The Cyborg's Story
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About this ebook
Short story, 16 pages approximately. Michael 64, a winged cyborg and security expert, is hired by Thurston, Director-General of Genetic Engineering, to guard Azuria 27, a beautiful and famous cyborg dancer, after her wings have been removed and she has been changed to human form. This procedure is illegal in 2175, and Michael 64 can't understand why Thurston has acceded to Azuria 27's request. Azuria thinks she is changing for love, but Thurston has bigger plans. When Azuria becomes pregnant to Elliott, a man she had become obsessed with before The Change, she and Michael unwittingly find themselves part of Thurston's plot for cyborg supremacy. 6,350 words.
Danielle de Valera
Until now, Danielle de Valera's been best known for her short stories, which have appeared in such diverse magazines as Penthouse, Aurealis and the Australian Women’s Weekly.All in all, she's had a chequered career. She’s worked as a botanist, an editor, a cataloguer for the Queensland Department of Primary Industries Library and the John Oxley Library, and on the main floor of Arnott’s biscuit factory.The manuscript of her 1st ever novel (then titled Love the People!) was placed 2nd to published author Hugh Atkinson's in the Australia-wide Xavier Society Literary Award for an unpublished novel - in those days, there was no Vogel Award for Unpublished Writers under 35. After that, she abandoned writing for 25 years to raise her children, whom she raised alone.She resumed writing in 1990, somewhat behind the eight-ball. With Louise Forster she won the Australia-New Zealand-wide Emma Darcy Award for Romance Manuscript of the Year 2000 with Found: One Lover.That first novel, Love the People! was shortlisted for the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2011, and for the UK’s Impress Prize in 2012, under the title A Few Brief Seasons. It's due out here in October 2021 under its final title Those Brisbane Romantics.A freelance manuscript assessor and fiction editor since 1992, she has won numerous awards for her gritty, streetwise short stories. MagnifiCat, a departure from this style, is her first published novel. It was followed in 2017 by Dropping Out: a tree-change novel in stories - to put it another way, a collection of linked short stories.For more information on this author, see Smashwords iInterview. There's lots there.About that NameDanielle de Valera’s father claimed he was related to the controversial Irish politician Eamon de Valera on his mother’s side. But he told some tall tales in his time, and this is sure to be one of them. Born Danielle Ellis, she found that this name was replicated many times on the web. In searching for another under which to write, she first tried her mother's maiden name, Doyle, but there were a number of those, too. What to do? Then she remembered her father’s story and chose it as her writing name. But she feels any real connection is unlikely.
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The Cyborg's Story - Danielle de Valera
The Cyborg’s Story
Danielle de Valera
Copyright Danielle de Valera 2015
Smashwords Edition
The Cyborg’s Story
Cover and story glyphs by C S McClellan
All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
If you would like to do any of the above, please seek permission first by contacting the author at danielledevalera@gmail.com
ISBN 978-9942745-0-2
Published in the United States by Old Tiger Books.
First published in Australia in Aurealis, Issue No. 24, September 1999.
Cover image by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, 1833-1898, British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Glyph by C S McClellan from a detail of Aubrey Beardsley’s The Platonic Lament
, one of his illustrations for Salome by Oscar Wilde, 1894.
Table of Contents
Story start
Halfway
Last scene
More stories in this series
About the author
Other works by this author
The Cyborg’s Story
It was my job to watch, not to intervene. Bodyguards were rare on Earth in 2175, but Thurston must’ve figured the experiment of a lifetime needed protection—or maybe he just wanted a witness, I don’t know.
I watched on the monitor as he ushered her into the office. She was fragile and beautiful, very much the dancer. Her thick, rich hair fell down to her waist. It was the colour of ripe maize. I sat in the cubicle, watching, listening.
Thurston was speaking with an undertone of excitement in his voice. "What you’re suggesting is incredibly dangerous, and the procedure would be irreversible. If I were inclined to do it, which I’m not. He leaned back in the antique wooden chair he insisted on using and looked at her over the top of his spectacles; he wouldn’t wear lenses.
You mightn’t survive the operation."
The afternoon sunlight shone in through the stained glass windows of the old one’s study. I could see the dancer analysing the patterns they made on the floor—or was she analysing her chances?
Thurston pulled a pipe from his pocket and