He smiled and dropped to the surface.
In another universe, David’s glass booth swung about its horizontal axis. His naked body floated, supported on its cushion of microbots, oblivious to the real silence around him. The room was dark. Caroline was not there. She was in the main laboratory.
She bit her lip. Slowly, carefully, she drew a knife across her little finger. A red drop, shiny and bright by torchlight, fell upon a microscope slide. She sucked the wound. She placed a sliver of clear plastic on top of the blood and pressed. It bloomed into transparency.
David flew over lakes and trees, up valley walls he had not seen in years, past waterfalls barely changed, into grasslands and desert, over ice floes and black volcanic islands. Night fell in seconds. He touched down in a small glade near the equator. Nearby, he heard the bubbling of a hot spring. Shimoda had many. It was a truly alien planet. Alien too were the plants and trees around him. Their leaves were blue, not green, and typically angular. Blossoms came in all colours. It was difficult to remember they were essentially digital.
In the darkness, he could make out a path. Shimoda had no moon but he could adjust the brightness using the command console. He walked on. Under his virtual, perfectly fitting hiking boots he felt the forest floor. It was a spongy carpet of wet leaves and twigs. He would never smell it. Low branches and leaves touched him. He imagined they thought of him as God. Did they want to cure their ills? But they were beautiful trees.
Their weirdness washed away the anaesthetic of familiarity and made him think. He stopped, took a breath, took stock. Experience told him not to imagine his real body coexisting with its virtual counterpart. That would lead to nausea. He made a mental effort to place himself here, now, walking in the woods. The beautiful woods.
He sang a hiking song and disappeared from the view of the large creature that stalked him. It stepped onto the path. Sniffed the air. Though it move twice as fast as David, it followed him slowly and silently.
Caroline trod carefully. She did not want to cut her feet on debris. She glanced at the emergency release handle, then back at David, then at her watch. She approached the second of the three glass coffins. With the touch of a finger, the booth opened and she stepped inside. She was already naked. She was prepared. She fitted the mask over her face and felt the sting of the microbots as the fans stirred them into a storm.
The Metadillo
David heard a twig snap. The sound came from behind him. He realised that the steady background noise of tiny animals – forest static – had ceased. He turned.
It was three metres in length. Its eyes were multifaceted. Covering the shoulders, back and limbs were rigid metal-like panels. They glistened in a light that only David could see. A knight crawling silently on all fours. Its profile was low; its legs worked beautifully. Its feet sank far into the soft humus. The creature was heavy.
The multifaceted eyes did not move. David wanted to run, but the creature was interesting. It had a predatory stalk, but its 360-degree eyes were better adapted for watchfulness. And they were insectile. The creature would only be able to detect motion. Or body heat.
He needed to stop thinking.
This was a predator emerging from the pitch-black.
He needed to freeze the computer’s program.
Its mouth opened. Quite silently. Inside were three rows of teeth. The second lay behind the first, the third behind the second. David had enough time to think of one word – shark – when it froze, settled, and sprang. Its snout dug into his chest and flipped him aside. He impacted a tall, hard tree and slid slowly down the trunk. In the virtual world, his back was scored by a thousand thorny fingers. In the real world, the microbots formed razor-like edges and copied the pattern faithfully. He shouted, half in pain, half in anger.
“Computer, give me supervisor access. Password is Prometheus.”
The opaque rectangle of the command console appeared and obscured his view. He heard a scream – his own, he realised, his own. “Computer, free- ” he began, and then saw a small arrow of metal fly through the desktop. It happened so fast that it simply became a memory before he experienced it. The arrow was in his neck. The creature had pinned him to the tree. Why? He waited for the blood to pour but it did not. The stiletto plugged its own wound.
Unused, the opaque desktop became transparent. He saw the creature. It moved left and right like a crab. The movements became stylised and repetitive. It pounded the forest floor his front legs. He heard deep roots crack. Finally, it shuffled backward and sat on its haunches. It took a deep breath – it has lungs, he thought – and bellowed towards the sky. There was an answering call from miles away.
David swallowed carefully. Dinner is served.
It walked towards him.
David did not dare move. The stiletto might snick an artery yet. But he managed the words, because he knew only they would save his life. His voice was hoarse and he could taste blood at the back of his throat. He desperately wanted to cough. “Computer, freeze program.”
“Permission denied. Unable to match user with voice records.”
The creature stopped directly before him. It knelt and regarded him closely. Did it realise that it looked upon its Creator? Did it relish this power?
Slowly, its mouth opened again. David imagined the legions of microbots ready to assume the shape of those teeth. The New World computer would kill him.
There was a sound in the undergrowth. The creature turned. A spear struck its flank and fell to the ground. The creature shifted to face the threat. David could
