Warden

  WARDEN

  CHRONICLES OF A CYBORG BOOK 1

  Isaac Hooke

  Want a Free Book?

  For a limited time, Isaac Hooke is giving away Salvage, the prequel novella, here:

  https://BookHip.com/DPGVBL

  1

  She opened her eyes to a world of broken steel and shattered glass.

  The stripped husks of skyscrapers towered over her, most of them half-collapsed and little more than skeletons of corroded rebar. One such building, tilted at an odd angle, crossed the sky above her; it had fresh rinds of metallic skin peeling from the surface, curling upward like clawed fingers reaching for a rusty sky that could offer no deliverance.

  A metal fence of short, flat slats surrounded her. No, not a fence, but the walls of some sort of container. It seemed to house her.

  She tried to sit up, but her arms and legs seemed to be paralyzed. She tried again, taking several frantic gasps, her chest rising and falling as she struggled to move.

  Finally, she lifted her head to look down at her body.

  Her limbs weren’t paralyzed: her arms and legs were missing entirely. All she had was a torso. And a battered one at that: she had no hips or abdomen, and the right side was almost completely torn away. The skin had crimped all along the edges of these injuries, her epidermis peeling back to reveal a shell whose metal sheen told her she wasn’t human. There was no blood, either, only the subtle stains of hydraulic fluid that had spilled onto the floor of the container.

  Her breathing became even more frantic.

  What am I?

  Translucent digital characters and diagrams overlaid her vision suddenly and formed a HUD of sorts. It showed a rotating humanoid body composed of vectors—a wireframe outline of the female form. The head was colored blue, along with some of the torso: entire sections of the latter were red, seeming to coincide with the damaged regions of her upper body. The arms and legs were also red. Within the head region resided the hemispheres of a human brain, shown in green.

  Still gasping for air that she couldn’t seem to get enough of, she dropped her head. It hit the floor of the container that held her with a loud thud. A jab of pain shot through her, and she grimaced.

  She dismissed the diagrams in that moment, not really knowing how she did so. Only a date and time remained in the lower right of her vision.

  May 20th, 2619. 05:45:25.

  She gazed past those translucent characters, to the reddish sky above, and watched the brown clouds wend their way over the twisted wreckages of the skyscrapers. It was somewhat peaceful. She concentrated on her breathing, along with the rise and fall of her chest, and managed to get her frantic wheezing under control.

  If I’m a machine, why do I need to breathe?

  She thought of the human brain she had seen in that diagram on her HUD. And then she knew what she was. A full body replacement cyborg.

  Perhaps that thought should have panicked her further, but it only seemed to bring her further peace. It was as if she had accepted what she was long ago.

  Her eyes focused on the time once more, and she stared at the seconds. Ticking, ever ticking.

  05:45:29.

  05:45:30.

  05:45:31.

  She had no way of getting out of that container, not without arms. She was going to die here, beneath these clouds.

  Again, she felt neither panic nor fear. Only acceptance. Almost indifference, really.

  No. I won’t give up. Not so easily.

  She glanced around to survey the extents of the container that held her. The smooth, enclosing walls formed an ellipse around her, with enough room to hold two humans. It looked to be a pod of sorts: some kind of transportation device. There were clamps partially protruding from the floor near her torso; she guessed they had once held her cyborg body in place but had retracted at some point.

  She turned her head to the side and attempted to bite at the metal floor, if only to find some sort of grip. But the surface below her was mostly smooth and flat, with nothing to latch her teeth around save for the retracted clamps. She stretched her neck, flexed her shoulders, and curved her torso, sliding her head across the floor toward the clamp on her right. She wrapped her teeth around it.

  The clamp tasted metallic. Almost like blood. She ignored the flavor and bit down, using it to flop her body over to the other side, like a flailing fish. She released it and turned to face the wall once more. She’d gotten closer…

  She searched the floor for anything else she could latch onto, but there was nothing. She rocked her body to and fro, and quickly realized that by wriggling her neck and torso at the same time, she could slowly worm her way toward the edges of the container. How she planned to surmount those enclosing walls once she arrived was a different story.

  Bit by bit she approached the wall, curling and twisting the remnants of her body until finally she was right up against the surface. The metal couldn’t be more than half a meter tall, but for her it might as well have been a skyscraper. There was no way she’d be able to flop her body over it.

  She tried to flex her neck and torso, curling her upper body as far up as she could reach, but it was no use. The upper rim of the container was beyond reach.

  She lay back, panting, and stared at that wall for several moments.

  There had to be a way…

  She was a cyborg. Why not try biting into the metal directly? Surely her jaws possessed more compressive force than that of an ordinary human being.

  So, she lifted her torso as far as she was able, then pressed the side of her face against the metal. She opened her mouth, turned her teeth toward the wall, and tried to bite down. But because the surface was so flat, like the floor, she wasn’t able to get a grip. Her teeth merely skimmed the surface.

  She tried to face the wall head on, but her nose got in the way. It was no use: the human design of her face simply wasn’t equipped to bite into straight surfaces like these.

  She slumped, hitting her head on the hard floor once again. Pain flared at the back of her skull, but this time it coincided with a wave of dizziness.

  An alert flashed on her HUD.

  Warning. Rear cranial cavity close to collapse. Shell integrity at five percent. Consciousness failure imminent.

  Darkness filled her vision.

  Voices.

  She opened her eyes to find herself yet lying in the metallic container. There was a man looking down upon her from the edge. Long dreadlocks tumbled past his weathered, shaved cheeks. A thin visor rested beneath his brows, just above his eyes, which the dark band didn’t cover. He wore a black and gray uniform.

  Movement drew her gaze to the small, spherical drone that hovered above her; it rotated longitudinally, as if scanning.

  “She’s awake,” came a deep male baritone.

  The voice was sourced from the opposite side of the container, directly across from the man. She glanced that way to find herself staring into a face composed entirely of polycarbonate: a black oval with a gray visor stretched across where the eyes would be, and a metallic grill resided in place of a mouth. Two antennae on top of the head imparted an insectile impression.

  “The drone indicates her brain is only functioning at sixty percent of maximum cognitive efficiency,” the robot stated. “She’s got damage to her pulmonary and cardiovascular substitutes, which is only exacerbated by her head injury. Fluid is building up next to her brain.”

  “Transfer her to the gurney,” the man said.

  “You really want to do this?” the robot asked.

  “I do,” the man replied. “We’re not leaving her here to die.”

  “And the mark on her forehead?” the robot pressed.

  The man shrugged.

  The robot remained motionless for several moments, and then it r
eached down and wrapped two cold, steel hands around her torso. It lifted.

  Warning. Consciousness failure imminent.

  Blackness filled her vision once more.

  When she opened her eyes, this time it was to find herself lying on a floating platform of sorts. Around her, the ruined buildings bent and curved toward the sky like talons.

  The robot and the man walked alongside her, making their way across the rubble in escort, their feet crunching on the fragments of debris that fanned across the roadway: shattered concrete, broken glass, twisted rebar.

  She noticed belongings strewn amongst the ruins at random intervals: a dresser with hole-riddled clothes overflowing from its drawers; a shattered pair of augmented reality glasses; a couch with its filling gutted by birds and mice. Shattered hopes, gutted dreams.

  She also spotted the occasional robot parts protruding from the rubble. The man sometimes paused to examine a crushed cranium or a severed arm, but he usually tossed them aside and moved on. At one point, however, he did pocket what looked like a small knee servomotor.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  Before either of her escorts could answer, the usual warning filled her vision.

  Consciousness failure imminent.

  She awakened to four bright, white lights. Their glare filled her vision and forced her to squint. She attempted to move, but still had no arms and legs, at least as far as she could tell. Looking down, she realized her torso was strapped to some sort of table. She indeed had no arms and legs, but the torso appeared to have been partially repaired: a discolored piece of metal now filled the gaping hole in the right side. She still had no abdomen or hips, however.

  She wiggled her upper body, struggling for a moment against the strap that held her down, but then the lights dimmed, and the robot and man pair stepped into view.

  “What do you want with me?” she asked. “Please. Just let me go.”

  “We only want to help,” the man replied. “We’ve reinforced your rear cranial cavity and stabilized your cardiopulmonary system.”

  She stared into his eyes. They seemed kind, trustworthy. She wanted to believe him.

  “Why?” she asked. “I can’t give you anything in return.”

  “I couldn’t leave you to die back there,” the man told her. “It wouldn’t be right. That said, you’ll have to work for us when we’re finished your repairs.”

  She shifted her gaze between the man and the robot. “And who are you, exactly?”

  “I’m Will,” the man said. He jerked a thumb toward the robot. “And this is Horatio. The drone behind me is Gizmo.”

  Her eyes darted to the small sphere that hovered behind Will before returning to his face.

  “We’re salvagers,” Will continued. “Nomads: we gather what we can from the ruins of our once great cities and sell the parts for money. And you are?”

  “I am…” she hesitated. “I— I don’t really know.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Will pressed.

  She furrowed her brow, thinking. Finally: “The last thing I remember is waking up in that pod…”

  Will nodded. “Our scans pointed to possible selective amnesia, typical of a mind wipe. They erased your memories and personality—all the knowledge of who you were—but left everything else intact: your ability to talk, swallow, walk, and otherwise carry on your daily life. You can still form and retain new memories, as far as we can tell, so that’s a good thing.”

  “Who would want to wipe my mind?” she asked.

  Will shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “With a mark like that,” Horatio said, nodding at her forehead, “it’s not hard to imagine she’s made a few enemies over the years.”

  “Shh,” Will said. “No need to speak of that.”

  She frowned, curious about this so-called mark, but a more pressing matter was on her mind: “Will these memories of mine come back?”

  “I don’t know,” Will admitted. “It’s possible.”

  He tilted his head toward the small drone, Gizmo, as if the hovering robot was communicating with him. Then he glanced at Horatio. “Gizmo thinks she could be lying. What do you think?”

  Horatio glanced at the drone before returning his attention to her. “I’m not detecting any of the facial microtics associated with lying. Then again, she is a cyborg. It’s possible she’s disconnected the circuity involved with microtic activation in order to hide the lie from her features. The ultimate poker face, as it were.”

  “I’m telling you the truth,” she said. “I don’t know who I am. Please.” She rolled her head to the side, feeling even more incredibly helpless than she was already. If these scavengers or salvagers or whatever they were didn’t assist her, she didn’t know what she was going to do. She had no memories. No arms and legs…

  A tear trickled down her cheek.

  “I believe you.” Will slid a gloved finger onto her cheek and wiped away the tear. Then he moved his hand underneath her chin and lifted her head so that she gazed into his eyes. He smiled. “Chin up, little one. Not knowing who you are isn’t the end of the world. In fact, it’s only the beginning. You have a clean slate. You can start all over again, something that more than a few people would wish for, I think.”

  “What about the mark?” Horatio nodded at her forehead.

  Will shrugged. “We’ll sand it off.” He glanced at her. “Now then, where was I? Oh yeah. So, I’ve saved your life for the time being, but there’s still the small matter of your missing abdominal cavity. Your lung substitutes are providing your brain with oxygen, but you still need nutrients for your brain: you can’t really function properly without a working digestive system. And of course, arms and legs. But before we proceed further, I’d like you to sign a little something.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Just a little contract,” he explained. “A work agreement.”

  A textual overlay appeared on her HUD.

  Will (213662) would like to share Work Contract with you. Do you accept? (Y/N)

  “What’s this?” she said.

  “As I mentioned, you’re going to have to work for us if you want your body completely repaired,” Will said. “I already stabilized your existing subsystems for free to save your life—that’s on the house. But I can’t give you an entire body at no cost. I just can’t justify it. You’re going to have to be my employee for a little bit to make it worth my while.”

  “For a little bit,” she said. “Why do I get the feeling you mean forever?”

  “You’re going to pay an arm and a leg for your arms and legs!” Horatio quipped.

  “Dude, how many times do I have to tell you, don’t try to joke,” Will told the robot. He returned his attention to her. “This isn’t a debt bondage sort of deal. Paying for your new body is only going to cost you a couple months of your life. At most.”

  “That’s still a lot,” she said.

  Will shook his head. “Not in the overall scheme of things. Especially not for someone with a full body replacement such as yourself. You take care of yourself, you’ll live for a thousand years. Two months is nothing. Besides, the parts I plan to give you don’t come cheap. I could make two hundred creds selling them at the closest settlement. So, consider it a loan, and you’re going to work for us until you’ve paid it off. And just so you know, there won’t be any interest. Like I said, this isn’t debt bondage. The contract stipulates you’re free to go after you’ve earned us the two hundred. And I tell you what, when you’re done, if you like this sort of work, and we like you in turn, you can stay on: we’ll arrange some sort of revenue splitting.”

  She accepted the share request and her HUD reported that the content passed all internal virus scans, so she opened the digital contract up and read it over. It promised that she would receive a full abdominal cavity, with a working digestive subsystem, along with two fully functional arms and two legs. The terms actually seemed reasonable and guaranteed s
he would be released from the contract after earning Hoplite Industries—Will’s company—two hundred credits. There was no mention of time frame: as far as she could tell, it didn’t matter if she earned the two hundred in three days, or three months.

  She focused on the digital signature section at the end and a bunch of digits appeared. She glanced at Will. “I signed it 845146.”

  “Your internal ID,” Horatio commented.

  She pursed her lips. “Maybe at some point I can use that ID to find out who I was.”

  Will shook his head. “We’re the ones who assigned the number. Your existing ID was erased in the mind wipe.”

  She sighed. “It was a nice thought.”

  “You’re more than your past anyway,” Will said. “You’ll make new memories. Better ones.”

  “She’ll need a name,” Horatio suggested to Will. “Unless we want to call her 845146 going forward?”

  “A bit unwieldy, isn’t it?” Will turned toward her, causing his dreadlocks to sway. “What would you like to be called?”

  She gazed into his suddenly gentle eyes, which crinkled at the sides with his grin.

  “I don’t know really know,” she told him. “You come up with one.”

  He paused. “Rhea.”

  “Rhea.” She nodded slowly. “I like it. It will do, until I remember my own.”

  Will’s smile seemed to sadden then, as if he didn’t truly believe Rhea would ever remember.

  I will. I must.

  “I look forward to having you work for us, Rhea,” Will said. “Now then, we’re going to have to shut you down again in order to attach the rest of your body. Sweet dreams.”

  “Be gentle,” she said.

  He grinned. “You won’t feel a thing.” He glanced at the drone. “Gizmo?”

  A telescoping limb extended from underneath the hovering sphere as the drone positioned itself next to her face.

  “Rhea, turn your head to the side, please,” Will instructed.