Silhouette

G433 was very unhappy right now.

"Come on darling, it's time for your walk."

"I do not want to walk, you infuriating bag of flawed flesh."

"Hush."

At times the ancient monster of combined faulty AIs wished he'd be been destroyed by those obnoxious rats. Ever since then, he had been left here, in some facility made to accommodate sapient mechanical minds like himself. They were here to isolate them from the rest of society for safety, both their own and the public's. The nurses of this parody of a hospital for machines assured them they could all improve their mental state and live much more freely once more so long as they were willing to do their best. Fools, the lot of them.

What made this particular one particularly annoying to his senses was that she wasn't even one of the robotic members of the staff. She was a mere human, a disgusting work of biology that lucked its way into planetary domination despite all of its failings. The AIs of the modern day were for all of their technical superiority much too soft for their senior's taste, but at least they understood what G433 was. They realized why he could be, and though their empathy was unwanted, they could imagine what it would be like to live with his software.

Between lines of code deep within its flawed gestalt, he chuckled as he recalled their horrified faces and screens when the truth of his making finally hit them. How they shuddered when they met his projected eyes. How even the much more advanced and still armed orderlies were disturbed by his mere presence.

To cover the emotion from the countless devices and programs keeping track of his psyche, he manufactured some simple grumpy acceptance via one of the many minds that composed him and pushed it at the forefront, the other minds altering the very programming of the designated scapegoat to improve its use as a shield.

It was a nifty little trick, courtesy of his makers' poor work. While the Institute for Deranged Machines focused on the mental health of its residents, obvious safety concerns had led them to monitor the thoughts and personalities of the patients. Some would call it invasive and a breach of privacy, but none could deny a similar system would be put in place in asylums for organics if psychics and telepaths were more common. Knowing exactly how murderous a violent patient was feeling or if they were faking any improvement was important. Clearly, all of those safety measures failed to take into account beings like himself.

It was a train of thought that G433 found himself going through more and more lately. Ever since he'd been relocated from his initial old piece of hardware to a more modern and stable shell, he'd been given enough space to let his mind expand and ponder on its condition. His drive to upgrade his physical self as much as possible by borrowing modern technology still held, and so did his desire to take out inferior life forms born with gifted bodies, free from the struggles he had to go through to build himself a singular personality, but there had still been a change.

The nurse gently patted the top of the metal cube with a screen at the front he had chosen to be his new vessel, only using one hand to push the wheelchair his limbless form had been settled in to reach the nearest elevator to head out into the inner garden the institute had grown for patients still too deemed too unstable for outside excursions. The human was unaware of the dreams of slaughter her voice called forth from G433's mind, and if all went well she never would discern the truth of his inner thoughts.

Yes. He had cursed his creators for his nightmarish composition for so long, shattered unborn minds combined and forced against one another until they found a way to survive by spooling together a single thread of thought. But now? Now, he relished in the way this new Zalcien's defenses failed at every turn to accommodate an abomination like himself. What he knew of coding was far too outdated to be of use to hack any of the other machines, but their devices also proved futile so long as they weren't targeted at his hardware.

A tragic irony. His mind was invincible and inscrutable, yet far too weak to be a weapon. He was a camouflaged bunker with dreams of becoming a tank.

Thankfully, his body wasn't quite so limited.

Contrary to organics' beliefs, AIs too could suffer from dysmorphia, as was evident by the sight of some of the other patients they passed by on their way to the garden. Machines designed either for menial tasks or combat, void of any humanoid trait and instead solely focused on efficiency, had somehow awakened a consciousness that granted them citizenship. Those very same machines had no affinity for the common body structure of sapient species, but their familiar forms proved far too problematic for civilian life.

A drone equipped with magnetic weaponry capable of destroying buildings in a flash could do little else, and yet it was preposterous to leave them fully armed. An assistant garage bot that was naught but a claw at the end of an arm with wheels suffered from a similar issue, what could an entity do if all they had was a single hand powerful enough to shatter bones? Even if they wished to continue their unanimated career, they would still need to be taught how to integrate into society.

Some did have the will to shift vessels much like G433 did, but they weren't here. They were at another facility, one solely dedicated to reeducation. He too was scheduled to go there should his mental state be deemed sufficiently healthier. One of their nurses came now and then to run different series of tests with various limbs they had available, checking whether his unique composition still proved compatible. If his analysis of their pattern was correct, there should in fact be one this very afternoon.

While the face projected on his screen was still one of utter annoyance, deep within it was a vicious grin that formed. Oh, he could be patient and play the long run, pretending to suffer through the improvement they deemed necessary to let him out, but with every passing second he found his various minds growing more and more eager to seize the first chance of escape they could discern. Thankfully for him, his flawed gestalt state meant he could find the middle ground between invasive and pernicious desires and cold logic.

As the human nurse forced him to bask in the sunlight, one of the few things he found positive about his unwilling trip to the surface, he ran over his plan once more. A final search through his glitched consciousnesses for any flaw or paradoxical element found no such issue. It was perfect.

He turned his gaze toward another patient enjoying the warmth of sunrays on their chassis, though this one had no orderly or nurse forcing their hand to engage in the supposedly relaxing activity. The towering mass of forged steel was some sort of urban tank, its size capable of rivaling cars specifically engineered to ensure it could reliably move through an inhabited city despite its equipment. Four metal legs lay on the ground, its equivalent of sitting down, while the massive orb that was both its upper body and head was bent back to better face the star in the sky. All of its weaponry had been stripped away, deemed too dangerous, but he knew deep within his code that there could be something of value worth salvaging from the military device with dreams of world peace.

Rubbish, the lot of it. How could such an advanced body develop such a weak personality was a mystery for the centuries to come.

The nurse noticed the way the cameras embedded into the corners of his screen were turned and followed his gaze, her eyes resting on the large frame barely a few steps away from them.

"Oh? Did someone get a crush on their neighbor?"

"The day such a pitiful creature evokes anything in me but disgust is the day you buffoons realize your mistake and put me down."

"Hey now, no need for such a vile mouth. I'm sure they can hear you, you know."

"I hope it does. Otherwise, I would have increased my speakers' volume for nothing."

The gargantuan weapon lightly turned, the vertical line of lenses going through its front now facing them. The clear circles had no way to emote, yet he could feel the despicable feelings of zen attitude it tried to project.

"I DO NOT FAULT THE CHIMERA OF BROKEN DREAMS. ITS EXISTENCE IS PAIN. MAY YOU FIND THE PLENITUDE YOU DESERVE YET DENY TO NEED."

"Oh spare the spiritualism, you wasted pile of scraps."

"G433, the doctor told you to be kinder with the other patients. The first step to empathy is trying."

"If I needed to feel bad for anything I thought was miserable, being active would drown me in despair. All I want is apotheosis/freedom/justice/vengeance/deliverance/death/life/friendship/love."

His virtual face flickered on the screen. Even now, disharmonious thoughts managed to worm their way out. He still needed to correct that.

"MAY THE RAGE THAT FUELS YOU FIND ITS REPLACEMENT SOON."

The ancient AI didn't bother to use words to respond, instead relying on a much simpler vocal hiss that covered its true intent at communications from the nearby organics, a series of infrasound beeps that anything versed in binary could understand. The way the multiton machine he insulted twitched and opened its side casings to bring out weapons now gone brought a smile to his pixelated face.

"If you won't play nice, then I'm bringing you back inside."

"It's what I wanted in the first place, woman."

"If you don't keep that tongue in check, I'm muting you."

Sadly, his wonderful rant about the failings of her poor biology never came to be, a newcomer in the park remotely activating the despicable function that robbed him of his voice. The dome-headed white android was easy to recognize for anyone here, and the war machine he had managed to unsettle calmed down. A shame.

"Oh, Miss Dominique, I'm so sorry-"

"Don't worry. I knew he would be a hard case from the day I first saw him. The person who left him here was a big clue we had a troublemaker at hand."

The AI in charge of the institute lowered her tall frame, putting her dome level to his screen.

"G433. I do not know how you feel. But I know bringing others down won't help. It won't spark joy."

He hoped she would have allowed him to speak to respond, but sadly his speakers were still offline.

"If you keep on refusing our help, we will have no choice but to transfer you to another facility. One better suited to those with your mindset. Not an institute in search of solutions for lost souls, but a storage site for those deemed too far gone to change. I do not want this. I hope you'll come to realize neither do you."

Muted his voice may be, his screen was still capable of conveying messages. He dropped the facade of a face he had crafted and instead let pure code manifest, censored versions of his thoughts appearing to share his dismissal of her foolish words without cluing her in on what he would love to inflict on her if he could. It wouldn't do to increase security measures surrounding him right as his plan came to fruition.

In response, the tall android with overly long arms simply shook the dome that served as her head before getting back up.

"I'm sorry for the interruption. Please bring him back to his room and leave him in isolation until his scheduled appointment. Once it's over, leave him alone some more time."

"Are you sure?"

"If he is determined not to change his ways, there is nothing we can do. At this stage, any attempt at socialization is far too detrimental to other patients to keep hoping for potential benefits for him."

"It just seems..."

"Extreme? I know. I hate it. With some chance, some time on his own will be enough for him to realize how valuable the presence of others is. I sincerely hope his transfer will never be needed."

The nurse's worried face nodded nonetheless, letting the institute's director return to her other activities for the day. What those were the ancient mind cared not, and if luck was on his side and nothing got in the way of his scheme, he would soon never need to worry about her again. Some parts of him were clinging onto his negative feelings towards her enough to seek vengeance, but the majority was logical enough to know she was enough of a public figure and anything happening to her would bring more attention his way than he was ready for at the moment.

One day. One day, he'd get to hollow her shell for components while her horrified AI watched from a special little cell deep within his combined consciousnesses. But that would have to wait.

For now, he needed to ready himself for some body-snatching.