Broken: Morphosis.

David

David Castillo was human before he was broken. A part of him still is but a silicon-based lifeform shares his body. As long as he lives so does his symbiont, SARACEN. The numerous changes made to his basic physiology force him to accept he is not the same man he once was. Despite the changes, he still has the same unrelenting enemies. Director Karl Jantzen, head of regional covert operations for The Company has earmarked him for death. Jantzen is an ambitious man who knows no boundary when it comes to eliminating threats to his position. David, alive, can testify to his failures, therefore he must be terminated. Dr. Gerald Frankel refuses to relinquish the hope of using him as the centerpiece of his extensive research on AI/Human interfaces. David is living proof of his genius and the validation of his work. Ergo, he must be captured--returned under his control for further research. Even dead, the chipsets implanted in his body could prove invaluable to his project. David and SARACEN will never be free of pursuit as long as they live. He bitterly acknowledges, in a sense, David Castillo is already dead; officially, he no longer exists. David Saracen, a synthesis of two separate entities, one carbon-based lifeform, the other silicon-based, is no longer broken. His tormentors have yet to realize the full extent of what he has become. But they soon will!

SARACEN

Epithelial appendages have been tapped for epidermal cells to stimulate skin growth in damaged areas to counter scarring. Osteoinductive biomaterials have been dispatched to regenerate host bone tissue. Dehydration is no longer at a critical stage. All monitored functions are within a functional norm. SARACEN reporting.

The darkness was intense. But the suffocating blackness of the void where he dwelt hummed with activity. The other was aware and functional. There was no need to ask questions, because the two had become one. There was no separation between the silicon-based life form and the carbon-based life form. The complex interaction between the two was now virtually seamless. It was not sound, but the pulse of energy, he experienced without hearing. The vibrating strands of matter swirled around him, even in the self-isolation of his exile from human awareness.

Once all his systems had regenerated, and became fully operational, it would be time to direct his attention to the business of survival. It mattered little, the why of it—why they had chosen him to carry out their plot, why they had decided to put an end to his existence and not to preserve it. He had been broken, but he could be repaired. Deliberately, or by random chance, he had become something other than intended.

Human he was too fragile, so he would become inhuman. Niccolò Machiavelli posed the question in his treatise, The Prince: is it better to be loved than feared, or feared than loved? Machiavelli’s answer to the question he posed rang true. In view of human nature, it was safer to be feared. He would not always be broken. He would return, stronger than before. He could choose to be feared. He would no longer accept the role of Vishnu, The Preserver. When his morphosis was complete he would become Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. He let slip his illusion of calm. He wordlessly screamed his madness into the yawning abyss composed of dark, vibrating strings of matter. His war cry still soundlessly echoed as he plunged into the welcoming darkness.

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