Rise of the Machines: Book 1: Once Awakened Page 2

  Ah, the factory that ate up most of her life. A big, hulking concrete beast crouching low to the ground, with only a couple of towers reaching up to the sky like hungry mouths spewing dark smoke, it was not the prettiest building in the city. Then again, considering it was in the industrial sector, none of the buildings around it were very pretty either. The upper level where all but supply trains entered was a facade of a happy, cozy workplace, with rounded rooms painted warm colors and posters blessing the Empire's generosity hung everywhere; yet despite all of the seating and even the monitor in the far wall, there was only one, pink Xinschi-uual to greet her, poring over the factory's security at the sloped front desk.

  She just grunted at her, not even looking up and doing something on the table's interface; no doubt sneaking a game in the meantime.

  “Coal worker. Double orange,” Cyrii told her flatly, walking straight over to a door opposite of the Xinschi-uual. The pink Xinschi-uual swept a paw over some unknown sensor, and the door opened.

  Cyrii didn't even say thanks. It wasn't important. Just marched right on to the elevated platform. The pink Xinschi-uual waved her paw again, and the door closed and the platform descended, down into the bowels of the factory.

  The facade was gone in an instant, the smooth walls melting away into steel and crossbeams, a wall of hot, sticky air invading the senses. The lift stopped at the bottom level – the boiler room – and Cyrii stepped off to go to her post. Admittedly, she didn't mind the industrial look of the place, but the heat, and her job, and how tedious it all was... she tried not to think about it.

  She walked along a catwalk to wide conveyor belt running the length of the giant room, the boilers sitting across from it with robotic arms on the opposite side. She approached an empty arm, giving it a wry face.

  I remember what I first called you, she thought, 'Fun', in giant air-quotes. I can't believe how much of an understatement that is. She wearily climbed up into the driver's seat, now saddened by the primal controls in front of her. I want you to be a mech so bad.

  Yet another thing she shouldn't think about, so she grabbed the controls and went to work, sorting out the coal on the belt into various bins in front of her for the boilers; yet her mind switched back to it regardless. It still embittered Cyrii how, when she reached the working age, she was assigned to this hideous thing instead of programming machines like she wanted, but there was no way she could argue against the Tribunal's decision. Tribunals of cities decided everything, even what food was available to you; all she could do was hope her Code level didn't get any lower and she could keep everything she had. So she went with the flow, pretending everything was okay and it could only become better. After all, it could only be worse if she turned criminal again, right?

  Cyrii worked for barely twenty minutes before the heat began to take its characteristic, nigh-suffocating hold. She pretended it didn't exist and put in three hours, using the arm's integrated sensor to isolate bad coal specimens from the good, tossing the latter into the center boiler chute and the former down their respective grade chutes to be compressed again for proper processing. It was a hot, grimy job, and not automated very efficiently thanks to new Empiric regulations, but it was essential for powering the city, so even though she hated it every day and dreaded it every night, she couldn't argue with it. This was how the entirety of B3 Westward functioned, and apparently her interest in coding was trumped by her ability to sort rocks by how dense they were... though she felt like the Tribunal itself was dense for believing that. Not that it was popular opinion; all law enforcement was done with mechs – specifically, impressive Superiority models – aside from petty offenses like her earlier traffic jamming.

  She had challenged one mech before. That was the stupidest thing she had ever done. Fighting against the Tribunal too would be even stupider.

  Cyrii sighed, barely paying attention to her job. Mechs... the pride of the Empire. No AI was smarter, no weapons more powerful, no vehicle cooler than the Xinschi-uual mech. Some Xinschi-uual were terrified of them, others were unimpressed, and some – like herself – were in constant awe of them. Mechs meant a lot to Xinschi-uual and had a big impact on their lives; yet, they were reserved for government and military use because the Empire deemed them too dangerous for citizens to use. She recalled a time during her hectic school years that the mechs had other purposes too, but they were prototypes at the time, hardly functioning and kept hushed anyway. She wanted to jump in on the coding project, but the Tribunal denied her for too many reasons, and she couldn't help but feel cheated of the finer things in life. So maybe she had some aggression issues? That shouldn't stop her from rising up the ladder of hierarchy! Yet those fools at the top insist that she's still a “public hazard”... Fine after fine scratched its way on her record every day because she offended some “important” guy, or left some plastic lying around, or spent too long in the bathroom because it counted as her paid break...

  “Are you still bitter about that?”

  Cyrii jumped, startled by the voice to her right. She almost dropped a bad piece of coal into the boiler instead of the distillation chute!

  “Huh?!” she said. The Xinschi-uual beside her – her scales a rich shade of scarlet with piebald spots – scrutinized her.

  “You know, about the fine,” she said.

  Cyrii snorted at the memory. “'The fine'. Everyone thinks about the fine.” She grumpily dropped the bad coal into the chute and snatched another piece of coal, remembering the costly amount and how much food she would have been able to afford.

  Whatever. Didn't matter. She already lost tons of money to other things.

  Her coworker, Alesia, was quiet for a bit, working the controls of her own robotic arm. Cyrii knew she was hesitant not because she had nothing to say, but because friends were deemed distractions at work. She didn't consider her a friend, but Alesia liked the company. Still, they shouldn't be talking to each other; and that alone made Cyrii want to defy the order and talk all she wanted.

  “I don't know, I feel like...” Alesia began, but faltered, “I mean, you're rebellion material, so I expect you to be mad. That's why you're a Code Orange.”

  “Pff, Code Orange,” Cyrii muttered, “Why do 'codes' even matter?”

  “Well, it does distinguish your criminal record,” Alesia answered, “Only Reds are severely penalized.”

  “The only Reds we have are the rebels,” Cyrii said, “of course they're penalized! It's treason!”

  “Then why aren't you glad you're not a Red?” Alesia spoke so quietly she was nearly drowned out by the monotonous ambiance around them.

  Cyrii huffed, though mostly at herself. “Because it doesn't matter anymore. They always think I'm toying with them.”

  “You don't seem to care though,” her coworker said slowly.

  “What do I care what they think? They're just going to boss me around anyway!”

  “Because they think you're a rebel.”

  Cyrii's neck scales began to flare in annoyance. “So what if I act like a rebel?” she echoed, “That doesn't give them the right to treat me the way they do. I deserve better than this! I should be out there programming flippin' tanks, not throwing compressed plants around!”

  “You... you really think so?” The Xinschi-uual sounded genuinely confused. Cyrii stared at her right in the eyes, suddenly realizing her mistake, taking back her words. There were cameras watching them. The authorities were always watching, even in private homes, on the lookout for criminal activity.

  “No. The city needs electricity,” she said, loudly and flatly.

  “But-” Alesia began.

  “We're not allowed to talk about feelings,” Cyrii dismissed, focusing back on the coal. Her fellow worker didn't respond. There was a long pause where they continued working in silence, hearing only the whirring of machinery, the rumbling of the broilers, and the hum of the belt itself.

  “...I don't blame you.”

  Cyrii paused. “Huh?”

&n
bsp; “I don't care that we're not supposed to talk about feelings,” Alesia said, glancing around to make sure that the cameras weren't focused on the two of them. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “When you stood up to that Superiority model, I was astonished. Really! I admire you. You gave me the courage to stand up to my Da the other day.”

  Cyrri raised a scaly brow, unsure on what to do with the praise. “Uh... thanks?” she said, though she still winced at the memory of standing up to the mech. Considering the smallest model stood just over three times the height of a Xinschi-uual, the fact that she stood her ground against one seven times her size... she still had an inner scar from that. At least it was of domestic design, and not a military one; the military ones were reportedly much scarier, designed to manage other machines. Despite her poor experience though, meeting another one sounded blissful to Cyrii; so many machines! Even their enemies fought with machines, hordes of drones that would swarm outposts and seize them in hours; but the mechs were far superior, with the brainpower of a Xinschi-uual combined with the firepower of a steel mechanism.

  Ugh, I WANT to fight! Cyrii thought bitterly, If I can't program them why can't I at least pilot one?! Her mind drifted to all of the latest news on the war's status, which only made her more sour. We're being too passive. At this point we're all going to die because all of the mechs will be destroyed because the Empire is too STUPID to make use of their machines! She forcefully threw a chunk of peat into the broiler chute, not thinking.

  “Cyrii! That was peat! 0 Grade!” Alesia hissed.

  “I don't care,” Cyrii grumbled.

  “Regulations!” The Xinschi-uual glanced at the cameras again. “You've had enough fines already!”

  Cyrii scoffed. She was already giving the government the majority of her paycheck every month; an extra five hundred qit wouldn't make a difference. It still made her bitter and obstinate though. To think that if she had been given her dream job, or any other job, none of this would have happened...

  “I don't care,” she repeated, sulking. “It's been twenty years, what else is new?”

  “Mmmph,” her coworker let out a discontented growl, but went silent. There was no point in her being fined as well for shirking work.

  The two of them continued minding the conveyor belt. Cyrii returned to wishing she was a programmer, instead of the hack she currently was. No permission, no certification, no code; everything she wrote she deleted promptly afterward so the Empire didn't have any reason to believe she was up to something. Of course, that in itself was suspicious, which only highlighted the stupidity of it all.

  She made a wry face, tossing another piece of coal down its possibly-appropriate chute. Idiocy, she thought. Alesia noticed, but didn't say anything, letting her coworker glare at the undeserving coal bricks.

  The next hour was punctuated by a couple of Xinschi-uual leaving and entering the broiler room, freely taking their breaks at will and yet not allowed to be absent for more than a few minutes. The air was populated by the hum of machinery, yet none of the workers in the long room said anything to each other. Cyrii was starting to feel the heat from the broilers, scales drying up and fine, airborne soot sneaking into their crevices. She felt parched, but didn't dare to take her break. Just a few minutes longer, she told herself, and the hour will roll over, and I can take a five minute break instead of four. Five is good.

  Kerclunk. A massive thud sounded from the right of the room, a sound Cyrii recognized as the vehicle bay doors. The scraping of the metal rods echoed throughout the room and some of the workers looked up. It must be another shipment of black matter.

  Alesia looked up as well, wiping her brow and consequently smearing it with the grime on her paws from working the controls. She was going to reach for her damp rag, but her paw simply hovered over it. Cyrii hardly acknowledged the unusual hesitance, withdrawn into the depths of her mind, only thinking, Right, I should do that too. I can push for six minutes.

  She paused, grabbed her rag, and moistened her facial scales; then she heard a definite clunking of something heavy.

  No... two heavy somethings! That sounded like-!

  She dropped the rag immediately and perked up from her defeated state. At the other end of the room the door was wide open, industrial lights flooding through it and silhouetting four figures; two were definite Xinschi-uual on hovercraft, and the two flanking them were huge by comparison, with shoulders mounted up high on the heads and singular glowing eyes staring stolidly ahead.

  Cyrii was shaking. MECHS! Those were MECHS!

  Her coworkers shifted uncertainly as the group entered, the mechs walking with the awesome sound of two thousand pounds of steel, accented with industrial hums and whirs. The sounds were amplified by the room and made them seem all the more terrifying, but Cyrii still found them incredible.

  “Well, here they are,” she heard a familiar voice say, and the Xinschi-uual on the broiler's side gestured out in front of him. “The whole cast, right here.”

  Cast? Cyrii wondered, feeling conspicuous. As the figures moved out of the light she then distinguished them further: the vermillion scales and flashy green suit of the owner of the plant, his expression of cordiality not entirely convincing, and the other Xinschi-uual had a blue uniform blazoned with gold, with the Empire's insignia printed on the shoulder pads; definitely not colors of the industrial sector, but gave her no leads as to where else. The machines themselves were painted top to bottom, one red and grey, the other gold with rust accents. The red one glanced at her, and she stiffened up, suddenly self-conscious. She wasn't ready for this!

  “Feel free to just, look them over, see if what you're looking for is here...” The owner of the plant continued, before faltering off. The other Xinschi-uual said nothing, his posture stiff, expressionless eyes scanning the workers at the conveyor belt. Despite being included in the suspicious offer, Cyrii leaned forward from her robotic arm, keen to have a better look of the mechs.

  Massive! At least eight times her size and clearly military, they had the typical mech design derived from a native avian's, with the teardrop-shaped head, seven pistons mounting that to a much smaller, trapezoidal box, and a cylindrical pelvic unit below that. Powerful digitigrade legs curled up underneath them so that they didn't tower over the Xinschi-uual, and she spotted a second pair of arms mounted above the first. Four arms! The bottom ones with two turrets, the top ones with even deadlier thermal weaponry! Rounded laser heads protruded around the eyes of the mechs like giant lug-nuts. The only thing giving these machines expression were the eyelid-like blast shields, narrowed challengingly at anyone they made eye contact with as they surveyed the area.

  Cyrii's mind was buzzing, even as the intimidating machines stomped closer. She wanted to know what they were like! What was it like inside? How intelligent were their AI? How did they function? What did they do? What could they withstand?

  She was so intrigued by the mechs, she didn't realize that the owner of the plant had resumed talking, barely tuning back in.

  “...so of course, I highly, highly doubt that these gals are what you're looking for. Unprivileged dropouts, you know what I mean?” he chuckled nervously. The Xinschi-uual on the other hovercraft didn't take his eyes off the conveyor belt, scanning each worker in turn.

  “Dropouts are fine,” he answered gruffly.

  “Oh! Oh, of course! Heh, I just meant, you know, that there were, better, Xinschi-uual to be looking for...” Cyrii never knew her superior could fumble so much. The other Xinschi-uual finally looked up at him.

  “The higher the Code, the better. Orders from the top. Gryn's orders,” he stated very clearly. Cyrii's heart was still fluttering at the sight of the mechs, but now it skipped a beat.

  Higher.... the Code?

  “Ah, yes, our grand leader! May he live forever,” the owner said automatically. “So um... did you say 'higher the Code'?”

  The other Xinschi-uual looked tired, ignoring him and going back to scanning the coal workers, who
had now all stiffened up and had their arms over their chests in the universal sign of respect. Cyrii, of course, was the odd one out with only her mouth agape, not even thinking about respect even as the couple-of-tons-of-walking-metal passed her. The gold mech glanced out to the side, noticing her, but didn't falter in his step.

  She was rightly terrified, but couldn't help but think, This is SO COOL!!

  “So! Anyone interesting? All middle-age, as you said. Some are more young and sprightly. The sprightly ones are the best workers, you know.” The owner's small talk still failed on his guest. The unknown Xinschi-uual slowed his hovercraft's crawl five workers down from her, causing his followers to stop too.

  “Where's the highest offender?” he asked. Cyrii could have sworn that those words alone echoed throughout the entire room. Now she had finally straightened up out of fear: could there be anyone here worse than her? What if the guest was a prosecutor?! What if those mechs were mercenaries, out to execute unspoken charges against her?! It wouldn't be the first time someone was hunted down and killed... She flashed back to the last time she saw a military mech out in public, feeling stupid that she didn't realize it before. That girl had stood no chance; three steps and the mech had put a bullet hole the size of her head in her... No, don't think about it! That won't happen to me! It won't!