Food for thought

When the cell door slammed open the human captives scrabbled in panic. Clawing over one another, fighting to get as far away from the door as possible, trying to avoid being the chosen one. The two aliens separated Simpson from the tangle of thrashing limbs and bodies, they threw him face down on the floor, grabbed a leg each, and dragged him out of the cell, slamming the door shut behind them.

Back inside the cell, the men and women cowered, whimpering, terrified. None of them knew what became of the chosen ones, only that they never returned.

Simpson struggled and screamed as he was dragged along a series of corridors. His face, hands and arms losing shreds of skin as he was scraped along the coarse metal floor. Fingernails splitting and cracking as he fought for purchase. His teeth chipping and breaking during the descent of a steep stairwell.

Eventually they entered a large room, the floor of which sloped gently down to a gaping square hole. The creatures ripped the clothing from his body, unmindful of breaking a few bones in the process, then unceremoniously threw Simpson into the hole. His smashed and bleeding nose had just enough time to register the sickly smell of rotting flesh before he landed on the spinning blades below.

Simpson continued his journey, now in the shape of thick strings of viscous mincemeat he dripped onto a second set of finer, sharper blades, then through a series of crushers, pulpers and rollers, along a conveyor where a liquid bio-electron accelerator was added, and finally through a multi-bladed blender. Simpson ended his journey as a smooth pink liquid at the bottom of a huge vat.

Several minutes later the bio-accelerator activated, and the electrons twitched into life. Minute blue sparks of electricity began to arc across surface of the pink slush, multiplying rapidly until the vat shimmered with light.

Fine wires carried the power from the vat, through the ship, and up to the bridge, where Simpson's two former escorts now stood, awaiting their commander's attention. The commander stood before a gigantic brain contained within a plastiglass dome, off to either side the walls were a mass of blank screens.

The commander watched impatiently. Eventually a small shudder ran through the brain's exterior, causing it to shiver like a shaken jelly. The screens began to flicker, and one by one lit up and started scrolling streams of data. A barely perceptible vibration ran through the ship as the massive Plasmin engines fired into life.

The commander turned to face the two crewmen, a look of deep displeasure on his face.

“If we are ever left drifting, powerless and defenceless again because you two morons forgot to feed the computer, I will personally throw both of you down the chute myself. Got it? At the end of your shift get yourselves suited and booted, for the next six weeks your leisure time will be replaced by hull scrubbing punishment. Now get out of my sight”


©2011 Stephen. J. Green.