Black Goop Chapter 3

With daylight dawning, Caden and Trace prepared to leave the sonic they camped at. They both felt confident because where they were alone the previous night, today they were with an ally and stocked upon resources. The boys grabbed some food supplies that were non perishable with a long shelf life. The nanites harvested materials from useful components such as computer terminals, blenders, speakers and other miscellaneous equipment with rare materials.

With their preparations complete and minutes draining away from the day, they left. Caden and Trace debated the best way to head out on their path to rescue. This led to the choice to leave out the side door that Trace had entered through last night. Caden attempted to open the door just for the lock not to budge.

Trace said, “I forgot that Ellie had rusted the door shut.”

Caden said, “I guess we will go through the main door then.”

Trace said, “No need, Ellie can clear the block in the mechanism just as easy as creating the blockage. Ellie would repair the door mechanism?”.

Ellie said, "Yes, I can.”.

A tendril erupted from the Traces pack. It started like a tentacle and transitioned to a needlelike shape. The tendril punctured the lock mechanism. Inside, the nanites spread over the whole mechanism. The nanites bathed the parts of the door mechanism in millions of Nano lasers. A million nanites at the same time started moving their arms to remove the iron oxide, rust, and replace the molecules with their original composition. Just as fast as the nanites had created a thick layer of rust the night before, the nanites freed the inner mechanisms of its rust. With the completion of the Repair, the nanite tendril withdrew back into the Traces pack.

Caden tried the door again, and it opened with a bang against the wall. Caden had a look of shock on his face, having been skeptical about what the nanites could do. While Trace had a look of concern for all the noise, they were creating.

Trace looked up at the sky, noting that they had lost no time. He then looked at Caden and said, “Let's hit that pawn shop for supplies!”. Wordlessly, Caden started towards the pawn shop that was just a couple of buildings down from the sonic. It was the longest minute walk the boys had ever had. Every time there was any noise around them, their hearts started beating like they would burst, and they both looked around in fear.

Reaching what the boys hoped was the pawnshop rear entrance, Caden went to break the door down. Trace stopped him and gave him an M&M mini container of nanites. Trace explained that if he wasn’t too far away, the nanites in that cylinder could open most locks. He took one of his own belts and opened up the cylinder and pushed the open end at the lock. Trace uttered Mimic Key”. A light that Caden hadn’t noticed before blinked green on the cylinder. With the green light, Trace turned it and the door opened. Reaching for the door handle with the opposite hand and then putting the cap back on the cylinder. With the container closed, he slipped it back onto his belt.

The pair took a peek inside and could tell they had chosen the correct door. They both hurried in. This time Caden made sure the door closed softly. After they locked the door, Caden started asking Trace some questions.

Caden asked, “Your smartwatch controls the nanites?”

Trace answered, “Yes and no. The Controller adds most of the command capability but there are other ways.”.

Caden asked, “What other ways?”

Trace answered, “For example, the M&M cylinder has a microphone in it to listen for commands.”

Trace continued with “Though the cylinder has to be within a few feet of a controller or large supply of nanites to Mimic a Master Key.”.

Caden asked, “Well, if you are that close, why don’t you open the door?”

Trace chuckled and said, “Never know when I might distract someone, while you secure a path for us to escape through.”

Caden ended the conversation with “That makes sense.”.

Looking around, the pair could tell the pawnshop was plundered several times. Luckily, looters had left any broken electronics and items that wouldn’t be of use, unless they had nanites.

Caden flipped a shelf and found a pair of inline skates and a broken drone. Trace found several TVs, laptops with their screens broken and computer components in the back. Caden continued searching his part of the store and found a paintball gun. Both of them throw everything in a pile in the center of the room.

Caden asked, “How are we going to carry all of this?”.

Trace responded, “When it's broken down it will be lighter.”

Trace issued the command to break down the loot.

Trace asked, “Can you keep watch while I work on something?”

Caden responded, “I can but please hurry.”.

Trace went to the back of the shop and selected the Mimic command and selected a laptop. He booted up the Linux distro and started working on schematics for some gear. He started with the inline skates blueprint, adding a motor with the ability to carry either of them 12 mph (19.31 km/h). Not only that, but he saved the Inline Skates and then opened up the blueprints for the paintball guns under Power Skates. Knowing he wanted to prevent any catastrophic wounds to people or animals, he asked Ellie to create a non-lethal projectile. Elli generated a nanite ball blueprint that could discharge an enormous shock on impact. He saved the blueprints for nanite stun balls and saved them as Nanite Launchers.

In the other room, Caden was getting a little nervous and keen to leave before a patrol notice they were in there. He knew how corrupt the Task Force agents were and that a new Patroller would want to check the lucrative spots, like pawn shops, for loot. Trace popped around the corner and made Caden jump.

Trace asked, “Hey, what was that projectile you launched at me yesterday?”

Caden answered, “It was a battle top. My dad used to buy me them all the time.”

Trace asked, “Can I see one?”

Caden hesitated before answering, “I guess.”

Traced grabbed one of the battle tops and ran back into the other room. Upon reaching the other room, he looked at the top and remembered that his father used to buy him the same tops. This was of course before the world turned upside down and never righted itself.

Trace pondered all the happy times he had with his parents. He only allowed his thoughts to distract him for a moment before he snapped back to reality. A quick sigh and a shake of his head as he started working. He gestured towards the top and issued a command to Deconstruct it. This was something that only took nanites moments to break down.

Trace turned back to his laptop and pulled up the blueprints for the Battle Top. It wasn’t a complex device; it launched and would spin randomly until it ran out of energy. The diagram showed that it had several parts that would influence the performance. The parts were: A metal ring to add weight, an upper ring to inflict damage and reflect damage, a base to attach all the parts, and a tip that controlled how it moved. He knew that if he was to make it a viable defense item, it would need to spin a lot longer than a few minutes. This led him to drop a motor into the base. Then he used the nanite's shifting abilities and changed the tip to change based on the terrain. They modified the weight disk to include a hollow channel that nanites would shift weights around, allowing fine control over movement. The final two modifications that Trace planned were to the upper disk and center launcher anchor. The modifications that Ellie and Trace designed for the upper disk had the same morphing ability. This morphing would allow it to change for defense, offense, or utility. Changes to the top anchor that the Top Launcher attached to would work in two different functions. The anchor would remain attached to the launcher until it let its mechanical catch go. This let the top reach optimal spin speed before it left the launcher. The second modification to the anchor was a projector module that was embedded. This allowed the top to project small holographic images. With the upgrades finished, Trace called Caden into the side room to tell him about the modifications.

Trace said, “So to start off with, put these ankle weights on.”

Caden asked, “What are the ankle weights for?”

Trace responded, “Issue the command Mimic Power Skates.”

Caden said “Mimic Power Skates.”.

Caden jumped as the ankle weights started shifting down his legs. He said, “Feels like kinetic sand.” Trace responded, “Yea I know.” In the time it took for them to share this exchange, the nanites had moved down to his shoes. Caden almost lost his balance as he started lifting off the ground. Within moments, his shoes had morphed into Power Skates.

Trace asked, “Cool, isn't it.”.

Caden Responded “It will take some getting used to.”.

Trace continued, “besides the Power Skates, I have changed the Battle Top. Let me see your launcher.”.

Caden tossed his Battle Top launcher to Trace and said, ” Here you go”.

Trace said, ” Here we go.”.

Trace notched the Battle top and pulled the pool cord. The Top spun up and then launched. Caden didn’t look very impressive as it roamed around the room randomly. What Caden hadn’t noticed is the nanites were traveling down Trace's arm and into the launcher. Several Buttons, lights, and a joystick manifested on the launcher. As Trace maneuvered the joystick, the Battle Top started responding. It shocked Caden when the Battle Top started moving in a methodical pattern. The Spinning top started moving toward Caden. When it had gotten close, Trace pressed a button. Caden jumped as a tiger manifested from the top. Caden smacks Trace's arm.

Caden asked, ” What in the world was that?”.

Trace responded, “It can create small holographs and if it comes in contact with someone it can shock them.”

Caden asked, “So that’s mine, right?”.

Trace responded, “Yes, it’s yours. I even put a chip in your launcher, so you can use the Battle Top and Power Skates away from me.”

Caden exclaimed, ” Now we can definitely rescue every one!”.

Trace asked, “Can we find a better name for the Battle Top?”.

Caden answered, “Let's call it Susanoo after the Japanese deity of Storms.”.

Trace said, “Sounds good. Let's figure out where to go from here.”.

Caden answered, “Sounds good.”

Caden looked over on the wall and found a map. He pulled it down and Trace helped him spread it out. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for them to find their location and the location of the Old convention center. Based on the map, it wasn’t a long way to get there from here, but transporting everyone to safety would almost be impossible.

They looked over the map for several potential locations to safely hide. The spots they found were the High School, The local mall, an old skate rink on the top of a hill. The high school was previously a camp, organized by the Task Force. Neither of them knew why they moved, whether it wasn’t a longer term viable spot or some other potential issue that could make everything dangerous. According to Caden, the local mall would have plenty of room but is completely impossible to guard because of the storefront's open windows. Caden hadn’t grown up in the area, so he couldn’t say anything about the skate rink, because it was closed many years before he moved to hot springs with his parents. Trace thought back about when he visited it with his parents as a child. He knew that it had only one major entrance and a couple of side entrances and it was guardable.

With the limited details at their disposal, the only choice that made sense was the Old Skate rink. With a safe haven chosen, it was now time to decide how they would get in and how they would transport every one. They discussed what they knew about hot springs downtown. Caden had visited downtown with his parents after they moved there. He remembered hearing about a riverbed that ran underneath the central avenue. Trace had learned about the riverbed underneath the main road at the local gangster museum. The museum had painted a picture of how the gangsters used to use the passageway that the riverbed had formed underneath the street. The description that the workers at the museum described was of a passageway that people could walk two abreast. The gangster would transport illegal goods, including alcohol, during Prohibition days along these between distilleries and the various hotels.

From their history book the pair knew that all the hotels still stood, whether it was livable didn’t matter, downtown hot springs was a national park.This meant that they could either get close or all the way to the convention center without being noticed by the Task Force Agents guarding it. This of course didn’t solve the problem of how to transport 3 kids, 2 teens and one adult to their designated safe haven.

It was a no brainer to them; They needed a vehicle to transport everyone. Caden started looking on the map for a location that would have a vehicle they could use. It wasn’t as easy as finding a Walmart, because they would need to remain undetected. There was an underground parking garage near the end of the tunnel that may have several vehicles to choose from. Trace stood up to stretch his back. He had gotten a kink in his back. This was from leaning over for so long.

That was when a Task Force Patrol walked past the storefront. It would have been fine if one agent hadn’t had spinach for lunch. This led the agent to try for the hundredth time that day to get a rogue piece of spinach out of his teeth. He used the window in front of the building to make sure he had gotten it. At the same time, Trace had stood up in plain sight of the agent. The agent yelled at the Teens to freeze as another agent jumped through the front door.

The front door exploded inward from the agent jumping, throwing it alerting Caden and Trace. Caden grabbed the map and jumped up, preparing to launch his Susanoo weapon. Trace issued the command to Mimic Nanite Launcher. With this command, Nanites started forming at his hip into the launcher.

Another agent rolled into view with a tranq gun raised. The first Agent that had noticed Caden and Trace started yelling for them to drop to the ground. The agent that was still outside readied his tranq gun in case the suspects resisted testing. The first Agent started counting down saying, “Down on your knees for paper verification. 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. Times up.”. The agents started peppering Caden and Trace with tranq darts.

Trace dodge to the right behind a shelving unit, while Caden dodged behind the counter. Caden let Susanoo lose at the agents. I stunned Trace for a second from the landing. Once he recovered, he started to return fire. His rounds seemed to miss the agents. Caden sent Susanoo zipping around the rumble left from all the looting. Susanoo zipped around a pile of ceiling tiles, up a shelf that was turned over in the perfect angle of a ramp. Susanoo flew through the air, hitting the agents that had crashed through the front door. The noise from Susanoo hitting the agent was drowning out when Caden lit him up with a blast of electricity. The agent screamed from the shock and then slumped over. Then Spinning top ricocheted off the agent, heading toward the agent still standing outside the door. At this time Trace's first round hit the first agent who had noticed them originally.

The agent who had rolled in front of the door had witnessed his fellow agent scream and crumple over after being hit with a spinning top. He dodged towards his fellow agent trying to regroup. Only to see him, the only other agent there falls back with a scream. He screamed as he was simultaneously hit from his right side and his back. He felt his body tense up and then everything was black.

With all three agents tazed and unconscious, Caden and Trace ran out of the pawnshop, both jumped into the air and issued the command: Mimic Power Skates. They engaged the speed boost and speed down central avenue heading towards the tunnels.

Several blocks down from the pawnshop, another squad of agents appears from one building. This time there were ten agents heading for them. Caden and Trace had to disengage Boost Mode so they wouldn’t fall trying to dodge tranq darts. A tranq grazed Trace's shoulder, leaving a small dose of tranquilizer in his system. It proved to be an effective compound because he started getting dizzy quickly. At the same time, Caden had to slide to dodge a volley of tranq darts from hitting him in his upper body. As he slid across the ground, Susanoo erupted from his launcher. It zipped towards the closest agents.

The agent hadn’t seen Susanoo coming towards him. As soon as Susanoo hit him he felt a wave of pain, then the world went black. Susanoo was making short work of the other agents. After the initial agent fell, Caden directed it towards the next closest agent. That agent fell without a scream. Then It moved on to the next attacker who crumpled into an unconscious heap. After this agent Susanoo went towards the next one. Susanoo hit the next agent. This time the agent didn’t drop to the ground. This was when Caden noticed the lights next to a lighting bolt on his launcher had all turned red.

With the realization dawning on Caden that his defense mechanism had run out of charge, he mashed the return button. With the command to come back, Susanoo zipped around all obstacles between it and its owner. Trace was quickly having trouble standing. He knew this feeling would make it hard to escape, but they must.

Trace lent a hand to Caden to help him up and said, “We really got to get out of here. I’m getting really woozy.”.

Caden grasped Traces' offered hand and said, “Agreed, Susanoo is out of charges and they outnumber us.”

Trace fought to stand while he said, “I think there is an entrance to one tunnel near that alleyway.”

Caden pulled himself up, almost throwing Trace off balance. Both of them turned towards the alleyway. Caden engaged his Boosters. Trace followed suit and engaged his Boosters. This left the agents scrambling to keep up. Each tranq that went flying toward its target hit a moment too late or a moment too soon if they over corrected. Eventually the agents would have landed a lucky shot, except for their clips were empty.

Caden got to the alley ways first with Trace close on his heels. They could hear shouts from the agents who had run out of tranq. This was when Trace stumbled and fell. His nanites kicked in barely in time to protect him from too much harm, but not quick enough for him to get some serious road rash.

Trace felt the cool coating of the nanites slowly peel away as the asphalt ate away his pants, shirt, and the nanites coating alike. He let a scream of pain out as the asphalt dug into his skin. The searing pain had a sobering effect on him, releasing enough adrenaline to erase the trace amount of tranquilizer in his system. Ellie issued a command for once saying, ” Get up Trace, get up fast. The path to rescue your brothers is close!”. Trace got back on his feet with great effort. Ellie directed nanites to change from the Power Skates.

Trace closed the distance to Caden with a great effort. Caden had turned the corner and opened up a utility hole waiting for Trace. Trace almost fell down the utility hole. Caden followed him down, closing the lid behind them.

Several agents made their way down the alleyway in pursuit. They stopped when they rounded the corner and there was no one to be seen. An agent with several extra badges entered the alleyway. About halfway down the alleyway he stopped and bent down. He picked some black material off the ground, just for it to dissolve like water through his fingers. The agent took a zip lock bag with crumble in it out of his pocket and scooped the black material up. Standing up he made his way down the alley to see how his agents failed him.

An agent said,”Boss, by the time we got over here they were long gone.”.

The lead agent asked,”Did you check down the manhole?”

Another agent asked,”Sir, Don’t they want us to use utility holes so it's inclusive?”.

The lead agent said,” Since, The Task Force makes the rules inclusively isn’t my concern.”.

The first agent said,” We checked the utility hole, but it is rusted shut.”

The lead agent took out the ziplock bag and said, “Take this and send it to the scientist. Also call for extra patrols and spread out to find them.”

Several blocks through the sewer Caden and Trace were anxiously hiding, Waiting to hear the agents come slushing down the passageway. Neither would risk saying a word for fear of missing the signs of their pursuers coming.

“Caden you think they're coming?”

“No, I think we are safe!”

Trace gestured down the sewer, `` I think the tunnels should be down that way.”

“Are you sure it's down that way and not back the way we came?”

“Based on the map we have I am almost 90 percent sure.”

Caden started shaking his head.

“What when you grabbed the map? It was torn really badly, plus we don’t know exactly where we are in the sewer system!”

“Yea, I know we didn’t exactly take measured steps to get down here,” Caden patted Trace on the back.

They left down the sewer tunnels, looking for where the unnatural tunnels meet the naterialy created tunnels. They continued walking around for about 30 minutes before realizing they were completely lost.

Caden kicked some loose concrete down the tunnel, creating a huge racket. “Dangit I don’t think we are going to find the tunnels, let alone find the parking garage or the convention center at this rate!” They both stood there for a couple of minutes with their heart in the bottom of their stomach. This was until they both looked at each other. They said in unison “The Nanites”.

Trace started craning his neck around looking for an electric box. Caden tapped him on the arm, “Look behind you.” Trace turned around and almost knocked himself senseless with a powerbox sticking out right behind his head. He gestured towards the electric box and asked Ellie, “Please find our location?” Ellie tried to comply with a very robotic voice, “Ok Trace,” as the nanite storage pack drained the rest of the way. A tendreal shot out and stopped halfway between him and the electrical box. He could visibly see the tendrail barely holding its shape, “everything ok, Ellie?”

Ellie responded, “After our incident earlier and the run in with the agents nanite supplies are low. Would you like me to reclaim nanites that are currently in use?” Trace rubbed his chin for a moment before glancing at Caden, “You mind?” With a shrug from Caden, Trace responded to Ellie by saying, “Go ahead.” With his command in place Ellie started working on reclaiming nanites.

The nanite launcher melted into a pile of nanite goo. A sudden chill caused goosebumps on both Caden and Trace as their nanite enhanced clothes turned completely black and started pulsating. The pulsating nanites started flowing down their clothes revealing the ragged clothes they had enhanced before. With most of the nanites that were still working available, Ellie executed Trace's last command. A spike rocketed out of the puddle of nanites piercing the electrical box. The ebony black spike pulsed as the puddle absorbed into it. With the puddle gone the spike started disappearing from the base towards the electrical box.

Ellie said, “It will take some time to complete the assigned task.” Caden and Trace each found a cleanish spot to sit down and wait. After waiting for what seemed like ages Caden launched Susanoo. As Susanoo spun around in a chaotic pattern several rats went skittering away from them. It displayed a hologram of a digital clock with 15 mins counting down. Caden exclaimed “ It's amazing what your nanites can do! If only we had an unlimited supply!” Trace cuckold to himself, “That would be amazing.”

By this time Caden and Trace had both glanced at the digital clock display a couple hundred times; with it only having moved a minute and 20 seconds. The sound of the footsteps echoed in the distance. Susanoo’s display changed from a digital display to a Flashing Red ‘Alert’. Caden and Trace leapt to their feet. Trace whispered,”Power Skates.” Susanoo flashed “Insufficient Nanites” across the display before taking off away from the noise, with the text changing into a minimap with a route partially mapped out, leading through the right tunnel. Susanoo started toward the mapped path with Caden hot on its hills. Trace glanced at the powerbox before darting after Caden and Susanoo.

As the pair followed Susanoo and their light faded away two agents entered the tunnel they used to occupy. The first agent looked around the tunnel. He noticed a wrapper that Caden had dropped out of his pocket earlier. He bent down and picked it up. “Hey Jane, look at this candy wrapper,” he exclaimed!

She came over and retrieved the wrapper from him. “How do we know this hasn’t been here for a while?” She asked john. He responded, “We will have to look for other signs”, she looked left and right. A piece of metal reflected Jane's flash light as she was searching for other signs of their targets. “Hey John, it looks like that powerbox has been broken into over there,” she pointed at the piece of metal with her flash light. John went over to the powerbox. As he stood back up from picking the metal up, his eyes noticed the electrical box the nanites had gone through earlier. “Hey Jane, it looks like this piece of metal came from this electrical box; It almost looks like it is missing a chunk,” he said. Jane walked over and opened the electrical box. The insides had been stripped of all wiring. John happily said, “Looks like we are on the right track. Now which direction did they go?” As he said that there was a noise down the left tunnel and a voice could be heard in the distance. Both of the agents ran down the left tunneling pursuit of their targets.

Farther down the right path Caden and Trace were still following the path that was continuously being mapped out by Susanoo and Ellie. Susanoo stopped next doorway. Trace asked Ellie, “Why did we stop?” “We have arrived at our destination,” said Ellie. Susanoo lept towards Caden. With an adapted movement of his hand Caden caught Susanoo; Holstering the battle top in one quick movement. At the same time the nanites start slithering down a broken ladder above. The nanites dripped down to the ground into a rather large puddle. The puddle started splitting into two streams, each stream going towards either Caden or Trace.

Upon reaching Caden and Trace the streams of nanites moved up their legs. As the nanites moved up their legs their outfit transformed back to their enhanced form. With all of the nanites returned to their original assignments the excess returned to the storage container on Traces storage backpack. Ellie informed them of the 25 percent increased number of nanites.

Seeing the ladder above them, Caden launched Susanoo to knock it down. This was both a success and a bad idea. The ladder came crashing down right where Trace stood. Trace barely dodged out of the way before the broken ladder landed where he had just stood. “Hey watch out,” yelled Trace. “Sorry,” said Caden. Ellie chimed in, “Parking lot above you. Please hurry, agents are a few tunnels over and closing in.”

Trace being close went up the ladder first. Caden followed Trace up the ladder. It was a slow process climbing up the ladder with it being so badly broken down. Once they reached the top of the ladder it didn’t take longer for the nanites to deconstruct the latch on the manhole cover. The rust didn’t take much longer than the latch to deconstruct.

With access to the parking garage Trace issued the command to deconstruct the cars. Ellie set the nanites devouring each of the cars. After the cars were deconstructed the wiring inside the building was set to next. Then the security systems were utilized for materials. It took 15 minutes for Ellie to process the design for a working vehicle from all the vehicles that had been broken down.With the designs for a basic vehicle finished Trace started working out upgrades. The first upgrade was to provide the same boosting ability that the power skates had. The second upgrade was to provide storage tanks for extra nanites. The third upgrade gave a supercharged computer to allow for greater functionality. The final upgrade was nanite armor which can adapt to many different situations, providing both offensive and defensive capability. With all preparations complete it was time for Trace and Caden to take on their biggest challenge yet. To save their families.