Annals of the Cyborg (eBook)

John Woo (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2020 | 1. Auflage
73 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-4285-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Ubel George is a young high school student with a mysterious background and personality. In a society filled with futuristic technology and many problems, Ubel seeks to find his true identity.

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Ubel George lacks an identity in the challenging and competitive high school atmosphere. With failing tests and quizzes, he tries to find a shortcut to achieving success and popularity. He needs to jump through many hoops to find not only what is his most important goal but also his perspective on reality.

Textauszug

Unseen Evil

He was never born and felt nothing. No one knew what school he transferred from, and he never told anyone his birthday or invited people to his house. Did he even have a birthday? Most people viewed Ubel as a normal high school student who minded his own business and kept to his daily activities. He had an exclusive group of friends due to his lack of words and awkwardness. When anyone approached him, his hard, brittle teeth would quiver as he stuttered out “hi” or “hello”. He was pretty tall for his grade, and had long, skinny arms. Each morning, his head would be down without a care in the world as the bright, blinding sun reflected over his metallic skin. From a bird’s eye perspective of his dark and gloomy life, nothing seemed very suspicious about him. However, if one was to observe his every move and action, he or she would discover his unconventional personality. Ubel never talked about his personal life, drank water, or ate lunch at school. When he had a piece of technology in hand, he was as territorial as a bear watching over her cubs. Additionally, the lack of parental guidance robbed Ubel of a typical childhood. Without a parent to push and motivate him, Ubel never succeeded or put much effort academically.

It was another day in what seemed like a torture chamber to him, and Ubel walked into his murky classroom as the filthy dust seeped into his shiny nose. Here we go again, he thought. His teacher began to pass out the history assessments from last week. Despite Ubel’s low grades, he always wanted to succeed. Having his classmates see and hear about his scores was the most daunting part of his day.

Ubel overheard one of his friends asking another classmate, “How many did you get wrong?”

“A fat donut. It feels like we don’t even have to try to not get caught anymore,” the classmate chuckled. Ubel dropped his heavy head down onto his desk at the sight of his test score. Blood began rising in his veins as anger pulsed through his body. He knew he was the only one in the class who didn’t cheat these days. Ubel wanted to have good grades like the others. If only Ubel had a companion or friend to cheat off of, he would have done it in a split second. Maybe even a quarter of a second. He told himself that he had enough friends at school… even though he had no one to talk to in his class. Often, Ubel would try to build up the effort and confidence to approach a classmate. However, whenever he would go up to a classmate, his legs would freeze up, and Ubel would turn right back around as if nothing happened. If one were to somehow strike a conversation with him, which happens approximately once in a blue moon, it would feel like talking to a brick wall. He destined to witness an “A” written in shiny, red ink on his papers and speculated that if he found a way to get good scores, his classmates would fall on the cold, rugged floor begging for him to join their lunch group. While walking to school that morning, he saw an ad projected onto one of the city’s electronic billboards about a USB that had an unnecessary amount of storage. Then Ubel speculated, I could add a chip into my system that will allow me to store any information I want, so I could memorize all the information for tests! However, this was not as easy as it sounded. Ubel realized that in order for him to unscrew parts of his body to make this happen, he would need no ordinary tools. His creator, a high profile engineer for the government named Aurelius, designed custom tools and bolts when creating him.

Ubel reminisced about the dark memory of his creator. It was about twelve years ago, when it was only five years after he was created by Aurelius’s dirty, brittle hands. He remembered the smell of the water dripping through the dirty sewers on the morning of that incident. Just like every other morning since he was created, Aurelius forced Ubel to create childish and immature pieces of technology that would help him perform simple tasks. And this time, it was an electronic vacuum to get rid of some of the dust.

“Go make me an electric vacuum to get rid of some of the dust in this place,” Aurelius said to Ubel.

When did he even care about cleanliness, he thought as he was commanded to get working. He wanted these products that would assist him when doing basic and easy tasks because he was too lazy to create them himself. Aurelius forcibly added new information and data into Ubel’s system so he would take less time to make this gadget. A few minutes into the build, Ubel accidentally attached the wrong wire to the system. It was a big enough mistake to put some of the parts out of business. As soon as Ubel saw the first bit of spark flying into the air before the rest of the gadget started to malfunction, he knew he was done for the day. Aurelius shut off his power system for the day even though Ubel had no intention to do that. Conflicts like this toppled on top of each other until Ubel eventually ran away from him after his only friend who knew his situation allowed him to stay at his house.

This memory made Ubel realize that the only way for him to add anything new to his system would be to go to Aurelius’ lab and steal the tools. His mood changed from satisfaction to disappointment faster than a sudden flash of electricity that would occur on a cold, rainy day. If Aurelius caught him rummaging through his lab, he may let out his temper, frustration, and anger onto Ubel because of him running away in the past. Worst case scenario, his existence may be no longer.

That following night Ubel prepared everything he would need if he decided to carry out the mission. He connected one side of his long, decrepit Universal Serial Bus Type-C cord (USB-C) into his slim, modern laptop and the other side into his head. Jeez, it’s been ages since I’ve used one of these cords. I wonder if stores even sell these anymore now in 3023, he thought. The long and outdated power cord created back in 2014 seemed like an artifact in his hands. Once connected into his system, Ubel roamed through his memory and used a control flow statement (for-loop) to find the address of where he was created.

The alarm rang at 5:00 AM, and Ubel made the final decision to go to Aurelius’s secret laboratory, assuming that the address of the building that he found inside of his system memory did not change. Beep! Beep! Beep!. 5:00 AM. Ubel pushed open the heavy, creaking door of his house 2 hours before he usually did and briskly walked in the direction of Aurelius’ secret laboratory as he remembered it. The cold morning air swept across his hard, crisp face. He gazed at his old and beat-up watch and realized that he only had three hours to carry out his plan if he wanted to get to school on time that morning. Out into the distance, the sun was slowly creeping into the sky. After what felt like hours of walking, a dark, eerie building stood in front of him. Thick, gusty smoke slithered through the chimneys, releasing carbon dioxide into the polluted sky. I can’t turn back now after all this effort!, Ubel thought. He strived towards the metal door of the building and broke the oxidized and rusty lock with his large, strong hands. Now where are the tools I’m looking for, he wondered. The room seemed empty, but he knew that if he took too long, Aurelius could come in any second. Also, he could be late to school. While walking around the bleak, rigid floor, he saw a few pieces of shiny, silver items.

“Those must be the special tools he made to create me,” Ubel muttered to himself and felt reassured. He began his jaunt towards his mission, but heard the front door creak. His heart dropped, and his legs froze. Heart throbbing and body shivering, Ubel slid underneath the nearest table and prayed for his life. What am I gonna do!, he panicked. Hoping that he was in a dream or simulation, Ubel slapped himself in the face. His last grain of hope was gone as Ubel realized that he wasn’t laying on his soft, comfy memory-foam bed but instead crunched up on the cold, hard floor of Aurelius’s secret lab. Instantly at this moment, he regretted his actions. A few minutes past, and all he could do was stay hidden underneath the table. Eventually, he saw Aurelius’s legs walking into another room across from him. This is my only chance. It’s now or nothing, Ubel realized. Knowing that getting out underneath the table could cause him to be seen, Ubel leaped towards the grailed tools and made a dash towards the door.

Ubel’s movement was so brisk and quick that even a hawk spying on his prey would not have noticed. However, when he grabbed the metal tools, chills crept down his spine because of its frosty surface, causing him to slightly clash one of the tools onto the metal table. Although the collision between the tool and the table was minimal, the brick walls of the empty room made the sound loud and clear.

“Who’s there!” the cold and bitter voice of Aurelius screamed out. His pulse started to race as the sound of his voice echoed throughout the entire building. After hearing the unusual noise in the other room, Aurelius looked out and got a peek of him. Uh oh, Ubel thought as he noticed his huge failure. With no more hesitation, he dashed towards the door as if an angry tiger was chasing him. Without turning back, Ubel desperately flew open the door, and his mind was set on one thing: get out of the building.

As his heartbeat began to calm down after running out of the building, Ubel’s foot hit the side of the corner. CLANK!...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.12.2020
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-4285-2 / 1098342852
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-4285-2 / 9781098342852