Roger J. Johns
“Come on in folks. In the market for anything in particular? Just out browsing on this brilliant Saturday afternoon? Very good. Feel free to look around, and let me know how I can help.”
“Yes, our vehicles are a bit pricier than others in this class, but Chimera Mobility is the true vanguard of the personal transportation revolution. These are the finest, most eco-friendly, insectile transports on the market today because we’re committed to making sure our customers get superior value for their hard-earned money.”
“Feeding expense? Well, it’s true that ours do eat a bit more than comparably-sized models from other producers, but ours come with important features you won’t find on even the highest-priced offerings from our competitors—features that consume a little extra energy. So, even though you’ll pay more to sustain your Chimera, our unique features mean the cost-benefit of the higher outlay for food is actually quite favorable.”
“Take, for instance, the fact that all Chimeras—and only Chimeras—are universal feeders, while insect transports from other companies can safely consume only the proprietary forage those companies sell, and only at feeding stations they maintain. However, the digestive tracts of our models secrete such a wide array of enzymes, they can eat whatever’s available, at any station, regardless of which outfit runs it. So, the cost of the additional food balances out nicely against the emotional comfort that comes from knowing you’ll never encounter any commercial barriers to keeping your vehicle fed.”
“And, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the number of feeding stations of every kind is growing. In no time at all, they’ll be everywhere. In the cities, derelict parking garages and even some of the tall buildings that have become untenanted over the years have been repurposed into multilevel feeders. And, out in the countryside, parts of the medians between opposite-bound lanes of the old motorways are being converted into feeding facilities that will stretch for miles.”
“It is exciting. But that’s not even the best part. Chimera’s have features so far ahead of the rest, it sometimes staggers the imagination—features that I find frankly…astonishing. Hard to believe, I know, but let me…oh sorry, I see you have another question.”
“Yes, our insects are hybrids. All insect vehicles are. Ours, however, stand apart because we’ve developed techniques for integrating genetic elements from species outside Class Insecta—sometimes far outside. And we’re committed to using what nature provides, whenever possible, because gene sequences produced by the rigors of natural selection guarantee a more reliable outcome than coding from scratch. If, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, then the natural demands of the environment itself have proved to be the best source of that necessity.”
“What kinds of non-insect gene sequences? Well, just as a for-instance, on all of our models the wings and the exoskeleton have been impregnated with the most efficient photosynthetic mechanisms we could identify in the plant kingdom. That means every second of exposure to sunlight is producing usable energy, in addition to what it gets from its food. On top of that, our engineers have adapted and incorporated elements from the genome of the electric eel, so that not only can these babies suck up the sunshine, they can also store it in battery-like organs situated near the wing roots. Whether your vehicle is grazing at a feed station or it’s in full flight during daylight hours, it’ll also be packing away the photons. With a Chimera, range anxiety is simply a thing of the past.”
“I see you’ve got your eye on that Elytra Deluxe in the front of the showroom. An excellent choice. The basic body is a variation on the theme of the scarab beetle, wing structures are part roach and part dragonfly, and the passenger and storage compartments are derived from the rhinoceros beetle.”
“Flight safety? No worries, there. Sudden altitude loss is physically impossible with a Chimera. You see, the wingspan is great enough that, in the incredibly unlikely event your insect should ever run low on juice while you’re airborne, its overall positive dynamic stability will allow you to ride the thermals, glider-style, until you can land back on Mother Earth, just as soft as a down feather floating on a spring breeze.”
“Unexpected wing retraction? We’ve all heard the stories about how that’s led to some fatalities, and those stories are true, but that’s never been a problem with Chimeras. Once in glide mode, you can lock the wings at full extension without damage or discomfort to the creature, and that puts the descent trajectory entirely under the control of you, the operator.”
“Acceleration? Now, we’re talking the fun stuff. As I’m sure you’re aware, insect wing muscle has the fastest contraction-relaxation-recontraction cycle of any creature on the planet. How else could some insects flap their wings in excess of five hundred times a second?”
“But keep in mind that we’re dealing with living creatures, so no two will be exactly alike. That means the wing-beat specs are only warranted to be within a range, not a precise number. But, my point is, at the superior cycle speeds ours deliver, you can hover, you can sidle forward and backward, left and right, just like a bumblebee, and you get straight-ahead acceleration that’ll make your friends who operate inferior products absolutely weep with envy.”
“And it’s not just beats-per that give these models their get-up-and-go. Wing tilt figures in, too. Think in terms of the rotor tilt of a helicopter. On these models over here, for example, the wing tilt gives you the most aggressive angle of attack these long, lacy beauties can handle. In fact, that Sephareus II you’ve got your hand on has repeatedly taken top honors for the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any vehicle in its class.”
“But there’s more to our vehicles than acceleration, so please don’t think that we’ve focused on speed at the expense of passenger comfort. Our chitin engineers have coaxed some mighty clever and accommodating shapes out of the exoskeleton, especially in the area just rearward of the head carapace, where seating and cargo storage are situated. I’m proud to say that every Chimera is top drawer, in terms of rider comfort.”
“Yes, the chitin of an insect’s exoskeleton is an amazing substance, isn’t it? Nature’s plastic, yet infinitely biodegradable. As a matter of fact, our entomologists are busy developing non-motile, zero-sentience insect-derived organisms that can make and molt chitin in shapes and colors that meet just about any need and function you can think of—drinking cups, window panes, dinner plates, eyeglass frames. You name it, and it won’t be long before we’ll be making it.
“And, it may interest you to know that this entire line of thinking sprang from the imagination of Dr. Delia Marlo, the visionary inventor of insect transport and the founder of Chimera. See this illustration on the wall, over here. An enlargement of the common rhinoceros beetle, with that long, perfectly proportioned horn rising up from its forehead. Believe it or not, this creature was the original inspiration for Dr. Marlo’s groundbreaking ideas. She reasoned that if a rhino beetle’s natural DNA could cause it to generate a chitin structure shaped like a horn, then that sequence should be modifiable to produce any shape you could dream up, and that it would also be possible to reconfigure the genome to allow the insect to grow quite large—big enough to function as a vehicle for moving people and cargo.
“As a result, on our models, the passenger and storage compartments are not the cheap, bolt-on variety you get with our competitors. They’re part of the bug itself. Oh, sorry. I’m not supposed to use the b-word. They’re part of the insect itself. To you and me, it looks like the inside of most any vehicle, with seating for the riders, a console, dashboard, and so on. But, to the insect, it’s part of the exoskeleton it produces. And we can code the insect to produce these compartments with plenty of cargo room and seating for up to six passengers.”
“Unfortunately, no. The chromosomes on an existing vehicle can’t be amended to increase seating capacity. But we know that families do grow, so we have a generous trade-in plan to help you meet your future transportation needs. And the market for previously owned insects is very robust. No one has any trouble making a trade.”
“Still worried about the price? Perfectly understandable. That sticker price can look like a big number. However, total cost of ownership is what’s really important, and that’s where Chimera gets really competitive, because ours are bred to last years longer than other brands, so cost per year works out to be about the same. Plus, our unique safety features mean your insurance rates will be quite low. And, the strengthened immune and self-healing responses will automatically and organically correct most problems, so your maintenance and repair costs will be close to zero. And once the insect has reached the end of its useful life, you can drop it off at any of our reclamation depots and we’ll let it graze out its remaining time and then let Mother Nature take it down to the basics. And those basic substances will be used to replenish the nutrient profile of our growing fleet of feeding stations, which translates into another reduction in the total cost of ownership because we’ll actually pay you the market value of those chemicals . . . either in cash or as a credit toward your next Chimera purchase.”
“The controls? An excellent question. And one that Dr. Marlo has answered in a very clever way. Other vehicle growers install artificial electrical controls. They’re less expensive, and sure, they work well enough, but they’re not an intrinsic feature of the insect, so they have to be separately powered and maintained. This means they’re subject to the same defects and problems—and associated costs—as any human-made contrivance. But because ours are part and parcel of the insect itself, they are maintained by the metabolic processes of the creature and they exert influence directly through the insect’s nervous system. For example, these knobs you see on the dashboard, they’re nothing more than genetically engineered modifications of the insect’s antennae, only instead of two, this model’s got four. Gentle directional pressure on the knobs is all that’s necessary to operate the vehicle, without any of the shocks and prods our competitors’ artificial control systems inflict.”
“Of course. Depending on your needs, we can code for up to eight different control modalities, although for non-commercial use, four is really all that are necessary—take-off and landing, as well as directional and speed control. The wing-lock lever, right here, is purely mechanical and it’s the only non-intrinsic add-on. It’s intentionally designed as an independent system, as a fail-safe against sudden altitude loss.”
“Night flight? Absolutely. Another area in which Chimera leads the industry. Our engineers have incorporated the gene sequences responsible for the luminescence you see in a firefly—modified to produce steady, high-intensity illumination for navigation lights, fore and aft, all sealed behind lenses derived from the compound eye ommatidia of the arctic krill.”
“Sea sickness? Still a problem, but only with other brands. The nausea associated with ground travel has been virtually eliminated in our models by adding extra legs. With only the six legs that nature gives insects, you get a lot of pitch and roll when it’s walking, but with eight on each side, the vehicle’s gait is almost as smooth as wheels.”
“I’m sorry, what was that? Respiration? A bit more complicated, but I can see you enjoy the science behind the technology. As you probably know, insects are air breathers, just like we are, and, at their natural size, they’re small enough that the passive absorption of oxygen through the spiracles is sufficient to serve the creature’s needs by simple diffusion. Wow, that’s a mouthful, isn’t it? Anyway, once the insect grows to vehicle-sized proportions, passive diffusion is no longer sufficient. Especially when the vehicle is carrying passengers or cargo. So, in another stroke of genius, Dr. Marlo developed a way to harness the movement of the vehicle to vastly improve oxygen saturation.
“See that row of forward-facing trumpet-shaped chitin structures on the underside of the abdominal segment? Intake ports for the ram air system. During flight, when O2 demands are greatest, the forward motion of the insect forces air, at pressure, into those openings, and into the tissue, so the insect stays fully oxygenated.”
“Reproduction? Hah. I get asked that a lot, but no insect transport sold to the general public, by any manufacturer, can produce offspring. Regulations limit that function to licensed breeders. And that’s a good thing, because the regular buyer doesn’t have the equipment or expertise to perform the necessary quality control to keep dangerous units out of the skies.”
“No more questions? Well, insects are some of the most adaptable, oldest, and most enduring varieties of animal on the earth, which is why we like to say that Chimera Mobility lets you ride the best of past into the best of the future. So, how about it? Shall we go for a test flight?”
~
Roger Johns is a former corporate lawyer and a retired college professor. He is the author of Dark River Rising and River of Secrets, from St. Martin’s Press, the 2018 Georgia Author of the Year (Detective·Mystery Category), and a two-time finalist for Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion Award. His short fiction has been published by, among others, Saturday Evening Post, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Beacon Books, JOURN-E: The Journal of Imaginative Literature, and After Dinner Conversation: The Philosophy & Ethics Short Story Magazine. With a writing partner, he coauthors the book promotion and writing-career management column “If You Only Have An Hour” for Page Turner, the quarterly online magazine from the Georgia Writers Museum and the Atlanta Writers Club. You can visit him at rogerjohnsbooks.com.