Parasitic

The Cobra of Landmarks

''Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling isn't permanent.- Jean Kerr''

I never got the chance to pack up, the ATS left me in a Persona Boot Module. The one they put you in when they want to send you to an incinerator, meant to house the dead before they are combusted, the supply of oxygen in it was minimal. My heart froze in place for a moment when I realized just where I was. My owners didn't want me then? That's fine, quite annoying though. I got slapped for nothing. Was it because of the trainer I'd 'take care of''. I thought they didn't care. I'm going to die. Oh my god, I'm going to die. And then, to my relief an air bag dropped from the roof of the module. 

My retina scan confirmed my identity as Girl 32 from House 91. A computerized voice beeped out "Location: Incinerator Base 11" That was the wrong identity, wrong location; although there was nothing I could do about it. Where was I going? Why this way? I didn’t struggle or do anything for a few seconds and just stared as I flew over the vast brown and grey farm, things were going on as usual. Huge Redwoods at various points casting tall dark shadows on the flat concretes and patches of carpet grass.

The celebrations would begin at dawn. The night sky was black and blue dotted with satellites and stars.

There were the trainers in the black leather jumpsuits with black and white checker collars walking around with a hip belt of pistols and various other 'disciplinary' devices. It was night time so large generator powered stadium lights were wiping over the night duty staff, rotating half in circles. All of the barn doors were shut tight. A few other pods were floating along with mine. Little oval capsules with spinning fan blades on top with little red bulbs in a circular arc at the top. I was thousands of feet up high in the air a tinted glass pod. And no matter how scary it was the view from up here was beautiful.

I was flying over the Tunnelled Lake, glowing faintly green. Lightly luminescent green algae that grow on the fibreglass dome are phosphorescent.  It's what we'd cove to call the sewage system, so toxic now, that it has got to be covered up with a dome. Like a green house. Past the Medic centre where all of the medics for the farms graduated, I had been there for various vaccinations and observations for any human testing they’d done on me without asking. Funny how it used to be heinous crime in the past, to do that without permission, I mean. We flew over the Old Hollywood location. Now ancient history, designed and redesigned many times over after merging with various other movie industries. There was a sharp turn at the large Hill beside the old mine and I was flying deep into the city grounds of floating 24/7 entertainment.

Large dream castles floating in the air. Air cafes, open, bursts of confetti in the air, automated helium balloons changing colours in the air. People riding huge Rocs. Huge, genetically modified Hawks with beaks and wings that glowed to ensure safety in the night traffic. I watched, as one Roc rode the wind towards the city's most popular icon. The cobra.

You could see it if you looked further east; an enormous mobile statue of the various landmarks of the past sculpted into a huge cobra’s skin, to replace the Statue of Liberty. The cobra’s actually an automaton with things like the Leaning Tower of Pisa emerging from its skin, the Eiffel tower crowning its head, the Taj Mahal emerging somewhere along it's thick trunk. Displaying it’s huge conical fangs in their full glory, tattooed by the empire’s best artist, it’s tails swishing behind it relentlessly; it’s body like slinky moving at random as if itching to slither off the pedestal it was on, all 180 feet of it. 

 Women and men in masks and feathers dancing into the night in an assortment of over-flowing crowds.  

 All of the lights on. It’s New Year after all.

 There were no escape routes. I tried cutting the glass with the hidden cutter inside the locket around my neck. It was something I’d stolen from a visitor once, it had been useful in many occasions. Maybe all those times I’d had been in vain, since I was going to be cremated alive anyway. I looked through the airtight windows of the pod and realized we may be off course, since I appeared to be heading towards the castle. In the surrounding 30 kilometre circumference, lived the city’s elite. Those who lived in plenty and left my kind in scarcity to feel well endowed in luxury. Living off our misery, they needed our hard work for the leisure they enjoyed. They needed to give us very little so that they could have more than enough. They used us for entertainment, and condescended us to excuse their lack of morals.

I'd settled down at the bottom of the pod, trying to get at least scratch the glass with my little locket-knife. I tried, I yelled and grunted at the wall."Survival is selfish, you only feel whatever you set of nerves feel. It's all truly pointless you know, just your corner to guard." The trainer I'd killed had said before the drakon he'd been planning on sicing on me and Boy 11 had gotten him instead. \ Hey; kill or be killed. At some point in time I’d given up struggling with my glass cage and slipped away into a dreamland.

When I woke up in a fit of panic and anxiety, the sun was rising from beyond the horizon; drawing traces of orange and yellow lighting on to a set of huge ancient looking castles of pure black granite. The overwhelming black was set off in contrast with a two inch thick white outline, around the edges, even the conical roofs, and bordering things like the windows and the front door. The morning light made the entire castle glow and cast shadows in a fantastic fashion.   

And as I stood up to look at the view, the pod slowed down and gradually descended. My palms met the glass window of the pod leaving, an imprint on it as the pods landed on one of the landing pads atop an open roof castle. 

The computerized voice of the pod beeped again.

" Arrival Booth; Delivery for Chase Heathcliff "

This isn't the incinerator.

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