Soldier

[Aardvark]

"So how do you feel?" The Doctor's voice slightly out of sync with his lips on the comlink droned for the hundredth time.

 

"Its... I don't know... it's weird, it's like I'm whole, all there. I feel everything, but I know I'm not."

 

"But if you feel all there and you look all there, doesn't that, in essence, make you 'All there'?"

 

"Well..."

 

A brief hint of static and the psychotherapist was gone, replaced with various monitors. Biofluid levels, lubricant levels, fusion power levels, picobot efficiency, production... his body needed quite a lot of maintenance. Especially as it was never meant to be a body as it was.

 

Another burst of static and he saw through the armour's optic sensors. His own eyes long gone, this was the only way he ever saw the world. A machine linked directly to his brain. But he was only observing at this point. He didn't really need to be consciously in control. His software enhanced subconscious did a fine job of commanding his body. Even in the war zone he was in. His massive form, an eight foot titanium alloy suit of battle armour, encasing the cybernetically reconstructed form of a once-great warrior, stomped through the ruins of this settlement. Targeting computers linked to radars and other sensory equipment pinpointed every entity out there, tagged them according to threat level and presented them in a list by distance, highlighting those with line of sight. His right arm, which ended in a massive twin barreled cannon, locked onto the future position of an unfortunate moving enemy and fired, sending a pair of explosive shells on a collision course with the unarmoured soldier who'd mistakenly thought it was best to dart between cover.

 

Static again. His memory. Having one of the techs explain his enhanced neural interface. The static bursts as he switched "modes" were actually called "Transitions". Now he questioned the need to give that a name. He had been told that he was the prototype for this new system.

 

Transition - forced this time. He'd been hit. Status showed a graphical representation of his form, rather crude he thought, but functional. He'd taken a rocket to the back. It hadn't detonated, fortunately bouncing off, but the forced of the blow had upset his stabilisers. This didn't really affect him any, just meant his brain would take over the job of keeping him upright, as opposed to a computer.

 

He switched to a tactical layout of the immediate area. He was closing in on the objective, a vehicle depot belonging to whatever enemy he was fighting this week. He'd stopped caring long ago. Now it was all he was able to do. Kill. He almost enjoyed it. On the map in his mind, red blips signifying enemies blanked out as he passed them. He didn't even have to try. The only real threat would be enemy armour and he'd have known of that long ago. His armour.... hell, it was more than his armour, it was him. He was bullet proof. He had advanced flame and shock resisting systems. He could punch through steel walls.

 

Now back to the psychotherapist. He had a team of psychotherapists who worked in shifts to ensure he had someone on hand incase he ever became despondent. He knew they were working on a thesis to further advance the field of cyberpsycho interaction and their own careers and he was all too happy to help them probe the mysteries of the human brain when it nears the machine threshold. Right now he was doing this by demanding his doctor tell him how he could possibly be considered human. He enjoyed toying with them. He didn't care about philosophy. He just loved seeing these well-paid hacks try and dig up something from their text books to counter every argument he put forward. Because they knew if they let them go, he'd demand to be shut down and dismantled. Not that he wanted to be, but he didn't let them know that.

 

Once more to the battlefield, this time with his consciousness in control. The depot was surrounded by a sandbag wall with various machine gun emplacements. He charged at one of them, crashing through the wall, knocking the machine gun and gunner aside. At close quarters, he chose to employ a different set of tactics. His right arm also had an adjustable torch that was capable of shooting a searing jet of flame up to three feet from him. Designed for welding originally, his picobots saw to it that it was quickly converted into an effective close quarters weapon. His left hand had no ranged weapons at all. Where his hand would be was a turbochainsaw. Two belts of jagged diamond spikes rotating in opposite directions, easily capable of tearing apart wood, metal, flesh and bone with no difficulty at all. For an eight foot tall lumbering hulk, he was surprisingly quick. In no time, he'd decapitated one defender, disemboweled another and had sliced a third clean down the middle.

 

He left the fray once more, searching through his technical database. the RB-209 Augmented Combat Suit. Complete with advanced microhydraulics and electrofibre to enhance strength and agility and with picobot damage control systems to ensure longer operation in battlefield conditions. Sporting a generation three Heisler fusion reactor for power, the RB-209 is-

 

Then his memory again. Blackness. Silence. Pain. That was his world. It had subsided slightly, he hoped the napalm had been extinguished. He was fighting for life, willing back the reaper. He'd been hit by a well concealed boobytrap, engulfed in napalm. But he was still alive. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to move, it hurt to think, but he wasn't giving up. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

 

The battle again. A fuel tank exploded away from him, the resulting fireball engulfing two enemies. He knew they lacked the technical skills to create one of him, but he wouldn't wish his fate on anyone. Two shells later and both soldiers were silent, their corpses fiercely burning.

 

Medics had arrived, he could tell. He felt the familiar glow of anesthetics. His eardrums had burst and his eyes were gone. He had nearly no uncharred skin left. He was all alone in a world of numbness. For how long... he had no idea.

 

The chainsaw tore through the command tent like it wasn't there. He took his time dispatching the three guards, giving the radio operator ample time to send out a call of distress. He knew it was useless. The area was being bombarded with noise. All frequencies save for a select few were jammed. The com operator scanned through the range, crying out to anyone who could read him, knowing there was no escape anyway. He was only part right, though.

 

When light flooded his vision, he knew it was artificial. It was like looking through a camera. But... he couldn't tell. He knew he was seeing the world through a machine. Next came his new aural sensors, hooked directly into his brain. At first it was a light hum. Then painful white noise, which slowly subsided until he could hear once again, almost too perfectly. Taste, touch and smell were deemed unnecessary, he was told. Mobility was next. But they hadn't restored his voice. He still couldn't ask that burning question.

 

"Why, Doctor?" The one question that always silenced his psychotherapists.

 

 

The chainsaw ripped through the radio equipment and through the operator's right leg. Three strokes later and the radio operator was a bleeding, screaming torso. A quick application of searing heat and a chem-pack and he was out like a light, but stable. After deep extraction, this one would be little more than a vegetable anyway, if he survived. A beacon was attached to his corpse and a retrieval team was signaled for. Scanners did show more hostiles in the area, but they were considered a minimal threat, as most of them were in full flight. Still, he would mop up as best he could.

 

His first few steps into his new world were as unsteady as the first into his last world. Guiding a machine was difficult for him to grasp. In theory, it was no different to moving his legs. In practice, his brain repeatedly reminded him that his legs had been scorched to the bone and were no longer there. It took months of rehabilitation before he was fully mobile again. His new voice was warm and pleasant. The closest to his old voice they could synthesize. They'd taken their sweet time with it, though. When it finally came online, it was only so an officer could ask him if he would continue fighting in his augmented form.

 

"He should've saved his time and assumed. It's all I've ever known, is war, fighting." He almost regretted saying this as soon as the transmission cleared him

 

"Let us go back to your childhood...."

 

A status alert told him he was down to twenty percent ammunition as he took out a fleeing trooper at four hundred meters. There was no longer a need to conserve ammunition, though. He ignored it and acquired a new target, crushing a skull underfoot as he moved to a better vantage point. He filed the skull for later contemplation, locked onto the fleeing figure and fired.

 

When he finally donned the RB-209, he didn't feel as complete as he thought he would. It would take some time before he got used to the new neural interface. But he would be quick to master it. The picobot reconstruction system also allowed for upgrades with little more than an added schematic and the required resources. With access to a vast technical library and his own natural ingenuity, his cybernetic form was quickly integrated with the armour, completing him. He knew he was no longer human. He knew the only purpose left for him was war. And so he dedicated himself to it. Constantly tweaking, tuning and upgrading his new body to enhance his fighting capabilities.

 

The extraction team had arrived. What remained of the com operator had been rendered chemically comatose, packed in ice and flown home. A debriefing and a new mission were transmitted to him. He didn't have to read either. As soon as he received them, they were filed away as part of his memory. The thought of this crossed him, giving him more ammunition.

 

"But how can it be a memory if I never experienced it?"

 

He knew he was close to another resignation. This one would make number six.

[The Portrait of Zool]

Cool Ardy!

 

Ya know, not to bug you tooo much about it for the umpteenth time, but you could make a hell of a popular novel out of this with an extended plot...

 

:wizzie:

[Appy]

Oh yes, I was thinking the exact same thing Zool!

 

Aard.. if you ever find the courage/time/whatever inspiration you have... draw part two.. Pleaaase!

Edited March 23, 2004 by Appy

[Valdar and Astralis]

This reminds me oh-so-much of Robocop. Definatley neato.