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Chapter 33 - Self Configuring Modular Robot[]
"What're you working...
...on, guys?" Katherine's in the doorway. She's fit to pose in a fashion magazine, even dressed down.
"Busy." Arthur's got his nose buried in a desk full of monitors, chewing deep fried pork rinds with Jess.
"Mother wants you downstairs." Katherine tries again.
"Busy, go away." Arthur doesn't even look up, "...see how the materials have to layer?"
"Ayeh. 'tain't mechanical, cain't be, them's gotta be depos'ted sommat othah way..."
"ARTHUR!!" Katherine's voice could pierce quartz, which gets a floppy object from the shadowed side of the room, and Yvonne's voice barking "Shut UP! Where was I?"
"Third stage reaction." Penny Doons' voice muttered, "Do you think it'll work?"
"Yvonne!" the oldest sister of the Steiner-Davions growled and stalked forward. The focus of her attention being the source of the hurled textbook. "What do you think you're doing-"''
"Inorganic chemistry reactions mirroring life..." Sierra materialized from her own pile of materials, "...and we're working, you're interrupting." The Filtvelter girl had gained a bit of mass on good food and court living, but not so much that it completely vanished her street-rat origin. "Also, you're interrupting Liz while she's working on an extreme theorem."
this made Katherine's nose twitch, and she caught the scent of...
"TOBACCO??"
"It helps me think, Arthur, P-mail incoming."
"Got it." Arthur answered
"Cool, I'm gonna take this outside, Terry, you wanna turn the fire alarm back on?"
"Sure, Lizzie."
"Liz, when you get back, I need you to go over my behavior modeling. Something doesn't add up." Arthur added.
"Will do. how're we doing on the clock?" Liz asked.
"Worry about it after you've had your smoke, I need you focused." Arthur told her.
"Arthur, what the hell is going on?" she asked him
Arthur scowled, and spun in his chair, sneakers clear of the floor, "Twenty planets so far, five realms we know about. Thing they have in common?? some kind of mechanical infestation, it's evolving and replicating geometrically, I revisited my model and it's worse than Lizzie's. We're running the ****** out of time, it's all hands on deck, and Tell Mom I'm sorry but there's work to be done."
"What?"
"Okay, Yvonne, you want this one or are you still working on energy density with Sierra and Penny?"
"I can take it." Yvonne said, "Dumbing to blonde-speak. Take a single cell organism, doubles every day it's in the lake, lake's half covered in this pondscum. How long until it covers the lake?"
"I don't know, how long did it take to cover half the lake and how is this relevant??"
"One Day." Yvonne told her. "It might've taken two months to cover half the lake, but by sunset the next day from when you're observing? it's going to have the whole lake. That's Geometric growth in a population. Twenty worlds took a few years, but ours is evolving, it's getting tougher and surviving better, and it's mechanical, and so far as we know, it doesn't leave human beings alive. Now, unless you understand what we're working on, you should go downstairs, and tell Mom we're really very busy trying to save the world before we all become robot chow...and ask her to have the staff send up a leftovers plate and some fresh tea."
"Coffee!" Penny interjected.
"...and coffee. Why else do you think Mom turned Natasha Kerensky into the General of the Armies and Dad's sitting in a room with Theodore Kurita and Romano Liao negotiating a settlement?" Arthur chirped from his station. "It's real and really, really, really dangerous."
"We...we have scientists for that."
"Yeah, and those scientists have been tracking our IQ and educations since dad put this club together." Arthur told her, "We're the backup plan in case the nukes don't work."
"They won't work." Terry commented, "Not completely."
"Right. we're the backup plan, and we really need to keep working. Ask Mom if you think I'm lying, if I am, you can get some satisfaction watching the punishment." He was stone-faced, a look that shouldn't be on the face of a ten-year-old.
"You're impossible!" Katherine stormed out.
"Terry, tell Lizzie she can come inside again."
"Right."