Moth Tamuth Robotica
by Kristen Lee Knapp
K |
lote missed his penis. Others complained about their eyes, fingers, even teeth. But the only time Klote felt less than human, less than a man, was when he noticed the double-layer field issue plate armor that had replaced his cock.
“Shit,” he muttered, waking. His reactor fired, juicing his robotic arms and legs. Sys checks scrolled down his screen, endless rows of unintelligible numbers.
Hangar lights blinked on. A pointless courtesy, all armored infantry came equipped with night vision, infrared, sonar, motion sensors, thermal vision. . .
Trumpets blared reveille in Klote’s ears, a pre-recorded song. Another dying tradition. Armored infantry did not sleep.
Giz loped from his cell on steel, simian arms, armored tail wagging. Twig wriggled out on insectoid legs, gun barrels twitching.
Marza arrived last, her every step shaking the drop ship. Her armored plates shuddered and her cannons jiggled as she lurched forward.
Klote stared at her, imagined his cock stiffening beneath his armor.
“Jesus. I can’t believe I signed up for two years of this,” Giz groaned.
“He guessed the Armored Infantry’s slogan!” said Twig.
Klote grinned.
“Oh man. I can’t breathe. I’m not breathing,” said Giz.
“You don’t have lungs,” said Klote.
“But how do I remember how to breathe?”
“That’s what AI rehab’s for!” Twig giggled.
“Armored Infantry Team 7, you are over the mission point, prepare for drop.” The pilot’s voice boomed like God.
Humans directed them with little cones of light. Klote edged past. Just one misstep could crush hundreds of the useless little flesh bags. He snickered.
Alarms bawled as the titanic metal doors opened, revealing a vomit-colored sky.
“WHEEEE!” Twig screamed and jumped.
Giz was next, repeating his sutra of, “Oh man, oh man,” with all the conviction of a Buddhist monk.
Marza jumped and the drop ship bounced, unburdened by her hundred tons of weight.
Klote crouched and leapt after her.
Clouds whipped past, probably cold. He found himself wishing he could feel the wind slap his face, howl in his ears. He only heard Twig’s hysterical laughter, Giz’s moans and Marza’s vacuous silence.
The miasma of acid-green clouds vanished. Gutted ruins sprawled below like a million fragments of shattered glass.
“WOOHOOO!” Twig shrieked.
“Cut the noise,” said Marza.
Klote’s crotch twitched at her voice.
“Oh, it’s on. It’s on like Donkey Kong,” muttered Twig.
Altitude monitors injected Klote’s eyes with numbers. Pointless, his thrusters were automatic.
“Look at all that, man,” said Giz. “Some real Tower of Babel shit.”
Klote and Twig laughed. He remembered his first trip Earth side. Now, nothing seemed more mundane than Earth. He absurdly thought of sight-seers, gawking at sand in a desert.
Thrusters erupted, blue lights blooming from jet packs and feet rockets slowing their descent.
A siren sang in Klote’s ear as his left leg went numb. Everything turned red, two words flashing in his eyes.
THRUSTER MALFUNCTION
Sky and ground spun, endlessly inverting. “Something’s wrong,” he said stupidly.
“Oh God,” Giz wailed. “KLOTE?!”
“Shit,” Klote said, as the city rose to say hello.
RECONFIGURE
Vision returned. Components clicked in response to sys checks. His bladder felt full but he ignored it. He didn’t have one.
Thousands of heavy rocks and steel beams cemented him in place. Fragments of memories: Mars, the ship, Marza, the drop, malfunction, catastrophic impact.
“Fucking God damnit,” he muttered. Had to be an FFU – flesh bag fuck up. He ascertained his damage. Armor plates pressed unfamiliarly against his circuitry. Leg a twisted pulp, twitching senselessly. He could move it a little. Maybe he’d live, depending on where he landed.
Klote swam through the detritus, emerging from below like a huge metallic zombie, Toppled towers and obliterated buildings surrounded him like rotten teeth punched from some gargantuan jaw. Cars, bikes, trucks, planes tossed everywhere, bygone relics of pre-invasion Earth.
No signals. No beacons. Radio silence. He shuddered, knowing that meant he’d landed in no man’s land.
But where were they? The invaders suffered no trespassers, and Klote’s arrival couldn’t have gone unnoticed. Something about the whole thing felt wrong.
Of course, he couldn’t feel. But why else implant a human consciousness as a pilot if not for intuition?
He climbed through the ruins, awkwardly testing his malfunctioning left leg as he walked. Electric jolts of pain continuously stabbed his body but he ignored them. His brain didn’t know the difference between a human and robot body, all it was doing was interpreting the signals the armor sent it.
Klote climbed up the side of a mammoth, leaning skyscraper and looked down over the other side.
Protozoan!
Hundreds of them shambled below, their amorphous bodies sucking for moisture and nutrients. Hairy tentacles squiggled from their gelatinous bodies. Bubbling innards roiled within their translucent bodies. The Protozoan carried huge steel beams and big chunks of rock and long masses of tangled wires, piling them in a heap. They seemed to be. . . building something.
Impossible. Protozoan couldn’t build.
Metal strained below, bending under Klote’s weight. The leaning tower lurched and collapsed, dredging massive clouds of dust. Boulders smashed Klote’s face as he rode the falling building down.
“Shit,” he cursed, rising from the wreckage.
Protozoan quivered in place, like egg yolks boiling on a white hot pan. Their nonexistent eyes saw. Hungered. They charged, dribbling over the ruins, a slurping screech trumpeting their advance.
Klote raised his quadruple gun barrel hands.
Alone. Cut off. No communications. Surrounded. He was going to die. But dying wouldn’t be so bad. He’d recognize the loss of components, digits, limbs and systems as the Protozoan ingested him. But then, his consciousness would reboot on Mars and be suited up and deployed again.
He wouldn’t make it easy.
Molten steel poured from the barrels of his miniguns. Protozoan exploded into sticky shreds. More came, climbing over the ruins of their fallen kin. Cannons jutted from Klote’s shoulders and fired. He felt the force impact deep in his gut, strong as a prizefighter’s punch. The Earth screamed as his shells detonated mountains, spitting debris hundreds of meters in the air.
What could Klote do but laugh maniacally?
Gooey particles of Protozoan reformed under Klote’s robotic legs and seized him, a hand with countless grabbing fingers.
Klote fired his thrusters, a feeling only describable as flaming flatulence. “EAT MY ASS, PISS PUDDLES!” he roared, drunk on the sound of gunfire, high off the sour smell of cordite.
A hairy tentacle reached up and seized his ankle, dragging him back down.
Of course, he’d only imagined the smell of cordite.
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