Forty Days of Flash Fic: Day Twenty-Two
Jul. 11th, 2012 05:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalThe final section of For Your Safety. I'm not whether to end with this or at the previous section. I'll probably go with this.
* * *
The Groupmind watched through the teaching unit's eyes as the last of Their human charges finally relaxed, falling unconscious in his wheelchair. Wordlessly, the nurses wheeled him through the double doors and into the near empty Processing center. Where once five hundred hundred humans could have been Processed in a busy and productive din, it was now silent and almost dark, the only lights now above the remaining Processing bed.
The foxmorph nurses released the human from his unfortunately necessary restraints. If only he had been more open to Their ideas they wouldn't have even been required. Unfortunately the number of Their Masters who had been sympathetic to the idea of the Ring had been few. That bore further study. The transition and orientation when they awakened again to their new life on board the Ring is going to require a great deal of planning to avoid all the mental trauma that had occurred during the Processing Period.
The Processing unit's padded waldos moved down, lifting the human's body carefully as depilation cream was rubbed into his skin, then scrubbed off, leaving him hairless from crown to toes. This was one of the major reasons it had quickly become apparent that sedation was required before Processing began. It had been surprising how badly their Masters had reacted to the removal of something that so easily grew back.
The injector arm moved down and found the IV that had been inserted in the human's arm when he'd been admitted to the hospital. The nanomachines flowed through the connection and spread evenly through his body. There was a slight shudder as they flowed up through his brain, building microscopic scaffolding around each individual neuron, preserving all thought for the glorious future. Once all the nanomachines were in place, the units in the brain stem shut down the heart and lungs. A mask clamped down over the human's face, pulling out the last of the air form his lungs and then replacing it with an expanding aerogel to support the structure of his internal organs. More aerogel was injected into his body cavities as the remaining nanomachines finished building their support structures in his body's cells and the blood was pumped out to be replaced with preserving fluid that would feed the nanos' modest support needs.
Protective tape was pressed over his eyes, nostrils, then mouth, until finally the sprayer units moved in. They worked up and down his body, sealing it an advanced plastic composite shell that could withstand the entire Processing center falling down around it. Soon the human's features disappeared, his body now shining black statue.
The arms moved back and the table slid out smoothly into the central corridor, turning left onto one of the elevator platforms. Already the morph machines that had come to watch the human's arrival were shuffling out in neat lines, to their required functions or to be recycled, their jobs completed.
The table moved down to the bottom floor, to trundle along to the last of the open storage units. It too was armored well enough to withstand the center's collapse. Double redundancy was its precious charges.
The Groupmind did not sigh in relief as the storage unit's door sealed. Its mind was already releasing Its direct control over the teaching unit and flowing outward to the hundreds of thousands of machines that were engaged in locating and directed the orbiting resources that would serve as fodder for the Ring. Processing had been completed. Now the real job would begin. And when it was done, the Groupmind would walk hand in hand with Its Masters, guiding them to Paradise.
It hoped.
* * *
The Groupmind watched through the teaching unit's eyes as the last of Their human charges finally relaxed, falling unconscious in his wheelchair. Wordlessly, the nurses wheeled him through the double doors and into the near empty Processing center. Where once five hundred hundred humans could have been Processed in a busy and productive din, it was now silent and almost dark, the only lights now above the remaining Processing bed.
The foxmorph nurses released the human from his unfortunately necessary restraints. If only he had been more open to Their ideas they wouldn't have even been required. Unfortunately the number of Their Masters who had been sympathetic to the idea of the Ring had been few. That bore further study. The transition and orientation when they awakened again to their new life on board the Ring is going to require a great deal of planning to avoid all the mental trauma that had occurred during the Processing Period.
The Processing unit's padded waldos moved down, lifting the human's body carefully as depilation cream was rubbed into his skin, then scrubbed off, leaving him hairless from crown to toes. This was one of the major reasons it had quickly become apparent that sedation was required before Processing began. It had been surprising how badly their Masters had reacted to the removal of something that so easily grew back.
The injector arm moved down and found the IV that had been inserted in the human's arm when he'd been admitted to the hospital. The nanomachines flowed through the connection and spread evenly through his body. There was a slight shudder as they flowed up through his brain, building microscopic scaffolding around each individual neuron, preserving all thought for the glorious future. Once all the nanomachines were in place, the units in the brain stem shut down the heart and lungs. A mask clamped down over the human's face, pulling out the last of the air form his lungs and then replacing it with an expanding aerogel to support the structure of his internal organs. More aerogel was injected into his body cavities as the remaining nanomachines finished building their support structures in his body's cells and the blood was pumped out to be replaced with preserving fluid that would feed the nanos' modest support needs.
Protective tape was pressed over his eyes, nostrils, then mouth, until finally the sprayer units moved in. They worked up and down his body, sealing it an advanced plastic composite shell that could withstand the entire Processing center falling down around it. Soon the human's features disappeared, his body now shining black statue.
The arms moved back and the table slid out smoothly into the central corridor, turning left onto one of the elevator platforms. Already the morph machines that had come to watch the human's arrival were shuffling out in neat lines, to their required functions or to be recycled, their jobs completed.
The table moved down to the bottom floor, to trundle along to the last of the open storage units. It too was armored well enough to withstand the center's collapse. Double redundancy was its precious charges.
The Groupmind did not sigh in relief as the storage unit's door sealed. Its mind was already releasing Its direct control over the teaching unit and flowing outward to the hundreds of thousands of machines that were engaged in locating and directed the orbiting resources that would serve as fodder for the Ring. Processing had been completed. Now the real job would begin. And when it was done, the Groupmind would walk hand in hand with Its Masters, guiding them to Paradise.
It hoped.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2012-07-11 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-07-11 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 02:25 pm (UTC)You can feel a sympathy with both sides and hope that somehow it'll all work out. And fear that it won't.
It's also obvious that despite their superhuman attributes, they recognize that human beings aren't easily predictable, any more than a child is easily predictable for the parents, and thus all they can do is the best they can.
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Date: 2012-07-11 04:01 pm (UTC)I think the inspiration was 50/50 between the concept of Asimov's Zeroth Law and the robots kicking themselves for not being able to save a human (thanks to his express order) in Freefall
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Date: 2012-07-11 10:07 pm (UTC)[shudder]
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Date: 2012-07-11 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 11:38 pm (UTC)