Edna Grossbart flipped through the magazine, as her roots sucked in the Clairol Number 2 Aubergine Red. Suddenly, she almost swallowed her cigarette stub. Actually, that's not quite true. The cigarette stub almost swallowed her, she sucked on it so much.
Edna Grossbart is bionic.
Born in 2030, the Company determined that Edna's genetic datastream had medical cancer in the ascendant. With little reason to sponsor her- a sure-fire route to extinction- Edna did what she had to do. She reworked her organ configuration so that the Company would agree to sponsor her.
But Edna did it smartly; she took a boat to the C Island. And came back with a bionic body.
Edna started small: breastplates instead of breasts. Later she went in for the more radical stuff, heart and kidney transplants. By that stage it was an addiction similar to tattoos, one body adjustment led to another.
Edna was no wallflower; when she started something, there was no going back.
And seeing as she was already on the C island, Edna went for the major organs, even those that did not send out the red arrows on the genetic datastream. Edna was after the real stuff, not some third rate synthetic organs. Pedigree organs from the old race, whose extinction was caused by the threat their genetic robustness had posed to the Company.
Of course, those organs were not for sale except on C island. And Edna had some spunk, she knew the bootleggers and had gotten hold of quality heart and some robust kidneys.
She loved the feeling of the heart, its throb, its pulse, its connection to life.
But with the heart came a problem. Suddenly Edna, felt, she desired, she almost wanted to scream out of pain, out of pleasure from her newfound ability to feel pain. And along with that transplant, Edna had found herself in the strange position of wanting, desiring, lusting after bizarre and archaic traditions of the old world, of the old races.
It had started with a penchant for gaudy gold watches. That would have been hard to hide from the Company, who now accepted her genetic datastream despite their suspicions of old race organs.
Luckily the 2055 retro trend for 2030 fashions had hidden her penchant for gaudy gold.
But then another desire surfaced, one so strong and so primal that she could do little to hide it.
It came, apparently from her itty bitty transplanted heart. Clairol Aubergine Red. Number 2. Circa 2035, the last date of the known whereabouts of the old race.
And so it was that Edna Grossbart found herself in the downtown salon, terrified that the spies from the Company would spot her. If the Company would have suspicions that her organs were not synthetic pure stock but from the old races, they would no longer sponsor her. And that would mean death.
As the chemical cocktail of peroxide and hydrogen permeated her cuticles she dwelled on this and sucked harder on her cigarette, not noticing it had almost burnt its way out. That is when she nearly swallowed it.
And that was when she knew she had come too far. That was when Edna Grossbart, bionic woman, started plotting her escape from the Company.
Hello I am a new user , hope I am posting correctly here.
(c) 2013-onwards @saronaspecial (on Hive)
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The characters in this story are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. With the exception of sharing a direct weblink to this post, no part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted electronically or mechanically, including my photographic means and recording, information management storage and retrieval, without permission in writing from the author. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement will be pursued.
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Thank you so much!
I'm really envious of Edna Grossbart right now because there are quite a few body parts I would like to swap out! Great story, @saronaspecial. I love your imagination.
@jayna thank you Edna sends her regards back, time is not linear and she's out there in a parallel universe right now. She and I wish you rude and very robust health!!! All the best and thank you :-)
A story with elements of science fiction that seem to me more like a social critique. the body's need for an uncontrolled dream: The body dimorphism that is announced in the simple sentence
You seem to be creating a heroine.
@gracielaacevedo :-) a heroine for tattoo aficionados, perhaps! Yes I think you are right there is something of a social critique in here and as I wrote in the summary line, for me this story was a way of thrashing out something to do with eugenics and epigenetics. I hope it was as amusing as the topic can be ;-) Thank you for your comments!
Perhaps your title is a bit ironic? Does Edna Grossbart live, or is the composite Edna Grossbart someone else completely? You try your hand at science fiction,and you do so deftly. This is not merely an excursion into what might be at a future time, with advanced technology. This is an inquiry into the essence of an individual.
It's great that you begin your inquiry with hair dye. So deceptively superficial. But even something as trivial as hair color has not escaped the influence of a borrowed heart.
Your story is intriguing, and amusing. Thank you for posting it in the Ink Well community. As always, we ask that you read the work of other writers in the community and share comments with them. We ask everyone to support community members. (We also have this in The Ink Well community rules on our home page and in our weekly writing prompts.) Thank you! And, please continue writing and posting.
Thanks @theinkwell I appreciate your comments and feedback. Yes I am beginning to catch up on other writers posts, so much great stuff here! Many thanks
Man I love this one! Science-fiction is one of my favorite genres and I always enjoy it most when it's about changes in life and society, especially bionics and trans-humanism! You did a fantastic job staying entirely within the narrative.
I wouldn't mind reading a longer piece about Edna or this new society you conveyed. Great work!
@rakushasu thank you so much for your encouraging words and enthusiasm.I'm sitting on ten years of scrappy notes of stories and ideas and not having the courage to publish. I've barely been on @theinkwell a week and its like a huge weight is lifted and I feel my creativity coming back. It's so validating to find out something I wrote conveyed something of value to the reader. I'm trying yo publish once a day as I have such a huge backlog and managed 5 out of 6 days. This is such an achievement for me. Coming back to your comment and feedback... thank you. Yes I have a few more ideas in the series, it will take time to develop but yes I will try and put out more like this :-)
That's fantastic! I used to do the same, start something, move to the next thing and ended up with a lot of unfinished stories or shitty drafts. Then I started to share my work online and it helped me a lot and it also helped me to actually finish things! And it also helped me to earn a bit of money, which is never a bad thing.
Good luck with your writing! Hope everything goes well for you!
Great to hear and very encouraging! Thank you!!
Great piece of short SciFi.
Even though you wrote this some time ago it is particularly relevant to current times.
Yes I wrote it in 2013 but never published until now! Thank you 🙏
I'm so pleased that this treasure trove of brilliantly written short fiction and poetry is now being shared with the world and receiving the praise it deserves - On Hive!
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Wow ..
Science fiction at it's best.
I've always envied writers in this particular genre, because i find it so hard to write stories in the genre.
And from what i just read, you made it look so easy.
I absolutely wish, i could trade some organs as well... Life would be a lot easier if we didn't have to worry about aging...
A beautiful work you've got here, i'm glad i read it😁
You are kind! Well ...the muse is a strange thing, when she visits. I have no idea which planet she's from! Apparently though she knows C Island well...;-) I much appreciate your encouraging comments, thanks so much! Blushing from compliments.