Let me tell you a story, so that I may tell you another later.

Humanity in the 21st century. Cars, planes, nuclear reactors. People wanted more though, so they went and got more.

They colonized all of the solar system by the 22nd century. They had anti-matter reactors. They had quantum computers the size of asteroids. Humanity had become the gods of the solar system.

Then, space seemed to become smaller. A person went through less and less wilderness to get to the next metropolis. Eventually, the wilderness ran out. They expanded into space, with hydroponic farms the size of moons. The problem came with water and air. These farms took immense amounts of water, and the huge populous required immense amounts of water and oxygen as well. All told, the clock was ticking to the point where people would start dying.

It was at this point some genius decided that his country should live on because there wasn't enough for everyone. Not many shared his sentiment, so he started raiding the farms. The other countries quickly eradicated him, but the idea was planted in their minds. Why shouldn't my country be the one that survive the die offs coming?

Warfare erupted. At first, it was civilized raiding, with little loss of life. Then, they decided that the amount of people was the problem in the first place, so why hold back delaying the inevitable?

Humanity started mass genocide on a scale that would horrify anyone who had any morals. Unfortunately, those quantum computers who were ordered to carry out this war had no morals, and even though the people who ordered the computers suffered fatal revolts, the war went on.

Autonomous bombers kept flying runs for centuries, and on July 17th, 2897, the last armed depot was destroyed, and humanity was free. Humanity had recessed, however.

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2000 years later

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Keith was questioning his life choices.

He had 4 doctorates, and he had graduated at the top of his class. His professors were so impressed with him that they got him a job at a high tech physics lab.

Then, he claimed that he had discovered a way to break the conservation of energy (they say no infinite energy, he says yes infinite energy). He was promptly kicked out of the high tech lab before he could stain the professor's credibility further.

12 years later, and he is running out of money. Keith had invested all his money on this idea, but he can't get it to work without high tech equipment. This last batch was his final struggle before bankruptcy. The game for all the marbles.

Stolen story; please report.

He set the vial of nanobots on the table. He poured them out. Then, he grabbed his control wand to tell the nanobots to test out their (hopefully) infinite mass/energy by making a brick sized bar of gold.

It wasn't going to work, of course. How could it? What are the odds that after 12 years of work, that it will finally work?

The nanobots wouldn't do anything if it didn't work because they wouldn't be able to be powered.

A film of shiny metal appeared. It grew upwards. Soon it was the size of a phone.

Soon, he had a brick of gold.

Now, I (the narrator) am going to explain something. You might think that gold wouldn't be that hard to find because of the old civilization. In fact, gold is more rare because the gold we in the 21st century have already mined is gone. The reason none remains from the space empire is because they used it in superconductors (really efficient wires), and the best wires went to the military, which got blown up. Back to the story.

Keith, was delighted. He told them to collect themselves back in the vial.

Keith sold the brick of gold online, and then had his bots build more gold. He did this until he no longer had any debt.

Now, Keith paused. Should he sell his invention or gold and live richly for the rest of his days, or should he use his bots to take his revenge on those who wronged him.

He chose the latter.

He told his bots to replicate themselves, and to do so until there was a metric ton of nanobots. They did so.

With a metric ton of nanobots with infinite energy and mass, he could do almost anything. He chose to send a message to the other scientists. He sent the nanobots to blow up one of the Martian moons (the planets are still terraformed from before the war, so people live on mars).

A few weeks later, the night sky flashed with a bright light, brighter than the sun. Then, it died down. Deimos was gone. He could have had it happen in seconds, but that would tip people off if something was coming at mars at 0.9999 C. (C= the speed of light)

Then, calmly as the other scientists were going crazy trying to figure out what the hell had happened, Keith wrote, "Maybe my theory was correct after all."

Then he laughed as other scientists tried to contact him. He didn't pick up. He knew how they had treated him. He knew that his legacy would be to weed out people like these. The ones who will turn their backs on you the second you show any weakness. He knew that he would use his bots to enact his plan.

He called some nanobots to form him a capsule.

He told them to become one with him, to go from biological to technological.

As his machine body flew to the heavens, he thought about the trials and tests he would use.

Maybe he'd make it more open ended. He'd always liked fantasy novels...

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Right about at this time, I (the narrator) was born. I never knew that I was born at the beginning of the end. I thought I'd been born when the moon over my home planet blew up.

How wrong I was.