Avion (Cyborgs: More Than Machines, #7) (15 page)

“What are you doing?”

The last note of her cry still echoed before she replied. “I am expressing emotion. Something you, with all your teachings, don’t seem to know anything about. Were you always this clinical?” Was her master always this cold and calculating? Good grief, was this how Lilith treated others, as if they were just objects, things of no worth or feelings?

It horrified her to realize that a part of her was just as cruel and uncaring as the supposed evolved being before her. All the enhancements in the world could not make someone grasp compassion.

This is what happens when you try to suppress your emotions.
Her inner self, far from snide, said it rather sadly. For once, Lilith didn’t immediately slam the door shut. For years, she’d tried to lock away that voice along with its emotional wisdom and ranting. Perhaps it was time she let the other half of herself have more of a say.

I don’t want to be like Master Z’ and view the world so strictly. Caring might prove tumultuous, but it sure beats the sterility of a life void of emotion.

“I am beginning to think that the nanotech severely erred when selecting you as a host. You have not adapted or followed our teachings well at all.”

“That’s because I am not a drone. Or a robot. Or a mindless being. I am Lilith.” She straightened her spine and stared him straight in the eye. “I have feelings. Thoughts. And emotions. I do not wish to make choices based on logic. I want to be happy.”

Z’ actually snorted. “Happiness is overrated.”

“But you know of it, or else you wouldn’t claim that,” she prodded.

Something flickered in his expression. A muscle might have tightened across his forehead. What past did Master Z’ hide? “I once knew the wildness you speak of. Once upon a time, I, too, let feelings control me.” For a moment sadness stormed across his eyes, a blue swirling agony that briefly touched her before his usual placid expression overtook it. “But I learned that happiness is fleeting. Uncontrollable. Only with logic can we truly live without chaos.”

“What if I want the chaos?” she asked softly.

Again with the slight twitch in his face. “Why are you so determined to save this abomination? You have known him but a scant time. He is broken. Impure...”

“Kind. Gentle. Funny. But most of all, he sees me. Not as an object or a tool or a host for another life form. He sees me as a person.”
And I’m pretty sure I love him.

Her mentor had no reply initially. Z’ spun from her and stared out the grand window spanning the chamber. The surreal view of the purple mountainsides, the striated rock peppered with brighter splashes of red as foliage struggled to grow was pretty. However Lilith couldn’t appreciate the beauty, not when she was involved in a discussion that would decide the wellbeing of her friends—and maybe save Avion’s life.

Z’ continued to stare out the window even as he spoke in a low tone. “Once upon a time, in a past forgotten by everyone, I loved someone. A female, from the same planet as me. She was the sum of my world. On a mission of exploration, we came across a drifting ship unlike any we’d ever seen. Inside, there were no bodies. No pilot. Nothing. Just a pool of energy that beckoned.

“The nanotech?”

“Yes. A war had nearly wiped them out in a part of the universe so far none have gone and ever returned. But I didn’t know that then. All I knew was the pool called to me. They wanted me to touch it. So I did. I was chosen to become.” His eyes rose to the sky, a supplicant to the recollection of a defining moment in his life.

“You became a host to the nanos and somehow became their guardian.”

“I became. But my lover didn’t.”

“The nanos rejected her. And you did too?” Lilith didn’t understand why he told her this. Lilith would never abandon Avion. She didn’t care if he bore tech or not. She simply enjoyed his presence.

“I am not that shallow,” he practically shouted the words in an outburst she’d never seen. “I still loved her. I begged my nanos to accept her, but she was part
D’zpi
. A very small part, but even then, they were enemies.” He paused, and his shoulders hunched. “I did what I could with science and medicine, but in the end, as do all organic species, she aged and died. Without the nanotech, I could not keep her alive.”

The ultimately sad love story. “So, you refuse to save him because he might die eventually?”

“I do this to save you the pain of losing him.” He whirled on her, and his face was drawn into a rictus of agony. “You’ve known this male, what, a few days? He is still easily forgotten. You can still save yourself from the emotional crush that will overcome you when he dies. I do this now so you will not suffer later.”

“But that’s not your choice to make. I care for him. Killing him now or later, that won’t change. All of us are mortal. Even you. You might have lived longer than most beings, but you can still be killed.”

“I can’t. I must protect the tech.” Said so wearily.

“Did it ever occur to you to share the burden? That you’ve punished yourself over her death long enough?”

“Share?”

“Sharing is caring.” She blurted the words without thought, and he whirled around to eye her.

“Sharing is caring?” he repeated, arching a brow.

She shrugged. “It’s an Earth expression, and something the cyborgs believe in. They are incredibly resilient and honest. Their bond to one another is enviable. You and the tech might have saved my life a long time ago, but at the same time, you stole it. Like the military, you sought to impose your views and to make me someone I’m not. I’m not just a host. Not just a means of spreading the tech. I am Lilith, and I want things, even if some of them might make me sad. Or angry. But that choice should be mine. I deserve a chance to experience life to its fullest.”
I deserve a chance at happiness.

“He means that much to you?”

“He does. They all do.”
They’re my friends.
She could say it without a giggle.

The resigned expression on Z’s face made her heart flutter.

“Because I am irrationally fond of you, which means I am probably due for a system check, I will allow you to attempt to save your friend. However, I warn you, there is a high probability he will die.”

“He will die if we do nothing.”

“Since you insist on this, have him brought to the building adjoining the temple. I’ll have medical tools for the two doctors you have on board. We will need them to cut the hardware from his body if there is any chance this will work.”

“Thank you.” On impulse, she threw her arms around her mentor.

He stiffened, his thick body as yielding as a tree trunk. To her surprise, his arms came around her in an awkward hug.

“Don’t thank me yet. This might not work.”

But at least it was a chance.

A chance that others had plenty to say about.

“Are you nuts?” Laura exclaimed. “That microchip in his brain is embedded. If we remove it, we’ll probably kill him.”

“It’s the only way,” Lilith repeated. “We must purge his body of all non-organic parts, especially the
D’zpi
programmed ones, if we are to have a chance of making this work.”

Riley shook her head. “It can’t be done. I have to agree with Laura here. While we can get rid of his robo eyes easily enough, his mechanical heart, not to mention his skeletal structure, can’t be removed. As for his BCI, we could slice it from him, but the damage it would cause might leave him a vegetable.”

“That’s mineral if you don’t mind,” Avion whispered, lucid for the moment, but oh so very weak.

Lilith squeezed his fingers.
I know it’s a huge risk, but Z’ is convinced the BCI is the problem. It has to come out, or else it will keep telling the bots to shut down.

He caught her mental projection and replied aloud. “Let’s do it. I’ve always been a risk taker. This is no different. I either die in this bed, without a fight, or I take a chance.”

With Avion determined, it didn’t take much organizing to get them to the temple where Z’ waited.

He’d changed his crimson robe for one of pure white. The entire temple was a blinding ivory with marble buffed to a high gleam and pure metal accents highlighting their glare. As Lilith looked around at a place she’d only seen once before while still a little girl, she couldn’t help but frown.

This was a church. An alien one, unlike any on Earth, but still it was a place of worship for a religion, one dedicated to the nanotech.

The pool, a large round basin in the room with beveled metal edges, extended down into the floor. Who knew how far. Staring into it hypnotized a person, all those dancing bright sparks of light. Motes of energy and...life?

On the far side of the pool, upon a dais several steps high, sat a throne. Master Z’s seat of power.

She remembered seeing him seated there, head held regally high as he went through his precious ritual, and one by one, the supplicants were given the tech—and judged.

As part of the ritual, there was an altar. The carved stone bed resided at the foot of the pool. A potential host lay upon the surface, hands clasped, eyes closed. The nanos would then ride up the channel that led from the edge of the pool and flow over the altar. They
tasted
the applicant. If they liked what they found, then some stayed. If they didn’t, back they flowed into the electrical pond.

There was one difference from her recollection though, such as a hovering trolley upon which there was an array of tools, tools Master Z’ took exception to.

“You cannot operate on him here. The applicant must arrive free of the impurities.”

“He needs to be here, next to the source. Any farther and he’ll bleed out before we can douse him with bots.” Laura planted her hands on her hips and actually tried to stare down Lilith’s mentor.

She quite enjoyed it. “Laura is right. Since you insist we remove the hardware, and the process is so risky, we need proximity. You know it and so does your programming.”

When ritual interfered, throw common sense at a rational being to fluster it.

Z’ beetled his brows. “Exactly how many rules do you expect me to break?”

“As many as it takes for you to listen to reason,” she snapped.

“If he doesn’t want blood in his temple, then we’ll do it in the hall,” Avion said, awake for the moment but leaning heavily against the altar.

“You would desecrate this place with your dirty blood. Such barbarians.” Z’s disapproval rang through loud and clear.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. This is getting stupid,” Aramus grumbled. While quiet up until now, he finally snapped.

And did the one thing that left them all speechless. He grabbed Avion and tossed him in the nanotech pool.

I
magine the worst pain then multiply it by infinity.

If Avion could have screamed, he might have. But he doubted he’d find the air to make a sound because even simple acts like breathing or having his blood circulate proved beyond him.

I think I’m dying.

Problem was it was taking its sweet fucking time.

And it hurt.

Did the pain mean he lived still? If he did, then where was he? What had happened?

He floated, not in water or air. The hum of a million itty-bitty particles kept him aloft, or did they drag him down? It was impossible for him to determine, his sense of orientation completely skewed.

Perhaps he should call for help. He opened his mouth to see if he could cry out, but the tingly particles poured in. The buzzing microscopic bits burrowed into every hole in his body. Mouth, ears, nose, his very pores. The humming hive of bots sifted through him, testing his biological components, zipping along neural pathways before reaching his brain.

And halting.

They probed the foreign object in it. They could see it was attuned to one who had left because it found a host. Yet the biological being they probed wasn’t the host. He—yes, it was male—was free. Should they test him?

Indeed they should. They needed to spread, lest the enemy find them and eliminate. They swarmed the foreign object. Its signal bounced off them harmlessly, deadly only to the bots it was tuned to. But they didn’t like this vile impurity.

They absorbed its components and expelled those they could not use. Without the fetters, the mind lay open to them.

Brains...

Much like zombies—
hey, didn’t I watch a movie about them in my teens?—
the bots latched on to Avion’s brain and siphoned. Not flesh, no, they were more assiduous than that. They went after his memories.

Like his recollection of...toast.

The perfect piece of course. Crisp and evenly browned, spread with peanut butter. The smooth, not crunchy kind, that would melt on the hot bread and coat his mouth in nutty goodness.

Until he was allergic and any kind of nut sent him into anaphylactic shock.

His mind flitted to something else. The thrill of riding his bike down a hill, pedaling as fast as he could, until his momentum grew too great. His feet lost their rhythm and slipped from the pedals. His hands gripped the handlebars tight, but still he wobbled and waggled. And when he hit the rock, he flew.
Look at me, I’m—
Ouch.

The buzz moved on to the next memory.

Faster and faster, the tech hummed and learned while he drifted alone. And sank. Sank.

Rejected. Too defective. Impure. Too emotional. Not worthy.

I’m sorry, Lilith.
The nanotech had spoken. Avion would die. Die alone.

Oh no you’re not.

Of a sudden, Avion stopped his descent in the vast pool of waiting bots. Invisible arms wrapped around him and hugged him tight.

I’m here,
Lilith whispered to his mind.
Don’t listen to these less-than-perfect alien beings. You are worthy. I see you. And you have meaning.

Around Avion, the buzz rose in pitch, a billion voices crying out, not understanding how one of their hosts could question their brilliance. How could she claim they were wrong?

Because you don’t understand love.

Love, what did the firing of emotional synapses have to do with anything?