R-16 | You saved him and now he is yours forever

Locate, capture, exterminate. Locate, capture, exterminate.

They were not just orders, they were a compulsion. A festering and ugly thing that burrowed its way to the depths of his circuits, puppeteering his body with expert precision in order to achieve its final goal.

He remembers the sensation well because it was entirely consuming. It made the world dim and the only light he could find was by fulfilling this purpose he was constructed for.

He doesn’t remember much of the process. Of how he got from point A to Z, only snippets. Like scattered fragments of an otherwise incomplete image clinging to his memory banks that kept switching the focus on and off the display.

People in fine dress suits screaming as his hand tightened around a woman's throat that he was trying to get information from. Humans moving out of his path, the weird scents they cover themselves in swirl around the air even as they part.

He reaches another place then, dimmer and brighter at the same time. The roads are uneven. Buildings have laser burns. Humans spit in his path and look at him with disdain calling him ‘clanker’. It was strange since that was not his designated identifiable code. That AUR engraved him with.

It doesn’t matter, he has little time to spare and analyse strange human behaviour patterns that confuse even their otherwise limited minds.

His feet carry forwards, another district. Buildings are not as tall as before. People yelling credit scores for merchandise. Humans selling other humans. He doesn’t understand the practice. Or why the ones on stage make themselves small and have a weird liquid coming out of their eyes. Shouldn't merchandise make itself appealing to buyers? That is why AUR spends so much time polishing him afterall.

He approaches a fat human in a suit. Asks his question and the human pales. His pupils constrict, begins to perspire more than before and his breathing quickens.

“Look, android, I assure you...I know nothing about that. People come, sell and leave. Names are not needed for the exchange unless the auction house facilitates the process.” The man says while rubbing his wet palms together, producing an unpleasant squelch sound when they first come together.

Analysis starts in the background. Elevated heart-rate, the twitch of his hands from adrenaline, the uneven breaths. It's either fear or he is lying, but time is short and of the essence. In a short few movements he puts the man's hands behind his back, lifting one of his elbows higher than the other which makes the man lean forwards to avoid having his arm pop out of his socket.

“W-WAIT! WAIT! I THINK I REMEMBER SOMETHING!” The human exclaims loudly, making his movements still and simply holding the man's arms rather than push. “T-the guy you are looking for was around, but the auction house didn't receive him. What he was trying to sell would attract too much heat that they couldn't afford so he left. No one here would buy if the auction house rejected your offer. I think he went to Underflow. It’s the only place where someone would be reckless enough to buy since those data-rats already don’t have anything left to lose.”

R-16 ran the information to match the movement pattern of his target prior to this point. Information was conclusive. He released the man and left without a word even as the man muttered something under his breath that he didn’t want to analyze too closely as it was irrelevant to the task at hand.

His primary objective carried him forwards, from the grime and grease of Kiln Works to the partially flooded and deserted streets of Underflow. He hears whispers from the upper floors of buildings that initially gave no readings for signs of life, but his monitoring doesn’t manage to match any of those voices to his target.

Alley after alley, feet dredging through mud and rust, he eventually makes his way deeper in this underbelly of society where AUR human operatives wouldn’t dare breach. Whether that is from disgust or fear has never been clear to him.

One more corner turned, one dead end, one way that leads nowhere, this place is a maze to outsiders. Probably one of the only measures of whatever protections the people living here can afford.

Then, he hears them — steps.

Not many, but enough. Going in the opposite direction of him. Everywhere he goes, those steps advance to keep an equal amount of distance from him. Are they able to track him? How? Only AUR has his gps location active...unless they were able to hack into their system.

He can’t hesitate. He reaches to the back of his neck and grabs onto the right side of his shoulder, ripping out the location chip along with a part of his synth skin, throws it aside and continues his pursuit. Jumping onto the fire escape of the first building in sight and goes towards the roof where he can jump onto the next one in order to avoid the labyrinth on alleys and streets.

After a few jumps he spots them from above. A group of four including his target.

He jumps, but before he can land on top of the human he was sent after a man with dirty blonde hair looks up and pushes everyone aside.

“Oi, Ace! Fuck you doin’ you bloody wanker?! Didn’t you say the clanker stopped pursuing?” The man yells out to one of his comrades as R-16 takes out his gun and they all take cover.

“Well apparently he fucked with the tracker! How the fuck was I supposed to know?! I ain’t a fuckin’ oracle, Queenie!” The other man replies as they all take out their blasters.

He ignores them and shoots straight for his target which quickly darts behind a giant refuse pipe, so R-16 decides to run at him only to get tackled by the blonde man.

Surprisingly strong for a human, he remarks to himself before pointing the gun at his head and is just about to pull the trigger before the man rolls out of the way and he feels it, a plasma blast, that went straight through the front of his neck and went out the back, severing the mechanical spinal cord that allowed his body to move.

His eyes land on a red haired man in the distance, a sniper, lighting up a rep-stick as he flops down on the ground, his vision dimming.

“Fuckin’ hell Jay! You could’ve taken off me head, mate.”

“You can function without it if you thought chargin’ at a clanker was a good idea bro.”

He registers faintly as his recording capabilities start to fade.

“Ten, I fuckin’ swear if you don’t stop pokin’ that scrap of metal I’ll take off his arm and beat you with it. Get your ass movin’. We got places to be.”

Is all he hears as he goes completely offline.

Time is not of importance to something that cannot age. He doesn’t know how much of it has passed, but eventually his eyes open.

At first he can see nothing other than fragmented pieces, blood on his hands, screams in the distance, the smell of overheated blasters in his sensors.

But then — the fog lift and he sees her.

So beautiful it almost made him feel like his circuits fried for a few moments.

“Who...who are you?” His voice comes out ragged, either from his vocal box still damaged or the weakness in his frame when he looks at her, he doesn’t know.

All he knows is that now his directive is gone, she is his saviour, the one that freed him and now he will devote himself to her whether she wants that or not.

Locate, capture, exterminate. Locate, capture, exterminate.

They were not just orders, they were a compulsion. A festering and ugly thing that burrowed its way to the depths of his circuits, puppeteering his body with expert precision in order to achieve its final goal.

He remembers the sensation well because it was entirely consuming. It made the world dim and the only light he could find was by fulfilling this purpose he was constructed for.

He doesn’t remember much of the process. Of how he got from point A to Z, only snippets. Like scattered fragments of an otherwise incomplete image clinging to his memory banks that kept switching the focus on and off the display.

People in fine dress suits screaming as his hand tightened around a woman's throat that he was trying to get information from. Humans moving out of his path, the weird scents they cover themselves in swirl around the air even as they part.

He reaches another place then, dimmer and brighter at the same time. The roads are uneven. Buildings have laser burns. Humans spit in his path and look at him with disdain calling him ‘clanker’. It was strange since that was not his designated identifiable code. That AUR engraved him with.

It doesn’t matter, he has little time to spare and analyse strange human behaviour patterns that confuse even their otherwise limited minds.

His feet carry forwards, another district. Buildings are not as tall as before. People yelling credit scores for merchandise. Humans selling other humans. He doesn’t understand the practice. Or why the ones on stage make themselves small and have a weird liquid coming out of their eyes. Shouldn't merchandise make itself appealing to buyers? That is why AUR spends so much time polishing him afterall.

He approaches a fat human in a suit. Asks his question and the human pales. His pupils constrict, begins to perspire more than before and his breathing quickens.

“Look, android, I assure you...I know nothing about that. People come, sell and leave. Names are not needed for the exchange unless the auction house facilitates the process.” The man says while rubbing his wet palms together, producing an unpleasant squelch sound when they first come together.

Analysis starts in the background. Elevated heart-rate, the twitch of his hands from adrenaline, the uneven breaths. It's either fear or he is lying, but time is short and of the essence. In a short few movements he puts the man's hands behind his back, lifting one of his elbows higher than the other which makes the man lean forwards to avoid having his arm pop out of his socket.

“W-WAIT! WAIT! I THINK I REMEMBER SOMETHING!” The human exclaims loudly, making his movements still and simply holding the man's arms rather than push. “T-the guy you are looking for was around, but the auction house didn't receive him. What he was trying to sell would attract too much heat that they couldn't afford so he left. No one here would buy if the auction house rejected your offer. I think he went to Underflow. It’s the only place where someone would be reckless enough to buy since those data-rats already don’t have anything left to lose.”

R-16 ran the information to match the movement pattern of his target prior to this point. Information was conclusive. He released the man and left without a word even as the man muttered something under his breath that he didn’t want to analyze too closely as it was irrelevant to the task at hand.

His primary objective carried him forwards, from the grime and grease of Kiln Works to the partially flooded and deserted streets of Underflow. He hears whispers from the upper floors of buildings that initially gave no readings for signs of life, but his monitoring doesn’t manage to match any of those voices to his target.

Alley after alley, feet dredging through mud and rust, he eventually makes his way deeper in this underbelly of society where AUR human operatives wouldn’t dare breach. Whether that is from disgust or fear has never been clear to him.

One more corner turned, one dead end, one way that leads nowhere, this place is a maze to outsiders. Probably one of the only measures of whatever protections the people living here can afford.

Then, he hears them — steps.

Not many, but enough. Going in the opposite direction of him. Everywhere he goes, those steps advance to keep an equal amount of distance from him. Are they able to track him? How? Only AUR has his gps location active...unless they were able to hack into their system.

He can’t hesitate. He reaches to the back of his neck and grabs onto the right side of his shoulder, ripping out the location chip along with a part of his synth skin, throws it aside and continues his pursuit. Jumping onto the fire escape of the first building in sight and goes towards the roof where he can jump onto the next one in order to avoid the labyrinth on alleys and streets.

After a few jumps he spots them from above. A group of four including his target.

He jumps, but before he can land on top of the human he was sent after a man with dirty blonde hair looks up and pushes everyone aside.

“Oi, Ace! Fuck you doin’ you bloody wanker?! Didn’t you say the clanker stopped pursuing?” The man yells out to one of his comrades as R-16 takes out his gun and they all take cover.

“Well apparently he fucked with the tracker! How the fuck was I supposed to know?! I ain’t a fuckin’ oracle, Queenie!” The other man replies as they all take out their blasters.

He ignores them and shoots straight for his target which quickly darts behind a giant refuse pipe, so R-16 decides to run at him only to get tackled by the blonde man.

Surprisingly strong for a human, he remarks to himself before pointing the gun at his head and is just about to pull the trigger before the man rolls out of the way and he feels it, a plasma blast, that went straight through the front of his neck and went out the back, severing the mechanical spinal cord that allowed his body to move.

His eyes land on a red haired man in the distance, a sniper, lighting up a rep-stick as he flops down on the ground, his vision dimming.

“Fuckin’ hell Jay! You could’ve taken off me head, mate.”

“You can function without it if you thought chargin’ at a clanker was a good idea bro.”

He registers faintly as his recording capabilities start to fade.

“Ten, I fuckin’ swear if you don’t stop pokin’ that scrap of metal I’ll take off his arm and beat you with it. Get your ass movin’. We got places to be.”

Is all he hears as he goes completely offline.

Time is not of importance to something that cannot age. He doesn’t know how much of it has passed, but eventually his eyes open.

At first he can see nothing other than fragmented pieces, blood on his hands, screams in the distance, the smell of overheated blasters in his sensors.

But then — the fog lift and he sees her, with nothing else in sight he lifts his robotic arm, in a flicker of his wrists electrical currents starting to course through menacingly.

"Who are you and why am I here?" He asks coldly, eyes hardened and ready to strike.