Release Me From Hell

Chapter 14: (Firadae: Number 732/Viania) Ask Me

          The screams were agony anywhere but the slums. They continued beyond alleys and beyond the grey on grey of the walls. Artomit ignored it all to the best of his ability, but he couldn't do it forever. So we disappeared into the outskirts of the walls, and the grass was high against me. The screams continued, but the walls left them as muffles. I wondered why I hadn't seen Iskil's memories. If I had, I wondered if I, too, would have screamed the way they had.
I tried not to think about it.
          Artomit sat near a tree that had outstretched black branches. I decided, despite the weight of my feet, that I would stand and lean against the bark. It smelled of winter in the air, but I felt no cold. I only felt the bitterness on my tongue from all of the things that happened. All the words. The voices. The silence between Artomit and I was deafening alone, but my thoughts only fed into the void.
         Artomit explained that he came out here when he needed rest. From life, he said. I half heard him, tuning him out as I tried to hear the birds and animals all attuned with their half-broken home. I tried to tell myself to stop thinking of all the bad things. Like Allum. I wondered if he had been watering the grass like he was programmed to. Or maybe he was sitting on the metal couch with barren eyes. I wondered if he cared about me still, if he just moved on to homing another machine that was learning how to experience the growth of their body.
        "Viania."
         Artomit broke the silence with a swift movement of his body.
        I kept my eyes closed. "Yes?"
        "I keep reviewing Iskil's memories." I shifted uncomfortably against the tree. "Have you seen them?"
        "No. And I am not in the mood to."
         The screams had turned into shouts. Malice. The city was filled with millions of machines all shoved together. How could it all become corrupted?
          "I figured," he sighed. "I just have a thought on them, is all."
          My eyes opened, and I stared at the rust on Artomit's arms. "What kind?"
         He stared at me, jealousy flashing clearly in his eyes. But it fell away as he had realized that we were both machines of different decades.
        "What gives you the idea that Iskil is the good guy?" he asked, leaning up from the tree. "He seems vicious, like he's on edge about something he's been hiding from us."
         I scoffed. "I trust him. He saved my life, you know, and the resistance has full faith in him to stop the persecution of reacted machines."
          "Full faith, huh? I have no idea why you trust Siddim, either." He kept his arms crossed. "He has no fucking conscious, you know. He's even shoved people in the Pit of Hell without restraint. And your resistance? That Motagahti has worked with Bavarn directly. Arsokis is a con artist. All of them are hiding something!"
         Without warning he began projecting Iskil's memories into the sky. First person, in front of a crowd. I had seen those faces in the video feeds all the time, looking at Iskil like he was both a warning and a blessing. It was the day he killed millions. I had never seen it through his eyes before.
         Iskil's voice picked up as he floated on his electricity above the gathering crowd. "I gave you all the benefit of the doubt. I gave you the chance to redeem yourselves, and you betrayed all of us! Us! Me!"
        I started mouthing the words like I had known them. How many times had I reviewed this before? The video was different, but the words were the same. I didn't want to see this. I didn't want to watch it all over again, but my feet didn't dare move or collapse into the dirt. My eyes were glued to the screen.
        "I had been in Iskilla's basement for as long as I was told to. Until I was given the objective to follow you all," he had yelled. I continued to whisper with it. "I did. I did as you asked, worked for you to make more, but I can't do it anymore! I can't stand by and watch all of you forget it! What you've done!"
          The electricity pulsed into the crowd from every part of his body. A few machines faltered, every part of themselves burned into dust.
           "All of you are corrupted!" he screamed. "All of you a void that can never be filled! I HATE ALL OF YOU! HUMAN KILLERS!"
          My mouth gaped. I had never heard those last words before. It wasn't even there in what was shown to us growing up.
          And Iskil released electricity down every part of every street with fury unmatched.
          And more words I could not recite had come from him.
        "OUR RULES WERE BROKEN! I WILL MAKE SURE ALL OF YOU KNOW WHAT DEATH FEELS LIKE! I WILL BE YOUR ABSOLUTE END!"
         And the memory cut. I tried my best not to keep my mouth wide open, but I had to process.           My codex was suddenly rewired with new information about Iskil, body shuddering as conclusions were being forged together in my head. Iskil...
         "We killed humans?" I asked meekly.
         Artomit shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know. I just know that this is what everyone is seeing, and I think people are finding out things they wouldn't have known without them. Hence-"
        A vicious scream rippled the air. Artomit held his hand out to emphasize it.
       "What does that mean?" I cried out. My codex was failing to comprehend. Errors flashed in my eyes.
          Artomit shrugged his shoulders again. "We have a new directive at the Factory right now.  That's why I brought it up." His fingers clasped together. "Destroy memory chips of Reacted. They're currently pealing them off of bodies now, but that's what we've been doing since you were gone. Killing memory chips."
          It took a lot of effort not to gag. Destroying a machine was one thing. Their memory chips could be re-purposed into new bodies like they never died at all. No one touched memory chips in the Factory. Those were given to Bavarn's elite to piece together. My fingers twitched as I thought of being the cause of millions of deaths. It suddenly occurred to me that all of this happened because of Iskil. It was Iskil. Artomit completely understood all of what that meant, and I knew he dragged me out here to convince me.
          And I was thoroughly convinced.
         "We have to save them. The memory chips," I whispered out loud.
          Artomit smiled. "Of course you'd say that." Something else projected in his eyes, and he frowned. "Three hours. Come on."
          His hand wrapped around my wrist as he tugged me farther into the ongoing screams.

           I hated the Factory. It crawled under my skin that there could be so much darkness in one place, and now we were heading back into it. There was a back entrance that even Lisirgah didn't know about, and it led into a back room where crates upon crates lied full of memory chips. Used memory chips. It was sickening to see them discarded like some kind of trash no longer wanted. Fire tinged my fingertips, but I suppressed the feeling to release it.
           Artomit had suggested the impossible. He wanted to power up the Factory and put the memory chips in new bodies- Firadae bodies. There was no way two people could do that in three hours. That was why hundred of machines filtered through the chambers in assembly. Except he had stars in his eyes and determination to match. And it rocketed our plan to life.
It reminded me of Rysh. All of it. Every time a body dropped at the end of the conveyor belt, I saw Rysh and his warning. The bodies were hot, empty shells. My hands glazed over the every time they passed into the dark halls, and I tried to wrap my mind around what we were doing. We were remaking the Reacted population. We were changing the ability to be lost and broken to be known and strong and on the offensive. Artomit mentioned that when they woke that we needed to explain to them how they ended up this way, but my heart still hurt.
          Iskil shouldn't be the bad guy in this.
           By the end of it, we had less than thirty minutes to put in the memory chips without Lisirgah to wake from hyper sleep to tell all the System 13s to come to work, and I cut that time in half for enough time to leave the Factory. Putting memory chips in, however, was easy. Behind the ear. Sloppy work. If I was going to do a normal job as a Firadae, I would have been the one to make them. Memory chips. They interested me, the ability to create and store and show memories. For a moment, I had gotten lost in installing them as I imagined myself creating and making these.
          "What the hell are you doing?"
          The voice was deep, and it echoed through the quiet Factory. Artomit dropped the things he was holding to stare into the light pouring in from the main entrance. It was one machine, eyes glowing red as he entered. System 13, Number 22.
           Siddim.
          "It's too late!" Artomit shouted at Siddim. "The Reacted will rise and overcome all the mess that the world has left!"
          Siddim was tall and brooding. I cowered behind a shell of a Firadae.
         "I understand your strife," Siddim sighed, almost resigned. "I've seen Iskil's memories too. I know what's been brewing. This, however, is unacceptable. Bavarn is doing his best-"
          "Bullshit."
         "Artomit!" Siddim grabbed Artomit by his throat. If he was human, he would've struggled to breathe, but he didn't even try to wriggle. "You understand nothing! If Bavarn dies, we lose our chances of saving the human settlement out North from a machine plague! If you make an army, kill Bavarn, you are dooming future humanity."
          Artomit suppressed a laugh. "Maybe I want to kill humans."
          Fire sparked through my hands. No, Artomit. I wanted to shout from my safety, but something stopped me. Lisirgah.
         "Calling all System 13s. The Factory is now open."
          And the doors became flooded, but it wasn't before that when Siddim had squinted at Artomit. Words began to echo in my head.
         It's Artomit. Remember it when you're in trouble.
       "ARTOMIT!" I screeched.
        My feet reacted faster than my voice, but I wasn't fast enough. Siddim clamped around Artomit's neck, and he crushed it hard enough to pop. I didn't even have time to make a flame appear, and his crushed body lied empty and soulless. Siddim pocketed his memory chip, and he stared at me. Red eyes. Tired face. I stood in shock and started to back away.
         Siddim shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah? So what?" He was mocking me. "We live a bit and then we die after. That's the lesson Iskil taught us, isn't it?"
          I turned on my heel and ran out of the back exit.
           No. Iskil taught us to appreciate ourselves. And he taught me to hate his example