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Stroke by stroke Amber applied a clear coat of nail polish onto Jons finger nails.

“Damnit Jon! Why didn’t you tell him about the Holo-ads.”

“I know, I know, but I told you he figures it out, and honteslty, they listen to your feedback, but rarely do anything with it, and if they do it comes out in the like 5th version from whatever one you’re on.”

”Fair enough, Okay, keep going. But we’re almost done, so I hope it’s over soon.”

Jon continues to finish his story…

Yeah yeah, we’re almost to the end… So a few weeks later I had Sally Mae set up another dinner for us so I could retrieve the nano-bots.

In a follow up call with Sally Mae, Anna Iris learned that they were going to be in Phoenix, so we went to a really old place called The Valentine that’s world-renowned and has a 5-year wait list.

After taking a drone there and fucking buying a pair of folding sunglasses from the Holo-ad… finally the get it right, I walked into the restaurant and asked the hostess about the reservation. Uhhh, she was so beautiful and gave me the eyes after she saw who I was meeting with. But I had to focus, it was work time.

Tom saw me walk in and got up to shake my hand. Boom, done, bots retrieved. Anna Iris initiated the retrieval protocol and our business was completed.

He seemed happy, so did Sally Mae who was wearing a brand new pink Beggior dress and matching pig bracelet. That was a very high-end brand clothing brand back then, it went under in 2230 because the founder and CEO was caught running a robotic prostitution ring on a private island. The company just couldn’t recover because apparently 70% of their revenue came from the “side” business.

Before we sat down I spritzed my hands with sanitizer as I asked why they were in Phoenix.

Tom told me about the last few weeks, “A few days after we saw you last, the epiphany hit me. I remembered reading something essential in a Physics journal. Marlong Manfroot had discovered how matter recombination might be able to work. Which got me thinking, what if instead of increasing maintenance reviews and staff, and hoping this never happened again, instead, it just never happened again? What if Nano-bots could fix the drones by reforming their matter into whatever shape and material is needed, then designated placement nano-bots could place that new matter into place as needed to fix the drone. All we would then have to do is make sure each drone had a sufficient amount of nano-bots on board for each trip, and if, for whatever reason the drone runs out of nano-bots, we could reform the bots used on non-essential parts to fix essential parts if there was ever a critical failure.

So, I called an emergency hack session with my top Engineers to start working on this with me. We hadn’t completely shut down our nano-bot lab yet, all the machines and materials were still there, so we just picked up where we left off. My amazing team had a working prototype done in 3 weeks. We are down in Phoenix to start talks with one of our manufacturers on how we begin mass production.”

I acted surprised, “That’s remarkable! I’m so jazzed that you figured this out. I can’t wait to see it all in action after launch. I get to come to the launch party right?”

With elation and relief in his voice, “Yeah, the investors are very excited about this, and don’t want to remove me as CEO anymore. I think this is going to be big!”

“Yes, Jon, we can’t thank you enough,” Sally Mae said with a look of knowing in her eyes.

“Oh, it’s not a problem, you invited me to a delicious and beautiful dinner a your lovely home. I had to cover the bill on this one. Thank you two for being such lovely people. It’s been a delight to get to know the both of you.” I said, deflecting the actual thanks she was trying to send my way.

Amber finishes up….

“So, that’s how self-replicating nano-bots came to be a thing. I mean, was it completely safe, no…

But what is?

They did almost restructure the matter of everything in the universe as research continued. Yup, Anna Iris is telling me that about 20 square blocks got turned into various sizes of rubber chickens. Luckily they fixed that bug and never had another problem or drone failure in the last 2000 years. Well… at least that the public knows about.

So after that, I got back to the office, went into my private suite and set the date to today on the good ole Q-Ticker Pro. I needed to relax after all that so I came in to see you. But do you want to see the most adorable in-between moment between Tom and Sally Mae that I saved?” Jon asked.

Amber did want to see. She was always surprised by the moments he chose to collect. There was something so beautiful and simple about them. He would capture the true essence of humanity in moments that normally get forgotten and go unnoticed.

She painted the last clear coat of nail polish onto his, now maroon, toenails then placed the temporal viewing device onto her temple and watched the moment as she waited for his toenails to dry in the ND3500.

What she experienced was…

The comforting feeling of Sally Mae’s hand resting on Tom's chest, now, what she fully believed to be her chest. That was the thing with MER’s you tended to get lost inside their unique ride.

Because for the moment to drop into, you become the person who experienced the moment, you feel every bit of the life of another, you become them.

She twirled his chest hairs as they cuddled on the couch watching the 210th Fast and the Furious movie starring Vin Diesel the 35th clone, The Rock's 36th Clone, and Paul Walker's second clone.

The couple lay there embracing one another on the 100,000 unit couch, both calm, both relaxed, both complete and at ease.

Because.

Earlier that day he just had his breakthrough, she could feel the excitement and outrageous speed of his excited thoughts. But with each twirl of his chest hairs she would return to, and focus on the love and the care, and this moment with his wife.

For the first time in a long time, they both felt the future wasn’t looking bleak. The soothing sound of Vin Diesel’s clone’s perfectly deep genetically engineered voiced entered his/her ears from the one of a kind custom made 250,000 unit speakers, “No matter what, we survive, it’s what a family does.” He/she smelled his wife’s freshly washed hair as he gave her a warm and tender kiss on the cheek. He/she felt the overwhelming love this man had for this woman at a point in time far gone. A love that was a substantial amount of the driving force fueling his continued success. It was these moments that he lived and worked so hard for, it was these moments he wished to have more of.

That’s the end of this story

Thanks for being apart of the first completed edition of The Time Traveling Salesman.

Next week will be a new 3 part story. So stay tuned for that!