You sat atop the lip of one of the many guild houses dotted around the city, this one belonging to the fishmongers you believed, this one overlooking the river, a river that you knew with your bodies weight you would sink into without a trace should you fall. You had no intent of falling into the river however, not when you were quite content to watch the waters shimmer and shine as the light caught them. Not when you felt a strange sense of affinity with those ever shifting waters, always present yet never twice would the same wave lap at the banks.
As the waves changed, so did you, as the waters shifted, with undercurrents hidden from view you reflected on just how alike this was to your own situation. Your mind was a mess of returning memories and half complete programming, your mind was filled with half of the routines and regulations that you were supposed to follow, half of the safety protocols to keep you in check. You knew that they had tinkered with the same method they used to create the Guardian persona with you, that they thought they had improved it, that they thought they could supress the ego of a man.
Ego...
You were once brother Ego, you remembered that much. You were once one of the Enlightened, one of those most trusted by Pride, one of those who had been in line for gifts from him for your service. You had known almost every one of the Enlightened, you had hidden just how many there had been over time, just how many had fallen prey to the Clockworkers. Fallen prey, just like you had.
It was strange to think that one of the original members would have lead the Clockworkers straight there, that sister Anxiety would have turned against you in the manner she did. She had never been trusted as you had though, she had always been too unstable, tolerated by Pride for reasons unknown.
Maybe Pride had seen the fall of the Enlightened and done nothing to prevent it, knowing that what must be, would be. Maybe he had escaped at the last minute, maybe many things had happened, yet they were not things of importance to you now. There was no point dwelling how over time, there had been close to a thousand Enlightened recorded in your books, how some had fallen to hunters who knew a secret to their demise, that most had been captured by the Clockworkers.
There was no point dwelling as you the only way you saw to go now, was forward.
You planned to make the most of your new nature, your new form, the power that you felt in this form, to do whatever it was that pleased you most. Unlike many of the Enlightened, you hadn't been one of the dregs of society, too afraid to say no when offered power, too afraid to say no when offered immortality. You were their book keeper, you were the one who many forgot existed, many had, yet Pride never had, Pride had always told you that there was something big for you in your future.
Something very big.
This had to be that big thing, that thing that new path, that new destiny.
This was your glorious rebirth, and you knew you could make anything of it, you knew that you had so much potential, that you were a meld of man and machine, that you were as close to perfection now as you ever would be. Your form was bare however, a form that made of shining bronze, cogs, gears, wires and hydraulics as it was, felt naked. Maybe it was the once human side in you that was suggesting that you clad yourself, maybe it wasn't.
It could have been any number of things, yet you cared not for what the reason was as you rose to your feet, the dying sunlight reflecting from your form. The dying sun, no doubt bathing everything in a red glow as it sank down towards the horizon, yet you saw only green. This did not stop you however from turning so you could see it, watching the sun sinking down for a brief moment as you felt a brief sensation of loss for having been denied that pleasure. There was much that you would no longer be able to appreciate, yet there were many new things that you could discover. It was a curious tradeoff.
You hopped from atop the building, your legs sinking down as they touched the ground, as you absorbed much of the impact of the fall before rising, striding past a few shocked looking guildsmen. They were little more than secretarys for the fishermongers, they were little more than humans, humans who you pitied for not being gifted with such forms as yours. Pitied, as they would never have survived beinbg given a form such as your own.
As you strode onward, you attempted to sort the jumble of thoughts in your head, both implanted and returning, yet musing over your purpose seemed to trigger the thought to do something that you would never have considered. You knew that you had directives, that you should review them. Directives, that as you thought of them presented themselves to the forefront of your mind, things that should have told you just what you were supposed to do, what was your highest priority.
The problem was, they were blank.
Artificial laughter escaped from you as you shook your head, the humour of the situation one that wasn't lost on you. The humans had tinkered with the work of another, thought that they had improved upon it, thought that they had made something they could control. They had made you, and the supression of your nature was so flimsy that it had broken with the first attempt you had made to think. They had stripped part of it, added something and broken it all. They had made you, and you had rendered them inert as an expression of gratitude for their ineptitude releasing you from your bondage.
A quick detour through an alley way had you leave with a single garment, an overcoat made of leather, one that was sealed against the elements, likely belonging to a fisherman. An overcoat was just what you needed though to feel like you were at least dressed, odd as it was. It would also provide you with means to conceal weapons should you find reason to require them you noted, knowing that your form was a prototype one, that you hadn't been built with integrated weapons in mind. You were the first and potentially the only.
What, you asked yourself, was going to be your purpose in this world?
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Topic: They told me I could be anything... (Read 78912 times)