We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, faster.
“They really gonna put wires in his brain?”
“Sure.”
“No shit!”
I don’t know when they first had feeds. Like maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that, they had to use their hands and their eyes. Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe.
I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.
Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
In this universe, of course—mad universe; insane; irrational; unreasoning; worst of all, deadly dangerous to hapless peg-legged West Virginia country boys—it was entirely fitting that the deduction would be made by a man who only needed maybe an earring to be the spitting image of Captain Morgan, Pirate Extraordinaire.
“Space pirates?”
“Well, their operations are piratical and the operate in space. What would you call them?”
Look, man, if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to drive while I’m stoned. It’s like you know your perspective’s fucked so you just let your hands work the controls as if you were straight.
I don’t know how to drive a stick shift, and you don’t know how to drive.
Me? Strange? I’m textbook normal. If anyone is strange, it’s you. You exercise too much, you drive a stick shift, you drink root beer.
“I need a new plasma cannon. My last one blew up on me.”
“Owch! Let me guess… It was the Strohl Munitions BH-209 M?”
“How’d you know?”
“The control systems on the BH-209 M just can’t tolerate alcohol. The “M” stands for “Mormon.” If you’re going to splash the gun with your drink, you’ll be wanting the BH-209-I.”
“Irishman?”
“Nice Work! You got it in one!”
Now what we need to consider before reaching our verdict is not only that Phule-Proof Munitions is the largest arms manufacturer and distributor in the galaxy, not to mention the current supplier of arms and munitions for the Space Legion, but also that it is the largest single employer of Legionnaires who quit or retire.
The verdict to be passed on the third planet around Sol was never in doubt. The Old Ones of the fourth planet were not omniscient and in their way were as provincial as humans.
The fact that someone had decided I’d be safer on Mars, where you could still only SORT OF breathe the air and SORT OF not get sunburned to death, was a sign that the war with the aliens was not going fantastically well.
There are fighting generals (vital to an army), political generals (vital to an administration), and public relations generals (vital to a war). General Carpenter was a master of public relations. Forthright and Four-Square, he had ideals as high and as understandable as the mottoes on money.
I could take over the universe with this army if I could ever get all their weapons pointed in the same direction.
If we can hit that bull’s-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!
Really? Three metaphors in one sentence?
Must be some kinda record. LOL
Why don’t you make like a tree, and get out of here!
Uhh…I think it goes…"why don’t you make like a tree and leaf?"