Dreams of Flesh and Metal

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NoXion
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Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:51 pm
Location: Nova Mundi

Dreams of Flesh and Metal

Post by NoXion »

This piece is inspired by a dream I had last night, so apologies for the vagueness of the prose and any crapness. If I ever get around to it I'm thinking of perhaps expanding it and adding detail to it to make a fully-rounded story. It was one of those vivid dreams that sticks with you for a while after waking, so I decided to make something of it. The creative process has felt fresh and inspiring, so I'm hoping for more of these kind of dreams.

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A human woman betrays information to an anti-human mechosystem concerning a resistance movement. As soon as she acquires the information, she is snatched away to a city once inhabited by humans but now controlled by the mechosystem. Upon arrival she attempts to claim her reward for cooperation, safe passage off-world for her and lover. But the robotic emissary of the mechosystem informs her that the terms of the deal have changed. To psychologically soften her up for a newly developed process of cyborgisation, her body is broken and bent and twisted before having the brain and spinal column ripped out and sent on its way by a drone. The semi-autonomous drone is then stealthily followed by a far more advanced espionage unit, sent to this planet by the advance scouts of a pro-human AI power heading towards this star system. The drone experiences the closest thing it can to a vague feeling that it being watched as it leaves the former human city. The feeling passes as the drone drops off its grisly cargo at a processing centre, where the information contained therein is forcibly extracted while the brain and spinal column is indoctrinated/reprogrammed before being surgically grafted into a combat unit. "Rewarded as a traitor deserves!" screeches the engines of orthodoxy into her mind's ear.

The information turns out to be the location of a meeting-place for human resistance fighters, and the anti-human kill squadrons (including the cyborg combat unit that was formerly the human woman) converge on the location in massive force. But it turns out that the information was fed to the anti- human AIs, spread about the resistance ranks so as to smoke out any informants, as well as to draw in anti-human AI forces into a trap. The trap being the first field test for a new anti-AI weapon which the resistance hope will turn the tide of the war, as most of the planet has come under the dominion of the anti-human AIs.

The kill squadrons reach what they think is the meeting-place, and immediately begin tearing into the resistance fighters that they find there. Casualties mount horrifically fast, but before a rout can begin, the anti-AI weapon is deployed and the fortunes of the battle instantly begin to reverse. In the chaos, the former human woman dimly recognises some of her former compatriots through all the layers of indoctrination and neurological reprogramming. She calls out to them in her old voice, which in their twisted sense of charity the anti-human AIs have seen fit to have her keep, which draws out a squad of human resistance, among them her former lover. Fleshly familiarity and cybernetic hatred battle for domination in her now-synthetic mind, but the hatred wins out as the squad see not their comrade but an armour plated robotic killing machine, and open fire. Bullets rattling off her metallic hide, the cyber-janissary charges the squad, scattering all but two of their number, the steadfast squad leader and her former lover, who has become transfixed by working out what has happened to his paramour. The squad leader is disembowled by her steely claws, and as she raises them again to strike once more her former lover calls out to her, causing her to pause mid-action as once again conflicting emotions struggle for dominance. This proves to be fatal as the scattered squad has regrouped and deployed an anti-armour weapon, destroying the cyber-janissary.

The new anti-AI weapon has proven to be successful, but at a terrible cost; close to a hundred human resistance fighters have been lost, and one in particular seems to have become psychologically broken despite no physical injury. The pro-human AI espionage unit has been hovering above the battlefield the whole time, taking in everything including the drama of the two lovers. It observes the human resistance clean-up and withdraw from the field, before angling up towards the blue sky and shooting off into space, compiling a report as it does so.
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