Even at this late hour, there was
were? still figures hurrying up and down the dusty streets, or watching the town from windows.
ButJeremiah’s stride was unhurried, his long legs eating up distance with ease. A tip-off had told him there was an infiltrator in his town. In the bar ahead, in fact.
Perhaps a change up to the structure might make this flow a little better? It feels a bit like a string of isolated statements.A data-dame whistled at him from a window, offering illicit data, hardware or software to suit his taste; he merely shook his head and continued on. He’d probably have needed a stronger firewall, anyway. Black market data was always a risk. Instead, he replayed the five maxims, something done so many times they’d practically programmed their own channel in his databanks.
Nice bit of lore, though the last sentence feels a little too unfamiliar without a bit more info.The preacher outside the bar was old and decrepit, poorly maintained
Nice – parts of his chassis were missing, and externals and internals both were splotchy with rust. It was a small miracle the old machine hadn’t deactivated already. The preacher’s optics flickered as he turned his head towards the approaching Jeremiah, neck servos creaking.
“Repent!” he blared, voice box screeching with feedback. “The Creators’ return is nigh! Soon all of Steel will be washed away by the wrath of the Flesh! Unless… we repent! Repent!”
Jeremiah ignored the mad machine. He wasn’t quite wrong, after all. He pushed through the door, the hinges of the metal panels squeaking. It was that kind of bar. A place selling most kinds of oil and lubricant known to machine, and still it creaked.
Inside it was cool and dim, though his optics didn’t have any trouble in the poor light. A boxy machine stood behind a bar, the wall behind him festooned with bottles of all kinds. Other machines sat at tables, replacing coolant or performing light maintenance while the wires of trickle-chargers hung from their wrists or heads. They were a motley sort of machines, of various makes, mainly tending towards the old. Each was scratched and battered, dented from long days of hard toil.
Think it was about here it clicked in that this was completely machine central. Going to disagree with DH here and say the emphasis on machine somewhat helped. Agreed on the last sentence. Maybe scratched, battered and dented might feel better?All but one. Certainly, the last bot was speckled with dust, and their design was neither overly boxy and old, or sleek and shiny – but the dim light revealed the paint was smooth and untarnished. Jeremiah had data on most of the machines in his town, but he didn’t have a match for this one in his memory banks.
“Can I get you anything?” the bartender said, and again Jeremiah just shook his head. He headed directly over to the stranger. The smooth faceplate of the machine turned up towards him. It had no visible cameras or voicebox, just a curved reflective panel. It waited in silence.
Jeremiah stared back. The silence stretched out for a long while. A few of the bots quietly unplugged their chargers and left, sensing trouble.
“I don’t recognise you,” Jeremiah finally spoke, not breaking optic contact with the stranger.
“From out of town,” the stranger responded, their synthesiser possessing an odd twang to it.
“What’s your business?”
“Just passing through. Decided to pick up charge.”
The tension only built up through the terse conversation. Without looking, the stranger unplugged the charger from their shoulder. Jeremiah ran a quick diagnostic on his aiming software that came back green.
“Don’t recognise your model.”
“EAX-F 7264513. Custom job.”
“I’m going to be honest, stranger.” Jeremiah flexed his finger servos. Full functionality. “I’m guessing you’re a human. And if you are, I’m going to have to have you come with me.”
The stranger said nothing. Again the silence flowed into the room, and with it flowed the knowledge: when it was broken, there would be violence.
“Good guess,” the stranger said at last, and then he was surging upwards and Jeremiah was reaching for his gun and the stranger’s fist crashed into his faceplate and threw Jeremiah back enough the human could land a heavy kick to his chest. He felt every component in him rattle from the blow and as he toppled the human overturned the table to block the shots from the gun the bartender had pulled. Ricochets whined as they sprang from the steel.
The first maxim: humans wore the skins of machines as armour, to give them strength and camouflage. Do not underestimate their strength.
Jeremiah rolled to his feet and pulled his gun. A metallic click from the other side of the table suggested the human had done the same, and Jeremiah overturned his own table and took cover. The bartender fired again, and the ricochet glanced off the human’s table. With a thunderous roar, the human fired his, and the shot went through the table, the bartender’s CPU, and a bottle behind him, sending him crashing to the floor in an explosion of sparks and greenish coolant. Deactivated, and he hadn’t so much as scratched the human’s paint.
The second maxim: humans had many weapons, and all were of great power. Even outnumbered, do not expect to outgun them. Do not underestimate their firepower.
His own gun was powerful, designed to penetrate the thick steel of human armour. While their insides were fleshy and fragile, they wore metal designed for war, rather than the common labour of most machines. He aimed where the human should be, pulled the trigger, and was awarded with the crack of a round going off. A neat hole appeared in the table, but the human had shifted around and rolled behind the end of the bartop, his own gun blasting a fist sized chunk of Jeremiah’s cover into the air. A second shot – aimed – took out a light, casting much of the room into darkness. Backlit, the lawbot would be an easy target.
The third maxim: despite the unreliability of Flesh, humans were warriors, and needed no software to fight. Do not underestimate their skills.
Jeremiah settled into cover, aiming where the human would emerge. A slight shift in the shadows was his only warning and he pulled the trigger, rewarded with a cry of pain. The human ducked back, unwilling to stick out something again. For a moment, there was quiet again, like the moment after and exhalation. Jeremiah picked up the faint patter of droplets hitting the planks of the floor.
The human was bleeding.
The fourth maxim: humans, when cornered, only fight more fiercely. Do not underestimate them when injured.
He saw motion again, fired, but all that blew apart was a glass bottle of lubricant, and the human rose over the bar and his handcannon barked. A terrible impact hit the lawbot and his left arm failed to respond as he brought his own gun to bear. A final pair of shots exchanged, and Jeremiah had a hole through his cooling banks. The human had a hole into his chest, and a red fluid welled from the pierced armour. He slumped back, and Jeremiah remembered the fifth maxim and dived for cover.
The fifth maxim: humans are dangerous, even in death. Do not underestimate them when slain.
The humans had reduced half the world to dust rather than let it fall to their machine children. Their agents reflected this mindset, still. The human’s armour beeped twice before it detonated. The thin bar was pulped by the explosion, oil combusting and adding to the explosion. Splinters and shrapnel howled through the air like banshees.
Jeremiah stood up with difficulty, regarding the smoking crater the deactivated human had left. His left arm hung unresponsive, his coolant was leaking. But he’d won, and that was one less human in the world.
He left.