Hardwired Humanity is a
collection of short stories from science-fiction and fantasy
author, Sarah Wagner. Gripping tales about the edge of
reality where the difference between human and machine blurs
to almost nothing,
Excerpt:
From Evolution of a Shadow:
The moment Rado pulled his van into the
warehouse, Corinthian was opening his door and battering him
with questions. "Who was it about? What was it? Will it
help?"
"Hold up. Give me a minute!" Rado shook his head as he
stepped out of the van. "Fate is smiling on us. Or whatever.
Mark Lawrence's mother ran into a familiar face at the safe
house. Jason Kuo's half-sister has been in hiding for all
this time. He gave her a set of discs and some money and
sent her into hiding two months before the killings."
"He must have known something was coming." Corinthian shook
his head. "If he knew, why didn't he warn anybody?"
"I don't know the answer to that. Maybe these will help."
Rado pulled a small black case off the front seat. "There
are seven discs here. I skimmed a little but haven't watched
them all. There's some interesting stuff on there."
"Like what?"
"There's a video of a surgery performed on Shade. She was
just a kid. They wired her up like a bomb and she was just a
baby." Anger poisoned his words.
"Wired?" Corinthian's head shot up, his eyes wide and
intent. "I've been so stupid! That's the key!" He grabbed
the case of discs and ran for the bunker.
"What key?" Rado chased after him. "What's going on?"
"You just found the one element I've been missing."
Corinthian sat down in front of the mainframe and inserted
each disc into a separate drive. "I was looking for
something more advanced, something spectacular. It's going
to take more than one implant. That's why she was pumped
full of wiring. Synaptic receptors aren't going to be
enough. The answer was there the whole time. I'm such a
freaking idiot."
"If you are an idiot," Shade's manufactured voice filled the
small room, "what am I? I knew nothing of this. And it was
my body they wired!"
"What do you think?" Corinthian asked.
"I think we've just jumped to making the construct a reality
instead of a possibility."
"Construct?" Rado sat down.
"We're going to implant a piece of Shade inside a donor
body."
"You're going to what?" Rado was nearly shouting, the vein
at his temple pulsing in time to his bitter heart.
"We're going to take a special chip and install it into our
living volunteer. If it all works the way we think it will,
our volunteer will become an extension of Shade with some
added benefits."
"You're kidding me, right?"
"No, I'm not." Corinthian smiled.
"That's impossible."
"It certainly was this morning." Corinthian said with a
broad smile.
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