A Millennium a Week

“And that’s the reason I have no food, whatsoever,” said Big Rehoboth.

“The end?” tried Tippi.

“The end!”

“Oh,” said the pig.

It would be aminospheres for dinner again, assuming her appetite ever recovered.

The monolith’s yarn concluded just as the Infiltration Unit reached the organic vault. They’d spent the past hour plumbing Big Rehoboth’s innards, and the way to the data dock was ripe. The Hunky Punks had joined the travelers; the birds were more curious than territorial, and they hooted in the dark.

There wasn’t much going in the skyscraper’s guts, save cave-ins. The only light came from aged smears of tint, which were unsullied by the deep grime.

“You probably shouldn’t stand near the tint,” advised the monolith. “Also, don’t stare at it.”

“Stare at what?” said Tippi, eyes watering.

“The tint!”

Big Rehoboth informed Xoz of a particular puce, and he put it on. The puce, which the skyscraper asserted was “the color of fleas,” neutralized the tint.

The larder was en route to the data dock, so Achilles permitted a detour. But, in the throes of autobiography, Big Rehoboth failed to mention the larder contained not food, but a formidable tonnage of guano. Rolling hills of bird waste encrusted the room, and a wild carpet of feathers dusted the mighty deposits. Parrots, jays, and toucans pealed, unashamed of themselves, unashamed of their lineage. The guano rose up the ceiling, and spilled into the hallway. The floors crunched with the centuries, and Tippi’s latrine paled in comparison.

HUNKY PUNKS, sang the toilet chorus.

Big Rehoboth mistook the travelers’ silence for genuine interest:

“When Taube moved back, she reformed the Hunky Punks, and she willed my stock to friends in need. It’s true: I am a bird sanctuary!”

Cloacas opened, each adding their imprimatur to the ancestral bedrock.

“I remind myself of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,” opined Big Rehoboth.

“I’m sleeping outside,” said Xoz. “I can taste the floor through my suit.”

Tippi awoke on the roof. It was late night, and Antares was obscuring the more interesting stars. Competition with the supernova had left the Moon gauzy and diminished.

Her memory crown was with Lina-2 at the data dock; Big Rehoboth was furnishing the clone with new maps and intel. The pig was loath to lose another Lina, but the memory crown needed to synch on the dock overnight.

The data dock was a round platform of pink quartz at the tower’s nadir. Tippi wasn’t sure how it worked, but she knew crystals were involved. She could have slept downstairs, but Pig Iron had to bash a chrysalis of guano off the dock before the memory crown could sit flat.

“Pick me up at sunrise,” Lina-2 instructed. “And please, don’t fall off.”

Back on the Neo-Massive paddock, Tippi heard a rustling. Xoz was awake, and tossing detritus from Big Rehoboth.

“Hey you,” she said. “What’s up?”

“I’m throwing objects off the roof,” he replied.

The mollusk had assembled artifacts, in miscellaneous states of decay: masonry, crockery, smudged tools, and the oxidized bones of furniture.

“As you can see, I’m robbing Big Rehoboth. I like to field test my goods first, and I’ll boost anything that survives the drop.”

“Big Rehoboth is helping us.”

“Big Rehoboth is a dirty old birdhouse. That machine talks to us like we’re chairs.”

For emphasis, the octopus flung a hard metal chair into the middle distance.

“Was that a chair?” asked Tippi.

“Yes,” he said.

“Really, what’s this about?”

Xoz stopped burgling their new neighbor, and folded his body low. Tippi accepted the invitation, hunkering on his crag. She knew they had perfect privacy; without the memory crown, Big Rehoboth couldn’t eavesdrop, but Xoz could still hack her diadem.

“I can’t sleep,” said the mollusk.

“I’m pretty sure you never sleep.”

“That is a lie,” he harrumphed.

“You’re definitely not eating these days.”

“More scrapple propaganda.”

“You didn’t eat today.”

“Yes, I did!”

“No, you didn’t,” insisted Tippi. “At dinner, you pretended to swallow an aminosphere, and then ran away to stare at a spiderweb.”

“First off, I’ve never seen a spider before. And second, it’s satisfying to meet a stranger with eight limbs.”

“Do you seriously think I haven’t been tallying the rations?”

The mollusk knew he was caught:

“I’m sorry, Tips, it’s just that I don’t trust Big Rehoboth-”

The pig oinked, skeptical.

“Okay! Here’s the truth: I was born in 1780, when a nudist named Franklin brewed me in his cellar. I lived in a pickle barrel, and a fellow named Jefferson once tried to soil my lair-”

Tippi stomped on his crag, aiming for his brain. Xoz acquiesced, and accepted her beating.

“Why do you think we were in the century shelter?” he said.

Tippi stopped her angry dance:

“Good fortune?”

“Try extremely good fortune.”

“Explain.”

“Pig, I’m about to tell you some things Lina, and probably me, should’ve told you a while ago.”

“Should Lina-2 know I know?”

“No! Yes? We’ll figure that out.”

“Okay, drop it on me.”

“Do you think it was a coincidence we were both in Antique Ops?” said Xoz.

“Yes?”

“Let me put it this way: why would a police state of disgruntled nerds and hoarders need a space octopus and a mythic-drop teacup hypermini?”

“We’re lovely company?”

“Even better: you and I are the zenith of genetic design: us, and that goat, I suppose. And had humanity moved in, there’s a 100 percent chance you and I would’ve been dissected.”

“No!”

“Yes. And you know what’s worse? Lina would’ve helped.”

“WHAT?”

“You and I are black boxes, Tips. We’re triple threats, living our lives at the nexus of impenetrable, audacious, and rare.”

“Achilles and I are going to have words.”

Xoz scratched her behind the ears:

“This is good. You’re angry, but not at me, which brings us to the next agenda item: I have nine weeks left to live.”

Tippi hopped and gnashed, her teeth stymied by nanocarbon.

“Yeah,” drawled Xoz. “I wish they hadn’t stuck me with a sapiens‘ perception of time, but there were compatibility concerns for cephalopod chronoception-”

“NINE WEEKS!”

“From a computational perspective, I have 9,000 years left: a millennium a week!”

“Why is your timeline so horribly specific?”

“After my first birthday, a countdown timer appeared in my mind’s eye. I figured it out pretty quick, mostly because the clock jumped every time I lost an arm. I’m guessing it’s a glitch only I can see, but who knows? I consider myself lucky. I’ll have lived over five years debrined, which is an eternity for an octopus. My body’s already lost its interest in food and sleep, plus I won’t slow down, as every one of my cells will shut off simultaneously. Also, if my heart needs to explode, we can schedule that too-”

The pig buried her snout in his skin flaps:

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’d miss you too, but I’ll be dead,” said Xoz, practical and perverse. “And you’ll be fine: Lina-2 will look out for you.”

“Lina wants to chop off my bits,” groused Tippi, unmollified.

“Look, I have a lot of unresolved grudges, but you shouldn’t blame either Lina for that. It was a long time ago, and their choice was on rails.”

“Lina was going to cut me.”

“Yeah, there’s a reason for that: you’re immortal, Tippi.”

The pig’s jaw dropped, allowing a long, silent syllable to avalanche out:

“I knew something going on!”

Outro: Motörhead – “Killed By Death”