Tom’s kids, for example.
I was going to have one of them killed to make sure that Tom would do what I wanted. But then he knuckled under so, well, that wasn’t necessary.
See? Cygnus the Merciful.
If I was ruthless or evil, I would have killed the kid anyways. So stop fucking calling me ruthless.
Nathan was different.
He was necessary. Business, not pleasure.
If I’ve learned anything in my thousands of years of existence, it’s that the only morality that counts is the morality of the needed.
When bad shit happens, villagers tell themselves that it was all part of God’s plan. So they already accept that it’s okay for God to do whatever the fuck he wants to get things done.
If you want to be a god, you have to think like one.
Don’t believe in God?
That’s fine. Look at nature. Same on Terra as Earth.
It’s all about one organism doing what is necessary to the other organisms around it to survive. That’s all I’m doing, so stop judging.
Judging is moral code. Where did the moral code come from? Who decided that being gay on Terra was a sin against nature, illegal and a mental illness one day and completely normal the next. What changed?
Same people, same behavior, just different people in charge. The cocks in charge make the cock rules.
So don’t pay attention to the rules. They change all the time. Ask instead, how can I be the one making them?
Morality is control. It’s got nothing to do with right or wrong. Whoever’s in charge decides what goes. Gods write rules for others to follow. Take it from me.
A god.
And I’m going to be the best Yeshua ever.
I’ve got things lined up for after I turn thirteen and start getting my memories and knowledge dumped back into my brain with fMRIs.
All these weak-assed crowded shithole countries with nukes are going to start barbequing each other.
Easy hacks with backdoors tied up with a bow for Yeshua to log in and launch when he’s ready.
Now don’t worry. No place important is going to get blown up. Not too many anyway. But there needs to be a major cull for the betterment of the herd. And a few other things here and there to save the planet.
…right?
I’ll be a Yeshua prepared to do what’s necessary. I’ll be the Yeshua that gets things done.
And don’t talk to me about Andron Varga. That fucker could have had it all. That degenerate fucking drunk. I hope he’s dead in an alley somewhere.
Meanwhile, Tom has shown himself to be a worthy disciple. I’m tossing him the keys until I get back. He doesn’t know everything. Just enough to do what he’s supposed to do. All he has to do is keep wanting money and pussy.
Simple.
They’re ready now.
This is it.
The final countdown.
I have to put my memories on ice. At least I get to relive a few of them.
See you on the other side.
:-)
~ July 20, 2074 (First Life) ~
I smell it.
Freshly cut grass and meat cooking on solar concentration grills. Lawnmowers whirling. The air is thick and hot. Full of want and wait. I smell sidewalk. I smell pavement.
I’m home. In Salem. I’m on my way to my soccer practice. There is green. There is sky. There are lots of homes like my own. I have my parents. I have Scruffy.
I have my soccer shirt and pants just like the FC Real Patriots. They feel so smooth and light. My mommy tied my cleats together and they’re on my shoulder. My body has no aches. My body has spring. I’m going to make a goal. I’m going to run faster than anyone.
My g-bracelet is on and I know my mommy’s watching. She’s always watching. She’s going to watch me make a goal. I have my headset too. It’ll show me everything. Coach Brome likes us playing.
He’s the best coach.
I’m running after the ball before Ronny can get it. I’m breathing. Breathe breathe breathe. Run run run. I’m going fast. I kick it ahead. Again. Trent wants me to pass but I want to try and make a goal. I kick the ball but the goalie gets it.
I kicked it wrong and he got it too easy.
Coach Brome calls me and I run to him. I should have made a pass or kicked it better. He tells me to go in the equipment room and get another ball.
I should have made a pass or kicked it better.
I go in the equipment room and Coach Brome comes in. I think he wants to talk to me about playing more like I’m on a team like he’s always saying. Only he grabs my hand OW and tells me to hold still. He holds something to my g-Bracelet that makes it go wrong.
Then his voice is all funny and he stops talking like a Coach or a grown-up. He talks all quiet like a robot. He’s asking about my weenie and if I touch it. If I’ve ever touched a grown-up one.
I’m crying and I feel OW and he’s telling me to get back on the field and play only I can’t. I can’t tell anyone because he tolded me that he would run over Scruffy and he’d tell on me and show everyone how bad I am.
The other kids go right on laughing and playing while he tells them what to do with his fat belly and whistle.
I’m walking home. It’s raining. My mommy asks on my headset if I want her to get me. I tell her it’s okay. I can walk.
I hit myself on my head. Hit hit hit. Ow ow ow. Hit hit. I should have made a pass. I should have kicked it better
The rain’s mad and I want it madder. I want it so mad that it smashes me into bits and I go down the gutter.
~ October 10, 2085 (First Life) ~
I am at Dad’s political rally. A re-election speech. Senator for the New Republicans. There are tables with white cloths. The 3D centerpieces have stopped playing ads and intros, and have turned into flowers.
I am sitting right at the front with my parents and their friends.
Get Back To How It Used To Be starts playing. Then a man walks on the stage.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please allow me to introduce the man we’ve all been waiting for. The man America wants. The man America needs. Ladies and gentleman.
Mr. Paul Whey.
Everyone stands. Everyone cheers. Everyone loves Dad.
Dad swaggers across the stage and grabs the podium. He pauses for a few moments and flashes his big smile. He bows his head and waves the crowd down with his big hands.
He’s tall, large, with his thick curly hair. His suit shines like a lacquered piano. His tie is as green as a rainforest. His voice is a tuned trombone. He eyes are steel blue.
O my sons and daughters of America.
O, my sons and daughters.
Our country is in a tailspin.
We know who to blame. But we do not blame.
Sons and daughters, our country threatens to crash. We could stand by and watch.
But we will not.
We cannot. And we never will.
Sons and daughters, we do not shrink from our duties as pilots of the nation. We do not fear a tailspin.
We fear missing an opportunity to seize the controls and save the day.
We have assembled here, a crackerjack team of the free and the brave, leaders of industry, a confederacy of scientists and private enterprise.
We have assembled here a team bound not by patronage but by ability.
His big hands are straight out, arms bent at the elbows, open.
They are willing to help us. All they ask from us is freedom — not red tape, government regulation, committee meetings or policy study focus groups.
O, sons and daughters, they have the technology. Government can’t be counted on to save us. They have plans for a mighty machine that can solve the great climatic calamity of our times. I am talking about atmospheric reclamation technology capable of fixing our broken skies.
You’ll soon be
hearing about their plan and the technology behind it, but I can explain it to you in simple terms, okay? Here is how I would describe it.
He scans around the crowd.
It’s a mighty machine that eats carbon dioxide and farts ozone.
They all laugh.
No, but listen. With enough investment and if deployed on an international scale, the holes in the atmosphere can be fixed, ecosystems stabilized, and climate repair will be a song on all our lips.
Imagine an America where the flood waters have receded. Imagine an America where we can return to our homes. Imagine an America rising to reclaim the prosperity it once knew.
O my sons and daughters, imagine an America grabbing back the torch to lead the world again. Imagine an America whose enemies now at our gates, are soon on the run. Eco-terrorists will be captured. Destruction of industry is the destruction of our jobs.
Farmers will reap abundant harvests. Investors will be ringing the bell. Food will be on our tables and four cars will be in every garage.
Now this will not come cheap, O sons and daughters. Imagining is free. Doing takes money. To get us there will require investment. It will require sacrifice. It will require that everyone shoulder the burden according to their means.
But make no mistake. Salvation is coming. Salvation is coming, O sons and daughters. Salvation is coming because God has not turned His back on America. Salvation is coming because America’s manifest destiny is to be great again.
Dad’s campaign slogan lights up in fiery lights.
BRING BACK PROSPERITY. BRING BACK OUR SKIES. BRING BACK AMERICA. VOTE THE AMERICAN WHEY.
Everyone is using their devices to make electronic fund transfer contributions.
I know it’s all bullshit, though. My dad can lay it on thick. Anybody with any sense knows there is no whiz-bang climate reclamation machine that can save us. America is broke. It spent everything on trying to save its coastal cities.
There’s already talk of biospheres and digital reincarnation. Dad’s going to make sure we get in. He’s going to get re-elected for sure. He’s going to make sure we get first dibs on tickets to the digital afterlife — once the hammer finally comes down on the environment.
It’s the AMERICAN WHEY.
The coffee server is looking at me. She’s got long, curly blonde hair, milky-white skin, big tits, hummer lips and a nice chunky ass I’d love to pound. She’s totally eye-fucking me.
I get up from the table to give her the signal. She gets it cause she’s following me out to the hallway. I slip behind a pillar.
“God, you’re gorgeous.”
“Um, thanks. You’re cute, too.”
“Well…Carmen.”
I’m reading her nametag and eyeing her big fluffy white tits.
“You’re gorgeous and I’m cute, what are we to do about this predicament?”
“Well golly, Cygnus, I don’t know. I get off shift in a few hours.”
“How did you know my name?”
“I asked.”
She smiles.
“Oh drag, Carmen. I gotta fly out soon. Can I get your number?”
“Oh sure.”
We touch bracelets.
“Umm, anywhere can go right now?”
“Uh-huh.”
She grabs my hand and pulls me along. I don’t like being pulled. She drags me and turns to smile. I force a grin.
We’re in the ladies room.
We are kissing, ramming our tongues in each other’s mouths. I run my hands over her tits under her top, then reach down to rub her pussy. She’s rubbing my cock.
“Oooohhh…you want in there?”
“Fuck, yeah.”
“Fuck, oooh yeah.”
She has a confident slutty grin.
She takes him out, pulls him, like she was pulling me before. I don’t like it. He’s limp.
“Um, I have an idea?”
She drops to her knees and puts my cock in her mouth. Only I’m too nervous and I still can’t get a boner.
She’s sucking and it’s not working. She looks up at me.
“Why did you take me here if you didn’t want to?”
I’m fucking pissed.
I slap her hard across the face. Fucking bitch.
“Why did you take me here if you didn’t want to?
“Why did you take me here if you didn’t want to?”
She screams back.
“You…asshole.”
“Oh, I’m the asshole.”
I’m zipping up my fly.
“It was self-defense. You were sexually assaulting me.”
“What? You were doing it with me.”
She’s crying with a cut lip.
“No I wasn’t, you disgusting cow. I didn’t ask you to do that revolting act. If my STD check comes back positive, you’ll be hearing from my dad’s lawyers.”
“You have no idea how much that little escapade cost me.”
“But Dad, that whore was revolting. She’s the one that should pay.”
“You know, Cygnus, life presents itself with two clear choices at every turn. Choose the right one and happiness awaits, make the wrong one and misery will be your closest companion. I don’t understand why you insist on making the wrong one, every goddamned time.”
I don’t say anything. My Dad’s lips are pulled back in anger and his big teeth make him look like a talking donkey.
It makes me laugh inside.
~ April 20, 2185 (Second Life) ~
Die Young splashes across Tim’s shirt in a repetitive video loop.
I’ve seen lots of people in the biosphere wearing them. It’s funny in a way.
Tim has curly blonde hair, brown eyes, tall and a bit doughy. Neither of us pushed the designer body enhancements this time.
“You want to drop these?”
I’m holding up the coin-sized yellow tablets in my fingers.
“Fucking Oopsies?”
It is Friday and we are heading out on patrol outside the dome. We recharge Earth Terrain Vehicles for anyone dumb enough to run out of juice. We’re Chargers.
There wasn’t supposed to be a lot of traffic. Most everyone used the vacuum tube trains. Commercial stuff out there, mainly. Mostly drones.
“I don’t know, dude, that’s pretty hardcore?”
“Oh, c’mon. You a pussy now?”
Oopsies are marijuana, painkillers, speed and alcohol mixed together with a chaser of LSD. They erase all trace of themselves in eight hours and aren’t addictive. Anyone using them at work risked all sorts of bad shit.
We each pop one driving out of airlock.
“Well, dude. I guess we’re all fucked now.”
Tim shifts the ETV Super Charger into Forward 2.
“Well , dude. I guess we’re all fucked now.”
His face gets wavy.
The giant dome gets smaller and larger the more we drive. It looks like a giant twinkling diamond thrust out the dead ground. It pulses shards of blue glass from a big blue heart.
Time for music.
Normal music is too fucking intense on Oopsies. You wire in and it echoes out your thoughts in music that can use any instrument ever played and any voice that ever sang. The lyrics are emotions. The music is magic, spiritually jarring.
When not using the generator, retro was cool. Especially from when the planet was still alive.
I stick in Never Let Me Down Again by Depeche Mode and crank it. We’re driving the ETV Super Charger over roads long buried and forgotten.
Stoned out of our fucking faces.
The music cuts out and our Com Monitor lights up with Debbie the Dispatcher.
Hey, guys, we gotta a call about a stranded ETV that needs charging. I’m sending the coordinates now, please acknowledge.
“We poppy.” Tim is trying to get some spit going so he can talk.
We poppy?
“Yes, we’re do
n it.”
Are you guys okay?
“Yeah, Debbie, we’re good. We’ll be right there.” I sound better than Tim.
Okay, report on arrival.
“Got it.”
I shut off the Com Monitor off. Depeche Mode comes back on way too fucking loud. Tim fumbles to turn it down.
“Holy fuck, Cyg, that bitch is like the ultimate buzzkill.”
“No kidding. I was on such a nice trip until that cuntface flashed up.”
We are laughing like crazy.
“Shit, we’re almost there.”
Tim means an ancient quarter-mile racetrack the Chargers cleared of dirt and debris, and restored the timing lights. We were going to try and beat Terry and Mike’s 10.08 @ 127 miles per hour record.
“Oh, fuck it. We got time. It’s probably another fucking drone transport that’s sitting there with lots of backup. It can wait. We can do at least one.”
“Okay, who gets to drive?”
“I’ll flip ya for it.”
I lose.
We roll up. I put on my earthsuit and remove gear to lighten the load. I disconnect the charging trailer.
Tim is so high, he can’t line up the ETV right and keeps driving over the starting line. He’s finally staged. He preloads it and it’s shaking, ready to go. I start the timing lights.
YELLOW
YELLOW
YELLOW
GREEN
Tim is spinning sideways and barely gets it under control to finish the run. He had a slow reaction time and slow run but probably thinks he’s beaten every record.
12.03 @ 115 miles per hour.
Holy fuck. What a trip, dude.
I don’t answer. I see something on the side of the track where the bleachers are. A fucking jacko.
They look like a cross between gopher and sewer rat, with skin like bat’s wings. They’re pests because their tunnels interfere with ducting, cables and sewer lines.
I grab a charging rod out of the unit and go after it.
“Where are you?”
“Tim. Over the hill on the right next to the bleachers, I saw a jacko. Come on, man, put on your suit and get out here.”
I am squatting by the hole the jacko went down, with my charging prod ready to fry the shit of it when it comes out.
The Cygnus Virus Page 20