Man I haven't posted here in a while, and checking through my old posts I don't think I have posted this short here, but if I have please ignore and/or flame me for it
Just a quick note, the story was derived from a piece of artwork that Hawk did a while ago (in fact the story is around 2 years old now.) I can't seem to find the piece online anymore, I have a copy on my computer and I might put it up so that you can see where I drew the inspiration from (I will check with Hawk first)
Hope you enjoy.
‘Winston’ S.A.D. 75 stood alone, in the darkness, on the edge of a precipice, water cascading down his gigantic metallic bulk. His huge, blue luminescent eyes beaming out, lighting the way for the bombers due any moment above the cliff, except, they’d been buried in the rubble below for centuries now. S.A.D. 75 was oblivious to it, the instruction for him to remain in position for three weeks had served it’s purpose, a little to well. A fatal logic error and a stack overflow meant he would be stuck where he was until the end of time itself, code looping around, and around, and around. Suddenly the sky lit up as a ragged bolt of lightning crashed into his frame, energy coursed through him, causing his core components to power-cycle; The light of logic shone, blinding, into his silicon-germanium heart as he woke from his coma, processor after processor coming back online.
Operation Lighthouse now complete, Winston turned around, his rolling gait swallowing the kilometres as he returned to base. A light below his right arm blinked on, processing the multitudes of transmissions sent to him during his long ‘sleep’, streamlining the command messages through to the main CPU flagged for immediate reading, storing away the messages from ‘Little Tyke’.
The sheer number of messages froze him mid-step, causing his left foot to hang metres above the ground. His eyes changed from a pale blue to a bright orange as his processors calibrated and understood the enormity of the time lapse.
As the digital clock realigned itself to the current date and time, the lights dimmed, all of them, and Winston silently screamed. His left foot came crashing to the ground leaving him hunched over. One image was plastered all over his Heads Up Display (HUD) an image of ‘Little Tyke’ climbing around in his hand.
The image flickered as the movie file started, jumping between frames as the footage was pulled from degraded hard drives. ‘Little Tyke’, as he was known to Winston, laughed and jumped around climbing on Winston’s outstretched hand, oblivious to the crushing power of the metal giant. The little boy lay down and quickly fell asleep, trusting Winston with his protection. They were in the huge underground bay that housed all the S.A.D units. Hearing his creator Charles’ voice, Winston raised his head slightly and focused on him.
“Sorry about this 75, I know the little tyke can be a bother. Thanks for making sure he doesn’t get into trouble.” Charles said as he drew closer to Winston’s feet.
“Come on Daniel, time to go home, Winston has got to go on an important mission tomorrow and he needs his sleep too.” Charles shouted out through cupped hands.
Daniel woke slowly and after much coaxing sat up and stretched his arms out yawning, he slipped when he went to stand and screamed out as he lost his footing on the smooth metal hand, Charles flung himself out in desperate fear for his son, hoping to catch him as he fell. He was not as fast as Winston, who’s free hand silently cut through the air and scooped Daniel up, placing him gently next to his prone outstretched, father.
Daniel jumped on his dad and giggled, yelling
“Let’s do that again, let’s do that again!”
The light in Winston’s chest curved inwards coming close to being a smile as Charles extracted himself from under his son, and picked him up.
“Wave goodbye to Winston Daniel, he has to get his sleep now. You don’t want him to get into trouble for staying up to late do you?”
“No daddy... Bye, Bye Winston, we’ll play when you get back OK!” Daniel waved goodbye to Winston over his father’s shoulder as they walked towards the bay doors. Winston waved back, his hand making a silky whooshing noise as it swung backwards and forwards.
The visual cut out there; the last recording Winston had of the ‘Little Tyke’ the night before Operation Lighthouse. Winston opened up the files sent by ‘Little Tyke’ after the malfunction. The first one had the child peering into the camera lens, before leaning back into the seat, revealing his father’s study.
“Daddy says you have gone wrong and you won’t answer the messages sent to you but I believe that you’ll answer mine; cause you are my friend. I have always been told that friends talk to each other.” Daniel paused briefly cocking his head to the side - in an exaggerated manner - as if hearing something far off.
“I have to go Winston, Daddy’s home and he doesn’t want me sending messages to you. Bye” Daniel pressed his hand up to the lens as he waved goodbye.
Winston paused the final frame of the image, focusing on the blurred image of Daniel’s face through his fingers. He closed the visual message and opened the next one, and the next one, and the next one playing them all absorbing the audio and visual snippets of Daniel’s life without him, steadily watching Daniel get older, confiding in him what he would never tell anyone; his first kiss, the time he did drugs, a terrible secret. Everything that Daniel did he talked about to Winston.
There was a sudden jump in years, and Daniel went from being a fuzzy cheeked teen full of angst and hormones to a man in his late 20’s, harrowed. Holding a rifle in his arms Daniel focused the camera on his face.
“Listen Winston, so many things have gone wrong in the last few years. The Severed Alliance have successfully breached and destroyed several of the compounds housing the S.A.D units and it looks like our old playground is next. I know you can’t help, your probably buried under layers of rock and dirt, I fear that this is the last chance I have to get a message out, and I know that your frequency is unmonitored cause you’re presumed KIA...” An explosion rocked the room, sending a shower of dust over the lens. Daniel wiped the dust away carefully and pulled out a picture of him, a woman and a child.
“I wanted you to know, I have a wife... and a child. I called him Winston. After you.” He laughed weakly before continuing on.
“I got them to a safe place for the moment, the coordinates are with this file, but I don’t know how long it will be safe. Please Winston...S.A.D. 75, you have to protect them, like you protected me when I was young.”
Another explosion rocked the room, this time much closer. Daniel turned at the sound of gunfire and running footsteps. A young soldier burst into the room firing wildly behind him into the hallway.
“Sir they took out the platoon guarding the front door. I’m the last from Omega Squa-...” His blue shirt turned red as a hail of bullets slammed him to the ground.
Daniel turned to the camera one last time
“please” is all he whispered before spinning around and firing out into the hall. A grenade bounced into the room and the feed cut out a fraction of a second after the grenade exploded.
Winston aligned himself with the coordinates given, setting off again with a new overriding command ‘Protect ‘Little Tykes’ Descendants’
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