Das Glasperlenspiel

Posted on Wed 5th Jun, 2019 @ 3:11pm by

475 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: The Court of the Dragon, Oblivion
Timeline: MD 5, 02:45

Holly Day was drunk, which was not surprising, given her character and the time of day. She scowled into one of the optical pickups of a three-meter spiderdrone. "I'm not as think as you drunk I am," she slurred.

The voice which came from the drone was sweet as honey, a mother's voice trying to cajole an unruly child into bed. "Uh-huh. Holly, you've been awake and moving around for almost twenty hours now. You need to return to your hyperbaric chamber."

"There's time," Day answered, dropping her eyes from the spider's. One hand caressed an object in front of her. A Terran might have noted the object's resemblance to a hockey puck, but the holographically displayed lattice and the hyaline beads at the intersections of the lattice. "And I haven't made my move, yet."

She moved her hand inside the hologram, touched a particularly bright bead. An image of an old man with an odd haircut appeared, and a tinny recording of his speech. "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."

Day snorted.

"What's funny?" the spider asked.

"Him," the Doctor answered, touching the bead and playing the clip again. "He was the beginning of the end of the American Republic. Facilitated the oligarchs, the..." she paused, looking off into space, then her eyes focused on the hologram again. Yes; there was a space beside and below the bright bead. She touched the spot. "Lucius Cornelius Sulla," she said, and a bead blinked into existence. "First you must learn to pull an oar; only then can you take the helm." The bead blinked twice and became the brightest on the board.

She sighed, leaning her head back. "Things fall apart; the center can not hold. One man sticks his spear into the ribs of the Republic; another comes along and finishes the job. True in the first century BCE; true in the twentieth century CE; true today... or soon."

"I do not understand the rules of this game," the spider complained.

"It takes a hundred games to learn all the rules," Day agreed, closing up the hockey puck and putting it back in its hiding place for her mysterious opponent to find and move upon. "And a lifetime to master. It is a kind of synthesis of Human knowledge, building marvelous edifices of associations and fancy." The Doctor stood, held out her arms to the mechanical spider. "Take me home, Country Rose," she said, and passed out.

"I don't think that's how that song goes," the spider complained, lifting the doctor's body to its back and lashing it securely in place for the trip back to their hull. The doctor's only response was a loud snore.

 

RSS Feed

Comments (1)