Full Metal

I used to dread being around other human beings: the awkward dance of body language meant to show one’s intentions, or small talk, acting as if we cared about each other’s problems like a B-movie star going for an Oscar-worthy performance.

Nowadays, I feel more out of place than usual—an unwanted feeling of hopelessness to be around people sits at the forefront. Things changed so quickly. It’s difficult for most to keep track of how we got here, but not for me.

As I recall, it all began with a blind combat veteran desperate to see and an experimental surgeon—with a Ph.D. in Robotics—who offered him a chance to escape the darkness and see the light.

After many years of experimental procedures, years of excruciating pain, and the painstaking long healing process, they were finally able to install what the doctor called“binocularis ocularis,”orbinoeyes, which contained a 125x optical zoom. The operation was a testament to the power of science—allowing man to perceive objects as far as the surface of the moon. His eyesight was superior to all the animals who resided on our small blue planet. The mad doctor even installed thermal imaging.

Word on the street is he was an ex-military soldier with a successful future in stacking bodies before shrapnel blinded him. Some say the man cut a deal with an anonymous billionaire who goes byWM. This obscenely wealthy fellow was a huge believer in Transhumanism and hoped to bring humanity to its next evolutionary leap. He argued that the marriage between man and machine was the only way forward for the survival of mankind due to the limitations of what he labeled as “the natural body.” Too bad WM would die of old age before he could utilize his technology.

Everyone was aware of Talos Corp’s success, especially after they paid millions to promote it on social media through influencers, celebrities, major corporations, and even some government officials. Someone even paid50 Centto name-drop the company at Coachella.

The bino-eyed veteran became an overnight sensation—every daytime talk show displaying his newfound abilities and abs to lonely housewives watching in awe. With the potential to make trillions, the investors ate up every second of it. With newfound confidence, they invested more: with more cash flow, the company pumped its research and development department with an aspiration to rapidly advance the tech so they could sell to the consumer market—the demand was there.

Within the decade, a person could get any body part removed and replaced with a far superior mechanical version that granted the user special abilities (mods). Of course, this depended on how much they were willing to spend; the better the tech, the more expensive it gets. I was never interested in the hype, but the cost made it even more unappealing. It would leave most individuals in debt for decades, like a bad hospital bill.

Society was introduced to a new subgroup: Cyborgs, though they prefer to be calledbionic people. I guess self-mutilation is okay, but they draw the line at “cyborg.”

With business taking off faster than Usain Bolt, and after years of hard labor, WM was finally able to work on his true goal of making man fully android.

I believe the deranged billionaire was really doing this for his own sake; he didn’t care about helping people or making billions of dollars. His true motivation was immortality. His insanity was as strong as his intelligence, and one could only assume his true goal was to evolve mankind with him as the creator.

As time went on, the company was able to develop a patented method of putting the human conscience into a small computer chip that would get installed into a fully mechanical body: in theory, allowing people the option to live forever. However, Talos Corp requires a minimum of35 years’ worth of datafor the tech to function correctly. They even give a lifetime warranty; so, if their physical body frame is destroyed, their conscience is uploaded to the cloud until a new one is made—Talos called the feature“Digital Heaven.”

Time Magazine even issued a cover depicting the famous paintingThe Creation of Adamby Michelangelo, but replaced God with man and man with a robot. The caption read:“The digital soul and how mankind has transcended from not man to robot but from man to God.”

Needless to say, the government got involved and started creating new laws, social programs, regulations, and multi-billion-dollar contracts that were addressed to Talos. In return, Talos Corporation agreed to have its centralized computer system and data housed by them. This computer would be in charge of the most crucial functions of protecting Android chips from hackers, and where they would access applications like theCIS.

TheCentralized Internet System (CIS)acts as the primary brain for all Talos users. The government didn’t care about protecting the people—only obtaining control over the data. Once they got it, they owned you; they knew your wants, likes, dislikes, and could manipulate your every move.

Regulations kept coming, and Talos couldn’t control everything. So, they made a subsidiary calledData Gold, where all data would be mined and stored in an off-grid location protected by the government.

I can remember the day when the president announced his new plan to save the world at the G20 summit. For months leading up, he boasted about how, with Talos Corp., they would be able to end world hunger, overpopulation, poverty, and the lack of education all at once.

An international program was proposed to the world’s leaders; the program would allow citizens to sign a contract with their governments where they would be offered money, a job, and eternal life if they went“fully mechanical.”

The president proposed incentives to the various world powers and their corresponding countries which stated that if they could getsixty percent of their populationto join the program by 2071, they would be nicely compensated and allowed access to Data Gold.

Much like a home-cooked meal, the offer was too good to refuse, and so the world leaders made it their mission to“save the world,”one human at a time.

Society was changed forever and broken into three main groups that rank from most superior to inferior:Robots, cyborgs, and humans.The once dominant human race now makes up only20 percentof the world’s total population.

It feels so empty and cold now. The awkward dancing has turned mechanical and stiff; the small talk is cold or non-existent. I never thought that I’d miss being around humans.