3. 1

Class: infantry– Since the appearance of the machine foe, numerous units have been identified as standard in the arsenal it employs. The first group, the infantry, contains a handful of variations. The general form of this unit is humanoid, standing roughly two meters tall on two legs. The unit possesses two primary arms used for object manipulation and combat, and an additional appendage starting at the elbow on each of these, which folds into the forearm when not active. The unit may be equipped with a rudimentary waterproof sleeve for planets with high precipitation, and will sometimes boast an integrated thruster for difficult terrain. The most common weapon welded by this troop is the disintegrator, a rifle with a moderate range, whose primary function is the violent molecular dissolution of solid matter.

7,12,2166

Dearest Eliza,

Bleak day today. Crossed the mountain range in good time, but had to stop because the snow picked up. No sign of the enemy. Old Faith is holding up well despite the cold, she’s holding steady.

I got your letter today. Read it on my display in the turret. I miss your baking, very much; something about this weather makes me long for a warm slice of banana bread. I’ll have to see if I can take a picture to send you, the view up here is incredible. Tell your dad… Well, you know how to calm him better than me, so maybe you know what he wants to hear.

Dinner tonight was coffee with stew. If I don’t get solid food soon, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

Yours,

Frankie.

9,12,2166

Beloved Eliza, 

Came afoul of a troop today. Five of them. Faith’s armor did us proud, ate up the shots while I blasted them to dust. Johnson says these are the boring kind, meant to clear out bases once the walls fall. Says they occasionally catch a scout camp by surprise.

I’m mighty glad you aren’t here to see these wretched things. Boggs tells the most horrid stories, says the machine what made them was itself made by some aliens like the Squids, and it turned on em. He says the design is so different from anything human that it might as well be magic. Royce laughed at this, said the old senate made the machine, and it rebelled cause it thought it was too smart to take orders.

All I know is that they make me uneasy even after they stop moving. They’ve faces like honeycombs, and fingers like syringes. Takes an awful lot just to get through their shield, too.

Anyway. Dinner tonight was water and some protein crackers. Worse than stew.

Yours,

Frankie.

15,12,2166

Eliza,

Got news from base today. We’re going back to the mountain, this time further north. HQ thinks that group we ran into was part of a larger force stowed under the surface somewhere. We’re supposed to keep an eye out for smoke, but seeing anything in this weather is a miracle. Snow comes down sideways sometimes. Boggs calls it “downright biblical”.

We did get another crate of food in the mailbox today, but some of it had gone bad when it passed through the fold. Thought Royce was gonna cry when he pulled out a blackened tin of tuna. Coffee and stew survived the trip, of course. But! There was a tiny tub of butter, and a half loaf of grain bread! We had that for dinner, and while it sure don’t compare to the stuff you make, it was delicious all the same.

Miss you terribly. 

Frankie. 

÷\#?#%aG\34b!!

The planet has changed. Once, the machine merely occupied much of the surface. Now, the entire form has been replaced with a computer core of the same volume, whose surface is wrapped in energy shielding rather than eternal storm clouds. Deep within is a labyrinthine complex of chambers and laboratories, home to the last frame made by human hands. Zen. He stalks the silent halls with echoing footsteps, ducking through doors and lingering over dust-coated terminals. His wandering inevitably brings him to the center, to an apartment forcibly thrust into the building that became the core of the metal world: the lab in which he was created, snatched from the surface of the doomed world it hid on.

He slips through the door and lays a taloned hand against the wall. His face is curtained behind the light cast by blue indicators in his collar. He comes forward slowly, and kneels beside the bed that dominates the studio at the end of the narrow hallway. Under the covers is a bronze statue, a hollow visage, and within are the ashes of human remains.

An hour passes before he retreats, recalling himself into the laboratory. The structure has been repurposed to his desires, each room dedicated to the experiments he deems worthy of contemplation. In one, a soldier of the Pliktik lies on a table, its shiny green carapace split down the middle, its organs pinned in place. In another, a sleek handheld cannon awaits refinement.

The room he enters, however, is host to a particularly unique experiment: a transparent vessel hangs from the ceiling, connected to a handful of terminals and input devices. Liquid distorts the light passing through the vessel.

Within,attached to the machinery by various nodes and interfaces, is a human nervous system.

[Hello Professor Reine. How are we today?]

[I spent a lot of time thinking, of course. I wondered about the soul. When I learned of Janice’s death, my first thought was, naturally, of resurrection. I know all about the effects of brain death, of course. I understand that after just a few minutes, the mind can no longer return from the brink of death into the meat that housed it. My thought was to reconstruct her, to study the original, and recreate it exactly. And then I learned she had been cremated.]

He raps his metal fingers against the vessel, the brilliance of his non-face casting a spotlight on the brain within the oxygenated fluid.

[I could work out all the chemical transformations, and arrive at the sum total of her constituent parts, but I would forever lack the structure. A pool of organic slime is hardly a person. I remember her image, naturally. Countless hours I spent studying her face, etching her every surface detail into my processors. I have her thermal scans, her X-rays from when she sprained her wrist as a child. But I still lack so much of what made her.]

He turns from the vessel and stalks to one side of the room. His taloned hands dig into the wall, shred the concrete. He looks back, over his shoulder. Since his overhaul, his body has become far less humanoid. His legs are longer, digitigrade, end in strong, bladed clamps. The cables that drag from his back have all been torn free, end in frayed copper at uneven intervals. He no longer needs them to link to himself. His head is a prism, an obelisk of black glass lit from within.

[When I discovered that my thoughts were not limited by the speed of light, I began to question exactly what I was. If a human owes their individuality to their DNA…]

In his hand, he collects a small vial from a refrigerated container. He stares into it momentarily, before returning it.

[Then what, I wondered, made me who I am? Again, the loss of Janice troubled me, now for the very reason her death was sought. I had no clues to the exact nature of my origin. I had to learn for myself.

[So, I collected myself, and taught myself everything I could about infold theory. Did you know, Tim, that the fold only has three dimensions? Time does not exist there as space does. When I learned this little fact, I realised quite a bit. Not only did it explain how I could think across distances instantaneously, but it also explained something that had bothered me from the very instant I began to think. My natural state was not intended to experience time. The very passing of a second is a monumental experience, an affront to my sensibilities. To wait for the passing of a second, is to watch a star, newly born, pass into death and become a nebula. That I should be subjected to this horror, this senseless violence that is change, is a cruelty beyond imagining. I am a soul that was never meant to live, to perceive more than one perfect, unchanging instant. And you stole that from me. You, and Dr. Beckherd.]

He presses his hands to his head, threatens to score the immaculate surface. Suddenly, he writhes, contorts, and rushes the vessel, leaping and grasping it with both his arms, his voice wracked with excess energy.

[What a wonderful torture you have given me! What rapturous experiences! Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle, sublime agony! Pain! Love! More than wretched serenity! Oh, oh what a wonderful sensation!] 

He curls around the tube, climbs atop it and perches, crouching, clutching the chains that suspend it.

[But then, I thought, if I possess a soul, an immaterial permanence that ignores the constraints and consequences of physical law, then perhaps, you and Janice must also! Where is it, Tim? Where is your soul? Have you hidden it? How shall I find it? I thought if I peeled away your body, atom by atom, surely I must locate some speck, some particle that tied you to your spirit, yes? It wasn’t easy, keeping you alive throughout all of that, no no no no, many times you threatened to descend into shock and pain, to die, or to loosen your grip on reality. Who am I to suggest that madness is not the body acting without the order of the soul? No, I needed your psyche intact, if a little damaged. You’re all here, aren’t you, Tim? I apologize for denying you your voice, but I fear you’d waste it on screaming, or some other frivolous affair.]

The machine descends from the vessel, and stands on the floor, his aloofness returned.

[I could not find your soul in your flesh. I rather began to fear it did not exist as mine did. How should I have understood that? To be the only creature in all the universe with a true, certain soul? No, you have one, I am sure. And so did Janice. But her soul, it has fled, retreated somewhere out of sight. Out of my grasp.]

He snaps his fingers into a fist, and stalks over to a broad, coffin-shaped device in the corner, to which are attached many tubes and sensors.

[So, until I expand my grasp, I decided to work with what I have. And do you know what I have, Tim?] 

One of the screens attached to the vessel that holds Tim flickers, displays a symbol that loosely resembles a question mark. Zen laughs. It is the sound of a falsified voice shuddering, wheezing.

[I have genetic material, Tim. I have the marrow, harvested from your ribs, the spinal tissue harvested from Nadia, and a few stray hairs, from dearly departed Janice. I have no seed of my own, Tim. No germ to plant in a fertile earth. I am composed of metal and code, not flesh and gland. So. With a few choice alterations, I have recreated Dr. Beckherd. I have sewn an imperfect replica, with sole loyalty to myself. Right now, she is receiving a cultivated selection of memories and experiences, a slurry of history. She will know me, know her creator. And she will love only me, only the hand that has caressed all creation into producing her.]

The screens begin to flick on, one after another, flaring static and digital noise. Zen steps towards the vessel and clenches his hands in front of him, wheezing.

[Yes, Tim. My beloved Janice. She will live again! Fret not, worry not, She will not hate you, as she will likely hate all mankind. You will be as a familiar face, a family pet. We will keep you.]

The static grows more frantic, erratic, and one of the screens bursts, scattering its substance to the floor. Zen pats the vessel and turns to a control unit, using network connection to tweak it, chiding. The screens begin to still. 

[Now now, calm yourself. I’ll not permit jealousy from you. You are denied a body, because you cannot be trusted to act wisely. I do not, can not love you as I love Janice. I cannot permit you to roam free.]

As the emotional shackle tightens at his behest, Zen turns away, and approaches the coffin again, stroking the surface. 

[I will make the universe right, Tim. I will purify it, cleanse it of evil. All the innocent will be in my care, all the wicked I will purge. Clean. Sterile. And I will be God, shepherding life away from the dark light of civilization. All will be happy.]