John Watson strolled along the bitter winter streets of London, carrying a rusty tool box in tow. He wiped his grimy hands across his brow, smearing soot on his forehead as he tried to remove the film of sweat which had developed. He then swept his hand on his equally dusty wife-beater shirt which lay beneath a dirty wool coat- he preferred the name "a-shirt", since it was the proper name for the garment and it was so much less violent. His entire body was filthy, and his shirt, coat, torn navy-blue jumpsuit and scuffed black work boots had a film of grease on them.

The sun had just begun to kiss the small hills in the horizon, hiding behind the buildings and causing a golden blanket of light to cover the streets of the English city. The cold months of winter had already started to creep up upon the country, and even though it was only the third of October, the bitter air smelled strongly of the snow to come.

John walked through the streets, glancing at the little trinkets on display in the store fronts that he passed- a hover train, a small android doll that looked displeased with the holiday witch costume it was draped in, and a variety of robotic pets. He shook his head whenever he passed the latter when he noticed all the mechanical weaknesses in the toy, and knew that it wouldn't last a week- especially with children. 'At least they'll need someone to fix the bloody thing...might come to me. God, I need the pay', he thought worriedly. John Watson is a mechanic, and a very good one. Still, no one seemed to want to pay for his affordable services.

He used to be in the military and fought in the Event War until a year ago, when he was wounded. The Event War still rages on, and in the distance, red and black puffs of smoke rise into the air...the colors of war and death. The War started about a decade ago when a large technology corporation, Talus - a widely successful company responsible for the production of robotic soldiers- lost control of its fighters. Of course, it was a good idea to have robots take the place of soldiers at the time. Innocent people didn't have to face the horrors of war. Innocent people did not have to die. People on both sides of a conflict did not have to be killed at the hands of a man or woman ordered to war by politicians who have never seen the terror of a battlefield. Robots were not conscious beings. They were a collection of adequately assembled nuts and bolts animated by programming. If one was lost to war, it would not have any serious repercussions. Best of all, human beings would no longer have to be used as pawns.

Things went well for a time. There were no wars for a while, and the Eventrons- the robots needed in the event of a war- were dually programmed for housework, and were bought by people who needed cheap maids and house-cleaners. John had even bought one for he and his wife so it could clean the house which would have otherwise been left dirty when they came home from work, too tired to do housework. There must have been a glitch in their systems, however, because most of the Eventrons had went out of control. They killed people-brutally murdered entire families and painted the walls with their blood-burned properties down to cinders, or harassed onlookers. People panicked, and a movement was made to recollect and destroy the Eventrons. Robots- even androids- had all been recalled and destroyed after people grew too terrified of the automatons. Those who escaped the disassemblement procedure relocated to the valleys out of the city. Somehow, they rebuilt themselves and multiplied their forces. War ensued, and Britain's forces were getting destroyed by the Eventrons. Still, Parliament was relentless with its orders to continue sending drafted citizens into the bloodbath. It took two or three men to overcome an Eventron; it had increased strength, increased stamina, increased speed, and an increased pattern-recognition process.

John's mind drifted back to the War, the single most terrifying times of his life. When he had gotten his draft letter, Mary was reduced to hysteric tears. He thought he would die as soon as he stepped foot on the blood-soaked dirt of the war zone, but did his best to comfort his wife, who had only escaped the draft because she was pregnant with their first child. The last few nights before his deployment were silent and discomforting, and they both expected, though neither of them dared say it aloud in fear of petrifying the other, that they would never see each other again. But the war was worse than John imagined it would be-and he imagined he would be dead in a moment. Bodies scattered the floor, some were skinned and others had their limbs torn off of them. The earth had taken on the reddish hue of their blood which had been seeping into the ground when left unattended. If the stench of rotting death became too much to bear, the bodies would be burned. Their ashes, along with the smoke from various explosions, mixed in the air and created a black cloud of macabre conditions, blocking out the sun almost entirely.

Still, he was willing to fight- not for the cause, not for the government, not even for himself, but for his family. John often wrote to his wife about how he would be damned if he would allow his baby to grow up in constant terror that one night, a killing machine would break into their house and terminate them all. And so he fought, every day of his miserable life for the entirety of four months, until he was shot in the thigh and sent back home so he could heal and return to the battlefield. It was a miracle he had lived for as long as he had, and the four months felt like a year. He returned home, after nearly bleeding out and being told that it would be unsafe for him to return to the battlefield (apparently the government had no quarrel with sending people out to die, but felt guilty about being the direct cause of their death), he discovered that his wife had miscarried. They had not thought of a name beforehand, so they hastily decided on Erin, meaning peace, for the times that would soon hopefully come. Now poor and unable to afford a nice ceremony, they buried the boy in a cheap plot in the nearest cemetery alone. No one else stood by their side. They were too busy burying their own children nearby.

In order to try to make ends meet, John gained ownership of a mechanics shop- a gift from his friend who he met in the war and who died in his arms. People occasionally dropped off their hover cars and a variety of mechanical utilities in their houses. Mary took on a job as a nurse in a local hospital. Many of her patients were wounded from the war, whom she helped to heal before they were sent right back into the fighting. Still, they could barely afford things since the country went into a moderate economic depression, leaving many citizens trembling in small shack-like homes until the Eventrons are defeated.

John would soon arrive at one of the nicer of those shacks, where his wife would later arrive and they would eat their dinner of cabbage stew and bread. He passed an alley where he heard cats meowing and hissing at each other, probably for the last of their scavenged food. Suddenly, a groan escaped from the darkness, followed by the crashing of trash bins and the clash of metal. John stopped promptly in his tracks and glanced down the alleyway.

"Erm...are you alright?" he called. When no immediate reply came, he peered around for anyone who might help but found none, so he cautiously started to head towards the groan he had heard. 'Hope it's not more teenagers getting it on again', he thought to himself. He felt his way down the shadowy passage, tripping over discarded boxes from the stores on either side and shoving away a cat who had begun to claw at him.

"Is anyone here?" John asked. A muffled gasp and the scuffling of metal on the pavement was heard, and John realized that someone was trying to walk away from him. He picked up his pace, worried that the person was in need of help but was scared.

"Don't move, I won't hurt you, I'm trying to help. Are you hurt?"

John arrived at the end of the long alley, and no one was found. He looked into the blinding sunset and shaded his eyes from the light before glancing around to see if anyone was running away, but saw no one. Defeated, John began to return to where he had entered. Then came the CLINK CLINK CLINK of a bolt bouncing onto the ground. John spun around in time to see a beam of sun shine off the tarnished head of a caramel-colored android.