They spread to my sister. She was one of the last to go, holed up in a panic room – I had no idea whose – while the looters and rioters killed each other off outside. She spent most of her time cowering on a pile of blankets, curled into the fetal position, trying to be as small as possible. Twice a knock came at the door. Well, once a knock, and once the blast of small explosives as someone tried to force their way in. The knock claimed to be a friend, and her fairy thought it probably was, but she only curled up tighter, not trusting the voice that claimed it, and nibbled at a bag of chips clutched in a pair of scrawny hands. The room was better stocked with food that it was with water; she died of renal failure a few days after the lines lost pressure. Her skin took on a sickly hue, and her lips drew back in an involuntary snarl. She started vomiting her food, heaving it up in friable chunks, chewed but otherwise untouched by her dehydrated digestive system. There was a pile of them in one corner, as far as possible from where she lay, gathering like drifting dust as she fell further and further away. Her last thoughts were of her family, wondering if they still lived, wishing she could say goodbye. In one of the few mercies the things had granted, she never knew her brother’s role in turning loose the things that killed her. For that, at least, I could be grateful.

Were they prescient? I didn’t know. I liked to think that no, they weren’t, that the scenes the thing was playing out were ramblings of a dying mind. One possible version of the future, which may or may not come to pass. But honestly, I didn’t know.

Nor did I know if they were truly the end, as the play-outs seemed to think they were. Yes, there would be looters, and rioters, and hunters and killers, but they would band together, wouldn’t they? Form some sort of alliances, and reach some kind of understanding? Surely not all of them would kill each other off just because their hearts were bare! Surely, some of them

(will adapt)

and some others

(will survive)

…yeah, that felt right. There would be a few who’d make it, who could bear the burden of their fairies, and wouldn’t care what they portrayed. But…

I thought back to my chat with Britt, and to our hypothetical about the one rogue caveman who was forced to adapt after leaving the clan.

…would those who did still be men?

Hssssss..bpth…et…oo……allad. A sibilant hiss, broken by staccato bursts. Voices. Real voices, with human tones and human inflection, which I could hear through the drums of my ears instead of through some trick of the screens. They sounded hollow, and fractured, as if passing through a prism, but there was no mistaking what they were.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Look…is screen,” one of them whispered. I couldn’t tell whose it was – it wasn’t distinct enough for that – but from its tone I guessed it was Ramsay’s. “What else…ould it be? I’m…elling you…e’s still there…”

“Uh uh. You…ay have the higher rank, but…’ve seen more of…eath than you. This…is death.” This second voice was short and gruff, and seemed to choose its words with care. Bergman’s, then. Not Banks’s. “It must just be another…ayback. This thing’s form of…igor mortis.”

“No playback,” the first voice said, “I was with him the wh…time. He never thought those things before.” Ramsay then. I was sure of it. Bergmann wouldn’t have said those words. The tone, the phrasing was all wrong.

“How do you know what he thought?” Bergman countered. “Look at…ose eyes. Look at that skin. There’s no life left in them. Sorry Ram, you’ve got this one out.”

“I’m telling you, he’s THERE!”

They could still see it! They could still see my holo! Something fired inside of me. At first I didn’t realize what it was, the sensation was so unfamiliar. Then it hit me; hope…and an idea. They came as chords of thought alone, without the stab of nervousness that usually accompanied such things, that pump of adrenaline the body uses to goose itself into action. Those lines had been cut, it seemed. All that remained was a sense of cold, academic excitement. Very strange.

Bergman calmed, but did not sound convinced. “You may be right,” he said, “you may be wrong. I don’t think we’ll ever know. But even if he is, what difference would it make?”

I tried to wrench control of my holo again, and guide it with my conscious mind (did I still have such thing as this?) as I had before. It wasn’t easy. I had reached the plane of demarcation, and the oily mist was creeping in, confusing me, disorienting me, making it hard to form a thought, and harder to hold one once I did. On top of that, the holo was a shattered wreck. Pieces of it fell away even as I grabbed for them, crumbling into dusty nothings, bucking any gains of purchase. The whole thing felt like I was trying to steer a three-wheeled cart through a North Sea fog, with an air-horn in my ear to boot.

Here I had a horrific thought. What if I went on like this? What if something in the fairy, something in the cybers made it so I couldn’t die? What if I just had to sit here, conscious, while they cut me up in autopsy, pumped me full of chemicals, stuck me in a box in the ground, and left me in the dark to rot? Cold, academic fear coursed through me as I remembered Britt and his holo, how it had instilled him with that last fleeting glimmer of life, and…

…then I had it. Through the shifty, slithering coils of mist, and through the crumbling bulk of screen, I grasped upon a solid thing. It tried to break, to slink away, to melt into a slippery mass and seep through the sieve in which I held it, but I held firm, from all directions, keeping it whole with even pressure, forming it a sort of shell. I tapped into it again, using tricks I’d learned only a few moments earlier, and established a connection.

I screamed at it with everything I had.

RAMSAY!!!