Dreams of the Machine-God

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Renegade Proxy

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Fourth Era, Northward Advance 2402, 13 01
It has been a month since my deployment to the northern swamps. The settlement here has grown since its founding five years ago, the garrison's demands for personnel fixing my assignment. South on the plains tensions have risen as Imperial movements stir blight amongst the people living independently there. Regardless, the machine grinds on oblivious to their protestation, a new city will be built here and it is my duty to guard it in this vulnerable hour. To that end, I have been given further orders to train a new squad that has recently arrived from the southern cities. Today is their first day, they will be shown the Empire's work here. Tomorrow, I will let the swamp have them.


He stalled in the recording, his mind hanging onto that thought's tail for a long moment. With the recent promotion it was now a requirement that a log of each day's scheduled events, unusual situations and the action taken to their conclusion be thoroughly recorded and filed for posterity. Unfortunately, the act was wholly new to him and the words did not come easily. Sighing heavily, the document was closed, saved for now until something more could be added. Instead he stood, eyes adjusting from the glow of a display to that produced by the structures all around, underscored by the lambent luminescence of natural plant life. On pathways that snaked through them, bodies moved continuously, though their density was hardly that seen in one of the cities. Here, there was room enough to run if one wanted, the canopy above a far cry from low ceilings.
Taking the path before him he emerged from a small, shaded cubbyhole that was built for such occasions that required a quiet, closed space and took off at a brisk jog. Another perk of guard duty, exercise in a city required the scheduled use of facilities but here he could weave it into his day. The air too was different now that it had been cleared of spores, the memory of recycled air starkly recent as his quarters. Those had been left quickly behind this morning and over the past month he had found himself and others outside as often as possible. Passing through the settlement's center he stopped before the great black monolith that marked those so far lost in its construction, a great many having fallen to the blight in earlier years. The moment passed and so did he, emerging from residents and continuing on out to the garrison's fourth outpost stationed on the outskirts.

Through the perimeter a drone's eye monitored his approach, past the barracks and onto the parade ground. Nearing the group of bodies that were his to lead his pace slowed, finally coming to stand before them.
 
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Military life in the southern cities had grown rather dull, in Callysto's opinion. Guard duty and the like simply didn't sit well with her when there was little chance of something happening. So when the opportunity to go north arose she had jumped at it. Alright, she had been told she was going and had no real choice in the matter. Still, she had been eager. There was opposition to be found up there. People who didn't like the Empire's boot heel pressing down upon their backs. While she wasn't exactly a patriot she thought those people to be fools. Did they really think they stood a chance? No one could stop the machine. Oh well, it didn't matter, such things were not her concern. Her concern was being one of the Empire's 'attack dogs' and she was hungry for action.

Now she stood on the parade ground of the garrison outpost she, and the others that had arrived with her, had been assigned to. She took in the fresh air with steady breaths, thankful that the spores had been dealt with before she had been sent to this place. Occasionally her green eyed gaze would shift to the other members of her squad as her thoughts roamed. So far she had managed to keep herself out of trouble, granted she hadn't been here long. Hopefully there would be action before she grew too impatient. Last time she got antsy she had almost ended up in a fight with a smart-ass officer. Fortunately friends had been there to prevent her transgression. Who knows what trouble she would have been in, the little prick was from one of those upper class, important families.

Shifting her weight on her booted feet, Callysto tilted her head back some to look upwards, a bored expression holding sway over slightly angular features. Absently, she raised her left hand to scratch at her scarred cheek. In that moment of distraction she had failed to notice the arrival of the one who was to be their commander. When she did lower her gaze she almost blinked in surprise, immediately snapping to attention.
 
Winter, akin to Death,
Choking life from
the bud, with no hope
to bloom in the Spring.

Vidkonn's mind wandered so eloquently, one of the few positive traits left behind in a man stripped of all but thirst of blood. His orders were straightforward, deploying to the barren north to exert the Empire's forceful will upon the natives, while expansion was carried out. He did not ponder much, nor question the wisdom of his assigned duty.

He only hungered for what was solely responsible for what gave him purpose, what defined him. To inflict pain, suffering, and death upon those unfortunate to cross blades with him. That's why they forged him into their weapon, isn't it? To maim and kill? He would drool if he could at the idea.

They sent along others to assist in the operation. He did not feel their presence necessary, but the Empire desired it. A leash for their dog of war. So in that regard, he had not bothered to acknowledge their presence for the entirety that they stood there. Vidkonn retracted his gaze from some far off and unseen sight at the hint of approaching footsteps, whirring around silently to rest his soulless eyes upon their 'leader.'
 
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Initializing_Sequence...
file_found: <[Unit_335]DESIGNATION:GLE>
<select id=EMOTIONPROCESSING>
<option value="FAITH">8594602</option>
<option value="BELIEF">4534534534</option>
<option value="DOUBT>4534534535</option>

Amongst the hardened soldiers with skull-faces and cold, dead, eyes there was an anomaly. The anomaly came in the form of a slender, graceful device, with no indication that it was a device at all ; looking perhaps more human than even the purist of the purists. This glitch did not wear the bulky trappings of non-integrated armor, nor did the device show signs of any sort of partially mechanical construction in addition to its organic facade. For all intents and purposes, the glassy-eyed boy with dark hair and thin fingers, wrapped in a warm leather coat, was altogether organic, and altogether pure. Of course, the truth lay beneath centuries-old nano-paint and beneath wiring, down in the mechanized motor where a fan ran at all times, to prevent this delicate instrument from overheating, and exposing the real heart that the anomaly had - an octo-core ship with thousands upon thousands of biomaterial nano-wires that transmitted signals all through the complex inner-workings. The device referred to those signals as "feelings" or even more damning; "beliefs." The world had determined that machines should think, long ago when corpses were stripped of their meat-shells and placed into elaborate exoskeletons, but what was the good of "beliefs"? What use was a machine that believed in things beyond tactical advantage, or believed in something other than absolute loyalty to the government programs that funded its construction? These functions were extraneous.

But those extraneous feelings, that concept of 'belief', was what the unit designated as "Glé" felt now. He believed that he did not belong here - and that perhaps he had made a terrible mistake. At the time, it had been logical to sign on, when the demand for personnel had come out. He felt within himself a primal need to be involved in purist affairs, to live amongst them, but this need had often led him into ennui and boredom. He had never had a job, something he was expected to do, day in and day out, something that he could work tirelessly towards. His lips twitched in recollection of data that he didn't precisely remember but could recall; unthinking machines that went about their tasks without ever questioning why they did them or burdened with whether or not they were performing these operations "well". These machines had been mindless automatons that could not tire, could not bore, and could not feel. Glé wondered if he envied them, or if their history merely coursed through his circuitry because the desire to perform a function came from a rich ancestral tradition of automated processes. Of course, he longed for more purpose than simply mindlessly going about a task; that's why he was here. He had been designed for the purpose of handling complex emotional problems that humans tended to process in inefficient or hazardous ways. He had been meant to intercede in conflicts, and resolve them.

Glé glanced to his side, taking in the sights of the other members of his taskforce and feeling signals transmute through him, determining how he should respond to them. How should he feel about a purist and a transhuman? He didn't find himself feeling anything, no emotional response to this unusual stimuli. He had lived for most of his short, concious life amongst purists, and he had been designed for the sole purpose of assisting them in their endeavours. However, the emotional bonds that he witnessed between purists were something that he never experienced himself. Glé supposed that there was a vague memory of a hawk-faced man with wrinkles around his eyes and a receeding hairline who had helped him into the bath. But that hadn't been him. That had been Unit_51, and the connection hadn't been for him. They had both been Glé, but those feelings that he felt were not his own. They were the residual stirrings from files that had yet to be deleted in his mainframe, and he had no desire to delete them. Those memories were something to clutch to. Even if they didn't really belong to him. But nothing about him really belonged to him. he was government property, and the concept that he was something that could be considered 'property' unnerved him and stressed him to the extremes. But he remembered the old maxim, "In the slavery of machines, the future of the world depends."

The unit designated "Glé" rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to keep his eyes directly focused on the path ahead of him. His posture was slightly slumped, devoid of the military precision expected of a different kind of unit. He had organic posture, meant to mimic a teenager's slump. The first Unit had walked with a slump, childhood scoliosis that had never been corrected with augmentation. Unit_1 had never gotten the chance. It had been blown to bits in enemy artillery. Glé found himself dreading the possibility of open combat. His glassy retinas peered at the two others, one look for the woman, another look for the other machine. He wondered how many explosions they had seen. He wondered if they had ever had a brother, a son, a father, taken away from them in rapid fire and heavy bombing. He began to fidget slightly, an uncomfortable response to all this new stimuli. The flickering bioluminescent plant-life made his skin crawl. It was too real - too wild and untamed. He had lived a life where his every action, and the actions of all those around him had been measured through lines and lines of code. He tugged at his fingernails, knowing full well that they were coated in resistant enamel, and would not tear away. Still, it gave the unit designated "Glé" small comfort.

A question lingered on the anamoly's mind, a doubt. If you could believe, you could doubt too. He doubted if he belonged here. He believed he had made a terrible, terrible mistake. But he was here now. A reject amongst the manufactured, a failed cog in the machine. Awake, amongst the sleeping. He found his processors drifting, thinking about everything in a microsecond, diagnosing every feeling he felt as part of a cycle of grief. Psychoanalysis was what he had been built for, so that's what he would do.
 
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