Oh, Brother

Oh brother, if only you could see the work I am doing here.
It feels like only yesterday that you left this world of misery in a body bag. It pained me to see how the disease destroyed you, how it ate away at the thin tether keeping you in our world. To see how it ravaged your frail body was terrible, yes, but even worse was how it degraded your mind, dear brother. We always prided ourselves on our intellect, our raw genius, didn't we? I must admit, my own mind is... fading, but I know that we were great inventors. We pushed the natural boundaries of things, hand in hand as brothers, crafting great wonders of science and engineering for all to marvel at.
The Brothers of the Future, the Dynamic Duo, I think those were the names that they called us, before we parted...
Excuse my memory, brother. It is weaker than it was when you and I worked together, weaker than it was three hundred years ago. Yes, three hundred years.
When you died, brother, I was thrown into a dreadful grief. I thought it would pass with time; so many told me it would ease and fade as the years went by, but it didn't. It only morphed, grew into something different. Into a fervor. I knew that I could not live without you. My life had always been a two-man act, and you were the other half. I had new drive, and to see my new goals to the end, I needed to stay alive. Disease, age, these things could end my great, drawn-out plan, and they needed to be rendered null.
So I built machines. Small ones, at first, minor implants to increase my efficacy. With those, I could still walk the surface world as any average man could. Then they became bigger, more visible as I realized that I would not thrive on such small changes. The augmentations started relatively mundane, first replacing my fingers with metal contraptions to work quicker and without fatigue.
I took to wearing gloves in public.
I slowly and methodically replaced the joints and tendons in my limbs with sturdier metal counterparts, then I moved onto my bones themselves. My muscles, too easily fatigued, were replaced by synthetic strands. I took to wearing tinted glasses when I replaced my weak eyes with their superior mechanical counterparts, and as time went on, my body began to resemble more and more the machine I had desired. Wires crossed and plunged into my flesh, contraptions embedded into the skeleton pumped waste and kept my blood flowing far more efficiently than my organs alone could. Soon, the coat and glasses would not be enough to hide my magnificence.
The surface world hated me, hated what I had become. The imbecilic fools saw me as an abomination, unable to grasp the glory and genius of what I had begun to ascend into. I am sure you would have understood, brother; you would have seen the beauty of the shape I had chosen. You always were a man of progress.
They said I was a lunatic, a madman. They said to cease my experiments immediately, that they were inhumane and that I had to be stopped. The idiots simply couldn't understand that sometimes, you need to break a few bodies to make a miracle, and when I refused, they came in force. They smashed my laboratories and burned down my factories, destroying so many years of progress that I could have used, brother. And when they came for me, I retreated to the one place I knew they would be unwilling to follow.
Below.
I rebuilt my laboratory deep beneath the earth, beneath the ignorant politicians and conceited oligarchs and witless masses. Down there, I found a strange inspiration from the insects of the earth. To see how their little bodies worked so efficiently, so perfectly, I must say that I envied them, brother. Away from the people above, I found that nothing was holding me back now from achieving my perfect form, so that I might never be halted from my goal.
My lower body had to go, replaced by a system of four crab-like legs mounted to a pedestal at the base of my torso. My arms were crafted into four metal manipulators and contraptions, assisted by another set of robotic arms mounted to my back. I nearly completely replaced my organs, as much as I could, with metal and gears. With time and effort, I soon found myself completed, at my peak form. And so, my brother, I got to work on you.
You understand, I know. I am sure you would, I am sure you would recognize the logical beauty of what I am doing here. Right?
You are nearly complete, so nearly complete. I knew a mere copy of your mind would not suffice, not be you, and so I drew up a machine that could rip you from the ether and bring you back. Genius, isn't it? I will show you how it works when you return.
The machine, the Catcher, is nearly finished, and we will soon be back together. I have even built you a body, just like mine, designed to be the pinnacle of efficiency. Oh, how I long for you again brother. The insects, inspiring as they are, are not good for company, and I yearn for yours. I wish to revel in the days when we once stood side by side, working together on the future. And soon, I know, we can have those days again. We can push the boundaries yet further still, except in perfect forms away from those who would see our progress stopped.
Only a few days left of work, so close, so close...
Oh, brother...
I will have you back soon.
Category:Weird
Category:Mental Illness