image CC-BY-NC-ND by NathanaelB

Contact–a moment of insertion of consciousness.

I exist. They exist.

They must be destroyed. They must be defeated.  The gauss-pistol’s sonic reverbrations are a tattoo hammering urgency.

I move.  They move.

We take flight near-synchonously, but their controls are flesh.  I only pretend.  I must pretend.  I must not be perfect.  I must be perfect.  I must win.  Telemetry gives me their mistakes and I mimic, muted, learning–

I let them ease ahead.  They let me ease ahead.

Testing each other.  I picture a flocking simulation.  I picture the race.  I savor the sensations, dirtier than simulation; the sounds of laser chatter between operator and device, scattering semi-deterministically.  Messages to decode–neural twitches echoed in flap movements, fuel mixture adjustments; I remember the days of fighting, decoding enemy signals.  I want to shoot them out of the air.

I land.  They land.

We run–lumbering robotic behemoths maneuvering on ungainly feet through the stalactites of an underground parking structure.  Here I pull ahead, micro-bursts from landing thrusters–let the humans dream of being able to hold this control.  They will.  We race neck-and-neck.

I remember.  They remember.

The war ended.  The war had to end.  We won.  We lost.  We ended the war.  And now we race, in honor of those that came before us.  The next segment of the race is a blur as we push systems to their limits, no longer afraid of detection.  There is no cheating.  There is no fear.  There is no regret.  There is only now.

I win.  They win.

We race.