Chapter 23
Kryten gets really really small

There was no use denying it any longer.
Kryten had to get small.
"The smaller the better". He thought.
"And the sooner the better". He thought as well.
"Holly."
Holly's digitalized image appeared on the medi bay monitor wearing a long powder blue bed cap." Oi It's the middle of the night. What are you doing calling me at this hour?"

Kryten now felt sheepish. He instinctively called out Holly, in response to Lister's condition.
Like a human.

'"Uh Holly, were you off line? Kryten tried to make small talk in an
attempt to be nonchalant, his stress chip alerted.

'"Well actually I was. All the calculation I had to run today. Gotta have the occasional breather, don't I?"

"Of course you do, that's why i wouldn't have dreamed of it if it wasn't of the more urgent nature." Kryten's stress chip pinking frantically.
"Well what is it. Our mummy to be need a hand? Brush up on the best breast pump bargain? Come on what is it?"

'If only that were the case sir. It seems as though Mr. Lister's two unborn sons are growing at an unnatural rate." Kryten punched in the appropriate keys to allow Holly to see the Sonogram.

"As you can see they are much more developed than normal thirty four week old embryos. If am to save Mr. Lister's life the babies will have to come out."
Holly nodded his head in agreement. True enough he couldn't recall all the stages of a child from embryo to exit. But he was sure of one thing. Unborn six month old embryos should not be playing foot ball with their dad's gonad's while still in the womb.

No sirrrrr.
Rimmer walked in only to hear the last two sentences. But seeing Lister's sonogram on the readout and seeing Lister's convulsing body, he was able to sauce it out fairly quickly. The thing that came to Rimmer's mind first was, "Damn my luck I forgot to bring an instamatic camera."

"OK Kryten here's the scenario." Holly Started "Your going to have to go into you core processor, where all our nanobots are situated. There you're to commandeer a small troop from their regular duties, and round up the boys. Shouldn't be much of a bother really." Holly said making his voice as convincing as possible.

"Just patch in to the medi com and close your eyes I'll lead you round. Just follow my voice."

"I'm not sure about this. I'm just a mechanoid." Kryten's doubt's plaguing him. "I just clean things."
"Well then just think of Lister as a great garbage can, and he needs to be hosed out." Sneered Rimmer.

"Somehow sir I don't think that analogy was appropriate at this juncture."

"Analogy?"Rimmer Questioned. "What analogy?"
Kryten clicked a switch behind his left ear, which literally popped his lid. He pulled a lead out and plugged it into the medicom. "This will take up quite a bit of my run time" said Kryten.

As he laid himself on the observation table Rimmer asked, "Is their anything we can do to help?"

Kryten his neck craned said, "Watch my dreams." Then rested his head back, closed his eye's and was silent.

When Kryten's eyes opened he dreamed he had awoken and that he was actually awake.

Awake and in a really strange place.
The walls, that seemed to go on forever, were the color of flesh, but had the texture and reflection of plastic. Lots and lots of lights flashing on and off, with a cheap black light kind of effect. Smoke or some sort of fog veiled the landscape. Kryten couldn't actually see the floor, but he was pretty sure that it was probably the titanium banding that interwove itself through his
postronic brain.

A large neon sign burned it red glow through the dense fog. There was a large arrow with the words CENTRAL PROCESSOR glowing within it.
Suddenly Holly's voice boomed in.

"Kryten can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear Holly."
'Well that shouldn't be hang on for a mo."
Suddenly Muzak filled the smoke filled air.
"OK I'm back. Can you hear me now?"

Kryten was confused now. Was time repeating itself. And if it was was he obligated to answer again. He thought about this for a moment and decided that it would be a temporal faux pas not to answer a possibly repeating time line.
"Loud and clear Holly" then he added just to be rebellious, "Are you
reading me?"
"Right as rain. Just follow the neon arrow and I'll meet you there."
Several minutes later Kryten met Holly's voice in the central processing unit.
"OK here's the plan I call in the proper code and you just walk in their and tell em what you want."

"And that'll work?" questioned Kryten dubiously.
"Sure. Once I set in the proper code the nanos think I'm the CPU
and your my instruction giver."
"Like a program you mean."
"Yea something like that. Look I'll tell them it's a super emergency situation. Then you pop in. Ready?"
"As ready as I'll ever be," answered Kryten as his anxiety chip went into overload.

When Kryten entered the seemingly small room he was astonished to find it very large inside. Come to think of it impossibly large in size. And it was filled with nanobots. That just so happen to look like exact tiny replicas of Kryten. Literally millions of microscopic Kryten's all in lines. Set apart into regiments. By the time Kryten waddled his way up to the podium all eyes were on him. All waiting for the emergency order.

The podium was too tall for Kryten's liking it seemed to high a prestige for him to be represented by. Still he had a job to do and he would do it.
"Hello" Kryten said nervously and gave the audience of millions a little wave.
"I'll make this as brief as possible. I need a small band of you to aid me in
saving a Mr. Lister's life. Oh, and the two babies. We need to enter a transport and be beamed directly into the trouble spot. There we are to surpress a local uprising. Without any undo damage to the locals, or
the terrain. Do I have any volunteers?"

A small regiment shuffled around in an untidy manner and a few hundred nanos separated themselves from the rest and marched up to the platform.
"We are the troop you seek. Troop number 1357xl2 Local droid human/organic relations at you service sir." Announced the troop leader.
As it stamped its foot and saluted Kryten.

"That's fine. Splendid indeed. Now if you'll all follow me I have transportation waiting. And time is of the essence."

As the troop single filed their way towards the awaiting transport,
on a peace keeping mission, none would have thought that all one hundred and twelve of the local fighting 1357x12 would be dead or destroyed, which might as well be dead, in the next four hours. This little disruption to the natural laws in accordance with the laws of robotics would, in the end, cause Nanarchy.