-john Thompson- Ggg-...: I Was Made For Swallowing-

But wars ended. Contracts dried up. And John, with his eerily calm digestion and his empty, metallic-smelling breath, became a liability. A living trash can with a pension plan.

And tonight, he intended to swallow the whole damn company whole.

“What do you want?” she asked.

The effect was instant—a soft, warm dissolution, a chemical sigh. The pollutant broke down into inert salts and oxygen. He exhaled a faint, clean vapor.

“Unit GGG-7,” said a voice, flat and tired. Dr. Voss. The woman who’d designed his pancreatic filter. She held a remote detonator—a failsafe embedded in his lower spine. “You were never meant to run. You were meant to take in and break down. That’s all. That’s everything.” I was made for Swallowing- -John Thompson- GGG-...

John walked to Bay 7, his old berth. On the wall, someone had scrawled: “I was made for swallowing—John Thompson—GGG-7” in faded marker. He’d written it himself, the night before they’d tried to put him under. A joke that wasn’t funny anymore.

She frowned. “You want to swallow a bomb? Yourself?” But wars ended

“I want to finish the meal,” he said.