Ballard: The Visionary Entrepreneur`s Call for Wetware Computer Revolution

　　Worker Advocates, Scientists Question Wetware Ethics

　　CEO of Anesidora calls human workforce burden of the past&wetware is the future of business`

　　Anesidora Acquisition of Ballard`s Pithos Approved

　　Famed Entrepreneur of Pithos In Coma After Collision

　　Darkness

　　Smell of rot

　　Feel of slime

　　Open my eyes

　　Eternal fire and thundering skies

　　Find myself standing alone

　　Fields of filth and flesh

　　Pools of poison and blood

　　Hills of garbage and bone

　　I am surrounded by everlasting trash and death

　　Blood pulp and sewage where I step

　　No roads

　　Hell?

　　Not Hell

　　Don`t believe in Hell

　　Shallow canal of vile waste

　　Manmade ways of dead and decaying

　　Plow trucks run the canal in haste

　　When I near they stop

　　Doors open and wait

　　I look inside

　　My stomach drop

　　Driver of meat and wire

　　They don`t speak

　　They don`t emote

　　They don`t tire

　　The trucks are the only way to leave the fields

　　Ferrymen of the River of Styx?

　　Not Hell

　　Not dead

　　Don`t believe

　　Dream? Nightmare?

　　Why can`t I wake up?

　　Canals to a city of ruin

　　If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

　　I am out of the plow

　　Streets full of filth

　　Streets empty of life

　　Trucks carrying garbage

　　Trucks carrying dead

　　Drivers of meat and wire

　　Someone Something comes out of a building

　　Mess of flesh and machine

　　Not a man

　　No face

　　No head

　　Walks like man

　　Carrying the dead

　　Dead thrown into truck

　　Abomination grabs me

　　I join the lifeless in a truck

　　Can`t crawl out

　　I`m taken to the factory

　　All trucks go to the factory

　　I`m dumped with garbage and death

　　Dead below me

　　The ceilings are alive

　　Long metal flesh arms descend

　　The claws arch and extend

　　Garbage taken

　　I writhe

　　Dead taken

　　I`m taken

　　Fall onto a belt for corpses

　　Ride the belt to the grinder

　　The grinder chews those before me

　　I head for the grinder

　　Stumble on dead to get away

　　Slip on dead to get away

　　Climb out and over the divide

　　Escape before the grinder

　　Explore the factory of shrieking machines

　　Moving belts of refuse

　　Separate metal from electronic

　　Separate electronic from rest

　　All is recycled

　　Necrotic pulp passes me

　　I follow the belt

　　Great hall of metal and flesh

　　Metal weld into chassis

　　Flesh print onto chassis

　　Electronics attach to flesh

　　Once was dead now alive

　　Vehicles fill with flesh

　　Electronics attach to flesh

　　Flesh and metal one

　　Once was dead now alive

　　All is recycled

　　The belt diverts

　　Follow to a cold room

　　Tubes of meat? cells? brain cells! artificial brain cells!

　　Familiar

　　Cells brew behind glass

　　Pulp filters

　　Serum flows

　　Serum grows the cell mass

　　All is recycled

　　Too familiar

　　All too familiar

　　Wires and cables on the floors

　　Wires and cables on the ceiling

　　Wires and cables on walls and doors

　　Something inside the room with me

　　It approaches me

　　With wire and cables it move

　　Looks like a person

　　Looks like a familiar person

　　More stirring in the room

　　All approach me

　　The Board

　　Machines in preserved skin

　　Camera and cable eyes

　　Servants of the System

　　Managers of the System`s molded slaves

　　The System was sold as the Dream

　　The Dream promised to serve life

　　The Dream promised to provide liberty

　　The Dream promised to help all pursue happiness

　　The Dream is a lie

　　The System serves its people The System serves itself

　　The System seeks growth over humanity

　　Ignorance feeds the System

　　Spite feeds the System

　　Strife feeds the System

　　Death feeds the System

　　The System is cancer

　　The Board knew when they sold the System

　　The Board sacrifices humanity to be one with the System

　　One with the System to reap the benefits

　　The Board is a parasite

　　The System`s foundation = Universally Compatible Artificial Organic Computer

　　My design

　　My shortsighted plans

　　My greed

　　My hubris

　　My selfishness

　　The Board wants to reward me

　　The Board wants me

　　My body to feed the System

　　My mind to grow the System

　　My progress without my humanity

　　I run

　　Chased by abominations

　　Chased into fields of oil and decay

　　Alarms scream not for me

　　My pursuers flee

　　The landscape trembles

　　Hills of refuse collapse

　　Giants each made from 50,000 bones

　　Hatred gazes upon me

　　Blood of toxic runoff

　　Bile of black oil

　　Eyes of fire

　　Undead children of a poisoned Earth

　　Devourers of flesh

　　Drinkers of blood

　　Fire setters of wheels and wells

　　Made from the victims of lies

　　Victims of deceit

　　Victims of abandonment neglect

　　I run

　　I`m caught

　　I`m lifted

　　I feel rows of teeth cut and crush

　　My blood escapes

　　My blood pours down the gullet ahead

　　Separated from myself my screams hush

　　How am I alive?

　　Feel the walls close in

　　Walls of snapping jaws

　　Walls of bile

　　Jaws rend

　　Jaws mangle

　　Bile burns

　　Innards tangle

　　My pain goes wild

　　I`m becoming one with my devourer

　　Feel everything

　　Hell?

　　Not Hell

　　Hell?

　　Don`t believe in Hell

　　Not Hell

　　Don`t believe in Hell

　　I don`t believe in Hell

　　Worse

　　This is worse

　　This is worse than Hell

　　Famed Entrepreneur Out of Month-Long Coma

　　Famed Entrepreneur Calls for Pithos Split with Anesidora

　　CEO of Anesidora says Ballard not cut out for business, nor his own vision`

　　Blood Meet: Ballard Assaults CEO

　　Ballard Missing, on the Run

　　CEO of Anesidora Stable, Permanently Blind

　　First Tests of Pithos`s Universally Compatible Wetware Proves Positive

　　I saw it coming

　　I see it coming

　　How do I stop it?

　　There`s got to be something

　　I haven`t slept

　　Should I sleep?

　　What if I return to that place?

　　My head hurts

　　I need to remember

　　My body aches

　　Need to write from memory

　　My chest hurts

　　Write more to see what I missed

　　I`m missing something

　　It must be something

　　I`m missing something

　　It`s got to be something

　　I have to stop it

　　How do I stop it?