City of the Cyborgs (7 page)

“You mean that’s it?” Reb said softly.

“That’s it. How would you like that for a meal!” Jake exclaimed in disgust.

Abbey cried, “That is horrible! It’s worse than we treat animals.”

“I doubt if they even taste their food,” Josh said sadly. “Whatever’s happened to their minds, they can’t see or hear or probably taste anything. You’re right, Jake. It’s awful.”

Jake’s face grew determined. He was a stubborn boy anyway, and now he said, “I’m going to see what that stuff tastes like.”

“Better not,” Josh warned. “Don’t!” But he was too late. He watched Jake go toward the machine, and he said, “Jake’s going to get us all into trouble. He’s too impulsive.”

Jake picked up a cup and a bowl. He walked over to the food dispenser and stood in front it. He held out his bowl and pushed the button, but nothing happened.

Then a loud voice said, “There is an insane unit in the cafeteria at location r313. Annihilators will apprehend insane unit at once.”

Jake turned pale. He dropped the cup and the bowl and hurried back. “We’d better get out of here!” he said.

“We’d sure better,” Josh said.

They ran from the building just in time, for as they ducked around a corner, Josh saw three black-clad annihilators approach the building.

“Big mistake on my part,” Jake said. “Sorry about that. They’d probably throw us out to the wolves if they caught us.”

“I think I know what they mean by ‘insane,’” Josh said as a thought came to him. “They mean anybody who’s not under their control. Those are probably
microphones attached to their ears—the leadership uses those to tell them what they’re supposed to do.”

“And you’re probably right,” Rainor said. “If there was ever a madhouse, this is it.”

“We’ve got to find something to eat,” Reb said, getting suddenly practical.

“No problem,” Josh said. “Sarah and I found that they bring in the produce from the fields and store it in a big warehouse. We also discovered that there’s a herd of beef cattle and a place where they butcher. So we can get meat as well as vegetables. No reason why we can’t just help ourselves and then pay whenever we figure out who it is we pay.”

Then the girls reported locating an empty building at the edge of town with—wonder of wonders—a cook-stove in it! It must have once been used for a smaller cafeteria. There were even side rooms too, where the girls could stay while the boys camped out in the larger one. They at once decided to make the place their new hideout.

The next evening Reb was cooking steaks on the woodstove when Sarah and Abbey came in. Both girls seemed depressed, and Reb looked up from the stove to ask, “What’s wrong?”

“We looked into one of the houses where the workers live. It was a terrible place.”

“I expect it might be,” Reb said. “Everything else is. So what did it look like?” He turned over a steak and poked it with a fork. “These are gonna be done pretty soon.”

As the others gathered around to take their steaks and beans and potatoes from Reb, Sarah repeated, “It was just terrible. There was just one room. There were
pegs on the walls to hang clothes and pads on the floor for sleeping.”

“That’s all their beds were,” Abbey exclaimed. “Dirty old mats!”

“No furniture at all, you say?” Josh asked.

“Nothing but just those pads. But the people themselves were worst of all. They were just—standing there.”

“What do you mean ‘just standing there’?” Rainor asked.

“Most of the time when you get people together, they’re talking and playing games or singing or doing something together. But these cyborgs weren’t doing anything.”

“Some of them were asleep on their mats. Well, I guess they were asleep.” Abbey looked ready to cry. “It was like they were dead. They just lay there flat on their backs, staring up at the ceiling. Some of them didn’t even have their eyes closed, so I couldn’t tell if they were awake or not.”

“But the very worst were people just standing. I mean that literally,” Sarah cried with vexation. “I mean, there must have been twenty of them. They could have been talking or doing something, but they weren’t. They just stood. Some of them were facing the wall. There were no windows to look out of. It was like being in a cell where everybody was dead.”

The meal was somewhat spoiled by this gloomy news.

Rainor agreed and frowned. “I looked into one of those houses, too. It was like being in a big tomb.” But then he said, “But there’s nothing we can do about that right now.” He seemed to want to change the subject. “When we finish eating, let’s go out again and see if we
can catch sight of Mayfair. You want me to describe her to you again?”

Wash grinned. “Beautiful brown hair. Beautiful brown eyes. In fact, the most beautiful girl in the world. You’ve described her a hundred times.”

Rainor managed to grin, himself. “Well, let’s see if we can find her.”

This time when they split up, Josh went with Rainor. The boys walked up and down the streets and went inside various buildings. And all the time, the cyborgs paid them not one bit of attention.

“This is spooky,” Rainor said. “It’s like being in a dead city.”

A shiver went over Josh. “Sounds like a horror movie to me.”

“What’s a horror movie?”

“I’ll explain it to you some other time. Let’s keep looking.”

Then they came to a building that was under construction. The cyborg workers moved slowly, never varying their pace as they carried boards and pounded.

A scaffold had been built, and just as they were passing under it, suddenly Rainor said, “Josh, look out!”

Something had gone wrong up on the scaffold. Both boys leaped out of the way, but a falling board struck one of the cyborg workers, a young woman.

“It hit her antenna,” Rainor said. “The bulb on the end of it has gone out.”

Josh was thinking quickly. “We’re going to get away from here,” he said, “and we’ll take her with us.” He lifted the young woman and looked into her face. “Will you go with us?” he asked. “We’ll help you.”

“I am Unit cd92.”

Her voice was dead sounding, as the cyborgs’ voices always were. “I am Unit cd92,” she repeated.

“Well, come on, Unit cd92,” Josh said grimly. He took her by the arm and pulled her along. She offered no resistance.

“I am Unit cd92,” she kept repeating, but she walked along between them.

“You think that’s all she can say, Rainor?”

“I don’t know, but since that antenna’s been knocked sideways, it may be she’s disconnected. When we get her away from here, we can talk to her. Maybe she can tell us something.”

Leading the girl, they hurried away from the construction site and headed for the hideout.

And for the first time, hope came to Josh. “Maybe this is the break we need, Rainor,” he said. Then he looked at the girl walking between them. “She’s kind of pretty. No older than I am, I would guess. I sure would like to see her come out of it.”

H
as she said anything at all?” Sarah asked. The cyborg girl was seated on the floor, staring straight out into space.

“Not a thing,” Josh said. “Except ‘I am Unit cd92.’ She says that over and over again like a broken record.”

“Nothing else at all?”

“No, nothing. Wish we knew what to do for her. It’s not like she has a broken arm or …”

“No,” Sarah agreed. “We’d know what to do for that—but this is different.”

The rest of the Sleepers were scattered around the hideout in various positions, some sitting, some sprawled on the floor. But all were listening intently, and all of them hoped that this young female cyborg might be able to help them solve the riddle of the city.

Jake approached her and reached out tentatively. “The antenna’s loose,” he said. “That means she can’t receive anything.” He traced the wires that ran from the box to her ear and then gently pulled out the earpiece.

She flinched then, and for the first time her expression changed. “Do not hurt me. Do not—hurt me,” she whispered.

“We’re not going to hurt you, Unit cd92,” Josh said quickly. “We want to be your friends.”

Sarah was watching the girl’s face. “Something
came into her eyes then! Some understanding.” They had a sign of life.

“Maybe she’s coming around!” Dave exclaimed hopefully.

“Can she hear us?” Abbey demanded.

“I think so,” Wash said. “Fortunately, they seem to speak the basic Nuworld language here.”

People began trying to talk all at once, but Sarah said,
“Ssh
. All of you be quiet! You’re frightening her! Come on, Cee Dee. I think I’ll just call you that. Cee Dee. It doesn’t sound so … mechanical.”

She took the girl’s arm, and the cyborg got up without resistance. “I think she’d better be kept back in our room where there’s a little quiet. Maybe she’ll come to herself after a while. There are too many people here—we’re scaring her.”

“I think you’re right, Sarah,” Josh said. “You and Abbey see what you can do.”

“You think they’ve got any way to trace her here—I mean by radar or something like that, Jake?” Dave asked.

“Could be. Whoever thought up this system is pretty smart. I’d like to take that gear off her, but somehow it’s attached to the side of her head. I don’t understand it, so we’d just better leave it alone.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure. If she’s not receiving any instructions from whoever’s the boss,” Josh said slowly, “she ought to begin thinking for herself pretty soon.”

“I wish I could listen to one of those things,” Jake said. “If we did, we might find out who is up to all this.”

“We’ll just have to wait,” Rainor said. “We can keep looking for Mayfair. Maybe Unit cd92 will recover and can tell us something.”

∗ ∗ ∗

“Josh—Josh!”

Josh had been napping. He looked up to see Sarah bending over him, excitement in her face. Now she was shaking him. “She’s beginning to talk, Josh. Come quick.”

A day had passed since they had brought Cee Dee back to their hideout. She had done little but sleep. Josh—and everyone else—had begun to lose confidence that she would ever think normally again.

Dave even said, “I’m afraid that whatever they did to her has destroyed her brain permanently.”

“It could be,” Josh had agreed. He too was doubtful about her recovery.

Now he and Rainor followed Sarah into the back room, where they found the girl they had called Cee Dee standing and looking much more alert.

Sarah went close to her. “Cee Dee, this is Josh, and this is Rainor.”

Cee Dee turned to the boys and seemed frightened.

Josh said quickly, “You don’t need to be afraid. We’re your friends.”

A confused look came into Cee Dee’s eyes. They were beautiful blue eyes, and she had blonde hair that had been cut very short. “I am …”

“You’re what, Cee Dee?” Josh said gently when she hesitated. “What is it?”

“I am … I have become insane.”

The three stood shocked and staring as the girl began feeling for her antenna. Obviously she was highly disturbed at being cut off from all instructions.

“You’re not insane, Cee Dee,” Sarah said.

The girl turned to Rainor and said, “What is your number, Unit?”

“I’m not a unit, and my name is Rainor.”

“What is your number, Unit?” she repeated. Then she looked at Josh and Sarah and asked the same question. She spoke slowly, as if she had forgotten how to speak.

Rainor waited for only a moment before saying, “Cee Dee, I am looking for a young woman named Mayfair. She has brown hair and brown eyes, and she hasn’t been here long, and …”

“What is her number?”

“She doesn’t have a number,” Rainor insisted.

Cee Dee fingered the antenna that was tilted over to one side and obviously disconnected. She appeared to be totally confused.

“Have you seen her? She’s an exceptionally beautiful girl. She’s one girl you would never forget.”

“We are all One. There is no two, and there is no three. All of us are … One!”

Josh could make no sense of this, and he was sure that the others could not either. “What do you mean you’re One?”

“We are One. There is no other. All of us are One.”

They questioned her further, but she seemed to tire. She closed her eyes and whispered, “I am Unit cd92.I am Unit cd92.”

Sarah whispered, “She’s like a baby. She doesn’t know anything at all!”

“More like a machine, I’d say,” Josh said, and he gnawed his lower lip nervously.

“Let’s give her something to eat. She might be hungry and not even know it.”

“That’s a good idea,” Josh said quickly, brightening.
“Maybe food will help. Is there anything prepared?”

“We still have some of that good beef and vegetable soup.”

“Just the thing. Let’s have it.”

Sarah said, “I’ll get it!”

Josh and Rainor seated Cee Dee at an old table and let her rest until Sarah came back, bearing a bowl of steaming soup.

“Here, try some of this, Cee Dee,” Sarah said and set down the soup before her.

The girl looked at the bowl as if she had never seen soup before. “What … is … this?” she asked brokenly.

“It’s soup. It’s good to eat, Cee Dee. Try it,” Sarah urged.

Cee Dee stared at them, but then she nodded and picked up the spoon. She took a spoonful of the soup and put it in her mouth. For a moment she was quiet. Then her eyes widened. “Good,” she said. “Good food!”

“Look at her eat,” Rainor murmured. “She must be half-starved.”

Cee Dee ate two bowlfuls of the soup, and then she seemed much more relaxed. When they offered her hot tea, she drank it and asked for more. And then, for the first time, she smiled. “I am insane—but you are good.”

“What do you mean you’re insane?” Josh asked.

“I cannot hear the Peacemaker.” She touched her broken antenna. “Anyone who is not listening to the Peacemaker is insane. Only the One is sane. Everyone outside of the One is bad. They are all insane.”

The girl was willing to talk for quite some time, and mostly it was Sarah who skillfully asked her questions
about her life in the City of the Cyborgs. Josh soon realized that Cee Dee had no sense of the passage of time. She was surprised when they asked her how long she had been a cyborg. “I cannot remember.”