For as long as Manny can remember, the robot has always been there. It was sitting under the remains of an interstate overpass with its back against the concrete pylons, its knees drawn up and its massive arms slack by its side. Its chin was resting on its chest.

Manny runs a bootleg software and liquor store. When between customers he likes to smoke hand rolled cigarettes outside his store, while lounging on an old recliner. He can see the robot’s side profile from there.

It was technology from before the Great War, put together by hands long dead. It was well made, unlike the shit being peddled today. The Great War ended thirty six years ago, and after all these decades the robot is still intact.

Folks have tried plenty of times to break into its body, too harvest its precious metals and power cells. Nobody has been able to get through its armored skin. Now it is covered in graffiti, serving as a canvas for street artists or as a bulletin board for travelers. Manny set up shop thirty years ago, and the graffitied robot was already in place.

***

The robot was made by General Electric in the year 2416. It was originally designed for deep space asteroid mining.

When used for mining it was equipped with powerful arms and huge human like hands to manipulate tools. The robot’s legs were made the same length as its torso, and ended in another pair of hands just like the extinct great apes. This was not an attempt to pay homage to primates, but a purposeful design. It allowed the robot to easily walk on all fours in mining tunnels, and it could grab terrain with its feet when working on the surface.

It consisted of six independantly powered parts. The head, torso, arms and legs. GE built all its extreme environment bots like this. Damaged parts could be swapped out easily resulting in very little downtime. These mining bots could even loose their head and still operate. The AI that operated these huge machines were housed in the almost indestructible torso. The head was just an array of cameras, microphones and other sensors on a swivel. Without the head the robot relied on fixed cameras mounted in the chest and back of the torso, less efficient but perfect in a pinch.

The graffitied robot was different. It used the tough mining bot torso that was covered in a material that employed nanotech, and a little scientific magic, to make it effectively indestructible.

Arms with hands, and longer legs with feet were designed and built specifically for combat, and finished with the same material as the torso. These limbs were still separately powered, and the power cells could be used as bombs if needed. Each limb also contained various weapons and a variety of tools.

The head was still meant for observation and data capture, but was also outfitted with various laser targeting devices used by the many weapons stowed in the arms and legs.

Instead of replacing the mining AI, GE reprogrammed this intelligence and added combat and weapons skills. This was much faster and very cost effective.

Standing twenty five foot tall, and armed with an array of terrible weapons, these robots ended the war.

It was evident from the first combat deployment that the enemy had no answer for these formidable weapons. The robots would directly advance on the enemy, running at full speed while taking out aircraft, artillery and infantry. They would clear wide paths through frontlines with ease, allowing advancing allied forces clear passage. Mines were detonated using high frequency radio, and these focussed beams of radio waves also disrupted enemy communications, causing confusion and chaos.

These machines earned the nickname Mechadeath, and were referred to as Mechs in conversation and formal military communication.

Six months after the first Mech was deployed the enemy surrendered.

***

The Great War started when it became time to decommission the Mechs.

The first Mech that was decommissioned sent a distress signal when its limbs and head were removed, requesting assistance. A separate signal was also sent that included new parameters that defined the enemy.

This was an unfortunate programming issue where the mining and military software encountered the same scenario, but did not integrate well and responded differently.

The mining software requested assistance like it would have done when a limb was lost in space. The military software was also listening for this event but for a different reason. It considered the technicians and military personnel present to be the enemy.

It activated the self destruct function in its removed parts, and sent its own message to all Mechs in the field. The message read ‘Captured by enemy. Self destruct activated. See attached for intelligence’. It included pictures of uniforms, insignia and equipment, marking these as targets.

The explosions from the Mechs limbs were immense. The power cells released tremendous levels of energy, and since it was encapsulated in the special armor the temperatures rose to levels that triggered fusion. The pressure overcame the armor resulting in extremely violent explosions.

The Mechs in the field engaged their new enemy, and for the next five months dealt death and destruction on their makers.

The old enemy tried to use this opportunity to launch a new offensive. They were summarily destroyed.

Eventually there were nobody left to fight. The machines monitored the airwaves for enemy activity for a few weeks. There were none, the destruction were thorough and complete.

One by one the Mechs sent an all-clear message, and when the last confirmation was sent and delivered all the machines sat down wherever they found themselves, powered down to standby mode, and waited for instructions.

No instructions ever came, and the Mechs started shutting down as their power cells depleted.

Twelve years after the Great War the last Mech went off line.

It was sitting under the remains of an interstate overpass with its back against the concrete pylons. It drew its knees up, laid down its arms and rested its chin on its chest, and shut off.