The sight was amazing. This was the moment he realized that he was not dead. He had the nanos in him and could somehow talk to them. He knew they made all this possible, and he was neither cold nor hungry. For the first time, he was at peace with himself. With that, he took a deep breath and looked over the forest. The nanos were now understanding Jeremy a bit better and could sense things from him, but they did not know the language of the human nervous system. They only knew “good” and “bad,” but for now, it would do.
As Jeremy sat there, he felt a subtle vibration beneath him, as if the ground was moving at a microscopic level. He realized he was sensing the signals being sent out by the nanos to the environment. His gaze wandered down the cave, and as though the cave wall itself understood his intentions, small chunks of rock began to fall and erode away. Gradually, a set of landslides formed a makeshift ramp leading downwards. Jeremy carefully descended the newly formed path.
At the bottom, he discovered a surprising sight: a vibrant meadow of grass and flowers. Some of the flowers emitted an unusual glow. As Jeremy approached, he noticed that the light seemed to be emanating from his own eyes rather than the flowers themselves. It was as though he were wearing augmented reality glasses, with a VR overlay enhancing his vision. Some plants glowed with a serene blue light, while others radiated a mystical purple hue. When Jeremy examined his own hand, he saw it was covered in a light blue film.
He moved closer to a flower emitting a purple light and touched it. Instantly, the flower’s color shifted to blue, and several other plants changed color randomly. This triggered an alarm within the nanos in his body, which responded by dimming his blue glow. The nanos were evidently disturbed by the change, causing a temporary freeze as they recalibrated their alarms. Jeremy, immobilized and frustrated, felt a surge of mental activity as the nanos adjusted to the unexpected event.
Turning his attention to his surroundings, Jeremy noticed a small piece of wood materialize on the rock face, revealing a hidden door. He chuckled, amused by the nanos' clumsy attempts to adapt. As he approached the door, it opened on its own, revealing a cozy hobbit hole designed just for him.
Inside, Jeremy was awestruck. The room was furnished with an old-fashioned wooden table and benches, and the walls were adorned with shields and crossed swords. Upon closer inspection, he realized the shields were not ordinary; they were replicas of those from movies and TV shows, conjured from his own memories. The edges of the shields appeared fuzzy until examined up close. As Jeremy observed the room, the nanos used this new data to make real-time adjustments.
The hobbit hole featured a fire pit in the center, a kitchen area on one side, and a bedroom capable of accommodating four people on the other. As Jeremy stepped inside, the fire pit roared to life with a whoosh, and torches around the room ignited, bathing the space in warm, inviting light.
Jeremy had meticulously explored the secrets of the nanos and had even activated a display mode in his own eyes to witness a significant breakthrough. He attempted to communicate with the nanos, uncovering the old alien code and subsequently the human code. It became evident that a major milestone was approaching, but Jeremy required a translation to proceed.
Despite losing track of time, the nanos kept record. Jeremy reached a point where he was using a VR keyboard while navigating his underground domain and the garden, where a dormant daemon resided. He pondered the system’s limitations due to the lack of translation.
Over the past few weeks, Jeremy observed an intriguing phenomenon: whenever he became excited, the nanos reacted by attempting to calm him. Initially, he thought they were merely safeguarding him. However, during a walk in the underground forest of purple and blue trees, Jeremy stumbled upon a black brick road leading to an astonishing sight.
The structure before him resembled a colossal, 20-foot-tall version of Seymour from The Little Shop of Horrors, but without a mouth. This entity, a dark purple pod with a glow akin to Jeremy’s but much deeper, was pulsating in sync with his heartbeat. As Jeremy approached and irritated the pod, the nanos grew increasingly agitated, resorting to their limited tools against him. Exhausted and feeling a pull to retreat, Jeremy recognized the nanos' discontent and decided to return to his hole.
Over the following days, Jeremy learned that the pod housed a nanos’ power source, functioning as a battery. Connected to a human instead of a massive computer, it had entered a sleep mode. Each time Jeremy approached, the nanos devised new methods to deter him, including the growth of long, living tentacles from the pod’s base. Avoiding the tentacles became imperative after a painful encounter.
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After days of confinement, Jeremy finally attempted to leave. The nanos, now capable of interacting with him via the VR interface, issued a cryptic message: “Subject requests help to %^$#@())____)(. This will allow you to $%#@ help. Do you want to $#@!^&%?”
Despite recognizing it as a potential opportunity, Jeremy's decision to seek help proved ill-advised. The nanos initiated a procedure that would put him into suspended animation until authorities could arrive. However, with the authorities still unlocated, the nanos could only place him in a sleep state. Alarmed by the appearance of a timer counting down 60 minutes until the “long sleep,” Jeremy frantically searched for a cancellation option. To his dismay, there was none to be found.
What happened next would be debated for years to come, but the closest understanding is that Jeremy’s emotions were directly linked to the pod. The pod had 99% of the old code in it. Faced with the prospect of “long sleep,” Jeremy freaked out, and his emotions escalated. The nanos could not calm him down. The pod received one or two words from Jeremy’s thoughts and knew he was not in a positive state. The nanos received an order from the old code in the pod and relaxed, starting to work on a second project. Jeremy’s display glitched out, and the long sleep timer started to move. A second timer appeared with a 27-hour countdown. The old code received an order to shorten the build time, which it did, but at a cost. It changed to 12 hours. When Jeremy saw this change on his screen, he was happy. Then, the efforts to calm him down took effect, and without realizing it, he sat on the bed and became motionless. His body felt sluggish, and then it hit him—he was falling asleep. The timer didn’t matter if he slept. “Shit, don’t sleep,” was what went through Jeremy’s mind as he fell asleep.
At 11:56, 11:57, 11:58, 11:59, the process completed. A small snake crawled out of Jeremy’s ear, dropped to the floor, and proceeded to slide between two tiles and disappear into the floor, becoming one with it. a day later It was now ready. As the floor next to the bed started to move, a 6-foot robot of liquid metal stood up and looked around. It then picked up Jeremy and carried him to a crystal coffin. Jeremy was placed into the coffin, the lid closed, and it receded into the floor at the head of the table. A large wooden Jeremy sitting in a throne slid over the coffin, hiding it, and now Jeremy could sleep while the snake, the guard, could follow his commands.
Jeremy was asleep, but he managed to send a request to the old code to create a guard to help. The old code made a guard, but due to Jeremy’s rushed order, only part of Jeremy’s mind was transferred into the guard. So, think of the guard as a snake-like two-year-old kid, but this kid could use a gun. It wasn’t great, but the snake did not know the difference, so he just went with it. Snake took some time, and when he was done, he looked a bit like Jeremy and could pass as human. Now, what to do?
After the fight in the cave, Jeremy realized that Snake was broken, but it was like there was a really simple version of Jeremy. Jeremy was stuck in the coffin and could not move; all he could do was try to give Snake as much info and guidance as he could. Snake had to leave the cave because of the problem he had made with the pod. Every time Snake started to stretch his wings, in a sense, the pod liked it, and the nanos got mad. As Jeremy was able to calm down Snake, the nanos would realize that Jeremy was trying new things and would try to help him calm down Snake. Within a span of hours, the nanos added a VR heads-up display to Snake and a little avatar for Jeremy sitting on his shoulder. Jeremy gave him rules, and every time Jeremy was out of slumber or the nanos' sleep systems, he would update himself on what Snake was doing and also give advice like tech support. This went on until Snake tried to attack the pod. Jeremy yelled at him, but the nanos were too angry. You heard me right—the Nanos had copied emotions and were angry. Think about that: a machine that understands what it is to feel and have a sense of self. That’s scary. Jeremy did the only thing he could think of. He gave Snake the command to leave the cave and get help. By this time, the Nanos had taken over the hospital and the surrounding area. Everything had been turned into Nano material and was under the control of the Nanos.
As Snake took his last update for a while, he walked down the long hallway his dad had walked down. When Snake reached the room where Jeremy had been injected, he could see images from the Nanos, showing ghosts of the past. Snake walked through the virtual ghosts, and then it was like walking from night into daylight. The hospital past that one room was better than new. It was lit, clean, and without a single edge in sight. The glass was missing, but there was no wind inside.
“Cool trick,” came from the little angel on Snake’s shoulder. Here in the hospital, it had some form and could run around Snake’s shoulders and move his hair. Jeremy realized he had a second body, and it made him so happy. The Nanos realized something good had just happened but had no clue what was going on. However, down the road, thanks to this burst of emotions, the Nanos would make such a mistake that Jeremy and Snake would thank the gods for a chance to make amends. But when Snake left the building, he encountered a scare. The moment his hand crossed a sunbeam, the Nanos in Snake nearly burst into flames due to the amount of energy his body was producing. Snake dove back into the building, and the connection to the angel Jeremy came back to life. This was the second great moment. The Nanos knew that the angel Jeremy on Snake’s shoulder was back online, and the moment that happened, Jeremy in the coffin became happy. Jeremy would teach Snake how to use the energy, and that energy would surprise everyone in the end.