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The metal of my feet strip away the turf from the soil, rip and render it into useless follicles of fiber fit for only the re-saturation and nourishment of the organisms that will no doubt tread where my heel has already been.
Pulsing and pounding I feel the gears turn in a silent cacophony that shudders under my skin. Each twist and lift precise, just as it was specified when it was manufactured to be.
I feel the metal move and slide into place, oiled and smooth functioning. The dull sheen of the exterior parts as it changes spots, giving rise to a chrome unlike any other, worn and polished by continual use. The edges razor sharp from where but are never to be feared as they do not slip or stray from the guided course that has been predestined.
The red, twist lock gears shift from position to position, jerking into place. Such a stuttered step seems almost unnatural to the natural but to me it feels just like home. The hydraulics shriek out as the weight is shifted, supported, and accelerated. Short, white puffs jet out of the vents and cloud the area around my ever moving form.
I can feel the metal pulse, reverberating against the engraved bar codes and model numbers and manufacturer specifications. A metallic heartbeat of electricity and gears churns along deep within the cavity of my chest, pumping blue and green fluids through the entirety of my system.
Cooling the red hot pins, keeping the joints lubricated and smooth. There is a sizzle in my sensors and I can feel that all is well, my diagnostics precise.
The twitch and jerk and shudder of my body, the bass of my footfalls and the shudder of the ground. A new mechanical Christ come to save --erase-- ------
There is a glow behind my eyes and it illuminates my vision with a dull orange light that casts out all hues, bathing my mind with the illusion of a monochromatic world as my gears continue to twist, lock, --fail-- --function-- --repeat-- the ever cycling locomotion towards the end line of my command prompt.
I feel --sensor operation: 0--- and i hear --sensor operation: all-- as the turf gives way to stone, crumbling beneath the titanium treads that are not fitted to my toes but in fact have been form --forged-- for this purpose. Crushing, rolling, never stopping.
--failure != option--
Yet as I scan the broken, distant, --charred-- world around me an --err-- run through the fiber optic synapses that have elevated me to --maximum-- standard. An --err-- that kicks my systems loose, losing power to my legs --acceleration limbs-- and I find my face, hands, shoulders --self-- smashing down through the stones that I had up to this moment been treading so heavily upon.
--online--
I push myself up, metal fibers twisting and churning in time with the reset thrums of my gears, diagnostics flooding my already blurred vision. I recalibrate and am off again, minor --err-- to worry about after the end line has been tested, run, --100%-- and my soul can earn it's escape from this hellish world of orange and red.
Yet the machine rolls on across the broken landscape, gears slipping into place, indeed as they were manufactured and specified to do. Soft puffs of exhaust echo off of the now dead walls of now dead places. There is no face, only the silver death mask of kings long dead. Orange light bathes all around, and metal foot stamps all below.
There's something to be said for the indiscrimination of a machine born of blood and folly. More graceful than a human would ever be, more precise in it's form and function than a person could ever hope to be. It steps through walls and rocks. It steps through oceans and armament. It steps through corpses and tissue.
And it tilts full into the wind, rain pelting the shell covering the internal fusion machine and fiber optic sensor line running the length of its back.
And it tilts full into the wind, as ice begins to build into the sensor slits built into it's featureless face.
And it tilts full into the wind, as the sound of bone and sinew scatter it's sonar for only a moment.
Yet here is the true amalgamation that was intended. A machine of purpose and design without a flaw except --err: tissue generation detected-- that purpose should not be given to an animal.
Yet I move on, scan-nnnn and move to the next poin-nnnt, without feeding, without drinking, without resting, without forgettttttting my purposeeeeeeee --offline--
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