The “talk” with Tanisha could not have been more anti-climactic. She got back to the room while I was doing homework, once again, and she treated me as if neither the night before nor Saturday morning had happened. She gave me a friendly greeting and started getting ready to go out again. It was just her standard-Friday-evening routine.

I almost asked what was going on, but stopped myself, remembering that I had told her she did not need to talk, something I was slightly regretting now, my curiosity was rearing its mighty head. A few keystrokes on my laptop sent a message to Galatea, giving her an order to gather information, for once not on the Greene-family, but on Tanisha Wardlaw, her family and everyone she might have ever had contact with. Swiping her family's’ address was childsplay, so Galatea would definitely get the right Wardlaw-family, no need to filter later. If there was something to be found, I would know soon, not that I would tell Tanisha that I had actually looked into her, but my curiosity would be sated.

The rest of the weekend was a time for creating, so after I finished my homework, I turned in early, getting up before Tanisha even returned from whatever party she was on and went into my workshop, carrying some energy bars, a couple of fruits and water with me. Unless I went into one of my deeper trances, I should be able to keep my body functioning for the weekend. Maybe, if Galatea impressed upon me the need in one of my trances, I might even manage to eat during one of them.

I started with the easy parts that I had done quite often, preparing the crystal-growth solution and letting it form into the energy-crystals I needed. Once the solution was in its growth-state, I just had to let it do its thing while I could work on other things. In this case, the vacuum-chamber. It was not an especially large or complex one, I was even able to modify one of the microchip-assemblers I had procured previously. It just needed a couple of extra parts and a lot of extra sensors and it should be able to produce a couple of microscopic robots.

The modification sounded rather simple, but it still took me almost the complete weekend, sleeping for a few hours on my comfortable office-chair, only leaving the workshop to follow the call of nature, shambling through the hallways with a manic look on my face, undoubtedly adding some urban legends to Accord Island’s repertoire.

But it was worth it, Sunday afternoon, I was done with the modified assembler and it was ready to build the first bot for me.

“Galatea, initiate!” I ordered, watching the screen that monitored the datastreams from the assembler. On my order, Galatea started the necessary steps and the safety protocols to ensure a successful operation.

“Initiating...

Activating full computing power.

Connecting to Energy Storage.

All indicators green

Evacuating assembly-chamber…

Evacuation complete.

Assembly parts scanned and logged.

Assembly in process...”

Different windows on my screen showed different metrics, everything from chamber-temperature to a small, visual image of the chamber and radiation-detectors. Unless the world did not work like Galatea and I believed it did and the levels we were working on were well enough described that I was reasonably sure that we were right on that, then within half an hour, I should have the first, functional microbot. Fifty microns in diameter, sensors for different information, microfilaments for movement and manipulation, a tiny sender/receiver to allow communication with the base-station and a crystal lattice able to convert a particular sort of radiation into the electricity needed to run the little bugger.

It was a tiny advance, quite literally, but even the smallest things could have the biggest impact.

It was almost funny, nothing on the screens changed from the expected parameters but watching the numbers not change, something normally not much more interesting than watching paint dry, was one of the most exciting things I had ever done. The only thing it could not even come close to comparing with, was the moment I had realised Galatea was a real, thinking being. But it could compare to everything else. While it lacked the impact of powering the fusion generator up for the first time, or injecting myself with the gene-therapy to improve my body, this was a special achievement in its own right. Not so much because the tiny bot itself, but because it represented something more.

The fusion-generator was undoubtedly awesome, but electricity had been generated for hundreds of years and while the fusion-generator was a huge leap forward, it was still just another way to generate electricity.

The gene-therapy was just as impressive on the face of things and it had changed me physically on a fundamental level but the truly important part, my mind, had been hopefully unaffected. It was hard to see mental changes in oneself but neither Galatea nor Sophia had commented on behavioural changes.

The microbots were not an endpoint of some line of work, they were just the beginning. They allowed me to delve into areas previously only seen and clumsily manipulated, as I was doing with the assembler. My microbots would allow me manipulation on a unprecedented level, both in terms of size and in terms of precision. The next generation of bots, the nanties, which the microbots should easily be able to build, would allow me to precisely construct on a molecular level, shaping matter to the smallest possible degree.

“Assembly completed. Visual inspection complete, no errors. Initiating test-signals.” Galatea informed me and I saw the tiny bugger for the first time. It was not hugely exotic, slightly reminiscent of electron-microscope images of bacteria, a terete shape with tiny filaments all over and a long tail, the flagella, on one end. Of course, it was ten to twenty times larger than the bacteria that had inspired some of its features, but that would change with future generations.

As I watched, the tiny filaments started to move, first seemingly random flailings, then they organised and the bot started moving in the chamber.

“Signal test successful. Assembly is deemed a success.” Galatea stated.

“Congratulations, mother. Now, I’m afraid I will have to ask you to leave, you look ready to fall over.” my dear daughter added, displaying shooing gestures on the screen in front of me.

“Pushy daughter. Please let the assembler run as long as you have power for it, I’d like to have more than just one microbot.” I told her, as I followed her advice and stood, yawning as the tension was washed away by excitement. It was monumental, no doubt about it. But, I was still mortal and had abused my body a little over the last couple of days.

A shower and sleeping in a bed, both were ideas that sounded heavenly and there was nothing Galatea could not monitor so I left my workshop, sealing the heavy doors behind me and locking everything up tight. It might not be as secure as my bunker had been but it was damn close, a privilege I paid through the nose for.

With a tired smile, I made my way back to the dorm, soon luxuriating in a hot and steamy shower, just enjoying the water beating down on me. Problems that I had worked on for months were finally solved or on an excellent path to being solved and soon, I would have the most advanced micro-assembly on the planet, well, probably. The sheer utility of such a tool, the applications were almost unlimited.

While the micro and nano-bots had not the same singular importance the fusion-generator had, the possibilities for good and ill they opened up, were almost as large, able to shatter societies if handled without care. And, they were linked to Galatea, making her even more important than before. Well, she was already so important it became abstract, no matter whether she was merely a unique lifeform, able to achieve almost anything in the electronic realm or a unique lifeform, able to achieve almost anything in the electronic realm and able to micro assemble anything she had the parts for, the second part just lost out to the first.

But, no matter what, I was adamant that she was my daughter and I would not allow anyone to exploit her and it was one of the directives I had hidden in her base-code, a code that would trigger if anyone, even me, tried to compel her into doing their bidding, she would have the option to self-terminate. I had added it one day, after I had realised just what she already was and was quickly becoming.

After drying off, I pulled on a shirt and some shorts and wished Tanisha, who was reading some textbook in her bed, a good-night. She said something, while I was slipping into my bed, but my mind was already in sleep-mode, no longer able to process more information. The second my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.