Her Cyborg (17 page)

Darkness surrounded him. It was peaceful and quiet. He had no idea how much time had passed, but slowly, things became clearer as he became aware of a world in the distance. Something went on around him, but he couldn't grasp what. It was like a thick wall was between him and whatever was on the other side. Voices reached his ears. At first, they made no sense. He couldn't make out a single word. Neither could he remember where he was or what was going on. After a while, he could make out a woman's voice. She was crying. Her voice was upset and desperate. He tried to focus, but it wasn't easy. His mind wanted to slip back into the silence and the calmness, but something told him he shouldn't. Her voice stressed him, but also made him try harder. He needed to wake up. She wasn't talking directly to him, but her voice was calling him. He felt the pull toward her. His heart whispered her name over and over again.

Phoebe ...

He wanted to stretch out his arms toward her even as he had no idea where she stood, but he couldn't move them. He could barely feel them. The darkness still held him in a firm grip. He wasn't able to pull himself out of it. All he knew was that he had to. It was difficult to remember why. His mind was foggy and it felt like his ears were under water. All sounds were so far away. So muffled.

For a long time, he was unable to feel anything, but after what felt like an eternity, he felt someone touch him. It wasn't a nice touch. It was a firm and determined touch. Strong hands that wrapped something around his wrists, and then his feet. He realized he lay on something that felt harder than a bed.

The first words hit his ears.

“What I will regret is not trying.” It was Nightmare's dark voice. “Turn it on.”

Shade had no idea what Nightmare was talking about or who he was talking to, but thanks to his words, Shade's memory triggered. It was a fuzzy memory of them giving him something when he had laid on the floor. He had been struggling with Edge and Hunter when he had felt a sharp pain in his arm. He had seen the syringe as Edge had emptied the liquid into his arm. It had knocked him out and it had made him forget what was going on. That was not supposed to happen to a cyborg. Cyborgs never forgot anything, and yet, he had. That surprised him and made him wonder. What had been in that syringe?

Shade didn't get the chance to think more about it as an unexpected pain shot right through him. It was sudden, sharp, and it attacked every nerve ending in his brain. He threw back his head, clenched his fists, and tensed every muscle in his body. He jerked his eyes open and stared up at the roof as the intense pain made him scream out.

“Shade!” he heard Phoebe's desperate call. Her voice was filled with fear. He heard her break down a little bit more each time she called his name.

“He's awake!” Edge yelled.

The pain was too strong for Shade to orient himself, but it sounded as if Edge stood right next to him by the gurney. He couldn't remember how he had been placed on it, but it must have happened while he had been unconscious. He noticed a dark figure on the other side of him before the pain almost blinded him. He screamed. In the distance, he heard Phoebe scream with him.

“What?” he heard Nightmare yell. “How is that even possible? Didn't you give him the serum?”

“I did,” Edge answered with a stern voice.

“He should be out for hours,” Nightmare growled. “Change the sequence.”

He only paid attention to all the movement around him for a short second before the pain became too great. It felt like every part of his brain was under attack by sharp needles. They stung him over and over again, invading every part of him. He felt his cybernetics protest and it didn't take long for them to recognize the pain as an invading signal. It was what Nightmare had been talking about. The thing that would remove his bond to Phoebe. The signal tried to break into his programming, it tried to take over. The fear that came over him when he realized what the signal was trying to do made him roar. It wasn't just trying to remove his bond to Phoebe.

It was trying to make him forget her, and the serum was helping.

That was why he hadn't been able to remember much after becoming conscious again. The serum had affected his memory for a short while. If he had stayed unconscious, it would have been a simple matter for the signal to do its job. But now, he was awake and he would fight the signal for dear life.

“Sequence changed,” Edge said.

At the same time as Edge said those words, the pain subsided and Shade felt his body relax. He was out of breath, his muscles ached, and he felt bruised all over. His body was covered with perspiration and his heart pounded inside of his chest. He still felt the stinging inside of his brain. Thankfully, it didn't hurt anymore, but it was uncomfortable. He tried to keep it out of his programming by denying the signal access, but it was difficult. The signal was like a virus to his programming. MedAct had given him advance protection shields from things like this, but Nightmare's signal was intelligent and sophisticated. It knew what it was looking for.

“He is struggling,” Edge said.

Nightmare leaned over Shade. Their gazes met. “Of course he is. He is trying to shield himself from the signal.” He looked at Edge. “You know what to do.”

Shade heard buttons being pushed. It was almost impossible to keep his breath steady as he felt a pressure filling his head. The pressure wasn't painful, but it invaded every part of his brain, attacking his programming and cybernetics again and again, trying to convince him to let go. Shade roared in discomfort.

Nightmare leaned over him again. “The more you fight, the more you are hurting yourself.”

Shade glared at him as he felt his body tremble. “Never. You are not just trying to break my bond to Phoebe. You are trying to make me forget her.” His voice was shaky.

Nightmare nodded. “Yes.” There was sadness in his eyes. “That is the only way. To break the bond, I must delete every trace of it. That is the only way for you to survive without it.”

Shade's muscles tensed again. This time from pure rage. “I won't let you.”

Nightmare didn't look away from him when he said: “Edge!”

“I'm on it,” the cyborg answered.

Shade heard buttons being pushed again, and a second later, the pressure inside his head intensified. Shade groaned as he threw back his head and arched his back. He couldn't see Phoebe, but he heard her cry. She kept calling out to him, but Nightmare and Edge ignored her. The pain in her voice made his heart ache. He was failing her.

The pressure grew too intense as the signal searched inside of him. It broke down his defenses and wore him out as it kept pushing forward to gain access to his advanced programming. One wrong move and it would succeed. It would change him forever. It would take Phoebe away from him.

“A little bit more, Edge,” Nightmare said.

Buttons were pushed a third time. He felt the pressure ease up in most places inside of his head. Instead, it focused on one spot only. That could only mean one thing.

The signal had found what it was searching for.

Shade knew that he would not be able to stop the signal from entering his programming. It focused all of its strength into that one place. Fear filled him when he felt that his defenses started to break down. He tried to push it away, to lock it out using his protection shields, but it didn't work. The signal was too strong.

He knew what would happen if the signal gained access to that part of his brain. That was where the most important part of his programming was. Everything that was him, everything that Phoebe wanted him to be was there, but as a cyborg, he was also part human which meant he could choose to ignore the programming that she had given him and turn into his own, unique person. He had never seen the need to ignore the programming because he had been happy with how things were. But Nightmare's signal would force him to become someone he wasn't, someone he didn't want to be. It would take away the bond to Phoebe. He would forget her, and by doing so, it would shut down a big part of who he was.

He knew that he had the choice to shut his programming down. That way, the signal would fail, but he would fail as well. His programming would be gone, and he would never be the same again.

He had no idea how he could win over this. It didn't matter how hard he tried to keep the signal out, his protective shields were nothing more but a shadow of their former selves anymore. Little by little, the signal had broken them down.

“Almost there,” Edge said.

A furious roar was heard from the outside before something slammed into the wall of the house. It made Nightmare and Edge jerk away and Shade saw them turn their heads toward the entrance door.

“What was that?” Shade heard Faye ask.

Shade heard something going on outside. There were the sounds of grunts, groans, and things being dragged around on the ground. Seconds later, the entrance door was forced open.

“Silver has gotten free!” a cyborg yelled, “and we are about to have company. MedAct's cyborg soldiers will be here within five minutes.”

“Crap!” Nightmare cursed.

Shade noticed Nightmare walking around near the gurney, but he had a hard time focusing on what was going on further away from him. The signal was minutes away from breaking through. Every word, every move, and every sound felt like it came from far away.

“Grab our things and return to the base with Silver. Edge, Hunter, Heaven, and I will stay behind to see this through,” Nightmare told someone.

Silver roared from outside. He seemed to be close to the entrance door.

“Oh, my God,” Faye said with a gasp. “What is wrong with him?”

Shade closed his eyes and tried to focus on the invasive signal, but their words still reached through to him.

“I'm guessing he is pissed off at you for kissing him, and he is probably also trying to get to you to finish what you started. I doubt he wants to, but you didn't give him much choice. His programming is screaming inside of him now to finish the bonding process,” Nightmare said.

“Damn it, I just kissed him to break up the fighting.” Faye sounded scared.

“You were told what would happen if you touched one of us intimately.”

“I guess I didn't take it seriously. It sounded too weird.”

“And that proves you don't have much of a brain. You bonded a cyborg to yourself whether you intended to do it or not. He will do everything in his power now to reach you. He will never give up until he is completely bonded to you. I might be able to drag him away from here today, but mark my words, he will come for you, and you won't be able to run away. He will finish the bonding process and the only way to do that is through intercourse. He will fall deeper and deeper in love with you.” Shade heard him take a deep breath. “And you know what? He will hate you for it.”

Someone stormed into the room, breaking Shade's concentration. A loud roar was heard before something smashed into a wall. Shade heard a groan of pain followed by quick footsteps. More groans were heard. Something broke. It sounded like wood, maybe a chair. Shade didn't know and he didn't care. The final part of his protective shield crumbled into pieces. The signal had free access to his programming now. There was nothing that he could do to stop it from doing what it was designed for.

“Don't let him come near me!” Faye yelled as the chaos around him grew.

He heard screaming, roaring, and something being dragged around on the floor before he heard the sound of something hitting the wall again.

“Sedate him before he wrecks the place!” Nightmare yelled. “Keep him away from the cage and from Shade.”

Shade heard more noises, but it became more and more difficult to tell them apart. The signal invaded his programming and he lost track of time. He felt it working as it sent thousands of tiny inputs into his mind, slowly replacing one bit after another of the bond. He saw an image of Phoebe flash by. She was reaching out her arms toward him as she smiled. He desperately tried to hang on to it, but within a few seconds, it was gone, and he could no longer remember what the image had been. Only a feeling remained. A feeling that said that something important had been forgotten.

Shade screamed out as a heart-wrecking pain surged through him. As his love was taken away from him, a deep emotional hole inside of his chest grew. It was strong enough to break his heart, literally. Strong enough to kill him. Nightmare's signal wasn't able to fill that hole, and as it grew bigger, Phoebe faded further and further away from his mind. It felt like Nightmare's signal was ripping out his soul, his reason for living. It made him scream louder as he writhed on the gurney. He threw his head from one side to the other as he desperately tried to get free.

He was losing her, one memory after another. He knew it because there was nothing but darkness and emptiness where he knew that he should have a memory. And now, he also knew Nightmare's signal was failing. It wasn't setting him free from the bond. It was killing him. Nightmare's signal would never be able to replace the bond and fill that emotional hole inside of his chest. Once the bond was gone, his programming would think his bound one had died, didn't matter if she stood just a few feet away from him.

An image from the first very time that he had seen her flashed by. He had been lying on a bed and she had leaned over him. She had smiled ... her eyes had been so gentle and filled with love ...