Tarl filled another syringe and repaired the broken toe, then continued his examination, finding a torn ligament in Sabre's hip and a ripped tendon in his left elbow. Finally he inspected Sabre's skull and repaired a cracked nasal bone. He sat back with a sigh, rubbing his neck.
"All done. Good as new, bud."
Tarl switched off the drip, replaced the empty bag and realised that he had been working on the cyber for four hours. Rolling his chair over to the monitor, he checked the control unit's readouts. Sabre's bio-status was fifty-six per cent, his heart rate had returned to the normal resting rate of thirty beats per minute, and his blood pressure was normal. Unplugging the access cable from the control unit, he switched the monitor off and turned to his patient.
"How do you feel now?"
A slight smile tugged at Sabre's lips. "Like a piece of equipment."
"You know, normal people get fixed in pretty much the same way, with injections and drips and stitches."
"Normal people."
"People with no cybernetic enhancements."
"Ah." Sabre sat up and swung his legs off the couch. "Or alien DNA."
"Yeah."
The cyber flexed his right hand and rotated his arm, finding his shoulder's mobility restored. "Good job, bud." He held out his hand. "Thanks."
Tarl eyed the proffered hand, then his eyes flicked up to meet Sabre's, trying to fathom his mood. Knowing what a cyber could do, he was a little wary of grasping a hand that could be held out in genuine friendship, or, knowing Sabre, as punishment for all the needle pricks.
Sabre smiled. "You don't trust me."
"Look, I know the injections hurt, but -"
"You don't trust me."
Tarl sighed and grasped the cyber's hand, which closed on his with only enough force to grip his in a brief handclasp. Sabre snorted and chuckled when he released Tarl's hand, then leant forward and thumped him on the back hard enough to make him cough and groan.
"You had that coming."
Tarl groaned again, trying to rub his stinging back. "You're a bastard."
Sabre shrugged and nodded. "Probably." He glanced at the full drip bag attached to his arm. "I suppose you want me to lie here until this is finished now, too?"
"Yeah, one more bag will speed your recovery a lot."
The cyber lay down again, closing his eyes.
Chapter Seventeen
Tassin walked along a dim corridor, her heart fluttering. A servant had informed her of Sabre's waking only minutes ago, while she was bent over a pile of parchment, signing decrees and offers of alliance from Arlin's lords. She had been apprised of his whereabouts, and wished she could run to him. Servants stepped from her path, bowing, and she turned into a passage that led to an unused area of the castle, closed off many years ago. She had visited him every day while he had been unconscious, sat beside him and held his hand, hoping he would wake. Affairs of state took up most of her time, but whatever free time she had she spent at his bedside. She pushed open the third door along the passage and entered a bright room filled with modern equipment.
Sabre lay on a white, moulded plastic bed. Tarl removed a drip from his arm and took down the empty bag. Arriving at Sabre's side, she gazed down at him. His eyes glowed silver when they flicked up to meet hers. Spots of blood flecked his right shoulder, along with small round red areas. Her throat closed, and hot tears filled her eyes as she slid her arms around his neck and laid her cheek on his shoulder.
He tensed a little, but held her, rubbing her back. "Hey, it's okay, I'm fine. Tarl fixed me."
She gulped. "I'm just so glad you're all right."
"I'm all better, promise. Don't cry."
Tassin straightened, blinking. "I'm not crying."
"Right. Of course not; warrior queens don't cry."
"No, they don't."
"Good. You must have got dust in your eyes then."
She rubbed them. "It's dusty in those corridors."
Sabre sat up and studied her. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, fine." She hugged him again. "I was so worried about you."
"It was just a broken shoulder."
"No, I meant when you were fighting Dellon's men."
"Ah, right."
"I wanted to help you, but he wouldn't let me." Tassin drew back to glare at Tarl.
"Really? What did he do?"
"He manhandled me, dragged me around, and pushed me up a tree."
"Manhandled you?"
Tassin nodded, frowning. "He was rude."
"Was he now?" Sabre shot Tarl a narrow-eyed glance. "He pushed you up a tree?"
"And he dragged me around. I have bruises." She pushed up her sleeves, but her arms were unmarked. "I had them."
"Really." Sabre slid off the couch and turned to Tarl. "So why didn't you have him flogged?"
"It doesn't merit a flogging."
"It definitely merits something, though, don't you agree?"
"Yes." Tassin was a little uncertain now, glancing at Tarl, who looked from one to the other, his mouth open.
Sabre approached Tarl, his attitude menacing, and the luckless cyber tech jumped up and backed away, raising his hands.
"Hey, hang on, bud, I was keeping her safe, like you asked me to. She would have come running in here and got herself killed!"
"By shoving her around?"
"I didn't shove her!"
Sabre closed the gap when Tarl encountered the wall, and his hands shot out to grip the tech's shoulders. Tarl flinched, shook his head and tried to push Sabre away.
"Wait! Sabre, don't, I..."
Sabre yanked Tarl into a bear hug, and the tech’s air left him in a groan. Tassin was sure his ribs must have creaked in protest.
"Thanks bud." Sabre held him away and grinned, patting him on the shoulder, then gripped his neck and gave him a little shake.
Tarl clasped his ribs, looking confused and relieved.
Tassin's mouth dropped open in astonishment. "'Thanks, bud'?"
Sabre turned to her. "Absolutely. He kept you safe, like I asked him to."
"He gave me bruises!"
"I don't see any, and, even if he did, he must have had to, and I'll bet he had more than you."
"I did," Tarl agreed. "She slapped and scratched."
"I wanted to help you," she said, glaring at Tarl.
Sabre sighed and approached her. "All you'd have done was get in the middle of everything and caused more problems. You might have been hurt."
She frowned at him. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? I heard the laser shots coming from the castle, and...”
“Hey, hush.” Sabre drew her into his arms. “I know you were worried, but you mustn’t try to come to my rescue, okay? No matter how much you want to. If you do, I’ll just end up having to protect you as well, which makes it more difficult for me. Killing… Combat is what I’m designed for. I’m good at it.”
Tarl slipped out and closed the door behind him.
She hugged Sabre, shaking her head. “I can’t stop worrying about you, and you’re not invincible. Dellon might have killed you if I hadn’t got there when I did.”
"Not a chance. He was already defeated, he just didn’t know it yet, and his knights were finished. I relaxed when your men arrived; otherwise I’d have kept going long enough to finish them off, too."
“It looked to me a lot like he was trying to chop off your head.”
“He was, but I knew he couldn’t, and I knew when he tried, he’d lose his sword and then he’d be easier to kill. I had everything under control.”
Tassin held him tighter. “You’re just trying to stop me worrying about you next time, but there isn’t going to be a next time. I don’t ever want you to have to fight again.”
“That would be nice, but I don’t think Myon Two is going to give up any time soon. Now they know I have something they want, the gene sequence for fire-resistant skin, they’re going to come after me even more. They want to use me as a prototype, to show clients so they’l
l place orders and pay deposits for the new cybers that will be ready in twenty years’ time. Sooner, if they can retro fit it with a gene-splicing virus.”
She leant back to look up at him. “But you’re safe on Omega.”
“Like I said before, I don’t think the fact that this is a restricted world will stop them.”
“Then you’ll be safe in the castle.”
He shook his head. “Not if they send cybers.”
“So what are you saying? That it’s hopeless? After all we’ve been through to get you here, where I thought you’d be safe, they’re going to come and take you away again?”
Sabre hesitated, loath to alarm her further and ruin her triumph. “No. Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe they won’t. Maybe Fairen’s order will prevent them. Let’s hope for that, okay?”
“I will, but you had better not be thinking about leaving. You promised to stay, and if you leave I’ll just hunt you down again.”
He smiled. “I know.”
“Good.”
Tassin pulled him closer and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, her lips soft and warm. A sudden, powerful urge to lash out at her almost overwhelmed him, and he drew back and released her, rubbed his brow and encountered the cyber band. When she had hugged him earlier, he had discovered that the flashing light in his mind had returned, only now it was a red proximity warning, and much more intrusive. He had switched it off, but now he had this new, alarming compulsion that could only come from the control unit, and the fact that it was directed at Tassin perturbed him.
She frowned at him, clearly puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
"I don’t know." He gripped the brow band, the longing to rip it off that so often filled him stronger than ever.
“It’s that damned thing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Tassin sank down on the exam couch. “Is there no end to that thing’s… cruelties? What did it do to you now?”
“Maybe it was just a malfunction.”
“You’re not a damned machine.”
“Part of me is,” he said, and she slumped, her attitude despondent. Sabre sat beside her and enfolded her in his arms. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” She turned to him and hugged him. “I just wish you weren’t…”
“A cyborg?”
“Yeah. Maybe Tarl can help?”
“Maybe.”
Tassin drew back and glared at the control unit. “Please switch it off.”
“Why?”
She met his eyes. “Just to see what happens.”
“Nothing happens.” He looked away from her pleading gaze, and the control unit’s virtual dashboard and scanner information vanished as he turned it off.
“How do you feel now?”
“Empty.”
“You miss it?”
Sabre shrugged. “I guess so, in a way. I’m used to it. It’s like half of me is gone, now.”
“I thought you’d be glad to be rid of it.”
“I am, but… I don’t really feel complete without it. It’s part of who I am.”
Tassin shook her head. “It’s part of who you were. Without it, you’re entirely human. Isn’t that what you want to be?”
“I haven’t stopped being a cyborg just because I’ve switched off the control unit. Sure, I feel less like one, but it just makes me a crippled cyborg.”
She hesitated, looking doubtful. “I really don’t want you to be… Maybe you just need to get used to being without it.”
He took her hand, frowning at it. “You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me, then. Why would you want to keep something you hate?”
“It provides useful information… and it guides me.”
“How can you learn to be human when you’re being guided by a machine? Let’s ask Tarl.”
He nodded. “I will.”
“So call him.”
He looked up at her in alarm. “No, not now.”
“Why not?”
“You… I can’t tell him… with you here. You won’t like it.”
“You don’t know that. I might not mind it.”
He shook his head. “No, you definitely won’t like it.”
“I want to know.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“How can I help you if I don’t know what the problem is?”
Sabre realised that she was not going to give up. Tassin never did, and he could not lie to her. Neither could he tell her the whole truth, as that would certainly upset her, but he could tell her part of it. He just hoped she would not find even that too upsetting.
“You can’t help.” He sighed. "It gave me a proximity warning, okay? A red light. It used to be just an amber alert."
"What does that mean?"
"It reacted as if you’re a stranger."
"So, what, now it doesn’t like me?"
"No, it doesn’t have likes or dislikes, but something’s changed."
"You’re right, I don’t like it,” she said. “I really don’t want you to have warning lights flashing in your brain every time I come close to you. I thought that stopped after you got control of the brow band?"
"It did. It won’t do it again. I’ve stopped it now."
"Oh. Okay, good." She stood up. “I must go; I have a lot of work to do."
Tassin left, and Sabre bowed his head, pondering this new and unwelcome turn of events. Although he was able to stop the warning light, the urge to lash out at her was far more alarming. A minute later Tarl came in, his brows rising at Sabre’s despondent pose.
"What’s wrong, bud?" Sabre explained, and the cyber tech looked thoughtful. "If the spacer who loaned you to her told Myon Two that you had a relationship with a woman, perhaps they added something to the cyber's programming to prevent it from happening again, in the unlikely event that she succeeded in tracking you down and freeing you again."
"She swore she would, and, knowing Tassin, she would have told Manutim that, too, in no uncertain terms. Could it be another software patch?"
"It's possible.”
Sabre looked down at his hand, clenching it. "Could you find it?"
Tarl shook his head. "Bud, there are over five hundred terabytes of information and programming in the control unit. Searching through it would take years. There's no operating system as such, except the cyber itself. Why don't you just order it to find out?"
Sabre switched the control unit on and closed his eyes, concentrating on the streams of scrolling data that appeared in his mind at his command. He opened them again a second later.
"Nothing's been added, but something has been deleted."
"What?"
"Subroutine X783."
"Can you recover it?"
Sabre shook his head.
"Okay, lie down; let's see what I can do."
The cyber stretched out on the exam couch, and Tarl plugged the access cable into the edge of the brow band again. He tapped the keys on his console and studied the information that scrolled up his screen.
"I don't see it. How do you know it's been deleted?"
"There's an index marker in the DAT, but no data."
Tarl typed a command on the keypad. "The entire X series of subroutines is dedicated to biological functions and human interactions, but what harm could deleting one do?"
"How would I know? I'm just the tool."
"Okay, I've found the marker; let's see if I can restore the data." Tarl typed on the keyboard for several minutes, his brow furrowed in concentration, then nodded. "There, got it." He read the words that scrolled up the screen. "Oh, shit."
"What?"
"It's a passive response subroutine." He scowled. "Those bastards!"
"What?"
Tarl turned his stool to face Sabre. "There are tens of thousands of subroutines in the control unit, some for the most insignificant matters, and a few of them are vital."
"I don't need a lecture; just tell me what they did."
"
X783 is a minor subroutine that deals with contact, and what contact constitutes a threat and what doesn't. While cybers will only allow their owners to touch them, this is a safety feature for rare occasions when a stranger might get the urge to kiss a cyber, or hug him. It tells the cyber that in such a situation, if no threat is sensed, he shouldn't react with damaging force, but just a defensive measure, like pushing the person away. By deleting it, Cybercorp intended that you would be capable of doing serious harm to someone who gave you a kiss or hug. The lack of this information made the defensive subroutines, which your brain still uses as reference data, that much more... intrusive, I suppose. Without the passive response to contact, all you had were the active response subroutines."
“This must be why I had a proximity alert light every time Tassin was close to me, even when she owned the cyber or had command privilege.”
Tarl nodded. “Yeah, this would do it.”
“You've restored it now, though, right?"
"Yeah. They couldn't erase it without formatting the storage medium, and you can't format a brain. All they did was delete the path to it from the DAT in the control unit, which hid it from you, apparently."
“Why didn’t I know what they did?” Sabre asked.
“It was a minor programming change, not something that would be included in the cyber’s interface with the brain, although you found the missing link pretty easily when you looked for it.”
"How many passive response subroutines are there?"
"Over a five thousand, dealing with word phrases, hand gestures, eye movements, and all the different kinds of unintelligible noises people sometimes make. It has to deal with every aspect of human interaction, and it must know how to respond to every single one."
"So what should the cyber's response have been, to a kiss?"
Tarl shrugged. "From his owner, nothing, from a stranger, a push away."
Sabre sat up. "That's it."
"What?"
The Cyber Chronicles VII - Sabre Page 18