A Different Alchemy by Dietzel Chris

Author:Dietzel, Chris [Dietzel, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Published: 2014-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

“They’re saying we have too many Blocks to be able to transport all of them.”

“Who’s saying that?”

But the skeleton never answered the other man’s questions.

“They’re saying Providence didn’t have this high of a ratio of Blocks to regular people when they moved, and they still had trouble.”

“Who said that?”

“Remember, we have all of New York’s Blocks now too. They’re saying if we try to leave with this many, it will be at the expense of the people who can actually talk—at the expense of the people who have been kind enough to care for the Blocks!”

That was all it took for half of the audience before they stopped listening; they were already packing their bags. It was critical that they distanced themselves from the obvious disaster that was going to unfold as the caravan left for Washington.

The 120 miles between Philadelphia and Washington wasn’t far by traditional standards. But no one could measure the effect of adding five hundred buses full of people who couldn’t help change a flat tire. And then you had to add another hundred buses on top of that just to carry the supplies needed to take care of those people. Each additional consideration was another potential delay. The possible hold-ups grew exponentially with each person sitting in each bus.

Jeffrey was just thankful the skeleton hadn’t used the grocery store analogy again. It had terrified Katherine enough the first time.

With his gaunt cheeks and hollow eyes, he would look right into the camera and tell people that transporting Blocks to another city was really no different than taking them shopping for food. He would pause for a moment before explaining why that should be so disturbing. It might take a single person half an hour to go grocery shopping, he would say. It might take a pair of people forty minutes because they want to stop and talk about their options. A group of ten people would take an hour in the same store. And with that many people, a jar or a drink would be dropped, glass shattered, and an announcement made on the intercom that a cleanup was needed in aisle seven. A group of twenty people might as well plan to spend the entire night in the grocery store. Now turn those twenty people into a hundred thousand and tell them they have to change cities instead of simply shop for ingredients for dinner.

Jeffrey was used to people saying the Blocks weren’t really people, just shells of people. Not a single day passed that he didn’t hear a new joke about the Blocks. Everyone who had ever made a Polack joke changed focus and began making fun of the people responsible for the end of mankind.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it… can it at least fall on a Block?

How many Blocks does it take to change a light bulb? I don’t know, I’m still waiting for one of them to tell me.

What do you get when you combine a Block with a blonde? The best date of your life.

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.