Thomas had never felt such despair as the moment the bombardment began.
The Empire had surrounded the city, encircling it entirely. Despite the best efforts of the Tri-Nation army, they had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of slave soldiers, and war machines, at the Empire's disposal. Every defensive line anchored around natural terrain collapsed, when the enemy was so unflinchingly loyal it's soldiers would use their bodies to create bridges across mountain passes. When the enemy could respond to a division of troops by simply sending dozens of divisions. Or when they could unleash their hideous war-leviathans that rolled across the battlefield, tracks large enough to crush whole companies and enough firepower to level countries. It was impossible to know how many had fled to the city before the siege, but he guessed it was in the millions.
When the encirclement began, he had watched from his apartment building as refugees streamed out, only to be met by the Empire's battle walkers. Two legged monstrosities, festooned with weapons and communications equipment, attended by individual armies of slave soldiers. Artificial muscles allowing them to bestride the battlefield, carrying their boxy turret head.
Thomas had watched the refugees meet the battle line, and attempt to push through by humanitarian compassion. They had been met by the electromissiles, shockwhips, and netguns of the walkers. Captured, rounded up, and shipped away for the fate all knew they would face in the Empire.
Those days were full of pandemonium, everyone packed with plans. Alice had been distraught, terrified by the fate she was doomed to. Thomas watched as homes filled with bodies, but also as desperate families marched out to surrender. They hoped that their surrender would guarantee them some rewards as slaves, perhaps family cohesion, but Thomas knew such things were not coming.
Then the bombardment had begun. Not with regular artillery, no. Thomas had watched with horror as thousands of guns roared, and unleashed a torrent of gas upon the city. It swept quickly through the streets, thousands falling in it's path. The few surviving defenders carried gas masks, but even these were not enough, the gas seeping through exposed skin. Thomas only realised mere moments before he fell quite what the gas was doing: it wasn't to kill them, but to incapacitate them. He collapsed to the ground, Alice beside him, both frozen in fear and panic at the thoughts they had dared not to think.
Their lives would now be in chains, governed by the whims of cruel Masters. Perhaps Thomas would see Alice again, but he considered such a fate unlucky, since she was certain to be taken as a pleasure slave. She had been so smart, so brilliant, and soon her life would be judged solely on sex. He would rather die than witness her brainwashed to love the man holding her leash. Thomas expected his own fate to be conscription into the slave armies, or perhaps menial labour.
The reality was far more perverse than either had anticipated.
He had awoken first with a collar and chain around his neck, run through a complex process of being bound by a production line, before finally having something surgically inserted into his head. Thomas knew enough about the enslavement process to know this was a neural lace, a device implanted into the slave to brainwash them. He felt it rack his brain, an agonising process as it seemed to study every memory, every fact of his life. Then, happy with itself, it locked him in a tiny pod and put him to sleep again.
Then Thomas woke again. This time, he was on an operating table, plugged with wires and cables, trapped by metal collars and cuffaq. He looked across his body with horror, to see the machines were quite literally ripping his guts out. The sight of his opened stomach would have brought him to vomit, had he any lunch left to expel. And besides, there was a large object in his mouth, blocking him from screaming.
Across the room from him lay Alice, in similar condition. Her hair had been shaved away, skin pulled apart. At present she was unconscious, but her closed eyes seemed to flicker uncontrollably. A large tattoo across her chest proclaimed her to be "DRIVE X3802-S". Other prisoners were in the densely packed room, with similar code names.
Again, Thomas felt the neural lace probing him, devouring his memories at great pace. Then it seemed to speak to him.
YOU ARE NO LONGER AN INDIVIDUAL. NO LONGER HUMAN. THIS UNIT IS A MACHINE.
Thomas didn't understand, how could he be a machine and not a Human?
Then he felt his mind suddenly begin to go empty, memories disappearing one after another. He tried to writhe, to escape, but he was paralysed.
THIS UNIT IS NODE X3793-C. IT IS BUILT TO SERVE.
The machines quickened their pace, a large device being lowered into the hole that had once been Thomas' stomach. Others were engaged in ripping up his legs,
THIS UNIT IS BUILT TO COURIER DATA. THIS UNIT WILL SERVE.
A slave strode into the room, movements perfectly calculated. It was dressed in a tough-looking black form-fitting material, skin concealed except for a dark black helmet that encased the head. Atop the black outfit sat a harness of straps and metal, covered in bright blue lights, as well as a large similarly illuminated metal collar. Holes were installed across the body, clearly intruding inside. One particularly large one occupied the spot of the navel, while others occupied where it's nipples would once have been. On it's back was a slim metal rucksack of sorts, seemingly fused with the slave's flesh, and containing an antenna.
It's penis protruded, though it was wrapped in metal and latex. The slave was entirely erect, and snapped to a halt beside Thomas' bed. Then it turned, advancing to the wall, and halted again. Thomas was so enraptured by the display that he briefly was able to forget the machine deleting his memories, watching as a cable protruded from the wall and was plugged by the slave into it's navel. The slave's lights began to pulsate, a bar on it's forearm filling up, and with horror Thomas realised he was looking at a data transfer.