Elise and The Astonishing Aquanauts by Steven Welch

Author:Steven Welch [Welch, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780996801409
Publisher: Cave Branch Press
Published: 2015-11-02T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

PRAETOR AGRUNCTUS

CHROMATOPHORES ARE THE tiny cells in the skin of some creatures that enable color change, texture shifting, and bizarre visual communication. Cuttlefish and other cephalopods are the masters and can flash every color of the rainbow in displays that would shame a chameleon.

A wide wall in the control room of thundering mountain of black metal known as The Razor was dressed in a sheet of skin, flesh that was rich with chromatophore and so much more vibrant and liquid than the crude glass and wire that humans called television.

The tiny organic cells were elegant, with every color and shade and tone, able to shift and change in the wink of a gnat’s eye. The skin wall communicated with plump insects the size of apples that flew about Paris, observing curious activity and scouting for valuables.

One of the flying spies had been circling the Hospital when a minor war had erupted above its roof.

Praetor Agrunctus sat in his control throne and watched the death of Scynda the Mirror and her Men of Many Eyes on the skin wall where it played out in real time, in life size, in all of its surprising suddenness.

A human flying a weapon over the city? Impossible.

The Shock Tide at the first moment of the invasion had been overwhelming and decisive. The ocean was drained without much fuss. The Earth defenses fell in hours and the world was cleared of meaningful resistance, allowing the fleet of Razors known as The Rolling Deep to begin work. This much Praetor Agrunctus knew for certain, otherwise he never would have been commissioned to do his work.

Now here was the strange man again, the one who had sent the signal to their forces in the first place, in a tiny flying vehicle, and this fool had killed one of their most valuable assets.

Agrunctus spit and the stuff hit the floor with a splashy thud. The phlegm wad sprouted legs and scuttled away into a dark corner of the control chamber.

The chamber was a black bubble of a room that sat atop the center of the mile wide Razor, the monolithic destruction engine that was consuming the 16th of Paris. From here the Praetor of a Razor could monitor the progress and track quotas. It was an important job and Agrunctus took it seriously. There were twelve Razors on planet Earth and that meant he was one of the twelve most important creatures on this world, a fact that he was quick to point out when he started to feel small. Why, without him and without his expertise in the demolition and extraction of detritus, where would they be? Somebody needed to sort through the garbage for gold.

Being the Commanding Praetor of a Razor was sedentary work. Agrunctus sat in the control throne, monitoring the work, at all times. His food was delivered by human slaves, his waste sucked through tubes in the seat of the throne, his vile amusements periodically stimulated through a series of skin screens and privacy funnels.

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