Cryo-Man (Cryo-Man series, #1) (24 page)

“Just try, it’s your only chance.”

When 37 finally turns from his people, he holds the remote high for all to see.

“The verdict is in and we all agree on death.”

With a final blast of concentration, I release the tension in my fingers just long enough for the man to fall from my grasp. He doesn’t even hit the ground when 37 twists one of the knobs, causing my fingers to snap violently shut. Had the man still been in my clutches, he may have been beheaded.

When the man lands, he looks up toward my hand, the same place everyone else stares with shock.

“Run!” I yell.

The man does as he’s told and sprints toward the far side of the field. I wish I could see where he goes but my head is still turned toward 37 and the other spectators, who are surprised into silence. Only the timid young man in the second row appears hopeful.

              “How did you do that?” 37 asks, seemingly paying no attention as the human attempts to escape.

             
“Do what?” I ask. “He must’ve slipped or wiggled free.”

             
37 turns me in time to see the human approaching the seats on the opposite side of the stadium. That section is unguarded and crumbling, the one place where someone might be able to find an empty spot to escape. But 37 sends me sprinting forward, pushing my speed to the limit. In seconds, I cover the same amount of ground. My body suddenly leaps. I soar over the human and land just in front of the first row on the other side of the field, blocking the man’s path.

             
The human stops and looks at me with depressed acceptance.

             
“Just let me go,” he whispers, though his voice is hollow.

             
“I want to but – ”

             
In one quick motion, my arm swings wildly. I see the human frown but he doesn’t flinch or try to step aside as my metallic hand crushes the side of his face. I hear the crunch of bones as his body flies back, limp before he even hits the ground. He lands with a thud, his head caved-in and turned the wrong way. His eyes are open and blank, clearly dead.

             
I should feel awful or mournful or enraged; instead I only feel hollow and helpless. I can’t take my eyes away from the human’s smashed head so it’s probably good that 37 steers me away, walks me back toward his section of stadium. It’s not until I stand in front of the small crowd that I hear cheers from some of the men. Their happiness fuels the flames of anger inside me and it doesn’t help when 37 steps on the field in front of me.

             
I want to yell; I want even more to lash out at 37 but I’ve barely mastered twitching a few fingers and I don’t want him to know I can do that much. 37 may have turned me into a killer but I need to keep my cool around him. I don’t know much about the old man but I’m certain threatening him won’t help my situation.

             
“That was the most fun I’ve had in awhile,” 37 says. He holds up the remote. “A little more practice with this thing and the next battle will be even more entertaining.”

“I understand it’s a rough world out there and you’re only trying to protect your family from intruders,” I say. The words are bitter as I say them but I need to appeal to his sense of humanity, if any exists. “You can’t trust anyone trespassing on your territory. But you have your other robots – your
real
robots – to protect you. I don’t know how you control them but I’m amazed that you’ve thrived when the rest of the world has been destroyed.”

37 snorts, though he seems pleased by my compliments. “You can’t compare me to those pathetic humans out there. The weak deserve to be destroyed by those more powerful.”

“I don’t care about any humans but my own family. They’re long gone now but there’s still a chance I can learn what happened to them, learn what became of their lives. That’s why I’m traveling to… actually, I can’t seem to remember exactly where I’m going…”

This is the second time I’ve had no idea where I am, the second time my mind fails to conjure the coordinates and location of my Heaven Box. I focus on tapping into my GPS but I’m panicked to realize it’s no longer working. I pray it’s just another of my systems disrupted by 37’s override signal but I have an awful feeling that’s not the case. The dead human snapped one of the wires at the back of my skull and now I’m certain which one it was.

“Problem?” 37 asks when he notices me lost in thought.

“I used to know exactly where I had to go but now I… I don’t,” I say. “That human broke part of me.”

“Even more reason why he deserved his punishment,” someone else in the crowd calls out.

I suddenly think of the bag tied to my shoulder. I know the page with my Heaven Box coordinates is inside but I haven’t looked at the form close enough to remember how badly the numbers were smudged. It won’t be easy without my GPS but I’ll figure it out somehow, as long as I have those numbers. I try to turn my head to see if the bag is still there but my neck doesn’t budge.

“Please, can anyone tell me if I’m wearing a bag on my shoulder?” I ask.

“It’s there,” the quiet young man says.

37 shoots an angry glare toward the young man.

“Go make yourself useful and burn the body,” he snaps.

The young man sulks away, but not before glancing at me a few more times as he leaves.

“The rest of you,
get out
,” 37 orders.

“It’s about time,” the teenager girl says, though none of the others speak as they walk away.

37 steps over the railing and approaches me on the field. His line of robots steps aside to let him through and he stops just in front of me. I see him looking behind me. I hope that means something is on my back to see. 37 turns to the nearest robot.

             
“You, take the bag off this robot’s back.”

             
The robot does as it’s told. In my periphery, I watch it grab at my shoulder and yank. I hear my bag ripping, the shuffle of papers inside. The robot hands the bag to 37 before rejoining the others.

             
“Please be careful with that,” I beg the old man. “That bags holds the only information I have about myself. The forms are fragile. They already suffered serious water damage. Now that the GPS in my mind is destroyed, I’ll need to memorize the coordinates of my Heaven Box. It was foolish not to do that in the first place.”

             
37 rifles through my bag, scanning the pages without reading any of them. He’s obviously not interested but at least he’s gentle with them. He leaves everything inside and ties the end shut. If I could sigh in relief, I would.

             
“Walk with me,” 37 says.

             
He begins to stroll away, momentarily forgetting that I can’t follow verbal commands. He quickly remembers and uses the remote to make me walk beside him.

             
“Tell me who you
really
are, tell me about this Heaven Box you keep mentioning,” 37 says.

             
I’m surprised he wants to know since he’s seemed so uninterested in learning anything about me. But with none of the other humans around, maybe 37 feels more comfortable showing empathy. This will probably be my only chance to convince him to let me go.

             
“I am a man that died a long time,” I say. “I was kept cryonically preserved deep underground for hundreds of years. The frozen chamber keeping me in cryostasis malfunctioned so the only… person… staying at the facility turned me into this. I woke remembering only the final memory of my previous life. But the contents of the folder in my bag tell more of my life story. The most important thing tells me the location of a Heaven Box. I’m not completely sure what it is but my wife and two sons buried it, intending for me to retrieve if I was ever woken. I hope whatever’s inside helps me recall more memories from my life. At the very least, I hope to find out more about what happened to my sons.”

             
“Even though they’ve been dead for years?” 37 wonders. “That seems foolish to me.”

             
“Not to me,” I say. “I’ve crossed the country, endured countless danger through cities and woods and every type of environment that I’ve – ”

             
“Who made you?” 37 interrupts. “And I don’t want to hear that you don’t know. We both know that’s not true.”

             
I nod. Instincts tell me to avoid mentioning E but this may be the only chance 37 gives me. Getting on his bad side won’t convince him to free me.

             
“His name is ENG-1023,” I say. “He used to work for the robots. At one time they had him conduct experiments trying to fuse robots with humans. But E found the testing reprehensible and hid his successes from his captors, who scrapped the project. Lucky for me he still remembered how to – ”

             
“That’s enough,” 37 snaps suddenly, angrier than I’ve seen him yet.

             
37’s jaw is clenched and his hand grips the remote so tightly that I see his knuckles turn white. I don’t know what I’ve said to make him so angry but I remain silent, waiting for him to speak next. We approach the stadium concourse, where a row of robots slides out of the way to let us pass. The only noise is the whirring of my parts and the click of my metallic feet on the stadium’s concrete floor.

             
Once outside, I see a line of smoke swirling toward the sky. We walk in silence until reaching a large pit among the trees. A huge fire blazes inside, fed by massive sticks and logs tossed in by the young man from the stadium. We no sooner approach when the young man drags over the human’s carcass and tosses him into the flames. I realize the human died at my hands but seeing him burn makes it all the more tangible.

             
Through heavy flames, I see that the bottom of the pit is lined with not just wood but scattered human bones, lots of them. 37 directs me so close to the edge of the pit that I feel the searing heat of flames. The young man scatters away, cowering among the trees before 37 tells him to leave. The older man seems to pay little attention to his young counterpart.

             
“I hate humans, as I’m sure you can tell,” 37 says. “But I’ve also grown to hate robots, especially
who
is in charge of them. I don’t care what goes on in the rest of the world but I refuse to ever let that happen here.”

             
“I understand,” I say.

             
37 slowly shakes his head as he looks down at my bag. I want him to step back from the fire but I doubt he’d appreciate me giving orders; it might cause him to do the opposite of what I say.

             
“Actually, I
don’t
think you understand. In fact, I think you’re as foolish as every human I’ve ever met, including my low-life kids that serve my territory,” he says. “You have a boring back story, a boring life, one I could care less about, even though a small part of me admires your determination. But I can’t have you think of that past, I can’t have you dwelling upon it.”

             
37 tosses my bag into the air. I can almost feel my non-existent heart come to a stop. He quickly uses the remote and my arm shoots out, my hand snagging the pack at the last second. I’m relieved to catch it but I’m not thrilled when 37 uses my fingers so roughly that they poke holes into the bag.

             
“Please be careful, that’s all I have left of my life,” I say.

             
“Not anymore,” 37 says.

             
37 fiddles with the knobs, extending my arm above the flaming pit. Fire dances just below the fringes of the bag, threatening to ensnare it at any moment. I already know how this is going to end.

             
“No, please don’t,” I say weakly. “This is my life.”

             
“No, doing my bidding is your life now,” 37 says. “The sooner you release your past, the easier this transition will be.”

             
No words will change his mind but I can’t stop trying.

             
“Please, at least let me look at the picture of my sons one last time,” I say.

             
I concentrate on keeping my fingers clamped tightly on the bag. But with a single push on 37’s remote, my fingers snap open and the bag plunges into the flames, instantly engulfed. I try to remember what the photograph looked like but it’s been so long since looking at it that the memory of my sons already fades from my memory…

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I bolt through the forest at top speed, weaving in and out of trees, leaping over small creeks and large boulders, no obstacle able to slow me. I know every part of these woods, every leaf on every tree, every exposed root, every small rock. I could run through these lands with my eyes closed, though it’s not as if I have any control where I go or what I do. It’s like I’m living inside a television, forced to watch the same program every day, without being able to change the channel. And when there
is
something different – like right now – it’s
never
a change for the better.

The whir of my moving parts intersperses with my pounding footsteps, the only two sounds that echo across the quiet forest. I make too much noise to allow other sounds to guide me on this hunt. Still, I sense my prey nearby and I’m sure my master does, too.

“Run! Faster! It’s not much farther until you can escape!” I call out.

Up ahead, I finally spot movement between the trees. Now that I see the humans, I realize they’re never going to make it to the flower-strewn clearing before I intercept them. I suddenly wish I never laid eyes on them, never gave someone
else
a view of them. I’ll easily catch them in time – a fact 37 and I
both
realize – so he momentarily steers me off track and smashes me into the side of a tree. I feel no pain in my body but my head is jarred, my brain rattling within its skull.

It’s not unusual for 37 to punish me like this. The only thing I worry about is a collision yanking out the wire in my brain allowing me to hold onto my few memories. That hasn’t happened yet but time might rob me of those thoughts instead.

It only takes a few leaps to recover from the tree ‘accident.’ The group of humans is just ahead, nearly a dozen running and stumbling through the forest. I know that a downed tree waits just through a thicket of bushes. When the humans look back and see me, they scatter, as groups often do when I get close. 37 steers me toward the four that leap over the thicket. Not surprisingly, they land atop the gnarled tree trunk and crash to the ground in a chorus of grunts and groans. This slaughter will be too easy for 37 so I have to do my part to prevent it, even if that means facing more punishment in the near future.

I squeeze my eyes shut, one of the few things I still have partial control of. I move forward in darkness and hear the humans yelling at each other to get up and run. A loud thud soon follows. I’ve also fallen over the tree and feel the painful prick of a branch slicing into my cheek. Footsteps begin to scatter away. My eyes snap open against my will. I stare at the leaf-strewn ground in front of my face. I begin to stand and look into the distance so I fight to shut my eyes again before I can see anyone. This time, they don’t remain closed for long. I’m too weak to try shutting them a third time.

“Don’t make me warn you again about helping them,” 37’s voice says deep within my ears.

“Does it really matter?” I ask.

“Not for them, but it could for you,” 37 says. “If you think I won’t deactivate your vocal chords and remove your eyelids, you’re sadly mistaken.”

My legs begin to run after the humans again. To drive home his threat, 37 steers me toward a low hanging branch, its leaves whipping my face as I speed past. My vision flickers a moment, plunging me into darkness though my eyelids remain open. Unfortunately, I can still hear. A part of me has been hoping for a long time that one of 37’s punishments would destroy a vital part of my wiring, that it would lead to a total disconnect that might end my helpless torture. But this isn’t the moment, which becomes even clearer when my sight flickers back on.

“That was a close one,” 37 laughs, the sound echoing in my brain.

If I could gain control of my arm for just a moment, I could plunge my pincers through my skull to make sure 37 never used me again. Soon after he took control of me and burned every vestige of personal information I owned, 37 had his youngest son set about making further ‘improvements’ to me. The young man – who reluctantly told me his name was Nej – did not want to attempt any of the changes, but 37 could be quite persuasive. I quickly learned there was nobody within his territory that he did not control.

Nej had no formal robot training but possessed natural talent the man twice his age didn’t have. 37 allowed him free reign when it came to fixing or experimenting upon the robots that wandered within range of his override signal. By the time I came along, the young man had years of practice. But none of that could prepare him for what 37 demanded him to do with me.

Apparently, having complete control of my sight, hearing and vocal chords was too much freedom for me. 37 realized he couldn’t keep up once he ran me in his forest so the first change was creating a video link with my vision. The process took months to figure out. It started with Nej needing to identify exactly what the wires in my brain controlled. Whenever the two of us were alone, he apologized for the experiments, assured me he wanted no part of 37’s plans. He was a nice kid, unlike every other human in 37’s lands. Nej even seemed sympathetic to my imprisonment here. I told him that what he was doing was wrong and finally convinced him to tell 37 that he’d no longer perform these ghastly procedures on me.

For the next several weeks, I had no contact with anyone as I waited in the abandoned stadium, stuck within the prison of the building alone, stuck within the prison of my mind alone, only a few precious thoughts to keep me sane. I’d hoped Nej was using that time to convince 37 to let me go free, though I eventually worried the kid was killed for questioning the old man.

When Nej showed back up a few weeks later, I only needed a single look at him to see that the answer lay somewhere in between. His left arm had been in a sling, his face covered in cuts and bruises that looked painful despite being days old. When I tried to speak to him again – tried to find out what happened – Nej stopped me, told me 37 took it easy on him this time but wouldn’t the next time. Those were the final words he said to me for months.

At least words that had nothing to do with my ‘upgrades.’ For several weeks, I lost my vision. Nej assured me he’d get it back but I hadn’t needed to see his face to imagine his look of doubt. When my vision finally returned, the world in front of my eyes wasn’t merely seen by me. It was being broadcast to an undisclosed location where 37 could sit back, watch what I see and control me. He’d never heard of a video game before but he’s been playing me like one ever since.

Miniscule sensors were placed beneath my eyelids, allowing 37 to hit me with a tiny jolt any time I close my eyes. Usually I don’t bother fighting this ‘upgrade’ but sometimes a few seconds is all I need, regardless of the zap I’ll be hit with. Nej figured out how to tap into the wire that controlled my hearing next. He hooked up a transmitter so 37’s voice could speak directly into my eardrum. Having his voice inside my head has taken away any chance I had to keep my sanity. 37 always threatens that my vocal chords will be next to go, a system he plans to rip out himself if I push my luck too far…

I speed toward the first human and swat at him with my metallic hand. If the impact of being hit didn’t crush his internal organs, then flying through the air and crashing into a tree finished the job. I expect frightened cries to erupt from the others – that’s usually what happens when I kill the first one in a group – but these humans don’t slow down, don’t offer as much as a whimper of remorse for their fallen friend.

“Faster than usual,” 37’s voice says in my head. As far as I know he can’t read my thoughts but that’s exactly what he’s done this time. “Think we can catch them all?”

“I hope not but I’m sure you’ll try,” I say.

He pushes me faster, proof that he doesn’t actually know what thoughts are running through my mind. 37 is a proud man, never one to back down from a challenge. Nearly a dozen humans remain in the forest nearby, a dozen humans rushing quickly toward the far reaches of 37’s territory. They made it far beyond the stadium and 37’s houses before being spotted, giving them a big lead over other unlucky people that wandered into his lands.

              Now they’re getting closer to leaving 37’s territory, closer to reaching the small clearing filled with beautiful wildflowers. With every step I race toward the outskirts, I get a little closer to freedom, a little closer to a possible mistake by 37 that could set me free. The old man knows his lands better than I do but there’s always a chance he could get caught up in the thrill of the chase and lead me too far…

             
This is the farthest I’ve gone in years and I feel a slight twinge in my extremities, a twinge of self-control that 37 knows nothing about. But the humans have rendezvoused nearby and won’t get away.

             
“I knew they wouldn’t escape,” 37 says in my ear. “Ooh, a crowd, this should be interesting.”

             
The humans turn when they see me coming, a group of mostly younger men with the exception of a large older man with a long gray beard and a beautiful young woman, whose blonde hair spills out of her traveling cloak. For a moment, the young woman’s eyes lock with mine and I see the familiar look of confusion.

             
“It’s the robot, run!” someone yells.

             
Most of the humans take off without question but the man with the gray beard actually steps toward me with his gun raised. A younger man – similarly tall and large like his older counterpart – joins the man with the gray beard.

             
“Father, don’t!” the young man yells.

             
“Your Highness, you must run!” another young man yells, as he tries to circle around the father and son. But the man with the gray beard pushes the other two away.

             
“Both of you
go
, that’s an order!” the older man yells.

             
Gray Beard turns back and rushes toward me. Inside my ear, I hear 37 laughing.

             
“Don’t, you fool!” I tell him.

             
I mean this as a warning but my words only confuse the older man, who hesitates to shoot. That’s the only opening 37 needs. My body launches high into the air, avoiding Gray Beard’s wayward shot. I land behind the large man – who isn’t much smaller than my robot body – and crush him with a single blow. His skull cracks and his body goes limp, dead before he hits the ground.

             
“Daddy! No!”

             
This time, it’s a female voice. The beautiful young woman – who’d barely turned to run away – stops and stares at the dead older man. She’s not the only one. Soon, most of the group has turned around in shock. I can almost sense 37 salivating at the sight of so many stationary targets.

             
“Get out of here, you’re all so close!” I yell.

             
Even though my eyelids are already open, I feel a jolt in my eyes, punishment for disobeying 37’s orders.

             
“Another word and you’ll speak no more!” 37 hisses in my ears.

             
But at this point, I don’t care about his warnings; I can’t be punished any worse than what my life has already devolved into. Unfortunately, my words continue having the opposite effect of what I hoped. The dead man’s son stays near his father’s body as four or five other young men rush in front of the girl. In less than a few seconds, more gunshots echo and 37 has me duck and dodge, dive out of the way. He holds me back from action longer than I expect. I can’t help but wonder if he’s purposely putting my life at greater risk for continuously trying to help these humans, not that it’s doing them any good.

             
Finally I leap forward and strike, crushing a pair of young men to bloody pulp before they even react. I try not to focus on the young woman – therefore hoping 37 doesn’t notice her – but the humans flock in her direction.

             
“Princess Regina, we have to run!”

             
I whirl around and kill several more humans. With each kill, I want to tell the rest to run but there’s no longer any point. I can only watch like a spectator as the shell of my robot self annihilates them. With the exception of a few humans that scattered into the woods, the rest have remained nearby, encircling the young woman, falling to their deaths in a vain attempt to protect her.

             
The ground is littered with corpses until only two humans remain: the large son of Gray Beard and the young woman known as Princess Regina. He still fires at me – she’s even picked up a gun and started to shoot – but I knock their weapons aside and slowly stalk them. The young man tries to shield the princess.

             
“Back away!” he yells at me.

             
But I continue to stomp forward slowly, causing them to back up until they bump into a tree. I imagine 37 smiling somewhere, enjoying this final bit of mental anguish he causes the humans.

             
“I’m so sorry, this isn’t me,” I say.

             
Rightfully, they look confused by my apology, especially when my arms shoot out. I grab them both by the neck, one in each hand, and slowly lift them off the ground, their eyes going wide.