The Edge of Darkness

Chapter One: Awakening (Part II)

 My father was a preacher. After the crash, after I had lain in hospital for days slowly dying, he and my mother decided to save my life by handing it over to the Corporation. They spent millions saving my life, and I was indebted to them for the rest of it. When my parents came to say goodbye, my father couldn't look at my new robotic half – my face plate covering one eye, my new arm, my new leg. He couldn't accept that part of me. The general consensus is that borgs are too much robot to have souls anymore. There's no ghost in the machinery here. My father could no longer see me as human.

Perhaps if English wasn't their second language, they might have realised what they were doing in time to say no. But I was dying – supposedly – and my mother was upset. My father was trying to console her while at the same time dealing with the Corporation's recruitment agents. They were no better than pushy second hand car dealers – desperate for another indenture, another commission to their wages.

And then I was contracted to be a slave for the next twenty years of my life.

I believe I have a soul, even as a half-robot. I still remember, I imagine, and I dream. I remember my former life, and the hopes and wishes I had for my future. None of them involved becoming half machine. All of them involved life and creation and love and splashes of colour. But no one cared what I thought or wanted anymore. No humans ever concern themselves over cyborg well-being. We're advanced robots. Emotional, intelligent, capable of intuition and imagination. We're so much more valuable than robots ever were.

Robots wore out eventually. They were incapable of thinking and learning. They couldn't adapt and adjust. Faced with certain challenges, they'd plow on regardless of their own safety, often destroying themselves in the process. As for cyborgs, well: Every organism living in a hostile environment gradually develops survival strategies. Cyborgs could think for themselves. They could develop beyond artificial intelligence. They had a certain flexibility granted from the human brain. That's what made us so valuable.

I once heard that hundreds of years ago, gay couples weren't allowed to get married. There was a distinct streak of discrimination based on a person's skin colour or accent. Border security was much tighter. I couldn't help but wonder how cyborgs would have been treated back then. As it was now, we were the last great minority to be discriminated against. I guess haters just have to hate.

I wanted to go to University to study art. I wanted to be a famous artist, a famous painter. I would wow the world with my colourful creations and I would grow rich and fat with contentment.

Then the war hit Old Earth, and dragged us along with it. Millions of citizens died while the combined governments desperately tried to salvage their space vessels. For a year I walked the streets afraid that an Authority would snatch me up and carry me away.

Turns out I didn't need an Authority to change my life.

There was a crash. Twisted metal and burning rubber, smoke and fire and pain.

I was injured. I was dying. I remember my mother sobbing over my broken body while I struggled simply to breathe, my limbs in agony.

And when I awoke, I was half-machine, stronger in arm and leg and more powerful in mind. Possibly able to live forever.

And expendable. Not applicable to human laws, for I was no longer entirely human. We are none of us human.

The woman in my daydream had cropped, thick black hair. I am lucky in that I do have hair, and it too is cropped short after the surgery. I see numbers on the chest pieces of others, corresponding to brandings on the flesh beside. My own numbers match as well: X-445, both on my left chest piece and as darkened skin on the right over my breast. My human fingers, the side that can perceive the lightest touch, traces the puckered edges of the branding. It appears I have been matched up. My human half has been claimed by this machine that keeps me alive. I have been matched and melded, branded and built.