Is My Friend

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer

There is smoke coming from my tear ducts. The cause of that is the same as the one that is causing my brain to feel too big for my cranium and is also making the nerves in every tooth throb. Sickening pain in heartbeat-synchronised waves.
I roll over and gasp: “Stupid bastards did it.”
“We never thought they would either.” The voice to my left crackles, presumably in some discomfort.
I sit up very slowly and extend a hand toward my former opponent, who is obviously having gyro troubles. The hand that grabs mine is slightly cooler than human, but otherwise indistinguishable from the real thing.
We look at each other. Created and creator, if that’s your thing. I see a mu-class android male. He sees an unshaven, bleary eyed, ragged example of the ‘master’ race. I grin and extend my hand again: “Randy.”
He grasps it: “Bentley.”
“Bentley? As in car?”
“Yes. I’ve been rebuilding a Speed Six for the last decade.”
“Now that I’d like to see.”
We stop and look about. All over the battlefield, conversations like ours are happening. The GeoPulse device was a weapon that messed with low level electrical potentials. Like those that powered android activity and thought. The whole project was officially dropped when early tests proved that it had the same effect on humans. Except today proved that it wasn’t. The top brass and corp execs obviously thought that it was worth killing everyone to ensure that their little utopias survived.
I looked at Bentley: “Seems we have more in common with each other than the elite.”
He nodded: “Some of our philosophers have postulated that android creation was started as a way of removing the costs of rearing progeny for those defined as worker classes.”
It was like another current shot across the field of battle, as that sentence was picked up and passed on. A tattered trooper marched unsteadily over to me. She still managed to come to faultless parade attention.
“Permission to speak, sir!”
Bentley regarded me with curiosity and I grinned. His eyes widened.
“Randy. Randelle. You’re Major-General Thomak Randelle!”
I looked up at the trooper: “Permission granted.”
She grinned fiercely: “Current situation is untenable, sir. Seeking your authorisation to reform mixed-operations humandroid commando units and take the fight where it should be, sir.”
I looked at Bentley: “Up for toppling our self-appointed betters, matey?”
He extended his hand to the trooper and she hauled him up. He turned to look down at me.
“I would consider it long overdue.” He extended his hand and pulled me up.
I looked about at a sea of battle stained faces.
“Let’s go and make a new world. We start by killing the evils of this one.”
Human and android roared as one, then we started scavenging for kit. We had a real enemy to take down.