Friday February 17th, 2012

The exercise:

Four lines of prose about: cyborgs.

This prompt was inspired by a commercial I heard on the radio the other day. I can't remember what it was for, but even though it was pretty stupid it still managed to make me smile.

Plus it made me realize I hadn't used this one before. So here we are.

Mine:

Rick_485 slowed as his apartment building came into view, the hydraulics in his legs responding to his silent command. Other commuters streamed past him, mechanized legs propelling them effortlessly onward, their destinations deeper into Sector C5.

His internal clock informed him that the fifty mile commute had taken precisely twenty-nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Five seconds slower than yesterday, which had already been eight seconds slower than the day before - more than enough evidence to warrant a visit to his mechanic.

8 comments:

Greg said...

I'm curious about this radio commercial now! But I like the way your cyborg decides how to go and visit the mechanic, it's beautifully logical and machinelike.

The cyborg
"When you say cyborg, people think that you mean half-man, half-machine, but in fact you can take half any species and half-machine and make a cyborg."
A hand went up in the audience, and the question floated across the auditorium: Why did you choose to make a cyborg cockroach?
Jeanna sighed a little, and answered.
"Oddly enough, it makes them easier to kill, because they rust...."

Iron Bess said...

Cyborg
It started relatively unobtrusively, I was young and innocent, how was I to know? One day I was a care free human being, the next a cyborg with an affinity for English peppermints. How could this happen you ask? It started with a couple of fillings, then new glasses, suddenly I received a pin in my femur after an accident, then a new knee and hip replacement, a pace maker, shunts to keep my arteries open, then hearing aids, a colostomy bag, eventually I became permanently attached to my iPhone.

Cathryn Leigh said...

Cyborgs eh? Well lucky for you I've got one in my head. Let me tell you about him.


Cyborg

The fetus was taken from his mother's womb, six months into gestation. The doctor was intrigued, for the fetus was more fully formed than he'd expected. Not that it mattered for the fetus was put in suspended animation and shipped to the cybernetics lab on Terra Prime 2.

The fetus, number 876, was an excellent specimen. His body adapted to the cybernetics much faster than any of the other fetuses that had been provided. They had high hopes for him, especially when he showed a affinity for hacking.

Unfortunately, unlike his fellow cyborgs, fetus 876 started to ask a lot of questions about where he came from. An then, when no one would give him the answers he wanted, Fetus 876 got them himself, from the main frame. It took them days to figure out who’d hacked into the system. But by then Adam, formerly known as fetus 876, was well on his way to finding his the mother and father he’d beentaken from.

Krystin Scott said...

The Birth Of A Cyborg

Tick, tick, tick. Beep, beep, beep. The sounds of the monitors resonated in my head.

I attempted to shift positions and found my limbs heavy with the weight of sleep. I woke slowly, coming into consciousness as minutes passed.

A sudden onset of pain racked my body as brightly colored spots popped throughout my already blurred vision.

My leg throbbed mixed with astounding blasts of shooting pain. I felt sick. My leg, my head, the pain mixed together and sent me into a downward spiral.

I was losing focus, the room was fading away and I fell once again into darkness.

Anonymous said...

cyborg
his name is Bender
but he's not a fender
Fry is his mate
I think he's great

that's all I've got today. great entries, folks!

Anonymous said...

Ms. Peterson tapped her desk and the windows all returned to normal transparency and sunlight flooded back into the classroom. The students were unusually quiet after the video display so she let them process what they had seen and waited.

She wasn't at all surprised when Marco raised his hand, his face scrunched up in a reflection of what she could see was inner turmoil.

“Were people in olden times that stupid that they thought just because some CB had a bunch of enhancements they were actually less human than the people who didn't?”

Marc said...

Greg - she may claim that makes them easier to kill, but I have my doubts...

Iron Bess - that's... all rather worrying, actually. It's only a matter of time before a brain gets swapped out for a computer.

Cathryn - very, very intriguing. I do believe I want to know more. Is this from one of your larger stories?

Krystin - that sounds like an unpleasant process that's bound to repeat itself at least a few more times.

Writebite - ha, cute poem :D

GZ - oh my, what future students will think of us when they're taught about our era...

Cathryn Leigh said...

@Marc - yes Adam is the son of Rachael my spacer (who you all met during Space week) who is part of my NaNo 2011 novel. he's a good kid, just the Nueri genes giving him a stronger sense of biological family than any of the others in his 'class' :}

Oh and I think I like Writebite's poem best. :} Sums up the show so well. *giggles*.