The Demonstration
By Borg 5 of 9 SF
Introduction
In September 2022 I was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of paralysis called transverse myelitis. In my case, antibodies attacked my spine instead of a virus I had been fighting. During a 24-hour span, I went from being able to walk to not being able to support my weight. The paralysis kept creeping up my body like rising water, fortunately stopping at the abdomen. But it took powerful steroids and intense physical therapy to regain my ability to even shuffle down the hall with the aid of a walker.
Over the month and change I spent in the hospital, I experienced a lot of stress and worry, but also a lot of interesting sensations. My cybernetics kink helped preserve my sanity in these moments, and so I have folded many of my experiences into this transformation story. Kink can be a lot of things, and a protective mechanism is one of them. I am grateful to my kinky eccentricities, which I used to be ashamed of, for helping me through this crisis. My love did too– she was there for me every day and night.
But this is a work of fiction. Although my condition provided inspiration for this piece, the specific events depicted are far from anything which happened in real life. Which brings me to:
Content warnings: This is a work of erotic cybernetic fiction. It includes: a gender-neutral first person perspective, being taken apart, being awake during cyborg conversion, playing with the idea of consciousness. It contains a female dom, male drones, and relations with both.
—-
Chapter 1: Amnesia
The first thing you remembered were the bright lights flooding your eyesight. The discomfort of the tubes in your esophagus and the plastic mask over your mouth and nose. In the periphery of your vision you can see beings in powder blue surgical masks bent over your abdomen. You feel tugging and pulling as they work on something inside your abdominal cavity. But there is no pain. There is little sensation at all.
How did I get here? What is happening? You can’t remember anything. Your head swims, no doubt an effect of all the drugs pumped into your system. But you can’t move.
“Doctor, the drone is awake”
“OK, we’re almost done here.”, another voice off to your other side replies. There is a high pitched whir as the doctor secures something to your shoulder. It clamps down. You don’t feel anything but the pressure. You try to move your head to look down at your body but it is held firmly in place.
Then, blankness as you are put back under.
—
You are suddenly aware of your senses again. An unspecified amount of time has passed.
You’re in an upright position, strapped to a rack. You try once more to look down at your body, but your head again cannot pivot downward.
The room looks sterile. There is a cart off to your left with laboratory equipment. You scan the room. Across from you is a monitor displaying what appears to be x-rays of a figure from both the front and profile views. Wires snake through the body, hooking to solid objects embedded within: Devices inside the ribcage, abdomen, with smaller electronics throughout. Behind the right eye is shown a circular implant. And behind that, items in the brain and replacing the ears. There are no legs below the thigh. It is then that you realize you are suspended above the ground. You try to form words, but nothing comes out. You hear voices:
“The drone is online”
“Vitals holding stable”
There is a dull ache behind your own right eye that would seem to correlate with what is on the monitor. Is this you on the screen? Before you can fully digest what you’re seeing, they speak again:
“Alright, let’s get it prepped. Flush the jacks”
“OK, flushing”, comes the reply.
A cool rush flows through your veins at the entrance point of your jacks: arms, right side of the lower abdomen, left side of the neck, and where your nipples and external genitalia were. You taste something metallic as the chemicals are excreted through your lungs.
You catch a glimpse of your naked, scarred form on a reflective metallic surface. The image is distorted, but you can make out stapled-shut stitches and small implants scattered over the body, protruding from the skin. Your right eye has been removed, and electronics are recessed in the orbital socket. What have they done to me?
“Ocular implant?”
“Ocular implant.”
A human clad in baggy silvery protective garb blocks your view. The face is obscured by a breathing mask and a glowing blue augmented reality lens over one eye. You can almost make out the HUD from the front, the text and images reversed. It holds up a device up to your face. It goes far into your eye socket, delicately clicking into place as it connects with the cybernetics in your skull. You hear a faint high-pitched whine as it powers on. There is a brief burst of static in your eardrums as your vision shows glitches, like a corrupted video file trying to recover. Then, clarity– more than you ever had.
Other humans come into view. One carries a bulky chest plate piece. Another human, from before, returns with another piece: one which is contoured with a bulge. And, yet another, a round half-dome. The material of these components is an alloy unlike anything familiar.
The human with the half-dome attachment comes forward and off to the left, out of your periphery. You feel cold metal and static-electric tingling as the material makes contact with your bare head. It fully grips the left side and top of your head but on the right only covers the crown, leaving the hairless flesh dotted with implants exposed.
The human with the chest plating approaches you and holds the front plate over your implant-riddled chest as the back plating dangles to the side. The being carefully aligns connection points on the underside of the plate with the jacks protruding from your body. Another brings the back plating around, again aligning it.
“1.. 2.. 3” one says. They push the plates together in unison, the connections entering the jacks, your new chassis penetrating your body. Fusing with it. It is part of you now.
A low-rise backpack made of the same material is carefully slotted into the backplate, and you feel tugging sensations as it is locked firmly into place, and a vibration as it comes to life. There is a new heaviness, that of your new chassis pushing you down with its weight. But you don’t budge.
Finally, the engineer holding the piece with the bulge holds it in front of your crotch. The one who installed the chest plating pulls a thick hose from the bulge, and slowly feeds it into the port which has replaced your primary genitalia. Through the center of the hose’s jack is a curved metallic rod. The rod slowly, and smoothly, glides into your port. There’s a strange sensation as it penetrates, going impossibly deep inside your body. A slight pinching, the nerves being stimulated in ways they have never experienced. It makes its way inside your urethra until it finally pushes through the internal sphincter leading to the bladder, or whichever biomechanism your bladder has become. The ring around the base of the cable twists and locks itself into place. There is a cool, almost painful sensation of fluid being pulled from you. Or is it being fed into you? The sensation is constant. It hurts a little, but it’s not a bad feeling.
Cables are picked up off a tray to your left, and your headgear is plugged into the back of the muscled chassis. More cables are attached from the backpack to the jacks on your temple, and finally, from the side of the codpiece into the backpack
An engineer hits a key and the bonding process begins.
You feel a needle enter you. Then another. Each time, the sting of the metal pushes through your flesh into deeper tissue. Some make connections with pinhole ports, others stick into biological systems.
Something appears in your head, like an inner monologue but foreign to you. It is raspy and robotic: “Neural network online. Firmware 55.1.” Did you speak it or just imagine it?
Time: 545011200. You have nothing to compare it to.
“Unit. State your designation,” the engineer queries the cybernetic network which now comprises your brain.
You stiffen slightly. There is a strange burbling in your mind as the programming hijacks your brain. It becomes louder until it overwhelms you. Then: “AX-5 series drone. Unit identifier 74J-96-B”, you speak in unison with it.
The programming releases you, dropping you back into free will. Why is it in my head? What is going on? And why do I crave it?
With some effort, you look down. There is a halting servo sound as your head moves jerkily– malcoordinated. You see your arm ends above the elbow. It terminates in a gleaming jack. One of the humans carries a prosthesis. Instead of a hand, a metal claw is at the end, and myriad unfamiliar tools extend from the side. Some are needle-like, some like tiny robotic fingers. You are hungry for it to be attached to your port. You need it. Just as you were thinking that, your arm automatically pivots forward to accept the new limb. It is carefully secured to the port sideways, then twisted to lock into place. A feeling of euphoria courses through you. An especially thick hose is fed from your back into your manipulator arm.
Another key is hit, activating another device. Electric pins and needles shoot up your arm, but the sensation is not entirely unpleasant. There is again the feeling of being taken over, ascending into bliss. Your arm slowly raises, claw opens and closes and the tools fan out from the side of your wrist and back, like a wave. Calibration complete. You hold it up so you can see the piece in detail, gazing upon it in wonder. Every movement you make, you hear the faint sound of tiny motors. You feel like you are about to orgasm. It is building. Then, a voice snaps you out of it:
“OK, shut it down”
A switch is flipped. Your head goes limp as you stand. The manipulator arm returns to a rest position. Vision off. Consciousness off.
Chapter 3: Retraining
You regain consciousness. Systems power on. Eyelid flickers. Your one eye opens. Two seconds later you are perfectly awake. You scan the room. You are still in your recharging station.
Time: 545356800. 345600 seconds have passed since your previous activation [4 days].
The doors across from you open. A female figure enters. She is medium height, stocky with broad shoulders, hair pulled back, captivating eyes, and dressed in a white lab coat. Her heels click as she primly moves across the hard floor, directly to the workstation in the corner. She hits a button with a gloved finger then turns to watch.
The cables holding you into the rack detach with a hiss, and you’re released to gravity. With a heavy thud, your rubber-soled cybernetic feet hit the ground. It is the first time you are aware that you now have lower legs. But you feel nothing except for a quick static electric sensation shooting up your leg to your thigh. The shock echoes up and down your leg, resonating inside your body until it decays back to nothing, like a struck door-stop spring. It is not entirely unpleasant although it should be: There is something inside of you which it satisfies.
The woman gazes at your body before looking you in the eye. “Drone, state your designation”. As she says these words, you stay fixated on her eyes. It’s difficult to look away. And, as you realize this, her pupil flashes red for a quarter second. With each instantaneous flash, a rapid pulse materializes inside your head, foreshadowing what will immediately follow. Programming seizes control of your mind once again.
“AX-5 series drone. Unit identifier 74J-96-B” you again say, your voice not yours.
“Your controller is keyed to my mind, drone. You are now locked to me, and only I can control you.”
Once again, you are dropped back into free will. And it is here you first realize you cannot move your limbs. Your feet are planted in place. Attempting to move your arms produces little effect. Whatever atrophied remnants of your biological muscle remain cannot overpower the mechanical limbs they are encased in. Your entire body feels stiff and heavy.
“Walk towards me.”
You hear her commands in your head as she speaks the same thing a split second later, eerily doubling the voice.
Your limbs are now unlocked. Cautiously, you attempt to take a step. At first, the leg sticks to the ground. With some concentration, it lifts, but you cannot place the foot precisely where you want. The foot again lands harshly, a slight distance from where you intended it to. More static shocks echo throughout your lower extremities, leaving behind an intriguing tingling sensation. They reach a higher point than they previously did, now firmly up to your inner thighs. The misstep knocks you off balance, but your stabilizers quickly kick in and you are automatically righted.
“The neurons need to form new connections with your new limbs. All the programming you contain only goes so far; the old pathways and muscle memory in your brain needs to all be rewired. Your neural network needs to be trained.”
Without warning, she gives you a firm shove. You begin to helplessly tumble backwards, but the stabilizers once again activate, forcing your leg to step back, avoiding a fall.
“But, even though you cannot willfully move your limbs with coordination, your programming has certain routines that will take control in an emergency. Think of them as additional brainstem reflexes.”
She turns her back to you, walks across the room, then turns to face you again. You look away, but even without seeing her eyes, the voice appears in your mind:
“Try again. Walk to me.”
Your posture stiffens and you once again are looking your controller in the eyes. Your leg comes up easier this time. But, placing it back on the ground correctly proves to be a chore. With some concentration, you manage to get the leg closer to its target, foot hovering near its destination. Your foot thuds into the ground awkwardly. Balance is lost, but you are able to right yourself without a cybernetic assist. More electricity arcs through your legs. It reaches the crotch, leaving behind the pleasant tingling.
“The shocks are probably hitting some pleasurable areas for you right now.”
This remark takes you aback. How would she know about the experience of drones?
“This is what the other ones have reported, at least. Oh, you thought you were the first?”, she says with a smirk. “We are putting together drones for a big demonstration. No, you’re maybe the fifth, or sixth one. I lose count. The others are in hibernation, hooked to the charger until the big day. And that’s where you’ll go when we’re done with you here. I hear they orgasm sometimes. Well, sometimes that’s not so subtle.”
“I am done with you for now, 96-B. I must go tend to one of the other units. You’re pretty charged up; I can just power you off where you stand.”
“Wait, no!”, you think. You don’t want to be turned off here! Her eyes flash. Your systems begin powering down, one after the other. Within a second, you stand in the middle of the floor, your head drooping forwards. The tiny status lights on your implants dim. Your mind is the last system to click off.
—
Time: 545616000. A delta of 259200 seconds [3 days]. You are pulled by your controller down the hallway. She holds onto a thin metal strip which has been clamped to the mount point on your chassis, near your sternum. You are able to walk, although your limbs feel distant and abstract. Since your body doesn’t have the same sensory input as a human body, any relevant senses and proprioception information is fed back to your brain as data you must cognizantly pick apart. This makes coordination and navigation largely a cerebral activity at first.
But, eventually, your neural network is programmed, and it becomes automatic. Perhaps a little too automatic. As you settle into a rhythm, you glide down the hallway, feeling as if your limbs are someone else’s. The heaviness and stiffness never did dissipate, a consequence of your powerful mechanical appendages. But your walking is still halting and awkward.
The controller takes off her lab coat. As she slowly removes the fabric, a gleaming cyborg body is revealed. Her body is coated with a perfectly form-fitting covering. It isn’t black or silver, but a mixture of both. Tubes snake down one arm, connecting to flat devices attached to her abdomen. Her wide hips and pleasingly domed stomach catch your eye, as well as the tiny mechanical arms mounted at the sides of her torso, 2 per side.
“You need adjustment, drone.”. The robotic appendages unfold. Small tools at the ends whir to life as she moves towards you.
“This performance level won’t do. I have been authorized to upgrade you to something better. There’s too much flesh; too much conflict inside of you. It needs to be suppressed.”
A phallic device uncoils from her crotch as she circles behind you. She begins breathing heavily in anticipation.
“The human nervous system is too slow to retrain, and ill-equipped to manage your redesigned limbs and cybernetic organs. It will be replaced with something that suits you a bit better. Something which brings you closer to perfection.”
With those words, she plugs into your rear port. It is like any other machine plugging into your body, like being in the recharging station. That thought comforts you. As she places her rubber-coated hand over your mouth, the phallus is pushed into you as far as it can go. A flat metal ring around your rim rotates, locking the phallus into place. She moans, and the nanobot transfer begins. A cool liquid rushes as microscopic robots, submerged in a silvery stabilizing fluid, begin flowing inside of you. Her robotic arms come around to your front. One, with a small flat tool on it, wriggles underneath your left pectoral plate. Others make their way inside as well, finding their ways past the small spaces between other plate segments. Two into the right side of your abdomen, through the small cracks in your chassis– the pathways which lead to sensitive systems and flesh.
There is a fast, pulsing sensation from your rear implant: rapid but small electric zaps traversing from the port into your abdomen. You feel it up your spine. Some of them reach to the brainstem. Many would find this sensation disturbing, but you are so turned on that it only registers as a curious discomfort.
Her other gloved hand reaches around, cupping the domed implant where your right ear was. The dome opens, allowing the thick tube snaking out of her palm into your headgear. The innermost panel in your braincase opens, letting it worm into your mind. A jarring, disorienting electric shock goes through your head. You are being programmed. New devices are being built inside your body, turning you into something closer to an automaton. This idea is not unpleasurable.
She grips you tightly. As the tools wriggle, making modifications inside your body, her heavy breathing intensifies. Her tools occasionally brush against human flesh, creating a thin, focused, tingling sensation along the path they trace. You feel the cool rush as the nanobots continue to stream into you. Her gloved hand around your mouth involuntarily squeezes your jaw as she lets out a moan. Your entire body feels pins and needles now, dissolving into pleasure. It is unbearable. Several times, you have wanted to let out a yell, but you are unable to move your mouth with her hand over it like that– not that any unauthorized sound could be produced from your voicebox anyway.
As your mind is rewritten, your eye turns to a blank stare. A small amount of silver, oily nanobot fluid spurts from your front port.
You are ready.
Chapter 4: The Demonstration
CW: Rapid dismantling, robot deactivations. Don’t worry: They will be fixed, and reassembled, and they love it.
A hundred or so spectators file into the theater. On stage, the controller looks over the crowd, all silhouetted against the bright lights. The onlookers are an anonymous cluster of shadows. But you stand, well-lit. You are one in a lineup of androgynous cybernetic forms, all in different configurations, and in differing levels of conversion. Flanking the group are guards whose helmets conceal what lies beneath. A crosshair is projected onto their visors which displays where they are looking. Are they robots or cyborgs? Flesh with implants like you? Or, A crude mess of metal, wires, and sensors. Perhaps they are a combination of both, the biological components disfigured to accept the enhancements without regard for aesthetics or beauty. You aren’t even sure what you are classified as, given the recent and severe alterations to your mind and body.
You gradually become aware of your controller speaking to the crowd. “...it doesn’t need to sleep. It doesn’t need to stop to eat or excrete– it is entirely self contained. All it needs is to be plugged into a recharge station occasionally. “
“And, each one of these cyborgs are field-reprogrammable. We will now give a demonstration.”
A cyborg which appears to have been a male steps forward, its vacant eyes staring dead ahead, every bit under hive control as you are. You hear a periodic hissing sound as it is fed oxygen through tubes to its mouthpiece. There is a faint high-pitched electronic whine as its servos engage. It moves across the floor towards you. As it comes face to face with you, you can smell its PVC, rubber and plastics.
This maintenance drone examines you for a few seconds, then circles behind, just as the controller had done before. Its manipulator arm reaches around, coming across your torso, pulling your back against its chest. The drone raises its humanoid palm to the side of your head. Your conscious mind is alarmed. “What does it intend to reprogram me for?”, you think to yourself, thoughts racing. But your ear-dome obediently opens, betraying your fleeting feelings of resistance. The cybernetic tongue easily snakes inside you, pushing into the braincase, forming connections with what makes you you. Does the other drone desire this, or is it simply following its programming? It is a moot point– there is little difference between obedience and desire.
The controller looks on, pleased, as your mind is further rearranged.
And then it suddenly stops.
The drone retracts the cable into its palm, still gripping your torso with its other hand. Latches on your body open in sequence, each one audibly clicking as it disengages. Your left leg clatters to the floor. Without a signal from your spine, it aimlessly pivots at the knee a few seconds before running out of power and ceasing all motion. The right leg does the same. Your manipulator falls from the mount point in your upper arm, the tools randomly operating. Pale flesh is clearly visible around the jack on the end of the detached limb: human and machine grown together as one.
The maintenance drone pulls out. As it does, your abdomen falls in sections to the floor, one segment after the other. It is left holding just your upper chest, neck, and head, like a cybernetic bust.
“You see, these drones are completely modular”, the controller states with pride, addressing the crowd. “Every part of them is encased in a cybernetic unit which can easily be swapped between different drones.”
The maintenance drone carries you over to a stand which has a hook and cables, and slots the hook into a mount point on your back. You hang suspended as the drone connects the cables to your jacks. The familiar cold rush flows through your body. The chemical taste in your mouth. Yet another drone begins picking your old parts up from the floor and placing them in a carrying case.
“If one component fails, you can simply pull the corresponding module from another drone, or from a supply of spare parts.”
Another drone stands to the side of your station, staring blankly. The maintenance unit you were interfacing with goes over to the drone to your side. A click is heard as the drone’s arm is disengaged from its shoulder, exposing a metallic interface. From the forearm down, the arm appears mostly human, but with two wires snaking down it like a technological caduceus. They terminate at a web-like glove covering the backs of the fingers, the wrist, and wrapping around to the palm. It has two flat, rectangular implants– one on the back of the hand, and one on the back of the forearm. The drone approaches you with the appendage and secures it to your shoulder. Nerves come to life conveying sharp, prickly sensations to your brain where the skin is exposed. It continues, removing parts from one drone and securing them to your body. Part after part snaps in until you are rebuilt. And, until the drone next to you is a hanging torso. It is still conscious, and does not seem particularly bothered by being stripped. The maintenance drone wheels it off of the stage.
She turns back to the crowd and continues, “One of the best things about these drones is that they always obey. They have no choice, nor do they desire to have a choice. No matter the demand, they will do it”. She looks over at one of the guard drones in polished black plating. Her eyes flash. The guard drone pivots towards another drone, raises its arm cannon, and aims straight ahead. They pause. The other drone stands, motionless, expressionless, dutifully accepting its fate. Suddenly, lightning crackles from the guard’s cannon and strikes the drone in the chest. With a quick whir of servos, the drone jolts, quickly taking two steps backwards, its stabilizers preventing it from losing balance. A bright web of electricity dances across its muscled plating, outwards from the impact point. Its body judders and the left leg falters. Dozens of glowing electric fingers make their way down the limbs before dissipating. Sparks fly as connections are severed and circuits fuse. Smoke begins emanating from its body. Other components are now unable to function, and the drone is aware that thousands of its systems are in a cascading failure. But its face does not register any emotion. The stabilization finally fails. The drone falls to its knees, slumps sideways, and ultimately comes to rest. It lies awkwardly crumpled. The manipulator continues to whir away for another several seconds before finally ceasing. A faint odor of ozone wafts across the stage. In your mind you hear: “Unit 97-X disconnected from hive”, the sole acknowledgement that the drone has been deactivated.
The controller pauses to let the shock of the situation sink in. She then continues with her pitch.
“Not to worry. There is rarely damage that can be done to these drones which is truly unfixable. It will be up and running again within a few hours of repairs. In the worst case scenario, the braincase is impenetrable to nearly anything, and can almost always be salvaged.“
Four drones descend on the broken cyborg. One carries a leg off. Another drone arrives, taking its place. A steady stream of drones, going to and from, carrying various parts off to be repaired or recycled. Plating. The manipulator. Cables.
“These braincases have a backup which can keep both the electronic and biological components alive for two hours after separation from the body.”
Other smaller components that cannot be identified. An ocular implant. The top section of the headgear. Is one.. the face?
The pitch continues, “And remember, these fully interchangeable braincases are not only useful inserted into cyborgs or humanoid robots. They can also be used as the central processing unit for large machinery, and they are also quite powerful as a processing node for distributed AI systems. Well, AI is getting a lot less “artificial” with these advances, isn’t it? Marrying the analytical and cognitive abilities of a biological brain with the cold, raw processing speed of a computer– It is one of the largest technological leaps this decade”
As the drones begin to disperse, the fate of the damaged drone comes into view. Nothing is left but a small metal spheroid. The last salvage drone picks it up and hands it to the controller. She rotates it in her hand before holding it up to the public.
“As you can see, the green LED is on, indicating the brain is still active and healthy. Of course, it is in complete sensory deprivation at the moment. Of course, some of them enjoy that. You can keep a braincase in that state or sleep their consciousness. Your choice.”
She flicks a switch on the side of the braincase and the light turns from green to blue and begins to softly pulse. Without looking away from the audience she hands the oblong object back to the drone, which carries it offstage.
You feel something. Envy? You wish to experience this level of disembodiment. Perhaps someday you will be chosen. The thought excites you.
“The next step is to hook it up to diagnostics, where you will get a detailed rundown of which regions are damaged, if any, and require a cybernetic replacement.”
“These drones are the next generation of manufacturing, surgical, rescue, repair, and military cyborgs. Their endurance and versatility is unmatched. And, as of right now, we are accepting orders for these units. You can supply a biological body for a drone order, or for a higher price we will supply one of our own bodies which have been conditioned pre-conversion specifically for popular dronehood tasks. Costs vary depending on how your chosen drone is equipped and how extensive the cybernetic modifications are. Please ask to see a pricing chart. Thank you.“
The lights dim on stage. And you are inspired to fulfill your final purpose.
