Please forgive my scifi geekiness ramblings. I always feel awkward when I'm describing the setting and taking care of thos sorts of exposition bits in my stories.
The Strange Tale of Dr. Negu, part two.
Developments in technology did not just apply themselves to cybernetics in the early decades of the 21st century. Robotics made severalleaps in the fields of artificial intelligence, independant automation, and nanotechnology. While the first two had interesting impacts of their own, they are not the focus of the story's next chapter.
While somewhat of a misnomer, nanotechnology is the application of robotics to a microspocic scale. The primary use of such small robots is medical, while certain electrical and mechanic applications were also developed. The hope behind the development of medical nanobots was that one could injectthem into a patient's system and send them instructions by wireless broadcast. Having them suture shut internal bleeding without surgery, breakdown stoppage in the bloodstream, or even apply medication to specific parts of the brain in such subtle ammounts that the threat of overdose would be greatly diminished.
While most nanobots only lasted a short time and were issued in "doses" that the body would slowly break down and expell as waste. High quality nanobots were often kept active with certain low level radiation treatments that would charge the limited battery supply of the robots. These were only maintained by high class hospitals and medical research centers however and not available to the general public. In the spring of 2027 the first nano-injector was put on the market. Advertised as a disinfect and bandage in one, Nanosporin was a gell that you would coat a wound with that would dry into a sort of rubber cement like coating. The commercials for the product demonstrated the ease of use and advertised a painless removal as the nanobots would sever any hairs that crossed the adhesion membrane and would change the color of the gell from it's usual beige clarity to a darker brown opacity. "All the fun of picking a scab with no risk of infection" one commercial promised cheerily.
However the company's advertising campaign had to be scaled back later that year as some people applied the "bigger boo-boo, more medicine" approach with Nanosporin. Attempting to reattach limbs with some rather grisly results. The products were still available over the counter, but after a year on the market the general public was much better educated in their use, and their use was even integrated into most health classes on First Aid.
Nanotechnology had a huge impact on convention rules due to the "Combat Clause" added in 2024. That year a cosplayer had recently gotten a cybernetic hand and used its detachibility feature to simulate a character being maimed in a sword fight. The staff thought it would give the wrong idea to their patrons and began to make more clearly defined rules when it came to onstage combat. Of course the cosplay contestants always stretching the limits of the rules to the max. One such group was the Survival Horror Society.
In July of 2027 the Society held their annual campout and story swap in the abandoned Battery Russel at Fort Stevens State Park. Over the weekend they began planning out which characters they would include in their skit this year and which of their members had the right set of cybernetics to simulate the disabilities or mutations of the characters. One of the older members suggested that they do an implant free show this year and declare it so to the audience. That way their effects and costumes would be even more impressive. The aging horror fan brought out a tube of nanosporin and explained her idea to the rest of the society. As night fell they began doing test runs with the substance, giddy in the novelty of it's ability to mend up the most garish wounds they made. However none of their self inflicted injuries were too extreme, so the nanobots could do their job fine.
However, when it came to their performance at the convention they had more daring plans. With the idea of demonstrating an outbreak of the virus featured in Resident Silence, one of the Society members acted as a cult leader that would be attacked by her followers. Just before the y went on stage the cultists made strategic gouges in their bodies and coated them in nanosporin to halt the bleeding. A quick application of stage make up and then they were on. While onstage they would collapse and "become zombies" by peeling and tearing away the gell to allow blood to spurt and ooze forth in a gory and shocking display. The skit was a huge success even though the judges gave no award and ultimately disqualified them for making such a horrible mess on the stage without cleaning up after themselves.
They had planned to return to the stage with a shopvac and disinfectant but they never did. When the society stumbled woozily into the back corridor where the cosplayers made their way back to the seats, they were all to disoriented from blood loss. The group slapped their wounds and attempted to spread the nanosporin gell back over their wounds but it refused to seal. They had made several fatal mistakes. First was the application of stage makeup, it coated the gell so that it could not properly seal on the wounds once flaked off. The second mistake was the brand of nanosporin they purchased, in order to afford enough for all the cast members they had bought a brand made by a small, French Canadian generic drug company called Parasol. The Nanobots in the generic brand were less discriminant in their operations and instead of having high quality power supplies, they actually drained energy from each other to extend their life span. The final mistake was that all the members of the Society took part in the skit, not leaving any of them to get medical attention for the wounded.
Had they been less eager in their recreation of the scene and had one of them been willing to sit the skit out they might have won for their skit and probably all survived. There was a doctor in the house after all, one who had access to higher quality facilities and nanobots that could actually seal their wounds while their blood supply was replenished. However, as the Society wandered into the darkened back corridors of the hotel, Dr. Negu was busy laughing at the latest crossplaying musical number onstage.
The event was seen as their grande finale as a cosplay group, for the Survival Horror Society was never seen again and their fate was a complete mystery.
I honestly think we're going to have rules that specify "no blood loss onstage" and "no onstage deaths" in the future. Just imagine how badass a live (no pun) sepukku would be!
