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Dark Cipher
Doctor James Finny felt the Dark Cipher working within him as he loaded rounds into a snub-nosed revolver. He felt no fear of it, unlike the others. Truth be known, he was actually quite thrilled at the prospect of becoming something other than human. Far as he was concerned, the human species had outworn its welcome long ago, anyway. The religious nuts forming a mob outside his office, of course, disagreed.
He watched them through narrow slits between venetian blinds as he chambered another bullet. They’d been squawking about an apocalypse for months. It shouldn’t have surprised him. He’d been Deer, Arkansas’ doctor for twelve years, long enough to know that “apocalypse” was the Baptist church’s go-to assumption for damn near everything.
War in some remote corner of the world? Apocalypse. Little Jenny Stayer boinks the captain of the wrestling team? Apocalypse. Sour milk? Yep…apocalypse. So, when code hidden in the junk DNA of millions of people around the world suddenly became activated, he should have known that their first guess would be apocalypse.
Somehow, he’d been foolish enough to hope that this one time they’d listen to science.
Finny slammed the cylinder shut, tucked the gun into the back waistband of his khaki pants, and walked to the front door. As he passed a full length mirror next to a weight scale and height chart, he remembered…
