The Cyber Chronicles 08: Scorpion Lord

by T C Southwell

  "There's nowhere to run."

  She gazed at the boy, who opened another tank. "His control unit doesn't control him yet."

  "No. At this age, it's fifty-fifty, and he seems to be well in control, unlike some of the others."

  Estrelle followed his gaze as he turned to look at the other boys, some of whom clearly had problems controlling their limbs. One writhed on the floor, his face twisted, his limbs jerking in paddling motions. Another reached for the handle of a tank, but his hand kept closing before he could grasp it. He chewed his lip, frowning in concentration as he battled for control of his appendage.

  Sabre said, "That's his hand he's struggling to use. It belongs to him. It should obey him, just as yours do, but it doesn't, because of that little monster on his head. Your monster."

  "I didn't invent it."

  Sabre went to open another tank as the hammering on the door stopped and a glowing red spot appeared on one side of it. Molten metal oozed from the spot, which moved around the door, slicing through the metal. All the tanks had drained by now, and the boys inside had pulled out their tubes. They hammered on the walls, begging to be let out, and Sabre strode down a row, opening the doors.

  About seventy boys had been released by the time the enforcers burnt through the door. As the piece of metal fell inwards with a clang, Sabre shouted, "Get them boys! Kill them!"

  The boys charged the enforcers, slipping in the slime. Some fell when their legs refused to obey them, others collided with tanks as their control units steered them off course. Those who reached the door flung themselves at the enforcers in a wave of shrieking, wild-eyed fury. Estrelle shrank back against the wall, clutching the baby. Most of the enforcers carried lasers, and burnt down the boys by the dozen, others used batons to club the youngsters.

  Sabre moved between the rows of tanks, freed more cyber hosts and sent them into the fray, shouting at Jorran and the other techs to do the same. Two production techs slunk away between the tanks, seeking cover at the back of the room. Sabre walked up behind one, yanked him into a choke hold and placed his other hand on the side of the man's head. The tech shrieked and struggled until Sabre squeezed his throat closed, cutting off his air long enough to pacify him. Sabre walked towards the enforcers, using the tech as a shield.

  "Get out, or he dies!" he yelled.

  The enforcers hesitated, then three fired, the laser bolts hitting the tech in the chest. Sabre dropped the body and jumped into a forward handspring, tumbling with gymnastic elasticity towards the enforcers. Laser bolts strafed the air, and Estrelle gasped and two shots hit Sabre's armoured chest. He reached the enforcers and leapt into a spinning kick that smashed two to the floor. Dropping into a crouch as he hit the ground, he sprang sideways and punched an enforcer in the side of the helmet, smashed it and sent the man sprawling. The enforcers strafed him with laser fire, most of the shots hitting other enforcers as the cyber jumped, dropped, spun and lunged in an amazing ballet of graceful, deadly movement. Estrelle's mouth dropped open as she watched him with wide eyes.

  Some of the surviving boys punched and kicked the enforcers, but lacked the strength to do much harm. They died with soft shrieks and grunts, their brow bands blazing red as they writhed in the slime. Sabre snatched up two lasers from the floor and fired at the enforcers, avoiding their shots with amazing agility. The occasional bolt that hit an exposed part of him made his skin glow golden, but left no mark. Estrelle rocked the baby as he began to cry, her eyes riveted to Sabre's spinning, leaping form.

  A number of enforcers at the back of the gang in the doorway raised dart guns and took careful aim at the elusive cyber. They missed, and the darts hit enforcers near Sabre. Some glanced off their armour, others impaled flesh. The enforcers who were hit staggered from the melee, or Sabre clubbed them down as their movements slowed. Dozens of darts bounced off Sabre's armour, then a slim metal missile hit him in the side of the neck. He yanked it out, but within moments his movements slowed and became clumsy. The enforcers closed in on him and bore him to the ground through sheer weight of numbers, fighting off the growling boys who tried to rescue him. Estrelle's eyes stung as he vanished under the black-clad mob.

  As the last few boys were dispatched or knocked out, the enforcers drew back to reveal Sabre lying on the floor, his face bruised and bloody, his eyes closed. She wondered if they had killed him, but his brow band blazed with red lights. Jorran emerged from behind a tank and walked up to the unconscious cyber, nodding at the enforcer officer who stood over him.

  "Good work, Lieutenant," Jorran congratulated the panting man. "He was going to kill us all."

  The officer kicked Sabre in the ribs. "He killed fifteen of my men."

  "Right..." Jorran looked uncertain. "Well, that's all over now. I'd like him taken back to my lab, if you please."

  "He should be incinerated. He's a menace."

  "He's a prototype, Lieutenant, he's valuable. Take him back to my lab."

  The officer glared and spat, then turned to give orders to his men. Medics came to tend to the enforcer wounded, carrying away the badly injured on floating stretchers, and an enforcer approached Estrelle.

  "I'll put the host back, Miss," he said, holding out his hands.

  Estrelle's arms tightened on the soft, warm baby boy, then she recalled Sabre's words and held him out. "Thank you."

  The enforcer headed for the door, but Jorran beckoned him over and muttered in his ear. The man nodded and marched off. Estrelle leant against the wall, clasping her hands to still their trembling. The enforcers loaded Sabre onto a floater cart and took him away. A maintenance crew arrived to clean up the mess, loading the dead boys onto trash carts to be hauled away to the incinerators. A morgue wagon removed the enforcers' bodies with a great deal more respect, each covered with black cloth emblazoned with Myon Two's crescent moon and star sigil, to be cremated with honours. The surviving cyber hosts were put back into the tanks, and a sendep tech arrived to reactivate the units.

  Jorran came over to her, rubbing his head. "Are you all right?"

  She nodded. "Fine. A little shaken, that's all."

  "I warned them about bringing him here. I told them it was too dangerous."

  "Looks like you were right." She forced a brittle smile. "What will you do with him now?"

  "Oh, he's going to be used for demonstrations, only now I'll make sure he can't get free."

  Estrelle swallowed stinging bile and turned to leave. "I need some fresh air."

  Jorran caught her elbow, halting her. "You sure you're okay? This must be a bit shocking for you."

  "I've always known how hosts are produced. The violence was shocking, that's all."

  He nodded. "Of course. Good. I'll see you back at the lab. We'll have to repair the damage to the prototype before we can use him for demonstrations."

  "Right." Estrelle nodded and marched off.

  Chapter Three

  Tarl looked up as Tassin entered his lab again, putting down the tangled mass of wires and crystals with a groan. "I keep telling you, badgering me isn't going to make this happen any faster. In fact, it's just slowing me down, so leave me alone."

  She leant against the workbench, frowning at him. "Are you making any progress at all?"

  "Some." He rubbed his face, resting his elbows on the bench. "I'm not a bloody communications tech."

  "Cybers use communications, don't they?"

  "That's in the brow band. I'm a host repair tech, remember? I'm more like a doctor than an engineer."

  "But you studied a brow band."

  "Yeah, but that doesn't make me an expert in high-frequency receivers."

  "You said you could -"

  Tarl brought his fists down on the bench with a crash, making her jump. "I said I'd try!"

  "So now you can't?"

  "I don't know." Tarl picked up the tangle of wires and crystals, turning it. "This should work, but it doesn't. I don't know what's wrong with it."

  "How will you know if it's working unl
ess it has a signal to receive?"

  "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" Tarl glared at her. "Do I look like a complete idiot? This diode is emitting a high-frequency signal in the same bandwidth. I should be picking it up." He pointed at a flashing light on a tiny metal object.

  "How do you know it's emitting the signal?"

  "Because that's what it does!"

  "You mean that's what it's supposed to do, but -"

  "No." Tarl gripped his hair and tugged at it. "That's what it does! If the light's flashing, it's emitting the signal, end of story! It can't flash without emitting the fucking signal!"

  "Okay..." She bit her lip. "Then maybe it's the wrong frequency."

  Tarl clasped his head and groaned. "Please go away."

  "I'm just trying to help."

  "You want to help? Find me a communications engineer!"

  "It's no good getting angry with me."

  Tarl sighed and buried his face in his arms. "I can't help it. I'm tired and frustrated, and worried sick about Sabre. I only had four hours’ sleep, and I still can't think straight, but I can't sleep, either."

  "I could summon a mage to help you."

  He lifted his head and stared at her with bloodshot eyes. "A mage. Are you out of your mind? This isn't magic!"

  "Mages are clever. He might be able to help."

  Tarl threw up his hands. "Fine! Summon a mage! At least it will give you something to do."

  Tassin glowered at him and stalked out, her back stiff with indignation. Tarl watched her leave, part of him longing to call her back and apologise, offer some comfort, but he had none to give. She had no idea what horrors Sabre faced at the hands of Cybercorp’s techs, and he was not about to tell her. He wanted to sweep the defunct receiver onto the floor and stamp on it, smash the lab and all the high-tech equipment in it to smithereens.

  What good was it without Sabre? He was a cyber tech without a cyber, a man without a purpose, now that Sabre was gone. After he had euthanized Alpha he had been depressed, his life empty, purposeless, pointless. Finding Sabre had been a dream come true, and, even now, Tassin and Sabre had no idea how much it meant to him to be able to take care of a free cyber. One who complained about pain and shoved him around with the heavy handed camaraderie he had cursed, but enjoyed. Sabre had saved his life, and he wanted desperately to return the favour, but could not.

  ****

  Estrelle gazed down at the cyber's impassive face with conflicted emotions. He was dangerous, yet fascinating, part machine, but capable of suffering, and Jorran was going to make him suffer. For the two days since his rampage through the centre, he had been clamped to the metal table where he now lay, helpless. Tranquilisers kept him groggy while med techs tended to his wounds, which were healing well. The ugly red welts on his chest had faded to pink marks under the layer of regeneration jelly, and the bruises on his face had turned a mottled greenish-yellow already.

  The lights on the control unit flashed in a strange configuration she had never seen before. The seven control lights remained red, but a motor control light shone green and two sensory bypass diodes glowed amber. Five lights on the left hand side of the brow band flashed in an in-control pattern, at odds with the seven red master control lights. She frowned, wondering what it all meant, for it made no sense.

  "What are you doing?" Jorran's voice spoke behind her, making her jump.

  She turned with a frown. "Studying the control unit's lights."

  "Wouldn't you learn more with some testing equipment?"

  "Not really. If I can figure out why these particular lights are on, it might tell me something, but I don't need testing equipment to see which lights are on."

  Jorran came to her side and gazed down at Sabre. "Think you can fix him?"

  "I don't know. If only I knew why one motor control light is on, and what the sensory bypass lights mean."

  Jorran nodded, studying the brow band. "It's a mighty strange configuration, I'll grant you. I've never seen anything like it before."

  "It makes no sense. The cyber controls his right leg, and he's blind? He's using the cyber's infrared and video inputs... and the scanners." Her eyes widened as the lights on the control unit changed. "He's just stopped."

  "So he's watching us with his eyes closed, that's all."

  "Except that he's in a deep coma, according to the bio readouts, so he's not doing this. The control unit's acting alone."

  Jorran frowned. "So?"

  "If the control unit is under his control, why isn't it inactive when his brain is? It's like it has a certain amount of independence, as if it's guarding him while he's unconscious."

  "Well if he can put it in charge, why shouldn't it be able to take charge on its own when he's unconscious?"

  "I suppose it could, but if it is, why doesn't it respond to us?"

  Jorran scowled down at the cyber. "Cyber Seventy One, respond."

  Several coms' lights flashed green, then went out, and two more red ones came on, indicating an error. According to the current configuration, the cyber had heard Jorran, but was unable to respond.

  He swung away. "It's meaningless. You're wasting your time."

  She leant closer to peer at the brow band, where more lights glowed so faintly they were almost invisible. "Maybe not."

  "Fine, knock yourself out then."

  The door slid shut behind him, and Estrelle pulled up a stool to sit next to Sabre's head. The metal table on which he lay was low enough so she was still able to gaze down at his face.

  "You can hear me, can't you, Sabre?" she whispered. "It's okay, I won't tell Jorran. After what I saw the other day, I'm on your side, I swear. I want to help you."

  The lights on the brow band flashed in a wave pattern that she recognised as a psycho-retarding configuration, usually only seen when the control unit was stimulating endorphin producing centres of the brain to counteract an extreme psychotic incident.

  "You can trust me," she went on. "You know I'm not lying."

  His lips twitched in a faint smile, and she held her breath as his eyes opened a slit. "Either that, or you've taken a tranquiliser."

  "I haven't." Excitement made her heart pound. "Talk to me, please. Why do the bio readouts say that you're in a deep coma?"

  "Because I want them to."

  "What do you mean?"

  "My real brain patterns are being masked by a recording of a coma pattern generated and broadcast by the cyber."

  She leant closer. "But they pumped you full of tranquilisers."

  "And I speeded up my metabolism to counteract it, as well as initiating a fluid flush. Right now my system is in overdrive, and adrenalin is breaking down the tranquilisers."

  "I didn't know you could do that."

  "You don't know anything about hosts, do you?"

  "No. Only the interface protocols with the brain."

  His eyes closed. "I'm a miracle of modern engineering."

  "You did a lot of damage; you should be pleased to know."

  "I set the production programme back by four months, and cost them a lot of money to replace the broken wombs, that's all."

  "And all the five-year-old hosts who died."

  He gave a soft snort. "Seventy or so boys. A tiny fraction of the yearly quota. And one baby."

  "The baby was put back in his pod."

  "No he wasn't."

  Estrelle frowned, remembering how Jorran had spoken to the soldier who had taken the baby away. "What do you mean?"

  "He was contaminated. They chucked him in an incinerator."

  "No, they wouldn't!" Her throat closed. "Why would they? What do you mean, contaminated?"

  "He had been touched by human hands. He was unsuitable to become a host."

  "Why? Because of the risk of some sort of infection? Surely -?"

  "No, because he had experienced tactile stimuli," he said. "You wouldn't understand, but I assure you, he's dead."

  "Please explain it to me."

  "Why?"

&n
bsp; "I want to understand it."

  His eyes opened a slit again. "Host babies are untouched by human hands. They're hatched directly from the artificial wombs into the pods, where they're encased in form-foam and subjected to abstract stimuli in the form of lights and sounds. This is to discourage the formation of personalities or character traits, and ensures the uniformity of brain development. The moment you held him and cuddled him, he began to form human reactions to those stimuli, so he was no longer a blank slate to be used by the control unit for data storage and as a bio-interface. Understand now?"

  "Yes." She swallowed a lump. "But they're put into pens when they're a year old, and they interact with others."

  "Only after the control unit is fitted. It dulls their senses and counteracts any major reactions to tactile stimuli." His brows drew together. "I hate talking about this, so go away."

  "I'm sorry." Estrelle rubbed her stinging eyes. "I want to help you. What can I do?"

  "Free me."

  "I can't. I don't have the unlock codes."

  He sighed, closing his eyes. "You don't need the damned codes. I can unlock these clamps, but I can't get off this world."

  "I can't... help you do that."

  "Then just what kind of help are you offering?"

  "I don't know."

  "Okay, how about a foot massage and a back rub?"

  Estrelle smiled. "I wish I could."

  "When you figure out if there is anything that you can do to help, let me know."

  "Why didn't you attack me in the testing laboratory?"

  He shrugged. "You were less of a threat than the males."

  "That's all?"

  A slight smile curved his lips. "Females are weaker. It was unlikely that you would become a threat at all."

  "The men weren't a threat to you either, only the cyber was, and you avoided him."

  "I figured you all had command privilege, so I was going to take out all the males, then take you hostage so you would order the cyber to stop. But you stopped him before that became necessary."