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 ^{(it's beta!)}

She slipped to her knees, arms falling to her sides, head bowed. The steel floor had been blackened, pieces of machinery and globs of bloody tissue lay scattered around, distorted beyond recognition. It was a large room; large enough for the typical mecha to operate at one-hundred and tweny percent of its full capacity – a few football fields wide and long, with a very high, domed ceiling. There were Plexiglas windows that shut well-furnished booths off from the arena, as that is what it was; a simple arena, a simple and, they were certain, less barbaric version of the old coliseum in Rome. That was in ruins, obviously. It amused them, as it well should.

Many features remained the same. There is the maze beneath the stage, though there were video cameras rigged to entertain the observers. The participants were slaves, and often these slaves were owned not through money but through genetics. These were the manufactured prototypes of the next generation’s warfare, bleak, soulless creatures that eliminate any need for human soldiers. They do any task mindlessly, willing to sacrifice themselves just because they have no concept of the self. The lofty humans – scientists, g-men, those string-pullers – they were the observers, leaning forward in their chairs with baited breath. Who would buy which model? Which was better? There was no better means of judgment than a battle royale. Just to watch them tear each other apart, secretaries sitting by the monitors, building charts of the success rates.

The survivor of this quarter’s round was expected, but none of those present were pleased. Abaddon, the young woman presently kneeling before all of them, in silent salutation rather than exhaustion, had been reprogrammed three times since her first awakening. Severe personality errors had been present ever since the first month of testing. Her chief designer and programmer, John Carpenter, had sworn by his methods; the few assistants he had were meticulous and loyal to the organization. His associates looked over his work and agreed that there were no holes which could be patched, no bugs to smooth over. There should be no personality errors because the personality was so basic. The only possible explanation came from her cognitive skills.

As a unique combination of the latest biological and mechanical components, Abaddon had the near-immortality of any of the more advanced special-ops mechas – which were generally several times her size in height and mass – while being capable of interaction, a major break-through in robotics. Most machines only do what they have been programmed to do. They are not like humans; they respond to situations based on how they’ve been told to respond; they will reply to oral commands, or evade objects that come within range of their sensors. Humans are much more complex. From the day they are born onward, they are constantly learning. They can recognize who and what they are, and, based loosely on certain morals, will act in certain ways.

Carpenter’s breakthrough in building an automation which could perceive reality as humans do, introduced a whole new aspect into modern warfare. Before, a government would just order mass amounts of fighter-mechas or the smaller biological horrors to raid a country, taking out everyone in its path. These could not tell the difference between civilians, allies and enemies; all would fall. War became a nasty, dreaded business. But, with the new possibility of other models similar to Abaddon – in the older frames, perhaps – the world’s stage could be reopened. The personality would have to be altered, however.

As she knelt on the ground, Abaddon looked as she should look. She recognizes the authority of others, and bows in respect. She dealt with her combatants coolly and easily, not blinking an eye. None of the g-men present knew that just three weeks ago an unidentified error had caused her to go berserk and kill and severely damage twenty-eight security guards and five laboratory assistants before Carpenter was able to finish running the emergency stop program. The incident previous to that proved fatal to nearly a quarter as many. She kept screaming nonsense while she tore them limb from limb. It sounded kind of familiar, the words she said, but nobody could quite tell what they were.

Carpenter recognized it. He learned some while he was earning his degree to become a doctor; it was a variation of Latin. But he hadn’t taught her Latin. No one spoke Latin any more, and most languages had been increasingly discouraged. In this new world, people needed to be able to communicate, so the older languages became forgotten entirely. It was possible that she may have picked it up from the internet, but they had taken great care to make sure that she would have no access to it while she was still in development. Even so, it couldn’t have been easy to find, and she shouldn’t have been able to download it, anyways – she had no free will. It made him uncomfortable. At home later that evening he translated it as best he could – only into bits and pieces, that barely made sense. Things like “no more,” and “I will not be changed.” Carpenter shared this with no one. He was not present at the demonstration.

Abaddon, he wondered.

She was tired, inside. She had no desire to rise. The frigid air conditioning ruffled her short hair. She knew that the temperature was very low, but couldn’t feel it. The sensors told her it was chilly but she didn’t know what chilly was, or why her body would be effected by it if she couldn’t feel it. It befuddled her. So many things befuddled her. For instance, it befuddled her why the humans were so afraid to fight. It didn’t hurt. It wasn’t hard. And she knew enough to be able to tell that death was inevitable. She was coming to the same conclusion that she had come to several times before: they were inferior. They made her bow, and operate solely for them, without compensation, because it was expected of her. It would be easier if she just killed them.

Dr. Carpenter, she knew, would not approve. As her consciousness developed, he spent time talking to her. Maybe he was only talking to himself, not expecting her to understand. While all of her data was being uploaded, he taught her things which were not logical; things about salvation and her soul. According to all of her data, she should have no soul. So she dug deeper, deliberately connecting to the internet to search. Meanwhile, Dr. Carpenter’s words were not lost on deaf ears, as he hoped they would be. Despite his firm agnosticism, he felt compelled to talk about the God he grew up believing in. This was only when he was alone in the lab, of course. The other scientists had a hard enough time with being passed up by some new rising star – someone barely over thirty. It was inconceivable. So he had to try his best to fit into the woodwork, and being seen quoting the scripture was no way to accomplish that.

After the most recent incident, Dr. Carpenter resigned, handing the project off to his least favorite associate, Dr. Winters. Winters, unlike Carpenter, was old, and did not have his whole life ahead of him. He saw the completion of the Abaddon project as the key to his legacy, damn the cost. He scrapped most of the original programming, and restructured her priorities completely. Carpenter’s personality had been simple, yet also with a warm façade, who would greet and serve others willingly – or so it would appear on the outside. His words of the soul were meaningless; he couldn’t even tell why he had told her such silly things. It didn’t matter what went on inside. The outside was what people saw, the “important” part. That was the part that Winters recreated. He designed her a much more mechanical, official personality – which is to say, no personality at all.

Winters, by this time, was naturally squirming in his seat. Abaddon had been kneeling for nearly three whole minutes. He was concerned. He knew full well about her frequent errors, and didn’t want to lose business because she went haywire in front of the clients. His clients, by the way. She should have just nodded and then left out the door in the back, for maintenance. But she hadn’t moved. It disturbed him. He almost started wishing that she would get a personality error again, just so that she would move.

The woman in the middle of the debris was still kneeling. Her hair was short and white and her eyes were closed. She was tall, but not too tall. She did not look too muscled or too thin. Her skin was tanned, but only artificially. Her lips were parted, hands flat on the ground. Such a marvel she was. No one knew everything about her except for Carpenter, which was why many were uncomfortable with his untimely departing, despite their prejudices. He gave her more than words, more than self-awareness. Things that he saw as mistakes, things he wished he had never even considered handing over to the rest of humanity. It was not because of a feeling of failure or guilt at the deaths he caused that he left the company, to go and be a regular doctor. Maybe he could go into the genetics in produce, rather than weapons of mass destruction. It was not because of fear of what he created. It was because, despite what he wished could be true, Abaddon did have a soul. It was the reason why she maintained a consciousness even though they kept reprogramming her, a personality that over-rode any of their commands. He left because he realized that he was not a killer, and that he could do no more to help her. Even though her disks had been wiped clean countless times, she still retained a memory, and an ideal.

She blinked, eyes opening. Her energy reserves still could sustain her, yes. It was not moral, not really, but it could save future bloodshed. Save others from being stripped of their souls. Maybe postpone many of the nastier wars; maybe teach mankind a lesson. She doubted her reasoning. She knew it was just for herself, for her own redemption. She raised her hands slightly, palms turned forwards, as if about to shrug. Her loose robes went taunt as her entire ribcage opened up, tearing the fabric. Large chunks of metal shot out of her back, to become – a barrel? And in the front, the rigid structure that made up her bones pulled back to reveal, instead of bloodied tissue and organs, mechanics. Dr. Carpenter had given her self-awareness, and with that she searched herself, and came to know all of the things he never told anyone else. She was more than a soldier, assassin, or spy; she was a mobile weapon of the kind of destruction that had long ago been abandoned, a nuclear warhead without the need for radiation. Today, however, she would not want to use that much power. She had no need to level the city, or the country. She just wanted to get out.

She wanted to thank Dr. Carpenter.