Franz Kafka had a great influence on writing and literature in the 20th century. Even today, strange and/or creepy stories are called Kafkaesque. In his novella "Die Verwandlung" (usually translated into English as "Metamorphosis") a man slowly turns into a cockroach.
In my version of Metamorphosis, I go one up on Kafka. Not only does a woman totally change, her entire world changes around her. More than that, she becomes something much, much more interesting than a cockroach.
The story is told in the form of "Autolog" entries. In the future, Autolog entries have replaced blogging, tweeting, and other forms of posting as a person's thoughts are automatically recorded for all to see.
I don't really like this story, but it is a writer's equivalent of an "ear worm" that keeps playing in my head. The only way to get rid of an "ear worm" is to sing the stupid song. The only way to get rid of a "writer's worm" is to finish the story and post it... so I did.
In one of my English courses in college most of the class became almost orgasmic about "Metamorphosis". I didn't like it. The professor asked each of us to say why we thought Kafka wrote it. I was one of the last to answer and I said, "He needed the money."
According to the professor, I was right. Kafka always said that he hated "Metamorphosis" but wouldn't say why. He was asked in a newspaper interview shortly before his death in 1924 if he had ever written anything just for the money. His answer, "Die Verwandlung." Many think that it is his greatest work.
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WARNING! All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.
If you are under the age or 18 or do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality or if you reside in any state, province, nation, or tribal territory that prohibits the reading of acts depicted in these stories, please stop reading immediately and move to somewhere that exists in the twenty-first century.
Archiving and reposting of this story is permitted, but only if acknowledgment of copyright and statement of limitation of use is included with the article. This story is copyright (c) 2015 by The Technician.
Individual readers may archive and/or print single copies of this story for personal, non-commercial use. Production of multiple copies of this story on paper, disk, or other fixed format is expressly forbidden.
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Judith Conroy Autolog Entry 3619-107-09-27
I did it! I smuggled AIM out of the facility. No one is supposed to be able to get their hands on Artificial Intelligence Metal, but I did it! I have been planning this for a long, long time. And my plan worked!!
My first plan was going to be misdirecting an emergency repair kit to a fictitious damaged space craft to replace one used on a mission. It was a good plan, but there are too many cross-checks meant to guarantee that every gram of AIM is accounted for. Misdirecting a kit would have been no problem. I send out replacement kits all the time, and as long as a shipment receipt was included to close the case file, no one would notice. But I knew that any kit issued is automatically cross-referenced against damage reports and vice versa. I would have also had to create a false battle or accidental damage report in the system. That would have involved getting into military planning records that I can't access with my current clearances.
Besides, there aren't that many battles or accidents. I would be able to get by with something like that only once, and one kit wouldn't have enough Artificial Intelligence Metal for what I wanted to do. There isn't all that much AIM in a repair kit because you don't need a lot of AIM to repair a damaged spacecraft, regardless of how big it is or how badly it is damaged.
That's the beauty of AIM. Once you put it in place and activate it, AIM merges itself with the metals already present in the craft and it changes the characteristics of that metal. For a short while, almost all metal in the whole ship can become quasi-sentient and self-repairing. So, all you really need is a little bit to start the process.
I need more because I am not going to use AIM on a space craft. I am going to use it on a human body- eventually. For now, I need to run a series of tests on lower life forms to prove that AIM can be used to repair or modify a living organism. Once I prove my theories, I can get investors and then legally obtain and market AIM for medical uses. A short while after that I will be rich beyond even my wildest dreams.
But first I have to prove that AIM will work for medical purposes, and the tests needed to prove that will take at least three times more AIM than is in just one kit. What I smuggled out of the facility today was the equivalent of four kits. I would never have been able to misdirect four kits.
Actually, getting the AIM out of the facility once I had acquired it was the easiest part. AIM isn't explosive or poisonous, it won't trigger the automatic vapor sensors. The scanners we have to pass through each day can't penetrate the thick metal of our security briefcases, so we have to open them each morning and evening for visual inspection by the guards. The guards are so used to quickly shuffling through layers and layers of papers checking for contraband, that they didn't notice that the inside of my briefcase, itself, was slightly brighter than usual. That's because taped to the inside was a thin slab of AIM protected by an unmarked transport stability pack.
Transport stability packs are normally used to safely contain bulk blocks of AIM before they are broken up into the 4.5 gram nuggets used in the repair kits. The stability packs also help prevent the AIM from being accidentally activated. Proper activation is essential to AIM. The amount needed to "seed" a repair is only 4 grams, but to allow for the possibility that a portion of the nugget might not properly activate, all repair kits are stocked with
exactly
4.5 grams of AIM.
The exactness of that measurement is what gave me the opening I needed to accumulate my needed amount of AIM. Getting it was tedious, but very easy. We have to sign out any AIM from Central Stores when we do experiments or tests in the lab. It is signed back in again when we return it to Central Stores. I took advantage of the fact that the scales at Central Stores measure to one one-hundredth of a gram, but the property ticket that it prints rounds to the nearest tenth.
We have been dividing and certifying AIM nuggets for repair kits for the past three months. Each time I started on a new kit, I would go to Central Stores and carve off a nugget that was exactly 4.54 grams. With an electronic scalpel, that isn't as hard to do as it sounds. The property ticket would read 4.5 grams. When I got it down to my lab, I would carefully shave .09 grams off the nugget before I began my tests. The nugget, which now weighed 4.45 grams would be within spec for the repair kits, and the property ticket when I turned it back in would read 4.5 grams.
After I had tested 200 nuggets, I had 18 grams of AIM hidden in my work area. Just to be sure that I was not discovered in a random log audit, I instructed my Autolog Thought Recorder to erase any entries which dealt with shaving the nuggets or smuggling materials out of the labs or using AIM for medical purposes. I then set up this special log on a private portion of my storage area and gave detailed and explicit instructions to my Autolog profile to log everything that had to do with my special experiments to this log file... and ONLY this log file.
The Autolog doesn't record everything, so this record will be somewhat incomplete. But it does summarize or make notes of anything which I consider be important. I very rarely have to edit my Autologs. They are almost as if I had dictated them later for the record. In case something goes wrong, I have set this log to become public if I no longer make entries to it for a period of 100 days.
Judith Conroy Autolog Entry 3619-109-13-51
Today is a rest day and I have taken the next two weeks as vacation so I will have time to conduct my experiments. If everything goes as planned, I may never have to return to work at the facility.
I am starting with a small rodent. I have intentionally broken one of its forearms- I used anesthetic- and am taping a very small amount of AIM to his now-useless paw. When I pulse the activator, the AIM should become active and merge with his flesh and bone. It will learn of the break and repair it. Then, if it follows design criteria, it should shut itself down so that it is once again safe to handle.
Judith Conroy Autolog Entry 3619-110-01-03
Something is wrong!
AIM almost instantly repaired the rat's broken bone, but it didn't deactivate as programmed. It continued to modify the rat's body. It's teeth began to grow at a tremendous rate and it began attacking the plastic sides of the observation cage. Luckily I had planned for all contingencies and had conducted the experiment in a military-grade biological test station.
I immediately triggered the primary containment protocol. Gas filled the test station- and the observation cage. This should have quickly euthanized the rodent, but it had no effect and the super rat continued to grow larger and gnaw at the plastic of the cage. When it chewed through the small observation cage I was forced to resort to triggering the emergency biological hazard containment response. The rat, its cage, and everything within the test station was instantly incinerated.
When the smoke cleared, there was nothing in the test area except ash and a very small nugget of Artificial Intelligence Metal. I brushed the ash into the waste opening and sealed the receptacle. The AIM nugget I put into a small containment case so I could transfer it back to the main block later today.
Judith Conroy Autolog Entry 3619-110-12-42
Something went terribly, terribly wrong when I picked up the block of AIM from which I had carved the small nugget to test on the rodent. It was still partially wrapped in the transport stability film which kept it stable and concealed it while I smuggled it out of the lab. But as I lifted the block, I felt it quiver. It was active!
My homemade activation device was evidently more powerful than what we use at the lab. Or, perhaps, my design allowed for a lot more radiation leakage into the surrounding area. Perhaps it has something to do with my changing the frequency of the pulse so it would activate the AIM for living tissue rather than standard space metals. In any case, when I pulsed the small nugget, the pulse must have activated the entire block. Maybe it would have made a difference if the stability pack had been resealed, but even open, the bulk block was farther away from the test bench than it would have been at the facility. None of that makes any difference, though. The reality was that, however and whyever it occurred, the main block was active.
I had safely handled accidentally activated AIM before, but the slight movement startled me, causing me to almost drop the block. When I grabbed at it to keep it from falling, my hand came in contact with the unshielded AIM- all 18 grams of it. The Artificial Intelligence Metal immediately attached to my hand and merged into my body. I tried to reach for the activator to send a deactivation pulse, but my arms refused to move.
