It all seemed like a great idea when I was young. You know the story. Our whole futures were laid out in an endless stream of adventure and why wouldn't we? Back then, it was the dawn of a new era and we were the bleeding edge of human evolution. Or so we thought. Unlike my friends, I started small. I was a cautious adopter of new tech. I mean, you always heard the horror stories of procedures gone horrifyingly wrong. So far south, the patient was barely recognisable as themselves afterwards. Cautionary tales that I heeded just enough to not leap into the deep end of the pool. What harm could it be to do the legs?

In the old times, back in the days of our tūpuna, our ancestors, this was how people got hooked into covering their entire bodies with tattoos. Start small and get sucked into the vortex of your own needs. You know what I'm getting at. First, it was the legs. When I had saved enough funds, the arms were next to be done. But then, I looked like an abomination with a meat body and cybernetic limbs. You can guess what went next as soon as the exorbitant fees were available. I mean, what young person doesn't need an armour-reinforced torso exoskeleton? It all seemed so logical.

Despite the extra strength and endurance, the cardio-vascular system was finding it hard to keep up. It's a slippery slope that is slick with the oil of our own folly. I'm sure you can relate to that in some way. Or maybe you were smart enough to play this all differently. Maybe you heeded the cautionary tales of walking hybrids with mere shadows of their former selves living in hi-tech shells. If you could call it “living”.

Once you have had the outside changed and altered, the innards are a small step. The heart, lungs and everything else went. I kept the digestive tract, though. Sue me. I like eating.

The ultimate was altering the brain with implants, capable of doing everything you could imagine. Communication that was like telepathy, multi-spectral vision (an awesome party trick with fleshy friends), and more. I was the edge of the mergence of human and machine. Hell, even the bots could not keep up with what we were doing; what we were becoming. Funny, now that I think of it. It was the bots who were making us what we were. There were no human surgeons involved.

I was living the dream. At about eighty percent converted, I was employable both on Terra and off-world. I had the pick of contracts. Total upgrade plans in place and I lacked for nothing. If I needed a new skill? Download the sucker, spend a few days enhancing the “muscle memory”, (not that I had muscles left), and get to using it. I learned the zitar in six days for a lark.

Tomorrow is my one hundred and forty-fifth birthday. I am not angry or even annoyed. Nowadays, the glitches and failures, the need to rebooted different systems inside me, are just a part of life. Most of them function alright, even if they are buggy. The companies that installed them are no more.

I can imagine some technological confessional: “Forgive me, Technician, for I have been silly. It has been fifteen years since my last update.”

You might conclude that I am a sad, old cyborg just waiting for the big switch to permanently flick to “off”. You couldn't be more wrong. I have no regrets. Like some old sod said centuries ago, it isn't what you did that you regret, it's what you never tried.

I may be an ugly museum piece these days, but I still don't need a costume to scare the kids at Halloween. Silver linings, people.

#SciFi #Cyberpunk #ShortStory

The Overlords brought with them their magic and their fury. Inhuman machines gifted human souls reaped their blood-soaked vengeance on a planet that had committed no sin against them. Least of all had the Physician Darrald Luken.

The Sulphur Plague claimed his wife and four children in a matter of days. Just as he had buried one, another was claimed by the alien gods that the Overlords served. It was widely considered that something broke in the man. Some would say that even his soul had been rent in two.

Unit 7-X5 advanced down the shattered street of Alterland like it owned the place. Its entire body was encased in combat-mech, which it considered unnecessary on this squalid, little planet. Its blue eyes scanned the urban nightmare through arrays of visual sensors as well as direct vision through the mech's helm. In its brass-coloured right hand, it wielded an ion battle axe.

The sun fitfully glowed through the darkened clouds of smoke and ash that hung over the pulverised remnants. Even though the Overlords' ships had hammered the city, there had still been reports of native activity. What perplex 7-X5 was the reported appearance of these natives as that of a long extinct race from its own homeworld.

7-X5 continued its unrelenting advance, kicking any debris out of its way. On the scanners, still nothing. It was getting fed up with these useless patrols through barren wastes. This was not what it had signed up for. It pushed on, nonetheless. It began to wind up its Viper canon, a wicked extension of its left arm. If it had to be out here, it was going to entertain itself.

A harsh explosion sounded as the Viper's energy pulse ripped through an old stone building that had somehow remained after the bombardment. The stones near the impact point melted. Other stones were thrown away by the heat energy that tore them from their neighbours. Ruined walls scattered across the street and block, hissing with power and heat. 7-X5 looked up at the new plumes of smoke with relish as it started to search for a new practice target.

The scanners went haywire as they flashed out in a searing jab and blast of white light. For a second or so, 7-X5 was blinded as it struggled to regain visuals. The unthinkable happened. Damage monitors began to report that the mech was sustaining negative impacts. 7-X5 unleashed the Viper in a sweeping arch of two hundren and seventy-five degrees. There were no responses or screams from outside.

The world began to emerge from the blinding whiteness in vague shadows. Abruptly, the world was at right angles to 7-X5's orientation. It realised that it was on its back in the middle of the street. The reports of negative impacts continued to come in. It peered down at its feet to see two metallic jaws clamped onto its ankles. Somehow, a few teeth had found a crack through which to penetrate. Shaking them off would be impossible.

The Viper opened up and a vague shadow turned into something like dust. There was no scream. It tried to bring the canon to bear on another shadow. The canon, and 7-X5's left arm, sailed over its body to land on its right. A leather-clad foot jammed down on its right wrist as a blade slammed through the wrist, pinning it.

“Kalibrium is a bitch, huh?”, a voice said from behind a mask that reminded the Overlord of birds on its own world.

“You will pay for this, na...”, the Overlord began.

Another blade swept in and cut the sentence short, along with 7-X5's life. The two shadows stepped away from the corpse of the unholy thing on the ground and, with no word, went their separate ways.

Darrald Luken wound his way to one of the few places left intact in the entire city. The cemetery. He walked through the graves of those gone, ancient and so many from more recent times. He eventually stopped at the foot of the only grave that mattered to him. Some might had said they heard weeping.

“In your memory.”, Darrald choked as he placed a bright blue orb on the gravestone.

The heart and soul of an Overlord was a worthy offering to the dead.

© 2023, Bryan Beal

#ShortStory #ScienceFiction #SciFi #DarkFantasy

Huxhert herself had chosen the antique munitions that had done the job. A single 13mm round did not come cheap. But the hollow-point slug, long banned by any civilised world, had made its point (no pun intended). Now that she was being grilled by the single most useless individual in the entire RBO, her patience was wearing thin.

Reyrarth III of Tulethna poured over the charts that showed it what the hit had cost and the little squirming Gillthex Worm had the gall and temerity to question Huxhert's choice of termination. Nevermind the clamouring youth who suddenly wanted to join the cause. Nevermind the increased fear and terror among the ruling bourgeoisie maggots who leeched of their workers. The little Turd of Tulethna was quibbling over a nine million credit round of pure, hollow-pointed lead. The creature had no class.

Sadly, after seven attempts on the accountant's life, RBO leadership started executing anyone who lifted a finger against the worm of a creature.

Huxhert smiled. Her gift, by way of apology, had been gratefully accepted, as she knew it would be. Reyrarth's love for old Earth confections was legendary. She had bought the 250g pack especially for him. The gold wrapping had not been changed in centuries and the company still operated from its island home in the South Pacific there. Huxhert dared not smile outwardly, but maintained a suitably chagrined appearance. Smiling would come later.

Roughly seven minutes after Reynath tried the gift.

#SciFi #ShortStory

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Tallex had always wondered about it. Since she had arrived on this pin-prick of a rock in the middle of nowhere, the question had eaten at her mind. As she had watched and scouted, waiting, the human persistence that aliens would bring enlightenment and a new evolution amused her. Tallex allowed herself a quiet giggle, muffled by her mask, as she prepared. The capacity of these self-proclaimed monkeys for delusional hypocrisy amazed her. She had to ask. Considering these poor excuses for an 'advanced civilisation' had wiped out thousands of species for no other reason than consumption, their expectation that an alien species would treat humanity any different astounded her. Tallex made the last adjustments to her kit. Seal integrity was at a hundred percent.

Tallex stepped into the sphere, instantly vanishing to appear around three hundred kilometres away. She stepped from the forced opening in time and space into the building they called the Beehive, a nostalgic relic the humans here used for their government. She stepped out, clad in her white combat exo, hoses feeding her stims through two hoses strait to her breathing organs. She could hear the whoosh of gases.

Humans gathered in the faun coloured room staggered away from her. The sight of her plasma axe had that effect on people. With her left hand, Tallex lifted the cannon towards the stage below her. She strode down the aisle. In her right hand, the axe swung in an arch. A middle-aged man in an old style suit lost his arm in a small spurt of blood. The impact twisted him back and over his seat.

The screams of the people got louder when the cannon poured its lethal load into the stage. The beam caught the human called Prime Minister dead centre in his chest. The human had the survival instincts of a Formillian Denwont. That is to say, none. The moron just stood there. Not even his security stopped the beam from tearing a hole through the man.

Tallex kept striding down the stage. She swept the cannon to her left, cutting down another human. The axe swung again, an upward swipe that caught a female human between the legs. The blow rent her in two, the massive wound cauterised before the corpse hit the floor.

Thankfully the exo filtered out the stink of seared flesh and cooked blood. As Tallex reached the stage, a new team of humans appeared. In navy blue clothing that she surmised was a uniform, they brandished weapons that were laughably primitive. Nevertheless, a skirmisher did not survive long if they were not cautious. Tallex turned and dropped to her knee. One of the three uniformed humans rolled into the floor as his knee was blown out from under him. The other two tried to return fire. A second beam from the cannon ripped its way through the left officer's throat, exposing the spine.

Tallex stood and stepped to her right. She vanished into another sphere.

A job well done, she thought. She hoped that the rest of the skirmishers had met with similar success. At the very least, they would have rattled some human assumptions. Tallex had to laugh grimly. In a way, she had brought the human's their sought-after evolution. They had been sent to a new plane of consciousness. Many more would follow.

#SciFi #ShortStory

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