Misericorde

for Avon

I’m dead. That’s the obvious part. Or I will be dead, soon.

Once the autonutrient tank has run out, I will begin to starve. Training says three to five days. I’m hoping for sooner.

My arms and legs are frozen in the rig, at the precise moment of my death. Bracing for impact out, legs stanced against the oncoming onslaught. After I died, fell. I lie, in the same stance, at a slight angle. I assume that soon blood will begin pooling in my head. Perhaps that will kill me faster..

It was a scout that got me. Bastards twice my height, the size of my hand. Built to burrow, slide plates aside and wriggle in. Got in deep, behind the root of the second nervous system. There’s a kill switch there, command knows why. Freezes your entire body.

My skin is impenetrable. Apparently it’s hell on the mechanics. Have to reforge an entire bicep everytime it malfunctions. Mostly it means other things can’t get in. Means I can’t get out.

I’ve seen it before. I remember him. The enemy. Last thing his system could do was broadcast his face, the same clip, over and over again. We’re built for this. For cleanup. A thin blade from our arm, slips right under the plates, right into the core. Sometimes it’s tricky to find the body in the body. Most of the time, we are taught, they are already dead (I am already dead). No heartbeat to be found.

His heart was still broadcasting. Beat the same rhythm as mine. You have to get up close. I rested my plate knees between his legs, splayed like death — leaned down. Found the plate, located my arm.

The blade was large enough to bisect him. It hit his brainstem and the first and third nervous roots. The roots were already defunct, but plate is built to interface. I felt his last moments.

Mine will be so much slower.

I am waiting for him now. For his misery, his mercy. I am dead and I am waiting for my end.

—

He comes like a prophet. Strides the land in plate, circuits shining in the pink-gold sun. I remember how they glowed under the dust, when I killed him (He is here to kill me).

He is my salvation, as he approaches. His nervous systems blink with the rhythm of his heart (The beat of mine). He is here to repeat history.

He arrives just as the last of my life support gives way.

He remembers me in the way he kneels across my chest. Remembers me in the positioning of his arm, in his thrust, in the last images of my life flashing through his plate.

—

I wake up from my dream of mercy (his mercy), and discover what it is to rot.

The grave moss (This is my grave) has crept up the edges of my fingers; through the seams in my arms. My nervous systems (These are my hearts), long dead, have put down roots. Water (My tears) drips in through cracks not yet eroded. It lands on my stomach, rolls down my breasts. Over my mouth.

I do not drink it, because I am dead (I have died).

I can feel the places where I am being decomposed (Where I rot). I can feel where my plate will corrode (Where I will corrode), and where it will expand. I can see the image of my rotting corpse, encasing me long after I’ve skeletonized (I am already dead).

I can see so clearly how I will grow, without this mercy. I can see how I have died.

I think, perhaps, that it is worth it (I am worth it).