Kohran Li, sans faux dermis, sprawled her five foot one mechanism across the clinical lines of a steel and leather daybed. Her only article of clothing, lensless glasses--so as not to coruscate under the glare of studio lights and the stutter of Twenty’s fantastic flash photography--framed green photodetectors housed in the magnetically suspended orbits of a gold anodized titanium ‘skull’. Coupled with the flawless, lipless ceramic grin, and fine workings of mandibular & muscular apparatuses, the visual totality was as beautiful as it was disquieting. The body was no less spectacularly binary in its biologically analogous technical perfection.
An eerily white ceramic bonded alloy ribcage was levered upwards out of her torso, grotesque salon doors to an arcane anatomical apparatus of pink polymer musculature, burnished nitinol plated organ systems, ersatz colour coded endocrine, exocrine and nerve matrices, the gold wink of an anodized spine at the nodes of neck and pelvis ; and, lower down, the uncanny analogues that were usually more euphemistically referred to as plumbing than they were in this particular...casing.
Dr Drakken, referencing an enormous Grey’s Anatomy, nodded appreciatively at each positively identified body system analogue. That is until his eyes fell upon the box. “Is that a...?” He flipped to a page of the medical tome, looked triumphant, before melodramatically heaving the book out of his scramble to get a closer look.
Twenty complained, “Boss, you’re in the shoot!”
“What’s what?!” Kohran sounded a trifle miffed.
Drakken didn’t actually put his head within her torso, but he came close as he scrutinized the structure. “You’ve got an appendix!”
“I do?”
“You do! Your physical structure parallels biology down to the vestigial tissue level...at least in your GI tract. This is fantastic!”
“But I’m not a biologic!”
“I know, but your body has at least one analog of evolutionarily scaled time!”
They both were quite in the scientific moment until Twenty, off-hand tentacle waving in irritation, barked, “Boss!!”
“Sorry, Twenty!” He stepped out of Twenty’s camera field.
“and where there’s one...”
“...There may be others,” Drakken finished for her.
“Fascinating! I may possess multiple evolutionarily obsolescent traits!”
“You might even have a coccyx!”
‘Tesla’s coils’, he thought, ‘the Transhumanists are going to go ape!’
****
Her dermis and epidermis reapplied, Kohran Li reviewed the images of her layout.
“Well this has certainly been...revealing! That’s a really good shot, Twenty : I love the way you bring out my photoreceptors!”
“ Thanks! I’d blush, but I don’t have your subcutaneous capillary load!” Twenty’s carmine oculus was focussed on his boss as this addendum was dropped with a diminutive dollop of dolor.
It wasn’t lost upon Drakken. “If you want capillaries, you’ll probably also be wanting feet.”
“And everything else?” The cyclopean eye socket was doing that dewy puppy dog thing that shouldn’t have been possible given the inflexible structure of Twenty’s ‘eye’.
“Everything!” Drakken threw an arm around the choked up casing.
“Oh, Boss!” Twenty was the very happiest smart bomb.
****
Drakken displayed the selected images of Li to his wife.
“The closeup of her cranium will be the cover shot, and this full body shot will be the central June pullout. What do you think?”
“I think I’d better remind you about flesh before you go running off with a toaster!” She scattered the pictures with a casual swipe , and stalked towards him with anything but a casual intent.
“You think they’re ho...”He didn’t get to finish, but he really didn’t seem to mind.
An eerily white ceramic bonded alloy ribcage was levered upwards out of her torso, grotesque salon doors to an arcane anatomical apparatus of pink polymer musculature, burnished nitinol plated organ systems, ersatz colour coded endocrine, exocrine and nerve matrices, the gold wink of an anodized spine at the nodes of neck and pelvis ; and, lower down, the uncanny analogues that were usually more euphemistically referred to as plumbing than they were in this particular...casing.
Dr Drakken, referencing an enormous Grey’s Anatomy, nodded appreciatively at each positively identified body system analogue. That is until his eyes fell upon the box. “Is that a...?” He flipped to a page of the medical tome, looked triumphant, before melodramatically heaving the book out of his scramble to get a closer look.
Twenty complained, “Boss, you’re in the shoot!”
“What’s what?!” Kohran sounded a trifle miffed.
Drakken didn’t actually put his head within her torso, but he came close as he scrutinized the structure. “You’ve got an appendix!”
“I do?”
“You do! Your physical structure parallels biology down to the vestigial tissue level...at least in your GI tract. This is fantastic!”
“But I’m not a biologic!”
“I know, but your body has at least one analog of evolutionarily scaled time!”
They both were quite in the scientific moment until Twenty, off-hand tentacle waving in irritation, barked, “Boss!!”
“Sorry, Twenty!” He stepped out of Twenty’s camera field.
“and where there’s one...”
“...There may be others,” Drakken finished for her.
“Fascinating! I may possess multiple evolutionarily obsolescent traits!”
“You might even have a coccyx!”
‘Tesla’s coils’, he thought, ‘the Transhumanists are going to go ape!’
****
Her dermis and epidermis reapplied, Kohran Li reviewed the images of her layout.
“Well this has certainly been...revealing! That’s a really good shot, Twenty : I love the way you bring out my photoreceptors!”
“ Thanks! I’d blush, but I don’t have your subcutaneous capillary load!” Twenty’s carmine oculus was focussed on his boss as this addendum was dropped with a diminutive dollop of dolor.
It wasn’t lost upon Drakken. “If you want capillaries, you’ll probably also be wanting feet.”
“And everything else?” The cyclopean eye socket was doing that dewy puppy dog thing that shouldn’t have been possible given the inflexible structure of Twenty’s ‘eye’.
“Everything!” Drakken threw an arm around the choked up casing.
“Oh, Boss!” Twenty was the very happiest smart bomb.
****
Drakken displayed the selected images of Li to his wife.
“The closeup of her cranium will be the cover shot, and this full body shot will be the central June pullout. What do you think?”
“I think I’d better remind you about flesh before you go running off with a toaster!” She scattered the pictures with a casual swipe , and stalked towards him with anything but a casual intent.
“You think they’re ho...”He didn’t get to finish, but he really didn’t seem to mind.
![[Image: CT-p0001-ST.jpg]](http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060205225318/muppet/images/3/3c/CT-p0001-ST.jpg)