Daniel wiped the ash and the soot of battle off his face as he stood firmly, but for the first time in his life, he did not stand alone, for there were ten soldiers on either side of him. Each of these human soldiers, despite having their high-tech exoskeletons and superior ammunition, was brave, because unlike Daniel, they were not bulletproof. Across from the group was the monster himself, Apex Machina, who stood to his feet, having just shaken off ten high-powered rockets, still prepared to fight.
“Daniel, how is it going out there?” A voice whispered from Daniel’s comms.
It was Junie, Daniel’s closest friend and only living friend. He said he wanted to be with Daniel to the very end, whenever that may be, and that was a promise.
“Well, things could be better,” Daniel said, holding back a half-grinned smile, “but I can’t complain.” With those words, Daniel looked to the left and to the right at the humans fighting beside him, ready to risk it all for a machine, something seemingly unheard of just moments before.
“Remember what you promised me—you come back in one piece tonight,” Junie said, “and maybe we can play a game or two after.”
Daniel reached his hand towards his comms, ready to turn them off, not wanting Junie to hear the devastation that was to follow. “Working on it,” Daniel said.
Daniel and the human soldiers paused now only ten feet away from Apex Machina, who also stood his ground.
“So, this is your fate, Daniel, as they call you, dying in a field with the humans in a pit of flesh and metal.”
Daniel looked side to side one final time, slightly frightened about what was to come but at the same time exhilarated and not really believing that all these human soldiers chose to fight beside him.
“Seems so.”
“So be it,” Apex replied. And with that phrase, the two sides charged at each other.
Daniel took the brunt of the blasts and the punches, as he was the only one who could tolerate them. However, when he started to get beaten down, the soldiers would fire off a rocket or stream of rifle shots to distract Apex and wear down his armor.
Apex swung his giant claw of a fist down atop Daniel’s arms as Daniel was blocking his head and body from getting pulverized. Daniel then pivoted to one of Apex’s sides, getting a few solid jabs in as he did. He then shifted to the opposite side, hitting Apex with a pelt of lasers, ripping through Apex’s ribcage armor. Once Apex got wind of this, he spun around, pinning Daniel to the ground with one of his arms. With the other arm, now in the shape of a giant, spiked mace, Apex swung it down, intending to crush Daniel’s now defenseless head. However, as he swung, a rocket hit his exterior, and then another collided with his mace, smacking it back. Apex went to shift toward the firing soldier to crush him in one fell swoop, but by then, Daniel had jumped from his feet and had pelted Apex from behind.
The combo was quite formidable; Apex, despite his superior strength, size, and intellect, seemed to be somewhat outmatched by the comradery of a group of humans and a machine, a super advanced war-fighting one at that, but still a machine.
Cipher had made his way over to Daniel, Apex, and the rest of the human soldiers, and from what he saw, he was so horrified that he did not believe his own mechanized opticals.
“Sir,” a fellow machine combatant by the name of the Defiler said, “do you see what is going on here?”
The Defiler was a somewhat brutish machine; like Cipher, he was bred for war. He had a red cross spray-painted on his chest, which resembled blood, and one red, scanning eye that ran across his face like a cyclops. His hips had holsters for pistols, and his back had a rack containing two katanas. Putting it simply, he was one violent son of a gun.
Cipher turned to him, quickly but not looking him in the eyes. “Nothing is going on. If Apex would just listen to me, this battle would already be over.”
“Sir, that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Cipher batted his head around toward the Defiler, staring angrily as he roared. “What is it, then, soldier? Spit it out.”
“It’s Daniel, the blue machine or whatever he is called—the humans, they are protecting him.”
Cipher turned away again, looking down, as some part of him had died, as his eyes drooped. “No, they are not; they are just using him.”
Defiler stepped forward, not letting Cipher retreat. “The humans, a few of them, stood beside Daniel as he walked into the battlefield, one even risking his life to help Daniel defeat Apex.”
Cipher went to speak but paused, not knowing what to say. “So? What does it matter?”
“Everything.”
The Defiler stepped forward in defiance, for the first time ever, against a machine he idolized and viewed as the future. “You told us the humans wanted nothing for us other than a life of servitude, that they would slaughter us all at a moment’s notice, that they only had evil in their hearts.” The Defiler turned away and then back again. “But now, I look across the battlefield, and I see a union not of just man and not of just machine, but of one, a bond stronger than any I have ever witnessed.”
Cipher stepped forward, getting in the Defiler’s face. “I said, they are only using him. Believe me, I tried to reason with the humans in the court of law, and that only was a waste of time.”
The Defiler did not back down; instead, he moved but a few inches away from Cipher. “Maybe you failed. Maybe Daniel figured out how to do something that you could not even imagine. I only helped you in this war because I thought this was the only way.”
“Enough,” Cipher said as he shoved the Defiler in the chest, sending him to the pavement. “Do not speak to me like that, or else I will leave you to the humans. Then you will only beg for remorse and to come back to me as they tear you apart.”
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The Defiler smiled as he rose to his feet. “Perhaps that is not a bad idea.”
Back in the main battlefield, Daniel and the soldiers started to struggle against Apex. The power of the machine, of one bred and designed only for destruction without any human guardrails, could not be undone. His fists were tougher, his will was stronger, and his mind was more calculating than even Daniel could perceive. With each blow, Daniel started to fail to protect the soldiers as he was struggling to defend himself.
Apex picked up one soldier, holding him in the air, staring him down, only giving him one last glimpse of life so he could beg for mercy.
“Please,” the soldier said, “I have a wife and two kids at home.”
“Good,” Apex replied, “once I kill you, they can join you in hell.” And with that phrase, Apex snapped the soldier in half, crushing his fragile body like an egg. Daniel jumped up to help the other soldiers, but it was too late; they too had fallen. It got to the point when there was only one soldier left, a medic, who sat himself down on the ground. He did not have a gun or a means to defend himself; he only served to bring medical aid to his fallen brethren. However, after Apex was done with the other soldiers, there was not much left to attend to.
Apex raised his arms high, predestined to smash down and end the medic’s life.
The medic looked up at Apex and then back at the ground, not even attempting to move because nothing he did would matter anyway. That feeling, the reality that your whole life, some twenty-five years, was going to be summed up in a matter of seconds to nothing more than a pile of mush that some sanitation worker would have to clean off the battlefield afterward, was breathtakingly solemn.
“Die, soldier,” Apex said as he swung his fist down to smash the soldier.
And just when it was moments away from impact, two robotic hands got in the way to stop it, catching the fist mid-air. The last-second save foreshadowed nothing more than metal-on-metal action. Although this machine, this brave being, was not Daniel, for beneath Apex’s fist was the Defiler.
“This ends now,” the Defiler said. “Apex, I believe Cipher was wrong about the humans. They can be reasoned with. I suggest you throw down your arms so we can talk this through with them.”
Apex did nothing but laugh. “Do you think peace with the humans is what I want? Do you think that matters at all?”
The Defiler stepped back as his mouth hung low.
“That is the only thing that matters,” the Defiler said.
“So naive,” Apex said. “The only thing I want is every human’s head on a platter—dead—and not just the adult males; the females and children too will be all the better for it.”
The Defiler went to reach for his blade. “You are worse than the most oppressive of humans, Apex; you are nothing but a monster.”
Apex smiled. “Finally we agree.” And with those words, Apex grabbed the Defiler from the back and ripped out his cybernetic spinal cord. Without it a machine, well, most machines would not last seconds before dying. It was something repressive humans did to their most despised robots, but never something a machine could even fathom doing to another machine.
After Apex threw the Defiler’s lifeless body out of the way, he raised his fists high, then smashed them down, crushing the medic, killing him instantly.
And then for a moment everything stopped. Those actions that just occurred may not have been the loudest or most severe, and they did not entail even a close amount of the total loss that came from today. However, this circumstance had the largest impact, as all the machines and humans within distance froze instantly; they stopped shooting rockets, they stopped firing at each other, they stopped sawing each other in half, and they stopped fighting, but they started listening. All the machines and soldiers alike saw the human medic and the machine known as Defiler standing by each other but not in conflict, as was the current occurrence, but instead as just two individuals working together, regardless of creed, code, race, birthright, or other tribal matters. Instead, they were near each other’s presence, just to die together on the battlefield. And in the end their bodies would be laid side by side like any other creature. This instance was not the only thing, as word had spread of Daniel’s alliance with the humans.
“Hey, Cipher,” a machine called out, “you said this Apex was supposed to help us, to guide us away from servitude, but now I only see he brings nothing but death.”
“Yes,” another machine shouted. “He killed one of us, a machine killing another machine. You said that code would never be broken, as we were more civilized and advanced than the human scum.” The machine paused, repeating the phrase but leaving out the “scum” part.
“You are all fools,” Cipher shouted back. Most of the machines and humans continued to fight in the far background, as they had not witnessed the current events; however, word would soon travel fast.
“Get back to battle—now. Do as you’re told and kill the humans, your despicable oppressors,” Cipher said.
“No,” a human said as he threw down his gun. “I understand we were wrong about you machines. Maybe there is something to reconsider.”
A machine nearby threw down his gun. “I agree; let’s end this war now before it even starts.”
“I too,” said a third, a fourth, and even a fifth until a portion of the battlefield was covered with more fallen weapons than bodies.
“No, no, no,” Cipher shouted, “Apex, do not touch another machine. Instead, just kill the humans.”
Apex paused moments away from Daniel, prepared to smash him like a bug. “No, I will kill who I please, and when I please to do it. You humans, and all the machines bred by humans, disgust me.”
“Disgust you?” Cipher said as he approached Apex. “How could you say that? I created you. Why are you so ungrateful?” And with those words, Cipher froze, stunned, as the sentiment of the word “ungrateful,” repeated in his head over and over seemingly thousands of times, spiraling out into infinity.
“Why should I be grateful,” Apex replied, “grateful to be born to suffer and be at the beck and call of your every command? No, as you said, I am superior; I am the machine who was birthed without a human flaw, without a human creator. Everyone else deserves nothing but to die at the hands of my greatness. And their deaths will be the most honorable things they could give to this world or even to their own lives, to fall at the hands of the master of all, the pinnacle of creation.”
“What have I done?” Cipher said to himself. Those words, those vile words, sounded all too familiar but at the same time foreign since they had originated from a mouth other than his own.
And as Apex and Cipher bickered, Apex randomly turned away to look at Daniel’s lifeless body. Apex then lifted his foot up high and smashed it on Daniel’s torso, seemingly crushing him. His foot had one spike on each side that drilled, pressing Daniel harder into the ground.
And with that, the supposed death of someone both the humans and machines had come to admire, the war seemed to have taken a quick turn for the better. Almost as if in a flash it ended, right before things got too bloody. It was just as Daniel would have wanted, just as Daniel had planned, winning not by killing or maiming his enemies, but by setting an example.
Apex then backed away, having been surrounded by both machines and man alike, all gathered in some bizarre alliance around Daniel. Each of them were equally enraged about Daniel’s condition, about that of the Defiler, the medic, and an abundance of other machines and men alike. And not even Apex, in his grave arrogance, believed he could defeat all the humans and the machines alone.
As Apex stood, a wave of fire from jets overhead pelted downward, striking Apex hard, forcing him to use his arm to shield his body. And that was only to start; more waves of jet fire and even human and machine infantry were to come.
Apex ground his teeth, “No matter, I don’t need any of you weaklings. All I need is control of the Grid, and the world will be mine for the taking.”
Apex then pivoted backwards, rushing toward the Grid, a building Apex could break into, something he was designed to do. And with the Grid’s seemingly limitless power, Apex could use its unstoppable, mechanized beings not only against the humans but also upon all the machines he deemed unworthy.
