|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- WEAVER--CUP 6--"CHIME" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Weaver  ||  -------> (Cup SRwv006, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = A plan started forming in my mind. If my wild speculation was true, if this thing was really going to build a new Warhome, I wanted to get the whole thing done without the involvement of Booze and Treyess. I would travel across the island to some remote beach, and then take the Warhome to sea, around the island and back to the women. I know it's kind of immature, but I think I would get a thrill out of showing off to them, doing something as amazing as this. And maybe, at some level, I felt it might help me get Treyess back. You know, we hadn't been together alone at all since Booze arrived. The stranger was always there. Unwanted, unwelcome. Maybe I'd ban her from the Warhome, and leave her on the island. Me and Treyess could go to sea and explore this world, with no more interference. Or maybe--maybe I'd have to kidnap Treyess. Take the biplane in--no--the submarine! Take the submarine in and snatch her while she's swimming! Snatch her away from the scumbag Booze. My mind was dazed. I wasn't sure what I was gonna do--but I knew I'd need to snap a whole lot more matter before the matter-thing could build the Warhome. So I redoubled my efforts, snapping up rocks, ground, trees, and anything else I could find (not much). I continued inland, farther than I'd ever been before. I didn't care about getting lost--I was sure now that before too long I'd have a new Warhome. And a Warhome can cut through anything. Lord knows how much matter I snapped up. Many hundreds of tons as I continued my walk inland. I couldn't wait to get the new Warhome--there would be clothes and food and water in there. See, I'd gotten to a more barren area, much more rocky and flat. And I was getting pretty hungry and thirsty. I had a field day on the rocky plateau. Snapping up massive amounts of stone. I guess there must not be a big variety of atoms in stone, because the matter-thing did it's "digestion" phase more and more often. Soon I got to the edge of the plateau, and I saw the sea far in the distance. I'd been travelling for about four or five hours at this point, and I felt really worn out. But the Warhome needle was nearly at 100%, and my stomach was full of butterflies, waiting to see if and how an enormous Warhome was gonna find its way out of this little box. The lights in the sky were falling toward the horizon, and a weird green and silver sphere was drifting across the sky, when I heard the bell. It was a beautiful, pure, exhilarating chime which sounded from the thing I held. I looked at the Warhome display. 100%. I looked around. I was still on the barren plateau. A few small weeds grew among the cracks in the rocks, but other than that, nothing. I looked down at the device, and all the displays were dark--only the image of Warhome was lit up. So I placed the thing gently onto the ground. It stayed there, displays facing up, for a few seconds, but then it began to stir, and in a sudden motion, it swung up to rest on its side. I stepped back. It began to shake, and turn slowly in a clockwise direction, toward me. I ran around to stay away from the area it was facing. As it turned out, it wasn't pointing toward me--I guess it was looking for the best possible place to begin its work. So it stopped, and a few seconds later, it spat out a black ball of some sort. It rolled away from the device and then stopped. I backed away some more. The ball began to roll around a little, and then suddenly it just--unfolded. That's the only way I can describe it. Sort of like a flower blooming also, I guess. Could the entire Warhome be in that ball, unfolding? No--there's no way--it would be so dense and small that it would have cracked the rock and fallen into the ground. And the way the thing rolled--no--it didn't have the inertia of an object that was hundreds of tons. But it was unfolding into something--something like--a spider? Yeah--some sort of robot with multiple legs--about the size of a large dog. Soon it had completely unfolded itself and darted with uncanny speed over to the matter-thing, which it lifted into a cavity in it's "chest" area. Immediately, the device spat out about a dozen more balls, all different colors. The spider picked the balls up in specialized appendages and began moving around at incredible speed, depositing the balls at various locations. I backed away some more--this spider was covering a big area, and moving so fast--so fast that I wondered if my superstrength would save me from such an impact if it were to hit me. But it didn't. All the balls it arranged began to unfold, into a variety of shaped, and all the while, the device in its midsection was spitting out ball after ball, which the spider would then deposit either by themselves, or on top of the various things which were unfolding. I sat down and watched the show. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----