The city was in ruins as the cyborg Vyken Dark expected as he walked down what was left of the street. He had been walking about ten minutes when they heard a woman screaming. It took him only seconds to pinpoint the source. Stopping at the corner of the building, using it as a shield as he peeked around the corner.
There were five men and a woman. One man held the woman, and two held a middle-aged man while the other punched him repeatedly. The woman was thin but wiry with long brown hair tied back with a strip of rag. A smaller man couldn’t have held her as she tried to wrench herself from his grasp, stomping at his feet and trying to smash her head into his face. She was screaming at them for hurting the man.
Vyken strolled out from behind the building with his rifle aimed.
“Let them go,” said the pale gray skinned hulk with the bleached blond hair cut barely an inch from his scalp. Two meters tall with muscles rippling beneath his tight black shirt, Vyken Dark would have been formidable even without his ion rifle pointed in their direction. “Don’t do it!” he warned, as the puncher drew back his fist to hit the older man again.
Vyken fired a shot over his head. “The next time I won’t miss. Let them go.”
The puncher stopped and turned to face the interloper then his eyes widened as the armed cyborg approached.
Vyken stopped about ten feet from the group. “Let them go! I won’t tell you again.” Vyken growled.
“They took our stuff, and they won’t tell us where they put it,” the puncher complained.
“And what would that be worth beating a man twice your age?”
“We didn’t take it,” the woman said moving away from the man. She paused, rubbing her upper arms where the bigger man had held her too tightly. “We were looking for our food stash and scavenging. They think we took their crystal bliss.”
“What is crystal bliss?” Vyken asked while his databank searched for information. It sounded like a mind-altering substance that would probably be illegal if there were still laws and people to enforce them. That’s why Vyken and his cohorts came back to Earth. “The woman speaks the truth.”
“How the hell do you know that?” asked punching man.
“I know,” Vyken said. “Leave!”
Punching man who seemed to be the leader looked at Vyken apparently calculating their chances---five of them against an armed cyborg. His cronies shook their heads. Unarmed, they knew the cyborg could take them all effortlessly. That convinced them, and the thugs left, letting the older man fall to the ground on his hands and knees. The woman ran to him and squatted down beside him.
“Dad! Are you okay?” she asked.
Vyken lowered his weapon and walked over to them. “Sir, do you require medical treatment?”
“I don’t know,” he groaned. “I’m a little battered, but I think I will be okay.”
Vyken looked at him and ran a scan from his internal computer. “You should let me help you. You have a concussion and injury to your liver. We have a Medic on our ship. Come with us, and we will help you.”
“Cyborg, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be fighting the alien war?” the woman asked.
“What is your name female?” Vyken asked.
“I’m Danya Hill, and that’s my father James Hill,” she said. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
“The war is over. My team was requested to return to Earth to restore law and order. I am Vyken Dark.” He gave his chosen name. His original designation was VKD-8463. “Our ship is just outside the city. My brother will bring our transport to take you both there. We have food and a medic.”
“I didn’t know cyborgs had brothers,” Danya said.
“We are of the same genetic line, thus brothers,” Vyken said.
Looking down at Danya’s face into her solemn green eyes, something stirred in him. He realized she aroused him as his cock twitched. He hadn’t seen a female in a long time, but this one was different. No other female had ever caused him spontaneous sexual awareness.
Vyken breathed in her scent as he got closer. Amid the smells of sweat, there was an underlying subtle sweetness. She reminded him of a female who had been kind to him when they were learning social skills at the beginning of their training. That woman was probably long dead judging from the devastation of the city.
But, it was more than that. Everything about Danya touched off a primal attraction in Vyken that shouted: Mate!
Vyken could hardly take his eyes off her as she squatted down beside her father who was now sitting on the ground. She had her arms around his shoulders and leaned her forehead again his. It was obvious that she cared very much for the man, not unlike Vyken had cared for his friend and mentor Admiral Gregor.
A few minutes later, his team’s hover transport arrived, landing in the street at the end of the alley. Vyken slung his rifle over his shoulder and helped Danya get her father on his feet and walk him to the vehicle. His team had collected two females with four children already in the transport.
Two of his team members were sitting in the front, and the third was in the last seat in the back of the passenger section. The transport was designed to carry up to twenty-five people, but they were all that was left of their team. Vyken took a seat in the back with his second in command Jolt Somber. His skin color was closer to white than gray, and he had close-cropped red hair.
Matix Tell piloted the craft lifting it high into the air above the tattered city that had once been Chicago. Vyken wondered if the city could be salvaged, but that was not his job. His job was to retrieve the people to rebuild the civilization and eradicate those that would hinder the process. Other teams had been sent to other cities, but Chicago was his city, the city of his birth.
The city may have been ruined, but the cyborg project center was still intact underground on a former dairy farm outside a small town South of the city. That’s where they would establish the enclave for those who wished to revive civilization in that part of North America. It was a massive facility with four levels. The small block building that resembled an ancient milk house still stood. Inside it were the elevators that led to the three of the lower levels.
It was almost an underground city, definitely big enough to hold a small town of people. This was where they would create a pocket of civilization. The cyborgs would find individuals who would come there voluntarily. Those people would build a community using the ancient founding principles of what used to be the USA.
Most of the tech in the center was old, but their AI still worked. It was filled with the knowledge humanity collected before some overzealous planet surveyors got stupid and tried to take a colonized planet from aliens. It was akin to how the Europeans took North and South America from the natives in an earlier age.
Even though the incident was not Federation sanctioned, the Mesaarkan Confederation was wholly unforgiving for the massacre of their people on New Procyon Three. Because the corporation responsible was based on Earth, the Mesaarkans reeked destruction over the whole planet in a war that lasted over a hundred years.
Two dozen planets in the United Galactic Federation were left in ruin. If not for the Wholaskans, an ancient alien race negotiating peace, the war might still be going on. A few hundred Mesaarkan people were killed on New Procyon 3. The Mesaarkans killed billions. The Wholaskans had a way of making them see their dead had been avenged millions of times over.
The only space force Earth had left were the cyborgs. But with the Mesaarkans peace treaty, there was no one left for them to fight. Earth wasn’t a place Vyken thought he wanted to stay forever, just until he had carried out the Admiral’s last wishes.
The cyborg forces had officially been released from duty by the Federation. Vyken and his team were mainly on their own, with their activities being followed by Cyborg Command. Most of the cyborgs released were already on their way to settle a world they found in their travels during the war. There would be room for Vyken and his brothers if they decided to actually go there. There was time to decide on that later.