We don't know who struck first, the machines or us, but we know it was us who burnt the sky
It's a line from an old movie, I don't remember which, but it hardly matters. There is no sky here - only a memory. My last view in fact - boiling, angry red overhead as they dragged me through the gates that would shut it out forever. I had managed to run, to live in that freedom I called hell for seventeen years.
But they caught up to us, didn’t they Felix?
Clarence has been in my head ever since we got caught. I don't know whether he's alive anymore. The voice in my head may well be a phantom. In this cell, only I exist.
It is six maddening feet by two, the exact size they calculated a human needs to lie down or stand. At my feet, a hole that ripens over time with the stench of my own body till they see fit to cleanse it. There is some calculation behind that too, no doubt. We are given the bare bones care we need to survive and nothing else. Just enough food not to starve to death. Just enough heat not to succumb to cold. No light. There are no windows in hell.
It’s coming
Clarence always knows and as I strain in the dark to listen, I realise he's right and my heart beats faster. A sickening hum fills the corridor beyond my box. I back away from the door, a whimper starting in my throat, as the mechanism shifts to open.
You try this every time, Felix. Where are you going to go, my friend?
‘Shut up,’ I snarl, tensing my weakened muscles. ‘Just shut the hell up, would you?’ The door slides back and I launch myself bodily into the hulking metal thing framed in it. Get caught by one scrawny arm and tossed, heavily, to the floor. As it picks me up, there is an involuntary stream of warmth running down my thighs. It goes like this every time.
I can actually watch it now, somewhere above. The calm precision with which it explores and burrows my flesh. The screams, echoing from some far place. Almost funny. This goes on for hours. Never enough damage to actually kill me. Detached from the stomach-turning scene below I curse him silently. Clarence. Wunder-kind. Savior of humanity with his thrice-damned lines of viral code that stopped them from being able to kill us.
‘What about torture? What about what's happening to me right now?’ I rage in my head. ‘A little short-sighted, weren't you?’
When I snap back into my wretched body we've reached the chicken part of the game. It lays out a selection of implements. A gun. Razors. An electric drill. Nothing that can even make a dent on that gleaming, alien alloy. A series of golden lights I've come to think of as eyes flare briefly in the crenulated recesses of its face. My move.
(Image from Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/en/robot-war-world-war-3-technology-2304752/)
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