Ty's Power - Cyborg for a day - by scriptboy
It began when Dustin received a letter by registered mail which had the big, red words "Classified Documents" stamped on the envelope. In the large manila envelope was a short one-page letter from some government agent who requested a meeting with Dustin and his "two sons" at his house a few nights later. He could not talk to anyone about it and nobody else could be in the house during this meeting.
Three nights later, a man with a black suit came over, and Dustin asked Ty and Peter to join them. The man was Justin McDaniel, and he worked for a secret lab that was doing research for NASA.
Justin sat down and began to explain. "We are doing some research on cyborgs, which is like a human being in a body of a robot. We know that there two men in this house who have the ability to change their body, and we figured we would need someone like that in order to conduct an experiment. I need one person to volunteer for this. He would merge himself into the body of a robot, and we will record all his movements. We want to develop a cyborg that resembles the human body as closely as we can, and this would be one way for us to realize it. Can I count on you?"
"Uhh? this is all confidential, right? I mean, I'm responsible for the safety of my foster brother Tyler and his cousin Peter. How long will this take?" Dustin asked feeling a little worried. Justin began to describe his plan. "We have built and rebuilt several robots that are extremely close to being exactly like the human body, but they have skin of steel, awesome hydraulic strength and great speed. I need someone to merge into a cyborg and to live his life as a cyborg for just one day, initially. Based on the readings and measurements we collect that day, we will modify the robot and tweak it so that it is perfect. Then we will ask the volunteer to merge again, but to stay for a few days and to go to school, do everything he would normally do. Would either of you want to volunteer?"
"Me! ME! I'll do it! I love this kind of stuff! I want to try it!" Peter shouted, as he became very excited at the opportunity. Justin turned to Dustin. "Does he have your permission? Don't worry, it is perfectly safe!" Dustin thought about it for a minute. "So my cousin will be living inside a body of a robot?" "Basically, yes!" Justin responded. "Alright, so what do we do next?" Dustin asked. "We'll need to take some measurements, and we'll come back with a prototype which fits his body and his build" Justin responded.
Peter got up and undressed, leaving only his boxers. Justin pulled out a palmtop that had a light coming out of it. He pressed a button and a thin laser beam struck Peter in the chest. After 5 seconds the palmtop beeped, displaying all of Peter's measurements on the screen. "Perfect! We have a wonderful body for you to try out, my boy! It's nice and strong, you?ll love it!" Justin said. "Alright, we'll prepare the body tomorrow and we'll bring it over in the evening so that Peter can merge with it!"
"Oh cool! My cousin is gonna be a cyborg?" Ty asked. "Why am I not surprised?" Peter just grinned. "Wait till tomorrow! You'll see!"
A large, blue truck pulled up to Dustin's driveway around 7PM that evening. Five men unloaded a big, heavy metal box that was about six feet tall and weighed over 440 pounds!! They placed the box on a heavy dolly, which they rolled into the house. Once inside, they laid the box on the floor. After they removed three locks, the three sides of the box folded open, revealing what resembled a human being made of steel. Around, metal cylinder was placed over the area where the head was, but the rest of the machine resembled a human being with skin of metal.
Peter was instructed to remove all his clothing, and to lie on the floor next to the cyborg. Justin reached behind the cyborg's neck and flipped a switch. Then he opened a small panel near the wrist on the right hand. He adjusted some controls and entered a code to activate the robot. Then he instructed Peter to think of the cyborg as a human being that would become his body, except for his face! Peter closed his eyes and concentrated, as he tried to merge his body with the cyborg. Within a minute, his body suddenly disappeared, and the cyborg's head began to move!
Justin got on his knees next to the cyborg and gently removed the cylinder above the neck, revealing Peter's head, which now had the cyborg as the rest of his body!
"Come on, guys. We'll help him get on his new feet. Be careful, he weighs 440 pounds!" Justin warned. They grabbed Peter's steel hands and gently lifted him up, allowing Peter to get used to his body. It took him a few moments to get used to walking in the body of steel, but he got used to it rather quickly! "Wow, this is amazing! I'm a man of steel!" Peter said, looking down at his large, metallic body.
"How does it feel?" Ty asked his cousin, who was enjoying his first few minutes as a cyborg. "It feels awesome! And I feel strong, too!" Peter said, as he raised up his right hand and observed his five metallic fingers. "Boy, am I 440 pounds? No wonder I'm feeling so heavy! But I feel strong, especially in my arms and in my legs!" Every step he made, he heard a loud thump on the floor, as his heavy metallic feet shook the ground he walked on.
Justin pulled out a thick, metal beam, which took two men to carry inside. "Alright Robokid, here is a solid beam of steel. It is 5 inches thick and 48 inches long. Show us how strong you are!" Justin said, as the two men laid the metal beam on the floor, in front of Peter's metal feet. Peter bent down and lifted the beam up, showing no effort at all. Then he grabbed each end of the beam with his hands, slowly bending the metal beam down as he pressed the ends of the beam closer together. The beam bow looked like a giant horseshoe, which Peter dropped on the floor after he was done. "Wow that was easy! I didn't feel a thing!" he said, when he realized how strong he had become.
"Alright, gentlemen! We're done here! We'll be back tomorrow night. If anything happens, please call me immediately. Other than that, have fun with your new body, Peter! Enjoy yourself, and we'll pick up the cyborg tomorrow night so we can analyze its readings" Justin said, as he walked out the door.
After they had left, Ty and Dustin walked up to Peter, who looked the same as always, but he had a body of steel now. "Well, Peter. Give me your hand" Dustin said, wanting to feel Peter's handshake. Peter's steel fingers locked around Dustin's hand, and when he gently began to shake it, he almost crushed Dustin's hand. Dustin began to scream in pain, startling both Peter and Ty! Peter immediately let go of Dustin, who had lost all feeling in his hand! Dustin left the house and drove off to the emergency room, driving with only his left hand. He returned home about two hours later, with his hand in a cast! Peter had accidentally crushed Dustin's hand with his amazing cyborg strength!
Ty and Peter just watched TV, although Peter was feeling pretty bad about what had happened. He had become too heavy to sit on any of the chairs, so he had to sit on the floor. And he could not sleep on his bed, so he ended up sleeping on the floor in the living room as well! Ty kept on tapping his fingers against Peter's metallic body, just for fun. He even got several magnets off the refrigerator door and he was amazed to see how they stuck to Peter's steel arm. Luckily Peter's body was the same size, so he was able to weal all his clothes! When Peter got fully dressed in jeans and a sweater, nobody would even realize that he was a cyborg! Of course, he would still make a loud thump with every step he made, and that gave away the fact that he weighed over 400 pounds!
Peter walked to school the next day, and nobody really noticed anything, until he walked in to the classroom with a concrete floor. The floor shook with every step, and people began to wonder what was up with him, but nobody dared to ask.
At one point, Peter was walking down the hallway when Ashley came, running at full speed. Ashley didn't see Peter and he crashed right into him. Peter didn't feel a thing, but Ashley fell on to the floor, having hit Peter's metallic body at full speed! "Golly, Peter! Have you been working out? You seem like you're as hard as a rock!" Then Ashley got up, and he noticed Peter's skin, just below his head. He saw the metal, and he tapped on Peter's shoulder with his finger. When he heard that it sounded like metal, he wondered what had happened to Peter. "Are you wearing some kind of armor or something?" he asked his best friend. "Yes, I have become a cyborg!" Peter replied, with a grin on his face. Peter told Ashley the whole story, and asked him to keep quiet about it. Then he showed Ashley his hands, and he noticed that his hands and fingers were made of solid steel!
Luckily Peter did not have PE that day, so he lucked out of having to wear shorts in class, which would reveal his metallic legs. He just wore a baggy sweater and jeans all day long, and nobody noticed anything at school. He did have a hard time getting into the metal chairs in the classrooms, and they all broke when tried sitting down on them! So he decided to make each chair that he wanted to sit in, to be constructed with reinforced steel. That way, he could still sit in the chairs in school! He could still use his powers, and he loved it!
After school Peter went to the football practice field. At one point someone had kicked a ball which landed right besides where Peter was standing. Rather than tossing the ball back, Peter decided to kick it back on to the field. Having forgotten about his great cyborg strength, Peter ended up kicking the ball so hard, it landed somewhere in a bush, about twenty miles away! "Oops! There goes the football!" he said, when he realized what he had done. He began to get used to having the body of a robot, and decided to simply go home and wait for Justin to get back.
When Peter started to walk home from school, he started to run. He kept on running faster and faster, until he was running almost 80mph, and he ended up getting home in only a few seconds rather than ten minutes!
Once he got home, he wanted to prepare a can of soup. He couldn't find the can opener, but he simply squeezed the can with his metallic hands, and the soup began to pour out of the can!
When Dustin got home, Peter walked outside and stood near the back of his car. Just for fun, he grabbed the back bumper of Dustin's car, and began to lift it up! It felt like a piece of paper to him, and Peter was just astonished by his great cyborg strength!
The coolest thing for Peter was that he had a small panel in his left hand, with several connectors for computer cables. He had a serial port, a printer port, a USB port, and a modem port. He plugged a USB cable into the port on his hand, and he plugged the other end of the cable to the computer's USB port. Peter could now instruct the laptop to do things even without typing a word, and he loved being directly connected to his computer!
That evening, Justin came back, and Peter was asked to lie down on the floor. He concentrated again, and he reappeared inside his own body again. Several sensors had collected readings over the past day, and the engineers were going to extract them and analyze them in order to make adjustments to the robot. Then Peter would have to do it again, but over several days instead of just one day!
Peter loved being a cyborg and Justin promised him he would be back with the new robot very soon. In the meantime, Peter had to make a list of the things he liked and didn't like about the robot. Overall, he loved it, especially having his incredible strength! He asked Justin if his next cyborg could be lighter and faster, and Justin told him that they would give him a newer model. He also had a hard time walking up and down the stairs, but that would be improved in the new version.
And Peter wondered what he would do next time he had the opportunity to live his life as a cyborg. Justin promised him that when he returned, that Peter could keep his robot body for at least a week, depending on how it went.
About a month later, Dustin got a call from Justin, who promised to come over that night. He had a newer model, this one was only 320 pounds, but it was 7 feet tall! It was as strong as the other one, but it was lighter and faster. It had parts of aluminum, plastic, and titanium, and it had more features than the prototype as well!
This time, Peter didn't have to get on the floor to do the body merge. Justin had already activated the advanced model of the robot, and it was able to stand up straight on its own! Peter stood next to it and concentrated, and within a minute, he found himself wearing the body of steel instead of his own!
"Wow, this is great!" he said, as he looked over his big, metallic frame. He looked down on both Ty and Dustin, for he was now the tallest in the house, after Ryan! He felt his cyborg strength and speed, as he easily was able to jump 10 feet in the air with no effort at all. Justin told him to connect to his laptop every night to download a log file to his computer with readings and settings!
Peter wondered what all the cool features were that he was about to discover during the coming week, as he began to adjust to life as a cyborg. Justin had promised him several cool options and weapons, and he just needed to learn what they were and how to use them. What would Peter find out about his advanced cyborg body?