The androids set him against the outline of a man. Machine sounds chittered and the soldier’s head become cold. It was hard to concentrate. He did not know how much time passed. There was a click.
The soldier sagged away from the outline of a man, from the greater machine behind it. The androids grabbed his arms and marched him toward a hatch.
“What are they doing?” the soldier shouted.
“We desire to inspect the obedience chip directly,” the Web-Mind said. “Now, cease your chatter. This might be painful.”
The soldier struggled, but the androids easily overpowered him. The marched him through the great hatch, down the hall and into a smaller room, pushing him face-first onto a medical table.
“No.”
“Gas him,” the Web-Mind said from a wall speaker.
The soldier held his breath. It didn’t matter. He passed out soon enough.
***
A mechanical arm lowered with a tiny buzz saw on the end. Clamps held Cade’s head in place. The saw buzzed and delicately cut away at his skull exactly where the Group Six technicians on Earth had done so months before. Another mechanical arm lowered; this one possessed grippers. Gently, it took hold of the tiny device in Cade’s exposed gray matter. It tugged—
Cade’s body spasmed.
The arm quit pulling.
The androids left. Soon enough they returned, marching the white-furred old one, the Varg who had spoken to Cade. The old one’s eyes rolled this way and that as he whimpered.
The Web-Mind spoke to the old one in the Varg tongue.
The old one stared at Cade, recognizing him. While the androids held him, the old one leaned toward the sky scum on the table. The human was a prisoner to the abomination. Maybe—
The old one concentrated.
The mechanical arm with the grippers tugged again. It drew the tiny device from Cade’s brain, with nearly invisible fibers pulling out of his gray matter. For whatever reason, Cade did not spasm, but lay still as he continued to breathe.
A third armed lowered with a stopper. One drop, two of a golden liquid touched and spread out in the area where the chip had been removed from the brain.
“Remove the Varg,” the Web-Mind said.
The androids marched the old one toward an open hatch, which closed behind them.
The gripper rose toward the ceiling, taking the ancient obedience chip and trailing fibers with it. The other two arms worked on replacing the tiny piece of skull, spraying it with quick-heal.
Afterward, androids appeared with the floating gurney, placing Cade on it and taking him away.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The soldier awoke in a small sterile cell. It had a steel cot, sink, toilet and embedded light in the ceiling. He was badly disoriented. He couldn’t remember what mission they just completed. It must have gone wrong, as he was alone in here. Had the planet they invaded possessed viruses or…
The soldier rubbed the front of his face. Something had gone wrong, but not in a military, strategic sense. He had been dreaming earlier of the strangest fate: that he’d survived the Great War and awoke over a thousand years in the future.
The soldier swung his legs over the cot. He reached behind his head and fingered—he had a lump there, indicating recent surgery.
His heart began beating wildly. Had cyborgs captured him? Had they inserted an obedience chip into his brain and—?
“This can’t be,” the soldier said softly.
He rose to his feet, staggering to the—he looked around. He couldn’t spy a cell door. He checked his clothes—the garments of an ordinary spaceman.
Stumbling two steps, he sank onto the cot and put his face in his hands. Had he dreamt about waking up from a cryo-unit on Helos in the Rigel System? Had he really taken a scout to the Avalon System?
“I’m not dreaming this,” he whispered.
The soldier’s throat constricted. But…that would mean he’d been in a Federation stasis unit for—the soldier groaned. His heart was racing, and he found it difficult to breathe. He remembered the war against the cyborgs, his many actions and his—
Moisture leaked from the soldier’s eyes. He recalled his wife, his dear wife Raina that he loved more than life itself. She’d entered a stasis unit. They had been about to begin a long journey of many light-years, as they were going on furlough. Had something happened to the transport vessel? The soldier remembered Jack Brune. They had each led a Force in Second Command, Battle Unit 175.
Force-Leader Marcus Cade’s fingers clawed against his face. Marcus was his first name. He willed himself to calm down so he could think this through. This was reality. He’d been carrying a cyborg obedience chip in his brain for some time. Group Six of Earth had put it there. That chip blocked his memories, or most of them at least. Now, the chip was gone. A Web-Mind had collected it.
His hands dropped away as his mouth opened. He was in a Web-Mind’s stronghold. A Web-Mind was the ultimate creation in the cyborg hierarchy. It took hundreds of people, peeling away the brain tissues and planting them on sheets in special domes—
The soldier’s cheeks bulged as he clamped his teeth together. He knew now why he’d wanted to come to Avalon IV. Tara Alor had woken from a stasis unit. His clouded mind had taken his greatest desire—to be reunited with his beloved wife—and used it to construct a keen hope.
Now…
Think. You have to think.
If he’d survived the centuries in a stasis unit, and if Jack Brune had survived all this time, surely his wife had as well. That was why he’d had sexual feelings upon first stumbling upon Alor. In his deepest thoughts, he’d thought he was about to rejoin his wife.
Okay. His wife might still be alive. In fact, he gave it high odds. If he could survive the Web-Mind and escape Avalon IV, he was going to scour the galaxy searching for his beloved. The first and best bet would be getting back to Earth and dealing with Director G.T. Titus of Group Six.
“First things first,” the soldier said softly.
A Web-Mind ran cyborgs. From what he’d learned as a Group Six operative, cyborgs hadn’t survived the Great War. It seemed as if most of the Ultras hadn’t either.
He was an Ultra, and Tara Alor had been correct. He was a Soldier Centurion Grade, genetically designed to operate among regular humans, to infiltrate among them if need be. That was why he seemed so ordinary, if stronger and faster.
He touched the back of his head again. How had he survived the extraction of a cyborg obedience chip? Ultra Command had been searching for an answer to that for—
The soldier shook his head. He needed to forget about Ultra Command, or Cyborg GHQ for that matter. The war was over. The Federation had become the Old Federation, a distant legend. He was over a thousand years in the future, a grim, dark future where humanity had just started climbing up from the ashes of the ancient conflict.
None of that mattered to him down here. He was on a proscribed planet, the Concord’s Patrol enforcing the proscription. The Concord was the new guys.
“Okay, okay,” the soldier said. He was getting a grasp on the real situation. His beloved was out there somewhere, probably wondering what had happened to him. Either that or she was still under, in stasis, like Sleeping Beauty.
The soldier smiled, as that made him Prince Charming. He had to find Sleeping Beauty and wake her up to the future.
The soldier stood, pacing off the dimensions of his cell. According to his recent recollection, the Web-Mind had sounded off, really off. Maybe the golden draught—
The soldier felt his torso. He had been near death, and that healing elixir had brought him back. He cracked his knuckles. Without his memories, he’d been fighting with one proverbial arm tied behind his back. Now, he was going to do things right, and that meant…
He wasn’t sure yet.
He sat on the cot again. Before, he hadn’t been able to connect all the dots, see all the pieces to the puzzle. Now, he had more than his wits again, he had his memories,
his training—and knowledge about cyborgs.
What did he know? The tech company people had wanted Brune and then him on Avalon IV. They wanted the obedience chip, certainly, but they had also wanted Brune or him without the chip. That was odd. A Web-Mind would have no compunction about murdering him to extract the chip. What did he possess without the chip that that Web-Mind or Tara Alor wouldn’t already have?
He and Brune were Ultras, lower-level Ultras to be sure. He and Brune also had memories of the old days: at least once the chip was removed.
The soldier snapped his fingers.
A previously invisible cell door slid up. The soldier found himself staring at two gleaming androids. They entered the tiny cell.
“If you lead the way, I’ll follow you,” he said.
The androids ignored the words, grasping him by the arms and jerking him to his feet. They turned and marched, taking him with them.
Here we go, the soldier thought. Now, I’m going to learn the worst.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The androids marched through the corridors of the crypt, taking the soldier to an already open hatch. To the soldier’s surprise, parts to an intricate machine lay on the floor. Wires ran from the machine to a bulky chair with an enclosed helmet at the top. One could lower or raise the helmet, putting it on anyone who sat in the chair. Tara Alor worked on the machine, her hands inside it adjusting something.
She looked up at them, scowling a moment later. “I said bring him once I fixed the machine. It’s not ready yet, you dolts.”
“I find myself impatient to get on with it,” the Web-Mind said through a wall speaker. “The obedience chip contained flaws. It is in poor condition and it is the only one I have.”
“What can you expect from something over twelve hundred years old?” Tara asked.
“This is a new development,” the Web-Mind said. “How do you know the chip’s age so precisely?”
“I don’t,” Tara said. “I just got tired of saying a thousand years all the time.”
“That is a dubious reason,” the Web-Mind said. “Are you attempting to conceal information from me?”
“Of course she is,” the soldier said. “Can’t you see she’s using you? She works for the tech company. They want to tear you apart in order to see what makes you tick.”
Tara stared at Cade as her hands moved out of the machine’s open compartment. Her grip tightened around a small metal instrument. The instrument possessed a sharp point.
“Notice how she’s getting worked up,” the soldier said. “She’s angry with me because she wants to conceal the truth from you.”
“Silence,” Tara said coldly.
“You do seem agitated,” the Web-Mind said.
“He’s the subject,” she said. “He’ll say or do anything to escape his fate.”
“Does he know his fate?” the Web-Mind asked.
“He can guess, I’m sure,” Tara said. “Never forget that he’s a trained Ultra.”
“Yes, you have a point,” the Web-Mind said. “It was the reason I agreed to your idea. I find that I have forgotten too much. The elixir kept my brain tissues in wonderful repair. The cost has been a loss of too much knowledge.”
“I wouldn’t tell him that,” she said.
“I’m telling you,” the Web-Mind said. “But I understand your concern. It is legitimate. Subject, have you been listening to us?”
“I have,” the soldier said.
“You do not have my best interests at heart. Thus, what you suggest—”
“I beg to differ,” the soldier said, interrupting. “A residue effect of the obedience chip compels me to say that Tara Alor is your enemy. She pretends friendship while—”
“Silence!” she said, rushing him with the metal tool held high.
“Halt,” the Web-Mind said.
Tara didn’t halt, but brought the metal tool down in a slash, aiming for the soldier’s face. He twisted back, hampered by the androids who continued to hold his arms. The metal tip hissed past his face, and the androids staggered back because of his struggles. Tara’s features contorted, and she almost lunged at him to stab with the tool. At the last second, she twisted away, dodging back. Maybe she understood his plan. The soldier’s right boot flew upward as he lashed out, but her actions saved her from a kick in the head.
She backpedaled farther. “Did you see that?”
“I did indeed,” the Web-Mind said. “He is dangerous.”
The soldier noticed a small camera up on the ceiling.
“He is also quick,” the Web-Mind said. “I suggest you practice greater control of your emotions. An X-ship pilot does not let seething rage or other troublesome emotions bind her to foolishness. Witnessing you in action troubles me.”
“Time has erased her special modifications,” the soldier said.
Tara’s right forearm tensed once more as she gripped the metal tool harder.
“Do you have a retraining chamber?” the soldier asked.
“Alas, I do not,” said the Web-Mind. “Tara Alor, are you compromised?”
“I am redirected by your comment,” she said, nodding. “I thank you for the rebuke, Web-Mind. I had not realized the extent of my emotionalism. I yearn for retraining.”
“Ah. Hearing that pleases me,” the Web-Mind said. “Do you see, Ultra? She is contrite. It is likely time has eroded certain skills and training although she is still a cyborg in deed and in outlook. I understand that I am badly needed in this future era.”
“Then you don’t suspect her of duplicity?” the soldier asked.
“I always weigh and analyze,” the Web-Mind said. “In truth, I suspect you of subterfuge. Alor is correct. The coming process will drain your mind of memories. The pilot—Tara Alor—has suggested I relearn old truths through you. Your mind holds ancient memories. Since I have no further need of you, you are disposable. It is only your memories I desire. The mind probe will drain them from you, leaving you an imbecilic husk. I have no need for retards. Thus, you will die after the process is complete.”
“The formerly embedded obedience chip would have interfered with the mind probe?” the soldier asked.
“That is correct,” the Web-Mind said. “I must say that you are taking your coming demise quite well. What is the reason for it?”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll keep the reason to myself,” the soldier said.
“That is a sorry attitude to take,” the Web-Mind said. “I can make your final hours horrifically painful—or painless. Do you comprehend?”
“The fact that you’re about to die makes my passing easier,” the soldier said. “I know Tara Alor is using you. The thought calms me. The fact you’re too stupid or naïve to realize the truth is even funnier.”
The Web-Mind did not respond.
“He’s saying whatever he can to avoid his fate,” Tara said.
“The thought has occurred to me,” the Web-Mind said dryly. “Did you think I wouldn’t realize that?”
“Since she’s already tricked you once,” the soldier said, “she must feel that you’re essentially an idiot. Her attitude proves my point.”
Instead of gripping her tool even harder, Tara eased her hold, threw back her head and laughed. To the soldier, it sounded forced.
“What is that noise?” the Web-Mind asked.
“Laughter,” Tara said.
“What is the meaning of it?”
“Your gullibility,” the soldier said.
“Is this true?” the Web-Mind asked.
“No,” Tara said. “The soldier is cunning, more than I would have suspected. Remember, the Ultras were clever tacticians. In this case, he is attempting to use his words as weapons, since he can’t do anything else.”
“That’s just the point,” the Web-Mind said. “I do not remember enough. That alien golden draught did its task too well.”
“Then, permit me to point out that the soldier is employing a primitive tactic,” Tara said, “trying to pit his enemies
against each other. Clearly, I serve you. I am an X-ship pilot. I am myself a cyborg as you pointed out. The…tech company has foolish human executives. It was Rohan Mars and those like him who stumbled upon ancient cyborg coding and the coordinates of Avalon IV.”
“How can that be?” the Web-Mind asked.
“Uh, allow me to restate that,” Tara said. “Some scientists working for the company found ancient cyborg equipment. They used it to make superior androids, unwittingly giving them ancient cyborg coding. Rohan seeks his master, a Web-Mind, in this instance, you. That is why he sent me to the planet.”
“She’s lying, and I can prove it,” the soldier said.
“Please, Web-Mind,” Tara said, “let’s discuss this without his interference. He’s a spy, looking for opportunities to slow things down. As you said earlier, he’s terrified of having his memories sucked out of his brain. He’ll do and say anything to avoid that fate.”
“The mind probe is still broken,” the Web-Mind said. “You assured me you could repair it just as you’ve been repairing the X-ship.”
“Perhaps I can help,” the soldier said.
“Do you see, Web-Mind?” Tara asked. “That isn’t a genuine offer. He wants to wreck the equipment and save himself.”
“Of course, I see that,” the Web-Mind said. “I am troubled by your belief that I am a simpleton.”
“I’m not,” the soldier said. “It proves she’s been tricking you all down the line and believes she can keep doing so.”
Tara’s shoulders hunched and she rubbed her neck. “Web-Mind, I can’t fix the mind probe with him here. Could I please work in solitude?”
“That is reasonable,” the Web-Mind said.
The androids forced the soldier out of the chamber. The hatch shut behind them. They marched him toward his cell.
“Web-Mind,” the soldier said. “I just had an idea.”
There was no answer.
“Web-Mind, can you hear me?”
“Of course I can hear you. I control the entire underground network. I’m simply not interested in a prisoner’s ideas.”
The Soldier: The X-Ship Page 22