After a pause, Adam heard a muffled pop before the door slid open. "Request granted. Subject Solted Goren to be reported to the High Commander and marked for possible treason."
Adam stumbled into the room amid sirens and flashing red and white lights throughout the hall and in Goren's room. There he found the young, sick man on the floor on the other side of his bed. His leg draped the top of his bed. Blood splattered over the wall.
Adam wanted to turn his back on the scene and scream at the top of his lungs at the injustice. However, he was a lieutenant. He'd lost control of this man who, essentially, was his prisoner. He had to take control of the situation now that he had taken his own life.
Adam shook his head and slammed his hand on the call button on the console in Goren's room. "Need the coroner in Private Goren's quarters and a couple of MPs."
As policy dictated, Adam would have also needed to give his report to an officer of his rank or higher. He should have made that request, but he couldn't do it. He couldn't muster the strength to talk about this young man as an object.
As the professionals retrieved Goren's body and cleaned the room, Adam ran through the "what-ifs" in is brain. What if he had hammered the fact to every young soldier that masks were needed for any outdoor attacks? What if Adam could have convinced those highly-paid government scientists to find an antidote to bio-terrorists warfare rather than trying to maintain those useless cyborgs? What if Adam could have been a little faster at getting to Goren before he ran into his room and locked Adam out?
Seeing Goren's top dresser drawer open with the contents spilling over will forever be burned into Adam's brain. It wasn't fair. A young man shouldn't have to fix the mistakes of the past. And he for damn sure shouldn't have killed himself as an alternative.
"If we need any more information, we'll contact you, Lieutenant." The head investigator patted Adam on his shoulder as the team vacated Goren's room.
Fuck, Adam needed a drink. He needed to clear his head. He secured the quarters. He would have to go back later and gather Goren’s things for his family. No matter what, Goren would go out a hero. Adam would make sure of that.
Adam stomped down the hall. He needed something in his belly and it was dinnertime. Ruminating over a halfway decent meal would give him the chance to think about what he would say in his report.
Unlike the High Commander, Adam wouldn't blame Goren or even himself for what just happened. No, all of this was the fault of the government and their need to watch over, protect and perfect those cyborgs. If it hadn't been for them, Goren and many other soldiers like him would have had a fighting chance.
Adam rounded a corner to go to the mess hall and ran into someone. "Excuse me." His eyes focused on the last thing he wanted to see, a fucking cyborg.
* * * *
E-V-E stared at Adam for a moment after the slight collision in the hall. The alarm Lieutenant B'Luven activated alerted her and other officers of her rank, which technically matched B'Luven's.
To keep the distinction between humans and cyborgs, the Federation chose not to rank the cyborgs, only to give them jobs and explain how their jobs equated to a human's. As an Emergency Violator Equalizer, or E-V-E, she understood her role as a killing machine. Staring at the now disgruntled face of the lieutenant, she knew that he didn't understand her or her function.
"Lieutenant B'Luven, I was coming to see you." E-V-E held a small recording device in her hand.
"Why?" B'Luven didn't stand to hear the answer. Wherever he was going when he ran into E-V-E, he continued on his trek.
"You sounded the alarm about a possible treason. The policy is that once the situation has been controlled, you must give your report to an officer—"
He interrupted as he stepped into the packed mess hall. "I know the policy. I know what I'm supposed to do. I don't need—" He regarded her for a moment like he was trying to find the right word to describe her. "—you to tell me what's the next step in this process."
E-V-E assessed B'Luven's demeanor. As he stormed through the food line, grabbing random items offered, she suspected that he was angry about something but not willing to talk about it. Her heat sensors found his body temperature rising as she followed him. Was that anger or lust?
E-V-E had learned all about human's emotions mainly because she had been trained to use those emotions against them if they were the enemy. Right now, Lieutenant B'Luven wasn't an enemy. She just wanted to get his statement for the report and move on.
After loading his tray, he sat at the end of a fairly vacant table although the tables around him were fully occupied. E-V-E scanned the area around him. Human soldiers sat on the same side of the room as B'Luven. When she looked on the other side, she noticed cyborgs occupied those tables.
The self-imposed segregation didn't make any sense to her. But she knew how humans felt about the cyborgs. On more than one occasion, human soldiers gave E-V-E a hard time.
Whether they liked her or not wasn't the issue. E-V-E had a job to do for the Federation. She would do it to the best of her abilities, including taking B'Luven's statement.
E-V-E sat down next to B'Luven, a move that must have surprised the other soldiers around her. She didn't need to use her enhanced hearing to catch their gasps when she positioned herself on what must have been understood to be the human side of the mess hall. Regardless of where B'Luven was, she had a job to do. She was going to do it whether she had to sit with him during dinner or follow him to his quarters.
The thought of that made her face get hot. E-V-E pressed her hand to her cheek. She would need to see the in-house scientist to make sure her chip wasn't overheating. She'd seen cyborgs with that problem.
The most obvious sign of an overheating chip that scientists were able to catch before it killed the host was the random burn marks over the cyborgs bodies. Wherever they choose to implant the chip, that was where the burn occurred.
Making sure she was okay, E-V-E smoothed her hand across the back of her neck then activated her recorder. She stated the date and time into the device, then placed it below B'Luven's mouth once he set his fork down.
"Lieutenant Adam B'Luven, please recount the reason you activated the treason alarm. Did you feel the inhabitants were in danger or just the violator?"
Adam glared at her. "I asked you to leave me alone."
E-V-E took a deep breath. "As policy dictates, I must get this report before—"
He slammed his fork down. "A man killed himself today."
Their section of the room became quiet.
"And who was that man? Soldier, civilian or scientist?"
"Soldier. Private Solted Goren." B'Luven faced her. His knees sat on either sides of her legs, trapping her as she sat. "I want you to remember his name, Eve."
"That's E-V-E."
She understood the human's need to humanize the cyborgs. And some cyborgs wanted that inclusion. E-V-E knew the distinction. In combat, there were no friends, no comrades. She would much rather trust another soldier's skill than whether he would make a good friend. It was the reason she insisted on interviewing B'Luven.
Since starting in the Federation Army, E-V-E had been assigned to the same platoon as B'Luven with the understanding that they would work side-by-side. In that time, the only thing they managed to do was allow E-V-E to lead and guide the cyborg side while B'Luven supervised the human side. What she noticed of him in that time was the way in which he led his troops.
He respected each and every soldier, giving them solid guidance. Watching him shoot and handle himself in combat made E-V-E question whether he was a cyborg himself. He had skills that matched and sometimes surpassed some finely-tuned cyborgs.
Lately, she found herself staring at him for longer than she felt she should have. She started noticing the way he moved, how he looked, and sometimes, how he smelled. Today, he smelled of sweat and must. She took in another deep inhalation to capture the stench.
His aroma stiffened every hair on her body and hardened h
er nipples to such a degree that she wondered if such a reaction was normal, standard, human. She caught B'Luven's gaze drop to her breasts for a brief moment before he continued speaking. Although E-V-E was there for business, she relished the momentary stare.
"All Private Goren wanted to do was to be a soldier." B'Luven wiped his hands.
"Why did you sound the alarm, Lieutenant?" E-V-E had to keep him focused on the task at hand.
If he told his story, E-V-E would have been out of his hair in a matter of minutes. But B'Luven kept talking like he had a point to make. And from his angry demeanor, he wanted to make sure E-V-E understood the goal of his speech.
"He was one of my best soldiers." B'Luven stared into E-V-E's eyes. "He risked his life to save children from a burning school. For his heroism, he and ten other little kids got a dose of Z-1XG. Do you know what that is, Eve?"
Instead of correcting his error in her name, she shook her head.
"It's the biochemical weapon that melts a human's internal organs."
The hall suddenly became quiet.
"If it gets into your eyes, it melts your eyes first. Luckily, Goren did wear eye protection."
"Why didn't he wear a gas mask as required, Lieutenant?" E-V-E brought the recorder closer to his mouth.
As though he didn't hear her, he kept on with his twisted tale. "Then it melts your nasal cavity and throat. Goren coughed up blood before—" B'Luven sat up straighter but never taking his gaze off of her. "Then your lungs turn into jelly so you're drowning in your own lung cavity. If that doesn't kill you, the next thing to go would be your heart and stomach. By then, the person is begging to die. Whatever sick bastard devised this poison created it so that the person who has exposure to this and is dying from it is fully aware of the agony inflicted on them. It does nothing to the brain or nervous system. Every gut-wrenching pain is felt and there is nothing you can do about it."
"Why did Private Goren—"
B'Luven interrupted her question. "The reason Goren didn't wear a mask was because for a moment, he forgot about his own safety and tried to do the right thing. He's a hero in my eyes, not a failure."
"So why did you call a treason alert?"
By this time, the people eating around them in the hall stopped what they were doing and turned to the duo.
"I needed to gain access into Private Goren's quarters."
"Were you in control over Private Goren?"
B'Luven blinked but his jaw flexed after she made her inquiry. "I had secured all of his weapons on his person at the time. I followed him to sickbay."
"I don't understand, Lieutenant. If you had his weapons and you were following him to sickbay as you were instructed by the High Commander, I'm sure, how did he escape from your charge?"
"He ran."
B'Luven must have thought that his two-word response would have been good enough for her. E-V-E had seen this man in training. She knew how fast he could run and how strong he was. He wasn't made a lieutenant for his good looks.
"And you weren't able to catch him?"
"I didn't expect it. He talked about how far back his family had served in the Federation Army. He felt disappointed that he would be letting his family down because of this."
"You mean his mistake in not wearing his required mask."
B'Luven fisted both hands and rested them on top of his knees. "Goren wanted to be a hero and thought that his government would look out for him. Turns out the one thing that could have saved him, the accelerator, wouldn't do him any good." He snickered. "No, that miracle cure, although it can help us humans in certain situations, is basically for you cyborgs. If you enounter Z-1XG, they could pump you with accelerator and you'll be fine to fight another day."
While B'Luven looked like he was in a weak moment, E-V-E pursued her question again. "What was Private Goren doing in his room when you sounded the alarm?"
B'Luven scanned the room. He took a deep breath before answering using carefully chosen words. "I don't know what happened when his door closed. He could have been praying for a cure for himself. He could have been praying for the ten kids who would be going through the same agony. He could have been cursing the cyborgs and the government's need to protect you guys."
"Fine. What did you find when you gained access into his room after you sounded the alarm?"
"I found the contents of Goren's top dresser drawer in disarray. And I found Goren on the floor on the opposite side of his bed." He cleared his throat before continuing. "There was blood on the wall."
"Shit! Goren's dead?" one soldier sitting next to the duo asked.
A rumble went through the group.
"Happy now? You got the full story." B'Luven stood, grabbing his tray full of untouched food.
"So Private Goren killed himself. I still don't understand why you sounded the treason alarm. If he was exposed to Z-1XG, he would have been dead anyway. Saving him to be treated in sickbay doesn't make any sense."
B'Luven dropped his tray and loomed over E-V-E. "You're a real piece of work, you know that? In all of this," he pointed to her head and moved his finger down to her chest over her heart, "do you feel anything? Is there some malfunction in your chip that keeps you from feeling any kind of human emotion? A soldier is dead. He took his life when he felt his government gave him no hope. And you're going to sit here and have the nerve to tell me that what he did was somehow justified?"
E-V-E gauged his heat levels. She'd never seen a human run so hot before, not without being blasted with a nuclear weapon. She didn't understand B'Luven's anger, especially not toward her.
"I'm just here doing my job, Lieutenant. You seem irritated by me like this whole situation was somehow my fault."
"You want to know why I'm angry? I'm angry that I've lost another good soldier. I'm angry that he felt he had no other option but to take his own life. I'm angry that the government would rather spend time and money having scientists come up with cures for you people than humans. And I'm angry that one of Goren's last requests was to be like you."
E-V-E blinked and cocked her head. "He wanted to be a woman?"
B'Luven shook his head. "Funny." He grabbed his tray and headed to the trashcan.
E-V-E kept up with him.
"You're no woman." He dumped the contents and set his tray on a conveyor belt heading into the kitchen area. "At one time I thought you were. I guess I was wrong. A woman has a heart, a soul. You're a machine."
When B'Luven called her a machine, E-V-E felt a twinge in her chest. It wasn't out of disappointment. She'd been called much worse by unscrupulous people. A silent pulsating alarm sounded in her head that demanded her attention. She'd recognized the sound.
"The High Commander says that I could learn a lot from you people." B'Luven glanced over at the other side of the mess hall at the other cyborgs. "I think I need to watch my back with you all. I used to respect your fighting skills. I have to admit, I have watched you in combat several times. I know what you're capable of in the field. But it bothers me that you all have some intimate knowledge about our enemy. How is that possible?"
Talk about bad timing. The dull throb in E-V-E's head and the hairs that rose on her body signaled to her that danger loomed. An enemy had breached their zone.
E-V-E called a cyborg officer in the hall to her. She handed him her recorder with instructions to take it to her office.
"Something's wrong." E-V-E put her hand to her head.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
A human soldier rushed into the mess hall. "A Cerillion robot has just landed! It's posed to attack us!"
Chapter Two
"Eve, at some point you're going to have to listen to me," Adam shouted over the whirring and whizzing sounds of his KN-47 weapon.
Although he wanted to argue more with Eve on the cyborg's role in the human Federation Army, there was no time. Just as Eve started to complain about feeling funny and her pale face getting paler by the moment, a soldier informed them of this attack.
The over-forty-foot tall steel robot in front of them with its round body, solid titanium legs and modified claws for all four of its feet raised another metallic shield over its exoskeleton. It showed no sign of stopping its assault.
There was no use having the full army outside of the dome to fight this nuisance. Adam preferred to do this battle alone. When Eve insisted on fighting with him, he didn't have time or the inclination to stop her. A part of himself wanted to see her get her comeuppance with this thing. But then a small part of himself got tingles over his body from the fact that she wanted to fight.
Eve stood with her back to the thick steel door protecting the last few humans on planet Earth.
Although basically human, with tissues, organs, muscles and nerves, Adam knew she thought of herself as a robot, a computer, no different than the thing in front of her that she wanted to take down.
A sophisticated computer chip existed in her brain, implanted at conception and remaining until today, her twenty-fifth year. So why back in the mess hall when he'd called her a machine did she look so hurt? Was she reacting to his statement or the fact that the Cerillions had come so close to them?
Eve had been trained to be a killing machine. With one hand chop to the throat at the right angle, she could crush a man's windpipe and leave him gasping for air until he curled into a ball to die. With an upward thrust of her hand, she could shove the cartilage in any human attacker's nose into his brain, killing him within milliseconds.
Endless hours of combat training had guaranteed that she would never need weapons. But in a case like this, where the attacker wasn't human, she'd be foolish to discard them in favor of fighting with her bare hands.
Eve fired off several rounds from her assault rifle at the hulking robot. The shots landed around what could be considered the knee joint on machine.
Nothing.
The physics of the contraption astounded Adam. The shots should have taken it down. The one thing Adam did know about the cyborgs that fought in the Federation Army and, in particular, with Eve, was that she was an expert at spotting weakness, since it had filled her training schedule from the beginning.
Original Sin Page 2
