The Cyber Chronicles Book II: Death Zone (27 page)

"Cyber."

"Yes?"

"I order you
to release the host brain."

"Order not
understood."

"Relinquish
control of the body to the host brain," she commanded.

"Unable to
comply. That is counter to cyber programming."

"I don't care
about your damned pog - progamming! I have issued an order, you
must obey!"

"Unable to
comply."

She tried to
think of a way to make it release Sabre. "Cyber, you are damaged;
you must switch yourself off."

"This unit is
functional."

Tassin cursed,
running out of ideas. She needed to think about it. "Bring the
packs and follow me."

At the cave,
she ordered him to find food and build a fire, then went to the
stream to wash her injured arm. Sabre returned with two fat
pheasants, which he plucked in a cloud of feathers, gutted and
spitted over the fire.

While they
were cooking, she ordered him to kneel before her, and examined his
injuries. The scalp wound seeped blood, although the stitches were
intact, and the side of his head was red and swollen, with some
deep scratches. Considering the blows Murdor had landed on Sabre's
head, she was surprised the skin was not more broken. Red marks
covered his torso, arms and legs, and a swelling on his cheekbone
partly closed one eye. She lifted his arm and examined the deep
cut, biting her lip.

"This needs
stitching."

"Yes." The
cyber tilted his head to scan his arm. "First it must be
straightened."

"Straightened?" Tassin studied at his arm, noticing that it was
indeed a little bent. Bile stung her throat, and she looked away,
turning the spit to distract herself from the sickening sight.
Evidently when the cyber had snapped Murdor's arm, he had broken
his own as well; or had it been when he had blocked the sword
stroke? Both blows had been powerful enough to do serious damage.
Sabre placed his arm across his knee, used his good hand to hold it
down, and straightened it.

When he
released it, sweat sheened his brow under the blazing band, and his
features were drawn and pale. He dug in the pouch and found the
needle, which he threaded with perfect dexterity and held out to
her. She swallowed hard when he bent his arm to reveal the wound.
Fresh blood oozed from it, and he sat unflinching while she
stitched it. As she cut the final stitch, she glanced at him and
gasped with joy, for his eyes seemed to be focussed on her
face.

"Sabre!" She
leant forward, but his gaze remained fixed on the spot where she
had been, and her happiness ebbed away. Frowning, she tended to the
birds, remembering what Sabre had told her. He had lost control
again, so he could not focus his eyes, but he could hear her. She
turned to him, hating his blank expression and longing for the
gentle companion she had grown to treasure.

"I hope you're
going to take over again soon, Sabre. It's not much fun talking to
this thing that's in charge now."

"Order not
understood."

"Oh, shut
up."

Tassin
inspected her lacerated arm again. The puncture wounds oozed clear
fluid, and the area was hot, inflamed and red. Tearing a strip from
a petticoat, she bandaged it.

After they had
eaten, Sabre settled against the cave wall, his head turned towards
the entrance. He closed his eyes, but she knew the brow band was
scanning the area with endless vigilance. He looked peaceful,
devoid of expression. Tassin cradled her throbbing arm and wondered
how she could help him to regain control. There had to be a
way.

Fatigue made
her eyes droop, and she curled up in the blankets beside the fire,
watching him. How terrible it must be, she reflected, to be trapped
and helpless. The cyber must have regained control when Sabre had
lost consciousness during his near drowning, but was his mind
damaged? If so, it seemed unlikely that he would be able to take
over again. The prospect of dealing with the cyber, now that she
knew the real man, made her shudder. Sabre's loss filled her with a
deep, aching sorrow, but she refused to give up on him. There had
to be a way for him to win free again. The dull pain in her arm
faded as she drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Sixteen

Tassin woke
shivering, and clutched the blankets around her to try to get warm.
Sabre still sat against the cave wall, his eyes closed. Her parched
mouth demanded water, but she had no wish to emerge into the cold
air to seek it.

"Sabre," she
croaked.

The cyber's
head turned towards her, and his eyes opened. "Yes?"

"Bring me some
water."

Sabre rose,
took a water skin from the pack and handed it to her, then returned
to his position by the cave mouth with a swift economy of movement.
Tassin gulped the water, which made her colder, and she huddled in
the blankets as her shivers increased. Her clothes stuck to her,
wet with rancid sweat, and she wondered what was wrong with her.
She longed for Sabre's company and warm reassurance, but the
blank-faced man who guarded the entrance only had his body; his
mind was trapped in some diabolical prison inside his skull. She
closed her eyes as tiredness dragged her back into the soft dark
arms of sleep.

The rattle of
wood woke her as Sabre fed the fire. Two plump pheasants lay beside
him, ready to clean and cook, but the thought of food made her
shudder, her stomach a tight knot. Instead she drank more water,
then drifted into a light sleep. Strange dreams of bloody battles
and burning deserts made her toss in the sweat-soaked blankets.

A raging
thirst woke Tassin the next morning. She shivered violently, her
teeth chattered and her skin burnt. The world swam when she opened
her eyes, so she closed them again. She groped for the water skin
and drank from it before slipping back into a troubled sleep,
moaning and tossing. Several times that day, she jerked awake from
hideous, vivid dreams of gory battles scenes, crying out for Sabre.
Each time, the cyber responded, but she ignored his soft
replies.

Sabre
struggled against the darkness. His eyes were closed, so not even
blurred images had reached him since the cyber's last foray for
food. Something was wrong. More than a day had passed, yet Tassin
had not spoken since she had asked the cyber for water, apart from
calling his name in a despairing tone, which alarmed him.

Once again,
the terrible memory of drowning returned to haunt him. This time he
thrust it aside instead of burrowing into the velvet blackness to
escape it as he had done before. He had to find out what was wrong
with Tassin. Pushing against the oppression that trapped his mind,
he sensed the cyber's ever-present control. A scanner image flitted
across his inner eye, showing a few woodland animals, and Tassin.
He fought to surface from the black sea that held him prisoner and
prevented him from reaching the light that was the real world
outside.

The spark of
his psyche brightened, flaring within the dark walls that
imprisoned him, and he fanned it, urgency goading him. He was
trapped in a nightmare from which he could not wake, and his body
ignored the instructions he gave it. Something terrible had
happened to Tassin. Why had she not spoken? Why did she just sleep?
He reviewed his memory of her blurred image that he had seen when
the cyber had given her water, but it did not help.

Sabre fought
against the supercomputer's control harder than he ever had before.
Even when he had been taken from the sensory deprivation tank and
discovered that he no longer controlled his body, he had not
struggled so much to be free. The cyber was damaged; its hold on
him was not as strong as it should be. He just had to cross the
line of control, and he would be free. The horror of the near
drowning had thrust him back into the dark corner of his mind and
allowed the cyber to take control of a situation he had believed to
be hopeless. Now he was desperate for release.

With a supreme
effort, he broke through one of the cyber's blocks and opened his
eyes. A blurred image of the cave mouth came to him, mostly black,
and pain blossomed in his mind as the control unit fought back.
Flashing lights sparkled on his inner eye, blinding him. He
struggled for motor control, and smashed another cyber block. His
neck muscles twitched in response, turning his head slightly. The
cyber slammed another block into place, which he smashed again,
gaining strength from the victory.

The
supercomputer tried to replace the block, but Sabre had already
slipped through. He commanded his muscles, and his spine arched. He
slid down the wall, still half under the cyber's control. His soft
groans reached him through the muffling. This was not the same as
when he had awakened in the mountain cave. Then, the damaged
computer had been able to hinder his takeover, but it had not been
in charge. Now he fought for supremacy with a cyber that already
ruled. He mastered his neck muscles and jerked his head around,
trying to smash the brow band against the wall.

His arms
responded to his brain's frantic signals and snapped up to grip the
band, as he had done in the mountain cave. It gave a focus to his
struggle, and his psyche continued its advance. The cave sprang
into sharp focus, then blurred, and his hands pulled at the brow
band. The warm coursing of control went through him, and then the
cyber was no longer the master. He moved his legs, twisting and
writhing.

Pain spiked
his brain as he fought free of the sucking black quagmire of cyber
control. The supercomputer fought back with waves of agony, and the
darkness lapped at him, trying to suck him down again. Like a
soaked bird struggling to rise from the water that trapped it, he
fought to throw off the last paralysing vestiges of cybernetic
dominance, beating imaginary wings to lift him from the blackness.
A lance of agony shot through his head as the cyber made its last
stand, trying to shock his brain into submission.

Everything
sprang into sharp focus. He lay gasping, pain shooting up his
injured arm from his exertions. Fresh blood oozed from the wound,
and more dripped from his scalp, which he had banged on the cave
wall. His head pounded from the injuries he had received in the
fight with Murdor, made worse by his struggle to win free of the
cyber.

Sabre sat up,
sweat trickling down his chest. The fire had died to embers during
his struggle, and he piled wood on it until it flared up, then
crawled over to Tassin. She tossed and moaned, and he pulled the
damp blanket down. She plucked at it, trying to tug it up again.
Sweat sheened her flushed face, and he placed a hand on her cheek,
finding her skin hot despite her violent shivers.

Sabre stripped
the blanket off her completely, wresting it from her clutching
hands. He had to get her temperature down, or she would die.
Picking her up, he carried her out of the cave. The moons were
full, and he did not need the infrared vision the cyber no longer
granted. Striding down to the stream, he waded into the icy water,
and Tassin groaned when he lowered her into it. Kneeling on the
slippery rocks, he supported her head and immersed the rest of her.
She writhed, her eyes moving rapidly to and fro behind closed
lids.

Sabre waited
for the cold to lower her temperature, wiping away the strings of
sweat-damp hair that clung to her forehead. Concern gnawed at him,
for she may still die if he was too late. He held her close and
stroked her brow while she moaned and squirmed. The icy water
swirled around him, its touch bringing back vivid images of being
under it, helpless and running out of air. He quelled the urge to
quit its liquid realm and concentrated on Tassin. Her breathing
grew laboured, and she began to gasp. Sabre frowned and stroked her
cheek, willing her to cling to life. At any moment, her breathing
could stop, and she could go into convulsions as she overheated.
Pain blossomed in his chest, making his breath catch.

He gazed down
at her. "Don't die, Tassin. Come on, you can do it. You can fight
it, you're strong. You're a goddamned warrior queen."

Sabre laid his
cheek against her brow and rocked her in the icy stream. Her skin
seemed cooler, and he tested it with his hand, finding that her
temperature had dropped, although her breathing remained
laboured.

"Come on,
fight! Don't give up on me now."

Sabre waited
for what seemed like hours, until Tassin's breathing returned to
normal and she stopped moaning. When he tested her brow again, he
found it cool and rose to his feet, her dress streaming water. Back
at the cave, he placed her on the pine needles and contemplated
what he had to do next with some disquiet. He could not leave her
in the wet dress. Dreading her reaction if she woke in the middle
of it, he began to undo the tiny buttons in the front of the tatty
pink gown.

There seemed
to be hundreds of them, and he swore when they foiled his
inexperienced fingers. He pulled the dress off her shoulders and
eased it over her hips. No wonder noblewomen required help to dress
themselves, he mused; it was like peeling a sausage. Under the gown
she wore a satin slip, and he considered leaving it, but the
possibility of pneumonia changed his mind.

Sabre pulled
it off, averting his eyes, and wrapped her in a blanket. She
shivered again, but her brow remained cool. Searching for the
source of the infection, he cut off the dirty bandage on her arm
and frowned at the ugly, inflamed wounds under it. No wonder she
had a fever. It looked like she had been savaged by a wild animal.
Casting his mind back to the battle, he vaguely remembered her
cries of pain through the blows and illusions that had muddled his
perception. The wolf.

Sabre cursed,
glad now that the cyber had killed the fleeing animal. Her arm's
slenderness dismayed him, but he thrust his knife's blade into the
fire. The puncture wounds had started to close, but, judging by the
swelling and fever, they were infected. When the knife was sterile,
he pulled it from the fire and let it cool. He disliked the task he
had to perform, especially on this unconscious girl. He was no
surgeon, and his memory of what such men had done to him filled him
with dismay that he should be forced to do the same thing to
another, but he had no choice.