Not Everyone Loves a Cyborg

The hiring of cyborgs by STEP had been controversial at the best of times. And Ed McGee never hid his mistrust of cybernetic organisms, whose hiring signaled the end of Operation Cow Spies. Believing in the superiority of his cattle, he continued to fund the program out of his own pocket, and took every opportunity to humiliate the cyborgs. He would often go out of his way to try to trip them as they walked down the hallways.

He was rarely successful though. It’s next to impossible to catch such deadly cyborgs off guard, even the sensitive ones, but that never stopped Ed from trying. He’d occasionally get a slap in the mouth for his efforts, but most of them managed to ignore him.

Irene Georgios, however, wasn’t one of them. A Greek cyborg specializing in orchards and vineyards, she finally decided enough was enough. She was walking towards the break room carrying a bottle of recently acquired Naoussa Grande Reserve ’88, when McGee, who’d been hiding beside the vending machine, stuck his leg out. Without so much as a sidelong glance, Irene hit Ed with the wine bottle, opening a wound above his right eyebrow that required more that a dozen stitches.

It was an ugly affair. It cost them both their positions, as well as those of 23 other agents, cyborg, human and avian.

Nestor: The Italian Cyborg

Yes, you read correctly. Nestor is an Italian cyborg; the deadliest of all cyborgs.

And, as you're probably aware, cyborgs in general are known for their somewhat impetuous behaviour. They are, however, capable of feelings, emotions and affective experiences. I collaborated with cyborgs and androids so often because I was willing to make the effort to relate to them. Except for the gynoids. I refused to work with those tramps.

Nestor was unusually impulsive and rash, even for a cyborg, thinking little of the consequences of his actions. Like the time we were conducting an investigation of the burger industry in a small Prairie town. One evening, after a day of heavy recon, Nestor and I met back at our base of operations, the local library, and began sorting through the trash I’d recovered from the nearby greasy spoon. It was laborious work weeding through the discarded napkins and forgotten orthodontic retainers, but all we needed was one solid piece of evidence of the druggings or the money laundering to take down the man known as “Justice of the Grease”.

We had just started to make a dent in the pile, when a child walked by where we were huddled, and opened a door. The stiff breeze that blew in caused our hard work to scatter all over. Nestor was furious, and in his rage, backhanded the child. Realizing his mistake, he took off, leaving me alone to explain to the child and his parents what had happened. Our cover compromised, I pulled a plug on the mission.

Ode to the Sanctimonious Sally

I was cleaning out the basement yesterday, and I came across a scrapbook I had made dedicated to my hovercraft. Flipping through that book brought back a lot of wonderful images and memories. I'd like to share one.

I was recklessly zipping across the majestic Manitoban plain. The wind squeezing through the gaps in my teeth and down my throat. Occasionally my stomach would force the air back up as a sickening belch that tasted of ketchup chips, lime margaritas, and the thousands of mosquitoes I had swallowed along the way. Just such a belch was knocked out of me as I careened over two sleeping cats that were sent rolling over through the grass a few dozen times before they could even look bewildered. The belch brought with it a small pool of wretched liquid that made me gag, swallow, and burp again.

"You stink, lady," said Nestor Nutchise, the Italian cyborg sitting in the passenger seat of the hovercraft, as he watched a family of wild guinea pigs flee from the large ominous machine as it barreled towards them, bringing them ever closer to their deaths.

“Sorry... that was a nasty one!" I exclaimed, as I reached around back for my Big Gulp to wash out the taste. And a brief moment of distraction was all that Jorge, the well-fed steer belonging to Farmer McGee needed. He'd been waiting a long time to exact his revenge on us for the embarrassment that was the Balless Bulls Ball, and here, at last, it was. With the dexterity rarely seen in a ruminant his size, he leaped out from behind the rock where he was hiding, and pierced the bottom of my hovercraft.

The Sanctimonious Sally started spinning out of control. With my full attention now at the wheel I tried to pull the craft away from Pointy Plants Plains, but to no avail. “We’re all going to die!” screamed Nestor, and promptly fainted. The lives of the modern dance troupe were in my hands. Thinking quickly, I picked up Nestor and ordered everyone to grab one of the several life-sized Don Henley cutouts that were to decorate the old town hall where we were performing that night, and use it as a makeshift sled to slide to safety.

Pip and Carob, the amazing conjoined cannabalistic contortionists, realized that there were two less Don Henley cutouts than there were passengers, and resigned themselves to go down with the Sally. As the rest of us jettisoned from the craft and slid softly to a halt in small piles of feces, the twins performed one last interpretive dance that they liked to call "squirrels in pearls" before the Sanctimonious Sally went up in a ball of flames.