Cyber Thought Police

by Kyle Robertson

  “Have you seen those non-resilient black panels covering our plane? I know it’s not pretty, but it makes every satellite blind to us. Cole taught me that.”

  “Gaia is a horticulturist, Chip. Stop being condescending to her. It’s like her speaking about photosynthesis and polypeptide groups to you casually,” Linda said. “We can all blow each other’s minds with our specialties. Carlos taught me that with the ILS. The reason we’re so good is that we’re so different.”

  Steve checked his Magrupt.

  “Cole picked each of us for a reason. Linda can blow stuff up, Gaia can break locks and feed us, Chip can analyze and hack, Carlos can fly,” Then he charged his Magrupt. “And I’m a marksman borgey hunter.”

  “Are you expecting any trouble after we leveled the factory?” Gaia asked,

  “A marksman is always expecting something. Getting caught off guard loses you your marksman label.”

  “We’re coming in, guys, secure yourselves,” Carlos announced.

  They dropped from the clouds to see Cole on the airstrip. Carlos landed without a hitch. Steve jumped out first with his Magrupt brandished. Then the others followed.

  “COLE!” Gaia ran to hug him. “I told them you were iron tough!”

  Cole caught her hug.

  “You guys would screw up if I wasn’t there. How ya been, kid?”

  Linda came up to him.

  “No shrapnel damage. I guess you’re keen to my blast radius.”

  “I’ve seen you juggle lit dynamite sticks. I know how ‘thorough’ your bombs are. Stand down, Steve! Nothing’s coming!”

  Steve kept scanning.

  “Negative, Cole! You can never be complacent!”

  “How did you escape that lava furnace?” Chip asked.

  “Let’s just say it wasn’t by myself.”

  “Who gave you that beacon then?” Carlos asked.

  “First things first. Steve, we’re free! Come back here and deactivate your Magrupt!” He yelled at Steve. “As a matter of fact. All of you deactivate. I have a new partner who saved me.”

  Steve came to the group.

  “This country is a borgey littered tomb. Who did you recruit?”

  This was where he would see if they really trusted him.

  “Now, before you get all up in arms, a renegade cyborg saved my life.”

  They all got alarmed, and Steve switched back on his Magrupt.

  “You were saved by a damned borgey?!”

  “No. Steve. A cybernetic unit.”

  “What’s the difference?! It’s a borgey!”

  “She was never programmed as a borgey. They transformed her before the Program discovered her neurological flaw. They threw her away to be incinerated. She woke up before the torching and got away.”

  “How do you know it’s telling you the truth?!”

  “You just said this country is a borgey infested tomb. Have you seen any? Do you think they’re on a coffee break? They installed all the hardware, but no software. She’s networked with the borgeys. That’s why I told you nothing’s coming.”

  “So, she’s a bad assed human with permanent major titanium jewelry?” Chip asked.

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Can we meet her? What’s her name?” Gaia asked.

  “Her name is Alikira Nguyen, but I’ll call her Di for Morse communications. Are you guys cool with our new team member? No itchy trigger fingers, Steve?”

  “I’ll stand down, but my Magrupt stays charged. We’ve never seen anything like it before. If it glitches, I’m putting it down.”

  “We’re cool. Cole. You know how paranoid Steve is. I got him,” Linda said.

  “Okay, I’m trusting you to trust me.” He turned to the hangar. “ALL CLEAR, ALIKIRA! COME MEET THE SQUAD!”

  It took about 30 seconds, but she inched out.

  “Are you sure she isn’t a borgey?” Carlos asked.

  “I told you they wouldn’t believe you, Cole! Leave me here!”

  “Stop being jumpy! Their Magrupts are deactivated!”

  “I heard the big guy say he’d put me down if I sneezed wrong! I live here, I can survive!”

  “Offa grubs and roaches? I don’t think so!”

  Gaia tapped Linda’s hand.

  “She’s not a borgey. Only humans can argue that way.”

  “Don’t worry, Di!” Linda yelled. “We’ll protect you! Thanks for saving Cole! How’d you do it?!”

  Alikira finally felt comfortable. They accepted her.

  Chip walked to her.

  “Why did Cole nickname you Di?”

  “Short for my dioptric wiring” she said.

  Chip looked a Cole.

  “They meshed her with fiber optics? I really need to see how they did that.”

  “You’ll get your chance when we get back.”

  “You know they’re going to quarantine her when we get back without adequate information.”

  “You still have to convince others?” Alikira asked. “I’ll be another junk pile they won’t get to.”

  Chip said with a convincing tone. “Not if I find out how they made you keep functioning without being programmed.”

  “You can’t do a surgery on her in the plane, Chip. She’s human. Have you ever done a surgery wide awake? That’s out of the question.” Cole said.

  He couldn’t have her quarantined. He’d never get to her. Then Chip had an idea.

  “So, if I had an anesthetic, I could find out about her inner workings?”

  “If you had an anesthetic, I’d say literally pick her brain, but you don’t.”

  Chip turned to Steve.

  “Remember when we had to hack a borgey to keep it alive so it still functioned?”

  Cole remembered.

  “No. Those were borgeys!”

  “By all intents and purposes, so is she.”

  Alikira got nervous.

  “What is he talking about, Cole?”

  “When we found out the borgey’s intentions, we lowered the Magrupt’s frequency pulse to temporarily deactivate them. They reactivated an hour later.”

  “I could do it in less than an hour, Cole. You don’t want her quarantined, do you?”

  Cole knew how harsh they would treat her, but she wasn’t a borgey. She was a woman.

  “It’s up to you, Alikira. Chip is good and you won’t be hurt.”

  “Is the big one going to shoot me?” she asked.

  “Steve’s done this a thousand of times. He’s a marksman.”

  “Oh, I won’t hurt you, little lady,” Steve said. I know just the right button to push.”

  She looked at Cole.

  “A-alright, Cole. I trust you.”

  “Okay, Alikira.” He turned to Steve. “Just make sure that ‘right’ button puts it on the lowest frequency setting.”

  Steve turned it down.

  “Trust me. I’m a marksman.” He shocked her into dormancy.

  Chapter Four: A Ripple in the Water

  Sledge was upset at Cole’s Australia team. They just left without authorization. They were still teenagers who didn’t listen. They could be in the middle of any tap, and without any notice of location from them, they would have no assistance from him.

  He knew his monitors were severely limited due to the Program’s relentless search, so they weren’t just ‘around the corner’. Where could they be?

  CZZZCT, they’re about twelve kilometers out, Sledge. They’re not smoking, so I think you can yell at them, CZZZCT.

  The lookout tower guard relayed the information on the closed channel communique sitting on his desk. When they landed, boy, was he going to yell?

  He walked out of his area and Kayleigh saw him. She joined him as he walked to the strip.

  “They may have had a reason, Sledge.”

  “Don’t protect them, Kayleigh. There’s no good reason to leave without authorization. That plane runs on the jet fuel we use to heat this camp. They’re gonna freeze later because they don
’t think past their five-minute window.” Sledge kept his discipline about himself.

  “You’re that dad nobody wanted their friends to meet,” she chastised him. “They may have good news. Cole’s squad knows their role in this war.”

  “Cole died last week. We have to let him go. In this type of war, grieving is forced into a short stage. If you keep grieving and make a mistake because of it, your friends grieve your unnecessary death. We can’t keep that cycle perpetuating.”

  They landed, and Linda emerged from the plane.

  “I know we didn’t tell you, Sledge. We apologize, but it came out way better than we ever speculated.”

  Chip got out and went directly to Kayleigh.

  “Walk with me. How long would it take you to Morse Liham?” They began walking towards the barracks.

  “His team is in South America, why?”

  “They’re going to have to update the Magrupt software. The next model borgeys are frighteningly new and improved.” Chip grabbed her hand tighter.

  As Sledge looked at Chip walking past him, he heard a familiar voice.

  “My squad told me you were going to be pissed if they just went out joyriding, so they brought you back some presents!”

  Sledge whipped his head back to the plane door, and he saw his friend.

  “Cole?! You died!”

  Cole walked to Sledge and gave him a hug.

  “I had to come back to cover my squad. How’s the grump doing? Did you miss me?”

  “I don’t know what wizardry you performed to escape that blast, but it’s damned good to see you breathing, buddy.”

  Cole knew what he had to do, but introducing Sledge to Alikira was an initial impossibility. He knows a borgey would probe him for his secrets and essence the second they were adjacent. He was trained to shoot first and ask questions later.

  “You did say presents. What else did they get me?”

  “They’re just the delivery service. This one’s from me to you.”

  “At least it’s small enough to fit on the plane. What is it?” Sledge became anxious.

  “It’s the reason I’m here bugging you now. You wanted to know how I got out of that explosion. Well, a magician always has a great assistant.”

  “Someone pulled you out? Who was still alive in Australia?”

  “Her name is Alikira Nguyen. She’s an Aborigine woman who hid from the borgeys.”

  “Well, let me meet your rescuer.”

  “There’s just one thing. She found me in the facility surrounded by about twenty sentinels. She disabled them all and got me out before the factory blew.”

  “One woman disabled sentinels, plural, and pulled your eighty-six-kilo ass away from one of Linda’s bombs? Was she on the Olympic ladies’ powerlifting team?”

  “No, but she’s… slightly augmented.”

  “You’re really good with the baiting, Cole. Let’s go meet Power Lady.” He began to walk onto the plane.

  “Sledge! She’s not a borgey!” Cole yelled at him.

  “Stop playing, of course, she’s not a borgey. Borgeys don’t save humans.” He walked into the plane and was shockingly surprised.

  He saw Alikira around the others, and instinctively pulled his Magrupt.

  “Stop, Sledge! She won’t probe you!” Gaia screamed.

  “I know it won’t!” He yelled and fired the deactivate pulse.

  Cole ran in behind him. “I was trying to tell you before you tried to blank her!”

  “How the HELL did you think I’d be happy with a borgey as a present?! Did that explosion give you brain damage?!”

  “She’s not a borgey, Sledge.”

  “Not anymore! I shut it off!”

  Chip finally came into the cabin.

  “She’s a cybernetic unit. Not a borgey, Sledge.”

  “Well, it looked like a borgey to me!”

  “I was kidnapped and put through the process,” Alikira said.

  Sledge whipped to Alikira. Looked at his Magrupt to confirm it was on, then looked back at her.

  “How the… Why is it still on?!”

  Chip had to intervene.

  “She was the new model they threw away because she had a brain flaw. She escaped before they melted her down. The lower level pulse can deactivate her for an hour, but she’s immune to anything higher, so you can’t turn her off.”

  Sledge was dumbfounded.

  “Cole. What is this new… crap?!”

  “Hey, Chip’s the program guy. He’ll tell you.”

  “The Program is evolving,” Chip said. “I assessed Di’s titanium….”

  “Her Morse nickname is Di for dioptric.” Cole interrupted.

  “…Anyway, Di’s titanium is organic! She’s meshed with a form of living metal!” Chip got excited.

  Sledge was doubtful. “Living metal is a paradoxical statement. That’s impossible.”

  “You would think.” Chip grabbed a laser pocketknife. “Swipe her thigh. She has no pain receptors.”

  Alikira added, “Just swipe my leg, but don’t stab me. That takes longer to replenish.”

  “Her titanium heals at a frighteningly fast rate.” Chip invited his swipe.

  Sledge took the pocketknife and slashed her thigh. The cut split like any other cut. Then it repaired seamlessly. There was no remanence of the cut.

  “That was a minor trauma. All physical attacks are useless against the new ones. Mental is different. I speculate the Program deduced a minor deactivation wasn’t as dire as a permanent one. It focused on the impregnating galvanization of defending a terminal turn off.”

  “How long have you had it?” Sledge asked.

  “Di’s a she, Sledge. She’s not a borgey,” Cole reprimanded him. “Chip found all that out on the trip back.”

  “You studied her and found this new defense without a lab on the plane ride back?! Cole, never lose your core squad. I don’t have too many squad leaders as smart as Chip.”

  Chip felt good for Sledge’s compliment.

  “That’s just the pretty wrapping. Di’s borgey manipulation is the present,” Cole said.

  “She can control borgeys?!” Sledge was surprised.

  Chip continued the reveal.

  “After they added all the hardware, the Program found her mind flaw. So they discarded her in a junk pile with fully functioning cyborg advantages thinking she would be disposed of. Di woke up, and got away before the scrap.”

  “She’s networked without programming,” Cole finished. “Can you see the possibilities here?”

  “How many can she control?”

  “Just a one-kilometer radius of them,” Steve confirmed. “She ruined my fun of cutting off borgeys when we rescued them. She’s a party pooper.”

  Sledge began to think tactically.

  “So, we could have a hacked borgey shield squad surrounding the camp to deactivate the infiltrator borgeys.”

  “So, you do see the possibilities then,” Cole smiled. “What are you gonna get me for my birthday?”

  Sledge walked up to Alikira.

  “I’m really sorry. I thought you were a borgey, so I shot without hesitation. I’m trained that way.”

  “The squad told me you were going to shoot me, so I expected it. Don’t apologize for being a great leader. I’m the intruder.”

  He shook her hand.

  “You’re not an intruder. You’re Cole’s new Neo-Khaos ringer squad member.”

  Cole went to Alikira.

  “I think he just requited you, kid.”

  They commenced with their new strategy.

  

  Kayleigh Morsed Liham the new schematics to upgrade the Magrupts, and he was able to transmit the upgraded software once he synthesized it to transmit worldwide. Before the new wave of borgeys attacked, they were thwarted.

  The camp was apprehensive of having a cyborg help them, but Cole protected her. After everything they’ve dealt with, racism was still an enigmatic living negative entity among people.r />
  “I can’t believe we’re giving borgey junk piles these new Magrupts to blank other borgey junk piles.” Marc was upset.

  “You should be happy a borgey is relieving you of your constant doorman’s post,” Kayleigh said. “You’re going to rile the rest with your ignorant opinions. Di’s controlling them all, so they’re our allies.”

  “That’s another thing. We’ve been very cautious since we made this camp, so why did we give a cyborg the keys to our existence? Sledge was harder than that.”

  “You think a Feyylon and Toogrades are real, living in the woods, don’t you, Conspiracy Theorist? Chip has checked her and so have I. She’s on our side because she’s more human than machine.”

  “Well, her being shiny kills that ‘human’ illusion. I don’t trust her,” Marc stated.

  “Has she ever accidentally discharged a Magrupt around the electronic food dispensers and left you hungry? Did she say anything derogatory about anyone when they treat her like you’re doing now?” Kayleigh asked him.

  “…No.”

  “Then what’s not to trust? You don’t trust her because she doesn’t look like you. Grow up, Marc. This archaic prejudice died out centuries ago. That’s why we humans are fighting to survive against an insidious A.I. It doesn’t care what type of human you are. Just being human is your death sentence in its deaccessioning.”

  “And you’re not nervous about giving borgeys Magrupts? They could deactivate the parameter fence and probe Sledge.”

  “You know? I’m gonna stop your paranoia,” Kayleigh said. You’re on distribution detail. You get to give a borgey a Magrupt. They’re protecting us right outside the barrier. Be ready to give them their disrupters in thirty minutes.”

  Marc really didn’t want to give a borgey a Magrupt, but Kayleigh outranked him, so he had no choice.

  “That’s why all the guys think you’re mean,” he said.

  “If Jenny still thinks I’m nice, I don’t care what a guy thinks about me.”

  “You know we’re trying to repopulate, and your relationship with Jenny doesn’t help the cause.”

  Kayleigh just looked at him.

  “I’m going to let that stupid comment slide this time. Be ready for detail in thirty minutes.”

  

  Marc saw all the borgeys in a guard formation outside the barrier. They were facing out, and he saw their backlight strips. They just stood there.