The Cyborg Tinkerer

by Meg LaTorre

  Rather than cheers from poor circus performers desperate for opportunities, the room fell utterly silent.

  The emperor invited Cirque du Borge? Was this some kind of joke?

  Why would the emperor seek the company of the people he so openly despised? Didn’t he know how it would look? He would be seen as a hypocrite at best and a traitor to the Union’s ideals at worst—ideals he created.

  Emperor Titus Valerius had capitalized on humankind’s fears, securing his place ten years ago as the leader of what had once been the warring planets of the Crescent Star System. Under his charismatic rule, they had united against their new enemy: cyborgs.

  Cyborgs are modern day’s greatest threat to the safety of society. These creatures are more machine than human. They are nothing but super soldiers that can be controlled by terrorists and used against the good people of the Union.

  Bogus propaganda.

  She’d seen the headlines from countless journalists and knew them for the garbage they were. No one could control her mind any more than they could control the mind of a human. The chip in a cyborg’s brain was good only for the control of their cyborg implants and nothing more.

  Not only did the emperor scare all cyborg tinkerers and experts out of the Crescent Star System, but he’d also been involved in the elimination of the original creators of cyborgs, the Bellemore family. After the emperor’s rise to power, the feds went to arrest Javier and Emmeline Bellemore, the two scientists who’d created and mass manufactured cyborg technology. However, an unexplained fire destroyed the cyborg implant manufacturing facilities, laboratories, and the entire Bellemore estate and also took the life of the Bellemores.

  Thus, the cyborg circus had to deal with their declining popularity and resources ever since—and lack of invitations to elite places such as the capital.

  Despite her skepticism, Rora couldn’t suppress the flicker of hope surging in her veins. Could this be her second chance to secure the emperor’s patronage? It seemed too good to be true.

  “It seems the emperor has intentions to change the Cyborg Prohibition Law,” the Mistress continued. “According to his invitation, his once conservative Union Council now has new members who are… more open-minded toward cyborgs. He hopes that the circus’s attendance will help to convince the governors and governesses to change the law and legalize implant production again—and heavily tax it.”

  The entire room broke out into excited whispers.

  Rora blinked, not believing her ears.

  Was it possible? Could what happened during the emperor’s rise to power all be from his inner circle, who had eventually become the Union Council? Was she going to finally be accepted in the Union as a cyborg?

  Rora couldn’t even imagine what her life might be like after her contract was over if the law was changed. The possibilities made her mind spin.

  “Not everyone will be invited to attend the emperor, however,” the Mistress said over the whispers, which quickly died down as everyone was eager to hear her next words. “In the coming weeks, all performers will compete for the opportunity to travel to Covenant in three months. Ten acts will be chosen to attend His Imperial Highness. Our show management team will oversee the competition and select the winners. The competition will begin in a few days, along with a ball to kick things off.”

  First the emperor might change the law, and now a ball?

  Immediately, Rora’s thoughts turned to the gowns in her closet that hadn’t been worn since she became a cyborg. Cirque du Borge hadn’t hosted a ball in the two years since Rora had joined the circus. She could picture it now—Akio, Marzanna, and herself dressed up for no one but themselves, dominating the dance floor as they would the stage. Then darkness descended over her thoughts, blood rushing to her cheeks.

  If Bastian secured additional funds, why not pay us?

  The Mistress spared a condescending smile for the whispering crowd of performers. “You must all be tired after the journey. Go to your rooms, rest, and prepare yourselves for the exciting weeks ahead.”

  With a final nod, the Mistress descended the stage, the spotlight snapping off.

  “That’s it?” Rora blurted.

  But her words were drowned in the buzz of conversation. Uneasy hope hovered over the room like the smog above Anchorage.

  The watchmen moved aside from the exits, opening doors and allowing the performers to exit. As though they hadn’t been guarding the exits the whole time.

  Marzanna grabbed Rora’s elbow, ushering her toward the door. Akio grabbed the handle of the rolling wardrobe, pulling it after them.

  As they filed out of the theater and down the palace’s long halls toward the dormitories, her friends discussed improvements they could make to their trapeze act.

  As they walked, Rora clung to hope. This was her second chance, and she wasn’t about to miss out. She would make it into the top ten acts and fulfill her dream of securing patronage. But how?

  Absently, she looked at her outdated robotic installation from her elbow to her right hand. If she had any hope of winning this competition, her hand would need updating. Or better yet, a complete replacement—something that was against circus rules.

  Slowly, an idea crystallized in her mind.

  An idea surrounding the beautiful new tinkerer.

  Chapter 4

  Gwen blinked, the motion sending a wave of pain through her left temple. Ignoring it, she pulled as hard as she could. The man grunted beneath her.

  Sweat beading her brow, she eyed the cyborg juggler sitting on her worktable station, waiting for her to fix his damn finger.

  She wasn’t a cyborg tinkerer, and Bastian had known. He had fucking known. Yet here she was… poking at things best left to far more capable hands. Better yet, a doctor who was also an engineer—even that would be a better qualification than a ship tinkerer.

  As a tinkerer, she knew about revving the engines before takeoff and how a ripped sail could easily be compensated during flight by mechanical oars that paddled along solar winds. She knew the creaking sounds signifying a virus in the mainframe. But she didn’t know how machines and bodies interacted.

  But damn it if she wasn’t going to learn to be the best fucking cyborg tinkerer in the Crescent Star System. If she could become the best ship tinkerer in the Union in less than five years, she could learn how to fix a few broken implants.

  Implants that were easily worth more than Gwen’s family’s entire estate on Orthodocks.

  “How much longer is this going to take?” The juggler eyed her with something less than enthusiasm. His large stomach hung over his belt, and he had arms the size of small cannons.

  What had the idiot been trying to juggle? Lead balls? This circus took stunts to the next level of crazy. With the new competition, it seemed all common sense had been left on the ship.

  She sighed heavily. They’d been at this for an hour. He’d managed to jam his robotic thumb deep into the joint while practicing his act. And she’d only managed to jam it farther.

  “Did you hear me?” He pointed a meaty, non-robotic finger at her. “How much longer?”

  Gwen’s new eye whirred as she thought.

  Through her left eye, she could see the man’s robotic hand as though through an X-ray, with all the gears, screws, and plating. Anything with a trace of metal shone brightly. Through her right, she saw the man’s stiff posture and scowl.

  Pinching her lips together, she swallowed back nausea, still unaccustomed to the double vision. Paired with the pain in her head from the surgery, she was constantly forcing back dizziness.

  She made a snap decision. Running her fingers over his wrist where the robotic arm connected to flesh—which she could quickly identify thanks to her cyborg eye—she pulled a few levers, disengaging the machine and shutting off the battery powering the implant. When the hand fell limp, she removed the thumb joint entirely.

  “Hey!” the juggler said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “My j
ob,” she replied flatly before turning his implant back on. “Come back tomorrow, and I’ll have your thumb ready to be reinstalled.”

  He stood, looming head and shoulders above her. “What the hell am I supposed to do until then?”

  “I recommend strength training.” The juggler’s eyes bulged as she spoke. “Squats and lunges, especially. I can fix your prosthetic thumb, but you’re just going to break it again if you keep relying on your cyborg hand to compensate for the heavy weight.” As she walked over to the shelves in her new office, looking for a tool kit, she said, “And stop juggling lead balls. Do something interesting in your performance, not stupid.”

  For a moment, she thought he might hit her. With all the built-up tension she had since the procedure, she wanted him to. She could use a good fight. Or a good fuck.

  “What the fuck do you know?” he spat before striding back into the main theater.

  Her new office was attached to the theater and had a rolling door for privacy. From where she stood, she could see dozens of performers practicing their various acts.

  Slapping the useless thumb onto the table, she eyed the contents in her office.

  Surrounded by shelves of crap—scrap metal, wires, batteries, pieces of prosthetic limbs that were twenty years outdated—along with a few tinctures, books, bandages, oil, polish, and some other unnamable items, she had quite the spacious workstation. Compared to her tiny office on the Crusty Tulip, she practically had an office with a window.

  With the table at the center, she felt like a doctor, which she most certainly was not. And she was too underqualified to be tinkering with illegal cyborg implants.

  At last, she found a tool kit behind what could only be the remains of a robotic shoulder. Pulling out a screwdriver, she tinkered with the thumb joint, praying it would be an easy fix.

  Sounds faded into the distance as the joint’s mechanics blossomed before her. The cyborg eye revealed the layers beneath the thumb joint. With those layers overlapping on top of each other, she couldn’t quite tell where the obstruction was. She tried to will her cyborg eye to stack the layers visually in front of her mind’s eye, like she would using a hologram on a ship’s mainframe.

  Nothing.

  Something that wasn’t quite nausea twisted her stomach, and she found herself longing for the woman she’d been. For the human she’d been. Now, she was one of them—a cyborg.

  A roar from the theater ripped Gwen from her thoughts. She blinked, wondering if one of the tigers had been stabbed with a strip pole. Looking up, she realized it was quite the opposite.

  Bastian Kabir stomped around the theater as though he led a stampede, barking orders at each of the acts. Although the man hadn’t exactly been the pleasant type when they’d met, he’d certainly seemed far more moderate in temperament than this. Apparently, he took his role as ringleader very seriously.

  “What are you doing?” he called to a man on a unicycle, who was struggling to balance on a tightrope no thicker than floss. “Are you calling your grandma or riding a unicycle? Put your hands out to the sides and not up against your face.”

  To Gwen’s surprise, the man rallied and did as instructed. The bike stopped wavering at the center of the tightrope, and he pedaled to the other side.

  Even from where she stood, Gwen could see the trembling in the man’s arms. But he graciously tipped his top hat to Bastian, who was already barking orders at other performers—this time, a man and woman practicing on the trapeze. After telling them to quit “fondling each other’s thighs” and “actually perform,” he turned his glare on Gwen.

  It was only then she realized she’d been staring.

  Clearing her throat, she turned her gaze back down to the cursed thumb joint and continued tinkering with it, but it was too late. The table vibrated from the stomps of Bastian’s heavy footsteps, which was followed by the clicking of his cane as he approached her office.

  “Enjoying the view?”

  His voice seemed somehow rougher than before, deep and ragged. What the hell did he mean by that? She was certainly not ogling Bastian Kabir. When she looked up from her work, she noticed dark smudges under his eyes and how his pristine jacket with coattails hung more loosely on him, despite the journey from Anchorage only taking a few weeks.

  Like Gwen, the ringleader was tall, standing head and shoulders above most people. Despite his wiry build, he had broad shoulders and a strong jawline. Definitely not the type you’d kick out of bed for farting.

  “The view is fine enough,” she replied, “but the racket…”

  Bastian raised a disinterested brow. “Have you been practicing that all morning?”

  “Nah.” She placed the thumb on the table beside where she sat and leaned forward. “But I could if you think it would help, Mr. Ringleader. I imagine my comedic timing could be improved. Or grander gestures?”

  Brows dropping, he stared at her through narrowed eyes. “Are you quite finished?”

  With a shrug, she ignored the urge to scratch the back of her neck. “I’m here all day… all week… all thirteen years of this ridiculously long contract.”

  Something flashed behind the ringleader’s eyes. Could it be anger? Fear?

  When he spoke, his voice was so low she nearly missed it. “Best you not say such things if you wish to remain employed.” He nodded to the thumb on the table beside her. The giant pink cyborg elephant in the room. “Adjusting to your new role well, I see. You are aware not all cyborg implants can be detached?”

  Gwen cleared her throat. “What’s a life-or-death career change with zero experience? Piece of cake.”

  Turning, Bastian headed back toward the theater. “Make yourself useful to the circus, Ms. Grimm. The Mistress has been known to employ the contract’s fine print.”

  Just what did that mean?

  What fine print? She couldn’t read the blasted thing by the time Bastian shoved it and a fountain pen in her face in the prison cell. Her vision had been nearly gone.

  As Bastian yelled at another group of performers, Gwen slammed her fist down on the table. Two of her knuckles popped, and she withdrew her hand, shaking off the zing of pain. It paled in comparison to the headache zipping between her temples and her throbbing eye socket. But injuring one of the hands she needed to do her job wasn’t exactly advisable. Still… it had cooled her anger somewhat even though anxiety still churned in her stomach.

  Stomping over to the overstuffed shelves, she found a worn book with a broken spine. The title on the cover read “Cyborg Basics.” Taking a seat on the table and crossing her legs underneath her, she scanned through the book. The information was twenty years outdated and didn’t have anything about chip implantations—a discovery made in the past ten years. No literature had been published about cyborgs since the forming of the Union. This book even referenced cyborg implants controlled by handheld remotes.

  After flipping to the end, she tossed the book back onto a random shelf and picked up another, which was even more worn than the first. She was about to toss this book as well after reading about the toxic oils recommended for maintaining mobility of cyborg implants when a man cleared his throat.

  The juggler was back already?

  “I told you, your thumb won’t be ready until tomorrow,” she said without looking up.

  “I’m not sure what I would do with a mechanical thumb.” The voice was young, male. Not the harsh voice of the juggler or the booming voice of Bastian.

  Glancing up, Gwen was surprised to see a handsome, smiling face in her office doorway.

  The man leaning against the doorframe wore tight black pants, hunting boots, and a leather jacket crossed with sheaths. Ringed fingers disappeared into his jacket, returning in a flash of scarlet. The smile never left his face as he approached, extending a red rose toward her.

  “Thanks.” Uncertain what else to do, Gwen accepted the rose, not bothering to stand from the table at the center of the room. “My apologies. I thought you were—”

&
nbsp; “No need to apologize,” the man said smoothly. “Thaniel can be a little rough around the edges.” His words were sickeningly sweet as though he’d swallowed too much nectar. “I should apologize on behalf of my friend. We’re all a little… excitable after the Mistress’s announcement.”

  “And you are…?”

  “How rude of me.” The man took a step back from the table. Unlike the juggler, Thaniel, this man had corded muscles in his arms and shoulders and a trim waist. He was so tall, his head nearly smacked into the top of the doorframe. “My name is Abrecan Karlight, the circus archer and knife thrower.”

  That explained the sheaths.

  “What can I help you with, Mr. Karlight?”

  Unlike most of the performers she’d seen, he didn’t have any visible cyborg parts.

  “Please, call me Abrecan.” The words dripped with such overt sweetness, she wanted to pass him a handkerchief.

  Placing the flower on the table beside her, she stood. “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s not what you can do for me, but what I can do for you.” Abrecan returned to his place against the doorframe. Looking at him now, the position seemed far too casual.

  She’d met men like Abrecan before—the bold, assuming type. But she was no damsel in distress ready to swoon for the first person to offer her friendship or more even though she was still recovering from an unanesthetized brain surgery. Returning the book she’d been reading to the shelf, she was careful not to turn her back on the archer.

  “It’s good to know your craft, but words on a page will only get you so far,” he continued, unperturbed by her lack of response.

  Suddenly, pain shot through her temples. She hadn’t had many episodes since her surgery. The surgeons had said it would take a few weeks for her body to adjust to the implant. Even so, the pain blinded her. For a moment, she thought she was still dying. Staggering forward, she slapped her knuckles against one of the shelves.

  Abrecan appeared beside her, catching her around the waist. Blinking, she tried to see more than the silhouette of the archer’s dark hair. Her cyborg eye whirred as vision returned to her implanted eye first. Through her new X-ray vision, she saw beyond the tight jacket to the metal plating beneath his right shoulder.