Short Story: The Last F$#% Given

Hello hello!

My mentor and friend, Zig Zag Claybourne, over at Rehumanize Yourself said, "I want a short story about the last phuque given." I couldn't help but oblige. A certain Asimov short played a roll in the genesis of this.

***

Tamika stared out at the endless void. The glowing chunks of what had once been Gaia, the blue-green jewel of home, drifted slowly towards the sun. The little grey moon, following like a faithful cat, was no more. It had been knocked away by the comet.

She watched for a long time as the scarlet fury of the sun slowly devoured the remaining shards of Earth. There had been life there, once. And on Mars as well, the russet neighbour. There was a time when humanity had filled the whole system orbiting Sol, had stretched beyond that—

Then came the war. Then another war, and another one. The factions didn’t matter. It had been xenos the first time, genetically engineered hybrids the second, robots, the third time. Tamika distantly remembered a time when it had been the other way around—robots, then humans, then the xeno invaders had waged war. The Shroedinger device had made history an even more confusing proposition than it once was.

She strode across the deck, platinum heels clacking. A captured Singularity glinted around her neck: the last moments of a dying star. She surveyed her ship. The crew were still in their places, polished bones and hardware gleaming. No-one could say she hadn’t taken care of them. Even now, with nothing but auto-protocols left, they were impeccably tidy. Of course, the time-scarabs had helped with that—picking all flesh from their bones.

Tamika’s metal fingers played over the console distractedly. She navigated away from Sol, and faster than a thought, her little ship arrived in the Orion cluster.

Cold and dead here, too, but a better sense of perspective. She looked back at the Solar system—nothing but a few distant glitters, now. Not her problem.

The universe would go dark any day now, she thought, firing up the engines. A few lights were still on, but the house was empty. Perhaps it was time to knock it down, to build something new.

The last living creature in the universe deliberated, staring at her console, and opened the hidden menu. A display glowed before her.

“Activate the Oroboros protocol,” she said, her dusty vocal chords clattering a little. She crossed two of her six legs and waited for the computer to respond.

It flickered for a moment. The computer, too, was breaking down. “Activate the Oroboros protocol? Are you sure? Y/N?”

“There’s nothing left,” said Tamika. “It’s time to start over. Yes.”

The Singularity around her neck burned brightly for a moment. There was nothing but light, pure light, as the Orion cluster, then the spiral arm, then the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy, then the universe collapsed in on itself—

—and then—

“This should be interesting,” said Tamika. “Computer, initiate protocol ‘Beginning’. I’m bored already of all this light. Let’s build something.”

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out!