strength

29 April, 2387

 Where there had once been warm skin, there was now sleek steel.

  Where there had once been dulled senses, there was now the sharpened awareness of everything around.

  Where there had once been weakness, there was now strength.

  He craned his neck, blinking sluggishly as he struggled to make sense of the varying shades of yellow, orange and red that his world seemed to be cast in. All around him, he could hear the beeps and whirs of various machinery, the distant clicking of metal against metal, and the thuds of an insect flying repeatedly against a nearby window.

  With another sleepy flutter of his eyelids, there was a quiet ‘pop’ and the world seemed the realign itself into its normal colours, eliciting a small cry of pain at the sudden blinding white light that threatened to pierce right into its skull.

  He jerked a hand forward to shield his eyes, only to find himself straining to move them more than a few inches. With bright lights dancing in his vision, he twisted, trying to peek at his surroundings.

  He was lying, secured by metal straps around his wrists and ankles, on a large table in the middle of a stark white room. Lights blinked at him from the strange contraptions that crowded the room, all connected back to him by a dizzying array of wires attached to his skin.

  Unable to move from his position, he could do nothing but return his attention to the light overhead. Once he had gotten past the shock of its brightness, he could just make out his faint reflection in the glass of the bulbs.

  He could barely recognize the person that stared back at him.

  The person in the glass looked almost healthy, with clear and alert eyes that shone a vibrant shade of blue. His skin was still pale, but it was now smooth, free of any blemishes and wounds. And in the place where his arms used to be, strong metal bones and plating now occupied it.

  It was all a far cry from the emaciated boy he remembered being rushed into the room, with blood pouring from countless cuts and scrapes, gasping his last breaths as he drowned in the agony that stemmed from the fresh holes in his body where his arms had been torn off in an attack.

  These changes he saw, he knew it was only on the outside. He knew so much more had changed, and he was eager to discover them.

  He waited. Waited patiently for someone to fetch him, and he finally heard it after an eternity. The sharp tap of shoes against the polished floors as someone approached. The doors swung open as a gangly man in a lab coat strode in. Seeing his patient awake, he flashed a smile as he bustled over.

  “Hi, how’re you feeling?” He chirped as he busied himself with a checkup. “Anyway, it’s time to get going soon; there’s so much planned for you, 6984.”

-- 

  They stood in neat rows in the inky darkness of the plane, awaiting orders. And in their midst, BA-6984 quivered in anticipation, running through their mission in his head for the millionth time.

  Go in, retrieve the test subjects, and get out. 

  “How many Malri do you think are inside?” he whispered to the girl next to him, only to be rewarded with a vacant stare.

  Sighing, he turned back to face the front. It was no use trying to connect with the others; it was like talking to a wall. Somehow, he got the feeling that he was different from the others. Unlike the rest, he was the only one who clearly remembered his past, the only one who expressed emotions openly, the only one who questioned orders.

  Suddenly, he sensed in his mind, a smooth and velvety ‘voice’ telling him it was time to go. He obeyed it willingly, and along with many others, started forward out of the open hatch in the aircraft.

  It was a scene of carnage outside, burnt out buildings, corpses and destroyed property everywhere. Fires still raged on in some of the buildings and hopeless cries of many echoed in the air.

  As they marched on with only their goal in mind, a trembling hand reached out to him from under some rubble. His heart twinged and he longed to rescue the owner of the hand, but he could not bring himself to do anything that the mission involved. Even a step in the wrong direction had painful jolts of electricity running through his body and an error symbol flashing in his vision.

  At long last, they arrived at a dilapidated building. It was an abandoned office building, and despite its innocent appearance, the pleas and sobs for help that the cyborgs’ enhanced hearing picked up gave it away as a Malrian makeshift laboratory in which humans were dissected, experimented on and studied.

  Just as planned, he took his place in a ring of other cyborgs surrounding the buildings as another team swarmed in to rescue the humans.

  They reemerged in a matter of minutes, a bedraggled bunch trailing behind with haunted, tear-stained expressions.

  It seemed the Malri had left ages ago, leaving their test subjects behind to die.

  Silently, the cyborgs regrouped around the humans, preparing to to safety when a single bright green disc flew out of nowhere and cleanly took off the head of a human child.

  Horrified looks as the humans gazed upon the body, and then they were shrieking in terror, flapping around in their frenzy to run.

  It was then that they showed themselves, angles of death descending from the roofs, black cloaks billowing and projectiles flying as they floated through the air and came to a graceful halt on the ground.

  But the cyborgs were prepared.

  Quicker than lightning, they surged into a ‘box’ formation, with the humans between them and cyborgs facing every side, weapons and enhancements booted up and at the ready.

  For a while, they held their ground, matching blow with blow, dodging and deflecting anything that was aimed at them.

  Then the first cyborg fell and everything went to .

  The formation broken, the humans started to scatter, running away from one enemy straight into the arms of another.

  And the cyborgs followed behind with the need to fulfill the order of bringing these humans to safety.

  Advancing closer, the Malri were soon close enough to deal massive damage. At that range, a shot from their weapons was lethal even to metal-enhanced bones. At that range, it was easy to twist weapons from hands; to grab, throw and rip apart bodies.

  At the outskirts of the fray, 6984 fought with a different goal in mind.

  He wanted to live.

  Adrenaline coursing through his veins, he ducked a beam of decapitating light, switching his vision with a blink. The world exploded in a series of purples with black spots that highlighted weaknesses and injuries.

  He could see the petite Malri in front of him. Its knee was a pitch black – a serious injury. He swung a fist at it, missing as it stepped aside. But he had long predicted it movements and he delivered a swift kick to its knee, effectively causing the Malri to crumple to the ground.

  Wasting no time, he leapt over the Malri, sprinting to a nearby alley that promised safety. As he headed away from the thick of the fight, his vision started to darken at the edges, a red warning sigh flashing repeatedly. He stumbled once, twice as his legs threatened to give way under the agonizing sparks that shot through his body. And in his mind, it was the chaos – a cacophony of the ‘voice’ repeating his orders and increasingly loud beeps that signaled disobedience.

  Nevertheless, he plowed through, swerving around clashes and doing his best to ignore any human cries for help. There were a few times he almost gave in and turned back, only to shake free the need to obey when he saw the horrors he was leaving behind. Everywhere he looked, humans and cyborgs alike were crashing to the ground in sprays of blood and body parts.

  He was scared and he did not want to die, but he could feel himself losing the war that waged in him. Every time he stopped, the time it took for him to regain his senses was longer than before. It was only a matter of time before he gave in completely.

  The sounds in his head were deafening and he clawed at his head in an attempt to shut them up.

  “Remember your mission, remember your place. You belong to humanity, you will fight for them even if it costs you your life.”

  The new phrase joined the chorus in his mind, and he found himself dimming, losing touch with the raw human emotions that kept him going. It was the end, he though as he felt his connection to the person he used to be snap.

  He slowed, bending to pick up a fallen knife. He felt nothing, just a peaceful calm as he surveyed the death and violence before him.

  He lunged forward with a battle cry, and as the fight closed around him, there was only one thought echoing in his mind.

  I am a cyborg. My will belongs not to me, but to humanity.

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