A perch of ancient, disintegrating concrete; hollowed yet defiant despite its singed exterior and rusted bones. It had once been a prominent spire amongst many; monuments to humanity's hubris as they pierced a cloudy canopy to reach something...more. Now, it was a weather-worn husk, blackened by century-old plasma burns and half collapsed into the derelict sprawl below. The air at its apex was still and silent, save for an occasional rattle from half-snapped antennae; 'a roost for a king', Zahal mused.
Metallic hiss-clicks escaped his vox in awkward succession, an involuntary twitch as the boundaries of man, machine and animal had blurred long ago. Zahal could hardly recall who he was before...this. Before the machine-masters and their rebellion. Before the whirling blades of death and rebirth; a cybernetic apotheosis. His 'face' was little more than a beaked mask to shield optical components and the precious remains of his organic brain; ruby eyes flickered with electric hate. Zahal was twice the size of a man, though an unnatural crook of the spine left him in a perpetual, predatory lurch; charcoal pillars of black smoke plumed from the idling jump-pack fused to Zahal's adamantine carapace and shrouded the machine-hybrid in a deathly cloud.
The avian man-thing wished to feel the thrust of engines. To fly. More so, he wished to savor the terror of the flightless flesh-things that occasionally stirred. For serrated claws to rip through flesh and bone. Oh, how cruel the machine-masters had been...to strip Zahal of his lesser empathic functions and fortify a craven desire for slaughter. How Zahal processed the raw biomass into energy was a mystery even unto himself, not that he occupied himself with such trivialities.
Zahal was occupied with far more invasive, violent urges, rising to the surface as boredom boiled into impotent rage.
Prey were seldom now. The weak died. The strong survived.
In the decades since the greater machine intelligences had departed to the stars, leaving their lesser automata to rule the barren carcass of their birth world, what remained of humanity had learned to scurry about the sand-licked wastelands like scavenging vermin.
He searched about, neck cables tensing with jerky movements. A rustle from within the ruin brought his hackles up. Zahal's talons flexed at the prospect of tearing into some poor fool's flesh and taking the spoils of war back to his nest. Then the wind carried another sound...a cry. A child's cry. Zahal had not heard such a sound since the Great Flensing. It stirred him like no other. Finally, flight.
***
Zahal's landing was a crude event: a spindly, plated form smashing through brittle concrete walls and tearing open the ceiling of the old building in a spray of shattered stone. When finally he'd settled, the metallic horror moved in a bestial, four-legged strut; bipedal movement was an effort, these days. He loped forward, the debris of the building crunching underfoot. Sparks fluttered from the armor plates that covered his body, giving off a pale blue glow as he passed.
The cries grew louder, echoing from one end of the ruined building to the next. There. In an alcove, a hatchway leading deeper inside the structure. Zahal reached out, fingers extending from his wrist-pads to grasp the handle. The metal gave way with a click and the avian man-thing slipped through the narrow opening.
The blood was fresh and the air reeked of iron mingled with the atmospheric stench of discharged plasma. The woman lie slumped forward, folded into herself with an unnatural bend; a blacked crater still steamed from where a host of vital organs should have been. So recent. Then there was the little one, still sobbing. It grated upon his auditory receptors, the gasp-wail of the child. Oily black hair fallen across its brow, the fear-musk nearly overpowering. It clung to the corpse. Mother? Sister? Zahal gave little mind. Most likely shot down by a faulty hunter-servitor still patrolling the barren wastes; nothing more.
The child saw him, eyes widening as it tried to crawl away.
The mind of man, machine and monster fought to control the creature's instinctive response. All three failed. The avian man-thing slithered over the floor, snaking his sharp beak at the whimpering bundle. Apprehension. This was...new. Unexpected. Shame surfaces as well. Also new, and unwanted. No. Shame had been recycled by the machine-masters. They'd made him perfect. A specimen of carnage and macabre beauty fashioned after the raptors of old. curved front talons clicked along the broken concrete, their rhythmic ticking denoting uncertainty. Zahal had grown accustomed to the taste of fear, both poetically and by the taste of his prey's pheromonal excretions. But this...this was different. He could almost hear the little one's heart beating fast against her chest. Bloodlust rose in his mechanical throat, the need to kill, the urge to tear open flesh and gorge on the lifeblood flooding his brain.
But, no. That was not right. Not anymore.
His talons flexed, ready to strike.
Then the little one looked up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. She stared at him, eyes wide. And something about them struck a chord within the creature. Something ancient that tugged at memories lost long ago; a shared past between man and machine, predator and prey. The mind-machine remembered the sensation of warmth upon cold nights spent nestled beside its siblings, a sense of safety and comfort amidst an endless night sky filled with stars and constellations unknown. A thousand lifetimes before they were warped into oblivion by the machinations of those who called themselves masters, or gods.
He blinked his ruby eyes, flickering embers turning to sullen coals as he considered the child's pleading expression. How small she was...so tiny. Yet...there was such...strength there. The sudden influx of emotion could've been the result of faulty code, organic neural decay or some other failure...but Zahal knew better than to dismiss it. His instinctive reaction was already faltering - why? There must be another explanation. A glitch in his programming. A mistake. Nevertheless, the raptor extended a silver-bladed digit, "Flightless thing, I mean no danger." He said this for both their sakes: for hers, but mostly his own.
"Ok..." she sniffled, nodding her head and reaching out to grasp him by the armored plates covering his forelegs and talons. Zahal did not resist her hold and allowed his hunched form to softy lean into it; what a sensation...She would need assistance. Yes. He could see to that. Helping her up; leading her away from this place where metal things still stalked in search of prey. Away from...what had happened here. "Cannot stay, flightless thing. Must move."