The eggheads are all in another room; they all took poison and died.

I dunno why they did that. We was all gonna die anyway, and they said there was gonna be no pain. Don't ask me about eggheads, though. They never made no sense to me, anyway.

I was an Echelon One Tech. I fixed the stuff that the eggheads made when they actually made sumthing useful.

Like the Love Dolls. Now those were useful!

Anyway, with all the eggheads dead, I guess I'm the last man in the universe.

But that aint gonna last long anyhow.

A billion or a trillion years ago, some time before I was born, the universe started shrinking. Contracting, the brainiacs said.

A coupla million years ago, still before I was born, we built a ship to ride out the Single Tary. The eggheads always argued about whether it would work or not. Half the eggheads said that gravity would squish us before we actually got to the Single Tary, and the other half said that we would pop out in a new universe.

They called the ship the "Cosmic Arc", and loaded up all the people it would hold, and started towards the center of the universe and the Single Tary. I thought the Single Tary was what they were calling the big black hole at the center, but the poindextors just scowled at me when I asked.

When they get all nose-in-the-air with me, I just remind them that they were the ones that bottled me with a lower IQ. I didn't mess around with THEIR DNA. I also remind them they were the ones that lost all the women. A hunnert thousands years ago, still way before I was born, the eggheads built another ship and put the women on that one. They also put all the Echelon Tech guys and the Marines on that other ship. The eggheads say the ship blew up, but I get the feeling that those guys just ran off with all the women. The brainiacs SAY they had a great social theory about splitting off the women, but they all clam up and look stupid when I ask what. There is some egghead leader that died a long time ago called Con Says Us. Con Says Us is the one that cooked up the social theory that lost all the women. The eggheads get all pissed off when some brings up his name. I bet they killed him after that fiasco.

Anyway, the eggheads testubed up some Echelon One Techs. We die off of old age, and they uncork a few of us, if they need something fixed. I am the only one alive right now as we zoom in on the Single Tary. Should be there in a few days, even. I'm not lonely with all the eggheads dead (even though I'll have to dump them out the airlock before they start stinking). They left me with all the Love Dolls.

The Love Dolls are testtube jobs like us Echelon One Techs, but the eggheads say they left out the annoying gene and the shrew gene when they cooked them up. I get a headache when I read the science books, but I still haven't seen an annoying gene or a shrew gene mentioned. They sure are nice to be with, and nothing like the women I watch on the optoshows from old times.

The eggheads did do two things right. The Love Dolls, and the whiskey still.

I'll think I'll just enjoy the ride while it lasts.

The End

Pic courtesy of NASA

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