Static

Static

Aim. Fire. A peal of static. Aim, fire again.

This static I keep hearing, it isn’t like the noise I hear in my helmet when I get an order or relay information. It is static in my head, in my sentience, and it warps my little universe, a universe comprised solely of me sealed within my KI-2 Undead Carapace Exoskeleton Localized Life-Support suit.

I am a Reclaimed GPMG Operator, Infantryman #6 124 024 180, of the Crippled Hand army group. To be precise, I am the recycled husk of one of the Sunfellian soldiers we fight and kill. Taken after death, flensed of flesh, coated in Soulsilver and reanimated by one of the Mortifactors which float overhead like the barrage balloons of old. I have been subsequently treated with the various implants, mechanical and otherwise, that are standard issue amongst Underhaven’s Undead infantry.

The Crippled Hand is comprised entirely of Undead and Automatons. Most of the Undead with us lack self-awareness, like myself, in that I can process information but I have no will of my own. In short, I am an ideal soldier.

“Seven! Targets crossing the ridge, attempting to circumvent the minefield” I hear my commanding officer Lenna say via my vocoder. He has a name, because he is sentient. Most of our commanding officers have been gifted with sentience to foster better initiative and planning. As for me, I only have a number: Seven, as in Squadsman Seven.

“Engaging” I reply automatically. I sweep the barrel of my weapon towards the stragglers, raking the ground with fire as soon as I can see them clearly in my fixed magnification, low-power optical sight. It has the night-vision plug-in installed, which is helpful this night because I can only see in ultraviolet out to about 300 meters or so.

The bipod holds the weapon steady as it pours ammunition into them at a cyclic rate of close to 1000 rounds per minute, effectively suppressing them and forcing them to go prone. The nearby minefield was deployed via pods from a gunship helicopter yesterday, not so much to inflict casualties but rather to force the Sunfellians into one of two narrow chokepoints around the cliff. They will be prey for our designated marksman, Squadsman Eight. He is the only one asides from me who has yet survived, probably because both of us were dug-in due to the nature of our weapons when the counter-attack began.

I see a few explosions of dirt and gore where Eight’s rounds begin to hit home. I add my own weapon’s semiautomatic function to the mix, placing rounds into them as best I can. The KI-MG1 is a good weapon; it is not as reliable as many other general-purpose machine guns but its short-stroke piston is more accurate and produces less kick.

“What are you doing that for?”

That is strange. I hear a voice in my head which sounds like my own raspy, tinny voice on those rare occasions when I do speak aloud. It nearly makes me pause in the cycle of aim-fire-repeat, which could have been disastrous.

“What are you doing that for?”

The voice isn’t going away. I don’t understand why it is here, but I might as well entertain it. It seems pointless, frivolous even, like parades or medals, but I hear those have an important purpose too. So maybe this is just as important.

“I aim and fire because it is what I do” I say aloud.

One of the Sunfellians is struck by an 8.2x56mm bullet from either me or Eight as he attempts to throw a firebomb at a passing ammunition bearer of ours. The enemy soldier’s chest explodes with crimson, staining his Ethalyn-weave polymer cloak. He topples over, dead, and as insult to injury his bomb explodes as it hits the ground. Apparently he had already armed it. Now their squad has an increasing conflagration to deal with as well. I like the flames; I like the way the incendiary chemicals lap against their cloaks, fireproof they are, while at the same time it chews through their comparatively less fire-resistant CELLs. It always fills me with a sense of peace.

“What is peace?”

Apparently it can tell what I’m thinking. I decide to give this voice the literal definition.

“Peace is a lack of war.”

“Do you desire peace?”

“Yes, because Underhaven does not want an eternal war. But I am most content when I am on the battlefield.”

“Why?”

Bullets from a group of four riflemen that had somehow navigated the minefield impact the sandbags to my right, the projectiles disintegrating before they can fully penetrate them. My weapon is of a larger caliber, and my ammunition is steel-cored, which means the thicket my targets are using as cover won’t help them in the same way. They are hiding in that brush, thinking I can’t see them. They must not know about my night sight; since it operates using thermal imaging, it can see heat signatures through solid objects.

“I was made to do this and nothing else” I say, as I turn my attention from the earlier squad to this fresh threat, redeploying my machine gun’s bipod to better face them. “It is my duty.”

“What if the Sunfellians made you? Would you do their duty and kill for them?”

I had never thought of that, but my answer comes instantly.

“No. I am a soldier of Underhaven, and I always will be.” The bipod is now deployed; all that remains is to recheck my sights, and not get hit by a stray or lucky shot.

“Why are the Sunfellians not worthy of you? Why do you of all things feel compelled to judge them?!”

This voice is getting annoying. I have never understood why some of my self-aware brethren seem to think that shouting their points makes them come across better.

“Because they are…evil.” I have heard the word before, but me saying that something is evil strikes me as strange. The word tastes like it is of a foreign language.

I begin spraying automatic fire into the thickets, shredding their cover and kicking dust and fragments of wood into their armored visors. It will be harder for them to shoot back now. I am in a good position. And there is something else that I feel, a peculiar feeling of “justification”. As in, I have killed before, but at the moment I know why I am right in doing so.

“What is evil?”

“Evil is…evil is waging a war for land and resources, and sending your own citizens to die for a ‘greater good’, a ‘noble cause’, a ‘worthy sacrifice’, like Sunfell is right now, as opposed to fighting back in self-defence like Underhaven.” What am I saying? These thoughts have never concerned me before.

“Has Underhaven ever been evil in its wars?”

I tire of this nagging voice.

“Yes, but this war I am fighting is just. I am a soldier, and it isn’t a lot but I fight for the only homeland I have ever known!”

I fall silent, stunned for the very first time in my ‘life’, just as the 250-round belt feed of my machine gun runs dry. I dimly realize that that Eight is picking off the last two stragglers from the ill-fated squad that tried getting around the minefield earlier, as I get a transmission in my vocoder.

“Squadsman seven? What’s going on? I noticed a spike in your vocal levels, but you weren’t transmitting to anyone. Is your CELL’s helmet damaged?” It is Lenna’s voice. Was I actually yelling?

 “Uh, yeah, just gimme a second. I need some, some time to think” I reply back.

“‘Time to thin’-what the fuck?! Is that really you? Seven, what’s going on?!”

I don’t respond. Instead I lie flush with the ground of my foxhole to minimize the risk of shrapnel as I do some serious thinking, for the first time in my “life”. “Them”: that is everyone who is not me. “We”: we, my squad, my division, my army, my kingdom. "Him", the singular given to a man, fits me as I was once a Sunfellian male. "Her" means little. Or does it? "Him" and "her" form an essential duality, without which there would be no life. No life, means no death, means I would not exist.

So what about “you?” What is “you”? Like “them”, you is defined as one who is not me. “One”, as in a singular self-aware entity, not a mindless cog in some faceless machine. Is that who “I” am? Could I be a lone entity, alike but different to all the others blessed with sentience?

I stare skyward, as the bleak grey of the clouds begin to bleed droplets of rain. Have I been blessed by the gods today with the ability to look in a mirror and understand it isn’t only my reflection I see looking back? Or did I do it myself?

Did I realize that I existed all on my own?

I have always felt the static, in the back of my head, behind every rote action I committed and every memorized word I spoke. It has always been there, and today I discerned beyond it, beyond the blank slate I though I was, into a mind so unique and beautiful that its very existence is proof of the divine. This mind is mine.

“Nothing’s wrong, Lenna” I say at last into the autoscrambling channel of my vocoder. “And I have a feeling the battle’s about to turn today.”