Alarmingly Strange Stories
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My eyes opened slowly, and the room appeared again, the relaxant hum of the dome generators wavering through my gradually waking head - Tommy had started a fragrantly strong brew of coffee. Stretching my rested muscles for a few seconds, I lifted my one hundred and sixty pounds up off the bed and yawned. "Tommy," I said, watching him enter my rest quarters. His one large eye was pulsating. "What's the current temperature outside the dome?" My usual cup of steaming espresso was jittering on a tray in Tommy's metal fasteners as he strolled across the room. "Twenty-two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Barometric pressure is minus two hundred. We can expect an increase in temperature, possibly by fifty degrees, by early afternoon," he replied. "Shall I prep the crop robots?" I reached for my steaming coffee, its vapor rising into my face; I took a small sip. "No," I informed him, taking another sip from my steaming espresso. I pressed a button on the remote control and the left quarter's window facing the harvest appeared from behind the slowly rising radiation shutters. Outside the dome, the red giant flared like heaven on fire through the window. I could see my corn crops gleaming like a golden sea, and my wheat fields swaying in the artificial wind. "Can you ready the teleport. I got business in the City today." "Sir, I strongly recommend that you not visit the City today. There's been a lot of terrorist activity in the inner and outer circles. My advice to you, sir, would be you wait until the C.S.A scrounges up some of the strangling fractions. According to my weblink, an inner circle faction has claimed credit for that massacre last night; they blew up half the Renoir. Two thousand people were killed in the blast." "I 'm not going anywhere near that part of City. I 'm headed for Howler, it's strictly a non-partisan circle." "Sir, should I remind you that Howler is only ten minutes from the Renoir?" "I think you just did," I replied, thrusting a foot into my boot. "Isn't that a bit close?" "I thought I told you to replaced your mother circuits with brother ones?" I told him with a big smile on my face. Tommy went silent, his big red eyeball flashing. "Alright, alright, don't blow a transistor. When does mother think the C.S.A. will have finished its vital mission of ridding the City of the factions?" I asked, peering into Tommy's red eyeball. "I hope it's soon cause we need crop food as soon as possible, or it's curtains for the harvest this year." "Perhaps two or three months. This, mind you, is only an assumption. Much of my facts are still being relayed to me via the weblink." "If I wait another quarter, the crops will die. An if they die, I die, and if I die--" "Tommy dies, correct, Sir?" "You got it." "The teleport will be ready, Sir," Tommy quickly acknowledged. Tommy did an about-face, then started towards the exit, its metal ankles and knees squealing. "Thank you," I told him. "How bout I pick you up some new software for your logic circuits?" Tommy replied "Whatever for?" "I'd like to try something new," I told him. "Sure, Sir," he replied.

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