The Demonstration
By Borg 5 of 9 SF
Chapter 3: Retraining
You regain consciousness. Systems power on. Eyelid flickers. Your one eye opens. Two seconds later you are perfectly awake. You scan the room. You are still in your recharging station.
Time: 545356800. 345600 seconds have passed since your previous activation [4 days].
The doors across from you open. A female figure enters. She is medium height, stocky with broad shoulders, hair pulled back, captivating eyes, and dressed in a white lab coat. Her heels click as she primly moves across the hard floor, directly to the workstation in the corner. She hits a button with a gloved finger then turns to watch.
The cables holding you into the rack detach with a hiss, and you’re released to gravity. With a heavy thud, your rubber-soled cybernetic feet hit the ground. It is the first time you are aware that you now have lower legs. But you feel nothing except for a quick static electric sensation shooting up your leg to your thigh. The shock echoes up and down your leg, resonating inside your body until it decays back to nothing, like a struck door-stop spring. It is not entirely unpleasant although it should be: There is something inside of you which it satisfies.
The woman gazes at your body before looking you in the eye. “Drone, state your designation”. As she says these words, you stay fixated on her eyes. It’s difficult to look away. And, as you realize this, her pupil flashes red for a quarter second. With each instantaneous flash, a rapid pulse materializes inside your head, foreshadowing what will immediately follow. Programming seizes control of your mind once again.
“AX-5 series drone. Unit identifier 74J-96-B” you again say, your voice not yours.
“Your controller is keyed to my mind, drone. You are now locked to me, and only I can control you.”
Once again, you are dropped back into free will. And it is here you first realize you cannot move your limbs. Your feet are planted in place. Attempting to move your arms produces little effect. Whatever atrophied remnants of your biological muscle remain cannot overpower the mechanical limbs they are encased in. Your entire body feels stiff and heavy.
“Walk towards me.”
You hear her commands in your head as she speaks the same thing a split second later, eerily doubling the voice.
Your limbs are now unlocked. Cautiously, you attempt to take a step. At first, the leg sticks to the ground. With some concentration, it lifts, but you cannot place the foot precisely where you want. The foot again lands harshly, a slight distance from where you intended it to. More static shocks echo throughout your lower extremities, leaving behind an intriguing tingling sensation. They reach a higher point than they previously did, now firmly up to your inner thighs. The misstep knocks you off balance, but your stabilizers quickly kick in and you are automatically righted.
“The neurons need to form new connections with your new limbs. All the programming you contain only goes so far; the old pathways and muscle memory in your brain needs to all be rewired. Your neural network needs to be trained.”
Without warning, she gives you a firm shove. You begin to helplessly tumble backwards, but the stabilizers once again activate, forcing your leg to step back, avoiding a fall.
“But, even though you cannot willfully move your limbs with coordination, your programming has certain routines that will take control in an emergency. Think of them as additional brainstem reflexes.”
She turns her back to you, walks across the room, then turns to face you again. You look away, but even without seeing her eyes, the voice appears in your mind:
“Try again. Walk to me.”
Your posture stiffens and you once again are looking your controller in the eyes. Your leg comes up easier this time. But, placing it back on the ground correctly proves to be a chore. With some concentration, you manage to get the leg closer to its target, foot hovering near its destination. Your foot thuds into the ground awkwardly. Balance is lost, but you are able to right yourself without a cybernetic assist. More electricity arcs through your legs. It reaches the crotch, leaving behind the pleasant tingling.
“The shocks are probably hitting some pleasurable areas for you right now.”
This remark takes you aback. How would she know about the experience of drones?
“This is what the other ones have reported, at least. Oh, you thought you were the first?”, she says with a smirk. “We are putting together drones for a big demonstration. No, you’re maybe the fifth, or sixth one. I lose count. The others are in hibernation, hooked to the charger until the big day. And that’s where you’ll go when we’re done with you here. I hear they orgasm sometimes. Well, sometimes that’s not so subtle.”
“I am done with you for now, 96-B. I must go tend to one of the other units. You’re pretty charged up; I can just power you off where you stand.”
“Wait, no!”, you think. You don’t want to be turned off here! Her eyes flash. Your systems begin powering down, one after the other. Within a second, you stand in the middle of the floor, your head drooping forwards. The tiny status lights on your implants dim. Your mind is the last system to click off.
—
Time: 545616000. A delta of 259200 seconds [3 days]. You are pulled by your controller down the hallway. She holds onto a thin metal strip which has been clamped to the mount point on your chassis, near your sternum. You are able to walk, although your limbs feel distant and abstract. Since your body doesn’t have the same sensory input as a human body, any relevant senses and proprioception information is fed back to your brain as data you must cognizantly pick apart. This makes coordination and navigation largely a cerebral activity at first.
But, eventually, your neural network is programmed, and it becomes automatic. Perhaps a little too automatic. As you settle into a rhythm, you glide down the hallway, feeling as if your limbs are someone else’s. The heaviness and stiffness never did dissipate, a consequence of your powerful mechanical appendages. But your walking is still halting and awkward.
The controller takes off her lab coat. As she slowly removes the fabric, a gleaming cyborg body is revealed. Her body is coated with a perfectly form-fitting covering. It isn’t black or silver, but a mixture of both. Tubes snake down one arm, connecting to flat devices attached to her abdomen. Her wide hips and pleasingly domed stomach catch your eye, as well as the tiny mechanical arms mounted at the sides of her torso, 2 per side.
“You need adjustment, drone.”. The robotic appendages unfold. Small tools at the ends whir to life as she moves towards you.
“This performance level won’t do. I have been authorized to upgrade you to something better. There’s too much flesh; too much conflict inside of you. It needs to be suppressed.”
A phallic device uncoils from her crotch as she circles behind you. She begins breathing heavily in anticipation.
“The human nervous system is too slow to retrain, and ill-equipped to manage your redesigned limbs and cybernetic organs. It will be replaced with something that suits you a bit better. Something which brings you closer to perfection.”
With those words, she plugs into your rear port. It is like any other machine plugging into your body, like being in the recharging station. That thought comforts you. As she places her rubber-coated hand over your mouth, the phallus is pushed into you as far as it can go. A flat metal ring around your rim rotates, locking the phallus into place. She moans, and the nanobot transfer begins. A cool liquid rushes as microscopic robots, submerged in a silvery stabilizing fluid, begin flowing inside of you. Her robotic arms come around to your front. One, with a small flat tool on it, wriggles underneath your left pectoral plate. Others make their way inside as well, finding their ways past the small spaces between other plate segments. Two into the right side of your abdomen, through the small cracks in your chassis—the pathways which lead to sensitive systems and flesh.
There is a fast, pulsing sensation from your rear implant: rapid but small electric zaps traversing from the port into your abdomen. You feel it up your spine. Some of them reach to the brainstem. Many would find this sensation disturbing, but you are so turned on that it only registers as a curious discomfort.
Her other gloved hand reaches around, cupping the domed implant where your right ear was. The dome opens, allowing the thick tube snaking out of her palm into your headgear. The innermost panel in your braincase opens, letting it worm into your mind. A jarring, disorienting electric shock goes through your head. You are being programmed. New devices are being built inside your body, turning you into something closer to an automaton. This idea is not unpleasurable.
She grips you tightly. As the tools wriggle, making modifications inside your body, her heavy breathing intensifies. Her tools occasionally brush against human flesh, creating a thin, focused, tingling sensation along the path they trace. You feel the cool rush as the nanobots continue to stream into you. Her gloved hand around your mouth involuntarily squeezes your jaw as she lets out a moan. Your entire body feels pins and needles now, dissolving into pleasure. It is unbearable. Several times, you have wanted to let out a yell, but you are unable to move your mouth with her hand over it like that—not that any unauthorized sound could be produced from your voicebox anyway.
As your mind is rewritten, your eye turns to a blank stare. A small amount of silver, oily nanobot fluid spurts from your front port.
You are ready.