078 stood, stock-still, for the infinite dread of the moment as the âBoomâ sounded in the near distance. From the city. From the dread-flash preceding a bloom of white then yellow then red, a second sunset, no, a sunrise as the star ascendant drew its apex and descended in a quarter of a quarter of a second.
112 stood to 078âs side, 082 behind.
In a second the world was red, then yellow, then white, a glow, red thunder streaking the clear orbs of ocular sensors which are scraped open continuously by a tidal force flinging everything, a million hailstorm scraps against the skin, hot dust, burning hot air like an oven, choking with shrapnel snow flinging into the dark clouds that the world had become composed of. Like a reed in a hurricane, ripped off of the ground and the floor swung against their body like a baseball bat. mysterious hard objects in the black clouds rushing at wild speeds to bruise and batter and break, andâ¦
Sound returned to 078âs fins, they heard a roaring shuttling of air subsuming into every crevice where it had just been forced from and some mysterious infantryman, another robot, was flung in pieces across the dustclouds like peas in a tornado with every brick a cannonball pounding, pounding against the hard jaws and the soft muscles and the spine of an 078 who no longer knew what gravity or the ground even where. Hot Dust Chokes. Streaking against eyes and into the throat and the vents.
078 spends a lifetime in the explosion. 078 spends their lifetime in the explosion.
Skin charred black, stinging, each movement a wince, each non-movement a wince, pains incomparable, unlike any pain ever felt before or since, the machineâs apertures scrape against sensors so scarred, scratched glass, auditory fins battered, they scream, a voicebox too battered to voice or perhaps fins too battered to hear.
078 is screaming a glitched and hoarse howl of a voicebox struggling, struggling to pull all four arms up with no success because of chains, every muscle chained to the floor, for the first time since theyâve opened their eyes they can see, vision fading into a CPU so dense with currents of pain the other senses are echoes. Grey dust desert makes the vicinity a bone-white grave filled with a ringing, a bell or a silver chime ringing, ringing, ringing, the kneeling mechanical man looked upwards, hot ash and melted plastic fusing to skin now charred with black snow that sticks and pricks. They raised their arms, looking at them, the front-right grasper, previously loose, had been completely blown off, every nerve-wire charged with more emotion than they possibly could have been designed to withstand, the soil is steaming and the dust is blowing with artificial winds that sting like fires rushing underneath every cut in the skin.
Red glows fluttered in the wind, hot ash buffeting down the canals where twin fans suck them in, every attempt to cool down the roasting computers of the machine only heating it further with fans clogged and chuddering with the coolant-pump beating hard to compensate, running on fuel not. The world is dust now, as it was before, rubble, buildings, places people had lived, places that had been functional, bodies, metal, iron bars, lying around to be kicked into hungry jaws, collecting dust blown apart by more bombs, bombs on bombed buildings on bombed soldiers on bombed ground. Everything was gone. Everyone. Now. Now 078 understood, why there were so few soldiers left. Whatever cruel fate had dropped them, these defenceless people, a dozen dead bodies just in the vicinity, chunks of metal, but in the mind of 078 they seemed corpses, from what digestion-matrix are these screws? From what metal jaws is this sheet of metal. The death and the rubble all fused into one, 078 was just another corpse, another dead machine intolerably lonely in a sea of dust and metal and.
They stopped. Staring at the sound. âAa- AH- Aahâ A scream across the dust. âAAAAAaaaah! Help! Help me.â Drawn towards the cry, 078 stood, legs trembling, left and right toes arched in their supportive stance as though the body felt it was heaving some enormous weight, every system faltered, burned, stung, aching. The soldier stumbled, at first. Then drew themselves upwards like it were the very first time. They saw, amidst scratches on their ocular sensors. Another corpse, upright unlike the others, motioning from side to side trance-like. The charred body rushed towards the downed one, clambering now, on five remaining limbs, metal fingers tipped with claws, aching, metal outcrops on the back and spine, where solar frills were battered and bruised, aching, but continuing ahead anyway, needing to help. Needing to help the machine gurgling on the red hot bricks. âHelp me.â 078 stood over the broken body, plastic skin fused to the bricks, the red hot burning bricks intruding inside the sensitive nerves, a digestion matrix splayed out, for all to see, brown-ish soup splayed around undignified, it was so undignified. âEighty-Twoâ¦â 078 said, âyou, youâreâ¦â
082 turned, the ocular sensors rolling in their sockets, purple coolant spraying from every joint, every pore, âSave me.â
âIâm here, Iâve got you now.â A hand to support the slacking head of the gurgling medic, globs of yellow sludge dropping out of their throat.
Another explosion. âBOOMâ and 078 was kneeling again, clutching their head with two back palms, their remaining front-hand in their mouth, eyes closed, in the darkness a voice, âWhatâs happening, help me, please.â
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078 forced themselves to open up their eyes, the bleeding, broken body before them now supine, a mess, such a mess of tangled wires pouring from a cytosteel skeleton that shattered in random directions, torn muscles spreading open to reveal a coolant pump throbbing rapidly in the open air.
082, smattered on the rubble, looked directly into 078âs eyes, âPlease push down - just push down on the â on the hydraulics.â 078âs hand hovered over the yellow jelly, everything soaked in so much coolant. âjust push down on the hydraulics. Two hands.â Just standing was such a difficult thing for 078 with their burning skin, missing arm, battered organs, bruised internals. âpush with both your front hands.â But this mess was too much to bearâ¦
The blown-open digestion matrix heaved, struggling to maintain its remaining-shape, every pulse of struts and machinery thrusting another gush of coolant and plastic entrail out onto the hot dust, wires dangled from the chest cavity, sensitive nerves frying against the rock, swinging in the air while the remaining limbs, the remaining head and jaw, clogged with blood and hydraulic gel, âplease help me.â
078 was paralysed, hands pushing against invisible walls that surrounded the obliterated medic, it felt like 078 was pushing their hands forwards, pushing their arms, but then, nothing, no motion, just the awfulness of the mess the overwhelming wrong-ness, things that should be sterile in darkness inside a body splayed out, the worst thing for 078, that they couldnât rip their gaze from, was the dust pulling into the coolant and the gel, mud and silt piling in, pulled by fans choked by wounds. As the coolant and the gel accumulated, with 078 hovering over it, another gush of liquid slop emitted from the jaws of 082, the innards of the machine that had before been so painfully exposed to dry air were now clogged and choked with a soup of everything that once existed in nice containers and pipes, wet pulsing in the ooze, consistent with a slowing pumpâs beating, choking and smothered 082 kept attempting to speak âc-c-c-c-â the crackling grew with intensity until it became like television static a scream of consonance crackling upon the mind of 078, whoâs mind wished to focus on anything, just anything but the mangled body before them, and that noise, that dreadful horrible crumbling noise. A yell, a cry, sobbing, a sob of electrical crickling, 078âs mind clung to it desperately, just focusing on anything, so that when another explosion sounded in the distance, it wasnât even taken notice of, for the screaming of a voicebox, lacking coolant, frying itself. âcrcs-csr-crc-crâ
078 wished a horrible and despicable thing, amidst the screams saturating every droplet of air, the croaking bellowing that couldnât be ignored, it was too horrible, and when 078 opened their eyes again, hands still hovering over what now was 22 centimetres squared of yellow and purple slime, 078 thought to themselves how they just wanted 082 to die, just to die now, to be dead, to have been dead, it wasnât fair for them to still be alive, it wasnât fair, it would be so much easier, just die, please.
âIâm here, eighty-two, Iâm right here, itâs gonna be okay.â It would have been so much easier, 078 thought, if it was them with their nerves in sand, their heart choking, their digestive matrix splayed out, at least that was just pain, 078 would have given any amount of pain to not be here, watching this.
Abruptly, the howling ceased.
With terror, 078 winced. The medic below, a statue gently leaking liquid; from a body motionless.
Rain began to mix in with the bodily fluids, touching the holy corpse. The indignityâ¦
Where before was that dread-terror-howl.
Now, there was a desolate silence.
And 078 was well, and truly, alone.
The world itself was dead.
Everything now. was dead.
And although the impact of their knees on the earth sent shudders of pain through their weakened body.
To kneel was appropriate, a reverence that was one millionth, one trillionth what was necessary.
078 could not possibly provide adequate atonement.
078 will not adequately atone.
They look down at their now-black hands, the screws, the rods, the CPU-parts, a thousand dead. Maybe more. Two thousand dead. 007 had been killed, what of 001-006, 008-077, 078-112, two thousand infantry. A charred jaw faced upwards, and away, the horizons of flattened buildings, the city in front of them, it wasnât a city far away, just the buildings still standing. The survivors.
082 sits here, lifeless, their useless legs blown off, their careful hands gone, charred skin just like 078âs. A building is for living in, these dead buildings that hold the dead, it should comfort them to fulfil a corrupted purpose in the way 082 wouldnât, would never. For the first time, again, 078 reaches out to touch their medic, their pointed jaws knock against one-another as raindrops wash away the dust and the blood.
It shouldnât have been you.