E10-S892

Search, target, annihilate, repair, repeat.

Heavy metal footsteps crashed against the decrepit concrete around the city, metal walls looming like giants around the booming metropolis that was Cypher. E10— or Talin, as he was so graciously named by The Catalyst— had caught wind of a human settlement not too far from the ancient suburbs surrounding his home city. Some of the patrollers had reported sightings of three different ones roaming the streets, too close to the androids for comfort.

So, with the comforting weight of his gun strapped to his thigh and the beginnings of new-age bioweapons plugged into his biceps, Talin set off on what must have been his millionth mission of the week, pushing aside a disgruntled Nines who was then assigned to patrol the streets himself.

The android kicked up the dust around him as he scuffled toward the meagre campsite, picking up lingering traces of ash and wood in the air. His sensors grasped onto the tiny pieces of ember and gave them a breakdown analysis in milliseconds, filing the information away for later use. No doubt about it, there were humans in the area. Embers from a flickering fire, either roaring or dead, were telltale signs of the primitive lifeforms he had been tasked to destroy.

He whipped his head around to a slightly more eastern direction at the cue from his audio receptors— voices. He took off toward the sound, silently thanking The Catalyst for the upgrades it had insisted on installing a few months before, enhancing both his speed and agility. He flew across kilometres of territory in minutes, the powerful metal making up his body somehow staying utterly silent as he bounded forward.

A scrap fence caught his eye, rusted metal reflecting the sunlight across the sandy expanse. Talin’s steps slowed to a halt in front of the run-down... he didn’t know what to call it, he realized, tilting his head at the strange position of the scrap metal. What a damn waste. He held his gun at the ready, aiming it forward before pushing into the little commune.

He locked eyes with the first human he saw and opened fire without hesitation, letting his bullets rain down upon the poor soul mercilessly. His focus honed in on the body convulsing at the other end of his gun, drinking in the agonized screams of the people around him. His arm was dead-on as it switched from person to person, hitting two right in the sternum with a sharpshooter’s accuracy.

His metallic lips curled into a devilish smirk as he took a step forward to reach the innermost parts of the neighbourhood. He waved off some of the dust clouding his sensors in front of him, able to hear the pattering of footsteps around him. He kept himself on a swivel, pointing his gun here and there to see if he could scare them off. Through the grime, he saw a shadow frozen in place, looking around for a place to hide. What a shame it had to go out like this.

Talin raised his gun toward the figure’s head, finger poised at the trigger, when a sudden weight dropped onto his shoulders from above. Hands grappled at his face, wrenching it to the side and tearing his vision out of focus. The world spun on its axis as he toppled over, shooting blindly behind him, catching the side of his own face with the amount of bullets he was letting loose. A litany of curses fell from his lips as he hit the ground and felt tens of bodies crawl over him, pinning his tungsten frame to the ground.

The grittiness of the sand ground between his joints as every movement was restricted by the dogpile on top of him. His gun moved blindly across the crowd; he managed to hit a good number of them even from his low vantage point. Two hands wrapped around his throat, and before he had time to react, a searing pain ripped through his arm. With a yowl, Talin writhed beneath the pressure, yanking his arm from the sizzling heat of his circuits— or what was left of them, anyway.

A bolt of pure panic shot through him at the sight of his forearm twitching on the ground in front of him, completely severed from his body. They were on it like a pack of rabid animals, tearing away the metal he saw as skin and the circuits that made up his flesh. It sickened him to the core. His gun laid forgotten beside his shoulder— a grave mistake if he had ever known one.

One of the humans bent over to pick it up, firing at miscellaneous spots all over Talin’s body. Wires were severed beneath the ruthlessness of the searing shots as the bullets ripped through his very being. He didn’t know where to focus— the bullets, his arm, or the rock now being bashed against his face, setting off a blaring alarm in his internal systems about fatal damage. Fatal.

Whatever The Catalyst programmed into these robots as a self-defense mechanism suddenly whirred to life after its disuse, sending the prototyped bioweapon surging through each crack in his body. In a blinding flash and deafening boom, the humans were reduced to ashes, leaving Talin in a crater blown twenty feet wide around him.

His systems were slowly shutting down because of the amount of damage done to his body. Every push of the code that kept him conscious was causing a wheeze-like sound to escape through every orifice, shaking uncontrollably as he tried to help himself off the ground.

He was half-blinded by the notifications popping up in his vision about the repairs needed for the internal damage and the components that couldn’t be fixed, some of the metal from his face hanging half-attached like a gruesome portrait of skin. One eye was scratched over, bullet holes marring his face, arms and chest.

He barely managed to limp out of the crater he created, unable to hold his balance for more than a few seconds as he swayed unsteadily on his feet. Talin couldn’t hold himself up for too long, collapsing in the shade of an abandoned building, grasping onto the stub of his missing arm. Black oil seeped from the exposed intricacies of his interior through his fingers, out of his chest and from his mouth.

He sighed, the sound incomprehensible to him, ragged and defeated. He could only pray he fell unconscious before another android sauntered along on a patrol and saw his prone body left for the scrappers. Talin didn’t know if he would be able to deal with the shame that would come from being found like... like this. He was ready to succumb to the blackness, falling against the building behind him, until he heard another goddamn set of footsteps sauntering forth like this was his own personal hell.

He turned his head weakly, unable to see what exactly was approaching— or what was running away. Not that his flummoxed mind could handle much more than his senses were delivering either way. He opened his mouth to speak, aching to demand assistance or aid or even the killing blow, jaw quivering with effort. Alas, all that came out was the blaring annoyance of the same alarms whining through his head.

“System failure— critically endangered. System failure— critically endangered,” were the words that played through his gaping mouth, alerting even the deafest of creatures within a few metre’s radius to his demise.