BACK INVENTF 8' An inventor's daughter uses his inventions Michaela was sitting in her classroom one day when the army captain walked in the door. Michaela recognized him, so she packed up her books and things into her backpack and she squeezed the "X" charm on her bracelet. Then the lens in her left eye showed the message "All systems GO." Her teacher said, "Michaela, you need to go with these men." "I know." replied Michaela as she hurried out the door with this man." "I'm wearing my earrings," Michaela asked the captain, "Why didn't you just call me on the radio?" The captain replied as he handed her a book, "I needed to give you this for your next assignment." "So, what is my next assignment?" asked Michaela as she opened the book and began paging through it. The captain replied, "Enemy agents have stolen the plans for your camera charm. If they can build a working camera charm, enemy agents could do bad things and we couldn't stop them. We need you to go to their laboratory and destroy their copy of the plans and electronics they're using to copy our camera." Michaela replied, "I understand my assignment. But what good is this book to me? It's written in a foreign language. I don't understand any of it!" The captain replied, "The book is just a disguise for the nanobots." "The what?!" asked Michaela. The captain explained, "The letters written on the pages of the book are not really letters. They're really thousands of teeny tiny robots called nanobots that arrange themselves to look like letters." With that he rubbed his finger across one of the open pages of the book and the letters under his finger disappeared. When he lifted his finger, there was a pile of what looked like powder. Then, the captain commanded, "Camouflage." Immediately the teeny tiny specs of powder began to crawl back across the page to their original positions. When they stopped, they looked like the letters again. "Wow!" exclaimed Michaela, "Those are all robots?" "Yes," replied the captain, "They will help you get into the laboratory where the enemy agents are building the camera charm. But if you're caught with the book, the enemy agents won't know that your holding thousands of nanobots. Your father has already aimed your camera at the enemy's laboratory. You'd better get going." Michaela commanded, "Satellite view". The red "X" was already aimed at the enemy laboratory 7000 miles away. So, she commanded "Take me there." Immediately after Michaela landed on the roof of the laboratory she aimed the "X" at the roof and commanded, "See through that." "Something's wrong, Captain!" exclaimed Michaela. "I can't see through the roof." The captain replied, "That's why we sent the nanobots with you. The enemy agents now know that you can see through things with your camera. So, they covered the inside of the laboratory with a heavy metal that the camera can't see through." "So how can I get in there?" asked Michaela. The captain explained, "You'll notice that only the laboratory is lined with metal. But you should be able to look through the roof into the hallways and bathrooms." "Yes." replied Michaela, "I can see the hallway in front of the laboratory door." "Be careful," said the captain, "There are alarms and television cameras in all the hallways." She aimed the "X" at the corner of the hallway right under the television camera and commanded, "Take me there." When she reappeared in the hallway, she looked up at the television camera to be sure it couldn't see her. "I'm in. What now?" she whispered. The captain replied, "Turn the book to page 167, then hold the book against the wall. The command is DISABLE CAMERA." When Michaela did so, all of the nanobots on page 167 crawled off the page, up the wall, through a crack in the camera case. "There's smoke rising from the camera!" exclaimed Michaela. "That's good!" explained the captain, "That means the camera has been disabled. But that means the guards downstairs will be coming up in about a minute to see why the camera went off. So you have to hurry. Turn the book to page 176 and hold the book against the laboratory door. The command is "UNLOCK DOOR". When Michaela did so, all of the nanobots on pages 176 and 177 crawled off the pages and onto the door. Half of them crawled into the alarm box and burned up the alarm. Half of them crawled into the door lock and unlocked the door. Within a half minute, Michaela was inside the laboratory and closed the door behind her. She heard the guard outside banging his flashlight against the television camera and swearing loudly in a foreign language. Then, he walked away. It was afternoon back home. But here in the foreign country it was the middle of the night. Noone was working in the laboratory. "I'm in. What now?" she whispered. The captain replied, "Turn the book to page 187, then lay the book on the floor. The command is FIND CAMERA." When Michaela did so, all the nanobots from pages 186 and 187 crawled off the pages and spread out all over the laboratory at high speed looking for anything having to do with the see-through camera that Michaela's dad built. Less than a minute later, a red light began blinking on top of a computer screen. Michaela went over to investigate. The blinking was coming from ten nanobots who had stacked themselves on one another and flashed their tiny diodes at once. Michaela looked at the computer screen. She'd seen this picture before. This was the drawing she saw on the work table in her dad's workshop. "Found something." exclaimed Michaela in a whisper, "The enemy agents have daddy's plans for the see-through camera on their computer. What do you want me to do?" The captain replied, "The command is DESTROY COMPUTER." Immediately after Michaela gave the command, she saw smoke rising from the screen, the keyboard, the computer, the disk drives and the printer. Then Michaela saw another blinking light, then another, then another, all over the laboratory. The nanobots had found small electrical circuits and wires hooked up to meters. When Michaela reported the findings to the captain, he told her how to destroy those too. One by one, Michaela gave the command to destroy the circuits. Then.... "Wait a minute," replied Michaela, "There's one thing here that doesn't look like anything daddy's ever worked on. Maybe the enemy agents have a new invention for the camera." "Good eye!" replied the captain, "Put it into your backpack and bring it home. It might be useful." When the enemy agents went to the lab the next day all of the drawings of the see-through camera had been destroy, all of the circuits, all of the improvements... all destroyed. They could no longer use the camera to attack America. But when Michaela's dad had a chance to look at the new improvements that Michaela brought back with her, he found that the enemy's see-through camera would have been able to see through the heavy metal his own camera couldn't see through. Within a couple of days, his camera could do the same. When Michaela went back to school, her classmates asked what she did for the army yesterday, all she could tell them is, "It's top secret." Tommy shouted, "She didn't do nothing! She's a fake." Michaela aimed the red "X" in her left eye at Tommy's books and whispered, "Push that". The books in Tommy's arms flew across the room. "How did you do that?!" he asked. "Oh," Michaela replied, "I didn't do anything. I'm a fake." ©2008 Bob Snook. Conditions for use: This story is free. Pay no fees or royalties. Do not sell this story or rewrite it. 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