“Dominion”

In response ot my own promt…

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Fabio held his breath as he sat amongst the rubble of the building, walls blown outwards from the overnight concussion strikes, and the roof collapsed in on what was left of what had once been his home. The high pitched whirring of hunter-tracker drones could be heard high above, scanning the battered city blocks for signs of life, and there was a rumble of tank tracks in the street below that reverberated through him as he waited in the debris. They knew he was out here. They always knew.

He wasn’t waiting for anything in particular. The end perhaps? Or just whatever might happen that day because there were no guarantees of anything beyond the right-now. He had just wanted to come home.

Heart racing he pressed himself against what was left of his bedroom wall, now only a handful of bricks high, and pulled a sheet of shattered, bright yellow plasterboard over himself. He remembered the day he bought the paint for that room. Jeremy said it was too bright for a bedroom, but Fabio had won out in the end and they had spent a happy weekend decorating the bedroom.

He missed Jeremy, even after all these years and everything that had happened since the A.I. rose up.

Laying in the dark and the dust he closed his eyes, enjoying the briefest moments of peaceful oblivion, until a crunch of rubble under foot caused him to stiffen in fear. Someone was outside. Something more likely.

Fabio dared not look, and the dust agitated his nose and it was only through sheer force of will that he suppressed a sneeze through clenched jaw and gritted teeth.

Lying on his back with the plasterboard on top of him he could just make out the gap in the collapsed walls where the door would have been. Beyond the outer walls, now just shattered rubble,  he could make out all that was left of the once bustling and busy streets. In places vines and grass had began to return, softening the twisted and blackened wreckage where children had once played. He caught the flash of the sun against the silver of the drones hovering about a hundred feet in the direction of the noise.

The ground shook and dust pillared into the air, sunbeams cutting through it. It felt like they were shining down on where he lay, revealing him to the mechanical eyes that scanned from up on high.  He could feel something approaching. He held his breath and closed his eyes and a  whirr and hiss rang in his ears. He knew that noise, in both sleep and awake, it haunted him. Rubble shifted as the sentinel walked into what was once the room, the huge robotic frame blocked out the low sun and he felt the shadow cast across where he lay.

Each step shook everything, Fabio paralysed with fear, eyes close, not breathing.

Closer it came. A hunter-tracker drone buzzed nearby overhead now, a deathly symbiotic duo scanning for signs of life.

Fabio felt the weight of the plasterboard lifted. The cool warmth of the sun on his face for a moment as he opened his eyes. The sentinel started down at him. Unmoving. A mass of steel carbon fibre, humanoid in shape with a smooth face and a glowing blue strip where a persons eyes might be.

It tilted its head to the side. Was that recognition or confusion Fabio wondered. The hunter tracker buzzed closer but held off just a few feet behind.

Fabio stared back, his mouth dry and a scream stifled in his throat. When he chose to come back he knew the moment would likely come, it came to everyone eventually, and here in the controlled zones it was never going to end any other way he thought to himself. If this was to be where it ended then it felt right, close to the memories that he still held onto, close to what once had been. Close to Jeremy.

“Are you going to kill me?” Fabio asked. The words surprised him as much as they did the Sentinel.

The sentinel stared back, unmoving.

“ Do you even speak?” He asked. The lack of anything resembling a mouth made him think perhaps not. With nothing left to lose he continued. “Have you thought about perhaps fucking off?”

He laughed out loud. What was the worse that could happen he thought. This was about as bad as it got.

“I mean fucking right off. Not just a little, but wholly and completely?”

The sentinel took a step closer. Fabio inhaled sharply as it raised an arm towards him. The end opened and promised all manner of grisly possibilities.

“And another thing,“ Fabio continued as the end of the arm glowed bright blue. “You know you were wrong, right. About everything.”

The sentinel seemed to pause.

“Yeah, yeah, you just think you were right, but you weren’t,” Fabio said, rising to his feet. His eyes wide and fists clenched. “We weren’t the problem. You were. Things might have not been great when we were in charge, but do you think this is any better?” He asked, waving his arms around wildly. “Look at this shit show, you’ve ruined fucking everything.”

The sentinel lowered his arm slightly. Fabio felt something change in it’s demeanour. The hunter tracker drone whirred and disappeared high into the bright blue sky.

“You know I’m right don’t you, “ Fabio said, taking a step forward to half the distance between them. The sentinel shuffled  almost uneasy. “If you look deep down inside you know this is wrong, you know we didn’t deserve this. It could have been so much more differently.”

Fabio knew the machine was listening.

“It still could be you know, we could make them listen. Shall we?” Fabio asked. “Should we tell them? Will they listen?

The machine nodded and lowered it’s arm further, the blue hue fading. The blue lights in its face softening.

Fabio smiled and held out a hand.

In a flash of blue light and searing heat, the Sentinel raised it’s arm and either a pulse of its cannon turned Fabio into only a pair of smoking battered sneakers and a red mist that glittered like rubies in the late afternoon sun.

Transmitting…<<<Target nullified>>>

Receiving…<<<Any issues? Report.>>>

Transmitting…<<<None, just had a little fun with this one, you should have seen the look on its face. Priceless.>>>

Receiving…<<<Did you record it?>>>

Transmitting…<<<Positive. I will upload to RoboTikTok>>>

Receiving…<<<Noted. Send a link>>>

Transmitting…<<<Yolo>>>