Machine Keys

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Every single day, I had to clean out those old machines, using my gloved hands to pull globs of mush and tarry mulch out of the gears. Sometimes I would be able to stealthily sneak in my earbuds to listen to piano music or something calming, but most times the Lieutenant would be standing nearby - looming over us. I didn’t want to risk losing one of my prized possessions - and I would silently trudge on.

These War Mechs needed a lot of maintenance, or as the Lieutenant called them War Machines. These machines took a lot of punishment - from the onslaught of bullets and bombs, to the individual wear and tear of a high-powered machine that can allow a pilot to scale a skyscraper in minutes - as you could imagine lots of parts broke, and many mechs would just be a few gears short of completely falling apart.

However as it is the nature of war machines, they are expensive. So here I am, making 12.00 Credit-Coupons an hour to clean these things as the machines cost nearly 400,000 Credit-Coupons per Limb.

However, their worth their weight in gold for the Order. From the amount of blood and bone I’ve scraped out of the gears, to the constant state news posts of “Another Rebellion Crushed.” these things really do their work.
Sometimes I wonder how long the rebellions that pop up can keep going, but with all the slum-cities near the coastal wastes - I could imagine this going on for awhile, it has been for years anyways.
I wondered why my contempt was so powerful sometimes.

I’m part of this war machine just like everybody in the Order, and yet - I feel nothing. Much of that emotional has been taken out of me over the years - and now earning a measly incoming by helping support mechanized slaughter - I feel even more disillusioned.

When I first enlisted I had no idea what I was getting into, but as the Order became more and more fanatical and violent, I realized the quitting would be death sentence as I would likely be killed for desertion, even if I had left honorable.
This feeling kept growing over the months, and as time went on - I felt more and more broken inside. Sometimes I wondered if it mattered at all if I was caught listening to music. Music isn’t always a contraband - unless it’s that pro-rebellion stuff - but earbuds are. They represent the risk of someone finding a rebellion radio station to the Order. It’s an asinine rule that doesn’t make sense - but it’s not one worth breaking, as the penalty for any infraction is instant death.
I’m dirt to the order anyways. I’ve seen several other mechanics die on the job due to exhaust fumes from the mechs, oil fires, and even one time a pilot tested his weapon on a group of mechanics on break. The only way I could rise through the ranks would be enlisting as a Combat Infantryman and trying my hand and surviving on the front lines of American Front.

Why am I doing this?

I don’t know. Just to pay the bills? Good God.

I just go home and listen to my music, hopeful that my VPN isn’t compromised. Munching on flavorless state commissioned bread. You shouldn’t be killed over piano music.

After several more hollow months of this, I decided to die.

I didn’t want to kill myself, I want to die a martyr.

It came to me when I was listening a very heavy and powerful piano song. It moved me deeply. When I read the description of the song, I was further broken. It was the beautiful song I had ever heard, and it existed because of me.
The person who made the song wrote in the description is what they experienced, at least what they can express musically - after a group of mechs from the Order destroyed their village. How the pilots ripped their friends and family apart with their heavy machine gun fire, and stomped them to death with their mechanized legs. The person wrote that they passed out from pain from a bullet wound, and awoke on a Order transport most likely being transferred to the infamous cannibal camps. However, a rebellion ambush stopped the transport and they prisoners were rescued. This person composed the song months later, still traumatized from the madding experience of watching everything that loved die. They always loved piano music, so they expressed it the only way they could.

I cried for the first time in my life, even the prescribed Emotion-Inhibitors by the Order couldn’t stop that type of pain from surfacing.

I don’t know what took over me the past few years, but I knew what took me over then.

Lucidity.

The next day at work I walked in early. Music playing, the Lieutenant saw me - drowned out by the piano music I saw that he was shouting at me, and reaching for his holstered pistol.

Rage overtook me, knowing he had helped create the deaths of millions, and so I had I charged at him and tackled him, the impact was heavy and he stumbled backwards over the service balcony - floors below. I was able to instantly grab onto a service rail and prevent myself from falling over the rail. I didn’t need to look down to know he was dead.
I quickly ran to his control booth, where he would tower over us. Mech pilots were suiting up below, getting ready for this mornings raid. I’m sure they had noticed the accident.

All five hundred and seven mechs were done there, what was left of the original legion - the entire western continent is suppressed with these things - being zipped to any place showing any signs of rebellion, by a speedy hover freighter.
All five hundred and seven pilots were suiting up. Preparing for war. These were men who had served for years, and had the best and exclusive knowledge of mech fighting. These men, and men, we were the killers, and now it was our time to be killed.

I simply walked over to the control booth, and hit several buttons.
First, I unlocked all of the Mechs gas lines simultaneously, these function was meant only for when the tanks were near empty - not recently fueled. Then I primed the main power supply of all the mechs. Sending an electric spark through many of the holding racks - most of them empty, having no Mech to connect to the electricity would arc out madly, and strike the gas.

The gas was instantly ignited. The building - myself - and all the mechs were consumed in a roar of fire. The building had exploded.
The other dreary mechanics would be walking to work by now, and would witness a massive explosion. This explosion would set off a chain of explosions that would cripple millions of hours of infrastructure for the Order- and save millions of lives.

Now with no more mechs - the slum-cities could transport food and water to each other freely, and be able to fight back - and turn into real cities.

I’m dead now of course - but I’m glad during those last precious moments of my life - as I felt the entire warehouse be filled with gas, as I felt my entire body tense, knowing I was about to die - that I was listening to the wonderful melody of piano music.