Chapter Seven

Clayton was back on his feet. He still had the swollen appearance of someone on the wrong side of a gut punch. His cheeks were red, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. Wrath didn’t need to use any of his specialized vision functions to know that Wire’s blow had affected Clayton more than just physically. The human’s confidence had dissipated like vapor into the desert air. He stood slightly slouched and always had an eye on the cyborgs.

“Your time is running out, human. My patience grows thin. You have not given me a reason to keep you alive. If you tell me the truth now, there is a chance that I might let you live.”

Wrath knew he would have to kill the scientist no matter what. The two humans could not be allowed to get away and give Cyborg Sector accurate information about their numbers and position, especially since Clayton had correctly guessed that their cybernetic parts were failing.

Clayton sighed. “Everything I said was the truth.”

The words were barely out of Clayton’s mouth before Wrath launched himself out of his seat, prepared to pummel the lies out of him. The human put up his hands and began speaking again.

“I know it sounds bad, but I wasn’t lying! Cyborg Sector had a problem with communications. They sent you orders to return to a particular set of coordinates for extraction after you completed the mission. I saw the records myself. You never responded or showed up so we could get you.” There was fear in the scientist’s eyes, but he looked earnest.

“If what you say is true, why didn’t anyone come to get us?” Wrath challenged. “Cyborg Sector knew where we were. Would it have been that hard to locate us?”

The cyborg didn’t regret staying behind. Living in the desert was better than being trapped in a box. Wrath could remember what it felt like being stuck in a cage. There was barely enough room to stand in it. But something inside the cyborg had wanted to know the reason no one had ever come back for Green Squad. Now he had a chance to find out.

Words flew out of Clayton’s mouth. “That’s exactly what they would have done if they had been able to find any of you. Something happened with the communication device built into your biochips. Usually, Cyborg Sector can easily track a cyborg’s movements and pinpoint a cyborg’s location within a few feet. But your GPS tracking signals vanished soon after your deployment. They assumed Green Squad and the terrorist faction had obliterated each other.”

Wrath shook his head. “Something’s missing here. If everyone were dead, it would have been safe for them to come out here and do a visual confirmation. Are humans so fearful of us that they will not even come near a dead cyborg?”

“I don’t know,” Clayton admitted. “Dr. Green might have, but he’s dead now. We won’t understand everything, but we’re here now. It’s late, but we came back.”

The cyborg leader turned his back on the scientist as he began pacing the room. His system was processing a lot of new information. It was struggling to keep up with everything. Clayton’s story was far different than what he and his squad had believed. He didn’t know if the scientist was telling the truth or lying, and there was nothing in his programming to help him distinguish between the two. “Why are you here now? If Sector believed we were dead, what happened to change their minds?”

Clayton leaned against the wall with Wire standing next to him. “Some tourists had come out here to hike and camp, and they got lost. But they saw something while they were here. When they finally made their way out, they began spreading stories of a group of men living in the wilderness. The forest rangers had been told to keep an eye out for anything odd, and they immediately reported it. They didn’t specify what to look for. The hikers thought they had found aliens, and this was Roswell all over again.” Clayton shook his head and grinned. He could hardly believe what he was saying himself. “The information eventually made its way to Cyborg Sector and here we are.”

“That’s impossible. No one could have seen us without me knowing about it.” Wrath queried the rest of Green Squad, but none was willing to admit they had run into humans. He should have realized they weren’t as isolated as he’d imagined. They had grown lazy after months of downtime and should have been more careful. “What do they intend to do with a group of cyborgs now that they know we’re here? We don’t plan on returning to a life of being controlled by humans.”

Clayton seemed to be getting more comfortable the longer he talked. He started gesturing emphatically with his hands again like it would force his thoughts into the cyborgs’ brains. “We began closing Cyborg Sector soon after Green Squad came out here. There was a lot of political pressure to stop creating cyborgs until we could figure out how it was affecting their brains. We started asking moral questions about whether or not cyborgs are human and have souls.”

“Don’t you call me by that name,” Wrath snarled. “We are nothing like you.”

“I can see that,” the scientist answered quickly. “What I’m trying to say is that Cyborg Sector now is much different than Cyborg Sector a year ago. They’ll upgrade your biochips and make sure everything is working properly. They also have a procedure that will rewire your brain. The biochips are designed to route information around certain parts of the brain and bypass everything except what is necessary to kill. They can reverse those changes. After that, you’ll go through a rehabilitation process and eventually be released from Cyborg Sector to live on your own.”

Wrath glowered at the man in front of him. “Are you telling me that they want to make us human?” He huffed out a breath of air that could almost have been a laugh. “What if we don’t want to become human?” Wrath raised his voice. “Is there a single cyborg here who wants what this man is offering?” Green Squad roared a chorus of “No’s.” The sound shook the walls. Wrath smirked at the look of terror on Clayton’s face.

“I don’t think you understand,” Clayton protested. “You used to be human. They make cyborgs from people who are about to die. People who donated their bodies so that they could live on even after their deaths and save the lives of others. Recovering your humanity is a gift, not an insult.”

“It’s not?” Wrath asked, weighing this new information and deciding whether or not Clayton was trustworthy. “You come in here claiming that I used to be a human. How can you expect me not to be insulted? What do you know about living as a cyborg? Tell me, human, what do they do with cyborgs who don’t want to live like this? What if a cyborg refuses to abide by Cyborg Sector’s rules?”

Clayton clamped his lips tightly together. When he finally spoke, he barely opened them. “We destroy them.”

“Really. Is that your job? Do you think you can kill soldiers like me?” Wrath advanced to stand in front of the scientist. The cyborg knew that he didn’t need to work hard to intimidate the man, but he felt like showing off.

“No, of course not. I’m not sure what happens to them, to be honest. I’ve only heard rumors. I’ve never actually seen them do it.” Clayton was shaking visibly now.

A background program in Wrath’s head brought something to his attention. “You keep using words indicating you are not from Cyborg Sector. They. Them. You act as though you are part of Cyborg Sector, but your words tell me you are not.”

Clayton hung his head. “I’ve only been with them for a few months. I was brought in as a consultant to help them shut down. All of my knowledge comes from research and a few conversations with the actual scientists.”

A small chuckle erupted from Wrath’s lips, and it slowly built into a full roar. “You have some balls, at least. I have to give you credit for that.” He pointed a finger at Clayton’s chest. “Balls won’t be enough to save you.”