ART BÉBÉ 2099 - Pilot scenes 6

Art Bébé says, 'Fade in:'

DR. PETER SYBER

She came to him that night. Delivered unto him.

He’d spent the evening in the heart of the canal level red zone, bar hoping, drinking as much as he could, looking for women. He wanted to bury himself and his misery. His doubts about his research had gotten the better of him.

At some point in the early morning, exiting a bar that he couldn’t even remember the name of, in no condition to make the return drive up the switchback and his return home, even in the car’s chauffeur mode, he’d thought to walk for a bit to sober himself. But the drink had suddenly got the better of him. He chose the nearest alley, and collapsed there amongst the refuse, his back against the soot-grimed wall.

When the black van began to back towards him, he’d enough sense to draw in his legs. It reversed a little further, came to a stop, and he’d then watched through the fog of his drunkenness as three men in dark suits stepped from the cabin. One opened the van’s rear doors, while the other two clambered inside, carrying a bundled gray blanket between them, and slowly, under the weight of their burden, had moved on towards a blue dumpster by the alley end, one of the few not overflowing with waste. The heavy lid of the dumpster raised, it had taken little effort to dispose of whatever was being carried over the dumpster edge. From this point, he’d dozed, and when his eyes were open again, the three men and the van were gone.

He had then to decide whether to investigate. But for some time he remained powerless, the vapor glow of the alcohol within him rewarding his own misery.  And in this time, as he had allowed himself to bath in the belief of his worthlessness, it took little in the way of imagination to guess what the men might have thrown in the dumpster, the secretive activity of the three men having writ this large. But as his strength grew, if only to distract himself from the depression of his thoughts, he’d found the strength to make his slow way over to the dumpster.

The dumpster lid had been closed back. He stood for a moment leaning with one hand to the corner, and then in a final moment of resolution, heaved up the lid, swinging it back on its thick hinges. A bracketed wall lamp off to the left provided enough light to reveal that the blanket had unfolded, and that whatever had lain inside had rolled its way into the shadowed rear of the dumpster. He would have to climb inside to investigate.

He got inside. It had been a struggle, first pushing up with his arms, and then kicking with his legs, and once inside, the struggle for stability amidst the non-recyclable waste and who knew what else. He crouched down and then saw the red slop of the naked body. Very quickly the horror of it had him scramble back until he rested against the dumpster front. It was a girl, her face tipped towards him, about eight or nine years old, Pacific Islander, some Caucasian, thick, black hair. He remained still, breathing heavily, his legs stretched before him. She had to be dead. But he couldn’t be sure. He dared himself to return closer, then with shaking hand, reached out, sweeping back the bloodied strands of hair from the forehead, and saw the damage.

The skull had been caved in at this point. She’d been hit above the left eye with something hard, and with considerable violence. He felt for a pulse beneath the jawline. And as unbelievable as it seemed, there had been a weak pulse. This finally sobered him.

He hooked his hands under her armpits, tugged vigorously, and got her sitting up in the corner at the front of the dumpster. And then he saw her additional injury.

She’d been sexually penetrated with something large and blunt. Possibly the same instrument that had been used to cave in her forehead. Her pelvic region was entirely smashed in. He began to weep profusely. What did he think he was doing? Did he hope to save her?

At this point he was beginning to feel the effects of detoxification. A general nausea. The want to vomit. He could no longer think clearly. He carried on despite this. He was following his instincts. He managed to wrap the girl back in the blanket. Then he got her onto the dumpster edge, flopped over, a carcass at the butcher shop, and himself back out of the dumpster, he lowered her to the ground. He then ordered his car around.

It was morning as the car piloted its way up from the canal level and onto the Lexington Avenue eway. In the dawn light, the BAAL Tower gleamed up ahead, dominating the skyline. He’d decided to build taller than anyone else. Taller than any other corporate. Taller than Citizen Profile Security (CPS). It was an overt show of power. Perhaps a megalomania. But he hadn’t cared. Tonight he had allowed himself to doubt his powers and been presented with another chance. A new research tool.

‘Bébé telemetry disengaged, Dr Syber,’ he hears.

He is shocked awake from his reverie.

‘Peter,’ Marlene continues. ‘Miko reports unauthorized excursion. Surveillance File waiting.’

He struggles to bring himself fully awake. The main screen remains active. He stares at the graph detailing the electro-physiologically readout of a new device, what he hopes will be another breakthrough, his quantum computing brain machine interface (QCBMI). He studies for a moment, then says, 'Open to main screen, Marlene.'

'Opening, Peter.'

Art Bébé says, 'Fade out.'

Art Bébé™ ©

ART BÉBÉ 2099 - Pilot scenes 5

Art Bébé says, 'Fade in:'

ANSVAR

The dwelling is situated in the Stuyvesant Park second residential quarter. It has a central rooking area that is sparsely furnished with a single-person cot, a couch, and a work station beneath the west facing window. An antique oriental rug, very thread bare, covers the boarded floor. Asleep on the cot beneath a light brown sheet, is Mike So, the commander of the special operations militia (SOM). He is a cyborg of the military class (CM), of Chinese origin, 40’s, small and compact, with a clean shaven skull showing areas of techware, including an AI implant. He is staring at the ceiling, unable to return to sleep, having woken from a troubling dream brought on by the battle trauma responsible for his cyborg rebuild. His skullphone (SP) suddenly gives off a persistent beeping. He throws back the sheet and sits up, gripping the edge of the cot. He is dressed only in a pair of tight, black shorts. His compact chest shows its ripped nature. ‘Judy, accept call,’ he requests from the AI. There is silence, seemingly for a considerable period, causing him to ask again, ‘Judy, accept call.

‘Mike, I’m sorry, there has been no call.

The commander pales, then stiffens, bracing himself for what he knows must be true. He has imagined the call, perhaps as an after affect of his troubling dreams. He stands, takes a few steps forward, requesting, ‘Judy, the time?'

‘Eighteen hundred hours and thirty-six minutes, Mike. You are 84 minutes from tonight’s watch duty. Would you care for more sleep? I could instigate the release of neurotransmitter adenosine?'

‘No, Judy.’ Mike walks to the stove, this time addressing the dwelling AI. ‘Samantha, lights. Activate stove. Let’s get some coffee going.'

Hurrying, the wind makes it increasingly necessary for him to draw in the ends of his black wool cloak, and tug down on the hood. He begins to despair. The suspension bridge lies just a short distance ahead across the boardwalk, but the thick pollutant rain, mixing with the dense pall of gray biofuel smoke over the town, makes the bridge entry steps a blur. He’d received an urgent call from Paul within the Core Watch Compound (CWC). He is needed right away. Why did it have to be on a night of such weather?

He’d been out on his habitual nightly meet and greet. A familiar figure, always in his cloak, his long-loped striding gate, as if he just couldn’t cover the ground fast enough. These walks were becoming increasingly necessary. He felt he was loosing touch. The growing town. Its very protean nature. More and more a tent could be found on one night and not be there the next, either replaced by another tent entirely, or the outline of its footprint, already fading. Ten years ago, he’d innocently seeded the decking buttressed out from the Stuyvesant Park Tower, not really knowing what lay ahead. But when the town had begun to grow around him, everybody looking to him for leadership, he’d advocated for a fixed community with a shared vision. His idealism. Like so often, he’d had his reality check. Over time, with the almost exponential increase in the number of tents, and as he was seeing today, the transient nature of some, had come the breakdown in cohesion, too many differing people, with too many differing interests, resulting in too many political groups and factions.

So the need for him to go out among people, to press the flesh, to try and settle things with goodwill, to be everybody’s friend. It would often take him into parts of the town that even as recently as a month or two previously he would never have found the need to venture into. Such as tonight. At last he sees the bridge, and takes the steps, gripping the railing.

Despite its taunt rigging and guy ropes, the bridge is in a violent swing. He makes it across, not daring to look down. It is a 185-meter drop to the swamp below. The safety nets should catch him, but they had been known to fail. Net fatigue. It was a real thing. On the opposite side, at the guarded entry hut, he is waved through, expected, but also, almost certainly recognized.

The compound sits upon a large area of stilted, rectangular, suspension decking, isolated over the drop. At the far northern end of the decking, is the Core Watch Facility (CWF), a medium-sized, single entry stem, oval honeycomb frame smartskin bubble, glowing a soft brown. Other smartskin bubbles are scattered around the CWF, small to medium in size, either with a single or double entry stems. At the decking center, is a square, fenced area of entry steps that leads down to the watch cable car platform, connecting with the town’s greater, suspended rail network.. A two-meter high, rope-netting fence surrounds the compound, more as a safety measure than security. The drop is considered protection enough.

It is a bleak journey across the compound towards the Watch Facility. No-one is about. The town is already beginning to lock down. He reaches the watch entry stem, codes in the pass, and enters through the parting doors. Ten even strides take him to the entry proper. He shrugs out of cloak, shakes out its wet ends, and hangs it alongside the row of watch command service ponchos. The door opens, and he steps through.

It is immediately apparent by the frantic activity that here is a lesson to be learned on what to expect whenever they allowed themselves to become complacent. Given the night’s weather, the possibility of hostile intrusion had been considered low. He swallows, recognizing his own guilt. On periods during his walk, he had felt his own guard relax.

‘Ansvar!’

The security chief’s shout is practically accusatory, as if it is about time. Paul’s workstation occupies part of the east-facing, curved wall of the tent, directly beneath the beginning edge of the central window, and about one third of the way in from the entry stem. He looks over, feeling the chief’s glare as much as he had the words. ‘Glad you could make it,’ he hears further from Paul as he begins across, coming to a halt directly behind the broad back of the seated security chief. Paul turns his attention back to the airscreen before him. ‘I’m sorry.’ The chief suddenly sounds repentant for his contempt, continuing. ‘But I believe we have something serious.’ He flicks at a frame generated from a series of stills on the right of the airscreen, positions it at the screen center, and expands it by spreading his fingers. It shows a bike and its pilot, the pilot wearing a short black coat of a subtle-hued black, and they keeping low to the machine, hunkering behind the windshield. The machine itself is colored a blue-gray and red, and is sharply angular in form, looking like no other bike seen before. The chief sits back in the chair and rubs at his chin.

Ansvar takes in the room. The full compliment of six personal are on duty tonight. Their workstations, take up the bench space to the left and right of Paul, and the remaining curve of the al wall around the smartskin bubble. Everyone seems equally intent on what they are seeing before them. He directs his attention back to Paul, bending his tall, lithe frame over the rounded back of the chief, bringing himself closer to the airscreen. He needs a moment before questioning, ‘What about the helmet, Paul?’ He rests his right hand to the back of the chief’s chair, easing the weight off his booted feet, going on. ‘Let’s see if we can get a look at the pilot.’

Paul checks left and right along the work bench. He finds the laser pen to the right of the touch plate, lifts it, aims it at the rider’s head, flashing the red beam twice. The helmet comes into full profile. It is egg-shaped, and appears to be made of folding plate.

‘Closer again, Paul. Sorry,’ Ansvar bends further in towards the airscreen.

The chief flashes twice more with the pen, bringing the faceplate into view. It is an impenetrable black. He flashes again, and shaking his head. ‘Sorry, no good. File’s not up to it.’

The two stare at a pixilated, broken image.

Ansvar pushes back from the airscreen, bringing himself erect. He hangs his head. They had the best cameras that could be scavenged, or that tech could assemble, but it wasn’t good enough. He slumps further. He is reminded once more of the fact that this possible threat couldn’t have happened on a worse possible night.

‘Sorry to have to mention it,’ Paul interrupts his reverie. ‘But we might be facing a time critical situation.’

Ansvar shakes himself awake from his trance. He nods, saying, ‘Sorry, Paul … of course. What about the bike? Any idea on the make?’

‘None that we can tell.’ The chief restores the pixelated image back to its original size, moving it to the left, then shifts another frame into the vacated space, answering, ‘Completely unknown, we’ve already been looking.’

‘You mean you don’t know the model?’

‘I mean we can’t find out anything about it.’

The chief enlarges the selected frame. It shows a clear side view of the bike’s wide, upper structural frame, just where it lies beneath the tank. He then abruptly swings about in the chair, clearly frustrated, snapping, ‘Look, we’ve been over every inch of the machine where we’ve got a clear picture. It has to be a one off. Check for yourself.’ He rolls back down along the bench in his chair, pushing off with his legs, making way.

Ansvar remains where he stands. He is reluctant to look. He has no reason to doubt the chief. They’d been friends for too long. Paul had been the first to set up a tent beside his. They’d struck up a friendship on that night, and nothing had ever come between them where they had cause to doubt each other.

 ‘Ansvar! You know me!’ Paul says unnecessarily, rolling back to the screen in the chair. ‘That shot’s more than representative.’ He still has hold of the laser pen, and aims it at a specific area on the captured image, directly in the middle of the structural frame, beneath the tank, explaining, ‘That area should hold the manufacturing plate. It’s a state requirement. There’s nothing. And no evidence of the plate being removed. It looks like we’ve got not an unlicensed, but also an unregistered machine, and another point. A category 3’s on the horizon, everybody should be preparing to lockdown. The remaining traffic falls into the right probability factors, commerce finishing up for the day, people wanting to get home, this machine? What’s it doing out? Someone taking a joy ride? You ask yourself? Now look at that pilot. The helmet. The leg armor. Recognize any of it? I bet the bike and pilot are a unit. AI coupling. That’s state controlled technology.’

Ansvar studies the chief. Paul’s eyes are clearly pained, he wants either verification of the watch team’s findings that the machine can’t be identified, or he is desperately hoping the team’s wrong because of the unthinkable. They were facing a state organized security threat. He gives in, bending back over Paul’s shoulder towards the screen, almost bringing the tip of his nose to the projection interface, and feeling the screen’s tingling, static charge. Paul is right. Nothing. No manufacturing plate. No branding or serial numbers. Someone clearly wanted the machine unidentified. He keeps looking, just as the watch team would have done, in case there was something they might have missed, then abruptly pulls back and asks, ‘Can you give me live footage, Paul? Where’s the bike now?’

The chief touches open the live capture file. He hurriedly sifts through the logged footage, and opens the latest recording. The footage is from the 1^st Avenue eway. The bike and rider can be seen making the turn onto the East 17^th, the rider continuing to sit hunkered behind the windshield as if they and the bike are seamlessly melded. ‘They’re one turn from the 1^st Avenue eway,’ he hears from Paul. ‘That settles it. They’re headed this way.’

‘Wash it!’ Ansvar pushes away from the screen and begins to stride down the workstation aisle. At the aisle end, hooking both hands to his hips, he shouts back towards Paul. ‘Who do we have commanding the checkpoint tonight, Paul?'

The chief makes a hurried check on the duty roster, waking his wristpad. His face lights with relief. ‘Mike So,' he shouts back.

Ansvar begins on his return up the aisle, nodding. ‘Good. Call the checkpoint and have Mike set up a road block. Then get onto Kimura. Have her organize a transport team. I want the bike and the rider. I’ll oversee the arrest from SOM HQ.’

Paul gets back onto his wristpad.

Art Bébé says, 'Fade out.'




Art Bébé™ ©

ART BÉBÉ 2099 - Pilot scenes 4

Art Bébé says, 'Fade in:'

LASH IT!

Down from the wall, Bébé strides hurriedly, returning along the outgoing route. Miko has reported no hint of trouble. This adds to her good feeling, not that their lack of company was unexpected, and she hurries on all the more, now angry with herself for not thinking this far ahead, having promised herself a night’s adventure, it might have helped if she knew exactly what. Always too impatient. That was her problem. But almost immediately something comes to her, as it always seems to. Stuyvesant Tent Town.

Manhattan’s surviving structures hadn’t been able to house the number of dispossessed post-tipping. As it almost always proved to be the case, desperation had bred resourcefulness. The solution for anyone seeking to operate outside of Citizen Profile Security (CPS), and not surprisingly, known and unknown grayslates, had very inventively come to be seen as the space between the towers, the occupation of air, without doubt, a very novel form of squatting. Seeding was believed to have begun with either a single tent strung upon decking buttressed out from a tower, or decking stilted up from the swamp at canal level. Almost overnight, one tent had become to become four, four tents sixteen, as so on. Exponential growth. But also haphazard aggregations. Eventually whole arboreal shanty towns had formed comprising of multi-colored tenting and sheeting, boardwalks, suspension bridges and catwalks, each netted in the silver of guy ropes and safety nets. A dozen or so tent towns now existed across the island. A phenomenon given the control the government sort to exert over all aspects of citizen behavior. It begged the question, how had this come to be? The shanty towns had begun as outlaw communities, and remained as such, and they shouldn’t have been allowed to flourish, and not just flourish, to come under the governance of overlords that had taken it upon themselves to operate virtually autonomous from the state. Perhaps to counter this, as an act of goodwill, certain towns had come to allow access to non-tenters. An open-door policy of sorts. A brief security check followed by an interview, the payment of a nominal fee, and then an entry permit was granted. One such town, and one of the largest on the island, was Stuyvesant Tent Town. Its founder had seemingly come out of nowhere, calling himself Ansvar. She stops her review, concluding.

The town, and its enigmatic founder, Ansvar, is already the stuff of legend. Tonight she will play tent tourist. Her first ever excursion into the tent shanties. But of course it will simply be reconnaissance to add to her growing understanding of the post-Tipping. She transmits to Miko, saying, ‘Stuyvesant Tent town, Miko. Plot a course.’

The GPS determined, they are back on the maintenance track, up and over the boom gate, and returned to the FDR express eway. A strung crosswind is blowing, and they are nearly shunted into the opposing lane.

‘Bébé,’ Miko transmits urgently, tacking hard into the wind. ‘May I suggest appropriate dress?’

Bébé’s coat blows wildly behind her. She has still not bothered to set it for either the ride or the night’s extremes but, she frowns, isn’t she crouched against the tank, and tucked immediately behind the windshield? ‘Miko, what’s the fuss?’ she exclaims.

 ‘Bébé, I’m sorry, things are only going to get worse. Perhaps you can consider your glamorous image at another time?’ Miko swerves, narrowly avoiding a light weight EV uncontrollably propelled into their path. Bébé’s coat kick’s violently out to the side. ‘Bébé,’ Miko continues, ‘At least think about skirting the coat. It’s current form is only good for exhibiting an exemplary display of bad aerodynamics.’

Bébé checks the left rearview mirror. The tail of her coat has taken on all the properties of a sail. She looks away from the mirror. ‘Miko,’ she transmits, ‘Sorry about that!’ She then signals to her coat, getting the smart nano bots (SNBs) to work. The coat begins to shorten, riding up her legs to hug her hips, closes over her chest, and finally comes to make airtight seals at the helmet collar and at her wrists. ‘Well Miko, at least I now get to show off my legs. No problem with aerodynamics I hope.

‘Just no hanging off the side taking turns with the knee out, Bébé. Under these conditions, speed and corner angling will just make you look ridiculous.’

‘Mmmm,’ she reflected sotto voce, but wash, she had been planning just that. And of course, Miko reads her. ‘Bébé, promise, ok!’

‘Ok, Miko, I promise. Let’s just keep going.’

‘Doing so, Bébé.’

The FDR express eway follows the island wall around in a long bend until meeting the East Houston turn off. They make the turn.

The wind here is stronger along with the pollutant fall. A greasy slime has come to coat the RoadCorp plastitar. But the tar’s bacteria are already at work, digesting the slime, and feeding the waste back into the surfacing. Miko reads the conditions across the eway, works on the tire pressures, deflating and inflating to spread the bike weight, and flooding sticky compounds into the tire’s rubber.

Bébé checks her systems for any changes to Miko’s programmed drive. None. The route remains the same.

They would continue along E Houston until turning down the East 2^nd eway, follow East 2^nd until reaching the 1^st Avenue eway, and down this, they would continue until coming to East 17^th, and down East 17^th_, they would finally reach 2^nd Avenue where it intersected Stuyvesant Square tent town, cutting right through the middle of tenter shanty. On the CGI map, Miko has marked out the four tourist elevators. They were equally placed along the eway, and flagged in red, the entry checkpoint one-hundred meters down from the E 17^th Avenue turn. So she leaves it to Miko. What can she be doing in the meantime? Her data goggles give an ETA of twenty-three minutes. More study? Why not? The fun of the ride was largely over. She gets back to her evolutionary studies. It is, after all, her primary area of interest. She starts to open folders.

‘Red alert, Bébé. The checkpoint is under heavy guard.’

‘Huh!’ Bébé looks away from her current page, in some shock.

They have made the turn onto 2^nd Avenue. Where has all the time gone, she asks herself, quickly studying.

Five tenters in tactical helmets and the dappled brown and green of military coolskins stand in a shallow arrow before the checkpoint boom, assault rifles aimed.

‘Lash it!’ Bébé curses, sotto voce, continuing to say to herself. ‘Cloaking technology. Miko had been unable to detect the possibility of hostiles until too late.’ She  clears her data goggles of all frames, engages her heads up display, switching it to military, and registers no further shock, as she answers Miko with a simple, ‘Acknowledged,’ they pulling to a stop by the guardrail to the right, 25.4 meters distant from the checkpoint.

Art Bébé says, 'Fade out.'




Art Bébé™ ©

ART BÉBÉ 2099 - Pilot scenes 3

Art Bébé says, 'Fade in:'

DR. PETER SYBER 

His usual period of solitude and reflection. The BAAL Tower observation globe. The view from 112-stories. Dressed only in his loose-fitting, pale-blue coveralls, he begins the control chair on its slow rotation while manipulating the touch screen on the chair’s right arm. The observation globe’s window glass depolarizes to reveal the island below, the canals and waterways, the crisscross of bridges, the glittering whites and occasional color of the old and new towers, the gridded blue of the elevated ways and, rising up and over all this, the yellow affluent emanating from the city’s swampy ground, giving the whole aspect a look not unlike that of a badly mixed Plasticine. When the control chair’s turn finally settles to view over the GNYA, he stops the chair and touches in further commands, banding the long rays of the setting sun in chiaroscuro shades through the globe’s window glass, dancing dust motes in the air. Satisfied, he lies his forearms along the padded edges of the chair’s control arms, presses his frail legs together, and slowly allows the bulk of his bald head to sink into the soft back of the chair. As the head sinks deeper, the triangular-shaped med-drone behind the chair, floats over. Three tubes feed him, two to his right forearm, and the third to his skull. The skull tube increases its feed rate, and he begins to doze.

The tipping as a turning point in history. An age of reinvention and redefinition. From this not unexpected turn of events in the history of humanity, he has derived his own vision.

Whether one favored the weak anthropic principle or the strong, humanity has always observed the universe, cherry picking for its own right to exist, a type of Manifest Destiny made right by humanity itself, humanity as its own brand of determinism. And so the transcendent human. And here he has placed himself in a long line of dreamers in exploration of this very possibility.

Seventeen years of research and development in neurobionics and at last the breakthrough in the coating compound that has seen the free-swimming, largely autonomous, artificial neurons (ANs) freed of the always troubling auto immune response, the biggest stumbling block, enabling the ANs and their fibers to freely synapse and connect with their biological counterparts, forming the enhanced neural loom (ENL). Having conceived this concept as biologically assisted artificial life (BAAL), he has patented the technology, refusing all offers of licensing, and named his corporation after the concept.

And now she is growing up.

‘Yellow alert, Dr Syber, skycar approaching.' Marlene, the tower AI's, silky, pitch perfect, feminine voice sounds over the globe.

He opens his eyes, startled awake, and immediately struggles erect, taking a firm grip of the chair arms. The sun’s banded rays have petered out, leaving the room with only the weak bluish light of the ceiling cells.

‘How do you wish to respond, Peter?’ Marlene sounds over the room again.

He begins to climb from the chair, saying. ‘Keep on yellow, Marlene,’ and easing himself onto one club foot, grunts, ‘Damn fools,’ and is forced to wait before moving off. The club foot has gone to sleep, as is often the case when he sits carelessly. Once the blood has returned, he makes his slow way to the curve of the window, dragging the deformed foot behind him. The med-drone follows.

A dark speck shows in the distance against the flaring night cloud. The speck quickly grows, and suddenly the skycar hovers directly before him. It is of a nondescript make, unmarked, and each of its window darkly tinted, giving no hint of the occupants. As expected, he thinks.

His corporate rivals aren’t happy. Much of his work is secret, and worse for his competitors, is his continuing success with whatever product line he might choose to fashion next. It left little doubt, as with all the previous flybys, this is one of his competitors, perhaps wanting to practice a little intimidation, or perhaps hoping that some of his secrets might be gleaned from the very stone of the BAAK Tower itself. He wonders if anything might be gained if he was to reverse the polarity of the window glass and wave. But then they would see his true form. They would have confirmation of what they had already begun to suspect, that the reclusive and enigmatic head of BAAL Industries was indeed a freak. 

The machine continues to hover. Then suddenly, it is heavily buffeted. It tries to correct, but the buffeting begins again. Then suddenly the nose of the car dips, a burst of flame shoots from the central exhaust, and it is gone, lost to the flaring night sky.

‘What, leaving so soon, he grunts,’ then shouts, ‘Marlene, what’s going on?’

‘Just a moment, Peter. I’m receiving details … I have an analysis now. A category 3 pollutant is building over the North Atlantic. The GNYA will be directly impacted.’

‘Just a moment, Peter. I’m receiving details … I have an analysis now. A category 3 pollutant is building over the North Atlantic. The GNYA will be directly impacted.’

A powerful flare of yellow light flares against the globe’s thick glass, lighting the large pustules that have come to mar one side of his face. The large pupil of his bionic eye shrinks to a pinpoint. He turns from the window, beginning his slow return to the chair. ‘Expected landfall?’ he frowns.

‘At zero-three-hundred, Peter. I advise safety measures.’

At the chair, he heaves himself within, and immediately slumps back. ‘Draw down the shielding, Marlene,’ he begins tiredly. ‘Activate screen. Load Project 13.’

Art Bébé says, 'Fade out.'




Art Bébé™ ©