From Beneath to Destroy

Somewhere, in a fire-lit cavern, a black hand pulls an iron lever.  Gears come unstuck after eons of disuse, and the construct wakes from its slumber.  Crystals are quenched in arcane fluids and it remembers its makers, faceless entities that worked in a time before the foolish distinctions between "machine" and "man" were made.  Tanks fill with oil and steam vents from reserve chambers.  Bladders flex, and the thing coughs up nests of vermin that had made their home in its dormant body.

Lenses clatter into place and it can see.  It looks out over the world, watching and listening on a thousand wavelengths, seeing the planet's molten core, still throwing out great waves of magnetism which drive its motors.  Then it studies the surface.  Steadying itself on a mountainside, it stands.  It cannot comprehend what it sees and hears.  Unbidden, its great steel hands clench into fists.

The pipes of its voicechamber shake as it speaks.  The plates of its skull vibrate with the sound of the utterance, a blast of sound and light and lesser-known energies.  The word threatens to shatter the sky.  He marches forth as it echoes around the stratosphere.

"Destroy."

"Destrooooy."

"Destroooooooy."



--Steve Kilian

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