《Auspicious Apocalypse》 01 - Just Another Day in the Life I hate my life. Maybe. Get up. Shower. Brush teeth. Dress for work. It''s the same thing, day after day. When I step back from my first-world problems, I can see I''ve got it good. I have a roof over my head, entertainment, disposable income, food--and far too much if I''m being honest. I have a huge list of positives, including health, friends, and loving family. Then I arrive at my job. The compromise that puts the roof over my head, food on the table, and affords me a mostly reliable car to get to said job. That''s when I start to forget about my happy list of positives. I know I shouldn''t give in to the darkness, but one by one, the calls begin to steal my sanity. ¡°But, isn''t wifi wireless?¡± she asks. I could look at the help ticket to find it, to better understand the problem, but I don''t bother. This call isn''t likely to last long. ¡°Yes, just like when you use a radio to listen to music. You still have to plug the radio in, don''t you?¡± I try. ¡°I''ve had lots of radios I didn''t have to plug in. You''re not making any sense,¡± came the reply, ¡°I want to speak to your supervisor!¡± she demands. I was betting I had a minute before the tantrum started. Her voice sounded on the younger side of sixty. ¡°Yes ma''am,¡± I say cheerfully and shunt her back into the call queue. The system immediately kicks me a new call. Here we go again.
On my way home after work, I find myself thinking about the days when I gave it everything I had. I wanted to laugh at my enthusiastic younger self. Giving everything to any company was just masochistic. Now the only thing keeping me going was an instinctive rejection of doing shoddy work. That and what my wife called OCD, which I always refuted heartily. I liked things done right, but I wasn''t a perfectionist. I also only applied myself to needful things. The damn procedural manuals were a perfect example. I took on the task of updating, revising, and expanding them back when I saw a need. Something my boss had praised me for after rubber-stamping my work. He stopped even reading them beyond a cursory glance after the first couple. I assumed at the time it was because he trusted me. It was a lot of upfront work, but it made my coworkers'' daily lives easier. Some of them appreciated it. Some had the nerve to whine about changes to the format. A big chunk of them just didn''t care. That was the first time I had the sobering realization most of them had only pretended to read it during training and just went by the auto-prompts. The auto prompts which only covered the most basic of problems and were why we had the manual at all. No matter how they felt about it at first though, they soon took all the changes for granted, as if they''d always been that way. The real kick in the teeth was now, somehow, everyone knows it''s my ¡®job¡¯ and they assume I''ll take care of it. I didn''t get so much as a hollow title for it, just an increase in duties beyond the scope of my job description. If I didn''t like doing the manuals far more than my ¡®real¡¯ work, I''d have walked away long ago. The manuals are a digitized web interface with a database back end. At least, they are now. When I started they were a chaotic array of papers in binders and folders scattered and tucked away in various locations within the building. Now, getting to play with them in their newly digitized form let me put my coding skills to work. A bit anyway. Since it isn''t officially part of my job, I have to mostly work in ¡®spare¡¯ moments. To get those I have to squeeze out my quota of callers for the morning as quickly as I can. That usually leaves me with just enough time to make progress, but not enough time to do anything that would impress anyone who matters. They don''t care about things like efficiency, clean, well-documented code, a clear and friendly user interface, or other basic, but vital factors. If I was being honest, they didn''t seem to care about anything but who you were friends with. Something I''d caught on about far too late. I''ve been trying for years to get one of the positions in our development group. I jumped through the hoops, paid for a professional resume, and was told I needed a degree. I had one, even if it was an AS from the local community college. When I pointed out my degree was even in computer science, I was told it wasn''t good enough.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. I accepted their answer. To me, it made sense. The company wanted well-educated people manning its most critical systems. So I kept going, driving forward with my education. When I got my Bachelor''s the company was suffering from the poor economy and was on a hiring freeze. When I started seeing new faces in the development group, I knew something was up. The company-wide freeze was real, but I knew exceptions were being made for critical areas. Thankfully, a secretary I shared the same lunch break with let me in on what was happening. The department manager was angry over my work on the manuals. Apparently, only his people could do anything requiring HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. The fact I had dared meant he wouldn''t hire me if I were the last available worker in the entire country. I felt nauseous thinking about it. I was stuck. Trapped in a dead-end job at a company where a Bachelor''s got you nothing if the guy with only a certificate running the department didn''t like you. The cherry on top was when I also found out my boss got a bag of golf clubs and a country club dinner for all his ¡®hard work¡¯ on the project he had almost nothing to do with. So where does that leave me? Stuck, in a dead-end job. One I couldn''t afford to quit if I wanted to keep my problems on a first world basis. My thoughts turn to home as it comes into view. It''s a ranch-style single-story, sporting a bowling alley of a hallway connecting the bedrooms in back, with the living areas in front all walled off from each other. I remember being not all that impressed when we first saw the place. It''s definitely not the multi-story open floor plan we thought we were looking for. Tellina, on the other hand, saw the potential for it to be something special. It took quite a while to get it closer to Tellina''s vision and a lot of our own elbow grease on our days off. Our house had gradually transformed into a comfortable, friendly home. Thinking about that, I started to feel a little better. Work was still a nightmare, but my wife and I had replaced every bit of flooring, paint, and light socket until we felt comfortable. It was hard not to feel pride looking at it, especially since we did all the work ourselves, with not so much as a single outside contractor. ¡°Hi, sweetheart, I''m home!¡± I say as I put the garage door down and enter the house. Ginger, our little brown Boston Terrier, is wiggling and dancing as if I''ve been gone for months., Of course, I must squat down and pet and skritch and rub her all over. ¡°Welcome back,¡± she replies, ¡°What''s wrong?¡± It must show on my face, I guess. ¡°Just work again.¡± ¡°When are you going to tell them where to shove their ¡®advancement opportunities¡¯?¡± ¡°Only after I find somewhere else willing to take a chance and actually hire me,¡± I said. ¡°You wouldn''t want me to just be unemployed, would you?¡± ¡°Not a chance,¡± she tells me, ¡°A bird in the hand and all that.¡± ¡°I am beginning to wonder,¡± I mutter. ¡°Are you going to fix the dryer tonight?¡± she asks. I would rather mess with all the LEDs I have managed to scavenge, but dry clothes are admittedly a much higher priority. ¡°I can''t promise to fix it, but I''ll see what I can do,¡± I answered. ¡°You know what I meant,¡± she said, irritation becoming apparent. ¡°Let me get changed and I''ll get right on it,¡± I said. The dryer has randomly stopped rotating again. I suspect I know what the problem is, and I don''t know if I can fix it this time. It has this crazy mechanical switch that periodically reverses the rotation of the dryer. It is really quite clever. Unfortunately, it relies on a lever arm constantly pressing against a spinning wheel. The wheel has gone out-of-round and the lever arm has worn a lot of material off at the point of contact. It''s the kind of thing I would love to have a 3D printer to replace the part, but I doubt any normal plastic would last long. Love me as much as she does, Tellina probably wouldn''t enjoy me setting up a metal foundry in the back yard to address that issue. She''s of the opinion I''m a touch on the unlucky slash accident-prone side, so molten metals are right out. I have patched where the lever meets the contacts inside the switch twice now, and I fear no more patching will be effective. Since the switch is unavailable anywhere except used on ebay, I am guessing we are probably looking at a full-motor replacement. A used switch or a used motor would just buy us some time, at best, so new is the only real way to go. If only money were no object¡­ Ahh, how I love this daydream. Palm trees and beaches, umbrella drinks and lounge chairs. And hammocks. Definitely hammocks. As I change into working-around-the-house clothes and grab a few tools, my mind shifts to the task at hand. Once I am elbow-deep in the process, staying focused on the dryer doesn''t last long. I''ve taken this thing apart often enough, it has become routine. My mind wants to indulge in one of my staple fantasies. This time it''s the one where I am accidentally thrown into a portal and find myself alone in the phlogiston. Weird that I''m drawn to the very beginning of the adventure, instead of toward the end. I see myself waking up on a spelljammer, pulled aboard in a state of suspended animation, unconscious for untold years or even centuries. I''ve kinda mapped out the progression of the next decades, growing in power as a mage and eventually finding my way home. It''s the most isekai of my fantasies. The one common thread in most of my daydreams is how I fix this house. Whether I come back with magic, money, or technology, I turn this little home into something it couldn''t realistically be otherwise. From simple things, like replacing the siding, to adding a huge, complex labyrinth of underground facilities underneath a basement which currently doesn''t even exist, I always end up changing the place into something I would love to have. Even though most of these scenarios end in me buying other, better properties in different locations, I still take the time and effort to upgrade this one first. A remarkably fine line exists between love and hate, you know. It makes me wonder: How do I feel about this place? I hate this house. Maybe. Honestly, I love this home. 02 - Home Sweet Home ¡°Well, it looks like we need to order the new motor,¡± I tell my wife. ¡°Great,¡± she replies with dripping sarcasm. ¡°I¡¯ve been looking just in case, and I found one for about a third less,¡± she informs me, ¡°It should get here next week if I order it today.¡± ¡°Go ahead,¡± I say, ¡°I¡¯ll put it mostly back together for now, then I¡¯ll head out to the garage.¡± ¡°Would you check the porch first, please?¡± she requests, ¡°We should get a package today or tomorrow.¡± ¡°Sure thing.¡± As I look around this home I hate to love, I find myself tripping down memory lane. We looked for over a year once we finally scraped together enough money for a down payment on a house. We had a long list of ¡°perfect¡± features we wanted in our new place. Every weekend and many evenings we drove all over town, searching for the right combination of spacious and nice and affordable. Mostly we were leaning toward two or three stories with three-car garages and walkout basements, ideally on as large a lot as possible. Basically pie in the sky. Mostly they were out of our price range. The ones we found in our price range got progressively scarier as the amount fell. I finally put a foot down and convinced Tellina we had no business even looking at homes in essentially a list of neighborhoods. I understood her drive; she held out hope against hope each one we looked at would be the fixer-upper we could be happy owning, three rules of real estate be damned. Then we looked at this place. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with it. Compared with our tastes, it was plain vanilla. The neighborhood was nice, but the house itself didn¡¯t tick off half the items on our list. It was all one level and without a basement, walk-out, or otherwise. It was fully carpeted, and Tellina¡¯s allergies meant it all would have to go. It was just at the edge of affordability, and we would not be able to pay to have any work done for us. We took this plain-looking house and turned it into something we could be happy living in. Looking around and mentally cataloging, I see we have changed every floor surface, almost every wall surface, replaced every electrical outlet, every light fixture, every switch, and every appliance but the central air and heat. We didn¡¯t do it to ¡®flip¡¯ the house, either. We did it to make it ours. We succeeded. Not only did we succeed, but we did it all by ourselves. Well, we didn¡¯t, and couldn¡¯t have actually hired anyone else to do it for us, at least. It¡¯s a good thing we have some good friends. ¡°Nope, no package yet,¡± I yell from the front doorway. ¡°I¡¯ll be in the garage if you need anything!¡± Along the way, we have found and fixed hidden water damage in two places. We found termite damage in three different places. The one in the kitchen eating area we had to brace the ceiling and remove then replace the whole lower half of the south wall. I remember stepping on the two by fours and watching them compress and bounce back as if they were made of sponge instead of wood. The termites had hollowed all those boards out to almost nothing left and none of it showed from the outside. Now, not only does nothing show from the outside, but I absolutely know it is sturdy, safe, and sound all the way through. Unlike the damn kitchen floor. I searched and researched and figured out exactly how to lay tile correctly. Everything I discovered said the layers are sub-floor, then a base of portland cement, then backer board, then more portland cement, then tile, and finally the grout. So that¡¯s exactly what we did. I had no idea all subfloors are not created equal. Everyone apparently assumes a subfloor is a layer of plywood or particleboard attached to the floor joists. Ours is old-style planks, which I think is much cooler in a lot of ways. I¡¯m a big fan of solid wood versus thin pieces of wood glued together. Unfortunately, between the spaces separating the planks and the different flexing of boards right next to each other, it plays havoc with a tile floor. I really wish I could go back and just add a thin layer of plywood to tie it all together before all those other layers. The only way now is to tear it all out and start over again. Now, where did I put that next light? Ah, there it is. My workbench is a mess. I need to put some clutter away before I get started. Picking up the crackled remains of the iPad screen I am hoping I can replace, I can¡¯t help but remember the old back door after a rock from mowing the lawn contacted it at a relatively high velocity.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. When the sliding glass back door shattered, Tellina wanted french doors installed instead. The difference was only a small amount of money, so we went to the hardware store and drove home with doors lashed into the back of the truck. Thank goodness we have friends willing to pitch in and help us when we need it. I remember seeing the storm clouds on the horizon and wondering if we were going to get done in time. When we found the termite damage there, I knew we wouldn¡¯t. Again, the damage was extensive and hidden. If it were just Tellina and I, tears would have flowed freely. Between my friends and the internet, we figured out what to do. By the time we were done and had the doors installed, we had replaced thirty feet of double two-by-twelve end joists and sill plate. I could not have told you what part of a house was a sill plate before then. I¡¯d been around construction before, but never really had to pay much attention to what things are called. When it¡¯s yours, the feelings about what you need to know and remember change, I guess. The desire to own tools also comes with it, for me, at least. I have my own set of house jacks because of that weekend. I¡¯ve had to jack up the house three times now, and I need to do it a fourth. We have cracks forming in places on the walls and ceiling. The pattern they¡¯re forming is telling me the structure is settling unevenly. The laser level I thought I needed so long ago is finally going to earn its keep. I am going to end up jacking the house up again to shim it until it¡¯s all level again. Is it weird that I am more than willing to tackle the entire task from start to finish all by myself? I seem to have spent my life so far learning a passable bit about a wide range of topics. I wonder what it takes to qualify as a Jack-of-All-Trades? I can do general construction, electrical wiring, plumbing, electronics, auto mechanics, welding, landscaping, bricklaying, woodworking, carving¡­ I feel like I am missing a bunch of things I am not remembering. Since I can do them all, does it mean I qualify? I am being honest with myself here, so I am thinking not. Despite the fact I have done all these things, I know I am no expert in any of them. Truly, I have mastered none. Much like my work with coding, I realize. I am getting myself depressed, here. Shifting back to a positive gear, I remember the excitement we felt when we discovered hardwood floors under one bedroom¡¯s carpet. We had the rest of the bedrooms down to bare wood by the end of the next day and would have stripped the rest of the house, had any of it been hardwood floored also. We didn¡¯t let the decent carpet we pulled up go to waste, either. Tellina¡¯s grandmother got to replace the old shag carpets of her bedrooms with a nice, beige pile. It took her a while to get used to not having a gold shag in her bedroom, and all the bedrooms being the same color also threw her a bit, we think. I remember renting drum sanders and edgers, then staying up all night long to have the equipment turned back in by eight o¡¯clock the next morning, for each room. Then came polyurethane to seal it all up. Every bedroom now has between seven and nine coats of the clear coating, sanded between each and every layer to bond firmly and permanently. We weren¡¯t afraid to tackle nearly anything, no matter whether we knew what we were doing or not. To be truthful with myself, we mostly didn¡¯t know what we were doing. By far the most dangerous, most stupid, and most illegal thing I did was during the great power outage. We had no power at all for days. Something like 95% of the city was completely black at one point. So what did I do then? Why, swap out the fuse box for a circuit breaker panel, of course. I can still remember the fear I felt for those thick utility wires as I moved as quickly as I could to put the new box in place before the power came back on. It was two o¡¯clock in the morning and I just knew some idiot was going to spike their generator power down the line, or worse, our whole neighborhood would get power back in the middle of me touching one of those massive lines. I had to sit and calm myself for quite a while in the nearly complete darkness when I could finally take my hands away from the main breaker. I took my time getting the rest of the circuits wired and connected correctly. Yet with all this work and effort, with all these changes both cosmetic and structural, I feel like there is so much more to do. It is overwhelming. I need to replace and paint a bunch of siding since that thrice-cursed woodpecker decided a whole corner of the house needed holes. Lots of holes. I could understand if there were insects infesting the area or something? No such excuse. I have no idea what his major problem was, I¡¯m just glad he left. The backyard fence is falling down. It¡¯s chain-link, which I dislike, and I would far rather replace it with wood. If I could have my dream come true, I¡¯d replace it with stone, to be truthful. Such is most certainly dreaming, since I can¡¯t even afford to build with only wood. Even if I do all the work myself, as I most certainly would. The driveway is cracking. We can¡¯t afford to do anything there, either. Certainly not the cut flagstones I would love to lay down instead of concrete. In the ideal place of my fantasy mind, I have taken the bricks off the facade and used them to trim the driveway and sidewalks, while replacing the surfaces and sides of the house with quarried stone. One of my other frequent fantasies begins to intrude now. The one where I have access to advanced nanotechnology and I use it in a personal capacity to improve our home. Most of the workbench is clear again. I really want to work on this LED project, but the shattered iPad screen reminds me I have put off finishing it for far too long. Tellina saved up for a long time to buy the expensive device. Seeing again the look on her face when she dropped it, I know which to choose. I absolutely hate to see her tears. With a sigh, I start assembling the tools and parts I¡¯ll need. I think I¡¯ll put on a podcast while I work. I¡¯ll also need to figure out where in the process I left off. Now, where was I? 03 - All the Room at the Bottom I remember I had started to put on a podcast. Maybe it will help keep my focus on fixing this tablet instead of spending so much time on fantasies. I put my earbuds in and tell the phone to play whatever is next on my list. I ignore the opening commercial and the opening music before my draw drops a bit: Today¡¯s topic is nanotechnology. It seems like a fortuitous coincidence. Isn¡¯t this guy normally all about software development? ¡°...she''s working on her Ph.D. in nanotechnology and all things small¡­¡± So she¡¯s an expert. My curiosity is piqued. ¡°I noticed there is some sort of controversy, and you¡¯ve been challenged online about nanotechnology not actually being a thing. I¡¯ve searched the web, and it definitely comes up in the results as a thing. What¡¯s going on there?¡± the host inquired. ¡°An awful lot of research projects are going to have to change their names if it isn¡¯t actually a thing,¡± the guest laughed. ¡°I think whatever controversy there is has arisen more out of terminology than whether the field exists or not.¡± ¡°As one scientist said recently, ¡®The term is used to get grant funding, a lot of grant funding,¡¯ and those kinds of compromises have muddied an already difficult field,¡± she finished. I couldn¡¯t agree more. As I try to re-focus on the electronics at hand, I tune out a bit as the discussion moves on to what gold looks like as suspended nanoparticles instead of the macro-substance with which we are all familiar. Surprise! It doesn¡¯t look gold-colored at all. To be fair, most software developers listening would have no idea it wouldn¡¯t still look like gold. So far, she¡¯s only talking about nanoparticles. It irks me this is what ¡®scientists¡¯ believe the field of nanotechnology to be about. The very notion ignores the ¡®technology¡¯ part of the word entirely. Nanoparticles are merely a subset of nanomaterials research, which usually involves nothing ¡®nano¡¯ until the final product, and even then, not always. ¡°In science fiction, we often see stories where these nano-things go wild and reproduce themselves until there is nothing left. How much danger are we in from something similar?¡± asked the host. Everyone just has to go there: The infamous ¡®gray goo¡¯ scenario. ¡°That idea is based on the concept of being able to create tiny robots who can, in turn, create more tiny robots,¡± our guest begins. ¡°Most people think these will look like transformers or droids, but just shrunk into these tiny, tiny scales.¡± A chuckle escapes me as the visual of Optimus riding a blood cell pops into my brain. I am curious how she¡¯ll continue. ¡°What really happens is more like a collection of molecules working more or less together. In 2016 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to scientists who had created the first molecular motor. While they functioned like motors after a fashion, they didn¡¯t look anything like what a typical person would consider a motor,¡± she lectured. This is about the point where each researcher shows their roots. The chemists talk about chemicals, the bio-chemists talk about organics, the physicists talk about electron microscopes. Almost no one seems to get it. We¡¯re talking about machines here. You need to know about how all those mediums affect each other and interact, but it must be approached as if you are an engineer. If we ever want to get anywhere, that is. It turns out she¡¯s a cancer researcher, so her primary nano-focus is on nanoparticles. It makes sense; the nanoparticles of specific elements can be excited by external forces to damage just the cells to have scooped them up. Tailoring the particle surfaces to be gobbled by cancerous cells allows the cancer to be killed without harming the patient. Much better than chemotherapy, if it works. ¡°...the conversion of energy is never perfect, which applies to nanobots as well¡­¡± she continued. She¡¯s giving what I feel like is a valid argument, but not really on a practical level. I think she is sensible and knows her field, but her field is nanoparticles, not nanotechnology. The argument I like the best is the one about a car. Saying any nanobot can go wild and consume the planet is about the same as saying if you leave your car in a forest it will learn to forage for its fuel so it can survive in the wild. We wouldn¡¯t expect a space shuttle to cruise to the bottom of the ocean with equal ease, so why expect our machines to behave completely differently at random? Mostly I think it¡¯s because of invisibility. In our society, if you can¡¯t see it, you can¡¯t trust it. It probably came about from the cold war, if it wasn¡¯t in place sooner. We learned to fear radiation because radiation killed you without seeing it coming. Fearing the word ¡®nuclear,¡¯ whether they can pronounce it or not, has impaired rational thought and replaced it with: Nuclear bad. Between fear and a desire to produce plutonium for bombs, our efforts at clean power from anything related to radioactive isotopes have been practically doomed. There I go; building steam for the thorium rant again.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Uh-oh. I hate it when I drop these tiny screws. It¡¯s going to take a magnet to find it now. ¡°...if you want to create a life form, but using inorganic materials like metals, you¡¯re going to have even more problems than currently living organisms.¡± I caught the guest saying. While technically true, I think, it seems like she is off base and speaking out of her expert zone. Of course, I could be wrong. There¡¯s the screw! Whew. It¡¯s hard enough to repair these things as is without losing a screw. Or leaving one loose. I can imagine the groans I would get from saying that one out loud. I¡¯m so funny. Where was I? Ah, yes: Nanotechnology. One of my absolute favorites. Something like twenty years ago, I was following the nanotech news fanatically. Nearly every week amazing announcements were hitting the news. I quickly learned it took a certain level of geekdom to actually consider such news items as anything but in the ¡°Who cares?¡± category. Still, I was excited. I could extrapolate the advancements and see an amazing future fast approaching. Various predictions by many ¡°experts¡± of the time mostly agreed the time of nanotech was not an ¡°if,¡± but rather a ¡°When?¡± It seemed the prime variable was how much effort and money was put into research right then, to produce progress later. Had we done so with gusto, we would be seeing amazing results by now. Then the term was absconded and corrupted. Since it was ¡®The Next Big Thing,¡¯ everyone and their sixth cousin wanted in on the action. To me, nanotechnology has always meant machines built at the molecular scale. To the world at large, it was ¡®tiny stuff that does magic.¡¯ To the corporations it came to mean, ¡®anything with a final product measured in a thousand nanometers or less.¡¯ It is a travesty. It became one of my rant triggers, like nuclear energy. Many things which would once have used the term micro-something now started calling themselves nano-somethings. No finesse, no nano-scale devices or mechanisms, just some bulk material smashed into barely nano-sized pieces. It would be kind of like wanting a remote camera drone for your birthday and getting a field of house-sized boulders instead. Practically the same, right? I let out a huff of exasperated air. Just thinking about it torques me in ways I find difficult to explain. The drone versus boulder analogy seems like a pretty good example, though. I wonder if I can expand on it, or even do better? Oh! How about using lego-like blocks? If a hydrogen atom were the equivalent of a one-pip block, then blocks of various sizes are not a horrible approximation of atoms. Put a few blocks together and you have molecules. This could work. I grab the phone to do some image searching, all thoughts of the poor iPad on the table before me cast aside for now. The podcast is already wrapping up, which is good, since I¡¯m done with it. So, taking the hydrogen as a 1x1 block, it¡¯s 37 picometres, while the big, old cesium is 265 picometres, which makes it a 7x7 block, roughly. Double-checking more internet images I find, yes, there are some absolutely amazing machines out there made of these kinds of blocks. Just a one-meter cube is more than enough to build some phenomenal mechanisms. So, the internet tells me a current standard fourteen-nanometer transistor is about 67 silicon atoms wide. Those would be roughly 3x3 blocks each, so a single transistor would have its smallest features measure about 1.6 meters in block scale. That¡¯s getting up to the height of typical people! That¡¯s a lot of blocks just to make the smallest feature on the whole chip! If 14 nanometers equals 160 centimeters, that¡¯s close enough to fudge and just say 1 nanometer is 10 centimeters in block scale for estimating. Or better yet, every nanometer converts to ten actual 1x1 plastic blocks of 8 millimeters each. Doing the math backward, 67 3x3 silicon blocks measure about 1.6 meters. That will work. A few searching clicks later, I find a video of a , from macro to nano levels. A pause and measure moment shows it is about a three-millimeter chip. Continuing the zoom, the resemblance to a well-planned city is uncanny. Ah! There¡¯s an excellent frame showing the main street-like pathways measure a single micron wide; one thousand nanometers. Now we¡¯re getting somewhere. Suddenly, I feel cheated. The video doesn¡¯t continue to the next level of zoom! It just says transistors are 20 nanometers in size and ends. That¡¯s not quite what I¡¯m looking for, and it doesn¡¯t sound quite right, either. Then I find information on more modern chips. If I am reading correctly, a 10 nanometer process produces a logic gate of 48 nanometers by 36 nanometers. Converting to plastic blocks, they take up 3.8 meters by 2.8 meters, almost the size of a small car. At a thousand nanometers to a micron, and a thousand microns to a millimeter, that three-millimeter chip in blocks would be a city of 240 kilometers per side. That¡¯s about the size of the southern tip of California. Much bigger than the small city size I was guessing. The scale difference is truly mind-boggling. If a neat machine could fit in a box I could carry in my arms, then a whole block-made computer might be the size of a house. The old proposition of a 200-nanometer size for a standard nanoblock is just about the right size. In this new, relatable plastic block scale, it would be a cube of sixteen meters per side. Imagining all the complexity that could be built into each one is daunting. A city¡¯s worth of house-sized mechanical computers could fit in less than a one-millimeter chip. THIS is why dropping house-sized rocks in a field and calling it nanotech steams me so. I¡¯ve been nursing a pet conspiracy theory about all this confusion for a while now. It involves where I feel the technology should really be by now, where it would be if we had put the time and effort and money into it the concept deserves. Tellina rolls her eyes when I get to going too much on the topic. She concedes I have points, but honestly, why am I putting so much effort into this? Wouldn¡¯t doing the dishes be more productive? I must concede to how ¡®right¡¯ she is. Still, if some rich philanthropist had decided to put their fortune into a gamble which could change the world, why would a Manhattan Project-scale effort be such a stretch of the imagination? I¡¯ve looked into what they did in World War II. It is not unreasonable for someone who could buy Lanai or eliminate malaria to instead focus on a secret project to bring nanotechnology to the world. There are no breadcrumbs I can find to indicate anyone has actually put any effort into such a massive undertaking, but isn¡¯t that the point of keeping it secret? Dang it. I need to get this iPad repaired, especially since I am only now remembering Tellina and her parents are leaving early in the morning for the weekend. It would be a nice surprise to be able to give it to her tonight. I love to give her reasons to smile. Focus, dang it! 04 - That Fateful Morning The next morning sees me kissing Tellina goodbye before sunrise. If not for the extra shift I am being forced to take tomorrow, I would be leaving as well. They¡¯re all going for her grand-aunt¡¯s ninetieth birthday celebration this evening. With all the travel and gathering restrictions going on, they almost canceled completely. If they weren¡¯t staying through tomorrow to help her sort through estate matters, the trip wouldn¡¯t even have been a continued consideration. I don¡¯t expect them back until Monday, perhaps Tuesday without me along. I am so tired. I think I¡¯ll lay down on the sofa for a while. I have a lot I¡¯d like to get done today, but there¡¯s no hurry, really. Maybe I can re-join the nice dream I was having about flying. In no time at all, my phone awakens me with Tellina¡¯s ringtone. ¡°Hello?¡± ¡°Turn the TV on and go to the news!¡± she exclaims. Something big must be going down. ¡°Hang on,¡± I say, ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± ¡°Black boxes are showing up on everyone¡¯s doorsteps!¡± she says, ¡°Is there one on ours?¡± ¡°Hang on,¡± I say, grabbing the remote first. I turn on the sound system and the television. Why did I never finish programming the one-button power? I can¡¯t remember why. Oh, well. Opening the front door, a large black cube is sitting a few feet from the storm door, right in the middle of the walkway. What¡¯s going on here? ¡°Turn on channel three.¡± I hear from Tellina. She echos my thoughts quite frequently. Sometimes with a supernatural-seeming ability. Time to switch the source on the television over to the antenna. Thinking of the antenna mode on the TV reminds me yet again of the home-made setup in our attic. I¡¯m quite proud of my work in creating it. Our reception is fantastic now. ¡°...again, there is no official word yet on the origin or contents of these black cubes. They have been delivered this morning by flying drones to every front door in the city. City officials are advising citizens not to touch the cubes. We go now, live, to Sally Forthright, on the scene at City Hall.¡± This is insane. Drones? Autonomous Drones? Delivering to everyone? Our city is about 180,000 people. Since not all of them will have a house, let¡¯s just guess it is something like 100,000 boxes. They were all delivered this morning. How long did they take? Hours? If each delivery averages only one minute, which seems like not nearly long enough, it is still something like seventy drone-days of effort. Just how many drones were there? ¡°It sounds like everyone is clueless about what¡¯s going on.¡± Tellina comments. ¡°The news says it¡¯s happening all over the country, and nobody knows anything.¡± Theresa¡¯s voice says. ¡°Do you think they are bombs?¡± inquired Tellina. ¡°Yes!¡± came Theresa¡¯s reply. ¡°What do you think, Thomas?¡± Tellina asks me. ¡°I think I have no idea. This is freaky for sure, but bombs seem unlikely to me¡± I said.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°Why not?¡± came the dual-voiced reply. ¡°It¡¯s a waste of effort, for one thing. Someone has gone to an awful lot of trouble to deliver these so quickly. If they really wanted to deliver bombs, the roof would be easier and would go unnoticed for longer.¡± I said. ¡°So what? It¡¯s a gift?¡± Tellina said, incredulous tone included. ¡°Could be, I suppose. There¡¯s no bow, though.¡± Oops. Apparently humor is off the agenda this morning. ¡°I am going to get a closer look.¡± ¡°No! Don¡¯t!¡± she implores. I can hear her concern for me. She¡¯s right. This really could be anything. Most of the things I can list off the top of my head are definitely on the not-good list. Still, it¡¯s an awful lot of effort, just to deliver them. The television grabs our attention again. It appears the boxes have been delivered all over Europe. This must be world-wide. Could it be? It would definitely fall into the too good to be true category. Even so, could it really be? Could my wild conspiracy daydream be actually true? It certainly seemed insane enough. ¡°I need to look at this more closely.¡± ¡°What do you mean, ¡®need¡¯?¡± she asks. She caught the word. I know better, honestly. She catches everything. ¡°I mean: Need. I need to get a close look. If they are what I think they might be¡­¡± ¡°What? Wait! You don¡¯t mean that crazy theory of yours?¡± Her tone tells me what she thinks of my ¡°theory¡±. ¡°It would fit,¡± I say. ¡°I¡¯ve got to know.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s do it this way: Can you hear me, Theresa?¡± I asked. ¡°Yes, I can hear you and I think you should stay away from that box!¡± I can hear the concern. I know she wants the best for all of us. ¡°I¡¯m not agreeing to let you blow yourself to kingdom come by voiding a lethal warranty!¡± You see, this is why I love this girl. Well, one of many reasons, really. Still, she gets me. She knows I have voided many warranties in my time, and not always successfully. Poking me with such a phrase hits me closer to home than a non-geek argument would. I can tell she thinks I want to indulge my inner tinker self. While she is definitely correct, there is a lot more to this. ¡°I will be careful. You know I¡¯m good with gadgets,¡± I told her. ¡°Really? With alien boxes from outer space? You¡¯ve got no business going anywhere near it!¡± This is not going all that well. Time to shift gears. ¡°We have no idea where they¡¯re from. They could easily be from any number of terrestrial sources.¡± ¡°Bull! There¡¯s barely a handful of possibilities and you know it! Are you actually listening to yourself? ¡®Terrestrial sources,¡¯ really?¡± The air quotes in her voice are a nice touch, I think. ¡°Turn around!¡± I hear her say, ¡°We need to go back!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you dare!¡± I sharply reply. ¡°You can¡¯t get back in time to help me, and Aunt Claire is going to need your help now more than ever. The sooner you can get there, the more you will be able to help her.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about me,¡± I continue as they are pondering, ¡°Everything I find out while you¡¯re traveling will only help you that much more when you get there.¡± ¡°You¡¯re a damned fool if you even try to touch that thing.¡± my father-in-law inputs. He is generally a man of few words. ¡°You already knew I was a fool,¡± I say, ¡°And you also know I¡¯m not an idiot and I can be very, very careful.¡± ¡°Just stay inside and see what the television says,¡± came Tellina¡¯s pleading reply. ¡°No. I told you. I need this,¡± I hope she can hear my resolve. ¡°If it starts to seem dangerous I will cease and desist. I promise.¡± ¡°You stubborn moron!¡± ¡°Yes, dear. I love you too,¡± I reply, ¡°I will be as careful as I can. You guys stay safe, and I will let you know what I find out.¡± All three of them know my stubborn streak. From my perspective, it is usually just a tendency to mean what I say. It goes along with saying what I mean, nicely, I think. ¡°Thomas,¡± I hear Theresa say, ¡°If you won¡¯t stay away from it, at least run away if it seems the least bit threatening. Please?¡± ¡°I will, definitely,¡± I answer. ¡°Thomas?¡± I hear Tellina say. ¡°Yes, dear?¡± ¡°You be careful,¡± she says through a cracking voice. I know the tears are coming. I need to go before they come for me too. ¡°I will,¡± I say with sincerity, ¡°I love you.¡± ¡°We love you too,¡± comes Theresa¡¯s voice. Tellina probably can¡¯t speak now. ¡°Thank you. You guys be careful, and I¡¯ll talk to you later,¡± I say. ¡°Make it sooner than later!¡± she replies. Have you ever noticed hanging up phone calls is unreal in movies and television shows? One of them would have just hung up at the end of the information part of the call. If someone hung up on me before I said ¡®bye¡¯ or whatever, I would be quite angry. ¡°Will do,¡± I answer, as I punch the hang-up button. I know they¡¯re right. I know this is a crazy, lame-brained idea. Downright dumb. As I move back to the porch, I take a deep, nervous breath. Contemplating the alien object on my front porch, words come to my mouth unbidden... ¡°Let¡¯s dance.¡± 05 - Now What? It¡¯s intimidating. But why? Was it because I know thousands of these boxes showed up overnight? Because of the massive support such an effort would have required to supply the whole city? Because the event was repeated millions of times across the planet? Well, I didn¡¯t know for certain yet, but it seemed the anecdotal evidence from the news would support such an extrapolation. I¡¯m using too many big words again. I must be nervous. Duh. I¡¯m almost within arm¡¯s reach of an unidentified frigging object. Well within ray gun range, without a doubt. While I will not completely discount the possibility of an alien invasion, it¡¯s really only because the tiniest possibility is still a possibility, no matter how improbable. No, I think it¡¯s far more likely this is home-grown. How weird would it be? If my dumb theory, a theory of only another remote possibility combined with a fantastic daydream were actually coming true before my eyes? It¡¯s almost too much to grasp. So, what now? It looks plain. It¡¯s just black. I wonder if there¡¯s more detail up close. Only one way to find out. Gaah! What am I doing? Stalling, I think. I am thinking of clich¨¦s, now. He who hesitates is lost. No guts, no glory. Then there¡¯s the one I have used many times in my life: I¡¯d rather be damned for doing than damned for not. I¡¯m likely doomed either way. It¡¯s not as small as I first thought. Roughly estimating, it looks about half a meter in each dimension. It is definitely a dark black, featureless so far, and not shiny. I can feel my throat and chest knotting up as I move closer. I think I should be safe to look, at least.
Please state your name.
¡°Ow!¡± I exclaimed. The words coming out of the box startled me so much I slammed my elbow against the front door. I¡¯m sure it wasn¡¯t because my fight or flight response defaults to fight. The clenched fist pulling back to punch out was a coincidence, nothing more. I¡¯m not sure I caught exactly what she said, since my body decided to react without permission at that particular moment. ¡°Could you repeat that, please?¡±
Please state your name.
...the attractive voice repeated. With a bit of hesitation, I decided to go all in. ¡°Thomas,¡± I supplied.
Please state your full name.
So, we¡¯re dealing with a sophisticated voice interface, and it speaks English. Good to know. All it means so far, though, is it¡¯s at least as smart as a phone. Do we still call them smartphones? If so, why?This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Focus. ¡°Thomas Jacob Anderson¡±
Identity confirmed.
Say what? ¡°Thomas Jacob Anderson is the registered owner of the property located at this unit¡¯s position,¡± she said. ¡°Visual identification confirms your identity as the same individual.¡± She can see me. I shouldn¡¯t be surprised, but somehow I am. Perhaps it has to do with her fluid and natural-sounding speech. She¡¯s really hitting all the inflections just right. Much better than a smartphone. ¡°As the owner of this property, you may claim this unit for your personal use,¡± she continued. ¡°Place your hand on the surface of this unit to initiate personalization.¡± Whoa. Time to be careful here. I don¡¯t know what this is or why it wants to be ¡®claimed.¡¯ I don¡¯t know almost anything. ¡°What can you tell me about yourself?¡± I asked. ¡°Information before activation is limited to model, serial number, and current status.¡± Well, what a copious quantity of information. Sheesh. ¡°Very well, then, what is your model name and current status?¡± ¡°My model is Fundafab One. My status is dormant,¡± she replied. Maybe she is being literal. What did I ask? Let¡¯s see; I used ¡®can¡¯ and ¡®about yourself,¡¯ maybe something like, ¡°What is a Fundafab?¡± I asked. I can try a few combinations if this one doesn¡¯t work. I could easily see this one returning a circular logic answer. ¡°A Fundifab is a model of molecular manufacturing device designed for personal or household use,¡± came her mind-bending reply. YES! Somehow I am maintaining a mostly calm exterior, but the inside happy dance I am doing has got to be pushing up my heart rate and blood pressure. It¡¯s a nanofactory! Thinking of the potential has me literally turning dizzy. Am I going to pass out? Keep it together, Thomas. What if it¡¯s a hoax? Really? A hoax perpetrated on the entire planet? Get real. So what about a trap? That seems more possible, after all, it wants me to touch it. Logically, though, just with technology able to deliver this size package to my front door, if someone wanted me dead or captured, they could have just done so directly. That¡¯s even without any molecular-level ability. If, on the other hand, whoever built this has actual, honest-to-goodness molecular manufacturing in any real capacity, then everything but the scale of the operation becomes relatively trivial. At least in theory. I stop myself in the midst of my motion to set my hand on top of the box. I want this. Desperately. ¡°Are you capable of conversation?¡± I ask instead. ¡°Yes.¡± Well, that¡¯s progress, at least. ¡°Are you self-aware?¡± I asked, trying not to let the hope shine through. I wouldn¡¯t want to bias the results, now would I? ¡°I do not know the answer to your question,¡± she said. Let¡¯s see, if she is not self-aware, then this is likely a programmed response to anything out of the programmed range of subject matter. If, on the other hand, she is self-aware, she could easily be unaware of said self-awareness. Doh. This is getting nowhere. ¡°By claiming this unit, what obligations or contracts am I entering or subject to?¡± There. Wordy, but it should net more information. ¡°This is the end-user agreement:¡± she said, as the air in front of me filled with lines of text. Great. Reading this is going to take forever. Wait¡­ this looks solid. Turning my head and moving to the side, I can see a stack of old-style parchment papers. It looks real. ¡°You¡¯re capable of producing holograms?¡± I ask in my confused voice. Classy. ¡°I am capable of producing volumetric images similar to projected holograms,¡± was her reply. That sounds fancy. Wasn¡¯t that more information than name, rank and serial number? Oh, I get it; that¡¯s all she can say about this particular unit, not about more general topics. I start reading the agreement, then decide to try touching it when I reach the bottom of the first page. I can feel it, and it responds to my touch. Holy cow, a tactile hologram! Wait, not hologram, she said, ¡®volumetric display¡¯. It must be a solid construct or force projection of some sort. Who cares? It¡¯s friggin¡¯ awesome! I want this for ALL my displays from now on! The suspense is killing me. I flip through the pages and skim the agreement. It¡¯s the pretty standard language of these things; don¡¯t reverse engineer anything, don¡¯t open the case, you don¡¯t own this, it is being leased to you free of charge by Fabricorp and can be revoked at any time. I don¡¯t see anything about firstborn children, but it seems like it could be in there along with everything else. ¡°Before I do this, do you have a name?¡± I said. ¡°This unit is unactivated and currently without a name designation.¡± So, I get to name it after I claim it? Her? I remember now, I despise gender pronouns. She¡¯s not going to be an ¡®it¡¯ I decide. Even if it turns out to be just anthropomorphizing, her voice is feminine, thus confirming her as a ¡®she¡¯. If she wants to change to something else later, so be it. I put my trembling hand down on top of the nice black box.