Through The Wormhole, Literally by David Winship

Author:David Winship [Winship, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

THE ANSWER IS … A PENGUIN

The air was tranquil. As yukawa3 arrived at the medical pod, a procession of meagre grey and yellow clouds were drifting slowly and solemnly across the sky like sacrificial smoke in an old watercolour painting. The sound of a space cruiser manoeuvring overhead triggered a sudden flash of deja vu that left him staring blankly into space for a moment.

Since the trial, he had experienced such episodes quite frequently. It was as if reality was fusing in some way with a dream or a memory and he would feel slightly nauseous and disoriented. Actually, if anyone were to press him to describe the queasiness, which they did not, he would have said it was more a sickness of the heart than the stomach. Apparently, no such elucidation was required - according to the senior medibot, these were simply petit mal seizures consistent with epilepsy. Although Mortians generally enjoyed long, healthy, disease-free lives, hippocampal glitches were as common as intermittent crashes and freezes on an earthling computer. And just like an earthling computer, the solution was invariably a quick-fix reboot. The neurological circuitry of the Mortian hippocampus could effectively be ‘reset’ by means of a quick zap from a medibot's molecoil pen.

The senior medibot, similar in appearance to a Mortian humanoid but lacking in facial expressions and a little random in eye and lip movements, swivelled around to face yukawa3 and spoke to him in a steady, nearly monotonous voice: "You've come for your reset?"

Yukawa3 sat tentatively on the edge of the examination table. "Well, yes," he said, "The problem is this deja vu thing I keep getting."

"That's right. You told me yesterday," said the medibot in a pinched, quavering tone that culminated in a suppressed chortle, suggesting that the joke had been intentional.

Yukawa3, who really should have seen that coming, wondered aloud who had been responsible for the absurd notion of configuring androids with a sense of humour. With a frown of irritation, he went on. "It's like... Something sets it off and I feel all kind of fuzzy, then I get this really strange, scary feeling and my chest feels tight and my body feels sort of feeble. Sometimes it's intense and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's frequent. Sometimes it's not. I think the answer is..." The senior medibot cocked his head in sceptical curiosity, waiting for yukawa3 to continue. "And I think what the answer is..." the cadet prattled on. "No, okay, I don't know what the answer is. I thought it would come to me while I was talking but it didn't. So, anyway..." At this point, the molecoil discharged its energy and yukawa3 was rendered momentarily speechless and senseless, his eyes wide open but no one at home (in truth, his expression barely changed at all, making it difficult for the medibot to recognise the moment when his patient's brain returned to normal functionality).

Periodically, the medibot's voice droned, "Is your brain functioning? Can you hear me yet?"

After a few minutes of

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