Quick interlude because tiny adorable origami robots!

Inspired by a brilliant post by the lovely Beedok on tumblr - Sorry ffnet won't let me include the link, but when you go to Beedok on tumblr and search for "Replicators" or "Origami Robots" it will come up.

Go check it out, this little chapter will make much more sense if you've seen it, also it's super cute! (Someone is excited...)

Jack walks into Daniel's office to fetch him for lunch, and does a double take. He takes a step back to look at the sign by the door, but he is at the right office. There's just not usually that many people there. If the department has a meeting, they mostly use one of the meeting rooms, not Daniel's chronically too small office which is littered with artifacts and hardly has enough space to stand, let alone enough clutter free chairs to sit.

He pushes his way through the excited masses to Daniel's desk, where he finally gets a glimpse of what all the fuss is about.

"Look! They even swim!" A woman from botany (he thinks) exclaims and points to a bowl of water with a little metallic object in it, which is making its way across the water quickly, to the Oh's and Aww's of the spectators.

Upon further inspection, Jack counts no less than ten of these little devices on Daniel's desk. They are digging their way trough sugar grains, pushing little blocks around, and walking slalom around some screws.

Daniel, who has been setting up one of the things to climb up a mini-slope, looks up and smiles at Jack. "Oh, hey there. Aren't these cute? Dr. Simpson brought them along."

Jack eyes the tiny devices suspiciously. "But what are they?"

"Miniature Origami Robots! Look, they start out as these little flat squares and then activate on their own and fold themselves into shape."

That does nothing to reassure Jack. "And where are they from?"

"MIT released them a few weeks ago. Aww, look, it wants to climb the slope again!"

"Uhuh," Jack answers skeptically, and grabs his archaeologist's hand, because they'll never get to lunch otherwise. "Come on, it's mystery meat casserole and purple potatoes today."

Jack ushers Daniel in front of him, making sure to "accidentally" squish one or two of the tiny robots on his way past. They're looking suspiciously like a preform of replicators to Jack, and he will take any opportunity to decimate their numbers.

They are not Asurans, JackGeneral, Lantis tells him while they're making their way to the mess hall, sounding a little bewildered.

But they remind me of these spider-like replicators, and you know what they did to the Asgard. As you'll remember, they started out as toys, too!

These robots have no ability to self-replicate, Lantis tries to reassure him.

Aht! They're even worse then, getting humans to do the replicating for them!

"– Jack? Are you listening?" Daniel asks at this moment. Jack has no idea what his linguist has been elaborating about, and shrugs apologetically. "Sorry, I was distracted by Lantis."

Daniel narrows his eyes at him for a moment, but Jack kisses him before he can start Tirade Number 27 ("Jack, you're never listening" – not to be confused with No. 43 "Jack, you need to pay attention at meetings" or No. 36 "Jack, I just explained that to you").

He ends the kiss before it becomes too heated, towing his dazed archaeologist along the last few hundred meters to the mess.

He'll think about ways to get rid of these robot thingies later. Right now he'll enjoy having lunch with Daniel.

Ehehehe. I find these mini robots really cute, but then, I LOVE robots in every shape or form. Jack has had some traumatic encounters with replicators, no wonder he's wary. Good bye, tiny little Origami robots on Atlantis, you will all soon meet your demise.

So! There will be another chapter in the "Double trouble" story arc, dealing with the aftermath of everything that happened there. I'll probably insert it before this little chap when it's done, I just wanted to share this little fluffy tidbit. :D

Also there have been multiple plot bunnies biting, especially in the crossover department, so there will be a next installment of this series "In other better futures" sometime! So far I have ideas for crossovers with Bones and Avengers (not in the same ficlet), but I'm open to any suggestions!

Thank you all for reading, I hope you had fun! :D