In the middle of a town a massive body leans awkwardly against a stone well.

Its wooden musculature groans as it shrinks in the afternoon heat.

The iron casing seems barely able to hold everything together and the eyes

are dull and sunken. As the wind blows, the well's moldering bucket taps against the head.

A tattered cape once once died a rich maroon, flaps open to reveal symbols carved by dozens of hands,

strewn up and down its wooden limbs. A man stands over the body, the first footsteps to

grace this main street in decades. He leans over the wood and metalwork and

says, This should get him going.

He flips an iron switch, splattered with rust below the metallic left shoulder blade.

All at once, rays of sunlight pierced designation TR8 sees eyes and years of memories flood his circuits.

He remembers Governor Ander slotting his last year into place and the warm glow of her hands

as she gave him his spark of life. He remembers training in the city

guard where he excelled at the physical and mental requirements but never quite earn the

trust of his peers. On his fingertips he feels the heft of the satin maroon cape and the roughness of the spotty

copper emblem he earned after making his first contraband bust. He feels the dull ache of the spot or the local kid through a rock

at him for the first time. He didn't understand the child's anger then and he still

can't quite reconcile it. He hears the clank of his manacles closing on the child's slim wrists.

The jail cell where he threw the child smelled so strongly of rot that even TR8C couldn't stand being in that building for longer than he needed to be.

Then, a flash of fire and iron.

He sees the townsfolk forcing their way into the mansion his home to remove

Governor Ander. His chest tightens with these tinges of emotion still present but dulled.

His wooden flesh wimpers as it constricts.

...