The first generation was not intelligent, but could respond in a general way to the Swarm Mother's telepathic commands. Formidable idiots, they were programmed simply to kill and destroy. Tactics were planted within their genetic memory. They were placed in their pods, the solid-fuel thrusters flamed, and they were launched, like a flickering firefly invasion, for Earth.
Each individual bud was part of a branch, each of which had two to ten thousand buds. Four hundred branches were aimed at different parts of Earth's landmass.
The ablative resin of the pods burned in Earth's atmosphere, lighting the sky. Threads deployed from each pod, slowing the descent, stabilizing the spinning lifeboats. Then, just above the Earth's surface, the pods burst open, scattering their cargo.
The buds, after their long stasis, woke hungry.
Across the horseshoe-shaped lounge bar, a man dressed in some kind of complicated battle armor stood with his foot on the brass rail and addressed a lithe blond masked woman who, in odd inattentive moments, kept turning transparent. "Pardon me," he said. "But didn't I see you at the ape-escape?"
"Your table's almost ready, Modular Man," said Hiram Worchester. "I'm sorry, but I didn't realize that Fortunato would invite all his friends."
"That's okay, Hiram," the android said. "We're just fine. Thanks." He was experimenting with using contractions. He wasn't certain when they were appropriate and he was determined to find out.
"There are a pair of photographers waiting, too."
"Let them get some pictures after we're seated, then chase them out. Okay?"
"Certainly." Hiram, owner of the Aces High, smiled at the android. "Say," he added, "your tactics this afternoon were excellent. I plan to make the creature weightless if it ever climbs this high. It never does, though. Seventy-two stories is the record."
"Next time, Hiram. I'm sure it'll work."
The restaurateur gave a pleased smile and bustled out. The android raised a hand for another drink.
Cyndi was wearing an azure something that exposed most of her sternum and even more of her spine. She looked up at Modular Man and smiled.
"I like the cap."
"Thanks. I made it myself."
She looked at his empty whiskey glass. "Does that actually-you know-make you high?"
The android gazed down at the single-malt. "No. Not really. I just put it in a holding tank with the food and let my flux generators break it down into energy. But somehow.."
His new glass of single-malt arrived and he accepted it with a smile. "Somehow it just feels good to stand here, put my foot on the rail, and drink it."
"Yeah. I know what you mean."
"And I can taste, of course. I don't know what's supposed to taste good or bad, though, so I just try everything. I'm working it out." He held the single-malt under his nose, sniffed, then tasted it. Taste receptors crackled. He felt what seemed to be a minor explosion in his nasal cavity.
The man in combat armor tried to put his arm around the masked woman. His arm passed through her. She looked up at him with smiling blue eyes.
"I was waiting for that," she said. "I'm in a nonsubstantial body, schmuck."
Hiram arrived to show them to their table. Flashbulbs began popping as Hiram opened a bottle of champagne. Looking out the plate-glass window into the sky, the android saw a shooting star through a gap in the cloud.
"I could get used to this," Cyndi said.
"Wait," the android said. He was hearing something on his radio receiver. The Empire State was tall enough to pick up transmissions from far away. Cyndi looked at him curiously. "What's the problem?"
The transmission ended. "I'm going to have to make my apologies. Can I call you later?" the android said. "There's an emergency in New Jersey. It seems Earth has been invaded by aliens from outer space."
"Well. If you've got to go."
"I'll call you later. I promise."
The android's shape dimmed. Ozone crackled. He rose through the ceiling.
Hiram stared, the champagne bottle in his hand. He turned to Cyndi. "Was he serious?" he asked.
"He's a nice guy, for a machine," Cyndi said, propping her chin on her hand. "But definitely a screw loose somewhere." She held out her glass. "Let's party, Hiram."
Not far away, a man lay torn by nightmare. Monsters slavered at him in his dreams. Images passed before his mind, a dead woman, an inverted pentagram, a lithe naked man with the head of a jackal. Inchoate shrieks gathered in his throat. He woke with a cry, covered in sweat.
He reached blindly to the bedside lamp and switched it on. He fumbled for his glasses. His nose was slippery with sweat and the thick, heavy spectacles slid down its length. The man didn't notice.
He thought of the telephone, then realized he'd have to maneuver himself into his wheelchair in order to reach it. There were easier ways to communicate. Within his mind he reached out into the city. He felt a sleepy mind answering inside his own.
Wake up, Hubbard, he told the other mentally, pushing his spectacles back up his nose. TIAMAT has come.
A pillar of darkness rose over Princeton. The android saw it on radar and first thought it smoke, but then realized the cloud did not drift with the wind, but was composed of thousands of living creatures circling over the landscape like a flock of scavenger birds. The pillar was alive.
There was a touch of uncertainty in the android's macroatomic heart. His programming hadn't prepared him for this.
Emergency broadcasts crackled in his mind, questioning, begging for assistance, crying in despair. Modular Man slowed, his perceptions searching the dark land below. Large infrared signatures-more Swarm buds-crawled among tree-lined streets. The signatures were scattered but their movement was purposeful, heading toward the town. It seemed as if Princeton was their rallying point. The android dropped, heard tearing noises, screams, shots. The guns on his shoulders tracked as he dipped and increased speed.
The Swarm bud was legless, moving like a snail with undulating thrusts of its slick thirty-foot body. The head was armored, with dripping sideways jaws. A pair of giant boneless arms terminated in claws. The creature was butting its head into a two-story suburban colonial, punching holes, the arms questing through windows, looking for things that lived inside. Shots were coming from the second floor. Christmas lights blinked from the edges of the roof, the ornamental shrubs.
Modular Man hovered overhead, fired a precise burst from his laser. The pulsed microwave was invisible, silent. The creature quivered, rolled on its side, began to thrash. The house shuddered to mindless blows. The android shot again. The creature trembled, lay still. The android slipped feetfirst into the window where the shots had been coming from, saw a stark-naked fat man clutching a deer rifle, a teenage boy with a target pistol, a woman clutching two young girls. The woman was screaming. The two girls were too stunned even to tremble. "Jesus Christ," the fat man said.
"I killed it," the android said. "Can you get to your car?"
"I think so," the fat man said. He stuffed rounds into his rifle. His wife was still screaming.
"Head east, toward New York," Modular man said. "They seem to be thickest around here. Maybe you can convoy with some neighbors."
"What's happening?" the man asked, slamming the bolt back and then forward. "Another wild card outbreak?"
"Monsters from space, apparently." There was a crashing sound from behind the house. The android spun, saw what looked like a serpent sixty feet long, moving in curving sidewinder pattern as it bowled down bushes, trees, power poles. The underside of the serpent's body writhed with tenfoot cilia. Modular Man sped out the window, fired another burst of microwave at the thing's head. No effect. Another burst, no success. Behind him, the deer rifle barked. The woman was still screaming. Modular Man concluded that the serpent's brain wasn't in its head. He began firing precise bursts down the length of its body.