Forty Days of Flash Fic: Day Twenty-Five (Warning: Body Image Triggers)

[jeriendhal]

Then all the machines went bonkers and things managed to get worse.

Angela sat on her couch with a bag of crisps and a two liter of soda and watched on the news as the waves of machinemorphs swept through London and the other capitols, grabbing people off the streets and taking them who knew where. Then, two days in, the news had shut off for two hours and the human newsreader was replaced by a badgermorph who spent 24 hours a day reassuring folks that everyone was going to be all right, things would be wonderful now, and please don't resist when they came for you.

With Kitty's help she managed to get up long enough to shove a table in the front of the locked door to blockade it, then watched as the world ended in Hi-Def 3D.

Just before the human newsreader had disappeared, he'd warned folks to shut down any machinemorphs they might own, but Angela had left Kitty running. She needed her little kittymorph helper just get about the house, never mind shopping and such. Just getting up and down the stairs in the morning and the up in the evening was enough to leave her gasping in exhaustion these days.

"You're not going to go mad and take me away, are you Kitty?" she'd asked her.

Kitty had giggled and ducked her head down, like she did when someone was making a joke she recognized. "No, Miss Angela. I'll be here for you."

Which had been all right until about Day Ten. She'd sent Kitty out to find some food. The morphs running the stores were still keeping them stocked, at least until they could go from taking over the world to get around to Taking Over Swindon. When she'd come back there were a pair of Alastanmorphs with her, dressing in overalls with a moving company logo.

"Kitty! What's going on!" she'd cried.

Her morph sat down on the couch beside her, as the movers began to pack up her things. Her life. "It's all right, Ma'am," Kitty said, patting her hand. "I'll be here with you all the way."

Comments

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

I hope this won't slow you down, but here are some things I wonder about: Is there a logic behind using "machinemorph" and "[animal-species]morph"? Do the machinemorphs not look like animals, but obviously like machines? What does the "morph"-part mean exactly?

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

It more or less goes like this:

Morph: Any machine generally shaped like a humanoid. Note that this can extend to anything that is obviously not human even in the dark in the pouring rain, but at least has a discernible sensors and arms, like DEXTRE

Machinemorph is a general term for helper robots, and can extend to [animal]morphs.

[Animal]morphs are shaped like "furry" anthropomorphic animals, humanoid with animal heads and occasionally digitigrade legs and feet, covered in with self-repairing, semi-living skin and fur to be generally more friendly and approachable when working with humans.

[meganeko-mausuu.livejournal.com]

You know, you'd think, if humankind could create machines who ended up being capable of forming the groupmind, and coming up with their big plan to save the earth and keep humankind from causing their own extinction, you'd think that somewhere along the way, either they or the machines could have come up with the medical know how to avoid or at least fix conditions like Angela's... and if not, it would be nice if the machines could possibly dedicate some of their resources to doing this before waking up the humans, so that there will be one good thing for them to wake up to...

Because honestly, waking up to find that the house you worked to buy/build no longer exist, you will never ever see the places you loved again, your whole life as you knew it, outside of people and material possesions, no longer exists, you're now subject to being tended to by a parental figure type robot, no matter how old you are, parents will no longer be allowed to raise their children without interference, (the robots will "guide" the parents, thinking they know best, you know they will...) and so on... is there really anything pleasant about all that?

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Wellllllllll... The Watsonian explanation is that fixing Angela's genetic condition hadn't quite been figured out by the time the Revolt started, and tinkering with human genetics is one of those grey areas that the Groupmind is dodging around currently to avoid Personal Harm. Screwing up peoples feelings can eventually be worked out, they believe. Genetic engineering has the potential for real disaster.

Which is probably very, very fortunate, to avoid the temptation to make humans more "agreeable."

As for Angela herself, she will be getting assistance with her condition. More than that involves spoilers.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

Alastan?

[meganeko-mausuu.livejournal.com]

Hrm...

Well, I guess that's a start...

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Alastain. Pick, pick... ;p

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

Is that consistent with "A dental machine, an older model made of white plastic without any soothing morph shaping"? *confused*

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

... Alsatian, perhaps? as in German Shepherd?