City of the Cyborgs (8 page)

“I think her memory might be damaged,” Josh murmured to Rainor. “After all, she’s still got that gear plugged into her brain. If we could get that out somehow—without hurting her in any way—she might be perfectly normal again.”

Sarah continued to ask questions. “Do you like being a cyborg—being part of the One?”

“Oh yes.”

“Why do you like it, Cee Dee?”

“Because there is no fear.”

“You’re never afraid?”

“Never. The Peacemaker gives us peace. If we were not part of the One, we would be afraid, and we could be hurt.”

“Do you ever have to decide anything for yourself?” Josh asked curiously, watching her face.

“Decide?”

“Yes. You know. Make decisions. What you are going to do next, for example.”

Confusion swept across the girl’s face. “The Peacemaker tells me what to do. When I do it, I am sane. If I would not do it, I would be insane, and the annihilators would throw me out of the city.”

“Would leaving here be so bad a thing?”

Fear leaped into Cee Dee’s face. “Yes. I would be
insane
. I would die if I were not part of the One.”

“Who is this Peacemaker?” Rainor asked then. His handsome face was stern.

“He is good. He always takes away our fears. He takes care of the One.”

Josh finally decided that was all the information they could get out of the young cyborg. Besides, she seemed to be growing tired again. He and Rainor and Sarah consulted together.

Sarah said, “She’s so much better than she was. If we let her rest some more and feed her, maybe we’ll be able to get the whole story.”

“You’re probably right. Why don’t you see if maybe she wants to sleep for a while?”

Sarah turned back to Cee Dee and said, “Would you like to lie down and sleep?”

The question seemed to confuse the girl. “The Peacemaker has not told me to sleep.”

Sarah put her hand on Cee Dee’s arm. “Come along, Cee Dee. I’ll show you where you can lie down. I’ll talk to you awhile. Maybe you’ll get sleepy.” She led the girl away.

As soon as they were gone, Rainor said angrily, “Somebody has made these people nothing but mindless slaves!”

“And this Peacemaker. Who
is
he? What do you think of him?”

“You know pretty well what I think. Anyone who would do what he’s done to a young girl like this doesn’t deserve to live himself.”

Secretly Josh agreed with him, but he took a less violent point of view. “Well, maybe there’s a way to convince him that what he’s doing is wrong. If we can find him.”

“You haven’t been around very much if you think that, Josh.”

“How’s that?”

“I mean that people who are in total control—you
can’t easily convince them that they’re wrong. They’ve got power, and they won’t give it up.”

Josh slowly nodded. “I suppose you’re right. I think I was just hopeful.”

Rainor lowered his head and seemed to be deep in thought. “I think it’s getting clear what we’ve got to do, Josh.”

“Are you thinking the same thing I am?”

“Probably. We’ve got to help all these people. Not just Mayfair but
all
of them.”

“I’m coming to believe that’s why we were sent here.”

“What do you mean, ‘sent’? Sent by whom?”

“Well, since we’ve been serving Goél, we have found out that things just don’t accidentally happen. I mean, why were we out there in the desert at exactly the time you came along?”

“You think it was meant to be? That Goél planned it that way? Is that it?”

“All I know is that we wouldn’t be here to help you look for Mayfair if you hadn’t met us. And if you hadn’t met us and saved our lives, we’d be dead. And now it looks like there’s a job laid out for us, Rainor.”

“Still, I just came here to find Mayfair.”

“I know you did, but it’s come to be more to it than that, hasn’t it?”

Slowly Rainor nodded. “And the first thing we’ve got to do is find this Peacemaker. But I’ll tell you one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“When I get my hands on him, he’s going to have anything
but
peace!”

S
arah and Josh were making themselves a snack in what had once been the cafeteria kitchen.

“I think Cee Dee is going to get well,” Sarah said. She glanced over at him, adding, “She’s making much more sense now. Just give her a little time, and she’ll be fine.”

Josh had made himself a sandwich and was proceeding to add a layer of beef. He added salt. He shook pepper over it until it was almost black. Then he eyed the sandwich and took a huge bite. “That’s good,” he said and offered it to Sarah. “Have a bite,” he mumbled.

“It would paralyze my tongue, Josh! I don’t see how you eat anything with that much pepper. You always did do that—even back in Oldworld.”

“It adds flavor.” But then he said, “I think you’re right about Cee Dee. She has some bad times, but in between she’s talking quite a bit and making a lot more sense.”

“It gives me chills just to think about her life here.”

They had found some windfall apples lying under a tree, and Sarah was cutting one into small slices with her sheath knife. She nibbled on a piece, then said, “These aren’t as good as apples used to be in the old days. They aren’t as sweet, and they’re harder. But they’re apples.”

Josh swallowed another bite of sandwich, then said solemnly, “Well, when people get to be your age,
the olden days always seem better. That’s one sure sign you’re getting old.”

Sarah stuck out her tongue at him and shoved a sliver of apple into his mouth. “There, chew on that!” She took another bite herself and then walked to a window. The abandoned cafeteria was in an especially rundown section of town. She looked out at the grim street and sighed. “Josh, this has got to be the ugliest city in the whole world. Not one colorful thing in it. I’ve never seen such an awful place in my life!”

“It’s sad, all right. These people don’t have any color or any beauty. They never sing. There’s no art, no television, no nothing! It’s really dullsville!”

“Saddest thing to me is when you go into their barracks and see them just standing there.”

“I know,” Josh said. “It’s like they’re a toy that’s run down. You wind it up, and it moves jerkily for a while, and then it just stops until the next time you wind it up.”

Still looking out, Sarah thought about the green fields as the sunlight hit them. “This could be a beautiful valley,” she murmured. “It’s the buildings that make it ugly.”

“They must have a chief uglifier. The guy who runs this place designed the city, no doubt. The Peacemaker, she called him. Somehow I don’t much like that name.”

“Nor do I. It’s such a beautiful, unsuitable name for such a terrible person.”

“I’ve noticed,” Josh said, “that people always like to think up better sounding names for things. Remember back in the old days when they changed the title
janitor
to
building engineer?”

The two stood at the window and nibbled on their
snacks until Sarah said, “Let’s check on Cee Dee. Then go out again and see if we can find Mayfair.”

“OK with me.”

They found Cee Dee talking with Wash.

He grinned when they came in. “I been telling her about all the good things to eat that she’s been missing. Stuff like hamburgers and french fries.”

“She can still have a kind of a hamburger.” Sarah smiled. “Would you like to have a hamburger, Cee Dee?”

Cee Dee’s speech was still halting, but she was much more relaxed than she had been when the Sleepers had found her. Automatically she touched her broken antenna as if she expected a voice to come through it and give her directions. But then she smiled and said, “I would like to have a hamborger.”

“Comin’ up,” Wash said. “I’ll try to chop up some meat, and tonight we’ll have hamborgers.”

As soon as he left, Sarah said, “Before Josh and I go out, I’m going to fix your hair, Cee Dee.”

“Fix my hair? It is already cut.”

“I know it’s cut. I mean comb it differently. If you don’t mind my saying so, I can make it more attractive.”

A puzzled look swept across Cee Dee’s face. “Attractive?”

“Yes. Make you pretty. You know. So that
boys
will think you are pretty.”

“I do not understand.”

Sarah gave Josh a look of despair and said, “We’re going to have to start from the bottom, it seems.”

Josh said, “You can start the beauty salon later. I want to ask you something, Cee Dee. One more thing about your life here. Did you ever see the Peacemaker?”

“No. Never, but I hear his voice. He speaks to the One continually.”

“I’m sure he does,” Josh said wryly. “Did anybody ever try to take off their antenna and leave this place?”

Cee Dee thought, and then her eyes filled with fear. “Yes. A unit did it one time, but he died at once.” She touched where the antenna fitted into her temple. “One cannot be separated from the Peacemaker and live. He is good.”

Josh continued questioning the girl for a while and then said, “Well, I guess we might as well go. You’ll have your hamborger for supper, Cee Dee.”

She gave him a shy smile and said in a voice that was almost natural, “Thank you, Josh. You’re very good to me. Nobody ever fixed me a hamborger before.” Her expression saddened then, and she said, “It will be hard for me to go back. I will miss all of you.”

“Go back?” Josh said. “You mean become a cyborg again?”

“Why, yes. I must become part of the One.”

“Talk to her, Sarah!” he cried.

“It’s all right. We’ll talk about it later when I come back. Come on, Josh.”

They left the building and started down the dreary street. “She’s going to need lots of love and care,” Sarah said thoughtfully.

“TLC.” Josh nodded. “That’s what they used to call it.”

They walked on.

Suddenly Josh said, “Have you ever been in that building over there, Sarah?”

“No,” she said. “Even though I’ve been by here. Let’s take a look.”

Inside, lined up around the walls, she saw a row of
small boxes about waist high. Several female cyborgs were walking around. From time to time, they reached down into a box.

“What’s in those boxes?” Josh asked. “They’re doing something there.”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

Sarah kept out of the way of the cyborg women and went to the row of boxes. She peered inside one. “Why, it’s a baby!” she exclaimed. “There’s a baby in each box. This is a cyborg nursery.”

A baby began crying, but the cyborgs paid no attention.

Sarah and Josh stood watching the babies being fed and changed. But the cyborg nurses never picked them up.

“How awful! I bet they never get a kiss or a hug or anything,” Sarah cried.

“Well, don’t start trying to mother them all,” Josh said gloomily. “This is terrible. I read somewhere that babies that aren’t held don’t do as well physically as those that are cuddled.”

“I heard that, too,” Sarah said.

“Let’s get out of here,” Josh said. “I can’t stand this.”

Neither could Sarah.

They walked the streets for some time, always watching for Rainor’s friend. They didn’t see anyone who looked as if she could be Mayfair. And every cyborg they passed wore a blank expression. It was very depressing.

“Somewhere under these grim faces there’s a human being,” Sarah said. “You just want to rip those antennas out.”

“We’re going to have to find some way to help, but I’m afraid just ‘ripping them out’ won’t work.”

As they slowly walked along, again they were totally ignored by the cyborgs, who seemed to be conscious of nothing.

“I know one thing we
won’t
find,” Josh said.

“What’s that?”

“A nursing home for very old people.” He nodded knowingly. “I’ve got a pretty good idea that the Peacemaker wouldn’t waste a lot of time on ‘worn out units.’”

“I expect you’re right,” Sarah said quietly. “You know, Josh, we keep saying this, but this might really be the worst place we’ve ever encountered in all our journeys in Nuworld.”

“We’ve got to do something about it, I know that. I just wish Goél were here to give us some advice.”

They were walking down one of the larger streets when—totally without warning—two annihilators were standing in front of them. In a metallic voice, one of them said, “What is your number?”

Josh seemed unable to think of a response, but Sarah did. She made up a number quickly and said, “Unit 1234c.”

A slight humming sound took place in the black box on the cyborg’s forehead. The red bulb on the tip of his antenna glowed brightly.

“There is no such unit.”

Josh said hurriedly, “Give him another number.”

Sarah said, “I meant Unit 3469z.”

Again the information was transmitted, and again the red light glowed. “There is no such unit,” the annihilator said, and now the lens in the center of his forehead suddenly glowed.

Sarah cried, “He’s taking our picture, Josh!”

“Let’s get out of here!”

They both turned to run, but it was too late.

Both annihilators ignored Josh and grabbed Sarah’s arms. The metallic voice said, “There is an insane unit at location 6g1.”

“Bring her to reclamation. She will be dealt with.”

And Sarah realized that she was hearing the voice speaking in the annihilator’s headphone.

She saw Josh draw his sword to defend her. But one cyborg parried his sword thrust with the long black club that he carried, and before Josh could thrust again, he hit Josh a stunning blow to the head. Josh stumbled back.

One annihilator dropped Sarah’s arm and started toward him. His club must have been made of metal for it rang when Josh struck out again and his blade was parried. He backed up steadily, desperately trying to get in a blow.

Sarah struggled with the other cyborg, but it was useless. With his fist he stunned her with a blow to the side of the head, and the world seemed to swim before her. She was aware that Josh was still battling the other annihilator, and then she heard the pounding of feet.

To her right, four other annihilators were coming at a run.

“Go, Josh!” she screamed. “Run! Get away!”