Burst Fiction » cybernetics

“Did you see the news today?” Jan asked me, with that look on her face that told me whatever it was, she didn’t like it.

“No, why?”

“They’ve just invented a robotic human brain, it’s the last organ to be cracked, so now you can build a whole human from robotic organs.”

“Wow, you’d never make a mistake, think how useful that’d be, bet it’s expensive.”

“It’s like all the other robotic organs, only the richest can get them. You know I read a piece in the paper the other day, it’s reckoned that 99.8% of the worlds wealth is in the hands of people who are between 85 to 97% robots. This new brain will push that number even higher, maybe up to 100% in some cases.”

“So they’ll be living longer and be less prone to mistakes. Tony at work reckons they can communicate in way we don’t know about. I have to say that even though I always thought the world would get taken over by robots, I never really thought it’d be quite like this.”

by Russell Ruffino

Alexi’s Lunch

The roof top door crashed open & Alexi burst out, kinetically amped up & ready to fly. He dove through the a gap in the safety barrier, hit a ramp at full speed, the magnetic bumpers of his board detecting the surface, anchoring just enough to pull closer but not physically connect.

He skipped across rails, sparks flying when he caught them almost too late. The glow of his boards grav plates lit the skylights of the office below and caused a draft that kicked up dust and loose leaves from the grey water collecting gardens beneath him. He pushed off a final rail with gusto, triple flipped in the air and landed right in the middle of the office worker’s roof cafe, startling them all and causing several unbreakable dishes to plummet, then bounce off the ergonomic floor coating.

A hatch opened near the cafe’s entrance and a security bot popped out, spread its spidery legs and shouted a warning.

Forced Improvements

The last thing Commons saw before the concussion wave hit was code he’d been focussed on writing for the last several days. Then there was nothing but the high pitched ringing. The only sensation was horrific pain caused by the rebar which had entered the back of his neck, pierced his vertebrae & now protruded 3 feet from the front of his throat. His body tingled, like the pain from a sleeping limb waking but throughout every inch of his flesh.

Commons woke to florescents & digital beeping. A fuzzy figure floating over him rezzed in slowly, morphing into a very attractive pale woman’s face.

‘Hi there, I’m Dr. Slade. You’ve been out four days now. We had to rebuild your neck & amp up your torso to support the upgrades. It may feel weird at first but you can try standing now.’

He followed her directions, feeling an abnormal fluidity to his movements. He’d expected stiffness but his joints worked better than ever.

Call It A Keepsake

“And you still want to keep it?” Kendal’s got him by the wrist joint, one foot on his thigh, and she’s pulling.

“That’s not,” his voice breaks into a shriek as his elbow port disconnects, “funny!” He’s panting. Something drips out of the joint. A bit of conductor fluid, a dab of blood.

“The worm’s in your wrist now, for sure. You’re about ten seconds from losing your shoulder. You want I should wait?”

“No,” he says. “Yes. Wait.” He looks at the ceiling. Yellow tiles, used to be white. He swore he’d never let her do this again. He smells the electric burn of his elbow grinding itself, out of place. If the virus gets into his myokinetic interface, into the flat ribbons under his shoulder muscles, leading to his spine, it could mess with the signals that run from brain to arm in a game of bioelectric telephone.

“Screw that,” Kendal says, leaning back into it, pushing off thigh until his arm’s off its threads.

An e-zine of one-shot short stories around 1000 characters long.

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Posts Tagged ‘cybernetics’

The Divide

Alexi’s Lunch

Forced Improvements

Call It A Keepsake