Cryo-Man (Cryo-Man series, #1) (11 page)

             
“What did you say?” E asks.

             
“Heaven Box,” I repeat, my mind still emerging from the fog of sleep. “Don’t let me forget that.”

             
“What does it mean?” he asks.

             
“I… I don’t remember,” I say sadly. “But I know it’s important.”

             
E’s brow furrows in thought. He holds up a heavily blistered hand.

             
“Follow my finger,” he says.

             
I do as he says without problem and then sit up.

             
“I had another memory, while I was in shutdown mode,” I say. “But now it’s… it’s gone.”

             
E frowns and nods. “That’s my fault. While you were out, I replaced your broken panels. I needed to readjust some of the wiring into your brain. I must’ve gotten too close to your temporal cortex.”

             
I think about the heavy-handed manner in which E shoved wires into the old woman’s brain and wonder if that’s how he treated me, too. But when I do a quick check of my senses and body control, I don’t find anything else changed.

             
“The what?” I ask.

             
“Temporal cortex,” E repeats. “It’s the part of the brain where memories are stored. It’s also the riskiest area for me to mess around with, which is why I’ve always stayed well clear of it. That’s why I have no idea if memories in your brain can ever be recovered.”

             
“But they
can
, they just
were
,” I say, full of hope since I know the new memory had been conjured by E’s actions. “Whatever you just did to my brain got it working again; something was there, something important.”

“But now you don’t remember it?” E asks.

I already know the answer to that question but I close my eyes anyway, try again to recall any part of the memory. It’s frustrating beyond words that I can only remember one thing.

“Heaven Box, I remember Heaven Box,” I say.

When I open my eyes, I see that E isn’t impressed.

“Which is…”

“I… I don’t know. But it must be important if I remember it, right? I remember mentioning a box from both memories I’ve had,” I say. “And the boy from my other memory, he must be
my
boy,
my
son.”

E sighs, the gurgling in his throat more apparent than ever.

“Then what’s the boy’s name?”

When I think of the boy, I can picture every detail of his face when he’s smiling or crying or worried or laughing. I still hear the sound of his little voice in my mind. But nowhere in that memory do I remember saying – or even thinking – his name.

“I can’t remember,” I whisper, though my robotic voice says the words louder than I intended.

I slam my hand onto the gurney in frustration. It doesn’t even creak before completely collapsing. My reaction time is instantaneous, without hesitation, as I leap to my feet before falling with the metallic bed. I should seem frightening to E but he approaches me and pats me on the robotic hand.

“I’m sorry but that quick memory was probably just a random neuron firing in your brain, brought about by the electrical spark of the wiring I was fixing,” he says. “I really need to keep a steadier hand when working on you. I hope you can forgive me.”

E’s hand shakes atop mine but I don’t think it’s because he’s frightened. Up close, he looks to be in even worse shape and I wonder how quickly he’s deteriorating. When he sees me watching him, he pulls his hand away and walks toward the door.

“Please, promise me you’ll try to fix my memory one day, regardless of what you think will happen to me,” I plead. “Maybe at a time before you think you’re about to… well…”

“Die?” E asks. “Are we on
that
again? I’m fine, you don’t have to worry about me going anywhere for a long time.”

E turns to walk away but I refuse to let him ignore my request so easily this time. I take two gigantic steps to catch up with him and grab his arm, careful not to squeeze too hard.

“Please,” I say simply.

E begins to nod and I feel a moment of relief. But that feeling is short-lived, interrupted almost immediately by an ear-splitting bang from down the hallway. It takes me a confused moment to realize it’s not coming from the cryonics room but the
other
end of the hall. E doesn’t make me feel better when he immediately summarizes what happened.

“Guess I was wrong about the assassin bots staying away.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“What do we do?” I ask in a panic.

The loud scraping of metallic feet against concrete flooring echoes in the hallway, growing louder as the robot – or
robots
– speed toward us. We barely have time to figure out what’s happening let alone come up with a plan.

“We fight!” E calls out over the noise.

He pulls out the small remote from his back pocket but that’s not his only plan for defense. He rushes around me and grabs the laser cutting tool that I knocked to the floor when punching the gurney; for good measure, E yanks off a sharpened piece of the metal table before heading toward the door. I freeze, not knowing how to help until he waves me forward.

“Follow me!” he yells.

Smoke rounds the corner of the hallway of the stairwell before the first robot even appears. E pushes me behind him, toward the direction of the cryonics room, making sure to put himself between me and danger. I’m about to tell him to use me as a shield when the first sign of movement approaches through the smoke. A pair of large robotic forms appears, their heads nearly reaching the ceiling of the hallway. Based upon their monstrous size, the intimidation factor nearly overwhelms me until I realize I’m just as large.

“Stay behind me for now,” E calls back to me.

“But – ”

“Just do it!”

One robot rushes ahead of the others. E aims the small remote toward the metallic beast and pushes the large red button. The assassin bot immediately collapses to the floor. For a brief second, I’m also unable to move until a wave of power rushes through my body; it’s suddenly clear why E wants me
behind
him. E pounces on the downed robot, gouging at its power core with the sharpened metal rod. He’s so concentrated on the robot that he doesn’t notice the second assassin emerge through the smoke. I leap to action just as I see E raise the remote. Before he pushes the button again, the assassin bot gets off a shot that strikes the small remote, knocking it out of E’s hand, shattering it to pieces.

My creator looks up at the robotic killer rushing toward him. E doesn’t move, seemingly resigned to a fate he can no longer control. The assassin raises its arm and fires but I leap in front of E. The bullet pings off my metallic frame. Another shot follows but my reflexes are so sharp that I swat the bullet out of midair, knocking it into part of the CIFPOL sign still hanging on the wall.

The assassin bot suddenly turns toward me and raises the weapon built into its arm.

“Destroy it!” E yells.

I react at once, my feet quicker than the assassin’s gun. The robot fires several shots at me but I no longer stand where it aims. I speed to the side and leap, expertly dodging bullets while running along the side of the wall. The assassin bot barely has time to turn toward me before I land behind it, lift it high in the air with ease, and smash it into the floor. Scraps of metal robot and concrete floor shoot up at me; I’m not sure which one I’ve damaged more but I’m momentarily shocked by my awesome display of destructiveness.

Three more assassin bots appear through the smoke and fire shots in my direction. Before I have a chance to attack them, they smash through the door leading to the room of broken robots.

“They’re going for the tracker,” E calls out.

“The assassin tried to destroy me, too,” I say. “You said they wouldn’t register me as an enemy since I don’t have a heartbeat.”

“These models are sophisticated, they learn a lot faster than previous generations,” E says. “Once you defended me and made an aggressive movement toward it, the robot sent a signal to others nearby telling them that you’re dangerous. You won’t have the element of surprise again but I think there are only a few left.”

E finishes cutting out the wires of his downed robot before picking up the pieces of his smashed remote, shaking his head.

“There goes my biggest weapon,” he says.

“
I’m
your biggest weapon,” I say, feeling more powerful than ever. I wonder if the exhilaration of what I just did somehow causes this blast of energy coursing through me. “I don’t need the element of surprise when I can do that.”

I point to the destroyed robot but E shakes his head and rushes toward the control room.

“Should I go after the others and destroy them?” I ask, watching the empty doorway that they just entered.

“No, that’s my job,” E says.

“There’s too many and your remote is destroyed,” I say. “I can do it, I’m a lot stronger than you.”

“Strength is not always needed. You’ve done your job, now it’s my turn,” E says. “I need you to get far away, I don’t want this to affect you, too.”

“But – ”

“Don’t argue with me, there’s no time!” he snaps. “Get to the cryonics room before they find the tracker and come back to attack again. Go to back of the room, climb into your chamber if you have to, anything to get as far from here as possible. I hope that’ll be far enough. Go now!”

I don’t understand what he’s up to and hesitate long enough for him to look at me with wide, angry eyes. I take off toward the cryo-room before he yells again. I feel terrible as I run away, like I’m abandoning the only person I have left in the world. I’d fight to the end to keep E safe but he obviously has different plans; he hasn’t failed me yet so I hope he doesn’t start now.

             
Gunshots ring out and I see the sparks of bullets striking the wall around me. I want to turn back and fight but I heed E’s order and push my way into the cryo-room, nearly slipping on the ice. I expect to be chased down from behind; hopefully the assassin bots don’t fare so well with the slippery floor. But when I glance back a few times, I never see them enter the large room.

             
I push my robotic speed to its maximum, nearly crashing into the far wall that I reach within seconds. I can’t get any farther away unless I follow E’s exact order and climb into my cryo-chamber. I step toward the dark hole and peer inside, seeing the outline of my former body in the shadows. I’m hesitant to climb inside and convince myself there’s not enough room for both of us – or should I say both of
me
.

             
I crouch down and leap, surprising myself by soaring nearly twenty feet in the air before reaching the apex of my jump. I fly by the cryo-chamber in the second row from ground level but there are still several more rows above that. At the last moment before plunging back to the floor, I punch my hand into the wall, dig my pincer-like claws into thick concrete. I come to an abrupt stop but large chunks of concrete debris begin to crumble around my hand; the wall can’t hold my weight.

             
I swing my free hand above and slam it into the wall as my other hand falls out of its hold. I continue to climb higher, carving out a path toward the top of the cavernous room. My hands nearly slip several times but I finally reach the uppermost row of cryo-chambers. Now
this
is as far away as I can get. But when I try to force myself into the freezing chamber, the heavy metal tube inside blocks me from climbing all the way in. I look for more room to squeeze myself in but the bluish glow is blinding and the temperature is so cold that a layer of frost quickly covers my glass dome.

             
There’s no time to think, no time to clear more space, no time to consider a Plan B. The blue light within the chamber suddenly clicks off, plunging my sight into total darkness. A deep, thudding boom rushes across the dark cryonics room. The sound envelops me, causing my glass dome to rattle lightly. Although it’s already dark, I see my vision fading, feel my power waning. Something is wrong with me, something that must have to do with the booming pulse.

             
My body slowly slides out of the cryo-chamber. I don’t have the strength or dexterity to stop it from happening. I feel my power draining, my bodily systems flickering, threatening to completely shut off. Soon, I feel the emptiness of falling. It’s too dark to see the floor below and my eyes don’t work well enough anyway. The best I manage to do is flail my arms and legs wildly, clutch at anything I can. I feel them scrape against the nearby wall. In my final moments of consciousness, I try to dig my sharp pincers into the concrete as I did before.

             
I feel a sudden jolt followed by the impact of slamming against something hard. The last thing I hear before powering off is the sound of breaking glass…