by Ian Woodhead
He nervously glanced back at the trans-portal and knew exactly how his God would react if he entered this veritable bountiful garden and found some disrespectful child had already stolen food from what rightfully belonged to him.
His God would seek out this usurper and eat its face, something which had not happened for thousands of years. This could even be the beginning of yet another civil war where the Gods abandoned all the unspoken rules and raged across the planet, consuming everything in their path. Not caring about their futures or their subjects. Without the care and attention of their God’s devoted subjects, it was certain that the great beasts would die on this world. Not that the captain would no live to see the eventual outcome. He suspected that he would be the first of his God’s anger.
A little melodramatic perhaps? The captain did not think so. His continued survival had always depended upon caution mixed with a large dose of paranoia. “I so don’t need this at this time,” he growled. The captain ripped the thing into several pieces then started to eat it while making a way back to his constructs. He threw the last two pieces to them and watched as they both gulped the bits down without swallowing. The two creatures would need far more sustenance before being ready for their final duty.
His mind was already spinning, thanks to the torrent of images which showed just how far this species had advanced in such a short time. It wasn’t just these nuclear weapons which awaited the Gods when they passed into this world, using exotic-sounding devices such as wire-guided missiles. Depleted uranium rounds, fast-attack aircraft and predator drones, the memory strand confidentiality predicted that the huge invaders wouldn’t last a week in this world.
The captain had to silence the memory strand by showing his own torrent of images. It began to weep moments after his brother finished with his wife. The captain allowed the memory to continue for a few more seconds, just to make sure the memory strand got the message. When his wife wrapped her naked legs around his brother’s back and pushed the man’s head further down her body while ordering him to ‘sort her out down below,’ the captain allowed the memory strand to go back to its hiding place.
When he tapped his thigh a couple of times, his two constructs ran out from under the bramble bush and stopped by his feet. “I need you to show me where you found that piece of meat.”
They both scrambled down the grassy hill, heading for the road which led back into the centre of Brandale. He followed at a leisurely pace, his troubled mind not granting him enough energy to run after them. It did not matter; once the constructs had reached the spot, they would soon come back for him.
A jet-liner passed overheard. He stopped to watch this incredible feat of human technology streak through the sky and for the first time in his long life, he actually felt sympathetic towards the new God’s need for change. His God, as well as all the other ancient beings, should have foreseen this, nine worlds before, when the humans started attacking the Gods and their subjects with projectile weapons. Granted, these new devices did not even scratch his God’s hide and from what he could remember, the subjects were still more wary of their arrows and spears.
The devices were seen as an insignificance, nothing of consequence. Just another fad, invented by the tribes of clever apes. The genie was out of the bottle, as he discovered with the crossing to the next world and the world after that, until they found the humans attacking them with machine guns and flimsy aircraft.
Another jet-liner streaked through the cloudless sky and the captain shuddered to think what the next world would bring. “If, that is, we live through this one,” he muttered. Whether the new Gods were right about changing the design which had kept the Gods away from murdering each other did not matter, at least, to him. The captain had to perform his duty with unquestioning loyalty. This meant finding out exactly who had trespassed on their territory and to eliminate the subjects who had slipped through the trans-portal before his God arrived.
It should not be too difficult a task, not if they keep leaving their discarded waste dumped in fields where anyone could find them. The captain stopped walking when he found the constructs were nowhere to be seen. Unlike them, his new adaptations had not furnished him with an enhanced sense of smell or sight, meaning he needed to wait for them to find him.
Once more, this nuclear thing sneaked up on him. He knew the Gods would probably withstand those predator drones, air-to-air missiles, and all the other human inventions but those bombs really did worry him. No matter how well armoured, no matter how large his Gods, they were still living creatures. The memory strand told him that upon impact, the immediate blast zone heated up to a temperature equal to the surface of the sun. What defence could any creature have against that kind of power? His memory strand had informed him that there had been more than one occasion in the last sixty years when the threat of nuclear wars had raised its ugly head. That had not surprised the captain in the least. The humans were a confusing and violent species, who could not stop themselves from killing anything which moved and breathed, including themselves. From what he remembered from his last body in the previous world, especially themselves, millions of young men had perished in that war. What astounded him was that, in this world, they fought yet another great war just twenty years later.
If or when his Gods had bled this world dry and move onto the next, perhaps they might not fight a technologically advanced human civilisation waiting for them on the other side, armed with weapons which even the memory strand would find fantastic. Perhaps what awaited the Gods on the next world was a wasteland devastated by a nuclear conflict? Now that thought did make his pseudo-blood curdle. To emerge into a world already drained of meat really would be a disaster for them.
How he envied the olden days, back when the human species numbered a few and only existed in isolated pockets of land. They were just a mild irritation. Nothing more than tasty bits of meat treats. The vast wandering herds of grazing beasts were the real prize. Millions of animals, each one packed with nutrition, just begging for disassembly and consumption.
It did occur to the captain that the good times could very well return once the humans had wiped each other out. The multiverse Earths had endured catastrophes far worse than this annoying evolved monkey. He just had to place himself into the mindset that lean times were just around the corner, two worlds for the humans to murder each other into extinction then several more worlds for the planet to recover. Less than a thousand years really. He shrugged to himself. It was not that long to wait.
His two constructs were returning. He watched them race each other up the hill. There were occasions when the captain envied their new behaviour modes. The new adaptations had stolen their sentience and regressed them to the point where their intelligence equalled that of a horse. Their only care was to please their master and to feed. The construct which was once the wife reached the top of the hill, waiting for the other one to catch up before turning her large head to the side. She growled and snapped at the other one which then flattened her flanks and lowered her head to the floor. It appeared that the fight for pack dominance had been decided. If only his life could be so simple.
She came up to him, rubbed her side against the captain’s legs then turned, and padded back the way she came, this time at a slower pace, giving him plenty of time to keep up. The other construct followed behind him.
He followed her along a waist-high wall which ran parallel to the road. A white car passed them. The driver waved. The captain waved back. The driver probably guessed that he was out enjoying the morning sunshine whilst walking his dogs. It brought a smile to his face at the thought of that driver actually seeing what kind of beast accompanied him. Would he have crashed his car at the shock of seeing his constructs? It was likely. His short experience of being in this new world had already shown him that the indigenous population were as weak and docile as all those vast herds of beasts which once wandered the lands many millennia ago.
The construct led him closer towards the ou
tskirts of town, past several industrial units and close to the entrance of a public park. Both constructs then stopped. They swivelled around and started to growl.
“Is it over there?” Neither responded. They just continued to emit that annoying noise. The captain sighed, while forlornly wishing that at least one of them were not so devolved, just so he knew what had spooked them. All he saw was a huge concrete flyover which, at this time, had started to fill with commuter traffic.
“Fine. So the pieces you found are over there?” He took several steps in that direction only to find the two constructs had not moved. They only moved when he stopped and glared at them. The pair stood up and bolted in the other direction and vanished through the open gates to a public park
Copperfield felt something stir at the back of his mind. He ran back to the path, crossed over the road, and stopped beside the park gates. So, the memory strand was back. It was obviously a glutton for punishment. He considered showing it some of the more unusual positions his brother bent his wife into. He then decided against it. Copperfield could always save those for another day, as he suspected that in the coming weeks, the stress of command would no doubt fray his nerves to the point of breaking. Pushing the memory strand right up to the verge of suicide was bound to make him feel a little better.
The two constructs were waiting for him when he entered the park. The creature who was once the captain’s lover had caught a duck. She had bitten off its head and feet and eaten them before leaving the remaining bloodied lump, the tastier part of the animal beside the other construct.
That was so sweet. She was trying to cement their bond. That pleased him. The heretical structure was already forming. At least one aspect of this operation was performing to expectation. Knowing that he did not need to replace either of the constructs did make him feel a little happier.
As soon as he reached them, the dominant one snatched up its prize, turned, and scampered towards the playground equipment. He followed with haste as already; the captain could smell a scent which should not exist in this world. At least, not yet.
“No. This is not possible.” He crouched beside a large slide and pushed a tiny fragment of jellied material out from a damp patch of smouldering grass. He scooped it into his palm and sniffed at it. This did belong to a renegade meat probe. There was no doubt. Just as there was no doubt that it had met its demise by a fleshmelta.
He stood up and surveyed the immediate area. Signs of a fight were everywhere. A worrying picture began to form in his mind. One which meant that his problems had just increased. The time of flight and conservation would already be in place in the old world. Every remaining scrap of organic material would be now making its way towards their sleeping God. Every defiler, foot-soldier, prisoner, as well as every piece of equipment, including fleshmeltas, would be used for feed before he burst through into this world. Not even the new Gods would waste valuable meat. It was something which all Gods did understand. So, as ridiculous as it sounded, the captain now believed that it wasn’t only a new a God’s renegade section of stragglers who had passed into this world, but a human. One of the few resistance soldiers stubborn enough not to allow themselves to be absorbed into the greater good had somehow managed to find their way into this world.
He shook his head, refusing to allow this new piece of information to worry him. The intruder would not be much of a threat, even armed with such a formidable weapon. This was a new world. One where the inhabitants lost themselves into a spectrum of fictional worlds rather than face the reality of their own drab, predictable, and boring lives. Nobody would believe he had come from an alternate reality to save them from an army of church-sized monsters. They would lock him up and throw away the key.
“Where did the survivors go?” The captain held out his hand for the constructs to smell the mess. “Show me where they went after here.” They both sniffed the remains, looked at him, and growled. He stood up and wiped the mess on the side of the slide. “Well? Go on then, you stupid creatures. Don’t look at me like that. Go find the remaining meat probes!”
They scampered off towards the other end of the park. This time, he attempted to keep up. Time was flying past him at an incredible speed. Thanks to this stupid diversion, the captain had hardly achieved any of his allotted tasks. The fact that he still retained this human body was proof enough that he was falling behind. Thankfully, his God was not to arrive for at least another few days, which gave him plenty of time to catch up with his work.
The constructs jumped onto a wall and disappeared. He did the same, landing onto a weed-covered path between the wall and a metal wire fence. The others had already found a hole large enough for them to fit through. The captain had to employ a more direct method. Thanks to his enhanced muscles, he simply ripped the wire apart. It was the first time he had needed to use the optional extras in this body and he liked them immensely. He had wanted to use his extra muscles on a human first. With all the excitement, he still had yet to feed; a situation which he did intend to rectify sooner rather than later.
The pair stopped in front of a metal-walled industrial unit, one of several industrial buildings in this complex. The captain reached his companions and stopped. He looked around, searching for any more evidence that the constructs had brought him to the correct place. He found what he sought in the form of utter silence, like a bubble had formed around this building into which nothing living dare approach. Nothing natural anyway. He crouched and ran his fingers along the ground. Even the grass had begun to wither and die.
The new Gods did not believe in wasting anything.
It took supreme effort not to shiver. Until this moment, the captain had not given much thought about how he should proceed if he did find their base of operations. He had heard the stories of what he might find in there. They dispensed with the tried and tested methods used by the old Gods for collecting food. What they used in their place made his own adapted flesh curdle.
He took a step back, lifted his arm, and scrutinised his tender flesh. He still had most of his human meat attached to the bones. Even compared to the two constructs, he was weak and vulnerable.
It was irresponsible of the sole representative of his God to enter an enemy stronghold without either reinforcements or the knowledge of what to expect. He couldn’t die. If he perished, then so did his God.
The captain let out an audible gasp, startling both his constructs. Had he really thought such blasphemy? His God relied on no lesser being. Back on the other world, if he heard of any other subject uttering such nonsense, to actually have the audacity to believe in such fiction, then he would have dropped them into a vat full of digestive acid.
His God did not need him. He did not need anyone.
The captain called the constructs to heel. Now that he knew its location, their fate was sealed. Once the transition was over and the God’s new subjects were ready, then he would send a few newly grown foot-soldiers to this place with orders to burn it to the ground. Without any of its own subjects, the new God, that dirty trespasser, would have to move to another location, to avoid a confrontation with the captain’s God, a battle that it would surely lose.
Just as he turned back towards the ruined fence, his memory strand began to laugh and called him a coward. He growled and ordered it to shut its lying hole. The captain then looked to the constructs to allow them to verify that he certainly wasn’t cowardly, momentarily forgetting that only he could hear the voice of the residual trace of the man who once occupied this body.
Warming to his subject, the memory strand continued his vitriol by further explaining that he was a yellow-bellied, weepy, shivering little girlpants who’d shit himself and cry for mummy if anything larger than a mouse ran at him.
“Fuck you,” he snarled, turning around and heading towards the front of the building. Nobody told him what he could and could not do. Nobody at all! The captain strode along the side of the building, opening and closing his fists. He was absolutely furious with the sit
uation and with himself. Just what was he trying to prove to himself? The captain should have flushed the memory strand as soon as he became self-aware and took control of this body.
By the time he reached a light-blue wooden door, that fire in his gut had lessened somewhat. He also felt a little foolish for allowing it to goad him into this foolish act and although there was still time for the captain to leave this place and go home, he still grabbed that door handle. He still pushed it down and he still wrenched the door open, breaking the lock as he pulled.
He waited for a moment, allowing his senses to absorb the ambient sounds and smells drifting from the dimly lit interior. His eyes had already adjusted to the low light level and informing him that nothing ‘off-world’ was inside the immediate vicinity. The captain didn’t believe it to be cowardly to assess the environment before rushing in; just cautionary. Unlike his goading memory strand, he knew how formidable the new Gods made their guardians and although these subjects couldn’t possibly have designed and built an eight-foot, armour-plated killing machine so quickly, the captain still felt it prudent to be careful.
Apart from dirty oil, a sickly-sweet fragrance, and the old scent of human sweat, his nose revealed nothing which could pose any danger. He glanced down at the constructs while wondering if perhaps they had got it wrong.
“In you go,” he whispered, walking inside as well. The captain quietly padded along cracked tiles, only slowing down to allow the constructs to pass him. From how they slinked and fidgeted, neither animal seemed too keen to venture any further.
He stopped beside a rusted clocking-in machine and ran his fingers along the damp wall. Their reluctance to continue must have been contagious. The captain no longer wished to pursue this line of inquiry either. The constructs relied on his commands and their base instinct. They were not burdened with his memory strand, nor did they possess a nagging doubt, unrelated to the memory strand but still just as resolute.