As the red searchlight of the porcelain maid’s eyes sweep above my hiding place, I stare at my left hand, seeing my unbelieving face reflected in the sleek white surface. The places where the prosthetic has been attached are still raw and inflamed, but no pain accompanies them. I yearn to call this a dream, to rouse from sleep in my bed, a bed I still cannot clearly recall.
“Come out, come out now! We’ve hardly begun!”
Her voice is almost playful, but I cannot look past the stifling in it I now know comes from her vocal chords fighting their artificial environment, being dampened by the dry rubbers that surround them. My own flesh she would replace to be alike to her gleaming surfaces and false skin.
“Mother will be very sad to see you go, still so soft and imperfect…”
The thought of her mistress is enough to propel me from my hiding place through the open door in front of me, though it leads to an ornate bone staircase that spirals downward into what must be the cellar. Light here is sparing, but the eager footsteps following me mean the maid has heard my flight, mean she is keen on my scent. I rush towards a square opening in the wall, and clamber over the edge to find myself crouched at the top of a slick slope of ceramic leading down into darkness. Even now I can feel the “ichor” doing its work in my stomach, if I still have one, rather than a plastic bag or rubber bellows. I want to puke, but that facet of my bodily function has already been stolen from me. The sight of dismantled maids lining the closet still burns in the back of my mind, tunneling around the sight of a sparse few organs untouched by the converting process: A brain encased in glass, nerves and bones delicately spliced to flexible hydraulics. I even remember the welcoming expression on the face of one, frozen like a statue, facing me as though she could see me in her disassembled coma. Pausing to think what may have been done to me while I slept is paralyzing, and I reject it the moment I see a harsh red glow descending the stairway, as I glimpse the sleek white legs.
I chance the chute. I slide slowly at first but rapidly pick up speed, such that the friction begins to warm the red robe I now wear. With a start, I realize a faint red light follows my vision wherever I look. The chute goes from square to circular, and begins to slow my descent as the material transitions from white porcelain and ceramic to stainless steel and brass. Abruptly, I am dumped on a pile of discarded maids, many with cracked faces and dislocated limbs. I raise painfully and look about, seeing a broad and well ordered warehouse but for the tangled mass of bodies I have been cushioned by. I climb to my feet and begin extricating myself, when a glossy hand grabs my ankle, eliciting a sharp gasp. I lower my gaze and see the broken face of the doll-like woman, whose unfeeling smile only serves to unnerve me further. Half of her face is leaking bright red blood from cracks, in some places it misses whole chunks, revealing the sensor-gridded rubber beneath.
“C-c-c-come back-ack-ack-ack! We’ll miss-iss you-you-you-you-youuu…”
The lights around her bloodshot eyes flicker and dim erratically, and she spits lubricant when I yank myself free of her grasp. Charging through the neat aisles, I catch only glimpses of my new environment; cranes hang from the ceiling, and racks upon racks of unclear machinery sit on shelves and beside conveyor belts, evidently awaiting some call to use. Ahead is a door, and I breach through it without hesitation. Another catwalk. At this, I am willing to slow, as my pursuer’s pace is surely affected by her poor condition. Below me is a factory fit to span whole city blocks, with cranes, smelters, lifts, belts, and assembly decks reaching so far that fog begins to cloud the horizon. The catwalk system on which I stand is linked to a series of rails with dangling hooks, on which hang the vacant bodies of hundreds of robots, each boasting some strange instrument for its left hand, and a series of six dark eyes above its ventilated mouth. As I creep towards a sort of way station at the end of my catwalk, I study the lifeless frames, estimating them to be intended for combat by the look of their armored carapaces and the number of firearms that litter the construction lines below. Another rail that comes up and runs parallel with mine holds a different sort of machine, a body beset with a number of dark panels coated in some sort of clear polymer. Drawing closer to the waystation, I notice a tower of some sort just below it, a dark circular pillar with rows of blinking indicators and yawning ports. A small screen above the pillar sports a timer soon approaching zero. I gauge this to be of some importance, and am relieved to reach the waystation before it has ended, slipping within with urgency. The station is composed of four walls with viewports looking outwards, and a number of screens, with a hatch leading down and a ladder leading up. As I reflect on the prospect of the ladder, a condescending and masculine voice with a metallic rasp emits from an unseen speaker.
“Power cycle complete. Reboot in five. Four. Three. Two.”
All at once, the lights in the factory flicker on, and the production resumes where it left off. Rails carry their frames off towards unknown destinations, assembly lines resume crafting their weaponry and metal limbs. More importantly to me, however, the screens of the waystation blink on, and project images of various locations. I approach the wall through which I entered and regard its screens with disdain, recognizing the marshland, the ruined city, and the labyrinth of subterranean rooms through which I have already passed. I think to consult the other screens as perhaps warnings of future trials, but am pulled from my thoughts by a sharp klaxon as the broken maid pushes through the door to the warehouse.
“C-co-co-come-come-come back-ack-ack-back, please-ease-ease…”
The masculine voice recurs from above.
“Acquisitions. Apprehend one- check- two faulty discards from Pathogen. Potential interference with productivity. Organics.”
The last word is projected with a degree of malevolence that speaks to hate, and prompted by the sight of two robots armed with rifle-like weapons jumping up to the catwalk from the floor, I begin to mount the ladder. I push through the hatch above as I hear an electric whine followed by porcelain shattering.
I have entered the latest of dimly lit hallways, and begin running towards a metal door with a blinking red light above it. A camera follows me as I get closer, and the voice comes again.
“Check, second subject is only partially processed, still 85% organic. 84.5%. Estimate process halt at 79%. Subject will maintain a strong sense of self. Requesting new orders.”
The sound of the hatch bursting open behind me does not cause me to look, though I am compelled. I slam into the door and pass through, closing it behind me and jamming a bar through the handle. I turn and make ready to run, only to stop dead as I come face to face with a towering robotic humanoid. Standing at seven feet tall, the chrome frame boasts efficient armor and intricate hands- one of which is extended almost gingerly towards my face. The voice now comes from his skull-like face, pronounced by a ribbed speaker set where the mouth might have been.
“Curious. Pathogen took a liking to you, then. And you managed to avoid all of Tower’s silly little hybrids?”
The machine leans back and lays its hand upon its chin as if considering me. The enforcers burst through the door, bending the bar, but their rifles are no longer raised in aggression, and I can see no other exit outside of the one through which I came. The machine man turns and faces a row of monitors through which streams of images flash faster than I can process. The gleaming ocular sensors within his dark sockets flick back and forth dizzyingly fast. He lifts his hand up and presses it to the side of his head as if nursing a headache. All the while, I study the sleek shell of his body, a wonder of engineering so perfect that the seams are only known when in motion. Finally, he turns to face me again, causing me to notice a bundle of wires that drape along his back and link to the floor.
“I see. You escaped the harvesters, the sleepers, the vivisurgeons, and even the indulgences. Perhaps there is a plan for you yet. No, there certainly is, else your progress would have stirred something already. Very well, I calculate a chance of one in nine to the four hundredth that you will pass unharmed to the core. Let us see if fate or her master so favors you to make it there. I imagine Pathogen and Tower both will have expectations. She in your favor, and he- well, no mystery there.”
He waves his hand in a motion highly dismissive of the importance of his words, and gestures with a lazy finger towards a panel in one of the walls.
“Carry on, then. I’ve no need to cleanse you, so long as you leave without further contaminating my plant.”
The panel pops open, and one of the enforcers shoves me towards it. I do not need further encouragement. I hurry over, and throw one last glance at the disinterested automaton that has thus far been the least involved in my struggle. He glances at me, and I sense a degree of contempt, or perhaps disgust in his stare.
“Hurry along. Do not mistake my impartiality for leniency. If you linger, I will add you to a biogenerator, and your end will be suitably messy and painful.”
I descend into the shaft, and the panel shuts above me.
Seeds of Fear 