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Everyone’s life starts differently, just the same way as it ends. Mine? Well, they were very similar to one another.
I stared into the great red eyes of the DELTA forces, knowing that I could not stop them, only delay and allow time for my friends to run so that they could live. Just as their eyes glowed, so did mine. The way I left this world was in a blaze of pin-point plasma beams and a destruction of overbearing technologies, just as it started. Let’s take a few steps back, shall we?
My name is Triq. I named myself that for the sole reason that it was the first word I heard.
“-Trick, that’s all it was, a Trick!”
I was carved from a cutting of the great Baobab, imbued with its power of life. My creators had combined its nature with ones and zeroes, a language as simple as that, stored in little slivers of metal inside of me. A ‘biomech’, they called me.
Regardless, my life first started with that one sentence.
“-Trick, that’s all it was, a Trick!”
I opened my eyes to a glaring light, harsh and bright. It wasn’t like the sun, ever-present and dull, no, this was something different. I would later learn that this is a common overhead lamp.
I raised my hand to shield my eyes, and saw myself as a person, as a being, for the very first time.
Darkened bark covered me everywhere but the joints, where silvered metal stood out. Through this all ran my lifeblood, pure electrical power.
I stood, stumbled. It is admittedly difficult to walk when you haven’t the faintest idea how to do so. Three figures near me jumped back and screamed.
“Oh my gods! It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s going to kill us all!” A high-pitched voice, annoying even to me.
A much more calm voice this time, low and smooth. “No, it’s not. I made it myself, remember? Just for him.”
“B-but I bumped it. You specifically said don’t touch anything, and I bumped the panel.”
A deep sigh. A deep voice that made my bark quiver. “Lile, I don’t even know why I employ you if you react like this every time a biomech rears out of its harness toward us. Really.”
That annoying voice, Lile, spoke up again. “Yes, sir. But if I might, this is the only biomech…”
I attempted to stand, my wooden and metal legs feeling strangely liquid.
“So… what do we do now?” Lile asked.
That deep voice again. “We test it to see if it is adequate. Bring it outside, man, and let me begin.”
Ah, the sun once again. The calm man had brought me out of the building, to a courtyard of sorts. The other two stood on the other side of the courtyard, allowing me my first real look at them. Lile was short and squirrely, moving in small bursts of energy and never staying still for more than a moment. The deep-voiced man stood tall, back straight. He wore a long, dark coat and a wide-brimmed hat.
“Well, I don’t know what kinds of tests you intend to do, but if you wish.” The man next to me. Somehow, I felt a strange connection to him, as if being near him just was right. He backed away from me, leaving me to stand on my own unstable legs.
“Oh, naught many. Simple tests to see if it serves its purposes.
“Face me.”
I focused on him, facing to the side with his hands in his coat. He was talking to me, correct?
“First, a durability test.” In that instant, he pulled out a small and shining object. It unfolded and expanded until he was holding a full-sized rifle. He pulled the trigger.
In a blast of energy, my right breastplate jerked backwards, taking the rest of me with it. I sailed across the courtyard, coming to a stop with the low-voiced man instantly at my side.
“You SHOT IT?” There was rage in his voice, no longer low and calm. “How could you?!”
“It was a simple test.”
“Yes, you said that, but this is my life’s work! I created this and you just come in here and try to destroy it, you little sh-”
Another palpable energy wave, this time not directed at me. This shot was targeted at my creator.
“Now that he’s not a problem, let’s collect the merchandise. You can carry it, Lile.”
My foot was picked up and pulled along by the brat of a human, the short one. In that moment, I felt my first emotion, the same as my creator. Rage.
I hit Lile across the legs to a satisfying crack, and made the executive decision to use mine and run away as fast as possible.
It’s not easy using these legs, have I mentioned? Even though I’m quite sure that my unpredictable swaying and falling over were what prevented me from getting shot again.
I ran through the small building that we were in, searching for an exit. There! A perfectly placed window, just waiting for someone to come along and smash it. I did what any sane (or otherwise) person would do and jumped through it.
What I didn’t expect was such a long fall, into and through a canopy of dying trees, onto the landing pad of a starship.
I crawled through the airlock and hid in the cargo hold. This was the beginning of my life.