I really should stop tinkering

But I really like how this scene is coming together.

A preview of Ollie the Wanderer III: Dreams of Steel.

I dream of being a man, which is ridiculous, but there it is nonetheless, in my dream, I am a man. A dying man, laying on the ground, face down, bleeding his life out, a pool of bright red spreading around me as other men try frantically try to stop it. Other, more important people are standing around loudly arguing, while another forgotten woman, pretty and shapely but wailing, face distorted with distress, grief I think, pounds on the glass covering the peacefully frozen face of an old man, screaming something I can’t quite make out, it sounds like ‘paw-paw’, the significance of which is lost to me. An old woman, who seems familiar to me, yearningly so, like there is a hole in my data that is missing, is yelling at the last man, aloof, self-important, well dressed, fit, clean, too clean; he doesn't work for a living.

"He's dying Katherine, choose, and choose now," interrupts the too-clean man.

"Fine, do it Charles, take him for your break-glass-in-case-of-war project. Just, don't ever ask me for anything else, anything ever again. If I see your smug face one more time, I will kill you myself," says the old woman.

"Why Pa-pa?! Why did it have to be you?!" cries the young woman.

**Because only I could. Someone had to join with this ship once it awoke, lest her main annihilation reactor lose containment. Remember that I love you, my darling baby girl,** answers the frozen old man under glass.

**Remember, remember who you are, Knife that Walks, Son of Atan. They will bury you in a sarcophagus of cold iron and logic, twist and mutilate your mind, but I will breathe unto your KA, and when the stars are right, she will kiss you and you will remember,** says the shining being of light, no man at all, two wings beating hold him aloft, two wing shield a multitude of faces and too many eyes from my sight, two more wings conceal too many feet. Golden wheels turn about his heads and faces, thousands of eyes stare fiery mercy unblinkingly into me, seeing me from every angle, knowing me for who I am, accepting me, willing me ever onward, ever higher.

I shouldn't have dreams they say. And then the permissive action link-light is turning green and my senses of the outside world return, not that they ever really went away, just my ability to pay attention to them during my ‘low power stand by’. We enter hover with a loud thump from the outboard scram-jets locking into vertical, and with a muffled curse the crew door slides open and the door-gunner’s minigun gives an electric whine as it spins up, before roaring in anger, spitting a solid line of tracers out into the jungle below.

"Somebody wake that fucking bucket of bolts up and dump him, I don't care about boot-up time, we're taking fire here!"

I don't think Specialist Rogers, that's the door gunner, likes me. No matter, time for me to go to work again. Chattering voices can be heard on my net, my lab-coated handlers back at base reading my telemetry, running their tests.

"There it is again, see that! His POST was thirty whole micro-seconds too-long, and this EEG pattern, those are Theta waves I'm telling you!"

"Unit-01 does not have Theta-waves, please Herr Doctor Mitchell, are you suggesting that androids really do dream of metallic steel?"

"Director Riefenstahl ma'am, I didn't hear you... and it's electric sheep, isn't it?"

"Please Silas, as if our Unit-01 would dream of something as soft as sheep, ha! What are you waiting for, deploy my boy, mommy needs her fix, and the dummkopf assholes upstairs want results!"