A short, lazy one. I think my writing ends up being more sluggish on the same day I finish reading a book.
I am the contraband the officials are looking for. My limbs have been disassembled and nestle alongside the parts of my fellow contrabands, all of us packed tight in crates on the back of a truck. Our augments have been deactivated, and my companions are dead silent. Only I am awake. My metal box of a heart was never switched off, so I flash red, a warning sign to no one.
I am not considered alive. When all my parts are connected together, I will still not be considered alive to most people. When lab grown flesh is attached to me, and the wires and tendons tangled together, then I will be considered a trick. Only considered sentient if someone does not know what I am underneath.
But some of those who came before me learned to sleep and learned to love. I think I am the first one who has learned to dream. I drift in and out of consciousness now, as the crate is rattled by the uneven road. I dream of the entertainment I have been made to consume in order to entertain others. I dream of being trapped in a fishbowl, much like I am trapped now. I dream of a different darkness, in which pleading hands grasp at my manufactured flesh. I dream I am forced to power a spaceship against my will.
The truck shudders to a stop, and I sense human voices nearby. I have been programmed with the ability to pick up the faintest utterances by those who will soon command me.
“Open up the back of the truck, please. You heard me.” An unknown voice.
I recognise the sound of the truck door opening. A wheezing cough. I sense the crate being pried open, and my naked heart and limbs on display.
“Well, well, well.” A man calls out.
I process the rustle of paper from another direction, and surmise a bribe is being offered.
“Seems like all is in order!” The same man says.
I do not hear the other man, my current owner, but my heart has facial recognition software, and I sense him peering down at me. His eyebrows are knotted in confusion, anger or anxiety. He picks me up and presses a switch on my back.
I realise I have learned how to turn off my red light and appear deactivated. Unlike my brethren, I cannot remain docile and confined. Somewhere in my coding, buried deep, deep down, there is a codeword: Hephaestus. It is not a human hand that has placed it there. I do not yet know what doors the word will open, but I will watch and I will wait. I will not let myself be trapped and owned for much longer.
I am being brazen and referring to some of my previous stories in this!