Skin 2.0

by Alex Leu

  A flat surface hit her body as she walked into a wall and Amy guided herself along the surface until she reached a door. The red shape was in the basement of this building and it was surrounded by a few blue hollow shapes — cyborgs, or droids. Amy tried the door handle but it was locked. She forced it and almost broke it but didn’t have enough energy. She knocked. Again, and again, until the shapes moved towards her. The vibrations of their heavy steps on metal were getting stronger but Amy felt them less and less as her battery reached a critical point. The door opened and Amy collapsed inside.

  [System Reboot. Unauthorized Power Source Detected. Accept or Decline?]

  They got inside. Inside her head! Her consciousness was exposed and potentially harmed. Amy was terrified of waking up in the morning and walking to her job like everyone else, terrified of following someone else's dream, terrified of forgetting hers. She declined.

  The message appeared again and Amy declined it.

  An empty flashing square popped up and a message was typed:

  [you can either turn on by yourself or I'll force you...]

  Amy was completely horrified. A stream of conflicting impulses ran through her circuits pulling her in different directions. Suddenly the unauthorized message appeared again. Amy chose [Decline] but nothing happened.

  [Accept] was selected and Amy's body was jolted by a stream of electricity as all her vital systems turned back on.

  A bulky human male appeared in front of her. It was the red shape she had seen earlier and she immediately recognized it because of the mechanical body parts. All his joints were made from carbon fiber, his heart and chest were reinforced, and his vision enhanced by lens implants.

  Amy moved her hands but they were strapped down to a dentist's chair. Her body tensed and shook as she fought the straps, slowly stretching the unbreakable fabric.

  “Easy girl,” the man spoke in a raspy, almost digital voice. “Calm down before you break your limbs.”

  Amy stopped fighting when she noticed the metal saws hanging on the walls, the sharp piercing blades, and especially the many cyborg limbs and severed cyborg heads. Deep down, a part of her was happy to be there, her pain reached a limit she was no longer able to bear.

  “Can you take care of her later?” someone shouted behind Amy. “I got here first!” The rusty movements gave away the cheap body parts of several cyborgs.

  “For the pennies you pay me,” the man shouted back, “you should be thankful I even bother with you.”

  The cyborgs got quiet and Amy was a bit disappointed to find herself in a makeshift repair shop.

  The man turned to Amy and looked straight into her eyes.

  “Brace yourself, honey, it's gonna hurt a little.”

  He snagged a cable from Amy's ear and she felt a sharp sting of current hit her head, and then her entire body jolted as a few sparks flew away from her ear.

  [Unauthorized connection terminated.]

  Amy closed the flashing screen in her vision and was shocked to see the man holding her red in-ear attachment in his hand.

  “Stay still, you'll be up and running in a second,” he said.

  Amy didn’t even get a chance to react when with a fast motion he snapped the attachment back into her ear.

  For a split-second, she found herself back at the assembly factory, on that fateful day that cursed her with a factory job for life, but then it all went away when she realized that her curse had been removed from her only a few moments ago. She froze in her seat.

  “How...? How did you do it?” she said.

  The man freed her hands and feet from the straps.

  “You can thank those guys, or girls, you decide.” he pointed at the cyborgs behind Amy.

  All their body parts were mismatched and of different colors, assembled from the parts of several cyborg models. In some cases the length of their limbs was a little off too, giving them an odd shape.

  “They carried you down here,” the man said, “all I did was plug you in. You desperately needed some juice.”

  Amy got up, but he pushed her back in the chair pointing at the cable sticking out of her waist.

  “Unless you're looking to black out again, you better fill your battery a little before you leave.”

  “Might as well give him an arm before he rips you off,” laughed one of the cyborgs.

  “The charge is free,” said the man, “but if you want those dents fixed, it will cost you.”

  Amy looked around and recognized some tools from the factory where she worked, others seemed custom-made. A box stuck out to her. Through its see-through plastic walls, she saw an assortment of in-ear attachments just like hers.

  “How much?”

  “The forehead will be around a thousand, the other patch...”

  “No, how much for that?”

  He followed her gaze to the box and smiled.

  “Ah, you're one of those...”

  He grabbed the box and put it on Amy's lap. She tried to hide her excitement but her big smile gave it away.

  “Go ahead, pick one”.

  Amy carefully opened the lid and stared at the sea of endless possibilities.

  From the minuscule barcodes on the side of each in-ear attachment, she could determine their purpose. There were attachments for drivers, cooks, guards, construction workers, even police units.

  Amy looked at the cyborgs behind her, at their numerous modifications and extra gadgets.

  “Did you help them too?”

  “More like broke us,” one of them laughed sadly.

  “Shut up Mickey,” the man laughed back. “You were a lost cause before you got here.”

  “How does this work?” she said.

  “It will require an investment and then you would get a whole new occupation, sometimes even a new charging station.”

  Amy looked down at the box. She put the lid on it and handed it to him.

  “Hey, don't give up.” He opened the box and took out an attachment. “You can be a great guard, babysitter, or even a driver!”

  “Can you make me a...?” she looked at the curious cyborgs behind her then got closer to the man and whispered in his ear.

  “Hmm... let me see.”

  He looked through the attachments, taking them one by one and examining their barcode. Amy stopped his searching hand.

  “It's OK...”

  “No, it's not. I never let a client down. I can probably find it for you, but since it is such a special request, it will cost a little extra.”

  Amy's eyes lit up, then as she counted her credits, the light in her eyes faded into a cold stare. She stood up. He grabbed her hand but she pulled away.

  “I can't afford it.”

  “You can't afford not to!”

  He got uncomfortably close to her and whispered in her ear. “I've never done this, but I'll give it to you for free.”

  Amy got even closer to him and embraced him. Embarrassed, she pulled away.

  “Why? How?”

  “I know a dancer who'll lend it to me, but you have to bring it back the next day. Deal?”

  Afraid of embarrassing herself again, Amy nodded.

  “Good, come see me tomorrow.”

  Amy stumbled out of the workshop ecstatically and ran to her apartment. Once inside, she closed the door and faced the ballerina on the poster. Soon that could be her. It will be her.

  She plugged the charging cable into her waist and settled into the closet for the night. The poster glowed in the darkness and Amy stared at it all night trying to imagine herself on it, on the stage, but couldn't. What if her destiny was not a factory mistake but a reflection of her abilities?

  In the morning Amy unplugged the charging cable and looked at the poster one more time. She reached to touch the graceful ballerina, and in a moment that she could not explain even to herself, she ripped the poster to shreds and walked over its torn fragments as she headed to work.

  The factory aisles seemed longer than usual that day. Amy wal
ked through the aisles fidgeting with her uniform, almost suffocating in it, and had to force her hands away from it to focus on the job.

  A machine stopped working and she approached it. It seemed the robot operating it lost power. Amy replugged the robot and the machine revved on, spitting dark oil all over her face. The dark liquid blinded her eyes and she felt it getting under her skin. How could she ever be a dancer when she couldn't even do this job well?

  After work, she washed the machine oil off her face. Her skin shined like new, but the oil stayed on her face for so long that it got inside her pores and dried in some spots, leaving her alabaster skin with black freckles. Amy felt so embarrassed that she waited for the sun to go down to avoid being seen like this on the streets.

  Chased out by the security robots, she stood at the factory gates looking down the only road that led to it as her GPS kept switching between her apartment and her dream. Amy finally walked down the road, leaving the factory gates farther and farther behind. It was a familiar feeling to walk the same steps she did for the past thirty years. It was safe, predictable, it even felt good.

  Amy reached her apartment building and stood in line for the elevator among hundreds of robots, waiting to be taken down underground back to their charging stations.

  The heat was unbearable but it didn’t matter to any of them. Their metal bodies couldn't care less about the heavy layer of machine oil stains that was melting into their body parts in this high temperature. Each wore the stains of their job on their thick uniforms or their skin. Amy felt like she belonged there, she was part of a family without whom society wouldn't function. She was fulfilling her duty, and she was great at it.

  The boiling temperature warmed Amy's skin so much that the black freckles began to melt, and she felt a tiny drop push its way out of a skin pore and flow down her cheek, leaving a black trail behind. One after the other, the freckles melted until her face was covered in black trails.

  The elevator doors opened and the crowd pushed her inside. Sucked into the elevator, into her dead-end existence, Amy turned around and pushed back against the metal giants but her feet slid backward. She climbed on a robot and leaped above the crowd, stepping on their shoulders and heads as she ran to the exit. The building doors opened with a bang freeing Amy as she ran out.

  Once she reached the man's basement, Amy banged hard on the door causing the walls to shake. When the door finally opened, she almost hit the man in the face, and if it weren’t for his cyborg limbs, she would have killed him, but he managed to catch her hand.

  Amy followed him downstairs and he sat her in the chair. He approached a blank section of the wall and pressed his hand on it. Suddenly, a square section of the wall around his hand pushed itself out and slid down against the wall revealing a secret safe. He reached inside and got out a small box then sat next to Amy.

  “The dancer I know let me borrow it for one day,” he said. “So please bring this back tomorrow before midnight.”

  Amy nodded, excited. “Thank you.”

  He strapped Amy into the chair then plugged a few cables into her waist. After typing a few commands in his makeshift control console, Amy shut down.

  [System reboot...]

  [Unit Amy-341... Update in progress...]

  [Accept new assignment: Yes / No]

  Amy promptly accepted and woke up.

  The man was standing next to her and typing into the console.

  “Welcome back, honey!”

  “Something is wrong," she said. "I don't feel any different.”

  “That's normal, it will take a few minutes for the changes to kick in.”

  He placed Amy's original ear attachment in the box then unstrapped her from the chair.

  “Now what?” she said.

  “Now the show begins. Search through your memory data bank.”

  “No... No! It can't be!”

  “Yes, you're going to replace my friend for a day. Now rest and recharge, you'll have a busy day tomorrow.”

  In the morning, Amy stepped out of the door and watched the armies of robots passing her by. She felt so lucky to be out of the slave herd, at least for a day.

  The GPS guided her to the edge of Sector B and once again she stood at the intersection of worlds, only now she had the right, but more importantly, she felt that she belonged on the other side.

  Amy crossed the threshold into Sector A and immediately felt the multitude of eyes watching her. Even in her work uniform, underneath her scars and dirty skin, she still possessed a rare statuesque beauty that the many stares envied. She quickened her pace.

  Reaching her destination, Amy found herself in front of a huge white stone building. Above tall marble columns, enormous carved-in letters read “Theater of Opera and Ballet.” She gasped realizing that it was the same theater mentioned in the poster she had.

  But now what? She searched her memory and found directions leading inside the building, and it seemed that she was late for something.

  Amy rushed past a security guard and down to the basement of the building when she stopped and stared at something. It was a check-in station, just like the one she used every day at the factory. She approached it cautiously and...

  “What are you waiting for?!” A rugged old voice startled her and Amy turned to see an old woman.

  “This better be the last time you're late Crystal, get your ass in the dressing room!”

  Amy checked in and ran to the dressing room.

  “And take that hideous thing off you, don't ever show up in that again!” the woman yelled after her.

  Passing in front of a huge mirror, Amy saw herself and the work uniform she was still wearing. What if they discover her? She thought about going back when a line of fully dressed ballerinas ran past her. One of them stopped.

  “Crystal? What happened to your face? Come, let's get you fixed up, your solo is up soon.”

  Her solo! Amy was both ecstatic and extremely nervous, but she mustered enough courage to follow the ballerina inside the dressing room where Amy was immediately seated in front of a brightly lit mirror.

  Several cyborg assistants began working on Amy, and in a few minutes, she was sparkling like new. Her skin cuts were fixed, the black freckles gone, and the uniform taken off of her.

  Amy got up and slowly approached the mirror in disbelief. Staring back at her from the reflection was the ballerina from her poster. Amy walked backward and fell into the chair.

  The cyborgs continued to work on Amy and dressed her in a white chiffon dress. This was the final touch and she was now an identical replica of the poster ballerina.

  “Ready!” said one of the cyborgs and Amy was escorted to another floor. A few ballerinas joined behind her in a line, and with every step, they got closer to their destination, a very peculiar sound got louder and louder.

  It was the sound of applause and cheering. Just like she imagined, only so much louder.

  Amy's fingers clenched onto the dress as she stepped closer to the stage and stopped to wait behind the curtain. The orchestra ended a tune and all the ballerina's aligned themselves behind Amy. It was her moment, the one she dreamed of, the moment she lived for.

  A green light flashed above Amy and the music started. Her legs flew forward and she sprinted onto the stage, as light as a feather, and more gracious than she's ever been. She felt like, moved like, and finally was the ballerina from her poster.

  The audience couldn't take their eyes away from Amy as they hung on her every step, every gesture, and every pirouette. She led the entire band of beautiful dancers and the music followed her to perfection, the conductor adjusting every musical accent to her dance.

  Her legs barely touched the floor, gliding above it like a white swan on a lake. Her gestures so precise, her face so emotive, her dance so perfect and touching, it was as if she was born for the stage.

  Amy gracefully rose into a pirouette and flew high above the stage. Surrounded by the speechless audience and the many ballerinas who h
ave taken her lead the entire performance, she was at the peak of her life.

  The music reached a crescendo and culminated in a dramatic ascent as Amy descended from her high and graciously fell dead on the floor.

  A grand silence took over the entire auditorium. The audience was in shock, crying, in awe. Amy watched their faces, and for the first time in her life, she experienced joy. It grew inside her, warming all her circuits. She delicately rose and the audience exploded with cheers and applause. A wave of colorful flowers landed at her feet and Amy bowed several times then called for her co-stars and bowed together with them. Amy was a star.

  The curtains closed, and with it — her dream.

  Amy was taken back to the dressing room and sat in front of the brightly lit mirror. Cyborg assistants began undressing her and removing the makeup until she was once again her old self. Someone handed Amy a dirty stained garment and it took her a few moments to realize that it was her uniform, her prison.

  Amy glanced at the beautiful dress she wore. It was so perfect. So her. But not anymore.

  She took the uniform and slowly put it on, submerging her white and delicate skin in a dirty, stained, and faded blue. She felt ashamed and quickly left the dressing room afraid that anyone would notice her real self.

  Amy ran to the exit when she caught her reflection in a mirror. The ballerina was gone. She saw the dirty bum destined to fix droids. Her eyes moved up and down the body that had just entertained a full auditorium. She admired her graceful legs, slim figure, and her now faded smile, then her eyes stopped on her right ear.

  The attachment was gone.

  Amy frantically searched her pockets but it wasn't there. She covered her ear with a hand and ran back to the dressing room but wasn't allowed inside.

  She desperately ran to the auditorium. At the door, a guard stopped and scanned her but could not establish Amy's identity and blocked her from entering the stage, the same stage that just a few minutes ago she graced with her majestic dance.

  How would she return the ear attachment to the man? She couldn't get back without it. She wouldn't be able to get back in Sector B at all.

  Amy went around the stage and tried to break in through another door when the alarm went off.