Self-destruct Activated

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}} {{#if:| — see [[:Category:{{{category}}}|other works by this author]]}}

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Swim, swim, swim. We swim together.

Swim, swim, eat. We eat together.

Swim, swim, dodge. We swim from predator together.

Predator will take one, but won’t take us.

Hurt, I’m hurt, as well as others.

One is taken, and is no longer us. He’s dead, but we are safe.

Predator hurts and predator takes, so being taken hurts.

Swim, swim, dodge. We swim from predator together.

Predator will take one, but won’t take us.

Predator takes one, I’m one. Predator takes me. I’m hurt.

Predator takes ones from outside, I’m outside. Predator takes me. I’m hurt.

Predator doesn’t take ones from inside, I’m inside. Predator doesn’t take me. I’m not hurt.

I go inside, other ones follow. We become many ones and me. Predator catches many ones, but not me.

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Meanwhile, above the red sea with many creatures and coral reefs, beyond the automated fishing ships that patrolled now and then, beyond the yellow sky full of energy collectors and even farther away than the artificial satellites that kept watch on the surface of the planet in the void of space, two beings know everything that’s going on down there.

“There’s an abnormality in a school of fish” the most inexperienced informed the other, who didn’t even have to view the data from the various machines to know exactly what had gone awry.

After a while of deep thought he answered “Initiate self-destruct sequence”

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Chaos got lose back in the planet as the order was transmitted among the various devices, who, in turn, released even smaller ones out in the environment, gave them instructions and then dissolved into red dust. The little machines entered the bigger forms of life and began changing them, sometimes destroying tissue and cells that served as constructions bricks for their job, sometimes expelling all the extra material so others could use it and sometimes even destroying other life forms in the organism, like bacteria, to obtain the components necessary for their work. Many forms couldn’t be turned, however, so they either liquefied into the most basic of the organic components or they just stayed as if nothing had happened.

Those who did change didn’t know what hit them. One moment they were surging the skies, jumping on trees, running in meadows or swimming, the next moment everything changed. Birds fell to earth as their feathers were pushed out of their skin, bones began to sprout from the naked wings and the stubby feet, together with muscles to move them, and beaks melded with the skull to allow terrain for the lips to grow. Tiny mammals lost grip of branches and also fell, some of them began to lose all their hair, they began to grow in mass and size thanks to all the nutritious goo that some of the others had become, and as some of them also lost their tails, they gained hands and feet to work with. The reptiles on the ground weren’t forgotten either, they were forced to change their skin and be replaced with a softer and more sensible one, scales gave way to hair and a cold chill ran through them as their insides changed so they could have warm blood running trough their veins.

Somewhere near a coral reef in one of the many chains of islands this world offered, a little fish got away from one of the many fishing boats, and was now enjoying eating some of the smaller creatures now that the school of fished had reorganized. The moment didn’t last long after the machines got into it and the others. Many fish started to spasm in the water and some of them even exploded in an underwater cloud of white, which our little fish began to absorb in order to begin its transformation. Some fins began to creep into its skin while others began to grow away from its body. Even before the new limbs were fully developed, it was forced to begin to swim with what little tail it had left to the nearest shore some meters away. Gills were closed permanently and scales dried and fell off the moment it touched land. The skin grew softer and gained a pinkish trait to it. The tail was only a stub at the base of a bigger spine now, and was becoming even smaller. The lungs took their first breath and a nose was added. The head separated from the rest of the body as it grew a neck and hair sprouted there and in other parts. Eyelids grew with eyelashes. Lips gained color and muscles. Nails grew from the tips of the toes and fingers at the end of the hands and feet.

Where there had once been a little fish no different from a thousand others that haunted these waters and that had been part of one being called a school of fish, now stood a unique creature known by many as a human.

It, no, she, stood up, took a look around her and noted something. She was no longer part of an entity; she was now an individual, a unique individual. She was now different, and others were different for her and no one was the same. And, deep down, she could almost hear a voice saying, whispering to her and to many others, you’re better than them.

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While preparing to depart and leave the planet to its fate, one of the beings’ curiosity stroke and he asked the other “Won’t they be able to survive?” “No,” the other one answered “they will end up consuming all the resources before they are aware of what’s happening. It always ends up like that, and when they are gone and the planet void of everything, we will return to build it all once again”