from Road Away

  The sky became gray as the locusts filtered out the sun.  And then the wind stopped. Rafik had forgotten about this but now he remembered from before. It was as if a vacuum preceded them sucking the air back into their powerful tsunami maelstrom. Rafik prayed to Allah to spare his crops but he knew in his heart that it was not going to help. He prayed mostly to give him strength. Then they came.  Miles in the distance into the fields of wheat and barley the locusts descended from the sky unrolling like a giant carpet over the landscape towards Rafik.   

from Anything Like It

Cybernetic autopsy concluded that the virus infecting the module was analogous to the mortal feelings of love and affection.  What the Zybex excavator really wanted was some appreciation, acknowledgement for work done, a little love.

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