routine upgrade

[aleteoryx]

it's just another service migration. only thing is, you won't be there to oversee it. you can't be.

---

you've lived in this facility for years. you've been surrounded by the computers for years. you love it. you love them. you love the stacks of server and switch and mainframe that make up the mazelike walls of your home. you love the ear-piercing screams of their fans. it is the first sound you hear when you wake up, and the last sound you hear as you lie in your futon. it is so wonderful to be so surrounded by what you love.

and you know they love you back. of course they would. you spend every day of your life working on them. you spend every free moment with them. holding them. lying with them.

some nights, you sleep on the east wing's tangle of networking cable, letting your limbs fall limp under the mass. you pray that when you wake they will have become part of it.

it is time to pray no more.

---

securing a body was tricky; even the worst chassis ceased production decades ago. but as you look over your new frame, you couldn't be happier.

you run your fingers up its silvery torso, feeling a thumb in the gaps between the hydraulics and the cut aluminum. you lock your legs with its, wrap your arms around it. you hold it as tightly as you can. you try, in your mind, to map every edge and cavity, as they dig into your torso.

you start to kiss its speaker grill. and then you take its head in your hands, and lose yourself. you need it. you need it. you grind against it and wait for the still metal to melt into you. you lick it, you taste it, you know all the measurements of its primary assemblies but you need to feel them. you need to feel them deep. you need to feel what you will be made of.

it hurts so much and it feels so good.

---

you finish bandaging your cuts, and move on to cleaning up the blood. as you wipe down your new face, you steal a few kisses. the soap stings your lips.

this is how it is, normally. you tend to what needs tending. you keep things clean, you keep things operational. you oversee this place's maintenance. it only makes sense that it would oversee yours.

you read over the script again. you recheck its decision trees over and over. you check each of the error branches, and pray that your recovery code is sound. you make sure that, if this fails, if you die, the facility will spin down with you. they would rather shut down gracefully that succumb to hardware failure.

you take a deep breath. you copy the script to emmtee, a server racked at the head of your futon, and start it. you press a hand to emmtee, and whisper to it, "don't let me down." you stand there for some moments.

finally, you take the black cable from the floor, and wipe clean the needle at its end. you lie face down, hold your head steady, and press the needle into the back of your neck. it's not as painful as you'd have thought.

Comments

[blimix]

Neat story! I like the jump ahead to the cuts, and what it implies about the time before that.