Hello Dear Readers and Good Followers, I though today to spur me to write new stuff, I would actually publish my recent competition entry to make sure I can’t just keep plugging away with it and boring everyone. At 1500 words it’s a bit of a time investment, but I hope you find it worthy.
This is the story that made the Long List.
I present to you, the Last M-Orron.
Fake light began to power slowly, his breathing regulated and calm before the storm that was about to break. It hit 0600Hrs. He would have argued that, to anyone else, it was 6am. The alarm sounded and the chirpy male voice greeted him.
“M. Orron. Good morning. It is Reveille.”
“Morning Corporal. It’s Arran by the way. Mike Arran?”
“Of course M.Orron.” It was the same, every bloody morning.
The green-hued translucent image of
a soldier, clad in fatigues and helmet, smiled.
Mike threw the covers off the military cot and rubbed his face. He wasn’t even in the army, he was just an
engineer drafted in to fix the heating systems.
Mike got up off the double mattress
and went to the ablutions–-no! He
refused to let the army own his language.
He was a wrench-monkey for Pipeline for God’s sake! He washed up and got into his coverall. He looked for his tool-belt and stomped into
the operations room, now doubling as his breakfast bar.
“What do we have Sergeant?”
“Good morning M.Orron. There are four bursts in the coolant pipes on
Level D.” He was about to correct the
machine again, as he had every morning for the past ten years. He made his coffee and porridge, ignoring
it. He hadn’t slept very well and let
the obnoxious spelling error slide off him.
Sometimes he thought they’d done it deliberately. It was the dumb clerk responsible for the data entry. Little shit – if Mike got his hands on him, he’d…wait. He’d never get his hands on him. Not now. Not for ten years gone. He was a still a pimply prick.
“Level D?”
“Yes M.Orron.”
“Arran!”
Mike waded out through the dark corridor, the water over a foot deep. Ingress from the river above seeped through a crack in the rocks below the water table and flooded Level D every six weeks. It was up to him to keep that water out, or he’d end up drowning at some God-awful hour in the morning. A hologram sprang up, illuminating the area where the valves were.
“Hello….M.Orron.” His teeth ground a little. He began to feel like his continued namesake. He was just a chimp – a moron to the artificial intelligence in the bunker complex, because every time he heard his contracted first and last name that’s what it sounded like. Damn that little shit! At least the AI’s spoke to him, kept him sane.
“Hello Private. What’s the temperature outside?”
“It’s a…wow, hot one today; make
sure you have sunscreen and a hat!”
Private laughed. Mike looked at
him, pained.
“The temperature?”
“Ah, 1750 degrees,
centigrade.” The AI smiled.
“Gone down a bit then.” He twisted the valves and he heard the pumps
start chugging. He waited another half
hour to make sure they were draining and left, going back to his breakfast.
He dozed for ten minutes four hours into his shift. The base was virtually automated except for the pipes and conduits, the stuff that needed a wrench. He went down to the basement, which was above Level D thankfully and looked forlornly at the railway car sitting idle, but powered on the subway line. He moved to get aboard it, but a hologram popped up.
“Authorised personnel only.”
“It’s me, Mike.”
“Present ID.” Mike held up his ID card. To refuse would
trigger the automatic defences. He’d
experienced that once before, stuck both of his fingers up in defiance and had nearly
been crisped by a flame trap.
“Not recognised. M. Arran is not on the staff lists. Please step away.” Mike sighed.
“One day.” He completed his work assignments and sat reading all afternoon. War and Peace went a long way, even if it was his third reading. It helped that he forgot most of it.
The lights went off at
2300hrs. 11pm to anyone normal,
he grumbled. He fell back into bed to
await the next crisis.
“M. Orron.”
“It’s Arran.”
“Yes M. Orron.” It was Lieutenant.
“What do you want?” Mike rummaged some more at the locked
drawers. He was sick of this garbage; he
wanted a train ride and today was the day.
He jammed the screwdriver into the lock, splintered the wood and heaved
the drawer open. He stood back, shocked,
pulling a large battle of brandy from the cupboard.
“Oh yes!” He declared, smashing the top off and pouring
it into his chapped and waiting mouth.
He’d been fixing the air conditioning today. Hard to work in six inches of grit and dust
without some comforting liquor.
“M. Orron. Regulations forbid drinking on duty.”
“Up yours.”
“Colonel Smith will have you busted
for this.” Mike pointed at the skeleton
on the bed, still clutching the revolver to its holed and fractured temple.
“Don’t think he agrees!” He punched another drawer, then another,
swigging and tearing until finally he held up a prize. He leapt and jumped, whooping.
“M. Orron!” Alright that definitelysounded like ‘Moron’, that time.
“Whoo—train ride!” He plopped the Colonel’s hat on his head at a
rakish angle and tore off giggling.
Half an hour later he came back, dejected. He put the empty bottle on the breakfast bar and looked at his reflection in the console. He sadly shook his head and saluted, taking the hat off just long enough to empty his stomach into it. It fell on the floor with a dull splat. He randomly started pushing buttons on the big table.
“Yes,” he drawled, “I’m the last of
us, a drunken chimp, the last Moron.” A
screen came up on the main viewer.
He stared at it intensely. Casualties…Greater London Area: Total,
Greater Manchester: Total, Birmingham…he stopped reading. Sergeant appeared.
“Yes M. Orron?” It sounded worse when the gruff Sergeant said
it.
“Turn the lights down Sarge.” He held up the ID badge and the hologram
scanned it. He tapped some more buttons.
“Yes Colonel, a moment
please.” Wait a minute, what was
this?
“Stop…” It was worth a try…”change employee status?” He read off the screen. Sergeant took control of the monitor and flicked through the options. A stirring of excitement cramped his guts. He got up and ran for the Colonel’s hat, realising his sticky, lumpy error after he crammed it on.
“Oh.” He sprinted to the bathroom.
Another hour passed after he had
cleaned up. He had Sergeant go forward
and back, reading and absorbing.
“Ok…alter employee records…”
“Accessed. Please enter new name.” Mike typed very, very carefully. He read it, then re-read it. Finally he was satisfied and pressed Enter.
“Welcome to the team, M. Arran.”
“Whoo! Train ride now, you
son-of-a-bitch!”
“Opening doors.”
Mike was nervous as the train car lurched forwards on impossibly squeaky wheels. He stopped them and gave them oil and a few encouraging whacks with his favourite wrench to free the brakes up. He ignored the dead stares of all the skeletons in the tunnel; he was used to that now, they wouldn’t hurt him. Besides, he was travelling – he was free! Kind of. At least it wasn’t the Army barracks! It was a long trip. The excitement kept him going. He had even packed a couple of lunches in an old haversack.
The train pulled up outside a door like the one the barracks had, only this time for the Navy. A hologram popped up in front of him.
“Present ID.” He half expected to be called a Moron.
“ID confirmed, Engineer First Class
M. Arran. Proceed.” The doors opened and Mike stepped in.
“Hello?” His call echoed for a while and was repeated
softly, oddly in a slightly higher register.
He climbed steps.
“Hello?”
“Oh, oh God, you’re real!” The first human being, the first woman
he’d seen in ten years barrelled into him and crushed him in a hug. She led him upstairs to a similar control
room. The hologram greeted them as he
walked in.
“Welcome M. Arran.” He opened his mouth to correct it on reflex,
the dilapidated centre causing a momentary reversion to a not-so excited self.
“It got my name right too.” The blonde woman searched his face, grabbed
his coveralls by the front, eyes wild.
“Oh God, you can change names?”
“Yes, yes, let me go, why?”
“I’m Karen Hart!”
“So?”
“It keeps calling me HUNT!”
The light of realisation entered his eyes. “Oh. Long few years to be called…“
“Yes!”
The Little Shit!
That had been five years ago. They had picked up other survivors and had even made a family, now under the Air Ministry building, Karen giving birth to a boy. Mike watched the kid taking the name of his newborn son carefully. He laid a hand on his arm.
“He was nearly a little Moron
there…!”
“You know what? Use a pencil.”
End.
There we go, I hope you enjoyed it. In other news, I’m currently hammering Children of the Glyph again in preparation for editorial scrutiny.
Stay tuned. 🙂
Mightier Is The Pen 