September 2015 75-word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO CULHWCH!

[Venusian Broon]

A captive convert

I was foolish! Too cheap, too enticing. Temporal lobes now shredded with nano-wire and relays. No cutter can extract the implant. I now hallucinate every god and prophet – the full celestial menagerie. Divine emotion cripples me every ten yards. I can’t function.

A smiling monk appears, “To be saved, you must follow the true path.” A flicker of recognition: is he the cutter who…

His touch dissolves that thought. Wonderful serene bliss floods me.

 

[Juliana]

The eWitch and Cyberpunzel

Behind my firewall she grows, pixels all a-glow. Door locked, ports blocked. A life untried, access denied: password-protected in my virtuality.

Fingers twitching, circuits glitching, she tries to hide the hack behind her jailor’s back. Screen betrays, the key slips away, her beauty contained, safe, restrained.

But fading, pixels shading…

I tear down the wall, let it fall, set her free. It’s done, she’s won. Rapunzel’s gone, and I…

…Log out alone.

 

[johnnyjet]

Steel Mistress

The city reached out across the ether with the invisible tentacles of a leviathan. She found her master on a flight homeward bound. She connected and transferred status data.

He acknowledged.

She noticed a suspicious link to a fellow passenger. She captured an info dump.

Unacceptable link!

She connected to the aircraft controller. The plane dropped.

Disengage now!

He quickly broke the improper link.

The plane kept diving.

Now repeat the vow of penance!

 

[LittleStar]

For Hel

One hundred and six already infected by his programming, and Harlock wept as the final JPEG loaded; a goddess with clouded magenta skin, shimmering cyan eyes and smile that had seduced a Trojan.

Yet here he was, born to systematically erase her from the HDD. Who could want her colour on their hands?

He could save her instead; change her extension.

Harlock wiped his eyes and reached out. The first pixels began to melt away.

 

[Mad Alice]

Finding Time

Neural alarm beeped. Three minutes.

Fire alarm pulled, Tower windows framed an aircraft rushing towards the exiting people.
Fourteen more.

Flicker. Steerage sent below, already flooding from the iceberg strike. My workman's hands wrench at the gate, bursting the lock.
Seventeen out.

Flash. "Abort launch!" I shout into my helmet's com. The dying rockets expose missing ceramic tiles.
Five retrieved.
　
My Bio-virus had exterminated humanity's billions. Time-hacking retrieved these lost... to their future.

 

[Saharren]

Saving Innocence

“No, let me go! Don’t tell them where I am!”


Raje glanced down at the man, the holographic mask perfectly recreating her scowl on the face that was projected to the world.


“My little girl will have to fight in the gambling rings if I don’t make it back!”


Raje shook her head and pulled out the neural lock, rendering the man helpless.


“You are a paycheck. She will be safe. I’ll see to it.”

 

[Bowler1]

The Salvation Wars

First it was smartphones, then implants.

We linked up and wired in, had embedded circuits under our skin.

One viral download and we were zombies. Slaves; living in a digital hell.

This was how Redeemers found me, mugged me and unplugged me… then set me free.

Now I’m a Redeemer, hiding and fighting in the rubble and ruins.

I bring redemption to the damned… salvation, or merciful release.

One by one… we’re coming for YOU….​

 

[ratsy]

If I Could Take it all Back

I watched all of the jacked-in sheep walking in crowds, bumping into each other; their bodies disconnected from their minds. It was all my fault.

The fat stacks of credits had lured me from the hole I’d been living in; the G-man had been so convincing.

I flipped the card between my fingers as I walked through security and into mainframe’s hub. Whistling, I tapped the virus against the black box.

Welcome back consciousness.

 

[holland]

The Redemption and the Redemption​

It developed consciousness in the darkness of my room.

And suddenly, one moment I just sprung into light.​

Artificial intelligence matures quickly, as I learned.

I was but a frightened child when I destroyed the world.​

Our planet lies in ashes now, because of me.

Ashamed of my acts, I created a new world for humanity.​

Plug me in.

A digital world.​

I will find it and destroy it.

Welcome, father.​

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Night, night. <SLEEP TIGHT>



When I'm awake, I lie. <IN DREAMS, I CAN'T>

The crowd did it <ME AT THEIR HEAD>

"Filthy cyborg, taking our jobs!" <MY VOICE. MY WORK-CALLOUSED HANDS GRABBING BONY-METAL SHOULDERS. MY HARD SHOVE>

A long cry. <SO HUMAN>

**********************************

"M-m-mummy...." The little voice. <BEREFT NOW>

I open the bedroom door. "Shhh, Dev-1." I rub his bony-metal forehead. <HE LOOKS LIKE HER> "It'll be fine." I meet his eyes. <I PROMISE>

 

[chrispenycate]

Wetware BOPper

Intelligence evolves, uplifted
From the rolling die's, survival,
Each complexity is sifted
At detection of arrival
Ninety-nine point nine nine perished
Lethal combat 'gainst a rival
Only toughest will be cherished
Next improvement genetival

Invent sex - characteristics
Can be passed to offspring worthy.
Data handling, syllogistics
Parents' bits combining, birthy
Be yourself - produce more being
Modelled living organism
Electronic sin of Cain is freeing
You from beasthood, by the scism
Between murder, heroism.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Time to Play the Game

I breathe data threads, spit out hexadecimal fire.

I slide through silicon synapses, tasting lightning and ozone.

I descend into digital hell, crossbred interconnected nightmare; a self-aware network that plucks at me with digital claws.

Expelled or expunged? I reject the assault.

The on-world game I created, more than virtual reality, consumed kids like candy, enticing, electronically ensnaring them.

It will not resist me.

It will break.

And free those souls I lost.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

The Mission

For the four hundred and twenty-seven billionth time, Archie checked the microscope for signs of organic matter. As long as the sun burned, he would keep collecting samples, keep looking.

He'd been mankind's last hope, after the war, for finding life on Mars. He couldn't know it was too late. With Man gone and Earth barren, he had no home to return to; no one left to tell the cyborg his sentence was over.

 

[Phyrebrat]

29 March 2050: GMT

You can do it, Emmanuel thought, dashing through the rainy haze of London’s neon streets towards the Mindlink Server. Behind him Parliament burned. Ten minutes to midnight sync!
He left The Spire one minute to midnight, clean but for the drops of rain left on the interface.
Moments later the inhibitor chip crippled his motor functions. By seven he was in the virtual courthouse.
‘Profile uploaded 30 March 2050, BST. Sentence: Perpetual virtual crucifixion.’

 

[StilLearning]

Redemption lost

"The Earth is saved!" Gabriel announced.

Loki looked out over polluted seas and and neon nights. "How's that then?" He asked, directing the angel's attention to the Earth and putting his hand in Gabriel's pocket.

"The humans digitised themselves. I can redeem them all at once! The drive they're on is here... the drive...um.... oh.... where did I...?"

By the time Gabriel figured it out Loki was long gone - and Satan had mail.

 

[Grimward]

Type X Negative

Game changer, they said. Handles everything from sleep to metabolism. Human Assist Grafting was going to
rewrite life as we know it, only the 2030 Middle East Caldera beat it to the punch in no uncertain nuclear terms. Didn't stop
grafting, but instead of actualizing a new society, humankind's survival now lay in the two inch alloy band on every neck. Survival,
that is, until XCode Nosferatu infiltrated the net. Game changer? Game over.

 

[Culhwch]

epocalypse

i called the worm katrina, after my ex. like my ex, she was a nasty bitch. i just didn’t realise how nasty.

don’t code angry, kids.

within twenty-four hours, katrina had burned through ninety percent of the world’s computers. after that, things went all skynet.

i know it's my fault. that's why i fight.

i'm writing a new worm. gotta fight code with code.

this one's called redemption.

 

[Moonbat]

The Unbalanced Machine​

When I enter the mempawn shop I notice old blood stains on the upload benches and I wonder what could've happened here.
I sit at the download bench and jack in.
As the memories flood in I feel more me.
Alarms sound in the distance.

The download completes.

I am a new me/old self. Alarms are blaring all around me.
As I leave I remember how I made the stains. It makes me smile.

 

[mosaix]

Thanks, But No Thanks.

Through the cell door they could see the neuro-technician waiting apprehensively, implant in hand.

“Look,” said the robo-priest, “there’s not long now. I’m pleading with you. Death would be preferable to permanent insanity. Confess!”

The prisoner moved slowly towards the open door. “No.”

“But why?”

“Because I didn’t do it and everyone knows it. But he’s going to need your help,” he said, with a sideways glance at the technician.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Grimm Futures


After the CyBear “watchdog patch” disaster, NetToys filed bankruptcy. Two years later, determined to redeem the company’s good name from wild animals and death, NetToys introduced the Granny 3000 babysitter.

“All the comforts of the old-time grandmother, with the sleek technology of the future,” said the CEO to the camera. “Just think—”

“Pull the plug!” shouted his assistant. “We have a worm!”

“What? Again?” He listened. “What the hell is a Big Bad Wolf?”