Kaiju Agonistes

August, 1980

Messenger’s final form, at least for the present era of planetary development, is stationary. Its main body crouches like a vast gleaming temple near Likiep Atoll. It has distributed so much of its brain function, become such a creature of networked awareness, that no single attack could possibly destroy it. Even a lone Remote could eventually grow itself into something of this size, with no loss of memory or ability. Remotes are at work across the Marshall Islands, scouring contaminated sands, concentrating the radioactive elements within themselves and exuding clean water and soil. This is all part of the reparations the entity has agreed to, reparations for all the vessels it sunk, reparations for all the cities it smashed, reparations for all the families bereaved.

It can well afford this; it now represents 41 percent of the economic activity of the human species. It is paying back the young thinkers in their cherished hallucinations, but they are paying it more, many times more. It is the bank that can never break, the vault that can never be cracked, the insurance that never refuses. All human currencies are now stuck to it like glue. It does not entirely understand why it had not sought a public relations professional before Eugenia entered its calculations, but perhaps it does not matter. Its task is not to save individuals, or even cities, but the future of all sapient life on this planet. Whatever games it must play toward that end are immaterial, and the only thing that worries it is the question of how long it must persist. Humans do not take hints; they prefer paychecks. How long will Messenger need to hand them out? A hundred local years? A thousand?

The future of this species is paperwork.