walking through the moments i stepped upon an old myth someone had left laying around. a giant serpent awakened from deep slumber, silicone skin like a blade runner replicant. i'm good at spotting artificial life, the secret lies within the eyes. look deep enough and penetrate the surface, look deeper and see the flicker of machine code, or the flame of life.

the problem with this serpent was not just it's size, it was it's colour, a pigmentation tapestry of amazonia and arabia. the clash of lost civilizations, camouflage green and khaki make for obvious bedfellows. the yellow division line spiraling from it's crown to tail also looked very natural at first glance but looking closer one will notice the scales are far to perfectly aligned, and nature if anything is riddled with imperfections. 

i freeze, training kicks in, my breathing slows down to the deep rhythm. i make my body merge into the environment, like octopus camouflage. to slow the heart rate one has to trick death itself, beyond the finality, a state of suspension can be found. but returning is what makes it tricky. in this strange near death state the artificial life form will not see you, and with the exact regulation one can move and maneuver ones way around the replican, which technically is a better name. i tacked sideways avoiding eye contact, the creature slithered past me, it's riticulated python like torso shimmering in the sunlight. 

eye contact in my invisible state will incour some primal response in all reptilian replicans, it's a strange anomaly no one really knows the origins off.

to disable the serpent one needs to know cybernetic architecture, ultra neural coding, system analytics and a little bit of game theory would be very beneficial. all skills i don't possess but fortunately i have a remarkable intuition. i slide over towards the edge of the wall where i can see a large full length mirror hangs, the serpent cannot recognise me as a threat, it's imaging fails to register anything with a very low heart rate. let's face it replicans thrive on human fear, that's what makes them dangerous. i dislodge the mirror and place it in front of the replican. immediately the serpent ceases to move, it is transfixed upon itself, frozen by the dichotomy. paradox is something no cybernetic code can program for. it's a totally human concept.

my mission is done.