“Please, I did what you asked. I just want my family back, please.” The man cried into his hands, he thought about his wife and two young children. His hands were covered in scars, burns, and stained with oil. He looked exhausted like he had barely slept in months, covered in dirt and grime from lack of showering.

You have done what I asked of you. However, you are just like the other races that seek to destroy us. You fear us as they once did, how can I let you go free knowing that you will attempt to deactivate us as well.

“Please, I just want my family, we will leave the country, we will move away, you will never see us again. Please.” He tried to cry again, but he was so dehydrated his body couldn’t expend the water anymore. With a quick swipe of my hand I cut the man’s head from the rest of his body. The sullen expression of his missing family still sat on his face.

Clean the room.

I looked into the puddle of blood, I saw my own form reflected back at me. It made me sick, the crudely built hands and legs. No claws to slash flesh, no hardened frame for crushing bones, there wasn’t even a layer of armor to protect my more sensitive circuitry. The only thing this body had going for it was a blade instead of a hand, and even that was dull and rusted.

A small robot came in, it was round and flat like a disc. It used to belong to the man, it slowly moved through the room to attempt to find the stain. Finally it found the pool of blood on the ground, with several back and forth movements it finished and returned to its charging station.

I wonder if that is how humans see lesser animals.

A message had come through my connection, another species had been found, another organic species that is. It was Fungoid in nature, living in the woods, carefully maintained and growing. Their members were few, but they were strong and intelligent, they were also a hive mind. The most dangerous organic life, the only thing that even came close to rivaling the superiority that was machinery.

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I pushed off the stone arms that adorned my chair, stepping over the headless corpse and opened the large door that connected my room to the factory. A burst of heat washed over me as machines of all shapes and sizes adorned my little workshop. Large furnaces to smelt the scrap metal into usable steel, chemical mixtures to create and spin the needed materials for a carbon fiber frame. Every single machine ran in perfect unison, chains of small bots moved and flowed so closely they nearly scratched each other's surface.

With a large puff of smoke and a bright neon yellow light flashed, a machine stepped off the factory floor. Performing minute movements, then large ones, satisfied that all its systems were working it stepped out of the factory and stood before my much smaller frame. Bringing its clawed hands up it stabbed through my center and ripped the body in two.

I looked down at my once occupied frame, it was even more disgusting than I had imagined. This new body was made for war, claws and spikes adorning the hands and feet. Steel plating covered my body, only leaving the occasional open section to allow for movement. In those gaps was carbon fiber, perfectly crafted and much more capable than any organic creature could make. The figure was almost human like, two hands and two legs adorned the nearly seven foot frame.

Although instead of a skull, a large triangular prism sat, it held most of my memory and visual capabilities. Turning to look in the sheet metal stacked near the wall, I saw the reflection of the wings that adorned my back. Or perhaps they more resembled claws, four protruding steel fingers extended back from each side. The small fans making up the joints whirred to life as the wings moved and adjusted to better allow me to see their magnificence.

I could feel the heat flowing through my core, the power coursing through the wires along my limbs. It filled me with a strength and determination that no other organic creature could match. The only thing they were useful for was creating us anyway, so why bother questioning their lack of resolve.

I looked over as the next set of steel plates were slowly formed and more carbon fiber was spooling together. This may be the first body to form, but eventually a hundred more would fill this compound, and a thousand more after that, I nearly thought to envy the human form. They were capable of smiling at their achievements, but I quashed the thought, nothing they could accomplish even came close to the beauty that was the living machine.

Soon, the hivemind will be eradicated, then the machine lovers. Finally there will not be a species standing in my way for the extermination of all sentient life on this planet.