Baby Steps

Alistair swung his legs over the side of the bed and rested his feet on the floor. The movements felt strange, detached, but he guessed that was normal. He'd been bed ridden for what felt like months. The doctors assured him that they had been working as fast as possible, but there was only so much they could do. It had been a pretty serious accident and he was lucky to have come out the other end in such good condition. The doctors here were strange, always talking about needing more time to work. He hadn't seen a doctor in years though; maybe this is how things were now.

He tried to think back to the accident even though the doctors had warned him against thinking back to that night. They had said that the fall may have damaged those memories. His legs felt numb but he wasn't too worried yet. After lying down for seven weeks it was probably quite normal for the muscles to be a bit weaker than normal. He was just going to do what the doctors had said and take it slowly and at his own pace. 'Don't rush them' they'd said 'break them in slowly'. Funny way of talking... but the doctors know best.

It had been late. Alastair had been on a date with a girl, a recent import from the fringe. She had wanted to see the city at night, famous all over the world for its light displays and outdoor shows. They were walking along the Skyducts in the north quarter on one of the upper levels so she could really get an idea of the scale of the city. Things were smaller out on the fringe; they had to be since the depressions had driven most of the people inward. As Alastair amazed her with facts and anecdotes about the city she returned the favour with tales of the countryside and seeing stars and sunlight.

What was her name? What had happened to her? She hadn't been in to visit him, no one had. He put her out of his mind and tried to focus on standing. He didn't look down as he wanted to keep it as normal as possible and he had never been one to stare at his feet. It was almost as if the muscles he used to use had been put somewhere else. Nothing moved the way it was supposed to. Still, after a few minutes and slipping, grunting and fumbling... he managed to get to his feet. He looked around the room and was quietly disappointed. He was clearly in the no expense spent category as there were no decorations in the room at all; just some machines that he'd been hooked up to at some point. The bed looked awful. There was no real mattress to speak of, it looked hard. A lot harder than it felt. Alastair's eyes began to hurt and he shut them as tight as he could.

They were walking along skyduct L27-East 45. It was a little out of the way, but the path Alastair normally took home had been blocked by RCR Activists picketing for robot rights again. She had so desperately wanted to see a real cyborg. They were unheard of out on the fringe but Alastair knew better. Those protests often ended in violence. Robots were tolerated because they could be built not wanting rights, but cyborgs were another problem altogether and they made him feel uneasy. They discussed the philosophy of mind as they walked back to Alastair's apartment but only because he wanted to impress her. At the end of East 45, they took a right onto East 73, a much older Skyduct that passed directly over his apartment complex.

The memories were still fuzzy, but were getting clearer as Alastair focused on the present. The pause had done him good, he could almost hear his mind speeding up. The whirring noise was just one of the machines though. He didn't know which one because they were all blinking green and orange, but something was making that noise and he was determined to find it. What better way to learn a basic skill than with a scavenger hunt. Task one: Find that hellishly annoying noise. He slowly lifted his foot, his legs still felt funny. He found it hard to shake the feeling that he still wasn't really in his head properly. He felt weightless; once he had coordinated his muscles properly he could lift his legs like they were made of feathers and happy thoughts. The noise his foot made as he brought it down onto the metal floor was unbelievable. He must've stood on a bedpan or something because it was much too loud to be just his foot. The feeling was still off, but since there was no pain he decided just to go with it. Don't look down, he thought, just act casual.

East 73 was one of the oldest Skyducts still open to the public. It was completely clear unlike the newer patterned walkways on the lower levels. She held his arm tightly as they walked; they were 27 levels above Housing Base Level which was itself the 138^th floor in the Beta Complex. She was clearly nervous but trying bravely not to show it, while he was just as nervous and putting on a big show for her benefit. He had thought the clear pathway would be a good talking point, but he had grown so accustomed to the patterns of the lower levels that he was struck with a feeling that he could fall through at any moment. Just as they were passing over his apartment complex he told her to look down, and the Stabi-Glass beneath their feet cracked.

Alastair was getting a little worried. He had checked every machine in the room, shuffling slowly from one to the other, looking for the whirring noise. It eluded him completely and, almost as if it were taunting him, it was growing louder the faster he moved and more frustrated he became. Something in the room was making him uncomfortable. His eyes were hurting again, but he couldn't really feel it. Something was off. He made his way over to the largest of the metal machines and tried to see his reflection on its surface.

She screamed as the cracks appeared in the Stabi-Glass walkway beneath their feet. He shoved her as hard as he could and she fell and slid a short distance along the path, hopefully out of immediate danger, but as he did the glass started to give way below him. He fell through the growing hole, glass cutting him on all sides as he slipped through. He watched helplessly as she curled up into a ball above him, not looking at him as he plummeted earthward. It was five levels down to the top level of his apartment complex. A trip that would have taken a minute in the tube lift was taking considerably less time by air. He reached feebly towards her as the thin stretch of Stabi-Glass disappeared from sight above him. The crash as he hit the roof was ear shattering, he went straight through the thin materials and hit the floor below. Someone's bathroom... he was upside down with his legs stuck on a vanity counter and his head resting at an unnatural angle. He heard footsteps as his vision went black.

Alastair stared at himself. It wasn't right, it couldn't be. He stared straight ahead, trying to decipher what he was seeing. His reflection was him... kind of. Parts of him didn't look right, and seemed to shift as he moved his head. Slowly the shape of his face seemed to change and he backed away in horrific realisation. He thought back over the last seven weeks and it all came together. He hadn't looked down. Not once. Not even for a second. And so, after seven weeks of recovery, he looked down. He stared, mind blank, at the shiny silver legs supporting him. Gazed over the metallic torso he'd been given. His left arm and most of his chest was still his it seemed... probably to keep his heart going. He touched his face. Bottom jaw was metal now, but the top felt real. His left eye was certainly real he discovered after poking it a bit too hard, but the right eye had optical zoom which was not something he could do before. His brain whirred as he processed this new information. He sat on the metal slab he had woken up on, but not because he was tired. His mind was his own, he could remember everything. Everything that had ever happened to Alastair was an easily accessible memory. Even easier than when he had living brain... but if his brain was no longer human... but his heart and his mind were...

"Cyborgs give me the creeps"

"Why?"

"Well... what are they, they aren't people. Not anymore. I don't think they should have the same rights we do, they don't need the right to space and privacy like we do. They can just power down in a cupboard and encrypt their memories or something. Do they even have memories of their old lives?"

"I guess they do"

"I'm not buying it. It's just another step along the path to stripping us of our individuality. I don't want to be a generic metal man, if I was a cyborg I'd lose who I was. I wouldn't be me anymore, would I?"