Avion (Cyborgs: More Than Machines, #7) (10 page)

“And so you chose Avion.”

“Yes, I did. Flying is my passion. It doesn’t matter what type. Some of my best memories are as a kid, soaring high on a swing, legs pumping as I furiously tried to touch the sun. Careening through the air on my dirt bike as I took ramps at high speed. Or pulling three G’s in my jet as I shifted into high gear in pursuit of a bogey.”

“Those moments made you happy?”

“They did. As long as I flew, every time I achieved that weightless feeling, I’d get this happy feeling inside.”

“I don’t remember any of those things.”

“Nothing at all? You don’t have any of your memories?”

“The earliest memory I have is of me standing in a beam of light, clutching a stuffed bear.”

“How old were you?”

“Five.”

“F
ive!”

Lilith heard the shock in his voice. “That is when my father sent me off with the gray ones to see if they could fix me.”

“Hold on a second. What do you mean fix?”

“According to my medical files, I was a very sickly child. A dying child. My father, in a last-ditch effort to save me, made a deal with an alien race.” The wanderers whose sole task was to scout new worlds and prospects, and by prospects, she meant biological beings.

“You were sold to aliens?” His tone pitched with incredulity.

According the memories—which she’d long kept locked away, along with the voice that got her in trouble—the galaxy, at large, paid well for abductees. Especially rare ones.

Given Earth’s distance from the inhabited star systems, and its backward nature, not much effort was made to bring it into the intergalactic fold of established governments. As such, it didn’t enjoy any type of real protection from slavers or alien races intent on taking whatever resources they needed. Nor did anyone care if space-faring beings sowed discord.

“Initially they weren’t going to take me. They’d already selected their sixty. Thirty men and thirty women of varying backgrounds and ages. They didn’t want any more, especially not an ailing child. However, my father, a high-ranking government official, made them some kind of promise of providing military aid and a base of operations if they took me.”

Avion came to the correct deduction. “He wanted them to take you in the hopes they could cure you.”

“Cure me. Change me. He sent me away. Bye bye. A little girl abandoned.”

For a moment, her other half slipped free, a wave of sadness crushing her as buried emotions swept through her.

His hand squeezed hers. “You were scared. It was normal. You were just a little girl.”

Lilith took a deep breath, which steadied her thoughts. “I might have been the youngest of the group, but when I arrived at our destination, they treated me as an adult. I was subjected to the same teachings.”

“You were abducted and sent to alien school?” Avion laughed. “Bummer.”

“Actually, it was fascinating.” It also helped ease the anxiety of separation from everyone and everything she knew. “Their method of teaching is so much more efficient. There are no true instructors. Instead, you sit before a screen and have headphones placed on your head.” Some of the other chosen biological beings from different galaxies actually resorted to direct plugging, but the wires inserted into skin made Lilith and the other humans squeamish, hence the less efficient method of instruction.

“So first they taught you then enhanced you, or gave the nanos. Which I assume, given your health now, cured you.”

“It was a much longer process than that. The choosing is complicated. In many respects, it is much like a religion. Certain steps must be followed. Bodies required purification. They wanted us to offer the best biological environment possible.”

“I don’t understand. Offer who? And by environment, you’re speaking of your body as if it were a vessel.”

“But that’s just it. We are vessels. Carriers if you will for the nanotech. The thing you have not yet realized is the nanotech is sentient. They choose who they will enhance.”

“I might concede they could be sentient. The way they control our bodies and allow us to use it without former human restriction is pretty advanced. However, I doubt the hundreds of cyborgs created were chosen. As far as I know, the military never had issues making new ones.”

So much they didn’t know.
Then you must tell them. Tell them before we get there and it’s too late.
“You are not true chosen, but what the
T’xa
would call abominations.”

“There’s that word again. You used it before. What do you mean by abomination?”

He sounded quite insulted, and she felt a moment’s chagrin. How novel. She usually didn’t care. “The method of your nano activation is not natural. You know how you have the BCI implanted? That chip in your brain acts as an inhibitor. It makes a slave of the nanotech. They have no choice but to do as told. In this case, they cannot die.”

“Why would they want to die in the first place?”

“Because they do not like to be forced. They select whom they’ll habit, and they would rather die than enhance someone they don’t find acceptable.”

“You mean they’d rather commit suicide than body snatch someone they don’t like?”

“That is correct.”

“That is utterly messed up.”

“Yes. Again, it is much like a religion, with fanatics willing to die for their beliefs.”

“Except, in our case, they can’t die. If I get this straight, all cyborgs have enslaved nanotech in their body. The BCI keeps them from turning their switches off, but as soon as we draw blood, and they escape, they die because we’re not their first choice.”

“Correct. And not correct. In order to ensure the nanotech could not jump to new hosts, in other words, beings the military did not control, they injected the cyborgs with a virus. The bots are programmed to self-destruct if ejected from the body.”

“This is fucking confusing.”

“Yes. But only because of the perversions the military created with the nanotech with the help of the
D’zpi
.

“There’s just one thing I still don’t get. You say the bots self-destruct upon leaving our blood, but what about when we cast some out to play along electronic conductors and stuff? Blood isn’t the only way some of the cyborg nanobots travel.”

“Projections, drones if you will. Less intelligent constructs that don’t have the same sentient powers,” she said dismissively.

“I really wished my brain was working better right now. This is a lot to take in.”

Without knowing why, her hand smoothed the hair from his brow. “We will soon see my mentor. He will know how to fix you.”

If they ever made it to the planet!

K
entry received the hail on all channels, which startled him.

“Unidentified vessel. You are ordered to stand down and identify yourself.”

Of course, that message came after a stream of others, some in Earth-based languages he could translate, others in guttural clicks and grunts, high-pitched squeals, even watery gurgles.

Whoever broadcasted had a ridiculous depository of languages. Some obviously not human.

Lucky for him, Aramus already sat on deck. “Who the fuck is projecting that?”

“Probably that big-ass ship that just popped onto our radar, sir.”

Big didn’t even start to describe the massive craft that had popped in out of nowhere. Someone had a hell of a cloaking device.

For a moment, they both stared at the looming behemoth.

“I don’t suppose they’re made of tinfoil and weaponless?” Aramus asked.

A snort worked well as a reply.

“I don’t think ignoring them is going to work.”

“And I doubt we can blow them up.”

“Blow that beauty up?” Aramus sounded aghast. “Look at it, Kentry. She’s too pretty to hurt. Besides, think of the possibilities. If we could get our hands on that baby, we could take on the human army.”

“Or we could perhaps walk away from the violence and take all the cyborgs far, far away to start over?” Kentry offered.

Aramus stared at him, at a loss for words. In another moment, they both burst out laughing.

“I can’t believe you said that with a straight face,” Aramus said with a snicker.

“No kidding. As if we wouldn’t use a big beast like that to strike back.”

“Only if provoked,” Aramus added. “I promised Riley I wouldn’t do too much on purpose.”

“Is flying past one of the military commandeered planets considered on purpose?”

“Not if we’re reconnoitering.” They once again grinned at each other.

“And if a flyby doesn’t work, I’m sure we could convince Seth to moon them.”

That caused a few snickers. “All joking aside, how do we get on board? I’m assuming since they didn’t just outright turn us into ash, they have a purpose for us.”

“So logic would indicate. However, given they are unknown, is placing ourselves under their care, even if temporary, wise?” The human expression from the frying pan into the fire came to mind.

“Unless Einstein managed to give us the fabled ability to bend space and time to jump to another location, I’d say we don’t have a choice but to surrender and hope for the best.”

“Are you in need of maintenance? I never thought to hear such a mature response from you,” Kentry said.

“Because I wasn’t done. If the best sucks, then we go out in a blaze of glory, killing as many as we can.”

Vengeance even against the odds. It was the cyborg way.

S
eth was the one to apprise Avion and Lilith about the threatening alien craft.

“Aramus is waving the proverbial white flag.”

“Aramus surrendering?” Avion couldn’t help his disbelief.

“Not quite. He’s got some half-baked idea that, once we’re on board, we can infiltrate and take over that vessel.”

“That must be one hell of a ship if he’s thinking of trading in the
SSBiteMe
.”

“Dude, this thing is a monster. Remember
Star Wars
and the huge Vader ship that sucked in the
Millennium Falcon
?  That kind of big.”

“Damn.” How Avion wished he could see it. A great, big, new ship and he was too blind to admire.

“The technology alone is a total boner. Right now, we’re getting drawn in by an actual tractor beam. We couldn’t pull free if we tried. Given our speed, we should be on board their ship in less than five minutes.”

“Five minutes isn’t a long time to plan.”

“Plan what? Keep to the basics. If shit goes to hell, take as many as you can with you.” Seth couldn’t help a certain glee when he said it.

“Violence will not be necessary,” Lilith replied. “The ship is one of the
Zvali’dus
. They are space merchants, the same who corralled me and the other humans many years ago. They will not kill us. We are much too valuable as merchandise.”

“So you’re not worried?” Avion asked. He wasn’t really either, but he couldn’t help a touch of annoyance. Three days from their destination, the clock ticking on his deterioration, and now this delay?

Would he ever catch a break?

“Actually, I am pleased by our capture. Once they recognize I am one of the chosen, they will have us at our destination within a few hours.”

“Hours?” Finally some good news.
In a few hours, maybe I’ll be mobile again and able to see.
Maybe he’d be a real man instead of an invalid incapable of even hugging the fascinating woman by his side.

He still mentally reeled from all he’d learned before. This whole chosen to be a carrier by what amounted to a bionic parasite was a lot to swallow. It turned out their entire conversation was recorded and shared by Lilith with the others because as she stated,
It isn’t efficient to have to repeat myself.

There wasn’t much time to prepare for their meeting with the
Zvali’dus
. In short order, they were dragged aboard the much larger vessel, which Aramus, who supported him on one side confided as being, “The most glorious fucking machine ever built. I want it.”

“Boys and their toys,” grumbled Riley good-naturedly. What the petite woman saw in Aramus, no one could figure out.

The entire crew assembled in the cargo bay as ordered by the smooth, now English-only-speaking voice of the other ship’s AI unit. No denying they had some advanced technology on board.

“Dude, I wish you could see it,” Seth said. “They went from invisible to looming millions of tons of unidentified metal and menace. This thing is just oozing with surprises and technology.”

Avion wished he could see it too. Just like he wished he could have seen, along with the others, their very first aliens.

You are not missing much,
Lilith whispered in his head.
The gray extraterrestrials that are so popular on your world had a basis. The Zvali’dus are slender and gray-skinned bipedal beings with overly large olfactory orbs, bulbous, bald heads, four fingers with the tips padded and imbued with sensory receptors.

You sound so matter-of-fact about this.

I am One. The only one left of our group who returned to teach our world about the universe and the T’xa.

What happened to the others?
Avion asked.

The military killed them.

Talk about a conversation killer.

Aramus hissed, “They’re coming. Stand down unless threatened. We need to infiltrate their ship and see what’s going on before we make our move.”

“They won’t harm you.”

Not harm maybe, but take prisoner, definitely.

It turned out Aramus didn’t need them on their best behavior because no sooner was the outer airlock opened than a gas permeated the chamber.

Despite their usual resistance to drugs, it knocked them all out cold.

T
he swirling gas that rushed into the docking bay chamber knocked her out, but Lilith recovered quickly. She blinked awake and stared at a seamless beige ceiling. She sat upright on a bed, the mattress spongy and oddly familiar. The whole room seemed familiar.

I am on the ark ship.
The hazy memory of a journey taken long ago flitted through her synapses. The alien merchants had her, and they’d placed her in the barracks they used for storing acquisitions which meant she was in no immediate danger.
I’m not, but what of everyone else?
It didn’t take a cursory scan to realize she was the only prize in the room and it wasn’t because of a lack of space.