The Cyber Chronicles VI - Warrior Breed (37 page)

Tassin
shivered, rubbing her arms. "You make him sound like a freak."

"He is a
freak. He has a soft side, which he's wary of exposing, although he
has with you. He trusts you now, and me, a little. You helped him
when he got free on Omega Five, and he fell in love with you. Not
only did you not betray him, you found him and freed him again,
thereby reinforcing his love and trust. I have no doubt Sabre would
kill anyone or anything that hurt you.

"You're his
world. He would do anything to please you; cut off his own arm if
you needed him to, and the fact that he may not be able be what you
want could kill him. Right now it's upsetting him, but he still has
hope, and your promise that it's not important to you. Don't change
that. Please, don't rush in with hobnail boots where angels fear to
tread."

She nodded,
sinking down on the sofa. "I was being selfish, only thinking of
what I wanted from him, and not what he needs from me. I didn't
mean to hurt him."

"You haven't,
yet. But I think you're putting him under a bit of stress. He wants
to please you so much, but he's just not designed for that." Tarl
sat beside her. "Sorry."

"It's not your
fault."

"I was part of
the world that created him. I feel partly responsible."

"That's why
you're trying so hard to help him now."

"Yeah, he was
right about that. I'm trying to make up for what I did back then. I
do feel guilty. And all I have to offer is my expertise in his
cyber abilities, which he detests. I'm a constant reminder of what
he is, and he'd rather try to forget it. It's like he's the rope in
a tug of war between us. You're trying to speed up his conversion
into a true human; I'm trying to slow it down, for his sake. Only
trouble is, he wants to be human more than anything, and one reason
is because he knows it's what you want.

"That's why he
was so happy when you admired his acrobatic prowess in the combat
room. He found something you admire, at which he excels. But you've
got to face facts. He'll never be normal. The sooner you accept
that, the better." He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to
protest. "He'll come close. He's already doing well, but there will
always be little differences, not least of all his abilities."

Tassin
frowned, shaking her head. "But he is a human."

"No. He's a
cyborg. He's not even entirely human genetically, but his genetic
enhancements don't affect his thinking. That's affected by the way
he was designed and trained. His sole purpose, until he got free of
his control unit, was to be a killing machine.

"That's all he
knows. Even now, his limited experience of human emotions hasn't
changed him all that much. You've seen it. You can't be that blind.
Put him in a dangerous situation and he takes charge. He pits his
wits, skill and brawn against the enemy, and wins at all costs, or
he'd die trying. Put him in a room alone with a girl, and he's
totally clueless and more than a little uncomfortable."

She nodded,
bowing her head to gaze at her hands. "Why does he look at his
hands so much?"

"It's not his
hands he's looking at; it's the scars on them."

She grimaced,
rubbing her brow. "Of course. I feel like such a fool. And I wish
you'd talk to him. I think you could help him."

"No.
Absolutely not."

"Why?"

"He resents me
enough already, partly because I'm a technician, partly because I'm
what he wants so much to be. If I start giving him lectures on how
to be human, I'd probably get my head stuffed down a toilet. If he
asks me something, I'll tell him, but I'm not going to sit him down
and try to explain the facts of life to him."

Tassin nodded,
sighing.

Tarl stood up.
"Well, I'll leave you to think about it." He headed for the
door.

"Thank
you."

"Sure thing.
I'm always happy to answer your questions."

Tassin stared
into space for a while, considering what she had learnt. Although
the information was helpful in her dealings with Sabre, and
undoubtedly correct, it was also depressing. She began to
understand why Sabre disliked Tarl, despite their friendship. As a
font of information on cybers, he was excellent; it was the
information itself that was so disheartening. Nevertheless, she
resolved to do as he advised. The last thing she wanted to do was
hurt Sabre.

Chapter Twenty Three

Sabre opened
his eyes to find a silken roof mere centimetres from his nose. A
searing chill pervaded him and froze his gut. Objects, some sharp,
pressed in around him, and he was paralysed. Terror crawled up his
spine like a claw-footed snake, its tail curling in his gut and its
head spitting venom into his silently screaming brain. He strived
to move with all his might. His desperate yearning to get out of
the casket grew with every passing moment, and a howling madness
nibbled at his sanity. He broke free of the paralysis and punched
through the top of the casket, ripping silk and scattering weapons.
A savage cry of triumph burst from him.

Sabre kicked and punched the casket, tearing out the silk
lining in an orgy of destruction. An irrational, but powerful urge
to utterly destroy the instrument of his torture pounded at his
brain. Something touched him, and one of his automatic reactions
kicked in. He grabbed it, a niggling doubt as to its identity and a
flashing red light in his brain preventing him from crushing
it.
A piercing shriek cut through the fog
of savagery that clouded his mind, then pain flashed in his skull
and he opened his eyes. He was crouched over Tassin, his hands
around her throat.

"Shit!"

Sabre released
her and sprang away, tumbled backwards off the bed and sprawled on
the floor. Swathes of torn bedclothes hung from the bed, and the
bulkhead beside it was buckled and dented. For a moment he lay
still, gasped and rubbed his head. The full horror of what he had
almost done slammed him in the gut like a sledgehammer. Desperate
to make certain that he had not hurt her, he jumped up, switched on
the lights and gazed down at her.

"Are you
okay?"

Tassin stared
at the ceiling, panting, her hands clasped around her throat. Sabre
eased himself onto the bed and reached out to touch her hands.

"Let me
see."

She gulped.
"I'm all right."

"Let me
see!"

Sabre tugged
her hands away and leant closer to examine her throat, somewhat
surprised to find no marks on it. Relief made him dizzy, and he
bowed his head, rubbing his face. A touch on his knee made him
lower his hands.

Tassin gazed
at him with deep sorrow and concern. "You didn't hurt me."

"But I could
have. I could have killed you."

"No." She sat
up and reached for him, but he jumped up and moved away. "You
barely touched me," she said. "I woke up when you yelled and
started destroying the bed. I grabbed you and tried to shake you
awake. It was my fault. You grabbed me, and I slapped you, then you
woke up. I just got a fright, that's all."

He stood with
his back to her. "You should be frightened."

"Come
back."

Sabre shook his head, and Tassin slid from the bed and came
over to slip her arms around his waist and press her cheek to his
chest. She wore the simple thigh-length silk shirt she always slept
in. A lump clogged his throat and pain shot through his heart as he
held her, sorrow and dread weighing on him. The venomous voice
awoke to shout its poison in the back of his mind.
Cyborg! Killer!
Apparently he was at it again, trying to become human, the
ambition it scorned so much.

"I'm sorry."
He bowed his head and held her tighter.

"It's
okay."

"No it's not.
Next time I might kill you. You've got to sleep somewhere
else."

"No." She
leant back to gaze up at him. "You don't usually have nightmares
when I'm with you. This time you didn't know I was here. I joined
you after Tarl put you to bed, but you were too drunk to know. It
was my fault. It won't happen again. Besides, you didn't hurt me.
You woke up when I hit you."

He avoided her
gaze. "I didn't feel that. The cyber woke me. It can still inflict
pain, it seems. I did the unthinkable. I attacked a person with
command privilege."

"Then you
can't harm me. The cyber won't let you."

"Any one of
those blows that dented the bulkhead could have killed you, and the
cyber wouldn't have been able to stop me in time."

"This isn't
going to keep us apart. I'm prepared to take the risk."

"I'm not," he
said.

"Don't make me
sneak into your bed after you're asleep, because I will if I have
to."

"I'll wake
up."

"I feel safe
with you," she said. "What if something happens to me while we're
apart? What if you hadn't been there when that explosion happened?
How would you feel then?"

"The chances
of something happening to you are a lot less than the risk of me
smashing your skull in my sleep."

"I don't think
so. I want to be close to you, where you can protect me."

"Then we'll
bring in another mattress and share the room."

She considered
that, clearly unhappy. "All right. You can stop shaking now, it's
over."

Sabre realised
that his hands trembled from the rush of adrenalin his dream had
released, and grimaced. "It'll stop in a little while."

"What did you
dream about?"

"It doesn't
matter."

"I want to
know. Tell me," she said.

"I was in a
casket. Frozen. Paralysed. Trapped."

"That must
have been horrible."

"But it makes
no sense,” he said. “Cybers aren't awake in a casket. It's never
happened to me."

"It must be a
secret fear you have."

"It is. I used
to wonder what it would be like to wake up when the lid was closed,
usually just before I was put into one."

"How do cybers
get into a casket then? Are they put there after the cyber is...
what do you call it?"

"Shut down.
No, they climb into it themselves." He rubbed his eyes. "We do. We
get in, and as soon as we lie down the cyber puts the host into
cold sleep. We're injected with chemicals that paralyse and prepare
us."

"How do you
breathe in there?"

"Re-breathers
and scrubbers. The caskets are airtight, but there's an oxygen
supply in the base, and the carbon dioxide is scrubbed from the
air."

"What happens
if the oxygen runs out?"

"An alarm
sounds and lights flash. It's very loud. If the oxygen still isn't
replaced, the casket automatically opens."

She nodded.
"That's good. So a cyber can never suffocate in his casket."

"Not unless it
malfunctions."

"Why are they
sealed? Why not just let outside air in?"

"It's a safety
feature, in case there's a hostile atmosphere outside. Gas is
sometimes used in chemical warfare. Otherwise it would be easy to
wipe out an army of cybers with gas while they were still in their
caskets. There's a couple we can't be immunised against, which
combine with oxygen and make the air unbreathable, like the fire
extinguishers on Triumphant."

"How long can
a cyber be kept in a casket?" she asked.

"It's
recommended that he be taken out every ten years and given food,
water and exercise, if the owner wants to keep him in good
condition. But a cyber has been known to survive for twenty-two
years. He was in pretty poor condition when he came out,
though."

She hesitated,
as if reluctant to make him talk about things that might upset him.
"So you're not frozen?"

"No. Our body
temperature is lowered, and our metabolism slowed to the point
where it's almost non-existent. It's a bit like hibernation."

Tassin glanced
at the shredded bed. "And that's what you'd have done to a casket
if you'd ever woken up in one?"

"I wouldn't
have been able to move, so no. That's what I'd like to have done,
though. In my dream I could move after a while, and I smashed my
way out."

"Did that make
you feel better?"

"Yeah, I guess
so. Kind of like wish fulfilment. Until I woke up."

She placed a
hand on his cheek. "I'm fine, stop feeling guilty."

Sabre pulled
her into his arms again and stroked her hair. "I don’t know what
I’d do if anything happened to you," he said.

"What do you
mean?"

"If I don't
die trying to save you, I'll end it myself. The cyber can't stop me
anymore."

Her arms
tightened. "No. Don't do that. I don't want you to. I didn't go to
all the trouble of finding you and freeing you just to have you
throw it all away if I die. I want you to live, and enjoy your
freedom."

"How could I
enjoy it if you're not there?"

She looked up
at him. "Find ways. Explore the universe, become Ravian's agent, or
Fairen's. Destroy Myon Two. Do something useful with your life. You
have so much to offer. Perhaps you'll meet another girl and find
love again."

"Would you do
that if I died?"

"Yes."

Sabre almost
checked the scanners to see if she was lying, but stopped himself.
Tassin would not lie to him. The image of his hands around her
throat flashed through his mind, and he looked down at them, hating
them. How could he ever live with the guilt if he was the one who
killed her, even by accident? He could not risk it. She must sleep
apart from him, even though he enjoyed having her close, especially
now that he no longer had the warning lights in his mind. He spread
his hands, frowning at them, and Tassin took hold of them.

"You have nice
hands."

He fought the
urge to tug them free and hide them. "How can you say that?"