Lena led me through the maze of workshops at the village’s edge, her expression a mixture of hope and skepticism. The rhythmic clanging of hammers and the occasional hiss of steam filled the air, mingling with the earthy scent of grease and sawdust. We stopped in front of a large structure built from salvaged industrial materials; corrugated steel walls braced by wooden beams. The building looked sturdy but bore the patchwork marks of a community making do with what it could salvage or make.
Inside, a group of villagers clustered around a heavy machine resting on a raised platform. The air was thick with the scent of oil and rust, and the faint hum of a nearby waterwheel-powered generator echoed through the space. The centerpiece of the gathering was an engine lathe, its once-pristine metal surfaces marred by decades of wear and neglect. The villagers, ranging from gray-bearded elders to wide-eyed teenagers, watched with a mixture of anticipation and doubt.
Lena gestured toward the machine. “This is it,” she said. “Hopefully this will become our backup engine lathe. Our working lathe is one of the most important tools we have for repairs and production. We need a backup, just in case. So, we scavenged around and found another. As you can see, it’s seen better days.”
I stepped closer, narrowing my eyes as I examined the machine. I could tell that lots of work had already been done to the machine. Outside, it was clear of rust, but the parallel bed ways were visibly warped, their once-straight lines twisted like waves frozen in metal. The gearing system, normally a precision marvel, was a mangled mess, teeth stripped and cogs misaligned and the handwheels had long since lost their ability to rotate.
I ran a hand along the surface of the lathe, feeling the imperfections beneath my fingertips. Deep grooves ran along the bed, and cracks spiderwebbed through the headstock casting.
“Bad bed ways and shot gearing,” I muttered. I glanced at Lena. “How long has it taken for you to get it to this point?”
“Months,” Lena replied, folding her arms. “We’ve tried patching it up, but it’s not functional. Our original lathe is working nearly nonstop. If it ever fails, we can’t produce replacement parts for other machines. The blacksmith can improvise with hand tools, but it’s not sustainable.”
I nodded, crouching to inspect the lathe from a different angle. The steady hum of the generator and the occasional murmur of villagers created a backdrop of sound as I continued my inspection. “Do you find the original schematics?”
Lena shook her head. “They’re long gone. We’ve been working off intuition and guesswork.”
I exhaled slowly, running a hand through my hair. Fixing the lathe was well within my capabilities, growing up on a working farm teaches you how to repair things. If we had always taken everything that broke to the shop for the “professionals” to fix, we would have never made a single dollar. Hell, my dad had even cast his own parts for the steam engines he loved to build as a hobby. And growing up as ‘Dad’s little helper’, I learned a lot.
Restoring the lathe with just tools and human effort would be time-consuming, but that was exactly what I needed to avoid suspicion. My Qi (the fantasy and Sci-fi nerd in my just cannot stop giggling at calling the nanites that) could probably restore the machine in hours, but using them openly would reveal my status as someone who could control ‘QI’. One of the dreaded ‘cultivators’ and that was a risk I wasn’t willing to take just yet.
“I am pretty sure I can fix it,” I said, standing up and brushing dust off my knees. “But it’ll take time. I’ll need at least thirty to forty days to fabricate new components, scrape flat the bed ways, and rebuild the gearing.”
A ripple of murmurs passed through the gathered villagers. Lena’s brow furrowed. “That quickly?” she asked, her tone a mix of disbelief and concern.
I nodded, misreading her disbelief. “If you want it done right, that’s how long it’ll take. I’ll need access to your spare metal stock, tools, and a workspace where I can set up. Do you have a knee mill or can I get time on the other lathe?”
An older villager with a weathered face stepped forward, tapping a cane against the ground. “We have the Bridgeport mill but we are short on cutters. You sure you can fix it, stranger? We’ve had others try and fail.”
“I’m sure. I’ve restored more complicated equipment when I was younger,” I said calmly. “But it’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be fast.”
The old man studied me for a long moment before nodding. “Alright. You’ve got the time and the tools. Just don’t waste either.”
So, I got to work.
The day passed in a blur of activity. I immersed myself in the work, carefully measuring the lathe’s damaged components and drafting rough diagrams to guide the repairs. I began by removing the most visibly damaged parts, setting them aside for later analysis. Villagers came and went, some offering assistance, others simply watching with a mix of curiosity and doubt.
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Lena stayed nearby, occasionally handing me tools or answering questions about the machine’s history. “We found it a couple of years ago,” she said, watching as I inspected the warped metal. “We’ve been putting off trying to restore if for a while. Too many other priorities.”
“How did you even get it here? That thing must weigh a ton!”
“We found it in the old industrial zone. There are quite a few old factories that have not completely collapsed. Lots of equipment but transporting those giants are a bitch, so we only grab what we truly need,” Lena replied.
“It’s a miracle it is still relatively complete,” I said, jotting down notes on a scrap of paper. I turned to one of the younger villagers, a boy of about fourteen who hovered nearby. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Kelvin,” the boy replied, wide-eyed.
“Kelvin, see if you can find me a about fifty pounds of aluminum and bring them here. We’ll need them to cast a new headstock first.”
Kelvin nodded eagerly and dashed off, his enthusiasm drawing chuckles from the older villagers.
As evening fell, I wiped sweat from my brow and stepped back to survey my progress. The lathe was partially disassembled, its broken components laid out on a workbench. I’d made good headway, but the hardest parts; casting a new headstock, rebuilding the gears and reshaping the bed ways, were still ahead. Villagers began drifting away as the workshop quieted, the day’s work drawing to a close.
“That’s enough for today,” Lena said, handing me a tin plate of stew. “You’ve earned this. I also brought you some blankets and a pillow. The Elders thought it best if you slept in the workshop, along with the apprentices.”
I accepted the meal with a nod of thanks. I ate quickly, the hearty stew restoring some of the energy I’d burned through during the day. After finishing, I found a quiet corner of the workshop and laid out the bedroll Lena had provided.
As I settled down for the night, my thoughts turned to the SYSTEM. The lathe could be repaired faster and more efficiently with the nanites, but I’d need to be careful. I couldn’t afford to let the villagers see me using abilities they’d associate with cultivators. Plus, the SYSTEM itself needs me. The lathe is not the only thing in need of a restoration.
Once the workshop had gone silent and the faint snores of sleeping apprentices filled the air, I closed my eyes and decided to meditate. Hey, look at me, I’m going to ‘cultivate’, I chuckled to myself.
I can always feel the controller floating in my thoughts. It would be simple to jump right in and start working through the files, but a nagging question kept me from just jumping in. How do all cultivators harness the power of the nanites without a controller? I wondered.
As you can expect, throughout the day, the villagers had chatted freely among themselves and with my ears open, I learned quite a bit as I worked. It seems that cultivators are a big topic to talk about, kind of like pro athletes from before the fall. It seemed to me that they liked to kibitz about various cultivators’ achievements and gossip about their failures and foibles.
One thing that I learned was that cultivators meditated to ‘attune with their QI.’ At the time, the phrase seemed like mystical jargon, but I now suspected it was simply their way of interacting with the nanites. If I could bridge my understanding of programming with their crude methods, it might open new possibilities.
I sat cross-legged on the small bed, my niece’s voice echoing in my head: "Criss-cross applesauce!" She used to giggle every time she said it, and for a brief moment, the memory softened the edges of my world. That little phrase always reminded me how much simpler life had been when my biggest concern was keeping her entertained during family visits. She used to say it with such delight when we played together, and the memory brought a small smile to my face. I shifted into a more comfortable position and closed his eyes.
Meditation wasn’t unfamiliar to me. When I became a manager at Athena, the company had sent me to workshops on productivity and stress management. At the time, I’d rolled his eyes so hard I thought they’d get stuck, dismissing the sessions as corporate-approved navel-gazing. "Seriously," I’d once grumbled to a coworker, "if I wanted to contemplate the universe, I’d go binge sci-fi movies, not stare at a wall in silence." One of those workshops had taught meditation. Initially, I dismissed it as new-age mumbo jumbo, but eventually I grudgingly admitted it worked. On several occasions, when stuck on challenging personal programming projects, I had used meditation to clear my mind. It helped organize my thoughts, allowing solutions to emerge naturally.
I drew on that experience now, focusing on my breathing and letting the distractions fade away. The hum of distant machinery, the rustling of leaves outside, even the creak of the snores of the apprentices faded into the background as my mind entered ‘The Zone.’ Slowly, I began to sense... something. It wasn’t through the controller interface but rather an entirely new awareness. A faint presence, like an electric hum at the edge of my perception.
As I concentrated, the sensation grew stronger. It wasn’t just QI—it was the collective intelligence of the nanites. Each microscopic machine carried a rudimentary AI, a simplified large-language-model akin to a basic version of ChatGPT. Individually, they were limited, but together they formed a vast, distributed network.
The connection was primitive, like stepping back into the early days of computing. I felt as though I’d opened a command prompt on an ancient Unix or DOS SYSTEM. No graphical interfaces, no sophisticated tools, just a blinking cursor was waiting for input.
required to access my nanotech controller. The familiar overlay of the SYSTEM blinked into existence in my vision, its sleek design a stark contrast to the primitive surroundings.
“Alright,” I murmured to myself. “Time to get creative.”
I began by mapping the lathe’s damaged components, mentally designing a repair sequence that would minimize noise and disruption. The SYSTEM responded instantly, displaying a 3D model of the lathe and highlighting areas for optimization. With a subtle mental command, I directed my nanites to begin the delicate work of repairing the bed ways, their microscopic precision ensuring a flawless result.
As the night wore on, I worked in secret, my mind focused on the task at hand. By the time the first light of dawn began to filter through the workshop’s cracked windows, I’d made significant progress. I allowed myself a small, satisfied smile before settling into a light doze, ready to continue the charade of manual labor when the village woke up.