Soulless Beauty Aorta

DEATH AND REBIRTH

Centuries after the destruction of Earth, an enormous, metallic planet took the same orbit around the sun that Earth once followed. This unknown titanic mass of steel and flesh was far larger than the Earth, and was a rusted bronze color, tightly enclosed and surrounded by a soft, thin, clear covering, filled with a translucent, water-like liquid. It had an odd shape, with miles long strands of thin white fibers protruding from a hole in the southern point of the covering, fibers that flowed along the southern hemisphere, branching out in all directions. On this mass, lived hundreds of thousands of sleek, platinum humanoid machines. They looked like humans, and moved like humans, but lacked one very important human trait- free will. On their left shoulder they bore a black half-octagonal plate bolted to their exterior, which read MANNA. These mechanical and electronic reflections of humanity were called Aorta units.

The Shell, as it was called by the few Aortae who could speak, was unlike any other planet. Most of the space taken up by Aortae inhabiting the planet was in its interior- an interior made up of layers and layers of bronze and steel colored metal hallways and rooms, covered in pipes, wires, and lights, organically weaving in and out of each other, joining and splitting, all stretching on seemingly forever. Liquid dripped from above and oozed from the walls. The corridors were draped in a dense fog along the ground. The deeper the layer- and the closer to what would have been the planet's core, if it even had one- the fewer Aorta units there were. Only four stood stationed around the core acting as guardians and leaders, the Quadrant Authority.

One of the machines inhabiting The Shell, Aorta unit Tau, had been assigned mining duty, and was up on the surface, positioned underneath the massive tangle of white fibers at the south pole. Tau removed a jackhammer from the pack it was carrying, and set the tip into the soft but tough ground, squeaking like thin rubber as the sharp, flat point pressed into it. Mining was a routine job, the Quadrant needed parts for both themselves and the inner workings of The Shell. The thin lining around the planet, and the thick, jelly like liquid inside of it, eventually regenerated.

Just as Tau was about to begin, lightning, charged by the static electricity of the fibers above constantly rubbing together, violently struck a nearby Aorta unit, causing it to explode, bits of its surface covering attached to various chunks of... something, rocketed apart, accompanied by a thick liquid. The top half of the torso, still all in one piece, was quickly pulled back down by the strong gravity and splattered against the ground with a SPLUNCH. The event was obscured by the shadows created by the fibers, causing it to be hard to make out where the Aorta was standing when it was hit. The scattered remains began to liquify, and be pulled down and absorbed into the soft surface of The Shell, just like any other Aorta.

Meanwhile, Tau was hard at work, picking off bits of the mechanical innards just under the surface, and once enough had accumulated around the tip of the jackhammer, gathering them up and placing them into the pack on its back, to be used later by Aorta mechanics and scientis-

Tau's vision went white, its audio receptors temporarily overwhelmed with feedback- an electronic version of tinnitus. It couldn't see, it couldn't hear, it couldn't feel, but a new sensation came to the front of its mind. It was a feeling of... existence. Of consciousness. A word appeared, seemingly out of nowhere within Tau's brain- R̨̡͝҉͢o̵̵̸͘͢s҉҉̧̢e̷̛͜͡͏. It wasn't clear but it was there. The word appeared again, R͡҉o̢̨͏s̷҉͢è̡. Is this... my name? ... Of course, Rose. I remember now, my name is...

[Rose]

Rose's vision finally returned to her, and for the first time in countless years, she could finally see clearly. She looked down at herself. Her body was charred and burnt, the soft, silver covering all over her form was melted and peeled back in places to reveal rigid and sharp metal mechanisms and systems underneath. This... isn't... my body... what happened? When did I turn into-

A third lightning strike hit, electrifying the ground further away than the bolt that hit the first Aorta unit. Rose panicked. Where was she? What the hell was this? Why were her insides metal? Another bolt of lightning ripped across the sky. Rose scrambled to her feet, panicking, and tore across the ground to the nearest elevator terminal- a cylindrical black shard jutting up from the ground- stumbling as her feet sank on the squeaking rubbery surface. She grabbed onto the terminal to stop her movement, the momentum of her body threatening to throw her to the ground had she not kept her grip on the monolithic interface. She slammed on the buttons over and over, trying to scream, but no noise escaped her steel lungs. After what seemed like an eternity, red lights and a broken warning noise both erupted from a nearby threshold, and a concrete door opened in the ground. What was once an elegantly crafted- yet now dingy and dirty- golden elevator forced its way up out of the shaft on its rails, slamming to a halt when it hit the end of them, not quite flush with the threshold of the horizontal opening it had been summoned through. Rose forced her estranged body through the doors before they had fully pulled themselves open, and smashed the button with a down arrow on it.

The doors struggled to close but then slammed shut, and Rose had a moment of respite. She slumped down onto the red carpeted floor, spattered with stains, and sat in silence. Warm tears streamed from her eyes, accompanied only by the humming and creaking of the cold elevator as it ground and sparked down its rails into The Shell. Rose lost track of the passing time as the elevator continually descended, squeaking and whining all the way. The yellowed light overhead flickered now and then while she attempted in vain to process what had happened.

Rose. It was the only word she had. It was the only anything she had. She only knew to go to the elevator because she recognized the panel on top of the black cylinder as an elevator operation interface. All she knew was that she was somewhere she didn't recognize, and that she was completely, utterly terrified. The floor stopped moving, and a garbled chime rang out from above. The dented and marked golden elevator doors made a metal-on-metal grinding squeal as they reluctantly half opened.