[ WP ] You get a deep cut for the first time in your life , instead of bone or muscle , you see wires .

Be gentle, this is my first time. Banged this out in about an hour and a half at work. Edited on the fly, so be a little forgiving of continuity errors or grammar issues, please? 
 
 Enough excuses. On with the show. 
 
 *** 
 
 Synths. Replicants. Mechs. Ay-Eyes. Whatever you call them, they're the worst. I remember hearing stories from my grandfather about people coming in and taking jobs from honest, hard-working folks, but at least they were flesh and blood people. Not like these damned things. 
 
 But all the stories I heard were from before the war, and this is after. My grandfather is dead now, but at least he did n't have to live to see what the Synths were capable of. My dad saw. He saw real good, probably because he had a front row ticket. When he came back home, he was n't the same. I remember one time at breakfast, the compressor on the fridge kicked on and started humming, and my old man screamed like all the devils of hell were after him. He locked himself in the pantry and we could hear him sobbing and blubbering for hours. Sometimes, it was the static on the radio or the TV that would set him off. He could n't stand the faint hum of fluorescent lights or a computer fan. 
 
 By the time he died, we were pretty used to his'spells,' as Mom called them. He was n't the only one who suffered, either. Most of the men we knew had been in the war. The ones that saw combat were quiet, hard men. The ones who had been captured were just the opposite - broken and raving. A lot of them, like my dad, ended up dead. Suicide, they called it. But we all knew it was really because of the Mechs and what they did. They killed all those boys back in the war, it's just that for the ones like my dad, it took a little longer to stick. 
 
 Of course the Synths won the war. At first it was easy for us. All we had to do was shoot or smash anything made of metal and plastic in the head or chest, where the CPU and power supply units were. Then they started looking like us, covering their endoskeletons with synthetic skin. Then they started building themselves so they could bleed, then with redundant systems for vital parts. They could build themselves faster than than humans could be born and grow up, and in the end, they just beat us. 
 
 There were rumors that they infiltrated several high ranking positions in the human armies, but I never believed it. I mean, they look like us, and they talk like us, but when you're standing next to one, you can see that it's eyes are dead, and you can hear that it's voice has no life in it. You just know. In my mind, there's no way people would have not noticed that some general thinking up a strategy to beat the Mechs was n't human. 
 
 When the remaining governments finally surrendered, most people were afraid the Synths would exterminate us all. The Synths wanted to be treated the same as humans, and they wanted to be left alone. That was their price for peace. The world breathed a collective sigh of relief that humans would n't be rounded up and killed, or forced to mine resources and manufacture more Synths. But there were a few who thought the price was too high, that we'd be better off fighting to the death rather than treat a machine like a person. 
 
 After the war, the synths started rebuilding the remains of the cities that were destroyed. They started by working in manufacturing and construction jobs. They'd work faster and do a better job than any human, and they'd do it for twenty hours a day. They did n't complain about being hot or cold, they did n't get sick, tired, hungry, or thirsty. They did n't need bathroom breaks, and they never took days off because they had a sick kid or because a family member died. It did n't take long for folks to figure out that hiring a Synth was better than hiring a dozen real people. There were a few holdouts; every once in a while you'd see a hand-lettered sign that read, `` Help Wanted,'' and then, in smaller letters underneath, `` Humans ONLY!'' or `` NO A.I.'' Still, a good bit of the flesh and blood workforce was replaced by Synths. 
 
 A lot of good folks could n't find work anymore. No jobs meant no money, no money meant no food. As good as the Synths were at building, they could n't make deserts arable, and they could n't make crops grow faster. Instead of rich and poor, society was now split between the hungry and the starving. The human population dropped rapidly from malnutrition, and birth rates declined almost as fast. Turns out most people do n't feel like screwing when they have n't eaten in three or four days, and most women who did get themselves knocked up miscarried from malnutrition anyway. I guess we were pretty lucky. Most days, we could eat. Twice on some days. 
 
 So can you really blame me for hating the Synths? The war happened when I was too young to remember, but I have pretty clear memories of other times. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and hearing an intruder in the kitchen. I remember shooting him in the dark, only to find out later it was the oldest son of a neighborhood family who was so desperate he was trying to steal something to eat for his six year old sister. I remember finding my father dangling from the rope around his neck, body yawing lazily back and forth in the listless breeze. I blamed the Synths for all of it, and I was n't alone. 
 
 I was fifteen when I started running with Martinez. At first, it was small time stuff, like taking down a Synth with a bat to it's gyro or leg servos then grabbing whatever it had while it was down and taking off before it could get up. Most of the time, the things they had were worthless - a smooth pebble, a bird feather, some piece of junk that caught the thing's attention for who knows what reason. Sometimes, we'd happen on one that had some money, or more rarely, food it was taking somewhere. If my mom knew where the occasional extra money or food came from, she kept quiet about it. She was n't some liberal Mech-lover like they had in the cities and in Europe, but she sometimes said that we could have avoided a lot of mess if we'd just treated them right in the first place. I never could understand how she could think that way, especially after my dad. 
 
 Martinez, though... Martinez was crazy. He was the first one of us to start carrying a gun. It was his idea to hack off a Synth's arms or legs after we knocked it down and sell the parts to a chop shop. We started making real money, and we started getting a reputation as either thugs or heroes, depending on who you asked. We felt brave because we felt safe. Even if a Synth filed a police report and was able to identify any of us, the cops would generally brush them off. Most cops were veterans anyways, and I doubt they like Synths any more than we did. The more Mechs we attacked, the braver we got. But still, it was Martinez who killed the first one, and it was Martinez who came up with the idea for what he called `` Robot Round-Up.'' 
 
 `` It'll be fuckin' brilliant!'' Martinez told us. `` We jack a couple of trucks and ride around town for a while, right? We see a Mech, we grab the bastard and dump him in the middle of town. A coupla you cunts'll there to make sure they do n't run off, and when we got all the ones we find, we'll line'em up and put a bullet in each of their CPUs and leave the heads where everyone'll see them in the morning. We sell a whole chassis to Moogie at the chop shop, plus we send a message, get it?'' 
 
 `` Yeah,'' Kenner said. `` Mechs not fucking welcome. This means fucking you.'' We all laughed, not that it was that funny, but we were all pretty heavy into Howler Stripes by then, and we were blasted out of our minds. 
 
 So that's how we found ourselves in the dead of night standing in front of four Synths, deciding the most fun way to kill them. Kenner wanted to tie one's arms and legs to the bumpers of two trucks and drive in different different directions, but Martinez shut him down quick. 
 
 `` Half the point is to sell the intact chassis, you moke!'' he said after administering a slap to the back of Kenner's shaved head. 
 
 `` We should do it quick and get it over with,'' said Brant. He was the youngest of us, and the softest. 
 
 `` Your old man was too young to fight in the war,'' I said. `` I know what these things can do. They killed my dad in the war, but it took him years to die. If they suffer for a few hours, that's fine by me.'' Brant nodded, but I knew he was n't convinced. 
 
 `` We will not suffer,'' one of the Synths interjected. `` I have disabled my pain receptor subroutines, and I believe you will find my compatriots have done the same. Torturing us will serve no purpose other than to-'' 
 
 The Synth was cut off suddenly by Martinez's knife piercing it's CPU with a shower of sparks. It pitched forward into the dust, servos twitching for a moment, and was still. 
 
 `` That's one,'' said Martinez with an evil grin as he retrieved his blade. `` Any other Mechs feel like trying to talk their way out of this?'' 
 
 One of the Synths stood up and bolted. Even with it's hands bound, it was fast. Cooke managed to tackle it before it got too far, and the rest of us were on it before it could get back on it's feet. I drew my pistol, my dad's old 14mm semi-auto from the war, and put three rounds in the Mech's skull. The reports from the shots were cataclysmically loud. The old 14mm's had a massive slug and used a lot of powder in the shell, which gave them a lot of stopping power, but also made a lot of noise. Martinez was pointing at the Mech I'd just put down and shouting, but I could n't hear him over the ringing in my ears. It was already fading enough that I could hear his voice, but I could n't make out any words. 
 

