by Phil Wrede
CHAPTER 2
EARTH-7331, DETENTION THE PRESENT Lady Cyber-Knife extracted a probe from her back, a little needle -like tool attached to a thin cable. It came from a port just above her shoulder blades, near her right arm, and was usually covered by her hair. She knelt behind a desk in a darkened prison office, and slipped the probe into the access slot of the flexible computer screen laying across the desk's top. The Cyber-Sword rested on the floor, near her free hand, ready to slash out at a moment's notice. The instant the probe made contact, row after row of faces - all shapes, sizes, colors, and genders - flooded into her mind as she downloaded the entire prisoner manifest. None looked like hers; they were all flesh, not metal. She was not especially surprised to learn that most of the people held in this prison were criminals of thoughts and words, rather than deeds. Almost no one kept hidden in or underneath this tall tower had committed a violent act. No one, except for Cyber-Knife. As certain as she was that he hadn't masterminded the bombing of unarmed civilians, they shared a name, which likely meant a shared function. Lady Cyber-Knife knew that she wasn't especially nice, and believed he shared that trait. Maybe he deserved his fate. She needed his knowledge, and if that meant giving him his freedom... she probably would. She flipped through the freshly-assembled book of faces in her mind; even if Cyber-Knife's face hadn't been easily accessible from a thousand different files in her hard drive, she'd spent so much time thinking about him that every curve, crest, and line had etched iself into her memory long ago. She looked over the roster in a second, and went through it twice more in another second. She didn't find Cyber-Knife's face anywhere. “Motherfuckers, refusing even to admit to yourselves that you hold him here?” she grumbled, punching her fist silently against the topmost desk drawer. “Have you ever told the truth about anything in your lives?” “You already know the answer to that, sweet girl,” the Cyber-Sword chimed in, buzzing briefly against the floor. “Offer something useful, and do not address me by a demeaning nickname,” Lady Cyber-Knife snapped back. “So, you can roar,” the Cyber-Sword said, its tone a little jaunty. “When did it become common practice to bite someone's head off because they innocently used a term of endearment? You have all those files, all that history inside your mind. Can you pinpoint a date?” “Sure,” she said. “When fuckbirds whose egos were bigger than their cocks saw their precious, ill-gotten power slipping away, and decided to try and smother a new, more equal society, rather than accept their co-equal place in it. That was the last straw. But, you know, as a general practice, it's never been okay.” “Forgive me for trying to inject a little kindness into the everyday,” the Cyber-Sword said, frustrated. “You cannot even just say, 'I apologize?'” “Apologies have never really been the purview of anything enchanted, have they? Usually, people like you apologize to me.” “To you? What could anybody ever have to apologize to you for?” “Ignoring me, misusing me, misunderstanding me... I've seen a pretty wide span of human history, and let me tell you, fucking up is really about the only thing you people do well. You certainly don't ever follow the prophecy,” the Cyber-Sword said. “I will not argue with you,” Lady Cyber-Knife said, “but, praytell, what prophecy?” “The prophecy,” the Cyber-Sword said, incredulously. “The reason that I was forged, the very reason that I am.” “Nobody ever said anything about a prophecy,” Lady Cyber-Knife said. “'The Cyber-Sword is enchanted,'” she quoted, “'blessed by an ancient magic that makes it unbreakable, and capable of cutting through anything. It is the ultimate weapon, on which you can rely when everything else has failed you.'” “My word,” the Cyber-Sword said, “that's so much more complicated than the prophecy. It says that the greatest warrior of the age and I will save my world.” Lady Cyber-Knife looked sideways at the sword. “Indeed,” she said. “So simple, it is kind of pathetic.” She detached her probe from the desk terminal. “How did anybody ever misunderstand that?” “You might be surprised,” it said. “Besides, the world's not saved, so it hasn't been fulfilled.” “It must be splendid, for everything to be the fault of somebody else,” Lady Cyber-Knife said, popping up from behind the desk in a smooth motion, holding the tip of the sword back near her eye, ready to strike in an instant. “Oh, you have no idea,” the Cyber-Sword said. “Most of the time, I can hold out at least a little hope, but with you, I decided to just let it go, straightaway. I'm just biding my time for whomever comes along next.” “You know,” Lady Cyber-Knife said, thinking better of her circumstances, and swinging the sword back over her shoulder to return to its sheath, “with that attitude, it might serve you right if we spent the next millennium battling to save the human race, and eventually winning.” “Don't even joke about a thing like that,” the Cyber-Sword said, shaking hard enough in Lady Cyber-Knife's hand that she could swear it was trying to shrink back in disgust. “All you have seen,” she said, “all you have done, and you still have the same ass-backwards attitude.” “I guess you'll just have to show me.” “I will not put on a show for you,” she said, slipping the sword away. “You will see.” Lady Cyber-Knife leaned over the desk, drumming her hands against the false wood. “Now, were I hiding the most wanted man across thousands of Earths, I would keep him as far down as I could put him. So, we must find the secret elevator that takes you down to the hidden levels of the mystery prison.” As though she'd willed him into existence by speaking aloud, the owner of the office - the prison's warden - walked in through the door. He was a slim man, whose mass was mostly concentrated in his ever-widening midsection. His glasses looked too large for his balding head, and Lady Cyber-Knife wondered for a second if they'd been more appropriately-sized when he'd had a full head of hair. Unlike his guards, he wore a suit, of blue so dark it was almost black, with a garishly bright red tie. His attention was consumed by the display of a thin tablet he held in his left hand. When he finally looked up, and saw Lady Cyber-Knife, his jaw dropped, and started to shake so fervently that his glasses began to bounce up and down on his nose. Lady Cyber-Knife smiled, her lips peeling all the way back from her teeth. “MOM always said, if you do not know the answer to a question, ask,” she hissed. “Have I happened upon an expert here?” The warden threw his hand at a small, silver, pen-like tool in his jacket pocket, but Lady Cyber-Knife grabbed his wrist in midair. He could feel his bones grind between her fingers as she tightened her grip. Through her cybernetic ears, she could hear it as she squeezed his fingers almost to their breaking point. She caught some of his soft tissue beneath her mechanical fingers and he yelped from the pain. “Please, stop,” he gasped, sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Ready to talk, already?” she asked, pulling his arm further away from his chest and plucking the cylinder from his jacket with her free hand. Lady Cyber-Knife looked into its guts and immediately identified it as a small distress beacon, which would call for help silently and instantaneously once activated. She snapped it in two pieces and they fell to the floor, making not a noise against the thick carpet. She continued to disarm him, yanking a small plasma pistol from his hip and holstering it on her leg. It wouldn't fire many shots, but it would open up her options, while it held a charge. Seeing his easiest opportunity for a rescue fall apart in front of his eyes perversely stiffened the warden's spine. He used his free hand to push his glasses back up his face and tried to stare Lady Cyber-Knife right in the eyes. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he did his best to growl, “Fuck you, bitch,” at her through the pain. She did to the warden's wrist exactly what she'd done to his tool, and no one needed enhanced ears to hear the bones of his hand snap like a gunshot. Any pretense he had of toughness or determination vanished before his pain, and it was only the strength of her grip that kept the warden from falling straight to the floor. She could practically see the moisture vanish from his lips in real time as they dried in terror. His mouth opened in the loudest scream he'd ever loosed before. Tears dripped down his face profusely. “What about now?” she asked, monotone and impassive. “You have another wrist.” “Fine,” he said. When she didn't let him go, he r
epeated himself, “Fine. Fine. Fine, fine, fine,” as though the word was a magic incantation that, when said the proper number of times, would compel Lady Cyber-Knife to release him from her grip. “What do you want to know?” the warden asked, looking like he expected his bones to punch their way through his skin at any second. She had suspected he was a man who'd never suffered an injury in his life, but Lady Cyber-Knife hadn't expected she was so right. “Where do you keep your deepest, darkest secrets?” she asked, not releasing a single ounce of pressure. “What?” the warden gasped in between pained breaths. “You know, the secrets you you would die, rather than share,” Lady Cyber-Knife elaborated. “The secrets hidden from everyone, except for a select few.” When the warden continued to stare at her through confused, pain-glazed eyes, she just decided to say it. “Cyber-Knife,” she demanded. “Where do you keep Cyber-Knife?” A moment of confusion had lent the warden a spot of strength again. “What's a Cyber-Knife?” he asked. “This is a prison, not an armory.” Lady Cyber-Knife ground together the bone shards floating of what had once been his wrist; she could feel them crack and shred the fine muscles around them. “You will miss your wrist when it is only useless tissue,” she said. “You get to him from the maintenance elevator at the other end of the hallway,” the warden blurted out. “Anybody foolish enough to try and deal with him needs plenty of equipment, and you can bring it all down that way.” “How weirdly practical, for such an impractical place,” Lady Cyber-Knife said. “Secrets are rarely practical, admittedly.” She released his wrist and pushed him towards the open door. “Show me.” “I just told you!” he shouted, his face turning red. “Now, show me, and help me bypass any tricks hidden inside,” she replied. “What tricks?” he asked, shuffling forward on the tips of his toes, as if doing so would alleviate his pain. “Nobody knows about this place! You're the first person to ever come here who wasn't supposed to be here!” The warden stopped in the middle of the doorway and turned back towards Lady Cyber-Knife. The facility's security measures were clearly effective enough that he didn't want to get anywhere near them. “Men like you,” she said, jabbing him in the back with the talons on her right hand, “the men who built this place, the only thing good about you is that you never relax. Your paranoia means you never think you, or your secrets, are really and truly safe. You think it makes you crafty, but it really just makes you predictable. The latest cruel, awful thing you do will never be the last. We can always be suspicious of you, because our suspicions are always valid.” She grabbed the warden by his shoulder and threw him down the hall, towards the overlarge maintenance elevator's door. He fell and tumbled across the floor, leaving small smears of blood wherever his back struck the tile. “All right, all right!” he shouted, rolling onto his back and holding up his hands, desperate to do anything to prove to her that he'd obey. “Just let me stand up, and I'll show you what to do.” While Lady Cyber-Knife didn't help the warden to his feet, she did nothing to stop him. To the right of the elevator door was a touchscreen, in the shape of a hand, and below it, a retractable section of wall. The warden held his undamaged hand to the screen, and the ceiling just above them made a ringing sound. “It's on its way,” the warden said. A moment later, the retractable wall slid away, and a numerical pad came to life, yellow text on a glossy black screen. “This option's only available if you have an authorized palm print.” “No shit,” Lady Cyber-Knife said. As the warden reached out, she grabbed his good wrist, and he flinched, even though she applied no pressure. “Make sure you put in the right code.” “I don't see why you even need me, now,” the warden pleaded. “There's an access port, the same as every other installation. You can just hack into it.” “You do not want to have come all this way for nothing. You don't want to outlive your usefulness, do you?” Lady Cyber-Knife said, not really asking a question. “Well, when you put it like that,” the warden begrudgingly said, reaching for the wall, cradling his injured wrist in his good hand as if it was fine china. He tapped a code into the hidden panel, and the first stage of security protocols shut down, whining sound that had begun to grow in the back of Lady Cyber-Knife's ears falling silent. EARTH-1, THE WHITE ZONE THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES OF MILITARY COMPLEX HQ THE PAST (190 DAYS EARLIER) For most people, no matter the era, the term “administration office” conjures up a space marginally less exciting than “human resources.” The Complex counted on that when naming its intelligence and analysis division, that no one would look especially closely at the hirings and expenditures of an office of drones, synthetic and human alike, filing paperwork (even though documents had existed exclusively electronically for generations). The administrative floor had no windows, and was lit evenly by constantly buzzing fluorescent lights. Windows would have done no good, for it was buried so deep underground that the most anyone could have hoped to see was a pipe moving sewage, or a data cable transmitting information too classified to risk sending over the open air. Actually, the floor had been divided into two sub-floors some months ago, to pack twice as many intelligence operatives into the space. Instead of resting a comfortable height above, the ceiling of both sub-levels loomed only a few inches higher than the tallest standing employee, and people scuttled on their hands and knees to climb the stumpy staircase between the levels. A few employees had taken to grousing about how the remodel showed a grotesque lack of respect for them as workers, and as people; they had been reassigned to the maintenance and janitorial staff by the end of the first week, and no one had publicly complained since. Lady Cyber-Knife didn't complain. She didn't talk, generally, as she preferred to do her work at her desk. Even for someone less-than-adept at picking up on social cues, it had become apparent to Lady Cyber-Knife that her artificial limbs put her colleagues on edge. She had stopped wearing sleeveless tops after the first day of work, then skirts and short sleeves entirely. She left her face uncovered, as her light skin did not seem to make anyone uncomfortable. She assembled a professional wardrobe of seven identical grey turtlenecks, and seven pairs of black slacks. Live without distractions. Work without interruptions. She couldn't remember where she'd learned that mantra, but she remembered it clearly enough that she imagined she must like it. She liked her uniform. She sat in a taupe cubicle, just small enough to be uncomfortable, with an entrance narrow enough to demand she turn her shoulders as she entered. Lady Cyber-Knife sat on a chair made of black mesh fabric that sagged ever so slightly when she rested upon it. A holographic keyboard, made of blue light, hovered in the air before her when she typed; it vanished if she turned away from her monitor, but appeared again the instant she raised her arms. The Complex had tasked her with spotting unusual patterns in signals and activity: it was the only time she was able to concentrate on something besides the dull, throbbing pain that poked at the base of her brain. She had new puzzles to piece together every day, and every time she did, she could swear that the pain that she felt diminished. Currently, Lady Cyber-Knife held a small, flexible tablet in her hand, from which she stared at a graphic of authorized and unauthorized trans-dimensional doorway usage from across the White Zone. She flicked the edge as she spun in her chair, moving the image from the small screen she held to a display floating above her head. She set her tablet down and brought her keyboard to life, making notes and attempting to divine patterns among the nonsensical pointillism. She arranged her observations into a brief memo and filed it in the proper folder on the shared departmental drive. That was her third filing of the morning; it had not been an especially productive day, and her patience had begun to fray. She had to keep working. An urge compelled her. The clock at the edge of the Heads-Up Display generated by her cybernetic implants clicked over to 9:30 A.M, and on cue, her co-workers began to file in from the main door at the other end of the floor. Lady Cyber-Knife had special access that let her into the building any time, day or night, weekday or weekend, and she preferred to arrive well in advance of the rest of the office. She worked better on her own. She heard a cough behind her - not one borne from necessity, like a dry throa
t, but of a desire for attention. She didn't even have to turn around to identify the source of the sound, for he'd made a habit of stopping by her space. Will Shorter was a boss, not even in her division. He'd fixated on her one day like a particularly dedicated missile, and she'd hadn't been able to shake him, no matter her evasive maneuvers or countermeasures. “What's up, Lacek?” he asked, flashing a smile so wide that, for a second, she worried that she saw his rearmost molars. Drawing your lips back that far should be physically impossible, she thought, and couldn't be healthy. “How's it going?” Lady Cyber-Knife could never understand people's obsession with imposing nicknames. “Lacek” wasn't her name. She tried to do people the courtesy of addressing them the way they preferred, and it grated on her nerves when they did not do the same for her. “Fine, Mr. Shorter, thank you,” she said, speaking politely, but also trying to discourage his attention. “How are you today, Mr. Shorter?” She had found that consistently and repeatedly addressing men formally constructed a fortification from which she could effectively repel them. Will was largely immune to the awkwardness that had become Lady Cyber-Knife's favorite weapon. He endured any indignity that got him closer to his ultimate goal, a quality that made him an effective manager and a more effective “hound dog.” Lady Cyber-Knife didn't much like animals, but she knew that none of them deserved to be painted with the same brush that colored Will Shorter. He leaned against the opening in her cubicle wall and squinted at her display overhead. “Every time I come here, you're working off of one map or another. What are you staring at them for?” “Discerning patterns. Trying to identify variables.” She regretted saying the words almost the instant they left her mouth. She'd ignored her sentry, left behind her soldiers, and passed beyond the boundaries of her keep entirely. She'd genuinely engaged with the question. If she wasn't careful, she might run the risk of having an actual conversation. Unfortunately for her, Will had invited her to talk about her work. The pain would creep back while she did this, but it would not return entirely. “Eventually, we will know how every gateway between every Earth should behave, so we can identify them when they misbehave. When they do that,” she continued, turning back to the map on her screen, “we will know from where they come.” “Who?” Will asked. “The enemy,” she replied. “The Autonomous Resilient Nonhumans. The ones Cyber-Knife was meant to vanquish.” Will's eyes grew wide first with fear, and then even wider still when he realized, for possibly the first time ever, the similarities between her name and the name of the most terrifying boogeyman the White Zone had ever known. "No fucking way," Will said. "Hey, does his name have anything to do with...?" "Simply a name that fate decided we would share," she said. "Is everybody named Smith, Chang, or Martinez related?" It took Will a second to reply while he considered this. “Good,” he finally said, that mask of hormonal arrogance sliding perfectly into place once again. “That'd kill the mood something fierce if the most evil living criminal ever turned out to be your brother.” Lady Cyber-Knife sighed internally, knowing that he hadn't really understood a word she said. Will thought he was some kind of ladykiller, with his perfectly-styled black hair, greying ever so slightly at the temples, cheekbones and a jawline that looked machined, and cold blue eyes that lit up when he smiled. He didn't know that Lady Cyber-Knife saw beads of perspiration as they begun to form above his eyebrows, or that she could extrapolate the natural curves of his body that his bespoke-tailored suits struggled to hide. She could even count the number of bacteria building up in his mouth, that would soon enough tip his breath over into that disgusting, rotten scent that wafted from the people in the White Zone, regardless of their diet or how many times a day they cleaned their teeth. In spite of whatever was on the surface, Lady Cyber-Knife could see past it, to the rot that lingered below. It was a skill that made her an invaulable intelligence analyst, and provided the burner on which she evaporated her personal life. Not that she minded; she turned up the heat as far as it could go, most days. She had an ever-expanding list of better ways to spend her time than listening to Will give her the hard sell on himself. As Will spoke, his eyebrows flickering up and down rhythmically, his eyes scanning forcefully all over Lady Cyber-Knife's body, his mouth curving around his words in what he hoped was a sensuous way, Lady Cyber-Knife tuned his voice out, reducing what he said to meaningless sounds. She imagined, instead, clenching and unclenching her fists, murderous claws extending from her fingertips that she then jammed into the soft tissue at the underside of his jaw, penetrating his head so completely that their tips emerged from the top of his skull. All the vital fluids housed within would drip down her fingers, and she would lift him above her, his body twitching, and maintained eye contact until life finished leaking out of him. She envisioned discarding him just as she would a used tissue and returning to her work, blood trickling down her face, hands, and chest. Lady Cyber-Knife was mild-mannered enough that, when a sudden thought of violence shot through her mind, it shocked her to her very core. Will finally noticed that she wasn't paying attention to the hot game he spat her way, and he drew his talking down first to a mumble, and then grew silent entirely. Upon realizing she'd totally broken off eye contact, he muttered something derogatory about her under his breath, and backed away. He probably thought she hadn't heard him, but she had, and if she wasn't so skilled at controlling her blush response, her cheeks would've flushed red right before acting out her most recent violent fantasy. She eagerly returned to her work. After lunchtime, for which she had the same meal as always - a tube of protein gel, a powdered nutrient shake, and several wafers of vitamin tablets - Lady Cyber-Knife's days dramatically slowed down before speeding up again at the end. She had to attend strategy session meetings, with other operatives who performed the same sort of analysis as her, and often just spouted nonsense statements borne out of a desire to hear themselves talk and a desperate hope that they might stumble into a way to justify their existence. Lady Cyber-Knife rarely spoke, unless specifically prompted. Following the meeting, she could return to her desk and track through screens and screens of newly gathered intelligence. With every piece she examined, the awful pain in the back of her head, that grew and grew since lunchtime, would finally subside. She didn't feel well, made to be away from work during work time. So, she redoubled her efforts after lunch, and did as much in the afternoon as anyone else did in any dozen mornings. She heard another cough, more insistent this time. Steeling herself for another uncomfortable interaction with Will, Lady Cyber-Knife spun around in her chair, surprised to see her boss, D'Raymond Rodrigues, standing in her cubicle doorway with his arms crossed. D'Raymond was the best supervisor Lady Cyber-Knife could remember, because he didn't do very much supervising. As long as she got her tasks completed, and submitted reports on time, he rarely ever bothered her, and even when he did, he looked her in her eyes, not staring at the seams of her clothes to try and figure out where exactly her cybernetic limbs attached to her body. He tapped his edge of his foot against the floor, increasing in frequency with every passing second. “Lady,” he began, “do we have a problem?” “I have never thought so,” she answered. “Me neither,” D'Raymond said. His skin, ordinarily a deep brown, had turned nearly to black, as the blood rushing to his face had succeeded in darkening him. “So, why the hell is there a major standing outside of my office, demanding to see you?” “Why would someone from the Army need more than is in my reports?” she asked herself as she got up from her desk and smoothed out her clothes along her body. D'Raymond took two exaggerated steps to his side, and from behind her cubicle wall emerged a tall, broad man - broad in every way, from his eyebrows and nose, all the way down to his stance. He wore green and grey camouflage fatigues, and a cap that looked too tight for him to wear comfortably. “I'm Lady Cyber-Knife,” she said. “What can I do for you today, Major?” “He wants you to go with him,” D'Raymond said. “You need to attend a presentation, or something. When the higher-ups at the Complex say to jump, we can only ask, 'How high?'” he said half-heartedly, waving his hand in th
e air and walking away. “All... right,” Lady Cyber-Knife said. She turned to the Major and half-shrugged. “I will follow you.” The Major ushered Lady Cyber-Knife into a conference room down the hallway, and ran his fingers along the windows to turn them opaque. In the exact center of the empty room, his hands clasped behind his back and wearing a military dress uniform, stood a man who looked vaguely familiar to her, even if she couldn't quite put her finger on how. It wasn't just the clothes that looked too big for him; his entire body seemed mismatched. His face was slim and sharp, almost like a knife, but the angles of his physique were the sculpted curves of a bodybuilder. None of the bulk of his body had reached up to his face, and none of the sleekness of his face looked to be present anywhere on his body. Lady Cyber-Knife had no idea why she had thought he looked familiar; she would have recognized somebody seeming that contradictory. “Lady Cyber-Knife,” he said, staring at the blanked, frosted glass and not even looking at her. “It's been a long time.” “I should know you?” she asked. “I do not recall.” “We only met briefly,” he said, turning towards her now, light catching the metal on the edges of every single ribbon and medal pinned to his chest, “long ago. I won't be offended.” “You have identified the problem,” she said. “I remember everything, even things I would prefer not to. To not remember you seems impossible.” “Your failing in this one area isn't germane today,” he said, dismissing her concerns with a wave of his hand. He walked closer, power in his stride, but hesitation, as well. There was a little hitch in every step he took, an almost imperceptible one that he had clearly trained to minimize. Lady Cyber-Knife wondered if anyone besides the two of them even noticed it. “My name is General Dinesh Barton Dinh Fong Torres. The security of the White Zone is my responsibility. I am the person to whom your reports ultimately get sent; I see them often. This satisfies me more than you probably know.” Lady Cyber-Knife felt a familiar sensation grumble in the pit of her stomach, and began to worry that this situation could take an all-too familiar turn any moment. She needed to defuse this quickly. “And, why would that be, General?” she asked. “Because,” Dinesh said, smiling, his eyes looking up and down her body without any pretense to subtlety, “I made you. You have me to thank for your inception, your continued existence, and your recent re-awakening.” “You mean, the reason I have to get up every morning and come to this miserable office, wherein I feel physical pain, and do this job that makes me long for death, is because you wished it so?” she replied, exasperated that someone might be responsible for the fate to which she'd been consigned. “You think I want to thank you for that?” “Your present... misuse is not a decision of my making,” Dinesh said, his voice dropping several octaves. “You have Maximilian, my predecessor, to thank for that. What happens next, is all my doing.” “Please,” Lady Cyber-Knife replied, “help me to understand.” “When you first came online, there were,” Dinesh said, “complications. Deaths. Unintended deaths. Several, in fact. That's what you were designed to do, you understand, to kill, but to kill the enemies we pointed you at. There were secret hearings for months after, trying to assign blame and figure out what to do with you.” Lady Cyber-Knife noticed the general's face growing slightly flushed, and couldn't believe that thinking about all the death and mayhem she'd caused appeared to be turning him on. Then again, she didn't know why it came as much of a surprise. “I seem to still be here,” she said. “Only by the grace of good fortune and the force of my will,” Dinesh snapped. “The administration wanted you thrown into the heart of a neutron star and compacted into a point smaller than the head of a pin, but I refused. You were a sunk cost, after all, and more valuable, at least, as a lesson in what not to do with the next iteration of cyborg super-soldier. So, that's what you were: an object lesson to guide us away from our mistakes, and towards what eventually became... Cyber-Knife.” He tilted his head toward the ceiling. “MOM, can you give us the display, please?” “Of course, General,” a soft voice replied from the closest edge of the wall. An image shone in the air between Dinesh and Lady Cyber-Knife. A tall man, taller than either one of them, stood out from the darkness, his full, light hair waving in midair; the image had been captured in the middle of action. His muscles, each more perfectly shaped and sized than Dinesh's, rippled out against a form-fitting black bodysuit. His eyes were purely black, just like his clothes, and he had a chin that looked sharp enough to cut glass. Holsters holding two of the most advanced-looking guns she'd ever seen in her life slapped against his thighs, and a vest belted just above his abdominals carried nearly a dozen grenades. Most eye-catching, though, was the weapon he held in his left hand: an ornate sword, its gold hilt looked as though it was missing jewels. In its polished blade, she could make out the reflection of something which also looked familiar: man-shaped, but significantly larger than Cyber-Knife. “He was perfect, perfect in every way,” MOM said, as Dinesh looked up and down the hologram just as he'd looked up and down Lady Cyber-Knife minutes ago. “He followed orders blindly, killed without remorse, and cut through every obstacle with his enchanted Cyber-Sword.” After a long, awkward moment of consideration, Lady Cyber-Knife said, “This entire circumstance is so insane that learning of the reality of magic sounds reasonable.” “I'm glad you think so,” Dinesh said, as the door into the conference room swung open again, slashing a bright blade of light across the dark floor, “because you'll bring it with you when we send you out into the field.” The Major walked in, carrying a pockmarked leather scabbard in his outstretched hands. Lady Cyber-Knife looked between the hilt of the sword carried by the Major, and the Cyber-Sword in the projected image, back and forth, until she could bring herself to accept the reality of the item in front of her. “Thanks to our hacker mages, we have... restrained it, ever so slightly, so that you may more easily control its power.” The Major presented the Cyber-Sword to her, and she took it automatically, without thinking, wrapping her left hand about the hilt. Lady Cyber-Knife drew the sword, and the blade sang against the scabbard as she pulled it into the open air. She couldn't remember ever holding a sword before, yet she knew what it felt like, and she knew that this sword was the best she could ever hope to touch or see. The weight of it felt perfect in her hand, as though it wasn't even there at all. She spun it around, tilting her wrist in a complete turn, and the blade hummed a higher pitch as it spiraled. It had an energy in its grip that she couldn't define, even as she felt it lance up her mechanical arm, through the flesh of her torso, and directly into her brain. “The Complex has tens of thousands of soldiers with more field experience than I could gain in years,” Lady Cyber-Knife said to General Dinesh. “Why not send one of them to hunt our enemy?” “Because none of them were actually made to fit the task at hand,” he answered. “Before you awoke, we made some adjustments to the cybernetic parts of your brain. We've given you all the information we have about Cyber-Knife. Everything he knew, you know. Every bit of tactical knowledge, combat styles, methods for gathering intelligence, even the very patterns of how sections of his brain light up when he's concentrating... You can think the way he thinks, and your prey will fall before you, one upon another.” “You're not worried that whatever happened to Cyber-Knife might replicate itself in me?” she asked. “Particularly in light of, before?” “It shall not happen,” MOM said, without hesitation. “What you know does not equate exactly to what you believe. We've given you access to information, not made it a part of who you are.” Lady Cyber-Knife continued to press. “Can you explain the difference?” “You only have access to information which we allow you. It gets transmitted to your brain from the Complex's mainframe. And, yes, there are safeguards,” MOM admitted. “Failsafes we put into place to prevent the mistake again. You can ensure that they don't activate by keeping your focus on your mission, and successfully completing it.” “You may have felt it already, in your office work,” Dinesh said. “Long meetings can be killer, can't they?” He stepped back, opening up a wide gap between himself, Lady Cyber-Knife, and the Major. “We can test your obe
dience right now,” MOM continued. “Take the sword and kill the Major.” Lady Cyber-Knife's eyes grew wide in her head. She looked at the Major, whose expression had remained utterly impassive, and back again at Dinesh, who expected his order to be followed precisely, and promptly. “What?” she asked. “I will not just kill him. Does he know you brought him here for me to kill him? Did you plan this, or do you just feel like watching somebody die?” “He knows,” Dinesh said. “He agreed to it because his family will receive a very generous survivors' package. They'll live in luxury, forever.” Lady Cyber-Knife looked at the Major. “Is this true?” she asked, feeling the weight of the sword in her hand, in spite of her perfect mechanical muscles. The Major nodded, meeting her eyes, refusing to blink. She noticed fat beads of sweat gathering beneath the brim of his cap and dribbling down the stubble that it didn't cover. “This man does not wish to die,” she said, turning back to General Dinesh, “He has done nothing to deserve it.” Dinesh's eyes narrowed, and he crossed his arms just above his narrow waist. “It's not about what you think he deserves," he said coldly, "but about what the Complex wants, and what you need.” “All this does is duplicate what happened the first time you activated me,” Lady Cyber-Knife said. “Killing without remorse or purpose. A moment ago, you said I spent years on ice for doing exactly what you are ordering me to do.” Dinesh opened his mouth, but it was MOM who said, “We did not punish you because you killed those men, but because you did it without authorization.” “Listen to MOM,” Dinesh entreated. “Your efficiency, the way you relished in it, I fought so hard to keep you alive because of those things. I wanted you, exactly you, and I merely had to wait until the Secretary and the Chief of Staff came to see things my way. I needed a desperate time, and that time has come. Now is, remind them you are who I've always said you were.” Terror stretched the corners of the Major's eyes as he refused to look away from Lady Cyber-Knife, sweat now trickling down creases of his hands. They twitched, like he wanted to dry them on his uniform, but he maintained his composure. A good soldier, obedient, even in the face of oblivion. “He has done nothing,” she said once more. “And if you don't do this one thing, and I mean immediately,” Dinesh growled, “you won't ever do anything again. Follow my orders, or find yourself shut down for good.” He'd made it a matter of survival. Lady Cyber-Knife wished he hadn't done that. She could cling to an ethical lifeline for as long as her safety wasn't threatened, but in the moment that her life was balanced against someone else's, a cruel and efficient math overtook her thoughts. She would add as much weight to her side of the scale as she was able, to make certain that she came out on top. As soon as Dinesh had started speaking, she knew he spoke the truth, that she had this killer fire within her. She had found only a small measure of reward in her work until now, helping to keep the people of the White Zone safe from behind her desk in that awful office, but General Dinesh was offering her a chance to do something, much greater. If she had to trade the Major's life for that chance, she'd do it. He wanted a show, and the Major had agreed to play the role of Lady Cyber-Knife's prop. She decided that had to give Dinesh the show he wanted. Lady Cyber-Knife lifted the Cyber-Sword high above her head, and at the right angle so it caught the outside light and shone. She slammed the sword into his abdomen and through his back, every inch of the perfect steel passing through the Major's body until the guard and the hilt alone protruded from his front. Blood leaked down the shining gold she still gripped firmly, and then ran along her hand and arm until, finally, at her elbow, it dripped onto the floor and formed a formed a pool. He coughed and shuddered as he expired, and slumped over as the light went out of his eyes. Lady Cyber-Knife lifted him up and dropped him to the floor, sliding his corpse off the Cyber-Sword's blade. Dinesh rubbed his hands together, cackling hungrily.
