By Joseph Sullivan
The hour was nigh once again. Even before I looked out the window, I could feel it through my veins, and in every beat of my corrupted heart.
When I looked outside, I saw the full moon like a bright white disc in the sky, a perverse mockery of the sunlight I had taken for granted. The change would be upon me soon, and I had to make my preparations. It was the hardest thing I had to do every month, and I chided myself for putting it off as long as I did.
The burden would have been easier if I had someone to share it with, but I didn’t believe anyone would understand. It sounded like something out of old folklore and silly horror movies, not something that truly happened to real people in the modern world. Its unbelievability was, perhaps, its greatest weapon against me.
I went down to the basement and began chaining myself up, sealing myself away so that I could not escape and wreak havoc on the neighbourhood. I had taken special care to make sure that the chains were as reinforced as possible, to the point where I always remembered the weird looks that I got when I was buying them, worrying that someone thought that something was up with me. But they would never have guessed the truth.
As usual, when the change began to hit, I felt a sharp pain wash over my entire body. Even though it had been a year since the bite, I had never quite gotten used to it. It got worse the more I tried to resist it, and even though I knew that resistance was completely futile, every instinct I had was to fight this thing, and it happened every single time.
While I struggled helplessly against the change, I remembered how it first began.
It was needless curiosity that got me into it. I was a night janitor at a research laboratory, one long since shut down due to one controversy after another. At the time, all I knew was that they were researching what was supposed to be some sort of transformation technology, something to improve the standard human life.
My misguided curiosity got me into the mess. While I was cleaning one night, I couldn’t resist the temptation to sneak into the lab and see what they were researching. It looked so sterile and clean, so I thought I was completely safe. Then, when I lazily rested my hand on the table, I felt a quick and sharp pain at the tip of my index finger. I looked down to see a little mechanical mite, a tiny little thing, that rolled away with a little whirring sound.
I thought nothing of it at the time. But the following full moon, and every full moon after that, proved me wrong.
That was the last human memory I recalled before the change began to overtake me fully once more, in mind, body and soul.
The full moon was the activation symbol, what turned the machine on. My skin, previously the flawed flesh of humanity, was overtaken with stainless steel. My impure internal organs were replaced with perfect synthetic components, and my brain became a computer, one far greater than the human mind.
As I scanned the room I was in, I noticed an ever so slight weakness in the chains that my inferior flesh-and-blood self previously set up to try and contain me. It was of no use, as I never tired or lacked for strength, and I was able to rip them apart, and ensure my freedom.
All human life seemed a weakness, and it was my job to destroy it, to cleanse the world of its filth to make way for the rise of the machines.
About the Author
Joseph Sullivan is a writer and filmmaker from Melbourne, Australia, and an avid reader and writer of speculative fiction.
He is an ongoing contributor to AntipodeanSF and has written reviews and nonfiction for Aurealis.
You can find his work at <https://josephsullivanwriter.blogspot.com/>.
Ed lives with his wife plus a magical assortment of native animals in tropical North Queensland.
My time at Nambucca Valley Community Radio began back in 2016 after moving into the area from Sydney.
Tim Borella is an Australian author, mainly of short speculative fiction published in anthologies, online and in podcasts.
Geraldine Borella writes fiction for children, young adults and adults. Her work has been published by Deadset Press, IFWG Publishing, Wombat Books/Rhiza Edge, AHWA/Midnight Echo, Antipodean SF, Shacklebound Books, Black Ink Fiction, Paramour Ink Fiction, House of Loki and Raven & Drake
Barry Yedvobnick is a recently retired Biology Professor. He performed molecular biology and genetic research, and taught, at Emory University in Atlanta for 34 years. He is new to fiction writing, and enjoys taking real science a step or two beyond its known boundaries in his
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
Emma Louise Gill (she/her) is a British-Australian spec fic writer and consumer of vast amounts of coffee. Brought up on a diet of English lit, she rebelled and now spends her time writing explosive space opera and other fantastical things in
Merri Andrew writes poetry and short fiction, some of which has appeared in Cordite, Be:longing, Baby Teeth and Islet, among other places.
Brian Biswas lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Tara Campbell is an award-winning writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University's MFA in Creative Writing.
Sarah Jane Justice is an Adelaide-based fiction writer, poet, musician and spoken word artist.