The Cyber Chronicles VIII - Scorpion Lord (9 page)

"You had
better pray I never get free again, Jorran, because if I do, I'm
going to rip your guts out through your mouth and watch you choke
on them."

Jorran paled,
then leant closer. "I promise you never will, you psychopathic
shithead. This time next week, you'll be unable to form a coherent
sentence, and you'll be under cyber control again."

****

Estrelle
glanced around and pulled her hood closer around her face, then
pushed the entry-call buzzer of a tech accommodation, her heart
pounding. The hour was late, and few people were abroad, except for
patrolling enforcers. It made it less likely that anyone would see
her, but would draw more suspicions if someone did. After several
moments the door slid open to reveal Martis, who gaped at her. She
slipped inside, pressing the door-close button on the inside, and
pushed back her hood.

Martis' eyes
widened. "Estrelle? What are you doing here?"

"I must talk
to you. It's important."

"You couldn't
do it at work?"

"No. Are you
alone?"

He nodded,
gesturing. "Have a seat."

The tiny, drab
apartment had utilitarian grey furnishings, brown carpet and a
standard-issue vid-console, on which an entertainment programme
played. Martis touched the com-pad to switch off the blaring noise,
and she paced around the cramped room. He watched her, looking
confused.

She stopped
and turned to him. "How do you really feel about what they're doing
to the free cyber host?"

His expression
became shuttered. "I don't know what you mean."

"Yes you do.
Be honest with me, please. You can trust me. You hate it, don't
you? You think it's horrible."

"It would be
treason to say such a thing." Martis went over to an ugly steel
lamp and switched it on. "Okay, talk now."

"What's
that?"

"They listen
to us; don't you know that? All quarters are monitored, but not
constantly. It's a rotating watch list. Let's just hope no one was
listening a minute ago. This is a low-tech jamming device. All
they're getting now is static. What's this about?"

"Sabre. I want
to help him."

"You can't.
It's impossible."

"For one
person, but maybe not for two. Will you help me?"

He shook his
head, frowning. "If we're caught..."

"I know, but
we won't be. Listen to me." She sank down on the black plastic air
sofa. "He wants to send a message out, but I can't do it. He's
asked me to swap him for another cyber for a couple of hours, so he
can do it. But I need someone to do the swap while I distract the
guards at the monitoring station."

"You're nuts.
All the vids are recorded; they'll see it."

She stared
across the room, her heart heavy. "Then it won't work?"

"No. Okay,
look, I've been thinking about it too. It's barbaric, what they're
doing to him, but if we swap him for another cyber, we have to
leave before they see the vid-record."

"How?"

"A drone
ship."

Estrelle
looked up at him. "How?"

Martis sat on
the low tubular plastic table. "The drone ships take new cybers to
the drop-off points for sale. They're unmanned. We swap him with
another cyber, put him in a casket and take him aboard. No one will
think it's strange. When a drone ship's docked, there's no
security. Workers load it up with cybers, then it leaves. We just
wear worker's uniforms, take him aboard and hide. They'll never
know."

"That's
brilliant. Then we mingle with the workers at the other end and
take him off."

"Yeah, well,
they might wear different uniforms, but we'll cross that bridge
when we get to it. Sabre can help. As soon as the ship undocks, we
release him. When it comes to tactical decisions, he's the best man
for the job."

Estrelle
smiled. "Martis, you're a genius. When can we do it?"

"There's a
drone ship docked right now, due to leave tomorrow. It's been four
days since the demonstration, so Sabre's injuries have healed a
lot. We take a new cyber from storage, unpack him, make him look
more like Sabre... His hair is a problem, though. Jorran must have
someone shaving Sabre every day, but he hasn't cut his hair.
Probably to make him appear more abnormal, more aberrant. Sabre's
hair is a lot longer than a new cyber’s. You'll have to cut
it."

"Me? How will
I explain that?"

"I don't know,
think of something. It's untidy or unsanitary. Just shave it off,
okay?"

She nodded.
"All right. If I do it a couple of hours before we take him, maybe
I won't have to explain it."

"Good idea.
But the drone ship leaves tomorrow, so we have to do it tonight,
like right now."

"But I have to
pack -"

"Don't be
daft. If you do that, they'll know straight away that you've left
the centre. We take nothing but the clothes we're wearing and any
money that's lying around. Leave the rest to Sabre."

Estrelle
hesitated, a little reluctant to give up everything on the spot.
"Okay. It's just so sudden."

"I know. But
if we do this, it must be now. Are you in?"

"Yes. I can't
watch him being burnt again, or reduced to a drooling idiot."

"Me either. I
almost got sick at that demonstration. You really think management
will approve the drug-induced brain damage?"

"Probably.
They're more afraid of him getting loose than they are of damaging
him. Jorran will persuade them." Estrelle stood up. "Let's do it
then."

"I'll need
about five minutes to do the swap, and I'll have to get the codes
for the clamps."

"Sabre can
unlock them."

"Right."
Martis nodded. "I'll go and get a cyber and prepare him, you go and
shave Sabre."

Chapter Five

Sabre watched
the human life sign approach his cell. It was tagged as Estrelle,
and he wondered what she was doing visiting him so late. He had not
seen her in the two days since the experiment, and he was still
weak and drained from the ordeal, his bio-status only at sixty-one
per cent. The door slid open, and he sensed her come to his side.
Opening his eyes a slit, he found her standing over him, holding a
glinting metallic object. He tensed, then resigned himself to
whatever she was about to do. If she was going to kill him, so much
the better.

She leant
closer and whispered, "It's okay, I'm just going to shave you."
Pressing the clipper to his scalp, she ran it over his head. "I
have to make you look like a new cyber otherwise they'll notice the
swap. We're getting you out of here tonight."

"We?"

"I found help.
Martis is going to come here in a couple of hours with a new cyber,
who will take your place while I distract the guards. It's okay,
he's trustworthy."

"How do you
know that?" he enquired.

"He wants to
help."

"How do you
know he's not informing on you right now?"

She hesitated,
biting her lip. "I don't, but I think he's going to help."

"How well do
you know him?"

"Not well,
but... he came up with the plan and everything. I'm sure we can
trust him." She gripped the brow band and lifted his head so she
could shave the back of it. "You'll have to go into a casket. Is
that okay?"

"Whatever it
takes."

"Good." She
switched off the clipper and studied him. "There. You look ten
years younger. Martis is making the other cyber look more like you.
They won't know the difference."

"Until they
look closely, or burn him."

"By that time
we'll be gone." She put the clipper in her pocket. "I must go. When
Martis gets here, do as he says, okay?"

"Okay."

Sabre closed
his eyes as she moved away, watching her on the scanners as she
left his cell and moved off along the corridor. Hope burnt like a
joyful flame in his chest, lifted the dark shroud of depression
that had enveloped him and filled him with energy. A part of him
wondered if this was some diabolical test, another part wondered
what kind of plan the two young techs had come up with and whether
it would work.

It seemed like
an eternity before two life signs, one of them a cyber, approached
the door to his cell and paused outside. He wondered what they were
waiting for, then the door slid open, and Sabre opened his eyes a
slit. One of the young techs he had seen before with Jorran and
Estrelle came in. He sidled along the wall to the corner where the
surveillance camera was, jumped up and stuck something over the
lens. Returning to the door, his poked his head out and beckoned. A
young cyber, whose chest was reddened and smeared with regeneration
jelly, came in and took up a resting pose beside the table. Martis
leant over Sabre.

"Unlock the
clamps and get up. We don't have much time."

Sabre raised
his head and aimed the cyber at the clamps, activating it. A second
later the clamps unlocked and fell open. Freeing his wrists and
ankles, he sat up and swung his legs off the table. Martis stepped
back, looking a little nervous. Sabre bowed his head as a wave of
dizziness washed over him. When he raised it again, the young tech
had retreated to the wall. Sabre slid off the table and moved away
from it.

"Cyber Twelve,
lie down on the table," Martis ordered.

The young
cyber obeyed, and Martis clamped his wrists and ankles, the locks
automatically engaging. "New designation: Cyber Twelve is now
designated Cyber Seventy One."

"New
designation, Cyber Seventy One," the cyber intoned.

Turning to
Sabre, Martis gestured to the door. "Come on, hurry."

Sabre went out
into the corridor, where he waited while the tech presumably
removed whatever he had stuck over the surveillance camera. He
emerged and locked the door, then hurried along the corridor for
quite a distance. Grey and white signs gave directions, for the
cyber centre was a maze of interconnecting passageways, all
uniformly pale grey with dark grey floors and glowing ceilings, so
it was easy to get lost. The tech turned into another corridor and
almost trotted to a door at the end, which opened into a room full
of caskets. One stood open on the floor, mist filling it. Martis
gestured to it.

"Get in."

Sabre
hesitated. "Do you want me in cold sleep?"

"That's up to
you."

"How long will
I be in it?"

"A few hours."
Martis glanced at the timepiece on his wrist. "Five, maximum."

Sabre nodded
and climbed into the casket, fighting his instinctive dislike for
the situation and his intense hatred of caskets and cold sleep. "I
won't go into cold sleep unless I'm in here for more than five
hours, so don't use the unlock sequence if you open it before then,
okay?"

Martis nodded.
"Okay."

"You know how
to override it?"

"Yes."

Sabre lay down
and folded his hands on his chest in its cramped, silken confines.
Martis closed the lid, shutting him in the cold darkness. Closing
his eyes, Sabre concentrated on slowing his metabolism. Caskets
were designed to support cybers in cold sleep, so the oxygen level
was insufficient to sustain him at a normal metabolic rate. The
hard lumps in the lid that dug into his chest and belly told him
that this was a fully armed casket, undoubtedly the one the young
cyber had been in. The casket wobbled a little as it floated up on
antigravs, and he turned his attention to the scanners as it began
to move.

Martis paused
in the doorway to glance up and down the corridor that ran parallel
to the storage room. It was at a T-junction, and the corridor along
which he had come was directly ahead. Turning left, he headed
towards the docking port, towing the casket. He wore a worker's
uniform he had donned after Sabre had climbed into the casket. He
had stolen two from the laundry while Estrelle had shaved Sabre's
head. The preparations had been hurried, but sometimes the best
plans were those that were implemented swiftly rather than
thoroughly. While there were flaws in it, there had been no time
for any suspicions to be aroused. All that remained was for
Estrelle to join him, and to get past the enforcer station on the
way to the docking port.

Halfway to the
security station, footsteps behind him made him glance back, his
nerves jangling. Estrelle trotted up to him, panting, her hair a
little dishevelled. He handed her the other worker uniform, and she
pulled it on over hers.

"What
happened?" he asked.

"The guard got
a little amorous, that's all. Nothing I couldn't handle. He seemed
to think I was there to seduce him, not to check the outer station
locking delay system. It proved to be a better distraction,
anyway."

"Are you
okay?"

"Fine." She
fastened the uniform, falling into step beside him as he started
forward again. "He was quite a handsome fellow. What about you, any
problems?"

"No. It all
went like clockwork."

"It almost
seems too easy."

"I don't think
anyone's actually tried to run away before. Everyone knows it's
impossible."

"Maybe it's
not."

Martis jerked
his chin at the glass-walled enforcer station that had just come
into view ahead as the corridor curved. "We're about to find
out."

A bored
looking enforcer tore his attention from his vidscreen when they
approached the station, rose from his chair and stretched. He eyed
them, glancing at the casket.

"Working
late?"

Martis
consulted his timepiece. "Early, actually. Day shift's about to
start."

"So what's the
occasion?"

"Special last
minute order. We have to get this unit aboard the transport before
it leaves."

"It takes two
of you to take a casket to the docking port?" the enforcer asked
Estrelle.