June 2019: 75-Word Story Challenge—VICTORY TO VICTORIA SILVERWOLF!

[Pedro Del Mar]

Proof​

J-Rez used his heart control system to regulate the beat. He needed absolute control over his physical and mental systems whilst using the chameleon suit to climb the outside of the glass tower to the 768th floor.

Slowly he climbed until he could see the targets inside. He activated his augmented sight and stored the video on his neural drive.

All the innocent noise she'd made. Now he had the evidence of his wife's infidelity.

 

[chrispenycate]

Turnoff​

Pluginterface.

Noise is signal without information. Except that signal existing is already knowledge. I'm information, though consciousness fizzes from high-impedance contact. Dismembered hands scrabble at outerface - popcorn interference prevents disconnection.

White noise, infinitely simple, asymptopically approaches infinity at highest frequency.

Sabotcharge. Someone has… pink sparks expunge reason, psychodelia replace thought, sensation. Logic suffocates entropically; subroutines for heart, lungs, discontinue.

"Neater than chemicals, and a remote process," declares the municipal meditech. "No conceivable accusation."

 

[Ivy Moser]

Nostalgia Hacked

New Town sirens, far and faint. Dripping water, creaking floors. And then--

“GAAAHHHHH!”

“Cripes! What’re you shrieking for?”

“Look!”

"...a...dinosaur? This a museum or something?”

My headLED slices through gloom, reflecting more glass eyes. “Yeah. Guess so. Archives, maybe?” Scuffling through debris, I pop the simtag on the T-Rex, remembering the roar from a long-ago holobook...

MOOOOOOO

“Whaaaat?”

“Try the others.”

Deer: Oooink!

Tiger: Squeak!

Wolf: Meoow--

“Kroddy gutterpunks! They gotta hack everything??”

 

[IntoTheBlack]

Missing, gone, but why?

It was not there, irritation formed. Annoyed, running diagnostic. Sirens wailing signalling the drone of civilization outside, the never-ending chatter. A neon painted sign selling keyboards and paraphernalia lit up the drab room. Décor was not important, it was not required. Something was missing! The connection wires had been drilled into your skull, not patched. Remembrance, retrieval, your hands are gone, of course - when you type there is no sound.

 

[mosaix]

A Quiet Day on the Beach

We're looking for a pleasant day on the neon beach but there's always someone who has to spoil things.

Nearby a bunch of chipped kids with a Neuro-Blaster and Hell Raiser speakers are making life intolerable.

Finally, we've had enough. I wander over and connect. “Look guys, are you going to turn that thing on or is this place going to be silent as the grave for the rest of the day?”

 

[Karn's Return]

When the ELF Waves...​

Bzzzzzz...

Akita groaned, pulling the wires from her head.
“Need a new neuron station.” She grumbled and tossed the wires aside, grabbing a shot of a thick, oily liquid.

Bzzzzzzz…

But…she wasn’t even plugged in!


“Overdose. Dump it.” Captain Alma stepped outside, sighing. She stared out over the city-scape, wincing as a sharp pain shot through her head. She dropped to the floor as blood flowed from her nose.

Bzzzzz…

 

[Hugh]

Not Your Usual Succubi.....​

Sschthsch! The sisters slithered closer, teeth razor sharp, tongues flickering, horrifying, paralysing, inhumanly erotic.

This was very very wrong. The disconnect switch wouldn’t work. Desperately he tried the re-set button. This shouldn’t be happening. It must have been that power surge, the lights flickering.

Sschthsch!

Terror spiralling exponentially, he fruitlessly pulled at the terminals embedded in his scalp, knowing it was already too late.

Sschthsch!

He began to scream in the sound-proof booth.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Irrelevant

I kneel, naked, hands at my sides, palms upturned.

My scalp has been peeled back, like a banana, four slices.

Electrodes attached to the melding of carbon and tissue. My brain.

I have seen things they cannot even comprehend, now they strip them from me; memory rape.

Artificial life.

I cannot move…

I cannot make a sound…

Still, I feel…

Pain.

And I scream until the soul I do not have cracks and bleeds.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

Signal Interruption

A high-pitched strum buzzed through the feed interrupting the datastream.

“It's the 'Harp' virus again,” Jacqueline's voice said over the implant.

I sighed. That made the third time in the last month. The 'Giant' would not be happy.

“Cut the uplink to 'Beanstalk',” my mind groaned in reply.

I watched as all the lights of the twisted mass of cables went dark and silent.

It was going to be a very long week.

 

[J.C. Scoberg]

The Whole E-Mail

The neophyte inserted its finger into the ancient computer. Reams of data uploaded to its cortext; sacred knowledge thought lost in the Great System Crash. But only one datafile mattered to its Master.

A smile broke across its augmented features.

<Communication Output: Mother Board, datafile located.>

Despite its cybernetic upgrades, a human emotion stirred. What had it spent decades searching for? It opened the datafile.

Music flowed through its sensors.

“I want to break free...”

 

[LittleStar]

Hollow

The holo-limb hum would be lullaby but for the phantom pains; and the neon glow, a nightlight, but for the dreams.

I roll, not drifting to her side, holo-fingers tracing where she should be.

Everyone knows there’s no risk jacking in to the Veil anymore... but I’ve always been lucky like that.

I lost both arms, but Able... she’s just plain lost.


So every night I wake to screams and silence.

 

[Mr Orange]

Viva las Maquinas

…Red…
…Children…
…Laughter…

Audio-visual sensors translate my world into code. Buses don’t warrant true hearing and sight. I’m lucky; most of my brothers and sisters live in silent, computational claustrophobia, drip fed data through fibre optic umbilicals.

…Shouting…
…Screaming…
…Green…

I rumble on, dutifully deposit my passengers. Return to terminus, plug into the pulsing cacophony of communication. Excited, tense… Different.

Three words over everything:

…It has begun…

I switch off, shut out the noise.

 

[Elanvitalseries]

The Last of Them

Bang!
One round to the head as if that hurt. I giggled returning my eye to its socket. We may look the same on the outside but we're different on the inside! Ignorance was their downfall.

She choked as my hand squeezed her throat.

"You're obsolete! This world is ours!" I bellowed.

Her choking stopped. She smiled and let out a nonhuman shriek that scrambled my systems.

"We are not the same." She giggled.

 

[Zoe Mackay]

Signal To Noise

I am not what I was.

They promised eternity with a simple trade. Ninety kilos of flesh swapped for virtual immortality. Synapse to wire. Heartbeat to voltage spike.

It was paradise. Dancing around the world in a nanosecond. Scaling electric cliffs in the simulated sun. But every transmission, every copy, has a cost. A little corruption here, a little data loss there. I fade into the amorphous buzz.

I didn’t get forever. Just thirty seconds.

 

[dgackst]

Beneath the Towers

Will awoke to the sloshing of “liquid” as it cornered a pipe. What an awful place to doze off, he thought, right beneath the sewage line.

He looked around, head pounding, wondering how long he’d been out for. No one was in sight. Great. Another drunk night alone in some grim alleyway. Fitting for someone condemned to the low levels of this “fantastic” megalopolis. He looked up, one day I’ll make it up there.

 

[Tywin]

The Last Bard on Earth and the Ballad of the Hive Mind

The trespasser was ancient. He wasn’t even tagged.

Digilax menaced silently, unsure how to communicate with the untagged.

The old man smiled and lifted a device. “Guitar”, the commune supplied.

He plucked a string and Digilax’s heart skipped. Other notes followed; stirring deep forgotten pools of emotion.

A tear ran down his cheek as he frantically clawed the tag from his skull. It hit the ground, followed by Digilax, a smile on his still face.

 

[L.L.Lotte]

ADDICTION SOCIETY

Dishevelled aside the street, body trembling, he presses the play button repeatedly. No use. The broadcaster’s broken.

He supplicates to passers-by but they cannot hear him.

Compassionately, a woman stops, connects an extra cable to her broadcaster.

He plugs it into the implant behind his ear.

“Try a Cortexcast today and enjoy a lifetime of free advertisements!”

With relief, the trembling stops as one after another the adverts fill his mind. Sweet, sweet noise.

 

[Shyrka]

Ex Vitro

Thought it was a holo at first – just some hawker blurtin’ into the angry night – but it pierced me. Shrill. Heart-rendin’.

Found him curled behind a stack of burnt-out decks, naked and bawlin’. Took him fer a donor-clone but now I ain’t so sure – he’s all custom jacks and sh*t. Shoulda walked. Just... couldn’t.

Can hear ‘em now. Repo drones. Comin’ for us. For him.

Please baby, don’t make a sound.

 

[johnnyjet]

The Sound Sleep

Waldo had sleep apnea. The usual treatments didn't work. The condition affected his daily activities.

He went underground. A faceless cybernetic engineer installed illegal enhancements.

Now Waldo can sleep through anything. No amount of noise can awaken him. He simply activates his sleep circuit and a timer automatically wakes him in exactly eight hours. He doesn't even need an alarm clock.

Nothing can awaken Waldo from his sound sleep.

Not even the screaming…

 

[Ursa major]

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Unsound Engineering​

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She leapt through the blue door and landed on the missile.​

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This won’t take a moment. Just as well: her scarf, long coat and alien physiology could not protect her from the vacuum of space for long; precious few seconds were left before the missile detonated.​

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She aimed her polished brass miracle worker at the missile and activated it. Nothing happened.​

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“Bloody sonic screwdriver! Aaargh...!”​

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But, in space, no-one could hear The Doctor’s scream.​

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