skonen_blades

April 30/30

16/30

We’re hiding in the cupboard. We need to admit that we are a disease and spread. We need to spider out from star to star and consume. Staying here is not an option. We were not designed for stagnancy. We need to leave the earth and make husks of other planets. I know we can do it. I have faith in us.


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The room was studded with old-school CDs, worthless even as antique curiousities.

They were jammed into the walls. Thousands of them. Not one inch of wall was uncovered. It was disconcerting being surrounded by so much rainbow-glinting dead media. That was the first thing I noticed. It was like being in a room wallpapered with silver, fish-skin fangs.

The second thing I noticed was the smell. He was rotting.

James sat in his chair/life-support system in the back corner of the room next to the banks of monitors, keyboards, and thoughtmice. I could say that he reminded me of a Dalek or a helmetless Darth Vader or a Stephen Hawking/Borg drone but really, he just reminded me of James.

He reminded me of a James that laughed without that edge of cruelty. He reminded me of a James that was above making money by hurting people, of a James that liked it here in the physical world and only occasionally went into total online immersion.

That James was gone. He never jacked out now, and the hypercancer had taken nearly fifty per cent of him. The 3HIV was working over his ability to resist the treatments. His death had been a matter of time for nearly four years now. They’d given him six months at the beginning. He was a confirmed medical miracle. Sheer drive seemed to be holding him together until he met his goal.

He was fighting the disease by trying to escape his flesh.

While his body deteriorated, he spent more and more time ‘not here’. He’d made millions off of the poor security systems of tiny personal banks in the smaller countries. He’d started famines by bankrupting the economies of the smallest of them.

He’d had experimental biofilters installed in his head so that he could talk to me and surf at the same time. Time-share boosters, he had called them. He didn’t see the need to wash. He looked more and more like a special effect every day.

He was putting the money towards digitizing himself. New attempts in other countries were getting closer and closer every day. He had a fortune in not-yet-patented experimental equipment cluttering his apartment.

He was a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein except he was trying to bring himself to life. I told him once that he had a terminal disease, trying to make a play on words. He hadn’t laughed.

I had known him when he had a ponytail and sunglasses and liked to walk in the sun. I didn’t kid myself that I knew this James, here, in this room. He wasn’t the man I’d grown up with.

“I’ve found a way to transfer my mind, James.” He said to me, one eye glowing red above his wet mouth and white skin. The respirators squeezed like death’s accordions behind him.

“That’s great news, James.” I said. “Why do you need me here? Moral support?” It came out as a dig, escaped before I could block it.

The silence after that question and James’ alien gaze made me suddenly afraid. I knew that James’ morality was eroding but I always counted myself as safe since I had always been his best friend, now his only friend.

I was wrong.

“I’ve found a way to transfer my mind into another human.” Said James. “The digitizing process for full net transfer won’t work for the silicon just yet but it might in six year’s time. I’ll be dead long before then. However,” he said and his wheelchair moved forward, “you won’t.”

The screens came up behind him with an image of a monkey. Shaved head, brain plugs.

“We’ve been shuffling the minds of monkeys in and out of each other all week. It’s been a total success. Yesterday, we did it with two of the research assistants. We switched them into each other and then switched them back the next day. There was a small amount of degradation but they were essentially okay.”

The screens pulled up images of two people. A man and a woman in lab coats. The man had a nosebleed and was staring at his fingernails. The woman was crying and biting her lip, her face turned to the wall.

“Are you my friend?” asked the thing that used to be James.

I heard a door lock behind me.





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I can feel the sickness ripping open bonds between my cells as I load the gun. It’s a sickeningly pleasant sensation. The sneaky thing about the virus is that it steps on your endorphin throttle pretty hard as it goes to work. Capillaries unzip, organs start growing roots into each other, and skin starts to turn into a body-wide blister. All the while, it feels like great sex and good memories all rolled into one.

I leave puddles when I walk. It feels like ferrets are fighting in my stomach. My bones are becoming more and more pliable. Soon, my fingers will be tentacles and my arms will be rubber.

I wish it didn’t feel so good.

All anyone knows is that it came up from the south. A government installation is suspected but nothing’s been confirmed. The television stopped broadcasting anything other than the EBS two days ago.

I’m chuckling as I slot the last bullet into the clip. It’s a bit a contest between my fingertips and the metal. Mostly, my fingertips lose but the bullet snaps into place when it hits the bone.

There’s a thrill across my back and thighs like a lover’s breath. My cock is rock hard and shows no sign of softening. I’m sure it’ll be the last thing to succumb to this disease. I’ve been turned on for days.

Outside, what’s left of humanity is melting into puddles of basic biological matter. The race is composting. Anyone that still has the capability to move is either trying to have sex with each other or kill themselves. Some are mixing the two. It was raining bodies outside up until this morning. Seriously, there was a lineup two floors down the stairwell from the roof; a patient queue waiting for the sixty-storey diving board.

I guess there aren’t very many people left. Bodies are only coming past my window about twice every half hour now. I can hear their laughter Doppler past.

I ram the cartridge into the base of the gun. I feel something give way in my wrist and I know I’ll have to do the rest with my other hand.

I turn the gun around so that it’s pointing at my eye.

I sigh deeply like I’m on ecstasy.

Laughing, I pull the trigger.



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