The Null Device
2004/11/9
Via bOING bOING, a pretty nifty scifi story, in the form of the memoirs of a washed up bioengineered adult-baby actor:
I got my first break as stunt-double for the top goodie on Super Comix Babies. For the third season the producers cast me in a recurring role. Before the series ended its seven-year run, one or two scripts even revolved around my character. You always remember your first job fondly, I guess, but the public remembers me if at all for my own series: NinjaBaby.
I live in a crib in a public care ward. I don't think the folks who come in to window-shop for orphans know I'm bio-engineered and not a real baby like the others warehoused here, row by row. If ever a couple expresses interest in buying me, the ward sales-director steers them away to another crib. Salespeople are good at control. They don't want a bio-freak becoming a tourist attraction in the ward. They'd chuck me out if they could, but it's state-run so they have to keep me. Im on a waiting-list: re-engineering surgery for the destitute. Been on it fifteen years.