The Cyber Chronicles VIII - Scorpion Lord (6 page)

"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?"

"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."

She nodded. "I
thought it might be something like that. Did you intend to kill
Vardin and Shenar?"

"Not really. I
reacted to the pain, and unless I make an effort to hold back, my
blows are inevitably lethal to a normal person." His eyes opened a
slit once more. "I don't regret their deaths, though. Is this a
personality test?"

"Of a sort, I
suppose. The fact that you're an aware, intelligent human being
makes what they're doing to you horrible, but if you were a
cold-blooded killer, I suppose I wouldn't be as sympathetic."

"I'm not a
killer. I hate it, but I was designed to be one, so it's easy for
me. I just want to be left alone. They died because they kidnapped
and tortured me."

"I agree."
Estrelle straightened, glancing around. "I must go before they get
suspicious. I guess you don't want them to know you're awake."

"Not really,
but it will make little difference. I don't trust you."

She hesitated,
then nodded. "No, I suppose you have no reason to, any more than I
have a reason to believe you."

"Although I
have less reason to lie; but I suppose trust between us will need
to be earned."

****

Two days
later, Jorran arranged the first demonstration of Sabre's unique
abilities to a group of prospective buyers. Estrelle received her
order to observe at her cramped desk in the cyber unit research lab
two hours before the scheduled time. She frowned at the exposed
circuitry in the prototype brow band on the table. A row of
delicate, high-tech instruments lined the edge of her desk, micro
scanners, probes and testers that were all hooked up to her
personal analysis computer. Her cubicle was just one of a double
row that lined the length of a long narrow grey room with tinted
skylights in the ceiling. She touched the cool golden metal of the
brow band, remembering what Sabre had called it. A little
monster.

Since her
conversation with the cyber, she had avoided him, torn by
conflicting emotions and a deep unwillingness to be further
persuaded of his innocence and unjust treatment. She was a
Cybercorp employee; her duty was clear, and there was nothing she
could do for him in any case. Her priority was her welfare. The fat
paycheque that swelled her bank account every month was proof of
where her loyalties should lie, and she strived to harden her
heart.

After reading
the order, she stared at the comscreen with blind eyes, wondering
what she had become. The small red tattoo on her shoulder marked
her forever as Cybercorp personnel. Resignation was not an option;
she had signed a lifelong contract. She was the daughter of a
surgeon and a control unit tech, and the depths of her ignorance
about the true nature of cyber hosts and the horror of their
production stunned her. Were her parents also ignorant? She wanted
to believe they were, and, if not, that they were as helpless to do
anything about it as she was.

Estrelle
picked up the prototype unit and hefted it, turning it so the
spotlight on her desk shone into the dark crystals. It had always
surprised her how heavy a control unit was, for although barrinium
was light, the crystals were extremely dense, and heavier than
lead. How must it feel, she wondered, to have one like this welded
to your forehead, controlling you? She could not imagine anything
worse. The latest craze amongst cyber buyers was, apparently, a
demand for more life-like speech patterns, and that was her current
project. The exposed audio interface, which controlled the host's
speech, glinted like a little diamond. Hard, unfeeling... barbaric.
With a sigh, she pressed the digital reader to it and watched the
scrolling speech patterns on her monitor, trying to enhance the
emotional inflections. False inflections, like everything else
about control units' interaction with people. Artificial.

At the
appointed time, Estrelle made her way to the testing centre, where
she found Jorran making the last of the preparations. Like most of
the rooms in Cybercorp, its décor consisted of white walls, a
glowing ceiling and a polished grey floor. Sabre was shackled to a
T-shaped scaffold made from heavy-duty steel girders. A helmet with
a tinted visor and chin guard hid his face, and his head was
clamped to the scaffold. A metal band secured his neck, and
shackles bound his wrists, ankles, elbows and knees in place,
immobilising him. His chest heaved in rapid breaths, sweat beaded
his skin, and his hands were clenched.

Jorran
adjusted the flamethrower an impassive cyber held, his brow creased
in concentration.

She went over
to him. "You haven't anaesthetised the prototype?"

He looked up.
"What for? He's immobilised, don't worry."

"He can still
show signs of pain, writhe around, move his hands."

He shrugged.
"We'll just tell the clients that his brow band is a little
defective. He's a prototype, after all, and if it wasn't, he
wouldn't need to be clamped to the scaffold in the first place,
would he?"

"What if he
cries out?"

Jorran jerked
his chin at the plasti-glass cubicle at the back of the room.
"They'll be in there; they won't hear a thing. And he's gagged, so
he won't be able to make much noise."

"If you
anaesthetised him, none of that would be necessary. It makes us
look incompetent."

"That might
have been a problem, since he was counteracting the tranquilisers,
so he might have done the same to an anaesthetic. He wasn't in a
coma, he was faking it. It took five cybers to clamp him down."

"Well that
explains the lights on the control unit." Estrelle took a data-wand
from her lab coat pocket and made notes.

"I expect
you'll find the reaction of the control unit to this experiment
interesting too."

"Extremely."

Jorran turned
to the cyber and ordered him to test fire the flamethrower, looking
satisfied with the resulting burst of fire.

"I think we're
ready."

Estrelle
wandered over to the two host research techs who stood a short
distance away, the same two men who had been with her when Sabre
had killed Vardin and Shenar. They looked a little queasy, and she
wondered if her illness was as obvious as theirs. They nodded at
her when she joined them, fiddling with their data-wands. Jorran
went to a side door and ushered in a group of people whose haughty
demeanour and lavish clothes screamed money and power.

As Jorran
showed them into the cubicle, the younger tech, Martis, leant
closer to her and whispered, "Are you okay with this?"

She glanced at
him. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, he's
aware."

"So? He's just
a host."

Martis nodded.
"That's right. You're right. He's just a host."

"Are you okay
with it?"

"Of course!
He's just a host."

"That's right,
he is."

"Yes." Martis
nodded. "That's all he is."

"You seem
concerned."

"Me? No, no,
not at all."

"Good."
Estrelle turned to gaze at Sabre, swallowing the burning bile that
crept into her throat. Clearly it did bother Martis, just as it
bothered her, and probably the other host researcher, Rond, an
older man whose face remained rigidly impassive.