Marcus 582: Book Three of Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined (13 page)

Rachel thanked the Goddess when the younger man shook his head. She didn’t know what was going on, but she was quickly realizing her fate was primarily in his bragging hands.

“A smart man shouldn’t have a dumb female hanging on him all the time. I’ve waited this long. I can wait a bit longer so she can be fixed correctly. Thank you for correcting me.”

“Now you’re using your higher intelligence. Let’s leave our subject alone so she doesn’t stay agitated about our discussions concerning her. One of my companions can entertain you well enough until this one is ready. It’s going to be a few days, but she’s not going anywhere.”

“Okay. That sounds like a reasonable solution.”

Rachel saw the primary doctor smile and put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. A shiver ran through her. Her head hurt every time she tried to remember these men. It hurt worse than her throat did.
Her throat.
It had hurt, because she had previously had a resonance implant. She was suddenly very sure of that fact.

“Did you take out my implant? But I couldn’t talk without it before. How did you fix me?”

Both men swung pleased gazes her way.

“See I told you it would be worth waiting,” the older man said. “Recall is a great sign that her brain damage was minimal. Looks like she’s going to be just fine. Her higher thinking will be salvageable.”

The younger one nodded as they both walked away. They turned out the lights and plunged the room into darkness.

Rachel closed her eyes since she couldn’t see anything in the low light. It eased the headache blooming behind them anyway.

Reaching out with her other senses, she decided she was sitting in a giant chair. A medical chair. Nausea rolled through her stomach at the realization. A different man’s image went though her mind as she again had a sense of having been here before today. Picturing the third man made her ill, but tilted like she was, she couldn’t let herself be sick. That would be bad. She squeezed her eyes shut to better fight both the panic and the tears.

“Think about something positive,” Rachel ordered herself.
Okay. What else did she know?
“I can talk now.”

Her throat tickled and was uncomfortable, her voice was rough and scratchy, but she could at least speak. Something had prevented her from speaking before, but she couldn’t remember clearly. That was why her own voice sounded so strange to her ears.

She wriggled her wrists, but it did no good. After a couple of minutes, she ceased struggling.

Finally, tears leaked out and dripped down her cheeks until her mind sought the only escape it could find. Darkness descended like a cloud then.

Somewhere deep inside her mind, she felt something click into place and start buzzing.

***

Marcus opened his eyes and tried to move his head, but it was too heavy.

And none of his limbs seemed to work when he tried to move. His mind was sending signals to get up, but his legs and arms weren’t cooperating. Well, his single organic arm and hand was. He used them now to turn his body. Across the room, he saw Edward’s body lay sprawled and unmoving. It was folded unnaturally as if it had just been tossed to the side. Beyond him, there was no sign of Rachel.

He turned back and looked at the door. It was closed and the security was set. Everything looked as normal as always.

Control of his wireless transmissions was almost nil and he could tell his cybernetic power was waning. If Peyton wasn’t tuned in and listening, he would be wasting time trying to use his remaining energy to send for help. But based on the lack of his body’s responses, his only choice was to send out the weak distress call.

While he waited to hear back, Marcus tried to pull himself across the floor, with little luck. He never realized how heavy his cybernetics were when they weren’t powered up. Using only his organic arm, it was like trying to drag an airjet across the floor.

***

Peyton went to the lab to retrieve his wife. Kyra had brought home work and hadn’t lifted her gaze from it when he’d brought dinner. The food he’d made for her was only half-eaten. Her head was in her hands.

“Let’s go to bed, Kyra. Rest will help you. You haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in days. Whatever problems you’re having may not look so daunting tomorrow.”

“Nero’s code is flawless, Peyton. I’m not looking for problems. I’m looking for a way to not have to install the logic chip. The problem is that the processor uses the logic chip to run the prosthetics. Because she’s been totally converted, any less controlling chip cannot run the code needed to fix Rachel’s speech. She doesn’t have a workable one now and the resonance implant never syncs.”

Peyton stepped behind his wife and started a gentle massage. Her shoulders had never been tighter. “I won’t pretend that I loved my logic chip initially, but once I got used to dealing with the information it provided, I found it mostly helpful.”

“You’re a military man…not a young woman who once planned on being a professional singer.”

Peyton stopped rubbing. “Okay. I see your dilemma. So you’re working on Rachel’s code trying to lighten the impact of installing a logic chip in her?”

Kyra nodded. “Yes. But I’ve hit every wall. With the logic chip, Seetha might be able to help her sing again. I just can’t predict whether or not she’ll still want to sing once speaking and singing become nothing more than cybernetic functions.”

“I think it sounds like a pretty good solution.”

Kyra patted her husband’s hand. She appreciated his encouragement even if he was wrong in this case. “If anything defines a cyborg, it is having a logic chip. Their ability to handle large amounts of data rapidly and make decisions a normal human mind would take days to make is the first quality most think of when the term cyborg is mentioned.”

“So? Smarter and faster are not bad things. She’ll adapt. We have all adapted.”

“Rachel will adapt, but adaptation is not acceptance, Peyton. A cyborg’s prosthetics being able to function without the logic chip was the first big lie we told the soldiers. In normal prosthetics, the logic is built into the device itself. But the part doesn’t always obey the person’s human will. In cyborgs…their brain is the device and their prosthetics always behave. In cyborgs, the prosthetics are just dead weight on the body when they aren’t being told what to do. We knew all along the logic chip had to remain to support the prosthetics, no matter what we did or didn’t do with the processor.”

Peyton hid his irritation over hearing another uncomfortable truth. He knew nothing he felt would foster more repentance in his wife than she already felt. Whatever misguided ideas she’d had at the beginning of the Cyber Soldier program, Kyra was now doing all she could to atone for them.

“Come to bed. It’s late and you’re tired. The facts won’t go away in the morning, but the rest will at least let you mentally deal better with what you have to do.”

Nodding, Kyra rose from the com. She and Peyton walked out of the lab together. When he froze, she stopped too. “What is it?”

Peyton’s eyes grew wide. “Distress signal. Very weak. I think it’s Marcus. I can’t hail him completely.”

Kyra sprinted back inside the lab and grabbed the bag she kept packed for emergencies. When she reappeared, she and Peyton sprinted to the door and to the airjet they’d left parked at the curb.

***

His organic arm was shaking from the effort to pull his unnatural weight across the floor. It had taken forever to traverse the five feet to get to Edward’s side. He’d heard Peyton’s response that he was coming, but lacked the signal strength to respond favorably to the news. All he could hope is that Peyton and Kyra would figure out where he was when he wasn’t at his normal residence.

He placed quivering fingers on Edward’s neck and felt a weak heartbeat. The man was still alive, but barely. What would have happened to Peyton if he’d been hit by whatever weapon got used on him and Edward? Peyton had a cybernetic heart. If his reserve power hadn’t kicked in, Peyton’s most likely wouldn’t have either. His former captain would have died in a matter of hours.

Marcus closed his eyes. His processor urged him to rest and recover his strength, but he was afraid to shut down that far. Consciousness kept his wireless signal transmitting as fully as possible. Sleep would send it into a dormant mode when it was already weak.

Another twelve minutes passed before he forced his eyes open again. The notifier announced Kyra and Peyton, but he couldn’t let them inside.

“Need…help,” Marcus yelled, surprised at how weakly the plea emerged.

Seconds later, the security bypass pinged and the door swung open. Peyton’s steps ate up the distance it had taken him forever to make across the floor.

“What happened?”

“The guy I told you about—Nathan 180—took Rachel. Two muscle geeks helped him. One of the muscle guys used some sort of electromagnetic weapon on us. My power is so low, I can’t run diagnostics. It seems to have killed our cybernetics and shut down nearly all functions. Edward is still alive, but he’s not been conscious since it happened. I woke up about two hours after they left.”

Kyra opened her bag and pulled out a diagnostic tool. “Drag him upright, Peyton. I need access to his panel.”

While Peyton held Marcus in his arms, she looked at all his chips. “The processor is still functional. But all the chips…they’re all shut down…even the logic chip. If we don’t get them active soon, brain damage will start to occur…if it hasn’t already.”

Her hands flew as she pulled a large case from her bag. “Marcus, this logic chip I have…it will…aw hell…it will likely throttle your emotions again. It’s not running my updated code, but it’s all I have with me to fix you.”

“Do it Doc. I’m a lead weight here. No good to anyone in this condition, but I’m not ready to die,” Marcus declared.

Kyra nodded. “Okay. Grit your teeth. I have no way to make this easier.”

She yanked out the logic chip quickly, ignoring Marcus’s body jerking in Peyton’s arms. She slid the new logic chip into place and rubbed a hand over her face. Over Marcus’s head, she met her husband’s angry gaze.

“I need to reboot Marcus for the processor to sync with the new logic chip. I don’t know what will happen to him when I do. I’d rather replace one chip at a time than replace them all, even the dead ones. This is not the controlled environment of the medical lab. If Marcus doesn’t handle the new logic chip well, it will be up to you to constrain him.”

“Understood,” Peyton answered, firming his lips. “Eric is on his way. I sent for King too, but I haven’t heard back from him yet. Do what you have to, I can handle Marcus. There was a reason they made King and I the strongest ones on our team.”

Kyra nodded. “Okay. Here we go.” She touched the tool to his processor. Marcus’s body jerked with the power surging through his cybernetics once more. His eyes fluttered rapidly in response to the data being processed as fast as his mind could do it. Finally, his eyes opened.

“I am Marcus 582,” he said.

Kyra pressed her lips together. “Hello, Marcus 582. You were damaged in an attack. Run diagnostics and tell us what you learn. Search for recall of the events during the last four hours. All data will help us help you.”

Marcus rose to a sitting position. He looked at the man who’d been holding him. “Captain Elliott?”

“Yes. That’s right. Let’s hear a status report, Sergeant.”

Marcus blinked. “My military chip is defective. Some data from it remains in storage. I used it to identify you.”

Kyra’s gaze flashed to her husband’s as they rose to their feet. “He’s not what he was before, but he’s no longer the man I restored either.”

Peyton nodded, the tic in his jaw driving him crazy. How vulnerable were his men? How vulnerable was he? If something happened to him, what would happen to Kyra?

“Are you functional, Marcus?”

Marcus rose smoothly to his feet. “I am sixty-seven point nine percent functional at this time. Many of my installed chips are inaccessible. Life support is at ninety-five percent. My cybernetic limbs are…one moment to assimilate the data…I have it now. All cybernetic body components are being reprogrammed by my processor. Analysis of initial problem—cybernetic function was disrupted from a close range discharge of a directed electromagnetic pulse. Conclusion of failure point—charge was disbursed to components by my processor.”

Kyra drew in a breath and hissed out a vicious curse word that startled her husband. Some bastard had her processor code and was using it against the cyborgs.

“Marcus…run override alpha 785 zulu pirate block by order of Creator 2 of 2. Your processor is to randomly switch wireless input channels every thirty minutes until directed to stop switching.”

“Affirmative Creator 2 of 2. Processing commands now,” Marcus said.

Kyra looked away and screamed in frustration. “Some bastard used my processor code to build a device to take out the cyborgs.”

Peyton studied her anger without letting himself feel the passion. “We have no time to be angry. You’ve got to fix the other guy if it’s not already too late.”