Just something I wrote up.

Tell me if you want to read more:


Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette; unsupported—hanging high above us in
the computer chamber; and it did not shiver in the chill, oily breeze that blew eternally through
the main cavern. The body hung head down, attached to the underside of the palette by the sole
of its right foot. It had been drained of blood through a precise incision made from ear to ear
under the lantern jaw. There was no blood on the reflective surface of the metal floor.

Benny shrugged. Three days it had been since we'd last eaten. Worms. Thick, ropey.
Nimdok was no more certain. He knew there was the chance, but he was getting thin. It couldn't
be any worse there, than here. Colder, but that didn't matter much. Hot, cold, hail, lava, boils or
locusts—it never mattered: the machine masturbated and we had to take it or die.
Ellen decided us. "I've got to have something, Ted. Maybe there'll be some Bartlett pears or
peaches. Please, Ted, let's try it."

I gave in easily. What the hell. Mattered not at all. Ellen was grateful, though. She took me twice
out of turn. Even that had ceased to matter. And she never came, so why bother? But the
machine giggled every time we did it. Loud, up there, back there, all around us, he snickered. It
snickered. Most of the time I thought of AM as it, without a soul; but the rest of the time I
thought of it as him, in the masculine … the paternal … the patriarchal … for he is a jealous
people. Him. It. God as Daddy the Deranged.
We left on a Thursday. The machine always kept us up-to-date on the date. The passage of time
was important; not to us, sure as hell, but to him … it … AM. Thursday. Thanks.
Nimdok and Gorrister carried Ellen for a while, their hands locked to their own and each other's
wrists, a seat. Benny and I walked before and after, just to make sure that, if anything happened,
it would catch one of us and at least Ellen would be safe. Fat chance, safe. Didn't matter.
It was only a hundred miles or so to the ice caverns, and the second day, when we were lying out
under the blistering sun-thing he had materialized, he sent down some manna. Tasted like boiled
boar urine. We ate it.

On the third day we passed through a valley of obsolescence, filled with rusting carcasses of
ancient computer banks. AM had been as ruthless with its own life as with ours. It was a mark of
his personality: it strove for perfection. Whether it was a matter of killing off unproductive
elements in his own world-filling bulk, or perfecting methods for torturing us, AM was as
thorough as those who had invented him—now long since gone to dust—could ever have hoped.
There was light filtering down from above, and we realized we must be very near the surface.
But we didn't try to crawl up to see. There was virtually nothing out there; had been nothing that
could be considered anything for over a hundred years. Only the blasted skin of what had once
been the home of billions. Now there were only five of us, down here inside, alone with AM.