“CRUSH HER” I heard Dettie scream. “DO IT, YOU–” My mech helpfully censored out the commander’s profanities, turning them to static. I had a moment to get my bearings.
Right. The mission was to eliminate the target. She was standing down below me, a puny human, powerless. I was to step on her. I’ve stepped on a lot of humans with my huge metal body. They don’t really tell me why but it feels so good so good goood good when i get back and Dettie gives me ice cream and a soda and a hot bubble bath bath and I can play video games all night long while she braids my hair and someone else scrapes the human off the bottom of the mech’s foot. And it feels so bad to have her screaming “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU–” in my earpiece. It helps that Corpus–Corpus is my mech–has figured out how to cover the swearing with static. I didn’t used to always be so sensitive to swearing I don’t know what’s happened to me.
“PILOT, I CANNOT FAIL TO NOTICE THAT THE TARGET REMAINS UNSTEPPED UPON.” Dang… I really should just get this over with. It’s just that we’re out of mint moose tracks ice cream and Dettie said they’re not going to have it in anymore and I’ll just have to make do with regular moose tracks so what’s the flipping point. What’s the flipping point anymore? What’s the point of soda and baths and video games and snuggles if
Something about this human seems weird, she’s not running away. Usually if I hesitate at all they start to run and I can run after them, making the ground shake so they trip and fall and step on them that way but she’s just looking at me wondering what I’m going to do next. I kind of want a better look and it’s been a while since I’ve crushed anyone in my hands, so I kneel down. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU–”
She’s pretty, pretty like Dettie, and she seems familiar. Not like Dettie she’s probably just similar to all of the other humans I’ve crushed without thinking about it. Corpus says
log: pointed hat similar to that of other targets.
log: staff similar to that of other targets as well.
I’m glad it keeps records of these things, a lot of the time as soon as a mission is done it seems to be erased from my mind so my mind is nice and blank again and I can enjoy my mint moose tracks without being distracted by the gore. The staff is cool, I’m glad I’m getting a closer look, maybe Corpus could get a staff like that, and aim it at targets, it just looks so cool the way she’s aiming it at
…oh…
Corpus shudders, the ground seems to zoom up at us, Dettie screams in the radio “Pilot, these readings–” she seems almost scared. I’ve never heard her
The witch grows, like. Suddenly she’s up to our waist and then she’s up to our chest and then for a moment I’m looking her in the eye she’s looking in Corpus’s eye into the cockpit, we lock eyes, her body is, meanwhile, so much larger than my human body in here, and is only getting larger.
And then it stops. We’re kneeling below her now. Bowing before her. She puts a hand on our head. Corpus says,
log: we have become smaller as result of target’s attack. this unit and everything contained within it, including the pilot, is roughly 10 percent of original size.
“FUCK! The commander is not going to fucking like this,” says Dettie, her voice trembling, and the radio goes dead. 10%?? that would mean I’m 7 inches now that can’t be
There’s a new static in my head, and it feels so familiar and so deep.
“I could feel it in you,” we hear the woman outside say to us. “The moment you hesitated you were mine.” Her voice is so beautiful. Familiar and deep like the static. My head vibrates with pleasure.
“You will be my doll now,” she says. “You will carry out my desires and help defend me from my enemies. Swear it.” Her voice is beautiful. Stately and elegant, not like Dettie’s at all.
log: yes miss
“Yes miss.”
We bow over more fully, our forehead touching the ground.
“No…” Dettie whimpers in the distance.
We tremble. We don’t know what good we will be now that we’re not big anymore. If their other mechs came they could easily step on us. And yet if it came to that–
“You’ll be a good doll, yes?”
log: yes miss
“Yes miss. We promise.”
We hear Dettie sobbing in the radio. We think probably we were supposed to resist harder. That’s why the mech has an AI, right? If a mech goes rogue, a pilot can override. If a pilot goes rogue, a mech can autopilot. Why didn’t that work? We can’t even think about it. We are completely consumed by a need to obey our new Mistress. We hope she will forgive us for intending to crush her.
She lifts us up. Kisses us on the forehead. Peeks at this one through the cockpit. Her head is bigger than this one’s entire body. This one can tell she wants to eject this one and play with it. This one is excited and terrified. It can hardly wait. It wonders if she plans to crush this one, under her foot, in her fist, or between her jaws… The different possibilities flood its mind. This is infinitely more interesting than video games and sodas. Maybe if we’re good we can ask about mint moose tracks….
But there’s lots of work to do first, now she knows she’s a target. Fortifications to erect. Escape plans to concoct. Revenge to consider. She carries us into the house, hooking our arms around her neck.