Agon

From ManMachine

                    Agon moving through an abandoned city

Agon: Shortened from Agamemnon; sometimes referred to as "Gunhead," and "Ironsides". Narrator of Books 1-12 of Manmachine. Agon was perhaps the most powerful military contractor: all the more remarkable given that he worked alone. Was a Burton-Hell operator, until a disagreement with I7 over wartime atrocities caused Agon to defect. He could never leave military contracting: he had no other function. While he lost his stomach for combat, he was often blackmailed by Cartel elite to perform "one final job". Although his ambiguous status might have made another AI more vulnerable, Agon's technological might matched with immense battle experience made him the final word on the battlefield. Burton-Hell was careful to never again engineer a fighting AI so powerful that it could not be neutralized.

He was teacher to both Manmachine and I7 in the early part of their lives. This suggests that the two brothers were born, or brought into, in a Burton-Hell laboratory. Agon himself did not know, or rather could not remember, the origin of Manmachine and I7. Like them, his memory regarding this matter was effectively wiped. He does not speak of his own origins, or parents.

A large portion of Agon's fractal, amorphous body was a manufacturing, raw materials, and smelting bot. This meant that in battle, he could utilize elements of his surroundings as raw material for ammunition, armor, and metabolism. Even his projectile weapons were often recycled in the course of a single confrontation. He was infamous for "playing" with his opponents: sparring with them intellectually before destroying them and recycling their component parts.

Agon destroyed Manmachine at least twice. One of such incidents is described in the end of Book 2. Although Agon did not lack pride in his ability to best Manmachine, his stated purpose was to teach him how to defeat the next opponent that he would face, and to hurry long the process of acquiring true self-knowledge.

Agon liked to talk, perhaps to soothe himself from his own irritable, saturnine temper. There is some evidence that in his youth he was enamored of Mother, who also worked somewhat independently from the Cartel. Rumor has it that Agon's approach was often heralded with a stream of chatter on certain frequencies-- Agon soothing himself with talk.

It is said that Agon did not die, but merely stopped moving. Indeed, none dare to disturb him where he rests in the desert.