A Broken Machine (Part Four)

The human that had been ‘Silver’ Inkman, Envoy, diplomatic and self-satisfied bureaucrat died on the floor of his ship that day, even as fire fell on the planet and rage-filled a soul used to complacency. What arose was new, stumbling and poisoned by alien technology, a technology older than his species. Even as it strived to understand him it was swamped by a million years of instincts and a body broken by circumstance and with a completely different set of priorities.

He/It dragged himself from the floor and groped his way to the door. His once shattered right arm now glowed with an alien light, his heart now beating to an unfamiliar rhythm but his self, the part of him that insisted that it was human did what humans always do and sought help. It looked for company, compassion and sympathy and he, it…remembered where to find it.

The open court of the Arboreals was nearly empty, the Council having fled after the row with the Envoy and then to discover the cause of the new catastrophe. The only one remaining was the now-disgraced leader Master Oak, their former leader and creator. He heard the stumbling archaic human arrive. The one who had ruined him and was, no doubt somehow responsible for the fire burning this new world. He didn’t turn, simply stayed watching the smoke-filled sky sweep past. “Envoy Silver, you came back. Don’t you think you have done enough damage already?”

He turned ready to give the rest of his speech until he saw what he was talking to. A thing, covered in blood, glowing like a sun was burning inside. Faceless, simply a squirming mass of gold. He fell back in surprise and fear and then it spoke.

“Silver…Yes, I am Silver. I require silver. Now or…or the burning will NOT STOP!”

Master Oak assumed it was a threat and was already hostile and now faced with a monster he began banging his chest, summoning anyone nearby to his aid. On any other day, the world itself would have answered his call but now, on this day, no one cared. Some were trying to rescue themselves, the better ones were trying to rescue others. No one had time for an unmasked fascist, a manipulator and now a shame that had soiled their very beginning. The wind carried the contempt of his people amongst the smell of burning to him. Some were questions…why was he not here, organising, defending his people?

Shame held him in his spot even as a monster faced him. He shook his leaves and prepared for the end, a solution to all his problems becoming suddenly clear as he decided to die a hero. A miserable end for one such as him but better than living in shame for centuries to come. Immortality was now for others and he no longer wanted it.

The thing wanted silver? There was plenty in the treasury, along with the weapons he would never permit his people to own. A minor metal held only for its anti-bacterial and conductive properties, it was a byproduct of the lead extraction that was more important. He tried to keep his voice level, “Silver? I have all you want. Follow me.” He pushed his fingers into the gen-locked door and it swung open. Without looking back he swept forward, trying to recall where he had stored the weapon he wanted to use.

It probably would have enraged him further if he knew that Silver had ignored everything he had said, that he hadn’t even registered in the tormented mind that Silver Wisp had become.

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Only the promise of metal pushed him forward. In his battered and drugged mind, he thought more silver would make him Silver again as if it was a touchstone of his identity and not simply a nickname that he had embraced. He was beyond all logic at this point. He stumbled through the doorway and half-fell down the steep steps that led to a cavernous room. Something in his scattered brain registered that the thing that had opened the door for him was missing and that it wasn’t a friend. He ignored it but the new self that was currently striving to understand everything knew what a threat was and prepared for battle. His subconscious now had a direct line to a weapons factory with no morality or measure, alien concepts that were as yet meaningless to it.

Mighty Oak watched as the thing stumbled into his treasury. He watched as it tried to see what was surrounding it and swayed like the drunken Archaic it was. Here was where he held all those things that he despised about the mankind he had outgrown. Weapons, wealth, the toys of children. Augmentations built from crude and unnecessary metals. Had he not shown them that it was all unneeded? That his way was better? No food was required, no insane infrastructure for power or homes, immortality as Earth itself had intended. Thousands of years for the asking and only he had said yes and been brave enough to begin. Oh, he had lied. Nothing could prevent the mechanical slaves from destroying him and his until the numbers changed. Man's language would become chemical, the beauty of pheromones leaving no place to lie, no emotion hidden.

Now he faced yet another menace that required a forbidden solution and pushed open the box that contained a multi-barreled, plasma-coil powered, belt-fed monstrosity. It would normally take a team of two archaic humans to wield but he was stronger than they could ever imagine and held it comfortably in one hand. He was about to shoot the corrupted Envoy where he stood but part of him was still a scientist and he had never seen anything like this before. Perhaps he could still be a hero? Redeemed by the destruction of this thing and whatever it had brought to his world?

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Silver swayed as new senses searched the room, listing everything by labels his broken mind struggled to understand. Some small part of him registered the hostile with a primitive weapon, quickly dismissed as harmless. The Mind sought silver and so it scoured the room. Once it had mapped the piles of carefully stacked materials, it found the target of its search and went stumbling forward, ignoring all else.

It was stacked in bars. His struggling mind found the word ‘ingots’ but he wasn’t sure, that sounded like an insect. Silver, a wall of the stuff. He wasn’t clear why he wanted it but he reached forward and touched the nearest pile. The golden sheen on his arm surged back, seemingly reluctant to touch it but he wasn’t going to stop. He knelt down and laid his head across the cold metal and felt a small moment of peace. He closed his eyes and embraced the pile, ignoring everything else. Inside his mind, things began to grow calmer, his heart began beating a little slower until he felt drowsy. Without knowing it he slid into a healing sleep as the first of a new kind.

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Mighty Oak stepped out of the shadow, his finger hesitating on the trigger. The creature had stumbled around, made a burbling sound and then seemingly fallen asleep on the silver. This was not the act of some terrible foe, this was the act of an idiot. It seemed to be snoring.

He stepped closer and raised the weapon carefully. Perhaps it didn’t matter how it died? As long as he had a tale to tell and dragged the body out, no one would know just how ridiculous the whole situation was. It was, after all, the man that had destroyed his reputation. Mercy wasn’t really required. Better still, all the weird augments might discredit the evidence, and might allow him to pretend that his rash words were a ruse or a lie. In that case, he shouldn’t shoot him in the back. The head would be better, and close range in case it was checked. Which, he thought sourly, it certainly would be. Unless the fires reached the body first…

He moved to the side of the unwanted Envoy and raised the weapon. He was sure it had some clever name, some stupid and appropriate hero or god from the past mankind refused to let go of but he was damned if he could think of what it was. A flickering laser asked him to confirm the shot, then he pulled the trigger and a burst of solid-state projectiles sought their target. He was thrown several feet backwards even as the bullets worked out how they were going to impact the target. Since some of them had been fired towards the roof, it was down to human ingenuity that they could turn their path towards the target.

The glimmers currently integrating into the Silver Wisp were watching something it had earlier deemed a threat and reacted swiftly, snatching the bullets from the air and ordering them back to their origin. The order was a little careless as, well, they were bullets. Smart weapons maybe but not that smart. They riddled Mighty Oak and he fell to his knees with a resounding thud. He could feel the bullets ignite. He hadn’t checked the ammunition before he fired and had missed a rather large warning about ‘Incendiary’. He didn’t have any last words, he barely even had time for a last thought as his eyes latched onto the sleeping Envoy that had arrived into his world and ruined him. Then the flames began to flicker and he was gone, reduced to smouldering embers.

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Silver remained resting on the pile, unaware that it was slowly being absorbed into his body. The pile diminished as the glimmers began sending silver to the Wisp as well, no longer recognising a difference between the man and his vessel. Slowly his colour changed and the twisting currents of gold became thinner and calmer and he became a shade of steel grey. He slept on even as the fires grew closer.