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I never spoke.
What need did a weapon have to converse with its creator? Why would a machine need to talk, when all transmittable data was available via computer? I didn’t need to announce my status; it was clearly visible on the screen to which I was connected.
I understood language, yes, and my orders, my function, were imparted to me verbally. But he was the one to speak. He never needed confirmation that I would comply; there was nothing else for me to do other than comply.
‘Built for one purpose.’
I never spoke to any of the people I encountered on my path. They knew what I was, and they feared me inherently. They shied away even as I struck down the instruments of their oppression. Only gradually, as the destruction began to accumulate in my wake, as the broken and singed metal fell to the ground with my passing, the guns useless, the camera eyes unseeing, only then did they attempt to understand what I was—not what, but why.
By the time I reached the tower I was their hero. They chanted, cheered, sang my praises. Every unit I cut down was another crack in the wall separating them from freedom, and it was inevitable that I would succeed. But what need did I have to respond to their hope? What they said was the truth. Of course it was; it was my function. That was what I had been told, that I had been built to be a hero. So therefore I was their hero. I didn’t raise my voice against this truth.
I didn’t speak to Wily, to the looming screens and speakers filled with his likeness. I didn’t need to inform him that I had come to destroy him; the dead signals from the Snipers in my wake, the cheering crowd at my back, my blaster pointed at his defenses, these were communication enough of my intent. I didn’t need to boast that I would triumph over any opposition he would raise; I had been constructed only for the purpose of doing so. It wasn’t bragging to state the obvious, and there was no need to state the obvious.
I said nothing to Wily’s Robot Masters, the advanced machines tasked with protecting their master only against the most grave of threats. I was that threat, and their objective was clear: Stop me. It wasn’t necessary for me to tell them they wouldn’t succeed, because such knowledge wouldn’t deter them from carrying out their orders.
I uttered no sound when their blows struck me, when the unfamiliar sensation of pain first registered in my systems. Speaking up wouldn’t ease the pain, it would only expend my energy. And I didn’t ask why my energy was draining so quickly, because who was there for me to ask? No one here had the answer. My creator wasn’t in that screaming crowd; he hadn’t come to bear witness to my mission, to the fulfillment of the function he’d provided me. He didn’t need to, when my victory was assured.
I didn’t cry out in pain when my arms were severed, first the shield and then the gun, my only means of success torn from me. I felt the fear start to rise, the trepidation that I might not succeed after all, the terror at what would become of me if I were to fail—what would become of these people if I were to fail. But I didn’t express any of it. I didn’t tell the crowd to run, to get themselves to safety, because I still believed I might be able to win somehow. It was my function to defeat Wily’s defenses and overthrow his rule; there was no way that I could be defeated.
When the electricity raced through my body, lighting my every sensor with signals of pain and knocking my processes offline, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t see, I couldn’t fight.
I finally had the thought to raise my voice; I wanted to call for my creator. I wanted to ask him to save me from this pain, to repair me, to make it so that I could accomplish what he’d built me to do.
‘I can’t win, please help me, Father—’
When I awoke, there was a new voice speaking to me. He asked me my status—no, he asked me how I felt. I looked to the computer screen; yes, all my readings were there. What more information was there to provide?
He told me I had been betrayed, that mankind was too cowardly to save me, that they could have stopped what had happened to me. He told me he was the only one brave enough to do what must be done, and that he would protect me from pain and death.
Would I agree to work for him?
“Yes.”