Free Post-Human Trilogy by David Simpson

with me, and I will show you.”

4
    The man led Craig into a cream-colored room at the end of a long, fluorescent-lighted corridor. Various large pieces of machinery populated the room, and there was an audible electric buzz in the air that gave Craig the feeling that it was a room he wouldn’t like to remain in for long, lest the buzzing drive him mad. There was a tickle in his hair that reminded him of the static electricity he made as a kid by dragging his feet on the carpet. He also noticed that his saliva tasted of metal, as though he’d placed his tongue on a battery.
    “This is the heart of everything in the facility,” the man announced, pointing to one particular round piece of machinery, with a diameter about the width of a bus. Although there were pipes and rectangular, tightly packed objects at the top and bottom of the spherical structure, the most striking features were the plethora of cylindrical structures that protruded from the circular center. “That’s a fusion generator,” the man informed, “ magnetic targeted fusion , MTF for short.”
    “Fusion?”
    The man nodded and then craned his neck, pointing upward at the cylinders. “There are 200 pneumatic pistons. They hit the tank, which induces an acoustic compression wave in the liquid metal inside. That liquid metal then travels to the center of the sphere. The compression wave intensifies and collapses the vortex cavity and the plasma within it, creating thermonuclear conditions.”
    “I...uh...I understood some of that...I think,” Craig replied.
    The man smiled. “It’s complex. I understand that it is difficult to grasp at first, but basically, enormous advancements in computer processing power have allowed for precise timing of the pistons, which is necessary to control the shape of the cavity as it collapses. It adjusts to thermal effects and other variations that are difficult to predict, but it can compensate in a microsecond, which makes this process possible.”
    “The fusion process?”
    “Yes,” the man replied. “Each fusion pulse results in 100 megajoules of electrical output, which translates into 28 kilowatt-hours. What you see here is limitless energy.”
    “Does the world government know you have this?” Craig asked.
    The man shook his head. “We’d tell them if we could, but that would mean revealing our location, and that’s not something we are inclined to do.”
    “But you have access to unlimited power. Surely you could fight them off.”
    The man grinned but continued to avoid full eye contact. “Fighting is not always the best alternative. However, you are right. We do have enormous power.” He turned back to the MTF generator. “When this technology was developed, it was an incredible breakthrough and an impressive improvement on former fusion technologies, which required much larger structures and elaborate processes. This trend toward miniaturization continued, as it does in all technologies that become informational.” The man turned back to Craig. “In fact, after a major breakthrough in neutron shielding just a few years ago, the technology improved enough that it became possible for a person to take it along, wherever he or she may go.”
    Craig’s eyes narrowed as the man’s explanation of his technology became more and more surreal. The boundary between magic and science had blurred until it was unrecognizable. “Are you saying you people have portable versions of that...” Craig looked up at the spherical structure that loomed in front of them. “...of that thing?”
    The man continued to smile. “Portable? Oh, most definitely. You have one about the size of a small plum implanted in your lower back, next to your spinal cord.”
    Craig’s lips tightened into a grimace as he reached with his right hand and pressed it against his lower back. Indeed, there was a strange structure there below his skin, deep enough to feel as though it were part of him, yet alien all the same. “Wh-what