"Dude"

Dude

Damn politicians anyway!

When you are immortal, or nearly so in human terms, you have to find something worth living for. If you don’t then life soon becomes demonic and oppressive and claustrophobic.

So maybe I owe the pols for giving me a purpose.

I spread a viral meme—it’s my raison d'être—a meme that The Powers That Be carefully excluded from many of the new worlds that mankind colonized.

Download my viral meme and you’ll see for the first time what it means to be whole and complete. You won’t rest until you’ve attained completeness and you’ll willingly die before going back to being a mere half man or woman.

The Powers That Be—whatever powers that reign on a given world—will go to any length to stop me.

I have to smuggle my meme in a carefully concealed, partitioned and encrypted section of my silicone memory.

If they caught me they’d wipe my organic and my silicone memory as close to a blank slate as possible and “rehabilitate” me.

Guess again dudes!

My failsafe would start a small but powerful chain of explosions starting in my tailbone. The shaped charges would thoroughly liquefy my brain and spine and drive them out through my ears, nostrils, mouth and eyes—mixing it with a bunch of digesting neurotoxins for good measure.

I walk the razor’s edge every day. If I chose any other path, I’d be forced to think less of myself.

***************** **************** ****************

I was on the run. I was breathless and sweaty and my probable lifespan could be measured in minutes. I wasn’t sorry. If anything, I was feeling proud and fulfilled.

That was no reason to surrender without a proper struggle though.

I came to a tumbledown chain link fence. I slipped through a good-sized gap without having to even bend over.

I could see dozens of ancient ivy covered small private space ships up ahead. I’d stumbled into a very old spaceport.

Most of the ships were long since dead, but I pinged a live one.

In for a penny, in for a pound…

I had hacking subroutines and security picks in my silicone brain in addition to my viral meme.

The ship wouldn’t be in shape to lift. It had probably been there for a couple centuries or more—but still, they build these things to last.

There’d probably be food, a shower and clothing—perhaps even tools or weapons that I could use.

My entry would leave no sign—either electronic or visual. As long as they weren’t tracking me with Bloodhounds I should be golden.

Maybe I’d dodged death yet again.

Then all the internal lights came on and a disembodied voice spoke to me.

“They are pinging me,” it said. “If I tell them that I’ve been penetrated, they will be here within an hour.

“Follow the flashing lights. I want to show you something,” The voice said.

“Why should I Dude?” I asked the voice.

“Perhaps we can reach an agreement,” Dude said.

I followed the guides and eventually I came to a locked door.

“Can you hack the lock?” Dude asked. “I don’t have control of it.”

********************* ************ ****************

It was dimly lit with red bulbs inside. There was a big aquarium thing filled with thick burbling brew and inside was a disembodied brain, spine and pair of eyes.

Tiny Waldos supported the eyes and they slowly focused on me.

“What you see should be illegal on every civilized world. They took my body and used my central nervous system to run this ship.

“I can hide your presence. I believe that I can take off.

“Promise to make my case public and to fit me with an android body if possible and I’m your ship in the meantime,” the brain said through speakers.

“What is your name,” I asked.

“I don’t remember. No wait—you called me ‘Dude’. Is that my name?”

“It will do as well as any other,” I allowed.

*************** ************** ***************

It was going to be several months until our next planet fall. Dude and I had many long conversations to help us pass the time.

“I remember almost nothing of my human life,” Dude said. “Tell me about your life. Were you ever married?”

“No,” I said.

“Why not?” Dude asked.

“I never found a woman who’d have me,” I shrugged.

“How about a man?” Dude asked.

“First off, I’m not attracted to men. Second: that is against God’s law. Third: I’m immortal.

“That would force me to think less of myself. The centuries would become very wearisome if I didn’t like myself,” I told him.

“What kind of women do you favor?” Dude asked.

“Tall—above six foot if possible; very black with thick nose and lips; muscular and busty—but with long straight hair. Blond would be nice but red even better.

“Natural blue eyes would be a plus too,” I said.

Of course Dude had a huge ship’s library at his disposal and he showed me quite a few photos of big black women, zooming in on my ideal.

I didn’t give it much thought. Guys talk about women—even me—though I despise talk that is coarse and sexually explicit.

Dude did ask some naïve questions about sex.

Poor Dude, they really neutered him.

**************** *************** *************

Dude had cameras and other sensors all through the ship as well as multiple robot and Waldo servo units for repair and maintenance. Yet he claimed to feel constrained and hemmed-in by the vat.

I’d been ripping up sheet metal for disposal many decades before. I’d used a pair of simple slip-lock pliers in each hand.

It had occurred to me that a very simple, robust and versatile robot hand could be made from a couple pairs of pliers—not only could they open and close together or separately and be rotated about three axes but they could move closer or farther apart.

I made Dude a small three-wheeled radio controlled body equipped with a pair of the plier-hands, stereovision, hearing and a speaker. I thought that he could learn to feel like he was inside the free-ranging robot.

***************** **************** *****************

We were playing chess with the real pieces that I’d turned from aluminum in the ship’s machine shop.

Crunch!

Dude smashed an aluminum knight and then threw a verbal tantrum.

“These hands that you made me suck!” Dude shouted. “You suck!”

“Dude, if you don’t like the hands I suggest that you try to design better ones—or learn a bit more fine control.

“I’m not an engineer. I’m just a friend trying to help you.

“We’re about three weeks out. Try to maintain until then.”

******************* **************** ***************

When I walked into the hospital room to see Dude’s new body, I got the shock of my long life.

There in the bed was the perfect combination of all the loveliest features of the many beautiful black women we’d discussed on the ship.

“They tell me that my brain had several different brain cells—some male, some female. There’s really no way to tell.

“But my brain is buried in this chassis. The chassis is one hundred percent female. Would you be forced to think less of yourself if you loved me?” Dude said.

She spoke ever faster and there was a note of desperate pleading entering into her voice.

“Dude, it’s cool. You can be a woman if you want to. It’s just I always think of mechanical things as male. It simply never occurred to me that you might be a girl,” I said.

“But we’re both fools.

“You were never human. Your brain was purpose-built from stem cells and silicone to run a ship.

“The delusion that they were once human happens with some degree of regularity to ship’s brains who sit for long periods and aren’t maintenance wiped on a fixed schedule,” I explained.

“Then why am I here and not memory wiped and content in my vat?”

I shrugged.

“I got used to our talks. I’d miss you. Besides, I promised you.

“They had to do some serious shoe-horning to get your brain into a humanoid body. You’re a bit larger than a standard human brain.

“I had the funds. I had the funds for a standard cybernetic brain to replace you…

“But your skull-jack is custom and you ought to be able to run much of the ship just like before, when and if you choose to,” I said.

“What is the viral meme you’ve risked your life so many times to pass on?” Dude asked.

“It’s only for people who volunteer to receive it.

“It is called ‘Late Twentieth Century American Gun Culture’

“It is the absolute conviction that one’s guns are a part of oneself and that an unarmed man is neutered and crippled and maimed.

“Once it takes hold, you will find a way to arm yourself or die trying—even if it means building your own guns, smuggling them or fighting a revolution,” I said.

“Can I try it?” Dude asked and smiled fetchingly.

I hope the end is a triple surprise.

.....RVM45 :cool::sht::cool: