The maw was choking and we just stood by, watching it and waiting for the struggling to stop. It didn't deserve anything quick or quiet, that much we all agreed on though the more hurt among us wished we'd been crueller and I don't begrudge them that feeling at all.
This was the mouth that the scavengers had torn the world apart to feed. This was what used to be the answer to all the trash in the world - swarms of insectoid droids to collect everything we discarded and a gaping maw to reduce everything down to fuel and perfectly stacked base components ready for reuse.
This had gone very wrong somewhere along the line around the time the scavengers figured out that meat was compostable and all organic life was reclassified as materials to be consumed and repurposed. Hundreds were gone in a single night - reduced to fertiliser by morning.
By the time anyone realised what the scavengers were doing, the maw had been upgraded to have the sense of taste. It was supposed to help when sorting mixed deposits but instead the damned thing developed a preference for richer tasting meats and we were its favourite kind.
Five months. It took the scavengers five months to clear out most of the mainland and follow us out to sea. We'll never be grateful enough for the blessed marine biologists who decided tagging whales was a good idea - it saved humanity and led us to the maw's end.
A blue whale can't swallow anything larger than about the size of a grapefruit, so too was the maw designed to chew and compress to a size it could swallow. It didn't expect an army of scavengers to come bearing the greatest mass of organic material they'd ever found.
The choking is starting to slow, thick plumes of black smoke are pouring out from the corners that aren't completely clogged with dead whale. It'll be a hero, you know, that poor whale we let them feed to our greatest achievement-turned-weapon.
Blood and coolant are spilling out wherever they can.
The maw's down to grinding spasms and the backlog is beginning to rise.
It asphyxiates on its own equivalent of vomit and we celebrate.
No comments:
Post a Comment