untitled bit of fiction

[Fax]

Well, here's the start of something I've been working on every once in a while. Not quite sure where I'm going with it currently but I guess something will come up.

Adrian was bored. Absolutely, mind numbingly bored.

He had spent the last six months as a brain in a vat, waiting for the company doctors to finish growing a new body for him around his disembodied brain. In that time he had gone through all of the sims that the doctors would allow him to access at least three times, including all of the tedious training exercises that they were going to force him to practice once they decanted him. It was made all the worse since every sim had its immersion routines stripped out (the doctors claimed that is was to minimize the erosion of his sense of reality but Adrian was sure they just wanted him to be just as bored as they were while they checked on him and all the other intensive care patients.)

It didn't help that there were nowhere near enough of the little floating remotes that patients in his situation (that is to say, without any real body to speak of) could use to have some semblance of interaction with the real world. This led to them being given out for a couple hours at a time to those patients that required them, with a long waiting list of course before one could use them. It had been at least two weeks since Adrian had gotten access to one of the drones, so he was surprised when a note popped up in the cheap film noir sim he had been running through for the eighth time that week.

It was a short note, he had drone access that afternoon from 18:00 to 21:00. "Finally, something to do!" he thought to himself as he checked the time. It was hard to tell just how much time had passed without any outside references so he queried the system clock on his cybernetics just to be sure. 17:36, unfortunately there was plenty of time before he would take over the drone and he had learned early on that he would just have to keep tedious watch as he was liable to loose track of time if he started up the sim again. There had been one week he spent entirely in sims without realizing that any time had actually passed, this had however been followed up shortly thereafter by what had seemed to be the better part of a year to him that infact had spanned a mere 73 minutes. He was rather disappointed when he found out that his new body wasn't going to be ready for another four and a half months.

Going over the notes that the doctors had provided him in an attempt to pass time in a way that was less liable to leave him focused enough to ignore the alarm he had just set for his drone time he found that his new body should be advanced enough to be more than just a shapeless blob attached to his otherwise bodyless brain. With that in mind he decided to get a look at himself and then check up on a friend of his who was also in the hospital complex, though for a much less extensive treatment than a full body replacement. Though he didn't actually have any real idea of what sort of body as the company had reserved the right to make most of the choices as part of the deal where they paid for the body.

When 18:00 finally rolled around, Adrian linked up to one of the hospital's little cycloptic aerial drones and did his best to make himself vaguely comfortable in the robotic shell, tweaking various settings until he was at least content . That finished he sent of a message to the doctors in charge of his case that he desired to bring one of the drones into his intensive care 'room' (it was less of a room than a cubical with a bunch of fancy medical equipment Adrian didn't understand and a large transparent tank that held his brain and still growing body suspended in a nutrient solution) His inquiry was rapidly responded to with a disinterested affirmative from one of the doctors in charge, at which point he flew his little surrogate body into the wing in search of his particular location.

It really was rather odd wandering around searching for himself though Adrian tried not to think about it as he wandered about. Each regen cubical had a little electronic placard declaring the name of whomever was currently interred in it and a set of thin 'privacy' curtains that for the most part no one bothered closing as the doctors were the only ones that spent any time in the wing.
The view was stunning in a morbid fashion with rows upon rows of bodies suspended in clear, gently glowing tanks surrounded by blinking electronics. Everyone in the wing was in for some sort of major injury or rebuild and in varying states of completion which just added a freakish element to the whole thing. It really was no wonder the place didn't get many visitors.

It was only after some searching that Adrian found his own little cubical. Of course, it was one of the few that someone had bothered to pull the curtain closed. Normally, he would have considered this a good thing but in this particular case his drone lacked the rather important feature of hands. He simply didn't notice the lack until just then, having gone for months without having a body to worry about, let alone manipulating objects with said body. So it wasn't for another ten minutes of fumbling with the little vanes sticking out from the sides of the drone body that he was able to pull the curtains aside.

If he had actually been in his own body he would've collapsed right there out of shock. As it was the drone dropped out of the air, nearly hitting the steel floor before the autopilot kicked in. Doing a rapid series of checks through the computer system to confirm that there wasn't some sort of error with the placard and then another to make sure that he was who he thought he was (just to be safe) When those all checked out he sped off to talk to the doctor on duty.

“What the Bloody Hell did you bastards do to me?” He demanded of still bored looking doctor who had up to that point been idly reading something on one of the screens.

Looking up for a moment then going back to his reading the doctor simply replied “Exactly what we were asked to. One space adapted body to replace a bloody mess surrounding an otherwise still intact brain.” adding on as a afterthought “If you've got a problem, take it up with your own bosses. They're the ones that chose it.”

The doctor's reply did little to calm his patient who was doing his best to try and sputter angrily and only becoming more frustrated when he couldn't even manage that. Adrian could easily see that nothing was going to come of the conversation and so stormed off in search of someone else to complain to. Preferably someone who might actually agree with him.

Once again alone the doctor settled back into reading into preparations for the coming zombocolypse.

[Tvorsk]

Interesting opening. Gives an insight into how the world works, being a severely futuristic one, but not "everything is just great and happy" one. Equipment shortages, bored "I just work here attitude", and such, give this "more like a real world, not quite perfect" feeling quite nicely.
And you end with a good hook. Just what it is, to be space-ready? And, more importantly, is it fuzzy? (jk, jk) ;)

[Virmir]

Awesome so far! Echoing what Tvorsk said, really believable and interesting. The disembodied brain thing is fun to think about. Looking forward to reading more.

[Fax]

It took a while to find the one person in the facility that he actually knew, a co-worker from one of the other ships he had been on, Sasha Markov. She was there after a ride in a ship whose artificial gravity went haywire and started chucking around everything that wasn't bolted down. Really, she should have been back on the job a couple days ago but she managed to convince the doctors to keep her on a bit longer 'for observation' reasons. With full sick pay. Adrian really couldn't figure out how she managed to do it without sleeping with the doctors.

Drifting up to the door he prepared to knock before remembering and thinking to himself Right, no hands. Looking around there was a small button for a doorbell, but lacking any means of manipulating it he simply sighed and did his best to gently ram the drone into the button. A resounding THUNK followed by a litany of curses worked in place of the little door bell button, which had stubbornly refused to trigger.

Adrian  was still doing his best to reorient himself as the door slid open as a dark haired head popped out and looked around before focusing on him. “Oh, hello there! Come on in. I was wondering what was taking you.” she said before going back into her room.


Following her in he commented "You realize that you could be letting just about anyone in like that? How do you know who I actually am?" The reply he got wasn't quite what he was expecting "Psh! Its not as if there's many people who would be showing up at this time who would be both worth expending a drone on /and/ dumb enough to ram the door when there's a remote activation for the thing built in." There was a stupid, amused grin plastered across her face as she talked.
Adrian on the other hand was doing his utmost to attempt to express his intense irritation but finding the drone's frame far from capable of actually expressing anything on its molded plastic frame. This of course simply irritated him all the more, to the point where for a minute he had actually forgotten the reason why he was so irked in the first place. His antics on the other hand just made Sasha grin all the more. "Ya know, you're absolutely hillarious like that. Still not as amusing as that time you found that colony of meercats in a ship's engine compartment though. Heh, No one had realized that the normal mechanic had been keeping them onboard as pets and then there you were getting swarmed by the things screaming that someone had left a horde of furry piranhas in the thing! Ah, that was a fun trip!"

Momentarily abandoning his attempt to put some sort of expression on the nigh-faceless drone's surface Adrian muttered "How was I supposed to know they were tame? The bloody things swarmed me as soon as I opened the engine up!"

"Hah, I'm sure one day you'll actually believe that if keep telling yourself thats what actually happened. Now then, what is new in the land of the disembodied brains? Have they not managed to get you your own drone so you can float meanacingly? Or are they still waiting on their shipment of giant warspiders?"

Quickly falling back into his previous irate state he replied "Bah, if only they were doing something quite so impressive. No, they're growing a whole new body for me and through the whole thing I get to sit in a vat bored out of my mind! They won't even let me have access to the planetary net! Just a bunch of dull sims which I've already gone through far too many times each....even the absolutely awful romance sims."

"They're growing you a whole new body? Whats so bad about that? Seems like a pretty good deal to me."

Adrian grumbled "You haven't seen the body they're giving me. Thats whats so bad about the whole thing. I was supposed to get a whole new one, everything in the peak of condition. Thing is that they failed to tell me that its not a human body! Thats what the problem is!" Fumbling around for a minute he finally managed to connect the drone to a screen in the room so he could put up a bit of the video from his trip to his own 'room'.

The end result left Sasha lying on the floor, clutching her stomach as she laughed uncontrollably.

"Thats you?" she finally managed to get out amidst gasping laughter. "You're so incredibly *Cute*! Like a little cartoon mouse or something!" Finally getting control of herself once again she went on "I can't wait to tell everyone how the company went and took the big, strong old Adrian  and rebuilt him as a little mousey thing!"

Adrian actually went bright red at this point, or would have if the drone had been capable of changing its colour. Instead he accidentally flooded the screen, which the drone was still connected to, with an angry undulating pattern of red. "YOU WILL DO NOTHING OF THE SORT!" he blurted out angrily.

A little taken aback by her friend's outrage Sasha quickly backtracked "Relax! Relax! I was just teasing! Though you're going to have to tell someone else eventually. Its not as if the company is going to let you off just cause you're not happy that they saved your life and gave you a different body from what you were expecting. Plus you're going to have to deal with other people eventually."

Adrian attempted a sigh, which came out as a short dip by the drone's small form, the furious red of the attached screen slowly drifting back to its original settings. "I know, I know. I'm not looking forward to it at all. Why couldn't they have gone with something that at least /looks/ human? The whole thing is like some sort of sick joke on the company and maybe even the doctors part." By this point the screen which had been completely forgotten by both of them was once again shifting colours, this time towards depressing shades of blue and grey. "Its not as if something like that would've been all that hard to do, what with some of the rediculous things they can pull off in these hospitals"

"Huh, well I can't really argue with that. It does seem a bit odd that they wouldn't, but then perhaps the company had some other reasons for this particular choice? The beuracrats would never approve spending the kind of money it must have cost them to do this unless they saw some sort of profit in it." Sasha pointed out in an attempt to cheer him up a little

"Perhaps you should just ask them, who knows? They might even give you a actual answer!" Adrian did his best impression of a snort in response to the idea. Everyone knew the beuracry would be rid of every tech adept person in the entire company if they thought they could possibly get away with it and still keep the company viable. As it was they just barely suffered their presence because it kept the ships running and new developments coming. /Still, it did seem at least somewhat worthwhile. If only to let them know of his displeasure with the whole thing./