Author's Notes: This is the prologue of a fanfic I'm writing. The title comes from a song on the Ecco the Dolphin score. As for warnings...I can't really think of anything. I'm very torn on this fic, and could use some feedback, because it's extremely, extremely surreal. Dream-like, even.
Title: the machine
Author: Eilam
Rating: PG or PG-13
00. static ocean
Darkness falls, and the city comes alive.
With the absence of the sunlight, a billion pinpoints of luminescence flare into existence. Voices carry in the still night air, mingling with the sounds of technology to form shifting waves of white noise. The stars are invisible, blotted out by the brilliance of the neon sky.
This is when the city is at its most dazzling; when the natural world is lost to the ever-changing organism of humanity and its toys.
Follow the static ocean down between skeletal buildings, through shattered windows and pristine plastic. Slip further; move inwards; watch as the old becomes new and the barren becomes flourishing.
Now...stop. Listen to the noise blanketing the city. The hum of humanity is low, dull, rumbling. The noise of flesh and a million thundering heartbeats. The siren song of technology echoes this and overlaps, whistling and sharp and relentless. The noise of information and a million screaming Modems.
Isolate...
...isolate...
A single sound. Low, dull, rumbling; whistling, sharp, relentless. A noise that is neither organic nor inorganic but, somehow, both.
And a child, standing at a window, touching ghostlike fingertips to his own reflection.
00. end