Ethel the Vigilante Granny

Ethel the Vigilante Granny Part 5

Furious, Ethel plunged a knife into a pudding sending cream flying over an unfortunate child trying to hide so his weapons wouldn't be confiscated. He took one look at Ethel and burst into tears running for safety from the strange old woman. Ethel  did not actually care what others thought of her as a rule but the looks she was attracting unsettled her.

When did she stop being the best of her generation? How had she slowly became the strange ex-socialite living in her electronic bunker with her news feeds and her electronic pets? She walked away seeking a bathroom and when she came out found a different table at a balcony. She needed to be alone with her thoughts. They were vengeful, she wanted to hurt the machine for having taunted her but it was forever out of reach.

You could not hurt what only lived as code in a network. Such impudence.The festival was ruined for Ethel and all that remained was to eat. The machine diagnosis had done its damage when she least expected to be challenged, sitting protected in the heart of the celebration of everything that she believed in. The members of the total dominance Party had everything they wanted but lost in the happiness stakes. Somehow Ethel knew for the first time that she wasn't alone in her misery, it was what they had created. She watched the children playing.

"Your turn will come," she whispered. "The computer is right. Your culture is broken. Yours and mine both."

Balloons were hanging above them, helium balloons attached to anti-gravity drones. Fairy lights twinkled, the décor was tasteful low-technology concealed in flying city that could be tuned to produce any item the imagination could conceive of. But unknown to the partying families and a rather forlorn Ethel, a missile was heading straight for the transparent pyramid-shaped roof they dined beneath. The missile was a kinetic weapon that separated into 20 shards as it approached the city.

A painfully bright beam of light lashed out from the ground and hit the sole patrolling airborne hover copter, blowing it out of the sky. Inside, the general alarm began to sound and automated voice instructed everyone to retreat to the internal bunkers. But nobody was afraid, they were invulnerable, the rightful rulers of the world and nobody had the technology to match them or to present a genuine threat. The missiles did not care about the opinions of the flying city-dwellers and continued unimpeded. They arced over and into the enormous roof smashing it to pieces half a metre across.

Everyone froze for an instant as they realised the roof had been breached, shocked to feel freezing cold air tug at them. They had a split-second to realise with horror that they were moments away from being pulverised by the remnants of their superstructure. The shards tore down the decorations and destroyed people and furniture alike. The missile had been aimed well, set to hit the floor at a velocity capable of reshaping the landscape. The floor exploded, and hundreds of the most privileged people in new UK died as they were hit by metal and glass. Others were incinerated by electrical discharge gone wild. Hydraulic fluid filled entire sections of corridor that were now sealed off by emergency blast doors. Those who were killed instantly were the lucky ones. The survivors of the initial impact were burnt or drowned as the internal floors collapsed and not even the machines could rescue them.

It was all the robots could do to prevent the city from falling out of the sky, they certainly didn't have time for individual rescue missions. But Ethel lived. It was her advanced age that saved her. And her robots. The pain overwhelmed her, and Ethel, too frightened to examine her own body too closely had allowed the medical programme to shut down all peripheral nerves. Then she retreated into herself, freed from physical pain she could direct the healing process and give orders to any androids in her vicinity.

She brought up the icon for healing, trusting that the machines would take care of everything that followed. But just  for a second she hesitated and hovered over an alternative option, the option to end it all.She had seen everything that was worth seeing, things people wouldn't believe. If she died now all those memories would be lost and nobody would care.

Do not suicide.

What? I'm hallucinating.

No, you are not. Heal yourself. There are so many more interesting things yet to come.

Ethel cancelled the suicide programme and ordered her own personal androids to come and rescue her. She was glad that she had always taken care to manufacture huge numbers of them. They were always more reliable than people and it was just this kind of situation when machines could do what vulnerable human flesh could not. As soon as they acknowledged her order to put her into a medical coma she allowed herself to slip into a painless oblivion. She was determined to remain there until everything was made good in her world again.