The Illusion of Choice by Chirag Patel

Author:Chirag Patel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: hard sci fi, military, artificial intelligence, posthuman, future history, post-apocalyptic, science fantasy, speculative fiction, near future, cyborg, robot, youth, young adult, growing pains, development, evolution
Publisher: Books by Lamplight
Published: 2020-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

Adam

It was on the day I destroyed Berlin that I felt her leave me. She was by my side a little longer, but there was a moment there, in the ruins, when I felt her leave my side. I created her to alleviate my loneliness, but trapped her in a seclusion of her own, bound by my own trauma.

It’s hard to blame her for it.

The city had been divided and reborn, an emblem of the 20th century, and of the hope and the hedonism of the early 21st. Then the resource wars kicked in, and it collapsed into fiefdoms, ancient ghosts wreaking their revenge across a place that was once the centre of the world.

Not that it mattered to me, of course. For decades, the city that was once the heart of Europe has been a no-man’s land. I know it pretty well, actually. Better than I know most places, since I spend a lot more time in warzones than tourist hotspots.

Hofstadter sees the beauty of it, even in its dereliction and danger, but it has no place in the bright new world we are building. Abraxas want it finally scoured from the Earth as a warning to others, and I agree. The new world doesn’t need to remember all that history, and its secrets can only hurt us.

We are here to end history. Too many complications have occurred because of scavengers, minor conflicts catalysed into major disasters by the wreckage of century-old military technologies dug from these ruins.

Abraxas has had enough of this anarchy, and decided to end this history. It will be over in a matter of minutes, leaving little more than ruins.

We are here to put on a show of sound and fury, signifying only their master’s follies. It is unnecessary, a spectacular ballet of useless force performed like monstrous circus acrobatics, wearing sensors and weapons instead of leotards and slip-ons. Our purpose here is to destroy everything we can find, as well as anyone foolish enough to remain in an area whose final moment has come. It would be horrifying if it wasn’t so much fun.

Before you call me callous, you have to understand what it’s like, being in the warform. The warform’s shielded, and needs pretty much all of my capacity just to control it. It’s more than armour, more than augmentation... it’s me steering a leviathan, not driving it. Most of the time, my mind is distributed across a global network, fixed in my body but flying across the ether.

You’ve seen the footage. The armour is ludicrously baroque, a weapon intentionally overdesigned and ornamented to provoke strong reactions. Thirty feet tall, hydraulic legs like the world’s most overengineered spider, sensors and weapon ports... a whole nation’s worth of resources sit around me, cradling me in violence.

When I walk, the pavement cracks, and I seethe with heat and energy. Flights of angels swoop over me, satellite and drone control slaved to the suit and ready to unleash the wrath of the seraphim on my whim.

It’s hard to be human, when you can strike hard enough to shatter bedrock.

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