It had been a long day for Rowan. The kid who sits next to him in his third-hour university class on advanced robotics is a total jerk. That moron kept kicking Rowan's chair and chewing his gum so loudly that it was hard to concentrate on the lecture. Rowan considered himself a pretty smart guy, but he knew he had to work hard to maintain high grades to get an internship with Aion Bio Robotics.
The work that Aion was doing in the field of human-machine interfaces was precisely the type of work that Rowan needed to be involved in as he formulated an outline for his upcoming thesis. They were writing the book on the future of what it would look like to be human.
They had already successfully tested a neural implant in a chimpanzee that allowed it to learn English. They said it was reading and writing at a fifth-grade level and getting better daily.
Another division of the company was working with robotic hardware. They had already released prosthetics (arms and legs) nearly indistinguishable from the real thing in form, fit, and function.
Rowan's thoughts returned to today's class. At the end of the lecture, that jerk had taken his journal, which contained his notes, ideas, and sketches about how humans and machines might one day be merged into a bio-synthetic amalgamation.
He slumped down next to the bed, the sounds of Telomic playing in his headphones. The lights were off, but the city lights illuminated his room in a rhythmic pulse as vehicles passed by the brightly lit signs outside.
Rowan closed his eyes, and his music player slipped from his fingers onto the floor. As a glittering and persistent lightning bolt formed in the center of his vision, he knew a migraine was brewing. With a deep and calming breath, he imagined what it would be like to have a bio-synthetic body.
I was inspired by this image that I found on Tumblr.