A Walk in the Park

Work In Progress/Unfinished

I sat in a booth at a small diner in Downtown Chicago. Not a very interesting setting, I know, but I'll get to the good parts, if you read a bit more.

My name is Charles Randall. I am Caucasian, five foot eleven, and I have brown hair and blue eyes. But that's enough about me, I can't give you too much information, or why else will you keep reading?

The year is 2047, and I'm going to tell you that unfortunately, the world is much the same as it was at the turn of this godforsaken century. However, there are also some big differences. But I'll have more on those later. What? Your whining about how I'm not giving you any of the juicy details? Well your going to have to read all of this if you want those. No easy summary for you!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the diner. I believe it was called 'Munchers' or something of that nature. The place was a grease-pit, with thick fatty burgers, heart attack fries, and greasy Coke. I had decided not to partake in the food the establishment offered, and I nursed my coffee with great care. 

I had a right to do so, coffee was damned expensive now, as the agriculture market stood. A cup of caffeine was much cheaper, and you got more bang for your buck, but that particular day I needed the coffee. As I sat in the booth, nursing my coffee and staring blankly into the cup, I thought of what I had witnessed.

'The man was tossed into the trash recycling unit like a ragdoll. The others that surrounded him laughed as he pulled his bleeding head out of a bag of irradiated gunk. Hell, that probably chopped twenty years off his life right there. I lay in a pile of my own filth a few yards away from the men, recovering from a rather crazy night filled with alcohol and chems. 

It was raining, acid rain of course. We hadn't had a clean dose of the wet stuff in months. I could feel the bioreceptors in my lungs detect the sulfur dioxide particulates from the rain. Then antibodies were released and they went to work eliminating the foreign toxins from my body.'

I suppose this would be a good time to mention the fact that I am, like most of the working class nowadays, a cyborg. But unlike most of the working class, I didn't just get my arms and legs ripped off and replaced with expensive, super-powerful limbs. I got the full body treatment, paid for by Intelli Corp. I was their 'little' side project, a testing ground for the current cutting edge systems of the day. 

Yes, I'm probably an idiot for letting them use my body as their playground, but I was young, dumb, and most importantly, broke. See, I had started working for Intelli Corp. as an intern sometime in the early 30's, before cybernetics and telepathy became big business. I was fresh from Harvard, which was still a prestigious school at the time, with a degree in Biology, and another in Engineering.

That's right, I was pretty much held the extent of the qualifications of someone who should be heading up a cybernetics, or biomedical engineering. But you know what those faceless b******s running the show did? Stuck me behind a desk and told me to crunch numbers like the hundreds of other mindless idiots they had working for the business side of them. 

I didn't get the chance to do any real research until about three years later, when my internship was up. I was offered a permanent position at the company, a nice cushy consulting job for some experimental projects that Intelli Corp. was running up. Well, that struck me as odd, because as the name suggests, Intelli Corp. dealt with numbers, and was mostly an accounting firm. 

The name was just some new age crap made up by Rodger Marson, the new Corporation CEO. He inherited his position from his late father, who left the world via heart attack. I often think that his old man's sudden demise what drove the boy to dump so much money into the cybernetic idea. I mean, back then, it was still looked at as years in the making. 

Little did all the cynics know, that down in the labs that Intelli Corp. those scientists were onto something huge. Atomic Bomb huge. Those damn lab rats has successfully managed to create a micro nuclear reactor. Moreso than that, they figured out how to safely integrate one into the human body. Now, this doesn't mean we can make humans tick on nuclear power, the radiation from that would still kill us. However, the micro reactor was successfully used to power an artifical heart.

 

Then they found out they could power other things, bigger things. Intelli Corp. was now the leader in the newly born cybernetics market. But was it all safe? Could they safely release this technology to the public? Now, don't mistake this question as a sign of the company's goodwill. The answer was based around economics, if you brought a product to a consumer, but the product killed the consumer, not only are you left with a lawsuit and some bad publicity, you lose a potential buyer for the next line of a product.

 

So they needed a guinea pig, and I was flat broke. I know they gave me a high paying, cushy job and all, but I kind of have a chem problem. But that aside, they needed their test subject, and I was all too willing to become their pawn. I signed a magical contract, and off I went to the magical land of free money and the promise of incredible new abilities bestowed upon me.

 

I went under the knife, and they installed every experimental system they had on me. I already hinted at my lung implants, which allow me inhale all sorts of toxins and not suffer for it. I won't bore you with the complete list, you'll find out the extent of my abilites over the course of this log.

 

'I half expected the man to be dead, but I saw his eyes slowly open, then watched them flicker around in confusion and fear. Then, awareness dawned on the man, and I saw a flash of anger, reflected in the harsh neon light that lit the small alley. The air grew thick with tension, even the thugs slowly began to stop laughing, one by one. The stranger then rose from the trash, swiping at the closest thug. I could hear the servos in the mans arm strain, it was painfully loud.

 

Author's Note

I'm not done with this yet, but I'd appreciate any feedback you'd give. This is my first attempt at writing any sort of Science Fiction.

Reviews

[PHOEbe NIX]

I really like where you are going with this! very good plot! especially for your first attempt at science fiction. the only problem i had was it was a little choppy to read. i think if you were able to show more then tell the story it would read easier. I would love to read the revised copy!

[Joshua Z.]

Yeah, I'm trying to explain the world a bit before I dump them into the plot. Is that what you meant by choppy?

[PHOEbe NIX]

i think its the way the info about the world comes out. i am not getting a clear picture of the world in 2047 - apoclyptic/poor and grim/dirty? why were laying in the street at that hour? what made you get up and look just in time for you to see the body going into the dumpster? i think i would like more background. i know you'll get to all of that, just someting to think about