“Think the edges. No, Think of all of it in your mind. The corners are what’s important despite having said the gamut.”
The Yebat had already thought the edges, or the whole thing with the edges especially in focus. Nothing happened. A sound was heard from somewhere to the west of this surreal assembly, a crashing thump maybe between 2-3 buildings from Darius’ hangout, their already austere coordinates.
Upon hearing the noise, “We need to get moving, so please, stare into your self and this octolens—an expander with eight, count them eight sharp features. One, this one, is jagged here.” Darius proceeded to message the thing entirely, as if trying to find a key or undiscovered egress.
Why don’t you hold it. Just handle it gently. Gently, please…
It was taken and grasped by the Yebat before they slammed it into the ground. A forceful dropping. It splatters like a pumpkin being thrown from a moving truck. As expected by the Yebat, more pieces emerge, more to choose from a more showcased division. A beautiful sight to see the scraps meld, not so actively now, into alternative floor objects; foot pinchers and speed bumps, electrical wire and precious copper to anyone wanting to relive their television days.
Darius is unresponsive, mute to everything since this was the only workable gatekeeper to the sewer strata. At least to his knowledge it was.
The aesthetics and essence of the thing have become one—it looks dead, it is dead.
Or is it?
Darius glimpses, mouth agape, at the scrap metal, the toxic dust, the rotation of a few still moving parts shaking and vibrating on the floor. Really bad parenting if ever used for cat toys.
He had also been wanting to break the piratical piece of amalgam for ages. For exoneration, for escape from the djinn he sees in his reflection. His wispy looking fingers, like electric eels were working overtime as his finger familiars, like his hand was mutated a very long time ago and faded in more than color and shape. These short, elbowed penny wraps were the first to show signs of distaste for what the Yebat had done. Those sensory know-it-alls.
“Calm yourself Darius” prayed the Yebat.
“Absolutely not, you are my client but that doesn’t mean…” A louder, second eruption occurred from the floor-level of the handout this time. “Shhh.” Whispered Darius, interrupting himself and the mystery.
After some silence, not including the pieces of pseudo-life writhing everywhere on the floor, forgetting the old form of the octolens, Darius thought to himself—embarrassed to have it leave his insides—“It might still work.” Though, it was all too weird now. The noises under the streets weren’t the same. Darius knew the frequencies that turned his bones into rat food and so made them transportable. The giant rat must be on vacation and must have asked some larger creature to fill its place.
“What you hear is our compositing agent, our trash oracle. Usually she’s a rat.” Was it possible that the rat was denied entry into their world, some dopey equivalent to a visa complication? Probable, anyway, what did it truly matter?
They would soon learn this creature was not a rat, like Darius had suspected, but was rather a possum named Gary.
Yeo and the bastard were across worlds, straight under the sewers and up again on the other side. “We haven’t decayed much since what happened” the bastard said. It was another fact on the pile of annoyances to worry about. Such as the foreboding, what now?
—“Yeah, we need to keep walking. Jam knows where we could be, how far from anything recognizible.”
It seemed odd to both how they were jetted from the whirlpool plane. “That scientist and his anger…” said the bastard. “Got the best of him and us, though maybe we turned out lucky given how steamed the spider looked.” Now they traipse at a regular pace but very quickly discover a hitchhiker.
“A real radish of a spider, a true vegetable snout.” Said a sensitive vesicle of slime still left on Yeo’s shoulder. Get it off! B., get it off, now! Hurry, no time.
—A little frenzied over a little slime? Was that what you were thinking Yeo, was that your insult?
“No, what kind of thing, hey, that was not an insult, it was a comically pathetic dint. Come on, do it. Beeee.”
—I think it suits you, like a parrot to a sailor. You always wanted a furrier, less dead companion, didn’t you? Maybe it will help us, maybe it will do a dance when we get closer to Chimera or shrivel up when we reach some other bad omen.
“You’re not helping a whole lot.” And why said Yeo, “why is it we never know where we are going?
Eros was following a tip that related to the missing heavy units to no avail. His mornings have been filled with sedentary ear unboxing since Caul fell and took the necessary sick time. Ear unboxing refers to the concocted method (authored personally) that supposedly boosts a radio signal across life-worlds. It would never have been tried if Caul had a say, but the simple communicator does not, and this is thorny stuff. Weaved patches of rust wire and caustic decay hiding in every trap. Traps are everywhere. Hence, why trap setting might work. His total thinking—the opposite of hers—could have enough spark to reach further and further regions just by sheer will.
Multiple others were attempted first: scrolls made with krill to be eaten and reproduce at extraordinary rates; death flies to irritate and torture slowly those with speculated ties to anything near light sources; and language mélanges. Here is a sample, one that meshes haiku with catnap hymns. A written one to later translate into audio Morse code:
Whoo, secret mover
Purruula, spacious crane neck
Mew, surrender all.
And an unfinished meshed pantoum:
There is a secret waiting to be heard
Still, I sit here
Allowing the computers to hear for me
The special fallen bread crumbs from the day before
There are hidden voices telling where the HUs are
Still, I wait
Permitting life to wash on me, not on the computers, they work for their master
The nematode disco is enough to set off sirens
There is something else I do not know
Still, silence
Allowing the earth to move and electricity to flow
The ancient time keepers will not belie, life is for ever and ever recorded
Eros almost came close to Bleeder verse, boll weevil pest prose, etc. He spoke to himself, “that darker stuff is a skinny bug away from the potential we need. These expansive energies have never been sought out, at least not like this, I would know. I would.”
He was sitting in the usual place, with the same face, equipment, chair. He leans back after sitting awkwardly, facing the big machines in the eggiest room the architects could think up.
The organism limiters, a series of safeguards that protect the entire ghoul world from those beastly and persistent micro rats, burped. Either this or it hiccuped, like a random 1 put in a programmed code of all 0s. Limit indicators on Caul’s side of the giant control board lit up first. Eros thought, “what did I do?” And, “where are my color cues?”
He had forgotten about balance. “Caul forgot about balance, now as I lean backwards, I’m forgetting about it too.”
More than just their motor cortex issues, it is frequently repeated in most seminars that the egg needs balance to operate normally. The precaution isn’t repeated as a consequence of new age assuages…something real instead. Horribly real, like the heavens tipping over, like hell being surface level to the oceans, intimate and greeting us. More than death—again-dead would cower. Eros’ mind strained to imagine alternative metaphors, less biblical ones.
“Caul needs to be back, and quick,” he sighs.
Attendants elsewhere in the bean were acquainted with the beeps and flashy buttons and their meanings. Temporary unbalance. Meltdown.
“Too much for the super monitors to handle, all of these new strings to follow, were they even fed? Who usually does that job anyway?” Then a giant shrug or what it looks like after running to get here thought Eros.
No one knew—while the jury was still out over the feeding of the noise cancelling terrors, the whole egg vibrated and hummed. Then it jerked and rattled like everyone was instantly crammed into a giant dog toy and chewed hard.
It wasn’t the organisms, they were fine. The mediums that displayed their affections cooled and became sea green, so much like the sea that one could see a peaceful song tide in the color.
It was the Microbe—an invasion. Attack.
Without detecting seaworms and biochemical compounds, we swarmed cooperatively—beautifully with other allied archaea. Those tubular peers—paladins.
Using the simple communicator—our slime mold of choice: witches’ butter—the best, and most responsive for this life-world. One side effect—slight hold up—it needs water to regenerate if the egg holds arid surprises, which attacks seaworms…Shit. Who has the foresight to approximate how wizened…or even when our swarming of the egg would begin? Could have been all desert—dust fantasy.
The microbic approach is tested, since they were the first organisms—coded extant things that matter—not really alive to others.
