After Vyken’s team set down in their assigned sector to cover, he had kept the team together on the first street in their division and explained how to scan the buildings for occupants. The first three buildings on the block were too damaged to shelter people, but there were a dozen occupants in the third one, two males, four females, and six children.
Vyken and Danya went to the doorless entryway, and Danya called, “Hello in the building. We mean you no harm. We are here to offer you a safe haven in a small community outside the city. We have food, fresh water, and shelter. The men I have with me are only for protection. Please come out, and I will show you the pictures.”
Then they waited. About five minutes later an older man and a woman of undetermined age came out to the entryway looking scared and uncertain. Since they were unarmed and posed no threat, he nodded to Danya his ascent for her to approach them. She was armed with a hand-held tablet to show them the Enclave facility.
“We have a group of cyborgs back from the war that is helping to get people like you out of the city to a safe place where you can work together to build a community like the ones that were here before the aliens came.”
“What’s the catch?” the man asked. “Nobody does nothing for nothing. What if we go there and don’t like it?”
“The catch is that you will have to work and help out where ever you can, and they will teach you what you need to know. The Enclave is on a farm where they are growing crops to provide food for the community. They will need people to work in the fields to take care of them, people to help build homes, take care of animals, teach and care for children,” she quickly explained. “No one will be forced to stay who doesn’t want to. I used to live here just like you a mile or so south of here. Tell the others and decide. One of these men will be back in a few hours to lead anyone who wants to come back to our transporter.”
“It sounds good,” the man said, and the woman beside him nodded. “I know I at least want to see it. I think the girls with kids would like to go. We’ll tell them and let you know when you come back.”
As they moved on to the next building, Vyken polled his new men about their understanding of what to do. There were many streets to cover and many buildings to scan, so he wanted them to split up and complete their sector by the end of the day. They needed to check all of the buildings whether they were residential structures or not. These days people took shelter in any partial standing structure they could find.
Vyken took Danya with him on his itinerary where they found at least twenty more people who accepted their offer of safe haven. Those that didn’t were probably not suitable for the Enclave anyway. They were the ones who preyed on people like Dany and her father.
Apparently, the predators were stirred up by what was happening in their territories, because someone started shooting at them. As a bullet grazed Vyken in the upper arm, he shoved Danya behind him and unshouldered his rifle to fire back. Two more shots came at him, and that was all Vyken needed to pinpoint the source so he could take out the gunman.
“Take cover,” he commanded Danya, indicating the wrecked brick building behind them. Another bullet struck Vyken in the side, and one grazed his leg as he fired back then retreated behind the wall with Danya. Unlike the projectiles being fired at them, Vyken’s ion rifle could penetrate the brick walls where the shooters had hidden.
Every time they fired, Vyken was able to pinpoint the origin and pick them off. His wounds stung like hell but barely slowed him down. His nanites were already hard at work repairing the damage and pushing the slugs out of his body. Vyken dispatched seven shooters before the gunfire stopped, and he determined it was safe for them to leave.
Only then did Danya realize that Vyken had been hit three times by the blood on his shirt and pants and his arm. “Oh, my God, Vyken, you’re hurt!” she cried.
“It’s minor. The nanites are repairing the damage,” he said, checking her over anxiously. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said. “You took the hits.”
Vyken pulled her into his arms and hugged her almost so tightly she couldn’t breathe. “I can’t have you out here like this. It’s too dangerous.” He loosened his hold on her as she groaned and sat down with her against the wall holding her on his lap.
“But I want to help you,” Danya protested. “I still have friends out here that need a safe place to go.”
“We will find them. My fear for you is too distracting for me to do my job properly.”
“Well, you need to get over it! I can do this. I am not staying back at the Enclave just waiting for you to come back every day.”
“No, Danya, it’s not something I will ever get over. You are what we all dream of having someday---the one female that I can mate and create offspring with. You are everything to me, my wealth, my future, my sanity,” he asserted.
In all his years as a warrior, nothing had broken him, but he knew losing Danya would. That reality was so harsh, he couldn’t even speak the words. He didn’t need to because Danya could see it in his eyes. She could feel it too.
Danya framed his handsome face with her hands and stared into his eyes. “Okay, I get it. What are we going to do about it? How can I stay safe enough to make you comfortable without staying back at the compound while you are out here?”
“Combat armor,” he said finally. “There used to be women in the infantry. I will look in the storeroom to see if we have any that can be modified to fit you. Projectile weapons can’t pierce it.”
“Okay, then. Let’s do that,” she smiled and kissed his lips impulsively. “This a not the last time people will be shooting at us. We’re in gang territory wherever we go. They need these people to use their drugs and turn tricks and to be their victims. They won’t like that we are taking them away.”
“It was not unexpected,” Vyken said soberly. “Maybe we need to show them how they could live a different life.”
“You have to catch them first and make them listen,” she told him.
“I think we could arrange that. We just need more men.”
“I guess you better wake some more up,” she said, stroking his cheek. “And we probably better get out of here before some of their friends show up and find them dead.”
Vyken put his hands on her waist and lifted her up then got to his feet. He scanned the area as far as his sensors could reach to determine that is was safe for them to go outside. His wounds were still under repair but were not severe enough to hinder his movement. Willing himself to focus on his surroundings rather than his fear that his female could be damaged, he shouldered his rifle and walked outside with Danya.
They returned to the people who wanted to join the Enclave. Vyken found that he and Danya had recruited twenty-five people where the other two teams had only gotten ten and fourteen. It was hard not to conclude the presence of a female and one other person was more successful than an all-male team with a natural human male and five burly cyborgs.
As they walked back through their route Vyken continually scanned their surroundings while contacting the cyborgs back at the enclave to check for female cyborgs among the three thousand on level four. Even though the females were just as lethal as the males, they could appear less threatening to frightened, mistrustful people.
The other teams had encountered buildings where people were afraid to come out. By the time Vyken and Danya returned to the transport, Vyken heard back from the cyborgs on level four that there were a hundred females among the cyborgs in stasis. He then contacted Medic Kydel to choose three females to activate for the enclave recruitment program.
In the coming weeks, he planned to have all the females activated for his crew. Some of them might be too close genetically to be mated with the males but integrating them into his crew would be beneficial. His archives told him some had been created for breeding and some had been created for pleasure. All could be trained as soldiers or anything else they needed to be.
The bottom line was it could keep Danya out of danger.
Commander, sir… Cyborg GRL 0824 enquired. While I was checking for females in room 418, Director Jacob Black came through the hallway looking into the rooms through the windows. He didn’t know that I was observing. He was trying to open the doors, but none would open for him, so he left.
Thank you 0824. I will look into it.
So, he had been right to suspect Jacob Black had more than a passing curiosity about the inactivated cyborgs. He wasn’t sure yet if his interest was helpful or malicious. Now that he knew about the cyborgs on level four, Vyken would inform him they were there as though Jacob had not been observed exploring level four. Vyken would decide what to do after he saw Jacob’s reaction.
It could very well be a coincidence that Jacob found the other cyborgs and that he was merely looking at the third level to expand the residential section then found the secret stairwell to level four. Vyken did believe he was genuinely surprised to learn about the three hundred inactivated cyborgs in level three.
Jacob Black had authority over the Enclave, but he had none over cyborgs. Vyken was representing the Cyborg Council on Earth. The inactivated cyborgs in the former cyborg production facility were Vyken’s responsibility, and he could activate and train them as he determined their purpose. He wondered how many other inactive cyborgs were contained at the South American site. Perhaps it was time he found out.