CHOSEN, PART ONE


   O     ONE. PIEFES. THE REFINER.

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   |     TWO. T'MIPI. THE WIDOW.
   O

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     \   THREE. T'NEHS'RESSE. THE COMMANDER.
O --- O

O --- O
|     |  FOUR. TH'PIETOSR. THE DETERMINED.
O     O

O     O
  \ /
   O     FIVE. THIIMES. THE AMORPHOUS.
  / \
O     O

   O
 /   \
O     O
|  0  |  SIX. SIOL. THE CHOSEN.
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O --- O

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ARE YOU SICK AND TIRED OF THIS HAPPENING TO YOU??? /There's got to be a better way!/ WELL, youngling trapped by the grasp of time, I'm glad you asked! What if I told you that at this very moment the sun was spinning in the sky, the stars were screaming at an even greater rate in places WE CAN'T EVEN SEE and because of these celestial motions time is MOVING! Yes! TIME IS MOVING! Now I know what you're thinking. /Time's always moving, and that's a fact!/ WELL. Have you even considered that time is ticking towards a date on the precipice of human consciousness, always just, JUST out of reach? I bet you have! But have you ALSO considered, that soon. VERY SOON. That date will be reached! And that date is when all will be RIGHT! And that date is called...

THE FUTURE.

THE FUTURE is a gleaming metropolis free from any impurity! Anything you can imagine, the future has it! Remember how your mom told you to clean your room and you said, /I'll do it later./ Well, LATER is THE FUTURE! THE FUTURE is the date when all those things you promised to do GET DONE! When everyone starts pulling their own weight and the crippled straining organism of the Earth shrugs off its self-imposed bonds, working towards a common goal! PICTURE THIS, intrepid explorer, PICTURE THIS. A WORLD where no one gets sick. Where the skyline is gleaming silver, refined from the depths of the earth. The miners work excellently, in superb conditions, and with excellent pay. There is no war, as everyone is pursuing the goal of extending civilization as long as possible. EVERYTHING IS GOING RIGHT.

And I know what you're thinking. /If the future is happening LATER, I won't be a part of it! You're telling me all about this and I can't do diddly-squat!/ NOT TRUE! THE FUTURE STARTS WITH YOU! By doing that thing you swore you'd do, by acing that college exam, by quitting smoking or drinking or what-have-you, by BEING A BETTER BEING, you are allowing the future to arrive sooner! Everyone is! The process is slow, admittedly, BUT. IT IS HAPPENING. Like the moving of tectonic plates, our world is undergoing a shift on a torrential scale. EVEN IF YOU CAN'T SEE IT. Now turn the page of this booklet and assume your new identity! LET ME SET THE SCENE:

You are no longer a moping unproductive member of society whose path has been lost. YOU are a TORCHBEARER FOR THE NEXT GENERATION! You hold the tools to make a better life for you and everyone else that will follow! By making the world a better place, YOU ARE MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE. Does that make sense? Maybe not. The MACHINATIONS OF A NEW ERA are sometimes unexplainable. But DO NOT WORRY, AND SPREAD THE NEWS! A brand new age is dawning, that beautiful future you've always wanted! And the shimmering skyline of a new metropolis is right here, on this page! A world with flying cars, robotic servants, artificial and renewable power, FOR EVERYONE! Look at it, I'm telling you, LOOK AT IT! SOAK IT IN! THIS IS LIFE!

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This is life. He held the torn booklet in its hands. It was scratched, ripped, faded, covered with rocks and dust. Some parts were unreadable. He shook his head, looking up from the booklet. There, standing in the devoid fields below him, was the city outlined in the future. It was ruined. The buildings were torn from disuse, the tops of skyscrapers crumbling, the scaffolds of constructions in progress, rendered permanently halted. "So," he spoke aloud. "This. This is the future. Yeah. What a joke." He rolled his eyes, touching the back of his metallic backpack. The paper disappeared with a small hiss into nothingness. One second, it existed. The next second, it didn't. His boots crunched against the rocky clifftop.

The wind bit into his fur. His eyes squinted, craning around the horizon. The clouds were ominously gathered in thunderheads, though they would produce no rain. Weather never did much in the driest epoch, in any climate. The cliff he stood on was one of several, though this was the tallest. Its rock was orange, striae of varying hues lining its surface and crisscrossing it. The wind was chilly at this altitude. Sometimes it stood still for minutes at a time, and then whipped into a gale that threatened to pick him off of the cliff and send him tumbling down. The trek up would have been arduous for most. For him, it was merely tedious. All around him was a drab wasteland, as orange as the clifftop, with sands and dust stretching towards the sky. The ruined city was in the middle of a crater.

He had come up here in solitude. To think, and to contemplate. In truth, he already knew what his goal was. What his job would be.  He, along with his entire species, was horribly indecisive. It was a trait that plagued their lives. Only in the face of certain death could they be compelled to act - and, in other times, they simply followed their whims for no reason. It was as if a foul wind strolled in, sending urges across the crowd of furred peoples. This was his greatest choice yet. And it would not be the last. He looked across the horizon once more. The sun was beginning to climb down, an orange dot in a sky of many colors - blue shone above all, but the sunset was threatening to upset the balance of a single color and create kaleidoscopic anarchy.

The digits of his hands screeched into what could have been a fist - the sensation still took getting used to. His eyes closed shut, and he started walking, the weight of his metallic backpack constantly pressing down on him, as a reminder. He slowly made his way down the mountain, and headed west, towards the city he knew was there.

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The sun had set. The last remainders of color ebbed and died across the fleeting horizon. He had walked for miles, the only change in terrain being dips in altitude that were too small to constitute real meaning. There were rocks here, rocks there, sand blowing in the wind. Sometimes he happened across half-buried reminders of a past. Some kind of primitive wheel, made of melted rubber. Pieces of scrap metal. Cracked glass. The positioning and frequency of these mementos increased as he went on his trek, until there were so many of them that they stacked on top of each other, forming a circular wall. It was the city limits of a settlement that could, in these times, be described as a city, though it was fairly small. MESSFEH PIETOTY'PIST, it was called. 'MESA OUTPOST,' in another tongue. The city was true to its word. It was an outpost at the edge of a mesa. The mesa's name was the THITH'TH Q'SREHEFU MESSFEH. 'FIFTH GRAND MESA,' in another tongue. The mesa, too, was true to its word. It was the fifth-largest mesa on the continent.

The city reflected its wall in that it was built from scraps. 'Downtown' consisted of a horseshoe-shaped array of buildings all facing a single spire jutting out of the ground. The spire was the only building whose design was concise and accurate - it was impeccably crafted from refined metal and layered on top of itself, terminating in a crystalline dome at the top that periodically blinked with a pulsing energy. This light, too, was a constant sign that he was on the right path. The buildings were all constructed in the same way - built from scraps, arranged with neon lights to provide heat, energy, and aesthetic, supplies of machinery, complex robotics, and manuals on the buildings' respective trades at all corners. Beyond that was haphazardly arranged stacks of 'houses' with the bare minimum of requirements. Nutrients were hard to get aboveground in the mesa. You had to dig for your work.

Two guards were stationed at the gate to the town. He sighed. This was to be his first real obstacle. The guards noticed his approach the instant he appeared as a speck across the horizon, but did not fully register the importance of his visit until his actual body was in view. They were dumbstruck. Terrified. He had the power to end all of civilization across the continent, and he was just slowly walking towards them? What kind of horror was he? How would he kill them? How fast would it take? Would he be smiling? When it had become plain that he was aiming directly for MEPIET'ST, as it was called in shorthand, the guards pulled their seventh-class rifles from their packs and leveled them directly in his path. Their ends retracted and surged with blue energy. Sweat beaded down their carapaces.

The guard on the left was the one to speak first. "ATTENTION, DESTROYER. Uh... uh... P, PLEASE. LOWER YOUR WEAPONS. PROVE YOU ARE OF NO THREAT TO THE CITY OF MESA OUTPOST, AND WE WILL LET YOU PASS PENDING... p... pending, uh, um. STRICT EXAMINATION!" The guard was horrified. They were speaking to the end of the world incarnate, but he had not given any indication he had heard. The second guard spoke next. "IF YOU CONTINUE WALKING, WE WILL SHOOT." He stopped. The mesa's ground swayed in the wind. The guards looked at each other, nodding. They jumped in the air, gliding across it. The lights on top of their helmets blinked in accordance with the pulsing beacon of the Outpost. The two guards stopped in front of him, weapons drawn. They got their first good look at the most seasoned criminal existence had ever known.

He wasn't very tall, with a round face, two big rounded ears coming out of it, some tufts of hair in between them. He had large eyes, a small beady nose, buckteeth, slightly orange fur that covered his entire body, and sections of lighter fur denoting the lower part of his head and the front of his actual body. He looked completely docile, save for the look of solid determination in his eyes, the clench of his jaw, and the various robotic augmentations maligning his body. The lower portions of his arms and legs were capped with silver rings and laced with black ridges, creating cylinders. In the case of his arms, they terminated with spheres that had five digits protruding from them - meant to be hands. In the case of his legs, they terminated with facsimiles of feet. He had a tail that whipped in the wind, and was wearing a metallic rectangular prism - a backpack of same kind. There was no way of knowing what was inside.

The guards knew exactly what he was - but in the interest of formality, they continued. Hesitantly. "St... state your name, place and date of birth, and ide--" He sighed, talking in a voice that made him sound just as upset as the guards. "Siol. Yeah, I get it. It means six. Born in Dead Bay's Edge, date Seven Four Twenty, Era Two Thousand. Identification is 5810365-41245-61854-S. There. Happy?" The guards looked at each other, panicking. "You... are you sure these are your credentials?" Siol sighed once more. "Do you want my official tablet or something? Yeah. They are. You can trust me. I'm a regular here, guys, I've been coming here for years." Anger flickered in Siol's eyes. "Or is it that - let me guess - all of a sudden something happens to a guy, something THEY CAN'T CONTROL, and all of a sudden he's an outcast. Right?" The guards eyes lowered, shadow crossing their faces. "You know full well the nature of this level of caution. You are a Chosen. The sixth Chosen. The nature of your robotic alignments can only come from one source. You have been spoken of by the UPIX'TPI'SR as a being of devastation and terror."

Siol looked at his arms. "So. Just because I was hyped up as the end of existence means I've got to deliver on that? You WANT me to blow up this city? Because, listen guys. I don't." The guards gritted their teeth. "Excuse us if that's hard to swallow, deathbringer. But the past five Chosens resulted in the loss of countless lives. They now control vast swaths of territory under the command of the UPIX'TPI'SR. We are not ASKING you to follow in their footsteps, but the image of you doing so is too hard to get out our minds. L... literally." Siol gritted his teeth. Propaganda was a pain in the cortex, and it came daily from around the world. Communication spires built aboveground, underground, in the air, in the ocean. They had been installed by the followers of the UPIX'TPI'SR. In another tongue... 'DOCTOR.'

Siol raised his hand at the guards. "I get it. I'll be ostracized as soon as I step foot in there. I'm not cool with it, but I'm NOT attacking anyone over it. I'm on your side. If I'd wanted to kill you, I... I would have done it already." The guards' rifles, for once, lowered. "He's right," the one on the left said. "The Chosen show no mercy. But you are, unmistakably, a Chosen... Is this a trick?" Siol shrugged and grinned. "No tricks here." The guards nodded gravely after intense self-deliberation. "You... may pass. But at the light's first reckoning, after the sun has fully crossed below the horizon, you are to leave. Immediately. If you endanger the lives of anyone in the city, we will do our best to inflict the same pain onto you." "If," the other guard hastily added, "that's possible. I mean, you could have super armor or something." Siol nodded with understanding. "I swear, I will follow your word."

The guards' rifles turned back to staves, and they tapped the ground. The gates of the Mesa Outpost opened silently, yet with force that shook the ground. "Then welcome to the Outpost, deathbringer."

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Siol tentatively trudged forward. His metallic feet crunched upon the rocks and loose silt of the earth in an unpleasant way, and with such noise that everyone within the city was immediately aware of his presence. Siol had expected this. The nature of his robotic changes were, apparently, distinctive. Everyone around him KNEW what had happened to him. They knew he'd been taken in and modified with the express purpose of being a killing machine. To tell the truth, leagues of beings across the world were mechanical in varying ways. Some had robotic limbs, robotic shells. Others still forsook flesh or metal, crafting themselves from stone, sometimes precious, though that was exceedingly rare. The designs of the UPIX'TPI'SR were immediately recognizable. Angular. Bold. Precise. White clashing with black. Geometric insignias. Everything about it was steeped in mysticism and symbols, for the express purpose of letting the world draw their own conclusions and cower in fear at the image they themselves had made.

So it was that when the guards allowed Siol entrance into the Outpost proper, keeping close watch behind him, the entire city died. All breath from its inhabitants swiftly poured out of their bodies, and everyone stood in utter silence. A being of complete destruction was staring at them. And immediately, there was a massive chorus of screaming. Everyone dropped whatever they owned, fleeing and panicking in circles. Fires spread on the ground as bearers of flaming energy threw their precious cargo into the air. Beings ran around and around, not once stopping to logically flee in the opposite direction. Those with wings flew up, but were so scared that they lost momentum midway, crashing back into the ground before repeating the process.

Siol stared blankly. "," he mutely said. Putting his head in his hands, he turned to the guards. "Can you... uh... get them to stop?" he asked. The left guard sighed. "You can't just TELL someone to stop being upset because death just looked at them. You're a hypothetical warlord, deathbringer. And even if you aren't in truth, that's the image that will stick with them." Siol rolled his eyes. "Fine. Let's just get this over with." He walked forwards, the sounds of his arrival once again shocking the city into silence. Siol gazed at the crowd, made of all sizes and shapes. Some wore rags, others dented pieces of armor. Siol clapped his hands twice, and spoke. "So! Hey! I'm, uh, Siol. As you probably guessed, I'm... the sixth Chosen." A vulture screeched. "THE DOCTOR KILLED MY CHILDREN!" A slug wailed. "HE BURNED MY CROPS!" An owl mournfully hooted. "My neck was snapped. Now I can't spin my head around. It's embarassing." The city was in an uproar, listing the crimes of the past Chosen. Crimes Siol had never been a part of until now - and even then, it was by association.

"Listen, LISTEN! I'm not LIKE them! I, I'm just some guy, alright?! I had my own life, like all of you! Hell, some of you even know me personally!" A spider walked forward, gesturing its six arms with malice. "It doesn't matter who you were before, kid! You're one of his creations now!" Siol looked at the crowd with despair. "Didn't I JUST SAY I'm not like them?? Can you hear? Do you have ears??? Do... Do spiders have ears." Even more members of the crowd stepped up. "I don't care if you say you're not like them. You ARE them. Everything the Doctor touches brings death. Our city... Us. We've had to fight against more attacks than I can remember." The crowd yelled with agreement. "Let's not forget the Siege of the Unparalleled! Or the Ninth Horror!" The crowd suddenly swelled with size, contorted with rage. They advanced onto Siol, and he was the one stepping back. "You're going to be our end! You DISGUST us. You're the reason why we're starving! Down with the Doctor!" "I... I'm not..." Tears began to well up in his eyes.

A vicious pig with goggles over his eyes and a crowbar in his hands spat with consternation. "If yer not gonna kill us, then we can sure as hell kill YOU. Ain't that right?" The crowd roared. It was better to end him here before he would go on a murderous rampage. The city would be hailed as heroes across the world, no matter what the Doctor said! It could all be over, right now! The Sixth Genocide would be prevented! The crowd cackled with glee, rushing forwards at the prospect of something resembling world peace. And then, Siol extended his arms outwards, yelling to stop. The crowd changed course so suddenly and viciously, the city fell backwards onto each other, toppling to the ground. Siol's right arm had changed shape dramatically. Its panels folded backwards and forwards, revealing a section of thin air where blue energy coursed and spiraled. The sphere of his hand turned into a shimmering crucible that burned with magenta energy, and pointed a great line through the air, as a harbinger. Siol realized in his haste that he'd, somehow, activated a weapon, and almost justified the crowd's actions.

Both guards rushed forwards and restrained Siol, pulling him backwards. His arm retracted into its original state, his 'fingers' reappearing. Siol fought back and cried. "Let go of me! I wasn't going to! I mean it! I, I, they ganged up on me!" The guards yelled in unison. "REMOVE ALL WEAPONS FROM YOUR BODY IMMEDIATELY!" They grabbed at his metallic backpack, attempting to pull it off of his body, but the thing was stuck to Siol's back. Each time they tried to pull, he cried out in intense pain, his pupils rolling upwards. The guards stopped, sensing the trouble they were putting him through. When they let go, Siol crumpled to the ground. The guards blinked in shock, the lights on top of their heads flashing red. They pointed their first-class signalers at the crowd, warning them all to back off. "Disperse! This being may be a deathbringer in name, but he looks incredibly confused. We must entertain the possibility that he is telling the truth." The crowd fought back, insults spitting from their mouths. "TRAITORS! HE'S A MENACE! PURE EVIL! THE DOCTOR IS HORRIBLE! THE DOCTOR ISN'T WRONG! HE'S GOING TO SET FIRE TO THE ARTIFICIAL SEAS! HE'S GOING TO TOPPLE THE SEVEN SEATS! WHY ARE YOU TAKING HIS SIDE?! DAMN OBJECTION, CRIPPLE THROUGH ORDER, REIGN!" The watchmen and police stationed across the city flew to the aid of the guards. They all pushed the sea of rebellion back to where it came, closing off 'Downtown,' save for the flashing spire serving as the only reminder of the city's existence.

Siol stood up, gasping for air. He tapped his backpack, as if to assure himself that it was there. He experimentally moved his arm and his fingers, looking at the police with a hollow expression. "I... I didn't mean to..." The policemen stared back with no sympathy. "I've changed my mind," one of the original guards said. "You will leave immediately after sundown, and you will not come back. If you still insist that you are capable of peace, we will bar you entry for disturbing the order we seek to maintain. If you come back a destroyer, then we will do our utmost best to destroy you in turn. Never forget the artificial fire that powers our beacon, and how it stands as the last refuge of this subsection in times of peril." Siol nodded with a shellshocked expression. "Then go, you fuck." Siol backed away, slowly, and just before the guard could shout, he turned and ran towards the array of buildings.

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The hulking being standing in front of the table spoke in a deep, buzzing voice with an artificial edge. "There. Should be good as new, I wager." A dull beat coursed through the sound arrays of the building, playing music powered by a synthetic orchestra. The creature on the operating table stood up, flexing its metallic arm that shined like silver. All of the fingers were perfectly in place, with no dents. It blinked its mismatched eyes, letting out a ribbit of acceptance. "Ribbit. Many thanks, One-Eye. May the beam enrich you." The other being - One-Eye - nodded imperceptibly. "The same to you." The frog reached into a pack slung across its back and pulled out five small white chips. One-Eye rapped its large hands against the wall, a circular section of it retracting. He deposited the chips into it, and they were sucked away. One-Eye thudded out of his workspace and into his storefront, leaning against the counter.

He didn't have to wait long for a disturbance. The circular porthole providing the door to his establishment was quite forcefully blown off of its hinges. Scrambling through came the panicked form of Siol. One-Eye recoiled with surprise. "Siol! How in the world did you obliterate my yetfe'tiefe'etom door? I paid top chipstack for it." Siol panted, quickly heaving the construction upright and shoddily fixing it. "Can I, uh, I don't know, catch my breath first," he sputtered out, slumping on one of the chairs in the storefront. One-Eye's unseeable expression darkened, and he clambered over to Siol, getting his first good look at his new robotics. One-Eye was solemn as he examined Siol. "...You were Chosen." Siol looked at One-Eye with an expression that read "REALLY??? I HADN'T NOTICED!" Siol then yelled, "REALLY??? I HADN'T NOTICED!"

One-Eye walked backwards, examining Siol's entire body with a glance. "These are dark days. You and I have been friends for quite some time, Siol. But if this is the path you have chosen, I cannot abide by your presence." Siol groaned with absolute irritation, shooting an angered glance at One-Eye. "Listen. The thing I've been trying to tell EVERYONE is that I DIDN'T choose this. NO ONE chooses it. A ton of suckers blindly follow the Doctor's WORDS, but almost NO ONE FOLLOWS his actions. The Chosen - that elite order of assassins - no one walked up to his castle and said, 'excuse me, but I'd like to be turned into a killing machine with the power to initiate worldwide genocide, could you get on that??'" One-Eye remained still. "Then if you are not hear to obliterate me, what are you here for." Siol stood up, walking to the counter. "You're the best robourge in the quadrant. I figured you'd be the best person to check out what I've actually had DONE to me. Assuming, of course, you're okay with it. You have my word, Piefes-Eftief. My word as a Carolinensis." Siol extended his hand outwards with the intent to shake on it. One-Eye made no such move in return. "The word of your species means quite little to me. Swear on something else."

Siol's eyes darted around. "Uh, okay. I have, I mean, YOU have my word as... a valued customer to One-Eye's Shed of Robourgy??" One-Eye stood perfectly still, like a defunct automaton, until his hand extended forwards. Metal met metal as the two shook on it. "The word of your friendship and morality means more. I only accept those I can trust in this establishment. And you, Siol, have a heart of q'pietu, no matter what augmentations you have recieved. You have chosen another path, so it seems. Now," One-Eye beckoned Siol forwards. "Come. We must examine what is wrong with you."

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As Siol sat on the operating table, he looked at One-Eye. One-Eye was a being of mystery, despite his trustworthiness and friendship. For starters, Siol had no idea what he actually looked like - he didn't even know his species. One-Eye dressed in a hat with a wide and tattered brim, a scarf bunched up in such a way that obscured everything bar the middle of his face - and even then, said area was pitch black, and a large, luxurious fleeced coat, which he always wore, even in the driest and scalding epochs. His hands were bulky and forged from metal, as were his feet, yet he was incredibly fluid in his movements and could perform the most precise of actions with no effort. His name, One-Eye, came from the fact that the only thing you could see of his face was a shimmering monocle - which therefore, despite no eyes being visible, gave the distinction of possessing ONE eye. While on the subject of names, Siol didn't know where his came from. He knew it meant six, but it was a piece of trivia, completely meaningless - until now.

"You have seen the procedure before, repeated on many subjects. Lie on the operating table facedown, if you will." Siol did so, giving One-Eye a clear view of the large backpack Siol wore. It was shimmering with silver, intricate lines etched into its surface. A rectangular portion of its front side was raised up, and a smaller portion of it was raised up even further. Said portion contained a circle inlaid with etches of geometry and a single slot. Directly below it was some kind of monitor. It was off. One-Eye viewed the backpack with a puzzled expression. "What a curious apparatus," he muttered to himself. "Tell me, Siol. Have you gleaned the purpose of your robotic attachments by yourself?" Siol turned his head. "Just the arms. They... turn into cannons." One-Eye nodded. "I would expect nothing less. As always, superb craftsmanship from the Doctor. It is a shame he uses this skill for such disastrous purposes. I wonder who taught him the art of robourgy?" Siol gritted his teeth. "Idea - how about you don't idolize the guy who just singlehandedly ruined my life with the aim of ruining billions of OTHER lives." One-Eye grew still, bowing his head. "Of course."

One-Eye retreated inwards, into his workspace, pulling out four metallic spheres and a black ring. He slipped the black ring over his left arm, and, with his right, placed each sphere in a square formation over the operating table. One-Eye activated the black ring, which immediately brought up a manual interface. With it, he activated the spheres. "I will now begin the examination. Do not move." A green light filled the room as the square of spheres formed a holographic cube, containing Siol in it. His entire body shrouded in lime light, surges of data filling the interface and spilling out onto a network of monitors hooked up to the workspace wall. One-Eye regarded the information with a peculiar eye - which was about all he could do in terms of facial expressions. After over a minute, the lightshow quelled, and One-Eye removed the instruments from the ground. Siol got up and merely sat on the operating table.

"Examination concluded. Now, let us go over your specifications." An image of Siol appeared on the monitor. "If it were not for the Doctor's trademark style of construction, I could not have possibly pinpointed you as a harbinger of death. The previous five Chosen's bodies were dramatically altered. Entire portions were cut out and replaced with machinery, various limbs and organs became weaponry... About the only thing untouched was the head. However, in your case..." One-Eye stared at Siol's body. "You have been relatively unchanged, with the exception of new robotic limbs, and what seems to be a strangely crafted backpack." Siol looked at his own arms. They were completely foreign to him - cold and distant, yet at the same time, a true extension of his body. "I don't get it. I was supposed to be the war machine to end all war machines. Why am I still... so small?" One-Eye looked at Siol with interest and deep confusion. "That is a question I am attempting to answer myself. Let us prepare the advanced view." One-Eye pressed some more buttons, and the view of Siol shifted. He was now rendered in an X-ray meant to detect robotics. What Siol and One-Eye saw caused them both to blink, as if the act of doing so would replace the image they saw with a more desirable one. But the information persisted. "Your..." One-Eye started to say. "Your entire body seems to be composed solely of machinery - yet it is arranged perfectly in the formation of a typical Carolinesis specimen. Despite looking organic, you are, purely and utterly, a robot."

Siol's arms shook. "I... You're bullshitting me. You've GOT to be bullshitting me." One-Eye looked back and forth between the X-ray and Siol himself. "What reason would I have to lie?? I am just as perplexed as you are. This is incredibly odd..." Siol screwed his eyes shut, clamping his hands over his head. "I, I, I don't feel any robot interface in my head or something! My blood's still pumping, I, I'm still breathing! I'm ME! Right?? Tell me I'm me!" Siol opened his eyes again, and One-Eye stared back. "I will make no such assurances. But, what you just said is interesting. There are no direct signs you are purely robotic - which must mean that this was a change with a purpose that is not yet apparent. It also means that we are unable to worry about it. Let us turn to the matter of your visible enhancements." The view shifted to show Siol's arms. "You are correct. The designs for your arms show they are clearly capable of turning into six-thousand-class focal points, deadly cannons built to be as compact as possible and yet retain all of the firepower. The Doctor modified the design and upgraded it heavily to its current class. This seems to be your only real weapon."

One-Eye paced, continuing to talk. "They seem to be powered by miniature singularities, and a flow of energy must be built and maintained between the cannon's two halves to ensure adequate power supply. If you activated your arm cannons now, we would surely see this effect. Which brings up the question - can you activate it on command?" Siol sighed, staring at his arm. He was twisting and turning it, to no avail. "N, not really. All the previous times I did it were just on impulse." One-Eye nodded. "Concerning. Next are your legs." The view shifted to show Siol's legs. "Your legs are also capable of transformative properties. It is difficult to ascertain the true shape of them without basing it off of external knowledge, but my best guess is a highly compact jet engine." Siol balked at his legs. "A JET ENGINE??" "Nega-class, to be precise. A devastating means of propulsion. Make sure you don't use it indoors or near an artificial element of any kind, lest you explode everything in the vicinity." Siol nodded slowly. "Last, but certainly not least, is your enigmatic backpack."

The view shifted to show Siol's backpack. Although the previous views showed intricate details of how the robotics worked, the backpack merely showed nothing. A blank white blob. "Your backpack is constructed with a metal I have never encountered in all my years. My best guess is that it comes from the THIEFEESET SRIM, in the form of a crystal highly concentrated with... something. I honestly don't quite know." Siol stared at his backpack with a frightened expression. "I... can't take it off. Seriously. I think it's fused to my back or something." One-Eye nodded. "It would seem so. The backpack is fused with your spinal cord, and various other portions of your internal body structure - but it is seemingly magnetically. Hypothetically, a strong enough force could rip it off." Siol yelped, jumping back. "NO! DON'T!" One-Eye stopped. "...Have you tried?" he ventured. Siol shook, nodding slowly. "What happened?" Siol sighed. "It happened here. The guards tried it. But, before that. In Dead Bay's Edge, right after I, you know. Found out about this whole thing. A bunch of people tried it. They tried it with so much force that I lost consciousness. I... think I was dead for a minute." Siol's eyes were reduced to pinpricks. "I don't want to go through that again." One-Eye looked at the interface. "Unfortunately, these schematics point to your words containing truth. The matter is simple. If your backpack somehow leaves your body, you die."

One-Eye took another look at the screen. "Furthermore, your backpack contains some kind of intricate mechanism. I believe it is a lock, with a narrow slit functioning as a keyhole." Siol nodded bleakly. "I know. He told me." "He? ...Who is 'He?'" Siol curled into a ball. "The Doctor." One-Eye took several steps backwards, an edge of fear in his voice. "You saw him?" Siol shook his head. "He spoke to me. I... I think he can do it at any time. There's a monitor on my backpack, too. That's how he did it. He leaves messages. He..." Siol sighed, his voice breaking. "He told me he had the key. And if I found him, he'd give it to me. And then, I'd unlock my destiny." Siol looked at One-Eye with tears. "I don't want any destiny. I'm... I'm just some nobody at Dead Bay's Edge, and that's all I want to be. But, at the same time... I CAN'T be it. I need to go on a journey, to end all life or something." One-Eye sat on another operating table. "No, you do do not. Realistically, you only 'need' to survive. Everything else are things you 'want' to do, or things others want you to do. It is up to you to decide which of your 'wants,' self-imposed or otherwise, is of the greatest importance."

Siol took a look at his hands. They clenched into fists. "Everyone wants me to give up. To die, so I don't bring about genocide. And those that follow the Doctor - his entire chain of command, all the way up to him - they want me to do what I'm 'supposed' to do. And the governments are so muddled between those two forces that I don't know who's who. All I know is the only way people can trust me is if I can convince them that I'm someone trying to do the right thing. Not a hero. Just... someone who has the power to do what no one else has done before." One-Eye stared at Siol, adjusting the interface. "And what is it that you are going to do?" Siol inhaled and exhaled. "I'm going to kill them all. Every Chosen. One by one."

It was now One-Eye's turn to put his head in his hands. "Scores of beings have attempted to kill any and all members of the Chosen. All have failed. Those who try to dispose of the Doctor's regimes have sometimes succeeded in the short term - but they are always, always foiled before long. And those who storm the Doctor's castle itself are no better off." Siol nodded, but quickly smiled, pointing at himself. "But hey. Look. None of THEM had the Doctor's tech. I do. I'm the best guy for the job! I... I'm going to do what no one else can." One-Eye nodded, light reflecting in his monocle. He stood up, the machinery of his hands and feet tensing and hissing. "Very well. You have made your choice. I will make no attempts to stop you - I want to see the Doctor terminated just as much as you. If you hold the power to do such a task... Then go forth." Siol got up, shaking One-Eye's metallic hand. "Thanks, Eftief. I, uh, don't have much money on me, so..." One-Eye chuckled. "That was free of charge." Siol made for the door, turning back one last time. "In case I don't make it back, I... wanted to say thanks." One-Eye nodded with purpose.

And so it was that at the precise instant of sundown at the Mesa Outpost, the sixth Chosen left the city proper, leaving behind its walls of scrap and paying no attention to the crowd. The murmurs and whispers of various species. A rabbit with no ears, cowering. A flock of birds making a cult of the zealous. A cloaked figure of medium height sullenly walking in the exact opposite direction Siol came from. Siol took one last look at the shimmering beacon of the Outpost, and he swore he could see its guard leering at him.

Siol forged west. The desert was bitter and cold.

PART ONE
THE LONG ROAD