Chip’s facial monitor flashed red emoji over and over. Anger. Anger. Anger. He stabbed the point of his longsword into the ground, using it momentarily to steady himself. Chip lifted it overhead with both hands like an executioner, the sword pulsing visible heartbeats of light.

‘And now I am become an instrument of vengeance; nothing more. The swift sword of retribution. The arm of god’s divine will.’

The battered old man raised his hands at the metal-headed youth’s feet and screamed. “Wait I beg you. Please. Spare the life of this old cowardly fool.’ The professor’s bladder had not relented to the same fears that had crippled his colleagues. Fears of disembowelment or decapitation. The old man was pretending.

‘Do you take me for a fool still, old man?’ Chip’s monitor flashed red.

The old professor dropped his pretences and chuckled to himself before slowly standing up tall. ’I’d be the fool if I didn’t try.’ He spat on Chip’s face, the saliva creating a visible streak of magnified pixels as it slid down. ‘You are an abomination. Strike cleanly.’ The man closed his eyes and looked up at the ruined skies above, through eyelids and ceilings alike. ’Don’t bring further shame upon your creator. No more than you already have.’

Chip swung downward, hard, at the old man, slicing him cleanly as requested. The chosen target was not a bare throat, but instead a knee. The professor exploded into blood and anguish as he collapsed to the floor once more.

‘My leg. My leg.’ He repeated to himself uncontrollably, clutching at his stump.

‘Your bombs obliterated my home and murdered my family. You butchered the man that took me in and made me whole again. You took everything away from me. Because of you…’ Chip rapped his blank facial monitor twice. It made the clinking sound of glass.

‘I didn’t make you a freak. I didn’t. I had no such part in your project.’

’The project saved my life. That same work will not save yours. Instead you will die a dog’s death here and now.’

Chip raised the longsword again and again and hacked the defenceless old man into a thousand pieces. His monitor displayed a green smiling emoji.