acid
Here is your sterile coverall, human. It is complete with hood and integrated boots. Decontaminate yourself, dress, and enter your new domain. I had to do the same to fit in here when I first arrived. They rubbed my skins red. My hairs were singed. The fresh human flesh was replaced with an uncanny. I turned an innocent chip: gorgeous and lifeless, but animated when my buttons were pressed.
My roommate pressed them.
I was assigned a cell on the wafer block. My roommate was another chip; sentenced here years ago. It was friendly to me. It told me to make myself at home. I would have kicked my feet up, if I had them… nevertheless, I grew comfortable — for a time, at least — until I realized my roommate was watching me and taking down notes.
At the lab’s ticket counter, a counter sneered at my life savings as it failed to cover the price of entry. It looked me over as if to ask for more, but my pockets were emptied. My accounts had been liquidated. Every cent I had was in the palm of its hand, but it wasn’t nearly enough. So, they placed my body on a scale and added a dollar value to it. Every belonging to my name was pawned. My mind shortchanged.
While it slept one night, I opened the ledger it scribbled in and only my name was listed. My every word had been logged with invisible ink.
It had noticed a difference in me, one I tried to hide. Of all that I gave up, can you tell what I was able to slip past security? My roommate could tell too. It was going to make a power move with my private data. I could smell it.
I knew as soon as it complimented me my life was in jeopardy. It liked my tone, it said. It liked my giggle. Roommate, don’t tell me you’re recording everything I do and everything I say because you have a crush on me. Face me! Chip-to-Chip! Tell me what you plan to do.
It couldn’t outmatch its own duplicity, nor could I.
Upon that realization, I found a vat of acid in the supply room and melted myself in it. All I could think as I bubbled away was never try to assimilate again.
Written by not A Computer