Amygdala Hijack - A Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi Story of Impending Dystopia

EP. 23 - HATS

PETER AROSE EARLY THE next morning and was working on the couch, hoping he could fill-in for some of Ears' podcast duties. He monitored the previous day's run with Oort Cloud and was surprised at seeing over forty million active listeners and downloads.

"How are you doing?" he asked when Molli finally opened her door.

"I feel alone without him, without knowing he's there, safe in Texas."

Her eyes welled-up with tears. "No, I can't get started. I told myself not to cry any longer, so I applied my mascara. Do I appear terribly bad?"

"You're beautiful. Don't feel you need to put mascara on for me. You look great without it."

"Peter, don't lie," she pleaded. "You never cared, anyway."

"Molli, I understand beauty. I see beauty. Natural beauty."

"Right, kind words to comfort a grieving girl. I didn't even do martial arts this morning, the first time in I don't know how long, except for the hospital visit. It keeps me straight and gives me strength and courage."

Peter grabbed his laptop and stood up from the couch. "You want to exercise here? I'll move into the kitchen."

"No, don't bother. Did you contact his parents?"

"They already did per that gent from Stu's office, once they confirmed the news. It's in your inbox, too."

Molli sat on the couch, rubbing her arms and massaging her muscles, typical preparation for starting her exercises.

"Guess I didn't read that. Just saw the confirmation. You'd hope to believe it was staged, but I can't go there. Must stop this incessant mental pathway that pops up in my brain. Better do my martial arts, Peter, and yeah, move to the kitchen. But wait," she put her hand out to stop Peter from standing. "Hug first."

Peter was surprised but reached over to hug her, and they both felt connected in spirit. She pushed him back after a moment.

"Enough feeling bad or trying to feel good. I didn't even want to look at the numbers for Oort Cloud yesterday. How'd it go?"

"Over forty million. Ears was magic at getting us noticed."

"I'll work the other interviews today and tomorrow if I can do it. Must get my head around something productive like edits, cleanup, the usual."

Peter nodded. "I agree. Then we should get the hell out of here."

"Yeah. You know, I didn't go on the plane with Ears because I wanted to say goodbye to my master and others at the studio, plus make sure my buds are okay. But I considered it last night and concluded that going out for any reason is too risky. I'll call instead. Most of my weapons are here in the condo, anyway."

She arose from the couch and started into her active warmups.

"Back to our schedule then. Nucleator runs this Wednesday, Unager runs Friday, and the Brokers drops the following Wednesday. Then it's the Hats phone call interview next Thursday; the one Ears set up."

Peter looked at his laptop. "Uh-huh. Ten in the morning. Don't you think we should just cancel the Hats interview and find a way out of town?"

She had a pained look on her face and was breathing hard. "No. Let's do this for Ears. And Peter, there's no guarantee that Bemidji or wherever will be any better. Things should settle as the troops arrive. Oh, then there's one more – the Stoic."

"You serious about doing that one?"

"We need an end to this series, Peter. A conclusion. You can't cover all this apocalyptic tech and leave listeners wondering what to do about it until the bad guys arrive. And we can't build expectations in our fans that there's more to come. We're no longer doing Toxo, anyway."