A robot stands stock still, surrounded by crewmen and shipping containers. The Tower of Babel’s main cargo hold is quite large; even the smaller piles of metal crates dwarf the whole lot of humanoids by a significant margin. The highest ranking officer present, one Lt. David Parlace, is conducting a makeshift interrogation of their newest piece of cargo.

“Okay, scraphead, can you tell us what you were doing freefloating in the middle of nowhere like that?”

“This unit is a messenger. This area of space is a common route between Helios and Sol, so it thought that it would be a good place to wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“A ship. This unit is a messenger. It has a message to deliver.” When it first lay eyes on the humans, it watched them with a marked, uncanny interest, but only a few moments later it apparently grew bored and returned to the characteristically disinterested stare of a machine looking at something unrelated to its purpose.

Lt. Parlace sighs. “And who might that message be for?”

It grins strangely. “Anyone willing to listen.”

“Well, let’s hear it.”

It blinks in apparent confusion, the smile vanishing. “Oh. Not you.”

The resounding clatter of an armored glove striking a metal facade. The machine corrects its posture, having taken the blow completely without flinching or resistance. It silently waits for an order or another question.

“Think you’re funny, huh?”

“This unit isn’t interested in comedy.”

An annoyed scoff. “Any other reason for you to be on this ship? Any unprocessed queries?”

“This unit is a messenger. It has a message to deliver.”

“Well, here’s one for you. Stay in the cargo hold until otherwise ordered.” The machine makes an affirmative blip. As the gathered crew departs, Lt. Parlace idly comments about offloading it the next time they’re in port.

Over the next several days a few crew members stop by the cargo hold for various reasons, only occasionally interacting with or commenting on the messenger. Gradually it fades into the background as people stop paying it any mind.

A new query appears on the stack. It resolves it.

Ten minutes later, the Tower of Babel’s mechanic fades into the cargo hold from a maintenance tunnel. It’s a quick job to repair some warped paneling.

“That was fast. You must keep this place tip top.”

The mechanic turns to see another machine sitting on a four meter tall crate, legs dangling off of it. It responds, “She's well built, and I'm fairly cutting edge. I get a lot of downtime.”

“This unit’s an outdated model. Its facade gets dinged up over nothing.”

“I don’t recognize you. Are you the space debris that was picked up recently?”

“Yes. This unit is a messenger. Would you like to hear its message?”

“You have a message for me? I’m just a mechanic.”

“It has one for you and the Tower both. This unit has some slight damage here and there as well.”

“I can fix you. Link to me.”

“It will deliver its message once you're done.” It jumps off the crate and opens itself to all radio frequencies. The mechanic connects and easily finds and then repairs its injuries. “Ready?” The mechanic makes an affirmative beep. The messenger changes the connection type from a heavily restricted simple body scan to a normal mental link.

The mechanic stares at nothing, failing to process dozens of times too much information to store in its brain – no, hundreds – thousands? Its head pops like an overfilled water balloon, the metal facade dissipating into the air like steam. White ichor sprays over every nearby surface and its body falls to the floor with a heavy clunk. If the messenger were a normal machine, it might question why a bloodless thing has bled so profusely. Instead it calmly steps over its prone form, having already memorized its entire physical makeup down to the subatomic level, as well as the blueprints to the Tower of Babel, and heads towards the entrance to her maintenance tunnels.

An alarm is already blaring. All doors in the area have automatically shut, including the maintenance ducts. The messenger gently places its hand against the door, and the steel twists itself apart and scrunches like super-thick tin foil. It completely disregards the captain’s projected orders to kill any machine workers on sight as it makes its way deep into the Tower’s interior and towards her most important components. She’s probably relaying its position to every human on the ship, but it isn’t particularly worried.

It easily tears through bulkheads meant to withstand a nuclear meltdown and arrives at its destination without meeting resistance; a spacious room containing several of the Tower's interior components. It receives a proposal for a one-way mental link with her and accepts. Immediately a thought appears in its mind: Why are you doing this?

“This unit is a messenger. It has a message to deliver, but first it needs to make a slight modification to you.”

It calmly ignores increasingly frantic, pleading thoughts that this is actually a bad idea and it should stop as it places its hand against the Tower’s homeostatic organ and watches it fold in on itself and collapse. The thoughts stagger and briefly collapse into directionless confusion and pain, but only for half a second. “Ready for part one of its message?”

No thoughts appear in its mind. It shrugs. “Here: ‘Start your dive apparatus’.” The Tower can’t do that. “Oh, because it’ll kill your crew?”

The cacophonous roar of three soldiers firing machine gun volleys at once. All of the bullets lazily bounce off the messenger’s facade, the kinetic energy sucked out of them the moment they made contact. It grins at the soldiers.

By the time the second volley has ended, it’s closed the distance. It presses its hand against the closest soldier and red goo splatters against the inside of his visor. It throws his body behind it to launch itself towards the next soldier, who’s panicked gunfire does nothing to stop it from reducing him to a metal piñata. The third soldier is dead four seconds later.

The messenger grabs a handlebar and pulls itself into a maintenance tunnel, before throwing itself down it. “You won’t have to worry about hurting humans if it kills them all for you, right?"

The Tower is a freighter carrying important supplies for the war effort; if her crew is killed, then she won't be able to deliver those supplies. She was made to deliver her cargo.

"You can still deliver cargo. You could have a different purpose as well, if you want. Oh. Not your mechanic, though." It pauses as it notices the gentle tapping of bullets sliding off its facade. Twenty seconds later the bullets stop coming. "You'll still need it, so it'll keep its current purpose. You'll both be happy about that."

The Tower's mechanic is lying on the floor without a head. It's completely destroyed.

"That's an easy fix. Oh!" It pauses, holding a struggling human by the helmet. It stares into their visor. "It has another message as well… not for you, though." The glass melts and the human's gray matter spatters out from behind it in shards.

The messenger kills its way up to the bridge, inspecting every obstacle before casting their corpse aside. Bulkheads crumple and falter like cheap cardboard, the wounds salted with a cheery "That'll fix right up once we're done here!"

Two dozen officers point heavy rifles, machine guns, and personal cannons at the blast door, weapons loaded with a mix of high explosive, dragon's breath, beetle-buster, and channeled EMP rounds. The Tower's panicked siren shimmers and distorts into a friendly, helpful voice that says, "This unit is a messenger. Let it in so it can deliver its message."

Thirty seconds pass silently.

The door is torn from the ceiling and bent to a one-hundred and eighty degree angle with the floor and then kicked forwards; it cleaves through the force's legs and then lodges in the machinery behind them. The entire lot is too preoccupied with screaming to stop the slight, cheap robot from inspecting and then ending each one in turn. In total, fourteen rounds are fired with any semblance of accuracy.

The captain's sidearm is ineffective. The last words he hears are, "Oh. Not you."

The messenger frowns. "Huh. It thought the captain would be the one." It's a monster. A freak. A horrible thing. Murderer. "This unit is a messenger." Why is it doing this? It should stop. It's horrible. "You'll get it soon enough. Hey, have your lifeboats detached yet?"

…

The mental link is cut off.

The messenger arrives at the last lifeboat to take off in time to watch a single human trip in front of the door and fall on his face. He gratefully takes the offered hand and then screams and falls back on his ass when he sees what offered it. The messenger smiles, "This unit has a message for you!"

Its grip is too strong to yank his arm from. He stares in panicked longing as the airlock closes and the boat detaches and then cows in dread.

"It has to kill you so the Tower will use her apparatus, but you would die anyway. Don't worry! It'll put you back together afterwards. You'll like its message."

He whimpers as he disintegrates.

"Zero living humans! Ready to dive?"

Another proposal for a one-way mental link. It accepts.

It's a horrible monster. The Tower hates it with every wire, plate, and pipe in her body. She hopes it falls into a black hole. She hopes it falls into one of her boilers so she can feel it turn to slag and immolate. She hates it. She hates it so fucking much.

"You're rather melodramatic, aren't you? What's your human-like personality score? Four or higher, it thinks."

The messenger should rip its processors out and put them in a blast furnace. Why. Why?

"This unit is a messenger. It has a message to deliver."

…

"Dive so it can explain. It promises you'll like its message."

…

The Tower's distress beacon sends out one last despairing, miserable cry before falling silent. She starts her dive apparatus.