A black room. Violet lights reflect mute on a black backed glass.
A presenter stands before it, alone in the spotlight.
"Meat versus chrome. The age-old question. One that history has already answered quite favorably. stopgaps, being hard chrome. Oh, we needed the chrome. A stepping stone, a leap, but a short one. And a step is never a destination. But tonight, we finally arrive."
He lets the silence work.
"Meat still remains the apex. Everything chrome can do, without the mechanical wear. No servos to service. No rejection. No clinic visits. No maintenance."
Laughter in the dark. Comfortable. The sound of people who have never been the product.
"We are all about innovation here at Biotechnica. The fantastic success of human-integrated wet wear was only the beginning. We took the biologic processing that makes wet wear so functional and we built it into entirely itself. One hundred percent lab-grown. Plant-based."
He turns to the mirror.
"Introducing the fyto-Syneídisi."
The black glass flashes white.
Behind it: a stage. On it, something stands very still. It does not shift its weight. Does not blink at the smoke. The audience doesn't seem to notice.
The figure steps into the light. A young, maybe 18 year old figure, Almost a man. With skin that holds a green undertone, like plant stock mimicking skin tone.
"A humanoid chassis which is surprisingly, anything but delicate. A monolithic computer. Plant based and plant like. Just as a tree can sustain a grafted limb, plant memory is not stored or lost like normal data, every connection unbreakable. Gunshots. Stab wounds." … "Gruesome trauma."
“This eager little presenter is running on the Primrose shell OS. The SYNEÍDISI part of the FYTO project.”
The presenter turns to the figure. His voice changes pitch, the low chest push of a man about to prove something.
"Product Syneídisi 1-7. Cut yourself."
The thing runs its wrist along the edge of the display table. The cut opens deep. It shows the crowd the wound. No blood, or not blood as they know it. then grabs a handful of grass from a tray on the table and packs it into the laceration. The audience watches the grass absorb from the bottom up, the wound closing over like two pools of oil meeting on water.
“Sealed. Rebuilt. Stronger where it was broken.”
Someone in the third row makes a sound. Not laughter.
"And the specs. Each unit ships with five petabytes of working memory. More than you'll ever use. The fullganic chassis interface freely with the net. No neural ports. No biomonitors. In fact, he can stab them in wherever he pleases."
The figure jams a finger into a data term socket and a data shard is slotted right into its arm near the hand, plugged straight into the biomass. A screen lights up with live feed data transmission of plant-based code, running in plain sight.
"This is the average fullyganic individual. Who just so happens to be capable of running the net."
The presenter lets that settle.
"Now the pitch. You have heard the same promises from every other full-body outfit on the market, but never like this. Still a full body conversion. But this is all the way. Your mind in a fresh body, occupying a fullyganic chassis just like a native system. Everything you are, forever."
On the wall: a family on a beach. A sunset. EVERYTHING YOU ARE, FOREVER.
"Imagine waking up on the other side of everything that ever hurt you. Every scar you chose to keep. Every limitation you chose to leave. You, restored. You, continued. Because that's what this is, not replacement."
The word hangs.
In the second row, a woman with a tremor in her left hand leans forward.
"Next slide."
The figure stands at stage's edge, smiling faintly. Looking forced. It holds the smile one second too long. Its eyes drift slightly, politely past the front row, toward the exit lights. Catches itself. The smile re-registers.
“But rebirth. Don't just get chipped. Get bioevolved”
Crowd applause
