21:00 - Tracking the heartbeats through sonar

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

At this point, I have to remind myself to keep breathing. Micromanaging even the most
natural of bodily functions is tiring and monotonous, but it keeps me awake. Alert. Alive.

I know that if I drift off, I die.

There is a steel rod through my left thigh, disturbingly close to my girly parts. My right arm
is currently bent at a 90 degree angle. The bad kind. Every attempt I make to even shift
my body in the slightest way is rewarded by a meteor shower of pain blazing an iridescent
requiem up and down my spine.

An iridescent requiem? That doesn't even make sense.

Synesthesia, I tell myself. Synesthesia. Hearing colors, seeing sounds.

There is a half ton of concrete and steel pinning me to the ground.

I can feel bone shards where bone shards shouldn't be.

My tounge, halfway out my mouth, tastes a mixture of mascara, asbestos, and rust.

I don't want to die here. I never even made it to Cabo.

And suddenly I can feel myself laughing deep down inside. Funny story, really. A homeless man I passed on my way to work this morning, begging outside a supermarket. He wore a cardboard sign around his neck that said, "Ninjas killed my family. Need money for kung-fu lessons."

Ninjas.

Try robots, pal. Robots killed my family. Everyone else's too, I bet.

And now they're killing me.

Inwardly, I laugh again. I can't help it. I mean, who the hell gets killed by robots?

I don't know how long I've been lying here. Minutes. Hours. Who the fuck knows?

The fucking robots, that's who. Motherfucking rustnuts. Assholes. You know they're assholes because only an asshole would drop a goddamn building on you when all you're trying to do is make it to your car so you can get the hell out of Dodge.

Assholes.

Iridescent?

Kung-fu. Everybody was kung-fu fighting..... shit. I can't remember exactly what it was that
was supposed to be as fast as lighting.

Tired. So very tir...

Thermal imaging scan complete//Negative//Initialize sonar//Scanning F1 through H1

I can almost taste the margaritas. The salt air. The sunny Cabo seas.

No! Nononononononononono! Not yet! I am not dying here! I never even had sex with
another girl!

My mother was always convinced that I was gay. Even after the rumors spread that I blew
the entire varsity football team during my senior year. Rumors.

Bullshit.

It was the basketball team. And even then it was only the starting line-up. I was hiding underneath a table at some restaurant after the championship game, randomly switching from one guy to the next. Whoever smiled had to buy a round of drinks. What did they call it again?

Shit. I'm forgetting too much.

You'd forget about a lot of things too if you had a three-foot long steel rod stuck in your
thigh, about an inch and a half away from your snatch.

I even forgot whats-his-face's name. You know, that guy. The first real boyfriend. The first
guy to introduce me to smack and blow and X and crystal meth. Fuck, those were some
damn good times! Whatever happened to him? Last I heard he moved out to the Big City
with two of the guys from the basketball team along with my slut ex-best friend Alison.
Bitch.

Everyone eventually makes it out to the Big City, so I've heard.

Not me. I'm Cabo bound, baby.

Cabo...

Positive identification in G12//Consistant with low EKG//25-30 bpm//Investigate

Oh god, ohgodohgodohgod. I can hear them!

Instinctively I grab my belly, even though it's been empty for the past five years. I've always
wondered what my life would've been like if I had kept her. Would I have been a better
person? Gotten a decent job that doesn't involve spreading my legs and pretending I like it
when the boss shoves his two-inch prick inside me?

Maybe. All these maybes. I had even named her.

Several times.

I'm sure it would have been a girl.

I've always wondered. I still do, even now. Even as I can see the blinding glare of the
searchlights as they pierce through the gaps in the concrete. Even as I hear the whining
drones of their turbo engines.

Turbo engines?

Synesthesia.

No, I don't think it was the circle-jerk. That's where you just jack them off, not blow them.

Somewhere, deep down, in my hollowed-out uterus, in a place where I thought I had
deadened myself to even the most deep-seeded unconcious emotion.... I can hear myself
screaming.

I should've given the homeless guy money. Maybe he could have driven the robots off
with some kung-fu.

The whining stops a few feet away from my makeshift grave. The lights sweep over the
rubble. I pray that they will let me die in peace.

....
....
....

Subject located//Initialize standard protocols

The pressure above me increases, as if something is pushing down on the rubble, and I
know that these metal ass-hats have no intention of letting me die in peace. The steel rod
snaps in two.I can feel my lungs collapsing and the air rush out, along with everything
else inside me.

Keep breathing.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

I-innn.....

Out.

Out.

Out.

Out.

Out.

Out.

............. and at one point I really could smell the salt air.

Subject terminated//Recommencing scan of G13 through H1

Coraline. I think I would have named her Coraline.