This is kind a funny one, I found this in a drawer with some stuff from high school. I'm only putting it on here as a curiosity piece. It has many flaws, as was evidenced by the scrawled comments from my high school English teacher.
That said - pretty sure the lady HATED sci fi, she was in my opinion one of those types that spends more time worrying about perfect prose rather than having fun writing, this is one of many stories I wrote for her in class (one a week) and she NEVER liked or could find anything nice to say. I cant remember a single word of encouragement from her.
Given that most of my writing these days is done over a coffee or two and never finished, and this was written in high school (practically pre-internet I may add) I cant help but wonder if a few stray encouraging words might have changed things.
*Shrug*
I am my own person and I didn't stop writing when I was bored.
What is perhaps even more fascinating is that I found the art work in the library, these days, I question if a high school library would even have obscure art book like this.
I suspect that I had just finished a game like "Beneath a steel sky" when I wrote this. Not sure, however I WAS consuming a lot of classical Sci-Fi at the time. It was probably aroudn then that I had read "With folded hands" which to this day freaked me more than almost anything else I have ever read.
I OCRd it with my phone so its ... a crap OCR job especially as it dealt with the handwriting all over the original.
Might be easier to read it from the photos. So I will post the photos first.
BEGIN STORY !
The
rain never stopped. Never did the Clouds part. Many of the inhabitants
of the rebuilt city felt the stars were legends of the uneducated past.
Sometimes the acid laden rain would slow to a steady drizzle. The
polluted sky glowed from the lights of the massive city. Neon lights lit
the covered sidewalks whilst under dwellers hid in the shadows,
Occasionally a Mech/mortal would walk past. Weary eyes turned away,
faces scowled and showed brown rotting teeth with decaying gums. SCIFOT
music spilled across the street with the junkies waking from the days
drug laden sleep ready for another endless night of surreal fantasies.
Gazing down on the scene from the Global United Corporations 121st floor, Sobar Chan was finishing his days work. Placing his research documents in his Holo fax to go over when he got home, his mind went back to the days of working with Hubol Scit, the Legend of the new world. With his discoveries they together created the perfect world, Human mechanical implants placed in to the police force to give them tremendous strength and protection from the gangs that had taken over the overcrowded streets. Life saving techniques that helped many to live when others had no chance to live before. The Hover technology that enabled the super buildings to be built to home those on the super crowded planet, all this and more gave the men the ability to live beside and sometimes rule over the gods.
Humph, look where it got us sobar whispered just loud enough to have a number of the people in the room look up at him in puzzlement.
Leaving his office he handed his level 7 Identity card to the Mech/Mortal guard who rubbed the card under his nose to pick up the identity scent. Super sensitive receptors placed in his nose fed the information into a brain that was more machine than human. The Guard handed back the card and allowed him to pass. Even though the idea was perfect ... mechanical dark perfection with, human logic meant no errors some guards in the past had been know to malfunction the human part of the mechanical brain often went into a state of depression far greater than that possible F his entirely human counterparts. The scent information meant a wy information overload and the guard went off on a killing spree. With this in mind he beckoned a Hover elevator to take him down to the ground level.
Sobar smiled, if only the inhabitants knew that the ground they walked on was really 1000 feet above the sea of polluted toxic water that had consumed the previous world. Global warming and constant erosion of the Ozone layer, led to a total destruction of the earth's super city that covered the entire surface of the planet whilst private organisations funded ambitious space exploration, mining and colonization programs to ease the burdens of the stressed planet, now worth nothing more than a rock with complex buildings on it.
After a synthetic beer, customary for all employed earth dwellers after work the walked out on the street to buy another recycled meat hot-dog. Surprised to see that the usual vendor was gone with a Mech/Mortal in his place he paid for his food by handing over his identity card to the more machine man, Long articulated arms meant for performing many tasks at once took the card and placed the bill on his global account.
Walking back to his apartment block in Grise Hills Planet area 234.6 he read the freedom of speech bill boards plastered across the walls of the buildings. As usual the anti machine lobbyists were slogging the machinists. They would often destructively engage in protests against the machine buildings and living areas hey distributed leaflets that were revolutionary and reactionary to the situation of humanity, talking about the truths of the ocean, the skies, the injustices of the caste system of structured humanity. Sobar grinned, cor being a level 7 inhabitant he had enjoyed many privileges during his life. But naturally the leaflets were considered worse than murder or the dealing of maniacal mind altering drugs and anyone caught in the possession of one was automatically sentenced and executed on the spot. Worse still, those found dealing were kept alive whilst they were hung by their intestines from the tops of the Super sky scrapers the same technology that saved lives enabled inhuman tortures to be created.
Hubol Scit had not been seen for over 20 years but the propaganda showed him as being behind the movements for a more mechanical law enforcement program and computers being placed in areas of political power. The holo vids showed him as not ageing at all, perhaps it was the tremendouslv talented plastic surgeons that he had available.
after all he was practically the world leader anyway.
Swiping the identity card under the reader of his door a red light turned to green as the door mechanically opened with a familiar hiss. Immediately he knew something was wrong the lights were off and the air seemed disturbed, since the room had no switches for the lights, (a concept which had long gone out of fashion) he instead spoke aloud to his apartment computer.
"Security check ?"
Silence.
Damn, he thought to himsci, fé knew that he handled confidential information and he figured that the intruders were quite obviously very determined just to consider breaking into a level 7 security apartment. He prayed that they had not found the holo faxed documents from his latest project, a small scale H-bomb that would only wipe out a area of small block. The idea was that they would be used to sterilise quickly and effectively areas of the planet which society had gone rotten and beyond rehab. Besides on a planet with 260 billion people no one cared if a block of 340 million people died, it just gave everyone more space. But if a reactionary group made some they would perhaps attempt to sterilise government and the Global United Corporation.
Finding the papers were gone he told the apartment computer to notify the Dept. of Law.
Cursing he remembered that his apartment computer was fried. Suddenly he realised that his intruders had not left when a dark knowledgeable voice behind him made his presence known.
"Sobar ... we have been waiting a long time for this ... opportunity"
Whirling around Sobar looked into the eyes of his intruder, fealising that there was more than just the one, he made out the shapes of at least three, of which one was standing in the doorway.
"What do vou want?' came the predictable, he latter realised, but fitting reply.
"Oh... a little of your time"
With that the guest signaled to one of his colleagues and Sobar felt a slight pain in his neck as his world came crashing down to reality ... a hard floor.
****
"I notice you are awake Mr Chan, I apologize for the inconvenience I have given you but our cause means a little more than a few bruises" Sobar heard the man say in his dream. A dream Of steel lined walls and Needle guns, pity he was awake.
Reality hit him as hard as the floor of his apartment. His groggy eyes slowly blinked as his mind came to. Now fully awake he jumped to his feet with his mind prepared for the mental challenge of fighting his way out.
Two strong hands pushed him back into the chair.
"Sorry Mr Chan it would be a little rude for you as our recent guest just to walk out on us, especially since you have not answered any questions yet," The dark knowledgeable and now sarcastically over-polite voice said.
Looking into the eyes of his tormentor and with the added benefit of proper lighting, Sobar viewed his adversary. Tall, lean,with dark rings around his eyes suggesting a lack of sleep combined with constant stress. Never the less the man was honestly intimidating, Sobar felt that this man would perhaps fit under the ancient title of Devil.
One of the men behind him placed a intravenous drip into his arm after strapping it to the chair with a plastic strap. Slowly he felt the mental defence for any kind of punishment fall away from his mind, Moving pictures were being projected up on the steel walls of dark swirling masses of water, monstrous waves rashing over boiling seas., The public head of Hubol Scit denying the fact that it existed. Scenes that where showIng what Hubol really was ... a lying son of a bitch. Perhaps these images were being complemented with subliminal hints and moral and ethical challenges for the mind of Sobar. He did not know.
A few hours latter he had learned that the Revolutionaries and the Reactionaries of anti machine feelings or RAF, had extensive funding and enormous tech supplies, of which some was being employed to warp his mind right now. The Mech/Mortals were suspected to have anti espionage circuits placed in them from preventing the technology from becoming copied by rival companies, this usually consisted of a fail-safe bomb, large enough to take out the top of a building. He found he had a new purpose in life, one of destruction and mayhem
His purpose as his mind saw it was to go and break into Hubols office and detonate a mini H-bomb.
THREE DAYS LATER
Hubol Scit was going to die, Sobar knew that this was his birthright. He Knew that he was doing the world a favor. To destroy the two large public icons of the Mech/Mortal world a resulting wave of anti machinists would emerge to overthrow the
Government. Another mini H-bomb was set off a couple of blocks away whilst a large protest was parading through the street. As a result all available Mech/Mortals had left the Hubol Global United Corporations Building to clean up the mess and regulate the Parade. This meant that Sobar could walk anywhere in the large building without ever being confronted.
Making his way to the top floor of the enormous building he noticed how the air was slightly different, he figured thatperhaps the enormous air-conditioning plants doubled as air pressurisation devices since the air outside was practically non existent this high up. Using some of the RRAFs tech he disabled the remaining security systems and walked straight into where Hubols office should have been.
Upon opening the doors, he fell to the ground and cowered, a tremendous smell of rotting flesh and running Bio-machinery overcame him. Every one(knew that when large scale Bio-Machinery was used, his or her body became useless as the genetically altered flesh consumed their bodies and absorbed their sou and eventually assuming their identily. But what was going on in this room was a far greater project of Bio-machinery then Sobar thought mankind or machinekind had ever taken part in. Large Tubes pulsating to the sound of a mechanical hearts heartbeat (Bio-machines grew at such a rate that the normal biological heart failed to keep up once the process was complete they would create a genetically altered giant heart).
Body fluids dripped from the ceiling whilst a tangle of arteries and veins mixed with brain tissue hung from the ceiling down towards the remains of the Hubol body, now in a partially decomposed state. Yet Hubol seemed to be still alive, but no longer in control of his body as his mind was transferred in to the brain mass of the pulsating tangle of flesh above his decaying body. He realised that Hubol was no longer in control of the world either, instead computers and machines were slowly taking over the planet, the only restriction placed upon them was that they were not creative and relied on the humans to improve their design. This mass in front of him was a attempt to create a creative computer and to seal the fate of mortal humanity.
As he stood up he walked over to the medical terminal in the room and monitored the project in front of him. Thousands of probes in the mass reported on the genetic and mutant genetic information contained within, each one automatically figuring out which information as critically important and which information could wait. Because of the low security in to room the computer already had access to the highest level Global Corporations files. His eyes wandered down the list until a project caught his eye. Labeled S. Chan Project No. 098456.
Sobar opened the file, inside were the personal notes of Hubol Scit as he struggled to achieve his projects goal. After the first 3 pages Sobar froze, he realised that this particular project was really the creation of him. The prototype first totally synthetic human being. If what the document was saying was true he had lived for a total of 18 out of what he assumed to be 45 years of his life. False memories counted for what was really a time when he did not exist.
He felt sorry for the guards that had information overloads for he felt one coming on now.
Realizing that this mission was futile, he fell once again to his knees. Pulling out the mini H-bomb he thumbed the switch.
... Nothing happened. WHY? Why should the rest of humanity suffer under the control of machines that had never undergone the stress that life had under gone during evolution. He was determined to put and end to it once and for all.
Except his only means of doing this was contained within the silver object in his hand. Even that didn't work.
The Door of the office burst open as Mech Mortals stormed the room, they fired infernally explosive bullets that ripped his body apart. Noticing the mechanical Lubricants and piles of synthetic bone now scattered across the floor, What was left of the stomach inside his body turned into a twisted knot. It was all true, humanity would die and he was now powerless to do anything about it. Sobars or the as he now felt himself to be called, droid's vision faded as aul the automated cleaning machines wiped his body up and threw it into the trash
***
The twisted remains seemed inanimate, as the fail-safe Espionage circuitry engaged. Sobar, now totally dead (if it could be said that, he could of ever been totally alive) was oblivious of the Global United Corporations tempts to keep the technology contained within his body cavity a secret. If only he knew that his body was lying in the basement directly under the super computer storing all of the Global Corporations non-official plans and confidential files.
Sobar Operating System [SOS] Ver 8.45
Status: Fail-safe online.
System Check Initialised ....
Artificial Heart status : - NON OPERATIONAL-
Hull Integrity: -COMPROMISED
Technology Threat Assessment: High Secutity Risk-
WARNING, automatic Technology and Non-Global Corporation destruction program started.
Internal Reactor and miniature explosives set for 5 seconds until detonation.
5 .... 4... 3.... 2 ... 1
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