The Mind Engine
There was a lot of fear permeating the weightless, lightless void that was his cocoon through the transit. At last he was reborn—or so it felt—among a field of buttercups and daisies, on a beautiful spring day. The texture of the grass was very similar to that which he had lain with Miss Astoria on. But there was something fundamentally different about the place. In many ways it was more like where he had come from. It was cool. There was no sea wall. The peaks of the Cornish highlands were glaciated. This felt better. There was nothing but the sound of twittering birds, birds which could not actually be seen…
He walked on toward a distant beacon. Eventually, after hours walking across the monotonously redolent lawn that would certainly be loved by any women he ever knew, he saw a poster—no a live-light 3-D advertisement like they have in Vegas.
Dude, that’s Rosie.
No shit, the old German stripper that you shacked up with in Cebu City!
Heck, I guess she was famous.
He traveled for another hour and was greeted by a twelve-foot tall electronic—or was it holographic—image of his old flame. Her voice was as luxuriant as ever, and she danced seductively in her one-piece body suit. With Rosie it had always been about the performance. She used to joke about being the ugliest and biggest stripper on two continents, but rich Japanese dudes had flown in every week to get squashed in her lap dances.
Rosie had really been more of a big sister to him than anything. He had tucked his memory of their week together in the safest corner of his mind just so he could pull it out someday and enjoy it, perhaps, if he accidentally ended up getting old.
She spoke to him as soothingly as he remembered, “Hey, there’s my Sweet Baby Jay, just what a girl needs to see at the End of Time. We’ve been waiting for you Jay, all of us.”
Oh shoot, that’s scary. Her and Fierce Woman wouldn’t get along at all. I could see her and Tina in a Three—Yo dummy, wake up. You’re nodding off.
“Come hear Jay. Touch me. I’ve waited for you for eight-hundred-and-forty-years. Touch me Sweet Baby Jay.”
He walked forward like a man in a daze and reached for the virtual hand of the women that he had once wished he could have loved…
Life was now a wonderful dream. He was surrounded by his friends and family. Ady was doing a tattoo on Mom’s arm that said Son. Rosie was pole-dancing while Tina was tipping her. Charlie was finally teaching him how to write his name in cursive. Then he saw Kreel across the room grabbing Three-Rivers by the hand and leading him through an interior door.
He heard a large animal growl, was vomiting metallic chewing gum and some automated voice was reeling off a greeting: “Welcome to the Stratton-Holsworthy Municipal Repository Relief Engine. Your request for uploading is being processed.”
He looked up from where he lay on the barren black sand. He was beneath a twelve-foot obelisk—How do you know what an obelisk is?—of platinum and chrome. Light flickered from its lower reaches. An older man stepped over him in a daze, as if guided by some unseen force. The man was bent and unwell. A bulge formed in the base of the obelisk as if to greet him. The man drooled and smiled and reached forward with a fawning hand, apparently to touch someone he yearned to see again. The man was suddenly wreathed in light. He then turned black and crumbled to dust, dust like that in which Jay lay, up to his elbows.
Now is the time to run you dumb Goddamn hillbilly—run!
He eventually hit the beach and washed off in the icy water, never daring to look back.
Dummy I think that was one of those secrets that Sarge was suggesting you keep and not forget until you find out whose secret it is.
That dang pile of metal back their wants to eat Three-Rivers!
I know dummy, I know. When you get back to the 21st Century you have to go rogue. You can’t allow people to manipulate you anymore. As long as you’re somebody’s schlep, even if it’s Charlie’s or Doc’s, you will not be able to protect your little Squirrelboy.
They are all smarter than you, so you make yourself scarce. Make them come to you where life is scarce—where you are the smart one.
He was never more thankful to feel his guts start to twist and heat up as he did at that moment; on that bright sunless day with no horizon in the year 2844.
