Chapter 1

This particular day I Cornelius (call me Corny) Randolph woke up feeling like shite. The herd of elephants stampeding through my head did not help any either. Sick, god I was gonna be sick. I rolled out of bed heading naked for the bathroom. The naked bit was a last sop to a misspent and long bygone youth. In my little one bedroom flat the bathroom was only a couple of paces from the bedroom door. I literally fell through the bathroom door, my head ending up in the shower tray.

Now as any 10 yr old worth his salt will explain to you in depth (especially if extra portions of desert are at stake) a good sick comprises of much chicken noodle soup liberally dosed with diced carrot and croutons of questionable providence. My sick however more closely resembled a black sludge from some primordial swamp. As evil as it looked it smelt even worse. It only took a few seconds to empty my stomach. This was a plus for me as the sludge tasted much as it smelled, vile. No sooner was my stomach emptied than my bowels decided they needed to follow suit. I did not even have time to put the seat down. My arse barely made contact with the cold porcelain before the world dropped out of my bottom. More sludge from the swamp, in greater quantity and a far more virulent stench.

It may have seemed like forever to me that my bowels were evacuating but it was actually only a couple of minutes and as my arse slowed to dry contractions a feeling of great tiredness descended on me and I slumped back against the upright toilet seat. Then the dreams began.

The weird thing about dreams is they often start in the middle of the story and the dreamer knows all the pertinent facts they need to know to understand what is going on. My dream followed this time honoured pattern as I watched aliens contaminate the Earth with a virus that killed some 97% of Earths billions. Earth I understood was an experiment started thousands of years ago that did not have the desired results, the aliens were starting again. The scene changed to many thousands of years in the past, a different planet, designated Aurora but remarkably similar to Earth. The aliens had set up a laboratory to splice genes and alter the DNA of what could only be described as Neanderthals to produce Cro-Magnons. Once they understood what changes were needed a messenger bacterium was developed to bring those changes to fruition. The same messenger was used on both Earth and Aurora.

Unfortunately a series of transcription errors in the Messenger they were going to use on Aurora was not detected. The error affected the production of several related steroids. This greatly enhanced the aggressive tendencies in the males and submissive tendencies in the females. The normal male dominancy was seen as needful in the dangerous environment they lived in. The balance was supposed to be a trade off of female body and labour for food and security of woman and child. The errors on Aurora dangerously tilted the balance.

Before I had time to see how this worked the scene changed again. A large mostly empty star ship was leaving a dying star system. It did not seem to seem to be related to the other segments and gave me the impression there was more than one source to my dream. No sooner had this thought entered my head than I found myself sitting opposite a smartly dressed woman of indeterminate age that I somehow knew was the Avatar of a very old and very large AI. The Avatar spoke quietly, "You need rest and food Cornelius. We will meet again soon." With that, oblivion.

The transition from sleep to wakefulness was jarring. My eyes snapped open to find myself still seated on the toilet. Stiff and cold, my first conscious thought was not the strange dream but the all encompassing stink in the small bathroom. Realising the toilet had not been flushed after my bout of diarrhoea I twisted my torso and flushed whilst still sitting. I managed to get a wet bum for my effort. Forcing my stiff body upright I took the necessary pace to the front of the shower. Poking my head in the cubicle I damn near gagged at the sight of the black mess lying in the bottom of the shower. The smell didn't help either. I turned the water on and quickly back pedalled to the sink to scrub the damn awful taste out of my mouth.

It was while in the process of scrubbing my teeth it dawned on me I was not wearing my glasses. And yet I could see, clearly. What? That was ridiculous. I was 92 yrs old and for 89 of those years he had worn spectacles, glasses, gig lamps, call them what you like, I had always been a four eyed freak and as blind as a bat without them. With a toothbrush sticking out of my mouth and frothy toothpaste dribbling down my chin onto the floor I looked at my body and what I could see of my flat. After a minute or so and no conception of what was happening I shrugged and finished brushing my teeth saying loud enough to hear although there was no one to hear. "Hmm. Must have died in the night. About fucking time!"

Teeth scrubbed and shower over I returned to the bedroom. I made straight for my specs and put them on. Whatever I was expecting all I could see was a load of fuzz. Admitting to myself that whatever was going on was beyond me I tossed the specs on the bed, put slippers on my feet, slipped on a dressing gown and stalked into the kitchen.