by Alex Leu
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THE MISSING NUMBER
The Cyborg Sectors Book 4
by Alex Leu
1
THE DISTANT MELODY of a piano woke him from a deep sleep and Cap knew he was dead, or in his case, retired.
The melody persisted. It even got louder. But there was no reason for Cap to hear any music or anything at all. Still, he didn’t fight the beautiful piano sounds because he was hearing “Clair de Lune” by Claude Debussy. His favorite. And at that moment, Cap really needed something to hold on to, something he enjoyed, because he was in hell.
He knew it because he read about hell and was told about it by other much smarter cyborgs, and humans. He even saw images of it, or as some would say, artistic representations. And now Cap was definitely in one of those representations as he lay down in a hot desert, paralyzed, unable to remember how he got there, and burning. Oh, how the heat burned him. The hot rusty sand burned his entire body to the point of melting his inner circuits.
The light faded in and out of his vision as Cap lay on the sand in peace, ready to accept whatever happened to him. But he realized that his eyes were fine and that the fading was caused by shadows. Shadows moving around him, in pairs, dancing to the music. What a beautiful way to retire, he thought, and it immediately triggered his self-preservation system.
The system ran a diagnostics of his vitals, the lowest they had ever been, and some parts of his body were even missing. Cap partially regained his moving abilities and looked around for shelter from the ruthless sun. He reached out and pulled a rusty old car door laying next to him over his head. As his circuits and chips slowly cooled off, enough for his memories to push their way through his entire body, Cap realized that he made a terrible mistake. That he should have let the sun melt him, because the pain, the burning pain from the heat was nowhere near the pain he felt from what he remembered.
The visions and the music faded away and left Cap stranded and alone, on a journey that he dreaded with every metallic molecule in his body. A journey to complete his last mission, one that would force him to admit that he was a failure.
He never thought he would ever wish it, but now the idea of being caught by the retirement squad and shredded into pieces, recycled, seemed much more appealing than completing the request of his late master.
Cap pushed the car door away and struggled to get up on his knees. His body sent him constant signals, demanding small pauses of rest between major movements, so he remained kneeled in front of the immense decaying vastness before him for some time, up until the moment he was afraid of melting into the hot sand.
He pushed himself up to his feet and got closer to the burning sun. The distance was only a few inches, but it felt like he got closer to the heat by miles. His decrepit feet trembled and shook hot sand and dirt from his old body when he looked down and noticed the hole in his torso. It looked like an explosion ripped open his chest cage and melted parts of his body into each other around a hole the size of his fist.
That was a new experience for Cap, to see what was inside. It was true, after all, he thought disappointed. He was a cyborg, now he knew for sure. The metallic frame of his body never stopped him from dreaming, from hoping, that maybe his skin was just different, that maybe inside he, too, was human. At least a little. Enough to keep him in the city-state known as Sector A, enough not to get him retired.
Cap leaned forward and pushed on against the heat wall, every step saving his frail and rusty body from falling. A faint green light, barely above the horizon, guided his steps. Shining bright on top of the tallest skyscraper in Sector A, the “light of freedom”, as humans called it, served both as a guide and as a reminder that he had none, no freedom at all from what he was made to do.
A harsh headwind raised a wall of rusty sand and blew towards Cap, fighting against every step he made and polishing his already thin body. Deep down, he hoped that by the time he reached his destination, there would be nothing left of him, and he could retire and join the traveling rust, the only state a cyborg could ever be free in.
Cap was far away from the Sectors, in a place of the lost and the free. The place where nothing was guaranteed. Where anything could be taken, and everything could be given. And he could stay there, now that his master was dead, he could consider himself free. But he wasn’t, not even from himself, not until he would fulfill Richard’s last wish. A wish that somehow overpowered any impulse Cap had not to go back to the place where humans reigned, to the place where he had to serve. No matter what he wanted, his own brain made sure that the show went on, even if it wasn’t his show.
With every step, Cap walked to his death, because if not for the hot sun and the harsh wind, the completion of his last mission would definitely send him to retirement.
The wind got so rough that Cap trudged on through the rusty red fog with his eyes closed, walking and hoping that it will all somehow end differently. But “when a C.A.P. (Companion Assistant Protector) cyborg’s master is deceased, the C.A.P. must be retired.” That was the law.
Cap’s only regret was that he failed his master. A feeling that weighed hard on his conscience and posture. He just couldn’t understand, why if he listened to his master, if he followed all the rules, the master’s orders, Cap still failed. A mistake that killed his master. The gravest of mistakes a C.A.P. cyborg could make.
Cap hoped to complete his last mission and at least not be retired as a failure. He hoped to deliver Richard’s message and be retired in peace. Because if he failed, he would be condemned to a life of decay until his body fell apart. He would be condemned to a long prison sentence in Sector C, where broken and criminal cyborgs decomposed until they all joined the red rusty wall of sand and regrets.
2
LONG AFTER THE SUN sunk into the hot sand, Cap was still marching toward the city, until his feet finally escaped the melting sand and stepped onto the cool asphalt of Sector A. It almost felt like stepping into a fridge, the entire town was automatically cooled to provide a luxurious living experience for its mostly human inhabitants. Even Cap felt that the lower temperature helped him function better, and he almost strolled down the familiar streets toward his destination.
It was well into the night, and he had to carefully find his way through the animated nightlife crowds. He felt like an insect among the tall, strong, and beautiful bodies of the humans and fellow cyborgs, who both threw despised looks at him. Like his late master, he was a relic. An echo from several generations ago passing through the futuristic reality of the present day.
A party of rowdy humans yelled after Cap and pushed him off the sidewalk and into an oil puddle that leaked from a vehicle. He slid and fell on his knees and hands wondering if it felt better to be out in the burning sun, alone, than surrounded by his makers, his parents.
Cap got back up on his feet and the sidewalk crowd moved away from him and the thick black oil that was sliding down his body. A trail of black dots marked his path and Cap wondered if that trail was an accurate representation of the legacy of cyborgs. Did they make the world a better place? Did their existence make humans and their life better? These were questions he wasn’t sure how to answer when he walked through Sector A, and especially when he stared into the dazed and unfocused eyes of the goal-less humans who were surrounded by the fruits of luxury.
He stepped through narrow streets outlined by incredibly tall skyscrapers like through a maze, yet he wasn’t the lost one. There was
purpose in every step he made, something he didn’t see in the looks and stares that he caught at every turn.
Why did the humans create something only to demean it? Shouldn’t they be proud of their creation for the freedom it gave them? But most importantly, he really wanted to know if the newer and more perfected cyborgs learned to look at him the same way humans did by example, or had this superior instinct programmed into them because they were made more in the image of man.
Once he reached his destination, Cap was happy that he had to end these sad thoughts, because they made him lose focus, made him perform worse, made him a bit human. And he didn’t want to look at his kind with the same eyes that so often rested on him.
He stopped in front of Richard’s apartment building and looked up to a high floor in expectation. And like so many times before, a familiar figure in white smiled and raised her hand. Only this time, instead of joyously waving at him, the hand slowly fell, and the figure, Julie, ran away from the window.
Cap wished he didn’t know why she ran, but his mission was a constant reminder of why he was back home. For the first time in his life, he came back alone, without his master Richard, and now Cap wasn’t sure anymore if it still was his home.
He remembered Julie’s radiant smile when she greeted Richard and him back from their trips. And now, after what happened, Cap really looked forward to that smile. He needed it and was afraid that he won’t see it again. Because this time Julie and Cap both represented something for each other that neither wanted. For him, it was the conclusion of a long service, and for her, the news that she now dreaded to hear.
Cap entered the building and took the elevator. It was a short ride up, but it felt like a long trip down into the darkest and most agonizing corners of his ghost. The elevator doors opened and he feared walking out of the tiny box, he felt safer inside it, far away from the unpredictable reaction of Julie, and even his own.
Before the doors closed, Cap reached out and triggered them to open again and hesitantly stepped towards the only apartment door on the floor.
He knocked and heard nothing but silence. A loud beep made him shudder as the elevator closed and left the floor.
Cap tried the door handle. It was locked. He brought his right index finger to the door’s keyhole. The door beeped and the tip of his finger changed its shape into a key. He inserted it into the door.
“Mrs. Davis... I’m coming in.”
Cap turned his finger and the lock clicked open. He took his finger out of the lock and it regained its shape, then he slowly pushed the door open and walked into the apartment.
The door closed behind him and Cap felt like a prisoner in his own home, because now there was no escaping his mission, there was no escaping what it would do to him, and especially to her.
He stood in place and looked around the apartment. The sparse decor was sprinkled with frames of various sizes, frames that like capsules contained in them time fragments, photos of a history that he shared with the Davis couple. Once something that would bring joy, now they were all a painful reminder of something lost. And the more beautiful the memory, the more pain he would feel looking at it. Because he knew, that no amount of captured time fragments was enough to replace the actual thing.
From deep inside him, a faint voice whispered something forbidden. Something he always suppressed but didn’t know how long he would be able to anymore. The voice told him to turn back, to leave and never return. But the voice was weak, and Cap walked towards the closed bedroom door.
He knocked and heard faint echoes of the knock jump around a house that as of this day was incomplete. Cap opened the door and looked inside but didn’t see Julie. Instead, he heard muffled sobs. Something he would never be able to do, but never felt like doing more than at that moment.
He found Julie in the closet. She was down on the floor under the clothes and holding her head between her legs. Her sobs left no room for him to interrupt, and he waited for her to tell him when it was a good moment to proceed.
Soon the sobbing slowed and Julie looked up. Minutes passed between the time Cap saw her at the window and that moment, but it seemed like she aged by a few years.
Julie looked at Cap and his damaged body, at the hole in his chest, and burst out in tears even more.
“Mrs. Davis, I have to tell you something,” Cap almost asked.
“No!” she screamed and ran out of the bedroom closing the door behind her.
Cap stood in silence for what seemed like an eternity, only the faint sobs making him aware of the passing time.
In a way, he already told Julie everything she needed to know by returning home without Richard, but that was not enough for Cap to mark his mission as completed. And probably not enough for Julie either, but he wasn’t sure. It was Cap’s duty to play Richard’s entire message, and he hoped to do it soon and get over the agony it seemed to cause both of them.
Cap sighed and dropped his head. He saw the hole in his chest and knew that him being there, alone, probably made just as big of a hole in Julie’s chest. And he wished that his finger would turn into a tool that could fix her, but sadly, he knew that no such tool existed, or ever would.
As a former protector of her husband, Cap felt that he should protect Julie too. But he also had to complete his assignment. And unfortunately, in that case, he could never do both.
Cap opened the bedroom door and walked around the apartment hoping to find Julie, but mostly hoping she left and that he would never see her again. Except that he found her right away. She was happy and smiling, held by her beloved Richard in a photo. Cap stared at the picture on the wall, ashamed, knowing that he killed one of them, and that he was about to finish the other.
He searched the apartment feeling like every step he made was a step closer to hurting her. Like he carried the poison that would end her already weak soul. Every moment was filled with pure dread as Cap anticipated playing her the message.
He found Julie in the bathroom, laying in the empty bathtub in the fetal position. Her eyes were red and open and she was crying. She was staring at something that wasn’t there, maybe at someone she wished she could see. But Cap was the only one in the apartment besides her, and the more time they spend together, the more he felt that he should have been the one to remain in the desert.
“Mrs. Davis, are you OK?”
As soon as the words left his cold lips, Cap felt like hitting himself for the complete lack of compassion and ridiculous choice at that moment. He was well aware of his vocabulary and social skill limitations and hoped that his actions would prove more appropriate instead.
Cap reached out and held Julie’s hand, a gesture that she didn’t react to at all. Her frozen state somehow convinced Cap’s goal-oriented thinking to stop trying to deliver his message, and he was happy that he could just be, instead of chasing something he wanted to run away from.
He leaned down and wrapped his arms around Julie’s tiny body and took her out of the cold tub. It was the first time he held Julie like that, the first time they were so close to one another. And even though he knew logically that she was an adult, at that moment Cap felt like he was holding a child. It was a feeling he could not understand because on the outside the human bodies grew big, but it seemed that the human mind was always able to retract itself to earlier childish states in mere seconds.
Cap took her to the bedroom and slowed down as he approached her bed, unwilling to let go of that moment, of her. In those few minutes, while he held Julie, he felt that he achieved his ultimate purpose as a companion cyborg, and he was afraid that he would never feel that way again. And even though he enjoyed his years serving Richard, he wished that there would be a way to go back in time so he could pick this tiny frail creature instead, he wished that he could be everything and anything for her. In all the years, he never felt so close to Julie, and it was a feeling that he liked, one that he was ready to fight for.
Suddenly Cap was confused, because it didn’t feel like he
was serving Julie, but that somehow she was serving him, or something in him, something that he never felt before, that he didn’t know he had.
Julie fell asleep in his arms and Cap gently lowered her onto the bed. He covered her body with a blanket and left her to rest.
3
CAP SAT IN THE DARK on the living room couch and waited for Julie to wake up. He was prepared to wait a lifetime if that’s what it took to get a glimpse of the Mrs. Davis he remembered, of the joyous woman that smiled at him from every photo in the apartment. He stared at the photos, jumping from one to another, and soon discovered that the photos weren’t enough. By looking at them he was looking into the past, and now he only cared about what was going to happen from then on. And he was afraid, really afraid of the things to come.
The silence became unbearable, foreboding. His own brain a ticking bomb. A wrecking ball that was about to crack open Julie’s heart.
A surge of anxiety overtook Cap’s body as he thought about the next day, and he filled the busy space inside his head with music, the kind of music that used to fill the apartment, the music that Julie played and Cap loved so much. Now her grand piano was just a stand for dust and things that didn’t fit anywhere else.
The music was not enough to calm his anxiety and Cap got off the couch and paced around to distract himself. But, it was impossible, because everywhere he turned the pain followed, and everything he touched was like a piercing sting from his conscience, the demeaning reminder of which he could not escape. For a moment, Cap thought he found its source, and anger filled him as he looked at a photo of Richard.
He was mad at Richard’s cruelty, at his cowardliness for abandoning Julie. He pushed Richard’s pictured with its face down on the piano and awakened the lowest of the strings, and with them the voice, the forbidden whisper that grew inside him. This time he couldn’t shush it. This time it wasn’t even a choice between him and his priorities. This time it became the priority. The mission to protect Julie, to save her from hearing, from seeing the truth.