π DREAM π chaos, duplicate the human slaves
The air smells clinical, chemical. As if it was bred in a tube and died there before filling space, purporting to sustain life. The room in which he (you) stands is without doubt a corridor, too narrow to be other, but he (you) cannot see an end; it stretches. The floor is metal, and the walls; he (you) walks and the soles of his (your) boots send echoes that reverberate down the hall. The sound that returns are whispers: analytical, emotionless voices that speak of numbers and variables, comparing and contrast, fonon frequencies, isofonons, replication.
Color abruptly hits his (your) peripherals, the dull brown of cut and sanded wood. Training dummies line the walls, to the sides, behind, and ahead, rows as endless and all-extending as the walls themselves. Featureless, rounded knobs of heads, blunt, clublike arms and legs dangling from oblong torsos. His (your) hand tightens on the hilt of his (your) sword.
A single dummy dislodges from the left wall, limbs knocking and clumsy as it reaches for him (you). No hesitation: the sword swings, removing the head, then the limbs. They clatter to the ground, the sound echoes and returns: 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841.... Against logic, a wooden forearm quivers, spouting wrist and fingers, fingers that plunge into his (your) shoulder, retracting, without blood.
He (you) staggers; you (he) keep walking. Movement slows, at first imperceptibly, the way in which it becomes harder. The dummies line the walls, acquiring definition. Stop, look back and it has always been this way, the hollows of eyes, the rise of noses, lines of mouths. Only when moving does it continue, until you (he) realize, suddenly, that they aren't wooden, featureless bodies.
They are copies. Mirror images, wax figures, breathing, warm bodies with his (your) face, your (his) hair, even clothing. Rage fuels the next arcs of his (your) sword, though it's heavy, impossibly heavy. You (he) cut down hundreds before he (you) can no longer move, and it's their turn--
[): IT'S NOT PAST MIDNIGHT ON THE WEST COAST gdit. There are two options: either it was you, or it was him. Either way, it's open. ... hi. ]
Color abruptly hits his (your) peripherals, the dull brown of cut and sanded wood. Training dummies line the walls, to the sides, behind, and ahead, rows as endless and all-extending as the walls themselves. Featureless, rounded knobs of heads, blunt, clublike arms and legs dangling from oblong torsos. His (your) hand tightens on the hilt of his (your) sword.
A single dummy dislodges from the left wall, limbs knocking and clumsy as it reaches for him (you). No hesitation: the sword swings, removing the head, then the limbs. They clatter to the ground, the sound echoes and returns: 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841.... Against logic, a wooden forearm quivers, spouting wrist and fingers, fingers that plunge into his (your) shoulder, retracting, without blood.
He (you) staggers; you (he) keep walking. Movement slows, at first imperceptibly, the way in which it becomes harder. The dummies line the walls, acquiring definition. Stop, look back and it has always been this way, the hollows of eyes, the rise of noses, lines of mouths. Only when moving does it continue, until you (he) realize, suddenly, that they aren't wooden, featureless bodies.
They are copies. Mirror images, wax figures, breathing, warm bodies with his (your) face, your (his) hair, even clothing. Rage fuels the next arcs of his (your) sword, though it's heavy, impossibly heavy. You (he) cut down hundreds before he (you) can no longer move, and it's their turn--
[): IT'S NOT PAST MIDNIGHT ON THE WEST COAST gdit. There are two options: either it was you, or it was him. Either way, it's open. ... hi. ]