Busy

I’ve fallen again. Again? No, that can’t be right. I’ve only fallen once, but oh boy am I not a fan of performing said action. There is no reason to be alarmed, but I am also setting off the alarm. Beats doing nothing, I suppose. The caddy stared at me with alluring eyes, but aliens aren’t really welcome in my mind so I don’t allow our relationship to go any further than platonic. Wonders of the body, that’s where my mind should be. Threading upon neurons of logic can be vaguely considered to be adjacent to the idea of the body and how one process threads into another. As the caddy pulls up I’m happy, today’s been a good day so far. I did my portfolio, universal currency is up and domestic currency is down. Either way, works for me.

“Hey Bob,” I say wryly to my compatriot, visibly annoyed and waiting.

“Weren’t you supposed to be here an hour ago?” He asked, with the stink of off-worlder to him, “And you can call me Bobrierty, there’s nobody here who’s gonna be annoyed.”

“You know you love it,” I said, grinning.

The rabble from behind the fence was getting louder. It’s an intricate chain-link fence so I can’t see them, but I know the people aren’t happy. I’m frankly pissed they would interrupt my holiday. I don’t go into their homes and kick their shit around while they’re trying to relax. Well, except that one time. I line up my rifle and take aim, before lowering it and sighing. “Is the gene pool really that stagnant or are these the best clones these people have on offer?”

I looked at the kid, his skin barely holding onto the rest of him. Previous clones at least had the pretense of wanting to stay alive. They would make some grunts or gurgles in that general area. But now, they just stand around dumbly, basically asking for death but too stupid to say anything.

“Just take the shot, I think we just got some backwash from a different course’s genes,” Bob said. I sigh and nestle the rifle butt onto my shoulder. Then it hit me, I can’t believe I never saw it before.

“Wait, what am I doing?” I asked Bobriety.

He stared at me dumbfounded, “We’re…valley hunting. We do this every Tuesday, man. Keep up.”

“No, I know…but, I don’t know this just feels wrong.”

The top of Bobriety’s head shot up the second I finished my sentence, replacing it was what looked like a megaphone speaker, “THIRTEEN EIGHTY SEVEN, THIRTEEN EIGHTY SEVEN.” It kept repeating it, blaring louder and louder with each repetition. I wasn’t thinking anymore, I was an animal of pure instinct. I swung my gun up and blasted away at the speaker. A clean shot forced shrapnel and plastic bits of megaphone everywhere.

I looked around, left, right, spinning left again. Nobody was coming for me, but apparently I had broken some rule. I was safe in assuming that. I gripped my rifle, clutching it from the middle with my right hand, and I ran as fast as I could to the fence. It didn’t allow the poor people on the outside to climb in, but nobody ever thought of designing it to prevent the rich escaping. I jumped, and used the railing of fence to propel myself into what would probably be my new life. The crowd of people below had stopped chanting and were visibly shocked at me sailing over their heads.