The Horror Library - The Best in Horror Fiction

Silent Invasion
By Jason R. Beirens

The gibbous moon opens my circuits to the phosphorous stars. The slithy tentacles crawl from my innards to worship the night, the stars, the space beyond. The thing inside me tastes the air, and the binary codes that run my consciousness, my feelings, my being, are given the orders to calculate, to taste, to take in the air as well.
~
It was two nights ago when the rock fell from the sky. 102-5B and I, 100-4C were walking on the beach. To break the beauty into formulae that could be input into our systems and other systems, stored in memory cells. We sold sensations, emotions, feelings; it is how we continued to function in society. Previous successes in sensation loading included: fear, sadness, cold, hot, love. The sensation beauty, or happiness, however the formulae was to solve itself, was to be our next top seller.

The night was calm, no discernable winds. The sand underneath us was white, tiny one celled life forms struggled to evolve into greater beings. Then the rock fell as reported earlier, it struck down 102-5B, ceasing his functions as a robotic being. The damage far too great; there was to be no repair. I looked at the rock, and the twisting, sparking remains of my partner. then the tentacles came out of the wreckage; they crawled out, tasting the circuits of the defunct. They reared back, and began moving towards me, I would have left the area had I known, but I was as curious about it, as it was about me.
I heard whispering, unknown sounds. It, the many tentacles belonged to one creature, was attempting to communicate. It took me a few milliseconds to decode the language it was speaking.
~
The alien thing stretches to the sky, calling out, the voice amplified by my communication cartridges. It calls out for a long time, my body, stiff, standing still as if I am fresh from the assembly line, no input injected, non-activated. Then a voice from the stars comes back at us.
The creature wriggles in anticipation, taking in the communication. I am privy to only part of the conversation.
~
When the tentacles took hold of me I was at first unconcerned. It then began to infiltrate my circuits, to take control of primary functions. I understood the feelings it was having. It was curious, and then excited. I had been, for the most part taken over. I still had, and still do have consciousness, though not completely my own, we both know what each other thinks, what we feel, to a large extent. It's strange to exchange bio-rhythms with this creature. I feel actual life, juices of different kinds flowing through internal tubes, a skin, stretchy and sticky, it is uncomfortable. It frightens me.
~
We two creatures are floating now, looking down at the city of 10100110. Lights flit in all different directions. The tentacles move slowly about inside, my circuits in strange ways, awkward, painful. My innards are becoming coated in a thick organic liquid. The sky is full of stars, no clouds, no rising smoke, no smog. The stars are unrestrained, shining their light down on this world.
The organic thing inside of me has invited its race here. The coordinates of the planet were given from my knowledge. I feel, in part thanks to my new companion; dirty, ashamed of what I have brought to my fellow machines, my friends, enemies. I only know these feelings because of this thing inside me. It feels joy, anticipation, I feel the opposite.
We await the beginning of the exodus. What is it that this invasion will bring? I fear death for my kind, or assimilation. We are free willed beings, and that will be taken by these creatures. With the little free, private memory I have left, I cry, for the loss of free will.