“There’s nothing to do, and no reason to do it.” She sighed, and made a slight gesture with two fingers of her right hand, little more than a twitch of the wrist. Flat sunlight washed the broad floor before her, mots skittering in the static beams. A pale blue sky pressed down on miles of rolling, grass-covered hills beyond her balcony. She settled back into her overstuffed chair. Two ladies in waiting, hands folded inside enormous sleeves, exchanged masked glances.
A thousand miles away, a camshaft rotated 20 degrees, lifting a valve. Icy black water, as salty as blood, under the pressure of 20,000 feet of ocean, quickly filled a cylinder. The added weight pulled it down. At the other end of a rocker arm, its twin rose.
A gate, invisible in the darkness, slowly opened. Out swam Creature. It swelled and thinned, as if taking a deep breath, and undulated upward.
“Program in unpredictability.” Right. As a Technician Superior, he was allowed some leeway in his thoughts, but must still remain cautious. Best not tempt Her Ladyship. Yes, he thought, I can make it very, very hard to predict. Very hard. Nonetheless, with enough processing power and time, probabilistic predictability, at the very least, prevails. Whatever has happened, was caused. Whatever will happen, will be caused.
There are, however, some – anomalies. In the deepest recess of his mind, the tiny thought swirled into being and evanesced even as it did so: I am an anomaly.
The Technician Superior modified the Scenario. He dared not think how.
Creature devoured a large wooden fishing boat near the coast. It opened its massive jaws, and in a moment silenced the screams of 50 fishermen. Foam and eddies marked the spot, and soon vanished. The villagers on the shore hid the best they could.
The two ladies in waiting wore mental facades as artificial as their porcelain masks. Her Ladyship could, if she wished, lay their minds bare, and punish them in a way that would make them envy the dead. The surfaces of their minds, therefore, were kept as calm and expressionless as the bone white of their ‘faces.’
Creature came ashore. The stretch of coastline was mostly uninhabited. Casualties were light. The villages destroyed would be rebuilt again.
Her Ladyship viewed the scene from her balcony, and gave her head a slight shake. “Lacks drama,” she sighed. “Someone should stand and fight – it’s a better look.” She turned, passed between her ladies in waiting, and resumed her seat.
Creature slithered across the landscape. Its course ran through open countryside; it encountered no doomed heros to devour, no churches or halls to destroy.
The Technician Superior, in a whispered corner of his mind, prepared to die. He did not dare wish it would be quick. The ladies in waiting did likewise, but for different reasons.
Creature approached the balcony. Its claws gripped the ballestrade, and pulled it loose. Its head rose to look inside.
The ladies in waiting finally surrendered to terror, screamed, yet remained at their lady’s side. Even in terror, they knew the punishment for fleeing was far worse than merely being eaten alive. They had been trained. They were part of the Scenario.
Creature turned it massive head sideways, the better to snap up an upright woman, and lunged across the wide stone floor toward the handmaid on the Lady’s left hand side, its head scraping the vaulted ceiling.
Rockets roared and metal clanged. A white-hot rod suddenly pinned creatures head to the floor. Pierced through the brain, its massive body, trailing off the balcony, twitched. A giant in power armour landed beside Creature, and dropped to one knee and bowed before Her Ladyship.
She was not happy. “You’re not supposed to save her,” she gestured toward the handmaid to her left. She shook her head. “This was not – satisfying.” Her Ladyship’s thoughts wandered back to her youth, when, upon being saved, a thrill like electricity had passed through her body and desire for her knight had filled her with passion. That had not happened in many years, although she had gone through the motions with any number of knights, until they had disappointed her and been disposed of.
“Evidently,” she spoke to no one, “We need a new Knight. And a new Technician Superior.” She looked up at the knight, who still knelt before her. “Well? Go.” She waved him away. “Await your fate.” She opened her palms to the ceiling and rolled her eyes. “You have killed the monster.”
The knight’s visor opened, his hand gripped another tungsten rod, and he looked up at her. “Not yet.”
Yard Sale of the Mind 
Very nice!
Thanks!