[UA] My Ford Has Herpes (was Metal Eaters)

[Greg Stolze]

Another version of this -- riffing off the mating car shells -- is the idea
of a mechanomantic virus.  Dig it: It needs a host organism -- specifically
(say) a Ford pickup truck.  Can't do Hondas, can't do sedans, only Ford
pickups.  An infected pickup can turn itself on and drive around, but not
often and not well.  If it sees another Ford pickup, though, it'll try to
ram it good and hard -- hard enough that the virus device (which lives
under the front bumper) can insert half of itself into the "clean" truck.
Once it's in, it hides while the truck's being fixed, stealing bits of
metal and tools here and there to rebuild itself.  Once the truck is fixed,
the virus has recovered, and can infiltrate the system fully.  At the same
time, the old, "donor" truck is getting the same treatment.  If an infested
truck is junked, the virus dies -- no host to use -- and a lot of times it
gets destroyed in the impact, or the torn-off "blastocyst" half dies on
insertion.  But it works often enough that there are a number of infected
Fords around one particular city.

Just an idea, but what do y'all think?

-G.

"Anyway, after that, I became known around the campus as 'the D&D guy,' which
made me the de facto expert on the occult.  I really didn't know that much,
so I got a subscription to Time/Lifes Mysteries of the Unknown series, to
bone up."
		-Tim Toner



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