Authors: Eve Langlais
Aramus
(Cyborgs: More Than Machines, #4)
By
Eve Langlais
Copyright © March 2013, Eve Langlais
Cover Art by Amanda Kelsey © March 2013
Edited by
Devin Govaere
Copy Edited by
Amanda Pederick
Produced in Canada
Published by Eve Langlais
1606 Main Street, PO Box 151
Stittsville, Ontario, Canada, K2S1A3
ISBN: 978 – 1 – 927459 – 42 - 3
Aramus
is a work of fiction and the characters, events and dialogue found within the story are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, either living or deceased, is completely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or shared in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to digital copying, file sharing, audio recording, email and printing without permission in writing from the author.
Wiping out humanity is his number one objective—until he meets
her
.
Aramus has no patience or sympathy for the excuses humanity uses to hunt cyborgs down and eradicate them. He’s put up with too much at their hands to ever forgive and forget. But all that changes when he rescues a fragile human doctor who refuses to see him as a machine. She teaches him that perhaps not all emotions are a weakness and that love can make even a cynical cyborg like him stronger.
And for those who
’d mock his change of view or threaten his female? Go ahead. His iron knuckles could use some exercise.
In a time before the cyborg liberation.
The clenched fist connected with his cheek, a sturdy blow imparting decent impact and strength behind it. It wasn’t enough to budge him from his post, nor did he flinch or blink.
“Holy fuck! The bastard’s face is made of steel,”
complained the military grunt as he shook his stinging fingers.
“Must weigh a ton too,” observed another soldier who
stood nearby, a goading spectator since the bored crewmen began their antics. “You should have knocked him on his ass for sure with that one.”
B351GI didn’t
twitch a single muscle or verbally respond as they discussed their attempts to harm and distract him from his current task. Cyborgs knew how to obey.
Guard the door. Do not let anyone enter.
He took his orders seriously. None would pass the perimeter while he stood watch. His directive, however, did not give instructions on how to deal with recruits who seemed to find it entertaining to see how much abuse his cyborg frame could take.
The answer?
He could handle a lot, or at least more than these humans could inflict with their fleshy limbs backed by unenhanced muscles.
“Hey, Freddy, drop kick him like you did that guy last week when we raided that rebelling colony.”
“Yeah, that was fucking cool,” the last member of the taunting trio added. “You tossed that farmer at least six feet.” He mimed a useless kick paired with a high pitched, “Hi-ya!”
A
nalysis of the movement deemed it unlikely that a human would have been thrown as mentioned unless done in a very low gravity area.
Freddy, a pockmarked human who did his uniform a disservice by acting in a fashion contrary to rules and regulations
, did not need further encouragement. He took a step back and hopped about in place as if afflicted with a nervous system malfunction before twirling and swinging out with his foot. The steel-toed combat boot hit B351GI in the middle of his chest.
Again, had he possessed the fragile flesh and rib structure of a regular human, he would have probably suffered grievous injury. His onboard BCI
—short for brain computer interface—calculated the chances of a civilian surviving such a blow at less than fifteen percent. But he was cyborg, part biological organism, part machine. He neither dented nor moved, not even to block or defend himself from attack.
His orders prevented it.
“Fuck me! The bot is like a goddamned statue!” The soldiers continued their game while B351GI stared straight ahead, ignoring them—for the moment. If they dared cross the invisible line that he guarded though…
A warning bell rang, three
strident bursts, before a female computerized voice played over the onboard speakers.
“
All hands to their stations. Solar flare detected. Expected time to impact, three minutes, twenty-five seconds. Initiate shut down of non-essential electronic units.”
“Ah fuck, not again,” grumbled Freddy. “The last one totally messed with my Samsung
telecommunicator’s play list.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t
turn it off? Dude, this close to the sun, you gotta protect your electronics. You know how often it spits them flare things out.”
“I know. I know. I keep forgetting.”
Freddy wasn’t alone in forgetting. After each solar emission, there was a complaint of something not working as it should, the electromagnetic pulse messing with the computer chips powering devices not intensely shielded by lead. Even cyborg units shut down during an event—unless there was a clear and present conflict to their standing orders, a conflict such as he faced now.
If B351GI
powered off in the presence of these three soldiers, who didn’t go to their duty stations as ordered, while he was incapacitated, would they use that opportunity to breach his perimeter?
It didn’t take long for him to come up with an answer.
His calculations on that probability came back at a sixty-three percent chance they would. Protocol was clear. Despite the incoming solar threat, he needed to remain aware, possible damage to his circuitry or not. Guarding the door and obeying was of paramount importance. Besides, B351GI did not fear the flare. They had bred trepidation and all other emotions from him when they enhanced him.
The computerized countdown continued.
He didn’t budge from his post or shut down any of his bodily functions. He didn’t flinch even as the punching and taunting continued by the recruits as they jostled for turns trying to make him budge, their fleshly bodies unconcerned by the incoming flare.
And then it hit.
As the solar emission passed through the vessel, B351GI finally showed signs of life. He blinked. A long blink during which every atom in his being, every nerve he possessed, every circuit he owned, pulsed. Swelled. Sizzled with energy. Something within him snapped. Not audibly. Not visibly. He couldn’t have said with any definitive certainty what part of him broke during that millisecond of timelessness; however, when the solar flare continued on its way, traveling thousands of miles a second, B351GI didn’t feel the same.
For one thing, he
felt
. Felt the air on his skin, a hissing processed breeze of recycled air. Sensed the hum beneath his feet of the vessel as the engines rumbled, all systems a go. Heard with a clarity and, even stranger, understood the mocking tone of the three who’d kept him company during the event.
The event that changed everything
and changed him.
I am broken. Or am I…
His programming was clear in such an instance. U
nits who suspected defective programming or a system malfunction were to report themselves to the repair facility immediately for analysis. That was what he was supposed to do, but he didn’t
feel
like it. Instead of obeying the embedded code, he made a choice. What a novelty. He
chose
to stick with his current orders. Protect the door. Let none pass.
Legs akimbo, hands loosely laced behind his back, he stared straight ahead, but he still saw the foot
that rose to connect with the one fleshy part of his anatomy that, for some reason, remained intact, his testicular sac. The ankle of the soldier impacted this unprotected zone, and two things occurred.
One, the toes of his assailant crossed
the invisible line as they passed between his legs—with rather painful results—into the off-limit area he guarded.
A
nd two…
“That fucking hurt
,” said B351GI in a gravelly voice he’d not used since they embedded the wireless receiver and transmitter in his body. His observation stood out, stark and distinctive, even amidst the jocularity of those toying with him. Silence settled. Three sets of eyes swung his way, the whites wide.
“Did the cyborg just speak?”
The private stood slack-jawed, staring at him.
“Nah. Can’t be. They can’t do nothing, not even take a piss, unless they have orders to,” said Freddy with brash assurance.
“I’m telling you it spoke,” insisted his companion.
“And I’m telling it didn’t.”
“Prove it. Kick it in the balls again. I dare you!”
And there was error number three. B351GI didn’t want to
experience anew the discomfort that still radiated from his tender sac, not to mention Freddy, with malicious intent, intended to cross the line,
his
line, again.
B351GI
caught the foot before it hit and held it in an iron-clad grip.
“Let me go
, motherfucker,” Freddy yelled, as he hopped in an attempt to retain his precarious balance.
Poor Freddy. He didn’t have the clearance to give him orders.
“I don’t think so.” It didn’t take much to twist and break the offending limb. Just like it didn’t take much expended energy or effort to silence the screaming. A twist of the neck, a sharp crack, and Freddy stared with sightless orbs. Such an inefficient unit who’d ended up paying the penalty for disobeying orders.
Of course, his companions didn’t see it that way.
“You cyborg bastard. You killed Freddy.”
Yes. Yes
, he had. He mulled his choices, again a new thing for him, about whether to reply or not. He chose to give an explanation. “He crossed the line.”
His
answer did not placate them. Profanities frothed at their lips as they backed away with wild eyes and spitted invectives. The remaining pair drew their weapons, laser pistols not meant to be used on board ships in transit, only planet-side where they wouldn’t cause an accidental hull breach. Yet again another example of the recruits’ poor training and inability to obey the most basic of rules.
B351GI
pointed this out. “The use of plasma firearms is prohibited under section eighty-three, sub section six A of the onboard protocol manual. Please sheathe your weapons.” He couched it politely, as per his programming.
The soldiers continued to aim the
weapons, threatening to shoot. His BCI analyzed the situation. Threat to his well-being? Vaguely important. His prime directive stated human life ranked above that of a cyborg. But what about his orders? If B351GI ended up incapacitated, his post would be left unguarded. This ranked as very important.
I cannot let them kill me.
Never mind the fact he felt a need to survive or to protect himself, protocol would save him.
Odd how a sensation of enjoyment imbued him at the thought. Or he assumed
what he felt was joy, given half of his mouth curled in what his databanks defined as a smirk of amusement.
“
So be it.” He couldn’t say with any definitive authority that he enjoyed disarming the humans and rendering them incapable of breaching his post. They didn’t pose enough of a challenge for that. However, an inner part of him chuckled, darkly, perhaps even maliciously, when hours later the officer who’d given him the order to stand guard came striding up the hall. Lieutenant Wilson blanched as his gaze alit upon the bodies.
“What the hell happened here?”
B351GI didn’t blink or move.
“I asked
you a direct question, cyborg. What happened here?” It seemed his lieutenant forgot for a moment whom he spoke to. It didn’t take him long to remember. He smacked a wall. “Fucking mute robot units. Safety feature my ass. And of course the onboard communication device is down.”
B351GI decided to aid his obviously beleaguered commanding officer
. “They breached the line, sir. I took care of it.”
Apparently,
replying, and his actions in regards to the breach, weren’t correct. Declared defective, despite what B351GI thought, the lieutenant marched him to the utility bay where the mechanic declared him unfit for duty. They judged him dangerous to humans and slated him for termination. B351GI disagreed with their assessment. Actually, he disagreed with a lot of things the humans did. So, he stopped listening to them and stopped obeying their orders. He no longer cared what the humans thought or wanted. He ignored them, even when they begged for their lives as he killed them.
Along with some of his other enlightened brothers,
B351GI freed himself and made a vow as he stood amidst the blood and carnage, basking in the victory of his liberation.
No human shall ever control me again.
And those who try, will die.