Marcus 582: Book Three of Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined

by Donna McDonald

  ***

  Military life had trained patience into him, but it hadn’t been a natural fit. He suffered more than anyone suspected each time he had to wait for something. Hours of tension left his face when the transmission he’d been anticipating finally came through and contained better news than he’d anticipated.

  He closed his eyes letting relief ease through him.

  “Peyton and King are on their way back. They have Rachel. She’s okay…as far as they know. She’s even talking.”

  Kyra lifted her head from her tea. “What about Nathan?”

  “Missing,” Marcus replied. “They also looked for a doctor and two women Rachel told them about. There was no sign of them, Nathan, or the muscle guys. They did discover an illegal conversion lab where Rachel had been worked on.”

  He rose from his chair and took his cup to the kitchen sanitizer. He placed it gently on the rack, being careful not to break the antique material of it. Turning, he narrowed his gaze.

  “I’m going after him. Nathan owns a fortune in tech toys. He’s not going to leave them behind.”

  “I don’t know about that, Marcus. Someone just abandoned a cyborg creation lab and never looked back,” Kyra said. “Why would Nathan come back for his toys?”

  “Because that’s what you do at his age when you’re not riding out the testosterone beast. You need all the distractions you can get.”

  Kyra chuckled. “I suppose you’ve got a point. You know you’re not far from that yourself.”

  Marcus smiled. “Farther than you think and probably farther than anyone knows. My son is going to be hitting puberty soon. She’s over a decade younger than me. I’m too old for her, aren’t I?”

  “If you’re talking about Rachel…no, you’re not. You’re going to age a lot slower because of your prosthetics and the pulses. You may feel like you’re too old for her now, but give it a few years and it will level out. She has nothing to keep her young. One day Rachel is going to look older than you and she’s going to hate that.”

  “What about on the inside?” Marcus asked. “I’ll always be more cyborg.”

  “No one knows what that means long term. You’re one of the originals, so you’re setting the bar. As your restorer, I can barely think about the short term. The best I could manage was to give you guys the chance to find out for yourselves what’s coming next. I’m sorry I didn’t get to this before you lost your wife and kids.”

  “That was going to happen anyway, Kyra. My wife didn’t want me to get the enhancements. I did them without her agreement because I felt I had no choice. Rachel might not want to be a cyborg herself, but she doesn’t seem to mind too much that I’m one—despite what she’s said to the contrary. I’m going to have to work on acting more normal around her. It’s not as easy for me as it is for Eric. Sometimes he doesn’t seem cyborg at all.”

  “Well few converted men are like Eric. Peyton certainly isn’t and I wouldn’t change him a bit. Keep in mind Rachel will also always be a cyborg too. I can’t undo what Brad did to her. It isn’t possible. The cybernetics are installed to replace the brain matter that’s removed for the panel. She is forever changed. Her only choice is to adapt, but I am sorry she hates it so much.”

  “Can I ask you a personal question about Rachel’s cybernetics?”

  Kyra nodded. “I suppose that’s okay given your relationship.”

  “If her speech capabilities are fixable, could Seetha calibrate her in a way that might allow her to sing?”

  “That’s a lovely idea…and the answer is that I don’t know. It would help if we had Rachel’s vocal resonant measurements. Musical instruments get tuned all the time. It seems like it would be possible to get her cybernetics to tune her vocal chords. I am certain Seetha would look into it if you asked her to. She adores Rachel.”

  “I know. I do too,” Marcus said.

  Kyra sighed. “Okay. I’m going to sound like your mother giving you advice for a minute, but I no longer care. The hardest thing I’ve seen most restored cyborgs have to learn to do is to allow themselves to seek their own happiness. The search for pleasure is innate in humans. It begins when we are innocent children. Yet most cyborgs I restore seem to feel unworthy of their happiness. I have not been able to determine if that comes from shame over having had organic parts replaced with cybernetics or simply from having been a soldier, period.”

  Marcus tilted his head and smiled. “The only reason I got the enhancements was because I was a soldier. Soldier and cyborg are interchangeable terms in my mind on both sides of it. I know what I am and I don’t regret it. I just regret all the pain I’ve caused people I care about.”

  “That’s exactly my point. Many normal, non-cyborg soldiers came home mentally and emotionally damaged from the fight for what we now call world peace. Don’t join their numbers, Marcus. You’ve paid a high enough price for your service. Let the rest go. You deserve to be happy. Of all people, you know how quickly it can be taken away.”

  “You’re right, Doc. You do sound like my mother.” Marcus walked to the table and bent down for a hug. “And I don’t mind…since my real mother is barely speaking to me. She hasn’t quite gotten used to the fact that I’m back from the dead—otherwise known as the Cyber Husband program.”

  “I’m sure she’ll come around,” Kyra said. “Now go. Report in to Peyton when you’re far enough away that he can’t stop you with his captain's mind-meld thing. I didn’t shut that ability off in him. He tracks you guys several times a day. I chastise him for it, but he doesn’t listen to me often. Beneath all those cybernetics, he’s a very typical male.”

  Grinning at how affectionate she sounded, Marcus kissed her cheek quickly before he bolted out the door.

  Chapter 14

  When UCN finally returned her call from two days ago, she had already returned to Norton. Now she paced in front of the conference room monitor, unable to sit when she was so agitated. The room was small and didn’t allow much room to prowl, especially not as agitated as she was. She made as much use of the space as possible, forcing the Chancellor’s gaze to track her as she walked.

  Peyton still hadn’t returned with Rachel, but he called and told her she was sleeping peacefully in the backseat of Seetha’s airjet. She wished her husband could have been present for this particular confrontation, but his absence was for the best of reasons.

  “Tell me something, Chancellor Owens. What do you think is going to happen if hundreds or thousands of intelligent young men, those who don’t want to spend time developing muscles naturally, get these mini-cybernetic conversions? I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. These naturally intelligent young men will either die of testosterone health issues before they’re fifty or become a slave to their hormonal urges and be of no real use to the world. If this kind of physical adjusting is allowed to haphazardly happen in our society, civilization will be thrown backwards to the point in our history where brute strength alone determined our leaders. And no offense, Chancellor, but that would not bode well for most of the males—and females—serving in the UCN. The value of intellectuals would become nil.”

  She glared when her nemesis snorted and rolled his eyes. But she’d also seen some alarm flash in them before his dramatic denial. She knew she had the attention of all those listening in to their conversation, even if it was reluctant, and even if no one wanted to admit she had a point.

  “Thirty black market cybernetic conversions are hardly a widespread trend, Dr. Winters. You’re over-reacting…as usual. Those few probably took a global vacation to some unregulated sector to get that sort of thing done. Women make global pilgrimages for questionable cosmetic adjustments all the time. Why are you so concerned about a handful of young men wanting to look better than their bodies might have ever allowed them to naturally?”

  “We have compiled a list of thirty official mini-conversions, all of which utilized registered Norton processors. Those serial numbers are in the UCN’s cyborg database. Thirty conversions Chanc
ellor, which is twenty-nine more than should ever have been allowed to happen. Not only is this trend alarming, using thirty Norton processors for this purpose is also criminal. Or do you want to tell me someone at the UCN signed off on the cybernetic components being used to convert those young men into muscled bodybuilders?”

  Kyra heard his sigh of defeat, but it didn’t satisfy her. He was purposely building a case against her argument. She watched him nod as he schooled his expression into what she’d come to regard as his political face.

  “I concede the use of government restricted parts is concerning. Are you sure the leak isn’t someone working on your team? Your people have the most ready access to cybernetic processors and chips.”

  Kyra snorted. “Yes, I’m sure. Everyone working for me has been investigated, even the ones I trust. One of my team members was recently stalked and assaulted by a new Norton employee who underwent a mini-conversion about six months ago. Now he’s mysteriously disappeared and his file cites some unexplained transfer to a still pending location. There is no doubt some collusion in this matter is occurring with Norton. I recommend all thirty young men be tracked down, apprehended, and questioned until we locate and arrest the source of their changes.”

  Silence filled the air for many long seconds after she finished her speech. Chancellor Owens didn’t answer at first. Instead, he stared at her and rubbed his chin. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She got the same uncomfortable feeling she’d had when he’d tried to bribe her into continuing the cyborg program work. Right behind that feeling, realization hit her stomach with a thud, making her feel stupid for not intuiting the truth sooner.

  Chancellor Owens knew exactly what was going on. The conniving bastard was just baiting her. Why? What the hell did he really want to know by engaging in this false debate? Why didn’t he just send her a written missive and push the topic off?

  Before she could think her new theory through completely, Kyra had her answer.

  “Tell me something, Dr. Winters. How is a black market cyber scientist manipulating the creator code? I thought you and Jackson Channing were supposed to be the only two people in existence who had the power to change the code in any way. We all know Dr. Smith managed to hack it, with questionable results of course, but at least he did manage to manipulate it. Now you’ve discovered yet another person who seems to have managed to tweak your super secret file. He’s done so quite proficiently it seems, since it’s been going on for several years without anyone knowing about these young men.”

  Kyra nodded, having no choice but to acknowledge his statements. She gripped the back of a conference table chair, squeezing the edge tightly. How she hated having to admit any of her secrets to the bastard sneering at her. However, the only way to build her case to the rest of the UCN chancellors was to finally…and officially…tell the world what she’d done.

  “I don’t know how it’s happening. My lack of understanding makes this situation all the more worrisome to me. The military chips were a backdoor into using the creator code for its purposes. The reason that works is because the base code on the military chip was made to coexist with the Cyber Soldier processor. The military chip was never being read as a problem. I’ve concluded Jackson set that connection up intentionally. I’m sure he trained whatever military coder modified the chip to achieve the devastating results we saw in Captain Talon. The military code uses a protocol to force it to be the one running with priority. I have recently made sure that will never happen in any of the restored cyborgs.”

  “I’m not following your explanation. Are you’re saying the new creator is using his own version of our military chips in these young men?”

  “No. I’ve actually seen the contents of one of the mini-conversion cybernetic panels. The mini-conversions are a different situation. The new cyborgs are running customized processors and even more customized chips which target specific physical and mental developments. While on the surface the code is indeed a hacked version, it is an elegant mess capable of running indefinitely without issue. It is my belief that the new pseudo-creator is no ordinary code hacker. His intelligence about cybernetics rivals mine. The only limitation he has is that he absolutely can’t tweak everything he wants without my half of the equation.”

  She squirmed as the Chancellor studied her in slack-jawed surprise. There was silence for a full minute while he digested what she was telling him. Or there was shock that she’d somehow managed to keep her strategic edge in her restoration work.

  “You’re either very shrewd for a scientist or very arrogant about your talents, Dr. Winters. At this point, I’m not sure which description fits you best. Could someone like Jackson Channing have done more to change the creator code than what you say this pseudo-creator has done with it?”

  “No,” Kyra answered, crossing her arms. “Even before Jackson and I divorced, I made sure he would never be able to do so. We had begun fighting about the ethics of what we’d done to the Cyber Soldiers years before we separated. His firm stance that cyborgs were no longer human made me stop trusting his professional judgment. I revised my part of the creator code and quietly disbursed it through Cyber Husband upgrades. By the time we actually dissolved our marital relationship several years after that decision, my new code was already running in all cyborgs. I adamantly refused to give him my half. Our original agreement was that neither one of us would have all the programming necessary to create new code. I simply made sure that was the case. I’m surprised he never mentioned it to you. I openly admitted it to him.”

  “Given the state of his mind at the end of our tenure with him, I’m surprised by that as well. Since we know he kept things from you, I’m guessing your husband didn’t trust you either. He never even mentioned you had disagreements professionally or otherwise, yet here you are today confessing your marital disharmony to us. It’s interesting to think your poor marriage might be the only reason no true creators have arisen to take yours or Dr. Channing’s place.”

  Kyra nodded tightly. He couldn’t be more surprised than she was by her confession. She hadn’t even told her new husband how deeply her rebellion had run.

  “Even if Jackson and I had been the best of lovers and friends in our personal relationship, I promise you I still would have taken the same precautions with any professional partner expressing such narrow views. It remains my belief that no one should have unlimited power over their fellow humans. As I’ve said many times, people are not commodities. Don’t you agree, Chancellor Owens? The UCN’s existence is to foster individual freedom, not technological slavery.”

  Kyra watched him nod for the benefit of the audience listening to their discussion. But in his gaze, she saw irritation with what she’d revealed—which could only mean one thing. When he and Chancellor Li had made their side agreement with Bradley Smith about taking over Jackson’s work, they really had thought Brad could make them new creator code. She’d always suspected it, but Owen’s frustrated gaze was a strong validation.

  When the silence stretched out for too long again, Kyra cleared her throat. “My recommendation in this matter is that the UCN consider instituting a global ban on all new cybernetic conversions. It won’t stop black market scientists, but any new cyborgs appearing afterward would make it easier to flush out the cyborg replicators and shut them down. Conversion labs are not cheap to build or maintain, as I’m sure you well know.”

  “Indeed,” Chancellor Owens said firmly. “Trust your recommendation will be duly discussed and some steps will be taken. Thank you for your honesty, Dr. Winters, even though it is coming rather late.”

  When the screen went blank, Kyra stayed where she was. Every instinct said Owens was well aware of the mini-conversions. If true, then the UCN was quietly sanctioning the cyber evolution Dan Masterson mentioned was already happening. Awareness of their duplicity made her feel old and sad and more regretful than ever about how she’d used her talents.

  She hadn’t even finished restoring all the Cyber So
ldiers yet. Were those men and women going to end up being mankind’s cybernetic guardians in the widespread cybernetic future she couldn’t seem to keep from happening to all of mankind?

  A tension headache took hold of her entire upper body making it nearly impossible to shake off the realizations she was coming to.

  But if she didn’t stop thinking about how dire it all was, she’d be incapacitated by the time she had to work on Rachel. She had to go back to the basics…back to what Peyton kept reminding her to do. She would focus on fixing one at a time until she’d restored all the ones she’d helped convert.

  Then…after that was done…they could look into rescuing the new ones. She just hoped the numbers stayed as low as they were at present.

  ***

  Rachel didn’t have her badge so she coded herself into the lab. Her first sight was of Seetha bent over Edward’s lap. With the exception of the tool in Seetha’s hand, the position looked so compromising, that it made her laugh. The sound of her voice echoed in the quiet lab. Two sets of startled gazes turned in her direction.