I Advance
A murderer is sentenced to live life encapsulated in metal, to serve as a weapon of the Galactic Empirate.
This is my Day 18 Submission to Bradley Ramsey’s Flash Fiction February
Agony and then silence. Though insensate from Integration, echoes of pain remained, reminders of a prior biological existence. Rigid, unfeeling hands, stitched nerve tissue, and synthetic muscle built to steer a soulless metal body. The skeleton a framework; the mind, circuitry for objective based alignment. A macerated juggernaut meant to slaughter according to my life’s mission before Integration—slash throats and crush bones—but this time for the glory of the Overlords instead of my own bloodlust.
Integration, a sentence meant to right the wrongs I was perceived to have done, the sins I perpetrated against my own kind. A weapon, a meat grinder, optimized to fulfill its original purpose—to kill—and pointed in the direction of fresh meat.
The meat waited five clicks below the permafrost of Ceti-129. Invaders, a legion of Unknowns who descended upon the Galactic Empirate a decade ago and threatened their wealth. The initiative of the Overlords was simple—eliminate the threat. Mine was directed. Pure. I sought to mask the blood on my hands with more—to enrobe myself in crimson so that I shone like a red sun.
I descended, landing like a meteor, scree blasting around me etching scars in the pure white of Ceti-129. Shock troops landed behind and followed in my wake. I need not speak to them—their objective was mine—they were simply to follow and, if need be, to die.
The Invaders emerged from snow-capped berms and rushed forward. My vambrace splicer whined as it charged and I swept my hand across their line. Halved cleanly at the waist, their torsos flew, carried by the gamma wave that severed them. Lifeless eyes lolled, and bodies skidded, dragging entrails like tentacles that froze and stuck to the ice, bringing them to a halt.
Another wave came and fell. And another. And another. I waded through bloody slush and viscera as blood rained upon my helm. I stood before an icy concavity, a refractive lens scattering light—a portal to their den.
Though I held no remorse and felt no fear, tears ran down my face. Prior to integration I would have laughed. Instead, I advanced.
D:
Dude, the last paragraph. Whoa!