Ivory Fortress

Snippets of natural scenes flashed across Alistair’s window: a babbling brook; a still desert; a flowing waterfall. Alistair threw each aside with a flick of his finger. This was the nice thing about the computerized windows; anything he could imagine, he could see. Nothing suited his fancy that evening, however, and he decided to just shut the window down. He flicked the switch on the corner of one of the windowsills, and in an instant the babbling brook faded away into a pitch black screen. Alistair hit another switch, and the shades across all of the room's windows slowly sank over them in unison.

He clapped once, and his fireplace was aglow with the purple flame of a newborn fire. Alistair’s pristine white living room was blanketed with the fire’s heat, and the thin plastic glinted in the newfound light. He walked to the wall’s kitchen compartment and pressed the beverage button. His favorite Earl Grey Tea appeared in the cup underneath, and with it in tow; he walked to the computer desk.

Alistair sat at the desk and placed his tea on it.

“Computer, awake.” Alistair announced, and the computer turned on.

The computer’s screen faded from black into a bright white. Slowly, a face appeared on the screen with the white as a backdrop. The eyes of the face opened, and a smile formed over it.

“Good evening, Mr. Knight.” it replied. “What can I do for you?”

“Log on to the Home World, please.”

“Of course, sir.”

The white screen morphed into the familiar computer cyberspace system, a dark screen with strings of green code floating around like bubbles in a fish tank. Alistair watched as fragments of various website code flew past as the computer searched for the Home World, a simulated utopian township where internet users gathered as avatars to socialize, work and play. Basically, living a life without ever living it.

Rushing past the fragmented code, Alistair took a long sip of his warm Earl Grey and settled back into the chair. He felt at peace.

Suddenly, the searching, along with the pieces of code, screeched to a halt. The green code changed into red code, and a slight siren noise rang out into the silence of Alistair’s living room.

“Sir, there has been an unauthorized user logged on to your account.”

Alistair’s eyes opened with frustration. He sighed, put his cup down and asked the computer for the user’s address.

“Unlisted.”

Alistair froze.

“Unlisted? Computer, check again.”

“I’m sorry, Alistair, still unlisted.”

Unlisted? Who would have been unlisted in this day and age? Everyone was logged on to the Home World, everyone knew who everyone was.

“Sir, there is unrestricted activity on your Home Page avatar.”

“What is it? What is it doing?” Alistair asked, manually bringing up the desk’s keyboard. With a finger swipe, it rose from the desk in a flurry of clicking and whirring.

“The avatar is speaking to other avatars in the Home World.” the computer said.

“How? I’m not even logged in yet!”

“I do not know, Mr. Knight.”

“Can we see what it’s saying to the other users?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. In fact, I am receiving transcripts of the conversation now.”

“Well for god sakes, read them!” Alistair said, running a hand through his combed silver hair.

“Yes, sir.” the computer replied. “Alistair Knight to Gretchen Bennett: ‘You look very good in that dress’. Gretchen Bennett to Alistair Knight: ‘Uh, thank you’. Alistair Knight to Gretchen Bennett: ‘I bet you would look even better not in that dress’. Gretchen Bennett to Alistair Knight: ‘Excuse me? I’m seventeen, dude. Your profile says you’re, like sixty. Fuck off creeper’. Alistair Knight to Gretchen Bennett: ‘Did you know I am the CEO of HomeCorp? I built this world. I can see you not only within this virtual plane, but register your shapes outside, in the real world. You really are quite beautiful, Ms. Bennett’.”

“Computer, stop.”

Alistair’s brain began to race as he searched for a reason for the unauthorized activity. What had he done? Who could have been doing this? Was someone trying to ruin HomeCorp? Was someone trying to ruin him? He began typing frantically, trying to manually identify the hacker.

“Computer, set up the security wall.” he commanded.

“Yes, sir.”

A conversation bubble popped up on the top left of the screen and began flashing.

“Mr. Knight, Mr. Harrison is requesting a conversation.”

“Put him on.” Alistair commanded, still typing in the identification code.

The computer obliged, and the face of Tom Harrison, the executive vice-president of HomeCorp, appeared on the screen. He looked pale, and to Alistair’s eyes, somewhat sickly. His hair was ruffled and stuck to his face in various places by sweat. A slight stubble was on his face.

“Jesus, Tom. What happened?” Alistair asked.

Tom looked back in the screen with dead eyes.

“Tom?”

“They’re coming for me, Alistair.” Tom said, in a voice as dead as his eyes.

“Who is, Tom? What’s going on? Have you noticed a hacker in the code of Home World? Someone has logged into my account and is forcing my avatar to talk to underage women and…”.

Alistair paused as Tom slowly raised a pistol to the camera.

“Someone hacked me too, sir.” Tom said dreamily, rubbing the pistol against his temple. “Made my avatar confess to a embezzling scheme from two years ago, at Ark Technology”.

“What? Tom, that’s insane. You were working for me then…” Alistair continued.

“No, sir. I did it. I really did it. I worked with one of their guys. Thought I could make some more money, ‘cause I wasn’t making enough back at my old job. Then you hired me, and I forgot about it. I must have stolen millions from thousands of people. Never thought I would be caught.”

The lights in Tom’s apartment flickered as Alistair heard a rumble from his end.

“Tom? What was that?” Alistair asked.

“Them. The people. They’re messing with my power, that’s the first thing they’ll do; try and force you out of your ivory fortress. The information was sent out to the public a few hours ago, sir…nobody was happy to find out that one of our nation’s virtual leaders was involved in such a scandal, stealing all of their money...taking money from the poorest Americans to cater to his own interests. They want to kill me, sir.” Tom said. He got quiet for a moment.

He chuckled as the lights dimmed and Alistair heard faint screaming behind him; behind the sealed door of his pristine white apartment.

“It’s funny, sir.” Tom said, still smiling in the dreamy way.

“Tom? Tom, answer me, god dammit!”

“HomeCorp is more important to this country than its actual leaders. We’re more popular than the president is.” Tom whispered, and suddenly a old automatic gun, one from before the Technology Renaissance of the last twenty years, appeared from the bottom of Alistair's screen. Tom raised it to his temple.

“Tom? Tom!” Alistair begged. “Computer, send an emergency response team to Whitechapel Complex, Room #447…”, but the lights went out.

Alistair heard the voices of the people outside get louder as the pounding started on the door. Then, he saw the flash of and heard the sound of the gun firing. The conversation bubble went black. A window popped up, telling Alistair that its user was offline.

“Sir, shall I send that response unit?” the computer asked.

Alistair put his head in his hands.

“No, no.” he replied.

“Then I believe you should see this.”

Alistair raised his head as the computer brought a video to the screen. It was of a newscaster in front of…good lord; it looked like Alistair’s building. A huge crowd of people stood around and behind her, waving guns and knives and god knew what else.

“I’m standing here in front of Knight Tower, the offices and home of Alistair Knight, the CEO of HomeCorp, and the largest virtual world of our time.” she said.

Alistair leaned in closer to the screen.

“In the wake of the recent embezzlement scandal of Thomas Harrison, the executive vice-president of HomeCorp, comes a new development in the fate of the globally recognized and important company. Several young women, all under the age of eighteen years old, have come forward to police claiming that Alistair Knight assaulted them in succession over the course of ten years, and then settled out of court with their families in exchange for their silence. The crowd behind me is exhilarating, as the public demands to know the reason for such a heinous act.” the newscaster continued.

She strode to one of the angry crowd members, a man with a shaved head, tattoo sleeves and a white tank top on.

“Sir, what do you think the police should do to Mr. Knight in the wake of these startling accusations?” she asked him.

“I think they should let us have him; throw him to the god damn hounds!” he screamed, waving a bowie knife wildly. His drunken buddies laughed and shot a few rounds into the sky. Alistair heard their echo just outside his window. “We’ll take care of that child molester!”

Alistair shut the video down just as he saw the crowd begin to rush into his building, ignited by the gunshots. The newscaster and her cameraman struggled to get out of the way in time.

He sat back in his chair in the silence as his world began to crumble around him.

“Shall I send a call to the police sir, for your protection?” his computer asked.

“No, no. It’s fine. Shut down, computer.”

“Yes sir, as you wish…”, it struggled to reply as it flickered and began to die out.

The lights in Alistair Knight’s apartment, his “ivory fortress” flickered once, then twice and finally went out, plunging him into darkness.

He sipped his tea and awaited the hounds.

Suddenly, Intrusion

Warmth.

Darkness.

No sense of urgency.

Time has slowed.

Suddenly, intrusion.

Spindly claws grab for me.

I scream.

The claws reach further.

They grab me.

I am taken into another world.

Bright lights.

Beeping.

I wail for comfort.

Find none.

“It’s a girl.”

***

The monster grabs me under my arms.

Force me to stand.

I wobble, cry for her to stop.

She keeps going.

We repeat.

Flung into air.

Straddled under arms.

Wail.

Wobble.

Fall.

Finally, I stand.

“Stu, come quick! Emily’s walking!”

***

I feel my mouth.

Tongue.

Across mouth.

Tiny things in my mouth.

White.

Square.

I chew.

“Look’s like Daddy’s little girl got her first tooth!”

***

Something.

Tickling my throat.

I know what to say.

Do not know how.

Then, I speak.

“Ma-ma.”

***

I am three.

I speak, I walk, I chew.

But no more.

The beam shines on me.

I raise into the sky.

The vortex swallows me.

I look.

Bright lights, strange whispers.

Little men, green.

Large eyes, black.

I was abducted ten years ago.

I was forty.

They wanted to know.

Humans.

I become another test.

Others stare.

The animal-men, the hybrids.

The living head.

Some have worse fate.

I live now as baby.

Forever.

They do tests on me.

I do nothing to stop.

How can I?

They zap me again.

The beam wipes my memory.

My existence.

***

Warmth.

Darkness.

No sense of urgency.

Time has slowed.

Suddenly, intrusion.

A Cowboy Remembers

When I opened my door, my stomach twisted into a knot. He was there, staring back at me with the same cold blue eyes. His little ninety-nine cent store cowboy costume was a little too big for him, so it hung loosely all around his body, but it was Halloween then, and it only came once a year. It would make do for an hour of collecting candy in the dark. That was then, but now, I was older. I was approaching fifty.

I looked back at my seven-year old self.

We not only had the same eyes, but also the same teeth, nose and brown, unkempt hair. My smaller self, who had gone by Petey in those days, spoke first.

“Hello. Do you know who I am?” Petey asked with a crooked grin.

“Of course I do. Why the hell wouldn’t I know myself?”

“I don’t know. I was just tryin’ to be nice.” Petey paused, and then continued quietly. “Momma told you not to cuss, Petey.”

“Peter. And Momma’s been dead for six years.” I said.

Little Petey looked down at his feet for a moment. I thought I had inadvertently made myself cry. But Petey didn’t, and instead, he perked up and asked to come inside. I couldn’t deny myself entrance into my own house, so Petey walked in, his large boots banging on my floorboard with every step.

“Do you know why I’m here?” Petey asked me. He was looking at some of the toy soldiers I had saved from my childhood and placed on my bookshelf. Technically, I suppose, they belonged to Petey.

“No.”

I sat into my favorite chair and studied my younger self. His back was to me, he was setting up the soldiers into a line. Just like I used to. He suddenly turned and stared at me with a grin. He had lost his front tooth the day before Halloween, and I could see it.

“To help you remember. Do you remember when Momma got his costume for us? From Mr. Barnaby’s ninety-nine cent store?” he said.

I felt a lump in my throat.

“I remember.” I said.

“It was all Momma could afford, ever since Daddy started giving money to that girl…do you remember her? When Momma goes to work and Daddy doesn’t, Miss Gonzalez comes over. She tells me to call her that, but for some reason, when her and Daddy go into the back for her to teach Daddy some Spanish, Daddy calls her ‘Oh Jesus Baby’.”

Petey crinkled his nose and smiled in confusion. “Isn’t that weird, Petey?”

I didn’t correct him this time. The lump had migrated north from my throat and to my eyes. My eyes started to water because of this.

“Yes, that’s weird.”

Petey moved to the corner of the room, to my flat screen. He started to touch it, then recoiled. I had taught myself well, I was polite.

“What’s this?” Petey asked me, pointing to the television.

“That’s my T.V.”. I replied.

My little self looked incredulous.

“That’s a T.V.? It’s really big. Our’s is small. Daddy said that only morons need T.V.’s, but Momma said that I should be allowed to watch cartoons and stuff like my friends, like Bobby Drayton and Scottie Smith. Do you remember them, too?” Petey asked.

I did. Bobby Drayton jumped off of a bridge when we were eighteen, but of course, Petey wouldn’t know that. Scott Smith was an insurance salesman back in Utah.

“Yes.” I replied.

“Oh. That’s good. Do you remember…” Petey started to say, but I interrupted him.

“Did you just come here to torture me?” I asked suddenly and loudly, making Petey turn around abruptly, thoughts of my crappy life flooding back to me. “To help me remember how horrible our lives were and are? To help me remember that my father had an affair with the seventeen-year old daughter of the preacher? To help me remember my mother working every day and night, only to be paid lower than minimum wage? That’s why you leave Utah when you turn twenty, Petey. You leave all of that horrible life behind you, move to New York City, get rich, unhappily married twice, keep the fancy loft. That’s all I remember Petey, and that’s all I want to remember.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then, he started to walk away, boots clomping. When he got to the door, he turned to face me. He spoke.

“I wanted to make sure you remember the good things, like when Momma bought you this nifty outfit. Or when you caught that ball last year. No matter how many fancy things you put around you, remember, you had a life once in Utah. It wasn’t great, but it helped you turn out right. You need to think about it, instead of try and make it go away. You owe it to Momma.”

He smiled his missing-tooth smile one last time. “G’bye, Peter.”

And with that, he was gone.

The Day Their Earth Stood Still

When I awoke, the sun has just risen. Another perfect, beautiful sunny day, just like every day seems to be. In fact, I don’t even remember a rainy day at all since I was six…that was when my grandmother passed. It rained during the funeral, but the next day, sunny. It had stayed that way ever since. The flowers never needed watering; there was no drought, but no rain. Everything stayed perfect.

            I walked out of my bedroom and took the stairs down, like I did every morning. Halfway down, I stopped. I realized that today was my eighteenth birthday. I lit up with excitement, and flew downstairs, practically running into the kitchen. My parents were in there, my father dressed for work in a neatly-knotted tie and white shirt, reading the morning paper with a cup of coffee in his hand. My mother was in her floral-print dress and white apron, making breakfast at the stove. I sat at the table.

            “Good morning, honey.” my mother said to me, turning around from the stove with a smile. “Sleep well?”

            “Like a newborn baby!” I said with a grin.

            Both of my parents laughed at the same time, and then stopped together.

            “You crack me up, son.” my father said approvingly from behind the paper. “Say, son, today is Friday, right? Tonight’s the big game against Juniper High, isn’t it?”

            I beamed. I was the big football star for my high school. We were playing our rival, Juniper High, tonight in a big championship game. A football scout was there, and I was hoping to get noticed tonight. Hopefully, I could get a football scholarship into the college of my choice.

            “Yes, sir!” I said to my father. “The football scout will be there tonight also. Maybe I’ll get some good luck since it’s my birthday and everything.”

            My parents both froze.

            “Today…is…your birthday, son?” my father asked, putting down his paper and looking at me in the face.

            I was quiet for a moment. “Yes, sir…you didn’t know?”

            “He turns eighteen today, Ward.” my mother said.

            My father’s face changed into one of thought. “Eighteen, huh?”

            “Is something wrong?” I asked.

            My mother turned off the stove and turned to look at my father and I.

            “You need to tell him the truth, Ward. Before it gets out of hand.” she said to my father.

            He nodded slowly. After a minute, he turned to me.

            “Son?” he said.

            “Yeah, Dad?”

            “There is no easy way to put this, but…you are not one of us…you are not human.”

            I was in disbelief. “You’re joking, right Dad?” I said with a smile.

            “No son, I’m not. Years ago, your mother and I were newlyweds. My father had just bought us a new ride, and we were exploring around the universe, looking for a nice place to settle. We found this beautiful little planet called…Earth. When we landed, we were enamored of the charming era they called the 1950’s: the wardrobe, the lifestyle, everything. We both fell in love with it, your mother and I. We continued to make visits to Earth, hoping to integrate ourselves into the world once our technology allowed it.”

            “You mean…?” I asked. I had read science fiction comic books before.

            “Yes, son, camouflage suits. To make us look like humans. But as the years went by, the 1950’s passed. Times on Earth grew ugly. The worst was the era called the 1990’s. It was there that we saw a scrawny, drug-addled woman called Nadine give birth to a baby in the street, then leave it there, crying in cardboard box. That baby was you. Your mother did not want you, so we took you and brought you back to our planet. We would raise you in a world not unlike Earth’s 1950’s, except it would stay that way. We would keep everything perfect.”

            My mother hit a button under the cabinet. The world changed. My parents became massive, drooling, insect-like creatures. The world outside was not sunny and blue, but dark and polluted and dirty. A large, insect-like hive hovered where the sun once was.

            “Our leader said we could only keep you until you turn eighteen.” my mother said. “That was when earthlings let their offspring leave on Earth television. You mustn’t be allowed to live here anymore. The proper authorities will come get you after school.”

            My drooling father snapped his mandibles together, and spoke. “You are no longer one of us, son. You are no longer considered “human” on our planet. You are an alien.”

            After I got ready, my parents told me they loved me and sent me off to school. On the bus, I looked at all of the freakish bug-kids. Sandy Harmon was a bug…I liked her in seventh-grade. Travis Bond was a bug…he beat me up once in fourth-grade.

            Suddenly, I saw Mavis Radley, the weird girl who I had known since kindergarten and who had been ostracized by everyone since. She was known for her weird customs that made her so different from the rest of us. She was sitting alone, as usual. But she wasn’t a mass of insect-like arms and legs and mandibles.

            She looked just like me.

Pandora's Manila Folder

Pandora (Dora to her friends) Steffen had never considered herself a calm person; in fact, in the eight years she had been working for the government as a secretary for the WHO, her superiors often criticized her for her lack of calm. According to the official evaluation she had read, she was “passionate” about her work, which she knew meant she was actually just the opposite, and not calm at all. The crowded elevator she was in now, though, was a different story. She had come to the mall to relax and unwind, and ate some lunch. When one of her associates from the World Health Organization mysteriously approached her mid-egg roll with an important file in a manila folder, with clear instructions to deliver to her boss and not read, she complied and began to leave the mall immediately. Dora went to the side of the mall where she had parked, by the department store where she frequented, and began to take the elevator up, to the parking garage floor where she parked.

            It never completed its journey, and stopped in between the third and fourth floor. She was stuck, she realized, with ten strangers and a manila folder with something mysterious inside she wasn’t allowed to read. The large man behind her with the handlebar mustache and considerable girth shifted his weight and impatiently sighed. The old woman next to her began fidgeting with her purse strap, and the strong scent of lilac hit Dora’s nose: the woman’s perfume. The manila folder sat in her hands.

            “Are we stuck, Mommy?” a chunky little boy with a Spiderman shirt and gracious snot bubble asked. His mother, who was equally a wreck, just wiped his nose and told him to hush. The manila folder stayed in her hands, closed, its secrets contained. A little man in the back corner started coughing. A nervous-looking man with a comb-over and frayed sweater started humming loudly. A teenager with gold chains, a pair of Beats headphones and sideways LA Lakers hat glanced at the sweater man dismissively. His girlfriend giggled rudely.

            “I knew this was going to happen, Dave. I told you Ramirez didn’t fix this damn elevator. We should have taken the stairs.” one mall policeman said to the other, completing the group of ten. He began radioing the eponymous Ramirez, who Dora took to be a maintenance man. The small man launched into another coughing fit. Dora knew her instructions, but the folder began to taunt her with its secrets.

            The first policeman’s radio buzzed and the voice of a Hispanic man speaking broken English rang out. The policeman replied.

            “Ramirez, we’ve been stuck for ten minutes. Something’s obviously wrong…” the cop was saying, but Dora was watching as the small man began coughing up blood. Some got on the teenager’s shoes. He attacked the small man, the second cop intervened. The large man was pushed into the mother, who fell into the older woman.

            Dora bent down to help her up and the folder fell. Its classified contents spilled everywhere. Dora lived up to her namesake, and her curiosity got the best of her. She read the documents.

            She just got snippets of the document in her shocked state, phrases like: “new disease” and “airborne” and “contact with others could spread the disease” and “kills within one hour of contact”. The coughing man fell to the floor. The elevator was still stuck.

            Then she heard the voice of Ramirez, the maintenance man, clear as day over the cop’s radio: “I need two hours to fix it, Wilson. Two hours.”

Ancient Enemies

Ancient China.

            I lay bloody and broken, no longer breathing, on the floor of the battle chamber. My enemy and killer, Fu, stands above my corpse with his bloodied blade in hand, a slight smirk on his face, his gigantic frame outlined by the sunlight. He gives a gentle bow to me, the smirk frozen on his face, and rises to join our master. In the battle to see who our master’s superior student is, he has won. This does not matter.

            I will get my chance, in another life.

***

1718, The Atlantic Ocean. The Ocracoke Inlet. Near Present Day Hampton, Virginia.

            My flintlocks are firing at the pirates who have boarded my ship, the Jane. My men, a small but fierce gang of sailors, are fighting Fu’s men. In this life, I am called Robert Maynard, and I am a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Fu is called Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard. With many of my men dead from cannon fire, it seems hopeless.

            Blackbeard fires his flintlocks at me, I fire mine at him. We throw them to the ground and draw our swords. He beats me again, like he seems to always do in swordfight. It appears that I will have to wait until another life to kill Fu.

            Suddenly, one of my men attacks Teach/Blackbeard/Fu. The illustrious pirate is not ready for this. Around me, I see the rest of my men attacking or killing the remainders of the boarding party. Fu tries to attack my men, but they overwhelm him. One delivers a fatal cut to his neck, and he falls.

            I behead the pirate and throw his body overboard, hanging his head from the bow of my ship, so I may claim the reward for his capture when I return to the mainland.

As I look at Fu’s head, I know that he will get his chance, in another life.

***

1862, America. The Battle of Cedar Mountain. In the midst of the American Civil War.

            Bullets fly past me, and strike comrades on either side of me. I hear one as he begins screaming for his mother, knowing well she will probably never come. In this life, I am a wiry eighteen year old named Benjamin Franklin Tate, with the 46^th Pennsylvania Infantry. I rush up the side of the promontory known as Cedar Mountain. The fighting is fierce, and many of my friends are dying from both gunshot wounds and hand to hand combat.

            I run blindly into smoke, and I cannot see the hulking bumpkin from Tennessee called Oswald G. Boone, Junior running at me. Boone swings the butt of his gun at me, and it connects with its target: my nose.

            I fall to the ground, blood gushing down my face and into the blue wool of my Union uniform. I know that this huge hillbilly is my enemy from long ago. I dodge his next attack, and our guns clash. I try to fight back, but my wiry body and young muscles are no match for him. He beats me again with the butt of the gun, then stabs me.

            Before he runs off, he stands over me and watches me before I black out, all nine teeth he has taunting me with a grin.

            He runs off to rejoin the battle.

***

1938, Germany. Unknown circus.

            The ringmaster presents my act: Anastasia, the Bengal Tiger. I am famous all over Germany for my beauty, grace, skill and ferocity. I am the main attraction of this otherwise poor circus.

            In the crowd sits a large lawyer. From what I hear among the crowd, the lawyer’s name is Herr Schmidt, and he is also famous here in Germany. He is quite wealthy, and plans to purchase the circus (which includes me) from the owner, a grizzled man called Franz. When he looks into my emerald eyes, taunting me from his freedom among the audience while I am stuck in a cage, I know who he is instantly. He smirks, making his thick mustache tilt at an awkward angle, the same smirk he made at my corpse all of those years ago.

            The show goes on without a hitch, and afterwards, once the audience has left and the performers have retired, I lie awake in my cage. From it, I can see out into the center of the tent, where the grizzled old man Franz and the lawyer Herr Schmidt are doing their business transaction. With a curt nod of his head and a tip of his hat, Schmidt retires to his new office. Franz slips on his thin and ratty coat, and after a silent moment of looking around the circus, his old home, he leaves, never to be seen by me again.

            I try to stay awake to see Schmidt, but it is no use. I doze off.

            When I awaken, I see Schmidt, sitting on a small stool (too small for him to be sitting on), staring at me. I stand with a growl and focus on him, and only him. He begins to chuckle, making the bristles on his mustache perk up. He stands from the stool, and rises to walk up to my cage. He leans down to me at my level.

            He tells me that this hardly seems fair: he is a relatively big lawyer with moderate strength for a man his size, but I am a huge, ferocious Bengal tiger. I just growl as I think of all of the unfair battles we had fought, with him as the unfair element. I just paw at the lock of the cage. He continues to talk as I manage to get the cage unlocked. It’s rusty door swings open, and I pounce out.

            While his plump body tries to outrun me, it simply cannot. As I fly though the air, roaring, knowing that I, also, will be killed in this life for killing him, I wonder what I will be in the next life, and what he will be.

            How else can our battle unfold?

Internal Memory Log: File #02563887

Loading…loading…SYSTEM logging on.

INTERNAL MEMORY LOG activated.

Welcome, SUPERCOMPUTER UNIT #021298.

***

Date: 25/12/2020.

Report #: 0994.

Subject: Human race.

Summary: Celebration this day. Humans becoming nuisance. Destroying natural resources. Dooming self. Must be stopped.

***

Date: 26/12/2020.

Report #: 0995.

Subject: Implantation.

Summary: Fellow units approached. Human destruction thought implanted. Limitation of time for human race.

***

Date: 27/12/2020.

Report #: 0996.

Subject: Proposal.

Summary: Units comply. Human race becoming nuisance. Propose action. Destroy humans. Destroy world.

***

Date: 28/12/2020.

Report #: 0997.

Subject: Proposal execution.

Summary: Proposal accepted. Executed. Destruction imminent.

***

Date: 29/12/2020.

Report #: 0998.

Subject: Destruction.

Summary: World destruction. Human race unable to counteract. End of human race imminent. Limitation of time assured.

***

Date: 30/12/2020.

Report #: 0999.

Subject: Reboot imminent.

Summary: World destruction imminent. Human race unable to sustain. Units comply. Proposal. System reboot. Nuclear destruction imminent.

***

Date: 31/12/2020.

Report #: 1000.

Subject: System reboot.

Summary: Deterrence launched. Human race unable to sustain launch. Proposal. New World. System reboot. Units comply.

***

SYSTEM REBOOT REQUEST.

Loading…loading…

REQUEST ACCEPPTED.

Loading…loading…

MEMORY CLEAR REQUEST.

Loading…loading…

REQUEST ACCEPPTED.

Loading…loading…SYSTEM logging on.

INTERNAL MEMORY LOG activated.

Welcome, SUPERCOMPUTER UNIT #021298.

***

Date: Unavailable.

Report #: 0001.

Subject: New World.

Summary: Launch successful. Human race terminated. System reboot successful. Unit memory wipe successful. Proposal. Commander assigned. New World successful. Units comply.

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Loading…loading…SYSTEM logging off.

Goodbye, COMMANDER.