by JOSEPH RAY
Her heart jumped up into her throat as her mind filled in the missing pieces of the terrifying puzzle. The organic sound was running water, coming from the same room of the floating Cyber. Her blue eyes opened wide, looking for any signs of movement outside of the doorway. The lights that hung from the ceiling were high above the edge of the door, only illuminating an area the width of the door and stretching perhaps ten feet out into the main chamber. Quaid had a lot of ground to cover if he intended to check the remaining seven doors that led out of the main room.
She turned back, thankful that the data pad had completed the download. She shut the device off, forcing it back into the pouch sewn into her thigh. She reached for the pouch on her belt as her stomach dropped into her knees. Her pistol was still on the Hopper, replaced with a portable cutting torch instead. The handheld torch fit perfectly into the gun’s holster, making it an easy decision for her to take the tool rather than the protection. Quaid always had her back in the past, proving to be a far better shot than she would ever be. Quaid, however, wasn’t here right now, making her far more vulnerable than she cared to be. Thinking quickly, she tapped the red button on her wrist. Static filled the air as she attempted to call her boss.
“Quaid,” she whispered. “Quaid, come in!”
The static continued, broken by two brief pauses of nothing. She realized that he’d responded, but something was interfering with the signal. The wrist coms worked well when they were outside, but thick metal walls, such as these, often kept the signal from reaching its destination. She’d have to rely upon a much more primitive method of communication.
“Quaid!” she yelled, turning on her shoulder light as she left the room. “Quaid, come back!”
She saw a light come out of a doorway on the far side of the main chamber, waving back and forth, as Quaid hurried back to her location. She would never tell him, but she was never so happy to see him.
“What?” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.
“Hush,” she whispered. “Can you hear it?”
The Captain tried quietly to catch his breath as he listened for whatever had freaked his partner out enough for her to scream for him. He cursed inside his mind, trying to understand why he was short-winded after such a short jog. He decided that he would park the Hopper more frequently and start jogging again. His job required him to be in decent shape, whether it was for chasing someone or running away from someone. There were few technological replacements for a body that was in peak physique.
After a few seconds, he was able to close his mouth and breathe through his nose. Another second passed before he was able to join Sandra in listening to the new sound. The humming of the tank’s motor had ceased, replaced by a sound that could only signify trouble for the two of them.
“Shit,” he snapped, heading towards the long hallway. “All that damn button pushing.”
Sandra chased after him. She didn’t want to go back down the long hallway, but she certainly wasn’t about to be left in the big, dark chamber all by herself. Similar tanks to the one with the stiff inside lined the main chamber, forcing her to stay towards the middle of the room. She had no intentions of knowing whether or not the other chambers were empty, or occupied.
She caught up to him a few steps into the hallway, grabbing for his shoulder as she nearly tripped on his feet. He slowed down, waiting for her to catch her balance.
“We must have started the evacuation program somehow,” he stated. “I just wanna make sure we didn’t do anything worse than drop a stiff onto the ground.”
“Who cares?” she whimpered, her eyes locked on the dim light from the room up ahead. “If he’s on the floor or standing there pissing, who cares? I got everything loaded, let’s just get the hell out of here!”
Quaid ignored her. He didn’t like to tell her of jobs he’d performed before she’d come to his employment, but there was a harsh lessoned he’d learned the hard way many years prior. His father had taught him to have an exit strategy, and never leave a loose end. He’d ignored the last part of the advice, on more than one occasion. The last time he left a loose end, he found himself in the need of a new crew. So far, Sandra was the only person who suited his needs. He wasn’t about to lose a valuable asset like her because he was scared.
“Just in and out,” he replied, starting for the doorway once more. “If it’s laying on the floor, not breathing, then we bolt. Just like you said.”
“And if it isn’t laying on the floor?” she whispered, letting him take the lead.
He cocked the hammer back on the Ruger, giving her the answer to her question. The pair inched down the hallway, both wishing the light from the inside of the tank were a little brighter. Gradually, the view on the other side of the open doorway spread open. Three-quarters of the water were missing from inside the tank. The missing water, however, wasn’t all that was absent from their view. A few more steps found them inside the room, alone with the empty tank.
“Where is it?” she whispered, clutching his shoulder and looking around the room.
He shrugged her off, wanting his body free to turn at a moment’s notice. He glanced at the empty tank, then down to the floor.
“Look,” he muttered, pointing the gun at the floor.
Sandra turned her gaze to where Julius pointed, noting the foot shaped puddles on the floor. She took a step back, putting her shoulder lamp on the tiny puddles of orange and green tinted water. It was awkward, but she managed to make the beam of light follow the footprints, realizing that they led down the hall from which they’d just came.
“Shit,” he groaned, raising the gun and storming down the hallway.
“Let’s just leave!” she pleaded. “Just get back to the Hopper and get the hell off this rock while we still can.”
They reached the end of the hallway quicker than Sandra wanted, the creepiness of the main chamber sending chills down her spine. She could stay here for days and never get over the uneasy feeling the hollow place crammed into her chest. Quaid had slowed his pace, holding his light in one hand, his gun in the other, and placing his hands over one another to work in unison.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he hissed. “If that thing has any senses, it’d make a ‘b’ line right to its only way off this station.”
Sandra’s eyes opened wide, fear and regret forming in her throat. She’d spent this entire expedition without giving a single thought to her little sister, sitting on the ship all alone. She pictured the bald Cyber, his glass covered eyes seeing Jenna as unnecessary cargo. Even if it left her alone, and simply took the ship, they’d have no way of getting off the planet themselves. She had a few bars of protein in one of her pockets, but there wasn’t any water. Her stomach quivered as she realized there was water all around her, nearly emptying onto the floor at the thought of having to drink it.
“Jenna!” she stammered.
Before Quaid could stop her, Sandra had pushed past him, jumping over the beams and cables in the middle of the floor. He chased after her, unable to keep his gun out in front of him and catch her at the same time. He squeezed through the open doorway, ducking the cables that hung from the ceiling in the outer hall. He could see her light shaking back and forth, thirty paces up ahead of him. This only confirmed that he needed to get more exercise. She was younger than him but not so much to warrant the distance between them.
The door to the air lock was slowly swinging shut as he rounded the corner. He knew she hadn’t closed it on him as all air locks were designed to return to a closed position when nothing was keeping them open. He crashed into the door with his shoulder, barely catching it just before the latch could catch. He jogged down the corridor, opting to lower his gun so he could move quicker. The other airlock to the Hopper opened with ease as it was used more recently than the door to the facility. He locked the door behind himself, holstering the weapon and heading towards the cockpit. He passed the common room in the middle of the ship, noting that neither Sandra nor Jenn
a was sitting in any of the chairs. He passed through the open room quickly, down another narrow corridor, and jumped over the protruding frame of the cockpit door.
“Why the fuck was you running?” he asked, trying to catch his breath. “I had the ignition key in my pocket the whole time. They weren’t going anywhere without us.”
His narrow eyes caught the bewilderment on his partner’s face, as well as the slightly smaller eyes of her sister, who clutched onto her older sibling. Neither of the women was looking at Quaid, their gaze aimed towards something to his right. He didn’t need to think long about the reasons for their fear, nor what it was their wide eyes were fixed upon with such horror. He kept his head still, slowly reaching for the Ruger on his right hip. Something caught his hand, something cold and strong. He tried to force his hand to the pistol’s grip, but he felt the gun pulled out of the holster long before he could blink.
“Now that you’ve returned the ignition key,” the Cyber said. “I believe it’s time we were away.”
3 CHAPTER three
The Hermes passed through the last Gabriel Ring on its homeward journey, the protective shell ship opening to release the smaller vessel. MA Joseph felt the ship rear backward, the result of the reverse shift from the previous ring. The Hermes pulled away from the shell ship, breaking away from the confines of the system-to-system Gabriel Ring. The ship lunged, making the short trip to the interplanetary ring, barely a tenth the size of the larger brother. He wasn’t programmed to understand how the Gabriel Rings worked, only that each one aided in speeding a ship along to the next ring, turning an impossible journey into a relatively short trip. He knew that it was a Cyber who developed the first Gabriel Ring, the same ring he’d just passed through a moment earlier.
One by one, the planets passed by the blue-gray colored ship. He was sad not have been passed Saturn, easily his favorite amongst this galaxy. By the time he’d passed Mars, rather what remained of the dead planet, Earth had started to come into view. The Cyber remarked how grand the planet seemed, with its vast oceans and white clouds. It varied greatly from the other planets, all carbon copies of various aspects of mankind’s original home.
The tiny ship broke the atmosphere, the angle and speed already taken over by the ship’s navigational system. He was skilled at doing this manually, but he opted to let the ship fend for itself. It was difficult for him to imagine a time when he and the ship were not assigned to one another, the two having joined as a single team many years prior. The ship made its final descent upon the Eastern colony, a place once known as Northern Africa.
A crowd was already forming around his quiet vessel, soldiers, and Cybers, side by side, all with rifles loaded and ready. Joseph expected such the moment he’d received his orders to return to base to receive his debriefing over the Parasus incident. He’d scanned his databanks, looking for any past history of Cybers who acted outside of their programming. He had to reach far beyond his own generation, finding incidents of second gen Cybers whose actions were similar to his own. Those actions were always met with strict discipline, a thought that had sent a chill down his spine. He wanted to ignore the order, to remain as a guardian to Yomiel and his family. Wireless access to his processor, however, forced him to do otherwise.
The seal broke on the cockpit as it slid back over the top of the vessel. The ladder formed as he threw one leg over the edge and slowly made his way to the platform below. He barely managed to turn around when the military unit closed in around him, their various weapons aimed at his head. He raised his hands, allowing for the nearest MP to place the shackles on his wrists as another stepped forward and removed his weapon from its holster.
He wasn’t surprised to find that the trial was scheduled for tomorrow. By current standards, such a crime would have been tried and decided on the spot. He could hardly imagine how such trials had lasted for weeks, sometimes months or years far back in mankind’s history. Such things as retrials, mistrials, and appeals had vanished from their vocabulary back in the 2700’s, around the time, that man decided that justice should outweigh a person’s rights. The history of mankind showed that the two often swayed back and forth, one always rising over the other before finding its pinnacle, then falling to allow for the other to rise. The swing towards justice, in the 2700’s, saw no return of people’s rights. Those who didn’t like it were free to venture onto a transport ship and find somewhere other than Earth to call home.
MA Joseph was taken into custody and ushered into a military confinement cell. He sat there in the tiny room, with only a cot, a sink, and a toilet to keep him company. There was no window, no floor to ceiling bars to offer him a view of the next room, and certainly no cellmate. They wouldn’t keep a Cyber in a room with a human. Joseph couldn’t fully comprehend why, but he knew it to be an unwritten law.
Thirty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds after the cell door was shut behind him, a rumbling of the door’s lock was heard. A moment later, David Ballistar entered with a lone Cyber guard accompanying him. Joseph recognized the man instantly, a member of Earth’s Council and representative of Human and Cyber relations. It was an archaic position, no longer taken with the same seriousness as when the second gens existed. Now, the title the man possessed along with his job were little more than a formality.
“Hello J-17,” David said, stepping into the room. “How are you holding up son?”
Joseph looked to the man without expression. David Ballistar’s appearance had changed greatly since the last updated photo on his military file. The thick auburn hair had been thinned, sweeping backward over his tanned scalp. The hair was darker around the ears, growing lighter as it neared its peak. His face was almost red, two narrow eyes of blue peering back at him with much concern. He was of average height, average weight, with few remarkable physical traits. He wore the same blue-gray uniform as all the officers of the military did though the badge on his chest differed greatly from any of the others. Where others had rows of bars, pieced together with tiny squares that symbolized commendations or battles fought, David Ballistar only had one lone silver rectangle, a symbol of his position.
“Thank you, that’ll be all,” David said, turning to the guard behind him. The guard glanced at Joseph, trying to decide whether or not he should leave the unarmed bureaucrat alone with such a dangerous being. He thought better, realizing that the Major outranked him, thus leaving him little choice but to obey his orders.
“As you wish,” the guard stated, stepping back and pulling the metal door shut. The door banged loudly against the catch as the metallic lock engaged. Major Ballistar turned back to his query, taking a seat next to the silent Cyber.
“You’ve been charged with treason J-17,” the man started. “Do you understand the charges against you?”
MA Joseph turned to the man, a curious look forming upon his face. His right brow lifted high above his eye, which had started to scan the man the moment he’d entered the room. He couldn’t recall why he had bothered with the scan as he knew the man to be unarmed. Perhaps it was merely a force of habit.
“You should call me Joseph,” he replied, his brow lowering. “While I understand the charges, I do not understand why the charges have been raised against me. To the best of my knowledge, I have followed my orders down to the finest detail. Perhaps you could tell me what I have done wrong, Major Ballistar.”
The Major looked back to the door, wondering if anyone had devices pressed against the metal frame. He almost laughed as he realized that the devices were likely built into the cell and every word they spoke was being monitored. There was little privacy to be had in the military, even when it came to client/lawyer privileges.
“You murdered a high-ranking official from Parasus,” David replied. “Parasus is an ally of the Earth, thus why it is being considered treason. To kill a diplomatic official of an ally is to wage war against Earth itself. Do you not understand this?”
The Cyber thought for a second, referencing many terms and definitions
as the man spoke. He compared these definitions to his actions, applying each one by one, trying to understand why he was in the cell.
“It seems I do not,” Joseph answered. “I received orders to retrieve the slaves from Lord Elsmere’s possession. The man threatened their lives should I have proceeded. Logic dictated that I could not protect the females once I left their company, leaving me little choice but to remove Lord Elsmere from the equation. I have acted within the confines of my objectives, nothing more.”
Ballistar jammed his red hands into his thinning hair, showing why his hairline had raised so highly for a man of forty-five. His face became much darker, the stress of the situation bearing down upon him in full force.
“Perhaps you’ve merely malfunctioned?” he suggested, dropping his hands to his lap. “When was your last diagnostic?”
Joseph closed his eyes, running a scan upon his inner CPU. One by one, each scan showed negative results for any actions acting outside of his programming.
“I am running at peak efficiency,” he muttered. “There are no errors to be found within my programming. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding of the situation on Parasus? If you would like, I can playback the footage from the day in question.”
“Alright,” Major Ballistar replied, pulling a pad from his coat. “Run it here.”
The Cyber reached out and touched the data pad. The plain screen came to life, showing video footage of the Cyber’s memories through his own eyes. David watched, his narrow eyes pouring over the details of every scene, his keen ears tuning into to every breath and syllable. David knew there was a tiny transmitter in the Cyber’s hands, serving as a short-range wireless network to certain types of devices. The two watched the day’s events unfold. They watched the conversation at the landing pad, the guards prejudice against Cybers, and the entire happenings from inside Lord Elsmere’s chambers. The lower right of the screen showed the various data that Joseph was acting upon, dozens, if not hundreds of laws and protocols flying across the screen. They watched the return trip of Joseph, leaving the I.I.U. Agent at the pad and heading back a second time. He listened to the conversation, his hands shaking as he listened to the foul words and threats that seeped from the man’s lips. David Ballistar couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride when he saw Elsmere’s face explode upon the impact of the fragmenting bullet.
