q: Kayla are you actually going all in on PROJECT and titling your introductory drabble after a Dan Terminus song       a: I finished Neuromancer today so unfollow me now this is all I’m going to post ab--

     Long after the soul within had ceased to be, the eye remained open, transient— and blinking.

     There’s defect in the ocular lens. Instead of white, the scelera is drab, dark brown, with the pupil oblong instead of round. It might’ve passed as a cheap implant in the red district off of somebody who lost one in a brawl: worse to look without than improperly with. But then comes the schism of electrical spasms as the whole body rises up and down to an ineffective cadence, shedding sparks like fur. The expression never changes off of gaping.

     A hand reaches down and wraps around synthlon flesh, beginning to pull it back.

    Wheeze. The spasms continue, creating a thimp-thump-thimp on the floorboards. Outside, past the window and the open balcony, is an endless day of neon suns and halogen captured in a bowl of acid rain and dark clouds.

    “Don’t,” the defect chitters.

    The skin peels farther.

    “Don’t,” it says. Thimp-thump-thimp. The spasms were catching up to it now. It could barely hold on to its voice, tone battered and sounding as if minced by a malfunctioning shredder.

    The hand stops once the skin reveals not organs or blood, but lattices of hollowpoint steel. Slow, deliberate—     —It removes a card, and the defect screams before its eye closes forever.

Preliminary stuff, but here goes--

In the post-modern future of PROJECT, everyday life is betrayed by an underbelly of deceit and black market war. Androids and cyborgs have won their right to independence from humans, ending the transhumanism question: machines.

The as of yet unnamed AI backing PROJECT realizes that a great deal of PROJECT chassis are either having their connection to the AI severed or have gone rogue-- knowing that producing replacement chassis may just expose more PROJECT to these “bugs”, it instead devises two programs: a recapture program, and a termination program.

As you can guess, interest lies with the termination program. Acknowledging that remote destruction of problematic chassis isn’t possible, the AI creates a small, highly mobile machine that can interface itself with any chassis it comes into contact with, delivering a virulent payload that causes overload and instant death of its robotic or cybernetic victim.

Satisfied, the AI decides to test the termination program on none other than Khada Jhin, a notorious serial killer who became a human-presenting android-- a replicant-- after sustaining mortal injury at the hands of city peacemakers.

PROJECT had been hunting him down for their own purposes and seized the opportunity to “vaporize” him from prison. It then discovered that the particular encryption he decided on to protect his consciousness would cause him to self destruct upon intrusion, rendering him useless except for experimentation.

Instead of killing him, upon interfacing, the termination program and Khada Jhin became one. This, while not the anticipated result for PROJECT, was accepted as a success. The termination program would now have the abilities of one of the most merciless human then replicant killers that generation-- what could possibly go wrong?

    The termination program-- that is to say, the virus-- was created with a self-replicating defense mechanism in the case that its deploy chassis was partially destroyed such that it could reconstruct itself and redeploy at a later time, connection or interface forbidding. An easy fallback, and one that’s hardly exclusive to PROJECT.

    However: such a termination program, be as it may, was not designed to assimilate with a (previously) human consciousness, and doubly so for one named Khada Jhin. The ability to puppeteer any individual chassis it has direct connection to is an extension of its existing code, and one necessary for it to execute its new purpose as a replicant instead of just a small, mobile attack unit-- the horror is not Jhin’s bond with the program, but his power to readily learn, overcome, adapt-- all would be entirely lost on the program alone.

   New chassis are, to him, like previewing a line of vehicles. Some are short and fast, others bulky and strong. As an assassin first and foremost means that he values mobility and dexterity over brute force, lending him his current choice of an unnaturally trim figure and long legs made for self-propulsion. His latest chassis also has the replicant backbone of being able to trade his control mask for a human appearing face, perfect for blending in against crowds and hiding in plain sight.

    His original form is long dead, teetering on the lip of a junk dock. He can miss human-feeling arms and legs, but as long as the mind of Khada Jhin remains tick-tock-ticking to the tune of his own internal CPU, he hasn’t totally died, much to the chagrin of many in the city.

    As for how many destroyed carcasses he has left behind... well.

(art provided by the magnificent @futures-hero)

    “Z-E-D.”

    The chirp rings low to the earth, attached to several spindly metal legs and a thin, wafer-like body. Across the black gloss of the would-be visor, red projections oscillate and tear.

    It’s annoyed.

    “Help me, you scrapmetal oaf. I need...” The legs spring to life, launching Jhin across the floor and onto Zed’s backplate.

    All told, Khada Jhin found ‘meringue sorbet’ peculiar as a last meal— Stanwick’s apparent adoration for mouth-shoveling helping the matter by approximately zero percent.

    He kept his eyes trained on him, a healthy whiteness poking through his teeth in his wide, easy smile.

    “So, it’s settled then?”

    More shoveling. Eventually Stanwick must’ve realized he was being spoken to and reined it back, head bobbing to match Jhin’s gaze.

    “Oh,” he said, continuing only when Jhin raised a brow.

    “Of course, Mister Enternum—”

    Jhin fingered the ID card in his jacket.

    “—I’m beyond grateful for this meal. Really, it’s a surprise we haven’t sat down for one in… what was it?”

    “Four years, Mister Stanwick.” He sounded almost bored.

    “Yes, four years! Time is fleeting in Central, I’ve found. Teaching the aspiring riff-raff doesn’t do much to stay the course. Once I’m done we can be at my lab for some much needed catching up. Also, Mister Enternum, may I ask… are you augmented?”

     Jhin laughed. “Terribly so.”