Chapter Fifty-Nine – The Full Stop Does Not Stop

Chapter Fifty-Nine – The Full Stop Does Not Stop

“While we try very hard to keep inflation at a steady rate–because such a steady rate allows for steady, controllable growth across all sectors–we firmly believe that the currency inflationary rates for foodstuffs might be too elevated.

500% yearly increases would mean a very real risk of starvation amongst the workforce, a workforce that we’ve yet to automate. Not to mention, this same workforce makes up a vast majority of our customer base.”

–Letter from the Union of Corporate Interests of NA, 2042

***

“Here goes nothing,” I said as I gently tapped the fire button. My hair stood on end, the room trembled slightly, and the shell was off.

At the moment, it was somewhere in the mid-afternoon, and I couldn’t help but feel like that was subtly wrong.

We had just fired what might be the final blow. It was meant to be momentous, something big and important, a moment that would go down in the history books… and all I could think about was how I was a little hungry.

“Could really go for a snack right about now,” I said.

“Ouien,” the kid said. “J’ai un, uh… catalogue for poutine.”

“Wait, just poutine, or is it like, a food catalogue?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Just that. It was cheaper.”

Huh. I knew that catalogues were cheaper the more narrow their scope, but I’d never thought to apply that to food, specifically. “Alright. Is it good, at least?”

“Eh,” he made a so-so gesture. “La petit place au coin d’ma rue en fait une bonne aussi.”

I squinted and translated that one all on my own. The local place made a good one too. “Well, I’d give it a try, I guess.”

“Cool! Tiens,” he said, and then just like that, a styrofoam bowl with a little plastic cover appeared in his hand. It was warm, and instantly filled the room with a greasy, fatty smell. I took it from him and peeled off the cover revealing… cheese curds, fries, and lots of brownish sauce.

Somehow this felt like a step down from the usual Protector food I ordered.

Gros Baton handed me a plastic fork, and I shrugged before digging in. It tasted as healthy as it looked. Salty and greasy. The cheese squeaked and the fries crunched. It was pretty good, to be honest, but I just knew this was going straight to the love handles.

We watched the progress of the Full Stop on the main monitor while we ate. The little shell was racing ahead right towards Phobos. A smaller status screen showed the Tesla Collider warming up for its next big shot, and the Keiretsu had a small army of drones on a collision course with Phobos as well, all timed to arrive about two minutes after the Collider did its thing.

“Oh, it’s gonna impact,” I said as I pointed to the screen with my fork.

“Mhm,” Gros Baton agreed before wiping some gravy from his chin. “Fuck ’em up, tabarnak!”

“Yeah! Tabarnak all the way!” I cheered. I had to hand it to the kid, he’d make for a good drinking buddy. Maybe if I was into sports or something I’d invite him over to watch the game and he’d show up with booze and snacks.

The Full Stop shell… stopped about a minute later. It went from moving at fuck-you-fast speeds to being completely still in a blip. Though… I wasn’t so sure. Things were still moving around it. It just looked like it had suddenly changed directions?

“What’s it doing?” I asked.

It has stopped. The motion you see now is the relative motion of the sensor equipment and Phobos, but the shell itself is locked in place.

“Locked in place relative to where?” I asked.

Don’t you worry about that.

I felt like it was probably something I should worry about when Myalis said something like that, but I wasn’t going to have time for the whole explanation when Phobos and the shell were just about to collide.

I leaned forwards and switched the main monitor to a camera view from one of the spy drones keeping pace with Phobos.

The Full Stop was too small to be visible at the distances we were looking at. Phobos, on the other hand, was a zoomed-in mass of rock covered in a lot more craters than it had had a few days ago. Huge sections of its surface were blackened by soot and char, and there were cracked canyons running across it like the shell of a dropped egg.

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A few mountains had been flattened, and chunks of the moon were just outright missing now.

And then Phobos ran into the Full Stop.