140novel: A Twitter Experiment

Roddy had a headache. He'd been getting them for weeks now--each worse than the last. But he thought this one might rip his head off. He tried to sit down,but missed the couch. He barely felt his tailbone bounce off the floor. His head was killing him. Sadly, none of this mattered to the 38 people who were watching his live feed on the Internet. What made the situation even worse was, not 30 minutes before, Roddy took a monster swig from an anonymous "elixer". Could it be? No, Roddy felt certain this headache was something different. It was accompanied by a monstrous roar inside his head, like ... chatter. He heard a voice ask him for help. But he couldn't tell if it was inside his head or out. He probed the implant in his molar with his tongue gingerly. It had a gunmetal tang and felt slightly warm. This was all Sandor's fault. Ever since he'd had the camera attached to his head and the transmitter in his tooth nothing had gone right. Roddy began to tire of the constant headache and that booming voice echoing through his skull. "It's time to make a change." "Sandor," he said. "You've got to get this thing out of me." He froze at the response over the holo. "That thing hasn't worked in months." "Roddy?... You OK man?" The image vanished as Roddy flicked off the holo without answering. Only one person could help him now. He peered at the dust coated MourningGlory urn sitting on the mantel. "Grandpa? I've got a problem." A tiny screen flickered to life. Grandpa had been dead for 42 years, but what he lacked in biofunction he made up for in pithiness. "Hey sonny," said the screen in the tinniest of whispers. "If I were you I'd get those people out of my head." "It's not people," said Roddy. "It's just a camera, and it's not working anyway." "Listen a little harder, sport." Grandpa peered at him sternly. "Don't be dense. You're wasting time." Roddy gaped at the screen. "What?" Grandpa's image flickered off the screen. Roddy tapped the urn again, harder, until it nearly tipped. Then he sighed, and concentrated. He knew he had to go see Barbara if he was ever going to get to the bottom of this. He turned his back on the urn, ignored the voices, and headed for the door. If only he could catch her before the eggs hatched. Barbara peered down into the glass. Her hand shook as she maneuvered the eyedropper above the first egg and released 2 drops of Manna. She had to be careful not to overdose, or the eggs would hatch prematurely. Roddy would kill her if she ruined this batch too. Two soft scratches came from inside one of the eggs. "Oh, drats. I knew it." But then, silence. Barbara leaned in to be absolutely sure. A reflection in the glass caught her eye. Someone had entered the room and was coming at her. She turned quickly with a high kick. The patent leather toe of her boot came to a halt a millimeter below Roddy's right ear. For a moment neither moved. Then both of them ... exploded into laughter. "Dammit, Roddy," Barbara said. "When are you going to learn to knock?" Roddy grabbed her in a bear hug. "When you learn how to kick all the way through, sweetheart. Actually, I could use a good kick to the head today." Barbara laughed again, but Roddy was already looking past her at the gently rocking egg in the incubator. For a moment, he forgot his buzzing head. "BARBARA!" As they both looked on in horror, a hairline crack appeared in the egg. Barbara moved toward it. "NO!" screamed Roddy, "We've got to-" keep them from hatching, they still have a half-hour to incubate. Quick, get me an oven mitt and a turkey baster. Roddy look bewildered. "Don't just stand there, moron!" Barbara shrieked. "Move!" Roddy moved, snatching the baster and mitt from the kitchen table. But just as he reached toward the teetering eggs with the dropper full of manna, a tiny hoof cracked through the fragile shell. "Dammit," Roddy," Barbara murmered. "I'm so sorry. They'll be worthless now." Barbara and Roddy had been raising Peeps together for almost three years now. A genetically engineered species, the tiny, feathered, piglike creatures were adept at sniffing out nanovirii. But if they hatched too soon, their delicate olfactory networks didn't sufficiently develop, and they couldn't scent their way out of their own eggs. Blind (since they lacked eyes and used only their outsize snouts to navigate), this litter would probably die within hours. Meanwhile at Centauri station, Jackson sighed in exasperation at the smuggler's lies.