Chapter Ten
Once Amanda had recovered, she was ready to get to work. “I’d like to meet the rest of the squad.” Her experience with ND-45 had been terrifying. She hadn’t been scared of him when he had been in his cell or following voice commands like a proper cyborg, but he was no longer the same soldier created by Cyborg Sector.
AD-214 shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s wise after what just happened, sir.”
Amanda couldn’t argue with his logic, but she was a scientist. She couldn’t let danger stop her from discovering more about these creatures. “I understand. But you aren’t like ND-45, and I doubt they are, either.” She bit her lip, trying to decide how much she should tell him. She had to remember that he wasn’t human, and he was only going to understand a certain amount of abstract thought.
“I have an idea about what’s happening to you. I’m beginning to understand what you mean by being awake. But I need to talk with the others to confirm my theory.”
The cyborg captain studied her face for a moment, as though deciding something. She wasn’t sure if he was capable of evaluating interpersonal relations, but he finally nodded. “Very well. But I want you to stay close to me.” She didn’t have to ask him why.
Amanda followed the cyborg out of the office. The rest of the squad was sitting in a circle in the middle of the warehouse floor, some of them perched on old crates or boxes, all talking in low voices. As they turned to see their leader emerge, they quickly rose to their feet.
“At ease,” AD-214 said, gesturing for them to sit back down. “This is Amanda Conrad. I have been talking with her, and I believe she can help us. I trust her, and you should too.” He glared over his shoulder at ND-45, who was standing guard at the door. The other soldier didn’t return his gaze. “She wants to speak with all of you. I expect your cooperation.”
The two of them joined the circle, and Amanda settled down onto the concrete next to AD-214 and looked around the room. The soldiers she had seen for the last few years in Cyborg Sector were now surrounding her like they were entirely human. She had never seen them in any position other than completely upright and at attention. Now, however, they lounged around like regular people. Some sat with their legs crossed, others with feet stretched out in front of them as they leaned back on their hands. They watched her with equal interest.
“Hi, everybody,” Amanda said tentatively. “I know this must be strange for you. It’s weird for me, too. But I want to help you as much as I can. It’s true that I worked on you back at Cyborg Sector, but I want you to know that I was always acting in your best interest. From what I understand, some of you are having...memories.” She hesitated before saying the word. Would cyborgs know what she meant?
Everyone around her nodded, and some leaned forward a little, eager to hear more. “I want to hear about it. I want you to talk to me and let me know what you’re seeing and hearing. I don’t have any of my equipment or tools from Cyborg Sector, so the only thing I can use to analyze you is your words.” Amanda turned to the soldier on her right side. “Do you have any memories you’re willing to share?”
The man’s slim body and smooth skin suggested the cyborg program accepted him as a young man. Amanda recognized him as PD-4, one of the first private donors in the program. It was odd to see him now, looking at her with blonde eyebrows knit together in concern.
He glanced at his comrades. “That’s what we were just talking about, ma’am.” He had a southern drawl that hadn’t made itself evident back in the lab. “I was just telling them about the things I’ve been seeing. Everything will be normal, and then all of a sudden it’s like my sight quits working, and I see other things. At first, I thought I was pulling them from my system, but I didn’t know which part of my system they came from.”
Amanda smiled, glad to see that some cyborgs would be more willing to work with her than ND-45. “What kind of things do you see?”
PD-4 shrugged. “Random things, ma’am. A dog, a big tree. An old lady with a plate of cookies.” His eyes closed as he recalled the images. “It’s not a lot, and it’s pretty random, but I like it.”
She wished Dr. Gold was here. She had cyborgs who were showing feelings. Had they still been back at Cyborg Sector, with none of the soldiers self-aware, none would have been able to tell her if they liked something or not. They weren’t programmed that way. They accepted their orders, did their duty, and went back to sleep in their cells. Of course, Amanda hadn’t been privy to everything that happened in Dr. Gold’s office. She suddenly turned to AD-214.
“Was Dr. Gold all right?” she whispered earnestly. “Did he survive the mess at Cyborg Sector?”
AD-214 tipped his chin down in confirmation. “I saw him as we left, sir. He was well and able-bodied.”
Amanda breathed a sigh of relief. She could come to terms with the loss of Dr. Feldman. He had been an outstanding scientist and a brilliant man, but she hadn’t been as close to him as she had been to Dr. Gold.
“I’ve had memories as well,” another soldier volunteered eagerly, bringing Amanda back to the present moment.
“Describe them to us.”
“I see a child. It’s a little kid with red curls. She’s standing on a sidewalk, with a big smile on her face, and she keeps saying the same thing over and over again.”
“What does she say?” the scientist urged.
“Daddy. Apparently, she only knows one word, and she compensates by saying it frequently. I’ve looked in my system, but I can’t find a match.”
Tears pricked the back of Amanda’s eyes. This soldier had been a man with a child before he became a cyborg. Whatever had happened to him in combat that had put him on death’s door and made him eligible for the cyborg program also separated him from his family. Amanda glanced around at the circle of soldiers, wondering how many of them were being missed by loved ones right now. PD-4’s grandmother was probably wishing he would come home so she could make him some cookies.
“Mine aren’t anything like that,” came a deep voice from the other side of the room. A cyborg leaned forward, bringing his face out of the shadows. He had a sloping forehead, heavy eyebrows, and a blocky jaw with graying stubble. A jagged scar ran down the center of his face, bisecting his nose. “I see men at war. Like PD-4, I thought these were images from my training. But the things I see don’t match up with anything in my command history database.”
The cyborgs recorded every command, even if it was something as small as following one of the scientists to the lab to perform tests. It served as both a safety check and a learning mechanism. Nobody would ever give a cyborg an unlawful command. It would be stored permanently in their database and was valid in a court of law. The logs could also be compared to the actions of the cyborgs to make sure they were performing their tasks correctly.
“My command history shows that I served my country in a large town during an uprising. But the images I see are from the jungle. The air is hot and full of moisture, and the trees are so dense that I can barely see a few yards in front of me. I can hear gunshots and men dying, but I don’t have any commands to follow. I’m on my own.”
“Thank you,” Amanda said, not sure what else she could say. These men were sharing the deepest parts of their minds with her, telling her the kinds of special memories they wouldn’t be willing to share if they understood what or who they truly were. They were opening up their hearts to her.
Looking around at the group of cyborgs, she realized that they were misfits in the world, just like she had always been. They were not entirely men, yet they were more than machines. They could never go back to Cyborg Sector and be 'asleep' again, nor could they assimilate into the general populace. They were a different and more extreme version of her, a person who had never quite fit into any crowd.
Amanda was fascinated by them and needed to help them, although she wasn’t sure what she could do. She could explain to them who they used to be and who they were now, and why they remembered their time as human beings, but she didn’t know if they could or wanted to understand.
Amanda glanced at AD-214 out of the corner of her eye. The cyborg captain intrigued her most of all. He had told her about his memories, about fighting in the war and becoming injured. But she had a feeling that there was more to his story that he was still keeping secret. Perhaps he didn’t know, but maybe he was holding it back. That would mean he was far more human than she had realized.