The Cut-Up Man: And Other Posthuman Cycle Stories

By Micah R. Sisk

Set in a future where what it means to be human is defined by each individual, where posthumans augment their minds and bodies to assume forms sometimes unrecognizable as human; where Earth is a sweltering hole controlled by disorganized factions of TruHumans bent upon eradicating posthumanity from the Sol system; where near-human artificial intelligences are feared by some, and incorporated by others into their very brains...The Cut-Up Man: And other Posthuman Cycle stories contains four works of short fiction that delve into disparate segments of this universe. Presented in chronological order, these stories include:

The Cut-Up Man (a novella): After nearly ten years, Hansson finally has a chance to redeem himself to Head Council. Someone on Centralport Station needs to be killed, and it's Hansson's job to do it. Now Hansson finds that Centralport Station is under martial law, his mission handler has gone AWOL, and he doesn't know who he's supposed to assassinate...and something is disturbingly wrong with the synthetic body he's wearing. Aborting the mission isn't an option; Hansson is going to have to improvise.

(Please Don't) Put Your Wires In My Brain (a novelette): Locked in a dank cell somewhere on Earth, visited only by a nameless technician, Dana has become the subject of a mysterious research project centering on the posthuman bioware illegally implanted in her brain. Hardened by a life in the sex slave underworld, determined to rise above her years of degradation, Dana struggles to discover the aims of this research, and to somehow parlay that knowledge into freedom, power and...revenge.

"Watching the Watcher" (a previously published short story): A frantic call from a space lane traffic controller is fielded by a helpline representative. Out in the main asteroid belt of Sol, stationed on a three-kilometer long space habitat, why does the caller find himself utterly alone? And why does the helpline representative keep fielding exactly this type of call?

"Born Into Shadows" (a previously published short story): Five posthumans working as a crew together for the first time are sent on a fact finding mission to a remote and seemingly uninteresting nebula. Their mission: investigate an anomalous object hidden there. Only one of the crew knows the identity of the expedition's mysterious backers and...what they fear the nebula might conceal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Micah R. Sisk
• Release date: Dec 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310694660

Micah R. Sisk

Micah R. Sisk was born at the U.S. Army medical hospital in Landstuhl, West Germany (there was a West Germany at the time) in 1958, and has lived most of his life since in Frederick County, Maryland, U.S.A. After a close encounter with Engineering, Micah received a Bachelor of Science degree in Art from Virginia Tech. He now makes his living as a database analyst at a major U.S. corporation, while in other incarnations he is, or has been, a landscape painter, real estate agent, assistant gallery director, retail sales manager, microfilm quality control tech, musician, composer, and builder of electronic musical instruments.Micah is married with cat(s) and is often seen puttering around Frederick, Maryland on his bicycle, hanging out at coffee houses reading and writing science fiction tales.

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The Cut-Up Man

—And other Posthuman Cycle Stories—

By Micah R. Sisk

Copyright © 2014 by Micah R. Sisk.

Published by Micah R. Sisk at Smashwords

Cover design by James, GoOnWrite.com

Smashwords Edition

ISBN – 9781310694660

Watching the Watcher and Born Into Shadows, were previously published individually (ISBN: 9781311963710, and ISBN: 9781311272362, respectively).

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (past, present or future), business establishments, events or locales (spaceships, planets, or future patented technologies)…is entirely coincidental.

The right of Micah R. Sisk to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.

This collection is dedicated to the hardworking baristas of the world who keep itinerant coffeehouse writers like me caffeinated and motivated. So…Garrett, Ellen, all you others; you know who you are. Cheers!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title & Copyright

Dedication

The Cut-Up Man

(Please Don’t) Put Your Wires In My Brain

Watching the Watcher

Born Into Shadows

About the Posthuman Cycle

About the Author

Other Works by Micah R. Sisk

The Cut-Up Man

The Head was in a jar…more or less.

That is to say, he was inside a scan–resistant compartment hidden on the interior of a shipping container, and that compartment very much resembled a jar; it was small, cramped, and liquid–filled with little more room than could contain the Head.

The rest of his body? Well, that had gone missing long ago. Or at least his original organic body had, the one he had lived in before becoming a Head. Don’t misunderstand; his body had not gone missing by any accident of fate. No, the Head had given it up freely of his own will. After all, that’s what Heads do, or did; there aren’t many of them about nowadays.

Aside from the Head in its jar–like compartment, the shipping container held a large quantity of Programmable Bio–Matter, PB–Mat, a state–variable, blue–green macrocellular jelly from which any number of useful things could be made: food, biological computer matrices, artificial organs, programmable bio–robotics (often used in the smart toy industry); or, as in this case, artificial bodies.

Now, if you know anything about Heads you’ll understand that the prospect of one walking around in a new body—PB–Mat or otherwise—is never a good thing. Heads are not very nice people, and when one of them goes walking around, very bad things are bound to happen…to somebody. That somebody in this case—had the Head been fully conscious—would likely have been one or more of these damned Antmen, who were taking their good sweet time checking the Head’s shipping container through customs.

Heads really don’t like Antmen.

You get a snifter of lots HG3–T42 through T58 yet, did’ja Eunice, luv? asked Lenny, a big, gruff, swarthy red–skinned fellow with two long antennae on his temples and two more on his jaw.

Nor I, mate. And don’t call me luv, Lenny, ‘less you want my old man to give you another thumping. That was Eunice, a feisty, slight, wiry woman with light gray skin and a messy quaff of gray–brown hair out of which sprang two particularly long articulating antenna. Here, though, she said, pointing at a damp spot on a nearby shipping container. Give us a taste of that, then. That sniff like IFNs to you? Bernie here says it do him.

The Head wasn’t hearing any of this, of course. In most respects he was comatose. His journey to Centralport Station, which orbited the planet Lick–Carnegie in the Gliese 581 system, had been long and circuitous. Only the Head’s most vital brain functions were active now. His surroundings were being monitored by non–sentient SemAI NPlant routines, which filtered external stimuli and checked them against a list of critical Boolean trigger conditions, any one of which would initiate his reawakening.

Lenny loped over to the container Eunice was indicating, leaned down and waved his antennae around, probing the damp spot in an obscene fashion. IFNs? Interferons? Bernie, you off your crack? Got a cold or something? That’s cryo–glycine, that is, mixed with hydraulic fluids and a bit of petroleum lubricant. No doubt overspill from its packing, plus some shipping byproducts. It’s only just thawing out, now it ain’t space–locked. What’s the manifest got to say about it?

Bernie, a small dour fellow with deep blue skin and short pubescent antennae, retrieved the manifest from his NPlant and responded without hesitation, Food mill adjuncts: GT–grade. Made by Gastro–PlastiChic.

Well, there you are, Lenny said, holding his arms out wide with palms open, his antennae mimicking the gesture as if to say It’s bloody obvious, isn’t it?

Only I ain’t got no cold, Bernie muttered glumly. Told ya. I’m allergic to that new DeFec we’re using.

Clam it, Bernie, Eunice put in, or Lenny here will have you on sluicing out duties. Won’ya? Eh?

Lenny pointed to the lot of shipping containers on the other side of the receiving bay. Lots HG3–T42 through T58 on the double. We’ve got to have this lot cleared out of here by morning.

Click!

One of the critical Boolean triggers in the Head’s NPlant returned a value of ‘True.’ His shipping container—heavily and stealthily modified, powered by Thermoelectric Seebeck generators—initiated the Head’s reawakening.

In a matter of hours the Head would be fully conscious.

* * *

The holding bay was dark and quiet. The Head had been awake for over eight hours. His new PB–Mat body had been coalescing for twelve. After much delay, his shipping container had passed through customs without a second glance. The cargo ship that had delivered him (unknowingly, of course) to Centralport Station had flown under the flag of Lick–Carnegie’s principal import agency: completely trusted. The container had been transferred to that ship from one with Lick–Carnegie military pedigree, which was both handy, because of its trustworthiness, and rare; most posthuman planets, installations, and colonies had no need for a standing military force. The galaxy was big enough to accommodate all. No scarcity, no conflict. Well, very little of it anyway. Before being transferred to the military vessel, the Head’s shipping container had traveled on several small automated commercial spacecraft owned by concerns with clean records and no controversy. One would have to trace the Head’s container back to its theoretical second port of call before any hint of impropriety might be found. For it had been there that the Head’s modified container had been substituted for the original, a container which had held nothing but virgin PB–Mat (the PB–Mat in the Head’s shipping container certainly was not that).

After clearing customs and being moved to a holding bay, his container should have moved rapidly into the station’s distribution chain. However, the blockade now in effect, or perhaps the general confusion caused by recent terrorist activity on Centralport Station—which in turn explained the blockade—was causing delays. The Head’s mission was behind schedule even before it had begun. Nothing he could do about that; he was just going to have to assert himself. Fine by him; patience and assertiveness were encoded into Head DNA. He was in his element here.

Issuing a command mentally via Nplant and Nterface, the Head snapped free of the jar–like compartment. There was a sucking sensation as cold PB–Mat rushed in around him, forcing him out into the larger vat. Jelly–like paddles of PB–Mat maneuvered the Head around, bumping him with clumsy purposefulness against something bulky and solid: Head, meet your new body.

The two went together greedily.

The OxiNutriSac affixed to the Head’s neck, which had kept him alive during shipping, was sucked into his new body’s neck cavity. Here, its store of oxygen and nutrients would be replenished by the PM–Mat body. A mechanical connection was made between the Head and the body’s central nerve stalk, like ball into socket, and the Head was jacked in. Simultaneously, the synthetic body’s bronchial tube was mated to the Head’s bronchial cavity, while on the cellular level pseudo–proteins worked at connecting muscle and neural pathways between Head and body. The body’s skeletal structure, composed of condensed and hardened PB–Mat, was fully formed and cured, ready to support his weight. An hour later and he was whole again.

It had been a long time since he had been fully corporeal. It felt odd.

The Head issued another Nterface command and the container’s internal cavity segmented into unequal halves with him floating in the smaller of the two cavities. Pumps began silently working, evacuating the excess PB–Mat around him and transferring it to the larger chamber. Within minutes the Head found himself lying naked in a nearly dry cavity. His body absorbed the remaining PB–Mat clinging to his new skin, no need even for a towel.

He sighed and stretched, grinning, ready to start causing trouble.

The original plan had been for the Head to remain in the shipping container until it was delivered to whichever food mill, body shop, or organ grinder his mission handler had selected. A contact agent there would direct him to his actual mission liaison. None of that was any good now; his schedule was blown. So the Head was going to have to fall back on his emergency contact, one Doctor Jason P. Nesbit, GAGDS (Galactically Accredited Geneto–Dental Surgeon). He had been given the Doctor’s name prior to the mission. It was, in fact, the only name or mission detail he had been provided ahead of time. And if that had been the only oddity about this mission, the Head would have noted it and moved on. No doubt the reason for this heightened security would eventually make itself clear. But it wasn’t the only oddity. For starters, the Head didn’t even know the name of his handler, nor had he been contacted by said handler. That was very unusual. Nor had he, it appeared now, been issued with his standard mission gear. Where was his nanofiber clothing, his one–piece above–the–knee underwear; shirt; full–length dress slacks with built–in socks; his suit jacket and ankle–length overcoat? Vanity had nothing to do with it; these were all vital pieces of equipment. Once primed with PB–Mat, those articles of clothing became armor against kinetic and energy weapons, and provided valuable electronic warfare abilities…But they were all missing.

What had he been issued instead? Ordinary cotton slacks, a t–shirt, and a plain jumpsuit…and a wide brimmed hat. Who wore hats? Must be a local fashion.

Unhappily, he struggled to dress in the chamber’s cramped quarters, ignoring the hat for now. Once dressed, he scanned the holding bay outside using the shipping container’s external sensors, making sure everything was clear, and then transmitted the release command. Two sections of the container’s hull scissored open, just barely wide enough for him to squeeze through. Hat in hand, he crawled outside. The opening closed behind him and he stood cautiously to his full height—a scant one and seven–tenths meters tall—stretched and looked around cautiously.

Everything was quiet.

Out of the container at last, he thought. How long had he been in there? Eight months? He had been on longer missions. Not many, but a few. Prior to this mission, though, he had spent nearly a decade jobless and alone, holed up in his remote asteroid–base encased in a giant, transparent, amorphous, synthetic neuro–cephalopod body (even Heads don’t particularly enjoy being completely bodiless). Contracts, Head Council had told him, were few and far between these days. But he knew there was more to it than that. He sighed. Maybe this mission was a sign that Head Council was finally bringing him back into the fold.

Still, contracts were scarce, and had been for quite a