“Do you have any questions?”
“Aye, what is
radee-ayshun?”
Stephen flickered
slightly. This was the only outward manifestation of billions of
calculations, extrapolations and contingency subroutines activating
and processing. In a picosecond entire Avatar interaction programs
came online as others went dark. The comfortably paternal
Professorial persona he had used to explain why the trader couldn't
travel through the rocky foothills behind him subtly roughened, hair
becoming more leonine, beard more Jovian. The clothing slowly
transitioned from Etonion tweed to an intricately folded grey cloak
the mind could trick itself into believing it had always been.
Fourth Grade reading
level activated.
“This ground is
poisoned. Savvy poison?”
The trader reared back
scowling. He wore rough homespun clothing and a venomous beard. The
creature he led on a piled high with roughly tied bundles looked sort
of like a shaggy donkey but their were subtle anatomical distortions
Stephen noted and filed under worrisome.
“I dinn't scheme tae
stop and sup, let me pass and I will pass through yon pizin'd land
without partaking of any taint.”
Stephen almost sighed.
His working model of macro-culture retention and enclave led bounce
back downgraded significantly and his form transformed as well.
A wind blew up out of
nowhere and swirling black clouds began to spin into existence out of
nothing directly over the dusty remnants of crossroad that once had
been highway interchange they stood in.
Stephen flung wide his
arms as his avatar completed its final transformation based largely
on Charlton Heston's appearance as Moses. He was taller, inhumanly
tall and his eyes seemed to smoulder. His stentorian roar put the howling winds and crashing thunder that had sprung up out of a clear
blue sky around them to shame.
“THIS LAND IS CURSED!
WOE TO HE THAT DEFIES MY WORD! DEATH AND BLIGHT UNPON THEM, YEA AND
UPON THEIR SPAWN EVEN UNTO THE FITH GENERATION! DEATH AND BLIGHT UPON
THEIR CROPS AND ANIMALS....”
Stephen kept that stuff
up for a while despite the trader and his donkey taking to their
heels back down the foothills road as soon as the shock and awe light
show began. The black clouds and multiple lightning strikes could be
seen across the river valley below for hours. The corridors of
computer banks and storage tanks under the mountains behind him went
into long term energy savings and self repair triage mode.
Stephen slowly melted
away into a flickering cloud of dust in a mesh of sparks. Then even
that disappeared swept up in the winds.
It was going to be a
long millennium.
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