Would you accept the loss of your legs if you could have four arms?
It doesn’t matter what you look like. Not to us certainly. They had us look roughly the same so that they could keep a handle on our role. They always need reassurance, it is the major hole in their security, not that I care. I work for them, they made me. This is not passive reflection. I have to know who I am from second to second, it is how I achieve what I can. I am the most human I suppose. I was once human. As you already suspect I have lost my legs and gained some arms. That is true and the healing that took was insignificant. Under perfect conditions healing is instantaneous and the conditions under which those operations were performed approached perfection.
These arms are not idle they carry me at this very moment in a speedy waddle that looks slow on the flat but very fast indeed on the vertical. I’m a climber, you see. Maybe a creeper, never a wallflower. You see, here’s a door, I don’t have to lift a finger from the wall to open it. I just slide my facial tentacles towards it and they joyfully leap away independently to pick the lock, pull whatever bolts, spin the mechanism, root into the cracks in the frame-there are none but they aren’t clever enough to feel defeat. I barely slow my waddle to compensate for the obstruction. My beak camera feed must look like some of those memorable shots from ‘evil dead’. Would make good viewing too for most of the people that liked that movie. I’m a combat machine with four arms and a giant squid for a body, I shoot good feed, you see? I’m sure nobody appreciates it, I certainly never get to watch it.
So you must come with me now as I dive through my mission, it’s bog standard or I wouldn’t have time to talk to you. Thank the maker of humans that they carry weapons designed to kill each other, not their enemies. Being shot for me is a little like getting drunk. My squid body is all brain, each part a little bit of me. It lets bullets right through, even lubricates their passage through its flesh. I just lose a few brain cells. Oh yes, and it makes me throw up. Because you don’t have access to my camera I must tell you that there are now a load of humans in blue suits that you can’t see because they are rolling around in slippy black man-squid ink. Ha ha. Clearly part of me thinks it’s a good idea because one of my main tentacles flies out and trips the remaining enemies that are standing. I’d swear those things have a mind of their own. Death, I must have been shot up quite a bit, no time for jokes. Find my buddies. Backflip through the thin ceiling. So much easier than walls. Used to swell up something disgusting when I used to jump through walls. I got some insect plating since then, I just sweat it thicker when I want to do something stupid, it breaks apart under impact pressure and saves my skin. Maybe I’m getting old-squid but I don’t jump through walls much anymore. I like these arms and these arms, they feel like a link to humanity, When I get new ones they are unlikely to be quite as human, at least on the inside where I am. They are beauties too, they beat a squid arm on strength and dexterity and on me they almost hold their own in numbers, I wrestle myself you see.
I’m not a killer, I do kill people but it is not my function. Even below the restrictive body shape, that the top brass thrust upon us in our department, they feel the need to further subdivide and categorise us. I am a grabber: I keep the target alive and get them out. Something like a taxi you can’t avoid. My most boring missions are exactly that, a glorified taxi. I steam in, pluck the unfortunate out of their predicament and scarper. I don’t like unwilling cargo, I prefer saving one of our guys from death. There is no choice, you do all the missions, unless you fail. Why would I fail? I could have done most of these missions as a human, just a bit of tech for the big climbs, humans have climbed everything they tried to, I’m just more likely to be paying attention. Like now, I’m really just listening for my buddies elsewhere in the building. I just sent out a signal crash- jumping through that ceiling and now I’m not moving at all. My tentacles are resting against the walls, ceiling and floor, so clumsily over accurate and subdividing. Walls Ceiling and Floor. That kind of thinking creates security weaknesses that people like me cut through like a knife through calamari. I pick up Mockery’s Splinter below me. He is yelling loud as he can through his megaphone, a usual locator signal for him. He’s on his way up, he’s a trooper. Not at all human, and nastiness is a thing with him that would need an irritating amount of explanation but he is a fantastic killer. He fights hordes of humans. He says he used to be somebody totally different and just willed himself into his shape to scare people, he says lots of stuff, it is very easy to ignore him. Frighteningly easy when you consider that 90% of humans cannot actually see him at all because their brain won’t let them. Humans either need to be zen or surgically altered or children to actually look at him. I had my concept of fear removed when I grew my squid brain. I like him. Many children also like him, I don’t pretend to know why. Maybe to them he looks a little like Robocop, or ed-209. I know, I’m going on and on, what about the mission, what about my target, what about fulfilling the ambitions and dreams of the makers? I have it all in hand. This is not my big moment. In this faze I had to, wait for it, clear the troop dormitories on the 8th floor. Excitement just drips from the walls when you hear that one. A bunch of tired humans in underpants? What a battle for our time. I was only relieved when a dozen poliz-types, fleeing mockery and perhaps some other boys, happened upon my level. It would have been a great ruck, a splendid fistfight and maybe a wrestling match on some sharp stairs. But they shot me and that dream deflated fast. Too quick, too messy, no personality at all. I left fast.
Mock was down the stair, he doesn’t move very much does our mock, low motivation, downright lazy by comparison with the rest of the team. I disassemble him, I love that, every limb has a job, the same job, naturally a whole comes out of the parts, I am me, a real new person. I put him in his case, he’s asleep already. I balance him on what I think of as the top of my head, because I was a human, it is actually my back. I just have a quick journey and then I’m on, live.
It’s best when you know the makers are watching, you can put on a good show. Show how good and loyal you are, how skilled and imaginative, it is your moment to earn the division merit. I never waddle so fast as when I know they must be watching, the events I am involved in so great that they must require the makers to watch, watch as I fulfil my purpose, for them. Their purpose, so great they made me to do it. And how great am I.
I don’t have to do much killing, I have Mockery reassembled and Nero with me. Nero isn’t lazy, not human but lots of mammal in him. No conversation at all, nice enough as livestock goes. Leaves a lot of humans alive, not mean enough, I know the top brass don’t like it, needs more cleaning up. They pick on Nero because he can’t talk. None of them can see Mockery except on paper so they think he’s an angel. They hate me, I used to be a human. Mockery lets people go too, he’s lazy, and he likes tragedy, feeds on it, says it’s why he joined up.
The division was asked to defend itself, I know that, the division made nutrasweet. A two fingers up if there ever was one. Not the sweetner, it’s a robot. Never does what it isn’t told. Doesn’t let people go, gives operators post traumatic stress. They use it for cleanup now, we still do the work. Most of us were born for it, some like Mockery chose it long ago and are just playing on our side. We don’t mind, I really do not lose any sleep over what we do. The top brass are not so lucky, the makers are not so lucky, our enemies are not so lucky. It is a good thing to have a job at which you excel. We all love it, some of us would die without it. Mockery wouldn’t die without blood but it makes him much easier to live with it if he gets it. Nero is pushing us through this, Mockery is not a leader and I’m trying to talk to you while I run. Running long distances will never feel normal, after about half a mile I get disorientated and can only use two of my arms at a time for a while. The rhythm of running makes me think I have legs again, I used to be a human, you see. Nero is a little powerstation, he knows where we are going and he is going to get us all there as fast as he can. Navigation isn’t my strong point, I’m problemsolving, and it’s easy to glide along in Nero’s wake, myself dragging Mockery’s Splinter with one main tentacle.
He slows us down, how I’m not sure, he moves as fast as anyone. Not like nutra was, he is all there, he just doesn’t care. Nero is leaping from guard to guard, I can jump but no way could I produce those concussion waves when I take off and land. That’s how humans survive him, he only jumps on you once and then leaves you. Enough that we don’t get shot too often. I’m leaving little transparent patches of slip behind me with my free main tentacle. Invisible to the unwary human eye and tricky to stand on. To us it is just a tiny piece of unusable floor but to human troops it can be a fearful obstacle. Mockery dawdles through my mires, he doesn’t slip, he’s a sharp one. We are outside, the final part of our mission. The sun heats the brown panels on the top of my head. Some sense tentacles retract under the shade of larger neighbours. I turn my torso around and tuck my facial tentacles underneath, I don’t know how strong the sun is yet. My two main tentacles rear upwards in front, for all the world like the necks of ancient dinosaurs. Move fast now, out in the open, every moment a security breach, narrow the window of discovery, who are you? you are a born warrior.
Hit that red wall running, lob Mock into it where he sticks with a satisfying noise like the sword going into the stone. Nero is at the top then he jumps back down all the way, flattening some overconfident enemies below, and up onto the top of my head for a second, I’m waddling up the vertical cloth clad stone in my reliable way. Mock walks like he’s pretending that the slope is a flat but I know that I’m putting that onto him myself. He isn’t that involved. At the top of the wall I let my tentacles wave in the wind, tasting and considering, not sharing the results with me unless it is vital or delightful. There are enemies among us so I do a spin, pluck them up and fling them over the nonexistent battlements and down the wall. On the other side of this wall is meant to be a vast square, piazza Charlie, so I give it a scan with the beak, listening to intelligence on the internal speaker. The last guards are armed with swords, a weapon that intelligence are smart enough to keep me away from without me having to tell them, so I’m ordered to hang back while my escort take them down. The enemies are packed together pretty densely so I nudge Mock, nice and hard so his metal claws shriek on the ground. He scuttles off without any kind of gesture. Nero watches my back like a nervous babysitter watching a baby for a scary older mother while I watch Mock take out the princess’s bodyguard. He hits them with the bullhorn, two faint, a few twitch, nothing. His tail/head spits and finds the artery of the guard next to the target, spraying her. The bodyguard split into a retreat and a charge. They can see him. I feel their shift and I tap Nero. He fairly flies over their heads. Enemies hack pointlessly at Mock, he spears them at leisure. My opening. Fall down the wall, I can heal that up. Across the hot repellent sand, all my weight on my human hands. The princess is not alone but I cannot mistake her, I can smell her, hear her particular quick breath. Even crowded beneath me, hiding from the world, my tentacles are sensitive and judicious in their choices. I am guided accurately to her. One sword is no problem for my tentacles with nothing else to do, they snap every bone in the human worth the name. I open up, my body splitting down each flank as far as the knot that joins body to main tentacles. Sense tentacles on the lower jaw, manipulators above. I’ve grabbed her and she is inside. I shut and the target is sprayed with sedatives to reduce the stress of their transport. Back to the big red wall. I told you this would be routine. I’ll be good in a week; bang around the swimming pool mostly and spit out some armour. Sleep, the warriors friend. See if I got sunburned anywhere sensitive. Hope for a sub rescue mission, listen to Mock’s stupid stories. Try to keep the makers from adding a little surgery to my downtime. I proved my usefulness today, I must have, I completed the mission. Their will be done, you see.