On
the outskirts of the City Limits, a gathering of Outers, people
living off the scraps from the city, picking their way through the
detritus of the Makarium, bit's and pieces of left over or redundant
machinery. Anything that they could use to make the day to day grind
of living off grid a bit easier, warmer, and less threatening. A
small boy stood up, holding what could be a very useful element for
the heater in his shack, sees something out of the corner of his eye,
nothing more than a glint on the horizon, but definatly something.
Looking harder and harder, his eyes resolving the form out of the
chaos. Seeing that the form must be a person, he yelled towards the
others in the gathering, pointing to the shape.
Seeing
the group of Outers notice him, thinking that he had finally found a
lasting salvation, a release from the living hell that had been his
life, the “thing” that was once a man broke down and wept. Not
tears of fear and pain that he was so used to, but tears of sheer and
utter joy. Somehow he had to make his limbs work harder and faster,
soon it would be over, but they would not respond to the signals from
his brain. These combinations of metal and flesh, these abominations
that used to be his arms and legs moved at their own, unceasing,
monotonous pace. Controlled not by him, but by some other force.
Slowly he felt their power dwindle, he felt the other additions to
his body becoming inactive.
Then
there it was, like the sensation of being pricked by the sharpest
needle. First at the base of his spine, and then, one by one, again
on each of the vertebrae along his back, a tingle from the inside. It
gave him hope, maybe they were releasing him from his bonds, maybe he
would be a free man again. He stood up straight to feel this renewed
life in his body, breathing the air deep into his lungs. But soon the
ecstasy was replaced with agony, pain upon pain. It came from deep
within him. A feeling of his tissues tearing, tendons snapping. Then
a pain so bad that it took all the sound away from his voice; the
needles felt like they were turning into spears, each one stabbing
out of his back, making him colapse down to the ground.
Still
pointing to the person on the horizon, the boy heard a scream like he
had never heard before. Just at that same moment, the massive hulk of
a Makarium Enforcer rose above the being, it's massive head and
single eye, always looking, always seeing, slowly rising higher and
higher. Soon followed by the slender body, and at the bottom, the
engine unit. From behind it's silhouette somewhere it formed a
weapon, large enough to destroy a full on Battle 'Bot. A flash of
intense light, and the screaming was gone, replaced by empty,
harrowing, deathly silence.
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