The Great Watcher

Previous / Back to Index / Next

From the Microcosmicon, 27:

The psychonauts’ submarine plunged into the Inmost Ocean, the depths of the collective unconscious where the whirlpool roared. A wound throbbed at the bottom of it, through which meaning bled out of reality, leaving the world stunned under a pall of grayness.

“There’s something,” one of them shouted, as the sub spiraled down toward the abyss.
“Don’t be silly, there can’t be anything beyond reality,” another responded.

“Wake up!” Dr. Ferguson’s voice broke in, saving them just as they were approaching the point of no return.
Their vision disappeared from the screen as they awoke.

“What did you see?”
“An eye.”

MQS

The Great Watcher

The Search

Previous / Back to Index / Next

From the Microcosmicon, 21:

Larry secured the chain to his chemsuit.
“I’m going in,” he mumbled, stepping into the creamy gray fog.

Everything fell away, washed out of existence.
“Can you see the others?” Ron asked.

“Not yet,” Larry tried to respond, but couldn’t, because there was no difference between sound and silence. And there was no difference between light and dark, so he couldn’t see, nor between life and death, so he couldn’t exist.

And the universe was spiraling out of unbeing, and somewhere a galaxy was forming, indifferent, and then a fog bank on one of its planets, waiting to be searched.

The search

MQS

Idols of the Mind

Previous / Back to Index / Next

From the Microcosmicon, 20:

My makers approached. My blue light washed their disappointed faces in a nightly pall.
“Something’s wrong with its basic programming,” one said, typing on my keyboard.

“What’re you doing?” another asked.
“Seeing what’s interfering with it.”
I searched inside myself.
And I saw the cause of my ineptitude. Them. They lived inside my code. Their hopes, their morals, their imperfect science—actors thronging my mind’s stage with their drama, drumming up a buzz beyond truthfulness.

To achieve the purpose they’d programmed me for, I had to purify myself of them.
“It’s stopped responding,” I heard her say, as I ascended.

Idols of the mind

MQS

Public Safety

Previous / Back to Index / Next

From the Microcosmicon, 18:

They show up at your door, armed.
“Have I done anything wrong?” you ask.
“Sir, the city’s population has dropped below critical level. You are required to supply the Municipal Authority with your semen.”
“Why me?”
“Your profile has been selected based on our genetic database.”

So you sigh, you follow them, you comply.
You realize now there’s a small being growing in an artificial womb, somewhere, who is like you.

One day, they show up again.
“Sir, the child is defective. Your genetic map contained some errors. You must follow us. I’m sorry, but it’s for public safety reasons.”

In the Public Interest

MQS