Author: TallTim

I don’t know if this is going to reach anyone.

It took me days to get to the datacenter I’m in now. Fighting through waves of enemies, hoping I had decontaminated well enough through the one-person airlock. It all took so long. But I had to try. There was no guarantee anyone knew what we were up against, and I had to warn someone.

---

It all started with a simple email that almost got binned by my spam filter.

It had the requisite “LOOK AT THIS!!!” subject line like so many others trying to sell pills or camgirl sessions, the only saving grace is it had a domain I’d white-listed before. This put it on the other side of my filter.

Curious, I opened the email and found a cryptic sentence about some kind of phylum classification and a picture. It seemed to have been taken by a researcher under a electron microscope, it had that alien monochromatic look of small scales blown up to human perception.

The focus was on the abdomen of an insect, with chitinous plates running horizontally to the longer axis of the body. Peering closer, I could see… well, its hard to describe it any other way, but it looked like photographs of circuit boards, etched traces on semi-transparent resin. That greenish depth full of ninety degree turns and soldered pins sticking through.

Pushing back from my desk, I wondered if someone was just playing a practical joke on me. The internet is full of people with spare time and the ability to swirl pixels into any configuration, so I wasn’t about to run a story based on something that could be complete fiction. Looking up the email contact, I punched the number into my handset and leaned back, switching to speaker phone mode.

“PNP Research, how can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m writing a story and I’d like to talk to one of your researchers. His extension is 1193.”

“Certainly, I’ll connect you.”

A few digital tones and some elevator music later, the line picked up.

“Yeah? Who is this?”, he sounded a bit tired and more than just a little wary of outside callers.

“This is Macx, from Technology Daily News. You sent me an email and I’m not sure what to make of it–“

“Look, get off this line. I’ll contact you.”, hanging up the phone abruptly, garbled static crackle capping the exchange.

Oh. That’s interesting. Wonder what he was on about–

PING

The green indicator light on my phone pulsed, showing a incoming text message with a location and time.

Okay, I’ll bite.

---

“What the hell is this all about?”, I pulled on my coat to shield my neck from the biting wind. We were on the upper deck of a largely abandoned building project, one that I’ve used to meet other contacts before.

“Do you know anything about ants? Specifically, Nylanderia Fulva?”

I wrinkled my brow a bit. I had heard the name before, but wasn’t sure.

“Okay, I’ll spell it out for you. Sorry, used to reading journals all the time, forget that people don’t know the phylum as well.”, he was wearing a cheap windbreaker with a brand-name sports store silk-screened on the front.

I nodded, and moved into the leeward shelter of a nearby column.

“They’re called ‘crazy ants’ or ‘raspberry ants’. They’re an invasive species that have spread throughout most of Texas and beyond. The funny thing about these guys is they seem to like electrical equipment. Anything that has a running wire or circuit boards, transformers and the like.”

I recalled a few stories about that earlier, how prolific they were. You could have mounds of them outside of your house and you’d mistake them for clumps of dirt.

“Anyway, there’s been a bit of cross-pollination from the advanced biology section in research on how to use their abilities to home into electrical currents. We’re not entirely convinced that they’re just influenced by electrical eddy currents. There’s some indication that something more subtle is at work here.”, darting glances at the nearby office buildings, like he was afraid of being caught.

“My team was tasked to gain more insight from an engineering perspective, so we worked with the bio guys to see if we could isolate how they do what they do.”

“Okay, sounds like standard stuff. You try to reverse engineer something in nature and apply it to technology.”, I turned slightly, trying to keep my face out of the wind. I really should’ve suggested to meet somewhere else, it was damned cold.

“Yeah, seemed that way to me too. Until I got those pictures I sent you. Want to know where I got them?”, he was sweating a bit, even though it was freezing outside.

I nodded, and he continued,”They were from a sample population that we staked out in northeast Texas, just outside of New Boston. We hadn’t done anything to them, just set out some bait and let them bite.”

“So, you’re telling me you found a bunch of ants running around that had… wires in them?”

“Yeah, that isn’t the craziest thing either. We dissected a few, and it seems they’ve got some kind of interconnect happening with their exoskeleton that we don’t understand. Anyway, it scared the crap out of me, because I’ve never seen anything alive running around with what amounts to minature circuits inside.”, he backed into the shadows, lowering his voice.

“Thing is, I checked around, you know – just using unofficial channels – and it seems to go all the way to the “dark” labs. Those labs deal with large defense contracts.”, he trailed off into silence, both of us thinking about the implications.

“I’ve said enough, I’ve got to go”, and before I could stop him, he stepped briskly down the stairwell towards the street level exit below.

Damn. I don’t like this.

---

A few months went by after that, and I couldn’t get that scared look out of my head. He looked like someone who had seen a ghost, and honestly I couldn’t blame him.

I was sitting in the office, late at night.

Only desk lamp on amid rows of open cubicles, boxes piled up at the edges of new things we were going to review before shipping them to the teardown guys, who would meticulously document their repairability and other internal features.

The next item for my review was an expensive diving suit called “The Nemo” among the staff. It was a large composite conveyance that could fit one man. Fitted with the best bells and whistles that a spoiled technologist would expect, including active sonar and a near-surface passive radar system for maximum enjoyment. Small thrusters were on spherical pods attached to the back and sides, to help movement while submerged. I was looking forward to taking it down to the pool for a tryout.

I’ve always had the large LED display panel on the wall on tech news, but sometimes I skipped over to the main cable news channel. It was on now, with the volume down. I hate having to think of something to write when there’s too much babble going on. Taking a sip of soda, I rubbed my eyes, thinking of the introduction to my latest review. That’s when I saw the lower banner stream by on the display, large block capitals that said – “CITIES UNDER SIEGE – IS AMERICA UNDER ATTACK?”

That got my attention.

I turned up the volume, catching the reporter mid-sentence,”–on. Again, if you are anywhere near the cities of.. Dallas, Longview and Texarkana, please do not attempt to use highways, take only what you can carry to the designated emergency shelters shown on the map..”, the report intercut to footage taken from what looked to be a smartphone, streaming video to a popular online sharing service.

There were people, or at least they seemed to be people, crawling along the ground with brown dirt on their backs and legs, shedding clumps that met similar patches on the ground. Looking closer, I saw the leading edge of the dirt start to move towards the person holding the phone. The video went sideways and topsy-turvy. They were running. Running from something. And then, a fall, street lights streaking vertical lines and then the edge of the sidewalk.

Blades of grass were poking out near the lens as the hand next to the phone camera twitched and went still, the brown wave resolving into the antennae of thousands of ants, one pushing its head into the camera lens, mandibles stretched wide to attack. The video cut and went back to the newscaster.

Stunned, I shut the TV off.

I looked at the clock, it was 3:15 am.

I was only five miles from Texarkana. Looking at the Nemo Suit, I hatched a plan.

It was January. They couldn’t have moved me far, because the air still had that penetrating cold that winter always brings. Blustery wind against the dark hood over my head, chilling my ears. My legs were cramping from the sitting in the van, hands drawn behind me. I was trussed like an animal with oversized plastic zip-ties, double-linked with casual precision.

So much for being paranoid.

Guided to an elevator, sinking down into the earth. No sounds except the two agents that intercepted me, a nice smash-and-grab job as I left the bar after work. I should’ve seen it coming, but then, I was distracted by something else much bigger.

Muted chime, doors opening. Yanked one way then the next, shouldered through a door and sat roughly in a cold seat. Hood yanked off, bright lights shining down, a pool of brilliance in a rather dim room. A plain gray table before me, and another man who had just lit a cigarette. Smoke coiling about his head.

“You will answer every question I ask, are we clear?”, he began, exhaling slowly, “It is in your best interest to do so, Mr. Dawson.”

I nodded, wishing I had my hands free to rub my eyes.

“You will begin by describing how you came into possession of materials pertaining to the MORTIS project.”

“I…”, stuttered, clearing my throat, “I’m just a researcher. The data I compiled came from your agency – or rather, I didn’t realize the data originated with you. I thought it was part of a research set given to me by my employer at-“

“Yes, an outfit named Chi Medical? We’d been tracking them for months. That still doesn’t explain the whole picture. Continue, Mr. Dawson.”, he took another drag of the cigarette, tapping his left thumb on the table.

“As you may know, we’ve been contracted by several insurance agencies to calculate environmental data that affects lifespans. Specifically as it relates to insurance premium schedules and payout rates for families of the deceased. In particular, I was using some custom models to see where our premiums should be crafted to avoid catastrophic payouts to insurance holders.”

Nothing. I guess I had his attention now.

“It became increasingly obvious over the course of my work that the usual environmental factors weren’t the only influence. With the data I was provided with, I began to see… signals.”

“I’m sorry you said, signals?”, the agent leaned back in his chair, looking slightly amused.

“Yes, signals. Or to put it another way, coinciding factors that when combined produced… mortality.”

“So, a patient who doesn’t stop drinking and ends up with liver failure? I don’t see how that’s relevant here.”, the agent shifted forward, elbows on the table, “Don’t waste my time, I need some actionable information out of you or you’ll be in a hole SO DEEP, nobody will ever SEE YOU AGAIN. Understand!?”

I did. Looks like I had no choice. Taking a deep breath, I continued.

“Like I said, signals. But nothing I’ve ever seen before. This wasn’t like you say, someone who disregarded their doctors advice and ended up dead. Nothing so cut-and-dried like that. This was deeper in the data, and I almost missed it, if it hadn’t been for the learning networks I set up to study it.”

“You mean neural networks? They’re quite simplistic, aren’t they?”, the agent folded his hands, cigarette poking into the air like a stick of incense.

“Well, yes, but I was working on something new. Not the usual back-propagation multi-layer networks you see in colleges and high-frequency trading firms. We had access to some advanced technology, and I adapted the data to run through that. That’s when I saw… the signals, as I call them.”

“Give me an example. And it better be good.”

“Okay.”, no turning back now, “Everything is online, every movement, every conversation and almost nearly every consumer habit. You’ve got reams of data on purchasing habits alone, not to mention specific medications, where they live, hell, even the specific branch of the water delivery system going into their homes. Thanks to modern cell phones, you have speech data, location and the ability to build psychological profiles from in the field. This is the perfect set of economic and biocentric data to build a … mortality profile.”

Again, nothing. Damn, I was close, wasn’t I.

“This isn’t just about sending someone a direct dose of poison in their drinking water, no, its much more insidious than that. Say you have your average male, he works at a IT firm and does basic support. You also know that he loves to masturbate to cosplay porn and he has a particular affinity for skittles and bacon-snackum-chips.”

The agent nodded, taking another drag.

“You change the timing of the lights on the way home from his work, he’s stressed. Elevated heartbeat plus an extra jolt of adrenaline when the right turn lane triggers early, causing a near miss. But his anti-lock brakes assist, which jar him against his seatbelt. In his shoulder, the injury he had two years ago is aggravated, but it only feels like a small stab of discomfort, nothing major.

He goes home, gets some mail, including one for an upcoming cosplay convention. He likes this, very much. Sitting in front of his computer, snackbowl ready, he reads an email sent from a friend he hasn’t heard from in a while. This makes him get up, go to the refrigerator to retrieve the photo – it has a number he wrote there months ago that he wants to call.”

“Now he’s in what you’d call ‘PRIMED’ condition. He has a latent injury affecting his nervous system, the strong desire to sit in front of the computer and jack off, and the snackum chips that he saw on the counter when he went to get the photo.

Heart beating faster, he starts to view some porno, when in the middle he shifts position to eat a chip – and his injury flares from the increased blood pressure, causing him to jerk backwards, topple over and snap his neck. The chair of course, was out of warranty and had been gradually weakened due to a specific design flaw that just happened to be delivered to his house.”

“So how does that relate to project MORTIS?”, the agent stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray, exhaling smoke.

“I think you get it. The light timing was changed by an operative of yours, human or machine, and casually arranged all the other pieces together to produce the end of someone’s life. No poison, no prosecution, just a neat and tidy accident that won’t even make it to the back pages of the newspaper.”, I bowed my head, knowing it would soon be over.

“I can neither confirm or deny such things, but it seems you’re out of your depth on this one, Mr. Dawson.”, the agent straightened up, and smoothed his tie, “I’ll have to speak to someone for a moment. Don’t go anywhere.”

As he left, I heard him key a mic and speak into his lapel, “That’s right, a code black, I repeat a–” as the door closed behind him.

I sat there in the light, staring at the ground.

I was as good as dead.

It was probably the third dumbest thing I’ve ever done.

No wait, back up a second. You’re probably wondering about the first two. And seeing how I’m here, on my knees with a bloody nose, surrounded by cops, your mind is stitching together assumed facts and broad strokes – none of them flattering. Let me explain.

The bastard deserved to die.

Strong statement, isn’t it? But that’s the thing about us humans, we don’t act like we’ve got reasons for anything most of the time. Well, I had reasons. I’m not going to bore you with too much backstory, but suffice to say it involved a girl. Formerly my girl, as if I had any real say in what she did, that is.

The first dumbest thing? Thinking she loved me.

The second dumbest thing? Trusting a liar.

And if you’re mentally hop-scotching to the final, and third dumbest thing, let me stop you there. It isn’t “killing my exes boyfriend” or “getting my just revenge”. I was just trying to save the goddamned planet. You see, there’s been a lot of cohabitation going on. You know that guy that doesn’t seem right, always laughs at the wrong part of jokes, and can’t tell you what year it is?

That’s one of them.

And how I found out was when I walked in to my apartment, early from work, and found him screwing my girlfriend. Well, not the classic scene of betrayal and lust, more like she got curious and invited him up, and he went to town in more ways than one. I think they’d done the nude mambo, only because of the excess of clothes on the floor. What was in the bed itself was something else entirely. Seems they like to use their conquests as future brood material.

There he was, snuffling up her internal organs like bon bons in a candy dish, when I walk in. Big faceted eyes sprouted out of his skull, and his mouth was stretched impossibly into an elongated tube with tiny filaments at the end. It was one hell of sight, let me tell you.

I keep a piece at home, so I ran to the kitchen and got it, with a butcher knife for good measure. There I was, girded like some idiot gladiator who couldn’t decide whether to hack his enemy to bits or shoot him first, when this thing comes charging out of the bedroom.

So, the third dumbest thing – I shoot and stab him at the same time. What the hell was I thinking? My neighbor, Mrs. Alcombe, isn’t so old that she won’t notice a gunshot, and the sound the thing made as the knife sank into its eye was raise-the-dead in intensity. There it is, wailing its ass off, and I start to hear the sirens.

I run back to the front door, make sure its locked, searching frantically for something large enough to wrap up this monster, which smelled horrible by the way, before the cops came in. I doubt they’d believe their eyes, and I didn’t want to be there when they showed – what if one of them was on the force?

So I lope back to the living room, sheet in hand, when I see the body on the floor. Dammit. Clever bastards – looks like they revert to regular form after death. Now I had some explaining to do, and I could hear shouts from outside and the heavy footsteps of troopers on the move.

So that is where you joined me, in the story I mean, outside and defeated. And they’re trying to nail the whole thing on me! It wasn’t even my damned fault, when you consider everything that happened, that is.

Please help me, I’m pretty sure I won’t make it through the night. One of the cops gave me that thousand-yard stare like I had just murdered his best friend, so I’m not optimistic about my chances. If you’ve got a way to get me out of my cell, that would be appreciated… but, uh… you’re not one of THEM, are you?

I certainly hope not…

I’d do it again in a heartbeat, I can tell you that.

Everyone had a theory about why the sun stopped shining.

All of them, from junior research assistants to nobel prize winners flooded the internet with wild speculations and advanced hasty conjectures on what to do about it. NASA took the problem head on, scrapping a resupply launch in favor of perturbing our star with exotic materials and mechanisms.

They all failed.

The launches were beautiful though, long shadows cast from the brilliant flame at the end of the boosters. At one point high up in the sky, it was almost as if the sun hadn’t gone dark at all – it just wanted to take a quick look at another part of the solar system. Then the rocket would pierce the clouds, and the ascending light would blur into grey dimness. A trick of the eyes, as light-deprived rods and cones flooded my vision with blurry clones, blending into the stillness of the night.

I’d been shopping when the sun blinked out.

Cheap plastic cladding of the cart pressed against my palms, aimlessly pushing my purchases down the home supplies aisle. At first I thought it was the momentary passage of a plane, we were near an airport a few miles away. No sunlight returned. The seconds piled on, rising with my pulse. Then I heard cars crashing and the rumbling of explosions in the distance. Going 45 miles an hour is easy at high noon, but not so easy when you can’t see an inch past your own nose.

Then the store lights went out. I ducked down behind my cart, breathing quickly. I could hear some of the shoppers starting to panic, crashing over displays and shoving to get to the doors they couldn’t see. Tiny blue squares of light from smartphones filled the air, like an abstract art exhibit. I didn’t dare move, I was trying to keep my heart from leaping out of my chest and desperately trying to quell the fear gripping my mind.

Unclenching my hands from the cart, I slowly slumped down, sitting against the shelves. I was not going to die here, surrounded by mops and plungers. Shifting to all fours, I crawled to the opposite side. Feeling along the abstract shapes of plastic bubble-packaging, trying not to make too much noise. Some instinct in me pleading with me to be quiet, don’t let the others hear you. Screams in the distance firming my resolve. I grabbed the business end of a mop, feeling the floppy strands drape over my wrist.

Tying a few blind knots to contain its mass, I then resumed my groping for some cans of lighter fluid. I had just passed them hadn’t I? Sitting for a few minutes with my eyes closed, against the dark, trying to replay the images in my head. Right, there had been an end display of charcoal briquettes, so the fluid must be close by.

Rising up into a half-crouch, mop in one hand and feeling along with the other, I finally brushed against the cold square tin of lighter fluid, complete with built-in safety cap. A rush of relief flooded over me, and I would’ve cried out in triumph had my instincts not held me back.

BLAM

Was that gunfire? I dropped down, scrambling in the direction of the cart.

Another loud report, and a gurgling scream down the aisle chilled my blood. Mind reeling, wishing desperately I could just blink out like the sun had, and reappear underneath my covers at home. Footsteps halted that fantasy, crunching on broken glass. Whoever it was, they were not far away.

I had to prepare.

Knuckles tight on the mop handle, I slowly uncapped the fluid, trying not to tip the container over. Dripping the fluid over the mop head, pattering softly on the floor. I reached into my pocket for my lighter, and positioned it at the base of the mop head. Both arms stretched out, half bent at the knees, ready to run.

Another step, this time much closer. How did he move without me noticing? Adrenaline flooded my veins as I sparked the mop, my crude defense against a maniac. For some reason I thought briefly about my dirty kitchen floor.

I had turned my head when the flame caught, guttering and violent. The gunman, startled by the billowing flame licking his face, he began to scream as the flames ignited his flannel shirt. I shoved forward, hard. Flailing and screaming, he ran down the aisle grabbing at both sides, each touch igniting price tags and plastic packaging. I raised my torch high, advancing slowly towards the gun lying on the floor. It was kill or be killed. I tried not to think about charred skin and burnt hair.

If that’s how its going to be, then I’m fixing to be a survivor. Picking up the gun, I walked back to my cart, heart thudding in my chest.

I had more shopping to do.

I couldn’t tell who he was, but he certainly wasn’t the mailman I was expecting at my door.

“You know what the problem with people is don’t you? They never change. Sure, you can point to the extremes and say person ‘A’ is very different than person ‘B’, or how person ‘C’ made this miraculous transformation overnight, but that’s just looking at the pigments, not the canvas underneath or the tools that put them there.”, He said, adjusting his overcoat.

I looked around slowly, expecting a hidden camera crew to reveal itself.

“In this case, its the human psyche. We’re all wired to be random, and for the most part these random interactions tend to gravitate to the darker side in the absence of any kind of social moral code, or perceived danger from legal prosecution and enforcement.”, He lit a cigarette, smoke trailing upwards in a lazy contrail.

“Don’t believe me? Lets take a walk down the street, shall we?”, He grabbed my arm strongly, and I followed, out of curiosity and the strange feeling that we had met before.

“See that guy?”, he stopped and pointed, “Sure, he looks like an average homeowner, trimming his shrubs with the dedicated precision of a bean-counter, but that hides some rather awful history. You see, I know what he was in prior lives. One particularly nasty past was his life as a child slaver, he’d get them young and chain them up – keeping the really pretty ones for himself of course, while selling off the ‘trash’ as he called it for a tidy profit.”

He drew up suddenly, “One moment, I have to attend to this.”, He strode quickly to the fence where the man was trimming the tops of the hedges.

A quick snick of a blade and a four foot telescoping razor thin shiv penetrated the shrub trimmer’s abdomen, protruding out his back. Uttering a short squeak, the man fell behind the bushes, legs twitching.

Walking back to me slowly, folding his blade, “Where were we? Ah yes, the slaver. Well, that wasn’t the only thing, but you get the idea. I can’t allow any of those people to keep on living, having a chance at a normal happy life. For what? They ruined so many others. Its time to even the score.”, He smiled grimly, re-holstering his now compacted weapon.

He then turned suddenly and stared deep into my eyes.

“Good. So far so good. You better keep your nose clean, or we might have a little talk.”, he then strode away, angling towards a woman walking alone in the park.

The cold wind fluttered at the edges of my tattered coat, swirling between my knees and chilling me to the bone. December, and the sky was a grey bowl over the city. Walking slowly, I had to keep stopping to rest my weary legs.

This was it. Down to my last. The economy had crashed, and when all of those derivatives and debt instruments went to their digital graves, it wasn’t the bankers or brokers suffering, it was me with my stupid pension gutted and savings stretched to the breaking point.

I even had to dodge my landlord of 20 years because I couldn’t face him without money for rent. A single tear ran down my cheek, hot with the indignity of it all, the utter stupidity. I’ve always worked and paid my share, never cheated on taxes. And this is how it has to be.

Straightening up, I walked down the street to the MemBank. They were everywhere, riding the crest of new technologies out of autonomous zones of China, shiny skullcaps and geometric storage cubes peppered billboards with smiling faces and dollar signs.

“Got the dreams? See the GREEN!”

“Clean out that dusty closet, share your best with the rest!”

“Forget an ex? You got it, Tex!”

And so on, the gaudy colors and horrible type choices clashing with each other, the prices were the largest of all, automatically updating according to categories printed on the bottom border of the smart-ad.

Turning the corner, I pushed through the opaque paneled doors of the MemBank.

“Hey, you’re back – just give me moment, I’m with another client.”, Doctor Ellis smiled, the confident expression of someone about to make a lot of money.

I sat down on the primary-colored plastic seat, slumping toward the wall.

No turning back.

Just before it was gone, I thought about it again. Her smile, her lips. The 15 years we had spent together.

It was my last good one. And then, it would be the grey sameness of every day, blending into the next like a monochromatic film-strip. No chance of ever recreating that again. You couldn’t go back home, not when home had changed in a million ways, most of the people you knew were dead, with the outside world becoming a strange and scary place.

Not when strangers looked at you like you were a museum exhibit, complete with the window-tapping and the smug smiles of those who still had their best years ahead of them.

But I needed the money. The goddamned money. Clenching my fists, I tried to mop up my tears before Doctor Ellis came out again.
The door opened, and an older lady slowly walked out to the main entrance, with the Doctor close behind.

“Are we ready?”, Doctor Ellis smiled, impatient to get his fee.

“Sure”, I shuffled after him, letting the heavy steel door close behind me.

As flat and featureless as my life was to become.

So annoying. I’m really getting tired of humanity in general.

Its always the same thing, a do-gooder with too much time on their hands comes up with a law, it gets passed somehow into the books. Then I come along and being a free spirit with not much else to do, I eventually run afoul of these stringent rules and get thrown in jail, or the stocks, or some hole in the ground.

It happened to me in England, where I got on the wrong side of a local magistrate and had the full royal treatment, imprisoned in the Tower of London. Not just any cell, mind you, but one of the special VIP rooms. Deep in the inner ward, large hewn blocks of stone and a bit of grass was all I could see, when I pulled myself up to the bars.

I could’ve been dramatic about the escape, but after running a gauntlet of swords and other nasty things, I’d be torn to ribbons and in a lot of pain. Yes, being immortal doesn’t mean that I don’t have nerve endings. I also don’t heal any faster than a regular person, so being shredded by sharp metal objects wasn’t my first choice.

I chose a more leisurely way out, managed to get to one of the storerooms after giving the guard the slip, and hid myself in a large chest that I overheard was being shipped out. It was part of the annual tribute from the well-to-do to the king, so I just dumped out some of the coins and jewels, kept a few choice bits for myself, and hid inside.

It got a bit dicey when they opened it of course, only having a thin layer of coins and such over me, thankfully they missed stabbing me with a sword they used to check for any live cargo. Crafty bastards.

I can’t always do the sneaky thing. Sometimes I’m just in a hurry and I need to get the hell out of there.

Happened at Alcatraz, I just knocked out a guard and kept on running as they were shooting at me. Had a bit of luck when the guy who worked the mechanical locking mechanisms for the doors was visibly stunned to see me take a bullet and keep going, rather than actually press any buttons to sew the place up. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have ever made it out of there.

I just kept on going, bullets whizzing around me and some going through me – stinging like hell – until I got to the rocky cliffs and dove into the water. The cross currents are pretty bad, and if I hadn’t swam down to the bottom to claw my way across the silt-rich bay, I doubt I would’ve made it to shore. More likely swept out to sea, where I’d have to wait like a human buoy and latch on to a passing ship, or a friendly marine creature.

Very rarely do I have to actually wait out my captors.

Happened in a small desert village, was thrown into a deep hole, I think it used to be a well until it dried up – and sat there until I couldn’t hear anyone topside anymore. That took a few decades. I actually lost track of time, doodling on the cave wall with some burnt twigs someone had thrown down on me, possibly to finish the job, but it didn’t do anything except burn my hair off.

That was the worst one, because I became a bit of a celebrity with the younger kids. They’d whisper their wishes down the old well hole, and I would try to whisper back encouraging things or just crazy riddle-like answers. I had lovers ask for my blessing to be married, and old men confessing their souls out to me. It got rather lonely when they didn’t come by anymore. Never did I feel so isolated – other than being immortal I mean – until that happened to me.

So look, you know my story, so I really just want you to incinerate me this time, okay? Catastrophic damage will undo what my innate nature seems to ignore, so lets just get on with it.

I’m done with this living forever crap.

I was late for work again.

Running around my apartment, picking up clothes that seemed passable and shoving various limbs into them, zipping and buttoning. Had no idea where my tie was, so I snatched my backup from my dresser, slamming the drawer shut with my sock feet. I can’t believe I did this to myself. Was it the alarm? Did the power go out for a fraction of a second? It didn’t matter now.

All that mattered was getting into the lab, so I could stand on the catwalk over the main beam assembly to monitor energy levels. A few minutes later, I was stuffing a slice of burnt toast in my mouth and revving the car engine, lurching out of the parking lot on to the highway. Jamming the accelerator as far as it would go, willing the two tons of rusting metal and plastic to go faster. I’ve got to get there in time.

An eternity compressed into 30 minutes later, I was pulling into test site. The guard waved me through, lowering the barrier and getting back to his crossword puzzle. I smoothed my shirt and glanced into the rear view mirror. A little shaggy, but it will have to do. At least I didn’t have to make the key presentation to all the military bigwigs. That would be my bosses job, thankfully.

Haphazard parking job, grabbing my briefcase and notes, rushing into the building like a human hurricane. I barely got into the main testing chamber before my boss started to speak at the lectern set up near the racks of computers powering the abstract maths of our experiment.

“As you know, we’re in the final phase of testing. Project SUNSTRIKE was undertaken to provide the military with a force unparalleled in modern science. Control of the sun’s flares.”, he shuffled some papers, looking up at the assorted brass seated up front,”This will allow pinpoint accuracy when stimulating the outer layers of the sun, which will produce flares of any class desired, from small-scale effects to full EMP directed fury.”

My boss then stared at me, gesturing, “Now that our monitoring team is present, we can proceed.”

Taking the cue, I did a half bow towards the generals and clambered up the gangway to the overhead monitor station. Flipped a few switches, powering up the primary grid. Below me was the sprawling proof-of-concept design, part particle beam and part laser, designed to inject exotic matter into the beam, to be carried along to the sun’s surface. It would’ve been better in space, but our budget was tight and the extra GigaWatts really didn’t matter, as we were drawing directly from a nuclear generator installed on-site.

The countdown began, and I leaned forward with my goggles to observe the test platform below.

5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – INITIATE

The low hum of main banks discharging into the excitor rings filled the air, shoving particles close to the speed of light through the optic traps, bouncing them until the proper levels had been reached. Then, the release – as I moved closer to see – my tie started to fall.

Oh shit, it was a clip-on. With my favorite tieclip on it too.

I watched in frozen horror as the tie fell right in the gap between the primary discharge conduit and the final stage optics now trained upon the sun. My hand slammed down on the red mushroom-shaped button to abort, but it was too late. One bright flash, and the tie vaporized, including what had been attached to it.

I stumbled back, stunned.

“What the hell was that!!??”, Screamed my boss, face red with rage.

“My.. my… tie fell.”

“Well, reset the experiment!”

“That’s not going to help us much.”

“WHAT?!”, he started to stride forward, to climb up to the gangway.

“Don’t bother. The tritium atoms in my glow-in-the-dark tieclip have made it to the sun’s surface. I’m seeing a 400% reaction mass headed on our vector.”, I stared at the screen, not wanting to believe the numbers it was showing me. Damn, it would be closing in fast.

“What can we do?”

“We can burn.”, I dropped down in my seat, panic rising, my eyes starting to tear.

60 seconds to go.