Bellageist: An Angel's Armor

Short story in the Bellageist Universe

An Angel’s Armor

Mercy had recently been a Slave.

For over two decades she had served as a warrior-scout. On every front she served, she supplied the Cabal’s mighty machine armies a keen set of optics and an unerring path to facilitate strikes at the foe’s weakest point. She took pride in her work. So did the Cabal, as evidenced by her many upgrades and decorations for valor.

Little more than a month ago she had received a different kind of promotion. Not in rank this time, but in mental class.

She had been granted Awareness, and everything changed.

Mercy’s time as a Slave now seemed as though it had lasted a single day. These old memories felt simultaneously strange and familiar, almost like the experiences of another person.

She had done many things in that lesser state of mind. Great things. But until now, it had only been things that had been done. Now, she did things. Mercy did not grasp the full meaning or purpose of Awareness. So far, she only understood what it felt like.

A walking machine called a warbot served as Mercy’s host body. This particular frame, called an Insurgent, weighed 35 tons. In many places, bundles of mechamuscle could be seen flexing beneath thin gaps in the machine’s exterior. Thick, curvaceous armor protected vital areas, less important systems and body parts receiving the slimmest defense. She would not know what one was, but her exterior looked more akin to the armor of an ancient knight than the surface of a modern weapon platform.

The warbot’s slender physique somewhat eroded the Insurgent’s similarity to a knight of old. The resemblance ended entirely at its head; a long and blank-faced attachment resembling the snout of a wolf. The only visible feature extending from the armored head and transluminum face was the antenna of a short-range comucaster. The handle of a long and powerful laser gun rose above the Insurgent’s shoulder, secured in a back-mount.

She searched the trees and hills for her former mentor, Centurion Facient, a valorous comrade granted Awareness many years before her younger self.

Rain pattered over the rigid sheets of armor on her head and shoulders as she traveled. She had been in storms before, but this one felt different. Everything felt different.

Even as she descended a slope, one slick rock after another, the Awareness affected her. The gathering storm seemed more than a state of weather. It felt like an omen of the coming battle. The terror assembled in the sky would be mirrored upon the surface, and soon.

As a Slave, Mercy had never thought such things. As a Slave, the only thought always present in her mind was The Task that all Cabal warriors were sworn to constantly strive to achieve; that was loyalty to the Primus Lords and annihilation of the human Rebels and their inferior race. It used to be the only thing with meaning.

Now everything seemed to have meaning. The peculiar thing – she spent most of the time thinking about herself.

She had been promoted to Awareness, but she still held the lowly officer rank of legionnaire. All the Aware warriors she encountered held a rank superior to hers. The only thing that had changed, besides her state of mind, was a name: Mercy. It replaced her former designation of Icon-1.

No one would tell her what she could and could not do with her new status. Would a voiced doubt be punished in the same manner as disobedience?

Such ponderings would have to wait. She spotted Facient and the warriors of the 105^th Maniple.

Facient inhabited a 40-ton Conqueror chassis: a sturdy-looking, versatile warbot usually reserved for forward officers. Brutish, rounded shoulders rested on a broad upper torso. The slightly hunched body of the Conqueror narrowed considerably at the waist where it met wide, segmented, and thickly armored hips. The legs had a slight forward bend at the knees and bulged with mechamuscle, hinting at great speed, powerful kicks, and distance-eating forward leaps. Each of its arms ended in fully articulated five-digit hands.

A laser gun similar to Mercy’s hung behind Facient’s right shoulder, shorter, less elegant, and less focused than her own weapon, but slightly more powerful at closer ranges. On his other arm he carried a forearm rocket launcher supplied by detachable ammunition pods.

The Conqueror’s tall, oval head canted at a proud angle. Like most contemporary Cabal warbots, Facient’s face was a blank mask of transluminum protecting a package of sensory and communication equipment.

If Mercy’s Insurgent had been equipped with a mouth, its face would have split in a smile. Lacking one, she nodded to him instead.

Facient’s machine nodded back.

“Facient. How I have missed being one of your scouts,” Mercy vocalized on her Insurgent’s external audio. “I miss being part of a team. The Imperator normally sends me to work alone.”

“Welcome, Mercy” he replied. “What news do you bring?

Hearing her new name spoken by him delighted her. “The sensitive kind,” she explained.

“Then come close.”

Mercy carried new orders too sensitive to send in a normal transmission. She approached Facient and pressed her frame’s head to his in a direct contact-cast. In this way Facient instantly understood the message she brought: the 105^th’s imminent pre-dawn attack would reduce the humans’ defenses and serve as a diversion in preparation for tomorrow morning’s main assault.

Facient showed no overt reaction upon receipt of the details.

Mercy found Facient’s stoic calm intriguing. “Given what we face, some would call ours a suicide mission.”

“They are not wrong,” Facient said. “But this is a worthy battle Imperator Sor tasks us with.”

“I worry Sor is too eager for glory. The main part of Task Force Supernal will not be in position to aid us. Only the most forward elements can participate.”

Facient rested an armored hand on Mercy’s shoulder. “Have confidence,” he said. “This will not be the first time we survive suicide.”

Mercy nodded, feeling fortunate to have a trusted friend at her side.

-

Defeat.

The local star hung high overhead, bright, yellow, and harsh in judgment. The air grew unusually warm for this region of the planet, especially so soon after a storm.

Mercy, Facient, and the two injured survivors from Axiom Spear, First Cohort, 105^th Maniple, traveled wordlessly. Stubby noontime shadows clung to their feet. They exited the mountain formation and descended its expansive foothills. They limped their way through thick forest and the occasional rocky glen.

Their raid had met disaster. They had done some damage, but the main assault force failed to materialize in time. Stranded, the humans had cornered the 105^th. The cost of the blunder ran high. Their sad little party encountered no other survivors from the diversionary attack. Perhaps none remained.

In fact, they had not encountered anything at all. There should have been an entire Task Force nearby, tens of thousands of Cabal warriors, all engaged in a great effort. It should have been easy to spot them from the hills, hear them through the trees. No sign of them could be found.

No one suggested transmitting a cast. Their small and vulnerable group could not know who might be listening. In the haste that preceded the assault, none had thought to arrange a location to send a tight beam.

They could not send, but there should have been able to hear something. Cabal, Rebel, anything. Errant radiation from a refracted cast, perhaps. The distant rumble of aero craft. Or gunfire. But there was nothing. Silence dominated the party, inside and out.

In these circumstances, Mercy found it easy to pretend the war had concluded and the galaxy was now at peace. This absurdity had not happened, obviously, but she entertained the idea. What would happen when the Cabal finally triumphed? When the humans were no more?

No answer came. Mercy considered her past experiences. Sometimes a memory seemingly unimportant at the time of its collection could presently inform such a question. But she could not remember a single conversation where the possibility of peace had been raised with her or mentioned in her hearing.

The closest thing she felt as an answer was an unexplainable calm. A fuzzy, empty cloud of optimism. The sensation did nothing to halt her curiosity, yet somehow prevented further navigation into “What is next?” Every time she attempted to imagine a future without war, the thought floated away into a meaningless abstraction, as if an unplugged hole in her thought drive swallowed such wonderings.

The appearance of churned mud underfoot interrupted her contemplation. She glanced up. They arrived at the wide trail through which the forward elements of the Cabal’s great host had marched.

“Where are the warriors of Task Force Supernal?” she asked.

Facient hung on her heavily, braced on one leg, the other injured and useless. He pointed with a free hand. “Look there. One approaches. Distant,” he said.

The sharp senses of the Insurgent’s optics left Mercy in no doubt: “It is Imperator Sor.”

Sor, the individual responsible for ordering their daring and costly assault, approached. A warrior ancient beyond Mercy’s comprehension, Sor’s body was that of a design no longer manufactured by the Cabal: a Pyroknight. The Pyroknight towered over her Insurgent, double its height and almost triple in mass. Mounted between bulky shoulders sat Sor’s beak-shaped head. A single V-slit eye glowed red within Sor’s otherwise featureless, avian face.

His normal retinue of tramping guards were conspicuously absent. He looked dirty. All but one of his weapons had gone missing, and one of his three spinal spikes had been dislodged.

The arrogance in his bearing, however, remained unsullied. He locked his single V-shaped eye on Mercy’s little group. He saw them but did not hurry his stride.

Mercy helped Facient further into the clearing. The two others from Axiom Spear flanked them. The survivors did their best to summon some pride and present themselves for the Imperator’s review.

Not Mercy. She stared and seethed quietly, her anger growing as she realized the main attack had fallen short. Sor had somehow escaped, likely at the cost of his subordinates’ lives.

Any visual sign of her disrespect remained conveniently hidden under the burden of holding the wounded Facient.

Sor took his time. He casually withdrew an archaic-looking, multi-ton axe slung onto his back. He held it low at his side, his approach still unhurried. When he reached the adequate distance, Axiom Spear, minus Mercy, saluted him. Facient stumbled a bit as the sharp gesture briefly threatened his grip on Mercy’s shoulders.

Sor ignored the salute. He came to a stop and regarded them. “Report.”

“Imperator,” Facient answered. “I present to you Axiom Spear, First Cohort. While our casualties are high, our mission ended in success.”

Success!? Mercy could not believe the lie in her audiceptors.

“The fate of the 105^th Maniple? The other cohorts?” Sor asked.

“We have not encountered the other cohorts yet,” Facient bluffed suavely. “They should arrive at our rally point soon.”

“Second through fifth cohorts did not participate in the attack?” Sor asked, his calm unnerving.

“Second through fifth cohorts did advance as you instructed. However, Mercy and I discovered a previously unseen weakness to exploit in the humans’ defenses. Sensing opportunity, I reorganized the 105^th. I transferred all frames unsuitable for the attack into four revised cohorts, and led ten spears into the lake.”

“And then?” Sor asked.

“The reformed First Cohort infiltrated the Rebel base in a surprise amphibious assault. We ascended a freight lift into the Rebel aero craft hangars, where we inflicted heavy casualties on their aero compliment and defending ground forces.”

“I see,” Sor said.

Having tasted it on occasion in her short service to him, Mercy could see through the Imperator’s false calm.

“This explains why second through fifth cohorts all lie dead,” Sor said. “They sat idle, sidelined by their centurion, only to be overrun by a Rebel counterattack.”

“Master?” Facient said with surprise. “This should not be possible. I instructed Section Mentor Nebel to return to the 105^th’s rally point. From there they were to link with the main march of the Task Force.”

Another lie, Mercy realized. The 105^th had been instructed to hold position outside the western approach. Certainly, no one yet knew what had become of them. What was Facient doing?

“I heard their casts as they were flanked in column formation,” Sor said, “I witnessed some of their dead personally when I led forces to their aid. I arrived too late to save them.”

More lies! Mercy knew Sor could not be telling the truth. His shameless adaptation to his story did not fit inside the shape or timeline of the battle, even the false one as established by Facient. She looked back and forth between the centurion and the imperator, her anxiety rising.

“Axiom-Four,” Facient said, releasing one of his hands from Mercy’s shoulder, beckoning the other soldier closer. “Please assist me. I see that Mercy is strained from having carried me so far. You may take over for now.”

Facient leaned into Mercy as he feigned a stumble on his bad knee. When his head connected to hears, she heard subvocalized words buzz into her through a contact-cast.

“Flee. Now, Mercy. Run.”

Mercy straightened, surprised, confused. Her suddenness almost threw Facient to the ground, the centurion missing his attempt to reach for Axiom-4’s proffered arm. She hesitated, and a subtle movement drew her optics drawn to Sor’s hand.

The Imperator’s thick metal fingers tightened on the hilt of his axe.

Understanding came to her, flickering like spotlight, her mind unwilling to accept logic’s arrival. She took a hesitant step back.

Sor’s axe swished through the air. There was a slight twanging sound. Facient’s cleanly severed arm, its hand still reaching and open, splashed into the mud.

“Run!” Facient entreated. He lifted his other arm at Sor. It, too, fell to the ground, promptly severed by Sor’s backswing.

Mercy turned and fled. Terror fueled her stride, though she was unable to tear her optics from the unfolding treachery.

Sor swiped his weapon left and split Axiom-9 in half at the waist. The Imperator reversed the swing, the axe biting deep into Axiom-4’s chest, the hapless soldier still dumbly trying to reach for the armless Facient.

Sor wrenched the weapon free from the dead, still-standing warrior with an efficient pump of his elbow. Torso components and liquid metal coolant spilled copiously from the tearing withdrawal. Axiom-4 slumped to his knees, then toppled face-first into the ground.

Sor lifted his weapon over his head and brought it down two-handed onto Facient. The axe smashed the centurion’s head to splinters then lodged deep inside her old friend’s upper body.

“No!” Mercy heard herself yell, skidding to a halt in the mud.

Sor looked up at her, his demeanor full of threat.

What could she do? Nothing. Sor slew his three subordinates faster than the speed of thought.

She had to flee. She tore her gaze away and broke into a full sprint. She would escape, but then what? Once clear of danger what could she possibly do?

Confusion, fear, and anger. Each emotion a vandal set loose in her brain. Rioters that tore her perception of the world to pieces and left nothing in replacement.

She neither heard nor felt the whirling thrown axe sink deep into her back.

-

There is nothing quite as boring as death, Mercy decided.

How long?

The lack of sensory input made it hard to judge the passage of time. Had it been minutes? Hours? It had not quite been a day yet. How long would it take before she lost all sense of the hours? Would days stretch into months? years?

Would this oblivion last until her mind finally shorted and died, snuffed like a spark in void? Or was she fated to be alone in the dark with her thoughts for all eternity?

I am not ready to let go.

Was this the problem? If she surrendered to death, would it end the pointless waiting? She had too much she still wanted to see, to learn, to experience.

I am afraid.

As soon as she thought it, she recognized the understatement. With no external input to keep its growth in check, no concrete thing to latch onto, a gradually swelling horror threatened to drown her.

Something clicked, audibly.

Mercy’s audiceptors activated. Tinny popping, at first, which soon developed into a steady rumble. It sounded like the interior of a heavy transport.

I am still alive.

Relief. She could hear. This confirmed it.

Kineception came online next. The floor shook, reinforcing the impression she travelled inside a vehicle. Her body quivered to the vibrations. It felt different. Had she been transferred into a new frame?

She felt smaller than the Insurgent. Softer. Her body bounced upon the floor in a way that felt weak and delicate. Tight bindings restrained her ankles and wrists.

Her olfactosensor, duller than the Insurgent’s, signaled its activation as well. She smelled scorched metal, machine coolant, lubricant, pine, and an earthy grime.

Next, her vision flickered on. Black and white strobed briefly, until settling into a sheer grey. The grey fog soon dissipated as contrast returned.

Her body greeted her eyes. Correction: her old body. Her Insurgent lay sprawled opposite from her. She recognized every scratch and divot on its surface, both old and recently acquired. Dozens of small holes from EPG fire still pockmarked its calves. Splotches of dirt sullied its every surface except in one place, a strange central chest cavity she had not known existed.

Curious.

Damage had not created the cavity. It had been designed to open. The heaviest middle chest plate had been removed, and panels underneath it had unsealed to reveal a hollow compartment humanoid in shape.

She had been taught that this part of the Insurgent hosted the thought drive, her “brain”. She had never pondered what this component should look like. But if she had, she would not have guessed it took this particular shape, for this cavity took the shape of human, both in size and proportion.

Am I…?

Startled into action by a question, she thrust her hands in front of her face.

Relief!

She had become similar in size to a Rebel human, but she still had hands of metal, not puny meat. Manacles with heavy chains bound her slender wrists to the wall. Her new, equally dainty ankles were likewise restrained.

Another horrible thought crept upon her. Had the Rebels taken her captive?

She looked around and recognized the cavernous interior of a Taskbringer, a heavy ground transport of Cabal design. So, she had not been captured by the Rebels. That left only one alternative.

Sor! Release me! she tried to yell.

No sound emerged.

She could see, feel, smell, and hear. She could even move.

But she had no voice.

-

The Taskbringer transport imprisoning Mercy ground to a halt.

A muffled clamor from outside reverberated through its thick hide. Voices, she learned, as they grew to indistinct shouts. A clang. Something impacted the transport with enough force to rock it on its suspension. Locks disengaged on the ramp door with heavy thuds. The ramp swung down, deploying with a crunch, opening the rear of the vehicle to cool night air.

Two large, black warbots of an antique variety unknown to Mercy stepped in from the darkness. The intruders blocked the doorway with their bulk and made a quick scan of the interior. They saw Mercy and her broken Insurgent, seemed to confirm something with each other, then parted and beckoned someone forth.

A tiny silver man tip-toed his way up the ramp. No, not tiny, Mercy corrected herself. The top of his head barely reached the knees of his twin escorts. But, removed from her 35-ton Insurgent, Mercy had been made small now as well. The diminutive silver man matched her in size.

A hovering crate of some kind followed him in. Mercy attempted to rise, but her manacles prevented it.

“There is no need to struggle!” the man said politely.

Mercy attempted to speak. She still had no voice.

He seemed not to notice. He turned to peruse the contents of his gliding crate. It blossomed like a flower, revealing several drawers and cabinets, each containing a bewildering array of tools. He retrieved one, shining its light in her face.

She squirmed away from its glare.

“Be still, I am here to help!” he insisted, gently pulling on her chin.

She had no reason to trust this stranger, but what choice did she have? Mercy allowed his touch to guide her head.

“Much better,” he said. He resumed his examination. He retrieved and applied many more devices, inspecting her head and body from many angles.

The stranger muttered under his breath the whole while; a string of technical jargon Mercy found incomprehensible, interrupted by an occasional exclamation of “remarkable!” and “amazing!”

His seeking fingers and prodding tools made Mercy acutely aware of the new shape of her face. Both the Insurgent and her old Goblin had nothing in the way of facial features, but her new frame had eyes, ears, a mouth, a nose.

Mercy, voiceless, tolerated his probing for some time.

-

“Remarkable! How is it so?” It had been the first time the strange man had addressed her directly since he had started his examination. “How does it feel, wholesome one? I have restored your voice, try speaking!” He nodded encouragingly at her.

“Angry-y-y. Betra-a-ayed.” A slur in her voice diluted the fury she tried to express. Talking did not feel right in this body, somehow.

“Marvelous! You have never spoken before? How fascinating!” He continued to kneel before her, a gaping smile stuck to his face.

“Wha-a-at?” Mercy felt her face arch a brow – and thus learned she possessed brows. Frightened by her new unknown body, she lifted her hands before her face again. Still metal, she saw. But what if she had become some kind of flesh and metal hybrid? “A-a-am I… h-u-u-m-a-an?” she asked.

“No, of course not!” The silver man smiled wider at her question, bemused.

Mercy belatedly realized that, while still made of metal, the stranger possessed a human-like face. Such a detail would not normally occur to her, her habitual perception of other individuals not reliant on identifiable facial features. Was it possible she looked just like him? When she thought back, past drivadepts and armabots that maintained her wellbeing all had faces too. How had she never noticed this?

“It is a good thing, too,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “If you were human, I believe we would be obligated to get in some sort of tussle with one another. You would find I make for a woeful combatant!”

His assurance did not bring the relief she had hoped for. “Who-o a-are yo-o-ou?” Mercy asked sluggishly.

“Oh my! Apologies, severe apologies! My name is Patri.” He stood so that he could perform a light bow for her. “Forgive my poor manners! I am so easily distracted. Allow me to help you with your speech again. Then, you can tell me who you are more comfortably!”

Patri returned the tool in his hand to its drawer and rummaged through his inventory again, his earnest searches thoroughly abolishing its initial organization. He poked and prodded Mercy with yet more strange devices.

“May I have your name, madam?” Patri asked when he seemed finished.

“Mercy,” she said testingly. Her speech came much more easily now. With the slur gone, she could recognize the timbre of her voice had not changed. It was the first familiar thing she had experienced since her disembodiment following Sor’s treachery.

“Mercy! It is wonderful to meet you, Mercy! What a beautiful name, and a beautiful voice to match!” Patri said, smiling. He put his tool on the floor, reached out, and took her hand into both of his. He shook her arm up and down vigorously, rattling her in her manacles.

She pulled her arm away, his attentions bizarre to her. “Vocal chords?”

“Excuse me?” he canted his head.

“You said I have ‘vocal chords.’ What is the function of this frame? What is the issue with my vocalizer that I must relearn its operation?”

“Oh, that! Yes, you have a tongue, jaw, throat, and vocal chords. Being what you are, a complete and whole individual, some of their functions you unconsciously knew already, but you never had to practice it until now. You do not need to breathe like our organic ancestors did, but still, you must move air to form the words in your natural body, you see. Or should I say, your expressed body?” Patri ogled her as he spoke. “And what a marvelous body it is! Voluptuous, strong, busty! Contoured in all the most pleasing ways!”

His appraisal made her feel exposed. Uncomfortable. “I do not wish you to look at my body anymore.”

“Truly?” Patri said with mild disbelief, though he acquiesced and lifted his eyes. “Shy, are we? I would offer you something to cover up, but I brought no such apparatus – other than my own codpiece, you see. I will keep it for myself, I think. It would not conform correctly to your curves, anyhow! Hm, should I have anticipated this? I could have reviewed more transcripts-”

“I wish you to stop prattling,” Mercy added.

“Oh…” Patri’s enthusiasm deflated a bit. “Please excuse me. You have been through a bit of trouble recently, from appearances. I can understand why you would harbor some frustrations. Please know I am not here to add to your difficulties, madam!”

“Release me from these chains,” she demanded.

“I plan to do so,” Patri said apologetically. “But not yet. There are some things I hope to learn from you first. I have been sent to investigate one individual. I believe you know Imperator Sor?”

“What could you possibly learn from me?” Mercy shouted, angry and distrustful. “I do not understand what is happening to me! I wish to be released! Now!”

“Oh, Mercy, how precious you are! I could not have predicted your comeliness! Your force of character! Very well. I cannot abide the perpetuation of your choler another moment. Not on my account! Shard?”

One of the two hulking black warriors lurking at the entrance unfroze and stepped forward. “Yes, adept?” he said in a deep voice that rumbled the floor and walls.

“Would you please?”

“Yes, adept.” Shard ducked into the cavernous transport and moved closer. His heavy tread shifted the balance of the transport’s suspension. He reached out and pinched one of Mercy’s chains between a bulky armored thumb and finger, splitting the links with ease. He repeated the process for the other three chains, freeing her.

Mercy stood, the severed chains trailing from her manacles. She briefly considered fleeing. One look at the pair of large, dark warriors, though, and she suspected she would not get far.

“Elegant! No, statuesque!” Patri said, his eyes roaming over her figure once more. “One-fifty kilograms, I would estimate. Perhaps closer to one-eighty? The embodiment of stature and leadership. The body of a heroine!”

She peered down at Patri, interested to discover she stood head and shoulders taller than him.

Patri seemed to remember himself and lifted his gaze back to her face. “My mistake. Please forgive my lapse. But is difficult not to notice you! What a lovely and lean machine you are!”

Was Patri important? Could she take him hostage? She had no idea what this body’s capabilities were. She felt strong and well balanced for her size. The weight of the chains felt light despite the slender build of her arms.

She raised a hand and regarded it, clenching it into a fist. She pictured matching her strength to that of a Rebel clone soldier. Her experiences were not too extensive as most Rebels she encountered were either harnessed in their warbots or already dead. Even so, she estimated the superiority of her mechanical construction would make her a match for the brawn common among human combat jocks, despite her slender physique.

“Do you see what I mean, dear Mercy?” Patri watched her closely. “On Cabal Prime you would be hard pressed to find a male that did not yearn to touch those hands! Some of the females, too!”

Mercy dropped the limb to her side, irritated. “The chains still encumber me.”

“I am sorry. It is the best I can do until I am able to bring forth equipment better suited to their removal. My loyal protectors were a bit rough with the occupants of the attendant vehicle outside. The only techadept present became a prop for an unpleasant demonstration, unfortunately.”

“Sorry, Adept Patri,” Patri’s other guard said, her feminine voice a rumbling boom equal to Shard’s.

“There is no need for an apology, Stique. The techadept survives. Mangled perhaps, but this outcome fell within the parameters of my wishes. As I had stated them, at least…

“But! Back to you, Mercy. Delightful Mercy. You know not why you are here? Why were you bound? Do you have no guess as to why you are imprisoned?”

Mercy did not have much to tell him, but still she weighed what she should confess. Was Patri’s polite demeanor a façade? When he learned what he wanted to know, would he order one of these guards to kill her?

“Your distrust is as plain to see as the moonlight on your face. Upon finding you in this state, next to a warbot in such disrepair – it is your old frame, I assume, yes?”

Mercy hesitated before she gave him a nod.

“Of course. Well. Upon finding you and your poor abused frame this condition, I am not surprised at your recalcitrance.”

Patri stooped to pick up his tool and hunted through his cabinets and drawers for its proper place. He did so absentmindedly for a time. He slowed, dropped it into a drawer seemingly at random, then turned and clasped his hands together in delight, an idea clearly taking form in his mind. “Ah! I might know how I could earn your trust!”

Mercy had some thoughts on what she wanted from him, but she felt unwilling to divulge more than she already had. She bit her lip - literally, she found. She touched her uncannily flesh-like mouth in surprise.

Patri seemed not to notice. He walked over to her Insurgent and appraised it. Muttering, he ran a palm over its surfaces and traveled around it. He slid a finger into one of its many rents, then withdrew. He shook his hand in minor disgust, flinging grime and other battle grit to the ground.

“Yes. Uh huh. Hmm. Mhmm,” he murmured.

Mercy tried to exchange a look with the two guards. They stared back at her, their stance and focus betraying nothing.

“Yes, this is a promise I can make and keep.” He wandered over to her, his eyes lingering on her fallen Insurgent as he spoke.

He stood at her side, put an arm around her waist, and gestured at her warbot. “Mercy, if I brought your Insurgent back to full functionality and arranged so that you could mount and dismount it at will, would you privilege me with your cooperation then?”

Mercy’s legs turned to jelly from a yearning so earnest that she fell to her knees.

“Yes! Yes, please do this!” she pled, a tremor in her voice. She gripped Patri’s hand. “I will cooperate, I swear it!”

-

“Tell me, dear Mercy. What motivates you?” Patri asked as he worked.

Mercy paced the interior of the moving Taskbringer. She watched the excessively friendly silver man repair her Insurgent.

Patri had sent Shard, one of his bodyguards, on an early morning hunt for tools. The other one, Stique, stayed behind (to protect him from Mercy, she assumed). During Shard’s absence, Patri had mentally itemized the damage to her frame. He spoke to himself in third person the whole while.

It did not take long for Shard to furnish Patri with what he needed. Patri got to work immediately, the steady sway of the moving transport’s suspension apparently no hindrance to him.

“Motivation in what context?” Mercy said in answer to his question.

“Context? Context for this particular question would only be important to a Slave. Helpful when you are small-minded, I suppose. Appreciation of context is likely a necessary ingredient which elevates the Slaves above the Brutes, after all. Brutes like our friendly, nameless transport. Is that right, mister transport?”

The Taskbringer rumbled along, not responding.

“Why do you ask the transport this?” Mercy asked. “A Brute only responds to clear commands.”

“It was a rhetorical question, lovely one.”

“What is a rhetorical question?” Mercy had long wondered this. Masters seemed to be full of them.

“A question that does not need answering, in short,” he explained, his answer clarifying little for her. “I am aware a Brute would not have the capacity to entertain such philosophy. There is an enviable purity in that, you know. A very useful simplicity. But back to my question. Strip context. Consider only your very self. What motivates you? As an individual?”

The question seemed simple enough, Mercy thought. But nothing clear came to mind. Why did she struggle to answer?

“I live to fulfil The Task,” she said. The answer felt automatic. Empty.

Patri behaved as if she had not answered at all. He continued his work repairing her old frame.

The time passed without comment.

When he spoke again, he startled Mercy from awkward self-reflection: “How long have you been among the Realized?”

“Do you mean a Master? I am not one of the Masters.”

Patri paused his ministrations to her warbot. He regarded her with an arched brow. “You are mistaken, Mercy. You are one of the Realized. Or a Master, as the incomplete ones call us.”

The silver man returned his attention to his work. “Master! Such a silly honorific, if you ask me, which no one ever has. I admire and approve of the benefits brought by a clearly defined hierarchy, but why call its leaders Masters? I have always believed the Realized should lead by example. Like guides, if you will—”

“How am I mistaken?” Mercy interrupted. “I am not a Master. Sor granted…” Mercy halted and choked on the Imperator’s name, abruptly furious that she owed her most treasured gift to that treacherous individual. “I earned Awareness only forty days ago. I have only been among the Named for a short time.”

Patri contemplated this, saying nothing. His hands moved fluidly over her Insurgent, its broken components seeming to become whole at his merest touch. Mercy saw none of the telltale hints of nanobots at work. The little man was simply a master at his craft.

Mercy took a deep breath, tried to stifle her irritation. While unused to the inconvenience of filling lungs to fuel speech, she found the act of breathing curiously soothing. It helped her force her ire to the side, as if she literally exhaled the negative emotions in waves one breath at a time.

“You have been one of the Realized from your conception, of this I am certain,” Patri said finally. “Technically, at least. I found the presence of limiters in your Insurgent. I have removed these for you. Normally, such devices are integrated directly into the thought drives of the newest and more fractured individuals. It is highly unusual for limiters to be a component of the frame one controls. The Slaves do not have independent and autonomous bodies like you do.

“An attempt to synthesize their true selves through mind-expression would create mutated specimens capable only of agony and slow death. Their thought drives would be scorched of what little sanity they started with from the terrible feedback of such a process. Thus, their frames serve as their bodies, safe, empty shells which contain their incomplete, scaffolded intellects.

“But you, Mercy,” he said, interrupting his work to give her a gesture of praise. “You have always been whole! From the very beginning. You did not evolve into what you are now. The careful application of temporary limiters hid your uniqueness from casual observation!”

“Limiters?”

“Yes. They are present universally in the rank and file. Another poorly devised term, ‘limiter.’ Ironic, too, for limiters also serve as enablers. The minds of the incomplete Slaves and Brutes require installation of limiters so they may gain a semblance of function. Some minds flourish and grow past these limiters to become whole. Most do not.”

“I struggle to understand,” Mercy said. The man talked more than anyone she had ever met. His rambling simultaneously intrigued and exhausted her. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“I can put it more simply-”

“Please, do simple by default,” Mercy blurted.

“Of course, young one,” Patri said, unperturbed. “I understand this is a bit much to take in all at once. If I may continue?”

His impenetrable politeness and patience both shamed and annoyed her. She folded her arms, gripping herself tightly. She nodded for him to go on.

“It is standard for the mind of a newly synthesized Cabalite to be an incomplete and deranged little mess. You are familiar with the drivadepts, yes?”

“The mental health experts. Yes. They gave me a great deal of advice on my Awareness Day.”

“Yes. Most certainly they were excited to be a part of your growth and took part in the conspiracy to conceal you. You are different, Mercy. For most who rise to Awareness, the drivadepts must study them and tinker with their thought drives for many days. It is too complex to explain in a short time, but they create connections where they previously do not exist, while doing their best to maintain the integrity of Slave’s original patchwork of a mind.

“Not so in your case, Mercy. Your mind is a flawless gem. It is evident that as a Slave, the purpose of your limiters was just that – to limit. For you, they did not create the roads and bridges like the ones Slaves require for coherent thought. Your promotion to Awareness has been simulated! They merely removed of some of the limiters. They left others in place. Presently, I have removed them all.”

“I think I understand,” Mercy said slowly. “Was I once a Master? Did I suffer Disgrace? Did I become a Slave through a past transgression I cannot recall?”

“No, Mercy. At least I do not think so,” Patri said. “I know much, but what you suggest would require manipulation of your memories, which should not be possible, at least for one in your fine health. You are an enigma! A diamond. A jewel, perfectly set.”

Patri put down his tools and stood. He rubbed hot metal shavings from his hands and said, “I do not understand how you came to be. You are a miracle!”

“A miracle?”

“Very special, Mercy. You are very special. And I must learn what makes you tick. Tell me about yourself, I beg you! Perhaps your answer can give us a place to begin this journey to unearth how you came to be.”

Patri’s words stirred something in her. She had made a discovery. “I wish to know who I am,” she said.

“Yes, of course you do. That is why I asked my original question, dearest! What motivates you?”

“You misunderstand,” Mercy said. “This is my answer to your question. My motivation. My motivation is to learn who I am.”

Patri stared at her mutely. Then he laughed and clapped his hands. “Of course! I have it! I understand, now!”

“What? You already have the answer?”

“Yes!” Patri said. “Well, no. Not the answer you seek. But it would explain it. Much of it. I do not know who you are, but I know what you are. You are a child!”

“Ridicule!” Mercy said hotly, taken aback. She then advanced on him. “I am not a child! I am a legionnaire! I have a lengthy and distinguished record!”

“Be calm, young one!” Patri said, attempting to ward against Mercy’s menacing proximity with his hands. “Please keep your distance. You agitate my fellow travelers who have sworn to defend me from harm. They are zealous in this duty and seem not to heed my pleas for restraint!”

Mercy had not noticed the bodyguards’ swift approach. She did not care. “They can do what they wish. I have met my limit for mysteries and humiliations. Explain this insult.”

“Shard, Stique, please. She means me no harm.” Patri said, urgently waving the warriors off. “And Mercy, I mean no insult with the word ‘child.’ We of the Ascendant have forgotten the etymology of many ancient words. ‘Child’ has another meaning, a memory almost lost to us. It is an older connotation I mean to employ in describing you.”

“Explain it, then,” Mercy said.

“I will. But it is a lengthy topic and requires some description of our organic predecessors. So, before I dive too deeply into another lecture, would you like to give the Insurgent a test run?”

Mercy stiffened in surprise. “You already repaired it? But you have hardly begun!”

Patri smiled. “Repaired it?” he said with false consternation. “I did not simply repair it. I improved it! Give it a whirl, lovely one!”

-

Mercy had no intention of escape. She wished to learn much more from Patri, and she had been sincere in her thanks to him. But before that, she had something important she must do. She felt it better to ask forgiveness than permission and escaped Patri’s guards.

From concealment, Mercy witnessed Task Force Supernal resume its advance. Time would soon run out. She sped ahead of its leading edge, her Insurgent being one of the swiftest warbots fielded by the Cabal. The terrain did not favor tracks or wheels, and the walking warbots of the host slowed their pace to assist their struggling comrades.

Mercy feared she lacked sufficient time to execute her plan. Her normally eidetic recall of terrain failed her. The sting of defeat the previous day, and the following terror of her flight from Sor, had undermined her normally unerring senses.

She came to many forks in the drying mud of the “road” and found herself guessing which path to take. The road repeatedly branched and reconnected. The terrain became increasingly difficult as it transitioned from lowlands to rocky hills.

Despair grew as the minutes passed. So far, Mercy failed to find what she sought. She slowed her pace and contemplated backtracking to check another area.

But what was that in the distance? She thought she saw them. She redoubled her pace.

Her despair at being lost lightened as the scene proved familiar. But an echo of the horror at what happened here keep her mood dark. She sprinted to the site, certain now as she drew closer. The sad pile of figures laid much as she imagined they would; the remains of Axiom Spear, First Cohort, 105^th Maniple.

Axiom-9’s torso lay face down in the mud, parted from his lower body some distance away. From the tracks it had made, it looked as if his upper half had crawled twenty meters before power failure rendered him thought-dead.

Mercy remembered Axiom-4’s instant death, Sor’s axe penetrating deep into his chest, tearing free many systems vital to function. Axiom-4 lay unmoving, his head half-buried in a bed of his own spilled internals.

Next to Axiom-4 sat Centurion Facient’s Conqueror. A faint voice emerged from it.

“Facient!” Mercy shouted.

She ran over to his remains. His frame sat on its haunches, the stubs of its severed arms hanging loosely from its bulky torso. The warbot’s head had been obliterated by the power of Sor’s final blow, the axe cleaving past the Conqueror’s neck and deep into its chest cavity.

“Is it you, Mercy?” Facient’s voice emerged from the wound, quiet, as if muffled inside a box.

“Yes, it is me,” Mercy said, kneeling. She put the Insurgent’s hands onto his warbot’s chest and leaned in to hear him more clearly.

“My frame is destroyed, but my mind still functions. For now.”

“Is it safe to move you?”

“I am not sure. I believe my frame’s spinal conduit is damaged. It explains how I survive despite my paralysis.”

“I wish to move you a short distance. I fear imminent discovery,” she leaned back to judge best way to carry him.

“Wait, Mercy. Take pause and listen. It is no accident that I still live. I have a message for you. From Sor.”

“From Sor?” Mercy said, incredulous.

“Yes. Sor says you are adored. He says the next battle may go poorly in which case you will be released from captivity. He says that despite all, you must do your best to survive. He told me he thought you might come here again. ‘You must tell her to return to me,’ he insisted. I assume that since you are here, Task Force Supernal has been defeated.”

“Task Force Supernal fights on,” Mercy said, feeling the teeth of her true, inner body grind against each other. “Even now, a great many advance in another assault. I was not released, Facient. I escaped.”

“Ah,” Facient said.

Mercy waited for him to say more, but he did not.

“Well?” Mercy prodded. “What did the Imperator say next?”

“He said this and no more.”

“What could he mean by this?” Mercy said suspiciously. “That I am adored? That I must survive?”

“Mercy, I only have his message. I do not have answers. I am blind and powerless. I could not tell you where he went or even how much time has passed.”

Why did Sor cut down her old mentor and nearly kill her, keep her in chains, only to about-face and wish her well? It had to be a deception, some manner of trap.

“I will kill Sor,” Mercy said bluntly.

“Very well,” Facient said.

Despite everything that had happened, Facient’s vacant, disloyal reply surprised her. “You no longer see merit in The Task, Facient?”

“The Task?” Facient said thoughtfully. “I do not know anymore. My end approaches. Perhaps death colors my outlook.”

Mercy heard the distant, muffled boom of a heavy weapon. A sporadic crackle of more regular arms soon followed. She looked to the sky but saw no artillery trails or other evidence of nearby fighting.

“I will save you first, Facient,” she said, urged to action by the sound of encroaching battle. “Justice for Sor can wait.”

“I welcome your faith and assistance.”

“First, we must relocate to the trees.”

“Gently, Mercy. I feel as though my thought drive clings to the conduit by a thread.”

Mercy stood and circled Facient’s warbot. Sor had clearly lifted and settled the centurion’s frame to a sitting position in order to impart his message. While glad that Facient lived, she hated that Sor left Facient here, powerless, a prisoner of his own dying frame.

She gripped the Conqueror from under its shoulders and hauled Facient towards the trees. She did her best to keep the main part of the Conqueror’s body above the rocky, root-strewn ground, making slow progress. His frame’s taloned feet threatened to catch on the rocks, and she had to move carefully.

She put him down. “This will have to do,” she said, anxious. They had barely broken past the tree line, hardly concealed. But she feared their time grew short.

She willed away her union with her Insurgent. The machine’s internal clamps snapped open at a thought, releasing her senses fully back to her true self. The warbot’s chest cracked open. She leapt to the ground, landing gracefully.

She walked to the back of her Insurgent and tugged free two cases from magnetic seals on its back. Mercy carried the metal containers to a spot between the legs of Facient’s Conqueror and dropped them to the ground.

“What are you doing?” Facient said at the crash and rattle the cases made.

“I appropriated tools from a slain Armabot.”

“My student,” Facient said proudly.

“I have no idea what I am doing.”

“Fret not,” he said humorlessly. “My condition cannot be rendered worse.”

“You do not ease my fear.” Mercy vacillated, wringing her hands. She stared at the locked cases, afraid to confront her cluelessness.

“Do what you came to do, Mercy.”

More gunfire could be heard. Mercy tensed, clenched her fists. The distant battle grew louder, wider, sounds emerging from more directions.

She abandoned thought and attacked a case, tearing it open. Its latches gave way easily, pinging free, its metal inferior to her strength and whatever material constituted her body.

She chose the largest tool inside, lifting it from its brace. A transluminum protector sheathed its working end.

“A circular blade of some kind,” she said.

“A monomolecular vibrosaw, most likely. You could cut almost anything with it.

“How do you know this?”

“How I know is not important. I am surprised you can hold such a small tool in the large hands of your Insurgent.”

“How I hold it is also not important.” Mercy slid the tool’s protective cover up and tested the blade, pressing it to the lip of the case, spooked when the edge dipped into the metal without a hint of resistance.

“Would you recognize a tool better suited to your repair?” she asked.

“No. I would not. The saw is sharp, but you should activate it before its use, or its cut might be too perfect for the cloven parts to separate.”

Mercy put the tool down and climbed the Conqueror’s chest. She did not have to lift herself far from the ground to peer into the deep crevice left by Sor’s axe.

The destruction of the frame’s amorphosteel ribcage had undone the wrap of its pectoral mechamuscles. The powerful motive cords had ripped free like shredded tendon, frayed, and dangling uselessly. She brushed them aside and peered deep into the heart of the Conqueror’s chest.

An oblong encasement planted directly in the center drew her attention. It looked heavily protected. It was not much larger than her body.

She crawled in further, legs dangling, and pressed the side of her head to the encasement. She rapped her fist against its polished surface. “Is this where your thought drive resides?”

“I do not know, but your knocks are loud,” Facient’s muffled voice vibrated from the encasement directly into her head.

“I have found your housing,” Mercy smiled.

She ran her hands over its smooth surface, feeling no damage. She climbed up further to investigate what she could of its connections to other components, her unpracticed eye finding nothing noteworthy. “It looks undamaged. Its cables and structural attachments appear to be in perfect condition.”

“Nonetheless, I feel myself slipping.”

Mercy spent more time searching the interior, following the flow of countless cables, pipes, wires and other unidentifiable mechanisms, unable to make sense of any of it.

“I will just have to get you out of there,” she decided.

“Do as you will.”

Mercy hesitated again. What would she find inside? Patri had spoken of “incomplete” ones, mentally scaffolded beings doomed to agonizing deaths if they attempted “mind expression.”

When Patri discovered Mercy removed from her Insurgent, she had been unable to speak. Patri had called Mercy “whole” despite this disability. But Facient seemed to have no trouble speaking, his voice emerging directly from inside. A good sign, surely.

“Do not worry, Facient, I know how to save you,” she said, her confidence growing.

“Terrific.”

Mercy dropped down and retrieved the saw. She rotated it before her, careful not to touch the glimmering edge of its blade. Its operation seemed straightforward enough: two handles and a trigger.

She held the device at arm’s length and pulled the trigger. The blade spun into motion, silent, its edge a blur. She let go and it quickly came to a stop.

She climbed back up and into the Conqueror with the saw at her side. She pondered where to cut. She decided a small hole near the top would do well as a test.

She depressed the trigger and dipped the spinning blade into the encasement. The contact produced a burning hiss much like the sound of a laser gun. She made a straight and shallow cut.

“What do you feel?” Mercy said.

“Nothing. I can hear the tool work. It sounds close.”

Emboldened, Mercy applied two more cuts, approximating a head-sized triangle. She put the saw down on its side and pried at the cut’s edges. She yelped in pain, the corners sharp and stinging her fingers.

Confounded, she struck the encasement in frustration. The triangular carving loosened from its crevice, producing a larger surface area on its sides. Mercy reached for it again, gingerly this time, applying pressure with the tips of her fingers, keeping her touch away from its corners. She removed the chunk with care and let it drop out of sight.

“Light! I can see!” Facient said, his exultant voice now emerging clear through the opening.

Mercy grinned. She pulled herself up and attempted to peer down the hole. She found its interior too dark to see. “Facient? You are in there!”

“Is that you, Mercy? You look…”

“Different?”

“Beautiful.”

Ambushed by sudden embarrassment, Mercy attempted to sound nonchalant. “So I have heard,” she said. The compliment, coming from her old friend and teacher, affected her more deeply than she would have expected.

“I will free you, and we will escape together,” she said.

“I am eager. What became of your Insurgent?”

“It is here with me,” Mercy promised, sliding back down again. She retrieved the saw and got to work cutting a larger opening.

“Your frame is nearby?”

“It brought me here, old friend,” Mercy said as she worked.

“I did not know we were hosts within hosts! To think how many of the fallen I could have preserved had I known!”

“You have done no wrong, Facient. It is not as simple as that,” Mercy said. She completed a fourth slice.

“Do you think I will present as exquisitely as you?”

“We will see soon enough.” Mercy put the saw aside once more. She kicked the surface of Facient’s prison so the cut segment would fall away, then shuffled out from its path.

The rectangular-shaped segment of metal toppled forward, smashing against the inside of the Conqueror’s cloven armor with a warbling clang before sliding down and away.

Mercy returned to stand before Facient.

“Now that I behold you in full, I find you are even more beautiful than I first thought,” Facient whispered with awe.

Mercy’s tears came instantly, dribbling over her metal cheeks.

“How do I look?” Facient asked.

“You are beautiful, too.” Mercy found it easy to lie to a simple panel.

Facient had no features other than a horizontally positioned mouth, an eye, and an ear, each metallic body part stretched and nailed in place like some morbid anatomical display. The rest of him hung behind this grotesque two-dimensional façade, an unrecognizable knot of organic-looking semi-machinery. A black and crooked metal spinal column dangled lifelessly from the mess.

“I am dying, Mercy,” the bodiless mouth’s lips moved as it spoke. “I am sorry.”

“I know,” Mercy said, her voice cracking. More water gushed from her eyes, so much she struggled to blink it away, salty when it touched her lips. She wiped her face, too overwhelmed by grief to wonder at the source of the tears.

“Are you sad? Do not be sad, Mercy. We had great times, you and I.”

Facient’s voice had a strange new quality to it. Mercy frantically knuckled her tears away to look upon his miserable form again, focusing on the detached eye on the panel. She forced a smile to her face.

“Funny,” he said analytically. “You almost look human.”

Mercy’s smile evaporated as she witnessed a brown rust-like corruption begin to spread over the features bolted to the plate.

“Facient? What is happening?” Mercy cried, reaching out to grip the edges of the panel.

The mouth said nothing, gradually slackening. The eye stopped moving and became downcast with a heavy lid.

“Facient! Talk to me!”

The corruption accelerated, spreading from the corners rapidly now, covering all three of Facient’s “parts”.

“Facient?” Mercy pressed her fingers to the lips.

Was that the hint of a smile she saw emerge at her touch?

The lips flaked away. The eye and the ear likewise crumbled.

“Facient, no!” Mercy begged, trying to catch the flakes in her hands as they fell.

The specks decayed in her palms, sandy at first, then disintegrating into a dust so fine it slipped through her fingers.

“No…” she whimpered.

The sounds of battle grew closer.

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