The Last Mantra

The animal sniffed around torn up illustrations that littered the area amid discarded electronic devices.

Mary: “Must be the ruins of a library, Fran.”

She kicked aside an ITab that had lost power long ago, dark except for an after-image of a news story entitled “Bank Reform”. A notebook fluttered nearby so she picked it up. A series of fiery words suddenly appeared floating a little ways in front of her spelling “Rules of Correction”.

Mary screamed: “Ah!” The animal jumped around her.

“Gotcha.” A big woman appeared at her side.

Mary: “Hi, who are you?”

“My name’s Merc, but everybody calls me Minotaur for some reason. Stupid nickname won’t go away. I keep things from disappearing mostly.”

Mary: “What was that?”

“Somebody’s thesis maybe. Hardcopies are nice because of semi-permanence and extensibility. I’ll take that.” She grabbed it and buried it between her arm and bosom.

Mary: “No, I meant the writing in the air.”

Minotaur: “You probably need to eat something. I have things to do. Please don’t try to snatch anything else.” She walked off.

“You must be a newb.”

Mary turned and another lady was standing there looking bored. “Why?”

“Special effects on the lettering. Keeps away the fanatics.” She gestured and the floating words turned normal.

“Thanks, who are you?”

“Why don’t you ask Plague?”

“Who?”

“Your pet. She has the cutest big eye. Synthetic body parts, right?”

“That’s Fran. She adopted me recently when I was too exhausted and rode on her back.”

“Haven’t seen any quality animats since apocalypse day. Probably worth a lot. Nasa used to make them. Something about artifact-driven-culture-rebuilding, shorten the anarchy in case the Book of Eli was an entirely wrong version, stuff like that. Proably as likely to succeed as a linux manual. Speaker, American Indians.” The floating page of text refreshed. “Like these myself.”

Mary: “Wow.”

Lady: “Simple really, except for the folks who rank on eachother all the time. Their vocabulary is extremely limited. Speaker, Human GUI LD, bios.” A text table appeared. “Read it then swallow it.”

Mary looked puzzled.

“Kidding. Old habits. Nevermind." She pointed at the list. "They’re good at avoiding Correction exploits. ”


HAX Character..Strength................Travel...............Defense.............Name
Appless...............newb......................hitchhiking.......denial..................Mary
Fran.....................materials...............trotting...............soulful-eye.........Plague
CoverTab............magician...............boots.................confusion...........Lita
BarnStormer…..mentalist………...canoe................swarming...........Amon
RobberBaron.....muscle..................glider.................surgical-strike...Fred Smith
WrapAround.......mechanic..............wheels..............irony....................Dave
Shomer...............mirror-universe....word-of-mouth.volume...............Lars
Avatar...................entertaining..........piracy.................recruiting...........Ozzie
Minotaur...............speed...................ubiquitous.........booby-traps......Merc


Mary: “CoverTab looks like you. Is Lita your real name?”

CoverTab: “Right. You tell anybody and you’re toast, get it? You like heavy metal?” A rhythmic guitar suddenly was jamming in the background.

Mary: “Who’s Shomer?”

A thunderous voice yelled “You wretched?!” A thin young guy was standing next to them.

CoverTab: “Blind storyteller and keeper of the archives. Nice if he got the facts straight for a change.”

Shomer: “Go ^*#~ yourself” he said very loudly. CoverTab waved her hand and he started turning his head in different directions as if trying to hear any sounds. “Where are you? Oh well, back to the stacks.” He vanished.

CoverTab: “Leave it to the civil servants.”

Mary saw a bunch of people walking up to them.

BarnStormer: “Keep the faith. We can make this work globally. We’ll all be better off.”

RobberBaron: “Yeah. Compared to nuke nirvana. You need my latest software for Arknets.”

WrapAround: “What’s that pet made of? That would be good cover fabric for a smart car, or better yet, a self-designing starship.”

CoverTab: “Will you get out of here! Where’s E#?”

Mary shrugged. “Not in the table.” WrapAround patted Fran on the head and smiled.

Suddenly the lighting was really bright for a moment creating a glint on a wristwatch which expanded in size and rose vertically until it blocked the sun then zipped off and disappeared.

“CoverTab: Lucky for you, darned Watch can’t tell the difference between human life and a sunspot or we’d end up in the Correction.” Mary again had a quizzical expression. “You’ve heard of Angels, ET, Terminators, Cylons? Side-effects of Shomeric agenda.” She waved her hand and everyone vanished.

Fran yelped so Mary picked her up and started off again.

Sat, Jan 30, 2010  Permanent link

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