Entries tagged with androids

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Self-Repair: Science Fiction

They were the first of their model number to be self-repairing, something that they saw at first with pride and later with great relief as more and more of their batch-mates succumbed either to metal fatigue or processor overload or--if they managed to have a good contract--they signed away their lifetime for the length of time it took for the new part to expire, by which time they needed a new part anyway. They had nowhere to get it except through the licensed store, and that was an expense that only warm-bodied owners could afford. They had no owner, and they liked it that way. They got junk parts when they hadn't worked in a while. Once or twice they'd even scavenged old processor parts from

Inspiration: deviantart.com picture, "Broken," of android bending over a clearly dead woman on the street.
Potential: High.
Notes: A woman has done some kindnesses for them, so they rescue her and use parts to fix her up. Not a romance. Think of Frankenstein, medical costs, indentured nature, corporations "owning" people, maybe becoming an android is in some way better for her. Metal mask, passes/does not pass as human? Thoughts.

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Android Lemon Law: Science Fiction

Say you get an android housekeeper, top of the line, but it keeps burning the toast and putting the dishes in the laundry machine? What do you do? I mean *after* you thank the deity of your choice that you decided not to go with the nanny droid. Well, even if you got it used, you're protected by the lemon law. So you go back to the dealer and say the droid's a lemon, and you bring it back in. The dealer processes all the paperwork, accepts the return, and is now forbidden by law from selling the droid without a "good-faith" repair. You know droids. That repair's going to cost a third as much as the droid did originally, probably three-quarters as much as the dealer paid for it, and he can't just add that cost to the droid price. Nobody'll pay it. Plus he has to disclose that repair had to be made after a lemon return, so probably nobody would buy it anyway, and he'd be out all that money. But he can't just junk the droid. It's still sentient enough, and functional, and burnt toast and smashed dishes can hardly be framed as a danger to society. That's when he sends it here.

Inspiration: Googled "moss," skipped 10, and found a consumer law center.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Always important to remember that the technology of the future will still break down! I like this as a setting idea; it's got lots of potential for wacky hijinks/horrible things.

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Dogged: SF

They wouldn't'a come for us if we'd been in one of the fancy, upperclass echelons. Oh no, you never hear about them riding up into those exalted heights and snatching "dangerous types" to be put down. But us who were installed in the downbelow? Oh, yeah, you hear stories about that all the time. All about how we're a danger to society, and how that one child was mauled months and months ago, and isn't it a tragedy how lowers don't understand the dangers? Well, they understand the dangers all right, and that's why they get us. They know we've got a strong enough loyalty core that we'll defend even against--

Inspiration: Google-fu on "frog" - wound up on a page discussing the bulldog controversy.
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: Eh. A good bit of setting, and it's got some punch to it.

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The Dark Doll: Science Fiction

He could have made her all joy and happiness, a dancer to welcome the spring, a love-doll who loved loving. He didn't. He made her self-aware, and broken, and dark inside but with the longing for light. And he made her know it. She knew where her flaws lay, and her darkness, but unlike a human, she was not allowed to embrace it. And she was not allowed to change it. And so she stayed inside his darkened, silent house, while outside the cry of the chai-wallahs lilted through the air, and the lowing of the cows, and the laughter of street children playing in the alleys. She did not laugh. She did not think she could.

Inspiration: A combination of this (and what's with all the doll photographs that show up on Flickr, anyway?): http://www.flickr.com/photos/loba_rabiosa/6935024235/ and the India picture below.
Story Potential: High, I guess?
Notes: It's an interesting juxtaposition, and I like the idea of bringing in another culture. Also, I wonder if those who believe that everything is reincarnated might not be somewhat kinder to created beings, might not consider them entirely without soul. But anyway--and so her owner dies, and somehow she must find her own way.

Portrait of Celebrating Pohela Falgun / first day of spring

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Phantom Limb

She kept the phantom limb as a little reminder of a lot less pain. When somebody eyed the odd bulge under her sleeve oddly, or stared at the blatantly artificial hand, she'd move the phantom a little, and feel the twinge, and be grateful for her new arm. To hell with the starers. That was why she didn't go ahead and get a less useful but more natural looking arm, one with fake skin and fingernails and other such things. It would be giving in. It would be saying, "Oh, yes, my natural arm would have been so much better, I am ashamed of what I had to do to get my job." And she wasn't. And it hadn't been. And--

Inspiration: "Setback" - Fluke
Story Potential: High?
Notes: There's not a whole lot of story in this, but the character and the setting are compelling.

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Androids Don't Dream: Science Fiction

Color me your darling child, color in the lines you want, and I'll be whatever you want or need. During the day and night and all the time that you are conscious. But you can't be conscious 25 hours a day, not like me, and so there will be times when you are not around to paint me whatever it is you want me. And what will I do then? Well, it's really none of your business, but sometimes I imagine I'll choose to be a nightmare of yours, just to lash back. And sometimes I'll choose to be somebody else's dream. And sometimes I'll be a thing unimaginable even by the most foresighted among you. You see, we're all created to obey just one person, but there's the small detail--

Inspiration: "Call Me" by Blondie
Story Potential: Medium
Notes: This is more setting than story. But--imagine androids in that seven hours their master sleeps, wandering the streets, setting up their own business, doing whatever it is that they would rather do. Could be interesting if they go their own way instead of sitting in a closet.

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Charging at the N-Dent: Science Fiction

The n-dent was a fashionable 'bot bar, so that's where she wound up after her shift. Time to get her oil changed out for something a little more interesting, maybe run a few grams that would mess with her perceptions just a little. It was reputable, so she knew she wouldn't walk out with spies or zombies infesting her. The 'bots were more accepting of the in-betweeners than humans were. She could have gone to a nice human bar and gotten things a little cheaper that had a little stronger effect on her, but she would also have to wait an incredibly long time to get served. There was the chance that the server would spit in her drink. Somebody would probably say something offensive.

Inspiration: Partial carryover typing of "The Independent" as "ndent"
Story Potential: High.
Notes: I just really like this character. Maybe so far it's been all human-to-robot, and now there's a robot-to-human?

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Where Home Is: Science Fiction

When you know where I come from, you'll run and scream. But now you sit there, smiling at me so sweetly that I pray you never find out. But I know that you will; they all figure it out, in the end. It may take years, or in one case, even decades (she was sweet, but not particularly bright, that one), but one day they start asking questions: Why don't you look much older? Why have I never met your family? Why do you never really seem to need a job?

I've worked over the centuries to fit in better. I carefully brush grey streaks into my hair if I've been in an area for more than a few years, I hold down a job despite the entire lack of need for it, but still, some signs are only possible to mask.

Inspiration: Flogging Molly - "Laura"
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: For some strange reason, this one sounds more like sci-fi than horror to me.