Scor­pio News

Why had I asked that ? I knew, even before I asked, it would upset him, and now I’m alone. There was still the shuffling noises in the dark. A murmuring – but nothing in sight, just the parallel tracks going off into the darkness.

This was no good at all. The best way to find out where I was was to explore, and those parallel tracks looked interesting. I started to walk, taking care that I didn’t tread on any of the insects, although none were in sight. Still the shuffling noises in the darkness, was I being followed. The tracks started to fan out, and there at the edge of the gloom was row upon row of the insects. They stood fast as I approached.

“I hear you’ve upset Z80.”, said a voice from the row.

“Is that 4116 ?”, I asked, desperately looking for a friend.

“No, we’re 4116”, a chorus of voices replied, “Some of his brothers – but he told us all about you. Do you deny treading on 7432 ?”

“Er – no, it was an accident”, I replied sheepishly.

“H-rrumph”, at least that’s what it sounded like, in chorus. I felt I wasn’t making a good impression here.

“Do you always all speak together ?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“In groups of eight.” the chorus replied, “We don’t take kindly to people who tread on our mates.”

There was a general movement, I saw the boots of the first row of insects, they all seemed to have little knives in the toecaps, like the nasties in a James Bond film. Who was James Bond ? 16 boots a piece, and 8 of them. Then the second row moved, each with boots and each boot with knives. And then the next row.... I thought of running, but knew they could out run me. I suppose I could hope they’d trip over their legs and stab themselves to death but knew they wouldn’t. I felt this was the end. I waited for the rush. I guess I could deal with a few of them, but not all at once. You do silly things when faced with trouble. I tried to calculate 8 rows of insects, each row with 8 insects, and each row with 16 boots. It looked like death by a thousand cuts, well 1024 cuts anyway – close enough. And then it happened. A blinding flash 1024 – 2¹⁰ – a binary number. I knew where I was. And they flew at me. They aimed for the face. Hundreds of little pin pricks – none fatal, but each hurt.

I’m awake now. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen asleep whilst assembling a printed circuit board before. I must have nodded off and ended up face down on the solder side of the board. All those little legs. My face looks like it’s just lost an argument with the blunt end of a hedgehog. There I go again – feet. Why feet ? Can anyone tell me what happened ? ●