Mockingbird (A Steampunk Thriller)

Chapter 1

My metal knee screamed as I struggled to take another step forward. My body was rusted over, and it was almost impossible to move. Everything was dead silent, except the faint creaks of my iron joints. Slowly but surely, I made my way forward. Forward, I didn't even know where I was walking or why I was going forward. But that was all I could think about. One foot in front of the other. It didn't matter why at the time. All that mattered was for me to walk.

I don't remember how long ago I had left The Fringe, but it seemed like an eternity. Surrounding me was an infinite horizon, stretching out to the last reaches of the dead Earth. The sky was a crisp, pure light sapphire, dotted with untouched, pale clouds. The mighty firmament arched above a barren wilderness of coper-colored desert. The occasional brown, shriveled-up shrub crossed my path, but, other than that, there were no signs of life anywhere. Life was like a distant memory that was a mere grain of sands in the hot dunes of time. The sun was just above the silhouetted mountain peaks on awesome horizon. The clementine sun greeted the new day with whole-heartedness and brilliance. I was following an old road. It's worn and cracked asphalt could barely be seen from its many years of decay. Mankind had been a puny parasite to that Earth. It was just as, if not more beautiful, after its downfall.

The bold, ominous outline of the human's final city on its barren homeland grew more and more as I stumbled towards it. Humans, I hadn't seen them in centuries. I hadn't wanted to see one in centuries. They were the alcohol to my inferno of fears. I had no idea why I was walking towards them, towards their last, dying gasp of civilization. A desert separated us from them, and I had always liked it like that. If I had a stomach, I would have wanted to puke.

I stopped dead in my tracks as I saw a broad shadow moving towards me on the barren road. It was coming from the city. I had no idea what that thing was, but I knew it defiantly wasn't something I wanted to encounter if it was from the place the humans' city. I stepped back, and I had trouble moving. I was frozen with sudden terror.

Why did I come here? I thought. Why was I even walking? Why did I have to go near them? What was I even expecting. Would they let me walk all the way to the looming wall that shielded their city?

Fear was an emotion I was on familiar terms with. It was hard to recall a memory when I wasn't terrified of my commonly unknown future. But, right then, standing on the barren, desert road, facing the shadow speeding towards me, I was more scared than I had been in a while.

I looked away, towards more of the dead Earth, pretending that I was alone. That's just what I did when I was afraid. I would bury my head in the sand and pretend like everything was alright. When I was made, I didn't have any choice about what I would be programmed to do. I had no choice about what the humans would make me do next. I could barley think for myself, and that habit of letting life happen to me lingered until even after the humans were out of my life.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large carriage, carved from chocolate-colored oak. The exhaust, which laid underneath the completely alien-looking vesicle, coughed up a last breath of steam. If I had a heart, it would be trying to pound itself out of my steel chest.

"Stop!" I heard a man command. "Turn around slowly, hands in the air! Now!"

I obeyed his orders, and I put my rusted hands behind my head. I was meant to look almost human. My skin didn't have a metallic look to it. Instead, it was a natural tone. I had two eyes, rigged with cameras inside of my glass corneas, and I had a nose and a mouth, even though I neither ate nor breathed. I even had hair. However, because of my jerky movements and the weather-exposed metal on practically everywhere on my body, he knew I was not human.