03 – I am Computer

He felt the every single nanite reacted to the foreign entity, flooding towards it like a ravenous flock. While he still had no tactile sensations coming from the outside, now he could feel the texture, the temperature and even something akin to the taste of the plants he had ingested.

The small nanites that made up his body already knew what to do. Without the need for any specific instruction, they began to disassemble the biomass of the plants, turning the moss into molecules, then atoms, and then more of themselves. They tore into the molecular structure of the living matter, taking apart everything from the chlorophyl to the cellulose fibers. The process went on, and he could feel the hunger subside, if only a little, and his energy reserves replenish.

Current mass: 12g

Mateus carefully observed the number slowly increase, but already he could see that the process was very inefficient. Only a minor part of the mass gets added to me.

Not only that, but it was also very slow. According to the clock, it took him several minutes to even begin fabricating new nanites, although the more there were, the faster the process became because he had more workforce available. Thus, he passed the time by analyzing the sensations that came to him, the feeling of having something in his ‘stomach’ and the ‘taste’ of the plants. They tasted vaguely good, and his mind associated their taste with the smell of freshly mowed grass. It was pleasant.

Another thing of note, the most important of them all that allowed him to heave a virtual sigh in relief, was seeing the clock slow down for the first time ever. More nanites meant more processing power, and this in turn meant that he could experience the world to closer than the speed he used to experience it when he was a human. He still didn’t have enough power to spare to process the sensations that came from the outside layer of nanites, but he was getting close to it.

His mind had gotten used to some sort of sensory deprivation, where everything except for sight was utterly missing. But, still, he craved for some more senses to return to him. He tried to tell himself to patiently wait until he could spare power, but he did not. In the end, he succumbed to the need for familiarity.

New data streams arrived to his consciousness from the outer nanites. Smell, touch, taste, temperature, pressure. He felt the slightly salty taste of the rock he was on, the stuffy and dusty air of the cavern he was in, the slight humidity made of water droplet with a little amount of dirt suspended inside of them, the slight chill of the outside winter air coming from a few cracks in the rock.

It was good. He didn’t care about the clock now, because he felt alive again. Before, it was like being in a dream but now, it was life. And, also, it was proof that he was indeed here, that he was not dreaming. That he could go meet his siter, then, because this was not a delusion but the real world.

He felt newfound hope and a sense of purpose arise.

He also noticed what while he was eating, the constant droning of voices asking to “GROW” and the constant hunger disappeared. The silence and the lack of discomfort had been so abrupt, that with all that was going on he didn’t even notice they were gone.

After a while of sitting on top of the moss, he moved away to reveal that the rock where the plant was growing had been licked clean. Moving, differently than eating, was a tedious chore he almost hated doing. It was a necessary evil, however. Looking back, not even the faintest trace of the vegetation remained.

“GROW” The voice seemed to acquire new vigor now. It was asking more sustenance, more mass to be added to Mateus’ body. He looked around, and started to move towards another highlighted patch of mossy vegetation.

While he moved, he could not think about anything else. The sole act of controlling every single nanite required his whole attention, even exceeding his thinking power and making the clock speed up again. He had to, however, because there was no other way to increase his power.

He reached another patch of moss, and his blob form squished and expanded to cover it all, so that all the nanites would have something to work with. He sat down in his virtual dark room, wishing he could conjure a virtual body as well, and watched.

Maybe when I get more power, I can conjure a virtual chair, like the hologram from before.

The process was long and boring. Because the nanites had innate knowledge on how to replicate, he only had to wait. He could think freely, however, which was something he was not granted the privilege to do very often nowadays, having to save power and all.

His mind wandered back to the other heroes. Mateus had no idea how much time passed exactly since the fight, not having access to a calendar; but by his guess the others should be back to the capital, reporting their success to the king. Maybe there was a huge banquet being held. A celebration. A toast to the fallen friend.

Maybe they were even building a huge statue for them in the capital, where he too would be immortalized in stone just beside his friends and comrades. Where he could live forever, even after his death. Where his father and sister could go and mourn him, and see his victorious pose over the vanquished evil. Where his mother could gaze upon his body of stone with proudness and tears in her eyes. Knowing that her son was a hero.

He wished he could see that. Even from afar, he wished to see the place where they granted him eternal rest. He would then wait there until his sister came to give him her last salute, and then he would surprise her and tell her of all his adventures. He would savor the look in her eyes, and hug her tightly. They would go home, and embrace their parents together and be happy for a while.

Current mass: 60g

“GROW” the voice brought him back to reality. Once again, the stone floor of the cavern was perfectly clear of any trace of green. He sighed. His fantasy could not last forever, however, not when he had the power to make it into reality.

This time, he looked at the clock and saw that time was slow. Too slow, each second needing two of his own seconds to actually pass. So slow, in fact, that he could now spare some extra power.

It would be cool if I could use some of this extra power to automate the moving around thing. It’s tedious.

New process created.

The clock assumed a normal flow of time for the first time since he was reborn. Taking some of the power he had away, he now had a whole automated process at his disposal. He tried it out immediately.

He commanded his body to go forwards, and saw that the blob moved on its own, like a human body would do. He only had to tell it what to do, and it would do it. No more commanding each and every single nanite by hand! He could now finally move without it being a chore every time!

“GROW”

He looked around. He was quite close to the huge crater in the ground, in the middle of a mostly collapsed cavern. The Doomsday Weapon had made its base deep inside a mountain, the very mountain where he and his comrades had fought against it and eventually detonated the mana bomb.

The detonation had made the whole place collapse, and huge boulders had fallen from the top in large piles of rubble. The stone was, in certain points, pulverized into a fine sand. He could see different minerals in the many colors of the sand and dust as well, and wondered if he could eat the rock to replicate.

Immediately after this thought, the choir of voices all yelling “GROW” from the depths of his mind stopped. After an instant of silence, the very same choir all became a single voice. It was low and distorted, muffled like underwater, and echoed in the darkness of his mind.

Cannot use inorganic material. Need more mass to process raw stone using nanites.

Who… who are you? The surprise was evident in his voice, even if he was only thinking the questions.

I am Computer.

What are you? What is computer? Is that a name or a thing?

No data.

Oh, okay.

Computer did not reply. Its mechanical, robotic voice was silent now. All the Mateus could feel was a need, an instinct telling him that if he wanted to do great things, then he needed to grow more.

Gone was the repetitive voice yelling at him to grow. Gone were the pangs of hunger. All that was left was a sensation of hollowness, of incompleteness. The feeling that something was missing, and that he had to fill the void. The sensation that he, as he was now, was lacking and needed to grow bigger and more powerful.

A desire. A need.

He wanted to see his family, and to do so he had to grow more.