Threads of the Soul

Chapter 350: Nanomachines S- No wait I did that one already.


The ancient spaceship dissolved into a cloud of millions upon billions of microscopic machines that flew through the air in one cloud, moving as a singular swarm controlled by the central mind that controlled the ship.

The only parts that remained solid was the ground beneath their feet, which actively manifested itself there since they were previously flying. All four of them, Seth, Astra, Director Zero and even Bob, now stood on small metallic platforms.

These platforms were only big enough to support one foot each, and were held up by a shifting mass of robotic black sand. Whenever they shifted their weight, such as the Director who was stumbling and wobbling as he was constantly on the verge of loosing balance, the platforms would dissolve and reform underneath their feet in a position and angle that allowed them perfect balance.

It was part of the issue of why the previously out of breathe Director was stumbling so much, as he was constantly over correcting himself when he didn't need to.

In comparison, Astra simply bent her legs as if she was sitting down, and let herself fall into the seat that formed underneath her. She relaxed back in the seat, which felt like a highly advanced beanbag chair that kept adjusting itself perfectly to suit her body and posture. It was delightfully comfortable, so much so that she hoped they stayed like this in the final version.

Glancing over at Astra, Seth laughed softly and focused on his task at hand. The silken bookmark of his journal had been useless after the internet collapsed in on itself. It had been taken out in the first week when the mutagen interacted with something that shouldn't have been on earth... which he was now realising was this spaceship.

Prometheus definitely wasn't planning on staying here when it went off, and he had modified it. Whatever the system released must have reached the ship, had some reaction with something inside of it and caused the chain reaction through the mana that was invading every inch of the world. Creating something that didn't play nice with our technology.

As for this alien tech. Well it would be a bit stupid of them to design something that could be shut down by their own systems. Human technology on the other hand, probably wasn't designed to withstand the reaction of unknown alien substances mixing with a previously thought to be fictional energy source. Truly foolish of us.

Ironically, the only reason this place even had technology that was still functional was because of the man, or dragon, that caused the issue in the first place. Drinking up all the mana before it could ruin everything in the facility, just to keep himself going.

However... that also meant Seth was now the captain of the vehicle that ruined the world... Well, at least it had great seats!

Anyways, the silk strip that acted as a bookmark hadn't been used much since then. It had been great in the early days, when the internet still worked, as it could turn itself into a USB and physically plug into computers to allow him to download chunks of the internet.

It had been incredibly useful, especially when it came to helping him learn to fight. But without the internet he had let the feature sit there uselessly. Until today.

Seth's journal floated in front of him, a tendril of nano-machines reaching out and connecting themselves to the silken bookmark. They used information from the journal, as it also stored a lot of information from Seth's mind, to design the new layout of the ship.

It absorbed his language, the details of human biology and even information about pop culture that the journal had stored, all to design the perfect ship for humans.

Finally, it seemed to settle on a design and the room started to solidify around them. First the floor, which resembled the seamless and pristine synthetic floors of the facility, only in a black sheen.

Then equipment sprouted from the floor like trees, growing into a semi circle of desk like consoles, each with their own perfectly form fitting and extra comfy seats seemingly designed just to please Astra.

Extra seats lined the edge of the room, facing the walls which had morphed into computers of their own, perfectly integrated with the wall. Finally the control panel sprouted behind Seth as well as a very regal looking captains chair that positioned him perfectly in the middle of the room.

A window formed out of the wall that the captains seat was facing, allowing them to see out into the world ahead of them, but the view rapidly shifted showing different modes and displays, such as night vision, infrared and even some visible sonar type display. It allowed them to see through the walls of the secretive facility, not that there was much to see.

But if there was, then they would have seen it!

Speaking of seeing, although they could not see the exterior of the ship, since that's normally what happens when you are inside of something, they were unaware of how it looked in the end.

But for those outside it, like the soldiers, they found that a sleek black ship had replaced the ancient alien spacecraft. A sleek ship that looked quite suspiciously like a Lockheed SR-71, also known as a "Blackbird". However the spaceship was lacking the extra wings sticking out from the Jet engines, and was roughly three times the size of the average Blackbird.

Back inside the command room, that the nano-machines definitely hadn't plagiarised from popular sci-fi shows Seth knew of, Director Zero looked around at the completely changed room with his jaw hanging open.

His stony eyes bulged out of their sockets, as if they really were volcanoes plugged up and ready to erupt, as his mind struggled to wrap around what had happened.

"H-h-how... How did you do that? We have been studying this machine for decades, and we have tried that button more than once after dozens of linguistic experts told us that was the right one! So how?! How did you activate it, never-mind change it into something... human sized?!

And why did you wait until I climbed up the entire thing to do it!"

The Directors befuddlement rapidly switched to anger as he was reminded of the gruelling challenge of getting up to that control platform before the transformation, and all the equipment that he had ruined in the process.

These hooligans probably had no idea how difficult it was acquiring that equipment without anyone knowing about it and... The Equipment!

Not even waiting for the answer, the Director hurried over to the window and pressed himself against it, peering out with desperate eyes. He was hoping that the equipment, all that amazingly expensive tax payer supplied equipment, was still there.

It was more than just scissor lifts. There was cutting edge technology. Mass-spectromitor scanners, hand held immediate translators filled with the alien language, even a few exo-suits for easy movement around the previously giant ship. Exo-suits he hadn't wanted to melt.

But they were no where to be seen. They definitely weren't in the control room with them anymore, it wasn't big enough. But they weren't left outside either. The nano-machines... had eaten them.

Seeing all of his hard earned work, and all his fancy toys, be ruined and flushed down the drain in one single day, the Director let out a whimpering cry and banged his head against the wall in despair.

Seth smirked and laughed softly as he watched the Director's display, assuming his misery was about not claiming ownership of this wonderful new ride, Seth simply shrugged.

"I guess you could say we just had the magic touch."

Which was true, all it took was a little mana that the ship automatically absorbed when he pushed the button to activate it. But he decided not to tell the Director that he would have been able to activate the ship on his own now that he had mana in his body.

Not that it would have mattered, as he probably would have been vaporised for not having the right identification. So it was probably for the best that he didn't try. Plus it meant Seth got a cool spaceship, so everything was just as it should have been.

Unaware of the monetary plight of the Director, and thus ignoring his silent weeping for all of his fancy toys, Seth sunk into the captains seat of his new toy. The seat immediately formed around his body, making him realise why Astra had simply been relaxing back in her chair the entire time.

He leaned back in the chair with Nixie on his lap, idly bouncing the girl on his leg as he glanced over at Bob, who was almost recreating the 'Creation of Adam' painting with the ship itself.

Although he wasn't laying dramatically across some clouds, Bob was holding out his hand with his index finger extended as he stood next to the wall computers. In response, a tendril of nano-machines was reaching up out of the table, tenderly touching against his finger.

It seemed that the living swarms had taken interest in each other, which wasn't too surprising.

Turning his attention back to the console, Seth smiled softly at the controls. Although other parts of the ship were in English, he had kept the captains controls in the draconic language. That way only he would know which buttons did which.

He was feeling so proud of himself, until Nixie's tiny hand slapped down on one of the buttons, causing the engines to roar to life. Her adorable voice shouting out as the ship lurched forwards, rocketing towards the wall of the facility.

"GO!"

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.


Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter