Damon is stunned by what he just heard. He realizes that the silver stuff that covered his body must have been what spoke to him. Damon takes a deep breath then decided to try talking to what he assumes is an A.I.

 

"What are you? Why did you come here?"

 

[ I am the crude A.I. representing the Omni-dimensional Nanite Matrix or ONM for short. As for why I arrived here, you currently do not have the authorization level to receive that information.]

 

"What level of authorization do I need?"

 

[ You would need authorization level six to access partial information and authorization level nine to access full information on the subject.]

 

"What level of authority do I have?"

 

[ As you have just become the wielder of the ONM, you automatically get authorization level three.]

 

"What do you need me to do, now that I am the wielder of the ONM," Damon asks, as he accepts being the wielder for now.

 

[ You need to gather the required material and energy after you do that you can use the advanced features. Afterward, I will tell you your other responsibilities, also you have not decided what form nanite master control should take.]

 

"Right, I do need to do that. How about a ring on my right middle finger."

 

[ Very well, the nanite master control will assume the form of a ring.]

 

Damon looks down at his right hand to see a silver ring take form. After the ring finished, he looked at his phone to check the time and saw it is almost midnite so, he needs to get home. He decides to ask what exactly the ONM need tomorrow.

 

As Damon is heading home, he asks, "Why do you have a feminine voice."

 

[ I picked a voice that you would find pleasant to hear and not be afraid of.]

 

"I guess that makes sense," Damon says as he treks back home.

 

After about 20 minutes, he walks through the front door and hollers that he is back. Ayrica walks down the stairs then into the living room, where Damon is.

 

"Sage, honey, did you find a bunch of meteorite fragments out in the woods," Ayrica asks as she sits down on the couch.

 

"My whole backpack is full of them and, I found one that is too heavy to carry back so, we need to call someone to get that one," Damon said as he takes off his backpack to show his mother.

 

"You do not have to worry about the big meteor fragment after you left a government official called saying the government is will to purchase the largest piece, they are coming over tomorrow to discuss the price. We could use the money we get from it for your college fund."

 

"All I want is the money for selling the small fragments so I can get some things."

 

Damon walks upstairs to his bedroom to get some sleep as he is tired after all that has occurred today.

 

Damon's alarm clock wakes him up at 9 a.m. and, as he wakes up he looks at his right, he sees the ring still there.

 

"I guess last night was not a dream," Damon thinks as he gets out of bed.

 

"A government official is coming over today; he will certainly bring scientists to examine the meteorite to determine its value. I hope they don't find anything strange or they could want to experiment on me."

 

Damon goes downstairs into the kitchen to make himself some breakfast and sees a note from his mother that says she will back from work at around noon and the government official will come at 1:30 p.m.

 

"ONM, what's needed for the repairs."

 

[ You need: 10 gigawatts of energy, 10 kilograms of carbon, 50 kilograms of iron, 55 kilograms of water, one kilogram of titanium, five kilograms of aluminum, five kilograms of silicon, five kilograms of lithium, two kilograms of copper and a half-carat diamond.]

 

"Do the elements need to be in their refined forms or, can they be compounded with other things?"

 

[ The material can be compounded. The nanites will extract it from the compound.]

 

"Great, getting the materials would have been very expensive to obtain," Damon remarks as he lets out a sigh of relief.

 

"I should be able to get most of the things at the scrapyard right outside of the city and, I will probably only have to buy the lithium. Mom has some old diamond jewelry that she won't miss, plus after the meteorites sell I can replace it. The real dilemma is the 10 gigawatts of energy; the library offers free recharge so I might be able to get power from there."

 

"ONM, can you take power directly from powerlines or transformers?"

 

[ Yes, but the nanites have to be able to reach them and, currently, they can only extend roughly a meter from your body.]

 

"Even if I have to get close to its much easier to get power from the source and cannot be linked back to the source."

 

Damon finishes eating breakfast then he goes upstairs to his mother's room and finds the jewelry box on her vanity dresser. He opens the jewelry box and finds a diamond earring his mother never wears anymore. Damon, holding the earring, thinks of a problem.

 

"How do I have the nanites absorb the diamond?"

 

[ You can either say the word, Absorb or you can think of the action of the nanites absorbing it.]

 

"You can read my thoughts!" exclaims Damon.

 

[ Yes, but only thoughts directed toward me or action you wish to take using the ONM.]

 

Damon thinks about how the ONM always speaks directly to his mind, so it would not be that big of a stretch, but he still thinks it's amazing.

 

Damon, focusing back on the task at hand, imagines the nanites absorbing the diamond and as he does so, he observes his hand that is holding it turn silvery from the nanites. The nanites, crawling up his hand toward the diamond earring, envelop it. Almost as soon as the nanites cover the diamond earring, the diamond embedded within the earring vanishes.

 

After the nanites finish they return to their original position, fading from view.

 

"How did the nanites suddenly appear on my hands then disappear, ONM!"

 

[ The nanites are all over your body, using it as an energy source as was told to you before. You could see the nanites earlier because there was a large concentration of them in a single location. Otherwise, they are spread so thin that they are invisible to the naked eye.]

 

Damon shivers at the thought of millions of nanites all over his body but after Damon considered it briefly he decides to think of the nanites as another article of clothing.

 

Now that Damon has gotten the diamond, he puts the diamondless earring back into his mother's jewelry box. Leaving his mother's room, Damon goes into his bedroom to get his wallet and cellphone so, he can get a bus ride to the scrapyard.

 

Damon checks the time on his cellphone and sees it is 9:14 a.m. He hurries out the door because the bus arrives in 16 minutes. 

 

Barely making it to the bus on time, Damon climbs on. As Damon gets on the bus, he sees Arik, the star quarterback who bullies him all the time. Damon keeps his head down as he doesn't want to deal with his harassment. 

 

Damon, sitting down, recollects back time the bullying originated and what transpired after.

 

Damon had caught Arik cheating off him on two different tests and reported it to the principle. The principal verified Arik's grades for those two tests and, discovered they were substantially higher than all his other grades. The principal then talked to teachers and had Arik retake those tests. Arik failed his retake of the tests driving his GPA below the required 2.0 to play sports. Arik was off the team until his grades improve. He had the semi-state championship game that week and, he could not get his grades high enough to play in the game. The team lost the game without their star quarterback. There was a football scout at the game that talked to the winning team's quarterback about a football scholarship. Arik heard of this and was furious. He somehow found out that Damon was the one who reported him. Arik told some of his friends from the team about it and, they began bullying Damon.

 

Damon told the teachers and principle about the bullying but, they stated that, unless they saw it, all they can do is move him to a different class. Transferring to a new class would mean he would have to catch up to where they are. Damon already two A.P. classes, A.P. Chemistry and A.P. Algebra, that occupied a considerable quantity of his time. Damon thought about it and decided not to move classes. He may be able to get away from Arik if he moved, but he could not get away from all of them.

 

Following a week of being verbally harassed by Arik and his friends, Damon gave up on the teachers seeing it happen. Damon hoped now that Arik was back on the team he would cease harassing him but no. He decided to try to record Arik harassing him but, his school had a rule where you had to leave all electronic devices in your locker. Damon tried to record Arik's bullying him but, he never harassed Damon near his locker, the one place he could try, never giving him a chance.

 

After a month, Damon learned to deal with Arik's verbal abuse, but the stress was starting to affect Damon's grades. Arik seemed to realize his verbal torment was not as effective any longer, because the following week he started physically harassing Damon. 

 

Damon having had gum stuck to his chair, his books knocked from his hands, and his backpack "misplaced" for a week finally broke. He didn't want to get in trouble and cause problems for his, already preoccupied with work, mother but he has finally enough. Damon was going to show his tormentors why they shouldn't mess with someone taking A.P. Chemistry. Damon purchased ten pounds of spicy peppers and uses his old chemistry set, his mother got him, and refined capsaicin from it.

 

Damon finished refining the capsaicin after a week of arduous work obtaining about five ounces of pure white capsaicin powder. Using insulating rubber gloves, face mask, and goggles, Damon emptied the powder into a plastic bag carefully, making sure not to spill any. Damon waited till Arik and his team had a practice game then snuck into the showers, make certain there were no people or cameras that could catch him. 

 

Once Damon was in the shower, he took the lids off all the soap bottles and poured in the powdered capsaicin, he also sprinkled some on the towels. When Arik and his buddies use this soap now, it will be like bathing in pepper spray. Damon attaches a note in Arik's locker that states that he if continues his bullying, this will happen again.

 

After having experienced that, Arik's friends avoided Damon altogether but, Arik, while not ceasing entirely, took his harassment down to the level of just a mild annoyance.

 

Skreeeeeee!

 

Damon, rebound back to the present by the bus breaking realizes that it's his stop.