Chapter 68: “Kitty will provide you

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with any degree of detail that you require.” Jenny said” The executive version is that it’s a more sophisticated version of something a guy name of Dr. J. Storrs Hall dreamed up during the last century. He called his version Utility Fog. It is composed of zillions of tiny foglets as he called them. They look like this.

She showed me a video

“They’re conceptually very simple.” Jenny continued "As you can see, each arm can wave about and telescope in and out. At the end of each arm are grippers optimized to grasp the grippers of other foglets.”

“And?” I prompted her.” What else?”

“That’s it” Jenny said.

“That doesn’t seem very useful” I pondered.

“One isn’t. A lot of them are. A zillion of them are VERY useful.” she said. "You’ll see.”

We bided our time while the Q-Hive digested what the cat drug in. It took a while before anything visible happened.

“What is THAT?” I asked pointing at what slithered out from the hole in the side of the Q-Hive.

“That’s the first Q-Wasp” Jenny said proudly.

“We watched as it spread it’s wings, groomed itself clean of the icky liquid that covered it, not leaving even a drop behind, then it fluttered the wings, lifted off and flew out the open balcony door. I mostly left it open for ventilation until it was a chose of suffocation or being eaten alive by mosquitos.

“It’ll be back soon” Jenny said. "It should find something pretty quick.”

I nodded. There were all kinds of insects, I repeat my last about the mosquitos. Bugs came with the territory when living near a swamp.

Sure enough in no time it was back. It crawled into the hole.

Jenny said. "It’s feeding the hive. Now watch.”

Almost instantly the wasp came out again and flew off a second time. Then a second wasp slithered out of the hole...and a third. They cleaned themselves then flew away.

“The hive can make the wasps much quicker with the pre-processed feedstock the wasps provide it.” Jenny told me. "Notice the surface of the hive?”

“It looks slightly damp.” I replied "It’s a little bit shiny.”

“That’s the first bit of Quintessence.” she said. "The process will continue indefinitely until we tell it to stop.

Sure enough. Pretty soon there was a veritable swarm or wasps coming and going. I moved the hive outside onto the balcony. I hoped they would eat the mosquitos.

They did.

Now what?” I asked Jenny.

“What ever shall we do?” she looked at me and grinned.

“I imagine we can figure out something I said as I closed the balcony sliding door.

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