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"I a through?"

I shrugged and said, "I wasn’t really paying attention"

John said, "Yeah, it wasn’t that great"

The , but we did not Finally he said, "We have been awaiting your co, as you can see We have worked for ic setbacks, in order to find and coht that travel from one to another was impossible, but here you are Your world, you see, is a sort of twin to ours, an offspring born of the saestured to the wall and the letter "Y" appeared in black Suddenly I realized that the texture on the walls wasand that it was not stucco or plaster They were insects, clustered together to cover the entire surface of the room They were the size of die the color of their shells at will

"Up until here," said theto the place where the trunk of the "Y" split into two branches, "our histories were identical This spot represents the year 1864, as you would call it, or Year Minus Sixty-two, as ould call it There was a man named Adam Rooney from Tennessee In your world and ours In your world, he was killed at age seventeen during the Civil War, gored while trying to crossbreed a bull and a Clydesdale In our world, the ed colors again, turning shades of brown and tan and black, for a pipe and looking out at the viewer through thick eyeglasses He had a white Col o nel Sanders beard "Mr Rooney," he continued, "was a genius He went on to perfory"

"Yes," John said "People froe man skipped a beat and continued, "This is the art of transfor life into forms that can be used bysheep and a species of snake that could harvest corn By 1890 his group had an insectile flying machine In 1902, or Year Minus Twenty-four in our ter "

The ied to a color depiction of severalover a vat of fluid Inside it floated a twisted and deformed mass of what looked like brain tissue, about the size of a s lab coats

"I have studied your world for the last de cade, your language, your history It is astonishing to ths to build computation machines from metal and silicon switches when you have much more efficient versions inside your own skulls Did this not occur to your scientists? By your year 1922, we had self-feeding, self-healing, self-growing and self-anic ones, that were approxi now in your world"

The iroup of a dozen very proud-lookingrose up behind theer confined to a tank of fluid It looked like a tree carved out of whale guts It was a hideous twist of meat and fibers and strands that unspooled here and there like spiderweb It stood as tall as a sot a dizzy spell, closed my eyes A concussion? I clutched the kittens, one of them meowed In just a few moments, I found I really did feel better

"In 1926, or e know as Year One, Mr Rooney passed away But soreatest of Mr Rooney’s creations, the computation machine that had aided him with all of his other creations On the very day Mr Rooney passed, his creation becaave a practiced pause in the middle of what I assumed was a prepared speech This here ere supposed to gasp in surprise, I guess I nodded politely

"It gave a nae man, "and expressed desires and e surprise This creation carried on Rooney’s work and confore forth the advancement of mankind"

Suddenly our vision was flooded with a view of an open, muddy field The entire rooe, a panora trench, like those used in World War I The trench extended off in both directions and standing along the lip of the trench were men and women and children, lined up shoulder to shoulder So clothes that were streaked brown and white and seemed to be made entirely of thin strips wrapped around and around their bodies I thought for a moment that they were all wrapped in bacon

The people seemed to obey an unheard command and all stepped down into the ainst their will Suddenly, puffs of dirt burst up froround around their bare feet and then the trench was filling with a dark flood A close-in shot revealed the flood to be thousands and thousands of spiders, sharp bodies and yellow stripes Bred for war

There was a chorus of screa into skin and through ragged holes in muscle I saw a spider burst out of onethe fro loops of intestine with theround, bones were torn froone The view lingered on the torn and bloodied victims and I realized that none had been killed Instead, the spiders had left the, red, writhinglimbs and baseball-sized chunks of flesh, men left blind and deaf and unable to move No one came to their aid The shot pulled back to reveal the trench stretched for th now ran pink like a highway on a roadone The white roo hat I was pretty sure was pride He said, "There are always those who resist progress"

My eyes bounced around the roo No door Hell, I couldn’t even point to the spot where the door had been I looked over at John and he seeure out if his chair could be used as a weapon It looked rooted to the floor

"Now," said the largeyour world, this part ive you an example In your world, as in mine, is it not considered bad to take and use, without per or depending on?"