City of the Cyborgs (6 page)

Dave drifted over from the corner where he’d been sleeping. He also expressed the desire for something to eat. “I think we’d all feel better if we could get something good into our stomachs.”

“I’d sure like to have some pancakes with maple syrup and butter,” Reb said.

“I’d settle for a plate of eggs and bacon.” Wash smacked his lips. “Maybe some homemade sausage with pepper in it.”

“You guys are just tormenting yourselves,” Josh told them. “But we’ll see what we can find.”

When everyone was up and gathered about him, Josh said, “OK, gang, let’s go out and scout around.”

“What if they see us?” Abbey asked. “Maybe we should have gone when it was dark, after all.”

“I still don’t think these people are able to see what’s around them,” Josh declared.

“Do we all stay together or go separately?”

Josh thought. “Let’s do both.”

“Do both!” Rainor exclaimed. “How can we do both? You’re either together or you’re separate.”

“Well, if those are cameras in the cyborgs’ heads, they’d spot a crowd of people easily. If we separate when we can’t avoid meeting one—just keep in sight of each other—it might be easier to get by.”

“Aw, they’re probably not looking for anybody, anyhow,” Jake said.

“They probably are looking for
us,”
Sarah said. “Have you forgotten that voice? It talked about ‘annihilators’ and said ‘insane units’ are loose. I guess that’s what whoever runs this place calls strangers.”

“But why would it call strangers insane?” Jake puzzled.

“I don’t know,” Sarah said, “but, like Josh says, it’s a good idea to keep away from those cameras.”

Rainor and the Seven Sleepers started off to explore the City of the Cyborgs. On the way, not far from their storage shed, they came to a little stream and a patch of bushes thick with wild berries, so they had fruit for breakfast.

As agreed, when they reached the town, they were careful to stay as far out of range of the cyborgs’ forehead cameras as possible. There was no way to do this completely, but they would separate and press back against the sides of the buildings whenever any cyborgs walked by.

Fortunately, the cyborgs never turned their heads, so it was fairly easy to stay behind them or off to the side.

They roamed the city streets for a couple of hours. One thing they noticed was that the town had absolutely no decorations. There was not a sign anywhere to
identify the streets, either. And the buildings had no signs such as Grocery Store.

“This sure is a dull looking place. It’s duller even than Possum Grape,” Reb commented.

“What’s Possum Grape?” Jake asked him.

“You don’t know what Possum Grape is?”

“Never heard of it. A place back in Oldworld, I suppose.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t too far from Toad Suck Ferry.”

Dave shuddered. “What an awful name! Didn’t they have nice names in the place you came from?”

“Well, Bald Knob wasn’t too far away.”

Dave seemed to find this amusing, and he kept Reb talking about place names.

Rainor listened to it all and shook his head in bewilderment.

As they wandered about the streets, he began to notice the uniforms the cyborgs wore. Although most had on plain gray without any ornamentation except the lightning bolts on their chests, there was one other type of citizen. These cyborgs were dressed in black, and they had two antennas instead of one. Also they carried weapons—large staffs and short swords at their side.

“I expect those would be the annihilators,” Rainor muttered, staring at one who was walking ahead of them.

“No takers,” Reb said, looking after the black-clad figure. “They’re bigger than the rest, too.”

“Probably picked for their size and strength,” Josh said. “Whoever’s running this show has got to have somebody do the dirty work.”

“What dirty work?”

“Don’t you remember what that storekeeper said back in the village?”

“Said about what?”

“Said about the reputation of this place. That people come in here, and they just disappear.”

“He said some of their own villagers had disappeared, too,” Jake said thoughtfully. “And I think you’re right, Josh. These fellows in black look like they could be plenty rough if they wanted to be.”

Everybody was careful to stay completely out of the line of sight of the black-clad cyborgs.

After a while, Josh signaled the other groups, and they came together in an empty alley for a meeting.

“Nobody seems to be in here,” Josh said, after a nervous look around. “What do you think of what we’ve seen so far, Rainor?”

“I think this is the worst place I have ever heard of or seen in my life,” Rainor said grimly. “And if somebody’s done to Mayfair what’s been done to all these other people, he’ll have a short life.”

“You haven’t seen her, have you?” Abbey asked quickly.

“No. And I’ve been watching for her, but I haven’t seen anything.”

“If she’s here,” Josh said, “sooner or later she’ll be out on the streets, and we’ll see her. Obviously, these cyborgs we’re seeing are all workers.”

“That’s what slaves are for,” Rainor said bitterly.

“Rainor, you tell us exactly what Mayfair looks like. We’ll split up again, and as soon as we see her, we’ll follow her,” Josh said. “These people must have a place where they stay. They have to have a house of some kind.”

“Look at that,” Wash said. He was frowning back toward the alley entrance. “Look at that woman out there on the street. She must be sick.”

A woman was staggering past the alley. As they watched, she crumpled to the ground, and the large load she had been carrying rolled off her shoulders.

“Look at the people going by. They’re not even paying any attention to her!” Dave exclaimed.

Sarah said, “She must have gotten sick.”

“She’s not moving,” Abbey said. “Do you think she’s dead?”

Other cyborgs kept walking right by. Some of them even had to step aside to avoid the body of the woman, lying motionless on the street.

“You’d think somebody would try to help her,” Abbey said.

“Well, you’re thinking as if they were human beings. They might have been once,” Rainor said, “but they’ve lost whatever humanity they had.” He decided to take action. “Let’s see if we can help her. Nobody else is going to.”

Rainor reached the end of the alley first. He was about to step out and go to the woman when something told him to be cautious. Motioning to the Sleepers to stay back, he peered around the corner. Four annihilators were approaching!

“Uh oh, we’ve got trouble!” Rainor said. “Annihilators. Let’s stay back of sight. I think they’re just as mechanical as everybody else.
Controlled
, that is. But we can’t take any chances.”

The annihilators marched up. One of them reached down and gathered up the woman. He put her over his shoulder and started off. The others marched behind him.

“Let’s follow them,” Josh said quickly. “Let’s follow them and see what happens.”

“They’re probably taking her to some kind of a hospital,” Abbey guessed.

Rainor and the Sleepers followed, keeping back and out of sight as much as possible. None of the cyborgs on the street paid any attention at all to the annihilators or to the limp form of the woman.

“It looks like they’re taking her out of town,” Josh said.

“They are,” Sarah said. “See. There’s the magnetic fence over there.”

“Maybe this will give us some idea of how to get through that thing,” Jake said. “If they’re going outside the city limits, they’ll have to get through that shield.”

There were no buildings now and no place to hide, but the annihilators were all facing forward. Rainor and the Sleepers stayed a comfortable distance behind them and off to the side—a safer place to be, Rainor thought, if the cyborgs should suddenly turn around.

The troop of annihilators marched straight forward. They stopped just before they reached the line of posts.

At that point, the cyborg carrying the woman spoke in his mechanical, dead voice. Unfortunately, what he said, Rainor could not hear.

Almost immediately there was a loud hissing.

“He’s opened up the magnetic shield!” Jake whispered. Then he laughed. “I don’t know why I’m whispering. They’re too far away to hear us, if we can’t hear them.”

They watched the cyborg step through the shield. He took the woman off his shoulder and simply dropped her to the ground. He then rejoined the other annihilators and spoke again to the magnetic fence.

There was a hissing sound. The annihilators promptly turned about face and started their march back toward the city.

A silence came over the Sleepers. Then, “Did you
see that!” Abbey gasped. “I’m not even sure the woman is dead!”

“They sure didn’t care,” Reb muttered angrily. “This is no hospital.”

“Why did they just put her outside the city?” Abbey asked pityingly.

Rainor set his jaw. “We’ve just seen a cyborg burial, I would guess. They threw her out there for the animals to devour.”

They turned slowly to go back into the town.

Josh seemed especially thoughtful. “What they did was bad,” he said, “but now we know how to get out of here when we find Mayfair. We just have to find out what words to say.”

During the walk back into the City of the Cyborgs, Wash looked up at Reb. “Reb?” he said.

“What is it?”

“What we saw. That was terrible.”

“It sure was. These people—whoever’s running this place—have no heart at all.”

Wash trudged along and did not speak for a time. Finally he said, “If they’d do that to one of their own people, think what they’d do to strangers like us.”

Reb nodded, a grim look on his face. “I been thinking about that, and it don’t sound good to me.”

Wash and his friends plodded on, thinking and talking. He had been upset by what he had seen, and he supposed they all had. The sight had left a mark on them. And it sounded as if everyone was now more determined than ever to find Mayfair and to deliver her from the City of the Cyborgs.

W
hen the Sleepers and Rainor split up again, Reb and Wash decided to circle the city. They soon discovered that a large number of cyborgs were at work in the surrounding fields. They stood watching as these strange people moved down the long rows, mechanically hoeing their crops.

Reb, who knew more about farming than most of the others, said, “I never saw anything like this.”

“What, Reb?” Wash asked. They were standing off to one side of a very large field.

“Well, when you chop cotton or work in the potato fields, you work a while and then you rest a while,” Reb said. “Otherwise you burn out. But it doesn’t look like these people
ever
rest. Why, it makes me downright tired just to watch them go at it.”

Wash nodded. “It’s hard to think of them as people,” he said, “but I know they are.”

“They move so much like robots. They never laugh. It makes you feel plumb sorry for them.”

“It’s just a real shame! I’d like to go up to one and rip that thing off his head. But no telling what that would do,” Wash said.

“It might kill ’em right off.”

“These poor folks—I just don’t know what to think about them. I know we’ve got to do something to help them, though. Whatever it takes.”

Reb reached over and slapped his small friend on the shoulder. “You’re getting to be quite a fire-eater, Wash.”

“Well, it makes me mad! Somebody’s making these people work like slaves, and they don’t care a thing about them.”

“They sure don’t. We saw this morning what they did to that woman who just died because she couldn’t stand the pace.”

“Josh will think of something.”

“I think he will. And that Rainor—he’s not moving until he finds his sweetheart. And I’m getting really hungry.”

Back in the city they joined Dave and Abbey.

“We found people working everywhere,” Abbey said. “There were some cyborgs out cleaning the streets. They did nothing but pick up small bits of paper and trash by hand and put it in the bags that they carried.”

“There’s a profession for you. Professional trash picker upper,” Dave muttered. “All day long. Never anything else. What kind of a mind would design a thing like this? He must be a maniac.”

“Probably some mad scientist like those we used to see on TV. You remember the old Frankenstein movies?”

“Sure. The mad scientist who made something like a human being. But it didn’t work too well.”

“No, it didn’t,” Abbey said, “and I always felt kind of sorry for the monster he invented.”

“You’d feel sorry for anybody, Abbey.” Dave grinned. “You’ve got a tender heart. Come on. Let’s see what the rest of the gang’s doing. Maybe they’ve found some food.”

Josh, Sarah, and Rainor were standing in a group listening to Jake when the others joined them.

“What’s up, Jake?” Dave asked.

Jake had been talking excitedly and waving his arms. “Just come with me,” he said. “and I’ll show you. I found a
cafeteria!”

“I don’t believe it! In this place?” Dave exclaimed. “But lead me to it if there’s food there.”

Jake led the way down the street to a building where, from time to time, a cyborg would emerge. “Come on inside,” he said. “I want to show you this.”

Josh was as curious as any of the rest. He followed Jake through the door, and there he saw a line of cyborgs in front of a big machine.

“What’s that thing?” he asked Jake.

“It’s where they get their food. This place is kind of like a deli.”

“A deli?” Josh repeated, frowning.

They moved closer. Now Josh saw that each cyborg held a bowl. He put it under a spout, and the spout discharged something that looked like stew.

In his other hand, each cyborg carried a large metal cup. He held the cup under another spout and what looked like water came out of it.

“Now watch this,” Jake said. “This is the awful part!”

Josh and the others watched as the cyborg moved on and stood with his back to the wall. He lifted the soup container and swallowed. He did not lower the bowl until, apparently, it was empty.

Next, he raised the cup and drank whatever was in it without stopping. Then, in stiff, mechanical fashion, he moved along the line and dropped the cup and the bowl into a chute, which swallowed them up. Finally, he marched on out of the building.