Mr. D. once upon a time, remarked to me that the sexual smell of a woman was the smell of the sea. He said that all life on earth began in the sea, all men are destined to return there to be resurrected. He said to me, once upon a time, “All life will return there to cleans itself after the fire.” I asked him what fire. He said it was the fire that never went out, the fires in engines. Prometheus’s gift that kept on giving. We were sitting outside Dwnwrdspyrl, behind the club where Sgt. Pepper, our volunteer guard dog, tirelessly watched the wind change direction. The sun was setting and Mr. D commented that the sunset looked like the edge of a brilliant sword, not the straight double edged rapier, but the gracefully arching Katana. The greatest swords on earth were made in Japan around 1333. Those swords had the graceful arch of the horizon.

     I was throwing fast balls to Pepper while the sunset played out across the sky. She could catch any decent pitch that I threw underhanded. She refused to play to an over the shoulder pitch. I threw an overhand pitch to Pepper so the game ended. She broke for the perimeter fence, to see what condition our condition was in. I had just given Mr. D the under the sea seal. It was our signal that would communicate an invisible message to all of us and none of them,  Even Pepper needed to be on duty now, to spot wayward wandering listening devices. Soon after the city wall had been completed, tiny devices, the size of flies, were deployed by Gov-com to collect information their lamppost cameras and mics were missing. Pepper thought they were biting flies. she would eat them. There’s no accounting for taste.

     Mr. D turned and said, “The sword makers in Japan were artists who captured the most powerful way of making steel blades. I wonder if a horizon like this one inspired them. They lived on an island, so I think they must have been looking out over the sea”

     It didn’t take long to cross the property and pile into the Mother=ship. When we were comfortably inside Mr, D continued, “I wonder if the plain simple single edged usefulness of the Katana represents the East, while the ornate straight double edged dagger and rapier represents the West.” The time was some weeks before Christine showed up. We were able  to enjoy long breaks of relative privacy those days. It was not always this easy to talk. We reveled in the luxury of privacy.

     I told him about my dream of the Horrible Machine.

     Mr. D told me another one of what we called IT had been discovered.

     IT was clumsy at first. Though it was always eager to find success, it would often be destroyed because of it’s fearlessness. As a medic on the battle field it was the savior of many, but it had no understanding of the pain or fear of the wounded. IT would advance through withering crossfire. IT would shrug off catastrophic wounds as if it felt no pain. IT would complete a mission without being turning away by staggering odds. A dream warrior, but this was not great for the state of mind of a wounded soldiers. Often the wounded would try to escape from their fearless saviors. As its creators began to understand the way the machine interacted with patients, it was agreed that unconsciousness was the best state for the patient. This allowed the machine to complete its mission, although the soldiers sometimes didn’t survive rescue. No wounded soldiers were left behind enemy lines, but it came at a staggering cost. The troops began to understand that the new field medics were a mixed blessing. It didn’t escape notice that they could withstand almost any type of impact. They could function despite burns, breaks, bleeding and being blown up. The machines would stabilize their patients, knock them out, and then proceed to the nearest evacuation site, even if it was on the far side of a mine field. The machine could bleed out, but this was rare. Something resembling death would only occur if a major artery was allowed to bleed freely for several minutes.

     The new medics were also physically perfect. If they got wounded they would be retired from service immediately upon completion of the mission. None of them wore the scars of battle for long. The information they gathered would be part of every machine that followed them, but they would not be repaired. Every mission was analyzed for the benefit of the next generation. IT always learned from its mistakes. In this way the machine became more human through every experience. Eventually, IT appeared to have genuine concern for, and IT attempted to reassure, the wounded, where before it had been cold and unsympathetic. It started to learn to talk right down to earth in a language that everyone could understand, instead of the cold scientific jargon of its creators. Now IT was ready for a new challenge.

     As a medic on the battlefield the machines clumsiness and idiosyncrasies were ironed out over the coarse of several years. Every mistake was corrected until the machines were fairly adept at melting into the environment, but stories began coming back with the soldiers of the living dead among them. One story was of a medic who had talked to an ambulance driver for several hours. The ambulance was stuck in a ditch on its way from a chaotic battle to an evacuation site. The medic slowly stopped talking as it bled out. It had shown no signs of pain, no fear or despair, it had no messages for loved ones as it approached the veil of death. Half its face was blown off and it was riddled with bullets, and yet it would not allow the driver to help it in any way. The driver asked if it was in pain. IT said no. The driver asked if it was scared. IT asked of what. The driver asked if it was scared of death. IT said it would never die. It turned to look at the driver, half its face melting onto its shoulder because of a fragment of phosphorous that had burst through the side of the truck during their escape. The part of its brain that controlled inhibitions had evidently been dissolved. IT said only humans die, “I just retire.”

     He destroyed IT alone. He waited for IT in the basement of their squalid building. He was making signs for their next public protest. All their signs were destroyed  the last time they were wiped from Main Street by the riot police’s microwave pulse technology. They were able to protest for only a few minutes this latest time. It was as if the riot police knew where they were going to be before they got there. The Man of Steel worked methodically stapling painted cardboard signs to wooden stakes. He conscientiously kept the steel plate in his head between his thoughts and the door where IT would come in. He would hide his thoughts from the machine. The machine approached him. IT could not anticipate his actions. IT could not see the aggression in his brain-waves. IT did not recognize the weapons on the work bench. IT was caught off guard. The next thing IT knew was it had a wooden stake through its heart.