The Howl of the Machine
Posted: Wed May 15, 2002 12:39 am
My nephew sent me this story. I did a minor amount of editing to keep it within the Titans of Steel Universe.
The Howl of the Machine.
They stood in liquid. Man speaking with giant machine modeled after man. The man could breathe and see clearly, though ripples clouded slightly. The vision of the machine man distorted slowly as its gears trembled to speak. Oil and brackish fuel smoked into the fluid. The man creaked his head from side to side and the hoary gears of the walls churned bubbles into the liquid atmosphere. Rumblings from inside a tumbling mouth of steel yawned words of mechanical tenacity. Larkin soon caught the redness of an itch on the edges of his mouth. He ceased to answer the machine, which did nothing to nullify its inquiries or dampen its volume. A cloud of brown and yellow scraped by, Larkin's lips felt dry and increased in irritation as he scratched.
The hollow bellow kept Larkin's ears tinged with the vibration of perpetual motion. And with mechanical regularity the metal mouth repeated the same mechanical echo. It asked if Larkin knew if his companions were still alive. As a voice from just beyond reach Larkin replied each time. His voice drifted as his eyes drifted to the blinking colors along the glistening walls. The clank of the room shifted and Larkin's awe increased, even as the robot voice continued in even revolutions of identical queries.
"They are alive in this precise minute?" The machine face crunched as it spoke.
"Destroying a machine is easy. Killing something living is hard." Larkin's awe began to erode as an early hatching of anger entered his thoughts.
"They are alive in this precise minute?"
"I am alive in this precise minute. And my pilot and my Squad are alive."
"They are alive in this precise minute?"
"Yes, your computations are defective, how did I get here?"
"They are alive in this precise minute?"
"Yes, they will be alive until I find them dead, Humans don't die." As he spoke this he saw a faceted bag float by. It did not swim. A rotting body passed through the liquid air. Its body glistened amidst the solidity of the machines. When the machine spoke again the corpse had shrunk and diminished through a crevice between two turning wheels.
"They are alive in this precise minute?"
"Stop asking that, they have to be alive."
"They are alive in this precise minute?"
"Why did Humans ever build machines?"
"Why did Machines ever build Humans." The machine crunched as it had before, but the words changed.
"No…"
"Humans were created in case the Machines stop running, and the Machines were created in case they don't."
"How did I get here?"
"You came here."
"I know, but not to this room."
"When you began your Intersplit, another space warp collided with yours."
"Um…."
"They were warped by each other…"
All the liquid in the room began to vibrate. A current like the flowing of thunder descended over Larkin's body. A hole had yawned below him and all the liquid sucked down into its mouth. The robot's face creaked its iron neck and peered down with its dilating eyes as Larkin was torn away from the room of liquid.
Larkin fell. His stomach felt like it was still in the sky, but his body felt like it was diving to the depths of the sea. Soon his stomach and skin fused back together, that was when the metal bar stuck out of the wall and collided with his arms. Then he was spinning, and then he stopped falling and stopped spinning. Water curtained his sight and warmth swept away into the dark.
He rubbed his eyes; his body slipped beneath water. He treaded the water and looked about. The dark and the cold lay around. His body was naked and shivering. A great wall circled about him, within which water lapped. Above the walls climbed up into the dark, below the water obscured sight down into the dark. If Larkin squinted he could discern a tiny red blinking light in the depths of water below. Just out of reach above on the cylindrical wall lay tiny dots emitting light. Lights that provided shadows but not enough illumination.
Larkin thrashed as his limbs grew angry, and his feet caught a protrusion in the water wherewith he could attach his feet to and support his body just above the filmy water. He shivered and shook and breathed.
He began speaking to himself:
"If someone were here, she would ask me if I was scared. And I would say yes. But really I wouldn't be. I would just say that because it's expected. But if I slept I would have nightmares of this, and so I really would be scared of it. But my brain would tell me I'm not scared of it, even though I would say that I am. Holy Hell! I'm stark raving mad. And I'm insane.."
As he spoke further his voice shrank as he heard his own echoes ascending into the dark above. Then his voice halted altogether. A noise crinkled through the water below. A ripple twinkled his toes. The noise reiterated, and then came again. With mechanical regularity it rose through the filmy water. It was the churn of gears, the clank of machine beneath water. Larkin dunked his head and opened his eyes. The red light below shimmered up; the clinking and roiling of haunted metal shrieked into his ears. His head exploded out of the water and his eyes darted above, searching for an escape. Through oily water and walls of metal, the machines crackled upward, grinding towards the hunted Human.
Larkin's mind swooned through his memories. He was inside of his toxo-suit cleaning the awful exudations, all the slime and grime extractions and disintegrations in the power plant. His final memories before he was warped here. Swimming through the brown gunk whose rippling circled inward rather than outward as they should. The mottling itself seemed to be mottled. The discoloring churned through itself. Unplugging gunk from the wash rooms was worse than this. His memories swam away for a moment, and he looked in the dark water grasping him. He was blessed. A death from these steel monsters would surely be better than a life cleaning factories each night. If they would have created machines to clean the machines they would have been far better off. But they had to employ me. I couldn't work in the factory anymore. No. The Outer world's industries were for me. Endless toil in silent rooms where great machines reposed in iron might. Or quick oblivion of the flesh, devoured by gears, wheels and Titans of Steel.
His thoughts had blinded his ears and numbed his skin. The machine grinding below reached its tendril of iron despair. The waves of the water lapped up and the machine swallowed Larkin.
Soul and all.
[FONT=arial]
The Howl of the Machine.
They stood in liquid. Man speaking with giant machine modeled after man. The man could breathe and see clearly, though ripples clouded slightly. The vision of the machine man distorted slowly as its gears trembled to speak. Oil and brackish fuel smoked into the fluid. The man creaked his head from side to side and the hoary gears of the walls churned bubbles into the liquid atmosphere. Rumblings from inside a tumbling mouth of steel yawned words of mechanical tenacity. Larkin soon caught the redness of an itch on the edges of his mouth. He ceased to answer the machine, which did nothing to nullify its inquiries or dampen its volume. A cloud of brown and yellow scraped by, Larkin's lips felt dry and increased in irritation as he scratched.
The hollow bellow kept Larkin's ears tinged with the vibration of perpetual motion. And with mechanical regularity the metal mouth repeated the same mechanical echo. It asked if Larkin knew if his companions were still alive. As a voice from just beyond reach Larkin replied each time. His voice drifted as his eyes drifted to the blinking colors along the glistening walls. The clank of the room shifted and Larkin's awe increased, even as the robot voice continued in even revolutions of identical queries.
"They are alive in this precise minute?" The machine face crunched as it spoke.
"Destroying a machine is easy. Killing something living is hard." Larkin's awe began to erode as an early hatching of anger entered his thoughts.
"They are alive in this precise minute?"
"I am alive in this precise minute. And my pilot and my Squad are alive."
"They are alive in this precise minute?"
"Yes, your computations are defective, how did I get here?"
"They are alive in this precise minute?"
"Yes, they will be alive until I find them dead, Humans don't die." As he spoke this he saw a faceted bag float by. It did not swim. A rotting body passed through the liquid air. Its body glistened amidst the solidity of the machines. When the machine spoke again the corpse had shrunk and diminished through a crevice between two turning wheels.
"They are alive in this precise minute?"
"Stop asking that, they have to be alive."
"They are alive in this precise minute?"
"Why did Humans ever build machines?"
"Why did Machines ever build Humans." The machine crunched as it had before, but the words changed.
"No…"
"Humans were created in case the Machines stop running, and the Machines were created in case they don't."
"How did I get here?"
"You came here."
"I know, but not to this room."
"When you began your Intersplit, another space warp collided with yours."
"Um…."
"They were warped by each other…"
All the liquid in the room began to vibrate. A current like the flowing of thunder descended over Larkin's body. A hole had yawned below him and all the liquid sucked down into its mouth. The robot's face creaked its iron neck and peered down with its dilating eyes as Larkin was torn away from the room of liquid.
Larkin fell. His stomach felt like it was still in the sky, but his body felt like it was diving to the depths of the sea. Soon his stomach and skin fused back together, that was when the metal bar stuck out of the wall and collided with his arms. Then he was spinning, and then he stopped falling and stopped spinning. Water curtained his sight and warmth swept away into the dark.
He rubbed his eyes; his body slipped beneath water. He treaded the water and looked about. The dark and the cold lay around. His body was naked and shivering. A great wall circled about him, within which water lapped. Above the walls climbed up into the dark, below the water obscured sight down into the dark. If Larkin squinted he could discern a tiny red blinking light in the depths of water below. Just out of reach above on the cylindrical wall lay tiny dots emitting light. Lights that provided shadows but not enough illumination.
Larkin thrashed as his limbs grew angry, and his feet caught a protrusion in the water wherewith he could attach his feet to and support his body just above the filmy water. He shivered and shook and breathed.
He began speaking to himself:
"If someone were here, she would ask me if I was scared. And I would say yes. But really I wouldn't be. I would just say that because it's expected. But if I slept I would have nightmares of this, and so I really would be scared of it. But my brain would tell me I'm not scared of it, even though I would say that I am. Holy Hell! I'm stark raving mad. And I'm insane.."
As he spoke further his voice shrank as he heard his own echoes ascending into the dark above. Then his voice halted altogether. A noise crinkled through the water below. A ripple twinkled his toes. The noise reiterated, and then came again. With mechanical regularity it rose through the filmy water. It was the churn of gears, the clank of machine beneath water. Larkin dunked his head and opened his eyes. The red light below shimmered up; the clinking and roiling of haunted metal shrieked into his ears. His head exploded out of the water and his eyes darted above, searching for an escape. Through oily water and walls of metal, the machines crackled upward, grinding towards the hunted Human.
Larkin's mind swooned through his memories. He was inside of his toxo-suit cleaning the awful exudations, all the slime and grime extractions and disintegrations in the power plant. His final memories before he was warped here. Swimming through the brown gunk whose rippling circled inward rather than outward as they should. The mottling itself seemed to be mottled. The discoloring churned through itself. Unplugging gunk from the wash rooms was worse than this. His memories swam away for a moment, and he looked in the dark water grasping him. He was blessed. A death from these steel monsters would surely be better than a life cleaning factories each night. If they would have created machines to clean the machines they would have been far better off. But they had to employ me. I couldn't work in the factory anymore. No. The Outer world's industries were for me. Endless toil in silent rooms where great machines reposed in iron might. Or quick oblivion of the flesh, devoured by gears, wheels and Titans of Steel.
His thoughts had blinded his ears and numbed his skin. The machine grinding below reached its tendril of iron despair. The waves of the water lapped up and the machine swallowed Larkin.
Soul and all.
[FONT=arial]
