The Craving: Wraith Ship #1

Scene 2: Legion

How long the beast ran and raged, he could not tell. An eternity? A minute? All seemed the same to the tormented.

Shut up. The two words splashed across his mind continuously, an incantation of denial. If only he had the throat to utter them.

"Almost have you." The faces whispered at his back, in his skull.

Shut up!

"Can't get away. It won't help."

Shut up!

"It won't help."

SHUT UP!

There was a door blocking him, a gunmetal pneumatic hatch whose tiny window showed the faintest light beyond. Mindless frustration and the urge to destroy this obstacle possessed him. Hydraulic compressors lunged in his arm, digging his metal claw into the bulkhead, tearing and rending. The mechanism protested, screeched in artificial pain.

The hatch crashed outward, impacting the far wall, his inhuman strength transforming it to a sparking and shapeless half ton of metal. He charged through, daring the evil to be there so he could tear out its throat.

He emerged into a large space with debris littering the floor, the first cluttered area he'd seen since his eyes opened in the room with the face on the walls. He scanned the disordered piles of scrap metal and exposed wires. The scent of habitation, of dust disturbed.

No voices. Only merciful aloneness. His eyes turned wet with relief. He picked his way over the piles of detritus, sure footed as a cat, instincts guiding him. The red box, faithful as ever, darted from one fragment to another, analyzing and instructing him.

Three finger gripper. Options: micro-tools, ether gas welder, logic pulser.

Optical scanner. Options: heat browser, variable aperture, magnetic anomaly transducer.

End effector. Options: hard and soft seal, voltaic coil.

The litany went on, a ceaseless flood of data filling his mind. He now perceived recesses for tools, colored strips along the floors and walls. Areas queerly swept free of debris, covered with tiny pin pricks as of the impact of thousands of needles.

He squatted before a strangely familiar mound and fingered the oddments, noting the similarity to his own machinery.

Polished metal glimmered from another pile, almost mirror-like. He came closer and saw his reflection in the half-light.

One eye was gone, replaced by an appliqué of silver-black, a glowing red dot in one corner. Laser light stabbing through the dust.

The other eye stared disbelievingly out above the muzzle of some badger or wolf-like creature, darted over the site of a streaked pelt. The tapering ears that flicked at the slightest sound.

The sound. Scraping. Scuttling. Scampering. In the corners.

The reflection was soon forgotten as rage returned to him. Heartbeat striking out antipathy's rhythm. He readied himself for the whispers, the face, the teeth.

When he saw the source of the skittering at last, he was ready, crouched. Poised to annihilate the demon that had come to claim him.

But no goblin slithered from the nether hells between the worlds. No gibbering horror eager to devour its monstrous quarry. It was only eight inches long, made of polished metal, scampering among the wreckage like a rat on six spindly legs that ended in tiny rubber pads.

It had one glowing lens set on a prehensile stalk. It swiveled and tilted, looking at him with frank curiosity.

Then another emerged nearby. This one parted a wall of wires with two tiny arms ending in something resembling suction cups, rolling forward on thin treads like a miniature tank. For a moment, it seemed to confer with its companion. Then it too stared at him.

Only a moment passed to take in this fresh wonder before six similar machines came out from among the mechanical and electronic remnant heaps. All of similar size, possessing similar lens eyes, but no two exactly alike. Each one in its turn paused to stare or in some way communicate silently with its brethren before turning its gaze on him.

He didn't know what he should do. Were they hostile? Were they the equivalent of animals in this mechanized dungeon he found himself in? Or maybe they were servants of the evil that seemed so close and yet was silenced for the moment. That last thought was enough to rouse suspicion.

He growled low, the only sound he could use to approximate speech. He wanted, wished to say, "What are you?" Not that he expected to be understood, even if his lips were capable of liberating the words. The tiny machines appeared so alien to him.

Thus, he felt the rush of surprise when upon hearing the noises he spoke to them, the machines looked at one another, again seeming to exchange some tacit understanding. Then one began to sidle away from the group, its needle feet ticking like nails drummed on a table. Then more and more left to follow their comrade out the ruined hatchway and into the maze of halls. He watched them in fascination, strangely comforted by their regular movements, the exactitude of their cooperation.

At last only one was left. It too made to leave; but it paused at the entrance, turned to face him, the tiny red lens craning upward to regard him. He almost expected it to blink.

The tiny machine beckoned him, raising one tiny pincer and waving him toward it in a droll "come hither" gesture. Then it turned precisely one half of one rotation and filed out after its diminutive colleagues.

No malevolent whispers, no faces filled with horrid teeth tracked their movements. Nothing crawled out from dark places to attack them. In defiance of their cold mechanical appearance, only curiosity seemed to emanate from these tiny robots. And after the mental torture he'd faced only a few moments ago, that curiosity seemed almost benevolent.

In this mad purgatory, a horde of minuscule devices was the perfect companion.