Free Joshua Dread by Lee Bacon Page B

sounding a little defensive. “This device allows the user to create a 3-D image of the magnified object and then analyze it from every conceivable angle.
And
you can fit it into your pocket!”
    “Your father is hoping VexaCorp will buy the design from him,” Mom told me.
    “The Dreadoscope,” he said, staring into space as if imagining the name on a sign. “That’s what I’m planning to call it. But there’s no telling what will happen now that Phineas Vex is gone.”
    The memory caused the color to drain from Dad’s face. He went silent for a moment before turning back to the glass case. Flipping a switch on the drafting table caused the top of the case to slide open. Leaning forward, Dad peered inside. He lowered the Dreadoscope into the case, carefully bringing it to rest on the bottom. When he pressed a small button on the left side of thedevice, an image appeared on the monitor. It looked like a silver egg with a nozzle jutting out of the front end.
    “You mean to tell me that
this
is inside that glass box?”
    “Exactly,” Mom said. “Except on a much smaller scale.”
    Suddenly I realized why my dad had warned me to stand away from the glass case. It wasn’t for my own safety. It was for the safety of what was inside.
    “What is it?”
    “Remember the smoke creatures?” Dad asked.
    “You mean those unstoppable monsters that attacked a convention hall full of supervillains? No, I’d completely forgotten.”
    Ignoring my sarcasm, Dad pointed to the image on the monitor. “
This
is a very tiny part of the smoke creature.”
    “But—how?”
    “The creature isn’t made of smoke at all,” Dad said. “It’s actually a dense anthropomorphic composite of remote-programmed nano-beings.”
    “Oh, that clears it up.” I rolled my eyes.
    “What your father’s trying to say,” Mom explained, “is that the smoke creatures are formed by millions of tiny flying robots. Just like this one here.” She nodded toward the silver egg. “Each of these robots is microscopic. Much too small to be seen by the human eye. That’s why we can only observe it with a micro—”
    Dad gave her a sharp look.
    “I mean,
Dreadoscope
,” Mom said. “If we zoom in a little, you’ll see that there’s something printed here.”
    She pointed to a spot on the robot’s side. It didn’t look like anything more than a smudge, but when Mom clicked the zoom button, I saw that it was something else. A logo.
    Z
Walking Smoke ™
    “What does the
Z
stand for?” I asked.
    “We don’t know,” Dad said. “But whoever designed this must have an unbelievable amount of money and resources in order to create such sophisticated technology.”
    “They were able to manufacture millions of these things,” Mom said, glancing at the image of the robot. “And when they group together, they create a kind of—”
    “Swarm,” Dad said, shivering. “Like insects, they swarm together—so close to one another that it creates the illusion of one being. A cloud, in this case. Programmed to look and move like a human.”
    “We’re talking about nanotechnology on a scale that nobody’s ever seen before,” Mom said.
    “And what happens when the cloud—er, the nano-beings … when
it
eats someone?” I glanced nervously from my mom to my dad. “Does that person die?”
    “Not as far as we can tell,” Dad said. “When the nano-beings group around a person, they lose their humanlike shape. They create a portal. First they surround their victim. Then each of them fires off a concentrated energy beam from the nozzle on the front end.”
    “Each of these beams is far too small to be seen by the naked eye,” Mom continued. “But when they’re all focused on the same object, working at the same time, it looks like—”
    “Lightning,” I said under my breath.
    A memory flickered through my mind. Phineas Vex, surrounded by the smoke, absorbed by a dark cloud. A burst of light had filled the dark space. Like lightning.
    And