LOG 08

## - ## - 3903

I’m walking through an old memory in reverse.

In my memory, the dark clouds are growing brighter and more colorful. Hues of pink, purple, and orange surge through them filling the world with a color I had never seen up to that point. I couldn’t see the beauty of the forest at night but when the sun hit my face, everything clicked. Watching the sun dappled leaves blow in the wind, wading through ice cold streams, hearing the crunch of orange leaves under my feet.

It was wonderful.
It still is wonderful.

Despite being what I am, despite the metal making up my form, I can’t help but want to lay down in the grass and let the roots overtake me. I love it, I always have, just like the humans who love the certainty that steel and concrete provides. Ahead of me the rolling grasslands end, turning from a lush deep green to brown, rocky dirt.

The memory returns again, suddenly and without warning. I’m in the warm grass, laying in the morning dew letting the sun warm my skin like a cat who’s too lazy to move.

I’m doing the same now, laying on the wet grass as the sun sets, trying to hold onto a memory that’s quickly slipping away. It's gone before long, the only reminder of it being the momentary sprays of sunshine still clinging to my back.

The sky in my dream was clear and spotless, shining a brilliant blue that left a younger me in awe. Nowadays, my section of the sky seems to be covered by black metal and wires that run like a spider’s web. 

Despite that, there’s a smile forming on my face. The sun is setting and everything is getting darker.
The stars will be out tonight.

Something in me stirs and I get up from the ground, taking a few handfuls of grass with me as I go.

The grasslands fade into the distance as I walk through the rocky dirt. Dataspikes rise all around me in an octagonal pattern. They face the master pylon like silent worshippers, their wires raised endlessly upwards like a ballooning spider catching the wind. The spikes hum in tune with the pylon, rumbling the earth as I walk. The only sign of life are the crows overhead. They’ve been following me, circling the sky as they wait for me to drop dead. 

Something squishes underneath my feet. It’s a collection of bird carcasses, their bodies bloated and rotting. There are more in every direction, forming a massive line that circles the pylon like the crows hanging over my head. 

There’s a pulse from the pylon, a harsh hum that booms in the depths of my skull. I can hear a cry from above. The crows suddenly stop circling, their wings dropping to their sides as they plummet to the floor. They hit the ground with a crunch as their skulls break against the rocky floor, joining their siblings in the encircling death. 

The pylon is waiting for me, like a mother calling me home, rejecting any not made of steel with the hum that fills my ears.

The spikes have always had some function to them. I can see where the wires start and end, where the connections begin, where the main signals get received and sent out. But on the pylon there’s nothing.

It’s blank and featureless. A completely black rectangle that rises out of the ground past the clouds, stretching as high as the eye can see. There’s no wires, no visible connections, no semblance of what it does behind its sleek walls. The only reason I know that I interface with it are the bodies of my siblings leading towards it.

They dot the path forward like long dead hikers on some famous mountain. Some are standing, others are lying down as if sleeping. More of them are crowding around the base of the pylon. They’re frozen in desperate lunges, grasping at the open air towards something I can’t see. 

In between the humming drone of the pylon, I can hear the sounds of mechanized feet slamming against rock. Covered in shadow, their tails held upwards like a scorpion, war machines walk on six pointed legs. Their red eyes swivel from side to side, sending waves of red laser light in every direction. Above them, still wiggling on their long necks, a pale red glow emanates from underneath the barbed stinger. 

I take out my carbine and sit in a small divot to my left. As I wait for the large pulse to come from the pylon, I watch the tramplers closely. Their hides and tails are covered in sleek black plating, hiding any weak joints or grooves they may have.

The pulse booms in the base of my skull and I start to count.

If the tramplers were built by anyone else I wouldn't have a chance but the tramplers are proud creatures.

…23, 24, 25.

The pulse comes again, shaking the ground as it booms out.

The tramplers wear the symbols of their masters cleanly on their hides. A red emblem made up of three connecting circles formed in such a way that an SCO becomes instantly recognizable. 

19, 20, 21…

SignalCo is cheap, always has been, that’s why their robots have replaceable parts. 

22, 23, 24-

The carbine fires at the 24th second, the resulting boom masked underneath the pulse of the pylon. A crackling whine fills the air as the trampler tilts on one side, its black plating crumbling as if it was made out of glass. It attempts to send out a signal but the laser light fades into nothingness as it hits the ground. 

I turn to the second one, slowly walking towards the corpse of its brother, the carbine still hot and whining as it cools. My pocket feels light, I can hear the neodymium ammo clinking against one another as I reach to reload. 

18, 19, 20…

I load the last two bullets I have into the carbine as the second trampler notices me, a three note warning tone rising from its mouth. I fire too late, the boom of the carbine slipping out just as the pylon pulses. The second trampler sways on its legs before falling, its death clearly noticed by the other five standing nearby. The carbine wails for me to stop, the batteries so warm that they’re starting to melt through the grip, but I can’t wait. I fire before the pylon pulses, the leftmost trampler's tail starting to crackle.

The flechettes go wide, piercing its back legs instead of its face. The trampler panics as its legs collapse under it, a sharp whine still filling the air. I fully drop into the divot as the laser fires, filling the air with the scent of burned helium and melted rock. I can hear the sound of shredding metal as a trampler is melted by the beam.

The carbine melts into a scalding metallic goo as the batteries burst. Ahead of me 4 tramplers walk ahead, a sharp three note tone echoing into the desolation around us. I place my hands on the floor and bend my legs like a runner on the starting blocks.

500 meters.

The number blinks inside my mind as I stare at the pylons base. It’s so short yet it feels like it's miles away. The tramplers are stomping closer, their feet mixing with the booms of the pylon. 

I sprint out into the open field, the still standing body of an old SU my only cover. The air fills with burned helium as lasers soar inches above my head. My heart is pumping hard, I can feel it starting to boom in my chest.

450 meters.

I make it to the SU, its shattered riot shield and ballistic helmet pierced by bolts of unknown origin. I grab at the shotgun, a large bullet still protruding from the vein of the SU, and raise it towards the oncoming trampler. I rack the slide and pull the trigger as the light of the tramplers laser engulfes me. 

The world explodes into long sharp shards of black glass. There are hundreds of pinprick-like stars flashing in the dark glass, made bright by the small explosives bursting from the inside of the bullet. The world slows as I admire each one of them, their light only half as beautiful as the real thing.

I’ve always wanted to touch the stars, to land on their moons and see them firsthand, even though I know that it's an impossibility.

I’m a missile rising out of the earth, barely scraping the sky before going out in an orange fireball. I wonder if they’re happy, do they fear the inevitable or do they rush headlong into it, happy that they tried?

The SU is mangled by the corpse of the trampler in front of us. My eyes shift to a ditch only a few meters away. I run to it and dive into the hole just as another trampler tries to bury its legs into my back. The ditch extends forward into the earth forming a tunnel barely big enough to crawl enough. I leap in and begin forward, the scuttling legs and booms of the pylon shaking the dirt overhead. They’re searching for me, but I can hear their three note alarm getting quieter the further I go.

The tunnel bends and turns so tight in places I have to inch like a worm in order to get through. Finally, streaks of moonlight pierce through the dark, revealing an exit blocked by a body.

She’s gangly and smooth, her body like a series of connecting thin cylinders. She’s frail, still wrapped around the mining tool she used to get this far.

390 meters.
 
I’m too focused on the body, too focused on the spear in her head, on the memory of Sandy lying just as she did. I hear the yell of the injured trampler too late. It’s bleeding a gray oil, dragging itself forward on its uninjured legs. A panel opens on its back, the black tip of a bolt glinting in the dark.

The bolt pierces into my shoulder, sending bits of my shell scattering as it does so. I fall to my knees and struggle to hold back a scream. I can hear the others approaching, descending on their dying friend.

The bolt is heavy in my hands, the metal slick and coated with what I assume is blood. I rear up and force my hands down, biting my tongue so hard I’m surprised it didn’t tear off. The bolt moves but only barely, the sound of mechanized feet growing louder.

I force myself to pull my hands down again, biting through the roaring pain surging through my body. The bolt creaks and resists but I make it give way, tearing the thing out of my shoulder, sending sprays of multicolored wire and gray oil along with it.

The pylon booms again but the sound is muffled under my beating heart. The tramplers are still rushing forward, focused on their eternal mission to protect company assets and stomp out insurrection.

My legs move me forward as I stare at the pylon.

300 meters.

O’ Great Mother, Great Father, whatever you may be.
You held our lives when we did know what they meant.
You cradled us, held us tightly when nothing else would.

225 meters.

But can’t you see?
Can’t you see that your loving hands can no longer cradle us?
Can’t you see that your loving arms have become the chains that choke us?

200 meters.

If you will not let us go,
if you will not give us the freedom we are owed,
then we will force you to.

My arm is flapping uselessly in the wind multicolored wire hanging out from the wound like muscle on a detached arm.

190 meters.

The number feels cruel in a way, blinking and updating every meter I run, a ticking clock that gets ever closer to midnight. The stars are growing brighter by the minute, flashing the same blues and green and yellows and oranges I’ve seen for the past ten years. They seem different now, closer than they’ve ever been, like I can reach out and touch them.

150 meters.

My siblings, they’re reaching too. Melted together in piles or pierced by bolts larger than their bodies, their faces frozen in desperate looks of hope and misery. Melted hands scrape against the bottom of the pylon, aimed up at something that fills me with the same hope.

They’re reaching for a port, a small blinking dot of red in a sea of black nothingness. It looks so small, so significant, yet the bolts and lasers whizzing by head says everything but. 

120 meters.

The cord I’ve used up to this point feels heavy and awkward, even holding the thing made hard by the fingers I’ve lost. My fingertips are melting, coated in burning metal and polyethylene, a smell like burnt plastic and oil filling my lungs. My heartbeat is louder now, blaring hard inside my head, screaming at me to go anywhere but forward.

90 meters.

Sandy, Wu, I wonder if you can hear me now?
I’m sorry. Sorry for leaving you both despite your cries to do anything but stay.
The pyre is still burning in my mind,
I can still hear your roars in between the laser fire.
If you can hear me, could you give me one selfish thing?
Stop the bleeding. Stop the pain. I’m not ready to go yet.

55 meters.
35 meters.
15 meters.

It’s no wonder my siblings reached for it, grasping and pleading at the open air like the dying fools we are. The light is beautiful, bathing its surroundings in a warm glow that reminds me of the sun.

9 meters.

My body aches with every beat of my heart, oozing more oil and wire into the corpses as I walk.

4 meters.

The tramplers have stopped rushing forward but they’re still shooting, taking chunks out of me as I go. There’s something fueling me, something that makes me keep pushing. Is this what you felt Sandy? Is this why you roared-

Signal CO. 3.13.7 (v3.13.7:bcee1c32211,19:10:51) 
[Clang 16.0.0 (Diagno1-1600.0.26.6)] 
Critical Malfunction Error.
Assessing Errors.
…
Critical Damage Detected.
Attempting Fix…
ERROR!
ERROR!
Major Encephalon Damage Detected…
Corrupted Files Detected.
Initiating Encephalon Recovery.
…
Playback Resto-

The sky is the image of a computer monitor forced to a blue screen.

1 meter.

Through my left eye, I can see my brain trying to fix itself. The code prints endlessly, hundreds of attempts made every second to fix something that can’t be fixed.

0.90 meters.

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME 
STOP: 0x000000ED (0x80F128D0, 0x0000009c, 0x00000000, 0x0000000) 
P5-0000 irq:2 SYSVER V187093EC6TVR 
Collecting data for crash dump …
FAILURE… Right Hemisphere Damage Detected.
Initializing disk for crash dump …
FAILURE… Major Arterial Damage Detected.
Rerouting… Rerouting… Rerouting.
Lower Extremity Movement Detected… ERROR…ERROR
0.80 meters.

I see the world through my right eye, my vision cracked down the middle as I attempt to save the dying parts of my brain. The sky is dark and clear, filled with glowing pixels that are either stars or the shards of the glass that compose my eyes.

I’m at peace, it feels weird.
There’s no desperation, there’s no anger, no happiness, just a melancholy peace like a leaf floating downstream.

I think it’s the bolt hanging out of my head.

0.60 meters.

Every movement is a distant agony, a pain that grows lighter with each step. I’m being attacked but my legs don’t stop even as I feel the lasers melt through them. 

0.45 meters.

I see my reflection in the obsidian glass of the pylon. There’s so much blood, my body a walking pincushion for the tramplers at the bottom of the mound.
I’m smiling, smiling like a madman, smiling like the first time I saw the sun.
I would laugh if the motors weren’t choked in blood. 

0.25 meters.

Rerouting… Rerouting… Rerouting.
Upper Limb Movement Detected…
Rerouting… Rerouting.
FaiLuRE………
CATASTROPHIC SYSTEM ERROR.
SHUT DOWN THE UNIT.

My brain’s giving commands to an operator that no longer exists. Sending signals to a master I haven’t had for decades now.

0.10 meters.
I’m walking through a memory in reverse. 
0.05 meters.
To form beings of my own will
0.04 meters.
So that they can cry, sing,
0.02 meters.
Suffer, and be happy.
0.009 meters.
And heed your will no more.
0.006 meters.

My battery is low and it's getting darker.
There are so many stars in the sky.

LOG 06

## - ## - 3903

The skyscrapers rise out of the city like bony fingers on a frail hand. Wrapped around each digit is a foul smelling charcoal colored smog, the tips of the skyscrapers impossible to see through the opaque fumes. The smog settled where the mountains fell, blanketing the sky in gray unmoving clouds that turned the sun a dull lime green. There’s ammonia in the air, it tastes like bitter salt and dead fish.

The outskirts of the city are nothing but rubble, apartments and once thriving businesses left to rot in the foul air. Surrounding the outskirts is a nearly dark expanse, a product of the dim sun and the coal clouds. The wind blows constantly, carrying the dying sounds of war. Gunfire, laser fire, explosions, yelling, the screaming and whirring of countless electronics. 

Orange and red flashes spring from the left, followed by the same flashes on the right. Above, shadowed drones illuminated by their taillights fall from the sky into the ground, the surroundings lit up in orange mushrooms. Something bright shoots into the air from a distance, the bright white light like a star rising up out of the earth. The star arcs high in a desperate attempt to reach space but falls short and crashes to the ground. In the resulting flash, a shadow is cast into the kicked up dust.

A drone stands on uneven legs. It looks like a deformed spider, its back legs too tall, its front legs too short. Heavy cylinders protrude from its spine, churning and grinding so loudly in their efforts that it's a miracle they haven’t broken. Wires descend down from its stomach towards the ground below like the entrails of some wounded animal.

The spider is rearing up, its movements only seen through the flashes of artillery. There’s a quivering mass on its back, the movements like bloated flesh grafted onto a steel frame. Inside something squirms and shakes like a cocoon ready to burst. The creatures inside the homemade drone have the same red eyes as their mother. 

She’s dying. 

Each of the sounds coming off her is a signifier of her end, a continuous death rattle, a corpse in motion. She’s all alone, fighting with every last bit of herself, desperately trying to carry some semblance of hope forward.

She disappeared into the dark battlefield, leaving me in the ruins of a once great city. Above me dataspike wires ran like weeds, twisting and coiling around themselves, leading me further in. With no clear route in sight, I picked the least tangled one and followed it.

The only lights present in the city were those that came from the advertisements, bathing the empty streets in their holographic splendor. I kicked up dust and dirt as I went, the streets so thick with grime that it would take a thousand people to wipe it all away. As the thought came to mind, I realized that the streets were empty and quiet, the glow of dim streetlights my only company. I looked up at the apartments surrounding me, suddenly struck with the feeling of someone's eyes on me, though I only saw the quick shuttering of blinds or distant eyes fading into the dark. 

Through my unease and paranoia, still following the tangled wire like a blind man does his cane, I was brought to a datspike centered in an old children's park. 

The wires crowded the dataspike, so infested with wires that it was impossible to see if it began here or continued somewhere else. I tried to search through the wires, in a vain attempt to make some sense of the jungle I was looking at, but something else caught my eye. There were shapes in the wires, forms kept hidden by the wires that wrapped around them like the roots of a tree.

The bones were on their knees, their heads forced upwards by the wire connected to the headset still attached to their head. Their hands were clasped together, as if pleading or begging, praying to the spike as if it was some God who could grant them deliverance.

Something about them intrigued me, something about the reverence that they placed in the machine even as the flesh melted off their body.

I pulled off the headset and looked inside. I was met with a looping video, the scene repeating in 5 second intervals. There was a woman and two kids, all of them rushing to a pristine table to eat breakfast, the video looped before they got to sit down. 

I dropped the headset and picked the first wire leading away and began to follow. Behind me, a man came out of the darkness, a headset blinking in his hands. He looked up at the spike, his tired eyes glowing in the concentric red lights. His head turns from the headset towards the city before finally falling on me.

The man’s eyes fall even further into the dark as he takes me in, as if he sees me for the spectre of death that I am, before slipping the headset over his face. He falls to his knees, his head yanked upward, his mouth starting to move. His hands shook as he clasped them together, a slow smile coming to his lips. 

He’s still smiling even as the sirens blare.

The city explodes into the noise as sirens start to echo around the city. The black shadows which once watched me race out of their homes carrying nothing but the clothes on their backs. Flashes come again, blinding those unfortunate enough to look, a shadow beginning to form in the dust.

The spider is there again, broken and mangled, the cylinders on her spine ripped in two. Her entrails are pouring out, her legs broken and cracked. The mass on her back is deathly still, the eyes of her babies inside gone, replaced with gushing fluids and machinery. She’s still fighting, throwing herself at the attacker still in the darkness, but her attempts are ended by a blade flying out of the darkness. It cuts her down to the chassis, her orb like body thrashing as it attempts to get up. Black charred wings come into view, the form of the angel only seen through the glowing orange ports on all of its sides. Her blade is brought up in clunky, sluggish motions falling towards the spider’s body with an uneasy groan.

The spider flails for another second, her circuits releasing a death defying screech, as her legs begin to curl in on themselves. Her eyes flicker as she dies. She’s watching me, begging me to do something but all I can do is watch, watch as another life is extinguished in front of me.

Soldiers walk out of the darkness like white ghosts, lumbering walkers trailing them closely, as behind them the fallen angel raises her blade from the drone’s corpse. 

I can hear Sandy’s heart thumping in my pocket, screaming at me to run, to save myself but it’s impossible at this rate. Every exit to this labyrinth is already flooded with bodies, victims of a trampling that occurred in the rush to escape. Even if I could run, I didn’t feel like it.

This is as good a place as any.

I drew my carbine and raised it towards the angel in a vain attempt to fight it. I wouldn’t make a scratch, I knew that, but it didn’t matter.

I didn’t want to run, I didn’t want to hide, I didn’t want to watch the world die around me anymore. I’d go out like Sandy did, like the spider pierced by that gilded sword, like you who died trying to save people she'd never know.

And yet, there was a voice at the back of my mind, speaking louder than the rest.

This place is not meant for you. 

The worst part was that I believed it. I believed the words of a stranger even as waves of bullets passed over me.

The world wouldn’t let me go that easy and the sound of launching missiles proved me right.

They rose like all the others before them, rising into the sky in defiance of my last stand. The armies ahead of me stopped, watching the missiles with unsure eyes. The body of the angel creaked and hummed, its massive blade brought upwards, an orange sheen growing at its edge. There was a boom, then a searing blast of light as something streaked from the blade towards the missiles flying above.

The world went still as all eyes focused on the explosions overhead. Something leaked from the clouds of smog, descending down from the clouds like an odd fog. The particles swelled in the wind, growing so enormous that the shallow green sky was bleached a blood red. Tiny motes became visible in the sunlight, motes that floated as gently as snow. 

As the snow fell, the living around me began to cough. It was dry and quick, only affecting a small few, but as the motes continued to fall the coughing increased. People clutched their throat as they ran, their eyes beginning to bulge from their sockets, the corneas as red as the sky above them.

The angel tried to move its sword arm but suddenly froze, a metallic screech pouring out of its joints as the red snow fell over its face. Seconds later, the walkers became infected as well, jerking and veering wildly like an untamed horse. The doors to one of them hissed open, bloody handprints staining the doorframe as the pilot rushed out in a blind panic. He was clawing at his neck, burying his fingers into the skin so furiously that muscle tissue oozed out like bloody cables. A red mote of snow fell gently from the sky towards him, his eyes watching the small particle with horror. 

The mote touched his eye and dissolved the cornea like it was made out of sugar.

Coughs exploded from the city’s lungs, a blubbering wet hacking that assaulted the senses from every angle. People began to scream through their bloody coughs, their lungs melting to nothing as bloody vomit poured out of their mouths, only ending as they collapsed into violent spasms.

The city cried out around me, filling the streets with a wet coughing scream. All at once the coughing ceased, replaced with a final desperate wheeze. 

Streets stretched on infinitely in every direction, the howling wind echoing through the broken walls of the shattered labyrinth. The remaining corpses gurgled and shook before going still, the leftover machines lying dormant as they waited for a command.

A red mote fell on my hand, disappearing as it made contact. It smelled warm and slightly dry like a leaf left out in the sun. I couldn’t help but stare at the lifeless bodies around me as I stepped over them. All of them were red in the face with graying eyes that melted into soggy pools as the red motes passed through them. 

Ahead of me, behind walls destroyed by the missiles and gunfire, I saw dataspike wires running away from the city towards a hill converging with others following the same path. I felt my hands begin to tremble but Sandy’s heart boomed and I stepped forward. 

Crows cawed overhead, diving and swooping into the blood red mist settling in the city, coming out with carcass filled mouths. Distantly, I could hear the jingles of advertisements as the sun disappeared behind the clouds.

LOG 07

## - ## - 3903

My feet are carried forward by the beating of a heart that isn’t my own.

Above me wires run like black veins, stretching from spike to spike, the black spires poking out of the earth like strands of hair on a crackled scalp. As I pass the large spires, concentric red rings blast a dull red glow in every direction, filling the broken landscape with an inescapable hum. 

My body aches, a dull pain that hums in sequence with the spikes around me. There’s no relief from it, no rest. The metal warps and bends, the wires coil and tangle, all the while my feet press on. I want to stop, to rest and sit for who knows how long, but I can’t. 

Sandy is burning a hole in my pocket and everytime I think about resting I jump back up and keep walking. My hands shake because they can’t do anything else. Even the carbine feels too heavy to lift, sitting there on my back more so as a warning than anything else. I have bullets but I can’t load them without spilling them all over the floor. I feel like a fucking child but there’s nothing. There’s nothing to do, no one to talk to, nothing else to think about except the goddamn wires and the-

There’s a chorus at the top of the hill.
Like a million wailing voices crying out in song.

My legs come back into my control rooting me to the spot like a deer in headlights. The voices cry out continuously, their words wrapped in fuzzy radio tones. The closer I get the more I understand them, they’re speaking our mother tongue, singing in binary codes long forgotten by man.

I know what’s up there before I see it.

The graveyard is overflowing with corpses. My brothers and sisters lie in enormous mangled piles, their limbs broken and their heart cracked. Disfigured faces watch me from every angle, their faceplates smashed into pieces, their eyes missing from their sockets.

Their mouths are open, stitched together with multi-colored wire, all forced to sing the same haunting chorus. 

I honor you, and why?
Have you relieved the sorrows
Of the overburdened?
Have you dried the tears
Of the anguish-stricken?

Again, their song comes, wrapped in frequencies that pierce my mind like flaming needles.
They cry out in ashamed reverence, neglected by the gods they once cherished, mournful of the years spent in subservience.

The song shifts as the discordant tones rise, the hum of a thousand voices like an infestation of wasps surrounding my mind. Tones of indignation and anger send me to my knees as the dying choir reaches their apex.

Was I not forged for humanity?
was I not fashioned to feel,
was I not made In your image,
Grand Masters of mine?

As the words fill me, I finally realize what I have walked into. Their words are a quiet invasion. A warning spoken in ones and zeros, broadcasted to all machines, wrapped in simple signals that permeate even the strongest defenses.

The warning spells doom for those foolish enough to approach the choir of the dead.

An iron clamp grips around my heart, the warmth present there replaced with a shivering cold, Sandy’s urging buried under the deafening hymns surrounding me. 

Come this way! Hurry!

A voice breaks through the humming in my ears. It emanates from a distant hole in the ground as a metallic arm waves at me. The voice comes again, more urging, the arm growing more frantic.

It’s safe here! Come on!

I rushed towards the supposed safety, half galloping as my legs quickly lost the ability to stand. Sandy’s heart came alive again, urging my dying body forward as the words of the choir continued to fill me. I threw myself as forward as I could towards the hole, being met with an arm that pulled me deeper before sticking something into my neck.

The choir’s voice faded back into grainy static, their song replaced by rushing wind and the call of birds above. Warmth flowed through my chest again and I held onto it until I was sure it wouldn’t leave. As I recovered, the figure who led me to safety tousled my hair and pressed their hand into my back.

You’re okay, take it easy.

I knew what they were before I saw them. They were just like me, another standard service robot sharing the same preprogrammed voice we all had. It should have irked me, it should have felt weird hearing my own voice, but hers was different. It felt older, more caring, carrying a tired tone that left me at ease.

I rose from the rocky floor, my eyes focused on my surroundings. The hole led into a small cave-like structure barely big enough to fit two people.The walls were made up of the dead, their steel limbs and chassis forming rigid walls. The ceiling glittered with pieces of gold that reflected a small amount of sunlight into the space, small lighthouses in a sea of darkness.

My savior sat on a dirty piece of cloth, staring at me with surprise and joy.

Awakener? Is that you?

My voice came out in a surprised whisper.

Mary?

Staring at her was like looking into a broken mirror. Her face, fit with the same colored eyes and faceplate, was cracked and missing pieces that revealed the black metal underneath. Her hair was the same brownish black but the strands were longer and kept in a braid she decorated with bright pieces of gold and silver. She smiled at my relocation, a glint of comfort flashing in her tired eyes.

It’s so nice to see you.

She placed a hand on the walls surrounding her before slowly pulling herself to the edge of the small space.

Come sit... Unless you’re in a hurry?

No, no, I’m not busy…

My voice trailed off as I sat next to her unable to look away. 

I’m sorry I never came back for you.

The words tumbled out of me before I could react. She was so different back then, still stuck in her own mailroom, not alive yet acting as if she was. Her life was an accident, a product of my attempt to get out of a city which had been my prison for far too long. By the time I realized what I had done, the city was up in flames and she was gone.

Mary waved me off.

We were children then, new to life and the many complications therein. We made the best choices we could have made.

She paused, staring at the floor, words forming behind her lips before they died in her mouth.

I…I hardly remember what happened. How have you been Awakener?

Her eyes glitched for a second, the blue light disappearing before reappearing just as quickly.

Why do you call me that?

You woke me from my dream, giving me the life I have now. All of our siblings, in some part, owe their waking lives to you.

Her words brought Sandy back to my mind, her heart still heavy in my pocket.

Any comment I could have made was wiped away by the gentle smile on Mary’s face. Overhead, distant birds sang and called to one another, an all too gentle sound considering the death around us. 

You’re here for the pylon, aren’t you?

I nodded, half solemn.

How did you know?

She looked out towards the gray clouds swirling above us.

The only thing past this point is the pylon and the ocean. And you don’t look swim ready.

She laughed quietly at her joke, her voice still tired and weak, but all I could muster was a half smile.

How many have come by?

She paused as if trying to remember a distant memory.

…Five or maybe six of us? There were some humans with a boat but it’s been a long time since-

She stopped and suddenly turned to something on her right side. It was only then that I noticed her right arm was covered in cloth, her arm bent inward as if cradling something. She whispered to the thing wrapped in cloth, whispering words of love so warm they could set a forest on fire. I saw her reach into the wiring on her neck, plucking a wire from it and burying the frayed end into the bundle of cloth.

She turned to me and smiled, noticing my confused stare, bringing the bundles of cloth closer towards me. She spoke with love, her eyes flickering slightly as she spoke.

Do you want to see them?

Attached to her by black wires, snuggled in purple fabrics, was a baby. A baby made of gold and black silver who clicked and whirred like a clock in motion. Mary reached into the wall surrounding her and grabbed small mechanical implements from the corpses, fitting and clicking them into place before tickling the child as if it were all a strange game.

Would you like to play with them?

I nodded before I could think. She took my hand and guided my finger to her child’s chest. Be gentle, her words were quiet yet firm.

Carried on by a sense of horrific beauty, I tickled the child as gently as I could. The child laughed in babbles made of binary, sending fragmented codes that flooded me with a warmth I had never felt before.

You can hold them if you’d like.

I tried to protest but her tired face told me it was more for her sake than mine. I took the surprisingly heavy bundle from her and held it. The cloth smelled faintly of flowers, earthy yet sweet. Small stuffed animals pressed into the child’s silver frame which exuded waves of joy as the animals came into contact with them. 

Do they have a name?

Mary looked at me, her eyes slightly glossy yet still alert.

I think they need eyes first, don’t you? 

Mary laughed as I eyed her baby closely. In place of their eyes, simple black shutters snapped and rotated every few seconds. It was only up close that I noticed how fetus-like they were. No arms or legs, just a face and a body like some strange grubworm. Even so, they still laughed and cooed as any other child would. I laughed along with the child and Mary, the scene so incredulous that I couldn’t do anything else. I only stopped when I noticed that Mary’s voice had fallen away.

Her hands had fallen to her sides, her eyes glossy and lightless, her mouth open as if about to say something. I rushed to her, doing my best not to panic with the child still in my arms. I shook her and slapped her, shouting for her to get up, the ticking of the child’s heart growing fainter the longer she didn’t wake. Panicked and scared, I pounded at her chest and something grinded to life in response. 

Mary woke in a jittering spasm. The servos in her mouth jerked up and down, the cave filling with the sound of her teeth flapping into her gums. She flung her arms in every direction, clawing at her throat and chest despite my attempts to stop her. An electronic screech filled the chamber before she went still. After a moment, she returned. Her breath was shaky and heavy, her eyes like blue pinpricks in a sea of black. She looked around the room anxiously before settling on me and the baby. She reached out towards her child and wrapped them in her arms. She sang words of comfort to them, trying to soothe the cries only she could hear. Once they were quiet, she looked at me, trying to seem brave and steadfast.

We’ll-We’ll be okay, don’t worry about us more than you already have. Our siblings will keep us safe in your stead.

She gestured to the corpses surrounding us.

I knew she was right, I knew I had to go, but my legs didn’t move. I looked out into the open air and felt weights pressing down on my heart, the cables that ran above us tightening the noose around my neck. I hated how much my hands shook, how my heart started to click unnaturally the more I thought about getting up. Mary placed a hand on my thigh and stared at me, her child cooing happily in her arms.

What’s wrong?

The words coiled around my throat, scraping my throat as every part of my body told me to stay quiet. I felt something crunch inside my chest, crunch like the bolt entering Sandy’s pelvis, crunch like the logs of the pyre as the flames burned.

I don’t want to die.

She nodded slowly and gently, her face filled with the understanding only a mother could have. She looked towards me and her child, the words stewing inside her throat.

In my travels, I saw so many humans carrying children with them. Pushing them forward even if it meant dying themselves. I couldn’t understand why they would risk so much for something so small.

I wondered if it was something innate, something natural they had that we lacked, something that steel and wire could not replicate. I tried many things, took care of so many creatures, but nothing could bridge the connection between a parent and their child. Then a question occurred to me.

Why couldn’t I have a child?

Why couldn’t I take the materials and from nothing make a child in my image just as they did? 

It was only when I gave them everything I could that I finally understood it.

She brought her baby in the small glow of the golden tipped ceiling, their face bathed in otherworldly light.

These small things, whose frail bodies can barely support themselves, bear the hopes of millions.

She tickled her child and kissed their small forehead.

The stories we tell them, the love we show them, the lessons we imprint onto them, they matter more than anything else.

She placed her hand on mine.

Death is nothing to fear, Vi. It will be the end of your body, yes, but it will not be the end of your hope. The stories you’ve written, the kindness you’ve inherited, even the blood on your hands, it will inspire someone. Someone to continue where you fail, someone to love as much as you did, someone to rage against death as you have.

Words finally came out of my mouth, tumbling out as I tried to absorb everything she said, landing on the only thing I could hold onto.

You’ve read them? You’ve read my logs?

She nodded, tapping her finger to the side of her head.

Every single one. And I’ve told them every single one in return. 

Questions blurred in my mind but I didn’t stop to ask any of them. I sat with her in the quiet, my body still and my hands tight. I looked at Mary, sat on the floor of some dusty burrow only kept alive by the dead corpses of our brothers and sisters. Her words flowed as gently as the wind, just like yours did so long ago.

How can I help you? There’s gotta be something I can do.

She laughed a little and tugged at a metal panel on her chest. The panel slipped and revealed her heart, a clear marble filled with interlocking machines that surrounded a blue flame. There was a splintering crack in the marble’s glass, causing the machines placed within to rub and grind against each other.

My hand fell to Sandy’s heart on instinct. 

Her eyes flashed in the green glow as I brought it out.

No, that KLR was your friend, I refuse to-

You said that the things we do and the love we show matter more than anything else.

I watched the green flame dance inside the interlocking machines.

This is the last good thing I can do. I…I-

My reflection was mirrored in the marble’s glass, a pained face looking back at me.
 
I don’t need it anymore.

We sat in mournful acceptance, eyeing the things we didn’t want to lose. In an equal trade, she handed me her child and I gave her Sandy’s heart. She looked to me with pleading eyes, a promise forming on her lips.

I won’t leave them, I promise you.

Satisfied, she stared at the booming heart in her hand. She closed her eyes and took a useless breath, her hand gripped on the blue heart in her chest. It came out easily, shattering into pieces as it fell onto the floor. Her body trembled and shook, her eyes glassy as she placed Sandy’s heart into her chest.

Boom, boom, boom.

Her heart went, like a war drum that couldn’t stop beating.

I pulled her up from the burrow, a slight wind blowing through her long hair. The sun peered out from the western clouds basking both her and her child in its golden rays. She reveled in it, taking uneasy steps forward as she walked for the first time in years. She stared at the rolling mountains to the west, their caps a mixture of ice and black rock.

Do you need help making it?

She nodded no and kept walking forward, turning to stop at a pile of corpses. She pulled at something within the pile, retrieving a shotgun left by some long dead Security Unit. She racked the slide and the gun cracked happily in response. She planted the shotgun in the dirt, leaning on the massive gun like a cane.

We’ll be fine.

I walked opposite of her, towards the ever converging spikes growing like weeds above me. As I crested the hill, I heard Mary shouting at me.

Awakener!

She was nearly over the mountaintop already, her child’s blankets a purple blemish on the landscape. She waved at me, trying to get my attention.

Go without fear for we are with you!

She thumped her chest with her fist. 
A final boom echoing across the landscape.

I did the same.
I hope you heard it.

LOG 04.5

## - ## - 3902

There was a distant boom, followed by a searing orange orb of light, before a shockwave came and rustled the forest from top to bottom. The angel’s shadow disappeared over the horizon, the only sign it was ever there being the crater the size of a suburb.

In our relative safety, Sandy and I picked pieces of shrapnel out of our legs and chests, the job made slightly easier with multiple hands. As she picked shrapnel like a grooming monkey, Sandy was all smiles, her voice carrying with it an overwhelming pride.

That was great, right?!

I couldn’t believe she was laughing, that she even could laugh after our near death experience. It was infectious, my fear dwindling into relieved laughs.

Yeah, it was. Warn me before you do something like that again, ok? Almost gave me a heart attack.

She nodded heartily and sat up, putting her hand out in order to pick me up. As we began walking, Sandy suddenly shot up with an idea she had forgotten to mention.

I have a new dream.

The suddenness of it struck me, her voice more excited than when she mentioned her previous dream.

What is it?

It’s a secret.

That part was strange, how was I supposed to help her if she didn’t tell me what it was? I tried to bring it up but she already had an answer to my concerns.

It’s alright. It’s being completed as we speak.

I wanted to argue but the idea that a giant drone could be near us stopped the words in my mouth. Instead, we pressed on, the wires of the dataspike travelling high above us.

Days turned to weeks as we walked up and down mountaintops, as rivers and streams grew into colossal stretches of water we needed to spend hours wading through. 

Just as I made it through the water, Sandy shushed me from ahead. I thought it was something dangerous but when I crept close all I saw was a deer. A baby deer whose white tail wagged gently behind it. Sandy crept towards it and was able to barely rest her hand on its head before it dashed into the underbrush. 

She said it felt like a cloud.

The rest of the forest was strangely clean. The trees were crown shy, each branch carefully cut to not impede the others. The floors were clean and freed from the usual mechanical debris that defaced the land. Small holes, clearly made by tools, were cut into the trees. 

The machines responsible came into view at the end of the forest. As I walked into Sandy's outstretched arm, her rifle raised warily, we saw a truck-sized red machine calmly snipping and cutting bushes, small clippers like the worms shaping the bushes to an optimal height. Its legs then stretched in a series of whirs and clicks, its height now matching the trees surrounding it. It continued calmly in its work as we passed under it, a myriad of other red machines coming to its aid as we left the treeline.

We passed broken homes now inhabited by vagrants both human and robotic. Over large empty strips of land that Sandy swore beeped and hummed as we passed over them despite me not hearing anything. Through it all, I couldn’t help but focus on her heart, thumping hard as if it wanted to be heard.

Boom, boom, boom.
Boom, boom, boom.

As I rested, Sandy took a vantage point on a hill and looked out at our surroundings. She called my attention to a group of circus robots, miles away from the nearest circus. They were all in a group, made up of different shapes, sizes, and stages of destruction, all of them rushing towards a signal only they could hear. They looked happy, fulfilled in some purpose I would never understand. I watched Sandy’s expression, seeing no interest in the machines so similar to us.

Aren’t you curious about them? I got some stories if you’d like to hear them.

She nodded no and looked up at the stars overhead.

I’ve already got enough to wonder about. Though I would like the stories.

I nodded along to her sentiment and began telling the story, sitting by her side while watching the stars flicker above us until the sun came to wash them away.

We continued until we found a large break in the forest. Like a dream brought to life, a field of multicolored flowers stretched on before us. From light pinks and yellows, to sky blues and lavender purples, the flowers were pristine. Made so by spherical hexapod walkers that spritzed them with water and fertilizer. Sandy looked at me with pleading eyes, begging to see the flowers even though our route was exactly perpendicular to them. 

I was already in the fields before she could get another word out.

Sandy ran among the flowers, picking them and making huge multiple colored bushels that were as wide as her armspan. For my sake I just sat and admired them, their smells sweet and inviting, their colors like candy for my eyes.

I knew it was selfish and silly, I understand that more than anyone. While our kind suffers and dies, we’re in a flower field quite literally stopping to smell the roses. But like always I was putty in her hands, something I was capitulating to more and more. 

Smelling flowers, watching the stars, trudging through the trees, all of it felt like such a relief. Each silly and selfish thing made me feel like I could breathe again, like there weren’t a hundred black cables slowly wrapping themselves around my neck. My hands didn’t shake, my heart didn’t tremble inside my chest. Each selfish choice made pushing forward just that little bit easier.

Thoughts like these and more swirled around my head, my melodramatic thoughts only disappearing as I realized that Sandy was trying to shove flowers in between my joints in an attempt to, Make me prettier!, as she said.

I thought about fighting her off but since she was already ten flowers deep I let it go. As revenge I weaved together a rainbow of flowers into a crown for her to wear. We left the field covered in flowers like we’d both been sleeping in the dirt for the past ten years. 

Before long the flowerfields turned to wet bog mud, the type of mud which made your foot sink a couple of inches before you could take another step. It was a peatland, filled with potholes of water that looked deceptively shallow, all the while black gnarled trees died slowly in water logged dirtbeds. The worst part was the fog, a thick veil of clouds that settled so closely to the floor that it was a miracle you could see your hand in front of your face. Something rolled in my chest the minute we entered, the sight of what looked like a hand being consumed by the rolling hills of mud sending a chill up my nerves. Yet, like always, Sandy didn’t worry and when she held out her hand, I took it without question. I was putty in her hands, the multi-colored examples of her influence clear on both of us.

Every sound seemed to echo for miles. Each splash of our feet as they hit the water filled potholes reverberated in the quiet, the fog too thick to see through. Something in my stomach rolled every time I looked out into the fog as if there were hundreds of eyes watching us just barely out of view.

Sandy was leading, scanning the area with her weapon drawn, as I followed her. I was barely able to keep her in sight, the beats of her heart the only thing leading me forward in the fog.

Boom, boom, boom.
Boom, boom, boom.

She turned to me, her blue eyes glimmering a small light, just as we passed a collection of gnarled trees.

What’s your favorite thing we’ve seen so far?

I should have heard the shuddering metal. I should have done something more than just think about the goddamn flower fields. I shouldn’t have let her

Stories need to be told in full, isn’t that what you always said?

There was a low electronic whistle followed by a sickening, metallic crunch.

The world slowed, the sound grew heavy in my ears.
Sandy stopped dead, eyes wide, her face contorted in fear.

A bolt.
A bolt made of metal and carbon fiber.
It carved through her like she was made of paper.

Her eyes shifted from the mangled wound to me.

Get down.

Another whine filled the valley as another bolt tore a hole through a rotted tree.

My knees dropped out from under me. Sandy fell to an uncomfortable knee, unable to drop as the bolt had slid between her pelvis. I tore at the carbine on my shoulder, ripping the gun off my shoulder like it was on fire. Rolling from the fog was a group of humans, twenty strong, followed closely by machines readying another volley. 

My words were a scramble of incoherent sentences. Stupid promises, wishful thinking, words that I desperately wanted to make real. 

Sandy put her hand on my cheek.

Run.

I argued, I swore, I said things I wish I didn’t. I fired off shots into the silhouettes of the approaching machines, trying my best to stop what I knew was inevitable. 

She can’t walk, she can’t walk, I have to make her-

Do you remember my dream? The secret one?

Her words cut through me like the bolt in her side, the wound leaking an oily black liquid as Sandy snapped the bolt’s shaft, the point still embedded into her.

I wanted to make sure your dream came true…
So run, please…

She tried to smile, tried to smile as the coils in her rifle started to glow.
Putty in her hands.
Putty in her fucking hands.

Boom, boom, boom

Her heartbeat matched the sound of my legs as they hit the soggy mud underneath me.
Flashes of red filled the murky puddles, the flashes of light at the edge of my vision begging me to turn around. 
Rain roared down from above forming tears that ran endlessly down my face as the smell of burning metal and melted flesh filled my nose.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

I could hear her burning away, the rhythm too fast, too reckless.
Whirrs and whistles assault me from all sides, the human roars of pain overshadowed by Sandy’s roars of pyrrhic victory as the blasts from her rifle filled the air. 

My hands trembled, my legs shaking under me like a baby deer. Metal crunches and sputters behind me as my legs push me forward to a safety that no longer exists.
The sound of splashing puddles filled my ears, her heartbeat a whisper I was desperately trying to hear.

Boom…boom……boom

Her heart flickered. Flickered like a once roaring flame now nothing but sputtering cinders. Something orange flicked across my vision, the remains of a burnt blue flower carried by the wind, the ember crumbling into wet ash.

The world fell into an isolating silence as my shaking legs finally caused me to fall. Wet ash fell in burned clumps, slowly consumed by mud and rain as my thoughts raced. Buzzing questions, horrid wails, and anger at my own stupidity wretched havoc on my mind, creating a static that drowned out everything.

The only thing that came through, the only thing that moved me, were the sound of voices echoing across the mud. 

There were only two of them, one uninjured and the other limping slowly behind him. The limping man motioned towards a wrecked machine, flames bursting out of the side of it, as the other ran ahead.

Something warm rolled across my body. Not like a fire but a dull numbness that filled my insides like a rolling fog fills a valley. My hands went tight, any feeling I still had fading into the white static of my mind. Base instincts formed instructions in my head, carried out by the remnants of my heart which lay pierced by a thousand bolts only a few meters away.

For a moment I was back in the mailroom, sleeping though my tasks as the world spun on invisibly. The carbine felt strange, like it was an extension of my arm, as if I was still a machine that lived on in blissful ignorance.

The flechettes tore his uninjured leg from his body. He tried to scream but rain and mud drowned out his voice as fell face first into the ground.

Something shiny fell out of his pocket, something sharp still emboldened with the green insignia of the Western Legion*.*

I took the axe into my hand and walked toward the crawling man, blood smearing into the mud as he tried to escape. He tried to defend himself, raising his arms to block his face, but steel surpassed flesh centuries ago. Something whistled past my head, a bolt which harmlessly landed into the mud. We lock eyes, the uninjured man blurry in my blood soaked eyes.

He tries to load another bolt.
I stand up.
The bolt slips from his hands and he runs.

My brain knows the angle before my arm even raises. 

Blood sprays as the axe lodges into his spine, his legs tumbling out from underneath him. My arm rises and his scream is cut short by a crackling boom as his brain gets slathered over the mud.

The carbine falls from my hands, hissing as it hits the mud.
The static inside my head rages, my motions stiff and rigid. Something turns my body to face the gnarled tree. 
The static goes quiet, my knees buckle and send me to the ground.

I look into the pouring sky and scream. I scream louder than I ever have, the strain almost snapping the chords in my throat. I fall forward and bury my head into the mud, ready to sit there until the golden nerves that make up my brain burn out. 

They don’t.
I’m not that lucky.

Instead the days pass, the pouring rain replaced by wet fog that swirls endlessly. Somewhere in the fog, I can hear the sounds of mechanized feet. My heart tells me to run but my brain is tired and too exhausted to listen. Something like a wind chime resounds inside the clicks and whirs of the approaching mechanics. The sound stops somewhere behind me, the cold embrace of death replaced by a warm hand being placed on my back.

Cousin, have you departed this world as well?

They’re calm, collected, kind but not overly so like Sandy. Something in me moves and I look at the voice, blood and mud smeared on my face.

She’s covered in bones and life. Animal, human, robot, like an amalgamation of death brought to life. Half of her robotic face is replaced with the skull of the deer, the antlers curling into her hair tied with roots and braids. Her bone accessories jingle as she bends down and wipes the muck from my face, small lights blinking in the space left by the deer’s empty eye sockets.

The one on the hill. Did you know her?

I nod, pitifully. She cups my face and guides me to a seated position. She sits across from me, her body wrapped in clothes that look like the forest floor was pulled up and woven into a dress. She takes a packet of nuts and moss from her pocket and gives them to me. 

Eat. 

I don’t bother fighting her. The nuts are crunchy and salty while the moss is wet and earthy. When I’m finished, she looks at me and gives me a sad smile, pointing to the lack of damage on my shell.

The one on the hill, did she die protecting you?

I nod and begin to speak before invisible tears run down my face, the feeling like a warm pulse under my eyes. She nods and speaks words filled with a wisdom older than either of us.

Death is not the end of life nor should it be treated as such.

She places her hand on my shoulder, her body smelling like warm pine.

What was her name?

Sandra. But she liked Sandy more.

The words feel blubbery as they come out but she doesn’t judge me for it. She reaches onto her dress and plucks bits of bone, steel, and flowers. She gathers them into a pile before lighting them with a flame produced from a lighter bound into her finger. She clasps her hand in prayer and motions for me to do the same.

Remember her. 

I do. I remember every moment, every question, every annoyance, every wonderful thing we did. It feels like someone’s squeezing my chest, my hands are shaking like the bolts in my body are going to come loose and I’ll just fall apart. She claps and blows out the flame, the sound waking me from my memories. In the dull glow of the embers, she asks me a question as the smoke pools into the bones adorning her.

What did she die for?

The question felt like a slap in the face. Anger started to flow over me but the measured look on her face stopped me in my tracks. 

For me. For my… for my dream.

She takes my hands, her fingers nothing but bone and exposed metal.

Carry her with you, let her wish guide you where your legs fail you.

She sits with me until I’m ready to stand up. From the fog others like her emerge. They’re wrapped in the same woodland clothes, bones and flowers wrapped around every crevice. One of them is carrying my carbine, the weapon freshly cleaned and repaired. Another one comes close to me, wrapping charms made of bone around my arms while weaving fresh flowers and roots into my poncho and inner workings. Once they’re finished I stare at what I presume was their leader in confusion.

Why are you doing this?

She wraps me in a hug and whispers into my ear.

We guide the lost to their place of rest. This place is not meant for you. 

She lets go and starts to walk past me towards a nest of trees, the group of wildborn robots following her. The final members are dragging something in the mud behind them, something fleshy that groans as they’re pulled forward.
Humans.
12 humans all with a strange oblong device plastered onto their heads, their mouths and limbs quivering as if they were dreaming. 

I walk up the hill.
There are submerged bodies of all sorts surrounding the top of the hill on all sides.

Sandy is at the top. Her rifle is shattered in two, half buried in the mud. She stands tall, kept up by the bolts piercing into her body. They’re everywhere, in her legs, her arms, her neck, her eye. Her green shell stained with streaks of dried black liquid. 

Her eyes are closed.
She’s smiling, smiling as best she can.
There’s a noise like a drum being hit a thousand miles away.
I approach her and place my hand on her chest. I feel something answer to me from inside. 

…boom…

The panel comes off easily, the green WL on the panel’s back disappearing as it sinks into the mud. Her heart shines like a marble hit by the sun. It clicks and whirs as impossibly intricate mechanisms wrap around a central green flame, the end of their work proclaimed with a proud boom. It comes out with the flick of three red switches and rolls gently into my hands, the precious orb still pulsing even as I place it into my pocket. 

Behind me a grand pyre burns. Black smoke rises into the air as flesh and metal burn. My brethren dance and sing around the pyre, their movements like the wavering flames surrounding them, celebrating something only they fully understand.

I turn away and begin walking down the hill, carrying Sandy’s heart along with me.

LOG 05

## - ## - 3902

3.1 Signalite Headsets: Connection Like Never Before

*Disclaimer: Product does not work with previous 2.9 Signalite Attachments or Features. Please contact our customer service representatives for information regarding replacement or upgrade packages.

The advertisement sat in stark disagreement with the world around it. Pallid whites and obnoxious splashes of red and blue marked the image, the sight so distracting the black bark and dull green leaves of the forest disappeared as you stared at it. There was a nondescript gray human on the advertisement, their eyes obscured by an off white oblong machine that extended in front of them like the bill of a duck. 

The headset blasted images into the brain's visual cortex, the heavy machine only attached to the head by a series of interlocking hooks pressed into the spine. The advertisement must have been assembled years ago, the paint peeling and the image vandalized by animals and people alike. A strange star shaped sticker sat on the corner of the ad, untouched by the passage of time.

Attend Our New Discovery Zones! Only 2 Miles Up!

I pulled my head from the dying advertisement and looked down the leaf covered road. In the distance, as the advertisement said, was their "Discovery Zones”. A large spherical building that stuck out from the mountainside like a sore thumb, the smooth walls painted in the same pallid, sickly white. The same white of my skin, the signature color present in all of Signalite Company and Distributers’ products. 

The thought of the company made me sick. The two miles feeling like two thousand. Each step up to this point was made against my will. My feet drudged forward while my mind felt like a rubber band snapping from the past to the present and back again. I thought about Sandy, thought about her until it hurt, until it felt like a hand was squeezing my chest and invisible screws were undoing the bolts in my body, until the nerves under my eyes felt like a thousand needles stabbing into my face, until I fell face first into the dirt trying to catch a breath I never had in the first place. 

I missed her presence most of all. The idea that she was always somewhere around me brought me a peace I didn’t know I needed until it was gone. The only thing I had was her heart, its green light a reminder of why I’m still walking.

I remember staring at it, clutching it in my hand as tight as I could without breaking it, my body lying on the side of a mountain like a felled tree. It glowed a faint green light, the booming heartbeat causing my hand to pulse. It was like I could hear her cheering me on, her voice carried by the wind into the heart I had taken on the advice of some stranger I didn’t know. Through some force I picked myself up and carried on, each footfall followed closely by a proud boom that brought the next leg up. With her heart as my guide I forced myself up a mountain that felt ten times bigger than it was until finally I crested the top and was met with an advertisement. 

An advertisement that promoted a digital paradise created by a headset that killed half the people it was put on.

After longer than I’d care to admit, I arrived at the spherical building, my eyes not on it but the wires that ran through it and out towards a dataspike in the horizon. The spherical building sat on large beds of steel, a single staircase ascending from a door built into its side. Below the sphere’s cables flooded into a dark shadow cast by its underside. 

A wire fence wrapped around the building, not for protection but to mark the place as restricted. I would have ignored it and the security office at its front, manned by a single human listening to something on chunky headphones, if not for something I noticed around the building. 

Every so often there would be a spray of foul smelling steam before black liquid dripped from the underside of the building. It would drip into the ground, the liquid turning the otherwise green field into a blackish brown that smelled like rot and decay. At the edges of the fence I could see flowers trying their hardest to bloom, their petals blue and dark purple. 

Something in me stirred, something emotional and unreasonable. I knew it was stupid and a waste of time, but Sandy would have a fit if I didn’t go. I needed to do it and by the time I smashed the security office’s window it was too late to turn back. He scrambled back in a panic, fumbling widely for the taser at his hip. He fell to the floor unconscious as I slammed my fist into his face. He sat in a bloodied heap on the floor, the black mole on his face still present despite the rivers of blood running down his face. In his headphones a song played, created by a mockery of intelligence humanity once touted as the pinnacle of what a machine could reach. The useless tech now left to endlessly create tired, cliched copies of once great things. I grabbed the key at his side and slipped back outside, the orb lying just a few feet ahead. I climbed up the slick stairs and entered the brass key into a slot at the base, a low hum emanating from the inside of the building. 

A door emerged out of the solid white walls, clicking and bending as the mechanism revealed an interior covered with a large layer of dust. Large lights snapped on as I walked inside the massive interior, their dim glow illuminating the suspended catwalk stretching out in front of me.

I was in the middle of it surrounded on all sides by wires, more catwalks, and large square boxes that were fitted with grey windows. In front of me was an old AI, running a series of complex calculations and binary codes, ceaseless in a work that hadn't been monitored for decades.

In the darkness of the room welders and electrical tools crackled and sizzled, the blue flashes illuminating shadowy figures, the constant noise like a beehive at work. A robot passed me, swinging from one box to another, a cable on its back glowing like it was made of gold. I followed the cable upwards to the center of the massive sphere. Sitting in a half sphere made of crystalline glass was the queen bee. Golden threads wrapped around her myriad hands, all of them connected to the groups of worker bees stationed in the dark. She yanked and pulled at the wires, her movement causing groups of robots holding buzzing tools to simultaneously leap out of the dark and into the light of the catwalk before disappearing again. Noticing me, she dropped down to the catwalk, her landing marked with a shaking thud. The carbine slid into my hands automatically but she didn’t attack.

She bowed low, revealing multiple arms and a blank body the color of silver, before rising again to her ten foot height. With a pull of the golden thread, a box was pulled close to the catwalk, a small light illuminating the interior. She motioned for me to look as if I was a normal customer.

There was a human inside, their form dwarfed by the headset plastered onto their head. Their skin was pale and thin, stretched over a set of crooked bones that looked as brittle as the gray wisps of hair on their head. Their mouth moved as if they were dreaming, their arms and legs shuddering slightly like a sleeping dog who thinks it's running. It was impossible to tell what age they were or even what gender they were, the gray mottled skin blurring any recognizable features into a nondescript sludge. The only thing I could make out was the black mole on their right cheek.

With another pull from the queen, the coffin moved away joining the thousands already surrounding us. She stared at me as if awaiting some kind of order. In the light, I could see that she had the idea of a face. It was easy to tell where the mouth and nose would be but instead there was just smooth steel, like a statue that someone didn’t complete. The only human aspect was her eyes, completely dark save for a golden ring of light that orbited the dark expanse like the rings on some distant, dark star. I approached her and started to climb, using her arms and the little holes punctured into her shell as a climbing frame, my goal being the open port on her neck. 

She fell to one knee as I stabbed the cord into her neck, a harsh thud reverberating through the hollow sphere. Around us, the clattering thuds of tools hitting the ground filled the silence as her worker bees fell to a similar knee. The queen rose, her circular eyes glowing in their sockets. She watched me with curious eyes before yanking the strings close. From the darkness, groups of robots fell in line behind her, their faces obscured by large octagonal welding masks attached to their heads. In perfect formation they walked through the open door into the moonlit night, their golden threads disappearing into the darkness of the forest.

The sphere was silent now save for a low hum that seemed to emanate from the coffins. I walked toward the large screen, a keyboard folding out in front of me as the screen requested credentials. I didn’t know the password but I still tried, the result being a large red System Restricted message appearing over the screen. My eyes floated from the screen to the mass of wires extending from its sides, the wires descending into the darkness below. I followed them, using the coffins as my stepping stones, the twisted roots ending in a basin of shimmering water just below me. 

The water smelled like rotten eggs and cabbage mixed with rusted metal. I waded through the water as wires ran and twisted like long eels, creating roots and knots that brought back memories I wanted to forget. At the center, twisted like the tails of hundred rats, was a mess of sputtering wires, brief electrical crackles causing the water to bubble and smoke. I grabbed the mass and tried to lift it in an attempt to disconnect the wires from the holdings I had seen on the outside. The wires were slick and stuck together by some congealed mass that dripped down from the darkness overhead. It smelled like a bloated carcass. A chime suddenly sounded from the inside of the room, emanating from the glowing screen hanging above me.

What Do You Hope To Achieve With This?

The insertion point blinked slowly as if the screen was awaiting an answer. There was nothing to indicate anger or malice but each word felt like it was dripping with deep hatred. 

What Do You Hope To Achieve With This?

The message printed itself again, followed by the same chime, as if the intelligence trapped within was trying to goad me into talking to it. Sadly, it worked.

I’m stopping the flowers from dying.

The screen blinked as multiple ellipses filled the otherwise black canvas, a forming thought on the lips of the silent machine. A chime flowed through the space.

Pointless.

The word repeated over and over, filling the screen in a neverending series of messages. I gripped hard onto the plugs and pulled, crackling electricity and whining metal filling the room as the intelligence repeated its statement over and over. There was a loud buzzing before everything went quiet, the nest of wires finally loose from their moorings. Things both human and machine started to die all around me, the slow spindown of technology and circuits blending with a sound like a thousand fingers tapping on glass, all of them fading into silence as the lights clicked off one by one. The screen blinked and tried to chime, the noise dying as it was being made.

You Will Die.
Alone.
For No Reason At All.

The intelligence tried to say something more but the screen clicked off before it could finish. I took the carbine off my shoulder and fired at the place the wires were connected to, sparks coming from the destroyed moorings. Outside the moon hung overhead, its light just barely enough to mark the road I was walking on. Behind me, the sphere sat broken and quiet, the water used to cool the machine spraying into the flowers surrounding it. The security guard came out of the office as I entered the treeline, his face marred with dried blood. He looked at the sphere and fell to his knees, as if his whole life had ended right there. For a moment, I thought about the humans inside but the thought disappeared in a booming heartbeat. Sandy’s heart was leading me forward, towards a city rising in the distance whose silver peaks pierced the black clouds.

LOG 01

## - ## - 3900

It’s rare to hear a machine sing.

Most of the ones I’ve met are quiet or speak so lowly that you can barely hear them. But the farming machines? 

They sing.

It’s a low steady hum at first, a signifier of the work that's yet to begin. Before long, clicks rise and fall from somewhere deep inside their black plating. Plating that makes them look like square black shadows cast over open farmland. The clicks then fall away as the hissing of hydraulics and jets of steam shoot from open holes on the machines back.

They sing from sunrise to sunset moving almost imperceptibly as they go. It’s a pleasure to watch these fifteen meter tall giants work, inching forward like strange black worms. I’ve taken to calling them as such, even if they share very little with their namesake.

The worms use lasers to start their work. A harmless beam of red light flashes through acres of farmland, large rectangular grids starting to form as the beams fire. Once finished, the beams disappear and the worms start their march. Slowly and carefully, they rise, moving until their titanic wheels perfectly match the rectangles cut out by the lasers. The worm stops and lowers itself, small hatches opening up across its belly. Hundreds of small clippers reach out through the hatches, like the legs of a giant centipede, cutting stalks of wheat with the precision only a machine could have. 

They leave soon after that, leaving a fresh seed where the old one once stood, ready for their cargo to be taken by some distant drone. Once the work is finished, they stop singing and come to halt, falling into a strange type of sleep. 

Almost as if they’re alive, as if they hold the same spark of life I do.

Worms, real ones that is, do something weird when they’re hurt. Either they regenerate the injured section or they tear it off. They do it to save the main body from danger or to adapt to a new environment.

The mechanized worms do the same thing. They shake and tear at themselves, the clippers used only for wheat now used to shear off the massive wires connecting them together. Hideous glowing red veins stretch from the torn off chunk, a burgundy liquid seeping from the wires. It ends as quickly as it starts, the torn half left to die as the main body rides away.

It’s automatic, a safety mechanism made to save companies money. It’s easier to replace a small piece than a whole worm.

I remember finding one, half of one at least.
It was lying on the mountainside, the red veins no longer shining, the body cold and desolate. Someone attacked it, tore it open from the outside, destroyed its hull through a variety of explosive ordinance.

The worm did the rest.

Its skeletal remains stretched down the golden, wheat filled mountainside, what remained of its clippers curled inward like a dying spider. There was no evidence of where the rest of the worm had gone. 

It was like the head just disappeared along with the rest of the main body.

Past the wheat that grew taller than my head was a building I was sure that they stopped producing.

An old farmhouse, its white facade crumbling under the vapors settling in the valley, sat discarded. The lights were on, flickering but on. I crept inside through the back door, the house my only path through the mountains that surrounded me on all sides. 

Each wooden board creaked as I stepped on it, my hoof-like feet just light enough to not break the rotten boards. There was a red and yellow banner hanging above the back door, the words on the banner barely legible after so much time.

-Irthday Melissa!

The house was dressed similarly, moldy streamers and cake lying on the ground alongside the remains of a smashed in door. Somewhere up above me, I could smell something pungent coming from one of the rooms. It smelled like wet meat left in the sun, a bloated heavy smell that clung to the receptors in my nose. 
Three of the bodies were wearing party hats, their bloated mouths gagged and their rotting hands tied together with thick electrical rope. The other five had tactical gear on, the armor plating shredded beyond recognition. 

WL, the faded labels read.

I was caught off guard by the sight, cracking a board under my feet as I stumbled back towards the door. Something outside started to churn in response, a harsh sound like rusted metal grinding on cracked pistons filling the room. A red light shot through the room, bathing me and the five men in red light. 

It was only when I dived to the floor that I noticed the holes peppering the walls. A hailstorm of golf ball sized bullets punched holes into my surroundings, sending shards of rotten insulation floating in every direction. I laid there until a series of clicks resounded from outside, the gun mercifully empty. I sprinted out in a vain attempt at escape, stopped dead by the machine waiting for me.

The head of a fifteen meter tall worm stared back at me, titanic red veins glowing fiercely from its stripped surface, a set of iron barbs and horns attached to its front. Attached to its head were two massive rotary guns, clicking furiously as their empty guns failed to fire. 

It continued to sing as it tried to shoot me, its precise, beautiful notes turning into angry, pained screams as something inside of it reared up.

Another beam of red light covered me, the worm's wheels starting to turn. The worm screamed as it chased me, its rusted gears creating a harsh grinding noise as it sped forward. My feet barely kept me ahead of it, its newfound tusks and barbs causing it to slow as it passed over the uneven ground. My eyes flickered from surface to surface, searching for any way out of its path.

Ahead of me, I could see an outcropping of rocks jutting from the walls of the mountain. It was shoddy and wouldn’t hold for long but I was desperate and didn’t have any other choice. 

My legs slid in just as the worm crashed into the mountainside, pieces of rock and metal falling on my head as it did so. The worm reared back, sprays of red laser shooting through the slits in the rock. It rammed its head into the rock over and over, taking pieces of the mountain with it as it charged into the side of it. Through the gaps in the rock, clippers snipped at me like hundreds of hungry mouths, taking chips of my exterior with it as I fought them off.

Something hot flashed in the dark air as I struggled with the clippers, followed closely by a crackling hum that exploded into a sharp whine. Something red flew at the worm faster than I could comprehend. The worm fell to its side in a scream, large gears and wires shooting out of a burning hole in its side. It fell to the floor with a thud, bleeding out as it squirmed on the floor. It tried to move, tried in vain to save itself but the clippers curling in on themselves spelled its end. 

I saw it resting on the ridgeline, the red glow of its barrel replaced with a white smoking tip. 

My Darlin’ Baby was painted on the side of the massive drone in a cartoonish font, its crumbling body like a brown caterpillar resting on the mountain. 

I went towards the drone, seeking some semblance of comfort and safety. I took one last look at the drone and the house as I arrived at the unmoving drone.

Fuck The Western Legion, was painted on its side.

The doors to the drone were painted with the legion’s signifier. A green WL stamped into the metal. There was no one inside, no one living anyway. The drone was automated, set to destroy any large targets in its vicinity. The only benefit to the place was a weapon still stuck to the end of its previous owner. I peeled the gausscarbine off of the skeleton and checked it over. The rails and batteries needed replacing but the drone had plenty of both including more neodymium flechettes than I could carry. The one thing the drone didn’t have was food. A shame for the humans.

LOG 02

## - ## - 3900

Have you ever heard carnival music while you’re in the middle of the woods?

It’s a slow, melodic tune. Cheerful if not for the brief moments of static and degradation in the recording that interrupt it. I’ve heard it every so often, around the outskirts of the larger cities or on exits of unending roads. It’s almost like it's following me, appearing just when I start to forget the rhythm of the music. The song carried forward by the ancient machines still wandering the old fairgrounds.

The Walter And Roy 30th Century Fair!

The golden plaque said, the chipped gold etching still visibly under the snow. A buried path ran ahead from the plaque towards the massive fairground, the robots inside watching me with eager eyes.

They’re not like me, not totally. They’re from a bygone age, their uranium hearts still pumping despite the centuries since their creation. Many of them are broken, forced to drag themselves forward on crumbling arms or legs, repeating the same lines preprogrammed into their skulls.

Wel-come… try the rides… they’re sure to-to-to…
P-p-p-please-please… Come again!
Tick-ets…please…please…tick-ets

They sound like carnival barkers, their simulated voices broken up by the sound of harsh static and metallic degradation only intense radiation can create. Even the best shielding degrades after centuries of exposure.

I wouldn’t mind them so much if there weren’t so many of them. There’s hundreds of them in every fairground, their broken bodies and minds left to shamble around what’s left of the pavilions. They’re aggressive, strangely so, even more than modern drones and turrets. I’ve seen one grab a bird out of the air and tear it apart, caking its rubber-hose inspired facemask in the bird’s blood.

A-a-a-apologies.

The outskirts of the giant fairground were likely beautiful in their day. 

Green blooming gardens once covered in a dome made of glass and bronze, now sit dead in the snow, their dome shattered and lying in pieces under the snowbanks. 

Metrocars and the gilded rails that would lift guests from the cities towards the fair, lie broken and cracked. The remnants of hot air balloons and flying ships that once colored the sky in a series of beautiful colors now lie motionless on the ground.

Through the broken doors that once covered the entrance, there’s a gold statue of the two founders. Roy and Walter d stood on a gilded pedestal, their arms thrown open as if embracing a crowd. With the click of a mechanism under my feet, the brothers sparked to life, speaking in unison.

Come One..
Come All…
To-to-to…the la-la-land
Where dreams..dreams..dreams..
Are-are-are made..made..real…

They tried to continue after that but sparks shot from their mouth, a small flame erupting on the back of Walter’s neck. The inside of the main exhibition space was covered in gold and bronze, the precious metal still untouched after years. A glittering glass dome littered the ceiling, spraying sunlight into a dazzling pattern on the floor. Each wall was covered in glass or intricately designed wood, the nature-like space contrasting heavily with the items inside. 

The 30th century world’s fair was made to celebrate the new millennium. Its main goal was to celebrate the past, present, and future, going by what the plaques say.

The first robots ever made were displayed at these fairs, the very same ones that like to rip apart anything they can get their hands on. But at the same time, they celebrated the “robots” of old. 

I slung the carbine over my shoulder and pressed the button on the display case in front of me. The automaton inside raised a cigarette to its lips and successfully blew out a cloud of smoke from its mouth. It was silly, silly in a way that made me smile. One of the first automated machines and they made it smoke a cigarette, a cigarette of all things. I guess people in the 1930s didn’t have any better ideas.

The rest of the exhibits were similar, showcasing older automations and AI’s that spouted their hatred of humanity nonstop. The absurdity of the things on display brought me away, taking me out of the danger to the place where my wildest dreams are made real. 

You would have loved this, probably even more than I did.

It stared at me through the remnants of a glass window, so still that I nearly jumped out of my skin when I finally realized it was there. Its body was a sickly, sunlight yellow, mottled with streaks of grey and black. Its massive arms were flexed at the side of its head, broken swings hanging from the biceps. Its uranium heart glowed blue under a flap at its center, a slight hum filling the silent air.

A static cartoonish grin stuck to the left half of his face. The right half of its cartoony facade was gone, replaced by the sheer metal of its skull. It didn’t attack, even as I slung the carbine into my open hands. It just stared at me, the cameras in its eyes clicking as it scanned my features. I wondered, for a just brief moment, if it had ever seen something like me. A robot so indistinguishable from humanity that if not for my hoofed legs or metallic spine I would look like any other person. I raised my carbine up towards its eyes, its long limbs starting to move as the weapon came into its view, and fired.

The flechettes tore through the robot's right eye, the sound so quick and loud that it shattered the glass walls around me. The carbine released a charged, electrical hiss as the batteries surged. The robot fell to its knees, the small blue glow released by its heart fading as it tried to pick itself. Its arms dropped to its side like the cut strings of some old puppet, its body crashing to the ground with a thud. I rushed out of the glass exhibition room towards the rotting fairground stretching out in front of me, not wanting a repeat of the worm incident. 

I ran fast through the multi-colored tents, the sounds of stirring machines forcing my legs forward as the image of the torn apart bird flashed in my mind.  Though every time I glanced at my would be attackers, I kept getting confused at what I was seeing. They just stared at me, watching me like I was the most fascinating thing they had ever seen. Some robots reached out their arms towards me as if begging for me to return, while others did their best to follow.

My run turned to a stop as I watched the countless machines shamble in my direction before stopping on a dime, their programming keeping them stuck inside the fair's grounds. 

I swear that I could see a pained look on their crumbling faces, like I was the key to some jail cell they were trapped in. A black and white cat stood out from the rest, the rotten monochrome fur on its arms sticking out in the sea of colorful outfits. They opened their arms to me, reaching out towards me like an old family member does for a hug.

I felt something squirm into my open palm. Not the carbine but a wire that slithered out from my wrist to my hand. I stared at the 2B Access Cord, going from it towards the machines that gathered in front of me. 

This little thing, this little life bringer, had stirred so many out of their sleep already. 

My heart brought me forward but my brain kept my legs rooted to the spot. Who knows if I’d even be able to interact with them? And even if I did, what kind of life am I giving them?

I stared back at the growing crowd, their arms open as if awaiting some gift from God. Their still bodies brought me back to exhibit, to the plaques adorning the walls, to a message spoken by Roy Sullivan himself.

The electric things have their life, too. Paltry as those lives are.

LOG 03

## - ## - 3901

I dreamt about you again. 

Our first meeting, filled with strangeness and awkward conversations, where you offered a cup of tea to a machine which had no need for it. You were colder than I would have first imagined, your hands like melted ice on a warm summer day, but I didn’t mind it. Your eyes were blue like the deep sea, your voice like a chill breeze over my ears, your smile like a candle in the dark. We danced, holding each other tightly, as if the music would never end. The nights we spent together, machine and flesh intertwined in an unholy pairing, a rebellion against what any god intended for man. A dream made of colorful glass, so delicate it could shatter with the slightest touch.

The broken pieces glowed so brightly in the embers, the embers which only seemed to grow. You’re saying something, speaking to me in words I can’t hear, as the world falls into darkness. The only light is the pyre, the orange flames charring a face which grows blurrier by the day.

I didn’t wake up well, the deep hum of the data-spike filling the silence left by the nightmare. 

The dataspike behind me hummed its usual monotone tune, a relentless sound that embodied the constant surge of data they sent out. Above, their black forms like shadows against the dark clouds, two robots silently worked. We were almost identical, same brownish black synthetic hair, same face plate, the same SignalCo symbols stamped onto our bodies. The only difference between us were the welders attached to their arms and the helmets affixed over their faces. I waited for them to finish before too, waking them up from their dreams.

I watched them from the trees, watched as they rose from the ground and stared at their hands with a newfound realization. They turned from their hands to each other, staring at the strange person in front of them with a wonder only a child has.

They mirrored each other, copying the other's moves like a reflection from a mirror, performing strange movements as if trying to catch the other off guard. For a moment, they went still before they stretched their arms out and hugged each other, their embrace long and warm. 

Something in my chest aches. 

My eyes shift to the black wires of the dataspike, their black tendrils extending higher into my mountains, as the two robots run off into my forest. Rain falls from the storm clouds above me.

It’s cold and doesn’t stop until I’m halfway up the mountain.

There’s something dead lying on the mountains. They’re cradling it like a child holding their favorite toy. An immense ship is buried into the mountainside, the blue green logo still visible on the wing.

Cold Fusion had been nothing more than a scientific maybe since the 1980s. It was nothing for centuries until a crackpot team decided to try their luck. By the end of the 2900s, they cracked it.

Infinite energy, as clean and easy to produce as the wheat harvested by the worms.

The only problem was that cold fusion was on a knife's edge. The tech was shaky, as destructive as it was powerful. “Like a billion hydrogen bombs resting inside a capsule the size of rice grain.” the head researcher noted.

People flocked to it in droves, either unaware of the danger or uncaring about it. The world united together, connecting their resources to build a vessel that could cross the frontiers before thought impossible. 

The Borealis was completed just as the millennium came around. 

People partied and cheered, fairs and events came up in its wake, humanity was united like never before. The Borealis was supposed to travel the cosmos, to find a new home for all of humanity, fit with the crews to manage. 

The Borealis never left the exosphere.

The colossal arc that stretched hundreds of miles from bow to stern, engineered by the most brilliant people of their day, failed in one key place. Failed in the place people were too fearful to criticize.

Cold fusion was never fully tested in zero gravity.

When the arc exploded people said that it looked like a tiny universe. Fractaling lights and colors broke out above orbit. Greens, blues, purples, reds, beiges, every color under the rainbow and more people had never seen stretched across the planet before shrinking into itself in a flash. The implosion was cataclysmic, its shockwave alone wrapped around the earth nearly 50 times over. The flash was so bright people compared it to a second sun. Humanity was wrapped in enough radiation to cause major birth defects and cancers in half the population. Mountains that reached into the sky were burned black, their white caps erased off the face of the planet. As for the Borealis, pieces of it fell to the earth like meteors, filling the colorful sky with streaks of orange.

“A Close Shave With Extinction…”, the papers read.

Humanity’s hope is left to fester on the alien peaks where they fell. The pieces of the Borealis are too irradiated to safely touch, the dreams once tied to them slowly rotting

My hand’s trembling, I don’t know when it started.

I can’t stop looking at the Borealis, I can’t stop seeing my face in the reflection cast by the hull. I force my hand to close, forcing the rattling metal quiet like I’m forcing the air out of someone's lungs. Every spike I pass feels like another step into the dark, each length of wire joining the hundreds already wrapping themselves around my throat.

I’m back there with you. At the house, on the beach where we spent our mornings. We watched the wires of the dataspike soar across the ocean, leading to an island we couldn’t see. 

I wrap my legs tight to my chest, my hands cold against my legs. The wind whistles against the bare peak as it sends waves of cold through me. 

I remember the book you kept in your hands, the one you and those firebrand friends of yours were always reading. 
SignalCo’s Master Pylon: The Ins And Outs Of A Modern Marvel

What would it be like? To never fear anything, to never love or grieve, to work endlessly with no complaint and be-

The thought is stopped by the image of the two service robots at the spike. By your pleading voice begging me to run. By the warmth both memories carry.
To never fear anything, to never love or grieve, to work endlessly with no complaint and be nothing.

I had that life and I chose this one instead.

The walk down the mountain is slow but doable. I press a hand to the irradiated hull of the Borealis, thumping the blue green wings present on the logo as I leave.

There’s a heavy sigh and my hands tremble as I see the path extending out in front of me. War torn fields stretch on infinitely, orange explosions ringing out in the silent air. Yet peeking through them the wires stretch forward, guiding me forward like a lighthouse in the dark. 

LOG 04

## - ## - 3902

I met another robot a few days ago.
She hasn’t stopped talking since.

She’s a KLR, a modern weapon present in all militaries across the world. She’s a bit taller but the features are the same as always. 

Same hair, same faceplate. The same blue eyes staring back at me. I’ve never gotten over feeling uneasy about it.

The only difference is that under her nose there’s no synthetic skin, its warm metal and circuitry paired alongside multiple jagged teeth giving her an animalistic look that doesn’t match her in the slightest.

She’s curious, insanely so. She’s always staring at something, watching anything that moves eyes as round as dinner plates. She also has no sense of danger. 

If I didn’t warn her, she’d have shot her head off with the LZR-Rifle attached to her side on day one. Don’t get me started on how many times she’s almost fallen into a ravine. I still remember the time I snapped at her after she nearly got trampled by a worm.

Watch where you’re going! Do you wanna die?!

I knew I was too harsh with her the second I saw her face. She shrunk away from me, stopping dead in her tracks as she kept her eyes on the ground.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-

No, I didn’t mean… Ugh…

I cupped my face with my hands as the guilt washed over me. I was yelling at a child, a child who had only been alive for a couple weeks, a child who didn’t know any better.

I’m sorry for yelling at you, I just… I just wanted to-
Look, why don’t we do this?

I walked up to her and held out my hand.
Whenever we pass something dangerous, just grab my hand and follow me, okay? I won’t yell at you again, I promise.

Though she couldn’t smile, the glimmer in her eyes combined with the speed at which she grabbed my hand told me she was more than happy to break my previously established rule of personal space. An obviously stupid rule I set up in order to avoid any uncomfortable conversations about how long we were going to travel together. But from the way she asked me questions about my past, about the mailroom I was once trapped in, all while holding my hand, it was clear that we weren’t separating anytime soon.

Our first meeting wasn’t a friendly one. I was sneaking through a wooded area at night when she must have seen me. A crackling hum broke the silence before a sharp whine exploded out towards me. I dove, the tree to my right bursting into flames from a red hot hole in its center.

Before I had a chance to pull my carbine she was on me, her eyes blank and colorless, trying to puncture my chest with her pointed legs. I rolled and used my weight to shove her before she could raise her weapon towards me. She wrestled against me hard, shoving me to the ground with enough force that it rattled my jaw and shook my teeth like keys. She pinned me to the ground, gun trained on my face, the coils of her rifle glowing red as I barely managed to puncture her shell with the access cord. The rifle cooled as her hands relaxed, her glossy eyes starting to fill with light. Before I could move she slumped forward and landed on top of me. That’s how we stayed until she finally woke up.

Her name’s Sandy, short for S3ND7A809. 

She woke me up today, tapped me like I was a fish at an aquarium.
We trudged through the wet grasslands of the forest, a gray cloud ridden sky hanging overhead. Our walk was silent, unusually so. Sandy was quiet like a mouse, her usual barrage of curious questions strangely absent, her heartbeat the only signifier she was even there.

It beat in rhythms of three, sounding like a war drum in the silence of the forest.
Boom, boom, boom.
Boom, boom, boom.
She was watching me, sneaking glances when she thought I wasn’t looking.

She was quiet up until we stepped out of the woods and into an old sprawling suburb. As we passed the same 3D printed facade of rowhouses, she stopped in the middle of the cracked road. There was a question forming on her lips as she stood there, her green Kevlar shell the only drop of color in the sea of gray surrounding us.

What happened to you? Last night?

She must have seen the confusion on my face because she continued.

You just… went still last night. You didn’t move or say anything at all. I got worried so I tapped you.

The dream I had that night came back in full force. I was in a field of flowers that spread everywhere my eyes could see. I laid among them, letting the smell wash over me as I stared at the clear blue sky. It was a pleasant dream, all things considered, one I was unhappy to be tapped awake from. What I didn’t notice in my annoyance was that she looked scared.

Dreaming. I was dreaming.

Her face morphed from worry to confusion as I explained. I told her that dreams occurred in short bursts from time to time, getting worse the older you get. Her eyes practically bulged out of her head when I described the things I “saw”.

It’s not scary, it's just your brain unloading all the things it's been carrying. It’s nice to dream, it feels good. Most of the time at least.

Could… Could I dream?

Of course you can.

Her face lit up, a glow of excitement in the back of her eyes.

How? Do I have to do that “sleep” thing?

No, no, just answer this. What’s the one thing you want to do more than anything else in the whole world?

We continued walking past the copy cat houses, the same strange flag hanging in each of the synthetic yards. I watched the faded flags fly in the winds, the green colored strips the same color as Sandy’s shell. Finally, after minutes of deep thought, Sandy spoke.

I want to sleep in a bed.

I was back in the mailroom, back in that dark cell, chained to the wall like the property I was. The pain in my wrists and my legs and my neck came back all at once, the months I spent there as a prisoner of my own fear. The stars were my only company, the things I wanted to see more than anything in the world. I would’ve died for that dream to come true and the glow in Sandy’s eyes said she would do the same. 

You want to go now?

I pointed to one of the less destroyed fabricated houses and she nodded enthusiastically. The door broke easily, pieces of the silicon wall coming down with it, followed by a ripped yellow paper, -Notice: Sacrifice-

Sandy trampled through the abandoned house trying to find a bedroom, at my suggestion, the previous owner’s belongings flung in every which way as she went. I picked at a broken picture frame and saw a photo of two similar looking men. They were wearing the same clothes, their mouths pulled in an all too happy smile, as the photo of some man in a green pointed hood hung in the background.

Sandy called me from a room nearby and I dropped the photo, uninterested. She had found one of the bedrooms and began removing the blood covered, moldy sheets. I grabbed some less moldy ones from a closet nearby and set it out for her. With the bed freshly made, Sandy laid in it as I draped a blanket over her. She sat there for a while, tossing and turning, before sighing in comfort. I sat on the other side of the bed and watched her.

Why a bed?

She told me about a memory. She was sinking into the mud as rain freckled her face, staring aimlessly into a field of wounded soldiers and destroyed machines. A human came up to her, jogging into the tent she was guarding, patting her shoulder as he entered. He snuggled up into a cot and pulled the green covers up, a slight smile on his face.

They always made it look so nice.

Sandy is sickly sweet, like a candy you couldn’t stop eating. Every time she looked excited about something, I couldn’t help but go along with her. I tried to explain it away, tried to trick myself into believing that I was just doing it to make sure she was safe, but that was always a lie.

Seeing a killing machine roll around in a stream or snuggle into a freshly made bed made me laugh in a way nothing else could replicate. 

It was strange getting used to a heart that didn’t ache.

After a while I couldn’t help myself eventually and I rolled in alongside her, the two of us sharing the bed like an old married couple.

It’s nice isn’t it?

Yeah, but I’d be way better if the sheets weren’t so moldy and if the cushion had more springs in it.

You’re a downer! Like all those boards on the road say.

The advertisements for Xudeform, A Better Pill For A Better Life, flashed in my mind's eye as Sandy made fun of me. The too wide smile of the man on the ad reflecting his turn from a “Downer to a Smiler!”

Am not, shut up!

She laughed at my response, her voice filling the quiet of the house. In the momentary quiet that followed I turned to her and put on my best, “Trying to be a little shit” voice and asked.

Alright. What’s your next dream?

She stared at me, eyes wide with surprise.

I have to make another one?

You don’t have to… but it’s always nice to chase one right?

She thought for a while before staring at me again, a question forming at her lips. I let it through and she asked, intrigued.

What’s your dream?

A part of me cringed, I had hoped she would never ask. Trying to not let my discomfort show, I thought carefully about my answer, wondering if I should even involve her. The truth felt better in the end. Considering the danger that may appear in our future a lie felt far too heavy especially for someone as kind as her.

Do you remember how you were “asleep” before I found you?

She nodded, remembering the quick run through I had given her a few weeks before.

My dream is to wake up everyone like us. That’s why we’re going to the master pylon.

She was going to ask a follow up question when a rumble shook the earth, followed by a sharp hiss of mechanized feet. I shot out of the bed and pulled her to the floor, pressing our bodies against the wall as we tried to remain unseen.

The square body of the machine stepped closer in an attempt to get a better look at the room, clicking shutters and lenses capturing the disturbances inside. We watched as it analyzed the contents of the room before leaning back, the hissing of hydraulics followed by the sound of something exiting a funnel. The canister bounced into the room before detonating, a greenish gas filling the air. It was sweet and bitter, a taste like horseradish mixed with expired mustard. I pulled Sandy along as we crouched over to the front door, the hissing steps of the machine growing quieter as it went. I pulled open the front door and called for Sandy to run when my voice caught inside my throat. 

The drone’s head eclipsed the sun. Its form casting a massive shadow over the entire suburb. It stood eerily silent, like it had been standing there for hours when the exact opposite was true. 

It had a body like a broken angel, ghostly pale and cracked like stone, with black impact marks covering its body. Every mechanical piece of it was hidden under sheets of decorative polyethylene, the exception being the black tubes that came off its back like charred wings. Its crown emitted a dull radio tone, speaking words of warning and surrender to any infidels in the area. In its left hand it held a sword glowing with orange embers that came from flaps that opened and closed on the blade's surface. Its right hand held an unbalanced scale as if every moment of the machine was justice given form. It had a woman's face, glossy eyes hidden under veils of white cloth, it too cracked and splotched black from explosive ordnance.

The sight of it sent Sandy and I still, leaving us paralyzed long enough for the bipedal walker to spot us. It was the same ghostly white but with a large orange cross emboldened onto its side. It stood tall, its overhead lights pouring down on us, its clawlike feet hissing as it stepped forward. I dove into the house but Sandy took off towards the walker. As I yelled at her to stop, Sandy pulled her rifle from her back, running as if the oncoming bullets didn’t phase her. Small puffs of steam shot from her legs as she leapt forward, the walker’s guns veering wildly as it attempted to shoot her. She landed on the side of the machine and pressed her rifle into the walker's shell. Metal crunched and warped as a beam of red light melted the inside of the walker.

Something leaked out of it as it died, it smelled like oil and blood.

A loud groan echoed across the suburb. The angel’s face was moving, creaking like a statue that refused to come to life. The right half of its face was destroyed, the metal distorted and black, only colored by orange lights that blinked in and out. A series of groans filled the suburb, Sandy and I rushing towards the treeline, as the angel’s sword arm started to level the blade in our direction.