The more the Gunslinger went on about<em>scrap metal</em>and<em>pieces of shit</em>, the more he looked down at the massive machine with those faux-concerned eyes that couldn't quite conceal the greed that the mention of ten grand was liable to bring on, the more he<em>kicked</em>or<em>poked</em>at it, the stiller it seemed to become.  At last it made not a single sound, and for a moment they were all likely to think its old engine had finally shut down for good.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 36pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: impact;">THRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!</span></span><br/><br/>It was like a peal of mountainous thunder, a rolling wave of noise and vibration that made the nearby road crack open like a picked scab and the sand explode up into the sky like a grenade had gone off just beneath their feet.  The robot planted his mighty arms in what remained of the road and<em>heaved</em>with every last ton of its titanic strength until the metal plating shrieked from the effort, and in one last earth-shattering sound it rolled up out of the sinkhole and lumbered onto its feet.<br/><br/>If the thing had looked big in the ground, it was nothing compared to how it looked now that it was standing on equal footing with the rest of them.  The thing was just about as big as the truck they'd rode in on, strapped with more guns and religious paraphernalia than a militarized church, and quaking with the same sort of fury as a man who just got slapped in the face by a child.  But instead of leveling a single weapon their way, two smaller arms detached from the main bulk and dusted the sand off a smaller device hooked up to the frontward casing: a weathered old typewriter that looked about as beat up as its owner.<br/><br/>It typed rapidly, far quicker than most mortal hands could muster, until the scroll dinged.  It snatched the sheet of sturdy paper, then turned it around so the rest of them could read it.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: courier;">"I am not property, least of all yours.  Neither am I excrement."</span><br/><br/>The machine crumbled the paper and threw it impudently at the Gunslinger's head, then went back to typing furiously.  The second message was far more blunt.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: courier;">"I do not like you."</span><br/><br/>