The Cyber Chronicles IV - Cyborg (6 page)

“
I know you can hear me,” she said. “It’s safe to free yourself
now. I found you, just as I promised. Come on. Sabre? Free
yourself.”

“
Order not understood.”

She leant
closer and stroked his cheek, tracing the tiny white scar that ran
along it, a legacy of the brutal operations he had undergone to
implant metal on his bones. “What did they do to you? Sabre… I’m
going to free you. Do you hear me? I will free you. Just show me
you can hear me.”

“
Order not understood.” The cyber stared into the middle
distance for several seconds, then his eyes closed in a slow
blink.

Tassin’s heart
pounded, and she smiled through her tears. “You heard me. I know
you did. Can you free yourself? Will you at least try? Please?”

Several more
seconds passed, a longer interval than the first one, and she
wondered if he was trying or just thinking, or if he was listening
to her at all. Now she wished she had paid more attention when he
had explained what he could do and sense while under cyber control.
She was sure he could hear, and see, but not focus, and he could
not move at all, except, apparently, he could make that slow,
almost seductive blink. He did it again, and a mixture of joy and
anguish swamped her.

“
Tell me how to fix you, Sabre.”

“
This unit is operational. Bio status: seventy-nine per
cent.”

“
Oh, shut up, I’m not talking to you.” Tassin sighed and lay
down, patting the covers beside her. “Lie down, Sabre.”

The cyber
obeyed, and she pulled his arm away and cuddled up to him, rested
her head on his shoulder and held him tight with a bittersweet
mixture of bliss at being close to him again at last, and sorrow
that he was unable to respond. Now that she owned the cyber – she
refused to think of it as owning Sabre – it would do anything she
ordered, but that thought only added to her sadness. She raised
herself on her elbow and leant over him to kiss his cheek.

“
I hope you don’t mind this. I missed you so much. I’m going to
find a way to free you.”

Tassin gazed
at him until his eyes closed in a slow blink that she took to be
agreement, or at least acknowledgement, then lay down again with a
sigh and hugged him.

Chapter Three

Tassin hefted
the hammer, chewing her lip. Her plan made perfect logical sense,
but putting it into practice was difficult. The brow band had lost
control of Sabre last time because it had been damaged in a fall
from a cliff, so it stood to reason that to free him again she had
to damage it again, the same way. Although Myon Two had
re-established its control over him, the crack in the crystals was
still there. If she could break the brow band again, he would be
free. Hitting him with a hammer was hard to do, but she had to. She
had ordered the cyber to lie on the floor in the middle of Kole’s
computer room, which gave her the best shot at the brow band, and
she knelt beside him. Kole had gone somewhere earlier, and she was
alone with Sabre in the apartment.

The night
before, after he had eaten dinner with her and Kole, the hacker had
provided an extra mattress for Sabre to sleep on in her room. She
wanted nothing more than to be close to him, but refused to order
him to do anything he might not want. She was determined to
preserve his dignity at all costs and ensure that he was
comfortable and as content as was possible, under the
circumstances. Only once she had broken the diabolical thing that
controlled him, would she be truly reunited with the man she loved.
Bolstering her cowering resolve with this thought, she raised the
hammer, aimed at the control unit and brought it down.

Sabre’s hand
flashed up and caught her wrist. “That action may result in damage
to this unit,” he intoned.

“
Release me.”

He obeyed, and
she frowned at him. “You will not impede me again, understood?”

“
Understood.”

“
I hope this doesn’t hurt too much,” she muttered, raising the
hammer again.

Her first stroke bounced off the control unit with a crisp
click, and barely seemed to jar him. Much more force was necessary,
she knew. Her second stroke cracked into the control unit with a
satisfying
clack
,
and she bent to peer at the crack, but it looked the same. She
raised the hammer again and brought it down with more strength, and
again it clacked against the black crystals, bounced off and jarred
her hand. Still there seemed to be no damage, and she chewed her
lip, discouraged. Just how hard was she going to have to hit it?
What if she missed? That did not bear thinking about, so she put it
out of her mind.
Don’t miss.
Tassin hit the control unit with the hammer five
more times, each impact harder than the one before, but the
crystals remained intact. With growing frustration, she raised the
hammer and brought it down in the hardest stroke of all. It clipped
the brow band and smacked into Sabre’s forehead with a dull
thud.

Tassin dropped
the hammer and clamped her hands over her mouth, her eyes filling
with tears. A red mark blossomed on his golden skin, and his eyes
closed in a slow blink.

“
Oh, god, I’m so sorry, Sabre,” she said in a strangled
voice.

Tassin stared
at him, aghast at what she had done. If he had been free, he would
have been telling her how foolish she was, she was sure. She did
not know how to free him. The possibility that there was no way to
free him made her tears overflow and run down her cheeks. She
buried her face in her hands.

“
Hey, what’s going on?”

Kole’s voice
made her rub the tears from her cheeks and raise her head. He stood
in the doorway, a bag of shopping in one hand, frowning at Sabre.
His eyes flicked to the hammer on the floor and then to the small
red swelling on the cyber’s brow.

“
Have you been trying to break the control unit with a hammer?”
He sounded incredulous.

“
Have you a better idea?”

He snorted.
“You’re nuts, you know that? You can’t break a control unit. Daft
chick.”

“
His is already broken,” she pointed out.

“
In a fall off a cliff, you said. That, I can believe, if he
hit a rock. Okay, that might weaken it a bit, but not enough so you
can now break it with a hammer.”

“
I have to free him!”

Kole sighed
and put down the bag. “Yeah, so you’ve said. Look, he’s a fighting
machine; he’s designed to be tough. You think a little girl like
you has a chance of hurting him? Except maybe a little bruise,
unless you hit him in the eye. Then you might very well kill him.
But smash the control unit? Cybers use those things as weapons.
They bring a whole other dimension to head-butting in the form of
control unit-shaped indentations in the skulls of the unsuspecting
sods who are stupid enough to tackle a cyber. Hitting it with a
hammer won’t even rattle its circuits.”

“
There has to be a way.” she said, her eyes growing moist
again, to her annoyance.

Kole sank into
a chair. “If there is, I don’t know it. As far as I know, it’s
impossible.”

“
It is possible. He was free on Omega Five for almost a
year.”

“
Well, we’re nine floors up. You could chuck him off the
balcony. That might work.”

“
That’s not funny, Kole.”

Sabre sat up.
“There are ten enforcers outside the door.”

“
Enforcers?” Tassin asked, puzzled.

“
Correct.”

Despite his
warning, the thunderous banging that came from the door a moment
later made her jump.

“
Shit!” Kole leapt up. “We’ve got to get out of
here.”

“
Why?” she asked, surprised.

“
When enforcers rock up on my doorstep, I run first and ask
questions later. Come on!”

Kole headed
for the garage, and Tassin jumped up and dashed into her bedroom to
grab the sword and her pouch of useless gold. She tossed the weapon
to Sabre. “Bring this.”

In the garage,
Kole already had the air-car running, and guided it out as soon as
she and Sabre were aboard. He joined the highest level of flying
traffic, which was also the fastest.

“
Where are we going?” Tassin enquired.

“
As far away from those buggers as possible.”

“
Why would they be after you?”

“
It can only have something to do with your cyber, but I’m not
hanging around to ask them. You don’t mess with
enforcers.”

She frowned.
“Why must it be because of Sabre?”

“
Because enforcers are Myon Two’s police force,” Kole said.
“They protect Cybercorp’s secrets, hunt down anti-Myon Two
activists, arrest owners who use their cybers for criminal
activities, that kind of thing.”

“
But we haven’t done anything wrong.”

He swerved
into another traffic lane and swooped around a skyscraper. “Not as
far as we know, but they wouldn’t be after us without a good
reason.”

“
Like what?”

“
I don’t know! You want to stop and ask them?”

Sabre said,
“The enforcers are following in two air-cars.”

“
Crap!” Kole’s eyes darted. “How the hell did they find us?” He
frowned. “Unless… it’s him.”

“
Who?” Tassin asked.

Kole jerked
his head at Sabre. “It must be him. He’s got a locator beacon. It’s
the only explanation. Ask him if it’s been activated.”

She turned to
Sabre. “Has your locator beacon been activated?”

“
Yes.”

“
Shit!” Kole said. “We’ll never shake them. We’ve got to get
rid of it.”

“
We’re not getting rid of Sabre.”

“
No, just the beacon. There’s a cyber repair shop across town.
We’ll have to grab a tech and make him remove the beacon. Ask him
how far away they are.”

She relayed
the question to Sabre again, wondering why Kole did not just ask
him.

“
One point seven kilometres,” the cyber replied.

“
Okay, that gives us a little time. A couple of minutes,
tops.”

Tassin gripped
her seat as Kole swerved out of the lane of flying traffic and
swooped into the clear airspace to the left, accelerating. She
swallowed hard as he skimmed past a mirror-sided building with
centimetres to spare and weaved between the skyscrapers at
breakneck speed. About ten minutes later, he landed on one of the
parking areas that jutted from the side of a massive pale grey
building with rows of mirror windows. Kole jumped out and sprinted
inside, and Tassin followed, Sabre at her heels.

Kole skidded
around a corner and dived into a shop with a sign outside that said
it was a cyber repair station. Tassin entered a moment later, to
find Kole wrestling with a short, chubby blond youth who yelled in
alarm. Posters of cybers in various combat poses adorned the pale
grey walls, lasers and webbing hung between them, and a glass
counter displayed an assortment of other equipment. She recognised
several wrist-mounted grenade launcher and laser combos, and a
variety of helmets and body armour. She glanced back at Sabre and
pointed at the youth, who was presumably a cyber technician.

“
Bring him!”

Sabre moved
past her and gripped the young man’s arm, and he goggled at the
cyber. Kole ran to the door and peered out, then raced back towards
the parking area, Tassin in hot pursuit. Sabre dragged the tech
after them. As they reached the air-car, two black vehicles swooped
down to land beside it, and black-clad men boiled out of them.
Sabre drew a laser and snapped off three quick shots, forcing the
men to dive for cover. Kole leapt into the car and started it, and
Tassin climbed in beside him. Sabre shoved the tech into the back
seat as laser bolts flashed past, dangerously close. Two cracked
off the side of the car, and Tassin yelped. Kole raised the car and
reversed it, and Sabre fired four more shots, then jumped into the
back seat beside the tech, firing out of the window at the
enforcers, who fired back. Blue bolts seared past the car, and
Tassin ducked, her heart hammering. Kole swung the car away, and
they swooped between the towering spires, accelerating towards the
edge of the city. She turned to the cringing youth beside
Sabre.

“
Remove his locator beacon, now!”

The tech gaped
at her. “What? I… I can’t do that!”

“
Why not?”

“
I’m not… It’s illegal! And I don’t have any instruments.” He
cowered as laser shots flashed past the windows, and Tassin glanced
around.

Kole swore and
weaved the air-car from side to side. “Those bastards have armed
air-cars!”

She turned
back to the tech, clinging to the seat as the car swayed and
veered. “What do you need?”

“
I won’t do it!”

She held out
her hand to Sabre. “Give me a laser.” The cyber handed her one, and
she aimed it at the tech. “Remove the tracking beacon.”

“
Okay! Okay, but I don’t have any –”

“
What do you need?”

“
A scalpel and snips,” he squeaked, his eyes darting to the
windows where more blue streaks zipped past. A passing skyscraper
blossomed with a fiery blaze as one of the shots hit it. Tassin did
not want to think about what would happen to the car if it was hit.
For the moment, however, the enforcers did not seem to be shooting
to kill, but trying to force them to land. She hoped Kole had the
courage to deal with this situation.