Electricity arcs through us, making its way into the weapon, where it all goes wrong. Everything within our arm expands. The power falters for a wink, flashing out before coming back to scream. Fire builds within the cannon and finds its way out. Metal warps and gives way under the explosion. Carmine light, tinged with smears of vermillion, blossom across our vision and deep within the Enemy’s body.
I stagger back from the force. Hydraulic fluid, along with an assortment of other viscous liquids, stream from the remnants of my arm. The Enemy before me is a ruined and smoking shell. Noxious white bubbles out from what’s left of its shell, spilling onto the ocean.
I ignore it all to focus on the two creatures closing in. Vishnu is screaming that his systems are shutting down. His systems? My systems. We’re supposed to be one. I’m not sure what changed.
“Babaji...”
Vishnu’s screams are distant now, growing further away. The darkness swirls on the moonlit sea. My limbs are like grains of sand, loose and crumbling before me. I stagger forward a step, sinking deeper into the ocean.
“Babaji, disengage. Come back. Come back!”
Flicker. I can see them. I can see my wife and daughter. There they are, standing on the water. She’s running to me, leaving her mother behind. Something’s wrong with the way she runs.
Flicker. My daughter closes on me, mandibles clacking a discordant and percussive beat. Except she’s not my daughter anymore. She’s the Enemy.
Enraged, we right myself, twisting to launch an uppercut with my remaining fist. I fall short. Pincers slam into my shoulders. The pain drives Vishnu back into me, or me back into him, like two lightning bolts striking each other. The world becomes a pixelated haze that takes its time to clear. I/we can feel it, the steel skin tearing, the servomotors dying, the energy delivery subsystems winking out in showers of terrible sparks.
Our ruined forearm hisses spitefully, still steaming. It punches through the air-water almost of its own accord. The metal catches the moon’s light in full for a passing second, looking like it’s made from pearls, not steel, and then it buries itself in a mouth full of shredding teeth and is ripped from me.
Metal screams. We scream.
“Babaji, other Shikari incoming. Come home. Babaji!”
The Enemy in front of me opens a pincer and slams it into our torso, braying in a challenge.
We answer it in kind, releasing a warbling cry of whining metal and the cavernous booms of combustion engines.
We shove the creature back.
“Babaji, stop. You’re desyncing. Stop.”
Wrong. We’re not desyncing. His words make no sense to a machine. We’re merging. Becoming something more. Vishnu is more than a machine now, more than a man.
The second Enemy arrives, slams into me. A knee joint explodes.
We scream again, clawing, gripping, pushing both creatures in front of us with our one good arm and the tottering bulk of our chest. We dig deep, clawing at what I can of our operating system core. There are things here we can use. The chemical makeup of the fluids pouring out of me. The conduit lines that spark in their death throes. And, here, here—our nuclear heart, the great engine-furnace that powers our every move.
Kali died deluded: a goddess of death, meant to bring that to our enemies. She brought it out on our subjects, on the ants, on our families.
Vishnu would die concluded. Resolved. A protector. Sparing the ants. Keeping them from screaming, burning, teetering and tottering like a man had so long ago.
We scream louder, pushing the Enemy back, hanging onto it like grim death. We need to get them out. We need to get them away. Our heart responds to old subsystems buried deep within me, throwing up a myriad of fail-safes in my way. Are you authorized to do this? OP-4 level clearance required. Are you sure? Runtime diagnostics required. Confirm damage threshold?
A blazing pincer cuts through the night, burying itself in our side. It digs in. Metal mandibles sink into our shoulder. We are being pulled apart.
“Babaji!”
That’s what they call us. We’re their god. Their protector. My wife. My daughter. My crew. All of them.
“Babaji!”
Vishnu. That’s who that title belongs to. Not the man inside him. Am I still one?
Are you sure you want to do this, asks our heart. This will result in critical damage.
We don’t want to destroy our heart. But yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
The ocean threatens to swallow us now. It creeps over my waist as the light before my eyes dims. It drags us away, machine and monsters locked in terrible combat, towards its dark depths.
Are you sure you want to do this?
Damn right we do. We are a god, and you will listen.
Command accepted. Nuclear core critical. System will destruct in 3...2...1.
And then the world explodes. Wiping out the monsters, wiping out the machine, wiping out the man. A new sun is born on the Indian Ocean.
And finally, there is peace.
Copyright 2018
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