Chapter 117. Keepsake
I turned off my ‘bullet time’ and was hit with a dizzy spell. It was only partially from coming out of my ‘bullet time’, but most of it was from the watch just showed me. I fell down into a chair I was standing in front of in shock. Everyone was looking at my mortified face, and was asking what happened. I just looked at my hands in horror of what was swimming in them. I then stood up and walked out of the room without saying a word and to the nearest bathroom. Everyone was following me, but I was hardly noticing. I just went into the bathroom followed by Shoto and Deku. I went into the nearest stall and threw up.
I just heaved in the toilet at the idea of what was happening in my body. “What the hell!? Was that dad’s or was it for me!? And if it was for me, then what the hell was he thinking!? Give me a fucking warning on the box!” I screamed in anger at my dad. I flushed the toilet and walked out of the stall to Shoto and Deku looking at me with worry. I went to the sink and washed my face, and drank some water. I heard a beeping on my watch telling me my heart rate was high. “Who do you think caused that!? You-!!” I stopped myself from throwing the watch on the ground and just held it in my hand.
“Some keep sake…” I said while sighing at this new development. I walked outside the bathroom to see Deku, Shoto, and Hagakure. “Sorry, I was just in shock…” I sighed again while looking at the watch. “What happened?” Deku said cautiously. I took a deep breath before explaining. “I happened to find this watch in my parents room while I was moving here and packing their things to be put in storage. It was in a locked box by itself. I put it on and it nicked my wrist when I did so. Fast forward to now, I find that this thing implanted me with evolving and self replicating Nano machines.” I said that last part with disgust at what these things might do.
Everyone looked at me in horror at what I just found out. “Recovery girl around?” I said as I walked towards her doctor's office. Everyone else also joined me as I went into her room. She was sitting at her desk filling out paperwork. She looked up, saw me, and then sighed. “What have you done now?” I held up my watch as I walked over to her. I placed it on her desk and had it on the medical tab. She looked at the watch with confusion, then I switched it over to the Nano machine page. It talked about how they were doing as a whole, how they were learning, replicating, and evolving. Seeing this made her get extra serious.
“Did you do this on… No, you wouldn’t be here if you did.” I nodded and explained what I wanted. “I know these little things probably can never be taken out. The watch is protected against EMP’s so the bots probably are too. I just want you to make sure that they aren’t going to kill me one day. Tell Nezu, I don’t care about hiding this one. I just want to make sure I’m safe, and that you won’t let this spread either.”
She nodded as she made a call to Nezu. “Alright everyone out. And nobody mention this to anyone else. If these really are as advanced as it looks like, others in power may try to kill Kaminari to get them.” She spoke that last part gravely and that caused everyone to be fearful, but nodded in determination all the same. “Thanks for being with me.” I said with a small smile as they left. Shoto spoke up as he was the last to leave the room. “Of course. I would be a bad friend if I left you like that.” I chuckled at him and he smirked as he left.
Nezu came into the room not long after and asked to be brought up to speed. “Well this watch that Kaminari found in his parents room gave him Nano machines.” Nezu, hearing this, immediately looked over to the watch and read all of the monitors of my health, and then switched over to the part talking about the Nano machines themselves. He read up on what they were doing. Or at least what the watch claimed they were doing. He let out a sigh after reading a bit. “Well according to this, the Nano machines are mostly to view your health. Nothing dangerous from what I’ve read.” I nodded while sighing at his conjecture.
He then looked over to ‘recovery girl’. “I still think it would be best to take a look at them under a microscope.” He then looked at me. “If you wouldn’t mind Kaminari, we will need some of your blood to test.” I sighed at this part. “Sure, I just hate needles so make it quick.” He chuckled as ‘Recovery girl’ came over with a syringe. She took some of my blood, and placed some under a microscope. I never noticed but this place also had a built-in lab. After some time of her staring she gasped a little. That caused me to panic a bit while Nezu was going over to check himself.
“I believe these machines not only check his condition, they are also helping him repair, and bring oxygen themselves in the bloodstream. Best guess I have at the moment, but given more time, if these things evolve like the watch claims they may also start doing other things that I can’t imagine.” I started tapping my foot in angst. This was something inside of me, changing my body, and nothing I could do to stop it. Take out a few at a time, they would make more. Try and destroy them with an EMP, they wouldn’t care. This was a scary position I was in.
Nezu nodded while looking at the screen ‘Recovery girl’ was showing of them. He then turned to me with a serious expression. “Kaminari, I believe you are right about these machines. We may never be able to get them out of you. The best we can offer is keeping this under wraps to protect you from others that may want the machines for themselves. Also I will be having you get a physical here once a week to check how they are progressing.” I nodded while still a little in shock.
I then got a sudden thought. “What about Toga!? She drank some of my blood after this!” Recovery girl nodded while giving me a calming smile. “Don’t worry Kaminari, the bots seem to recognize your DNA and will only work in your body, which has been set by the watch. Anyone else, the bots will just exit from the body in the waste.” I sighed in relief that I wasn’t ruining Toga’s life with my problem. “Then what about setting the watch to someone else and having all the bots leave me!?” Nezu shook his head.
“According to the watch, it only stops having someone set, if they have died for a year.” I sighed at this information. The creator had thought of everything. Probably even things that I haven’t thought of yet to make sure the machines would stay with the person they deemed well enough with the watch. I sighed as I got the watch back. Nezu handed it to me while smiling. “Don’t worry Kaminari, Nano machines are not as rare as you think. This is not entirely new to us. You’ll be fine.” That did help me feel better. “Thank you both.” I said softly as I left the door.
I exited the room and looked at the watch again. They never mentioned being able to see the other apps the watch seemed to have. I looked at them. One had a lightning bolt, one had a pill, one had a bomb, another had a gear. I sighed at the way they were just pictures. ‘How am I supposed to know what they are the first time? What does the bomb do?’ I clicked on the gear hoping it was something good. It turned out to be the options for the bots.
I looked at each one. Amount allowed at once had a minimum of 10,000 that was already below and I couldn’t change it. It had a warning that too many may cause them to be found easier. When they would run self diagnostics. How much they were allowed to take from your body to replicate themselves, unfortunately this one was unchangeable to stop them from being made. I sighed at all of the other options I scrolled through. I left the window and moved back to the home page. I saw a book and decided to take a look at the manual.
Clicking on it I was inundated with everything these bots could do. I can program them to evolve in the way that I want. But the more I evolve them the less human I really become. There is a trade off for having these things. The more they change and become more of me, the less I can live without them. If I lose too many after taking a bad hit, I could die from the lack of bots rather than the blow itself. Also the more they evolve the longer it takes them to replenish. And the harder it is on my body to support them. ‘It’s like having a parasite that helps you, for letting it live in your body. The more it takes you over the stronger you get, but the bigger your Achilles heel does too.’
After reviewing the data I decided to stop from doing anything with them. There were certain functions that I couldn’t turn off, but at most I wouldn't be giving it the green light to alter me any more than it had to. ‘I still have my promise to the girls.’ I walked back to the dorms with a new feeling about these things. The more I knew about them, the less scared I was of them. “Maybe I’ve been watching too many horror movies.” I said jokingly as I entered the dorm hall. As I walked in I saw everyone was still here. ‘Shouldn’t they be looking at everyone's rooms?’ I looked around and saw Deku and Shoto sitting kinda far away from the rest of the boys. I walked over to them.
“What did I miss?” I said with a smile Deku got a big smile when he saw me smile. We walked away from the others and Deku whispered. “Did they get rid of them?” Shoto seemed to already know the answer, but I told them both regardless. “No, these will probably live with me forever.” I said with a weak smile. Deku was downhearted at hearing that, while Shoto was questioning what happened. “Well, first I’m sorry you had to see me in that state. Second, I think I overreacted about these things. They aren’t as dangerous as I thought they might be. I was just scared at what might be happening to me.”
I apologized to them both. Deku was shaking his head violently to show he wasn’t upset about my outburst, and Shoto just smirked and nodded in understanding of my freak-out. Shoto asked more questions about how they worked, and what ‘Recovery Girl’ thought about them. I was about to answer, but was caught by the girls. They all had a crooked smile that sent chills down our spines. Momo was the first to talk. “Hagakure has informed us about a certain watch we would love to get to know more about.” Mina was next while having her own crooked angry smile. “Y’know what? I totally forgot for us to look at your room in the dorms.”
Kyoka spoke next while helping Mina drag me off to my room. “Yea, I think that’s a great idea. Let’s hurry before he can talk himself out of this one.” I was being dragged off while the rest of the class was too busy to really notice. Shoto and Deku came with us too, because they also had a right to know more about it. After I opened the door to my room I was immediately tackled by Toga who was lying in wait for me. “Got you Denki~! Hey, can I sleep here!? It’s so much better than the room they gave me!” I sighed as she grabbed my arm and pulled me inside.
Deku was the most concerned with our safety at Toga being able to break into our rooms, but Toga spoke up about it. “Don’t worry, I only want to be in Denki’s room! Why are you all here by the way?” She tilted her head at her question, and I looked at everyone. I made sure to have enough pillows for everyone to sit on while Toga and I sat on the bed opposite of the rest.