Termination

A bounty hunter gets more than he bargained for.

Termination

It should have been an easy job. I mean, terminating a rogue android is generally rookie stuff. Still, I tracked the damn thing across four different star systems and it kept slipping through my fingers. It was clever, smarter than most bots, for sure.

Finally, on a cold, rainy night on Nor Alpha, I cornered it in a dead-end alleyway and drew my rail carbine, facing my target head on. “Designation CN-23, you’ve been slated for termination. Now, you have two choices. You can surrender and your formatting will be quick and painless. Or,” I moved my pistol in, “we can do this the hard way.”

Immediately, the android lunged for me but I luckily dodged the blow. “Fine,” I lamented, “the hard way, then.” I pulsed two shots toward the automaton but it evaded and spun to hit me square in the nose, knocking the hat clean off my head. Unfortunately, I was distracted just enough for it to land solidly on my leg with a ‘crack.’

Gripped by agony, I hit the ground hard, my mark charging back down the alley and escaping once again. In all my years as a hunter under contract, I’d never had an android violently resist. So, I suffered in the rain, eager to survey my wounds and was stunned at what I found. My leg was clearly fractured but wasn’t broken in bone or flesh. I stared down at cracked titanium and torn synth-skin. I was a robot. I was a robot. I was a robot…

“Okay, that’s enough. Shut him down,” Dr. Carlin ordered with an exasperated sigh. “Back to the drawing board.”

“Suggestions?” his assistant asked.

“Maybe reprogramming to prevent synthetic physical self-awareness. He needs to feel human. We need this machine to hunt androids, not join them.”


300 words