[ WP ] The savior of humanity is not human , demigod or god . Humanity 's savior is a cucumber .

Howard Crumlin was hungry from his long days in the lab. 
 
 His wife, Meribeth, had fallen asleep the night previous sitting at the table reading her latest novel ( Howard could never keep up ) meaning his usual breakfast and lunch were unprepared in the morning. Howard, not wanting to miss his bus to the labs, grabbed a cucumber on the way out the door. Fortuitous choice, Howard! 
 
 For, you see, Howard was working at a nano-research facility working on ways to combat oil spills. Howard was designing a new form of nanobot that could dismantle oil spills and debris in swarms. Even more fascinating, he wanted his robots to be able to build more of themselves! This way, only a small number of the delicate machines would need to be machined. The rest, the nanobots themselves would find the parts and construct. 
 
 However, poor Howard had never read up on *ecophagy*: `` eating the world.'' Howard did n't realize he would have to carefully monitor his robot's instructions, as leaving room for a misinterpretation of the bot's directives could lead to nanobots endlessly replicating and spreading, consuming their entire environment building more and more of themselves. The world would not go out with a bang, but with a flood of gray goo. Tough luck, Howard! 
 
 As Howard prepared his latest model for testing, he left a logic loop in the current code's build: his new bot would reproduce, assess if the reproduction was successful, and then loop right back to beginning to reproduce again. Howard, of course, did not know this yet. He simply removed his cucumber to begin eating his tasty lunch as he watched the test unfold. 
 
 Once he pressed his enter key and initialized the robot's programming, the tiny black dot began to quiver and shake and spread to a small scratchy patch on his work bench. Big trouble, Howard! 
 
 Howard, unsure of what's going on, tried to disable the program, but the robots would not stop. He stood up and began to frantically look around his desk for a means to stop them when he tipped over the small testing platform. Now, the tiny dot was pulsating on the facility floor! 
 
 Howard ran off to press the emergency alarm, ready to lock down the facility. However, as Howard ran and papers flew in the breeze and the alarm sirens began to wail, an unlikely hero emerged. Perched atop Howard's desk, and slowly rolling since Howard stood up, a brave cucumber moved forth to challenge this technological menace. 
 
 With grace, the cucumber slipped off the counter, and began its plunging attack to the technologic black death below. The black spot quivered and pulsed with energy. The cucumber honed in with precision. 
 
 With a soft *splat*, Howard turned around to see his lunch on the floor. Alarm sirens continued to blare, and a red lamp flashed in the room. Howard carefully approached the cucumber and gripped it cautiously, between two fingers. 
 
 Sensing no movement, he lifted the cucumber up. Underneath, mixed with lights amount of cucumber juice, was the squashed remains of thousands of tiny nanobots. It seems their crush-resistant shells were n't quite up to company standards. 
 
 Howard sighed and let out a shrill laugh. Close one, Howard!
