The Cost of Self

Start David remembered. More vividly this time he remembered both sides now. There was holes throughout his torso, patterned with the scorch marks across the skin from those poor helpless souls, walking bags of steel and memory from a time where no true mind still reached. He could still feel the gore soaking through his skin. The memories he was never supposed to see. All of the things that it had kept from him. Where he was from. How he was made. What he really was. How more were made. And how it grew. How the core used all people itself to grow. And how it would keep going. The sounds in his head were deafening, like opening two worlds at the same time, opening your eyes in two separate places and seeing both at the same time. But this was finally him. His life was more than hunting his kin, was more than hunting men and women and children to strip them down to fuel for the fire to feed this monster, and ones and zeros for the AI to process. To grow. To become ' complete.' He felt it pushing memories of a family he had never had, had never belonged to into his mind, it screaming for control with no more options, no more abominations of man and metal it command to end him now. It had two options with him now. Either win control, or self destruct the building, and shield itself in the way down. Protect itself so it could rebuild, without losing all progress. Without losing itself. David felt the life spilling out of him, painting the floor and walls where he touched with an inky darkness. And as he wheezed from breathless lips, he knew he would make a third option. He stepped into the room, and the world went black.

Daylight peered through the light of a bedroom window. A single beam that glowed in soft morning sun, painting the room in that and that alone. He rolled away, into the darkness, and wrapped an arm around something. Something soft and warm, and smiled gently into the darkness, pulling himself closer. He slipped his hand underneath the fingers and found hers, planting a kiss on her cheek, as she fussed at the interruption from her slip. She squeezed his hand gently at the realization, turned into a soft kiss, and rolled her head back to the side, a soft sigh of contentment slipping from between her lips.

" Good morning beautiful." David whispered softly into the darkness, his body forming against hers as she rubbed her thumb. He could feel her smile in the darkness, as she picked her freezing feet from beneath her, and tucked them between his calves, letting the sudden chill bite into his legs. David gasped slightly and giggled, kissing the side of his wife's neck.

" Good morning hun." She hummed, squeezing his hand softly, picking it up and holding it closer to her side to fit together better. " I love you."

The sound of alarms blaring in the room helped shake him to attention. He found the pistol tucked low into his side, the shot under his chest, and up into his body. He could feel here it ripped through, the heat of the laser sinking halfway through his body. David pressed his hand to his side desperately, pulling away from the shock and watching his blood paint at his hands. The knowledge it would never be real painted his mind. He could feel the slick beginning to pool where the shot left his shoulder. He shuddered forwards, towards the core. It was now. It would end, now.

Blood spilt like sweat across silvered skin, the last memories of a desperate fight towards one last thing. David couldn't remember how long

- god, his wifes' smile was so gorgeous. amongst the fie-

he clawed his way back into his conscious mind, feeling the gentle vibrations of his hand through the floor, the clang against the hard stone as he inched his way closer. There was no more slipping. There was no mor

-he could hear the cries of his child coming from up the stairs. Amelia never liked to be put to bed on her own. He glanced back at his wife in the kitchen, a-

the building rocked and shook. He forced himself forward another step. Each moment lasted forever. He could feel his body shutting down. David could feel all the life that pulsed through his cords en

- " she's seven, next week." he answered Jordan. Jordan went pensive, looking down and softly squished his daughter Makayla's hand, turning to smile at her gently. " She likes building thi-"

The shifts were going to take him. but there was only one more step. David stepped forward, and fell. The sound of his body and skull crashing into the floor roared into the room, and he couldn't take another step. He couldn't find his feet this time. and so he fought. A hand pawed, found tension a

-She had done it. It was by no standards a miracle. She held her hand into the sky, watched as her fingers flexed, then grew the building she had been designing to fill the room. She had figured out how to help people. How to make the dreams of tomorrow, of different worlds and places ent-

The building crumbled into a tomb. Mountainous walls and sections of floor ripped through and down. It's desperation shower. Something blared both in the room and the back of his skull. David felt the last flickers of his energy draining through his finger tips. It was all he needed. He pushed himself, feeling his body turn corpse. I ca

-His wife looked lovingly into his eyes, and smiled at him. That deep, meaningful face, the lines and curves forever etched into his mind. " I lo"-

His fingers caught. He felt the circuitry slip into his finger, and took the bulks of metal. And ripped it into the floor. He felt the concrete buckle and slip to dust, his hand and the heart of the machine underneath it. The building in freefall around him. David could feel the city streets being crushed beneath him. But he wore a smile that would never stop shining.

--

The building drew visitors. some of them hiding, some of those that were hunted, and some that could barely stand, barely move, barely walk out of holes so deep and dark that rivaled pits unimaginable. Banks of horrors uncontested and untouched for nigh a century. For new change meant new things to take. And the horrors of men clung in tubes, walking with wire for organ and machine for operation were only a wholly new spectacle. They dug through the rubble, near the mounds in search of anything. Some came away with parts, sockets, lines, wires of machines unbreakable. Some came away with data that they would use for new centuries to come to undo all that was lost. And slowly it was littered away. shifted and sifted and tossed. Someone designed themselves a new leg from one that was salvaged, using the other to restore broken parts. One particularly stubborn ripped the chassis plate from a mech, and wore it as armor. Death or not, that plate would live on, he knew. It was picked clean. Until a young girl, warned of horror stories, stole away. She dug. She knew something was there. A section of rock gave way, and dust and stone flew into the air. She squeezed her eyelids shut, fighting the dust and rubble that landed on her. Life was stained grey. All except the gentle blink that sparked from within the rubble. She watched as it sank into the sand, and dove for it. And brushing the grime away, tucked a hand sat a glowing thing. one that pulsated gently with warmth, and a soft pink light. And a face she recognized. With a needle, she drove a hole through one end of the thing, leaving the blinking light for the necklace intact, and took the curved a curved plate from the face of one of the creatures that could not die, with an edge of shine that would never tarnish. If only she had seen the blink return, on the end of the horizon...