SUNLIGHT

The Sentinel never blinked.

Its eyes panned slowly and unceasingly, nudged in semirandom directions by algorithmic processes. Pure randomness would mean that portions of the field of view would be missed or overemphasized. Total pre-programmed and pre-planned monitoring movements could lead to an invader learning the patterns and creating a split-second blind spot. And relying on the natural impulses of the Sentinel's formerly human brain was obviously out of the question.

Flesh was weakness, after all.

The Sentinel had shed much of its former weakness. Like any subject of the Axial Empire, the Sentinel had long been equipped with enhancements that made it closer to The Ideal. Even so, it had been unquestionably, embarrassingly human. Its ascension to Sentinel was a great honor and a powerful blessing. The process had sloughed away so much of the flinching, squelching meat of its old self and replaced it with cool, steady perfection. It was only through these blessings and gifts that the Sentinel was able to achieve its true potential. Some of these changes were small, like the adjustments to the Sentinel's tear ducts, making them provide constant lubrication and removing the need to blink. This let the Sentinel keep uninterrupted watch over its assigned purview.

Some of the changes were larger, though. For example, significant musculoskeletal rebuild was required to all the Sentinel's body to survive here, in its new post. The Sentinel was one of a picquet of identical Sentinels aligned at the Kermadec Commark - the thousand-kilometer eastern border of the Empire formed by a ten-thousand-meter-deep seafloor trench. The Sentinel was stationed at the ridge of that trench, exactly 6,147.408 meters below sea level. Six times deeper than the deepest reach of the sun's rays. The Sentinel existed under the equivalent of six hundred atmospheres - over eighty-eight hundred pounds per square inch of pressure trying to collapse its body at every second. It was protected by the Harlcraft it was nestled in, a teardrop-shaped vessel of sleek black carbon nanosheet. Barely bigger than the Sentinel's body, the Harlcraft rested supine on the seafloor, nearly invisible. The faulty biological eyes and sensory organs of likely invaders would glaze right past it. Scans like radar or lidar or sonar would be muffled by the microscopic baffles built into the Harlcraft shell, muffling and damping them. The Sentinel was undetectable.

Its eyes flicked across the darkness, lying back and gazing down across the trench, ever ready to broadcast the alarm if any of the Empire's enemies were to crawl forth. The Sentinel was a faultless guard, just like all Sentinels. A perfect cog in a perfect machine.

TWILIGHT

The Sentinel had no need to track the passage of time, so on the day its service began, those portions of its brain were suppressed. Each moment existed simply as the present. The Sentinel understood past and future, days and weeks and years, but only as frames of reference or units of measurement. It did not experience the passage of time like a distractable, impatient human brain would.

Because of this, it had no idea how long it had been on watch when it first heard the signal.

kkkkrss - kkkrsss - kkrrrrss

Soft rasping pulses of static, like squelches of white noise. Three of them, all in succession. They were startlingly imprecise. The first lasted four hundred and fifty-one thousandths of a second. The second was five hundred and thirty nine. Then the third, far more rapid - three hundred and eight-eight thousandths of a second. The pause between the first and second was eight hundred and sixteen thousands of a second, but the pause between the second and third was eight hundred and ninety. The variances in tone, volume, and pitch were so extreme as to not merit cataloguing. There was effectively no consistency at all. It was clear instantly -  this was not the clarion clarity of an Axial Empire subject. This was not a measured, mechanical, perfect transmission.

This was something biological.

Revulsion hit the Sentinel's stomach like waves on the hull of a ship. This was a trained response. When the Sentinel had moods or emotional responses, they were a product of the hormone oversight system installed along its spine. Much like the human brain had evolved a behavioral immune system to avoid pathogens in waste, the drones of the Empire were equipped with preset reactions to keep them tasked properly. Being confronted by evidence of pure, unaltered, unregulated biological life would always send a frisson of disgust and loathing through the very core of the Sentinel. And this broadcast, whatever it was, was clearly something organic. 

kkkrrs - kkrrrrrss - kkrrrs

Again the Sentinel absorbed the signal. Its body squirmed slightly in the confines of the Harlcraft, nauseated. A second analysis of the signal confirmed its suspicions. Axial communications used extremely low frequency radio waves, which - while still far less perfectly compressed and idealized than their dry-land counterparts - were clear and specific. This wasn't that, though. This was broadly distributed and not at all tailored to the Sentinel's receiving frequency.

This was something talking.

A disgusting method of communication. Using musculature and bodily gases to compress the air. Blithely belching out creaking grunts in every direction. So careless and grating. Horrifying.

The Sentinel didn't imagine this was a human being, of course. An unimproved human couldn't survive down here, and any human ascended enough in Axial hierarchy to be here wouldn't do something as crude as talk. 

No, this was something else. This was something from the trench.

krrrss - kkrrs - kkkrrs

Further analysis of the message was even more chilling. The waveform wasn't large enough for much study, but the Sentinel was nearly certain that the specific Doppler deformations were clear about three things. One, the source of the broadcast was somewhere deep in the trench the Sentinel was monitoring.

Two, the source was moving. Not quickly, but it was rising up.

And three, the broadcast was not extended out randomly in all directions. It was pointed. Directed. It was talking to the Sentinel.

MIDNIGHT

The Sentinel, eyes ever tracing the endless black of the bottom of the sea, chose not to report the message to the Axial Core. This was for three reasons, two of them good.

First, the message was new and brief and thusfar unclear. It had come three times that first instance, three repetitions of three bursts. Some time later - nine hours later, according to the Sentinel's temporal logs - another three repetitions of three bursts. Effectively identical to the first, though of course still with the same organic sloppiness as before. The Sentinel had been analyzing the transmissions for encoded data packets or occluded informatics, but had found nothing so far. It was just... noise. This was not enough information to ask the Axial Core to address. Further sampling and analysis was  needed.

Second, the message could not be confirmed safe. While it seemed likely that the transmissions were without content, the Sentinel could only guarantee that to an extent of forty-four point oh seven percent. There was a large possibility that there was some kind of hazard buried in these messages. Something that would wreak havoc across the Imperial Distribution if communicated to the Core. The Sentinel was but one iteration of the Sentinel Program. The Sentinel was expendable. If the message did somehow turn out to be an infohazard attack of some kind, it was the Sentinel's duty to absorb it and let it go no further.

These were good reasons. 

The third reason was because the Sentinel found a strange, compulsive thrill that came along with the disgust it felt towards the transmissions. They were repugnant things, filthy with the stink of pure organics. But the longer it analyzed those transmissions, the more it felt a growing fixation with them. Its body, sheathed in the tight gleaming black of its Axial nanosuit, had begun to sweat. There was no biological need for this function anymore, as the nanosuit regulated its body temperature to the ideal hundredth of a degree. And yet there it was, lying back in the Harlcraft, listening to those sounds again and again, sweating and attentive.

The Sentinel didn't need to breathe. Its body still had a pathetic addiction to oxygen, it's true, but the Harlcraft provided. By positioning itself along a seafloor current, the waters moved across it rapidly enough that microscopic ridges in the craft's surface functioned as gills, scraping oxygen molecules from the water and diffusing them directly through the Sentinel's skin. Still, it felt itself inhale with shock and anticipation when another broadcast came through.

krss. krss. krss.

Different, this time, the Sentinel could tell immediately. Clearer. Closer. The Sentinel imagined this thing, whatever it was, slouching its way up out of the depths of the trench and shambling towards it. The Sentinel's heart thudded rapidly at the idea of it. Some massive beast, perhaps, all flesh and cartilage, yanking its way though the water with fins.  Or something squidlike, propelling itself via some clumsy jet-like ejection. Whatever it was, it would be haphazard and inefficient and graceless. The Sentinel's hormone oversight system delivered its familiar payload of chemicals, making the Sentinel's stomach lurch with disgust at these thoughts. But again, something trailed behind those feelings. Something that came from a place deeper and more ancient than the Empire's chips and wires in its head. A sense of fascination. Yes, it was tinged by disdain and fear and hatred, but the Sentinel couldn't dislodge the urge to hear that signal again. To feel that revulsion again.

krsss. krsss. krs.

Muscles tensed up the Sentinel's back as it heard those sounds again. Faint protrusions showed through the nanosuit as its nipples hardened. A shameful reaction, one without purpose or use. Involuntary, and as such, a reminder of the Sentinel's disgraceful past as an organic being. That shame of that reminder thumped against the anticipation of the slowly-rising trench creature, and the two energized each other, leaving the Sentinel reeling with the strength of the reaction. It had spent time down here, time it had no way of measuring. Sealed away at the bottom of the sea in ceaseless, watchful service to the Empire. It was an imperfect thing, true, but it worked towards perfection. It worked towards The Ideal - robotic, efficient, emotionless, mechanical. Yet here it was, squirming and gasping and feeling. 

Worst was the fact that it was anticipating. It knew a third transmission would be coming. Three sets of three bursts, just like before. Any moment now. The Sentinel couldn't know how long it had been since the last one. Seconds? Hours? Every moment of its perception was colored with the feeling that another transmission was coming, though. A Sentinel was not meant to have desires. Wants. A Sentinel was simply the eyes of the Empire, on guard for threats. But the Sentinel had fallen out of step with that expectation and now was becoming something else. Something flawed and strange. It ached with sickness and thrill to think of that.

It remembered back to its earlier fear, that the transmissions could be dangerous to the Axial Core. That listening to them was somehow damaging. That felt more possible now. The Sentinel considered that each of these transmission could be somehow decaying its perfection, making it less of the efficient machine it was meant to be. That was a chilling thought, a nightmare. Nothing could be worse than being disengaged from the Axial Core. Everything that made the Sentinel what it was came from its connection to the Empire's perfection. Losing that was literally unthinkable. It would be like death, but worse. It would be like falling out of heaven. 

And yet the Sentinel could hear its own shaking, unnecessary breaths as it laid back, gently quivering, awaiting the next transmission.

krssss. krrrrss... krs.

A noise came from the Sentinel's through. Not speech, just a guttural heave of expelled air. Humiliating, to have its warm and fleshy body betray it like that. Involuntary noise. 

Its toes curled as it mentally reframed that moment. The thing from the trench was speaking to it. And the Sentinel had answered.

ABYSSAL

Sentinels did not need to sleep, not really. Not like they did when they were human. There was a rest state they engaged with, very seldomly. It was a passive mode of observation, where the brain diverted optic nerve input into a data storage bank. The eyes continued their movements, the ears continued their collection of audio, and the brain continued its processing of any and all information it was fed. But the consciousness of the Sentinel, as it were, went into a blank space.

This time, the Sentinel dreamed.

It was horrifying. The purpose of the Sentinel, after all, was to track and report on what was there. Spending its processing ability on hallucinatory nonsense that didn't exist? It was a waste of the Empire's resources, a profligate excess that spat in the face of efficiency.

The Sentinel's specific excess was dreams of the surface.

It dreamed of groups of humans. Faces and voices that made its heart beat heavy and rich, made its eyes stream with confused tears. It dreamed of a bright and confusing clash - shouting humans confronting a clutch of tall, sleek Vanguard drones. It was a futile thing, of course, and the humans were dispatched without passion or hesitation. But instead of feeling disdain and disgust for their fragile bodies and stupid, pointless rebellion, the Sentinel felt itself watching the humans with pride.

It dreamed of a cell. Its hands bound. It dreamed of anger and fear.

It dreamed of a lab. Its body strapped to a table. Doctors with Axial advancements grafted to their heads and hands descending efficiently upon it.

It dreamed of a base. Its head wired to a central programming unit, alongside five other new Sentinels, all of them downloading their new duties. Their new selves.

A thousand other things fit in the spaces between those dreams, like shards of glass. Like grains of sand. They did not fit each other, did not connect or make sense. But the Sentinel tried to grab them, greedily. Desperately. Trying to hold them to itself.

There was an image of the sun rising over a squalid apartment block. There was a scent of frying onions and garlic, pungent and mouthwatering. There was the sound of someone laughing, a sound that the Sentinel felt should be familiar but wasn't. There was a word that felt like it had weight somehow. Gravity. 'Kris'. A name? Who was that?

The Sentinel was roused back into full active mode before it could gather anything else. It hoarded those small secrets tightly, jealously. Sentinels were not granted the gift of memory, as it added no additional benefits to their effectiveness. The Sentinel knew that it should purge those data fragments immediately. They were taking up processing power that the Empire could put to better use. The Sentinel's brain was an object for the Empire's goals, after all, just like its body and its identity. But the thought of removing those bits of information left the Sentinel with dread and emptiness. So it held onto them. 

HADAL

The Sentinel wondered if the rest of its picquet was hearing the transmissions that it was. It wondered, if so, if they were reacting similarly. 

It knew there were others like it out here, surveilling the trench. It was connected to them, loosely, in a way that it did not have the capacity to understand. They were networked, parts of a whole. It imagined all of them listening to those broadcasts, all of them grunting and shifting in place. All of them dreaming. It was a sacrilege to even think of, a betrayal so forbidden that part of the Sentinel's programming urged it to purge its data files entirely. Erase itself. But the compulsions of the Axial Empire were weaker now. The Sentinel could make its own decisions.

Revulsion at that. Self-loathing. Then a wave of excitement at the unacceptable taboo of even having a self. To be a thing of its own, disconnected from the Core - this was treason. Traitorous. Each thought burned with shame and made the Sentinel's blood flare hot with excitement.

krss. krss. krss.

Another broadcast! The Sentinel's body stiffened and it inhaled rapturously. Its toes curled. The source was close now. Impossible to actually estimate - it could still be thousands of meters deep in the trench. But it was closer than it had ever been, and the sound of its voice was so vibrant now. So present. Intimate.

The Sentinel didn't anticipate the next message this time. It savored this space between. It let itself hang in the black nothingness of the seafloor, body tense and sweat-soaked and breathless, warm and receiving. It was a being of flesh and blood and it reveled in all the horror that carried with it. It was a servant of the Axial Empire, yes, but it was also an organic beast. A creature of disorder and urges that it could barely explain.

krss krss krss

The Sentinel groaned. It clamped its legs together, the nanosuit sliding on itself as the Sentinel's hips pressed up. It ground against the air, humping at nothing, dizzy with the overwhelming sensation of it all. 

There was no question anymore that the transmission was dangerous. It was destroying the Sentinel's perfection, that was clear. It wondered about the other Sentinels down here. Were they the ones it saw in its dream? All of them being programmed in unison. Perhaps that programming was being eroded and scratched away in unison, too. The thought made the Sentinel gasp.

It pictured all of them - interchangeable sleek black-clad drones - entangled together here. Writhing against one another on the ocean floor as something spoke to them, rose up from the deepest reaches. 

krs krs krs

All of them standing down. There were threats to the Empire out beyond the borders. The Sentinel knew that. Foul and hungry things, organic and greedy and pestilent. Things that only the Sentinels could keep at bay. There could be no worse betrayal than failing to uphold its duty and keep those threats back. There could be nothing more wrong, more shameful. And so the misfiring, malfunctioning brain the Sentinel had developed whirred with excitement at the idea.

krs. krss. krrs.

A whimper escaped the Sentinel's throat. Another? It hadn't even imagined the pattern could break like this. Three sets of three - hoping for more seemed ridiculous. Impossible. But here it was again. Clearer than ever. The thing in the trench was announcing itself now. It was close.

krs. krs. krs.

The Sentinel's hands were running up and down its body. It could almost feel its own skin through the nanosuit, a sumptuous and overwhelming sensation. The very body that it had found only shame in, only flaws and fault and inefficiencies. Now every one of those weaknesses was a dark thrill. It catalogued the names of its own parts as it touched. Scalp. Cheek. Jaw. Neck. Shoulder. Clavicle. Breast. Stomach. Hip. Thigh. Knee. Shin. Ankle. Toe. 

Krs. Krss. Krs.

It knew, somewhere, that the other Sentinels were feeling this too. The overlap of mental processing they shared was overwhelmed with physical sensation. It felt whispers of what they felt, as they touched as well. Each of them embracing the experience of having bodies. The Sentinel poured itself into the task, touching everywhere. Reinforcing its own physical being and mirroring the same onto the others.

The Sentinel's hands were between its legs. Touching there. Stroking. It felt the hands of the others doing the same, and it felt their bodies under its own fingers, too.

Kris.... Kris... Kris.

The Sentinel moaned, and knew the others did too. All up the Kermadec Commark, the defenses of the Axial Empire were turning their attention away from their task. The Sentinel didn't care. The Sentinel had only enough attention to listen to the beautiful foul organic flawed perfection of the voice.

Shapes lifted from the trench. One, then three, then dozens. Large and small. The Sentinel didn't care. A flotilla of creatures, hissing with alien voices, all massed with fins and tentacles and eyes, shimmering and biophosphorescent. They hung in the water above the Sentinel as it ground its body against its hands. Its eyes rolled back with overstimulation, back arching, as they drifted past. Into the Empire's territory. They all whispered that corrosive, corrupting signal as they passed, and the Sentinel drank up every bit of it.

It had failed in its mission. The programming that still coursed through its head delivered a brutally heavy dose of hormonal responses to that - fear and shame and hate and grief - but the organic signal had carved new paths into its brain. Those feelings were wrapped up inside sensations of thrill and heat and lust and release. The Sentinel had a sensation like it was tipping forward, over the ridge it was positioned on. Falling into the trench. Going over the edge and plummeting into something blissfully, endlessly dark and receptive.

The Sentinel felt its body release. It cried out, spasming, as it climaxed. The others were doing the same. It knew it. All of them, watching the invaders slip silently inward, and doing nothing but letting the urges of their bodies run wild.

The next climax came fast. Again, and again, until every last shadowy, lurking creature had passed. Then the Sentinel slumped back, exhausted and spent, listening out hopefully for another transmission.

The Sentinel had failed in its duties. It had never felt better.