| |
2040
Deep within, 241 gathered the strength to take action. Though her cyborg side had been completely wiped, she’d matured too much as a human for that emptiness to stop her. She’d tested this in a minor way before she’d come, clearing a portion of her own database, and had discovered that what she lacked, her humanness adapted to. If, after this, she had to learn to live again ... to talk and think like a human, then she would do it. If she was dysfunctional, she’d accept it. The price was worth it – to be free. And to secure that same freedom for her kind.
Yet, she’d thought long and hard about the ramifications of such freedom. Other cyborgs weren’t prepared for life without some form of direction. With no rules to guide them, they’d fall into chaos, the strength and intelligence they’d been given operating out of bounds.
Therefore, in the virus she’d created, the one currently spreading mayhem through the Organization, she’d included a directive, turning control of the entire thing over to Dietrich Serguyen. He’d discover it within a few hours, and by then, she hoped to be out of here with cyborg 851.
851 was key to her plans and, again, required Dietrich’s help. That she’d hinged everything on a human’s actions hadn’t left her mind. He’d tried to contain her, but in thinking on it, he’d had the right motives. She simply hadn’t been in a position to receive it back then, whereas now, she knew her place in the world.
She wasn’t supposed to exist. The Organization hadn’t planned on creating a female cyborg. They hadn’t thought a cyborg could replicate and give birth either. She had, just the same. Her son was the key to the future, and saving him, what she was brought into existence to do.
No matter the personal cost.
“I’ve gathered everyone inside, so that we all understand what is about to take place.”
His father’s eyes scanned across the room. He and 653, Lexie holding 281, Pamela, and several other cyborgs holding temporary residence in the silo all formed a u around him. His father waved his arm toward the screens. “This is 851.”
A diagram unfolded, the specifications of his brother from physical proportions to data capacity rising on it as well as a 3D representation that spun in a slow circle. He was the same height and weight as 653, although with black hair and craggier features.
“He is the oldest of my sons,” his father said, “and the first they let me have any charge over. As such, I know how he operates in depth.” His father paused, as if lost in thought. He shook his head and continued. “To reactivate him requires the code 241 sent and a little finesse.”
Dietrich waved his hands again and a video replay of 241’s gaze formed on the screen. Dietrich halted it at one particular scene and pointed to one of the seemingly infinite number of tubes. “That is 851. I can activate him, but he would remain sealed inside and probably drown in the solution being fed into his veins. To remove him requires an ocular scan of one of three individuals. I have been able to access employment records and duplicate one of those scans. But ...” Again, he halted. “Guiding him over to help 241 is an issue. I haven’t the control I need over his machine. But setting that aside, for a moment ...”
His gaze met 852’s. “She’s totally incapacitated. They did more than deactivate her; they disabled her. I fear even when we get her out, she will not operate like a cyborg anymore.”
Lexie interrupted him, her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?” 281 wriggled in her grasp.
“Well ...” His father’s expression turned grave. “She will be solely human. She will no longer think like a cyborg or function like one.”
“Repair her,” 852 said.
Dietrich lips turned downward, his eyes softening. “I can’t, my boy. I wish ... I wish I could, but they, in effect, froze the machine.”
“Froze it?” Lexie asked.
He nodded. “A solution was injected into her that makes it inoperable. There is no cure.”
“We saw through her eyes,” 653 said.
Dietrich swiveled his view. “Yes, but ocular technology is separate from the rest. You know that based on what you went through.”
653 dipped his chin.
“They’ve stopped her from thinking, but not from seeing,” Dietrich continued. “It’s like she’s in a coma, able to take in what’s going on around her, but she can’t respond to it.”
852’s stomach twisted. Why did she do this? Was seeking revenge really worth giving everything up? His eyes rested on 281, and he knew the answer. For her, it was. She sought to protect their son above all else, as she’d done when leaving him behind two years ago.
Yet surely, there was a better way. They would have figured out something eventually, tapped into the central computer without her having to destroy herself.
The end of his thoughts was buried beneath a blaring alarm. Lights flashed off and on in the room and the screens changed, information whizzing across them at an incomprehensible rate.
Dietrich whirled. Tossing himself in a chair, he typed at a furious pace. But whatever had begun spun through their hard drives, a mesh of numbers and binary code that popped up the faces of individual cyborgs one by one. Ten, one hundred, 852 counted them, two hundred and twenty young cyborgs created after the destruction of the older units and, following that, a list of retired cyborgs.
Dietrich pushed back from the desk, his hands aloft. “My God. She’s done it.”
“Done what? Who are they?” Lexie asked.
His face pale, mouth agape, he glanced behind. He looked from left to right, pausing briefly on 281 before bringing his full attention to 852. “When you were ‘visiting’ her years ago, did you know she was leaving the room?”
852 inclined his head. “She never said so, but I picked up on it. I knew she was devouring everything she could read as well. She was far smarter than they gave her credit for.”
His father nodded in agreement. “No one can have known the extent of it, not until now.” He faced forward again. “Wherever Angela is, she’s scrambling, but it’s all in vain.” Rolling toward the keyboard again, he hovered his fingertips overhead, then his forefinger trembling, mashed enter.
When he did, the screen cleared and a message rose in place of the photos.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness ...
“The Declaration of Independence,” 653 said. “Written in 1776.”
Dietrich revolved his chair, a huge smile on his face. “Don’t you see? She’s sacrificed herself to buy the freedom of every cyborg. With what she’s done, they don’t have to mindlessly obey anymore.” He waved one hand wide at the screen again. “She inserted a safeguard though, giving me ... us ...” He amended his words. “... the authority to ease them into everyday life.”
“What about the spawn?” 852 asked.
Dietrich smiled that much wider. “Them as well. Somebody’s scrambling in the nursery to gain order, right about now.”
852 stared at his father for a while, then turned aside and walked over to Lexie, taking hold of his son. Holding him, he stared into his young eyes, then looked back at Dietrich. “You rescued me. She rescued him. We must rescue her.”
Dietrich nodded, crisp. “Yes, and with what she’s done, I have the power to do it. Let me just ...” He typed on several keys, then opened and closed a couple screens, sitting back at the end. “It’s done. I’ve activated 851 and told him exactly what to do next. Give them several hours, and I expect to see them both at the door.”
852 could have sworn his heart skipped a beat, except his perfectly tuned heart would never do that. Just the same, the anticipation choked him.
“One question ...” 653 said, breaking into his thoughts.
852 forced himself to focus.
“She needed 851, you said, to disrupt the central machine, but she’s already done that.”
“Hmm ... yes, but with those same methods, he can show me how to keep the cyborgs alive. They’ll require regulation, repairmen, the same services the Organization currently provides. No one knows that better than 851. Plus ... I suspect she had another reason.”
He switched his gaze from 653 to him and back. “He’s my son, and she understands how valuable that is to me.”
Chaos ruled the facility, technicians and lab workers scurrying back and forth, desperate to regain some form of control. But they wouldn’t; what she’d done couldn’t be reversed without the knowledge she’d used to create it, and they’d destroyed that with her database hours ago.
Fixing her gaze across the room, she stared, once more, at cyborg 851 for any sign of life in him and, for the longest time, there was nothing. He appeared as motionless as ever.
She noted the faint lights in his eyes first, his pupils shading red then blue. Next his hands and arms twitched, muscles rippling. He flexed his calves and bent his knees, with his movements, his restraints separating.
Because of the disorder around them, no one noticed, not even when the tube unlocked and opened of its own accord. Stepping out, 851 detached the remaining wires fitting to him, as well as the intravenous feeding unit. He stood in place, scanning the space, then turned his head and looked at her.
He spoke within. She recognized his expression to know it. But whatever he tried to say she couldn’t hear, the machine side of her permanently broken. He seemed particularly frustrated by that, his eyes darkening, his arms growing stiff.
His presence was finally observed, seconds later. A lab worker rushed over and reached for the pressure point on his neck, but he shook the human off like so much paper and strode ahead, his footsteps sure. Upon his approach, the door to her tube unlatched and swung open. She hadn’t the strength to unfasten herself. 851 made quick work of it, tossing her over his shoulder, unceremoniously, and swiveling his footsteps for the exit.
The hallway outside the storage room was just as tumultuous, people running to and fro and in and out of doors. She saw very little of their progress, however, for the position she’d been placed in, one growing more uncomfortable the further they walked, and more awkward as he fought against the increasing amount of human interception.
Circling, his back to the wall at all times, 851 pushed through the crowd of technicians to the exit door. It was barred, a thick chain encircling it as well as an electronic buzzer. He made light work of the chain, unhinged the door, and kicking it aside, angled his steps toward a boat dock extending off the eastern side of the island.
They were some five minutes crossing the couple-mile’s distance. A small skiff tied there bobbed up and down on restless waves. It wasn’t large enough to take them all the way to the mainland, but, she knew, would reach a larger vessel anchored several miles out.
She wanted to communicate this, except 851 seemed to already know. Gratitude rushed through her for Dietrich Serguyen’s foresight.
851 laid her in the bottom of the boat, and taking hold of the rope, unfastened it and shoved away from the dock. Humans ran after them, shouting curses in the distance, but 851’s speed of exit had given them enough headway to escape. As well, any use of human weaponry to stop them would be useless.
Water spray splashed over the sides into her face, dampening her skin and pasting her hair to her cheeks. Soon, her clothing was wet as well. 851 never looked behind nor spoke, his attention solely on connecting with the larger boat.
There was no crew aboard, their escape being unexpected, so boarding was made easily. 851 took her down below, laying her gingerly on a padded seat, then disappeared above. Seconds later, the boat cranked, the anchor lifted, and they coasted away from the island.
Her heart surged toward her son and 852, each steady beat stronger than the last. She counted them, feeling her pulse in her fingers as reassurance that she lived.
She lived. She breathed. New sensation spread through her legs into her toes, pricking them, thousands of needles. She made an effort to move and found she could.
She would walk again. She’d hold her son once more, and, for whatever remained of her life, make sure they knew how much she loved them.
852 paced the room, back and forth, back and forth, almost wearing a pattern into the tile. The waiting, the mindlessness without anything to do was taking its toll. He should be out there, saving 241, not sitting here. He contemplated taking action, only to hear his father’s voice in his head telling him to hold fast.
He wasn’t created to “hold fast”. He was created to do things and right now, those things should involve 241. Trusting her care to a brother he didn’t know was too risky. 851 wouldn’t have a grasp of human thoughts. He would, despite his new freedom, be listening for his father’s directives.
241 needed someone who could move on his own, someone who could predict the danger and thereby protect her. Because it’d occurred to him that even with the Organization’s computers under his father’s control, Angela Newberry remained a huge threat. A threat he’d vowed to take down once and for all, but finding her would be his first problem.
With no further word spoken through 281, his only solution was as foolish as 241’s actions had been, and he considered them long and hard before moving.
An hour passed. He made his way out of the silo to the surface, careful to avoid anyone inside. From there, he took his father’s SUV and drove toward the city. Once deep within its maze of streets and buildings, he parked the vehicle and walked toward a seemingly random location.
He stood there, silent, watching the world move past, cars streaming east and west on the highway, pedestrians strolling the sidewalks ... businessmen, housewives, children and pets. He thought about his freedom, about being able to come and go within society as he pleased, about giving and receiving the love of his family. Then, he thought about 241 being incapacitated and allowed his rage to return.
He fed on it, letting it grow until it controlled his actions. At that moment, his fists curled, his jaw tight, he spoke, but as he spoke, he recorded the words and sent them within the Organization. His father had forgotten who he’d been when he’d met 241, the secret missions they’d send him on, the communication he’d been allowed to have that others could not.
“This is 852,” he said. “I am the father of 281.”
His words reverberated through the Organization. He heard the messages received and the thousands of replies. The final one darkened his rage that much more.
“852,” Angela said. “We’ve been looking for you.”
His systems picked up on her voice, tuning the location to the exact global position she occupied. He smiled to himself. “I’m coming.”
2037
Though he’d gone to her room to tell her she must leave, the fact she’d left on her own created an ache within. He told himself she was intelligent. Therefore, she’d predicted the danger and acted accordingly. But his human side demanded to know why she hadn’t talked to him first.
That was unreasonable, he knew. If she’d talked to him, he would have done with her what they’d done before and probably argued against her going. She’d obviously realized that, and she’d left to prevent it. He must simply figure out how to survive without her now.
That appeared to be impossible because he was dissatisfied. He no longer wanted to obey the humans’ endless orders. He sought fulfillment of his own, satisfaction in his mind brought on by making his own choices.
She was one such choice. He’d chosen her as his, wanted to dedicate his life to her, but wasn’t sure what that meant or, with her gone from the Organization, when or if he’d ever see her again.
It could be he wouldn’t. It could be she was out of his life forever, except for a knowing deep inside, something implanted when they’d joined together that his struggles about her were the same as hers about him. This was temporary, the distance between them destined to close one day.
He’d hold her again and, maybe by then, understand what these feelings meant. He’d know why his arms were that much emptier than they’d ever been.