by Phil Wrede
CHAPTER 8
EARTH-7331, THE BOWELS OF DETENTION
THE PRESENT
Lady Cyber-Knife stared at the dimensional doorway in front of her. Whatever final hurdle she'd expected to overcome in order to find Cyber-Knife, she'd not anticipated this one. She looked back at the open cells, then even further, at all the dead bodies of the guards, and felt a tinge of regret. She couldn't interrogate a corpse.
“I thought you saw his cell through this door,” the Cyber-Sword remarked.
“That is what the directory indicated,” Lady Cyber-Knife said. “I assumed he would be here, on this Earth, not hidden behind yet another gateway to yet another parallel dimension.”
“Does it matter all that much? A door's a door, in the end,” the Cyber-Sword said, indicating the way ahead by leaning forward in her hand.
“I have grown rather tired of traps during this... excursion,” Lady Cyber-Knife explained. “I have precious little patience left for whatever human, robot, or even inhuman ambush awaits us past this portal.”
“Even though it won't slow us down a whit?” the Cyber-Sword asked.
“I have begun to feel sorry for them. They die so easily, and so readily,” she said.
“If the truth was told to us, the only thing you'll find through that door is a half-human soldier, who might not have any interest in fighting you, or with you,” the sword said, trying to be encouraging.
“I suppose we have only one way to find out,” Lady Cyber-Knife admitted, tapping a little red switch on the otherwise featureless wall next to the door.. Sure enough, the doors didn't slide open, but were overwhelmed by a clear liquid which beaded up against the door like mercury. It rippled as little particulates, blown by the ventilation system, collided with its thin, liquid surface.
“You really, truly want to take this, wherever it goes?” the Cyber-Sword said, sounding resigned to their likely fate.
“Even if it goes nowhere,” Lady Cyber-Knife affirmed.
“Well, then,” the sword muttered. “This might be my big chance to get away from it all.”
“Then, we are agreed,” Lady Cyber-Knife said, right before stepping into the doorway. The liquid felt so cold against her metal skin, and what little remained of her flesh, moreso. She couldn't see through the teleportation gel; it had no smell, or even taste, as it tried to encourage her mouth open. It drew itself around her like a heavy cloak on the coldest day, and as it covered her completely, it pulled her forward, through the dark stone surface she knew was just in front of her.
The next thing Lady Cyber-Knife knew, she was falling. She fell face-first, until she fell no more. The gel had insulated her from the force of her impact; she hadn't felt anything, except that her motion had halted. She thought that they must have landed on whatever planet they'd foolishly invaded, and as the gel began to withdraw back up, Lady Cyber-Knife couldn't wait to get a look at the place to which her investigation had finally led. She tensed every muscle in her mechanical body, and sprang high, high above, so as to give herself a moment to prepare.
Lady Cyber-Knife touched down just as smoothly as she had leapt up, stabilizing her landing by thrusting her free hand onto the ground, and holding the Cyber-Sword aloft. No enemies awaited her in this place, but that was only a portion of why she stood up quietly. They'd landed inside of a clear dome, encased in thick, transparent material she'd never seen before. Glowing, molten rock surrounded them, constantly washing over the dome like the waves of the ocean upon the shore, creaking and twisting around, and sounding as though it might overwhelm the structure and burn them down to unrecognizable lumps at ay moment.
She looked up, and could see the doorway overhead, at the peak of the dome, from which every part of the building curved down. Lady Cyber-Knife doubted she could get it open, though even if she could, she suspected that any structure built strong enough to withstand the interior of a volcano - or wherever they had come - wouldn't scratch readily enough so as to allow her to climb it. She was here until she could escape, or until someone decided to release her.
They weren't alone, Lady Cyber-Knife and the Cyber-Sword. A man sat near the far edge of the dome, where the flowing lava sounded most volatile, with his legs crossed, and his eyes closed. He must have been there for a long time, Lady Cyber-Knife thought; greasy, oily hair flowed down his shoulders, over his chest, and onto the floor, pooling in rings at his feet. His beard, as bushy and wild as his hair was filthy, reached his belly. He closed his eyes - hid them - and only a little of his light skin was visible among all of his hair. The strangest thing about him, she thought, was that he wore a dark jumpsuit that looked very much like her own. She'd found her target, she knew she had, but, at least at first glance, he looked little like what she hoped.
“Cyber-Knife?” she asked, standing up and taking deliberate, even steps towards him. She couldn't make out any expression. His face was masked between his hair and the light streaming in behind. He didn't open his eyes, incline his head, or do anything at all to indicate he paid any attention to her. “You are Cyber-Knife,” she said, not asking a question this time.
“Maybe he kills exclusively, and doesn't speak,” the Cyber-Sword observed.
“Impossible,” Lady Cyber-Knife said. “The Complex would not have allowed him a mouth, if he could not speak.”
“Good on you for spotting one through that mess of fur on his head,” the Cyber-Sword said. “I wonder, now, if he's just let the ability atrophy.”
“Impossible,” Cyber-Knife's voice creaked out from a dry, rather atrophied larynx. His mustache completely masked his mouth when it opened. “Fucking impossible, actually.”
“Cyber-Knife,” she said, emphasizing every syllable, refusing to lose his attention, now that they had it.
“None other,” he replied, plucking his hands up from his knees and spreading his arms wide. One artificial hand, and one organic one, she noticed. He didn't bother to keep the metal one concealed.
“First thing's first,” the Cyber-Sword interjected, “just where are we? Which world?”
Cyber-Knife thought for a bit before he answered, opening his eyes and looking around at the magma flowing all about them. “This is Earth-7331,” he finally said, looking directly at them with his black eyes.
“But, the doorway?” the sword inquired.
“They built to keep me isolated,” Cyber-Knife said, “or, to keep everyone else the fuck away from me. I think their rationale changes by the hour. Welcome to this Earth's core.”
Lady Cyber-Knife looked up at the red-hot, liquid rock herself, as Cyber-Knife just had, and found herself smiling at the audacity of the Complex's prison. “They so love to bury secrets,” she said.
“Nowhere deeper,” the Cyber-Sword agreed.
“My reputation obviously precedes me,” Cyber-Knife said, uncrossing his legs, as if preparing to stand, “but I'm pretty far behind on current events.”
“Lady Cyber-Knife,” she said, gesturing at herself, up and down. “And, the Cyber-Sword, which you already know.”
“Long-lost relatives?” he said sarcastically. His eyes sparked with an instant recognition.
“Allies, I hope,” Lady Cyber-Knife replied. “Others who have come to know the truth of MOM, and the Complex.” Cyber-Knife smiled ever so slightly, the expression all but invisible beneath his beard. “If you know what they are, you know how far their reach extends. Believe me when I tell you, you have come to the safest place in all the universes.” “If I sought refuge, I would not have come for you,” Lady Cyber-Knife said, stepping a little closer. Cyber-Knife stood. His disinterest in grooming had not extended to conditioning, she noticed. His clothing stretched across his muscles as he moved, not betraying his reputation as a living weapon of war in the slightest. “Then, what do you want?” he asked. “Revenge, just as you should,” she said. “They twisted us around, again and again, from the moments of our inception. They do it to everyone, even those they claim to serve in the White Zone. Anyone they c
annot twist, they send us, to tear apart. No more. I want them to know how it feels to be torn apart, instead.” “So, you know who they really are,” Cyber-Knife said, utterly unaffected by Lady Cyber-Knife's words. “Good. You turned away from them. Maybe you've even hurt them. You can't hope to do any more than that, not one fucking thing. Changing their world is impossible, and ending it, even more so. The only world you can hope to create is your own, in here.” He tapped his temple with his artificial hand. “What?” Lady Cyber-Knife said, unable to believe what she'd just heard, not after everything she'd seen, and learned, and done. She hadn't fought the greatest fight of her life, just to be told to retreat into her fantasies and give up. She felt her muscles tensing, furiously, without a thought. “Why do you think I surrendered?” he asked. “They agreed to leave me alone, in peace, free to live in the worlds I create for myself.” “You must be fucking kidding me,” Lady Cyber-Knife muttered through clenched teeth. “We are in a hurry,” she asked, “and you wish to waste time?” Cyber-Knife didn't respond, his black eyes wide beneath the mat of hair shrouding his face. “And now, you want to waste more in silence?” Lady Cyber-Knife probed. “Why did I ever want to find you?” Cyber-Knife had finally turned around, at least, his eyes fixed on the sword Lady Cyber-Knife held dangling at her side. He pointed at it, but could not make any words leave his mouth. “'The ultimate fucking killing machine,'” Lady Cyber-Knife remarked, her voice dripping with disdain. “Why would anybody want you prevent your escape, or death? Killing you would put you out of you misery.” Cyber-Knife flexed his open hand - the organic one, not the artificial one - and Lady Cyber-Knife felt a tug against the sword in her hand. The force acting against her was weak, for certain, but she couldn't mistake it. Cyber-Knife had upgraded since the last time her dossier had been updated. Nowhere, anywhere, at any time, had anyone ever written anything about telekinetic powers. She met his eyes in shock, and saw the same in his black eyes; not shock at his own abilities, but at their failure. He reached out into the air with both hands another time, and Lady Cyber-Knife had to pull against the force with a two-handed grip herself. Even the full power of her enhanced, perfect body was insufficient, and she found herself dragged across the floor as if by some monstrous machine. Her feet split, digging into the concrete, and she finally stopped. “Now, my dear lady,” the Cyber-Sword remarked, “I it might be easier for all concerned if you simply release me. Let him take what he wants.” Through gritted teeth, she countered, “If you think I will just roll over and let him take anything he wants, you don't know me well at all.” “I thought you'd say that,” the Cyber-Sword said. Cyber-Knife took slow, deliberate steps towards Lady Cyber-Knife, tugging at the weapon in her grip sporadically, trying to throw her off-balance. She refused to yield to his efforts, her feet sinking into the floor from the force of her resistance. As he walked, she could see a green light gleaming from the palm of his mechanical hand. As he strode nearer, it grew brighter. “Give me my sword,” he growled. “How many lies have you told, I wonder?” Lady Cyber-Knife gulped down a great breath of air before she continued, “You can take my weapon when I plunge it through your chest, and not before.” “You don't even know what you hold, do you?” Cyber-Knife asked as he stood just out of her reach. “How much they kept from you.” “You could always enlighten me,” she answered. Cyber-Knife raised his cybernetic hand, his fingers stretched out in a claw around the plasma blaster embedded in his palm. “It's not just any weapon. That sword stepped out of myth, out of legend, out of time, and chose me, before those traitors stole it. You hold Excalibur, and I demand its return.” Lady Cyber-Knife couldn't believe what she heard; she almost laughed, it sounded so ridiculous. “Horseshit,” she said, without even thinking. Cyber-Knife's eyelids flattened out, and the fingers on his raised hand twitched. A fully-charged plasma round ripped out from his blaster, catching Lady Cyber-Knife across the left side of her face. She sensed the searing heat through the skin beneath her bodysuit, and even through the metal of her face. Her body spasmed for just a second, but that second was all Cyber-Knife needed; he telekinetically ripped the Cyber-Sword from her grip, and its golden hilt landed in his hand. Her body rebuilt itself in seconds; by the time Lady Cyber-Knife had turned back, she could fight again. Cyber-Knife pressed his organic hand against the sword's blade and growled, “Remember.” The sword actually cried out, letting off a ringing sound that instantly overloaded Lady Cyber-Knife's auditory enhancements. Her hearing cut out, self-defense mechanisms kicking into gear. She didn't need to hear to witness what came next, as the jewels set into the Cyber-Sword's handle began to shine, a cascading brilliance that sent all different colors of light streaming around the room, like they'd stepped into a living kaleidoscope. It soon grew so bright that she couldn't distinguish between individual colors any longer; her eyes were overwhelmed, just as her ears had been, and they last thing she saw before they, too, shut off was a blinding and pure white light. Lady Cyber-Knife hadn't thought she'd lost consciousness when her vision returned, but her Heads-Up Display told her that her systems had taken ten minutes to reboot, the result of an undefined surge of energy. She knew exactly what had caused that surge, but if her internal library couldn't identify what had radiated out from the sword, she felt she now had to consider Cyber-Knife's claim more seriously. Not seriously enough to roll over for him, of course. When her hearing came back, she spoke again: “Who taught you that trick?” “Excalibur and I have bonded,” he answered, relief evident in his voice. “There is nothing it knows that I do not, and the reverse is also true.” “Did you learn that ridiculous way of speaking from it, too?” “Yes.” Cyber-Knife swung Excalibur in a long and lazy arc over his head, splitting the very silence of the air around them, charging the molecules with magical energy. “You have reunited us,” he said. “Whatever you came here to do, you have already done more than you surely hoped. We'll let you live, as long as you afford us the same courtesy.” “Are you feeling touched up in that noggin of yours?” Excalibur asked. “Haven't you put two and two together yet? This is Lady Cyber-Knife,” it articulated every syllable of her name with deadly emphasis, "at least tell me you can figure out the significance of you and she sharing your names.” Cyber-Knife shook his head after thinking for just a moment. “The only reason they give things the same name is because they plan on replacing the original,” Excalibur explained. “No!” Cyber-Knife growled at this revelation. How it hadn't before occurred to him was rather beyond Lady Cyber-Knife's capacity to fathom, but she hadn't spent a badly-determined period of time in prison after a trauma. She shrugged, saying, “I did not intend that, in coming here.” “You admit it,” he said, the muscles at the corners of his jaw clenching in spite of his open mouth. Excalibur's blade rang a little louder as he swiped it through the air. She lifted her hands, spreading her fingers apart as wide as she could make them. “Just because the Complex designed me, does not mean that I do their bidding,” she said. “You should understand.” “Ever since they took him from me,” Cyber-Knife said, glaring down at his sword in equal parts rage and gladness, “I thought like you. I would have done anything to retrieve him. To feel how it feels to plunge a red-hot dagger into their hearts and watch them fall as I plucked him from his prison on their wall. To implode their impregnable island fortress and sink it to the bottom of the ocean, knowing that he can survive any calamity and would therefore wait for me to discover him among the wreckage. I would had even set off a nuclear device, vaporizing anyone, anything that stood between us.” “You would've?” Excalibur asked, sounding for the first time unsure of the course which events had taken. “I know I'm the mythical weapon out of legend, but nothing's indestructible. We don't need to test my limits.” “I'm saying,” Cyber-Knife replied, “that there was a time where I would have been willing to do all that and more, besides. The time I have spent here has granted me clarity, however, and I know now not to let the ends justify the means. Our enemies think this way, and we would be wise to not duplicate it.” “That
sounds very wise indeed,” Lady Cyber-Knife agreed, still holding her hands spread and aloft. “But, of course,” Cyber-Knife continued, “we don't have to resort to radical means now, do we? After all, you came to me, and brought with you the greatest instrument of vengeance I could hope to wield. I suppose I can't kill Maximilian or Dinesh - at least not yet - but I can certainly free this world and every other from one of their diabolical creations.” He looked at her, his meaning all too clear. “It sounds to me like you just want to stretch your killing muscles,” Lady Cyber-Knife said. “Well,” Cyber-Knife said, raising Excalibur's blade to his shoulder, “I have been cooped up in this stupid room for far too long.” “Wonderful,” she said, uncurling her claws. “Fucking brilliant,” Excalibur added. They stood across from one another, each just out of the other's reach, for extended seconds which felt to them like years. Each was programmed from the same base as the other; most of what Cyber-Knife knew, Lady Cyber-Knife did, too, and vice versa. Neither had any interest in making the first move when the other could guarantee it to be their last. Safer to counter a strike than to leave oneself vulnerable while making one. Their tableau stretched on for so long that an artist could have painted a portrait from it. The high-tensile wires running through her legs drew taut, and the talons encased in her fingertips snapped out with an abrupt click. Now that she'd found her prey, and her pleas had fallen on deaf ears, Lady Cyber-Knife's programming reasserted itself. If she couldn't obtain his cooperation, at least she could put him down quickly. Without even bending her knees, she shot off the floor, hands whipping through the air as she grabbed for his face. Cyber-Knife caught Lady Cyber-Knife's strikes along the flat part of Excalibur's blade; sparks flew as metal contacted against metal, stopping her talons far short of their intended target. She spun in place, ballerina-like, not fighting her momentum but putting more energy behind it instead. Cyber-Knife thrust Excalibur forward, intending to skewer Lady Cyber-Knife while she was disoriented, but she twirled out of the way, carving a little canyon in the floor as she dodged just out of the way of Cyber-Knife's attack and catching the side of his face with repeated spinning strikes from her talons. She tore apart the left side of his face, from the crest of his cheekbone down to his chin. Cyber-Knife felt the cold air of the room hit the exposed nerves and bone, and grimaced before his body's trauma management systems kicked into gear. Painkillers and adrenaline flowed into his bloodstream, and he could feel the tissue covering his face regenerate. Blood still dripped onto his clothes. He wiped it away with Excalibur's blade, flinging the fluid onto the ground. It joined with more of his blood, pooling beneath Lady Cyber-Knife's feet, dripping off her talons a few beads at a time. He advanced on her, making quick strikes with Excalibur by twisting his elbow, swinging from all directions at speeds too fast for the human eye to follow. Lady Cyber-Knife was just as adept on defense as on the attack, deflecting each blow with an open palm or a forearm. The sounds of metal clanging against metal were reminiscent of old industrial factories, where machines dutifully stamped out parts of other machines every day, constantly, and without rest. An overhead slash she caught with her palm and slapped backwards. A backhanded slice she could interrupt meeting it with crossed forearms. Strikes from the outside she caught between both hands and slid around, feeling their shoulders brush against each other, she passed so close. Cyber-Knife balled up the fist of his artificial hand as he futilely swung Excalibur at Lady Cyber-Knife again and again, a plasma charge again building in his internal blaster. She stepped inside one of his thrusts as he advanced on her, and punched her so hard in the head with his empty hand that a flash of emerald flared behind her vision. Their nostrils flared as they each caught the momentary scent of burning flesh and hair; they looked down and saw his hand cascading green from the energy he held back. He smiled, his lips pulling back over even his gums, as he tilted his arm toward her and opened his palm. Lady Cyber-Knife only just managed to flip out of the way, pulling her knees in tight against her chest as she hung in the air, heels over head, as the deadly plasma blast passed near her face. She felt her metal skin glow at contact with superheated air, but no more - she leapt clear enough to avoid the weapon's most grotesque effects again. The blast impacted the floor, spraying bits of concrete from hand-sized chunks to needle-like shards in every direction. The force of the shockwave interrupted Lady Cyber-Knife's acrobatics, stopping her rotation and knocking her to the ground. She took in a quiet, shallow breath and punched her fists against the floor, pushing herself back onto her feet. Another cloud of debris erupted in her face, deliberately targeted this time, and protective coatings slid into place over her nose and mouth, preventing the inhalation of airborne particles too dangerous or alien to recognize. An open-handed slap caught him against his chest, causing his next attack to blast against the dome and scorch it. Beneath the black mark, it began to crack. Lady Cyber-Knife noticed first, and opened her mouth to shout a warning. In a single blurry move, Cyber-Knife reached out as Lady Cyber-Knife ran past him, grabbing her hair in a bunch at his fist and yanking as hard as he could. Her feet slipped off the floor and she went nearly horizontal in the air before she crashed down, shaking the entire structure under her impact. Her body couldn't restrain all the air in her lungs; some did rush out from the force of her fall, and she actually coughed and gasped to pull in air. This, Cyber-Knife knew, was as good a chance as he could ever hope to get, and he didn't pass it up. He took Excalibur's tip and pierced her shoulders and hips precisely at the point where the cybernetic limbs met her organic self. Lady Cyber-Knife looked up at him as he temporarily paralyzed first her left side, from top to bottom, and then her right, bottom to top. “I... am not,” Lady Cyber-Knife struggled to say. “Cyber-Knife, stop it!” Excalibur shouted, robbed of any agency to prevent its use. “...your enemy,” she breathed, barely able to get the words out. The sword's metal ground determinedly against her body, making a terrible shrieking sound as it cut through the outer protective layers coating the metal before tearing into the circuits and wires encased beneath. Her HUD updated on his progress, and she actually saw the systems wink out on her real-time damage report before she lost feeling in her limbs. She grabbed out with her undamaged hand at first, and even tried to crawl away, but Lady Cyber-Knife didn't make it far before she was utterly disabled. Cyber-Knife didn't stop there. When he'd finished with her shoulder, he didn't leave, but instead held Excalibur's blade against her throat, deliberately swinging it back and forth to gauge the proper angle of his swing. Though neither one said anything, the meaning was perfectly clear: Cyber-Knife meant to punish his hunter for her hubris first by disabling her and then decapitating her. “Don't do this,” Excalibur pleaded. “We only came here looking for you!” “Can't trust her," Cyber-Knife answered. “It doesn't matter what she says. Her programming could reassert itself at any time, and she'll be dangerous again.” “You could say the same about yourself,” the sword countered. “Not me,” Cyber-Knife said. “I'm free of their programming, free like no one before or probably ever again.” “What makes you so exceptional?” Lady Cyber-Knife asked. She could feel her body stitching itself back together at a cellular level, in small enough ways that Cyber-Knife wasn't likely to notice until it was too late. If she they could just keep his attention split for a little longer... “The Taykinh taught me things you wouldn't believe. All the rest of you live in a world not of your own making. I don't. I'm free. They don't have a hold on me,” Cyber-Knife said. “So, teach me,” Lady Cyber-Knife said, “like how the taken taught you.” “The Taykinh,” Cyber-Knife corrected. “You say a hard 'e' sound in the second syllable.” For a second, it looked like he was seriously considering her proposal, but he brushed it away with a shake of his head. “I do not have Hnid's gift for teaching. What she helped me to understand in a day, I don't know if I could teach it to you in a lifetime. “I'm sorry,” he said, wrapping both of his hands about Excalibur's hilt and pulling it back one final time. He took a deep breath, and Lady Cyber-Knife could have sworn she saw a
deep, foreboding sadness behind his impenetrable eyes. He'd taken a vow not to murder sincerely, fully imagining he would never find himself in a position where he'd have to kill ever again. For him to so somberly take up his weapon against another living thing reflected just how threatened he felt by Lady Cyber-Knife, and the machinery that had stamped them both from their respective molds. Cyber-Knife exhaled, and brought Excalibur towards Lady Cyber-Knife's neck with a furious speed that he hoped would minimize her pain. That would be the one small kindness he could show her. He felt his arms jerk to a halt before the blade could even make contact with her neck, as though a heavy, unseen cord restrained him from following through on his swing. He tried again, but encountered the same impossible resistance along the same point. Cyber-Knife looked about, hoping to identify the source of his snap, but only solved the mystery when he turned his gaze to Excalibur, and could feel the sword ringing ever so softly in his hands. “Sword,” he began, “what in the worlds do you think you're doing?” “Preventing you from making a terrible mistake, that's what,” Excalibur said. “I have as much discretion as you when it comes to protecting you from yourself.” “You still think that's true, after you lost yourself in the battle, forgetting even your name and your purpose? She had to put you back together again, and even then you weren't whole until I found you,” Cyber-Knife argued, his muscles bulging and servos straining against the force Excalibur exerted. “You haven't figured it out yet?” Excalibur asked. “You, of all people? I didn't lose myself in the trauma of our separation, or whatever fool bullshit you've imagined - they stripped me of everything that made me, their techno-mages disassembling my personality, twisting around my enchantments, weaving a tapestry of curses that subsumed who am I beneath layers of what they wanted me to be. Then, after I thought they'd fixed their final indignity upon me, they placed me in her hands - the creature they'd built with the express purpose of hunting and putting you down. “But, I didn't have to despair as utterly as I'd expected. Despite our contrary purposes, and the scheming of the generals, they couldn't control every variable under their vision. Just like with you, they accidentally built themselves an honorable warrior in Lady Cyber-Knife, and it was only a matter of time before she saw through their dishonor and deception. For the last time,” the sword shone brilliantly in its desperation, “we are not here to fight you, but to fight with you.” Cyber-Knife looked down at Lady Cyber-Knife, the disgust and exhaustion in her face boring into the heart he thought he'd managed to restart deep in the tunnels on that other Earth. He'd squirreled himself away in the depths of this other Earth for longer than he knew, swearing only to emerge when he'd learned the rest of what Hnid had begun to teach him. He told himself that he didn't want to kill, that he wanted to win the souls of the people of the White Zone, but in truth, Cyber-Knife had lived his last year in fear, terrified at the thought of what the Complex planned to do to him. Their reach still exceeded his, their powers made him look like a dying sun in comparison. Cyber-Knife had long since given up any hope that he might be able to avenge himself upon the machine, let alone tear the motherfucker down and rebuild it from its very foundation. Cyber-Knife didn't know why it had taken him so long to hear their words before, but at least he finally had. Excalibur trusted her, which even by itself was no small thing. He and the sword had forged their bond on the battlefield; if they hadn't relied on one another for survival, who knows if they would have even wanted to share a future? Excalibur said that Lady Cyber-Knife was worth trusting. Here he'd come, waiting for his trustworthy weapon to reappear, and not only had it emerged, but had brought along a new companion in tow. If he passed up such an opportunity, he mighta as well admit defeat before fighting another battle. He was the ultimate fucking killing machine, once, dammit! Cyber-Knife would not go gently without a fight, not down before the generals and their perverted Complex. He reached up towards the ceiling, calling on the doorway to open itself to him. They could leave this prison, if they worked together. He looked down at Lady Cyber-Knife, his features softening somewhat, and swapped Excalibur into his artificial hand, holding it aloft and as far away from her body as he could. He held his organic one out to her, his intent all too suddenly and painfully clear. “I'm truly sorry,” he said. “I fell victim to the programming I inflicted on myself. Will you forgive me? Can I still do battle by your side?” Lady Cyber-Knife didn't move, and didn't change her expression as she replied, “My range of motion is still less than twenty percent of optimal. I will need you to lean down closer if you wish for me to take your hand.” Cyber-Knife nodded in agreement immediately, bending down further and bringing his hand close to hers. Next to the industrial, murderously efficient design of her metal limbs, still caked in blood from the battles she fought, struggling to reach him, Cyber-Knife's rough hand looked almost soft. He stroked her cybernetic knuckles with the tips of his fingers gently, examining her response and curious as to how much feeling had returned to her. Excalibur shook in Cyber-Knife's other hand worriedly, exclaiming to the both of them, “Lady Cyber-Knife, don't! Cyber-Knife, it's a tr-” The sword couldn't even get its words out completely before Lady Cyber-Knife struck out with her left hand and punched Cyber-Knife with every gram of force she could muster. It had been a long, long time since she had been able to hit someone with all her might; she was as likely to turn her targets into jelly as she was to disable them if she hit them full-strength. Not today, though. This was, in every way, what she had been designed to do, and she wouldn't do it halfway. For the first time since she'd been activated, Lady Cyber-Knife was able to let loose with everything she had. Her artificial limbs had been designed by engineers with a flair for the dramatic and no small amount of bloodlust - every angle had been considered to allow her strikes, regardless of style, speed, or degree of precision, to inflict maximum damage on its target. She struck Cyber-Knife with a closed fist, just below the hinge of his jaw on the right side of his face. The damage was extreme, and immediate; despite all the biological and mechanical reinforcement his body had undergone, she shattered the bones around the connective tissue, detaching his mandible from his skull. The sharpened edge of her knuckles sheared through his flesh, so not even a strip of skin or muscle remained to hold the bone to his face any longer. Blood shot out of his face, spraying her, but also streaming down his throat, at least until his trauma contingency systems kicked into gear and pulled his epiglottis shut. The punch didn't stop there. She completely followed through, snapping teeth clear out of his head and utterly detaching his jaw from his face when her strike came out of the other side of his mouth. A chunk of Cyber-Knife - flesh, bone, and metal - unceremoniously dropped in her lap, until his blood positively doused her. She looked up, saw the torn skin rippling around the force of his gushing blood, his tongue hanging comically below broken teeth, and the horror in his black, masked eyes. Cyber-Knife had felt pain before; in truth, he'd felt pain like few humans, or near-humans, had ever felt. This was something different. He'd not undergone just physical trauma, or even the psychological shock that comes from seeing a part of your body disconnected from the whole, but a whipsaw of betrayal the likes of which he'd never felt before. The most formative moment in his life had come in the medical wing of the tower in the White Zone, when Sherman confirmed that the Complex had fed him fat, juicy lies every day of his existence. That had shocked him, yes, and turned his world upside down, but he had also managed to move past it, because the fresh knowledge gave him a new mission. Without a mission, Cyber-Knife didn't know himself. He'd lacked a mission for a long time. Sitting in the middle of the flames, cut off from everything he'd known before, he'd found no answers, and maybe now he could finally admit it to himself that he'd not really been looking for any. Everything that had happened on that mission to the alternate Earth had fucked his head up royally, and if the Complex had gotten its way, he would've come out of that last mission a loyal, unquestioning drone, or not come out of it at all. He'd always be on that last mission, in a way, or at least until he'd wiped every
trace of the system that had created him from every facet of the multiverse. Some missions you can accomplish solo, and others require more than a single pair of eyes and hands. This new mission was one of the latter. “Do you want this?” Lady Cyber-Knife shouted, a tone of pleading in her voice. “Come and get it!” Cyber-Knife had thought he couldn't trust another product of the Complex - MOM's imprinting was too potent. Without Excalibur, without the Taykinh, he couldn't have overcome it, either. Whether Lady Cyber-Knife and the sword believed what they told him or not barely mattered; he knew it wasn't true. He knew, and he'd let his guard down anyway, because he'd been stupid enough to hope. As the pain shot through his body faster than his protective countermeasures could keep up with it, he remembered what it cost to lose focus. Cyber-Knife vowed that it would not happen again, and he would have howled in rage and despair if he'd been able when Lady Cyber-Knife made him immediately break that vow, as she snatched Excalibur from his hand and jumped higher than she'd ever leapt before, anger the primary fuel of her movement. The teleportation gel wrapped around her, and Excalibur, and in an instant, they were gone.
