got better.
As for himself, Shane couldn’t seriously consider the possibility of the Senate falling and there being a happy ending for cyborgs as well. His own great strength notwithstanding, sheer numbers would surely be able to overcome him once the populace were no longer threatened with punishment for such an attack. He hoped that would happen sooner rather than later, and he would not resist when they came after him, would not kill any more when he no longer had to.
The people were right to hate cyborgs. Right to hate him, with the blood that was on his hands both flesh and titanium.
He glanced up; the crescent moon was attempting to penetrate the clouds, but only glimpses of it came through the scudding haze as the ocean of vapour tufts swept by far above. He let out a deep breath, remembering how his mother used to huddle over a precious candle and read from her favourite page of a tattered Bible, the very first story in the front: “God made the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night.”
And the Senate made the cyborgs to rue it.
Rueful, yes, that was a good descriptor for him now, ever since he’d become this…thing.
In theory, cyborgs did not need as much sleep as unenhanced humans; in reality, Shane’s implants caused him terrible headaches and irritation so that he thought it would be more efficient in many ways to sleep more instead. But that would mean going back, and there was no going back after augmentation. He wished he could just shut himself down and finish it, but that was a technical impossibility: his cyborg parts were hard-wired against life-ending actions. No, he’d have to find some hope to hang onto.
An image floated up into his mind: the woman at the corner again, she and her garbage-thieving ways. He was glad he’d been able to help her escape; perhaps this was worth living for. With all his heart he wished her well to whatever forces of good might be listening, then wiped her from his internal memory so she would be safe.
Immediately he noticed something was gone from his recent experience and frowned; he didn’t like second-guessing himself, but had to trust that he had made a good decision not ten seconds earlier. He must have had a good reason. The sudden emptiness was no less unpleasant for all that—it must have been a happy thing he had deleted.
“So,” said Shane, and paused awkwardly before continuing. The gap in his memory still niggled at him. “What was it like for you, you know, when they, er, augmented you?”
“Oh, ’twas grand,” Fiona said, nostalgia creeping into her voice. “Me step-da wasna ever good to me—did a deal of harm, in fact—so I leapt at the chance to get away from him. An’ they made me strong. No one can ever hurt me again.”
Shane was silent a while as they clanked past yet another row of terraced houses. When he’d woken up as a cyborg, he’d felt only shrieking loss with his new metal legs, one metal forearm, and holes in his skull where lights shone out in selectable variations of white, infrared or ultraviolet, ostensibly to assist with forensic investigations although he’d done precious little of that. The physical imbalance he’d suffered, still suffered now; the removal of parts of his humanity with the lost limbs.
Words found him again at the next corner. “You weren’t…sad?”
“Why should I be?” she scoffed, flapping her hands: one original, one metal. The motions of the two didn’t quite match up.
It occurred to Shane that it must have been a sweet mannerism when she had a matching pair. Now, it only horrified him. He didn’t know what to say, so he spoke what came to mind. “Is that so? Because I was sad.”
Lame reply, boyo. No less true for all that. He attempted a puzzled frown but only got so far until his forehead implants tightened uncomfortably in his skin.
“I can’t be sad.” Her tone took on a steely edge. “It would ruin the electronics in my eye socket. And it’d be a bitch to clean up after.” She laughed, but there was no joy in it.
They both swivelled towards a scuffle down a side street; it was only a skinny orange cat darting across between the broken-down walls of tiny front gardens that held only muck and dying weeds. The animal vanished and silence resumed as the cyborgs marched on.
Shane had cried a lot since his enhancements, behind closed doors, alone in the darkness of his windowless sleeping-room. He’d never been the weepy type before that—tough and masculine, he’d thought.
“We had no choice,” he muttered mainly to himself. No one really knew on what basis the Senate chose its cyborgs—some thought good physical fitness played into it, which was ironic considering the subsequent removal of parts. Some said it was purely random, while others believed it was a punishment for some petty misdeed. Shane didn’t know about that—he’d always tried to keep his head pulled in. Done his work without complaint, even when the rations first shrank. Then, that fateful twenty-second birthday, they’d sent word of his selection. When he didn’t report for the scheduled amputation and reconstruction, they wrested him from the arms of his old ma on the step of her little house. They’d outright said they would shoot her then and there if he didn’t submit to conversion. At that he’d ceased his resistance; he hadn’t seen his mother since.
Fiona nodded. “That’s true, so it is. We had no choice. But if we did…I’d have said yes.” Her mouth twisted into a grin. “Hell, I’d have volunteered years before if I’d known how.”
“You must have really hated your life.”
“No coddin’! Hungry all the time, fending off that dirty old man, no chance at a future anyways. The day they came fer me was the happiest of my life.”
This was too much for Shane. “Aw, go on and pull the other one! Ye canna be serious.”
She only turned her face towards him, expression blank, her remaining eye hidden by her shades.
“Okay, partly serious?” Shane shook his head. “Sometimes I can’t make you out at all.”
“I’m having a good day, is all. I think about the food they give us—we’ll never starve. Think of how they respect us, even the ones who made us, because they know we could destroy them in a moment if we wanted to.” She sighed. “I like having that power. And the food. I want for nothing—except maybe some fun now and then.”
She giggled coquettishly, and Shane reddened. Surely she wasn’t suggesting…Well, maybe she was having a bit of a flirt. Certainly that might would distract them both from the unpleasant side of being turned into robots. Even if she was a cold-blooded killer…It was only what they’d made her become. Just like him.
“Hey. Race you to that Peace Wall.” Shane took off, metal feet smashing into the pavement. Little pieces of concrete crumbled off with every step, but he didn’t care about the old road. He strained to hear if Fiona would follow—yes, he thought he heard her steps—he slowed to give her a chance to catch up.
In a moment she zipped by him and he had to summon his very best speed. It was nothing less than exhilarating to put his muscles to full use, both his old ones and the newer augmentations in concert. Yes, he’d been forced to become a monster, but why not enjoy its good aspects? He began to see why Fiona sometimes thought it was all right, what had been done to them in the name of public order.
The two stretched out, metal fingertips extended, and both touched the wall in the same heartbeat. Fiona turned to him and held up her real hand above their heads; he high-fived it with his own, and she whooped. They let their hands linger together a few moments longer than a high-five alone would warrant. Shane couldn’t read Fiona’s face behind her shades, and she turned away, a pale spectre in the diffused moonlight.
There was the creak of a window from a nearby house. “Hooligans! Don’t you know it’s after curfew? Them cyborgs’ll get you if you keep up that noise.”
At this, Shane let out a guffaw.
He chanced another look at Fiona, who now appeared somehow vulnerable. A killer, but a woman, too. He moistened his lips. “Will ye let me see your face?”
Her chin jerked up and he assumed she must be staring at him. She spoke quietly. “I will, but not whi
le we’re on duty, me rig’ll stop working. Another time.”
“Of course.” It was a simple enough request, but he was glad she hadn’t said no. Disfigured as she was behind her shades, it was no small thing that she had said yes. Perhaps they weren’t so different as he’d thought.
Just then, the moon sailed out from behind a cloud. Somewhere, a dog howled, the long and mournful sound carried far across the city by the night wind, and Shane thought it was the loneliest thing he’d ever heard. But for now, he was not alone, so he pitied the unseen dog and laughed again when the window slammed shut. Subtle luminescence glowed from the clammy roofs and those parts of the road that were still smooth and uncracked. Candlelight brightened the squares of curtained windows here and there, and the air had that bright, fresh scent after rain.
“Come on,” said Fiona, “we’ve a long ways ahead of us tonight.” Together, the two of them turned away from the Peace Wall and continued their patrol of the mute and suppressed streets.
With Fiona beside him, Shane thought he might make it through another night, and the day to come. As for the rueful nights after that, well, he didn’t have to think about those just yet.
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