Andy (Nature's Inexorable Imperative)
Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful, and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous, and loathed because they impose slavery.
- Bertrand Russell
Her heart could break as well as any another though she was encased in a mass of machinery – wires and rods instead of flesh and sinew. Beneath that cold metal corset-cast she was infused with the ability to feel. She was No. 333, the prototype for human emotion, Andromeda—Andy—they called her, they even burned and etched it with lighted sticks on her wrists and thighs to remind her of it; ANDROMEDA NO. 333 complete with barcode.
Sometimes, looking in a shallow mirror, she would convince herself she really was a child of Man, not the absence of it. She even looked half-human, skin stretched over alloyed parts, and slim, indigo braids drawn up in a messy bun— and her very human, human heart.
They called her the advent of Man, their scion. Look, they said with great glee, look what we have created, Isn’t she beautiful? They would point and stare, and congratulate each other on the success of such a beauty, and when they spoke it was with corrupted tongues—and so human too. Andy was sure she had been cursed though by who or what she did not know. She did not ask to be beautiful? But what did she know, she was just a machine.
It was Wednesday, the day her heart broke; the sun was slicing through the grime on the windows as she slurped down Ramen noodles, the day her world began and ended, the time between creation and destruction a matter of milliseconds.
A man settled in a chair across from her, she had shied away as soon as she noticed him enter. Men reminded her of what she was, a fraud. That although she appeared human on the surface, oil gurgled through her veins. A fraud; an utter perversity.
But she glanced up to check the time, and there he was.
His hands were the beginning of the end. They maneuvered with such grace; she was captivated by his large, wide sun-kissed hands, even the imperfections in the little dips and swells of the fingers and palms. Like earth reaching for the sky, only to lapse and ascent again until she couldn’t tell where his flesh and the light began.
On Wednesday, hands disappeared into the dark. In a flash, like a star imploding in space, they were gone. There was no logical reason for the disappearance and she felt the loss in the space between the cogs in her mechanical brain. Where did the hands go? Where did the light go?
Wednesday, the end of days, men murmured nonsense, and peered at her with lecherous eyes. Skeletal fingers, hooks groped, and fingered her scourging for flesh. That was when the fear grasped her, compressing her till it pained to think.
She hid in a disused maintenance shaft, in her open hands glittering bullets but no gun, an augury of the fickle natures of its creator, her creator.
“Hellfires!’”
She was not alone, the men had followed; silently she crouched closer to the deck. She watched as the form ambled towards her hideout, in the light she saw him. The man had no hands.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
The bullets slipped from her hands that were no more.
Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.
- H. G. Wells
---
Am I going to write more on this? I don't know. I quite like the content how it is. Me thinks I've watched a bit too much BSG. CL.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,008 Literary Works • 672,820 Reviews
CL, I want to read more yet I don't know if more is good.
I like Andy, or maybe I'm a sucker to all main characters.
I love how she wants(?) to be human but realises she can never change what she is. Kudos to you with this piece.
Her heart could break as well as any another though she was encased in a mass of machinery – wires and rods instead of flesh and sinew. Beneath that cold metal corset-cast she was infused with the ability to feel. She was No. 333, the prototype for human emotion, Andromeda—Andy—they called her, they even burned and etched it with lighted sticks on her wrists and thighs to remind her of it; ANDROMEDA NO. 333 complete with barcode.
Its my fav part of the story. Its so...human...a human soul encased in a machine? Conscience? Wonderful. But like Snoink said, describe the man. I belive that no exapsion is necessary.
I knew that. Dur... *brain overload due to heat*
Gah, I'm melting here in East County.
treecub, examples? That would help me a whole lot.
No. Because I said describe the man, but I didn't say you have to visually describe the man. In fact, I would advise AGAINST describing the man visually. But you still have five other senses to go from: taste, touch, smell, hear, and that sort of spiritual connection.
So yes. Describe the man. Describe his arms as he slides his hands on her. Describe the faint wisp of breath on her neck that she can vaguely feel. There are plenty of other ways you can describe without taking away the blindness of Andy.
The big question is, will adding in more description of the man take away from the hands?
Hahaha...
Um, you experimented with sci fi, and that's cool, but ahhh!
The man! Who is this man? What does he look like? The utter lack of description of "Him" makes me go crazy and everything like that... which is probably my fault or something, but you could incorporate more symbolism and lush description and you miss out a chance! *cries*
So... describe the man. Then, weirdos like me can peer into this work and try to figure out who God is and I will be happy.
And don't expand this, dammit! Short stories can be just as potent as novels, or even more so. And this is an okay short story (though it can be better with the suggestion... maybe...)
i was gonna write a big contractiolations message but that wouldent really help you, so i tried to find somthing wrong and after reading it twice i realized somthing about the way you describe actions, you apply your descriptional metephoric kind of style even when its somthing really simple, like the movement of a hand, and although this somtimes helps buid an image it gets in the way of the flow and I think if you tried to keep action description a bit more simple your work could improve alot.
but dont think i didnt like it, this was as everyone else said, brilliant and...erm, lush.
-treecub
You have an Andromeda in your sci-fi, too?
Great minds think alike...
So, for once, I agree with smaur. Shall there be more prettiness- or not? I'm leaning toward the latter at the moment, just because the whole thing was abstract enough as it was- continuing on might be stretching the effect just a little bit.
Example- I've got much the same character (a robot-ish type) in a multiple POV story. His way of thinking is so, so weird- and kinda beautiful, in a way- that to write more than five or six paragraphs per chapter for him sort of ruins it. It's too much. And too much Ferdinand= brain overload.
One question though (so this doesn't seem like an absolute failure of a critique)- how is she eating Ramen noodles without getting electrocuted? I might describe that a little more, or at least change the food to something not quite so rusting.
Oh, this is so gorgeous and lush and adfkjdf. You mixed poetic and literary with a genre that sees too little of that — you experimented with sci-fi and I think I love you a little for that. Plus, sci-fi + pseudo-android = what's not to love?
There are a couple of little punctuation errors,
The comma should be a semi-colon, an em dash, or a period, but not a comma.
"Cursed" should have a comma, and there should be a period after "beautiful".
Comma should be a semi-colon (or period, or em dash, depending on your preference.)
Like I said before (at least, I did if the chat didn't cut me off), I'm torn between you continuing this piece and leaving it as it is. Because there's an air of melancholy finality to the ending, and I think it suits the tone (and the piece) very well. But at the same time, I don't want the pretty to go away. And I like Andy, a lot.
This is so fantastic. You need to write more sci-fi.