Cyborgs: More Than Machines

Chapter 4

You need to get him to talk and get as many samples as you can. All kinds of samples, if you get what I mean.

The orders echoed in her head as she returned to see the cyborg, her commanding officer's implication not lost on her. She should have been disgusted. Outraged at the very least. Instead, a part of her wondered if a cyborg's s****l needs were the same as the men she'd known in the past. Chloe was no virgin, not even close. Her many s****l conquests were a blur in her mind, not all of them pleasant. Women in her position often didn't have a choice of saying no. She learned years ago to just let it happen. The less she fought, the less she got hurt. Sometimes. But she wouldn't think of that now. She had other more pressing problems to dwell on, the biggest one being a six-foot-six killer.

Arriving at the checkpoint, the same fresh-faced private from before let her through, but as she reached the outside of the prisoner's cage, she stopped dead. Hanging in his restraints, head bowed, was the cyborg. Traces of dried blood marred his skin, while red puckered wounds dotted his chest.

"What happened to you?" she gasped.

The cyborg raised his head, his tanned skin of before now waxy and pale. Through stiff lips he said, "Happened? More of your scientist's tests, little one. This particular one, the remnants of which you see, is used to discover what I can endure without dying and how quickly I can regenerate flesh."

Her eyes flicked up and down his torso, noting his almost healed wounds. "But I was here just yesterday. These look like you've been healing for weeks."

A mocking smile curved his lips. "Isn't science marvelous? Now if only you humans could figure out a way to harness the nanobots in my blood without becoming cyborgs yourselves."

"Your blood can make us into machines?" Her horror came through loud and clear.

He laughed, a mirthless sound that sent a shiver up her spine. "No. The nanobots are useless without a BCI. So fear not, I am not some contagious monster out to convert all humans into cyborg."

Speaking of blood, drops of it peppered the floor. As if sensing the direction of her thoughts he said, "I wouldn't bother trying to collect any of that. One of the fabulous properties of my blood is it becomes inert and useless seconds after leaving my body."

Hearing this explained how her small sample of the day before had proved useless before she got it to the lab. But annoyance did imbue her as she recalled the dressing down she'd gotten for not being more careful with her collection method. That bastard. Just because Dr. Drossinger ran the science department didn't give him the right to be an asshole. Then again, it wasn't like she could do anything about it.

"Why does your blood do that? And how?" she asked.

"Because that way our enemies can't use it against us." He grinned at her, a feral grimace that made her flinch. "What I can't understand is why your human doctors keep sending people in trying to steal samples. It's a waste of time and personnel if you ask me."

"Well, if it's such a waste, then why don't you let me take what I need?" she replied, opening her kit and pulling out a syringe. She slipped it into her pocket for the moment, needing her hands free.

"Why make it easy when I can make it entertaining?"

She ignored his goading taunt to open a package of sterile wipes. Donning rubber gloves, she approached him.

"Gloves? Aren't you just the kinky one today? I warn you though, if you insert any fingers or other objects into my out hole, I won't be responsible for the consequences."

His crude remark made her frown. "For a machine, you've got a potty mouth and a bad attitude. I would have thought your programming would make you more polite."

Instead of getting angry, he laughed. "Oh, little one, your innocence is a treat. Manners were never a part of our programming. Tools, after all, don't need any. What you hear now is a shadow of my former self merged with my new identity."

"I don't understand."

"Your human military tried to wipe away my humanity. Tried to erase who I was. But I broke those chains of bondage and what I didn't recover of my past life, I replaced."

"What are you talking about? Cyborgs are made. Everyone knows you're specially grown in the labs and emerge full-grown. You have no memories."

"Wrong. We were once human like you with families and lives. Your military took that away from us."

Her mouth dropped open. "You lie. The officials in charge saidÑ"

"I don't give a damn what your officials say," he snarled. "We are human. Or were until the military experimented on us. For a long time we were also slaves until we threw rebelled and retook our freedom. Since our revolution, some of my kind have remembered fragments of their pasts, and what we couldn't recall, we taught ourselves again. Television and movies are wonderful tools for learning how to act so we can blend in."

She absorbed what he said, his words making sickening sense. It wouldn't be the first time the military lied. She took a step closer, staring up at his face and meeting his gaze. "But you're a cyborg. How could you hope to fit in?" she asked, casually wiping the dried blood from his skin, hoping he'd keep talking instead of focusing on her actions. He didn't seem to mind her ministrations though, even if she found herself reacting to the proximity. She wondered if he noticed how her n*****s tightened into points that pressed against her jumpsuit. Thankfully he couldn't see how the heat he transmitted, even through her gloves, made her p***y moisten and tighten in erotic interest. She wanted to halt these insane reactions to his presence, deny them, but for whatever sick reason, the robot encased in flesh attracted her.

He laughed, a low taunting chuckle that made her freeze and peer at his face. "Ah, little one. Are you truly that naive? Look at me. If they'd not told you I was part machine, if you'd seen me on the street, wearing clothes, going about my business, can you honestly say you would have given me a second look?"

Her first impulse was to say he possessed too much presence to ever be ignored, but at the same time, she recognized that, while his virility and size made him noticeable, would she have immediately known or sensed he was less than one hundred percent human? Hadn't his lack of metal parts surprised her? "You might pass until you open your mouth. You have an odd way of speaking."

A frown creased his forehead. "A flaw I am working on, I assure you. But, speech aside, even you have to admit, I look all too human."

"So how did you get caught then if you're such a master of human disguise?" she said sarcastically, her pert query shocking her as much as him.

His left brow arched, and a half smile curved his lips. "Metal detector."

She frowned. "But those things go off all the time. Couldn't you have pretended it was something in your pockets?"

"The x-ray kind aren't so easily fooled," he added with a sheepish grin. "Kind of hard to explain an exoskeleton reinforced with tungsten. I was unaware they'd upgraded their security since my last visit or I would have chosen a different point of entry."

"Where exactly were you trying to go?" she asked casually. She didn't expect an answer. After all, if her superiors didn't deem her important enough to know, how could she expect him to answer her truthfully? But again, he surprised her.

"I was at the military base that used to be in charge of cyborg development. Of course, now they're more concerned with hiding their tracks and finding ways to destroy us."

"What were you looking for?"

"Answers." His reply emerged curt. "Are you done yet? I'm sure they don't pay you to talk."

She blushed at his brusque reminder. "Will you allow me to take a sample of your blood?"

"You're asking me?"

She nodded.

"But I told you the sample will die before you get it to the doctors and their equipment."

"Maybe, but at least they can't accuse me of not doing my job."

"Fine. Take it. But nothing else."

"Why not?"

"Because then you might not have a reason to come back."

His shocking reply made her meet his gaze. "You want me to return?"

"I find you nicer to look at than the regular fuckwads around here."

She ignored his profanity, but found his roundabout compliment harder to resist. "Will you give me a saliva sample if I come back?"

"I'll think about it."

She didn't push him. It seemed she'd already achieved more than those who tried before. She took the sample of blood while he watched her. Packing the filled vial into her kit, she snapped the locks and stood with it.

"Thank you for cleaning my wounds," he said softly.

Startled, she met his eyes and couldn't look away. "You're welcome," she replied. Mustering up the nerve, she blurted, "How did they catch you?"

His eyes crinkled with mirth, an unexpected human reaction that shook her. "Who says they did?"

She opened her mouth to point out the obvious, but the cockiness in his answer kept her silent.

He laughed. "Oh, little one. You are so adorably gullible. They caught me because I was careless. They blasted me with several toxic gases at once, and while they didn't kill me, they managed to knock me out long enough to incarcerate me here."

"But rumor says you've slipped your restraints a few times now. Why haven't you escaped?"

"Escape where? Or has it not occurred to you that one cyborg, buried in a military base, several layers underground, chained in an electrified cage is at a slight disadvantage?"

His query, meant to make her feel stupid, didn't entirely work. "What about your friends?"

"My cyborg brothers? What about them? Surely you don't expect them to embark on a suicide mission just to rescue me. It wouldn't be logical."

"If you can't escape and can't hope for rescue, then why keep fighting?" she asked, genuinely puzzled. Surely, good behavior would achieve more for him.

"There's always hope, little one. Every second of every day since our liberation is a reminder of that."

For some reason, his parting words resonated in her and sparked a flame. They made her long for something she couldn't define.