Short Story: The Eggs Are In The Bag

An original short story by Sergio Flores, published by SAFT, set in the Entity One universe.

I found eight eggs. I counted them, they were eight of them. Magnificent, beautiful, made of the most pure untainted white shells. I cleaned them a bit first, took away some dirt they had attached. Looked left and right in case I was hallucinating, but they were there, the eggs. I grabbed each one, with care, and put them in the bag I always bring with me. Well, I didn’t expect to use it to carry eggs, but I placed them inside as softly as I could manage, lifted carefully my bag off the ground, and went on my way back home.

It felt just like that time, just before everything went downhill, when it seemed like we could win the war, when we found something, a big something, buried below the frozen liquid surface of Titan. Today I got the same feeling with the eggs. Funny how things change, eh?

Going back home, I moved carefully, looking after the eggs the whole way.

But you know what? I lost four. Just before I opened the door to the shelter. A few meters away. Just a few meters away from the door. The bag broke and the eggs fell. They broke. Four of them did. I don’t know why the others didn’t fell. Luck. I felt like a ship had just imploded, or a rocket booster had exploded in the air mere minutes after launch.

But mostly I felt sad. Not because of the eggs. I wanted to surprise Kore and make breakfast for her. We’d eat eggs like god damned ancient terrestrial kings; real eggs, with synthetic coffee, yeah, but real eggs.

I had never seen a real egg in my life before. Only on VR. That’s how I recognized them. Didn’t see any chickens though, and I can’t imagine how would they survive around here. Maybe somebody left them.

Why would anybody leave some precious original eggs, lying around though?

Well, you know It’s been a rough couple of years for us, ever since we lost the war and had to hide in the abandoned western cities of Mars.  We thought we’d die for sure. And a miserable lonely death at that, holed up in a derelict home or office, hastily covered, but not secure enough to derail the persistent efforts of our enemies, able to crawl into every tiny hole like specks of dust getting into your nose.

Yet, nobody ever came... Probably, no, I mean, surely, they think us dead. If that wasn’t the case, I’m pretty sure there’d be a full Martian army combing the place already. I’m not scared. I was built for combat. Yeah yeah yeah that was some years ago already, back at Synth Manufacturing plant Corvus. Me and my unit, yeah we gave them hell. The finest cyber-brains and the finest DNA fleshy bodies you’d seen by then. We did good. We did.

Now there’s just her and I.

Got some time to think about all this stuff on the way back, carrying the eggs. Normally I just find canned food, pretty expired, pretty rough, but we eat it anyway, cause the fleshy body has to eat, right? She refuses to eat the rats. Plenty of rats around.

Who’s going to take care of her if Im not around? She’d die of starvation. Or what if THEY find her? It’s a miracle we’re alive and I’m grateful for our fate so far. I believe, yeah, I choose to believe that at some point, at some place, we’ll find a way out of here. There’ll be a shiny spaceship ready to take us out of this hell. Well I don’t care if it’s not shiny as long as it has good engines and a good cabin and a good pilot. I don’t wanna crash back into the atmosphere.

Maybe it was good that most of us, I mean the guys in my unit, or “lot” as some would say, maybe it was good most of them died. I’m going to be forever grateful to Kore and whoever made her, for the opportunity they gave me at living. I got to blast some fellows, travel around, see the stars and moons... without Kore, there’d be no me. They just didn’t have the technology before.

Too bad that the ability to handle scars didn’t come with an extended cyber-brain like the one she has. She’s truly one of a kind. She even told me once, she “sees things”, including some sort of being that looks like a reptile with feathers, that talks to her. If one of the guys had said that, I would have sent him to Medical. But she seems alright. She says it’s part of her brain design.

Whatever.

Point is. It’s my job and probably my last duty to protect her, job which I intend to do to the utmost of my abilities. Worse comes to worst, I’ve planned for stuff. Yeah, I’ve got plans. I just hope I have the strength to carry them through.

Anyway, I got back home, ha, home, yeah so I got back, and as soon as I had removed my respirator, I told Kore, all excited, I had found four eggs. I said to her: “Look! Look what I found! Eggs! Four of them. For you and me baby! I’m making you breakfast!” She smiled excited, and grabbed the bag from me, “Now now careful there!” I said. “You don’t want to break any of them!” Nearly bit my lip. She opened the bag and looked inside and her smile went away. She stood there quiet for a second.

“What? what?” I said. “Aren’t you happy?” But she didn’t answer, she just smiled again, kinda sad, come to think of it, kinda sad, and moved away from the table to let herself collapse on the chair, her right hand covering her eyes. Crying.

You see Dear Diary, there were no eggs in the bag, just stones.

So I guess that means the last working chip in my brain is about to pop.
I’m just happy I was able to help her all this time.

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