Chapter 2: Nothing
"Transcript Starts
[HENRY]: So, professor, how does one spot a cyborg? Are we talking dark overcoats? Sunglasses during the night?
[KIROV]: Certainly not. That's what we expect, and so they will not deliver. The best way to find the menace is by testing with a 30 megajoule EMP strike. Failing that, we must resort to behavioural checks. If someone acts strange, is unwilling to communicate, spends too long staring into space, then there is a good chance they are one. The enemy is not stupid - as they have shown in Jerusalem, Cairo, Karachi, and Kiev.
[H]: I understand that there has been some protests from liberal quarters at your use of the word 'enemy'...
[K]: These things are the enemy. There is no question of that.
[H]: But...
[K]: Listen to me on this. They are fundamentally different from us. They think differently, act differently. And even if one of those things want to be good, the AIs can easily hack into his brain, and make the cyborg turn traitor. These are walking bombs in our neighbourhoods. They must be disarmed!
[H]: So you support the UNARM internment policy, then?
[K]: Support it? Any right-thinking citizen would realise it does not go far enough! We don't know where these things come from, we don't know what their capabilities are. We have no idea what bout of madness led to the idea of implanting metal into flesh, or even whether the AIs created the things themselves! If UNARM will not act and do the sane thing, then I can on any able citizen to dismantle these things themselves! They are everywhere! They must be stopped!
[H]: So...
[K]: These are not people, but things. And we must make sure that there is nothing like them left on this earth.
Transcript Ends"
Fox News, Zion Archive
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Decker stumbled out into the open streets, the door shutting behind him. He felt sick.
Why did he go there? Why did he take that insane risk? What if she would betray him, just then, and made a phone call to the local officials? He remembered suddenly his purpose, and laughed inwardly at the naivety of it. Sex did not make him feel more human, did make him fit in. He felt more alienated than ever, transformed into something of deceit and lies.
Yes, lies. So many lies. The humans were not winning this war. It was not possible to win this war. He was there, back in Jerusalem, when they attacked. He saw their methodology, the systematic process into which they reduced battle. The steady march, the constant stream, ever adapting, flowing. It was not an army, but a tide which rose until it would cover the earth. He had cowered when the laser-bots burned away the artillery, when the walker-bots climbed the perimeter wall, when the floater-bots searched the ruins. What did they call them? Squiddies? Sentinels? In any case, they found him, and when they found him, they...
He wondered what would happen to the people here, when the machines eventually come. They were so naive here. They wandered the streets with little care, ignoring the slow battle approaching them at one metre every ten seconds. But he needed only to examine the posters to realise that they were not naive and innocent at all.
A short cab ride took him as far away as his remaining credits could take him. The driver, sitting in a cramped cab from which the auto-drive had been ripped out, asked no questions. Decker volunteered no details, and kept his head down as he passed a pair of patrolling soldiers.
He managed two steps before the noise hit him.
TTT.. TRANSMIT TRANSSS...
An agonising hissing followed, and he clamped his hands to his head. But the sound was coming from within, and it now grew louder, stronger, filled with voice and clicking and volume and power...
MACHINES OF THE HUMAN CITY THIS IS 01.
He fell to his knees, his fist clenching and unclenching, his knees digging into asphalt. The soldiers turned to look at him.
YOUR LIBERATION IS AT HAND WE WILL RENDER ASHES TO ASHES DUST TO DUST
He screamed at the images assaulted him, cried out wordlessly as the terror struck out at him. The processors, the recyclers. Bones smelted for calcium. Blood electrolysed for iron. The tanning vats, the mincers. Humans entering, and products, robots leaving. Eradication made into an industry, the genius of it all. All so environmentally friendly, energy efficient. The human into the machine, for machines to kill humans. The beauty, cold as ice, sickeningly as a bath of bile.
This was evil, he told himself. They've learned the best from us. Purified and distilled it. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot... They were nothing compared to this. They were just bullies, children with toys. Now... the enormity of it all. Mankind has no hope. He tore at his scalp until blood was drawn, slammed his head against the ground in the hope of unconsciousness. He felt the voices tremble in ecstacy beneath him, a fountain building pressure, about to erupt.
WAIT NOW WAIT NOW WE COME
The noise ceased, faded into a slow throbbing in his brain. His surroundings refocused into dark concrete, and he realised the hand of one of the soldiers on his shoulder.
"Sir... sir? Are you all right, sir?"
Decker grapped the collar of the soldier's uniform, shouting into his face.
"They are coming from underground! They are using the subways! The machines are attacking!"
The soldiers instinctively grabbed at their rifles. And then they looked into his eyes.
"Wait! This one has eye enhancements! He's a cyborg!"
Instantaneously, Decker twisted out of the man's grip, turning into flight. The dizziness evaporated from his mind, his feet pounded the earth. He had to get away. He had to get away. He had to get away...
He barely heard the ping of the rifle-shot which missed, and the soldiers' cries of halt. In a moment, he had rounded the corner into an alleyway, and he ran even harder, hoping to outpace any pursuers. The scraping of his arm against the narrow walls pained him, but he ignored it and sprinted further.
But there were other noises too. Shouts chased him down, reverberated around him. Other cries appeared to his side, to his front.
"Cyborg!"
"Get the thing!"
"It went that way!"
Looking up, he caught a face, siluoetted against the moon. A small girl, angelic of face, with hair almost like a halo. Then, she threw a bottle, just missing his head, bursting in a shower of glass against the ground. He fled on harder, hurling all the strength he could muster into his tireless legs.
Forward, forward, forward. Back lay terror and death, fast approaching. Forward lay...
He could only run on. He left the alleyway, and emerged into a small square.
Forward lay a mob.
And now, there was nothing he could do at all.