Butterfly Effect

K-111, with his sweatshirt covered with glass shards, made a jump so far that it almost felt like he was flying.

The fall lasted only a few seconds, but in his mind, it was enough to allow him to land in the right spot, and using the same spring effect as before, even manage to break his fall.

The entire group of protesters backed away a few steps, evidently confused by what had just happened.

He was now only a few feet away from them, so drew his knife again, and pointed it at them.

But then he realized something.

Those people looked anything but dangerous; in fact, they didn't even look like the "rebels" Big Government was always talking about.

There in the middle there were fathers, grandfathers, mothers, children, indeed no, there were whole households, all gathered together to peacefully protest.

None of them were armed or had aggressive intentions, in fact although the boy came alone, no one attempted to attack him.

One of them broke away from the group and approached him, who in the process, without realizing it had lowered his weapon.

"Listen, we are here for a specific reason.

Trying to stop us is useless, we are unarmed and we have no placards with the forbidden word on them, you can't chase us away."

"Forbidden word? What are you talking about?"

"You know very well that if we uttered it we would be immediately arrested, don't play this game with me, we won't take a single step back."

"I don't know anything about this bullshit, I only know that you are not armed, and by not posing a threat I can even let you go, the consequences would be worse if you didn't listen to me, believe it."

"You have to think for yourself brother, as we have decided to do, we humans have the gift of conscience, and we are able to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, and that's why we fight."

He was fed up with hearing about freedom from a Citizen, all his life he and the other Machine Men, have lived in total slavery, without a shred of freedom of choice, and he knew this all too well, instead they who have everything, had the courage to complain and riot in the name of some mysterious unmentionable cause.

At that point K-111, decided to take matters into his own hands, and pointed the knife between the eyes of the unfortunate guy in front of him, making him cross them.

"Listen well motherfucker, I'm not going to say this again, get out of here immediately if you don't want to lose your skin."

At that point, he startled by such an unexpected reaction for him, backed off and took the procession with him.

"Well, mission accomplished, now i can-".

He was interrupted by the involuntary shift of his eyes, which turned white again.

"What are you doing?"

"They're unarmed boss, I convinced them to leave, they won't cause any more trouble, you can be sure of that."

"Of course I am sure, because now you are going to take them out."

"But as I have already told you they have given up and caused no harm, besides there are also women, children and the elderly."

"I don't care.

Your job is to eliminate those who oppose Big Government, and they are guilty in that respect.

Moreover, I remind you that you are only my weapon, no one told you that you could make a decision on your own.

How dare you oppose my orders? I am your boss, and I decide what you do.

You are nothing but a ruthless heartless murderer, it will not be difficult for you to kill some civilians for the cause."

"Wait-."

This time it was something else that interrupted him.

He heard that strange noise again, like the first time.

His Machine Heart was going into overload.

He felt the gears in his chest rubbing against each other, crushing and jamming, felt the blood pressure rise relentlessly, as if someone had opened a fire hydrant to pump blood throughout his body.

His eyes, still turned to look inside his own skull went from white to dark red, and swelled like all the veins in his body.

He had become a bundle of nerves and boiling blood, and the roar of his fake heart that seemed to want to destroy itself at any moment was audible to everyone within a mile radius of where he was standing.

The pain he was experiencing at that moment was something he had never experienced in his entire life, not even the harshest training he had been subjected to, or the torture for psychological endurance, could compare with the misery he was feeling at that moment.

By now there was no longer any question of anger or rage.

Not even the killer instinct would have been able to describe the feeling K-111 was experiencing at that moment.

In the midst of all this suffering, only one thing came to his mind.

"Who is doing this to me?"

"Them."

His eyes returned to where they were.

The two dark pupils, surrounded by a disgusting red, pulsating sclera, saw the cluster of people intent on staring at them.

And they did not like it at all.

"Press the red button, and do your duty."

"My duty is to kill.

I will kill those who harm me."

Even his voice seemed to have turned into the whine produced by a steam engine.

Whistling and disturbing.

He was unrecognizable.

With a trembling hand, he decided to pose up to this hell, and pressed the red button.

He began to approach the crowd, which was paralyzed by the horror that it was facing.

K-111 grabbed the guy he had talked to earlier from his shirt and looked into his eyes, showing his face.

His usual childlike face had turned into a face with dry, atrophied muscles, dyed a rotten purple, resembling more that of a decrepit old man.

The protester's tears of panic fell on his hot cheeks, evaporating instantly, but they didn't last long, for by then the knife blade had already pierced his stomach, passing so easily that it wasn't even perceptible.

He then managed to free himself from the grip and take a few steps toward his wife and child but, collapsed a little further on, and his family ran, trying to help him.

However, when his wife lifted the man's head, he had turned completely red, and every vein, every capillary, and every single part of his body that contained even a drop of blood, had burst, due to the very high temperature he had reached.

But it wasn't over, because soon after, the woman also met his exact same end, in front of the poor daughter's barred eyes.

After that, K-111 approached the his corpse, and with a kick hurled it at the rest of the procession, only to pass out immediately afterwards, just a heartbeat away.

All the protesters present that day suffered the same cruel fate.

This is the Butterfly Effect.