Chapter 7
This was it. The day he delivered a princess to the cybermonks. The day he’d get surgery and a new dick. They’d follow through. They always did. His fear was only natural.
Not many men got to experience having their dick ripped off, fed to animals, a new cybercock attached, then an even better one stuck on years later.
It made every sphincter he owned clench. Made him grin too.
Fuck, this had better be as good as he’d heard or he’d roast the monks over a smelter set on nuclear heat and watch them melt.
He took the wide steps leading up to the audience room three at a time, making his red coat flare open. His boot soles clunked on the stone. His mass was much greater than when he’d been merely an outer human. Born and bred among the stars, his uncle used to say. Well, now he could rip the arms off a robot and say he was made from stars. Some of the metal in his parts would’ve been mined from a white dwarf star.
Fuck the snobbish CESS girl traipsing after him and her mercenary guard, Hoss. She was pretty, could probably buy the Leaf with her small change, and then there was her...he almost tripped up the stairs...yeah she had a body he was never going to forget.
Life had been iffy for a while, but he was still here. CESS hadn’t killed him.
He waited at the top for the doors to slide open, heard Ember and Hoss come up behind him and wait also.
These doors were wide enough to swallow an oliphant from Gemini two. They rode on bearings smooth as engine oil, silent as a road of corpses...providing the bone birds hadn’t yet arrived. If so, those roads of corpses were full of squawking with giblets being flung about and the very air black with old blood.
His right fist whined quietly as his fingers curled to their utmost limits.
Down boy, down. Dial down.
His vision stained red for a while, simmering, and clearing as the doors shuddered to a stop.
Ahead, the room was empty save for the cybermonks, lined up at the very end of an aisle of gold-flecked tiles.
He took in their appearance as he strode closer. Three, same as before, when he’d been broken and bleeding, three years ago. They hadn’t changed externally, though internally they might have upgrades.
Left to right, standing in their pale blue robes. The metal arrangement of their chrome spindly legs, feet, and arms was similar. It was their heads that differed.
Stryng Theory, shortened to Stryng. His head wore a cap of knotted white cables that swung like hair to neck level. There were no eyes but squares of inset mesh sat at about the right level for ears.
Lightnyng File was Lightnyng for short. The top end of him...or her, for the monks seemed sexless, was a wedge-studded shiny sphere and his eyes were a pair of golden balls.
Erroar Code – or Erroar, was shorter than the other two, and his jigsaw head was fractured pieces of globe, connecting wires, and white triangular teeth. He was the only one with a visible mouth but he lacked eyes and ears.
“So,” Ember whispered behind him, “You really are cybernetic AIs.”
“Of course.” Stryng’s head spun and the white cables flared outward. “Hence the cyber.”
“Bloody obvious,” he said quietly, pleased at her indignant noise. Then he raised his voice. “I’ve brought the princess. Does this girl behind me qualify? I feel she should.”
“And feelings are so interesting.” Lightnyng bowed a little at the waist, his words sizzling. “We do approve. We will speak to her but you may go, Baz.”
He hesitated. “Go where?”
“To surgery. Do you recall the way?”
Last time he’d been towed in on a stretcher, almost in pieces. Only some extravagant medical care given on the way here had revived him. He remembered, all right.
Remembered holding up his left hand and grimacing at the lacerations showing beneath the shine of the tissue glue.
Remembered holding up his right and seeing nothing except for a glimpse of his arm stub lifting as it tried to obey.
No pain, thank the forgotten gods. Someone had pumped his nerves with anti-pain meds, shorted his sensations to the max.
He remembered the gore below too.
“I remember,” he croaked, nodding. “I can find my way.”
“Good,” one of them said. Erroar probably – from the clack of teeth and whispery whine of the servomotors in his jaw. They liked to take turns speaking.
“Good luck, man.” Hoss said from above, an avalanche of rumbling words. He inclined his head and held out a hairy hand.
After a millisecond of hesitation Baz touched it and nodded back.
“Surgery?” Ember looked concerned and puzzled. Despite the situation he was headed for, the crinkles on her brow and around her eyes were cute.
“Yes. Tuning up my cyborg bits.”
“Oh. Good luck from me too.” She shuddered as if imagining some terrible scene.
If only she knew...
Left out the doors, down a corridor. He paused once outside, wondering vaguely what they were going to discuss with the girl, Ember. She was a high-level data extractor.
It dawned on him that he didn’t wish ill for her. Not any more.
Somewhere along the line, coming here, he’d lost most of his animosity toward Ember. Just what the fuck did the monks want with a CESS operative?
He’d walked out after the last surgery, years ago, transformed into what he was now – a cyborg with a heart, but not much else of worth. All because of CESS. That road of corpses had led to this. Next time he’d fly past and forget what he’d seen. Stopping to help had been his downfall.
Hadn’t been her fault.
He sucked in a breath through his nose, wiped his eyes with his knuckle. Time to do what must be done and get a new cock.
Everything here was impersonal, done by programmed bots, but better than human.
His last words were uttered after he lowered himself to the table in the middle of the cool and pristine surgery room. Above, the cutting and laser-bearing robotic arms unfolded from the ceiling and headed for him...
Make it big and fancy, he slurred.
Make it really big.
Really, reeeeally big.
Had he said that out loud?
Then the hiss of anesthesia cut into his mind and sent him lala-ing off to almost-sleep.
He remained a little aware but everything blurred and sound deadened, as if a mountain of blankets covered him.
There were no woolly animals leaping hurdles in this sleep, only burning and clinking, and the buzz of tiny engines. He twitched but felt nothing.