The Cyber Chronicles - Book I: Queen of Arlin (19 page)

He sighed. "I'm
really tired right now." The words were a little slurred, and his
eyes closed after a brief struggle. He was probably afraid that he
would awaken under the cyber's control again, Tassin guessed. He
lost the battle, and she re-tied his hands, just in case.

Tassin waited
for him to wake up again, her questions multiplying. He had offered
her no harm, in fact, he seemed too weak to be a threat, and
somehow she was sure he would not hurt her. She hoped the brow
band's magic would stay off, and no more violent episodes would
occur. When she lay down for the night, he was still in a deep
sleep.

Early the next
morning, Sabre's movement jerked her awake as his back arched in a
violent spasm. The brow band sparkled with red lights. His hands
strained at the bonds, and she cowered as he thrashed. The brow
band flashed erratically, and Sabre's face twisted with pain. His
breath rasped between clenched teeth, sweat popped out on his brow
and veins stood out on his neck. A low groan escaped him, and he
muttered in an alien language.

The seizure
lasted about half an hour, and during it he twisted his head from
side to side as if trying to smash the band on his forehead. She
moved closer and held his head still, afraid that he would hurt
himself. His eyes remained closed, and he grimaced as if locked in
an immense internal struggle.

The lights on
the brow band went off, and Sabre opened his eyes. He tried to sit
up, discovering that he was bound again. She untied him, and he sat
up and clasped his head, frowning.

"Does it hurt?"
She leant closer, concerned.

"Like
hell."

"Perhaps there
is something in your pouch for pain?"

Sabre drew out
the pouch and rummaged through it, extracting a bottle. He shook
some little white things into his hand and popped them into his
mouth, then drank from the water skin. After that he sat unmoving
for several minutes, his chin sunk onto his chest, clutching his
head. When at last he looked up, his face was drawn and haggard. He
had lost weight while he had been unconscious, and he looked gaunt
and sick, stubble blurring his chin.

"Is it better
now?" Tassin asked.

Sabre nodded
and drank more water, then helped himself to some meat. After he
had eaten, he crawled from the cave, swaying when he stood up
outside to blink in the sunlight. He scanned the panoramic view
from the ledge.

"Hell, are we
still up here?"

Tassin giggled.
"Did you think I could carry you down the mountain? You weigh a
tonne."

He grimaced.
"Twelve kilos of barrinium reinforcing, welded to my bones."

"They did
terrible things to you, did they not?"

His gave a
harsh bark of laughter. "That's the understatement of the
century."

Sabre's husky
laughter surprised and delighted her; his smile revealed perfectly
even white teeth and lighted his face. It vanished as quickly as it
had appeared, and he walked, staggering a little, to the frozen
bodies of Torrian's men. He examined the laser burns on the corpses
with a puzzled frown.

"I didn't kill
these."

"No, I did.
After I climbed down here and found that you were still alive, they
were coming down after me, so I aimed your magic weapon at them and
pushed the buttons."

Sabre glanced
at her. "Clever girl. Then you dragged me into the cave and stayed
there with me. For how long?"

"Four days."
Tassin disliked being called 'girl', but quelled the urge to rebuke
him for it. Sabre walked back to the cave and lay down again,
looking exhausted, and she settled beside him.

"What happened
to you?" The question burst from her, driven by her curiosity.

"When?"

"On
Myontwo."

"Ah." He
smiled. "The cyber didn't tell you much, did it?"

"Cyber," she
repeated it the way he had pronounced it. "What does that
mean?"

"This is the
cyber." He tapped the brow band.

"Not
Sabre."

"No.
Cyber."

"It told me
little that I could understand."

"It's not
something I like to remember." Sabre sighed, and his eyes wandered
to the cave entrance as he related his tale in a flat, emotionless
voice.

Chapter Eleven

"I'm a
genetically enhanced clone, a copy made from the cells of a man
long dead. He was a great fighter, a warrior, so when they started
making cybers, they used his body. It's supposed to be perfectly
proportioned and balanced, enhancing the ability to fight. I was
born from an artificial womb, a machine that nurtured the embryos.
I, along with my many brothers, was fitted with the cyber at one
year of age. The cyber is a computer imbedded in the brow band,
linked into my brain and powered by the tiny amounts of electricity
present in my body."

"What is a
computer?"

He glanced at
her. "It's a machine that can think. It was what you spoke to
initially."

Tassin nodded,
longing to ask him what a machine was, but unable to bring herself
to show the depths of her ignorance.

He continued,
"Fortunately, I was too young to remember that operation, but I
know they drilled holes in my skull and pushed wires into my brain,
where they're now hooked in. I became aware of my lack of control
at about the age of five, at which time we were placed in tanks
filled with fluid. Machines oxygenated our blood and fed us with
intravenous nutrition. It was like being back in the womb, I
suppose. Same technology, at any rate.

"It was a time
of sensory deprivation. I was in utter darkness, with no sense of
sight, smell, taste, hearing or touch. That was when the cyber
established its domination over my brain, since anyone subjected to
sensory deprivation withdraws, and parts of the brain atrophy from
lack of use. That didn’t happen to me, though, because the cyber
takes over those parts.

"I have no idea
how long I was in the tank, but I remember when they took us out
and counted the failures. In some, the domination had failed, and
they were raving lunatics. In others, catatonia had robbed them of
all function. Many would have emerged blind, although that wasn’t
counted as a failure, since the cyber uses scanners, not the
eyes.

"I was lucky, I
retained my sight and my sanity, but I lost control of my body. Out
of the fifty in my batch, eight were failures. The control units
were disconnected and they were allowed to grow to maturity, then
put into cryogenic suspension, to be used as spare parts. It is, I
suppose, one of the joys of being a clone. If a serviceable cyber
is damaged, parts from his failed brothers can be used to fix him."
He paused, his jaw clenching, then drew a deep breath.

"After that, I
became a spectator, able only to observe what happened to me,
though not very well, since I couldn't focus my eyes. Combat
training started at ten, by which time my body was already well
developed, due to drugs and hormones. Some drugs encouraged muscle
development; others speeded up my growth rate. At fifteen, I was
almost fully grown. After eight years of training, when I was
eighteen, I went to the operating table to be fitted with the
reinforcing. They had to wait for me to stop growing before they
could do this, or it would have had disastrous results."

He frowned, and
his soft voice took on a deep note of rage and hatred that made her
shiver. "They do it all in one go. They cut me open with lasers, so
there's little bleeding, but they don't bother with anaesthetic.
All the major bones are reinforced, and the skull and ribs. Two
ribs on either side are plated with barrinium, which is welded to
the plate on my sternum.

"When the cyber
fought the King, two ordinary ribs were cracked; the reinforced
ones prevented my ribcage from being crushed. Internal body armour,
made of barrinium mesh, was implanted under the skin of my torso. I
was sterilised, though not castrated, since male hormones are
necessary for muscle development.

"I'm very
difficult to kill. My skull can withstand two tonnes of pressure
before it collapses, and my bones are almost unbreakable. If they
do break, they only have to be straightened, if the plating's bent,
and I can function again. Right now, for instance, I think I have
several hairline fractures in my legs, ribs and arms, from the
fall. That won't hamper me though, and they'll heal in a few
days.

"My only
weaknesses are if I'm stabbed in the eyes or ears. I can be killed
with a laser, although not as easily as a normal man. My limbs can
still be dislocated or ligaments torn, and I can be knocked
unconscious, although with difficulty, due to the increased
viscosity of my cerebral fluid, a genetic enhancement.

"My respiratory
system is my greatest weakness. I can be drowned, gassed,
asphyxiated or smothered, but I can hold my breath for up to ten
minutes, and that's while I'm exerting myself. In a dormant or
inactive state, I can survive without air for almost twenty
minutes. I'm difficult to strangle, due to a reinforced windpipe,
and my jugular is protected with barrinium mesh.

"I can be
poisoned, starved, bleed to death or die of thirst or disease,
although I'm immune to almost every disease known to man, quite a
few poisons and venoms, and several toxic gasses. If I'm not
already immune to it, I have a genetically enhanced immune system
that can produce antibodies or serum for just about any disease or
toxin within a few hours."

His voice grew
bitter. "You didn't have to worry about my hurting myself by
tugging at the brow band. It's attached to the reinforcing around
my skull, it can't be pulled off."

"But you made
it bleed again."

"That's
nothing, some damage done when I hit the rock."

"It is
terrible, what they did to you."

"Yeah. Anyway,
at the age of twenty, I was considered a finished product. I had to
heal for several weeks after the operation, then I did a finishing
course in combat to adjust to the added weight of the reinforcing.
I was packed into my natty casket, and presumably sold. I don't
remember the time spent in the casket, I was unconscious. My next
memory was waking up in a rich old lady's house. She needed a
bodyguard, and so she bought me. I was with her for five years,
during which time I killed four would-be assassins. Then she died,
and I was sold again, presumably to whoever brought me here. I woke
up in your dungeon, and the rest you know."

Tassin studied
him with a mixture of pity and sorrow. She had understood little of
the technical jargon, but clearly he had suffered terribly at the
hands of his creators, and she was ashamed that he had been through
all of that only to end up here, almost a slave.

"The cyber said
it was voice imprinted, or something, to obey me, but that does not
apply to you, does it?"

Sabre shot her
a mirthless smile. "No, I'm afraid not. Without the cyber to
control me, like Mother Amy said, I'm as free as a bird."

"What will you
do now?"

Sabre’s smile
faded, and his eyes grew puzzled and lost. "I'm not sure. I assume
you didn't buy me, so I still belong to whoever loaned me to you.
Unfortunately, that means they'll return for me some day. There's
nothing I can do about that. They'll have me fixed and put back
into service. My freedom is only temporary." He paused. "I'll help
you to get to wherever it is you're going, then perhaps I'll be
able to enjoy myself for a while."

Tassin sagged
with relief. She had been afraid he would want to leave straight
away. "I am glad."

He shrugged,
looking away. "It's also possible that the cyber will take over
again, and you'll have me anyway."

"I do not want
that. I thought it was broken."

"It is, but not
completely. Cybers are tough, and this one still tries to take over
now and then, as you know. It's a strange battle."

Sabre closed
his eyes, recalling the agony that flooded his skull when the cyber
tried to take over. It still functioned; its scanner information
appeared in his mind as a black field filled with different
coloured lights, each indicating the presence of a particular kind
of life form. He could understand it perfectly, after the years as
a powerless spectator. He had left a lot out of his tale, for she
would not understand it. The electric shocks they had used during
his training to speed up his reflexes, the enhanced hearing, taste
and touch senses, the skin treatments to withstand radiation, which
was why his skin was a peculiar golden colour. Then there was his
increased lung capacity, the increase of instinctive responses to
certain stimuli, and dulling of others. The myriad languages he
spoke, read and wrote, all piped into his brain by forced learning
for the cyber's use, along with reams of programming and terabytes
of information. He knew how to operate every space faring vessel
ever built and all the atmospheric craft on any given planet, as
well as every weapon, modern and ancient, known to man, plus a few
alien ones to boot.

The cyber's
information was even updated periodically by transmissions from
Myon Two, relayed via its outposts. A cyber, however, was designed
to operate in a modern environment, where it had the ability to
interface with online security systems and override complex codes
through its interface with all other AI modules. Even alien systems
were not beyond its capabilities, with its powerful deciphering and
translation facilities.

As
supercomputers went, the tiny monster in the brow band, fondly
known to cyber technicians as a control unit, was without peer.
Even on this planet it still had many advantages in the form of the
strength, speed, reflexes and fighting skills of its host, not to
mention terabytes of war craft and stratagems. The unavailability
of modern technology hampered it, however, especially once the
energy weapons that had come with it ran out of power.