Shattered super-soldier

Samual Junathan Trerubic looked at the kneeling man in front of him with sadness in his heart he spoke

“Do you truly wish to walk this path?”

The young man lowered his head further as he spoke with reverence of the 34th emperor in front of him

“I wish to put my skills to use for the glory of the empire for the glory of Samuel Junathan Treubic as well as the entire Treubic Empire I wish to offer my services”

Such is the reward ceremony for the young man who ended the Eirmal 4 penance recorded in imperial records, the young man deferred the rewards the emperor had bestowed upon him and voiced his wishes to enlist in the imperial marine corps.

To be set loose upon the enemies of the great Treubic Empire was all he wished for

-

In the early morning as the sky was gradually turning blue again Matthew finished harvesting the last of the giant wasp carcasses, his body no longer looked like something out of a body horror B-movie, tan skin covered his body and dark hair was starting to grow on his head, he stood a little over 2 meters high and was built less like a brick house despite his weight of around 180 kilograms, where this weight came from was clear however if one were to step close to him, every fiber of his body had been reinforced into its densest form while still allowing for a full range of motion, his body looked entirely biological except for the metal-like skin that flowed along his spine

“Matthew, can, can, can, can you make me a body now?”

“...How does it look, Aea?”

[Reporting, 52 potential blueprints found in internal data banks, Forge nanites ready to deploy for manufacture when required materials have been gathered]

“Right… Materials, what do you need?”

[Forge nanites mainly categorizes materials as either one of 5 metal types, biological, carbon based or exotic]

“What kind of materials are needed for the best body you can make?”

[Special manufacturing equipment need for highest grade synthetic human automata, this equipment requires a multitude of other materials as well as a zero-g environment for manufacture]

Matthew explained the situation to the cosmic anomaly as best he could, though it took awhile as he went through the list of bodies in Aea’s database and quickly promised when the anomaly was about to throw a fit about not getting a great body

“I promise I will make a better body for you once I am able, for now it doesn’t look possible… But a simpler metal body shouldn’t be too much of a problem”

“Okay, make, make, make me a body!”

Feeling like he was being prodded by an overexcited bioengineered Dire Wolf for food Matthew quickly got to work while under strict supervision he began searching the ruins around the plaza and eventually discovered a ruined jewelry forge, after digging through the debris he managed to salvage a few anvils as well as a few ingots of high purity metal

“Okay Aea, we’ve found some metal, what now?”

[Deploying Data nanite pattern 1, 2 and 3 for metal analysis, please hold…]

One of the metal parts of Matthew’s spine opened up before a metal sand substance flowed out and through the air, after a moment the metal sand, or nanites split into 3 groups and gathered on 3 separate samples where they remained for a few moments before moving to the next, finally when all the metal had been analysis the metal sand flowed back towards Matthew and back into his spine

[A Data nanites patterns received, compiling gathered data and cross-referencing periodic table… Completed, 49 kilograms of Low-grade metal, 20 kilograms of Mid-grade metal and 29 kilograms of High-grade metal confirmed, searching schematics for available ‘body’ schematics available using provided materials… 4 results found]

“Body, bOdY! BODY, BoDY! bODY!”

As Matthew had fallen silent, the anomaly had quickly gone from an overexcited prodding and began twirling around Matthew as its voice distorted more and more while it shook him back and forth with increasing intensity

“Aea have found 4 different types of bodies, Aea what does the fir—”

“BODY! BODY! BODY!”

The cosmic anomaly twirled around Matthew before Aea sounded out a report

[Manufacturing orders received from mistress profile, deploying all Forge pattern nanites]

‘...Mistress?’

The cosmic anomaly ignored Matthew’s bewilderment as it began swarming around the deployed Forge nanites that drew energy and transferred directly into the metal in the form of heat, molding it with perfect machine perfection building and melded it together, seeing the integrate process was going to take a while Matthew decided to take in the scenery instead, and by that it meant he was going to explore

‘... This feels exciting’

Matthew gazed around for a few moments before finding one of the more intact looking ruins along the mostly collapsed cityscape and headed in that direction, along the way he discovered a river that ran straight through the ruined city, looking both downstream and upstream Matthew saw rusted metal grids that he imagined acted as toll stations for merchant ships

‘So a trade post… given the height of the stone brick walls and the ruined state the city is an outpost of some sort, or was before it was abandoned…’

Matthew gazed at the ruined building he had set his sights on over the river, most of the stone bridges were still there and it would only be a small detour to cross one of them, but instead he walked back several meters to give himself some space before he kicked off the ground and leaped off the edge of stone pier propelling himself into the air, run up was good, so was setoff, the flight time was magnificent as he flew through the air and cleared the river completely, only the landing wasn’t exactly stellar as Matthew found his strength way higher than he had expected

“Shi—”

Matthew's grin disappeared on the last few moments of his leap as he realized he was unable to change trajectory midair, and that he was about to land face-first into a brick wall it wasn’t so much of a landing and more of a smashing as his skull proved harder than the ruined bricks

[Light trauma detected, Trauma nanite pattern 1 assigned]

“...Yeah I felt that too”

Alas, his pride hurt more than his bruised body, so Matthew quickly crawled out of the even more destroyed ruins before anyone saw him and his embarrassment and got on his way, after walking a for a few minutes more he arrived at the building he had seen from the plaza, it was mostly intact like he had seen and as he walked past the threshold and into a grand hall he was sure

“... I have been here before”

[No records of prior visits at this location]

“By that you mean not for this user profile, right?”

[Data on other profiles appears to be corrupted]

That’s what Matthew had expected, instead of questioning Aea on something it couldn’t tell him he continued following the path that he vaguely recalled, he walked through the hall and down a hallway, the ruined carpet showed a history of foot traffic after it had ceased being cleaned regularly, Major Rockwell already knew where the clearest path lead, because he had already followed it

‘... In here?’

Matthew slowly opened the door to the room and was hit with the stench of burnt flesh, as soon as he opened the door, the inside was clearly a bedroom, the walls and even the floors had been reinforced and repaired with insect paper pulp, at second glance the room seemed a little like a nest, its occupant was the clearly deceased, Matthew walked over and kneeled down in front of the corpse, the young woman had several wounds from magnetic penetrators fired from a coil rifle on minimum output, but that wasn’t the final blow, Matthew carefully raised the chin of the corpse and found the source of the smell he had noted when he had entered the room

‘...This leaves quite a bad taste in my mouth’

The eyes of the corpse were missing, and the brain had been flash burned into charcoal, as for the culprit, that was obvious

‘...Why would I do this… No, why did I do this…’

Even after staring into the empty eyes of the corpse for a few hours, Matthew found no answers for his question and let out a sigh, the dead wouldn’t answer his questions, over the next hours Matthew dug a grave with his hands in the backyard and around noon he had finished burying the corpse

‘...’

Not feeling any of his previous excitement about exploring the ruined city, Matthew returned to the plaza, where the Forge nanites were still working on assembling the body for the anomaly, after salvaging a blanket from one of the ruins, Matthew sat down against the wall of a ruined building and covered himself before he closed his eyes to rest for a few hours…

-

Matthew opened his eyes around evening, having slept for about 4 hours Matthew was perfectly rested, looking at the evening sky dyed in the orange light of the setting sun he felt his mood had improved somewhat, still he remained within the comfortable confines of his moldy blanket domain for quite a bit longer, he didn’t feel like doing anything other than watching the sky, so he didn’t

“...Why do people kill each other, Aea?”

[Much like war is the simplest form of diplomacy, conflict is the simplest form of communication between life of all kind]

“...Which means?”

[Whatever you want it to mean, lifeforms, people kill each other for singular reasons, contradiction reasons, many reasons or no reasons at all]

“... What profound bullshit”

[Intelligent life appears to need ‘profound bullshit’ to function, biological readings indicate your mood has stabilized]

Matthew let out a sigh and decided it was time to get up, he did just so and bound the blanket around his waist as he stood up, no longer feeling the wind on his taint Matthew felt like he lost and gained something at the same time

‘Heh… profound bullshit aside…’

Finished laughing about his own crude joke Matthew looked at the metallic android that laid on the plaza, it was around 1 meter and 40 centimeters tall, the surface of its human shaped limbs was metallic mat silver while the body and head were covered in a metallic golden and black intricate pattern which wasn’t part of the original specifications, neither were the two long knife blade ear-like sensors that sat on the side of its head, other than the 2 sensor pods that sat in the place of eyes the head of the android was featureless besides the gold and black pattern which emulated a wide friendly smile

“...Are you there?”

Standing next to the android Matthew called out to it, a moment later the sensor pods on its face came to life and focused on Matthew before the android’s voice emulator spoke out in a neutral tone

“Matthew, this body is strange”

Matthew kneeled down and offered a hand to the android as he asked

“How so?”

The android took Matthew’s and that helped it stand for a moment before it spoke again

“It doesn’t sleep very well, I didn’t dream at all”

Matthew figured the cosmic anomaly had entered the android body that had been completed while he rested, so he had wondered why it had been laying on the plaza

“I see, we’ll need to considered that for the next body”

Matthew watched the android look around the ruined plaza in silence for a few moments before it began walking, Matthew followed behind the android silently for a few minutes before it stopped outside a ruined building that had completely collapsed, the android raised its hand and pointed at the building

“That was my home when I was alive… After you awoke me, I remembered… This city was my home until the rise of the blue comet when the neighboring kingdom raided the city”

Matthew nodded and was about to offer words of sympathy when the android turned to look up at him and spoke

“Would you help me with burning down the Turman kingdom, Matthew?”

Matthew didn’t need to think about his answer for too long and nodded

“Sure”

The android continued looking at Matthew for a few moments before it yanked Matthew hand to make him kneel down which he did, then it lowered its head to look down, after a few moments Matthew mirrored its movements and the two pressed their heads together

“I speak this pledge in the witness of all gods above, I Alina will walk down the path of this life and the next along with Matthew Rockwell”

She leaned back again and gazed into Matthew’s eyes for a few moments until he nodded and reached up and rubbed the top of the androids head

“Sure, let’s get along Alina”

Completely missing the true meaning of Alina’s pledge, Matthew agreed without thinking too deeply about it

-

After the end of the Eirmal 4 penance, the reduced population of 1.8 billion was processed for further service, the young man that had killed the last member of the Eirmal bloodline proved especially defiant and had to be forcefully detained

‘...Those sick fucks…’

Sitting inside the cell that was just large enough for him to sit down with his knees bent in front of his face the young man had been stripped nude except for his hands and feet which were encased in metal while a mask secured to his face with metal bolts that went into his jawbone, this secured a plastic tube which went down his throat to feed him just enough to not starve

‘... I wonder if it's time for a shower soon’

A shower in this context was getting hosed down by a mechanical arm which accompanied a monotone voice which told him how long he had left of his ‘sentence’

At this point in time, Matthew Rockwell had already been assigned to the Marine corps of drop troops which routinely experienced a 70% casualty rate, but he would only be informed of this at his next ‘shower’ which wasn’t scheduled for about 5 days