RE: Grand Fiction
02-13-2013, 06:32 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2013, 05:32 PM by Dragon Fogel.)
"Sorsa! Come to the lab at once! I've done it!"
Sorsa Rar didn't bother to ask precisely what his undead ancestor had done this time. By now, he was used to Konka's childlike excitement in the face of new technology or magic.
Five thousand years had passed between Konka's reign and his second resurrection, and much had changed. The former tyrant was not yet entirely familiar with five millennia of new inventions and discoveries, and this meant that he often recreated something that had existed for centuries.
Granted, given Konka's frame of reference, it was rather impressive that he could reinvent the wheel, even if it was disturbing that the wheel was covered in putrefied flesh. It was even useful at times; just because something existed didn't mean it was easily available, after all.
But that was, on the whole, harmless. Perhaps even beneficial, if only because designing a clock that screamed on the hour diverted his attention from the salvage pile.
They had taken the parts from the ruins of an ancient city, one that had opposed Konka five thousand years ago. Their technology was far beyond anything else in his time, and much of it still surpassed the modern day.
It was here that Konka's incomplete body was augmented with cybernetics, and it was here that they had acquired an enormous selection of parts from ancient machinery. Parts that Konka would occasionally take great pains to restore, before he fully understood exactly what he was reassembling.
This was how they had ended up with a vacuum cleaner that could probably fight off a charging bull if it needed to, and a vending machine that dispensed its own rotting organs. There had been some useful weapons amongst the rubble, but these successes were far outnumbered by the failures and embarrassments.
Sorsa knew his ancestor had been rummaging through the salvage pile recently, and so his expectations were low as he walked into the laboratory.
"Behold!" Konka declared triumphantly. With a flourish, he pointed his mechanical left arm at some sort of strange booth in the corner. It was covered in flashing lights and had an incomprehensible control panel inside.
"Amazing," Sorsa said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "What does it actually do?"
"Observe!" Konka declared, this time pointing at a nearby table. A notebook suddenly vanished from it, and Konka's skeletal grin widened as he stepped over to the machine.
"I don't understand. You haven't actually done anything yet."
"It will all be clear very shortly," Konka replied, flicking a few switches and pressing a few buttons. He then held his bony right hand up expectantly.
Three shrieks came from the clock, and the notebook reappeared in Konka's hand.
Sorsa just stared at his ancestor in bafflement for a few minutes.
"How did you make it disappear before you touched the machine?" he finally asked.
"Is it really that complicated, Sorsa? This machine can transport objects from one point in time to another."
"How is that even possible?"
"I do not fully understand it yet, but surely you can imagine the potential if we could harness this power. Time itself would be at our command!"
"Yes, I'm sure the nations of the world will bow down before us when all their notebooks suddenly disappear."
"I was thinking more along the lines of traveling back five thousand years, and overpowering my old enemies with a superior arsenal."
Sorsa reflected on this.
"And what happens to me if you do this? It strikes me as quite possible that, were you to do that, the world would change in such a way that I am never born. Even if the same parents got together, there would be no guarantee they would have the same children. Would I still exist, or would I suddenly vanish?"
"An excellent question," Konka mused. "Once I better understand this device, I shall conduct an experiment to answer it."
"How very comforting," Sorsa grumbled, walking out of the laboratory. "Do let me know when you've found out if your plans will make me cease to exist."