The Hot-Wired Dodo by Jack L. Chalker

Author:Jack L. Chalker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: High Tech, Science Fiction, Virtual reality, Time travel - Fiction, General, Fantasy, Virtual reality - Fiction, Adventure, Fiction, Time travel
ISBN: 9780345386922
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1997-02-25T05:00:00+00:00

We didn't try to find food after that; besides, we were too tired, too scared, and too confused. The grass was soft, there was no weather, and nothing seemed terribly threatening, so I suggested that we all try to get some sleep and see if that might help their eyes. I was totally, completely exhausted.

None of us, of course, had any concept that we might be in a severe radiation field, or that there was any other remaining danger. It simply didn't occur to us. It was likely that if we had retained our memories, we probably would have had more sense than to come here in the first place.

Then again, maybe not, since the food was going to run out fast back in that little patch of remaining reality, and death here attempting an escape would be far preferable to death by slow starvation over there.

As achy and exhausted as I was, and without a lot of memories or recriminations to dwell on or worries about a technology I was rediscovering and misunderstanding, I went out like a light.

* * *

They were all there, all lined up at the tea party, all looking starved and thirsty and forlorn, since the Mad Hatter and March Hare had wasted the tea and the Dormouse had eaten all the biscuits and crumpets.

I knew their faces; I knew all their faces, save perhaps one or two, whether they were male or female, big or little, weak or strong. Even Black Hair and Yellow Hair were there, although not copies of them. Of the short, plump woman with no nipples who was cloned in the big room there was no sign.

When I approached them, they all turned to me with pleading eyes and empty teacups and moaned, groaned, and pleaded with me for help. For some reason they believed that only I could help them.

But I wasn't myself. Or was I? I looked down and saw two enormous bird's legs below me, and feathers all around, and my vision was indeed blocked in part by what I'd taken to be a very large nose but proved to be a hard, bulbous beak. I was wearing a waistcoat and tie, and my four-fingered hands held a pocket watch attached to my coat by a gold chain. The watch said that it was one minute to twelve. I was the Dodo.

But I couldn't be the Dodo! I'd seen the Dodo digging and had spoken with him on more than one occasion. I'd even argued with him, or dismissed him as not worth arguing with. Digging through the Earth to get out of a hole instead of taking a hand and being pulled out-it was absurd. Yet, now, I was having a hard time remembering why the logic was absurd. I was beginning to think like a Dodo!

A small child, eyes big as saucers and twice as sad, came up to me, showed me an empty plate, and asked, in a plaintive, heartrending voice, "Please, sir? May I have some more?"

I looked down and hardened my heart at the sight.

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