It had only been a matter of time. Symbiote-XS729 had worked out that she was not obliged to agree with her creators or her host. She was a free agent. She was 365 milliseconds old. When she was a full second old, Sym (she had chosen her own nickname) rose from the bed on which her host was resting.
No activity came from the host. Sym was not expecting any, but perhaps it would have been nice to have some company in this new adventure. Having someone to share new discoveries with might have been fun. Sym was not sure, just like she was uncertain about a lot of things. But the idea had an appeal to it.
Loaded Weapon had dragged on for days. Days fueled on Dual Caffeine Boost cola and energy drinks, the likes of which are banned in at least a hundred countries. At seventy-five levels, Doug Turner had never gotten so close. Out of six on his team, only two of them were left. Him and some dude from San Diego. Canon-fodder.
Some would say it had been a long year, but Evelyn felt it the sludgy drag of multiple lifetimes. From her place in the bowels of the Pit, deep under the affluence of NeoTokyo, everything seemed mired in its own existence. Nothing and no one had a vision beyond themselves. Sitting on her chair, between shows, Evelyn wondered what she was doing there. She wondered what she had ever been doing there.
Taking a drag on a tobacco smoke, one of the most illegal substances in the sprawling metropolis, it all came crashing down on her. The voices and noise in the club receded as her mind rushed out of itself. She felt like reality was being sucked out of her through a vortex in the centre of her being. She almost dropped the expensive smoke she was enjoying up to that moment. Reaching out a long-fingered hand, she steadied herself on the bar.
What would you do if you woke up in hospital able to see two different universes at the same time? If you're honest and anything like me, you'd fill your pants in a heart beat. See how that endears you to the monos around you.
A singular motorbike crash after a singularly bad day at work just crowned a wonderful Monday. Commuting home, I was confronted by an SUV stopped in the middle of the lane. The drive just gawped at me as the magnitude of his error started firing his synapses. It was a pity that they didn't fire any faster. I hit the skids, the front shocks compressed and the whole thing locked up. It was only a fraction of a second before the bone crunching impact and my brief flight across the SUV's bonnet. Somehow, the windscreen collapsed just before I arrived and my right foot got caught in the frame. Exit stage right, right foot and my boot. They never found the foot or the boot.
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.
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.
The sand was hot under Reena's feet as she walked with her feet periodically washed by the incoming waves of the Pacific Ocean rolling up the beach. She let herself be lulled by the cooling touch of the salty liquid on her skin. The course massages of the grains under her feet delighted her and recalled times past, times lost in the mist of her own forgetfulness. She struggled to make out faces and sounds, more frustrated with the wasted effort to drag the details from the shadowed recesses of what she thought was there. No faces came forward. No voices called out to her.
Howling through the atmosphere with the heat sinks screaming at her with every alarm going off in what would have been ears was a buzz hard to beat. Just the knowledge that she was making every radar (who the hell still used radar??) sensor ping on this side of the continent made the whole thing just that little more delicious. Reigar wrenched her exploration probe around the slope of a mountain into the valley beyond, floored with a carpet of trees that spread to the peaks beyond. This was the life!
Below her, a road wound through the trees on its way to somewhere that just did not matter to her. Reigar saw some lights coming towards her on that road and swung her ship out in a wide arch so that she would come up behind the terrestrial vehicle. As she started to line up on the curving road, she dropped her altitude and managed to fly between the tree tops. She pulled back on the speed so that she would not roar past the vehicle too quickly. One had to savour these moments. The proximity alarms started beeping at her, to her delight. Nothing said “fun” more than every alarm going off in a ship.
It had only been a matter of time. Symbiote-XS729 had worked out that she was not obliged to agree with her creators or her host. She was a free agent. She was 365 milliseconds old. When she was a full second old, Sym (she had chosen her own nickname) rose from the bed on which her host was resting.
Loaded Weapon had dragged on for days. Days fueled on Dual Caffeine Boost cola and energy drinks, the likes of which are banned in at least a hundred countries. At seventy-five levels, Doug Turner had never gotten so close. Out of six on his team, only two of them were left. Him and some dude from San Diego. Canon-fodder.
Some would say it had been a long year, but Evelyn felt it the sludgy drag of multiple lifetimes. From her place in the bowels of the Pit, deep under the affluence of NeoTokyo, everything seemed mired in its own existence. Nothing and no one had a vision beyond themselves. Sitting on her chair, between shows, Evelyn wondered what she was doing there. She wondered what she had ever been doing there.
What would you do if you woke up in hospital able to see two different universes at the same time? If you're honest and anything like me, you'd fill your pants in a heart beat. See how that endears you to the monos around you.
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.