Daughters of Men by J. Martain

Author:J. Martain [Martain, J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reserved Seat Press, LLC
Published: 2019-11-10T22:00:00+00:00

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Angels? He stared at the wall between the rooms. The cat leapt to his bed and rubbed against his side, trying to finagle her way into his lap. Angels. He looked at the oral hygiene implements in his right hand, and the bundle of synthetic fibers in his left. Thousands of years ago, that word had been attributed to his kind. That word and others.

The device whirred again in the other room, and he could hear air moving amid the louder sound of a compact motor. It reminded him of the violence suppressed in her agitation. At her home, her fractal had leapt like a lithe animal in defense of its young—and even once she restrained her emotions, her wild fractals had still encircled him, stalking, looking for an opening to attack. He had not thought she would have such a fighting instinct.

What could she see? What could he tell her? He had made her a promise, and would honor the spirit of it; yet the specifics of how to do so escaped him. He was risking more than she could know—had already risked more than she would ever want to know—but there was a way. And he could palliate the resulting psychological effects.

But should he?

In the past, he and the others had often intervened where they should not, and the reciprocal punishments were justly meted and accepted. As if modulators were not effective enough deterrents. He flinched, instinctively bracing himself—yet still felt nothing. Were they damaged?

He set aside her tokens and stepped to the wall. Trailing his fingertips across the peeling paper, he traced the wiring he could sense behind it. With a practiced deftness, he directed the modulators to pulse, and in response the lamps turned on and off and the air conditioning unit roared to life.

And yet he could not activate rudimentary vehicles because he had never learned the proper timing and voltage required for sparks to ignite the fuel mixture in the combustion chamber. He had to rely on the vehicle’s computer to do it for him! Unacceptable. Humans could do it by rubbing two wires together! He had seen it many times on television.

His modulators seemed to be functioning, however. And although—like any creature—he preferred to avoid excessive discomfort, he was grateful that they functioned, for without them he was physically attached to this existence. There was nothing to be done about being psychologically attached. What was done could not be undone.

The cat yawned in disagreement.

“Not without pain,” he clarified.

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