A gray battlefield what once used to be a Terranean city back in the United Socialist States of America. The skyscrapers that once pierced the clouds were now torn down from their heightly comfort and reduced to jagged rubble. Every few hundred meters a mound of dust smoldered. Every couple dozen of seconds thunder clapped through the rainless atmosphere, humidity scarred from the bombs dropped over several years.


    ---


    I remember being deployed in a large town in Florida.


    Me and my spotter are scanning our area from a vantage point on top of a skyscraper that hasn’t completely collapsed. I’m looking through the scope of my rifle, scanning for activity.


    “Do you see the Data Mother?” someone asks on our radio.


    “Negative, base,” says my spotter, Hannes, to the radio, “No mechs either.”


    “We don’t even know what the fuck we’re looking for… that’s not a lot to go on,” Hannes tells me.


    I respond to him: “Recon figures we’ll know it when we see it. She’s supposed to be massive.”


    “Nobody’s even seen one, maybe the recon’s wrong. I mean maybe we’re looking right at it,” Hannes says, “How would we know?


    “Quiet! You hear that?” I say to him, as I heard a noise.


    As we turn around we see a spider-like machine with eight limbs has been approaching us quietly. Its scorpion-like tail is cocked and ready to pierce us.


    “Fuuuck,” says the Hannes, reaching for his handgun. But alas! Tis already too late. The creature pounces and destroys the poor man right before my very eyes. I manage to move my anti-materiel rifle such that I have him in my sights and BAM! The spider explodes. I feel bad for Hannes, but at least I’m alive myself.


    “We’ve been compromised, need evac quick,” I say into the radio, but quickly realize it’s too damaged from the struggle to use. I hear other machines approaching. I take my sidearm, and point it at my jaw. Darkness.


    ----


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    I open my eyes in some sort of liquid. I am in a kind of a tube, confined by it. It rapidly drains and opens, leaving me naked without its warmth and safety. My body still frail from having been suspended in this cocoon.


    “Good, how are you feeling?” says a very familiar voice, as I try to stand up and adjust my eyes to the light.


    He puts his hand on my back, and I immediately know who he is. It is Dr. Gobb Vakkar, my creator. He’s a brilliant and beloved billionaire tech giant who had made his fortune by developing crucial technologies for the medical industry though compared to the Sacklers, his legacy is not as horrifying. He is also one of the leading researchers on gene technology and he has been  secretly designing me and my brothers to aid with the Machine Revolt.


    “Better, thank you,” I respond to him.


    “Do you know why you’re here?” he asks.


    “To serve the in the greatest interests of mankind,” I say.


    “What must you do now?” he asks me again.


    “I must bring down the rogue A.I. bent on destroying us.”


    “With the strength and speed of a locomotive, the precision of a scalpel, I think you’ll do just that,” says Dr. Vakkar, “won’t you, my dear lad? Stand up and meet your creators!”


    As I stand up, I see the room around me. Twenty scientists are standing and now applauding on the balcony of this rather large room, containing computers, microscopes, small cleanrooms, and other, empty test chambers such as my own. Only one of them is still filled, but I can’t remember or see what is in it.


    When the applause ends, Dr. Vakkar says into a microphone speaker system: “Today we are witnessing a turning point in human history. With these superhumans we have created here, we’ve given mankind a sword to wield in the face of adversity from machines and beyond. They will cut down its foes with no problems. The days of the machines are now numbered. Let us begin our victory!” and he puts his microphone away after which the room explodes into applause.


    Lucy, a female scientist comes down from the balcony and takes my hand to guide me into another procedural room where I am measured. She says:


    “You know, you were his favorite. Most prized creation.”


    She starts entering my measurements into a computer, turning her back to me, as she continues:


    “Even after many times doing this, I can’t help but wonder what’s it like to be born like this. To know your purpose?”


    Her hand feels warm as she examines me. I want her to continue.


    PURPOSE.


    ---


    A hellish inferno burns as a sea of yellow lava as liquid as water flows in its own river. The sky around me is purplish red and it screams with almost continuous thunder. I fly over it and reach a cliff. The roar of the explosions and destruction around me grows quieter as I fly over it.


    I arrive at what I can only describe as a mountain doubling as a city. It’s filled with humanoids, scarabs. As I reach the top I see a gigantic deep blue door etched into the mountain. It has old teutonic carvings and signs and is decorated with gold. But as I press against, it opens very slowly and in it I see only darkness. But instead I hear a voice:


    “You’ve come to bargain, warrior? Or to kill me?”


    I feel in my body launched through the air as the voice casts me back out and I’m dragged through the air into the river of molten exposed core of the planet I’m on. I struggle as the heat consumes me. I feel myself burn.