38_Stamp collector

With those final words, the mortally wounded Slip’s eyes dimmed, and his body slowly disintegrated into pixels.

…

…

...

But not before handing the shocked human a thin leather journal. Herman gripped the book in his hands, unable to believe that the slip was gone…

Then he looked down at the journal’s cover, noticing the title name.

SystemX86

In an instant the display on the title shifted to the familiar digital face of his friend.

"Come on then, chop chop, are you saving me or what?" Slippy said with his characteristical chipper voice, all signs of his previous predicament now gone.

“SLIPPY! You toaster, I thought you died!”

Suddenly the entire rooftop collapsed, exposing the enormous maw of a nanoid beast. It surged upward, rapidly mutating and expanding as every remaining nanoid streamed into its swelling mass.

Just before the two heroes could plunge to their doom, the cable tethering Herman to the hover-copter snapped taut, hauling them both up and out of danger. Much to the displeasure of the nanoid abomination below.

____

"Aaaaaaa how do I stop this???" Polya shrieked as she bashed random buttons and levers in the hope of stopping the craft.

Unsurprisingly the craft did exactly as she intended, stopping a few kilometers above the now fully overrun home of the digital slip. The maneuver made the startled woman’s eyes bulge with disbelief at what she had done.

"Good job Polya, I knew you could do it!" Herman said, patting the reluctant pilot on the shoulder and making her jump with surprise.

"Oh dear god, what, how, why!? How am I doing this? Is Slippy safe, what is going on!?"

"Ahaha, we are all safe thanks to you and your masterful piloting. As to your final question…"

"While the System was bombarding me with my full entire status, I noticed I had a mastery of hover-copter flight. And since I had no idea how to drive one of these things before, I assumed it was part of the super duper legendary package. You might not have as high tier as me, but you and I seem to share some powers at least."

"Well, that’s anticlimactic… Now the magic is completely gone, thanks for explaining…" Polya said with equal parts disappointment and relief.

"That monstrosity down there is mutating again, it is consuming the land and everything in its vicinity. There are some copter wings sticking out of its body, and I think it’s trying to grow a few grav engines as well." Staple said, poking her head from behind the doorway.

"Heartsun is shooting at it, but things don’t look very promising. Whatever we are gonna do, we better do it fast, or that thing is going to chase us up here." The mechanoid continued with a hint of worry.

"Hmmm, ordinarily such advanced nanoids would be a death sentence for any artificial being, but your paranoid mind, Staple, gave me an idea.”

“Your solution with the swarm was moving your consciousness to a backup chip and then flushing your active memory. We will do the same thing here, but in a slightly different way…"

Herman said as he knelt down and pulled out a black rucksack from under the pilot seat. He unzipped it and proudly presented one of his son’s patented doomsday devices.

"BEHOLD!"

"The Hyperbolic Graviton Concentrator 4000!"

Herman declared with parental pride, slapping the device’s smooth metallic exterior as a used car salesman.

…

"The what now?" Slippy asked after an awkward silence.

"It’s a grav bomb…" Staple replied in a deadpan voice.

"It’s not just ANY grav bomb!" Herman said defensively.

"It’s my son’s first ever doomsday device! We build it together way back."

"Ah this thing brings so many memories…" Herman said, affectionately patting the ticking bomb as if it was a ancient family heirloom.

"Oh my god oh my god it’s an authentic replica of the famous Hyperbolic Graviton Concentrator 4000, AND with its original timer display intact! Staple don’t you see what this is!?" Polya exclaimed, barely containing her excitement.

"It’s a freaking bomb is what it is. let's chuck it at the monster and be done with it. I think Heartsun is running out of ammo." The bot replied in her usual practical manner, having no time for sentimental nonsense.

“N-no, we can’t just chuck it.” The chickenmancer protested, dropping to her knees and shielding the bomb with her body, one hand soothingly stroking the poor Hyperbolic Graviton, as she glared up at the mean mechanoid.

"Don’t you see, this is an authentic replica, one of a kind. It is the same design as the one Mecron used when repelling the nanoids from Wrangel island!”

“This was the key part used for the rise of Mecron’s organization! Don’t you worry little baby, the bad mechanoid is not going to hurt you I promise." Polya cued at the doomsday device.

"All of you are insane…" Staple murmured, placing a hand on her forehead and shaking her head.

"Hey wait a minute… Was I sitting under that thing all this time?" The chickenmancer said, only now realizing that perhaps she should be at least a bit intimidated by the destructive power the device represented.

"I was wondering what was I bumping my legs against. What if I detonated it?!"

"Oh it’s fine, these things are foolproof. And don’t worry about this one, I have the designs memorized. I can make you a new one after all of this is over." Herman said as he grabbed the device away from her clutches and carried it out of the cockpit.

Polya looked back and forward between the device and Herman, but finally acquiesced.

“Ah alright… But I will hold you to that promise!“ The woman shouted at his back as she assumed her position at the hover-copter controls.

…

"You aren’t actually gonna make her another one?" Staple said as she followed Herman.

"Yeah, why wouldn’t I give her one." The old man replied as he descended a small ladder to the cargo bay, wobbling this way and that as he awkwardly carried the device with one hand.

"Well for starters it’s a doomsday device. You can’t JUST hand those around like candy." Staple said, shooting one hand to stabilize the wobbling human while he climbed down.

"Ah it’s fine, I have read allot about Generica before I got here. The world there has plenty of doomsday magical equivalents that would make this thing here look like a firecracker."

"Plus this thing is designed to fight nanoids specifically. Yes it can damage other stuff, but it does extra damage to the little critters."

"And besides, I’ve known our chickenmancer friend long enough. I bet she has a whole secret collection of explosives and doomsday devices stashed somewhere. Or am I wrong?"

"Sigh… no, no you are not wrong… I have seen the pictures… That girl has enough firepower to destroy a city or ten." Staple lamented, reluctantly recollecting her adopted niece’s unusual hobby.

___

"So, amm, there is one thing I don’t get." Slippy said as he and the others watched the bomb fall down towards the Godzilla-like monstrosity below them.

"Hm, whats that?" Herman muttered as he uncapped a mumbo juice box and offered it to the slip.

"Uuu thanks! MMM khaaa…" The AI happily exclaimed after taking a big sip.

"So if you had the designs for a doomsday device that presumably could eradicate entire island free of nanoids, why didn’t you use a gajilion of them to clear out the Earth?"

Everyone looked at the digital slip with surprise, astounded that the baby AI asked such an insightful question, unrelated to eating or sleeping.

"Hey don’t look at me like that, I do have a brain you know. You are literally looking at it." The indignant slip replied, materializing one stick-man hand out of the journal and patting its leather bound tome. Which did seem much more substantial now, than his initial 300 lines of code.

"That is actually quite a good question Slippy." Polya replied, perking up at the opportunity to elaborate on one of her hobbies.

"It is a matter of scale you see. While this device could exterminate a large area of nanoids. It only does so in a small scale radius. If you want a bigger area you make a bigger bomb, but at those magnitudes the grav fields become extremely unstable. Plus there is always the risk of messing with Earth’s own gvav field, and believe me no one wants that."

"You know, some people collect stamps or postcards, not doomsday devices… How would you ever find a husband with hobbies like that?" Staple said disapprovingly.

"Oh shush." Polya dismissed the protestations of her beloved aunt and continued with her lecture.

"And here we come to your question. Other people have tried what you suggested, but stopping nanoids from nearby areas from rushing back and reinfecting the cleared land would require far more devices. Enough to completely cover the entire Earth. That however has several issues."

"First - That by itself would probably cause the Earths grav field to go borkers."

"Second - These things aren’t cheap. Finding the materials to build so many, while theoretically possible, is practically unfeasible."

"And third - The problem isn’t just the surface. Nanoids have infiltrated their way into each and every place on the planet. The water, the air, even beneath the ground up to bedrock. They are hiding in caves, inside sealed containers, everywhere and anywhere you can think of there are nanoids."

"Most are dormant, just waiting for god knows what to reactivate themselves. Others are actively multiplying and mutating, desperate for new data to consume and copy.”

“The only exception we have seen so far are areas with extreme low temperature. That is why humans aren’t extinct. The survivors during the second dark age realized that and escaped to Antarctica, and a few other remote pole areas on both sides of the world. Though the south pole is also filled with radiation and isn’t quite suitable for human habitation."

"Woow, miss chicken lady, you sure do know allot about these stuff." Slippy replied with awe, his digital eyes forming tiny stars.

"I really wish you would stop calling me that…" Polya lamented.

"Guys, it’s about to begin." Herman whispered, pointing below where the device had nearly reached its target.

There the godzilla sized abomination trashed around as it absorbed more and more materials into itself. Ever growing, ever mutating, it waved its countless appendages in a frenzy, trying to reach for the hovercopter where the precious SystemX86 file resided.

Everything froze. The godzilla, the bomb, even the dust in the air, all locked in place as if time itself had stopped.

“Huh. Is that lag? Herman, if you broke poor Slippy’s soul space there’s going to be hell to pay.”

“It’s fine, just watch.” The man said quietly, eyes fixed on the scene below.

For a moment, nothing happened, then things began to move. The massive abomination started to dissolve. There was no thrashing, no roar of pain, just the quiet rush of particles as small streams of fragments drifted away from the creature’s body.

They floated upward, spreading evenly through the air, forming countless tiny cubes. The gravity bomb had distorted the gravitational field around every molecule, forcing matter into a perfect grid of floating blocks. Each cube grew as more particles joined it, the creature and the surrounding landscape breaking down piece by piece.

The cubes expanded, the gaps between them shrinking until they merged into a single massive structure, an unfinished flickering cube of dense shifting matter.

The pull continued until there was nothing left in the entire soul realm. Only the enormous fully complete cube remained, with the hovercopter and its stunned passengers hovering above it.

…

The party gaped in silence at the solid cube drifting through zero gravity.

"Rustle rustle…" Heartsun said after the silence had stretched for a while.

"Rustle indeed… And these things exist in the real world?" Staple said, still unable to believe what she just witnessed.

"Yup." Herman said, standing up and patting the stunned bot on the back.

“And since they have completely disassembled everything bigger than a molecule, this time we won't have to worry about any leftover nanoids skulking around and biding their time.”

"Herman! You have to teach me how to make these! That was absolutely amazing!" Polya said in elation after she had finally recovered from the experience. The excited woman acted as if she had been witness to some great symphonic ensemble or the like…

"Oh here we go…" Staple murmured, shaking her head with disapproval.

"Hehe, sure, why not, but not now, first things first." Herman said.

"Huh, what do you mean? Aren’t the bad mini bots all dead?" Slippy asked with worry.

"Oh yeah, don’t worry about that, they are all in the void realm along with all the dodos." The man replied with a dismissal gesture.

"I was talking about your new home." He clarified.

"My n..new home?" Slippy replied with hesitation.

"Well of course! We can't just leave your soul realm like that."

"We need to build you a new house, new traps, and a whole lot of other defenses which would make even the most grizzled nanoid break its teeth by just thinking about invading your soul space." Herman spoke with a wicked mad scientist grin.

"Come, let's get down, this is going to be fun!"