[ WP ] You are an explorer . You step off of your ship and read the ancient sign . You can make out the words , `` welcome to New York City . ''

`` Welcome to New York City...'' I stare up at the sign, patched with rust and shedding flakes of what used to be green paint. The sign serves as part of a metal arch, acting as a gateway into an area that had once been called a city. 
 
 Blackened spires of cement and steel stab upwards, attempting to gouge the bellies of the gods who had forsaken its inhabitants so long ago. Angry fingers yearning to tear something away from whoever had forgotten them. *What could those titans of stone want, * I wondered. I shook my head, dismissing the notion. *Any trace of life has long since... * I pause, adopting a curious expression as my eyes catch movement. 
 
 I tap my temple and a glass screen slides over both eyes, performing scans, sweeps, and surveys over the area as my eyes probe every surface for the secrets within. No sign of life. Desolate, destitute, deserted. What had I seen? A long rifle hangs at my side, tapping the side of my knee with the pronged barrel as I trudge down a slope of flat stone. Pillars hold up large sections of the same flat, black rock broken off in huge chunks. I circumvent the broken stone pathway and finally begin to enter what remains of the city. 
 
 My scanner begins to pick up readings. *Curious, * I muse. *This sector has been devoid of anything interesting for centuries. * With slow, purposeful movements, I bring my rifle up and set out a more cautious pace. Who knew what had found a home in the shattered corpse of this place? The readings were really picking up, sending alarms into the side of my head, my skull ringing with bells and whistles. I tap my temple and the visor slides away, shutting out the noise and commotion in my own head. 
 
 *Damn, augments. * My eyes, ears, nose, anything that operated its own sense had been either augmented or replaced with an artificial enhancement. After being sent to some rather hostile planets, I'd made the decision to be a bit more prepared. Every muscle in my body was tensed, some of them enhanced by powered-servos ready to deliver more force than any normal human was capable of. Automatic injections of various performance enhancing chemicals, such as adrenaline were poised to be delivered into my bloodstream at a moment's notice. 
 
 In the recent years, our researchers had determined the amounts of radiation left behind on this planet had faded enough to allow unprotected scouting, albeit for a short length of time. There was no telling what had happened to this place or the beings that lived here, as well as no understanding how that had shaped the planet it had become. 
 
 My ear twitches as I hear a crackling to my left. I tense and lunge, my legs launching me several yards ahead to dodge an explosion of energy that rips the ground apart where I'd just been. I roll and my rifle snaps up, three blasts fired off quickly followed by silence. My eyes dart around, trying to find the source of the attack but to no avail. I'm alone. Or something would like me to think I am. 
 
 I stand, my rifle pointed at the ready as it orbits me in a wide arc, scanning my environment. I was cobsidering calling my ship when the building to my right explodes, bright flashes of rippling blue current sending pavement and dirt flying as it makes a beeline for my chest. I dodge out of the way, this time peppering where the attack came from in mid-jump with hot blasts of plasma. The sound from the attack echoes ominously around the skeleton of the city. 
 
 I'm watching the building when a voice calls out. `` Get out of here, stranger!'' 
 
 I hesitate before responding, my brain cycling through translations. Some odd variant of the language I read earlier on the sign. Was this person native to the planet? The fibers in my throat adjust to speak in his native tongue. `` Who are you?'' 
 
 Silence. Then, `` I said leave. No more warnings.'' 
 
 `` Did n't warn me much when you attacked me.'' 
 
 `` You're alive, are n't you?'' I chuckled to myself and then kept scanning the buildings. `` Stop looking for me, tin man.'' 
 
 `` I do n't understand.'' 
 
 `` You're half machine. Quit trying to find me with your demon eyes.'' 
 
 I'm silent, my heart beating a bit faster. I feel anxious being completely out in the open. `` How could you tell I was n't completely human?'' 
 
 A gust of wind whistles through the buildings and the city is calm, the stranger silent. `` I can spot an android, a bot, or a freak like you from a mile away. What do you think did this to us?'' 
 
 The stranger's words only seek to confuse me further. `` Are you saying there's others like you? Survivors?'' 
 
 `` The bots went silent, but I knew they would n't be gone long.'' A few stories up, an explosion of rock and dust showers down as another wave of bristling energy shoots like a dart from above. I pivot and hold my left hand up, my forearm splitting and a small engine the length and roughly the width of my arm sparks to life, spreading a dome of light around me. The stranger's blast crackles and sparks harmlessly against the surface of my forcefield. 
 
 `` Why do n't you just get the HELL OUT OF HERE!?'' The stranger's voice is drowned out by a deafening rumble a block away. Smoke and dust billow out around a nearby building before the building itself crumbles and bursts into pieces. The smoke covers the street, blowing around me and my visor slides over my eyes to keep out the dust. As the smoke rises, a shape begins to form, a massive figure gaining its bearings and staggering to its feet, easily towering over the building it had destroyed. Two red lights flash alive, eyes set into the giant's head. 
 
 I stare up in awe at the figure. `` How did we miss this?'' I mumble as the giant's head turns, a harsh, metallic scream reverberating in my ears as steel grinds against steel. 
 
 A booming thunder clap of a voice shakes the structures around me as the robot speaks. `` LIFE SIGNS DETECTED. RE-INITIATING FINAL SILENCE PROTOCOL.'' The mech takes a step, sending a wave of smoke outwards. I aim my weapon and fire as it lumbers menacingly toward me. From the building to my right bursts of energy are sent into the mech. Its massive head swivels and a single red beam of light pierces the building. Fire erupts out like a wicked, orange mushroom and I see the stranger fall to the alley beside me. His arms are almost as long as his body and they crackle with electricity from strange swollen polyps covering his forearms and hands. 
 
 I look back in time to see the mech leveling its foot over me, easily blotting out the sun as it shifts forward. I tap my ear and manage to scream, `` MAYDAY, I NEED REINFORCEM-'' before the world snaps to black in one thunderous boom.
