Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Other Titles
The Magnificent Cyborg
Cyborgs on Mars
Honey Phillips
Copyright © 2020 by Honey Phillips
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author.
Disclaimer
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Pro Book Covers Studio
Edited by Lindsay York at LY Publishing
Chapter One
“Keep up,” former Major Wyatt Eaton snapped.
The two men following him gave a lazy salute but slowed to a crawl again soon after. For the tenth time that night, he wondered how he had ended up here. Because you just couldn’t resist the impulse to point out the general’s stupidity. He might have been forgiven with enough groveling—if it hadn’t occurred in front of half a dozen other officers. Now he was assigned to a foot patrol on the outer edge of one of the ring developments surrounding the Dallas Metro area. Even the two grunts accompanying him knew that he was in disgrace and showed little inclination to follow his orders.
He hadn’t even found the courage to tell his brand-new wife that the upper-level government soirées would be a thing of the past. Since he had encountered her at just such a gathering, he didn’t expect her to be thrilled with the revelation. If only he knew her better…
The moment he spotted the stunningly beautiful blonde, he’d been smitten. Even though every man at the party had been at her feet, she had chosen him. After a long weekend hidden away in her apartment, he’d been unable to bear the thought of letting her go and proposed. To his shock, she had accepted, and they had enjoyed a whirlwind honeymoon before he reluctantly returned to work.
When he went home after his demotion, he’d realized he had no idea how she would react to his news. Instead of telling her the truth, he’d made a quick excuse and left for his new assignment.
Thinking about Rebecca now, he still couldn’t regret the hasty marriage. Would she? Especially given his abrupt fall from grace?
He gritted his teeth. He had fought his way up the chain of command once before—he could do it again. Turning on his heel, he scowled at the laggards.
“Listen, you worthless sacks of shit—”
The sky lit up with a blinding white flash, followed almost immediately by deafening thunder. His shocked brain had only a second to register the sound before the impact hit, and he was sent flying as the world went dark.
Wyatt slowly regained consciousness, at first aware of little other than the relentless pounding in his head. What had happened? The last thing he remembered was that stunning burst of light. When he pried his eyes open, even the dim light in the small room surrounding him sent fresh spikes of pain through his throbbing head. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then forced them open again.
There was very little to see. He was tied to a table in a cramped, dirty room, the rough concrete walls stained from years of neglect. The room was empty except for an ancient furnace groaning against the far wall and the red glow from its instrument panel was the only source of light.
What the hell? Where was he and how had he ended up here?
He strained at the ropes securing his arms, but they were thick and well tied. He tried to pull with his legs, but a bolt of pain shot up from his ankle, subsiding into a dull throb when he stopped yanking at the fastenings. Over the clanking and hissing of the furnace, he thought he heard voices nearby. He debated calling out but somehow, he didn’t expect whoever was on the other side of the wall to have friendly intentions towards him. He needed to free himself before they discovered that he was awake.
He concentrated on trying to free his right wrist. The rope abraded his skin and as it tore, his blood soaked into the rope. Had his bindings relaxed, or was he imagining it? Before he could decide, a narrow door opened, letting in a painful flash of light and a cacophony of voices before it closed.
He was no longer alone. A big man clothed in the threadbare remnants of a military uniform had joined him, accompanied by a slender young man wrapped in rags. He suddenly realized that his own uniform had been removed, leaving him clad only in his boxers.
“Where’s my uniform?”
The big man scowled at him. “You don’t need it in here, and there’s enough good material there to save at least a couple of my people from dying of cold.”
“Your people? You mean a bunch of rebels who think they’re above the law?”
The man’s ragged appearance, the ancient furnace, and the squalid conditions came together with a depressing certainty. He had fallen into the hands of one of the rebel groups that were growing increasingly common.
“Above the law?”
The furious question came from the smaller figure. He had dismissed him as representing little threat, but now he took a second glance and realized that the person accompanying the big man was a woman. She threw back her hood to reveal a striking, angular face with big, dark eyes. Long black hair was tied back in a severe bun, but it did little to diminish her impact. She lacked Rebecca’s sensual appeal, but she had a fierce beauty of her own.
“We don’t think we are above the law.” Furious eyes glared at him. “We just want to be treated as equals under the law.”
“Are you licensed?” he asked skeptically, already suspecting the answer. Too many people tried to escape government notice by refusing to register and then complained when they didn’t receive government benefits. He had little patience for them.
“I was registered. Until my husband became ill and was fired from his job. Do you know how long it took to get him into one of the government hospitals?”
“Everyone has to wait their turn,” he said defensively, but he had to suppress a surge of sympathy. He was uneasily aware of the deficiencies in the medical system and its limited capacity.
“His turn?” She gave a bitter laugh. “They didn’t even try and contact him for an interview until a month after he was dead.”
The obvious pain in her voice disturbed him but he believed the government did the best they could. There were simply too many people on Earth—and too many who didn’t want to fend for themselves. But this was not the time for such a debate.
“Who are you? And why are you holding me? I demand you set me free immediately.”
“You demand?” The big man growled. “You would do well to remember that you’re not surrounded by your soldiers now. You’re our pris
oner.”
“Why? Do you think you’re going to torture information out of me?”
Mentally, he braced himself, determined not to give in to whatever they planned for him. To his surprise, the woman looked shocked, and the man disgusted.
“Is that how you fucking soldiers think?” the man sneered. “Is that what you would do if you captured one of us?”
“Of course not,” he responded, although he knew that some members of the military had little respect for the unlicensed. Shoving that thought aside, he frowned at the big man. “Then why am I here?”
“The bomb that went off took out the rest of your patrol, but we could see that you were alive. Or close enough. So Nianna here,” he gestured at the woman, “insisted we bring you back with us.”
“Do you expect me to be grateful? After you set off the bomb to begin with?”
He felt a wave of guilt for the two soldiers who had accompanied him. They had met for the first time that day and they had been poor specimens, but they had been his responsibility.
“That we set off?” The man shook his head. “Are you really that fucking ignorant?”
“What do you mean?”
“The government periodically bombs the border between the ring developments and the factory farms, to make sure we don’t get bold enough to try and keep ourselves from starving.”
His immediate instinct was to deny that the government would do such a thing; however, he had overheard several conversations about the growing problem of feeding the population and the lengths to which they might have to go to protect the increasingly barren farmlands. But he had never heard any suggestion that they would bomb people, let alone an area where their own soldiers were patrolling.
“I don’t believe you.” He tried not to betray any hint of doubt, but he must not have been entirely successful because the woman raised her eyebrows.
“Really? Then why are you here?”
Refusing to answer, he attempted to change the subject. “If you were simply being thoughtful, then why am I tied down? Are you going to let me go?”
The two exchanged glances and his heart sank when the big man shook his head.
“We can’t risk you turning us in,” Nianna said softly.
“So you’re going to keep me tied in here for the rest of my life?” An undoubtedly short life.
The big man growled again and dropped his hand to a makeshift knife in his belt. It appeared to be made out of a sharpened remnant of steel with a cloth binding to form the handle, but it was long and sharp and, he had no doubt, effective.
“No, Bull,” the woman said fiercely. “We can’t stoop to their level, deciding who lives or dies simply by whether or not they agree with us.”
The man’s hand dropped away from his knife as his shoulders slumped. He no longer looked fierce, just tired and defeated.
“And how are we going to feed him, Nianna? Whose minimal rations are we going to make even smaller?”
“He can have some of mine.”
He took another look at that striking face, noticing how tightly the skin was pulled over her bone structure.
“No,” he said just as Bull echoed him.
As he looked more closely at the pair, he realized that Bull’s size was misleading. The man’s face was gaunt, his frame stripped down to skin and muscle. These people were starving.
“I won’t take your food.”
“Yeah, right.” Bull looked down at Nianna and his voice softened. “It would be kinder to kill him now. Better a fast death than slow starvation.”
“No! Not yet. I’ll think of something.”
“Can you at least untie me?” he asked.
Nianna took a step towards the table before Bull put a hand on her arm. He shook his head.
“You know we can’t do that. If he gets free, it will endanger every one of us.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She sighed, then looked at him. “I’ll see if we can think of something.”
“A bucket would be nice,” he said sardonically, and a hint of color touched those high cheekbones.
“Bull, will you help him?”
It was Bull’s turn to sigh, but he gave a reluctant nod. She patted his arm and slipped out of the room.
The pain in Wyatt’s head had diminished to the point where the door opening didn’t blind him. He caught a brief glimpse of a cavernous room crammed with people of all ages. A young boy, no more than three or four, gaped at him with open curiosity before the door closed.
“Here’s the deal, soldier. I’m gonna untie you. You’re gonna piss in that bucket and then you’re gonna lie back down on this table and you’re not gonna give me any trouble.” Bull leaned over him, any trace of softness gone from his face. “Because if you do, your head is gonna end up in that furnace and it’s gonna be a tragic fucking accident. You hear me?”
“Yeah. I hear you.”
Bull began untying his feet but although Wyatt watched carefully, he never saw an opportunity to take the big man off guard. When Bull came to his wrists and saw the damage, he shook his head.
“You know that was never gonna work?”
“I had to try.”
For the first time, the hint of a smile crossed the man’s craggy face. “Reckon I’d have done the same.”
He stepped back and waited for Wyatt to stand but as soon as he tried to stand, his ankle buckled. Bull swore and caught him before he hit the floor.
“You’re too much fucking trouble, soldier. Probably be best for all of us if I just broke your neck now.”
He drew himself up as best he could and looked the man straight in the eyes. “Then for God’s sake, do it and quit talking about it.”
This time it was a full-blown grin, even as Bull shook his head.
“Not much for talkers myself. Go on now.” He half-shoved Wyatt in the direction of the furnace and he thought for a second that he meant to carry out his threat, but then he saw the bucket and gave a grateful sigh.
After Bull tied him down again and left the room, Wyatt made a vow to himself. He was going to survive. He was going to survive so that he could escape this place. He had a wife waiting for him.
Later…
Warmth filled Wyatt’s body, radiating from his left side. When he forced his eyes open, he was strapped to a metal table in what looked like a laboratory. A man in a lab coat was bent over a display of monitors and looked up as Wyatt stirred.
“Don’t try and move. You have been restrained for your own protection.”
“What happened?” His mind felt fuzzy and uncertain.
The man bent over him, studying his face. “What is the last thing you remember?”
“I remember… the new assignment.” He had pissed off one of his superiors—again—and been reassigned. “To the Dallas Metro area.”
“Good, good. Anything else?”
He thought there should have been something more, but when he tried to focus on it, a blinding pain shot through his skull, followed by a wave of fiery heat.
“It hurts when I try to remember.”
The man gave him an oddly satisfied smile. “No wonder, W-246. You were in a very serious accident. Your transport crashed on the way to your new assignment.”
“W-246?”
“Yes. I’m afraid that the damage was irreversible. The military has repurposed your body. W-246 is your new cyborg designation.”
“Cyborg?”
In response, the man angled a mirror over the lab table. The left side of his body had changed—it was still a mirror image of his right, but it was now covered with golden metallic skin from his upper chest down to his hip. If not for the color, he wouldn’t have recognized himself as anything other than human. To his surprise, his head appeared unchanged despite the injury he must have suffered.
The shock of his transformation disappeared quickly, replaced by resignation. The fact that Earth Government was turning fallen soldiers into cyborgs was an open secret.
“What
are you going to do with me?” he asked, although he suspected he already knew the answer.
“You’re headed for Mars, of course. There is still much work to be done on the terraforming project.”
A faint memory tugged at him—a woman smiling, talking about a life on Mars—but it was immediately replaced by a flare of agony. He winced, and the scientist’s eyes sharpened.
“Don’t try to remember. You suffered some brain damage, and trying to remember will only cause you pain.”
“It burns.” The pain had been replaced by a fiery heat.
“That is part of the healing process. Your nanites create heat as they repair the damage.”
As the pain faded, he considered his situation. Perhaps he should have been outraged at his transformation from human to cyborg, but he felt curiously resigned. And after all, what was he leaving behind? Approaching forty, with an uneven military career and no family, there wasn’t much left for him on Earth. Another memory tried to intrude—blue eyes laughing up at him—but he slammed the door shut on it even as the pain escalated.
“Can you remove the restraints? I assume I need to be briefed for the journey.”
That satisfied smile crossed the man’s face once more as he nodded and bent to loosen the restraints.
“Excellent. This new protocol seems most satisfactory. Welcome to your new purpose, W-246.”
As he swung himself into a seated position, the faint sound of a woman sobbing echoed in his mind, then disappeared in another wave of pain. It was a clear reminder that his past was behind him now. Time to look to the future. Ignoring the curious ache in his chest, he stood up.
“I’m ready.”
Chapter Two
“Are you sure about this, Esme?” Cherry asked as she arranged her friend’s hair.
“Yes, ma’am. He’s the one for me.”
Cherry shook her head as she tucked the last flower in Esme’s hair. The tiny white blossoms were perfect amidst the dark braids, and she didn’t begrudge the expense in the least. Fresh flowers were rare commodities on Mars, but she had a conservatory devoted to them.
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