"And that concludes the tour of this wing of the facility. So, any questions?" I asked, though Julian didn't seem to hear me. He was instead looking back towards the large robot we had passed as the end of the tour of the Cor Wing of the facility where Kokoro, myself, and now Julian worked. Of course right now Julian was only on a temporary pass, which meant his employment could be terminated without a moment's notice, but Ko and I were both confident Julian would be allowed to stay. After all we had both petitioned for his entry into the company, and we were sure he'd find something to do.
"Uh, just what is the purpose of the robot thing?" he asked as we entered my personal lab. I really wanted to say something to the effect of intergalactic warfare or something, which in truth was nearly right on them mark, but the cold hard fact is what I'd promised Julian I'd tell him, and I wasn't going to lie just to make something sound cool.
"The fact of the matter is the Goliath Mark 7 has no point to its existence. I built it because it sounded really cool, and it is, but the practical applications of the design are few and far in between, so I just keep it sitting outside my lab now, as a reminder of how foolish I can be sometimes," I told him, pulling a stool up to the table in the middle of the room.
"So, all in all, what's your impression with the facility so far?" I asked him point blank.
"Well, it's certainly bigger than I expected, yet, Kokoro always told me stories about this place and the weird things that went on here, so I guess I was kind of prepared for the stuff I've seen. Still, that robot and the shrink ray thing just seem strange," he told me honestly, and I chuckled a bit. He would notice the shrink ray, after all he'd been small before, though in both cases he'd been invulnerable thanks to the fact that his miniaturized state then had been caused by nanomachines in his body reducing the size of his molecules, whereas the device he was calling a shrink ray did basically the same thing to atoms.
"Now, don't say that. The Annihilator could have been a good way to generate large amounts of energy from anything. I just forgot to compensate for some things, and now I've got a shrink ray that works, but doesn't seem to do anything else," I told him, remembering how my bosses had asked if I could see any use for the device in its current state, and having them shoot down all my propositions due to the cost the machine took to run.
"However, this right here is what I'm working on now, and its uses are infinite in the real world," I told him, picking up what probably looked like to him to be an ordinary glass of some kind of juice, but by shaking it a little I got the juice to become clear, and revealed that at the bottom of the cup there sat a tiny black dot.
"Okay, so you have juice that you can make clear. What use does it have?" he asked me, and I stared open mouthed for a second, before realizing that Kokoro had probably never told him about this little project, due in part to the fact that he knew enough about science to think this would be pure fiction.
"It's not the juice that's important. You see that dot at the bottom, that is a nanochip, not unlike the ones that your Doc friend gave you to make you shrink, but this one is far more advanced. You see this one is a selfreplicating model, and with each replication it will improve. It's like evolution, in machine form," I explained.
"Wow, now that does have uses, but what's the liquid around it?" he asked me.
"The liquid is a concentrated base solution. You see the chip is based off amino acids, and a strong base cancels out its self replication ability," I explained, and for a moment I saw his eyes light up with excitement. After all Julian was a genius in his own right, and a machine like this could change the world, and he knew it. Then, for a brief flash I saw a dark look of concern cross his face, and I wondered what it was about, but before I could ask Julian asked a question of his own.
"So, if this thing is removed from the solution, it will replicate exponentially right away?" he asked, and I heard of tinge of urgency in his tone.
"Well, no. The chip is designed to study it's environment first, and then it will use local systems, both biological and technological, as a kind of template, improving on them. I measured the time it would take to fully comprehend a rat at two hours, fifty seven minutes," I told him.
"And for a human?" he asked, even more urgently than before.
"A few minutes more, after all we're not that much more complex than a rat, despite what some people think. Is there any reason you're asking these things?" I queried wondering what could be the matter.
"Um, no, nothing at all, I was just caught up in the excitement of the moment is all. Hey, Kokoro and I are going out to eat soon, are you planning on joining us?" he asked, blatantly changing the subject, but I didn't understand his concern in the first place, so I chose not to comment.
"Nah, you guys go ahead. I've got a sandwich in the fridge over there," I pointed, and Julian nodded. He seemed to be in quite a rush as he left the lab, taking one of the multi purpose communicators with him through the Star Trek style lab door. I assured him when we began that no matter where you were on Earth this thing would be able to contact the receiver I had in the lab, though why he would need one was beyond me. He had my cell number after all. I shrugged as he left, turning back to the cup with the nanochip in it.
It was only then that I noticed that cups twin, the one with the second nanochip, was missing. Forgetting about Julian for the moment I spent a few minutes going around the lab, looking for the cup, but coming up empty. The thing seemed to have vanished without a trace. Now normally this would have concerned another lab, but at the place where I worked things vanishing was a common occurrence, and besides, the Quantum Computer that monitored the facility would be able to tell me where it went, even if it went into another reality.
I was just about to ask the QC where the chip went when I was informed rather loudly by my terminal that it was time to eat, an alarm I'd programed in myself to ensure that I never went more than twelve hours without food. Not seeing any reason to rush in finding the chip I decided that food came first, and so I got up. As I did I must have walked too close the door, because it slid open with a whoosh sound, and I jumped back, looking at the door.
At any other time I probably would have stuck my head out to see if anyone had passed by my lab, but with the food alarm going off In my terminal, I dismissed it. Of course had I looked out I would have seen that the Annihilator was glowing slightly with energy discharge, and looking at the floor I might have noticed the tiny, just below one inch form, making its way across the floor of my lab, a look of concern on its face from having given me the cup with the second nanochip in it earlier when I'd asked Julian to go get us drinks from the lab, and him having mistaken the cup on the table for juice.
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