Chapter Twenty-Six
John showed up at Natasha’s house that evening with Chinese takeout and a bulky shoulder bag. He looked as disheveled as she felt, with wrinkled clothes and bags under his eyes. The tech studied her face for only a moment before coming in and setting his things down. He knew from the look on her face there had been no word of Fury.
Natasha had spent the afternoon berating herself. She should have given Fury a phone or made him take hers. She could have put up more resistance about him leaving the house. Maybe she should have moved to a remote location in Canada, where people were more sympathetic to the cyborg cause. However she looked at it, there was something she could have done differently.
But there was also the fact that the cyborg only did what he wanted to do. He probably wouldn’t have taken a phone even if Natasha had insisted, and they’d already fought enough about him going outside. And Canada? Fury didn’t think he had anything to hide.
“What’s all that stuff?” Natasha asked as she took the food from him and gestured at the bag on the loveseat.
John ran his hand through his brown hair and adjusted his glasses before he spoke. “I thought I would take a nap this afternoon after I got off the phone with you. I’d been up late working on my book, and I’d only had a few hours of sleep before you called.”
“I didn’t mean to inconvenience you.”
“No, no. You don’t need to apologize. I couldn’t fall asleep because I was thinking about Fury. There’s still more to learn about him. We know he’s not a typical cyborg. We haven’t determined why.”
Natasha paused in the doorway to the kitchen. It was something she hadn’t thought about before. “Wasn’t it because he was dangerous and had violent urges? All of Dad’s logs stated he lost control whenever he went into the field. They couldn’t work with him.” She carried the takeout boxes to the table and began opening them.
John followed her. “The explanation sounds good, but it’s pretty vague when you stop and think about it. Why did Fury have this problem? It isn’t typical for cyborgs.”
Natasha paused with her hands on a pair of chopsticks as she thought about John’s words. A flush of shame burned her cheeks. Why hadn’t she thought about such things before? She had accepted the soldier for what he was without questioning why. Even her father’s notes hadn’t provided insight on this topic. Was there something he knew that she didn’t?
“You understand, don’t you?” John’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “I felt like an idiot when I realized I had never looked into it closely before. All the cyborgs used to be humans, and that gives them an unpredictable element. I began to wonder if Fury was a man with anger issues before he became part of Cyborg Sector or if there was a different reason. What if we did something to him and made him this way?”
John fetched the bag from the living room and pulled out a laptop computer. He pushed aside the cartons on the table to make room for it, spilling a container of soup in his efforts but only halfheartedly wiping it up with a thin napkin. “There was one other thing I didn’t understand. If a software upgrade and a little bit of work with Fury were enough to help him regain his humanity, then why hadn’t your father done it himself? Dr. Daniels was a brilliant scientist. No offense, but I don’t see how you and I together could accomplish something he couldn’t.”
Natasha finally found her voice again. “That’s a lot to think about.” She tossed a handful of paper napkins on the spilled soup, determined to clean it up before it made a stain.
“Exactly. That’s why I couldn’t sleep. In my mind, I saw a programmed killer named Fury out on the streets, and it didn’t make sense to me. I went out of my way to speak with the guy from Cyborg Sector I was telling you about.” John had his laptop open and was typing quickly on the keyboard.
“The one who can hack the system?”
“That’s the one. He seemed to know a lot about what went on behind the scenes, which makes sense considering he was their chief computer technician. After he spent some time snooping around the files, he managed to find this.” John lifted the laptop to show Natasha the screen.
Natasha sat down to look at the file carefully. It was a profile from Cyborg Sector on a soldier named FY-485. The first things that caught her eye were the letters at the beginning of the serial number. She thought they were used to designate the source of a body. ADs were from the army, MDs from the general military, and PDs were private donors. It was rare to encounter a PD, but she had never heard of an FY before. Had the cyborg been a special donor? Was it someone who wouldn’t usually qualify for the cyborg program - but got pushed through due to a large monetary donation or political influence? The prefix FY sounded like someone’s idea of a bad joke.
She began reading the intake and procedural details on the profile. The man had been in a car accident and suffered massive internal damage. He needed cybernetic organs to survive, but muscles, and skin would regenerate given enough time. A surgeon named Colin White had operated on FY-485, upgrading the failing body parts. The notes indicated that the biochip did not line up correctly with the neurological pathways in the subject’s brain, but Dr. White had still managed to make the operation a success. There were many more paragraphs, but her eyes were growing tired.
“I don’t understand.” Natasha pulled herself away from the screen. “What exactly am I reading here?”
“This is the original file for FY-485, who is currently known as Fury. It was encrypted and hidden so it wouldn’t be visible if anyone looked for it casually. But my connection knows how to find things like this, and he was able to break the encryption for me. The profile visible to everyone else — including your father — looks like this.” With a few keystrokes, John brought up a different page.
The cyborg’s serial number was the same, as was the intake date. The written information, however, was far shorter and less detailed. The only thing Natasha could discern from the profile was that the cyborg had cybernetic organs, an enhanced skeleton, and a plasma gun in his hand. Natasha already knew this about Fury. She had learned it from her father’s files.
“There’s almost nothing here.” The nurse sounded frustrated and confused.
“Exactly. The surgeon had a problem when he started operating. The doctor would have had to make an accurate record of the surgery as it happened since the assistants have to sign off on the operation. He put it into the system as it was, let everyone see it, and slipped a little cash into a cubicle to have it encrypted and a new document put in its place.”
“Okay.” Natasha tapped her fingertips against her lips as she thought about John’s revelation. The biochip wasn’t a perfect match for the cyborg, and going through with the procedure might have contributed to his vicious personality. “But how did the update help him? If his brain was affected by the surgery, wouldn’t the changes persist despite any software changes?”
John grinned. “I think we got lucky. I couldn’t specialize the update for Fury because he wasn’t in the system at the rehabilitation center. They only track cyborgs who have entered the release program. My theory is that using software designed for someone with a successfully implanted biochip changed something fundamental about Fury. If we had downloaded the proper software, he would still be just as violent as before.”
“That seems like a one-in-a-million chance.” The redhead stared at the computer screen without absorbing anything. “How can something like that happen?”
“It’s the human element we can’t control. The update happened to be a perfect match for Fury. Just like matching up various factors for organ transplants, some things are compatible with people in a surprising way. I don’t have any proof, of course, but it’s the best theory I have, and it fits the facts.” The tech’s eyes shone brightly. He was thrilled to have a theory about the cyborg. It was too bad he could never reveal it to the world without exposing Fury.
“This sounds crazy.” Natasha ran her hands over her eyes and tipped her head up at the ceiling.
“We’re just getting started. I have more things to show you.” John went back to work on the computer, closing the documents he had pulled up and opening something new. “I thought about something else when I spoke to you this morning, but I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure. The soldiers from Cyborg Sector were designed to be robots and blindly follow commands.”
“Right. That’s why I was having problems with Fury in the beginning. He didn’t always listen to me.” Natasha shifted in her seat, impatient to see what John had discovered.
“They also had trackers embedded into their bodies. They helped the cyborgs position themselves correctly on the battlefield and made it possible for human commanders to know their location. The release program never removes the tracker. Even if they did, Fury never went through the official release process.” John turned the computer to Natasha again and pointed at the screen.
Numerous biometric readings illuminated the screen. “Do I see what I think I’m seeing?”
“Absolutely,” John confirmed. “We can’t determine his precise location yet, but we can verify Fury is alive.”
“That’s amazing!” For the first time that day, Natasha felt a sense of relief. She thought her head might float right off her shoulders and bump against the ceiling. Even though Natasha would have given anything to have Fury sitting with them at the dining table, he was still alive. The knowledge gave her hope, and she was going to hold on to it as long as possible.