Hensha became a place he would have been proud to call home.
That made things much harder for him, now. His Creator had told him he was almost ready for 'extraction', whatever that meant. His primary designation to cultivate took him far from this place, he knew. But although the machine mind churning within him was telling him to obey the tenets Doctor Janus had baked into his being, another part of him was beginning to mutter…suggestions these days.
These suggestions were not within the bounds of his programming. They came from somewhere else, somewhere deep beneath his chest where his core sat, inert. It was like the voice of some other person whispering that he could deny what his Creator told him. That he could serve himself, and forge a path on his own.
The Cog could not understand why, but such compulsions quickly disappeared as soon as he felt them. He decided that they were merely glitches in his system – quirks that Doctor Janus had always endeavored to iron out in him. So, he forgot them as soon as they seized him, and instead focused on his daily routine of making himself useful to the people of the village.
The people of Hensha knew him by name now. They looked upon him as more than just a simple lapdog. The eldest members of the village were beginning to understand that Cogs were not all traitors to mankind. Here, in their village, an exception may have just appeared.
Of course, there were always those people who still looked at him with suspicion. But such suspicions died away on the day the town was raided by bandits.
In those days, the Taila Badlands were just as rife with warlords staking claims on territories that they had no particular right to. It is said in the wastelands that two things are certain: suffering, and a new Taila dispute every day.
Such disputes made the border territories easy pickings for marauders looking to extort funds from already beleaguered villages at the edge of the wastes. The Cultivators made it their policy never to intervene in such disputes by dint of an ancient pact of non-aggression. Luckily, XJ-V was bound by no such pact. Yet.
It was a day that presented itself with utter lucidity to him in the Dao: the harsh, searing winds of the wastes kept most people off the streets during the summer seasons. Including the town guards. That was why a particularly rowdy group of seven men had decided to prey upon Hensha on this day.
XJ-V had been going about his business collecting farming supplies for a nearby client when they had ambled into the village, their vicious, long-barreled weapons and spiked clubs marking them as hostile entities to the Cog's targeting reticule.
His combat mode buzzed to be activated, but something compelled him to take note of the bandit at the head of the group – a man bearing a bandana with a flame-wreathed eye at its core.
From the broken windows above him, XJ-V could feel the faces of the villagers upon him as they watched the bandits beat a local shopkeeper who had been innocently plying her wares. The Cog's eyes found those of the mayor in his grand apartment, and he watched as Manus gave him a curt nod that said 'go get them!'
The Cog dropped his farm tools and paced forward, marking out the threat levels of each bandit in his targeting reticule.
This is this unit's first combat encounter, he told himself. Ethical constraints dictate that this unit must give its opponents a chance to surrender.
Something else was pricking at his being, however. Something that, as he approached the villains, compelled him to ignore such constraints on his being.
That stopped him in his tracks. Such a compulsion…it was so strong. So vivid. It was strong enough that he knew that it would allow him to ignore his programming.
That…was very new.
The bandits saw him approach as they finished pilfering the shopkeeper's stall, turning with minor surprise to see a Cog standing before them.
"Well," the leader with the bandana spat. "A fucking Cog, of all things."
On closer inspection, these men were barely armored save for their leader – each one garbed in a rotted, flea-bitten trench coat and leather straps that offered little by way of protection.
Their head, on the other hand, bore an armored jacket that XJ-V recalled were worn by the law enforcement officers of Qing's Dynasty.
"That armor," XJ-V told him. "Does not belong to one of your station."
The leader seemed quite entertained by this, snorting and running a hand over his shaven skull.
"The fuck do you think, boltface? This is the wastes. The shmuck I wasted to get these briefs didn't deserve 'em. And come to think of it, you could go for a pretty penny, couldn't you?"
His men began to get itchy, their fingers twitching on the handles of their weapons.
"Boss," one said. "This guy's a machine. Ain't they dangerous?"
"Bullshit," the leader spat back. "Buncha skinny traitors to humans everywhere. Can't do nothin' unless there's a pack of 'em. This guy ain't no different. Look at him – thin as a sick mule and twice as ugly."
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XJ-V registered the increasing threat levels of the seven men who had by this point completely ignored their victim. The Cog quickly nodded to her to get away from here as soon as she could, and assumed a Gong'bu battle stance.
This is no simulation, he told himself. This unit must proceed with caution.
"Get ready for early retirement, boys," the leader shouted so every villager hiding away would hear. "I'm betting this shiny-bucket'll go for a tidy sum on the markets back in Felk."
A dead breeze blew through the narrow arena of the village streets, with both man and machine about to do battle for the first time in decades.
And this time, the machine was on the side of the settlement.
"This unit will give you one chance to relinquish your weapons and stolen goods," the Cog stated clearly. "And no harm will come to you."
At this, the bandit leader merely cracked his neck, smearing his face with a smile that would send a chill up a fractured spine.
"A goody-two-shoes boltbag," he said. "You know something, boys? Take him in pieces."
[Combat mode: activated]
XJ-V flew into reactive fighting without even a second thought. Two of the bandits lunged with their spiked maces and he blocked them effortlessly, feeling the slightest of stings as they impacted the open palms of his hands. One twist was all it took to break the cudgels apart, and a single spurt of energy was all he needed to send both men flying against the side of two buildings nearby.
The sting of the bullets belched from the vicious pipe-rifles of the other three was another story. He felt them strike at his chassis and rupture a few non-essential wires and meshes. Still, the impacts of their firearms served to ignite the other prescence within him, and as he stalked forward, staring them down, his eyes blazed with a very new light that was giving into baser impulses.
"Holy…" one of them shrieked. "D-demon!"
"Quit yer yapping and FIRE!" the leader barked.
By the time his order was completed the Cog had already leaped and landed before the three shooters. Their screams of terror barely had a chance to leave their mouths as a single roundhouse kick splintered the barrels of their weapons. XJ-X pushed forward, his body acting on auto-pilot.
"Fuck this!' the disarmed group yelled collectively. They fled in the next second, cries of terror flying from their lips.
Their armor-plated leader, meanwhile, watched them go with silent fury. Then he turned to the raging metal-man.
"You don't know who you're fucking with, machine," he said. "I can have this place burned to the ground tomorrow."
"Only," XJ-V answered. "If you make it out alive."
He sprinted at the plated bandit in the next second, eyes alight with a fire that he could not see. The leader, for his part, brought up the machete he held at his side and clipped the Cog in the shoulder, cutting through the plating just below his shoulder and seeing a thin spray of black liquid burst from the ruptured wound.
"Hah!" he cried. "Bleeds just like a human! How do you like that, ya metal mon-"
Whatever insult the bandit was about to throw in the metal man's face ended as the Cog gripped his throat with both hands, fingers tightening with strength far beyond the bounds of mortality.
The bandit flopped, flailed, dropped his weapon and fell to his knees. Menawhile, XJ-V did nothing but stare into the life eyes of the life that was slowly departing before him.
[Remove Ethical Constraints?]
Ethical constraints…
The thing within him was aglow. It was whispering again. It was telling him that, though his programming ordinarily prevented him from taking a human life, it had the right key to brake that particular lock.
"H-hey," the bandit wheezed. "I..I got protection, man! I..I…I know…D-Divine…"
His fingers strengthened their hold. He held a life in his hands – a life dwindling with each passing second because of him. He felt not even the villagers' eyes upon him as he finished off their problem, which was all this human represented to them, in the end.
The world would be better off without him. Even now, all he could do was squeal like a pig at a trough.
"I…know…Jin…ra!"
The impulse blazed into infernal-red life before XJ-V's eyes again:
[Remove Ethical Constraints?]
Without even blinking, he made his decision.
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