Maxwell Kaim
Team 6
Reap What You Sow
Nanotechnology
“Five hundred years since the release of the first personal computer, and the
problems of computers and Nanotechnology is still around”, read the text meandering
intrusively across the visor of its less then interested reader, “A special editorial tonight at
seven, marking the two-hundredth aniver…”
Enough of this sensational rot, our aforementioned aloof and broadcast assaulted
protagonist thought as he willed the monotone voice of the announcer out of his suit,
making a whole lot of everything out of nothing, and doing a damn fine job of making it
sound childish to boot. Really, who comes up with the titles and promos for these things?
Even the grammar’s wrong… Though far from finished with his increasingly incised
internal monologue, such things do not make for very interesting stories alone, so let’s take
a look at the bigger picture while our friend here is otherwise occupied.
To the casual observer our friend here is arguably human; two arms, two legs, a head, the
appropriate number of digits, and all that other “important” stuff. Whether or not these
facts hold true for whatever’s inside the full-body environment suit that comprises that oh-
so-human silhouette is up for grabs and not completely important. What is important is the
large pack the man is carrying, stuffed with what could only be described as a miniature
landfill, which pegs our man as a Scavenger, exiles who spend most of their lives
wandering the abandoned cities, collecting pre-Dome odds and ends for avid collectors and
arguable nut-jobs. Wait, abandoned cities you say? What are these Domes you speak of
you ask? And what of the Nanotechnology, what’s that got to do with anything? Well, I
was getting to that and seeing as our good Scavenger friend seems to have wandered off to
plunder that hotel over there now would be a good time to bring the audience up to speed.
Look around you; the birds are singing in the trees, the sky-scrappers are glistening in the
mid-day sun, the streets are clean of even the smallest piece of trash, and the air is crisp and
pure. A paradise brought to you by the omnipresence of the nanite clouds, nano-scale
machines whose sole purpose is to make the world “a better place”, be that through the
constant automated maintenance of building infrastructure or the conversion of pollution
and waste into energy for themselves and harmless fertilizers and substances for the world.
Nothing is impossible for these tiny miracles; capable of changing anything on the
molecular level, learning from their mistakes, and maintaining a worldwide network
accessible wherever one can find a breeze. Truly a paradise, sans the one thing one would
expect to find living in it, humans. Not a single person can be found wandering these
streets and enjoying this “perfection”. They’re all off in the distance, living out their lives
beneath the miles high expanse of the Dome beyond the city limits, and in all the other
nearly identical Domes which now dot the globe
And why do people sequester themselves away into these Domes instead of living out in
the paradise they’ve created? For the simple reason that they are incapable of living
