A little background first.  I wrote a poem back in 2010 that only represents one possible extreme, or glimpse, for a Posthuman.  A facet of human technological evolution traveling at the speed of light, as actual light among the stars.  This image doesn't exactly represent that vision, but rather inspires the poem.  Imagine instantiation in another state of being, body, or virtual medium, from star-to-star and all the implications of that!

Posthuman by Michael Blade © 2010

I am Human becoming
A Transhuman to be
My existence transforms itself through multiple substrates

I am flesh of evolved genetics
Technology cyborg robotic
Digital virtual and neural simulation
Networked information itself

Story by Michael Blade, © Copyright Dec. 2011, All rights reserved. No duplication without express permission. Networked Blogs

It was cold that New York City morning and he could see his warm breath on the air as he walked the crowded sidewalk. Lots of people passing by, forward, and back on his way to the pawn shop. He couldn't help but notice the beautiful long haired blond while she was waiting at the crosswalk to the right of him.

She was holding a rather large and thin attache case, an expensive designer brand, and wearing a long fur lined red coat and sensible boots. She kept looking back, behind her. Her glances wary, as if she expected someone was actually following her. Then she seemed to relax and noticed him looking at her out of the corner of her eye. She turned slightly and smiled. Then the crosswalk turned walk, a mass of people began crossing along with them.

They walked along side of each other for a while, both noticing each others presence, but neither making obvious acknowledgment of it. He noticed she was slightly taller than him, if you counted the heel height of her boots.

The Nanos

by Michael Blade

Located in the star system Tau Ceti, 11.9 light years away from the real-space Earth; the Nanos originally were silicon based self-replicating machines, tools of "The Builders", a reptilian species, able to follow complex construction templates, building whatever The Builders desired.

Over 12 million years passed since their creation. Only one micro-machine received the change, a zap from some stray cosmic radiation, copying itself a countless number of times, and after that becoming collectively conscious, self-aware.

Death and Time Traveling

There are some interesting points in this article I found on the web, its titled "Death and Time Traveling", by Jim Walker.    I'd would like to bring it to your attention.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

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Resurrection Birth

Jason awoke to a static humming sound.   It was so annoying, grating on his nerves more than a badly tuned alarm clock.   He lifted his heavy eyelids to blinding light, and out of focus images.   His vision slowly cleared and he realized he was inside a plastic coffin thing.

He reached up with his sluggish arms; they seem to be dead weights, feeling as if all blood circulation had been cut off for quite a while now.   Frantically shaking them awake, he began to gain control of them, pushing as hard as his weak arms could against the coffin lid just in front of him.   He became quickly exhausted even after very little exertion, letting his arms collapse lightly down to their sides in defeat.

Frustrated he wasn’t going to be able to push himself out of this thing.   Not noticing any sort of latches or release switches, he forced himself to calm down.   His brain began to think rationally, overriding his immediate and built-in panic fight-flee response.

Image by Donato Giancola Copyright 2008 http://www.donatoart.com

Science Fiction Story by Michael Blade, Copyright June 2008

It is only entropy, which says time must flow forward, and not backwards.    The present can determine the past.    Could future possibilities influence the now?    If entropy was carefully controlled?

H.G Wells published “The Time Machine” back in 1895, before the turn of the twenty century.

The Eloi and Morlocks of his future where two extremes of humanity, if you could broaden the definition of what it means to be human, just so wide enough.

They were representations of both a utopia and distopia, co-existing in the same and single plane of reality.    He probably would not be so surprised to realize how close he might have been...

A burger joint conversation off the highway to Las Vegas

“You mind sharing this booth?” asks Marcus.

Science Fiction stories and ideas sometimes lead to or inspire actual technology innovations. I came across this article "10 Profound Innovations Ahead" and felt it was relevant to a future scenario I wrote a couple of years ago as background history for my stories.

I thought it might be fun to revise and revisit it today since some of it even seems to have the potential of coming true. You're welcome to even use this future scenario as background history for writing your own stories. Drop me a line if you do. I'd be interested in reading them.

VR Prototype    by Michael Blade

Jason Chen bent over in his subway seat to pick up a rarely seen plastic penny he spotted face-up on the train floor.    A penny existed today only to make exact change for those who still stubbornly used physical money.    He didn’t understand why, but somehow its continued existence was comforting for some.    Angling the lucky coin in his fingers to see the three-dimensional head of Abraham Lincoln, he noted the year on the coin was 2053, the year of his birth.

Getting off the subway he went through the biometric sensors, climbing the escalating stairs to street level.    It was raining heavily outside and he had no umbrella.    He grabbed the first hydrogen-electric cross city bus that came, getting off at the corner of Turk and Larkin.

Dr. Xanoplatu, an alien anthropologist, historian, and time traveler, materialized on stage wearing the body of his ancestors, a giant green Praying Mantis with large yellow eyes and small black pupils.    He was speaking at a galactic cultural lecture, inside a de-localized spherical space station, somewhere and some when in a multi-versed space-time reality.

Story Background:

Outward space exploration and expansion grew at a rapid pace, due to the privatization of all space exploration and its subsequent exploitation.    Corporations headed by forward thinking executives now controlled access to space.    Spaceports have sprouted up all over the world, giving average citizens access to affordable space travel.    Now space stations, moon bases and asteroid factories, which provided most of the raw materials, have become independent space communities.    Distant science outposts have been constructed on the outer planets and moons.    The solar system has become the playground of humanity.

An international group of humans established Lunar City on the Moon in 2026 after the initial Moon base power and manufacturing facilities were completed.    Now robotic machines roomed the surface of the Moon mining for lunar regolith and producing the need materials for continued subsurface construction of Lunar City and its outlining spaceport, solar arrays, agro-farms, and design research laboratories.    Astronomical observatories were constructed on the moons north and south Polar Regions while moon ice deposited by comets was mined from the mountainous dark shaded areas of the polar surfaces.

Refining facilities produce fuel for spaceship propulsion while ground based spaceship construction facilities manufactured various space station modules and spaceship sections.    These are then launched into Moon orbit by powerful magnetic accelerators to be mated to orbital construction docking facilities of Space Station Armstrong and assembled into larger spacecraft.    More modules are attached to the spacecraft before they leave for journeys to the outer colonies of Mars and the Asteroids.

By 2062 the Moon had a resident population of 22,000 and had become a non-stop economic manufacturing powerhouse with luxury condos, underground tourist entertainment resorts and casinos.    Moon politics now play strongly into Earth’s hands, but the outer colonies are gaining influence.    Dr. Zenon of SpaceGene, was elected to the position of “CEO of the Moon”.

© 2010 Michael Blade

On Zane's lunch break he went off campus to the usual spot at Jack’s Joint, arriving early.

Jack’s was an old run down lunch auto-dinner, cafeteria style, with no real sense of decor. The eats were fast food international and the only thing it had going for it was completely automated food preparation with no crowds. Maybe that was not the only reason.

He had his usual selection, the dinner putting a small bowl of Wanton Soup, a slice of Pepperoni Pizza, Key Lime Pie, and water bag onto his tray, as well as sterilized recycled utensils and a sanitized napkin. The tray slid past a register scanner, a soft beep and $52.50 appeared on the display, automatically debiting from his account. Lifting the tray, he went over to the usual booth and scooted in.
 
It was early and no one had arrived yet. He sipped his hot soup without the spoon and looked out the window at the San Francisco sidewalk traffic. He had to tell Monica and Nicky the latest news, this dramatic soap opera that had now turn his life upside down.

Monica was the first to arrive, her rainbow hair and green makeup clashing with her shinny flex-display set on "dizzy fractal orange" outfit and matching, or not, red static wavy-furry knee high boots.

Monica was a genemod chromamorph.

I am a Hummingbird, By Michael Blade, Copyright 2012

After my body died the surgeons put me in a hummingbird. It took a while to get use to having my perspective darting around so quickly, but my mind had finally adapted to it. At least that was what the psychologist told me.

Maybe it was so. My mind had been living for a long time in the cloud; most of my personality and memories had been living there for a while anyway. The cancer was just horrible. It ate away at my old body until it was no more.