Drog Two Cybernetic Civilization Dreams

Part One: Walking tour of London with three couples. See the sites, enhanced by holographic overlays and instant access to historical re-creations.

Part Two: Tourist encounter area with Picts and Pirates, Two of the group, my date and one other cybercitizen are damaged by the technology malfunctions scenario. The Full Human woman goes to rescue her date (rather than realizing he's an avatar who will be rebuilt in a couple of hours. The system creates a cutlass wielding opponent for her. I toss her my fore arms so she can grapple her way out of the area and I distract the cutlass lass when she follows onto a nearby building. We escape to the roof, but the robot follows, creating mayhem in the building below us. I take my Gadget tools fore arms back and cut us a hole in the ceiling of a bathroom. The woman rescues a little girl and I take on the robot in single combat, defeating her by shooting the grapple past her, she stops to gloat that I missed her, then reeling a table back into her from behind.

Part Three: Pub Crawl to calm down. Our dates are being rushed to the shop/hospital, but are going to be OK. She didn't know her date was a human form cyborg. I detect some resentment about that, but she seems to be OK with me. I am not hiding my modifications. We are in our second pub when the announcement comes that there is a rolling blackout and all citizens will have to enter sleep mode for 4 hours. I can see my date is disturbed and a little disgusted. As the power is lowering, our other couple begins to argue about her throwing away his original nose, then him replacing his entire head, which has now caused him to be permanently on two medications instead of one. (A sort of hypercondriatic psychosis that happens when some folks completely leave their meat world bodies behind, I explain to the young woman.) She wonders why I don't shut down. I explain that I still operate the same as she does, by converting food and alcohol calories to energy. I am still mostly human, having only replaced parts of me suffering from muscular/tissue degeneration. (Wishful thinking?)

"Medical necessity only?" she asks.
"No, I could have withstood the pain with proper medication, but hate having to dose on painkillers continuously. I don't like the side effects."

Part 4: I walk her back to our hotel, the city is eerily quiet, all power is off but some safety lights. The stars are shining and the moon is half full just over the western skyline. There are shapes moving in the darkness of the alleys and some in the streets. Even the street traffic has stopped. Almost everything in London, even most vehicles draws its power from the grid. The only folks out are humans and Cyborgs like myself, and the municipal Police, Paramechanic and Paramedic workers. We say hello to a Bobby and a couple of bicyclists who are taking advantage of the slowdown to swerve through the stopped vehicles. The Bobby chides them to slowdown and be careful, "I have your licenses, no don't go scratching anything!"

She pulls in tight to me, gingerly working her way under the cybernetic fore arm she'd used the grapple from earlier. "You're warm!"

"Yes, the systems mimic the natural limbs movement, and the same processes that allow you to move your arms allow me to move mine, with some savings in size, thus the room for the tools and toys. Both systems produce heat. I can feel your warmth, too." I touched the back of her hand with my white and red cybernetic hand. She laced her fingers into mine.

Part 5: Back in her hotel room she sits down at her computer pad and begins to write what I know will become the basis of many future virtual and cyber realities. We work together, she creating character and theme for each space, myself modeling and rendering. Time passes, about 65 years, and though we never connect romantically, we are good friends. At some point her phobia of Cybernetics causes her to have an injunction awarded the allows her to broadcast a cyber free zone in a four foot radius. Cyber citizens and other AI entities must all stay out of that zone unless she walks or rolls up to them.

Part 6: She is wheelchair bound in the last year of her human life. She is working on what will be her last VR when I come to visit her. I wonder that I can remember when her white pixie cut was jet black, it has been so long. The State's Rescue Reader (brain preservation device) is floating four feet, precisely, from her. I approach her and kiss her on the cheek. I am nearly 100% Cybernetic now, everything except my central nervous system, and even parts of that are about to be replaced, my prime life will slip away in bits an pieces as parts of my brain run in parallel with its replacement over the next decade. She sets down her stylus and kisses me gently on the mouth. "I never treated you as well as you deserved, did I?"

"You have always treated me as well as you were able. I have no complaints." There had early on been hopes, but I knew the cybernetic arms and legs would always be an impediment. Over time I had become content, but a little sad that she had never found a romantic partner.

"You have always been my best friend." She looked over at the paramedic robot, "No way I can just slip away from this?"
"You are half of the world, they will not let you be forgotten or abandoned, you can only be left alone, mostly." I did not agree with the state's decision to rescue her into cyberlife, but for very selfish reasons wanted it. "Besides, who else would I have if you go away permanently."

"You're the only reason I'm going along with this. The new me will treat you better. I promise." She kissed me again. "We both missed too much." She turned back to her stylus and picked it up to finish what she was working on. "I have a new idea, let me just finish this."

She did not. The Paramedic moved in as she sighed her last breath and dropped the stylus. With her life the restraining order vanished. The reader glided in to cradle her precious brain.

I awoke, teary eyed. I tried to burn this story into my memory it was so detailed and powerful. When I fell back to sleep I awoke into the continuation of the story. I was completely human form, but able to shift shapes at will, she was identical to herself, curly black pixie cut, lithe and athletic. Still Cyberphobic, but not of me "You're more a fantasy creature than a robot. Besides, being a shape shifter is quite exciting sometimes." This time around in our lives was indeed different.

I was interrupted before I could finish burning this one into my memory, but the ending involved working undercover to trap a bunch of cyber criminals into thinking they had nuked the cyber realms and allowing them to "escape" into the upper world (which was now almost completely reverted back to a natural state as most of humanity was quite happy to live and "work" in cybernetic and VR worlds, most of which were created by my new bride in her prime life. I had to create a shield around her as the group at the last moment figured out that we were infiltrators. I distracted them with a cyber construct and we slipped out. I had to turn into a snake to travel along the tubes that paralleled the underground river. A commune of about 100,000 shape shifters in the form of a 150 foot 20 foot diameter water snake, very pretty blue white and green pattern, surfaced and she shouted "Jump on, we're getting out of here. When we get to the control center, I show you what you've been waiting for!" she teased when she saw my terror at the raging dark water below us.

I couldn't, not because I didn't have legs as a snake, but in the process of the passing years I had developed a distinct case of hydrophobia. I raced back into my mind to remember how much I liked to swim and held on to that thought, as well as the thought of her promise. I dove into the water and slithered onto the back of the commune. Working my way up to where the Creator was sitting at the head of the commune.
"Please, join with us, co-creator, please?" they asked. I knew the attraction, but I also knew that to join was to loose, in some part, that which kept me unique and continuously tied to my prime life, so I declined, but offered to share the visual creation memories of some of my worlds, including the one in which they now swam as a community of exploring minds.

Ad astra per technica,
Fermius Firefly

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