“Welcome,” said
Toaster-Man as the elevator door dinged and opened to the
three-dozenth floor. “To the Ministry of Toast.”
The room they were in,
which took up the entirety of the floor, was an immense factory.
Gears grinded and machines whirled, conveyer belts turned and various
other sorts of tubes were strewn about in seemingly-arbitrary ways.
“You see, each floor,”
said Toaster-Man. “Has its own function. This one is mainly power
generation. It comes from the solar collectors by the windows.”
there were indeed arrays of solar panels blocking each window in the
floor. Actually, from now on in this chapter, just assume that the
things Toaster-Man describes exist.
“Wait so, what's all
this power for?” asked 7ollion.
“You'll see,” said
Toaster-Man. “Up to floor three-dozen one!” They walked across
the factory floor to the stairs, and up them to the next floor.
“This floor is mainly a
wheat farm. As you can see on the outside perimeter of the room is
all plots of dirt, wheat is growing in there. I made automatic
harvesting machines and automatic mills to grind it into flower as
well, going in towards the centre of the room there.”
“Why didn't you just use
part of the last floor?” asked Jessica.
“Well the windows were
all taken up by the solar panels! Wheat needs sunlight to grow,
obviously,” Toaster-Man said.
“Floor three-dozen two
is the ovens, where the bread is baked, the other ingredients are
pumped in from higher up, and-”
“Wait hang on,” said
7ollion. “Are you using the entirety of these thirteen floors to
make a toast factory??”
“Well yeah,” said
Toaster-Man. “It's the ministry of Toast! Now the next floor slices
and packages the bread...”
“And you couldn't find
any way of doing that... a bit more efficiently?” asked Jessica.
“Nope,” said
Toaster-Man. “I spent all day with my plans, thirteen stories was
the absolute minimum. Now, floor three'zen four is the nanoreplicator
production and control room, as you can see.” The floor was mostly
open, and metallic, filled with computers, wires, moniters, and
flirting about the room were dozens of insectoid robots.
“I think nanobots are
usually smaller than that,” said 7ollion.
“No those are the
control bots, they control the actual nanobots,” said Toaster-Man.
“Like queen bees or whatever.”
“And nanobots were
absolutely necessary,” said Jessica.
“Yes, you can't build a
Ministry of Toast without them,” said Toaster-Man.
They continued the tour,
went through floors where the function was collecting and cultivating
yeast, growing and refining sugar canes, one for molecularly
assembling salt crystals (apparently that was the main function of
the nanobots, although they had others), and the room that controled
the water systems. “And finally, floor four dozen is the genetic
labs, where we will conduct genetic experiments to genetically
enhance the toast, and such.” Throughout the entire time,
Toaster-Man had been talking rapid-fire, his comrades barely able to
get a word in edgewise. “So, what do you think? Awesome, eh?”
“Yeah,” said 7ollion,
genuinely impressed.
“You realize you broke
literally the only law we have, right?” said Jessica. “To not
define undefined stories without a vote? Thirteen floors are gone
just like that now!”
“Yeah,” said
Toaster-Man. “But, toast!”
“I kind of think we
should tell everyone,” said Jessica.
“So this factory is
completely self-sufficient and will theoretically be able to make
toast without limit?” asked 7ollion.
“Yeah, pretty much,”
said Toaster-Man. “But there's a few little hitches I wanna work
out first. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell everyone until
they're ready.”
“I can't believe you're
taking his side!” said Jessica. “He used up a good chunk of the
tower!”
“I'm not saying it was
right,” said 7ollion. “But you gotta admit it is pretty cool.”
“Okay, granted, the
nanobot queens are pretty cute.” One flew up by her and poked her
with an antenna-like appendage. “Ow... wait are they sentient?”
“How should I know,”
said Toaster-Man. “Anyway this concludes the tour. I have many
things to do and fix. Feel free to explore some more.”
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