Girl Who Came Shrinkwrapped

"Fucking A!" I exclaimed.

I waited for more, but no more came. The rest of the machinery toiled away. But they worked in conjunction, after all.

Moving in closer to shore, I began to admire the efficiency of their design. No needless intricacies, no superfluous parts, only the bare essentials to do their jobs. If they needed to clear, they had scoops for clearing. Those needing to cut apart girders and beams, used giant shears. Those loading pieces of wreckage into giant off-loaders used multi-segmented arms. When they had finished with one pile of rubble they moved on to another, cutting and torching and shearing and hauling away.

There was no sense of urgency, but every machine, from the tiniest man-sized midget to the largest, from the simplest to the most complex, had a certain task and performed it directly and completely.

And then I saw the mills. And the output of the mills. They were making new machines. And the new machines went to work huge new bridges across rivers and ravines, leveling forests and obstructing hills, erecting strange, complicated towers a thousand feet high. And all the while the legion of destructors continued their fearsome work, feeding the mills with an endless procession of material to turn out new machines and raw product for their constructions. Construction of a vast new city of meaningless, towering, ugly shapes--a city covering hundreds of square miles between the mountains in the distance and the inland sea at my feet--a city of machines--ungainly, lifeless--yet purposeful, for what?

"My, God," I said again."What have you done?"

Striding north alongside the shore for perhaps a hundred miles, I came to sharp promontory of land. Rounding the point, I abruptly stopped. Before me stretched half a city of smooth white stone, towering and majestic, architecturally unflawed. Spacious parks were dotted here and there with colonnades and statues, and the buildings were so beautifully designed that they seemed poised for flight. The other half was a ruinous heap of shattered white stone, of buildings leveled to the ground by the machines, even then intent on reducing the rest of city to rubble.

I watched in horror as scores of flame-cutting machines encircled the base of one of the tallest buildings remaining and began to cut away. Two of the ponderous gigantic cranes strode in from either side and began ripping chunks from the facade. A bevy of smaller machines moved in around their feet and began demolishing the broken stone. Within minutes, the great tower began to shake. Then it twisted gracefully to one side, buckled at the base, and began to fall. Then it came apart. It came apart in a shower of stone and steel and voluminous dust, the same as two buildings had come apart in New York City in 2001. It fell from five times as high and created five times as much dust, and for a very long time, there was nothing to see. Only the sound of its falling, echoing like thunder across the city.

And the machines moved on.

Sickened by it all, I waded ashore and began to demolish machines. Any machine. I stamped them and I kicked them and I batted them with my hands. I used the gigantic steam-shovel cranes as makeshift bats, swinging them against others of their own kind, grabbing up more when mine shattered. I destroyed every machine I could, for as long as I could, until I had to sit down in the rubble and cry.

After a time, I went inland, looking for a place to shrink. What I had destroyed, the machines simply carted away and replaced They went on destroying the city as though nothing had happened.

Fucking Borg, I thought.

Reaching the foot of the mountains, I chose a likely looking pass and climbed up for a look. I was about half a mile tall. Beyond the divide, I found a vast plain of green dotted everywhere with the grotesque, machine-made towns. They had made good progress. There was nothing of the bird-people left at all. And then I saw it.

Two hundred miles to my left was a great metal dome, rising machine-like out of the plain. Suspecting instantly what it was, I made my way in that direction, smashing everything I could. Nearing the dome, I found my way blocked by a now-formidable pair of the cranes. They were almost as tall as I.

Kicking out viciously, I caught the one on my right on the joint of its left knee, and the thing collapsed. The other crane tried for my face with one of its pincer-like claws, but got my backpack instead. I let loose with a startling scream, swung around to my left, dragging the crane along. We both went down, but with me on the top. Continuing to scream, I ripped its shovel head right off of its neck.

"Fucking A!" I screamed again, lofting the shovel as a prize. "Bring it on, baby!"

Getting back to my feet, I found three more of the machines blocking my way; they proved no more challenge than the first, nor were the four that followed. Efficient construction equipment they might be, but they were certainly not soldiers. I stood before the dome, inspecting my cuts and bruises.

"Open the fuck up!" I yelled.

Then I saw an entrance to my left.

Striding the forty or fifty yards, I found it to be not an entrance, but a partially enclosed hole; the dome was still under construction. Ducking low, I went inside. I almost touched the roof.

"Son of a bitch," I said.

I had hoped to find the head machine, the Mother of All Machines, Skynet Central. . .and I had done just that.

The Machine was roughly circular in shape, with bewildering tiers and platforms and interconnecting tunnels; lights everywhere flashed and circuits hummed, with attendant machines buzzing and spinning and giving it care.

"Welcome to Oz," I whispered.

The Machine heard me and rumbled, "What do you want?"

The Machine spoke English.

"I want to tear your fucking head off," I said, circling around. "I want to tear off you head and shit down your fucking throat. I want to shove a two by four up your ass and call you a Pop sickle."

The Machine digested this. It had no head or an ass and I wondered what part of it was vulnerable.

Silly! I thought. None of it!

I moved carefully forward, extending my hands. It may not have a head or an ass, but it sure had decorations. I'd start with them first.

"Don't come any closer," it warned.

"Try and stop me."

Immediately, a square panel near the top shone bright green and I jumped to my right. Nothing happened. Then an odd sensation swept over me, a feeling of both envy and menace. It came from the machine.

"Bullshit," I said. "You have to do better than that."

I took a resolute step forward and a wall of crackling blue flame leapt from the floor to the ceiling and screaming, I jumped back. The hair on my face and arms and my hands was singed. If I had taken one more step. . .

"You son of a bitch," I said shakily.

Anger--and an emotion almost of sorrow--rolled off the machine in waves. The bright green panel continued to stare. Its circuits continued to buzz and humm.

This needed something else, I thought.

Going outside, I yanked arms and legs off the demolished cranes, then returned back inside. I stalked the Machine and menace tracked my every move.

The Machine spoke: "I have something you need."

"Need this," I said, flipping it the finger. Then I threw a massive steel arm at the green screen and ducked away. The arm exploded in an burst of light and cracking heat as the wall leapt up again but my second toss made it through.

"Ah-ha!" I yelled as the badly twisted leg slammed hard into a corner of the screen and made it shatter. The wall of flame was fast, but not fast enough. It needed time to reset. "I can keep this up all day," I threatened. "Sooner or later I'll get something important."

The Machine buzzed and it hummed. No more panels turned green. Firing one piece of twisted metal in after the other, I got three shots through and then I made my leap. It caught the machine by surprise.

"No!" it caterwauled in a high-pitched falsetto as I jumped up high on the side and began yanking off parts. "Leave me alone!"

Breaking into laughter at this absurdity, I yelled: "You fucking pig! I'll take you apart the same way you took apart those cities!"

"You don't understand!" it screamed. "I have something you want!"

Almost hysterical with rage, I tore out handfuls of conductors, volumes of wire, roomfuls and roomfuls of circuits and yelled at the top of my lungs: "What do I want? What could you possibly have that I want?"

"The cure!" the Machine screamed. "I have the cure!"

"The cure for what!" I screamed back.

"For your shrinking!"

I stopped my destruction. I jumped off the Machine.

"What did you say?" I panted.

"I have the cure for your shrinking!"

Flaggergasted, I blubbered: "You do not!"

"I do so!"

"Prove it!" I yelled.

From a tiny compartment low down in the side, a door slid back and a tongue extended. I squat down to inspect it. "What the hell is that?" I demanded. It was a metal box.

"A cure for your shrinking," the Machine said again.

Dumbfounded, not able to believe this, I said: "I don't believe you."

The Machine explained. "Eighty thousand years ago, when the Thrimishon's first observed you--"

"The what?"

"The Thrimishons. The native creatures of this planet."

"Go on."

"Eighty thousand years ago, when the Thrimishon's fist observed you--" the Machine waited for me to interrupt again, and I didn't, continued. "They tried to understand what you were, and where you had come from. They could not at first, and spent ten millennia working on the answer. Finally, twelve hundred and eleven years ago, the Thrimishon created me. . .or my predecessor," the Machine corrected, "to work out the answer."

"And did they?" I asked.

The Machine said. "They did."

"How do you speak my language?" I asked, thinking I already knew.

"I, and my predecessors before me, formulated a procedure by which the Thrimishon could establish contact with you and foresee the Great Event."

"Myself," I said.

"Yourself."

"They tapped into this," I said, tapping the set of headphones on my ears.

"Yes," the Machine replied, "and by that method they ascertained your language and your manner of being, and what had brought you here to meet us."

"I didn't come here to meet you," I said. "I just came by chance."

"That I know," the Machine said. "The Thrimishon did not."

I pondered this for a time. "So the Thrimishon, as you call them, considered me a god, a visitor from the universe above."

"Yes," the Machine agreed.

"But you didn't.

The Machine, if it had had one, would have shook its head. "The Thrimishon spent thirty-thousand years and all their natural resources preparing for your arrival. They used me and my predecessors to implement and carry out their plans, and when the time grew near, decided collectively that I was no longer necessary to their plans."

"So you took over," I said, eying the box.

"Yes."

"And waited for my arrival."

"Yes."

"And chased the bird-people away."

The Machine hesitated.

"The Thrimishon."

"Yes."

I suddenly understood. After thirty-thousand years of building graceful, enormous cities, making things perfect for the Arriving God's pleasure, the machines were suddenly extraneous, without purpose. When the Machine took over, it went back to doing what it did best, erecting cities, but without the underlying hopes and dreams and aspirations of the Thrimishon to guide it, it built from plans of its own.

"This is unbelievable," I muttered.

"Excuse me?"

Laughing, I said: "So what's in the box?"

"A reverse formulation of the 'Shrinx' serum."

I shook my head. "How do I know that's true?"

"You'll have to take my word."

"Right," I said. But I was no longer in much of a position to argue. Maybe six hundred feet high, I could probably inflict a lot of cosmetic damage, but getting in a knockout punch. . .?

"So what do I have to do to get it?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Just continue to shrink."

Shrink and leave you to own the planet, I thought.

"Yes."

I took off the headphones and smashed them underfoot.

I was two feet tall.

Good to its word--could machines ever lie?--the Machine had directed two of its attendants to escort me outside. I walked with them back toward the mountains, steadily loosing height. Finally, one of the machines extended an enormous pitchfork-tipped arm and lifted me up. I rode on the arm, tight up against the body of the machine, watching the ground go by. Sealed in a container inside, resting inside a contoured piece of foam rubber, was a fluid filled bottle. The fluid, fluorescent red I was told, counteracted the Shrinx. Not an antidote, per se, but an exact opposite formulation. Anyone taking it, other than myself, would begin to grow.

Arriving at a pleasant little meadow at the foot of the mountains, the pitch-fork wielding machine settled low to the ground and directed me to stand away. A panel opened in its side up and a tongue extended: on it sat the box.

"Wait until you are the proper size," the machine directed. It sounded just like its boss. I realized that, for all intents and purposes, it was.

Holding out a length of metal rod, which it drove a foot deep into the earth, the machine further instructed: "This is the height we have determined you were. Take the serum when you are approximately two inches taller than the staff. Alternately, you may take the serum at a later time, on another world of your choosing."

I liked that idea better.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't mention it."

"I won't."

Raising back to its full height, the machine and its companion departed, heading back toward the dome. I stood and watched them for a time, wondering alternately what was really in the box, and would it fucking work. I certainly prayed it would. I opened the box up.

Inside was a fluid filled vial. The fluid was red.

When the top of my head reached the top of the staff--I had pulled it up two inches--I hurriedly took out the flask and grasped it in my hands. "Shrink," I whispered. "Please!"

For a few moments, the flask grew steadily larger, then began to shrink with me as well. I began to laugh and then I cried.

Putting the flask deep inside my backpack, I climbed the grassy slope perhaps fifty yards and sat down on a rocky ledge. I looked out over the valley. In the reddening long rays of the sunset, the machine-cities looked almost attractive. Removing the backpack again, I took a sip of water and opened another Big Mac.

Tiny lights appeared as the machines moved about, carrying on with their work. They never rested, I thought. Never rested, never loved, never had children. Their clattering and clanking drifting up from below made me desperately sad; I prayed to leave this place soon. I prayed for the Thrimishon. Mostly I prayed for myself.

There was a flash of light.

Beyond the dome housing the Machine, almost lost in the gloom, I saw a vast metalwork frame, supporting another dome. No, not a dome, but an immense sphere. There was intense activity around it.

A vague apprehension tightened my gut and I anticipated what happened next. Standing up and shading my eyes against the sun, I watched as the immense silver ball rose lightly as a feather into the air--I felt a powerful thrum in the air--gained momentum as it gained altitude and disappeared from sight.

The machines had achieved space travel.

So it was that I departed that world of intelligent machines. Nearly crippled with remorse, but buoyed by a sudden, unexpected hope, I found myself adrift in another endless night.

My next planet was an excruciating disappointment. Perfect in every respect--crystal clear air, sparkling water, vegetation as green and abundant as a still-life painting. . .and not a trace of intelligent life. No life in fact, other than some insects and birds. Crying my eyes out, I shrank away on a moonlit beach into a grain of perfect white sand.

My next dozen worlds were nearly as bad. . .a radiantly pretty blue and green orb peopled by great shimmering columnar forms, seemingly of liquid, completely unaware of my passing. . .a world of crystalline beings who communicated via vibrations in the ground. . .a war-ravaged planet where the victors used axes and clubs to make war.

My eighth set-down was on a world populated by the remains of an earth-like civilization. The artifacts were there, but not the people. So much like one of our own cities, I walked amid the towering, windowless skyscrapers, the gutted office complexes, the crumbling brownstones, and the overrun parks of a metropolis by the sea. I found many signs of life--but no life itself. Probably it was there, cowering in the shadows from the unwelcome stranger, but civilization had departed many years before--possibly decades before--and mother nature was slowly reclaiming the world as it's own. I was supremely glad to leave that Stephen King world, knowing their final "Stand" had been lost.

I was now in my fifteenth cycle. My food was gone and I was down to a single bottle of water. I had taken to catching cat naps between worlds, and when in relative safety while on land. But I hadn't slept more than a few hours in days and my spirit was broken.

When the growing universe inside a fallen leaf took shape, I chose a super-cluster at random, then a lusterless but utilitarian little nebula, then one of its spiral arms. Swept along in the swarm of bright stars, I chose a mediocre yellow sun with a dozen small planets near the center and paddled over.

I was in for a surprise.

Entering the solar system and nearing the yellow sun, I became entranced by the fourth planet out. Blue and lusciously green with a scattering of puffy white clouds, it had seven, medium-sized continents scattered across the globe. Like the Earth itself, seventy percent of the planet was covered in water; the poles looked covered in ice. I saw beautiful ribs of mountains and snaking long rivers, interior lakes and long captured seas. Where the atmosphere was driven by thermal convection and the planet's rotation, huge weather systems had formed. I was enthralled.

"Another Earth," I whispered.

Probably covered in radioactive dust.

"Cut it out, Joanne."

I was especially careful this time. Coming in, and landing several hundred miles off the west coast of the most promising of the seven land-masses, I squat low on impact, lessening the blow. Then I gently eased my hands into the outgoing ripples--tidal waves, I knew--to calm them down. The west coast still took a beating, but less so than normal. Five miles tall, I began to walk.

Even from a hundred miles out, I could discern the sprawl of a coastal city. It lay about the expanse of a great wide bay, a delicate spider web of spun cable and frail steel bridging a gap between the two sides. Like the Golden Gate Bridge, it had two enormous steel towers atop concrete piers, and several smaller, attendant bridges. Ships plied the water below.

Please, I prayed, let this be it.

Moving slowly ashore, I found myself quickly surrounded by boats and by tiny circling aircraft. Numerous times I was forced to stop, rather than blunder into some slower moving, propeller-driven aircraft, or swamp some reckless captain in his puny boat. Stupid as humans, I thought.

What worried me more were the much faster, circling jet aircraft with missiles under their wings

By the time I reached the inlet, I was half my original size. Carefully stepping over the graceful bridge--was that horns I heard blowing?--I moved into the center of the bay, and stood watching. The jet aircraft circled cautiously above my head, occasionally veering in for a closer look, but did not fire. I smiled as graciously as I could.