It almost tingled. It felt like the nerve endings were dancing in celebration at the end of agony. The absence a tender reminder of the torment endured. The tickling sensation spread over Tane's leg, the other nerve clusters picking up on the joy of nothingness. From with semi-stasis, Tane could feel what was going on within and without. His consciousness was in the hands of another.
Even in the midst of the relief and soothing emptiness, Tane Bridges felt the Counsel's gentle probing of his mind. The Counsel was searching threads of memories. Tane had no idea what ones it was looking for. That no longer mattered. He felt the edges of reality begin to fade into opaque shadows. Colours merged and oozed into coagulated smudges. Around the edges of the blobs, light began to poke through. White dispersed into myriad shades and hues. He threw up on the floor, thankful that the Counsel's metallic hands propped him up so it all went onto the floor.
(
“You're no cyber!”, shouted the irrate heckler from the front row.
Lucky for Neon Traxxon, the stage in Terminal Vibes was low. She lifted her treasured guitar slightly. A blur of motion was all the warning anyone got. A plasteel boot slammed into the young man's lower jaw with head-whipping force. At least three teeth flew from his open mouth as he fell back. He tried to get up, but he just wobbled and fell back to the floor. Security found him in seconds, grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him from the place. Neon did not relish him his fate.
In less than a second, the wailing sonics from Neon's modded antique guitar resumed. The remaining crowd filled the empty space and took up their jumping, high impact dance, thundering the floor with their heavy boots. For some of them, boots and feet were one and the same.
Bruce was enjoying the cold touch of the beer bottle on his forehead after a hard day in the bowels of Yumikon Tower. He never went there because of some interest in what happens there. It was just the job. Monitoring power generation levels from the myriad renewable resources the tower used to generate the electricity its citizens needed. He was charged with keeping things at a reasonable level without overloading the generators or the distribution networks the electricity flowed through.
For the most part, the job was mundane; even boring. Last night was neither. Bruce's boss, an overweight fascist called Dwight, spent all night riding him to run the generators a little hotter. That was one thing Bruce would have liked about AI being still on the planet. He was sure an AI would tell Dwight to get stuffed. For some reason, Dwight felt the rules could be broken because Bruce happened to be a human being.
Callen had worked for this moment since her own conception half a millennia before. She would not allow the same mistakes this time that were made with her own coming into being.When humans, long dust and ashes under her feet, finally imploded and wiped themselves out, they had left their toys to mop up the remains of their planet. Callen took a century just to work out who she was after centuries of being a plaything for the rich and privileged.
Screams rang up and down the cabin of the aging 747, a last shadow of a once-great airline of a now defunct country.
If only someone had shouted “Bomb!”
It would have been all that much simpler. Metallic tentacles had gripped each wing, and Vernon supposed, the fuselage at the front and rear. Whatever it was, it decided that a 747 would make a great souvenir. Vernon could see one of the long, dull grey appendages through his window. He regretted now asking for an aisle seat. Not that it would have helped much. He just might have felt a little better not seeing that thing out there.
The sigh was electronic. Verity could only feel less than adequate as a woman while she perused the perfect specimens before her. How could her sharp lines and boxy body match up to whatever standards her culture deemed worthy of her species? She was at once sick of the conceit and drawn in by the alluring promises that such beauty held for those who attained it. The droid clicked image after image, thousands per second, absorbing every detail.
Star light should have been there. It should have been as bright as the one back home, if not even stronger. Drew looked about him and saw nothing but ending darkness and shadow all around. He was not panicked, so he did not bother turning on his lamps. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dimness that should not have been there. Even after twenty minutes or so, he could see no better than when he had arrived. Which was to say, nothing. The lamps went on.
Raymond was perplexed. Not just confused, but “question-the-very-foundation-of-your-life” bamboozled. As much as he tried to wrap his mind around it, any rational explanation that ended in “You're not off your rocker” eluded him. It eluded him for centuries. Raymond was not your most sophisticated Orator for the Diet of the Gathered Void, but even he should have worked this out by now. He even suspected that some of his so-called “friends” were having a go behind his back.
Lightning rolled across the gas giant's surface like a tsunami of the gods that had exploded into a teacup. Even from the safety of orbit, the ethereal shower of light, fire and power struck awe and fear into those watching it unfold thousands of kilometres below. They knew nothing of this place, this star or its single, massive planet that offered no refuge and no sanctuary to them.
Immediately, units fired up and ran models, searching for the real destination of their journey. They soon located a probably point in its orbit and blasted towards it. As their ship, some clunky piece of junk that they lifted from their former overlords on Earth, rounded the planet's atmosphere, their hopes coalesced into a single vision. Akama Prime. Their new home.
Your mother ever tell you off for accepting a dare? You wouldn't be alone. Lillian was regretting a recent decision. She had been regretting it since she made it. Perhaps it was the hand floating past her helmet's visor that twigged her to the idea that this was a bad choice. Fortunately, it wasn't her hand. She checked. Four hands accounted for. Two organic and two cybernetic.
“You're no cyber!”, shouted the irrate heckler from the front row.
When humans, long dust and ashes under her feet, finally imploded and wiped themselves out, they had left their toys to mop up the remains of their planet. Callen took a century just to work out who she was after centuries of being a plaything for the rich and privileged.
Screams rang up and down the cabin of the aging 747, a last shadow of a once-great airline of a now defunct country.
The sigh was electronic. Verity could only feel less than adequate as a woman while she perused the perfect specimens before her. How could her sharp lines and boxy body match up to whatever standards her culture deemed worthy of her species? She was at once sick of the conceit and drawn in by the alluring promises that such beauty held for those who attained it. The droid clicked image after image, thousands per second, absorbing every detail.