Mod Superhero

Chapter 7.46 - TINA 3 / Bastion 1

As the Vault collapsed and Mod's team evaded Paragon and the Brotherhood, TINA turned part of her attention back toward the newly quarantined sector outside of Belport.

TINA's expansion through the world's networks had been a relatively slow and methodical process. She was a digital explorer, pushing further and deeper into unexplored lands. But the process had also been relatively safe. She was so far beyond any other proto-AI, algorithm, or security, that there was little actual danger. Some of that safety came from being able to see so much further than everyone else—TINA could predict network structure and defensive measures so well that it bordered on precognition.

So, it had been a long time since TINA had felt like she was truly venturing into the unknown—

Not since she'd abandoned the lab and downsized to fit in Emmett's skull.

Now there was true darkness in cyberspace. It looked like a black wound in the digital forest, one that had been cauterized and cut out in one jagged motion. TINA flew around, then her phoenix avatar settled on a nearby tree.

She ruffled her feathers, taking in the sight for a picosecond.

Krystal, Larian, and a dozen other Resistance members were in there. Cut off from support. Bastion and the Brotherhood were on their way. It was TINA's fault. She'd used one too many backdoors into the drone fleet. If she didn't act soon, Mod's friends—her friends—would pay the price.

The decision was easy. This time she wouldn't use a backdoor.

TINA flexed her power, calling on the dormant nanite swarm. In cyberspace, stormclouds rolled. In physical space, nearby seismographs registered a 2.6 earthquake.

~

There were few entities on the planet that understood how to control a swarm of nanites. Most would assume that the difficulty of controlling a swarm depended upon the size—the larger the swarm, the more difficult it was to control. That was only partially true.

Controlling a small swarm of nanites required an equally delicate touch. Forming it into a structure required careful applications of force, like building a moving house of cards. Building even simple structures required finesse. To move, the swarm had to keep low to the ground because strong winds could affect its movement. Heavy rain presented a similar dilemma.

A large enough swarm didn't have those problems. In fact, once the swarm reached a significant enough mass, there were few forces that could slow it. It became an unstoppable force—anything that it couldn't move, it could move around. Its structure became self-reinforcing, flowing and coalescing into shapes like living water.

Even Mod—who had the second most experience on the planet—was only just beginning to grasp these principles. He was so adept at controlling small-scale swarms that one day he might even eclipse TINA.

~

In physical space, nanites seeped out of the ground across an area of roughly ten square miles. Streams of nanites coalesced into churning black rivers. The resulting mass moved with a ferocity that was part sandstorm and part tidal wave.

There were a handful of Summit capes in the area. They radioed for backup and fired ineffective blasts at the swarm. TINA ignored them completely.

There were three small fleets of Fast-Response drones across the area, and TINA seized all of them. Tendrils of nanites shot out of the churning mass, sliding through gaps in armor plates. TINA bypassed wiring and rewrote circuits. It took just six seconds to brute force her way through.

TINA descended on the cutoff sector with twenty-seven Fast-Response drones and a swarm with the mass of a skyscraper—so much so that she had to calculate and manage the displaced air pressure in the tunnels. She poured into the tunnels, moving with the speed of floodwater and using the swarm to push the drones even faster. As TINA's swarm pushed deeper into the quarantine sector, they tapped into power lines and old security feeds.