzzled.
    ‘Levels consistent with base parameters. No non-linear variation within pre- and post-impact time limits.’
    ‘What does that mean?’ Chloe Gavoine asked, turning to Pete.
    ‘It means the explosive is not conventional. No nitrogen compound remnants means we can rule out TNT and HMX.’
    ‘Okay,’ Mark said. ‘We’ve gotta get over there.’ He turned to Erickson. ‘Tom, you keep working on this with Sybil. I want every scrap of information you can get on the missile. We can pass that on to the authorities en route. I need you to get structural diagrams, design plans, internal layouts for all floors and a constant info stream from BigEye 17.’ He turned to the others. ‘Let’s go.’

18
    An elevator took the six operational team members down 14 floors from Cyber Control to Basement 7. Emerging from the lifts, they ran along a tunnel lit by massive halogens sunk into the ceiling. At the end of the tunnel, 3-metre-high steel doors opened automatically, leading into Prep Area 1. Here they were helped into their cybersuits. One of the mainstays of E-Force’s array of hi-tech equipment, the cybersuits were the team’s armour. Made from a blend of state-of-the-art polymers and carbonthreads, they enabled the wearer to withstand extremes of temperature, poisonous atmospheres and noxious environments, and the suits themselves were self-repairing. At the same time, they provided nutrients and, if the wearer was injured, a network woven into their fabric provided painkillers as well as a stream of computer-controlled nanobots to heal injuries super-fast. Finally, the suits were hot-wired to the comms web of the entire operation with direct links to Sybil via ultra high-speed internet and wireless connections.
    Once suited, the team boarded an electric cart that took them from the Prep Room into a wide passage that ran 200 metres beyond the main Base One buildings, onto Hangar A.
    The hangar was massive, a little over 150 metres long and 100 wide. At the far end, half the wall had been opened up and beyond that could be seen a second hangar, Hangar B. This was a twin of Hangar A and housed two Big Macs, the enormous E-Force workhorses that carried the heavy