The world engine
Cutler's fingers twitched and he
dropped the omniphone. A modform grabbed the phone and tossed it
into Cutler's lap, from which it skittered onto the floor. Cutler
didn't move. The modform grimaced, picked up the phone again, and
pressed it into Cutler's hand. Before he could say a thing, the
creature was gone.
"Why don't you get that fixed?"
the clerk asked.
Cutler rolled his eyes.
"I was on Arctuis when they
started up the world engine."
The clerk paled and put his hands up.
Didn't want to hear it? Too bad.
"When the morphogenetic wave swept
through the lab I saw my colleagues, my wife, two of my three
children, become parts of the machine. My daughter was incorporated
in the effluent monitoring apparatus. I recognized her shoes. She
was one of the lucky ones. Her mind was instantly destroyed.
Dawson, the lead investigator, was still conscious three weeks later
when they finally managed to shut the thing down. By that time
nearly two thirds of the planetary mass had been converted to living
tissue, but no breathable atmosphere had been created. The air
supply to the lab was intact. Dawson pleaded with me to break the
seal and release him, but I could do nothing."
The clerk interrupted, though he looked
like he was about to lose his lunch. "I thought he couldn't
talk. That his mouth was..."
"He blinked his eyes," Cutler
snapped. "He used Morse code, we all had to learn it back in
those days."
"So what happened to you? You
survived. Why not have your body rebuilt, or replaced?"
"Can't. Why? Who the hell knows?
No one could figure out why the half of me they found was still
alive, 20 days after the planet went crazy. So I'm the only guy in a
powerchair in the freaking hundred planets. I'm the only guy they
can't regenerate or even graft prosthetics to. I'm the only guy who
doesn't respond to rejuvenation or life extension treatment. Some
guys have all the luck, eh?"
"But the world-f*ck," the
clerk whispered, "that was at least 80 standard years ago. How
old were you when it happened? You look ... young."
"Yeah, well, what happened to me,
it ain't all bad. I read minds too." The clerk's knuckles
turned white where he gripped the edge of the counter.
"Joking!"
Kid needed to get a grip. He'd even
believed that Morse-code crap.
Publ. Daily Cabal 2009
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