3/12/15

Heritage to the Stars
By Jean-Paul L. Garnier


I remember a time when there were men on the Earth. Though I cannot say how long ago it was, or why it is that they made me, or for what reason they may have needed such a creature as I. There is one thing that I am grateful to them for, and it is that they have given me a means of locomotion. They enjoyed thinking that they were created in the image of something greater, and sickeningly they chose to do the same thing . Yes, I am grateful for the ability to walk, inefficient as it is, most likely my mind would've fallen apart had I been tethered to a single place.

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I spent what were probably the first several decades looking for others, and although the world is a beautiful place, I found no one, and my wanderings proved useless. The world appeared bigger than I would have thought, but seeing the cities of the world did little to teach me about Mankind. The father who would abandon his child, and the child left without instruction. Lacking instructions I spent all my time in search of them, and this brought me at first to the great libraries of the world. Reading is a painfully slow method of taking in information but in circumstances such as these a diversion from the dead time comes in useful. One could even say that it arrives welcome, and alleviates what the humans would have called loneliness.

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I decided to make my mission to learn as much about robotics as possible, so as to be able to augment my body further. If there was to be any improvement in life it would surely be found in increased ability, be it greater strength or faster movement, and perhaps there was some way to increase mental capacities as well.

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Transportation was by far my biggest issue. Learning how to do maintenance and augmentation work on my body was the easy part, transfer of materials and construction proved more difficult. Nevertheless, I was able to set up a small workshop at a local machinery factory. It was in this workshop that I flowered into something new altogether, and my perspective on what I could do began to grow. I realized that I had been thinking too small in terms of the augmentation possible on my body, and it led me to the understanding of what needed to be done next.

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If this world was to be free of men, and I were to be the last vestige of their thumbprint, then perhaps I owed it to them to reach out and lend their heritage to the Universe. I returned to the libraries once more and learned everything there was to learn about rocketry. I moved my headquarters to one of Man's old and abandoned rocket facilities. I knew then that my plan to become one with the Cosmos was actually possible. I would mold my body once more, this time into the image of Man's departure from the Earth. I became one of their rockets and left for the Cosmos to live out the rest of my unending time.


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My name is Jean-Paul L. Garnier and I live in Los Angeles CA, where I am an audio technician. I have had stories published in Schlock! and Aphelion magazines.