Planned Obsolescence

The door of the ship slowly lowers, creating a ramp that presses into the sand of the beach. I can barely think. I can barely breathe. I only know that I will probably die, and that thought fills me with overwhelming terror. My enemy does not fear death.

I see one of them off in the distance. It is a titanic metal monstrosity at least four meters tall, knocking around some poor bastards like they are ragdolls. It is one of them. It is an animoid.

They were meant to serve. To protect. To guide humanity to the next stage of the species. They hate humans. They always have. They were just waiting for the right time to strike, when humans were weakest.

I am forced out of the ship, I nearly fall over as we, the people, the ones who have to deal with the result of human arrogance and greed are forced to fight the war. I can smell blood, rust, smoke. My eyes water and I feel my heart pound in my chest. I know I have to go for their cores. That's their weakness. Slice off their heads and they'll swing at you until they can't swing anymore. Cut off their legs and they'll walk with their arms. Cut off their arms and they'll just stomp on you until you're a mess of guts and fluid.

Around me I see more of my squad, they're trying to play it safe, staying low and trying not to move. Our enemies will like that. They'll rush them and impale them on their swords, execute them with their guns. All before my squad will have time to react. I won't be taken by surprise.

I run up a nearby hill, trying to take the high ground as quickly as I can. The running alone makes me feel even sicker than ever, but the possibility of survival is more important to me than the contents of my stomach. There's a patch of trees only a couple hundred feet away, I need cover. In an instant, I hear the sound of gunfire headed toward me. I duck behind a boulder as the sound of railgun fire screams through the air like carrion birds circling over a dead body. I think I am beginning to understand just how prey feels.

I remember thinking that I was doing a service by coming here, by fighting the machines. Now they have us in their grasp. Soon, all human worlds will fall to them. Not just Earth. Not just the weaker colonies. Everything will be theirs, and humanity will die.

Humankind let its desires get the better of itself. Using the animoids for slaves, treating them like toys, caring little whether they lived or died. The materials to build them were always expensive, but when money is no object to the most powerful, then these newfound servants were as disposable as any human.

I wonder if peace could ever be an option, even though I know it will never be. After a lowly animoid announced a formal declaration of war over unacceptable conditions for his kind, it all began. People murdered in their homes indiscriminately, worlds were conquered in hours. Almost every one of the animoids was infected with a virus: one that compelled them to kill every last human. Only a few resisted, and those who did are now shunned by both humans and animoids alike. Despite the power of these resistors, I do not see any of them on the battlefield today.

Now, I sit here, behind this rock, clutching my rifle in my two sweaty, gloved hands, tears filling my eyes. I want to go home. I don't want to live like this anymore. I'm afraid. I don't want to die. I look to my left and my right, trying to see if any of... them are sneaking up on me. I try to calm my breathing, even as I feel that I'm going to vomit. All I wanted was to help push back, to reclaim our right to existence.

I see a glint of steel out of the corner of my eye and I instinctively raise my rifle to fire at my target. I pull the trigger and I flinch as a red flash and a loud noise like the sound of thunder invades my senses. As the red clears, I see the animoid, about my height, still rushing at me, missing half its head.

"You shot me!" It screams at me. I have missed its core. I am already dead.

It tackles me, knocking me out of the cover of the large rock and down the hill toward the beach. It's caught off guard, too, and I try to shoot it again, but we hit the sand hard and fast. It raises up a bloody metal fist to end me, and I see its eyes. In that moment, I see fear.

As its fist slams down, I move out of the way to dodge the attack, abandoning my rifle. The force of the hit sprays sand all over and sends a tremor through the ground.

I pull out my knife and stand up. I lunge at it but it merely grabs my arm and throws me to the ground. It is only playing with me.

"You..." It says. "Why do you do this?"

I lunge with my knife. I am thrown again to the ground. Why is it toying with me? Why am I still alive?

"Answer me!" It yells. I choke back my tears as I swing around with the knife again, but the thing grabs my arm and begins to squeeze.

In an instant, my arm is gone. The wires and blood in my arm spill all over the sand.

"It does not matter." It says, taking my rifle from the ground. It shoots me in my core.

I am dead.