The Old Axolotl by Dukaj Jacek

Author:Dukaj, Jacek
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788394105709
Publisher: Allegro
Published: 2015-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

War, war never changes

He slid the Morpheus potentiometer down to zero, trembling with the purest of all solipsistic fears – that he might be dreaming his awakening as well.

He heaved the shell of his Honda up off the wet roof. It was a sunny afternoon after heavy rain, and the MIT campus gleamed with silver puddles and the beads of merry raindrops.

Bartek picked up a signal from the Mothernet. The date showed 10231 PostApoc. Thirteen days had passed.

Rory’s Honda hoisted itself up with the same grinding sound, probably having just restarted itself after Bartek had moved.

“I’m glad that—”

With a lightning-fast FUCK YOU! emote, he threw himself at her and knocked her off the roof. They plummeted down together onto the footpath, him on top, her striking the flagstones with her side, so that the crash rocked the entire campus. Bartek-Lily’s hip joints were crushed and his left arm was severed; Frances-Lily was snapped in two like a broken doll. The local Matternet wailed in red.

“How did you get the passwords?!” demanded Bartek, pounding at the upper half of the Honda Spirit until the feathery steel cover of the radiator came off. “Where did you get the passwords?! How did you hack into me?!”

“No – body – hacked – into - you,” grunted Rory in time with the slamming of her head against the concrete. “We – slowed – down – your – whole – ser - ver.”

He let her go.

The whole time she had distracted him with her chatter to stop him from working it out. If not for the sleep-morphing, he’d have noticed much earlier.

He had refused to slow down, as the Iguarte Zodiac dictated, so they had slowed him down on the sly, without his consent.

Two babysitter mechs were leaning over them. From behind their chimney-stack legs peered the little face of a girl from the Third Litter, staring with the big eyes of a very serious child. It was Milenka.

Frances propped herself up on an elbow.

“Sorry, I had no choice. Cho would have torpedoed the negotiations just to show who’s boss. You stood up to him at the worst possible moment.”

“Bullshit. You wanted me off the scene because you were scared that Dagenskyoll had talked me into voting for the Royalists and Big Castle.”

“Sorry.”

Bartek awkwardly gathered up pieces of hardware from the concrete. Parts of breastplate and sub-assemblies spilled between his fingers.

He didn’t even feel like emoting.

“So what was the decision?”

“Heavy Metal went down, Homo sapiens won the day. We’re making humanity.”

The Second Transformer War had been a religious war.

“I’m out of here,” said Bartek. With an ugly screech, he heaved himself into an upright position and popped a stray lens back into its eye socket. “You’ll have to get by without me.”

“Where are you going?”

“Somewhere on the independent servers.”

“There are no independent servers.”

“I’ll make one. I’ve got sealed stores of spare parts.”

“Okay,” said Frances, apologetically emoting a beaten little dog. “Just don’t get mad again.” She performed a deep intake of breath – fully human and organic.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.