The Blue Scream of Death (short story)

The Blue Scream of Death was advertised as the seventh and final part of Cyberon. Written by Tyche McPhee Letts, the story was actually first published on a password-protected website that could only be accessed by following a series of clues which started with a URL that was given immediately after the conclusion of Barnyard of the Cyberons. A more conventional print version of it was later included in the P.R.O.B.E. anthology True Origins.
== Plot ==
In the far future, a wealthy man acquires a ship full of dormant Cyberons. After making sure the nanites swarming human space and programmed to destroy any surviving Cyberons will not harm it, the man organises a "Creature Feature" party on his birthday, attended by other members of the elite, to witness the vivisection of one particular Cyberon, in the manner of a mummy-unwrapping party.
The Cyberon's perspective deteriorates as its outer mechanics are messed with; after some light anatomical observation, the master of ceremony begins draining the Cyberon fluid from the Cyberon, as the true attraction of the party is supposed to be that the guests will get the chance to "micro-dose" on the Cyberon drug, achieving an unparalleled high. However, as they drain the Cyberon of "gunk" completely, its thoughts cease to be constrained and emotionless, and it loses its aversion to gold, meaning the golden shackles with which they have it tied down can no longer hold it.
Now thinking in verse, the Cyberon frees itself and cuts down the watching crowd before jumping out through the window. In desperation, it activates its transmaterialisation systems, but due to the absence of any Cyberon fluid in its sytem, Aurichall rejects it. Stuck in the "inbetween-maelstrom", an abstraction of the Cyberon's self tries its best to conform by ejecting all remaining flesh, emerging in another timezone — in Derby on 24 September 2020, to be exact — as simply a hollow, animate Cyberon armour. The Cyberon flees into a forest, and is unable to function much longer as a hollow shell assaulted on all sides by sensory data of Earth, what remains of its consciousness haunted by the constant awareness that "it is hollow".
12 data-captures of a distress signal are detected "along psycho-wavelengths monitored by the Preternatural Research Bureau" as part of Operation World Salad; Giles, in an audio report, confirms that the remains of a Cyberon, without any organic remains, were found by P.R.O.B.E., minus the head, at the coordinates of 52°49'41.6"N 1°37'47.0"W, where the distress signal was released. Analysing the contents of the Cyberon's distress signals, they are left wondering why, after being rejected by its homeworld, the Cyberon ended up on Earth in 2020.
One guess is that it bounced off a "V-Time surge" travelling backwards in time from the far future, which was forecasted as hitting Earth a month or so after the Cyberon's appearance, after already intersecting with Gendar. Another explanation, however, is the speculative theory that the Cyberon nootropic itself is a "living extrahistorical extension of humanity’s collective speculative psyche", such that, having been rejected by the future, it was natural that the Cyberon should be sent back to the present which, in a certain sense, dreamt it into existence. Giles further notes that there are reasons to believe that the toll the events of the year 2020 made on large amounts of the human population have turned it into "a basin in space-time".
== Characters ==
* Cyberon
* Man
* Giles
* Philosopher-king of the Cyberons
== Worldbuilding ==
* The C.E.O.'s chandelier is made of an alloy of electrum and lagh.
* Early human colonists of Pluto worshipped a female, two-headed deity.
* The First City of Aurichall is located in a glass plain dominated by a nootropic volcano which constitutes a "naturally-occurring conversion engine", spewing out the pure Cyberon fluid. The volcano is "in constant eruption from the tectonic grinding of rival noospheres".
== Notes ==
* This story was made "with help" from Hunter O'Connell. James Lee was credited with performing "image recovery".
== Continuity ==
* The Cyberon overhears the phrase "intercepted over Gantifreet". (PROSE: Barnyard of the Cyberons)
* The Cyberon homeworld is Aurichall, the first planet of the Amazolian system. (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory et al.)
* The Cyberon "gunk", which is "the speciesr pure form", is a "praxis-rang nootropic". (TV: The Caves of Androzani, PROSE: The Book of the War)
* The Cyberon materialises in an alley with bins, between two brick buildings, near to the sound of cars on a rainy night. By then, it appears to be hollow. (WC: Cyberon is Back!!)
* The Preternatural Research Bureau are aware of Gendar. (PROSE: She Came From Another World! et al.)
* A V-Time surge is one of the phenomena monitored through Operation World Salad. (PROSE: The V Cwejes)
== External links ==
Category:Web-based short stories
Category:2020 short stories
Category:Cyberon short stories
Category:True Origins short stories
Category:Preternatural Research Bureau short stories
Category:Stories set in Derbyshire
Category:Stories set in 2020
Category:Stories set in the far future