|
I am neither man nor monster, but machine. Life has no meaning, except to watch the
humans age and die, to watch as those weak monsters are slain with my gun and squashed
mercilessly beneath my metallic feet. Everything is fact, for if it isn't, then it does not
register in my logic circuits. My mind is a world of numbers and codes, my language is not
English or Japanese, but Assembly Language. My existence is simple: terminate or be
terminated.
The man freshly dead at the end of my blaster means nothing to me. Those related to him
by blood or marriage will shed tears from their eyes like rivers, in that thing called sorrow,
but I know not what it feels like. I have no feelings, I am merely a cyborg, created to
destroy.
What is good and evil? Why do those petty Layans rebel against us? They are the enemy,
and I will shoot them down with no hesitation. Humans are so ineffective, they should
have stopped reproduction long ago. Cyborgs should rule, take over this worldship with
the power and common sense that we have been programmed with.
What's a Layan or Orakian? Just skin and bone. Just another target for my laser sights.
Just another limp mangled thing lying dead beneath my feet in a pool of red fluid. Just
another short lived useless organic being.
The Orakian ruler Orakio tells me a battle is near, but I do not regard him as my master.
How can a weak human ever control me? I kill. It is what I was built for. Layans must die.
It is my programming. I know nothing else. * * * * *
I stand upon the battleground, Cille. Orakio has gone to raid the Layan palace with a small
party of cyborgs. I fire lasers into the melee perfectly, 100% accuracy. Layans look at me
in their weakness that they have named fear as they attempt to flee. They cannot escape
from me. I am the perfect creation, I am Siren 386 Type D. My programming tells me to
kill, and I kill. Whether it be man, woman, child or monster, Layan or Orakian, I kill. By
the time I am finished, the streets are lined with the blood of the Layans, as red as the
synthetic hair that covers my head. Mission accomplished.
Orakio is returning with a girl in his arms. This is not what the mission specified. This
mission was to exterminate the Layans, not to take hostages.
I scan the girl with my visionary sensors, she is a young woman aged about 25, blonde
hair, bow strung across her shoulders. She matches the description filed in my database of
the Layan queen, Laya. She seems relaxed, and my logic circuits cannot register this
irregularity. Orakio and Laya are enemies. Why are they together now, relaxed as if they
were friends?
I am given the order to protect them both, and we return to Landen. Laya is in disguise to
hide her from the bitter glares of the Orakians. I do not understand why Orakio has chosen
to protect his enemy, but follow my orders in the same simple necessity I always have.
* * * * *
We reach Landen Dome and depart from the rest of the army. Orakio, Laya and a Mien
type cyborg, designation 486 Type A, make up our small escort party. We march 9877
metres across the world-dome and come to a sudden halt outside a cave, the portal cave
constructed of steel and glass that leads to the dome of Aquatica.
Laya holds out a shining Sapphire, pushes it into a slot on the wall, and mutters an ancient
language known only as Palman. The incantation seals the cave, pushing any intruders
back with a magical blast. Laya hands the Sapphire to me, as a mark of the Orakian royal
family, I am to take it back to Landen after the mission is completed. Why Orakio will not
take it himself, I do not know.
We camp that night under the stars, and just as I am about to shut down for recharging,
my visual sensors notice Orakio and Laya kissing by the campfire. She is our enemy, I do
not understand how Orakio could have fallen into the devils' trap they call love. Humans
are so pathetic for having to rely on others. I shut down for recharging, wondering why it
is that humans fall in love with others except for reproductive purposes.
* * * * *
The morning arrives, my sensors detect daylight and my systems boot up quickly. Orakio
and Laya are sleeping, wrapped in each other's arms. I fire my blaster at the air to wake
them from their unconscious state, and they awaken startled and angry. More emotion.
Humans are such a tangled mess of feelings and problems that I cannot begin to
comprehend them. It is beyond the limit of my logic sensors.
Today we march 9040 metres across dry grasslands to the shore, where a small wooden
boat is waiting for us. A short and slightly obese man, the captain, smiles and says that
cyborgs are considered lucky among seafaring folk . He wouldn't believe I was so lucky if
he was on the receiving end of my blaster.
After 1 hour, 34 minutes and 5 seconds of travelling exactly, we reach our destination: the
temple island in the middle of the lake. I have not been given orders as to why we are
here, we are just here on the whims of those incompetent, indecisive, illogical human
beings.
We enter the temple, it is very dark so I adjust my visual sensors to cope with the lack of
light. The temperature is -8 degrees. These conditions have been manufactured by a being
or beings; this is obviously not a natural climate. The walls of the temple run thick with a
slimy green ooze which corrodes metal; as I wipe one away with my hand it rusts through
the top protective layer of my metal shell, revealing a few unimportant wires, but is unable
to penetrate through the Laconian plate beneath. Orakio and Laya cling to each other like
children; they complain they can feel a fear and evil presence that Miun and I cannot. I can
no longer give reason to why we are here; the only two possible outcomes I can foresee is
the cessation of my program by the beings that live here or the annihilation of the beings
that live here. Neither is appealing to my sense of survival.
Miun appears to have some of the feelings of a human being; but to me Miun is just
another cyborg. Laya and Orakio are merely human beings. I have to override my logic
circuits because they are telling me to turn and leave this place before I am destroyed.
We finally reach the centre of the giant temple, where my sensors detect a presence. My
visual sensors can just about make out a large shadow looming ominously over us. The
moment that had been building within each of us has come, and now we face the very
fabric of the unknown.
"It's Dark Force!" Laya cries out loud. The cry is strangled in her throat as the shadowy
being lunges forward and slashes her across the chest with its claws. Orakio rushes to her
side, but my sensors detect she is dying. He holds her in his arms, sobbing, as I rush
forward and attack with my blaster. Miun slashes at the vile being as it spits pure acid back
at me, melting more of my armour and exposing the more precious wires that control
some of my motor processes within.
Behind me, I hear Orakio scream with vengeance as he lays the body of Laya down beside
him. A quick analysis with my sensors confirms her to be dead. Orakio holds his black
sword before him. His face is contorted in pure fury.
"You will pay!" he says with a mixture of anger and sorrow. Dark Force moves his claw
to strike at him, but loyal Miun steps in front. The vile being’s claws tear through the
rubber and plastic that make up Miun's face, the rubber that makes her look human, the
effect Orakians like their cyborgs to have, unlike me, she was not built just to kill. Miun's
neural cords hang from the gash that Dark Force has created, and I realise more than just
physical damage has been done. Miun tears with her glistening Nei claw, half crazed at the
sight of the mighty being before her, before being blasted back into a tangled mess of
barely functioning metallic parts. Orakio stands frozen to the spot, shaking with petty
anger and fear, so pitiful, so weak. I set my blaster to overload and throw the whole thing
at the Dark Force, and watch as it explodes like a bomb in the core of its being, yet still it
does not die.
Torn between fighting for the memory of Laya and stabbing himself with insane anger at
the inability he had to protect her, Orakio takes his ebony sword and plunges it deep into
the demon's heart. The vile being writhes and releases a dying screech that makes Orakio
fall to his knees. Dark Force takes the opportunity and with the last of its strength slashes
Orakio with the same claws he used to kill Laya. He screams in pain as the monster falls.
Barely breathing, I see him take his sword and plunge it into the altar that stood just
behind the Dark Force. I could just about make up the ancient Palman letters placed upon
the stone:
"I hold Dark Force."
I break away from the words on the stone to see Orakio’s black sword releasing sparks
that envelope the body of the Dark Force and make it dissolve into the ground. The long
fight is over, but I am trapped to the spot, for the lightning is shorting my own circuits.
The ground beneath me begins to shake, and I realise the water level is rising, or rather,
the palace is sinking back into the lake from which it came. Orakio is leaning over the
body of Laya, cradling it in his arms as if the Laya he knew is still alive.
"Orakio. Assistance," I say, but Orakio is not listening. He is wrapped up in Laya,
caressing her fair hair and using every item in the rucksack to try and bring her back to
life. He is bleeding mortally, and could save himself, yet he is wasting all the medicine on
that witch. He has no sense of logic and self-preservation whatsoever.
Miun rises to her feet, or what's left of them, and scrambles over to me on all fours.
Orakio starts to sob insanely for Laya as Miun works on my legs, stopping them from
shorting. I move again and tear Orakio from Laya's side.
"Danger. Leaving," I say, but he breaks free and rushes back to Laya's side, crying like a
child that has lost its favourite toy. He wishes to stay, so be it, he shall, but I shall not stay
with him to die forgotten. Who will remember me if I am destroyed here?
Just as Miun and I go to leave the rapidly sinking palace, Orakio steps in our way.
"Your order is to stay here and die with Laya and I!" He screams so loudly with anger and
pain that I have to turn down my sound receptors to avoid damage.
To me, he has defied all sense of logic totally, but he needn't bring us down with him. I
rush to the backpack and pick up my spare blaster and fire it at the dying Orakio, blowing
him to a bloody mess. He is just another dead human on the end of my gun, just like all the
others. I feel nothing, no remorse, nothing. Feeling is not part of my programming.
Miun looks at me with an almost human look of shock and disbelief. She tries to revive
the dead Orakio, but to no avail. I step away and begin to run from the temple as fast as
my damaged legs will take me, before the water can rise high enough to cause me serious
damage. The last I see of Miun is her taking a telepipe from Orakio's bag as the water
comes up to her feet. She looks down at Orakio sadly as if to say goodbye to her master.
Orakio may be Miun's master, but he was never my master. I never accepted him from the
first time I was switched on and given this false life, this hell of emptiness, this void of
nothingness.
Maybe I can fill this void with the blood of Layan bodies, maybe my life will become
complete with a purpose of complete eradication of the Layan race, the ones who made
mankind such pitiful beings, made the proud Orakio turn into a pitiful creature on his day
of judgement.
I watch the temple sink beneath the waves from my distant vantage point, and take the
Sapphire from where I had stored it. I put it in the slot on the cave and the door opens. I
seal the cave after me, and head for Aquatica, where I trade the Sapphire for a better gun,
a better means to eradicate Layan scum from the face of this ship.
I leave the town and take a ship, I head for anywhere with Layans, my only purpose is to
kill, kill, kill...
I am the machine of ultimate terror, and I will not rest until my armour and circuits run red
with hot Layan blood.
I am Siren, and they will listen to the sound of my blaster as it tears their brains apart.
| 
