He had been able to put his recorder to use, and tested it while he was deep in sleep. It would record anything that would happen to him, no matter if he was awake or unconscious. He had sent the recorder to the other cyborgs as well.
It was essential to gather all the information possible on any change or update humans made to them. He programmed the recorders to send the data back to him with a simple command given by the recorder’s owner. He knew cyborgs had so little privacy that he didn’t wish to violate it even more.
The time he spent with Sabrina at the cabin felt terrific. He couldn’t recall ever being so happy in his life, but he knew he was living a dream. And it was a very short lived one. It was only two weeks later when he first sensed the soldiers approaching the cabin. He knew their time together end had come.
“Sabrina, I want you to get the hell out of here. The soldiers have come for me and I don’t want you anywhere near me,” he ordered, in a stern tone.
“Why? They can’t do anything to me,” she protested, but he could tell she was scared.
“Of course, they can. They can accuse you of sheltering a fugitive and put you in jail for that. They would ruin your whole life without even blinking,” he told her, in a scolding tone.
“What will happen to you? Will I ever see you again?” she asked, a couple of tears running down her cheeks.
“There’s no time for conversations. If they find you, deny you’ve ever seen me, don’t let them establish a link between us,” he warned her. “I’ll erase you and this time we’ve lived here from my memory chips, so they won’t have a way discover anything about you.”
She sobbed, apparently shocked at the coldness of his tone, but he didn’t have time to explain anything else. “Go up to the mountains and stay there until you’re sure no one is here and it’s safe for you to come back. Here, use this, it has food and anything you might need.” He continued as he handed her a backpack he had prepared a few days ago, in anticipation of this moment.
“But─” she tried to insist but he didn’t allow her.
He closed her lips with a kiss and forced her to leave the house. “Run as fast as you can and go as far as possible. I don’t want you in danger.”
She hesitated and he had to push her out of the cabin to set her into motion. He waited to see her disappear up the trail they usually used on their hikes and quickly transferred any memory of her to his secondary databases.
Of course, he wouldn’t be able to erase her from his organic memory. But, fortunately, no one had ever found a way to access to that kind of memory. The only reason he had transferred the information to his secondary databases was that memories could fade or become distorted over the time and he wanted to keep her memories as intact as possible.
That done, he abandoned the cabin, taking all his belongings with him and ran in the opposite direction he had sent Sabrina. With luck, the soldiers would follow him and he could get them as far away from the cabin as possible.
He managed to get a few miles between him and the cabin before he was captured by the soldiers. They shot him with a tranquilizer, as if he was some sort of animal they were hunting down and that only made him more furious with his enslavers.
By the time he woke up, he was in some sort of military facility he wasn’t familiar with. He tried to move his body, but soon he realized he was tied to an examination table, with straps holding him tight against it.
“Ah, you’re finally conscious” a man’s taciturn voice greeted him, as he leaned over him.
“Where am I?” his voice was hoarse, and his throat felt drier than a desert, so he assumed he had been unconscious for quite some time.
“That doesn’t matter. We’ve been working on you for quite some time now, trying to erase that rebellious vein you seem to have developed,” the man replied in a scornful tone. “After your escape, we were able to conclude your pain threshold is very high, so we had to make a lot of modifications to it. From now on, any sign of rebellion will send you to the floor on your knees, crying like a little baby.”
Jarcor could tell the man felt an unusual pleasure announcing just how much pain he would be in and he pressed his lips together not to tell him what he could do with all his shit.
“We’ve added a few more circuitries and chips into you, in order to better control you and I’m sure you’ll love it,” he added, with an ugly smile on his face. “Don’t you think so, too?”
Jarcor didn’t answer his question and that simple disobedience sent a surge of pain through his whole body, making him clench his hands into fists. “No, Sir, I don’t think so,” he answered, furious. “Did you make these changes in all the cyborgs, or am I receiving special treatment?” he asked, more worried about the consequences to the others rather than himself.
“No other cyborg as shown the rebellious streak you’ve got,” the man replied in a dispassionately. “Thanks to you, we’re stuck with breeding and raising cyborgs. Modifying soldiers into cyborgs is too expensive and based on the results we obtained with you, unpredictable. We won’t be guaranteed able to have full control over them.”
A broad smile lit Jarcor’s face. No other man would go through the hell they had put him through.
“That’s no reason to celebrate,” the man scolded him.
“For me it is. When are you letting me go?” he asked, in a emotionless tone.
The man smiled. “We haven’t finished testing the changes and upgrades we’ve done to you. For that we needed you awake. When we’re done, we’ll send you right back to the battlefield.”
Jarcor frowned, realizing what they had in mind, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. His only concern right now was for Sabrina. Had she been able to escape the soldiers? Was she safe, back in college, moving on with her life?
He had no way of knowing and that was worse than anything they could do to him.
And boy, did they give Jarcor hell. They put him through the most humiliating situations, forcing him to disobey their orders to prove how effective their changes were, making sure he couldn’t violate a direct order without being exposed to a considerable level of pain.
After a few days of torture, he was sent back to the battlefield, with strict orders not to escape or disobey a direct order from any superior. That became the most effective torture for him, but he endured it.