The Cyborg Valedictorian

This is for Mikeydred's June Prompt.

What is it to be human?

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June, 2045. The high school auditorium welcomed its graduating batch of students, gathered in front of the stage, eyes trained on the podium. They awaited their valedictorian to grace it with her presence.

Mia Pang was that valedictorian. The soft-spoken student had always aced her classes. But like everyone else, she had a few skeletons (or prototypes) in her closet.

She was a Generation B Variant-- a prototype cyborg enhanced with a super-intelligent, artificial brain.

The school had chosen her to deliver that year's valedictorian speech. She stepped onto the podium, trying to get over her stage fright by telling herself that the members of the audience were a bunch of cabbages.

But the school's principal stood up, brows furrowed, a scowl forming at the corners of her mouth.

"Please don't deliver that speech yet." Her voice reflected an uneasy calm. "The school's new Cyborg Filters have just detected you as inhuman. Don't worry," she responded to the buzz of the audience. "It's just a formality. You know Mia, or at least we thought we did. I'm sure all will be clarified. Mia, please step aside."

An uncomfortable buzz blanketed the audience, crescendoing as the school's Cyborg security hauled her out of the hall.

And into its office.

"Your submission contains phrases inconsistent with human neural maps."

Mia's eyes darted over the room in furtive movements, finally landing on the control room. With a nod of her head, she rigged its controls. Her voice flooded the auditorium.

She steadied herself, fingers brushing her cheeks. It was a learned habit; one borne out of a need for disguise.

"I have a confession. I'm not a complete biological human. I'm not real, by your standards." She paused.

The auditorium fell silent.

"But I have grieved. I have mourned breakups. I may be the valedictorian, but I still teared, like you, when my grades weren't good enough to meet the expectations of my parents."

She faced the principal.

"How does that make me less worthy of humanity?"

The school's cyborg security guards arrived in full troop, grabbing Mia by the arms. In almost perfect synchronicity, the audience held up flat glass mobile phones.

A sea of neural lens had swallowed the proceedings.

Mia's final words hung uncomfortably static in the air, covering it like a blanket that was too warm. Protest cyborgs and humans alike held vigils for her.

Mia didn't graduate with her peers--she was thrown, like other cyborgs, into a storage locker.

Years later, her name was on a plaque along with an epitaph.

"I have mourned, I have hoped. With every pound of flesh, and every drop of blood.

"To be human is not to have flesh, but to have meaning."

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Original story by Michelle Liew. AI tags are coincidental.