The rumbling overhead grows louder and the metal chute shakes more and more violently as the clamoring approaches. I fight to choke down my sense of anticipation when at last I can see that the penultimate tremors will finally deposit at my feet—an elongated gear, approximately 1/32 ratio—definitely not the ocular wiring I had punched ...

There are millions of me and we all want to feast at the same rotting flesh that the bacteria in the plasma has opened up for us. I’m hungry and I know I will not live for long if I can’t eat the flesh. Desperate. I try and heave myself farther as I crawl over ...