Raul Sanchez drifted slowly into half-consciousness, vaguely aware that his body was being transformed. His limbs all felt numb, like the way a leg feels when it falls asleep after losing blood flow for too long. His torso felt all warm and wet; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know where the liquid was coming from. His head was completely immobilized by something both soft and unyielding, and it felt like it had been completely stuffed full of cotton fibers. He tried moving an arm, which budged just the tiniest bit before encountering resistance. The motion triggered a response from whatever was overseeing the transformation, and a gentle vibration passed through the young man, lulling him back into the pleasant abyss of slumber.
Raul dreamed of electric sheep. While the lambs frolicked in the lush field, the adults were busy munching on green fiber optic cabling that was slowly extruding itself from the ground. The sheep munched with precision, each clip of their teeth shearing off the same amount of material. It reminded the young diplomat of how his older brother ate corn on the cob, which had always creeped him out.
As Raul watched, his perspective shifted upward, sending him hurtling upward through the air. The ground beneath him lost detail as the green field dominated his viewpoint. But as he continued to ascend, a pattern was revealed. The field was just one piece in a mosaic, the green serving as the background for a web of enormous gold wires intermixed with enormous, pulsating red and blue tubes that crisscrossed the globe. There were no clouds on this version of Earth, so nothing obstructed his vision as he continued to slowly ascend, eventually reaching a point where he could see the planet in total.
He looked in vain for the continents, for the entire globe had been transformed. Gone too were the oceans, givers of life and home to more than half of all living creatures. Enormous blobs of living, pink flesh pulsated at seemingly random positions, towering high into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. The scale of these edifices was breathtaking. Lines of gold wiring, along with the pulsating red and blue tubes, connected these structures in patterns that made Raul’s vision blur when he tried to focus too closely on them.
A gentle tug sent Raul hurtling back toward the transmogrified planet, the speed of his descent far exceeding that of his leisurely rise. The ground rushed up to meet him. He braced himself as best as he could for impact, which largely consisted of attempting to but failing to close his eyes. But instead of slamming into strange vegetation, he passed through the Earth’s surface.
At first, there was nothing but dirt and rock to see. Then came the glow of magma, the hot lifeblood of the planet that after billions of years still flowed beneath the crust. For a while, the pressure of the Earth’s own weight resolidified the rock once again, but that weight was insufficient as the temperature rose closer to the core. Red light the glowing magma reappeared, before giving way to a yellow glow as the heat ramped up. Finally, he reached the Earth’s core, a glowing white-hot ball of nickel and iron. And yet, the vision did not end there.
Passing beyond the core, through walls made of a substance whose strength must have been beyond anything the world had ever seen, was a chamber. It was small in the geological sense, which meant that the largest cities from mankind’s peak would have easily fit inside the perfectly spherical cavity. But there were no cities down here. What Raul saw was far more interesting. At the center, fed by and feeding more of the gold, red, and blue cables, was an enormous heart. The sight of it brought tears to the young man’s eyes: it was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen.
The enormous organ was the perfect fusion of three different ideals: the riotous, unchecked growth of ever-evolving organic life, the ingenuity that was unleashed upon the world once men had wrestled the mysterious power of electricity into submission, and the primal power of magic that bulldozed past all known physical laws without breaking a sweat. Blood, electrically charged fluid, and liquid mana ran into and out of it through the various cables, entering in a low energy state and being pumped back out after being recharged.
Raul watched the heart beat for a few minutes, each moment more precious to him than diamonds, bitcoin, or a can of Dr. Pepper. He was completely enthralled by the intricate design of the bioengineered, mechano-magical device. Every part of it worked perfectly in harmony with the others, creating a delicate dance that harnessed the three forces in a way that yielded an output greater than the sum of its inputs. It was a true perpetual motion machine. As he watched, the young man became convinced that, if he continued to grow, a heart just like this might power his body one day. The thought soothed his soul.
That was when a rooster arrived. It was larger than any rooster that Raul had ever seen, and as ugly as sin. Its legs were covered in scales that looked more reptilian than avian, and the bird’s wattle and crop were likewise altered. Dust roiled off its black plumage, while its claws tracked mud and probably worse all over the surface of the heart. Its beak dripped blood from its latest victim all over the place, staining the heart’s pink flesh red.
The young diplomat would have hissed if had been able to speak. But he could only watch, horrified, as the bird began to consume the heart, bit by bit. Time seemed to speed up as the rooster continued to gorge himself with rapid pecks, tearing off pieces of flesh, ripping out circuitry, and chomping down on the conduits that carried mana throughout the perfected system. As he ate, his stomach distended rapidly. Then there was a pop, and the rooster divided in two identical birds.
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The process continued as Raul began to weep, his sorrow just as powerful as his now-extinguished joy had been. The heart was slowly ruined and consumed. Blood, bird droppings, and broken electronics were everywhere. The chickens were everywhere now, bawking and scrambling, even fighting each other over particularly choice pieces from the heart. The multiplication had slowed down now because there were so many copies of the rooster that they had to climb over each other just to get a mouthful.
“No, no, what are you doing!!!” he finally cried through his tears. “Stop it! Why are you ruining it? What is wrong with you? You stupid, filthy bird!”
His shouts led to an immediate reaction, as the flock of swarming birds stopped what they were doing and looked at him.
As one, the group surged forward, their eyes glinting with malice as they descended upon Raul. The young man tried to move, to turn away and run, to shield himself, anything, but his body refused to budge. He could only watch and wait as the bloodthirsty roosters swarmed closer, literally climbing over each other in their haste to rip him to shreds.
But before they could reach Raul, the roosters screeched to a halt, the hatred on their faces twisting into fear. A familiar and soothing presence descended upon the scene, setting the young man’s mind at ease. Everything would be all right.
An enormous face appeared above the scene of carnage and offal that had once been the wonderous, beating heart of a planet. It was neither beautiful nor ugly, neither hard nor soft. It was, in all respects, a very average-looking face. Its expression, however, was so calm and composed that Raul couldn’t help but feel a fresh wave of relief wash over him. Although the figure did not speak a single word, the young man instantly knew who was responsible for his salvation. It was humanity’s deity, whose name he had learned from Chip the lion: Brett.
The face of Brett surveyed the damage done by the invading, self-replicating roosters, and frowned. The air seemed to grow heavy as he did, and the cowering birds grew even more agitated at the sight of the deity’s displeasure. Then they began to explode, one after another, further desecrating the holy sphere from which the Earth’s heart had nourished the planet. Raul sighed in relief as the foul remains began to sink into the floor of the cavern, soiling it no longer.
The face of Brett grew larger as the once spoiled heart repaired itself, its eyes now looking straight into Raul’s soul. His gaze was full of divine benevolence, and tears of joy streamed once again from the young diplomat’s face as he basked in the approbation that he had not earned but welcomed nonetheless. Then a voice, warm and rich, broke the silence.
“The rooster has only come to kill, to steal, and to destroy. But I will give you the keys to the heavens, if you will follow me.”
“What must I do,” the young man heard himself ask while experiencing an odd sense of déjà vu.
“Do what I did to protect humanity. Kill the rooster.”
The face of Brett faded away, taking the light within the cavity with it. For a moment, the only thing that Raul saw was a gentle glow that emanated from the wonderous heart, pristine and beating steadily once again. Then that too, disappeared, and Raul’s awareness began to ebb.
Just before the darkness took him, a final whisper reached his ears.
“Kill the rooster.”
Raul had spent the entirety of 10th grade English class pining after the back of Stephanie Robert’s head, so he had completely missed out on the class going through the classic novel, 1984. If he had not been so enraptured by her youthful charms, he might have realized that the vision was a thinly disguised brainwashing exercise.
Being more observant in English class also would have saved him the embarrassment of getting turned down by Stephanie when Raul asked her to the Homecoming dance, the girl was clearly not interested in him.
Chip stretched out in his cardboard box and yawned. Even though he was a cat, there was a limit to the amount that he could sleep in one day. For the fifth time that day, the lion pulled up the details of the Quest that had been issued by his deity, Fellissa.
Chip was annoyed that the feline deity has neglected to let him know how long the process would take. He was hungry, thirsty, and bored. As a predator, he was used to going a long time without a kill. But he was not used to being hungry and doing nothing about it.
Killing something and eating it would solve all my problems, the great cat reasoned. But I’m stuck in here with that…thing. Still, I think I prefer this Raul. He doesn’t talk back and it’s impossible to lose track of him.
A wet slapping sound startled the lion, and he leapt into the air so high that he cracked his head against the ceiling, his legs already pumping full speed before he even reached the ground. However, since his lair was largely filled with flattened cardboard boxes layered on top of each other, he struggled to get the traction he needed. Each stride sent another layer of the boxes flying backwards into the rear wall, while the lion essentially ran in place.
The lion’s courage reasserted itself before the cardboard ran out and Chip stopped his mad sprint, opting instead to get a good look at the pulsating mass of flesh and machinery that had occupied a full fourth of his den for the past few days. The loud sound had come from the strange substance starting to split open. As the lion watched, transfixed by the strange sight, the fleshy pod opened wider, allowing a torrent of foul-smelling fluid to burst forth. It got all over his special box, instantly ruining the carboard.
“Awww, come on!” the lion complained as he belatedly realized he should have moved his boxes out of the way. But his attention was pulled back to the strange capsule the next moment, as something began to emerge, fighting its way out of the close confines of the fleshy pod with nothing but brute force. As it did, an aura of power radiated out from the massive creature.
“R…Raul?” Chip asked with more hesitancy than he would have liked to hear in his own voice. But the reason for the lion’s trepidation was legitimate…the being that had emerged from the fleshy pod looked nothing the young human that he had been ordered to mentor.
