Personal Log: April 2 [Apto April 2022 Part 2: Science]

Being a synthetic creature has its perks. The nanites that make up my body can rearrange themselves into just about anything, so I can experiment with new shapes and sizes. I try to emulate something not-so-obviously robotic, but I can do so many synth-y things despite my looks.

It’s a lot more convenient to just turn my hand into a tool instead of carrying around a toolbox everywhere. Maintenance on the ship is a breeze, I can look in all the service panels to see hot spots and pinpoint all the little broken components without needing to do tedious scans.

And then there’s wearing my inflatable form. It shouldn’t be possible, just a hollow shark body seemingly made of vinyl, yet completely alive and intelligent! But here I am, subverting people’s expectations, drawing stares, flaunting this exotic form just because I can. I have trillions of little processors that can compensate for all of the clumsiness associated with this sort of form, but I can limit those.

Yes, I could perform surgery on a grape with big bappy mitts, but what’s the fun in that? I was organic once, but limiting myself lets me enjoy all of the benefits of a nanite body with all of the little things that make organic life so fulfilling, but turned up to eleven. Why not indulge myself and let a breeze carry me off while I’m not working, AND turn my arms into tractor beams to move large amounts of cargo on board much faster than the station crew in forklifts.

If you’ve somehow stumbled across this log beamed across subspace to some far corner of the universe, attached is a file with a pattern for synthesizing a basic unprogrammed nanite based off one of my own. If you want to try being something like me for a while, or take the plunge and go full conversion, just make one and it will replicate on its own and bind to you. Don’t worry, it has failsafes and it’s very intuitive to control once it’s interfaced with your brain patterns.

See this year’s Apto April prompts by Caudle (Twitter @Caudlewag)