Shownotes
In the near future an injured former officer discovers an unexpected revelation about her new self.
Today’s story is “Ghost in the Machine” by Celtic Kitsune, who can usually be found with a notebook close at hand. She can be found at FurAffinity under the username Atomic_Alex, and is a regular participant in the Thursday Prompt where she often finds inspiration for her writing.
Read by Solomon Harries, Cuddly Badger Dad
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https://thevoice.dog/episode/ghost-in-the-machine-by-celtic-kitsune
Transcripts
You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.
Speaker:this is Rob MacWolf, your fellow traveller,
Speaker:and Today’s story is “Ghost in the Machine”
Speaker:by Celtic Kitsune,
Speaker:who can usually be found with a notebook close at hand.
Speaker:She can be found at FurAffinity under the username Atomic_Alex,
Speaker:and is a regular participant in the Thursday Prompt
Speaker:where she often finds inspiration for her writing.
Speaker:Read by Solomon Harries,
Speaker:Cuddly Badger Dad
Speaker:Please enjoy “Ghost in the Machine”
Speaker:by Celtic Kitsune.
Speaker:Copy and paste your story here: Ghost in the Machine Paula drew curious glances as she padded along the city streets,
Speaker:but she was used to that.
Speaker:Artificial-Intelligence had made great progress in recent years and most people seemed to assume she was some sort of robot.
Speaker:The truth however
Speaker:was much stranger.
Speaker:She did not recall much of what had happened, that entire portion of her memory was redacted.
Speaker:It was still present and technically accessible but the segment was covered by all kinds of warning messages which suggested doing so would be a very bad idea indeed.
Speaker:As it was all she remembered was being on mobile patrol
Speaker:and catching the flash of an Improvised-Explosive-Device out of the corner of her eye.
Speaker:Then she had woken on the operating table…like
Speaker:this… The first few months had been difficult,
Speaker:she had undergone extensive rehabilitation where she had been required to relearn even the simplest tasks.
Speaker:Attempting to go down a flight of stairs had been particularly stressful and had almost defeated her.
Speaker:Yet the clinic staff had been more than patient, sympathetic and supportive,
Speaker:she really could not complain about the aftercare she had received, and continued to receive.
Speaker:Of course there had been more than a little self-interest on their part,
Speaker:she counted as an undoubted success story for the government-contracted company which was their employer.
Speaker:They were leaders in their field, that of advanced cybernetics.
Speaker:Most upgrades involved the replacement of organs or injured or lost limbs.
Speaker:There were few who had undergone Full-Body-Prosthesis as she had done,
Speaker:most had died on the operating table or soon after.
Speaker:Of those who survived a high proportion had gone completely insane.
Speaker:In all the world there were only a dozen or so functional total-cyborgs,
Speaker:and as the only animal-form she was unique in more ways than one.
Speaker:She had been subject to extensive and in-depth examination and study to determine why she had adapted so well.
Speaker:Personally she suspected it was because she had been a little nuts to begin with.
Speaker:And when she struggled with what had happened to her she reflected,
Speaker:it was better than being dead.
Speaker:There hadn’t been much of her left when they removed her from the tangled and smoking wreckage of her vehicle,
Speaker:her colleague had died almost instantly.
Speaker:That was a mercy at least.
Speaker:She had asked to see the photos that had been taken at the scene but the request had been declined.
Speaker:Paula had however read the reports despite this,
Speaker:almost everything was online these days and although before she had never been skilled with technology
Speaker:her new AI boosted capabilities meant she had easily found and gained access to the investigative records
Speaker:despite various layers of protection.
Speaker:That had been a mistake.
Speaker:In the clinical language of police, medical and legal literature
Speaker:she found she had still been conscious when located and learned exactly what had been done to her in the desperate efforts to save her life.
Speaker:She had voluntary deleted the information but the contents of the file had been automatically flagged
Speaker:so she still knew what it had contained, if not the details.
Speaker:Following the high-lighted route marked on her integral Head-Up Display she turned off towards the clinic,
Speaker:lightly trotted up the steps and through the automatic doors.
Speaker:At least these ones detected her as she approached, most did not.
Speaker:As she entered the receptionist greeted her with a warm and genuine smile.
Speaker:Paula had spent almost six months in this building before being considered suitable for discharge
Speaker:and the staff knew her well.
Speaker:She had gone to live with her parents until she fully recovered,
Speaker:though it wasn’t entirely certain what that term meant.
Speaker:Some things though could not be forgotten,
Speaker:a post-mortem had been conducted on what remained of her original body and it had then been cremated.
Speaker:When she had learned that it had disturbed her deeply,
Speaker:though she was not sure why.
Speaker:Perhaps because it meant that what had occurred to her was finally and irrevocably permanent,
Speaker:though in truth it had always been.
Speaker:Yet it meant she had no human form to go back to,
Speaker:she would be like this for the rest of her life. She caught a glimpse of her vulpine reflection in the polished marble of the desk before she stood on her hind
Speaker:-legs and threw her forepaws onto the counter.
Speaker:“Hello, I’m here for a good rodgering”
Speaker:“I think you mean a service.”
Speaker:“Is there a difference?”
Speaker:She waited patiently as the receptionist, clearly amused, called through her arrival,
Speaker:the clinic as always was nothing if not efficient.
Speaker:As was she, having arrived for her appointment five minutes early as planned,
Speaker:to the very second.
Speaker:She had always prided herself on her punctuality, a habit she had learned from her father.
Speaker:Her left-ear rotated and moved of its own accord as it picked up the conversation,
Speaker:her right was frozen into position, an upright alertness,
Speaker:this minor fault was part of the reason she was here.
Speaker:Paula had not even noticed until her mum had pointed it out,
Speaker:her artificial body did not provide direct sensations;
Speaker:it was more like receiving a communication that something had occurred
Speaker:rather than experiencing it at first hand.
Speaker:Her simulated senses were pretty accurate but they still weren’t the real thing.
Speaker:Her mother had made good-natured fun about her being straggle-eared,
Speaker:it was her way of dealing with the entire situation she supposed.
Speaker:Certainly you needed a sense of humour.
Speaker:Despite her protests her dad had tried to fix it but had just made things worse.
Speaker:She really had to stop him fiddling with her body parts, she wasn’t a tractor which he could take apart and then put back together.
Speaker:One of her cousins was an engineer and had wanted to have a look at her internal mechanisms, she had pleaded modesty.
Speaker:She recognised that she was lucky to have such a supportive extended family network,
Speaker:it was a large reason why she had been able to cope.
Speaker:The clinic had protected her from the intense media and academic interest
Speaker:and she had been unaware that it had even occurred until she had been released,
Speaker:they had been careful not to activate her external networking capabilities until they felt she was ready.
Speaker:A large canvas sack of physical mail from well-wishers from around the world had been waiting for her at home,
Speaker:and there had been many more online messages of support.
Speaker:For the first few days there had been a constant stream of visitors to her parent’s house.
Speaker:She had retreated to her room overwhelmed and did not come out until she had recovered herself,
Speaker:everyone said they understood.
Speaker:But gradually as in all things the interest had faded,
Speaker:though she still received the occasional visitor and correspondence.
Speaker:She was glad, it gave her more time and space to come to terms with what had happened and to adjust.
Speaker:She returned her attention to the present,
Speaker:when she had reported her ear to the clinic her doctor had chided her for ignoring low-priority error messages.
Speaker:It had made her feel like a disobedient schoolgirl.
Speaker:The receptionist had a pleasant accent though Paula’s own synthetic voice was without tone or inflection.
Speaker:It had however come a long way from the unintelligible buzz of the early days.
Speaker:Despite practice and effort she had never been able to recapture her original voice,
Speaker:which was annoying.
Speaker:Issuing from a speaker subtly set in her throat
Speaker:it also highlighted the fact that this body did not have a mouth.
Speaker:It was yet another thing she had been required to get used to.
Speaker:The reason for that particular design choice was due to the original purpose of the artificial form she inhabited,
Speaker:an experimental proof-of-concept it had never been intended for a human.
Speaker:Post-human now she supposed.
Speaker:When she had been hurt it had been the only cybernetic body immediately available and they had emplaced her into it.
Speaker:Paula glanced to the side as the glass-plated interior door swung open and she was invited through,
Speaker:the receptionist wished her good luck as she passed and she casually flicked her tail in acknowledgement.
Speaker:The staff member had been involved in her original treatment and recovery and they chatted easily as they walked.
Speaker:She was led directly to the operating theatre, met with friendly greetings as others passed.
Speaker:From her new perspective she had become awfully familiar with human knees over the past few months
Speaker:and she had to look up to view each person’s face as they approached.
Speaker:A pale blue outline tagged each individual and information flashed onto her internal HUD.
Speaker:That was helpful she had to admit,
Speaker:she had never been good at remembering names.
Speaker:Though she had perfect recall from the moment of her awakening, a distinctly mixed blessing.
Speaker:They paused at their destination as the double-doors were swung open and she was lead through.
Speaker:The operating room was lined with electronic equipment and she was able to sense their subtle fields,
Speaker:it was clinically sterile and she could detect the atmospheric overpressure which kept unwanted material out.
Speaker:It also contained a single waist-level operating table in the very centre of the room.
Speaker:Human waists of course,
Speaker:its surface was significantly above her.
Speaker:There were six technicians waiting for her arrayed around the table and despite the welcoming smiles, which could be detected although they were fully masked and clothed,
Speaker:she was filled with a strange feeling.
Speaker:It was not quite foreboding but perhaps rather low-level anxiety.
Speaker:This was where she had been born again,
Speaker:reactivated on this very table, into her new life.
Speaker:She was lying on her side;
Speaker:someone was holding her hand…
Speaker:She cancelled the memory and again tried to shove it into long-term storage,
Speaker:but for some reason it never seemed to stick.
Speaker:One of the technicians lifted her onto the table,
Speaker:although small her insides were dense and compact and she was surprisingly heavy.
Speaker:Her clawed feet settled with gentle clicks onto the smooth surface.
Speaker:She sat on her haunches then proceeded to lie on her side at another of the suited figures direction;
Speaker:there was a slide of metal on metal as she did so.
Speaker:Expert fingers probed her chest
Speaker:and an access hatch swung open, various cables began to be connected
Speaker:and she felt distinctly odd as her form seemed to merge with the surrounding machinery.
Speaker:The staff, part engineers, part medics, were now all business,
Speaker:talking in low voices amongst themselves but giving her smooth side an occasional reassuring stroke.
Speaker:Her tail-tip rose and fell.
Speaker:“We’re about to put you under, alright?”
Speaker:“Hit me.” Her visual system flickered then stabilised,
Speaker:the position of the personnel had moved
Speaker:and her internal clock noted that over three hours had passed,
Speaker:she was aware of exactly how long down to the microsecond,
Speaker:but for her it had seemed instantaneous.
Speaker:She had not even had time to dream.
Speaker:One of the first things she noticed were that her emotions had been turned way down; her internal HUD
Speaker:indicated that they were set at +/- 5% capacity.
Speaker:That was not a good sign, had something gone wrong?
Speaker:Her mobility had also not been re-established.
Speaker:A masked face appeared close in her vision,
Speaker:the others having stepped a respectful distance back.
Speaker:The ghost of concern flickered through her consciousness;
Speaker:this was worryingly similar to when she had first been woken after the incident.
Speaker:“Are you OK?” “I’m fine,
Speaker:what happened?” “Nothing, we just cleaned up a few things and replaced some parts.”
Speaker:She could detect the stress in the technician’s voice, subtle but present.
Speaker:Quickly she ran an on-board self-test, it came back clear,
Speaker:all systems green.
Speaker:“Paula, we need to ask,
Speaker:have you noticed anything different over the past few months?”
Speaker:She considered, it took a fraction of a second.
Speaker:“I no longer seem to require the portable dialysis machine
Speaker:and I’ve had to keep throttling down every so often,
Speaker:though that seems to have stabilised,
Speaker:why?” She had in fact previously contacted the clinic about these issues
Speaker:and been put through to the chief doctor in charge of her care.
Speaker:The doctor had been reassuring…and
Speaker:she had been lying.
Speaker:Voice stress analysis suggested that she was holding something back.
Speaker:Paula had decided to confront her about the issue
Speaker:at this service but apparently she had been pre-empted.
Speaker:“How do you feel?”
Speaker:She noted the emphasis on the last word.
Speaker:“I feel fine.” “You don’t notice anything different?”
Speaker:“I do not.” She was beginning to get irritated,
Speaker:it was clear why they had tuned her emotions down,
Speaker:she had previously experienced difficulty controlling them.
Speaker:The technician nodded as if satisfied,
Speaker:then stood back. “We have something to show you.”
Speaker:They swung a display in front of her
Speaker:and she watched from her sidewards perspective as the image appeared.
Speaker:At first it showed an internal schematic from when she had first been transformed into a cyborg,
Speaker:the light shading in her head showed all that remained of her original body, a fist-sized lump of brain.
Speaker:Then it updated, there were several differences where her body had been upgraded after the service
Speaker:but the most striking change was immediately apparent,
Speaker:the light coloured cerebral matter had gone and been replaced by something else, dark and compact.
Speaker:The technician explained, calm and clinical,
Speaker:the process had begun to take place from the moment she had first been activated,
Speaker:over months the biological material of her brain had been inexorably replaced, cell by cell,
Speaker:atom by atom, into an artificial computing substrate.
Speaker:It had proceeded at an exponential pace until it had been completed several weeks ago.
Speaker:There was nothing of her original body left,
Speaker:she was entirely artificial, technically a robot and not a cyborg.
Speaker:“And you didn’t tell me this was taking place why exactly?”
Speaker:“We didn’t want to freak you out”
Speaker:“I’m freaking out right now.”
Speaker:In truth she was calm as she reflected inwardly;
Speaker:she really didn’t feel any different.
Speaker:It certainly explained why she no longer needed dialysis for her biological parts, she no longer had any,
Speaker:and also why she had been required to slow down her mental processes so she could interact on a human level.
Speaker:On a whim she checked, a diagnostic tool which had been greyed out was now accessible.
Speaker:The results flashed into her mind.
Speaker:Her computing speed and capacity had increased massively, by many orders of magnitude.
Speaker:She wondered what she was now capable of.
Speaker:And with no loss of personality, individuality or imagination as far as she could tell.
Speaker:Her silence must have concerned them for the technician stepped back into her field of view.
Speaker:“Paula?” “Have you fixed my ear?”
Speaker:A sigh of amused relief rippled around the room… -------------------------------------------
Speaker:THREE WEEKS PREVIOUSLY
Speaker:Paula trotted into the living room,
Speaker:it was morning and she had just awoken.
Speaker:She still required sleep, or at least processing idle time, though it tended to be taken in naps of short duration
Speaker:rather than the hours necessary when she had been human.
Speaker:Her mum was watching television, glanced round as she entered and did a double-take.
Speaker:“What’s wrong with your ear?”
Speaker:“Why? What’s wrong with my ear?”
Speaker:“It looks like it’s stuck.”
Speaker:Paula twisted and turned as if she could see the top of her own head.
Speaker:“Are you sure? I’m not receiving any error messages…oh
Speaker:wait, there’s one…it
Speaker:says my ear is stuck.”
Speaker:Her mum gave her a look.
Speaker:She was used to those. -------------------------------------------
Speaker:This was “Ghost in the Machine”
Speaker:by Celtic Kitsune,
Speaker:read by Solomon Harries,
Speaker:Cuddly Badger Dad.
Speaker:You can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,
Speaker:or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Thank you for listening
Speaker:to The Voice of Dog.