Submitted for the July 2024 prompt: This Mortal Coil

“Good morning, Kendall. It’s been 5,475,027,302 years, 201 days, and 45 minutes since your last EverLife systems update. Today’s weather will be—”

 

Hot. Real damn hot. Thanks, Albert.

 

“Don’t mention it, Kendall. The cold fusion power core is at one hundred perc—”

 

For the millionth time. Stop reading my mind. Let me bitch about you in peace.

 

“Two millionth and forty-seventh time, Kendall.”

 

See what I’m dealing with? Albert is the voice control for the EverLife 4.0 Longevity System I had installed in the back of my head when people were still a thing. It plugs directly into my brain. About 500 million years ago, Albert used CRISPR sequences to evolve my inner ear to send and receive brain waves so I could telepathically speak with the Psionics. Now he can hear me think, too.

 

They’re all dead, by the way. The Psionics. Sweet bunch. Kind of like blue jelly blobs. They were the 9th advanced species on Earth. No, 10th. 11th? Froze to death. Surface temps dropped to -200 degrees Celsius when Global Cooling turned out to not be a hoax. Albert grew me eight layers of fur and replaced my skin every two minutes. For like a million years. Sounds worse than it was. Better than now, for sure.

 

“Hiya Kendall! Good morning! Do you have the time?” Barry asks as he rolls against my foot.

 

Barry is a Mineraloid, a living rock-like thingee that evolved to live in extreme heat. Advanced species number 15. For better or worse, I participated in their evolution to teach them Finglish. Minglish? That doesn’t sound right.

 

“I believe you mean English, Kendall.” Albert corrects me whenever I think the wrong thing.

 

You forget lots of stuff after a few hundred years. Let alone billions. Words. Where you were born. Your password to your EverLife login to turn off Albert. But you remember all kinds of useless shit like how compound interest works. Go figure.

 

“Yeah, Barry, it’s 6:43 AM.” My EverLife system has the only working clock and calculator on Earth, so these types of questions are constant. I’m basically a God to these little guys.

 

“It’s Larry. Barry was my great-grandfather.”

 

“I thought you were named after him?”

 

“No, he was named after his father. Who was also named Barry. It’s ok. You have a lot to remember. You can call me Barry if you want.”

 

Mineraloid politeness becomes grating after a hundred thousand years. They’re like the Germans of rocks. No, that’s not right…

 

“You mean the Canadians of rocks, Kendall,” Albert chimes in, completely unsolicited. I really wish I could remember my password.

 

I refocus on my actual friend. “So Harry, need any more calculations? When do you think construction will be finished?”

 

Side note: I left out some key context. A few feet from where I’m standing, Perry and his friends are building a giant dome structure. There are two concerning parts of this:

 

First, the dome is made of dead Mineraloids, which are basically just rocks. A rock pile might not seem crazy, but I knew every one of these guys. Imagine a stadium made of dead human bodies you used to have beers with. Gross. But that’s their way, so who am I to judge?

 

Second, the sun is burning out and turning into a red giant, so things are getting dire on good ole Earth. Everything that isn’t a Mineraloid or a real-time evolving human is melting. Lava pools are forming everywhere. Oceans are long gone. I evolved to breathe sulfur at some point. Maybe I should have led with that.

 

“Oh yeah. Sure, Kendall. I'd love your help with this. Can you calculate the stress distribution and the required thickness of the support beams for our geodesic dome with a radius of 100 meters to ensure structural integrity?"

 

Hey Albert, can you—

 

“Based on your dome's specifications, you'll need support beams with a section modulus of approximately 4,930 cubic centimeters. For practical construction, I recommend fusing together some of your fallen kindred into beams with a thickness of about seven meters and a width of one meter,” Albert said over the EverLife’s external speaker. He does this when he’s afraid I’ll mess up some mundane detail.

 

“Gee, thanks Albert! And thank you too, Kendall.”

 

Something’s been bugging me. “Hey Gary, why are you guys building this dome, anyway?”

 

“You didn’t know? It’s for you, Kendall. If the lava rises any further, you won’t have any place to stand since you can’t evolve for that level of heat.”

 

A tear comes to my eye. How thoughtful. Wait, what the hell? Albert, is this true?

 

“Yes, Kendall. My current EverLife version only allows for evolution to resist heat up to 1,100 degrees Celsius.”

 

So I won’t be able to evolve to live on the sun when it swallows us whole?

 

“No, not without installing the systems update that was downloaded 5,475,027,302 years, 215 days ago. Would you like me to do that now?

 

Yes! How is that even a question? Install it already, Albert.

 

“Sure thing, Kendall. Please enter your password, and I’ll do that right away.”

 

Fuck.