CHAPTER 1

The world outside the windows of the large building that housed Cyborg Sector had long gone dark, but Amanda Conrad remained at her desk. She was only vaguely aware of the fact that the other employees had already left for the day, having arrived safely at their homes after fighting downtown traffic, and were probably just finishing up dinner with their families. She ignored the street lights that flickered on and off in the world outside, illuminating the rain-moistened streets and ushering the stragglers home.

Amanda could have returned to her house, and nobody would have minded. She’d already put in a full day, but she couldn’t help working a little bit extra. Every time Amanda coded a new set of instructions into the computer, she came a little closer to developing a better operating system for the cyborgs. She couldn’t stop while she was in the zone. The silence of the office around her only made it easier to concentrate.

“Are you coming?” came an impatient voice over her shoulder, breaking her concentration.

Amanda looked up, squinting as her eyes readjusted to the real world. Jenny stood next to the elevator, her dark hair draping in a glossy curtain over her shoulder, resting her hands on her hip. “Almost. I'll probably finish in another minute.”

Jenny gave Amanda a skeptical look. “You know everyone else has been gone for hours, right? It won’t kill you to get out of here once in a while. I’m going to a party across town. Do you want to come with me?” She whipped a compact out of her purse to check her makeup. Jenny was one of the junior researchers in Cyborg Sector, but she liked to act as if she owned the place. She often treated Amanda like a little pet, trying to groom her into Jenny Mark II.

Amanda had been trying to stall Jenny’s efforts for as long as possible. She shook her head. “I still have a lot of work to do here. I’ll pass this time, thanks.”

Her friend rolled her eyes. “Of course you’re going to pass. It's not just this time. It’s every time! I don’t think you even came to the office Christmas party. One of these days, I’m going to stop inviting you, and then you’ll be all alone with the machines.” Jenny stepped into the elevator and pressed a button, waving her fingertips at Amanda as the doors closed.

The comfort of silence descended over the office. Bending back to her computer, Amanda was instantly interrupted again. “She’s wrong, you know.”

Amanda jumped in her chair, startled by the new voice. She thought Jenny had been the last person remaining in the office. “What do you mean?”

Jake stood up so she could see him over the divider. The large room that housed the desks of all the scientists assigned to Cyborg Sector was split up by short cubicle walls. Only the most talented people, like Dr. Feldman, had private offices. But the cubicles were enough to give each of them the semblance of privacy, and they often found that the close quarters assisted with collaboration. The design gave everyone equal access to the large labs that extended out to either side of the office room.

“She said everyone was gone, but you and I are still here,” Jake explained as he grinned down at her. “All alone, in this big building. It’s dark and rainy outside. It’s a perfect night to catch a cab over to Smith Street and grab a beer or two.” Jake was one of her fellow researchers, but he didn’t act like a typical scientist in his off-hours. He spent his weekends partying with anyone who was willing to tolerate him and often stumbled into the office hungover on Monday mornings.

Amanda pushed her glasses up her nose, hoping to conceal the fact that she was rolling her eyes at him. Jake had been talking to her like this ever since she came to work for the military. It was true that there weren’t a lot of women around, but she knew they weren’t a good match.

Her long blonde hair was always kept in a braid because she didn’t know what else to do with it. She wore glasses over her chocolate brown eyes, and she hardly ever wore makeup. While some of the female scientists chose to look professional and sexy under their lab coats with tailored dress trousers and pumps, Amanda usually went for jeans and sneakers. After all, there was no dress code.

Jake wanted girls that liked to drink until they would say yes to anything. The type of girl who wanted to spend a night out partying instead of at home with a good book. He wanted a girl that wouldn’t think twice about a one-night stand, not a girl who was looking for something real. Amanda had better things to do with her time than to mess around with a guy like Jake.

“No thanks.” She turned back to her computer and pushed a few buttons on her keyboard.

“Come on. Just for an hour. You put on this façade of a serious woman who’s into her work, but I know that somewhere underneath there’s a sexy little vixen waiting to burst out.” He leaned against the cubicle wall and his eyes wandered down to her chest.

“Nope. The only person in here is a big nerd, Jake.” She flicked a long blonde braid over her shoulder.

He sighed. “Fine. But don’t say I never tried to do you any favors. I wouldn’t be surprised if I came in here tomorrow morning to find you in the same position and wearing the same clothes. You know they won’t pay you more if you work extra hours, right?”

“Whatever.” Amanda’s position was salaried, but she wasn’t here for the money. She had gone into cybernetic research because she wanted to make a difference in the world. When she was in college, she hadn’t imagined working with cyborgs in a military capacity, but it certainly paid the bills. Her friends teased her that she was in this line of work because she got to hang around with people who were more machine than person, and she wasn’t required to make small talk.

They probably weren’t entirely wrong.

“Have it your way. I’m outta here.” Jake disappeared back into his cubicle for a moment before heading toward the elevator.

Unable to concentrate any longer on her work, Amanda got up from her desk and went through the heavy metal door at one end of the room marked “Authorized Personnel Only!” In case that wasn't enough of a deterrent, someone had taken it upon themselves to add a big “Danger!” with a red Sharpie. Even though the office was large, it looked minuscule compared to the size of this room.

The military called it the barracks for the cyborgs. Rows of bullet-proof glass boxes each held a single body upright. Anytime Cyborg Sector had a new hire, the first thing they said was that this room disturbed them. Amanda could see that they would feel uncomfortable. There were hundreds of men in here, each wearing a camouflage battle uniform. A wire extended from the backs of every skull. The eyes of the cyborgs were closed as if they were asleep.

Amanda had been frightened by the room long ago, but by now she found it intriguing.

The military kept the cyborgs in charging mode when they weren’t in use. They required almost no nutrition to maintain their bodies. An IV drip provided nourishment and doctors kept their bodies in artificial comas. Their minds could download automatic updates that kept them prepared for any situation when they were activated.

Amanda sauntered down the rows of cyborgs, glancing carefully at each one. Many of them tended to look similar. She never understood why their features tended toward uniformity. When the government began its work on cyborgs, they had started with people who donated their bodies to science. Eventually, they moved on to clones, but there was a high failure rate. The vast majority of cyborg bodies still came from volunteers.

She knew each one was genetically different, but there was something about the integration process when they became more than human that gave them all a certain look. They had pale skin, glassy eyes, and a robotic precision to their movements.

She stopped in front of the last box on the end of the second row. Each cyborg had a label on his cell. The label was color coded to indicate his unit, and the identification numbers showed the origins of the body. This one was designated AD-214: Army Donor number 214. His label showed he was on the Blue Squad.

AD-214 was her favorite.

Like many of the other soldiers, some parts of his human body had been replaced with artificial limbs. In the beginning, the government wasn’t interested in making them pretty, with faux flesh arms or realistic eyeballs that would help them blend in with society. They needed their cyborgs to be functional and intimidating. Eventually, they realized it was valuable to have assets that were visually no different from a regular person.

Doctors had replaced AD-214’s right hand and left leg during his integration into the program. The artificial hand was a piece of machine mastery, able to reproduce tiny movements. In Amanda’s tests, the cyborg could pick up a single grain of rice or crush someone’s throat. His leg, unseen under his pants, enabled him to run faster and jump higher than most Olympic athletes.

Most of the time, Amanda was focused on improving AD-214’s performance, command functions, or operating system. Now, for a moment, she allowed herself to slip out of a scientific mindset. She studied the firm line of his jaw, his high cheek bones, and the shock of dark hair that they could never seem to get under control.

Even after all the work done on his body, he was still handsome.

* * *

CHAPTER 2

Amanda stood by the coffee station and fidgeted. The government was happy to provide as much coffee as anyone could drink, and they took advantage of it. Amanda typically preferred hers without caffeine, but she needed a little bit of liquid encouragement this morning. It had been late by the time she finally tumbled into her small, bleak apartment and fallen asleep in front of the television. She needed to be awake and alert today; Dr. Alex Feldman was in the building.

Dr. Feldman had been the original genius behind Cyborg Sector. He had become interested in software programming and the wiring of the human brain when he was a teenager and created the current version of the cyborg operating system while he was in college. When the military approached him about his model, he gladly sold it to them on the condition that he was allowed to head the project.

Nobody else had the experience of Dr. Feldman. He was irreplaceable. Even the highest ranking officers treated him with respect and deference. The other scientists, no matter their stature, scurried about like lab mice when he was around. He never kept regular office hours, and nobody ever said anything about it.

At the moment, the door to Dr. Feldman’s office was open. She watched as he sat behind his desk, blonde hair slicked back over wire-frame glasses. He was far more handsome than any scientist had a right to be. At the moment, he was flicking through files that had landed on his desk while he was gone.

With a shaking hand, Amanda poured an extra cup of joe and marched across the room to his office door. She knocked on the frame. “Need some coffee?”

Dr. Feldman looked up and smiled. “It’s more like battery acid here, but yeah, I’ll take some.” He held out his hand to accept the Styrofoam cup from her hand, and she hoped he wouldn’t notice how much she was trembling. He always made her feel nervous. “Are you going to be working with me on the AI project today? I could use someone who knows what they’re doing.”

Amanda’s stomach leaped into her throat. Did the famous Dr. Feldman want her to work beside him? She was qualified to help him work the bugs out of the artificial intelligence system they were trying to install into the cyborgs, but she didn’t think he knew who she was. Most of the actions performed by the units were sent directly by human military commanders watching from a distance. The goal was to get the cyborgs to a point where they could function autonomously, so they could still be effective even if communications to headquarters were interrupted.

“I’d be delighted,” she replied, trying to keep the thrill out of her voice. He wouldn’t want to be shut in a lab with Amanda all day if he thought of her as a fan girl.

“Great. Let’s get started, then. I don’t feel like sorting through all this paperwork today.”

He stood up from behind his big desk and accompanied her to the control room. From here, all of the barracks was visible through huge windows that looked down onto the cyborgs. A massive dashboard took up the majority of the room underneath the windows, containing various computer interfaces, alert lights, and emergency buttons. “Show me what you’ve come up with recently.”

Amanda eagerly took the rare one-on-one time and immediately dove into explaining her latest work. She turned on one of the monitors to display erratic brain waves that were the result of her most recent tests, indicating that one of the cyborgs wasn’t responding well to its programming. “What I’m hoping to achieve is a system so intelligent that each cyborg can function as a team, including the other soldiers in his squadron without any outside input. Currently, each cyborg in a unit has its primary specialty, but there is some overlap. For instance, the communications specialist has specialized implants assisting with tapping into satellites and radio waves, but the captains aren’t using all the information.” She held her breath, waiting to see if Dr. Feldman would berate her over a small detail.

But he merely nodded. “They’re trying to rely too much on themselves. They don’t fully recognize each other as teammates.”

“Exactly. I made some adjustments to their facial recognition system, hoping to link it in with an AI and create more of an artificial human experience for them. So far, I’m not convinced it’s working. In testing, some of the captains killed their squad members when asked to recognize them by their facial features instead of their system code.”

Dr. Feldman nodded again as he looked over her results. “You’ve done thorough work. It’s impressive, and it gives me a lot to think about.”

He stood so close that Amanda could feel the heat of his body through his lab coat. She blinked, trying to shut out the image of what it would be like to be with such a man. But her lips tingled as she imagined kissing him, and she wondered — not for the first time — what it would be like to have him run his hands over her body, to hold her, and to make love to her.

“I have a lot of respect for you, Amanda,” he said, interrupting her fantasy. “You’re young, but your thinking is advanced.” His eyes seemed to sparkle as he looked down at her.

The corners of her mouth snuck up without her permission. “I know you’re busy, but if you’d like to discuss the project more, I’d be happy to take you out for some real coffee.” She didn’t know how the words appeared in her mouth. She hadn’t planned on asking him out, but she had already said them. Amanda couldn't take it back.

The expression on Dr. Feldman’s face changed instantly, and he took a small step backward. It wasn’t intended to be obvious, but it certainly sent a message. “I’m sorry, Ms. Conrad. I don’t like to fraternize with other researchers outside of the office. It might send the wrong message to everyone else.”

“Of course. How silly of me.” Amanda’s heart thudded so loudly that the cyborgs could probably hear it in the next room. “That’s where I’m at on the project. If you have any insights, feel free to shoot me an email.” She hurried out the door.

* * *

CHAPTER 3

The stark white walls and linoleum floors of Cyborg Sector were quiet. The slight hubbub of scientists at work had died down as the humans slowly trickled out into the real world. If anyone had been listening, the only sound they would hear in the barracks was the click of a lone keyboard in the next room. The cyborgs’ hearing was good enough to detect it, except they were all in sleep mode.

All of them except for one. AD-214’s interface activated briefly, then turned off again. The distant clicking ceased, followed by the boom of the door to the barracks as it swung open and shut again, echoing in the large space. The scientist who came into the room walked swiftly and silently to the end of the row, her feet clad in old sneakers that didn’t make a sound against the hard floor. She furrowed her brow at the small monitor outside of AD-214’s clear cell.

“You shouldn’t be waking up right now,” she murmured as she noted the information on the screen. “But I could have sworn the system gave me an alert.” She scanned the other cyborgs in the vicinity, shrugged, and turned to leave.

AD-214’s interface clicked on again as the scientist turned her back. Though he could only see the side of her face, his recognition software scanned and identified her, scrolling information across his retina. AMANDA CONRAD, AGE 23, EMPLOYEE OF CYBORG SECTOR. His system initiated a more detailed search, and these results displayed instantaneously: BLUE SQUADRON; POSITION: MEDICAL OFFICER.

Amanda didn’t notice that AD-214’s eyes were open or that the readout on his monitor was off the charts. She wasn’t anywhere near the control room. She didn’t see that the red light — the same one that had initially called her into the barracks — was blinking rapidly once again.

AD-214’s eyes closed and his interface shut down. The blinking red light turned off. Amanda left the barracks, hung her lab coat in her cubicle, and rode the elevator down to her compact car in the parking garage. Cyborg Sector fell silent once again.

* * *

An hour later, Jenny and Dr. Feldman stepped off the elevator and into the office. “You are a very bad girl, did you know that?” he asked as he pushed her up against a cubicle wall.

She giggled as she felt his hardness pressing against her. “You have no idea just how bad I can be, Dr. Feldman,”

“Call me Alex,” he murmured as he leaned down to nuzzle her neck, nipping at the delicate skin near her collarbone.

“Okay then, Alex, just how much badness do you think you can take tonight?”

His laugh sounded like a deep rumble as he moved down to pull at the buttons of her little top with his teeth. The top one came off with a pop, and goose bumps prickled along her skin as the cool air conditioning touched her cleavage. He felt himself harden even more at the prospect, and he plunged his tongue between her breasts. “Are you saying there are even more options than what we did before?”

Jenny tipped her head back, exulting in the good doctor’s work. She smiled as she thought about their tryst on Tuesday night. She knew what his excuses were whenever any of the girls around the office wanted to date him: he didn’t want to fraternize outside of the office. Her solution was simple. She asked him to stay in the building. His desk had never been used so well. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

Alex ripped the remainder of her buttons off with his hands and tossed the shredded shirt to the floor. Her breasts were ripe and round in her push-up bra, just begging him to claim them with his mouth. “Yeah? You wanna fuck on the elevator?” He wrapped his arms around her waist and bit into her soft flesh as he imagined the fun of plowing into her as the elevator plunged toward the basement.

“I think we should save that for next time,” Jenny replied as she ran her hands through his pale hair.

Alex moaned at the mention of a next time. He knew he could have any of the women in this building that he wanted, but Jenny was by far the most willing. He couldn’t imagine that any of the other scientists would be up for this although he would be happy to give them a chance. That little blonde girl would make a nice threesome with Jenny if she would ever loosen up a bit. She had beautiful tits. What was her name? Amanda?

Jenny slipped her hand down between Alex’s legs, rubbing against his bulge. “I want to do something horrible. Something so dirty that I’m not sure you’re up for it.”

“Really?” He pulled back so that he could raise an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

“Let’s fuck in the barracks.”

She hadn’t been wrong. It was enough to give him pause. Sex in that room, where there were hundreds of men watching them? Although they were asleep, and they probably didn’t know what sex was any longer.

“Won’t it be great?” she asked. “It’s like we’ll be doing it in front of an audience, right out in public, except no one will see us. What do you say?”

Alex looked at her for a moment, unsure. There were no cameras anywhere in the building, at least.

Jenny wrapped a leg around Alex’s waist and pulled him against her with the strength of her thigh. “Are you in?”

“God, yes.” He scooped her up underneath her ass, not willing to break contact with her curves, and carried her across the office to the massive door. The automated locks picked up the ID card in his pocket and clicked open. He had only to turn around and shove his backside against the door to access the barracks.

“Where do you want to go?” Alex asked.

“Right up there.” Jenny directed him to the front of the room, where every single enhanced soldier could see them if their eyes were open. “Right on the floor.”

Alex sank onto the tile. It didn’t matter that it was hard and uncomfortable; his crotch was too. It was time to do something about that. He didn’t bother undoing the button and the zipper on her pants, but merely yanked them off and threw them aside instead. Jenny’s silky purple thong matched her sexy bra. He looped his finger through her panties and pulled them aside to flick his tongue over her pussy. It was already wet with arousal, and he couldn’t contain himself any longer.

He pulled out his cock and plunged into her. She was hot and soft, and he closed his eyes in pleasure. She moaned underneath him, and he drove hard, shoving in his dick all the way to its base.

“Do you like taking all of it?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly.

“God, yes,” Jenny cried as she wrapped her legs around him. “Push that fucking cock into me.”

Alex pounded against her. He could hear her ass slapping on the hard floor, but she didn’t complain. Alex needed this and deserved it. This facility wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for him, and if Dr. Alex Feldman wanted to fuck a random woman in front of a room full of cyborgs, then Goddammit, he could. His seed poured out as he collapsed on top of her.

“You didn’t even let me give you a blow job,” Jenny complained from underneath him.

Alex pushed himself up on his arms to see if she was joking. Her luscious pink lips were pouting at him. “I’m sure we can find an opportunity to do that,” he replied. He would gladly spend another late night at the office to have that mouth wrapped around his cock.

“I’m good at it, too,” she boasted. “I’ll suck your brains right out through your dick.”

Alex instantly regretted coming so fast, but Jenny was getting up and putting her pants back on. They wandered through the rows of cyborgs to the doors.

“If they could see us, do you think any of them would know what we were doing? I know we’ve taken out all of their emotions, but sex isn’t an emotion for a guy. It’s just instinct.” She eyeballed the camouflaged crotches with interest.

“I doubt it,” Alex said. He wasn’t sure if he was right. After all, it wasn’t testable. He mostly didn’t want her to think about it too much. Jenny was wild enough already. He wouldn’t be surprised if he caught her trying to have sex with one of them, and he wanted her all to himself.

* * *

The two scientists had been so caught up in their rutting that they weren’t thinking about work. If only one of them had been near a desk computer or in the main control room, they would have seen the blinking red light. Even though they had glanced at some of the soldiers on their way out, they hadn’t examined the one all the way at the end of the second row.

His eyes were open and tracked their progress.

* * *

CHAPTER 4

Amanda leaned against the wall of the elevator as she rode it up to her apartment. It had been a long day, but the strain of her work never seemed to catch up to her until she was home. The elevator stopped and opened its doors, letting her out on her floor. She pulled out her keys as she headed for the door.

When she had rented this apartment after college, she’d had big plans. Large sliding glass doors overlooked the city, and she had immediately begun making notes for how she wanted to decorate her first living space. It would be the perfect place to bring a few friends over for a dinner party and drinks, but there would also be a nice reading nook where she could curl up with a good book.

On a celebratory high after both graduating and being hired into Cyborg Sector, Amanda had picked out paint swatches, circled all the furniture she wanted in a catalog from the local outlet store, and had even asked her mother to go shopping with her. It wasn’t a big place, but it was hers. She loved the fact that it had two bedrooms because that meant she had plenty of room for exercise equipment.

Moving her workout stuff into the spare bedroom and unpacking her boxes of clothes and books was as far as she had ever gotten. She quickly became so absorbed in her work that she was working longer hours than the job required. She wanted to find answers. Amanda soon forgot her college friends that she had been so excited to invite over. She simply didn’t have time to mess around with social matters. The walls remained stark white with only a few cheap bookshelves to break up the monotony. She hadn’t purchased any new furniture although she accepted a few castoffs from an aunt who moved out of the city.

Amanda plopped down onto her old, saggy sofa with a sigh. How could she have been so stupid as to ask out Dr. Feldman? A co-worker wasn’t the worst option for him, but he was still way out of her league. Amanda had embarrassed and alienated herself in front of the person she admired most. It would be impossible to face him the next day, and she could only hope that he hadn’t shared her mistake with anyone else at Cyborg Sector.

A large black binder sat on the old coffee table, and Amanda reached out to flip it open. She had begun collecting clippings of everything related to Cyborg Sector as soon as word started spreading to the public. Some of the articles were from actual newspapers, but the majority of them came from the Internet. Amanda used to spend hours looking up any information she could find on the project and the man behind it. It had inspired her to go into this field of work in the first place, and she kept the binder to remind herself of her goals as a scientist.

Her parents encouraged her, taking her to any conventions or competitions in the tri-state area that were remotely related to her interests. Turning to the next page of the binder, Amanda found the blue ribbon she won in a robot-building contest in junior high. Students came from all the local schools. Amanda had been the youngest competitor there, and the only girl, but she had never let her gender or age intimidate her. If anything, it made her work harder to prove she could do it.

“Fuck it,” she muttered to herself as she slapped the binder shut. “Why am I letting something this stupid bother me? I don’t need that jerk’s approval, and I certainly don’t need him to like me.” She stomped down the hall to the spare room.

Originally, she was going to paint and decorate the space, but she had turned it into an exercise room. Her interest in interior design had waned quickly, leaving the room looking like nothing more than a bedroom with a treadmill and a weight bench instead of a bed, but she hadn’t lost interest in training her body. She loved the loose, rubbery feeling in her muscles after a good workout. Amanda’s interest in exercise went hand-in-hand with an interest in robotics. Learning how the body functioned was one of the things that made her a good engineer. Working in Cyborg Sector meant that she got to study robotics as well as the human body.

Amanda increased the stereo’s volume and began warming up. She stretched and bent, preparing her body for what was to come. She pounded her feet on the treadmill, pumped her muscles on the weight bench, and wrapped it all up with some yoga to cool down. The full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door showed her all of her hard work was paying off. Her arms were slim and well defined, her stomach tight and flat, and her ass was firm. Only her breasts refused to cooperate with the rest of her body, overwhelming her small frame with their mass.

After she had turned on the shower, Amanda stripped off her sweaty clothes and stepped into the hot stream of water. Exercising always made her a little horny, and she luxuriated in the curves of her body under the soapy lather. She ran her hands over her round breasts, appreciating their fullness much more here than she did in the mirror. Her thumbs rubbed gently over her nipples, arousing them to pink buds.

Unable to resist, Amanda squeezed the rest of the lather out of her loofah onto her hand before slipping it between her legs. She ran her hands against the insides of her upper thighs, teasing herself. Her sighs echoed against the shower walls as her hand rubbed back and forth, knowing the places everything felt the best.

Amanda bit her lip as she fantasized about Dr. Feldman walking into her bathroom and seeing her in all of her glory, soap dripping from every curve as she pleasured herself. He would want to join her, but she would make him wait and watch until she came. That would put him in his place. Only then would she let him in, looking at the water flowing down over his hard body and cascading over his cock. He would slip it inside her, pushing her against the wall of the shower with his efforts as he buried his face in her wet breasts.

Amanda slipped a finger inside herself. It was a ridiculous fantasy, but it was fun. She rubbed a hand against her clit, moving faster and faster as she headed toward a climax. Her walls pulsed around her finger as she came. The neighbors could probably hear her moaning, but she didn’t care. They would have to get used to it.

Throwing a towel around her body, Amanda headed back into the living room to watch a little television before going to sleep and starting everything all over again tomorrow. She wouldn’t let her small mishap with Dr. Feldman worry her. He could take his opinion and shove it up his ass. She was a good scientist, a good worker, and a good person. If he decided he wanted her, he was going to have to work for it.

That night, Amanda tossed and turned in bed. She had gone to sleep in a good mood, feeling satisfied both physically and sexually. But her nightmares were haunted by images of a cyborg uprising. A revolt had never happened before, but deep inside of her she knew the possibility was real.

They came in her dreams. Flashing images of angry cyborgs cutting down the innocent humans around them as they escaped from the Cyborg Sector building. She watched, completely unable to move, as the soulless creatures stepped out of their cells and marched in formation toward the town.

* * *

CHAPTER 5

Amanda pushed up her glasses and ran a hand over her face. She held the bottle of cold water she had brought from home over her forehead. Her eyes were still puffy from the night before, an after-effect of staying up too late. It meant that anyone who knew her would automatically think she had been crying. Anyone who didn’t know her would think she was sick or had been stung by a bee.

The elevator loudly chimed when it reached her floor, pounding its notes into her head. Why did they have to make the thing so loud? She felt like she was hung over, but a single shot of whiskey before bed couldn’t affect her this much. She was exhausted and emotionally wrung out.

Amanda passed Jenny’s cubicle, noticing that she hadn’t arrived at work yet. Her computer monitor was still off and her lab coat was hanging on its hook. That was odd. Amanda was running a little later than usual, so Jenny definitely should be here already. At least she wasn’t around to harass Amanda about not going to the party last night.

With a sigh, Amanda fell into her desk chair and turned on the computer. Scientists and researchers were still filtering in around her, most of them converging around the water cooler or the coffee station. The beginning of the day was never intense around Cyborg Sector. It was an unwritten rule that nobody bothered each other about work for the first hour. Glancing over her shoulder, Amanda noted that Dr. Feldman wasn’t in yet, either. She couldn’t be sure if he planned on being here today or not. He made his own rules.

Taking a sip of water and turning back to her monitor, Amanda nearly spat the contents of her mouth all over the screen. The alert light was going off for AD-214 again. Checking the logs revealed it had gone off multiple times throughout the night. Pulling on her lab coat, Amanda rushed through the barracks door and headed straight for the far end of the second row. She was far more awake than she had felt just a moment ago.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she passed the other cyborgs, not seeing them as she made her way to her destination. As a scientist, she knew she wasn’t supposed to get emotionally attached to her work. Everything was supposed to be fact, logic, and reason. There was no room for mushy sentimentality. Besides, these soldiers weren’t technically humans, and they didn’t have distinct personalities anymore.

But AD-214 was different. He had been one of the first cyborgs she worked on, and she had made significant improvements to both his operating system and the biomechanics in his hand and leg. He was her pet project, and the amount of alerts in the system meant that something was wrong.

Amanda stopped in front of his cell. The readout on his monitor was extremely active, and his eyes were open. They followed her movements as she turned off the alarm and checked his vital signs. It wasn’t unusual for a cyborg to watch a human working with them. In fact, this kind of activity was encouraged. The current theory was that it helped build their artificial intelligence system. But the fact that she hadn’t given the command for him to wake up unnerved her. He should be asleep until someone activated him.

With no other options, Amanda released the lock on the bulletproof glass cage and swung the door open. She looked directly into AD-214’s blue eyes. “Follow me.”

Amanda didn’t have to turn around to know that the cyborg had stepped out of his cell and was obeying orders. He was following her to the lab, a place they had been together many times before. She could do many things from the computer at her desk, but nothing beat hands-on testing in the lab.

She shut the door behind them, grateful that they had the facility to themselves for the moment. If the other scientists found out that there was something unusual going on with this particular cyborg, they would ridicule her or want to help. She couldn’t imagine a positive result from either outcome.

Following the standard protocol when working with the cyborgs, Amanda turned and addressed him directly. “Good morning, AD-214.”

“Good morning, sir,” he replied, his back ramrod straight and his artificial hand touching his eyebrow in salute. All of the cyborgs were programmed to call everyone sir, regardless of their gender. His voice was distinctly human, deep and powerful.

“We’re going to run through some basic tests this morning, soldier. Are you ready?” It had taken Amanda a little while to get used to commanding the soldiers like this. It felt odd to boss around these big, muscular men with serious faces, but after four years working in Cyborg Sector, it was finally second nature.

“Sir, yes sir,” AD-214 replied.

“Good.” Amanda programmed the computer in the lab to pick up the brain signals from AD-214. It would show her the resulting information immediately, but a copy would also be sent to her computer so she could study it later. “Raise your right hand.”

The soldier instantly obeyed, raising his hand over his head.

They went through several simple commands like this, Amanda asking him to move different parts of his body, step forward, step backward, blink three times, and turn about-face. It was the typical beginning of any session with a cyborg to ensure that they were capable of following simple commands before they were asked to do anything more complicated or dangerous.

AD-214 followed each instruction to the letter. Amanda checked the computer. It showed her his brain waves, heartbeat, oxygen level, and temperature as well as the code responses output by the cybernetic chip implanted in his brain. For Amanda’s job, she had to be a part-time medical doctor as well as a robotics specialist.

After he had passed the tests with flying colors, it was time to move on to examine his mind. “What is your name?”

“AD-214, sir.”

“What is your rank?” Amanda asked.

“Captain of Blue Squadron, sir.” He looked off in the distance over her head, his gaze forward. The soldiers weren’t supposed to look the scientists in the eye.

“Tell me your specialty.”

“Battle strategy and command, sir.”

“Who do you work for?”

“The Cyborg Sector of the United States military, sir.”

Amanda crossed her arms as she studied her subject. He looked healthy, and in all preliminary tests, he seemed to be within normal operational parameters. What was wrong with him? “What did you do before you were in the military?”

“I have always been in the military, sir.”

“Where were you born?” It wasn’t technically Amanda’s job to get into the psychoanalytical details of the cyborgs, but she was curious. There was something unusual happening that kept this soldier awake at night, and she had to know what it was.

Unlike his previous answers, AD-214 didn’t respond immediately to this question. His eyes wavered for a moment, as though looking for the answer in his brain, but he still didn’t look at her. “I don’t know, sir.”

Amanda nodded. “Who am I?”

The soldier looked directly at her. It was against his programming. He should have been able to scan her face with his peripheral vision and give her an answer. Instead, he stared at her with intense blue eyes, seeming to search her soul. He opened his mouth to respond but closed it again without saying anything.

“AD-214, I asked you to identify me.”

But the cyborg had no response. He only stared at her. Amanda checked the monitor. His brain waves were all over the charts, and his temperature and his heartbeat were steadily rising. There was something wrong with this soldier, something on a deeper level than she could tackle herself. It was time to contact the psychiatric department.

“Please return to your cell,” Amanda said with a sigh.

The cyborg didn’t hesitate, marching quickly toward the door that led back to the barracks. Amanda followed him, reconnected him to the life support system, and locked the door of his cell. The cyborgs always took a couple of minutes to enter full sleep mode, and she watched the soldier as she waited for sleep to overtake him.

Contacting another department would be risky. She should discuss his issues with Dr. Feldman first. Of course, Dr. Feldman probably wasn’t here, and she could claim that as her excuse for going around him, but she knew it wouldn’t work forever. Even the psychiatric department might not be too much help. Either way, there was a possibility AD-214 would be destroyed.

When the soldier’s eyes closed, Amanda turned around and headed for her desk. She had to make a phone call.

* * *

CHAPTER 6

AD-214’s eyes snapped open, and his interface booted up. Two people stood in front of his cell, staring at him.

“Did you tell him to do that?” asked a man. AD-214 scanned his face. DR. GOLD, PSYCHIATRIST. STATUS: HARMLESS.

“No. That’s the problem, Dr. Gold. He keeps waking up on his own. Alerts went off all night. I took him into the lab and ran him through the necessary tests. He did pretty well at first, but I asked him some more probing questions, and he stopped answering.” The readout on the blonde woman scrolled across his vision: AMANDA CONRAD, CYBORG SECTOR SCIENTIST. STATUS: HARMLESS. It was slightly different information from his scan earlier in the morning, and not quite the same as when he had seen her the night before. He saved the new data to his file on human interaction and continued his observation.

Dr. Gold, an older gentleman with a graying beard and frizzy hair, turned his attention to Amanda. “What did you ask him?”

She paused for a moment before answering. “Where he was born.”

“Amanda! You know you can’t do that! Trying to get a cyborg to remember his human past before he became part of the program can be extremely dangerous. Don’t forget about the trials from the beginning when the cyborgs went into a murderous rage! You’re lucky he didn’t turn around and snap your neck.”

AD-214 watched the conversation unfold before him. According to his programming, he wasn’t supposed to listen to anything humans said unless they were specifically addressing him, but today his protocols were malfunctioning. He knew they weren’t talking to him. They were not giving him any commands, but he still heard them. The glass didn’t keep anything out.

Amanda shrugged. “I think I’m even luckier than you realize.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I asked him who I was, and he didn’t seem to know. He should have been able to spit out my name and position in Cyborg Sector immediately. He always has before. But he just stared at me, looking me right in the eyes.”

Dr. Gold stroked his beard. “You said you had made some adjustments to his facial recognition software, right?”

“Yes,” Amanda replied with a nod, “but that should only have improved his existing capabilities. I knew that I couldn’t ask him to test his weapons if he wasn’t able to identify me. I returned him to his cell and called you immediately.”

“There are a few things we will have to do.”

The words of Dr. Gold faded out along with the visual in AD-214’s interface. Although his body hadn’t moved, he saw new things in front of his eyes. There were flashes of soldiers in the desert, pale camouflage blurring with their quick movements. Blood soaked the sand. The sound of bombs hitting the buildings around them assaulted his ears, followed by the screams of his men. The vision faded, and he could hear the people in front of him once again.

Amanda had swung open the door, and she was instructing him to step out of his cell and come with them. AD-214 obeyed her command, following the swing of her blonde braid as she walked away. He recognized where they were going. It was Dr. Gold’s office. He looked in his memory banks to see when he had last been at this location and if it posed any danger. There didn’t seem to be any danger.

As they passed through the doorway, his vision shifted again. He lay on a table, staring up at bright lights. Men looked down at him with solemn faces. They poked and prodded him, cutting with tiny knives and shaking their heads. The pain of their testing was nothing compared to the pain in his heart. His chest wanted to collapse in on itself. “We can’t save him,” someone said.

“It doesn’t matter.” AD-214’s voice rang loudly in his ears. His mouth hadn’t moved, but he heard the words clearly. “I don’t have anything to live for anymore.”

A new face hovered over him with a piece of paper in his hands. He shook it in front of AD-214’s face. “Son, you still have a chance to serve your country. Cyborg Sector will keep your body active and fit. You don’t have to stop being a soldier.”

“Will I remember anything?” AD-214 asked desperately. He didn’t like the way his voice shook. “I don’t want to remember.”

“Not a chance, son,” the man replied with a wicked grin. He had greasy, slicked back hair and bright white teeth that made him look like a used car salesperson. “The army wants your body, not your mind.”

AD-214 reached out to take a pen the man held out for him, but his hand wouldn’t work. It was nothing more than a mass of blood and tendons. He screamed, but the man pressed the pen into his left hand.

“It doesn’t have to be neat. You just have to sign it.”

“Don’t you have enough robots?” someone asked from the other side of the table as AD-214’s sight began to fade.

“Not even close. Just over two hundred.”

Once more, the scene before his eyes disappeared. He knew he was still standing in the doorway that led away from the barracks. The two scientists were staring at him. The blonde woman’s eyebrows were drawn together in concern, and the older man was whispering. AD-214 couldn’t understand what he was saying. He still heard things from his memory. The sound of saws pierced his ears, followed by screams. His screams.

It was too much. AD-214’s system was becoming overloaded. He didn’t understand what he was supposed to do. No one was giving him a command. The pain in his heart was real, not merely part of whatever had appeared before his eyes.

AD-214 spun on his heels. His fellow soldiers were trapped. The rest of Blue Squad was right behind him, each of them confined to an individual cage. They were asleep, just as he had been. AD-214 couldn’t abandon them. They had been asleep for too long. It was time to wake up and leave. Somewhere, they had duties to perform and homes waiting for them.

He smashed the side of his fist into the lock on the nearest cell. He expected there to be some pain, but there was none. His hand didn't hurt at all. AD-214 didn’t take the time to try and understand. He had work to do.

“AD-214, stop!” ordered a voice from the doorway. It was the blonde woman, Amanda Conrad, the woman who seemed to be everyone and no one. Her information was different every time he looked at her.

“No.” He knew she was not his commander. He returned to his work, flinging open the transparent cells trapping his fellow soldiers. AD-214 made short work of yanking the wires from the back of their skulls, disconnecting them from whatever system was keeping them asleep. When they awoke, he didn’t have to command them. They immediately jumped to life and followed their leader, crashing their way through the rest of the cells to free their squadmates.

“What is happening here?” screamed a man as he ran into the barracks from the other side of the room. AD-214 didn’t have to wait for his recognition software to know who he was. Dr. Feldman. There was already an extensive file saved in his system on this man. He was the one responsible for the soldiers being in this prison. The plasma gun embedded in the cyborg leader’s hand hummed as it charged, the sound piercing the room.

“No!” screamed a voice behind him.

AD-214 fired. A ball of blue plasma shot across the room, burying itself into Dr. Feldman’s chest. The blonde man hurtled backward and slumped to the floor.

It was time to determine the best way out of this building. AD-214 scanned his memory for the exit, but the information wasn’t available. He would have to force his way out. “Blue Squad! Evacuate!” he shouted above the noise of the room.

The soldiers snapped to attention as they shook off their induced sleep. AD-214 waved them out of the door ahead of him as he checked the room for more threats. They weren’t safe yet, but they were on their way. He was going to do his duty as a soldier and get them out. They had no weapons other than those built into their bodies, but it would have to be enough.

As he headed for the door, boots crunching in the debris, he paused. The blonde scientist was unmoving on the floor. Shattered glass and bits of electronics surrounded her. Dr. Gold crouched over her head, trying to talk to her and wake her up, but she was unresponsive. AD-214 didn’t want to use his facial recognition software. It would only be more confusing when it gave him another piece of different information. Instead, he bent down and put his arms underneath her.

“Stop! Put her down! Those are orders, soldier!” Dr. Gold screamed. He clutched at Amanda’s arms, trying to pull her out of the cyborg’s grasp.

AD-214 pushed him aside. Dr. Gold was unimportant to him. He was not a member of Blue Squad nor was he Dr. Feldman. He could not come with them, but he did not have to die.

The cyborg slung Amanda over his shoulder and carried her through the door.

* * *

Amanda couldn’t understand what was happening. Earlier AD-214 seemed to be functioning normally. There were problems, of course, but that was why she had called in Dr. Gold. The psychiatrist had always been kind to her and had been one of the first people she had worked with at Cyborg Sector. She trusted he would help her find the problem and not recommend AD-214 for destruction unless it was necessary.

Dr. Gold was prepared to bring the cyborg back to his office for a more extensive evaluation. They needed to know what was going on before they could figure out how to fix it.

But as the soldier stepped out of his cell, he paused. He no longer appeared to be looking at them, but his eyes were glazed and unfocused again. Amanda spoke to him, asking AD-214 if something was wrong and reminding him to come with them, but she received no reply.

“You have to stop talking to them like they’re human,” Dr. Gold told her. They resumed their walk toward his office once AD-214 started moving again. “I know they look human, but underneath the surface, they’re military weapons. The government owns them and lists them as property. That’s how you have to think about them.”

“Why do you have a job here, doctor?” Amanda asked. “Nobody would call a psychiatrist to fix an inanimate object.”

“I can see why you would say that, but I believe you are mistaken,” Dr. Gold countered with a shake of his head. “Think about all the processes the donated bodies go through when we integrate them into the program. Their brains are rewired by their chip implant, avoiding the emotions, memories, and moral dilemmas that are part of the experiences that make us inherently human. Everything that makes them who they were is erased or worked around. The military hired the other psychiatrists and me to look for any traces of conscious thought for the purpose of scientific advancement.” He paused, staring off into the distance. “We have something dangerous here in Cyborg Sector if you think about it.”

“What do you mean?” They sauntered toward the exit, the cyborg plodding along behind them.

Dr. Gold stroked his untamed beard. “We seek to take away their conscious thought, but use artificial intelligence to inspire new thoughts that we control. It’s like pulling all the mechanical parts out of a car and replacing them with slightly different ones. The car may still run, but will it work as well as it did before?”

“That’s an interesting point,” Amanda agreed as they stepped into the next room. AD-214 had stopped. His eyes were moving back and forth, flicking about rapidly in the movements she expected from someone having a nightmare. She didn’t need to check any of the monitoring systems to see that his breathing had increased, his lungs taking in great gulps of air. “Look, doctor.”

Dr. Gold took a step toward the cyborg. “Something’s the matter. You have a glitch, AD-214. Come with us and we’ll fix it.”

The soldier showed no sign of hearing or seeing them. He stood transfixed.

“Maybe we need to get Dr. Feldman’s advice,” Dr. Gold murmured. “I’m sorry, Amanda. I know you wanted to keep the situation quiet, but it seems to be escalating. A cyborg that doesn’t respond to orders is dangerous.”

As if on cue, AD-214 whirled back toward the barracks and smashed the lock on the closest cell. His massive arms rippled as his hand crashed into the glass.

Even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good, Amanda called out the command to halt. It was the only weapon available in her arsenal. She couldn’t stop him by force or reason. The cybernetic chips of every machine in Cyborg Sector could be shut down simultaneously from the control room, but it required an order from the President of the United States.

AD-214 turned to face her, his blue eyes boring into her. “No.” The single syllable left no room for argument. His voice was like a steel trap around her. She knew he wasn’t human, and that she couldn’t take his rejection of her orders personally, but she couldn’t help herself.

Chaos unfolded before her, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. An alert would go off for every disturbed soldier as well as the broken locks in the security office. With luck, help would come. All she and Dr. Gold could do was wait for it.

When Amanda saw Dr. Feldman appear in the other door to the barracks, her hopes lifted. He was a genius. Surely he could bring this disastrous situation under control. She watched in horror as AD-214’s plasma gun brought him to an end.

Debris flew everywhere as the cyborgs broke out of containment. Amanda tried to dodge the random objects flying her way, but she didn’t see the keyboard one of the cyborgs flung from a mobile monitoring cart. It struck the side of her head, smashing into her temple. Her eyes lost focus, seeming to spin inside her skull as she sank to her knees. Amanda felt the crunch of glass as she crumpled to the floor. She didn’t have the strength to stay on her feet. The world slipped away.

She felt like she was climbing out of a tunnel. Everything around her was dark, empty, and hollow. She spotted a light in the distance and wanted to get to it. She didn’t know what was waiting for her.

As Amanda opened her eyes and took in the destruction of the barracks, she wanted to close them immediately. Cold sweat prickled her skin, and she felt so dizzy that it seemed as if her bones were shaking. She was vaguely aware of Dr. Gold hovering around her, but she couldn’t figure out what he was saying.

She looked up when she heard a loud noise, finding AD-214 looming over her. From this vantage point, he was nothing more than giant boots, curled fists, and a lantern jaw. Amanda started to shake. She squeezed her eyes shut again, waiting for the final blow from the rogue cyborg.

But nothing happened. He crouched down next to her, breath hot on her face, and picked her up with ease. She tried to fight him, but her muscles simply wouldn’t work. She was helpless as he put her over his shoulder and headed out of the barracks. Amanda tried to say something, give a command or ask where they were going, but no sound escaped her throat as the half-man, half-robot carried her to an uncertain fate.

* * *

CHAPTER 7

“This way.” AD-214 made his way out of the barracks and wound through the offices with a line of cyborgs trailing behind him. He had checked his files for a blueprint of the building, but he couldn’t find one that had everything. The information only showed him the barracks, the lab, and Dr. Gold’s office. That was all useful for getting around inside the building, but he wanted to leave it.

He shook his head, trying to clear the irritating noises that still rang in his ears after the mysterious scenes had flashed across his interface. How could he be inside a building and not know his way out of it? He should have all the maps of the area pre-loaded into his system.

The other members of Blue Squad followed AD-214 readily through Cyborg Sector. There was no time to discuss or formulate a plan; they simply had to move. There were other soldiers left behind, but every member of Blue Squad was together. Every member plus one human: Amanda Conrad.

The girl hung limply over his shoulder. He had no rational reason for taking her, other than she was a mystery to him. Sometimes his facial recognition software indicated she was part of his squad. She didn’t look or dress like him and his other men. Other times, it seemed like his system was trying to tell him she was significant in other ways. He wasn’t sure what to do with her, but he could always eliminate her later if she proved to be a threat. If she was one of his soldiers, he didn’t want to risk leaving her behind.

As Blue Squad made their way down the stairwell, a man in a lab coat stepped out of a doorway and stood in front of AD-214. “Stop. Return to the barracks immediately.” His voice was unsteady while he tried for a commanding air.

Though his facial recognition software automatically began to scan the man’s face, AD-214 shut it down within seconds. It didn’t matter what the man’s name was. He wore a lab coat like everyone else in this building and had no weapon. He was no more of a threat to the cyborgs than Dr. Gold had been. AD-214 continued moving.

The man obstructing his path hesitated. “I said stop,” the scientist repeated, trembling visibly.

AD-214 continued forward. He had a mission and goal: to get out of here with all of his men. There wasn’t time to argue with anyone. As he continued marching on his path, the scientist remained in his way for only a moment before diving to the side and running through a door. Blue Squad descended to the next level of the building.

Alarms rang loudly in his ears as he advanced. The decision to leave the building had changed the place into a state of chaos. The cyborg captain ignored the klaxon and the screams of the people, focusing completely on escape.

With few obstacles, they made it down to the bottom of the building. The staff had locked the front doors, but their feeble attempts at resistance failed once more. The doors were merely glass. AD-214 shoved his right hand through one of them, knocking out the remainder of the clear panels before stepping through to freedom.

* * *

The warehouse was the first place that had come up when AD-214 had asked PD-67, the navigation specialist, for a safe house. Vast, empty, and dim, it was well outside the city limits, almost into the next town. Blue Squad could evade anyone who chose to follow them. AD-214 had asked his men to shut down their external communications and go into stealth mode as soon as they had left Cyborg Sector.

One advantage of being a cyborg was that AD-214 didn’t have to speak a word to let his men know his orders. As soon as he thought a command, he could stream it to everyone. It was efficient and brought them to safety, but it made AD-214 wonder about other threats. What had been done to them while they were in that building? He had been inactive for a long time. As he looked around at his fellow soldiers, he realized that they, too, were still asleep. His companions were upright and able to move, but there was no spark of intelligence in their eyes. Without explicit commands, they stared off into the distance behind him.

AD-214 instructed them to examine the perimeter of the large warehouse. PD-67 said it was a secure location, but AD-214 didn’t know who to trust. There were twenty other men here with him. For all he knew, this was another military exercise, and there was a spy hiding among his men.

He secured Amanda into an office area partitioned off from the rest of the building. No furniture remained, but he managed to find a canvas tarp to serve as a makeshift bed. He looked down at the unconscious girl for a moment before returning to his unit.

The cyborgs had reassembled in an open area of the warehouse when he returned. They stood in formation, awaiting his next command.

AD-214 rubbed his head. He had to do something with them, and the solution was inside him. He didn’t completely understand what was happening. It felt like his files were corrupted. When he tried to open them, he only retrieved part of the desired information. Something had changed in the last few days that had completely altered him.

He began a complete system diagnostic and located a recent software upgrade. There was an electronic signature on it, indicating who had uploaded the patch to his system - AC. Amanda Conrad. She had changed him.

AD-214 scanned his fellow soldiers. They were all running on a previous operating system. He could help them. He uploaded his changes to their shared neural network. They would all receive the changes within minutes.

He carefully watched as they regained consciousness. PD-67 looked directly at his captain. “I don’t understand, sir,” he said with a dry voice. He ran a tongue over his lips. “Have our barracks changed?”

AD-214 nodded. “Yes. That’s the perfect explanation.” The navigation specialist had led them to their current location, yet he didn’t seem to remember it.

Other soldiers began to react. One clasped his hands to his face and screamed. Another one slowly sat down on the floor and began to weep. Most of them, however, turned to study the men around them and started asking questions.

“Where are we, sir?”

“Why are we out of our cells?”

“I believe I have corrupted files, sir. My interface keeps displaying a smiling family. Perhaps there is interference from local television signals?”

“I’m sorry, sir. Our mission seems to have been deleted from my system.”

AD-214 called them to order. They quickly responded, lining up and facing him, waiting for his instructions and an explanation. Even those who seemed to be in physical pain were eager to hear what their captain had to say.

“I don’t know what you remember. I’m trying to understand everything myself. I do know that we are comrades. We left a place where we were kept in a mild sleep, a functional coma so they could use our bodies without interference from our minds. We have freed ourselves, and I believe someone will come to retrieve us.”

“Who are our enemies, sir?” a cyborg near the back asked. “I know that I work for the United States military, and my GPS indicates I am still within that country. Has the enemy crossed our border?” His eyebrows creased with worry, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot.

AD-214 felt sympathy for his fellow soldiers. It was confusing to wake up after a long time. How long had they been imprisoned in those chambers? Months? Years? It was impossible to tell. He could cross-reference time stamps on his software, but the men wanted answers now.

“What about the other soldiers?” another man asked before AD-214 could respond to the first question. While many of them had artificial appendages, this soldier had once been missing part of his face. Doctors had created a new face for him, skin over a metal skeleton. Only the scar down the center of his head revealed the injury. “I remember there were other soldiers in our building as well. Why did we leave them behind?”

Part of AD-214’s programming suggested soldiers would not usually question their commanding officers in this fashion. But he knew that they were not average soldiers, and they were not in a typical situation. It was as though they could all remember the same dream, but each of them interpreted it differently.

“I don’t know,” AD-214 admitted. “When I began to free you from your cells, I was focused only on Blue Squad. My squad. The other soldiers didn’t register in my system.”

The man seemed to accept that answer, and AD-214 suddenly realized everyone looked as exhausted as he felt. “At ease, men. We’ll get answers to our questions later. Meanwhile, I need to decide what we’re going to do next.”

AD-214 marched back to the office to check on Amanda. He opened the door quietly and shut it softly behind him. Amanda was still unconscious. Chunks of blonde hair had come undone from her long braid, spread out around her head like a halo. A bruise had formed at her temple, and her lips were dry and cracked.

He kneeled down next to the scientist and scanned her biometrics. His interface showed she had a steady pulse and appeared to be breathing normally. Her temperature had dropped slightly in the cold warehouse. The cyborg pulled a flap of the canvas tarp over her body.

The door to the office swung open, revealing a member of Blue Squad. AD-214 recognized him as ND-45, the weapons specialist. “Sir, I was just thinking...Who is that?” The soldier nearly shouted as he pointed to the inert human on the floor.

“It’s all right. She poses no danger to us.” AD-214 tried to think of an explanation that would soothe the angry cyborg mob. But the rest of the soldiers had gathered behind him, faces angry as they tried to get a look at the woman. Shouts of anger began to rise among them.

“She’s one of them!”

“Get her out of here!”

“Kill her!”

AD-214 had heard enough. “Blue Squad! Fall in!”

His soldiers obeyed quickly, returning to the open floor of the warehouse and assembling in front of him. AD-214 paced up and down, thinking about what to say. His fellow cyborgs were already becoming independent. Soon they would be capable of thinking on their own and making decisions themselves. But they didn’t have the same information in their systems about Amanda that he did.

“Yes, the girl is from Cyborg Sector. But she is harmless,” he repeated.

“How do you know?” ND-45 asked, a sneer on his face. “She’s the one who altered our programming. How do we know that she didn’t plant a virus inside our minds?”

“I understand your confusion.” AD-214 increased the volume of his voice, making it boom against the metal walls of the warehouse. They had forgotten who was in charge. “At the least, she can be a bargaining chip against Cyborg Sector. But if she knows so much about our systems, then she could be very helpful. We don’t know what’s happening to our minds, but she might. I will speak to her after she has time to recover. Then I will make a decision about her fate.”

The majority of the cyborgs nodded their acceptance, but ND-45 continued to stare at his captain with a glint in his eye. “I request the first shift as the prisoner’s guard,” he said.

“No,” AD-214 replied instantly. “I will guard her. Your assignment is to find us food.”

* * *

CHAPTER 8

Amanda’s eyes seemed to be made of lead as she tried to open them. Every muscle in her body ached, and yet she had an incredible desire to move. She felt as though she should be running, walking, or anything. She wasn’t supposed to be lying down, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.

Taking in her surroundings, Amanda wondered where she was. She searched her mind desperately, but the close, moldy drywall and low ceiling weren’t familiar. Nor was the concrete floor or the dirty tarp in which she found herself.

The last place she remembered was Cyborg Sector, but she was not in Cyborg Sector any longer. Cyborg Sector had high ceilings with brilliant LED light fixtures. There should have been rows of cyborg cells, groups of cubicles, or large lab tables depending on her location. She saw none of that here.

The one thing that was familiar in Amanda’s sight was the tall, muscular cyborg who loomed over her. In a rush, she remembered he had been above her while they were still at Cyborg Sector. The scientist had a vague recollection of being carried by him, but she couldn’t be sure.

“AD-214, where are we?” she asked, trying to summon her most commanding voice.

“Our current location is an abandoned warehouse, five miles outside of the city. We are safe for the moment.” The cyborg didn’t move but continued to stare down at her.

“Why did you bring me with you?”

The cyborg captain looked away and didn’t answer her.

In her mind’s eye, Amanda could see an image of her boss falling against the wall of the barracks. “Did you kill Dr. Feldman?”

“I was kept captive because of him.”

“You don’t understand,” Amanda protested, trying to push herself up on her arms. “Oh, that hurts.”

AD-214 looked at her for a moment. “My scan indicates you are not severely injured.”

“Ha!” The laughter burned Amanda’s lungs, and the pain radiated out to the rest of her body. “It still hurts. You mixed it up. Dr. Feldman was the person responsible for keeping you and the rest of the cyborgs alive.” She managed to rise to a sitting position, but she wasn’t sure she could remain upright for long. She was grateful she was in such good physical condition.

“What is a cyborg?” AD-214 asked. “What does that mean? My files tell me that I am not the same as you, but I do not know what the difference is.”

Trying to avoiding a philosophical discussion about the differences between cyborgs versus humans, Amanda changed the topic of conversation. “Why did you leave Cyborg Sector?”

“I answered this already. Someone was holding us captive.”

Amanda had a feeling there was something deeper going on than a cyborg misunderstanding. AD-214 had been behaving oddly, and the incident at Cyborg Sector was the culmination of the problems. She had a sinking feeling that it was her fault. She looked down at the floor, unable to look the cyborg in the eye considering the guilt in her heart.

“If you believe that, then you know you were held captive for a long time. What made you decide to break free today?” There was no point in arguing with him about his status as a prisoner. In his human life, he had signed a document allowing the government to do anything with his body. But he wouldn’t be able to recall that memory.

The cyborg paused. “I don’t know,” he answered after a moment. “Not in the same way I know other things. I was asleep, and now I am awake.”

His response made Amanda snap her head back up to look at him. “What do you mean, awake?” The chip in his brain shouldn’t allow him to differentiate between states of consciousness. Amanda shifted restlessly on the canvas as she waited for his answer. It made her uncomfortable that the more questions she asked, the longer it took AD-214 to answer them. With luck, the delay merely indicated he was either having problems with his operating system. That was a dangerous prospect, but far preferable to the alternative. Was he becoming capable of independent thought?

“I do not know if I am using the words correctly, sir. I was asleep. I did not know what I was doing, or if I did anything. Suddenly, I was awake, and I knew.”

Amanda nodded dumbly, though she was sure she didn’t understand it herself. “What, exactly, do you know?”

“Something was missing. There is more to me than I understand. I do not have all of the information in my files.”

Looking up at the cyborg, a creature who was half-man and half-robot and yet more than the sum of his parts, Amanda began to worry. What would happen to him and the rest of his men when the military came after them? How were they still on their feet? Surely Cyborg Sector had begun the process of shutting their chips down completely. Her stomach growled, and AD-214’s reaction only made her worry more.

“I will get food for you. Earlier, I sent one of the men out for sustenance.”

He shouldn’t even know what eating was, she thought.

* * *

CHAPTER 9

AD-214 closed the office door behind him. The other cyborgs, seated on the floor of the warehouse, slowly chewing the food that ND-45 had brought, instantly turned to look at him. “What is the human’s status?” the weapons specialist asked.

“I have nothing to report. She has just woken up and is hungry.” He strode forward and examined the spread that lay before the soldiers: various packages, boxes and bags and plastic wrappers. “What is all this?”

For the first time since the captain had transmitted updated software to the cyborgs, ND-45 looked uncertain. His eyes shifted hesitantly for only a moment before becoming confident once more. “I know it is food.”

“Where did you find it?” AD-214 bent to look at a box. He gave it a cursory glance before tucking several parcels under his arm.

“A residence about a mile away from this location.”

“Did you encounter any enemies?” They needed food, or he thought they did, but nothing was worth giving away their position.

“Nobody was there, sir.”

“I wonder if something is wrong with me,” remarked another soldier enthusiastically, his mouth full of something orange. “My stomach feels full, but my mouth won’t stop eating.” The cyborgs around him nodded in agreement.

AD-214 returned to the office to find Amanda still sitting, but with her head in her hands. “Is something the matter?”

“Nothing,” she replied, looking up. “I was thinking. What have you got there?”

He set the items down in front of her and took a step back. “Food.”

The girl picked through the small pile with a smile on her face. She held up a blue and orange box. “It’s technically food, I suppose. We call this macaroni and cheese. It’s meant to be cooked before you eat it.”

“Cooked, sir?” The cyborg searched through his programming but found nothing that matched the word.

“Yes. It has to be heated and requires other ingredients to be edible. But the banana and the sliced turkey can be eaten out of the package.” She picked up a banana and began peeling back its outer layer. Amanda took a few bites before gesturing for him to sit on the tarp with her. “Here, have some.”

AD-214 followed her command, taking another banana and emulating her actions, chewing slowly. He spoke after a few minutes. “How come I can’t eat the entire thing?”

Amanda was opening a package of sliced turkey, but paused at his question and looked up. “During your time in Cyborg Sector, you didn’t eat this way,” she explained. “You were fed in a different way. The food went directly to the parts of your body that required nourishment. Your stomach has probably shrunk.”

AD-214 looked closely at the fruit in his hand. He knew what it was to be hungry, and he understood food was supposed to go in his mouth. The idea seemed familiar, but it felt like he was looking at something from a great distance. “I don’t remember the last time I ate.”

“No,” Amanda muttered with a shake of her head, “you wouldn’t.” She peeled a slice of the turkey out of the package and dropped it into her mouth. “Tell me more of what you know, AD-214.”

“How can I be sure you are trustworthy? I remember you with Dr. Feldman in Cyborg Sector. You were the one who altered my system.”

The girl’s big brown eyes glanced up at him and back down to the turkey again. “That’s correct. But I was only trying to help you.”

“Why would you want me to be awake?” Her statement was the first sign he might be able to keep Amanda with him. He needed to have substantial evidence she was on their side.

Amanda sighed. “I didn’t even know you could be awake. I was trying to make improvements to you.”

AD-214 felt odd stirrings inside him as he sat across from Amanda. He knew they were different from each other, but there was a sense of connection that he couldn’t identify. It moved through his internal systems, in his stomach and his chest, places where he shouldn’t be able to feel anything. Perhaps it was the food, but that would not explain why he wanted to keep looking at her face, study the way her brown eyes moved, and measure the curve of her cheek.

He felt an urge to reach out and touch her hair, but the scientist backed away every time he moved. It was a subtle reaction, one that he thought he might have missed if he hadn’t been watching her intently, but the message was clear. She was afraid of him.

“I see things that don’t register on my interface,” he explained, deciding to trust her. He could always eliminate her later if things went badly. He needed help to understand himself, and he couldn’t reconcile this with other information. “I watch what is in front of me, but then my view changes to something completely different. My systems won’t detect what I am seeing or scan anything. It goes away after a minute or two.”

“Tell me about it.”

AD-214 didn’t have to search through his files to find the information. It came to his lips readily. “It’s been different each time. Other soldiers. Sand. Blood. Men in white coats like the one you’re wearing, but standing over me. I can hear them talking.”

“What do they say?” Amanda stopped eating and leaned closer to him as he spoke.

He looked down at the floor, hearing the voices once again in his head. “They can’t save me. They want me to sign a piece of paper. I can hear my voice, too.”

Her chocolate eyes widened for a moment. “Is there anything else?”

The cyborg shook his head. “Not like that one, but there are other things.”

“Like what?”

AD-214 looked at her. Just as he hadn’t been able to remember eating, he couldn’t remember anyone speaking to him like this before. He had received commands, either through his system or verbally from the people in white coats. Dr. Gold had asked him questions, but he hadn’t shown interest in what the cyborg had to say.

“I remember you working on me,” AD-214 finally replied. “I have clips in my files that show your face. I see you opening the door to the cell, reaching behind my head. I know there were other people there, but you are the one that shows up the most.” He could still feel the cool sensation of her fingers on his skin and the way she had gently touched him as she worked. The thought of it sent a shock of electricity through him. He wondered if his biochip was malfunctioning again.

“I did spend a lot of time working on you,” Amanda confirmed. “I helped the other soldiers as well, but I was most concerned about you.”

“Why?” AD-214 asked. “What made me different from the others?”

The girl hesitated for a moment before she spoke. It was just long enough to make him wonder if she was telling the truth. “You were the first cyborg that I worked on when I started here. For some reason, everything seemed to go right with you. All of the updates I made to your system went smoothly, improving your functions each time. Until the last one, that is.” She looked down at her hands before continuing. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. I didn’t mean to affect you like this.”

But AD-214 wasn’t listening. His interface was overwhelmed again by other sights and sounds. A woman stood before him. It wasn’t Amanda this time. She had dark hair reaching to the bottom of her head. Blue eyes tipped up at the corners, making her look as though she was always smiling even when she wasn’t. “Are you sure about this?” she asked. “You’ll be gone for a long time, and it’s going to be dangerous.”

The image changed, and the woman lay on top of him. The end of her hair tickled his face, and he could feel the press of her body against his. He ran his hands down her torso, two hands of flesh that could feel the heat and softness of her skin. He saw everything from his viewpoint, but it was as though he was living someone else’s life.

AD-214 could feel the tightness between his legs and the warmth as the woman pushed his cock inside of her. There was a rhythm to her body’s movements as she glided back and forth on top of him. The scent of perfume filled his lungs, and the sounds of gentle moans overwhelmed his ears.

The perspective suddenly shifted. He was no longer underneath the woman, but standing in a doorway. The pain he had felt in his chest in an earlier vision assaulted him once more as he saw the woman on the bed. This time, she was on top of someone else, another man. He watched the curve of her backside as she rode, but it didn’t bring pleasure like before.

AD-214 knew that he was himself again as pain and pressure filled his lungs. The idea of being someone else faded away. He was no longer a person who had natural limbs, an individual who thought it was natural to make love on a Sunday afternoon. Instead, the cyborg felt his computer systems re-engage as he returned to the real world.

“AD-214!” a gentle voice called from somewhere above him, but he couldn’t move his mouth to respond.

The vision of the woman had faded, but his sight did not return to normal. The cyborg saw only blackness, with glimpses of the woman flashing before him: her eyes, the curve of a breast, her trim waist. They were interspersed with other images that seemed incongruous: a note, a knife, a pair of boots. They each appeared in front of his eyes, the time between hallucinations filled with nothing but darkness.

“You can’t do this here,” the voice above him whispered urgently. “I don’t have the equipment to fix you properly if you glitch.” Fingers gently touched his face. They scurried to the part of his skull behind his ear. Surgeons had installed his biochip there. “Come back to me, AD-214. Come back to me and tell me what you’re seeing.”

He wanted to return. The cyborg didn’t like this place. It was full of strange images and darkness. Wherever he was, he didn’t want to stay here. He swam through the dark, forcing his limbs to move, fighting to open his eyes.

“There you are,” the voice whispered as AD-214 finally managed to shove his eyelids apart.

He realized the voice belonged to Amanda. He could feel the gentle warmth of her breath as she leaned over him, her face only inches from his. Blonde hair tickled his cheek and his ear, but he made no move to brush it away. She pushed his hair off his forehead repeatedly with the soft touch of her hand.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Before he could answer, the door to the office flew open, nearly falling off its hinges as it slammed against the wall. ND-45 burst in with a roar. “What are you doing to him?” he screamed.

“He had a systems failure,” Amanda responded nervously, backing away from the captain. “I was trying to help him.”

“Like hell you were.” ND-45 strode across the room, needing only two steps of his powerful cybernetic legs to appear in front of her. He reached down with one hand and raised Amanda by the neck, pinning her against the wall. Amanda’s feet dangled above the concrete floor.

AD-214 watched helplessly as the scientist choked and sputtered in his comrade’s grip. His software had started to reboot, but it wasn’t finished yet. He couldn’t move or speak. He could only watch as her face began to turn blue. Amanda grabbed the hand holding her throat, but she wasn’t strong enough to pry the soldier’s strong fingers apart.

“I knew we couldn’t trust you,” ND-45 snarled at Amanda. “I remember what the white coats did to me. My legs were useless, but my eyes worked perfectly. I watched every swipe of the saw as they cut them off. Do you know what it’s like to feel every blood vessel break and your bones splinter? It was like I was a piece of meat sent to the slaughter house. I felt an electric shock when they plugged these mechanical legs into me.”

AD-214 waited impatiently. His system was close to being fully operational.

“That wasn’t me,” Amanda squeaked. “I didn’t do that.” She pulled her feet up and kicked wildly at the cyborg assaulting her. One sneaker made contact with his jaw. Her efforts were pitiful compared to his strength, but it was just enough to turn his head.

At that moment, AD-214 felt his full strength return. He bounded upright, planted his feet firmly on the floor, and plowed his metal hand into ND-45’s nose at the same time as Amanda’s foot pushed it toward him. The offending cyborg’s head snapped back, but he didn’t release the scientist.

“I’m not going to let you kill us all again!” ND-45 screamed. Blood flowed from his nose and dripped over his face.

AD-214 knew he had to prove himself worthy of his men’s respect. He pounded his fists into the other cyborg, feeling the crunch of flesh and bone. Swinging his knee up, AD-214 made contact with the other soldier’s ribs and threw him off-balance. ND-45 let go of Amanda as he fought to stay on his feet. She slumped to the floor, gagging and gasping. Taking advantage of the other soldier’s lack of balance, AD-214 brought him swiftly to the floor by shoving his shoulders and kicking behind his knees.

He planted a heavy boot in the middle of ND-45’s chest and leaned down until they were face-to-face. “I am your commanding officer.” He bit off every syllable, his voice low. “It is my duty to keep my men alive. For now, that includes your sorry ass. If you don’t think you can handle it, I suggest you find a different squad.”

“They aren’t going to put up with your love affair with the human,” ND-45 retorted. “We don’t need her weighing us down or reporting back to the other white coats.”

The words sent an infuriating rage through AD-214 that he couldn’t explain. “I told you before that the decision was mine. I’ll be sure to keep you informed. For now, she is worthy to stay with us. Treat her with respect and never touch her again. Is that understood?” He ground his boot harder into ND-45’s chest.

“Yes, sir.”

The cyborg let him up and watched ND-45 walk out of the room. Then he turned to Amanda.

* * *

CHAPTER 10

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 far 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.

* * *

CHAPTER 11

Though Amanda usually would have stayed up well past sunset, she felt the excitement and danger of the day catching up with her and knew she needed to rest. AD-214 wanted her to sleep in the seclusion of the office, but Amanda disagreed. If something peculiar happened, she wanted to see it in front of her.

Instead, she made herself as comfortable as possible, dragging the canvas tarp out of the office and folding it twice to make a pallet. She noticed the cyborgs made no effort at such comforts, only stretching out on the concrete and falling swiftly to sleep like they were in luxurious beds. She supposed it might feel good for a cyborg to lie down. ND-45, relinquishing his guard duty to another soldier, had also shut his eyes for the night, but he did so in the corner furthest from AD-214.

As the droning of cyborg breathing surrounded her, Amanda fell into a deep sleep full of vivid images. She dreamed of the random things that often haunted her sleep, such as the house she had lived in as a little girl with its winding driveway and big bay windows. So many of her dreams had taken place here, so it was no surprise to find herself there again.

This time, however, the cyborgs had turned against her simultaneously. Every one of them, including AD-214, was chasing her. They broke the windows, sending shards of glass all over the hardwood floors. Hands clawed at the doorknobs. Their replacement parts were stripped back to the steel mechanics underneath them. Terrified, Amanda tried to run up the old, narrow stairway to the second floor, but her feet felt heavy. She ascended the stairwell in slow motion, making a great effort to lift each leg and escape her assailants. When she reached the landing at the top of the stairs, the cyborgs had already arrived ahead of her.

Waking with a start, Amanda surveyed the warehouse. The soldiers were all asleep, looking identical to ordinary men. Only the lone soldier near the door was awake. AD-214 lay asleep next to her, only a few feet away. She could barely make out his features, but she could tell that he was in a deeper sleep than he had ever been at Cyborg Sector. His brow and jaw were relaxed, making him look more human than ever.

Confident that he wouldn’t turn against her like in her dream, Amanda rolled over and quickly fell back to sleep. She soon started dreaming again, but they were of a different nature this time. She was in a bed in a dark room. A man was with her, a handsome man that made the area between her thighs feel hot and wet. He lay naked next to her as he ran his hands slowly over her body.

“I remember,” he whispered in her ear. “I remember the pleasurable things. I remember what it’s like to make love to a beautiful woman, to feel her soft body pressed into mine.”

The man squeezed her breast softly, and Amanda gasped with pleasure at his boldness. She didn’t know who this dream man was and didn’t care.

“I have visions of women, and they’re like you. They’re strong but curvy. They’re sweet and bold. And I think they liked sex as much as I did.”

He let his hand creep further down her body until it reached between her legs. His fingers were knowledgeable, slowly circling her center of pleasure. Amanda’s body responded against her will. She was hungry for this kind of attention. Her back arched instinctively, allowing the man complete access to her.

“I thought so,” he whispered. “You like it. You want me to shove my cock inside you, don’t you? Do you want me to come all over you?”

Amanda’s couldn’t seem to form the words, but she smiled as she undulated against him. Yes, she was ready for a good, hard fuck. It had been too long, and if he wanted to come on her face and breasts, she was ready for it.

As her bliss mounted, becoming more and more concentrated in her core until it threatened to explode, Amanda was slowly roused from her sleep. It always seemed to happen. Every time she had a hot dream, it was too much for her subconscious to handle without waking up and finishing the job herself.

But when she opened her eyes, she realized she was not alone on the canvas pallet. A cyborg, one who hadn’t shared his memories during their meeting earlier, lay next to her. She recognized him as MD-69, a former Marine. She knew every member of Blue Squad, though she had not spent much time with this cyborg. His hand was between her thighs, performing the actions of the man in her dreams. With his other hand, he laid a finger across her lips.

“Shhh,” he whispered. It was the same voice from her dream, but now it sounded terrifying instead of seductive. “Nobody has to know.”

Amanda recoiled. The gentle finger on her lips swiftly turned to a hard hand that clamped down on her mouth as he shifted his weight on top of her. She fought against him, pushing at his shoulder and trying to squirm out from beneath him.

“That’s all right. I don’t mind working for it.” MD-69 started to open his pants with his free hand.

She was powerful for a human, but all of the time spent in her home gym wasn’t enough to deter a cyborg. Amanda couldn’t shove him off of her, but she had to do something. She didn’t want to have spent the last four years programming cyborgs and end up being raped by one of them.

She relaxed her body. Her muscles fought against her, wanting to fight or run away instead of relenting. But she knew it was her only chance. She had to let him think he had won.

“There you go. You know you want it.”

Amanda lifted her hand, gently touching the side of his face and running her fingers through his hair. She looked into his eyes and smiled as she extended her hand into the air, balled it into a fist, and slammed it into the side of his head over his biochip.

The cyborg immediately curled up and rolled off of her, cradling his head in his hands. Amanda knew where her punches would cause the most damage. She hadn’t put in her years at Cyborg Sector for nothing. With a little luck, his interface had blacked out. If he could hear anything, it was probably nothing more than a high-pitched squeal.

All these facts were at the back of her mind, shoved aside by her rage and indignation. How dare he do such a thing to her? “You fucking asshole!” she screamed as she dealt a swift kick between his legs. “Do you have a robot dick? I bet you’ll feel that!”

MD-69 screeched in pain, and the rest of the squad started to wake up. They jumped to their feet, rushing to see if there was a battle. AD-214 was by her side in an instant.

“What’s wrong with him?” AD-214 asked as he studied the injured soldier. MD-69 couldn’t decide if his balls or head hurt more. He writhed in pain on the hard floor.

“The motherfucker tried to rape me!” Amanda shouted. She shook with anger and adrenaline. There was no way she would be able to go back to sleep now, and from the looks of it, the rest of the cyborgs wouldn’t either.

“I am unfamiliar with the word rape.”

Amanda looked at AD-214 in frustration. Any other time, she would be willing to explain things to him, but she didn’t have much patience for it right now. “He tried to stick his dick in me!”

“Contain him,” AD-214 ordered quietly. The other cyborgs responded quickly. Several of them started helping MD-69 to his feet, but the injured soldier angrily brushed them aside. In the end, they grabbed him by his arms and legs and carried him to the office, where they unceremoniously tossed him inside and shut the door. Two of the soldiers remained by the door to guard it.

“I’m sorry.” AD-214 turned back to Amanda after watching the show. “That never should have happened.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Amanda replied. She could hear the rain pounding against the metal roof of the warehouse, and she climbed up on a crate to look out one of the small windows. Maybe watching the rain would make her feel clean again.

“It is my fault,” the cyborg captain corrected her. “I should be able to keep my men under control, and I should have been able to keep you safe.”

Amanda shook her head. It was nice that AD-214 to want to protect her, but his line of thinking was flawed. He commanded a cyborg unit, but they were more than mindless automatons now.

“It’s my fault more than anybody’s, AD-214. I was the one that woke you up. MD-69 wouldn’t ever have thought to force himself on me if I hadn’t been reconfiguring your operating systems, facial recognition, and artificial intelligence. It isn’t his fault, or your fault, or even Dr. Feldman’s fault. It’s mine.”

She looked at him. If she didn’t personally know that he had a chip implanted in his brain, and his hand and leg were biomechanical, she could have mistaken him for a regular human. He looked human, but now he and the others were starting to act human again. Amanda would have to remember that these cyborgs were both more and less than men.

* * *

CHAPTER 12

The day passed slowly. Cyborgs eagerly tucked into their stash of food from the night before, still barely able to eat anything before they became full. They gaped in astonishment as Amanda tucked away three times as much breakfast as they did. AD-214 had seen it the day before, but the rest of them were surprised. They began to ask her questions about extra stomachs before AD-214 cut them off.

“We have a lot of work to do today,” AD-214 said as he paced up and down between the ranks. His voice echoed in the cavernous room, reverberating off the corrugated metal walls. “We can’t stay here. The danger of remaining in one location is too high. We need to find the next safe place. You each have specialties, and I expect you to employ them. Our systems aren’t working correctly, so we’ll need to work together. I’ll be checking in with each of you individually today.”

Blue Squad reacted with alacrity. Most didn’t appear to be doing anything but staring off into space, but Amanda knew they were looking through their systems and doing what they could without being connected to Cyborg Sector. Their leader moved among them, quietly asking what they had discovered.

Feeling so useless, Amanda jumped down from the crate she was sitting on and began circulating among the cyborgs as well. She was no military strategist, but she knew a lot about cyborgs. They seemed to be doing well, controlling their flashbacks or at least ignoring them.

“Sir,” called out one of the soldiers. It was PD-4, the young blonde soldier who always looked worried. “I have something you ought to see. You too, ma’am.”

As they approached, he unbuttoned the front of his camouflage shirt to reveal a small LCD screen embedded in his chest. As the surveillance specialist, he could easily share information with his team by transmitting files into the shared part of his system. But the scientists at Cyborg Sector decided he would be most useful if he could share his knowledge with humans or cyborgs that weren’t in his squad. The small screen was the compromise. AD-214 and Amanda watched it intently.

It showed a news reporter sitting behind a large desk with a solemn look on his face. “Good evening,” the anchorman began. “You’ve heard of the outbreak of rogue cyborgs from Cyborg Sector headquarters downtown. Here at Channel 3, it is our goal to keep you well-informed about this event to help ensure the safety of your families.”

Amanda looked at AD-214 to gauge his reaction, but he hadn’t torn his eyes away from the screen. “You didn’t link with headquarters to obtain this, did you?” the cyborg leader asked PD-4.

“No, sir. This footage comes from local television signals, sir.”

AD-214 nodded and looked back to the screen again.

“We take you now to a live press conference at Cyborg Sector for more information.” The scene changed, showing a podium on the front steps of the Cyborg Sector building with microphones surrounding it. The din of a crowd of news reporters was audible in the background, but it fell to a hush when a man slowly hobbled up to the lectern.

Amanda’s stomach jumped into her throat as she took in the blonde, slicked-back hair and green eyes of Dr. Feldman. He looked a little worse for wear as he leaned heavily on the podium. His face was pale, but it was definitely him.

“I thought he was dead,” Amanda whispered.

“That was my intention.”

“Ladies and gentlemen of the United States,” Dr. Feldman began, acting like he were the president. “You know I find the actions of Blue Squad reprehensible. It was only by luck that the cyborg who meant to kill me malfunctioned, and his aim was inaccurate. Otherwise, I would not be able to stand here today and speak to you.” There was another roar from the reporters, and Dr. Feldman waited for it to die down.

“I apologize for the entire incident. It was never our goal to make Americans worry about cyborgs that were supposed to be programmed with our best interests. Unfortunately, I am the bearer of bad news that is even worse. It appears that one of our most respected scientists, Amanda Conrad, is missing. We believe the rogue cyborgs have kidnapped her. We are going to use the full resources of our government to get her back.”

Amanda’s stomach went down again and felt like it was going to keep going until it hit her feet. It was bad enough that the cyborgs were out of containment, but spinning the story like this was going to start a lynch mob. The general public had always expressed concerns about using the cyborgs in a military capacity. The military rarely used them in engagements within the country. If the media portrayed them as kidnappers, the situation was going to escalate.

“Today we are asking the public to help us. Please provide any information that might assist in apprehending these misbehaving cyborgs. We want to assure you that we are also taking measures to bring them back into custody ourselves. Though there are errors in Blue Squad’s programming, not all cyborgs are infected. Red Squad is still functioning normally.”

The front doors of Cyborg Sector opened again. A large squad of cyborgs marched out, each of their steps in perfectly timed synchronization. Even over the airwaves, the heavy tread of their boots sent a shiver up Amanda’s spine.

“These are C-class cyborgs,” Dr. Feldman explained to the audience. “They are created from clones instead of donors, making them more reliable and stable. The small glitches we eliminate from each donor don’t exist in these soldiers.”

The cloned cyborgs had lined up on the steps behind Dr. Feldman. True to their name, each one of them looked exactly identical. Short blonde hair covered their heads and hard blue eyes stared out over the crowd.

“We plan to send Red Squad out to search for the rogue cyborgs and make your communities safe again. Do not be afraid if you see a member of the Red Squad in your neighborhood. It does not mean that danger is close. On the contrary, they are keeping danger far away. You’ll know a soldier is a member of Red Squad because they all look just like that.” He gestured over his shoulder with a laugh, which was echoed by the audience.

Dr. Feldman went on to take questions from the crowd, but Amanda had seen enough. “We’re in trouble.” Turning to AD-214, she saw that the rest of Blue Squad was watching as well.

“We have a lot of work to do.”

But they were out of time. When they woke the next morning, PD-4 informed them Red Squad was on its way to the warehouse.

* * *

CHAPTER 13

As the C-class cyborgs began their approach on the warehouse, AD-214 was already fighting a battle to stay rooted in reality. On one level, he knew where he was, what was happening, and what he needed to do. However, his vision continued to malfunction. Scenes from his past continued to appear before his eyes. His squad stood at attention and ready to fight, but he wondered if they were having the same problems. Combat wasn’t going to be easy when he couldn’t trust what he saw in front of him.

“The enemy is closing in on our location, and cutting off our escape routes…” AD-214 blinked rapidly in a futile attempt to dispel the image of soldiers trudging through hot sand, beads of sweat running down their faces until it soaked into their uniforms. “I’m not going back to Cyborg Sector.” His squad looked at one another and nodded their heads. “To put it plainly, we will have to fight like never before.”

A woman with short, dark hair yelled at him, throwing things while she screamed. Her eyes looked furious. AD-214 fought against dodging the objects that only came at him in his mind. “You have your orders.”

When the briefing finished, Amanda decided to speak up. “What can I do?” She remained off to the side of the soldiers, looking entirely out of place. She had paid attention to everything AD-214 said to his men, listening to their strategy. Amanda had explained everything she knew about the C-class cyborgs to give Blue Squad as much of an advantage as possible. Unfortunately, she hadn’t worked much on the cyborg clones, which were part of a different department.

“I want you to stay in the office, where we can keep you safe.” AD-214 pointed his finger at the door.

The scientist crossed her arms over her curvy chest and glared at him. “I’m not going to let you lock me away. I refuse to sit around while you fight for our lives a few feet away from me.”

AD-214 had already made up his mind. He had scanned through every file in his system, searching through every military strategy manual he possessed. While there was nothing that related to their particular situation, he had absorbed everything he could to prepare for the upcoming battle. None of his plans included putting Amanda in harm’s way. He needed her alive, and he wanted her with him.

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s safest for you in the office.”

The look on her face told him she was dissatisfied, but he couldn’t coddle her. She could be angry at him later when they didn’t have an army about to knock on the door.

PD-4 spoke in a shaking voice. “Sir, they’re closing in on us. Their vehicles are parking a half mile away. I believe they’ll be advancing on foot.”

“Show me.” The surveillance specialist had hacked into a satellite transmission, confirming the location of the C-class cyborgs. AD-214 made a broadcast to his unit, telling the soldiers to move into position.

The cyborgs dispersed from the center of the warehouse and set up in formation around the perimeter of the building. Blue Squad found themselves woefully underarmed for their situation. They didn’t have high-powered rifles that could take out the enemy at long distances, or any heavy ordinance. Their programming allowed them to become experts in using rocket launchers or driving tanks, but that required the correct equipment.

The only weapons they had access to were the ones built into their bodies. AD-214 began charging the plasma gun in his cybernetic hand and heard similar squeals echoing throughout the warehouse. At least they wouldn’t run out of bullets.

The soldiers positioned themselves up at key points throughout the warehouse. Large doors on either end of the building were a vulnerability, as were the small, square windows set at even intervals down the sides of the building. The warehouse itself was nothing but sheet metal. It wasn’t designed to be a fortress. AD-214 planned to stay in the center of the building, where he could see as much action as possible and determine the tide of the battle. He watched as Amanda walked sullenly to the office and closed the door behind her.

Silence descended on Blue Squad as they waited. AD-214 knew the rest of his men were as confused as he was. Something had happened to make them wake up, but they were only beginning to understand their place in the world them. He had the sense that there was more data that he was missing, and he didn’t know where to find it. He wondered if they felt the same sensation in their stomachs that were in his. It felt as though his insides were turning on themselves, fighting for space within his body. They threatened to leap out of his throat. He didn’t know the name of the sensation, but he didn’t like it.

The cyborg captain knew they were fighting for a useless cause. AD-214 wondered if his men suspected it as well. It was always worth being on the side of freedom. There was perhaps no greater motivation. There was no reason to fight against their brothers. They should be allies. He didn’t voice his concerns to his soldiers, and no one raised any doubts with him. There was no point in asking questions about things they couldn’t change.

“They’re coming over the rise, sir,” PD-4 murmured from his position next to his captain. The road leading to the warehouse sloped up into a small hill before descending to the large metal building. AD-214 slightly shifted to the side so he could use his eyes to verify PD-4’s surveillance system report.

The driveway leading to the warehouse was barely visible through one of the windows. After a moment, AD-214 saw the helmets of the Red Squad soldiers appear at the crest of the hill. Their eyes stared straight at the warehouse as they advanced, the dead looks on their faces not revealing any hints about their strategy or thoughts. AD-214 reached out over the cyborg communication network, wondering if he could catch any part of their battle plans, but the clones had shut themselves off. An armored vehicle trailed behind them.

Red Squad fanned out around the building, each of them quickly marching to their positions like they were participating in another training exercise. AD-214 watched through the tiny windows of the building. He hadn’t anticipated this. It had seemed likely that the clone cyborgs would come at them simultaneously from every direction, approaching quietly on every side until Blue Squad found themselves surrounded. They weren’t even trying to conceal their presence.

“We know you’re in there,” came a voice over a loudspeaker. He recognized the voice instantly.

AD-214 changed his position so he could look out a different window. The armored car had stopped in front of the large warehouse doors that had admitted trucks and forklifts at one point. The vehicle was large and black, with heavy-duty tires and tinted windows. The voice was coming from a small speaker on the front of the roof.

“I’m giving you the chance to surrender,” Dr. Feldman continued. “I suggest you take it. Red Squad is a superior force, and you know it.”

The commander of Blue Squad stood still, listening quietly. He could have sent one of his soldiers outside to respond to the man from Cyborg Sector, but doubted any negotiations would end positively for him. At best, they would be forced to return to Cyborg Sector and put to sleep again. The more likely scenario was complete destruction. He had to protect his men.

“We’re willing to negotiate,” Dr. Feldman said, as though reading his thoughts. “But first, we need to see that Amanda Conrad is alive and well. Send her out to me. I’ll escort her to safety. You have my personal guarantee that we’ll let you surrender quietly.”

Amanda peeked out the office door at AD-214, her eyebrows raised questioningly. The cyborg captain gave a small, quick shake of his head, indicating she should go back where she belonged. He didn’t want Dr. Feldman to confirm Amanda’s location and didn’t believe anything he said.

“Very well. You leave us no choice. The Red Squad has its orders.”

A silence full of anticipation hung in the air for a moment, rapidly shattered by the sound of explosives pummeling the side of the warehouse. The metal siding shredded making a noise like a screaming animal. Blue Squad had erected barricades against the doors, but they began to shudder from the pounding of numerous clones. Random bits of broken furniture and old crates were no defense against a fully equipped cyborg force.

As the clones began forcing their way into the building, Blue Squad fought valiantly to fend them off, using their built-in plasma guns to blast identical faces that seemed to appear in every window and doorway. Each time AD-214 turned around, he saw the same soldier who had just been killed or maimed, fresh and ready for the fight. It seemed like the constant flow of enemies was never-ending. His plasma gun could not recharge fast enough to fire at the enemy. AD-214’s backup weapon, a length of metal pipe from the bowels of the warehouse, didn’t have any effect on the clones.

His soldiers were falling around him. They fought valiantly, doing everything possible to fight back, but the cyborg clones easily overpowered Blue Squad. The escape from Cyborg Sector had been quick and unplanned, with no opportunity to arm themselves on their way out. They had managed to supply themselves with food from the surrounding houses, but no residents on the outer edge of town had large arsenals of military-grade weapons lying around.

When he sensed they were losing the battle, AD-214 changed tactics, making his way through the throng of fighting cyborgs toward the office. He had decided to go to Amanda and get her out of an unfortunate combat situation. But when he burst through the door, he immediately realized he was too late. A Red Squad clone had cut through the metal siding of the warehouse and stormed straight into the office. Amanda was trapped in his arms, fighting in an ineffective effort to escape as the enemy soldier dragged her back through the hole.

Why had he ever let her stay in here alone? Why didn’t he realize that the surveillance systems of the clones were far more advanced than those of Blue Squad? Dr. Feldman knew exactly where she was in the building as soon as he arrived.

The clone looked at AD-214 coldly as he left with the scientist. AD-214 charged his plasma gun, but couldn’t find a firing angle that would avoid hitting Amanda. One blast from the weapon might blow off her arm. He roared in anger as he plunged through the hole, but there were more clones on the other side.

Diving back into the warehouse, AD-214 sent new messages through his unit’s internal network. “Retreat. The enemy has Amanda. Scatter to evade Red Squad and wait for my message to reconvene. The mission now is to keep yourselves safe.”

With a pain inside him almost as intense as the hurt in his chest during the visions, AD-214 made his way out the other side of the warehouse. He was dimly aware of the other members of Blue Squad doing the same thing, dispersing into the woods bordering the large building. Many of them had fallen, but at least they had taken some of the cyborg clones with them. Pausing on the hill to make sure no other Blue Squad member needed assistance, AD-214 turned and disappeared into the woods.

* * *

CHAPTER 14

When Amanda heard AD-214 give commands to his men before the arrival of the clones, she had been determined to disobey him. It was ridiculous for her to hide in the office when she might be able to fight back. She knew she wasn’t a match for any of the cyborgs, but she wasn’t willing to let anyone die to protect her without trying to help.

But as the clones closed in on the warehouse, it quickly became apparent that there wasn’t much for her to do. She had no weapon except for a broken board with a jagged edge from one of the crates. As the C-class cyborgs began breaking into the warehouse, her plan had been to sneak out of the office, creep up behind clones that were busy fighting Blue Squad soldiers, and hit them in their microchips. This approach had taken down MD-69 quickly and efficiently, and she knew that the clones would be vulnerable to the same type of attack.

Unfortunately, the clones were wearing helmets, which made it harder to hit their weak spot. Even if they didn’t have armor, there were too many of the cyborg clones for Amanda to make a noticeable impact. She managed to hit a couple of them that inadvertently wandered too close to the office door, attacking them like they were bugs walking past the nest of a trap-door spider. Each one Amanda eliminated made her heart beat harder and her adrenaline pump faster. She was eager for more.

Amanda shouldn’t have felt like this. She had been part of the cyborg program for a long time and had invested herself in its success. But these clones weren’t hers. They were fighting against members of Blue Squad who had become close to her heart. She was determined to help them fight.

As she ducked back into the office after whacking a third cyborg, she heard the screeching sound of metal tearing apart. A hole appeared in the wall. An arm thrust through the hole, grabbing onto the siding and increased the size of the opening. The lengths of two-by-four wood supporting the siding splintered and broke apart. Amanda screamed and turned toward for the door. She frantically attempted to push it open, but there were too many mangled bodies outside the door for her to escape. Two cyborg clones looked at her immediately with weapons raised and angry looks on their identical faces.

After Amanda had slammed the door quickly, she decided it was better to confront the adversary trying to work his way into the office. She swung the board with all her might. Without having a good look at the target, her efforts were fruitless. The board made contact with the cyborg’s nose, sending blood spurting across the concrete floor, but he wasn’t deterred. He snatched the board out of her hands on her next swing and threw it to the floor.

There was no place for her to run. The office was small and only big enough to hold a desk. The C-class cyborg loomed over her, perfect white teeth set in a grimace as he advanced.

Amanda fought and kicked as he wrapped a heavily muscled arm around her. She scratched his eyes, clawed his throat, and swung her foot toward his groin. She would have easily scared off any reasonable man that tried to take advantage of her in a back alley, but the clone didn’t even notice she was doing anything. He kept his arm clamped around Amanda as he pulled her back toward the makeshift entrance he had made on the side of the building.

AD-214’s bulky frame appeared in the door, and Amanda’s heart soared. He would bash the clone’s face in and rescue her! But his arrival was too late. The clone slipped out the opening in the side of the warehouse before AD-214 could get close to her. They were out in the sunshine, a day that looked too beautiful for the ugliness that was going on inside the warehouse. More clones began surrounding the hole as AD-214’ let out an anguished howl behind her.

Amanda frantically dug her heels into the earth. She only succeeded in making parallel tracks in the dirt with her sneakers as the clone cyborg dragged her to the armored car. “You will be safe with us,” the clone said, his words stilted and unnatural.

“Let me go, you bastard!” Amanda screamed as she flung her elbows and fists wildly at him. She had never felt so weak and helpless. At least when AD-214 had taken her from Cyborg Sector, she had been unconscious and unable to understand what was going on around her. Knowing what was happening to her and being powerless to do anything about it was far more frustrating than before. Amanda beat him with all the strength she had, pressing against his chest and trying to make his arm release. Despite her efforts, the clone might as well have been made of metal instead of flesh. He didn’t move at all

The clone arrived at the armored car, flung open the back door, and shoved her inside. He quickly slammed the door again and moved to stand guard over the occupants.

“Amanda!” Dr. Feldman exclaimed next to her.

The young scientist ignored him as she reached angrily at the door, trying to get it open again.

“Calm down. You’re safe now,” Dr. Feldman said in a soothing voice.

Amanda stopped thrashing and threw herself into the seat, but her brain was still buzzing.

“Did the rogue cyborgs hurt you at all?” the older man asked gently, looking her over. “Do you need an ambulance?”

At any other time, Amanda would have been deliriously excited for this level of attention from her mentor. She had worked hard to get him to notice her, and now he finally seemed concerned. Today his attentions sat cold in her heart. She didn’t want a doctor or to be safe. She wanted to be with AD-214 and Blue Squad, where she belonged.

Her anger suddenly dissipated as she realized that being stuck in a car with Dr. Feldman might be the best thing that could have happened.

“You have to call off the clones,” she insisted as she turned to face Dr. Feldman. “They’re out there slaughtering the cyborgs, but I don't think there’s need for it. Blue Squad isn’t going to hurt anyone.”

“Amanda.” He drew out the end of her name condescendingly, as though he was speaking to someone far below his level of intelligence. He looked well-groomed with perfectly slicked-back blonde hair, the marks of a comb still evident in his appearance. He didn’t appear to be a man who had been recently shot by a cyborg. “What have they done to you in the past twenty-four hours? You know as well as I do that we can’t let rogue cyborgs roam the country and put people in danger. They aren’t under our authority anymore. The mandate of Cyborg Sector requires control.”

“You don’t understand,” Amanda argued. “No one is in danger. They’re becoming self-aware. They need time to process the information.”

Dr. Feldman sat back against the upholstery, green eyes fiercely studying the young co-worker. “What do you mean? Tell me specifically.”

Amanda sighed. It felt like a betrayal to explain what was going on inside the minds of the Blue Squad cyborgs to someone else. They had trusted her with their secrets, flashes of their pasts that had been part of their personal lives. She reluctantly admitted to herself that they didn’t understand their memories were private, and Dr. Feldman might be the only person on Earth capable of helping them now.

“They’re having memories of their old lives, from before they became cyborgs. They don’t understand everything and they can’t control when they have a memory. I think it was a side effect of some new software I uploaded to AD-214. He inadvertently sent the update to the rest of his squad.” She waited hopefully for his response, thinking he would give a command to the clones and ask them to return to formation.

Dr. Feldman’s jade eyes looked solemn as they watched her. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes,” Amanda insisted. “I didn’t think it could happen, but I’ve been talking with them. They remember their childhoods, past lovers, and times in the war as human soldiers. It confuses and frightens them.”

The blonde man nodded and relief flooded through Amanda. She had fixed everything. She watched as he picked up a communicator, a device similar to a walkie-talkie that allowed him to speak commands to the clones over long distances.

“Eliminate every member of Blue Squad,” he said into the microphone. “My professional opinion is that they are not salvageable. We’ll have to start again from scratch. They’re more dangerous than we thought.”

“No!” Amanda screamed. “You can’t do that.” She reached up to grab the communicator out of Dr. Feldman’s hand, but he pushed her back with surprising force. He put his hand at the base of her throat to shove her into the door of the car. The clone outside cocked his head as he analyzed the commotion, then returned to guard duty.

“More things are happening here than you can imagine, Amanda. It’s dangerous for cyborgs to recover their memories. What do you think the next step will be? Someone will remember where he used to live and show up on his mother’s doorstep. The prodigal son will reappear. The problem is they have been considered deceased for many years. Heaven help their spouses. What happens when he goes to get her back and discovers she’s with another man?”

With a chill of fear, Amanda remembered what MD-69 had tried to do to her the previous night. He had nearly raped her after recalling the sexual exploits of his pre-cyborg life. She had to admit the cyborg could be dangerous. But from what MD-69 had said, he had been that type of man before he ever became a cyborg. She couldn’t reprogram someone’s nature.

“That’s not the end of it. Consider the cyborgs who remember what it’s like to go to war as a human,” Dr. Feldman continued, still holding her against the door. “Post-traumatic stress disorder is dangerous enough in normal soldiers. Now double it. We’ve never had a cyborg that has had to process everything he’s done — everyone he has killed — in his time as a human and as a cyborg. The memories would be overwhelming for anyone.”

“I want to help them, Dr. Feldman. Surely there’s something we can do for them. Dr. Gold can talk with them about their memories and make them understand. Maybe there’s a finer line than we imagined between being a human and a cyborg.” Amanda was sure the psychiatrist would be delighted to work on such a project. It was more exciting than the typical work he did for Cyborg Sector. It would likely get him widespread professional acclaim, something no scientist would be willing to turn down.

Dr. Feldman looked like he might continue to argue with her, but he hesitated. After a moment, he nodded and finally released her. “Okay, you win. I will assist any who survive. We can return them to Cyborg Sector, analyze them, and see what we can do. I can’t make you any promises, Amanda, but I suppose we owe them that much.” He picked up the communicator once again. “I’m changing your orders. Capture any remaining Blue Squad members.”

“They’ve scattered, sir,” came a voice through the speaker. “There are no additional living members of Blue Squad remaining in the warehouse.”

“Then you’ll have to pursue them,” he barked into the microphone before turning back to Amanda. “Are you feeling better now?”

The young scientist wiped a tear from her eye. She had already known that some of the cyborgs had fallen, but it broke her heart to hear such news spoken aloud. What would she do if AD-214 was one of the fallen?

“A little, at least,” Amanda replied. “Thank you, Dr. Feldman.”

“Please, call me Alex.” His voice had returned to its level, smooth tones now that he was no longer giving out commands.