#reverse endangered

You palm the flash drive in your hand, before stopping to pick the dirt out from under your nails with an impatient sigh. Your hands look like shit after digging through that rubble pile for this stupid piece of plastic, but you’re hoping it’ll have something worthwhile inside when you get back to the compound. Maybe a vintage program if you’re lucky, like one of those old pixelated games people used to play. You’ve amassed a small collection- several hard drives’ worth of useless old data and digital novelties, and the thought of finding more and gloating over your collection with Roxy is the only thing that gets you up in the morning before these long, tedious scavenging missions into the city.

The weather is just starting to get cold.

You finish cleaning your fingernails, and straighten up from your crouched position to get an idea of where you ended up after digging around in the dirt like a moron. You left Roxy and the others behind a while ago- they insisted on checking the gas station across the block, even though you’ve combed through it a dozen times already. Jake only gave you an annoyed eye-roll when you kept walking, leaving them behind to fill the day’s scavenging quota. It’s not like they need your help. The compound isn’t particularly short on supplies these days.

The hollow building around you makes a strange sound, as the wind suddenly picks up and howls through the ruined city. Something in your chest feels cold, but you shake it off, irritated at yourself for letting it get to you, and turn away from the dark shadow of metal pylons and crumbling concrete pillars to find your friends and head back home.

You don’t even take two steps, before something slams into you.

Your back hits the ground hard, kicking up a cloud of dust. Something coils its way around your arms and legs, squeezing your limbs until you thrash and curse at the sudden pain, before it stops.

When you open your eyes, you’re met with an intricate pattern of orange above you, glowing through the settling dust. The android blinks curiously, and stares down at you with matching orange eyes. Now you can see what’s holding you down- four long, black mechanical appendages, like tentacles tipped with steel claws, originating from somewhere behind its back.

You and the android stare at each other for a long moment, as several things run through your mind at once. You’re too stunned to panic yet, and seeing one of these things in person isn’t something you ever thought you’d experience, after a lifetime of horrifying stories about the gruesome death they inflict on anyone and everyone who gets caught. Their victims only return to the compound as corpses, with crushed throats and broken necks.

Your thoughts suddenly flip to the rest of your team- Roxy and the others- and there’s that cold chill in your ribcage again, but this time it spreads even further as the android kneels over you, black knees pressed into the dirt on either side of your chest, before its eyes wander to your still-clenched fist.

When it reaches out, you reflexively tighten your fist, but the sudden unexpected tingle of electricity surprises you into relaxing your fingers, and it takes the flash drive away. The android holds it up, turning the small device over in its hand, before reaching up with the other and pulling a long, thin wire out from behind its neck, connecting it to the drive.

“Fascinating,” it says in a voice with far too much of a metallic grate to be human, but still deep enough to be male. The wires detach from the drive and disappear behind its neck. “Pity you dropped your guard for such a trivial object.”

“Let go of me,” you hiss, trying to yank your arm away, but the metal coils hold fast.

“No,” he says, discarding the flash drive on the ground next to you. “I cannot.”

You make a few more valiant attempts to free yourself, before the finality of your situation settles in, and you have to stop yourself from screaming for help, because that’ll just get your friends killed. You’re fairly certain this thing hasn’t caught them yet, because you’d have heard their screams by now if it had- you aren’t that far away, and there’s three of them. As the fear settles in your stomach, a burning anger starts to take its place. This stupid robot with its blank, doll-eyed stare is watching you struggle for your life the same way you’d sit through a boring movie, and you’re about ready to scream curses at it, just to make it change its stupid vacant expression while it kills you, before you remember your friends at the last minute, and hold your tongue.

“Do not fear, human. I will make this quick,” the android says, releasing one of your legs to hover the pointed claw of its appendage over your throat, and your mouth goes dry at the sight.

“My name is Hal, you piece of shit.” The android’s expression doesn’t even twitch at the insult, but you feel a little better, even if you’re about to die. You’re nothing if not vindictive. “And you’d better kill me fast, because if I make it out of this, I’ll saw your stupid tentacles off and turn you into a fucking dehumidifier, or a talking garbage can, or whatever the fuck I-”

The mechanical arm suddenly clamps itself over your mouth, and you struggle for a desperate moment to get your nose free so you can breathe. Apparently he got tired of listening to your impotent threats, but he doesn’t look all that fazed. He’s probably heard the same angry tirade before, and he leans down to speak again, before another voice cuts through the dusty air, and both of you freeze.

The android pauses, then straightens up and turns its head towards the sound. Your anger dissolves at the recognition of your friends’ voices, and a wave of fear quickly takes its place, as you picture those sharp claws at Roxy’s throat, piercing Jane’s eyes, tearing Jake’s windpipe out. Frantically, you make sounds in your throat, trying to get the android’s attention. He turns to look at you, then removes the coil around your mouth.

“Don’t. Don’t you dare fucking touch them,” you snarl, and the android regards you with vague confusion, like you just asked it a difficult philosophical question. “Just leave them alone, you already have me. Let them go.”

“You are not in a position to make demands, human.”

The distant voices of your friends are getting louder by the moment, and your mind races for ideas- for something, anything you can do to save yourself, or at least spare your friends. You might be fucked, but you won’t let this wretched machine get what it wants. If you can make your last moments count, you’ll figure something out, or kill yourself trying.

An idea occurs to you.

“I’ll give you what you want,” you say, carefully keeping your voice even. The android tilts its head to the side.

“I want your life, and the lives of your companions.”

“I know that,” you say slowly, fighting to keep the irritation out of your voice. “But I can give those things to you, if you’ll just listen to me.”

“You cannot give what is already mine. My function is absolute.”

The voices are getting closer, and for a moment, you can make out Roxy’s laugh.

“I’ll kill myself.”

The android stares down at you curiously, probably failing to comprehend the implications of what you just said, and you’re forced to elaborate on what should have been a simple concept.

“I’ll kill myself for you, right here, if you promise to leave my friends alone. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He regards you in silence, appearing to consider your words, while you’re doing your best to keep a neutral expression at the sound of your friends getting closer.

“I fail to see how this alters the outcome from your perspective. Do you not value your own life?”

“It doesn’t matter- I’m offering a trade, do we have a deal or not?” You wait for a few tense moments, as the android stares. It’s inhuman thoughts are a mystery, but you know doubt and reluctance when you see it. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll prove it. Give me something sharp.”

He watches you for another moment, before turning his head to examine your surroundings, presumably searching for the object you’ve requested. One of his appendages extends into the nearby wreckage, burying itself noisily into the debris while you mutter through gritted teeth for him to “hurry up, come on,” as your friends’ voices get louder in the distance, and soon the appendage lifts into the air with a jagged piece of metal clutched in its claws.

The coils around your arms slide away, freeing you to lift your hands and accept the object from him. The metal comes to a jagged point at one end, and it looks easily sharp enough to cut through flesh.

You take a deep breath and let it out, feeling the air leave your lungs and the cool ground against your back, as the android watches silently. The sounds of your friends drift across the rubble towards you, and you steel your nerves, willing enough strength into your arms.

You swing the metal piece as hard as you can, aiming for the android’s neck.

There’s an area behind there, where you saw the thin wire disappear after he connected it to the drive. It’s got to be a weak spot, and you’re betting everything you have on that hunch. Your friends are doomed if you fail, and even if you’d played along, this thing would’ve probably killed them anyway. You’d never trust an android to keep its word. Artificial intelligence is a misnomer- they’re just tools of genocide, and nothing else. You were dead the moment it caught you.

The metal weapon sparks as you miss your target by mere centimeters, hitting the black plating instead. The android releases your other leg in alarm, its eyes suddenly wide and expressive, as it seizes your wrist in its claws. Looks like your hunch was right.

You quickly toss the weapon into your other hand- a trick Jake taught you with his pistols- and this time you’re even further off the mark, as the metal drags a jagged line down the android’s shoulder and through one of the glowing orange lines. It goes out with an electric ‘pop,’ and the resulting shock is brief, but your fingers spasm painfully. The claws release your wrist as the android lets out a brief, garbled cry of pain, and you take the opportunity- this time guiding the metal with your fingers as you feel for the right spot first- quickly brushing over something not unlike the ports on a computer. You’re about to try stabbing it again, but all four of the android’s appendages suddenly lash out at once, connecting blindly with your body just as something catches between your fingers. You grab it reflexively, and whatever it is snaps off in your hand, as you’re thrown backwards onto the ground.

You had no idea they could hit that hard. The next few moments are strangely quiet, as you sit up and try to breathe after that rough impact, wheezing and coughing until you look up and meet the android’s wide, orange eyes. It’s staring at you, but it’s not meeting your eyes exactly, and you follow its gaze down and to your left, where your hand is resting in the dirt.

Something is wrapped around your fingers- a long, black wire with a glinting metal tip at one end, and a frayed edge at the other where it broke off.

When you look back up, he’s meeting your eyes this time, and your stomach twists into knots at his expression. It’s so bizarrely human, and whatever you just did to him, whatever this wire was supposed to be for, it’s like you’ve torn out his beating, mechanical heart in front of him.

A sudden spike in the volume of your friends’ voices gets your attention for a moment, and when you turn back, the android is gone. You hear your name shouted at you a moment later.

“Hal! What on earth are you doing? Did you take a tumble?” Jake calls out, sliding down a steep embankment of dirt into the hollow building. Roxy and Jane aren’t too far behind him, and you carefully rise to your feet, tucking the wire into your pocket without a second glance. “You’re filthy, mate.” Jake says when he reaches you, brushing the dirt from your back before you shrug him off.

“I’m fine,” you assert, and Roxy lifts a skeptical eyebrow in your direction.

“You sure about that? We heard you fall down from like, across the street. Plus you look kinda like you got run over, no offense, hun.”

Jane hides a smile behind her hand, and you roll you eyes, but force a smile anyway.

“Yeah, alright, you got me. I fell over like a senile old lady and lost my dignity on the way down, can we leave already? I’m, uh…sore. I landed on my ankle weird.”

“Oh no, can you still walk?” Jane asks, and you deflect her concern with a fake, but steady limp across the dirt. She looks convinced, but displeased. “You have got to be more careful, Hal. That could’ve easily been worse.”

You shrug as apologetically as possible, keeping one eye on the rafters for any sign of movement as Roxy directs your group back the way you came. Jake starts chewing you out for bailing on the scavenging mission again (“we filled half of the supply list, no thanks to you, you infernal slacker-”), and you suddenly remember something, breaking away from them for a moment as they reach the street (“not again, confound it, quit running off!”). You fake-hobble your way back to the irregular outline of your own body in the dirt, kneeling down to swipe the flash drive before anyone notices. Roxy yells your name, and you slip the device in your pocket, right next to the eerily smooth, tangled wire you accidentally tore from the android’s neck.