Incident In Nevada: Chapter 3.

"Devoid of what made me human, I strode forward..."

Once more, I am dragged from my bed, taken to my gurney for the last time.
No longer do I object, no longer do I fight back; the protocol inside me prevents me from doing so.
Several men in black watch over the proceedings as I am strapped onto the accursed stretcher, my limbs pulled taut as the cold, binding straps are locked in order to keep me in place.
"Are we ready for the final phase?" shouted one voice.
"Yes - let the Assimilation culminate." answered another.
Once more, the needles plunge into my now-glistening skin, plunging into rippling cords of newborn muscle.
The machines do their dirty work as the needles retract, repairing, rewriting, replacing; stripping me of my humanity in some president's foolish quest for perfection.
Bone is strengthened, imbued with metal and materials unknown in order to increase its endurance.
Blood is pumped full of platelets, ensuring quick coagulation of wounds.
The mind is once more appeased, intellect rising and humanity decreasing.
Limbs extend, now holding up tense, lithe muscle dense enough to deflect the most grievous of blows.
The heart itself grows stronger, pumping blood faster, thrumming a now unnatural rhythm within my chest.
My outward appearance began to change drastically, beginning first with the tinting of the skin, now an inflamed pink hue which hides bars of muscle coiling around dense, light bone.
My face - oh! It was not recognizable as that of a human being anymore all warped and twisted beyond all recognition, with not a hint of its progenitor form. I could not bring myself to look at what I had become or at least I would have had I had eyes - just one of the many senses that Augmentation took away from me.
The process continued for hours, until at last, the protective shields raise, and the machines that operated on me begin retracting.
The procedure finished quicker than expected, and as the machines begin to slumber, the collective group of white coats and men in black take a few steps back as the straps are loosened and I tower to my full height.

Inspecting my reflection, I note down just how I now resemble a mocking parody of Man himself - a beast of nightmares, a demon of myth.
Tall, thick legs exuding some unknown substance are towering pillars of flesh, leading upwards to an abdomen intertwined with ropes of thick, strong muscle. The chest above rattles with my wheezing, melodic breath, expanding and contracting as life-giving air pours into this walking corpse; inside, the heart beats defiantly, almost as if it too knows of my fate and yearns to escape. Both arms, once humanoid in appearance, are now the stuff of nightmares - the bleached, pink skin covering over all previous scars. Downwards they travel, leading to hands that-should-not-be, yet they are, the fingers reduced to three long, narrow claws - not fit for creation or any of the more noble interests of life; these were designed to kill, and kill in the most agonizing way possible, piercing flesh, drawing blood and leaving the wounded to die in their own pitiful state.
As I shifted, I could feel artificial tubes piercing into my back - these, of course, I remembered that they were attached to a nutrition pack that would keep me nourished as my body adjusted to the Augmentation technology's forceful rewriting.
The tubes snaked into my flesh, just below the slender, yet almost swollen neck that held aloft a fish-tank of a head, my brain bobbing in the middle, suspended by some hitherto-unknown fluid. Whatever it was, it seemed to have ameliorative effects on my psyche - the nothingness that had plagued me was replaced by dull, yet inviting, comfort, ensuring my full co-operation.
Yet the most striking - and horrifying detail about this was that now, I was no longer recognizable as a human. Of course, the people in here would know of my past, but the enemy and my own people would not - all they would see was a towering abomination, filled with the blood-lust of man and the calculating mind of a machine.
After a few silent seconds passed by, I was guided to the outside world, the faint hiss of electric prods behind me keeping me moving. I reached those same doors I had walked through all those years ago and passed into the outside world - and at once, I recoiled from the sunlight, my skin almost hissing. Only when I was prodded and pushed did I possess the strength to come back out, out into the blinding sun, and afterwards I did manage to overcome the burning sensation I was subject to. My excitement waned as I was herded into a rather large, but cramped holding pen, where I was to spend my time until the vehicle reached its destination.
Inside, I was left to wander the halls of my mind, searching for memories of my past, but coming up holding nothing worth of value, just as I had done many years before without success.
Who was I?
I asked myself that very question so, so many times, and it is possible I would never know the answer.
Perhaps I did once - but no longer. My thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the holding door, and as the men in black gathered outside, I knew it was my cue to step back into the same world further torn apart by war and conflict.
As I stepped outside, I saw a broken land.
Instead of sunny blue skies, grey sullen clouds stretched for miles around, their by-products being the showers of ash that left the earth a rather uniform shade of silver.
Instead of the humdrum of ordinary life, or the melodious rhythm of belligerent traffic, I heard bombs falling and exploding on their targets, the screams of both friend and enemy ringing out.
Tanks and artillery beat out their own rhythm, their shells cascading upwards, only to blight the landscape as they delivered their deadly payload, leaving behind naught but shallow craters and crimson stains.
My mood (or rather, what was left of it) now lowered, I turned and looked at the very men who surrounded me, and they only said one phrase.
"Show time."

Devoid of what made me human, I strode forward, mind and muscle both yearning to be put to use.
Surveying the landscape for a few short moments, I found my targets almost immediately - an enclave of enemy forces mowing down anyone who dared approach their position with both gun and artillery fire.
Passing the husks of both man and machine that had failed to do the job, I strode forward like some Lovecraftian entity, covering several meters in the span of several seconds and ultimately greeted by a hail of lead and explosives. Rather than kill me, as part of my conscious had hoped, much of the damage caused had already begun to heal, and obeying the commands set down in my head, I began to kill.

Kill!
Kill!
Kill!

That was the only thought on my mind as the claws bequeathed unto me impacted flesh and broke bones, their numbers innumerable. All I could hear at this point was the screams of the wounded and dying, and were I a man of lesser fortitude, I would have perhaps collapsed and fallen into melancholy so deep, I would be unable to be roused from my morose slumber.
But I am no man - no man at all, so I kept hacking, kept slicing, kept fighting until at last, the enclave was broken.
My job done, I searched for my next enemy -
And then the tank shells impacted, followed by more staccato bursts of gunfire. Knocked to my knees I was, if only for a moment; the gaping craters the shells formed were coagulating at a most efficient rate!
My claws, the claws-that-should-not-be, cut through steel and heavy armor as easily as a knife would through butter, rendering machines immobile and inert in moments.
"Keep firing!"
"What is that thing?"
"Shoot!" "Shoot!"
Their cries rang out, all swiftly silenced by my claws as I raked their numbers down and down, disfiguring and dismantling all in the name of my nation.
Entire platoons of battle-hardened men were sent running, running away from me; whether that was due to my battle prowess or my most hideous countenance, that was yet to be seen.
As the enemy parted and the battle came to a fitting end, my figure drooped and sagged, shaken by ragged, tumultuous breaths, and had I had any semblance of emotion left in me, I would weep.
I would weep, for the families whose fathers I had destroyed, for the people who would not get to see another accursed day, but most of all, I would weep for myself, and the monstrosity I had become.
Alone on the silent battlefield, the void inside began to fill, not with anything material, but with a great, furious anger, ready to be exacted on my oppressors.
You see, they may have implanted orders into my brain, but to increase my effectiveness on the battlefield, I was given my greatest weapon; the ability to think.
Now, that may not seem like much, but keep in mind that each individual with Augmentation implants could not be truly controlled; only submission and extortion kept them in line.
No longer.
I was going to fight - not for my nation, not for promises of a united land, but for my freedom, and for the freedom of those imprisoned inside the facility.
With clear mind and purpose, I returned to my holding pen, and before the agents standing guard could say anything, they too were nothing more than bloody pulp on my hands.

It is my turn to exact my terrible vengeance on the tyrants that have kept me in chains and locked me away from the outside world.
Only victory or death will quench the blood-lust that permeates my very being; until either one or both happen, I have one goal only.
Kill.

Source of bio-mechanic image: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Newborn-Biomechanic-253568116