rebooting, her circulatory system will soon re-artificial heart and brain stem will soon require quire a complete PlasmaInfusion, and a number of her PlastiPlutonium bones will require replace-ments, at prices far exceeding the budget allotted under the Endangered Species Intervention Act. human woman one-tenth her age; the PlastaHair tance at least, might be mistaken for the skin of a tificial organs has been her remarkably lifelike PlastaEpidermis. At the age of 171, m a r t h e has a smooth and luminous “skin” that, at a little dis-Indeed, the most durable of m a r t h e ’s ar-
russet red, more lustrous than the “natural” hair on m a r t h e ’s head remains a beautiful, thick m a r t h e had in the prime of her youth.emphasized that m a r t h e was never a wholly m a r t h e ’s original eyes, but (seductive) au-thentic replicas.“natural” primate: She was one of 188 female for sentimentalists who favor the protection of the species that created artificial intelligence, first as RobotHelpers, then as AICitizens, it should be And there are those blue eyes!—not altogether Though m a r t h e has become a poster child
mate Collapse Crisis of 2039, when fertility in deaths for most of them. her species first plummeted. Her harvested eggs were fertilized in second-generation cloning tri-als that gave birth to 14,000 human infants—but a chromosomal defect in the DNA resulted in early clones engineered by the NSI following the Cli-“biologically natural” children in female uteruses, ticipant in those controversial experiments of the 2060s involving the artificial insemination of following the general epidemic of male impo-In addition, m a r t h e was a (volunteer) par-
m a r t h e in 2023, at the time of the “volunteer” “try again at motherhood”—but her appeal was gave birth to several “natural” children, unfortu-nately born with rudimentary brains and defec-tive hearts, who had to be euthanized under the State Eugenics Law.inseminations, when she was 25 years old. By tence; according to hospital records, m a r t h e rejected.Homo sapiens’ aesthetic standards, m a r t h e The photograph you are now seeing is Still, m a r t h e was reportedly eager to^
eyes that seem, across the abyss of years, to be “sweet-tempered” human female: the apotheosis years of organic evolution bent upon the grim and ceaseless task of reproducing mammalian species in the old, physical way of sexual intercourse yielded this specimen of a sexually desirable yet is considered “beautiful,” “desirable.” Mof what was called femininity.her flawless “Caucasian” skin and lustrous blue still in possession of her original organs, including alive with something like hope. That is indeed At the time of this photograph, m a r t h e was illions of
a natural “sweet smile” intended to signal to the viewer—Love me! Please.(Along with these problematic species, those subspecies, or “races,” of Homo having failed to reproduce their kind without costly intervention by the State. and butterflies of great variety dwelling in uninhabitable regions of Earth (much of Europe and North America, most of Asia and South America, and virtually all of Africa) would not have been allowed to lapse into extinction, species and the dubious aesthetics of “beauty.” Otherwise such “beautiful” species as gazelles, leopards, tigers, horses, tropical fish, dogs, cats, wild birds, sapiens dwelling in such regions were also allowed to lapse into extinction, though preserved, like other, popular animal species, as ingeniously crafted replicas displayed in zoo museums.)Fortunately, AICitizens are immune to the blandishments of natural Like others of her favored species, m a r t h e was the beneficiary of nu-
merous transplants and artificial devices: hips, knees, lungs, kidneys, corneas, and eardrums, as well as liver, heart, and blood-bearing vessels. Having mar-ried into an affluent class, m a r t h e was able to purchase elective surgery: “facelifts” and “face recontouring,” silicone implants, muscle transplants, “living teeth” inserted in her jaws. At the age of 119, at the time of her sixteenth marriage, m a r t h e undertook the controversial procedure GenitaliaNew! and may have had a (black market) uterine transplant, of which nothing more is known.
she would have died a natural death except for the intervention of the exposed to the (seductive) appeal of m a r t h e—“the last living member CreatorSpecies Protection M“tragic” turning point in evolution—but only if old-style sexual reproduction gery to repair her damaged brain. Following this, m a r t h e was shameless-ly exploited as a political icon on social media; no AICitizen has not been were still the norm, which it was not.of her species.”as a d o n i s , who lived to the age of 143. This was viewed in the media as a ing, in 2158, the last remaining Homo sapiens male, affectionately known Others in m a r t h e ’s generation continued to die off one by one, includ-At the age of 168, however, m a r t h e suffered a series of mini-strokes; ovement, which lobbied for radical neurosur-
Catastrophe of 2072, when brain-devouring amoeba, thriving in the high responsibilities of running the aging “human” State; gradually, AICitizens, temperatures of global warming, learned to alter their DNA to withstand an-tibiotics, with devastating results for the species; the plummeting birth rate never righted itself, despite heroic efforts to reverse it. (It was at this time that RobotHelpers were upgraded to AICitizens, to take on the burdens and cies have not needed extraordinary interventions in order to survive—rats, equipped with super-computer brains and none of the vulnerabilities of a species encased in flesh and blood, took over completely, though contrac-tually bound to “serve” Homo sapiens.)In contrast with the fate of Homo sapiens, the hardiest of organic spe-In fact, Homo sapiens had failed to reproduce “naturally” since the Great
crocodiles, groundhogs, Tasmanian devils, venomous snakes, sea creatures, and, above all, insects; these continue to reproduce, in mutated forms, in toxic landscapes outside Climate Control Towers, where primates could not survive for more than a few minutes and where even AICitizens (with precisely calibrated computer brains) begin to corrode and disintegrate after a few weeks’ exposure to the elements.reproduce “naturally” since the HGomreat Catastrophe of 2072.o sapiens had failed to
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