Perfectly Safe: the One that Got Me Started.

This week I've been working hard on getting Book 3 (and 4?) moving towards publication for the Chronicles of the Orion Spur (Blood Siren) series. I'm also currently toying with ideas for getting the Poë series started (what the Poë Space tab on my website is for). Poë (pron. Poey) is going to be a serial set in the same universe as the COS, but focusing on what life is like for the common people.

The idea came from the world-building I did for Blood Siren and to a degree from some discarded ideas from Cygni's story line. That's not to say Poë is going to be a hodgepodge of the other story's leavings, just that the ideas I'm working with are things I didn't get to fully explore in the book series. Rest assured, Poë is going to be its own thing which I think you'll find enjoyable.

Given that the serial is going to be made of short stories, I started going back over the shorts I used to write when I first decided I did want to put my writing out for strangers to read. In doing so I came across the old Nero & Sorina short stories I used to write for my then girlfriend (now wife), and the first piece of science fiction I ever got paid for. It's a very short (flash?) piece I wrote for the now defunct AlienSkin Magazine back in 2008 (no, it wasn't a tawdry online magazine, just sounded that way) .

—Side note: Holy crap it's been 7 years—

I decided to share it here for your reading enjoyment:

Perfectly Safe

by

Michael Formichelli

 

    "Perfectly safe!"
    "You'll wonder how you ever lived without it!"
    "Be on the cutting edge of technology in your neighborhood!"
    The ads did their best to pacify the public.  Machines had invaded every aspect of human life in the last century, and now they were invading humans themselves.  It was the definition of insanity to Caz.
    At work a memo with the header "General Order 21" printed in bold letters arrived in Caz's mailbox.  All workers in the factory now were required to get "artificial enhancements.”  Caz couldn't believe his eyes.  Submit or starve, he had no choice.
    As the orderlies strapped him down, the company doctors explained to Caz that they would be removing his right arm and part of his skull to install the required hardware and support cabling.
    The doctors lined the cutting laser up and told him not to worry; it was "perfectly safe".
    Caz screamed.