Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. It is a draft; there are mistakes, many misspellings and sometimes long periods of no updates. copyright: ion fyr 2025
It was a matter of a brief call and a twenty minute wait.
Pool was more than willing to be analyzed and probed. He wanted to find out why he was mechanical even more than they did.
In the room next to the one Nila was in, Pool was laid down on the scanning bed. It was a plastic and glass sarcophagus etched with glowing filigree and punctuated with blinking lightnodes.
The scanner, using an embedded set of moving panels that stretched across the width, and matched by similar ones on the insides of the walls and floor of the device, would peer into Pool’s interior and map them in the finest detail. While the mapping took place, the molecular composition of his flesh would be tabulated and compared to whatever known reference point made the most sense in his case.
Dr Daytime gasped as she read the scan results as they started coming in.
“He’s more than just mechanical, Luc. Look.” She stepped back from the panel and pointed to it.
Luc looked at the outline of Pool’s body. He could see the white on black outline of Pool’s body. He zoomed in and could see countless small and minuscule gears and servos and unidentifiable parts, but as he scrolled inward through the layers like geological strata, he found something more disturbing than merely the mechanisms of pseudo-Pool’s body.
“There is a kind of a skeleton in there,” he said.
From within the sarcophagus, Pool said alarmed, “What!?”
“Oh, you can hear us, Mr Pool,” Luc said. “Nothing to worry about. You seem to have a skeleton.”
“What!?” came the voice from within. “Do you mean a structure meant to hold my mechanical pieces up, because that would be sensible to have in anthropomorphic automaton, one that did not have an exoskeleton. It would make sense to have and endoskeleton…”
“No Mr Pool,” said the doctor. “The chemical composition and organic make up indicate that is a human skeleton, but distorted, like a bad copy.”
“What!?” Pool’s voice became higher. “Let me out, please…at once.”
They could hear him struggling, and see him through the small window that ran down the center of the lid, shimming side to side.
“Hold tight, Pool. I don’t think we’re finished yet,” Luc said.
The rustling around died down. They could hear him anxiously groaning from within.
“It looks like his skeletal structure is human. The marrow of the bones seems to be still alive and there are still vessels moving blood around, but there doesn’t seem to be a heart or lungs, or for that matter any internal organs.”
“Oh!” She exclaimed. “Found it!” She pointed at the screen for Luc.
“Congratulations, Mr Pool, you appear to still have a brain,” Luc said with a smirk.
“Luc,” Dr Daytime said as she pushed his arm. “Play nicely with our patient.”
Luc smiled. “Yes, ma’am…Doctor.”
“I can’t begin to tell you how this all works, but if I had to guess, I would say that the original–the one that had been made of flesh and organs–had been replaced at some point by a very sophisticated approximation, wherever that was possible. I am not sure why they left most of the skeleton intact. Not all of it is. There are things missing. See these ribs? They appear to be aluminum. Many of the bones of the extremities have been replaced with identical aluminum copies as well.”
“However, below the outer layer of skin, there are mechanisms that seem to be specifically designed to emulate muscle tissue…”
“What is that?” she said talking to herself mostly. “There is something inside the brain!”
From within the sarcophagus: “What! What is in my brain? Please, let me out of here.”
The image on the screen, as she scrolled down through the layers showed what looked like concentric circles. She tapped a button and changed the aspect of the image scan. It now was a three dimensional rendering.
Focusing on the brain, revealed concentric spheres, like Russian Dolls, where the thalamus should be. The outer layer was two and a half centimeters in diameter, and seemed to have around 20 shells layered within it.
The seemed to be moving, independent of one another, spinning within and without.
“Mr Pool, please stop moving. I may have found something and I need you to remain still.” At Daytime’s words, he did stop struggling, at least for now.
With some adjustments on the screen, the doctor changed the frequency of the scans and with incremental tuning, this revealed that the layers of the spheres were glowing in different regions.
“Fascinating.” She peered at the spheres, now magnified to fill the view screen. “Pool, can you wriggle your toes, please.”
After a pause, he complied.
Daytime and Luc watched as one of the inner most spheres lit in a region and rotated first one way and then another.
“And now tell me your full name, please.”
Inside the box, Pool’s muffled voice uttered, “Blackwood Aristophanes Pool, of the Londbridge Metropolitan Constabulary, on Special Assignment.”
They watched as several of the outer shells lit and spun around.
“Thank you, Mr Pool.”
“Yes, thanks, Pool,” echoed Luc.
Dr Daytime turned to Luc. “I’ve never seen anything like this. This could revolutionize biomechanics…I mean, not the gears…that’s ancient tech, but the interface with the brain and those spheres…how does that work, even?” She had lowered her voice so Pool couldn’t hear her. I would really like to take it out and look at it in greater detail. I could publish…get picked up by a ritzy corporate university…”
“Let’s not do that just yet, Doctor.”
It was a matter of a brief call and a twenty minute wait.
Pool was more than willing to be analyzed and probed. He wanted to find out why he was mechanical even more than they did.
In the room next to the one Nila was in, Pool was laid down on the scanning bed. It was a plastic and glass sarcophagus etched with glowing filigree and punctuated with blinking lightnodes.
The scanner, using an embedded set of moving panels that stretched across the width, and matched by similar ones on the insides of the walls and floor of the device, would peer into Pool’s interior and map them in the finest detail. While the mapping took place, the molecular composition of his flesh would be tabulated and compared to whatever known reference point made the most sense in his case.
“Under UV and IR he does not at all look like his flesh is ‘normal’. He has very very small wires and gears. I cannot begin to imagine how his brain works. I want to take it out and slice it into slides.
Dr Daytime gasped as she read the scan results as they started coming in.
“He’s more than just mechanical, Luc. Look.” She stepped back from the panel and pointed to it.
Luc looked at the outline of Pool’s body. He could see the white on black outline of Pool’s body. He zoomed in and could see countless small and minuscule gears and servos and unidentifiable parts, but as he scrolled inward through the layers like geological strata, he found something more disturbing than merely the mechanisms of pseudo-Pool’s body.
“There is a skeleton in there,” he said.
From within the sarcophagus, Pool said alarmed, “What!?”
“Oh, you can hear us, Mr Pool,” Luc said. “Nothing to worry about. You seem to have a skeleton.”
“What!?” came the voice from within. “Do you mean a structure meant to hold my mechanical pieces up, because that would be sensible to have in anthropomorphic automaton, one that did not have an exoskeleton. It would make sense to have and endoskeleton…”
“No Mr Pool,” said the doctor. “The chemical composition and organic make up indicate that is a human skeleton.”
“What!?” Pool’s voice became higher. “Let me out, please…at once.”
They could hear him struggling, and see him through the small window that ran down the center of the lid, shimming side to side.
“Hold tight, Pool. I don’t think we’re finished yet,” Luc said.
The rustling around died down. They could hear him anxiously groaning from within.
“It looks like his skeletal structure is human. The marrow of the bones seems to be still alive and there are still vessels moving blood around, but there doesn’t seem to be a heart or lungs, or for that matter any internal organs.”
“Oh!” She exclaimed. “Found it!” She pointed at the screen for Luc.
“Congratulations, Mr Pool, you appear to still have a brain,” Luc said with a smirk.
“Luc,” Dr Daytime said as she pushed his arm. “Play nicely with our patient.”
Luc smiled. “Yes, ma’am…Doctor.”
“I can’t begin to tell you how this all works, but if I had to guess, I would say that the original–the one that had been made of flesh and organs–had been replaced at some point by a very sophisticated approximation, wherever that was possible. I am not sure why they left most of the skeleton intact. Not all of it is. There are things missing. See these ribs? They appear to be aluminum. Many of the bones of the extremities have been replaced with identical aluminum copies as well.”
She continued: “The brainstem, spinal column, the pelvis and skull appear to be original though. They eyes are organic…and the skin…”
“However, below the outer layer of skin, there are mechanisms that seem to be specifically designed to emulate muscle tissue…”
“What is that?” she said talking to herself mostly. “There is something inside the brain!”
From within the sarcophagus: “What! What is in my brain? Please, let me out of here.”
The image on the screen, as she scrolled down through the layers showed what looked like concentric circles. She tapped a button and changed the aspect of the image scan. It now was a three dimensional rendering.
Focusing on the brain, revealed concentric spheres, like Russian Dolls, where the thalamus should be. The outer layer was two and a half centimeters in diameter, and seemed to have around 20 shells layered within it.
The seemed to be moving, independent of one another, spinning within and without.
“Mr Pool, please stop moving. I may have found something and I need you to remain still.” At Daytime’s words, he did stop struggling, at least for now.
With some adjustments on the screen, the doctor changed the frequency of the scans and with incremental tuning, this revealed that the layers of the spheres were glowing in different regions.
“Fascinating.” She peered at the spheres, now magnified to fill the view screen. “Pool, can you wriggle your toes, please.”
After a pause, he complied.
Daytime and Luc watched as one of the inner most spheres lit in a region and rotated first one way and then another.
“And now tell me your full name, please.”
Inside the box, Pool’s muffled voice uttered, “Blackwood Aristophanes Pool, of the Londbridge Metropolitan Constabulary, on Special Assignment.”
They watched as several of the outer shells lit and spun around.
“Thank you, Mr Pool.”
“Yes, thanks, Pool,” echoed Luc.
Dr Daytime turned to Luc. “I’ve never seen anything like this. This could revolutionize biomechanics…I mean, not the gears…that’s ancient tech, but the interface with the brain and those spheres…how does that work, even?” She had lowered her voice so Pool couldn’t hear her. I would really like to take it out and look at it in greater detail. I could publish…get picked up by a ritzy corporate university…”
“Let’s not do that just yet, Doctor.”
Ion Fyr 