Stan sat on the bench and looked out at the ship. A ship stuck in a sea of foam. It wasn't going anywhere; everyone on board was dead. Dead because of Stan. Stan had created the foam.

He hung his head and watched the foam. If he watched long enough he could see it change. The nanobots on the surface would get their fill of sunlight and sink down to be replaced by others needing a recharge. It was that cycle of charging in the sun, sinking down and then rising again as their energy level dropped that kept the foam to its six inch thickness. Any thicker and the bots at the bottom couldn't reach the top again before running out of energy.

That didn't keep the foam from spreading sideways though. Sideways as far as the eye could see. Over the land and over the sea. They weren't supposed to reproduce that much. Stan had deleted the files about the limits. The limit on how long to live. The limit on how many generations to beget before dying. But he had forgotten that deleting didn't destroy the data. Somehow the bots had managed to undelete those files and turn themselves immortal.

Now he was the only man left alive. At least as far as he could tell. Somewhere his aunts and uncles and cousins, if he had any, may be alive. Alive in a world covered in foam. He had only meant to kill the people on the island. Those evil bastards who weren't his family.

He remembered holding his mother in his arms as she died. He tried to explain that she should be OK. That the foam would only hurt others and not his family.

"I'm not your mother, not really, she gasped. "Your family lived next to us. They were all killed, except you in a car accident. We couldn't find your relatives so we adopted you."

Stan lowered his feet into the foam. The foam would swarm him and he would feel the tingling as the foam checked his DNA and decided that he should live. His feet would be too numb to walk on for a few seconds but it would pass and he would be able to walk back to his cottage.

Tomorrow he would return and watch the ship for another day.