City of the Cyborgs (5 page)

Rainor broke into a dead run with Josh’s head bobbing against his back, and the others followed.

Jake brought up the rear. His sword was drawn and his eyes were narrowed as he looked for annihilators, whatever they were.

J
osh awoke to find his nose bumping against someone’s back. He was upside down and confused. The last thing he could remember was trying to run, but something had happened.

Somebody must have hit me over the head
, he thought. He caught a glimpse of legs and realized that Sarah was running alongside. Then he began to thrash around. “Put me down!” he said to whoever was carrying him. “Put me down.”

The whoever was Rainor, he saw, when he was set on his feet.

“Are you all right?” Rainor asked him.

“What happened? My head’s going around and around.”

“It was those metal posts,” Jake said. “They’re the fence around some kind of magnetic field, and you tried to run through it.”

“And we’d better keep moving,” Dave put in. “It sounds like somebody bad is looking for us.”

“Over there,” Sarah said. “See? That could be a hiding place. That big old shed. Let’s see what’s inside.”

“Not so fast,” Rainor said, drawing his sword. “We don’t know what’s in there.” He started toward the shed.

Josh and the others followed. He still felt confused.

The shed door had no knob. But Rainor pushed on it, and it opened. Looking ready for anything, he stepped inside.

“It’s all right to come in,” he called back. “It seems to be some kind of storehouse …”

The others quickly filed into the dim interior.

Josh looked around him, rubbing his aching head. Two small windows let in light, and he could see that shelves lined the walls. “What
is
this place?”

Reb was walking about, examining the objects on the shelves. “Looks to me like clothes and shoes. It’s a supply shed of some kind,” he said.

“Wish it was a supply of food,” Jake muttered.

“I’m just glad nobody’s in here,” Abbey said.

“Me too,” Sarah agreed. “It’s a safe harbor for us—for a little while, anyway.”

“At least maybe we can stay here until we find out what’s going on,” Rainor said. “But keep your weapons ready. We may need them at any minute.”

The Sleepers and Rainor took off their knapsacks and put them in a pile. They were exhausted from their long hike and, as usual, Jake was thinking of food. “Let’s break out some of that antelope. It’s time for supper.”

“Sounds good to me,” Reb said. “But I wish it was a hamburger big as a washtub.”

Everyone agreed, and soon they were sitting around on the shed floor, eating the cold meat and still looking around the building. Josh guessed it was perhaps thirty feet wide and fifty feet long.

Then Jake said, “We haven’t caught sight of any cyborgs yet—if that’s what they call themselves. I wonder what they’re like?”

He had just spoken when, without warning, the creaky door swung open and in came a man.

Instantly Rainor was on his feet with his sword drawn. The others joined him with blades ready.

Josh took a step forward. He did not want violence if he could help it. “My name is Josh Adams,” he announced. “We come in peace.” Then he waited for the man to respond.

But it was as if the man were blind and deaf. He came straight in and, looking to neither side, headed directly down the middle of the building. He was followed by three other men and two women, all wearing the same gray uniforms. Each uniform had a round circle over the left breast. A lightning bolt ran down the middle of every circle. The people were all balancing loads on their shoulders. Now they separated, each going to a different part of the storage shed.

“What’s wrong with them?” Rainor whispered. He lowered his sword and watched, puzzled. “They act like robots.”

“They sure do.” Josh moved closer to a man who was unloading small boxes out of a large sack. The man moved mechanically, looking neither right nor left.

Josh looked closer. In the pale light, he saw that the cyborg wore a small black box taped to his forehead. Two wires came from the box, one leading to the man’s right ear. It looked like an ancient hearing aid. The other wire led to his right temple where his head had been shaved. To his head there was attached a round, metallic disc with a glass lens. Out of this disc a spiral antenna rose twelve inches or so. At the end of it a tiny bulb glowed dull red. Josh leaned closer. From time to time the bulb would brighten and then grow dimmer.

Now Josh placed himself next to the cyborg. “We want to be friends with you,” he said. “My name is Josh Adams, and we are here seeking a missing friend of ours.”

The cyborg continued working. His eyes were without expression, and Josh might have been invisible. The man did not respond to Josh’s voice either but—robotlike—simply continued placing boxes in a neat row.

“They
are
robots!” Jake cried.

“No, they’re not,” Sarah said, moving closer to one of the female cyborgs. “They’re human beings.” The female that she approached was shorter than Sarah and had blue eyes. Sarah looked at her closely, then said, “She’s definitely human, but she’s like someone on drugs.”

“I think it has something to do with that apparatus on their heads,” Jake said thoughtfully.

Josh thought about that. He respected Jake’s opinion. Jake was the best at any kind of invention.

As he watched, Jake moved close to one of the male cyborgs, who was putting small bags neatly in a row. Jake reached out and touched the shoulder of the man, then jumped back. Nothing happened. Jake reached out again, pinching him this time. “Josh, he doesn’t seem to
feel
anything!” Jake said.

Next he yelled, “Hey, look at me!”

Now Rainor and all the other Sleepers were watching. The cyborg did absolutely nothing but continue to unload his sack.

And then Jake put out a tentative finger and touched the black box on the man’s forehead. “Hey, this thing’s got a lens in it!” he cried.

“What kind of a lens?”

Jake seemed to be thinking. “You know what I think?” he said excitedly after a moment. “I think that’s some sort of a remote TV camera.”

“What are you talking about?” Josh asked, totally
puzzled. He came closer as Jake pointed to the apparatus on the cyborg’s head.

“See? This thing here is an antenna. That means it’s picking up signals from a radio somewhere. It has to be a radio, because it’s not in the line of sight. So what happens is that this antenna comes in, down this wire, and then into the box. Then messages are transmitted to the ear. I bet if I pulled this out, I could hear what it was saying.”

Jake reached out as though to unplug the earphone from the cyborg’s ear, but Josh immediately jerked him back. “Don’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because then whoever is at the other end of this thing might know something’s wrong. What do you think that little lens is for?”

“When it’s working,” Jake said, “I think it transmits a picture back to a central location somewhere.”

All this seemed beyond Rainor. “But what’s
wrong
with these people?” he cried. “They look like they’re dead.”

“I don’t know,” Josh said, “but they’re like zombies, right enough. Look at their eyes.”

“What is a zombie?”

“It’s too hard to explain,” Josh said. “Right now all I can tell you is that somehow these people are no more than mechanical robots.”

“But they’re flesh and blood people,” Rainor insisted.

“We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“I just had a scary thought!” Dave said suddenly. “If that lens thing on their foreheads is a camera, it could be sending pictures of us back to whoever is controlling these things. Maybe the lens
is
working.”

“He’s right,” Josh said quickly. “Everybody back! Quick!”

“He’s right!” Jake repeated. “Even if these cyborgs can’t see or hear us, somebody back on the other end might. And maybe they have already!”

They all moved back and stayed carefully out of the range of what could be cameras on the foreheads of the cyborgs.

“This is awful,” Sarah whispered.

“You don’t have to whisper,” Jake said. “I don’t think they hear us.”

“It
is
awful,” Rainor said. He shuddered, and a look of distaste washed across his face. “I don’t think I could stand to be like that.” A thought seemed to come to him, and his voice changed. “You don’t suppose—”

“Don’t suppose what?” Josh asked.

“That Mayfair could be like that?”

The thought had already occurred to Josh, but he did not want to discourage Rainor. “We’ll hope not. Maybe she’s just a prisoner for some reason or other.”

They watched the cyborgs complete their tasks. When any one of them finished, he stood waiting by the door, his eyes dull. After a while, all were simply standing there, as though awaiting a command.

And then Jake said, “Uh oh, look at that!”

Josh caught his breath. The small bulbs at the top of the antennas were glowing.

“They’re picking up a signal,” Jake said.

In total silence, the cyborgs formed a line and marched out of the storage shed. At no time had they given any indication that they could see the Seven Sleepers or hear them.

“Looks like they were commanded to leave.” The
door swung shut, and Josh added, “Well, I can see why that shopkeeper was afraid of this place.”

Sarah shivered. “I can, too. We’ve faced scary beasts and some pretty strange men and women in Nuworld, but this is the strangest and scariest yet. To be trapped like that, to be just a mindless slave—I’d rather be dead.”

“So would I,” Rainor agreed. “And I’ve got the feeling that most of them would, too.”

Josh said, “So let’s sit down and try to figure something out.”

The Sleepers and Rainor sat and talked for some time, but they all seemed confused. Rainor did say, “I’m not leaving here without Mayfair, and that’s that!”

“I don’t guess any of us are leaving,” Reb remarked. He was gnawing on a piece of dried antelope. “Josh tried to leave, and you saw where it got him.”

Jake frowned. “We’ll just have to find out where the power switch is and break the circuit. Whoever designed this place is pretty smart.”

“Then we’ll just have to be a little smarter,” Sarah said. “But I’m with Rainor. We need to find Mayfair. I don’t even know her, but I feel sorry for her.”

Rainor flashed her a smile. “You’ll love her when you meet her, Sarah.”

“Well,” Josh said, “we’re going to have to figure out a master plan. That’s for sure.”

“I hope the master plan includes something to eat,” Jake muttered.

“Me too,” Reb said. “What about food, Josh?”

Josh thought a moment. “I don’t think we’re going to starve, at least,” he said. “There must be quite a few people here to have a town the size of this one. They may be people robots, but they have to eat.”

“That’s right. And there were fields with things growing.” Reb stood up. “We need to get out of here and locate a cafeteria or grocery store or someplace else that has food.”

Josh went to the door and glanced outside. “It’s getting dark,” he said. “But somehow I don’t think that’ll make much difference to these people. Dark and daylight would be about the same to them.”

“They have to rest, though,” Jake argued, “so maybe tonight would be a safer time to start looking around this place.”

“We’ll give it a while,” Josh said after a moment’s thought. “We could see more if we do our exploring in the daytime. Right now, let’s sit down and make a master plan.”

They sat in a circle and began to talk, but Josh soon discovered that he had no energy even for this. He listened while the others discussed the strange people.

“These folks are worse off than anything we’ve ever run up against in Nuworld,” Reb declared.

“They sure are, Reb.” Sarah bowed her head sadly. “Someone has done something horrible to them—and I’m afraid. I wish we were far away from here.”

Rainor said again, “I’ll never leave—not without Mayfair!”

R
eb got to his feet and bent over painfully. “I’ll sure be glad to get into a bed again,” he remarked. “This floor is pretty rough.”

“At least there are no rocks on it like there were out in the desert.” Wash yawned and looked over at the others, who were just beginning to stir. “I guess we were all tired out,” he said. “I slept like a baby.”

“Not all babies sleep good,” Reb declared importantly. “When they got the colic, they don’t.”

Wash laughed at that. “How do you know so much about babies?”

“Because I took care of my little brothers and sisters, that’s how. I know all about babies. When I get married, I want an even dozen of them in our family.”

“You want to have a dozen kids in your family?”

“About like that. Sounds about right to me.”

Wash rolled his eyes. “I had a dozen brothers and sisters. It wasn’t always a whole lot of fun.”

“But you always had company, didn’t you?”

Wash brightened. Then his face glowed. “Yeah, we did have fun,” he admitted. “Sometimes the taters got a little bit scarce, but we had a good time together.” Then a sudden wave of sadness came over him. “I sure miss my family.”

Reb put his arm across Wash’s shoulder. “I miss my folks, too,” he said. “That’s the worst thing about being in Nuworld. Missing them.”

Wash looked up at him and found he could smile.
“We’ve got friends here, though, me and you. Don’t we?”

“Yeah, we sure do,” Reb said. Then he saw that Josh was stirring. “I think the first plan is to get breakfast.”

Josh was rubbing his back when Reb ambled over and began talking about food. His shoulders were still a little sore, and sleeping on the storage shed floor hadn’t helped. He had not slept well.

Reb, however, looked wide awake and chipper, and Josh glared at him. “Can’t you think of anything but something to eat?”

“Sure. I think of something to drink.” Reb grinned. “Besides, I hadn’t noticed you’d given up eating.”

Josh groaned. “That’s right. I haven’t, and I’m a little bit tired of stringy old dried antelope.”