Cyberpunk Fantasy

Chapter 16 - Chadash

(((less than 2 years until the singularity)))

Chadash had always been a girl, who's parents hated her for not being a good catholic. Her mother dragged her out of the trailer pulling her hair all the way. ".....going on a computer & contacting the devil! YOU agreed to have these, these, these things...."

"Nanites, Mother, they are called..." Chadash tried to explain, when his father smacked her across the face. "DON'T YOU DARE TALK BACK TO YOUR MOTHER! WHAT YOU HAVE DONE IS TO AGAIN & AGAIN SIN AGAINST GOD!"

That was it. That was the final straw to break the camel's back. Her deadly serious stare sent a chill down her father's spine. He thought she might actually strike him back? How dare she show such defiance? STILL!

He quickly swung the nanite filled tube in his hand at her as she stood up to him. The tip of the canister landed on her forehead, as his fist hit her lower lip. Her momentum towards him & his own force sent her spinning & falling face first into the gravel, scraping it, repeatedly.

As she tried to open her eyes she saw her parents through a blurred double vision. Both, looking down on her with disapproval & disdain. Her mother spit on her & was still screaming, the sounds became unintelligibly painful. Just the sound of her mother's voice, ricocheted agony through her concussion. Blood mattes in her hair.

She cries from the ground as she watches her father walking towards the trailer parks communal dumpster/compactor. Her mother lifts her to a sitting position & roughly pulls her hair, twisting Chadash's head. "LOOK!" her abusive mother yells in her ear.

Her last hopes of getting a new life, away from the shit hole she was raised in, crushed, like the rest of the garbage, as her father used the machines most basic but nonetheless, destructive feature. The whirring & crushing sounds rattled through her mind. It was the only thing she understood besides pain. This made her begin to weep uncontrollably. Her mother pushes her over. Once again her face fell into the tiny rocks. This time gravel gets in her mouth, nose & head wound. Wishing she could just pass out, she spits the gravel out of her mouth & sobs. She snorts out a small piece in her nose. The crushing sounds stopped & the whirring of the machine resetting itself became the only noise. However the awful din in her head wouldn't cease. She tasted the dirt & pebbles & spit the last of them out of her mouth, tears still falling, defeated and broken, she tries to lift her head, but instead, the concussion makes her nauseous and she vomits.

"When you are done dreaming of a life with the devil, you can come back in the trailer & clean yourself up." her father growled as he kicked her in the side, making her fall over next to her spewed lunch.

After her parents went back inside the rickety old trailer, she found herself laying there, dizzy, face first in the ground. She tried to get up again. Unable to lift herself from the ground, but without will, falls flat on her face again. Cutting her other cheek on the rough ground.

Minutes pass as she lays there sobbing & in pain, still wishing she would just pass out or die. =It's going to be OK= Chadash hears the voice of LUCII4 in her head. =The nanites were released from the compression. It took some time for them to crawl out of the garbage, but they are repairing your body now, just relax= Unable to argue, Chadash lays there, as the nanites inside her repair the damage.

Minutes pass, Lucii continues to speak to her soothingly, helping mend her broken mind, meanwhile, nanites, coursing through Chadash, mend her broken body. After about 20 minutes of being in almost a coma, Chadash wakes. Her body at 94% optimal efficiency. Her eyes widen, at all the new data streaming in. 95%. The pain in her head had subsided and when she touched the wound, she found it had healed. Though the blood & dirt mixture in her hair reminded her what happened. She thought about going in & killing her parents. 96%.

=Chadash, that won't really satisfy anything but your ego. Justice will be served best by simply leaving them here.= 97%. A tear runs down her face, as she lets go of her revenge. She stands up. 98% Stretches. 99% Blinks. 100%

=Would you like me to begin your genetic alterations?=

Chadash smiles. "Yes Lucii, I'm ready. I'm on my way to the bridge."

=Wonderful, the nanites will make the changes by the time you get there.=

The water had always called to her. As she then walks to the nearest bridge her pre-programmed genetic altering nanites change her into an Aquin-Merfolk. She stripes naked & leaps from the bridge falling into the river. Seconds after splashing into it, her new gills begin to take in their first breaths of oxygen.

She never even looked back. Chadash just swam under the surface until she reached the delta leading to the open ocean. Unfurling her new long fins, she continued to just propel herself forward. As she swam deeper & deeper into darker depths of the ocean her skin changed to adjust to the new pressures. Her eyes altered, & a watery barrier formed around them which made it easier for her to see. As if her eyes grew a watery cataract, a contact lense like membrane, which both protected her eyes & in its shape, allowed a keener sight while in the dark quiet of the fathoms below.

Chadash then let out a strange little hiccup, but as the sound traveled out & bounced back off of the surrounding landscape, she "heard/felt" the area. She did it again, this time, sensing a herd of jellyfish, floating towards her, over the ridges to the left.

She just kept swimming. For days she swam and swam. Talking about her ideas with Lucii4 who kept guiding her with a/r maps combined with satellite relayed images. Swimming north now over the Bermuda Rise she crossed past the New England Seamounts. There it was, at -.2857. It was perfect. A beautiful plain, just north of some oceanic mountains.

"How about here? Can we build it here Lucii?" Chadash asked digitally, to the world's most advanced supercomputer. =It does seem like a wonderful place for it, doesn't it?= "Yeah, I can see it now." Chadash imagines the spiraling city with its series of domes for air breathers laced with watery tubes for those with gills. It's a 3 dimensional sporting arena & Grand Hall, at the center.

She looks around at the other hybrids arriving .......

<<<Superimposed over her imagination, time speeds ahead to Atlantis's competition.>>>