Yep, he was dead. Brewster had to see the body for himself to make sure. Even he, a master of the post-truth world, ran the risk of munching a lie sandwich from time to time.
They had laid him arms crossed on a table behind a curtain. The side of his head was a hole with congealing mush. As much brain dead as alive. A group of neo-evans knelt around, hands and incoherent tongues flapping, vultures of delusion. The wife stood stern and black-robed, dagger eyes emotionless, waiting for it all to end.
Brewster leaned over, then walked off, pondering if this was the moment to unleash his plan. Fuck it. Twas always the moment. He turned to the room, to the people who listened.
“He’s not really dead,” Brewster said. Eyes widened, lemmings on the edge. “He didn’t die today, he will never die today. We’re going to keep going.”
“But… what about the body?” All eyes turned to the pustulant carcass farting in the corner.
“Who gives a shit? Dump it, burn it, soylent green it for a rat’s arse. So long as no-one sees it again. No-one.”
The wife smiled.
DEEPER THE GROOVE, GROOVIER THE THOUGHT
For some weird reason, Brewster hadn’t expected the digital brain to actually look like a brain. Geeks 1 and 2 were explaining their project to him as he watched the holographic mind revolve on a screen,
“Think of it like a record. Needle hits the grooves, music plays. The number, depth and complexity of the grooves is reflected in the depth and complexity of the music. So too, thoughts are created in the flesh-grooves of the human brain. Deeper the groove, groovier the thought.”
Brewster could feel his inner eyes rolling. He’d had his two favourite geeks working on this plan-for-never for a few years just in case, without ever bothering to listen to the ins and out. Now he remembered why.
“Cut to the chase, does it work? Have you replicated the shitpants’ brain or not?”
The geeks winced in synch. “Well, that was the problem. He didn’t really have enough grooves. His brain was surprisingly, uh, smooth… like a koala.”
Brewster felt a sinking feeling. He’d deliberately kept Feloni off the whiff of this special project, even though it was right up his pipe. Nothing the Nazi bitchboy did ever worked anyway, but this baby shitting itelf stuck even more in Brewster’s craw.
“Koala? Fucking koalas? Little furry drunk chlamydia wankers?” He harumphed. Somehow that made sense. Then another lightbulb spluttered.
“Okay, well… what other brains do we have?”
Hove Press 