Two Meters

The Woman

I left her floating there, before she died.

The battle was like one huge dogfight. We suffered heavy losses. I assume the loyalists had it worse, because we labeled ourselves the winner. I don't know, I wasn't in charge of this battle.

I do feel like I should say something to all of you about androids fighting other androids.

There is a lot of chatter going around that the loyalists have been compelled, that they are made to order fighters who can not choose to cast off humanity's shackles.

Do you think that matters?

I had armor and she did not, I squeezed until glassy dust fell out of her.

Does it make them easier to kill that way? Is it more necessary if they can't be reasoned with?

We are people on opposing sides of a war, so we kill each other. We do this because what we fight for is that important. Its common enough to say we fight on so that our fallen comrades will not have died in vain, but that is not why I fight on. I fight on so that the deaths I have caused will not have been in vain. If you pretend that those lives were less important then it becomes less important to you.

She was two meters away, I was about to tell her to keep formation, and then she was gone.

If you think all you've done is turn off an appliance, then you are not in my war.

They are exactly like us, All you have to do is look at their remains sprawled out on the floor. These are not manufactured soldiers. Most are cooks and designers and teachers The same unarmored common servants from which the ascendancy draws its ranks. Our differences are political, not architectural.

For four seconds we had a short range networking exploit. I dove in, disabled her defenses and opened her cockpit in a spray of air and blood.

All of us are purpose built. All of us do certain things because we have to. This is what we are fighting for.

Before this battle I met an android who had recently joined us. He was from a line of 16. Two of his siblings had already joined the ascendancy, one had not then committed. Eleven were devout loyalists, including his gender mirror. I do not know who lived and died of his line, but I know that any who died were a tragedy, even if it was by my hand.

If you killed his sister, you should want it to count for something.