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2040
“I believe I’ve about got it. Now, if you’ll just hold steady ....”
Looking past the metal joint protruding from his shoulder, cyborg 653 stared at the repaired version of his arm stretched out on the table. Human flesh wrapped around bones fitted with a circular hinge.
“Scars are beautiful they say,” the technician continued, “and this’ll be a doozy. Maybe some gorgeous redhead will hit on you.”
His brow wrinkled, he pursed his lips. “Hit on me?”
She snorted. “Oh, right. The whole emotionless thing you do. I forgot. Never mind, you just do your whole man-slash-machine routine and ignore me.” The tech lifted the arm and positioned it in place, curving her fingers around the wrist. “Okay, now, this is gonna hurt.”
He eyed her again. When she didn’t explain her strange words, he passed it off as her being too human.
A snap and a click fastened his arm to his shoulder, the skin sealing instantly. Twisting his new joint back and forth, he tested its placement.
“Feel good? Figuratively speaking,” she asked.
He hopped to his feet and walked toward the wall. Hauling his arm back, he pummeled into the structure, sending bits of concrete block and drywall dust flying outward.
“You cyborgs ... always ruining my wall,” she complained. “Here, put your shirt on.”
He captured the bit of cloth that sailed through the air, tugging it over his head and down to his waist.
“You can still hear?” she asked.
He tuned into the frequency in his head, digital voices speaking directly into his brain, and nodded.
“Your number?” she continued.
“653.”
She gave a shallow nod. “Very well, you’re good to go, but I think they want you upstairs.”
He left her there and followed the corridor, taking the stairs two at a time. At the top, he made a left into a huge open room. Computer screens lined the space, the largest one spanning the entire far wall. A dozen IT techs in matching white and blue uniforms worked furiously at individual stations.
A man in his mid-fifties standing center of them revolved on one heel, and a smile emerged. “653, I see they’ve repaired the shoulder.”
653 nodded, sharp.
“Good because something’s come up that I need you to take care of. Seems small, but I think it’ll prove of great importance in the long run. Tiff, if you’ll bring up the screen.”
A girl with tightly bound brunette hair waved her hand forward and the wall lit. Centered on the screen was a photograph of a human in his eighties. He looked peaceful, happy, by the chart of human emotions in 653’s head. The man stood in front of an immense brick church. Stained glass windows in shades of red and gold stretched from ground level to the roofline.
“This is Father Royce,” the man said. “He’s retired, lives at the address you’ve just received.”
The address blipped into 653’s brain.
“He’s a historian as well as a priest, has done extensive writings on the carvings of the Pleistocene era. A number of years ago, he stumbled onto one that he believes foretells the future.”
A second photo joined the first, this one of an immense stone with a crude marking in the center.
“Looks like a sun,” 653 said.
“Yes, but Father Royce thinks it’s not. He thinks it’s greater than that. However, no one in the scientific community believed him until recently. Enter, your second subject.”
The third picture displayed was of a thin man with a shiny bald scalp. In his right hand, he held an aged book bound in black leather.
“This is the late Professor Elam Hedgewick. I say late because somebody killed him, notably for the book he’s holding.”
The image enlarged, zooming in on the book.
“Note the marking on the cover.”
“It’s the same sun,” 653 replied.
“Same, yes, and discovered in a locked box, dating to the thirteenth century. The book, we figure is more nineteen fifties. Inside it are written a series of numbers.”
One particular photo emerged over the others.
“Formulas,” 653 said.
“You recognize them? I hoped you might.”
He nodded. “The one on the left is explosive matter. It’d take out all of New York State.”
“New York State?”
A new voice entered the conversation, and the doors behind them whooshed open. A buxom female in a tight, brown pencil skirt joined them, her heels clicking on the shiny tiles.
“Good afternoon, Stanley. 653. Did you say New York State?”
653 nodded. “Or thereabouts.”
“Of course, give or take two people,” she added.
He tilted his head. “Actually, that’d be twenty-one million, four-hundred and ...”
The woman flapped one hand outward. “I know you know the exact population, but no need to share it.”
He silenced.
“What’s the other formula?” she asked, nodding that direction.
He faced the screen again. “Cake.”
“Cake?” Stanley reinserted himself in the conversation.
653 nodded again. “The molecular structure of flour, sugar, vanilla extract ... I believe it’d be delicious if baked.”
“A cyborg with a sweet tooth?” the woman asked.
653 clasped his hands behind his back. “There are some human traits left to me, and that is one of them. Fortunately, my machine side keeps me from processing the sugar into fat.”
The woman patted her belly. “Oh, to have that.”
He didn’t comment. “So what am I to do?”
Stanley spoke. “Protect the priest. As I said, someone killed Mr. Hedgewick and stole the book. We believe they’ll come after the Father next. You’re being sent in as a gardener for the manse where he lives. Please don’t do anything odd ... think like a human, for once. Remember, not doing so is what messed up your arm.”
“That human shouldn’t have parked his cement truck there,” 653 replied.
Neither one of his companions commented on that.
“The information you’ve seen is being sent to you,” Stanley continued.
In that instant, the photos appeared in 653’s head as well as an additional file. “Kent Spivey?” he asked, reading it quickly.
“We can hardly send you in there as 653. Plus, you have a birthdate, not a manufacturing date. I’ve included some information about plants, landscaping, etcetera, as a bonus.”
“If I might ...” the woman began.
Stanley waved her on.
“Father Royce has quite a few visitors during the day. The manse is behind a church, after all, and he’s very popular, so you must be civil and kind. Do you remember what we talked about?”
“Say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’” 653 replied. “‘Don’t stare. Address women as Miss or Missus then their last name.’ If that’s true ...” He altered the direction of his thoughts. “Then, why aren’t you Missus Newgate? Stanley calls you Angela.”
Her lips formed a crooked smile. “That’s because Stanley and I are friends. No need to hide who you are with friends.”
653 stored that information for future use.
“Well ...” Stanley said. “Are you ready?”
At 653’s nod, he tugged a set of keys from his pocket and tossed them his direction. “This one’s local, so no flight. Your ride’s as nice as the last one, I’m afraid, but a gardener would drive a truck, not a sports car. Also, please follow the rules of the road.”
The keys in his palm, 653 left the room. He descended the stairs he’d come up moments ago, eventually entering the parking garage. Two huge metal doors swung open, and an array of vehicles stared back at him.
He paused briefly by the Lamborghini, the male side of him growing stronger, then, expelling a breath, headed for a rather battered green pickup. Inside, he found a bag of clothing; two pairs of shoes; a wallet, complete with a driver’s license for Kent Spivey, a credit card under the same name, and a couple hundred dollars in cash. Lastly, there was an assortment of gardening tools in the bed.
Donning a blue flannel over his white tank top, he cranked and reversed.
A gardener. Built for maximum strength and endurance, able to retain and acquire all knowledge, he’d been reduced to someone who shoveled dirt. All to protect an elderly priest who might be in danger or might not. Seemed like a waste of time. But then, it wasn’t his job to question orders.
He gunned it out of the lot, the truck’s tires squealing on the pavement, and shot down the alley and into the street, cutting off a driver, who promptly blew his horn. He ignored it, turning his thoughts instead to the pictures in his head.
What did a sun symbol have to do with the future anyhow? And why write a recipe for cake beside the makings of a bomb? It was odd, even by human standards. Humans were so fragile, both physically and mentally. He was not. He could think clearer and act quicker than they did, without pain or social dependency, and that enabled him to do his job well. Then, a week or a month from now he’d be reassigned. No questions asked.
Information downloaded into his system as he drove—street names, building locations, businesses, and license plates. He catalogued all of it and followed the map flashing inside his brain. Half an hour later, he pulled up at the rear of the church complex. The church proper was large, its spire spearing the blue summer sky. A series of outbuildings could be seen from this angle, sheds full of supplies and, directly ahead, the manse.
It was a Victorian structure, three stories festooned with elaborate scrollwork along the eves and posts painted two shades of green and purple. One short, narrow driveway, merely two ruts pressed into the soil, led down the side of the building.
Disregarding the vehicle backing out directly ahead, 653 parked his truck and got out.
The car halted, a young female poking her head out the driver’s side window. “Can you move?”
She was attractive, by human standards, straight brown hair, hazel eyes.
“Hey, you,” she called again. “You deaf?”
He approached her car. “I hear you.”
She frowned. “Then move your truck. You can’t park there. I have to leave.”
“I’m looking for Father Royce,” he said, not remarking on her statement.
Her expression changed. She shifted into park, but left her engine running. “This is where Father Royce lives. Why?”
“I’m Kent Spivey, the new gardener.”
Again, her face changed. She switched off her car and opened the door, forcing him backwards. “You’re Kent Spivey?” One arm draped over the driver’s side door, she pursed her lips.
He nodded. “Are you deaf?”
Her eyebrows shot upwards. “No, I heard you. It’s just you’re not what we expected.” She leaned on one hip. “I’ll take you to him, but ...” Glancing toward his truck, she exhaled. “You still can’t park there.”
She spun on one heel and headed further down the side of the house, her arms swinging with the motion of her walk. He watched her go, unmoving, her physical measurements and calculated weight downloading into a file in his mind.
Twenty feet ahead, she halted and waved one arm. “You coming or not?”
Striking out after her, he moved along the eastern side of the manse to a perfectly plotted rose garden. Fragrant blossoms turned their burgeoning heads toward the sky. In the center, on a small stone bench beside a gurgling fountain sat the elderly man he’d seen in the pictures back at the Organization. The man lifted his gaze from contemplation of a well-used Bible balanced in his lap.
“Father,” the girl began. “This is the new hire, Kent Spivey.”
The elderly man’s face creased into a wide smile. “Welcome. You are not what we expected.”
653 tilted his head. “She said that. Why not?”
“Your age, for one thing,” Father Royce returned. “We believed you’d be in your forties.”
“I was born June 3, 2015.” 653 spat the date registered in Kent Spivey’s file.
The priest chuckled. “No need to prove it. You’ll do just fine.”
The girl leaned over and pecked the Father’s worn cheek. “I have to go, or I’ll be late. You’ll be okay?”
“Fine. Fine. But ...” The priest shifted his gaze from her to 653 and back. “Why don’t you two go together? He’s strong-looking, and you said you needed help.”
The girl acted slightly peeved by that and paused for a moment. She nodded. “Very well.”
“I’ll speak with him when you get back,” Father Royce finished.
At this, the girl curved her fingers around 653’s arm and attempted to turn him around. Unflinching, he looked down at her.
“We must go back to the drive?” she prompted.
Releasing him, she surged ahead, and he followed. She motioned toward his truck. “You’ll have to move. You can park in the grass, I guess.”
He considered his vehicle. The cement truck had been heavier, too heavy for his arm, but this was only a pickup, weight 6,224 pounds. Circling the front, he bent over and grasped the bumper in his hands.
“What are you doing?” the girl asked, the tone of her words rising.
Unspeaking, 653 lifted the front of the truck and set it in the grass.
“Holy moly ...”
He stepped around to the back. Raising the rear wheels from the pavement, he set the rest of the truck in the grass behind the front.
“You ... you ... you picked up a truck,” she said.
His brows drawing together, he said the only thing he thought was needed. “It’s out of the way, and I’m ready to go.”
Eyes wide, mouth agape, Lexie Hollis stared at Kent Spivey unable to believe she’d seen what he’d just done or that he acted so casual about it. When he opened her car door and got in without speaking, however, she shook herself awake. She had seen it, and he had acted like it was no big deal.
Shifting into reverse, she backed into the street. “Lexie Hollis.”
His brow wrinkled, an expression she’d already noticed he wore a lot, as if he was processing his thoughts somehow.
“My name?” she prompted.
This roused him, and he nodded, sharp. “Kent Spivey.”
“You ... you said that.” Her mind spinning, she hushed. Maybe it’d be best if she stuck to the facts. “We’re going to set up tables in the Bingo hall. Really, I could do it myself, but it’ll go faster with someone to help me.”
“Why did you think I was older?” he asked.
That was another thing he did a lot – not reply to the subject at hand. She glanced in his direction. “Your application said you were.”
He gave no reply, but, once more, switched topics. “You’re his daughter?”
Lexie laughed. “Father Royce? He’s a priest, so he’s never married. He has no children.”
Slowing for a stop light, she angled herself to see him better.
He was handsome, very fit, and obviously strong. A few stray bangs of brown hair fell over his brow. Attractive.
“Then, how are you related?” he asked.
“I’m his caregiver, of sorts, self-elected.”
Kent’s thoughtful look returned. “He’s frail.”
“Not exactly. I mean ... he’s older, yeah, but he gets around good enough.”
“He has money to hire a gardener?”
The light changed, and Lexie tapped the gas, rolling through the busy intersection. A truck in the opposite lane slowed to make a turn.
“It’s an indulgence,” she said. “He loves flowers, so the parishioners, mostly those who grew up under his care, pay for the service.” She moistened her lips. “I guess I should have told you where you’ll be staying. There’s an old servant’s room off the kitchen, has a small attached bath. You can sleep there. Father Royce has a converted bedroom off the living room. It used to be his study. My room is upstairs.”
“You live with him?” he asked.
Lexie flipped the blinker and turned down a boulevard lined with sky-high palm trees. The sun sparked blinding rays through the windshield glass. “Yes. As I said, I’m his caregiver.”
“It’s not safe to invite people into your home,” Kent replied.
Arriving at a wide driveway, Lexie pulled into a parking space near the front doors of a Spanish-style building. Yellow stucco and red roof tiles set off the array of colorful, tropical plants lining the left-hand side of a long concrete walkway. Gold lettering painted above the doors proclaimed the building to be The Community Center.
She shut the car off, but didn’t get out. “You’re saying we shouldn’t trust you? You came highly recommended, though the age thing still bothers me.”
His gaze strengthened, and a strange vibration skated down her spine. Kent Spivey was intense, and something about him was different, cold almost, like he couldn’t feel anything, or at least, tried not to show it. Maybe he was one of those autistic people, she reasoned, brilliantly smart but unable to relate.
No sooner had she thought this than he reached out one hand and laid it feather-light on her cheek. Startled, she couldn’t breathe.
“You are a beautiful human,” he said.
Human? What did he mean by that?
He didn’t explain, but lowered his hand to his lap. His next words slapped her in the face. “You should trust no one but me.”
Rushing from the girl’s car, 653 strode way ahead of her, a strange burn forming in his gut. What had made him touch her like that? He was around humans all the time, male and female, and never acted that way.
Angela had once shown him video displays of a range of human emotions – from sadness to anger and bitterness to affection and what she called lust. He hadn’t understood it really because to him every living thing was an object, no different from a table or a chair. They were size and proportions, formulas, configurations. There was nothing in them to be emotional about, and she’d said that was for the best. He’d work better without all that information, but he had to see it to be around humans.
He wasn’t alone. There were many other cyborgs out there, doing a job similar to his. He passed them now and then, but beyond knowing their number, had no reason to engage them in any form of conversation. It simply wasn’t done.
This made talking to others difficult at best, though they’d skilled him in that as well, and given him more than one thousand known languages to speak and understand. But reading and writing them was vastly different from choosing the correct words to say because he’d discovered humans were all over the map with their speech patterns. Even within the United States there were vast differences in terms and accents. He could imitate most of them, though some were more difficult than others. However, none required he feel anything.
What had made him want to touch her then? He could appreciate beauty. He’d been created with a human man’s appearance and given a man’s likes and dislikes. This enabled him to fit in, a necessity. Most of him worked by machine, but his heart still beat as theirs did and his nervous system functioned the same. But, unlike humans, he never wasted his food. Everything he ingested went somewhere or was stored for later. He didn’t really ever get hungry anyway and could, in fact, go for days without eating. But humans could not, and in associating with them, he had learned they were fantastic cooks. Some cells of his body somehow craved food at times.
None of that explained why he’d behaved as he had. She was beautiful. That didn’t require him to react.
“Hey, slow down.” The patter of her feet across the front walk increased in volume.
She snagged his arm, and he halted, conscious of the weight of her fingers, the warmth of her palm. She slipped in front of him, retrieving her hand, and it hit him again, as it had moments ago, how pretty she was.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” she said. “Doesn’t make any difference to me about your age or ...” She didn’t get to finish her statement because her cell phone rang. Tugging it from her pocket, she brought it to her ear. “Hello? Yes, Father ... There ... there is? But ... one moment.” She lowered the phone and stared at him. “There’s a man back at the manse saying he’s Kent Spivey, and he’s exactly the age on the application. What’s going on?”
653 stared at her, weighing his choices. He either played along or told her the truth. Playing along meant fooling the priest into believing he was what he wasn’t. That seemed wrong. Telling the truth, however, was risky.
Lexie’s guileless expression settled over him, and the burn in his gut expanded. What would their book say, the Bible the priest believed in? Doing a quick search in his head, he halted at a verse. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. That settled it.
Unspeaking he held out his arm and turned it over. Digging his fingernails into his soft flesh, he peeled it away. The girl shrieked and, stumbling backwards, tripped over the edge of the walkway, landing hard on her bottom.
653 approached, the inner workings of his arm on display. “My name is 653,” he said. “I’m a cyborg, and the priest is in grave danger.”