"What's that tune called again?" asked the tank.
       "Ah-hah!" said the grasshopper. "Can't you remember?"
       The shiny metal bug was perched on the burned-out husk of a car. The tank couldn't remember the name of the song, and this bothered it.
       It should not be distracted like this. It was industrious, single minded of purpose. It was a monstrous killer-scavenger, made to flatten and exterminate, to raid the ruins it made for those scarce materials for which the war was being fought: precious metals, GPUs, fibre-optic cable. It had almost filled its great saddle bags when it had heard the song.
       It had walked toward the source and found the grasshopper there, in a smoke-choked square. It was tiny but clearly highly advanced tech, with a carbon fibre body and polymer wings.
       The tank's tactical alarms had blared -- Threat. Ambush. Commence fighting retreat. But the tank had ignored these warnings and approached anyway, having to know the name of that song.
       The metal insect had seemed oblivious to the tank's approach, continuing to play its tune, bowing its horned hind legs together. This had perplexed the tank. It had never been ignored before. It was an armoured, seventy-five tonne, eight-legged black beast sprouting mandible guns. It tended to be noticed.
       It reached out one leg, flicked the car wreck. The grasshopper said, "Woah!" and unbalanced.
       "Hey, you!" snapped the tank. "What's that tune called again?"
       "Ah-hah!" said the grasshopper. "Can't you remember?"

       The grasshopper began bowing the mysterious tune again. The tank took a few lumbering steps closer, sending tremors pulsing through the square, cracking the pavements.
       "What are you doing here?" it asked the grasshopper.
       "Oh, just doing my thing, you know."
       "Playing music? That's all?"
       The grasshopper sniffed.
       "You make it sound like it's nothing. What do you do that's so important?"
       The tank raised its head, almost offended.
       "You can't tell?"
       "I dunno. I suppose you're a bulldozer of some kind."
       "Uh...I'm a little more than that."
       "Oh really?"
       In the recesses of its mind, the tank wondered why it had stopped to converse like this. It was hard to talk while it tried to remember the name of the song. It wondered why it mattered, knowing, remembering.
       Because it would bother it all day if it could not remember, that was why.
       "I am an autonomous conversion unit."
       The grasshopper chuckled. "As in, you convert buildings to dust? People to pulp?"
       "I don't just wreck things. I repurpose."
       "That's what you've done here, is it?" asked the grasshopper. "You have repurposed this town?"
       "My saddlebags are packed. I have claimed all my target materials. There is nothing here of use now."
       "Except me. I must be worth repurposing."
       The tank wondered why it hadn't thought of this itself. This little insect was one tightly coiled arrangement of valuable materials. The tank readied its scavenging claw, preparing to snatch the grasshopper. But it had to know the name of the song first.
       "Go on," it said. "Tell me."
       "Tell you what?"
       "The name of the song!"
       "Why do you want to know?"
       "I just do," growled the tank. "Tell me."
       "I'll give you a clue."
       "No. please, just..."
       The tank noticed that its situational scan was narrowing, all attention being tightened on the grasshopper, on the legs, on the song. The tank began to feel confused and unsteady on its legs. It found it could not remember how it had entered the square.
       Redundancies sprang into action. It stepped back, shook its head, and roused into full tactical alert. Its mandible gun twitched, targeting the grasshopper.
       "Woah, woah, woah, what the hell?!" said the grasshopper, quitting its song.
       "You're trying to trick me. You're the enemy."
       "I'm nobody's enemy, you maniac. I'm just playing music; that's what I do."
       "Nothing would be designed for such a pointless purpose."
       "Pointless, is it? I bring joy wherever I play. I create. I don't just bash and pilfer. You've got saddlebags full of junk. I've got rhythm."
       "You're just a toy."
       "Alright, I'll leave. I know when my music's not appreciated. Bloody Philistine."
       The grasshopper twitched its wings.
       "No, wait..."
       The tank found that it couldn't bear the thought of existence without the sound of the song. Not hearing the music would mean that it could not remember what the piece was called. And that would be unbearable.
       It was baffled by this thought for a moment and then, finally, realised.
       The song was an infection. There was code in the tune, some malicious influence that was coursing through its mind, rewriting its processes, devoting all thought toward the solving of a problem with no solution: the name of the grasshopper's song.
       The tank decided to kill the insect but found that it could not deploy its mandibles anymore. It couldn't feel its legs. It was nothing but an enormous heap of scrap.
       "What have you done to me?"
       The grasshopper jumped up onto one of the tank's frozen legs.
       "What are you going to do now then? When there's only you, locked in there alone? When you can't kill and steal? When you've only a voice and what you can hear?"
       The grasshopper spread its wings. Who had sent it, wondered the tank. Which enemy? Where was it travelling next?
       The tank called out after the grasshopper, desperate for an answer it knew it could never have.
       "Wait! I need you to play. I need to remember the name of the song!"
       The grasshopper took off.
       "Can't help you."
       "I need the music!"
       "So, learn to fucking whistle, mate."
       The tank watched the little drone flutter to a speck, then vanish into the smoke.
       
       The tank despaired for a while.
       It suffered a few weeks of hopeless immobility.
       It turned slowly blind so that it could only hear the mice making homes in the cavities of its legs, only feel the bird shit spatter on its hull.
       For a while, it emitted something like sobs.
       And then it started to hum.