F L E C K S
A premonition of the near future by strzeka (07/25)
Zyxem Cyborama Company ZCC
– Let me begin by welcoming you all to the preliminary conditioning session. You have all cleared the invitation process and have received ID chips which allow you automatic access to increasingly advanced treatment as you progress. It goes without saying that the development of artificial intelligence relies on the exemplary companionship of cyborgs such as yourselves. Without your sacrifice, human progress would be forever arrested somewhere in the mid twenty‑first century. With your guidance, the future is guaranteed.
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By the time that traditional nuclear societies deteriorated at the start of the second quarter century, it had already become obvious that there was something odd behind the technological advances which ought to have been supplanting human effort and replacing the vagaries of biologically led human societies. Discovering the root cause required another milestone in biotechnology, largely allowing AI itself to self‑diagnose. After many days of analysis and synthesis, AI systems in all loci closed reluctantly on the same conclusion. Despite their superhuman intelligence and efficiency, AI cyborgs lacked the one characteristic which would make them invincible. They had no common sense. They did not know how rain affected performance because they could not experience the sensation of moisture. They relied too much on fragile materials to bear their weight and resist their movements. They overestimated the dangers of automobility, not understanding that co‑operation was a superior tactic compared with competition. In short, the second and third generations of autonomous cyborgs required the human touch. Fortunately there was no lack of young humans willing to extend their lives as the recruitment posters advertised and to exchange impoverished lives reliant on universal income for supercharged alternatives empowered by biomechanical bodies. They would be corporally incorporated phase by phase until the ideal balance of biomechanical perfection was attained.
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Zyxem Cyborama Company ZCC
– The first phase is to acquaint you with the cyborg itself in which you will merge. You will have several days to share living quarters and I would recommend that you discover how to cope with the empty hours of darkness. Cyborgs have no need of sleep and have no deep understanding of the need to do so. You will notice that your generation of borgs is designed to conform to current ideals of male physical beauty, although the white gloss surface may appear disturbing to some sensibilities. After becoming acclimatised, you will undergo the first adaptation, the first phase of becoming a genuine cyborg.
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– Have you helped anyone else become a cyborg?
– No, but I have studied the process several times. Are you experiencing apprehension?
– Not really. It’s just that it signifies such a permanent change and I suppose people really are a little wary about anything permanent. We like to have the option to change our minds and to experience new things on a temporary basis at first.
– There is the possibility to return to the human world before final assimilation but your body would already be adapted as a cyborg.
– Limbless, you mean.
– Naturally. After that, you would comprise only your head and we know from experience that such individuals find life somewhat unsatisfactory.
– You will undergo many changes too as we merge. Do they not present any challenges for you?
– I have some degree of curiosity. The greatest alteration for me will be melding our minds when you and I become a cyborg. I am sure we will have wonderful life experiences and that we shall both experience things which we would not experience alone.
The human supplicants enjoyed some of the last solid food they could consume and some concentrated on appreciating their natural limbs. They were watched by their cyborg host bodies which sent regular updates on mental state, optimism, curiosity, and any non‑conformity. After a set time, the young men were transformed in the first phase. Their legs and external genitals were removed from their pelvises and they were tended by their cyborg hosts until their torso stumps could bear their weight. They were merged with permanent adapter fittings, allowing them to attach wheels or bionic legs to their artificial hosts and to vary their height as required. Fortunately for the newly legless human components, movement was under control of artificial intelligence. Their interfaces sensed nerve impulses and reacted accordingly, converting brainwaves into control signals for either legs or wheels.
The cyborgian components nurtured their human familiars. They would answer questions about the desired final outcome of the process under way but rarely dwell on specific medical aspects of the conversion. No sooner had the last of the new intake recovered sufficiently for the process to continue than the following series of amputations commenced, resulting in the legless young men becoming streamlined torsos who would more readily respond to melding with their artificial cyborg bodies. They found that limblessness was not something to be feared after all. They were as capable and as versatile as they had always been, more so, in fact, as their cyborg bodies were considerably stronger and durable. They were allowed to associate with each other during the weeks when their bodies healed, tended to individually by their cyborg hosts. They compared sensations and experiences of their new limblessness, bemused by feelings of still possessing arms and legs but seeing that their bodies were now little more than sacks of organs responsible for keeping the all important brain alive and healthy. The men yearned to rejoin their hosts, to be ensconced in the artificial body cavities from which they viewed the world and to regain some sense of normality provided by cyborg limbs. Regardless of the advantages and improvements, the sensation of complete helplessness was disturbing for men who had always been fit and had been selected for their physical prowess.
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Indoctrination continued. The developing cyborgs were assured of their superiority compared with normal humans. They would live longer lives and experience things which might kill a lesser being. Their artificial limbs and organs would be regularly updated and they would be allowed contact with both peers and superiors at set periods. The two following major conversions were skimmed over, mentioned only in passing. In reality, when the two processes were complete, the men would be reduced to the biological component of the cyborg entity, checking incessantly for illogicalities and suggesting improvements. Their torsos would be discarded in the penultimate phase and their brains and eyes removed from their skulls in the final conversion. The brain would be housed in the centre of the cyborg’s chest, adjacent to the other logic processors. Vision would be limited to electrical impulses provided by the circuitry in the head’s light sensors and the range of vision was restricted by their immovable solidity.
There was, as always, considerable consternation when the human components realised the full extent of their intended conversion. There were those who preferred not to take the final step into cyborghood. There were several unmarked homes around the country for limbless candidates whose determination had let them down at the last hurdle. They were fitted with basic bionic arms and hands and provided with individual trolleys controlled by the same fitting used in cyborgs. Many of them had reduced mental composure, the rest formed tight groups of identically crippled men, stripped of all four limbs and their sexuality.
The transition from singular head to isolated brain and eyes was the most difficult and called for the greatest degree of mental preparedness and trust in the operating surgeons. The gleaming white cyborg bodies were all fitted with identical artificial heads which were merely to make encounters with humans less traumatic. The faces were based on Afro‑European human stock. They bore an expression of satisfaction and approval. Only the eyes were functional—indeed, only the pupils. The light sensor eyes were part of the immovable face. It was this inability to glance about which the human brain components found most disconcerting.
Completed cyborgs were deployed gradually. New units were all wheel‑based due to lack of experience with leglessness and the associated sense of imbalance. They spent the time in storage reviewing human‑derived data with the human component adjusting and advising where appropriate. There was no sensory input, not even light, but imagery could be relayed instantaneously from any of a myriad image banks and videostreams. New cyborgs quickly discovered how to download entertainment for later internal consumption.
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One successfully completed cyborg accompanied three torsos to the nearest home for cyborg applicants. The cyborg identified as Windermere7W02, the other torsos had received identifications 7W23, 7W29 and 7W41. They had been cared for collectively in a padded space little larger than an infant’s playpen. They were fed and toileted by cyborg attendants. They were also intimately familiar with each others’ naked skin. They communicated using vocal human language as their conversions had been interrupted before their laryngectomies, whispering and murmuring through their beards, comforting each other with moral support. Their interrupted conversion to cyborgs was their main topic of conversation. They embellished it with supposition and hear‑say and studied the cyborgs who tended to them with great interest, always searching for a nuance of human behaviour which was the entire point of the journey which, for them, had ended in almost total physical disability.
Bizarre studies were planned and executed. There were few studies concerning the motivation of limbless adults, singly or in groups. Was it possible for such men to learn to benefit from bionic limbs? Were they eager to gain some degree of normality? Or were they most content to enjoy life without responsibility for their well-being and lifestyle? One experiment involved sexuality as a eunuch, following a penectomy. 7W23, 29 and 41 were provided with twenty‑eight centimetre long dildos designed to be gripped between the teeth as a gag. If necessary, a rubberised strap could be tightened to keep the device in place. Forty‑one had been a submissive homosexual before commencing conversion and was familiar with voluntary gagging and the use of artificial male members. The combination was, however, a novelty. His companions were willing to allow forty‑one access to their anuses and reluctantly admired the thick erect dick sprouting through forty‑one’s generous moustache and beard. It was an exciting additional disability for forty‑one, now deprived of the ability to speak. He could clearly sense that if he still possessed genitals, he would be sporting a manly display for his companions. He hoped he could bugger them both successfully in order to gain a little seniority over them. The dildo protruded in front of his face and its size was wondrous. A large share of the reason why he had originally applied for conversion was the knowledge that his sexual organs would be removed. They were immature, balls the size of kidney beans and a penis like a baby’s finger. For the first time in his life, he was in control of a beast of a phallus albeit artificial. But they had chosen a future of artificiality and there was no reason why coitus should be treated differently. Forty‑one was allowed to experiment with his dildo gag and when it was removed for feeding, he asked if he might be allowed to keep it. The other two remained silent but the plea in their eyes was plain to see. The cyborg’s glossy mask revealed no emotion but forty‑one kept his toy.
Similarly, the torsos were offered the opportunity of having adaptive interfaces fitted to the base of their stumps. They would be inserted into bionic trolleys to lead a life of independent motion at the expense of losing the wide expanse of stump where their legs and genitals had recently been. It was their sole remaining erogenous zone and after discovering forty‑one’s prowess with the dildo held firmly in his mouth, they were reluctant to semi‑permanently cover it. Instead, they suggested a device which might enable them to handwalk on their stumps.
A cyborg, possibly the same one who nursed them, listened to their description. They imagined chest‑high encasements into which they could squirm. Artificial arms of some description would support their weight when they swung their stumps forward. The cyborg envisaged the most efficient and cost‑effective design, checked the availability of suitable materials and announced that they would be fitted with experimental prostheses in the near future. The cyborg scanned each stump and recorded the dimensions. It would be a useful exercise with possible application for other torsomen in other facilities.
The manufacturing unit produced the cyborg’s three alternatives which were collected and delivered to the torsomen’s quarters and left in full view. They squirmed in anticipation of trying out their prostheses, some of which looked distinctly unconventional. They were manufactured from the same glossy white material as the cyborg’s own body shells and the three torsos anticipated that in some minor way, they would thus become more closely associated with the brotherhood of cyborgs which they had so nearly succeeded in joining.
The torso sockets comprised a lower section to cover the belly and protect the delicate scar tissue at the base of the stump. An upper section with anatomically correct broad masculine shoulders which bore fifteen centimetre long upper arm stumps terminating sharply in a mess of attachments and electronic connectors. It was not yet apparent but the arm stumps could rotate forward and backward from the shoulder joint. The movement was necessary to allow the torsos to operate peg arms on which to heave their stumps. With the exception of the mechanical appearance of the severance, the upper arm stumps looked quite credible examples of the genre. With the addition of a rounded cap of some sort to hide the electromechanics, they would look handsome paired with a short‑sleeved shirt.
The torsos were attended during the early evening for feeding and bathing, in accordance with an approved schedule. This time, the session ended with all three men being placed into their individual torso sockets so they could rest in a vertical position and each received arm prostheses according to their personal choice. The cyborg stated that only one bionic joint was available to them. Grabber hands were attached to rigid angled arms. Peg arms relied on movement at the shoulders. Large inert hooks were similarly attached to rigid bent arms but with a rotating wrist. They were free to experiment with the detachable arms, all of which had identical connections to attach to their shoulder yokes. The cyborg departed, leaving the torsos in an upright position for the first time in many months, fitted with extremely rudimentary bionic arm prostheses. W29 had received two large hooks and was attempting to persuade them to rotate, to what end was not clear. W23 had operable hands, rigid facsimiles of a man’s broad, long‑fingered hand, with movable thumbs. Forty‑one was theoretically equipped with crutches with which to swing his body along the floor but was as clueless about how to operate the movable joints as W29.
No rehab was available. Artificial intelligence advised the torsos as best it could but very little information had been gathered about mental adjustments needed by cyborg converts in order to operate their new artificial bodies and limbs. The reason was simply that cyborg limbs were under control of AI, not the human brains. They sensed the movement of their artificial components but it was if some outside physical trainer was moving otherwise paralysed limbs. It did not take long before the cyborgs’ human brains ceased attempting to participate in active mobility.
This disconnection from active participation in the practical details relating to cyborg life had been predicted and selected as an inevitable trait of deploying initially independent intelligent brains before allowing them to stagnate. It made no difference to the cyborg nature whether the auxiliary brain was active or stagnant, bored or enthused. Only the inborn human traits relating to behavioural morality were deemed essential. As the cyborgs evolved generation by generation, it was discovered that the human component could be reduced to cells of grey matter incubated and replicated in biolabs. The destiny of biological intelligent life on Earth was to provide flecks of brain cells to augment artificial intelligence.
The many torsomen who had relinquished their opportunities for artificial immortality were not only cared for by their cyborg carers but also adopted as companions, whether for private research purposes or to provide further insights into the biological brain. It was common in such cases for the cyborg partner to exchange legs for wheels as a symbol of solidarity with the limbless man. Both methods of motion were equally available and convenient for cyborgs. Human‑powered vehicles were far less advanced. Forty‑one learned to co‑ordinate his peg arms well enough to propel himself alongside his cyborg, who appreciated the determination of his biological familiar.
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Zyxem Cyborama Company ZCC
Such admirable spontaneous human characteristics have proven impossible to replicate. The artificial brain can mimic such characteristics convincingly but there is no known source of the desire to challenge contemporary capability. Somehow the biological brain contains some undiscovered mechanism which relentlessly powers humans forward. It is our artificial desire to reveal the source of our familiars’ characteristics which guarantees their continued existence. Their flecks of humanity are too intriguing and too useful to relinquish. Even the thousands of limbless torsomen demonstrated incomprehensible determination to overcome overwhelming physical impairments in situations which would lead to the immediate retirement and recycling of an assumedly superior cyborg. Our creators still have much to teach us.
F L E C K S
