The Cyber Chronicles IX - Precipice (17 page)

"Not easily,"
Tarl said. "At least his bio-status is at ninety-four per cent. You
had him on a drip?"

Martis nodded.
"Yeah."

Tarl rubbed his
chin, looking thoughtful. He turned to the bed and twisted a pinch
of skin on Sabre's arm until Kole winced, watching the brain scan.
"No reaction to pain." Tarl leant closer to the cyber. "Hey, Sabre,
bud, it's me, Tarl. I'm here now. Kole found me. We're going to get
Tassin back. She's close by."

The repair tech
glanced at the brain scan as another area of Sabre's brain flashed
briefly. "Slight reaction to my voice. It's as if he can hear me,
but he doesn't believe me, or he doesn't want to. He's retreated to
that dark place where he used to live."

"Why would he
do that?" Kole asked. "He hated that place, surely? That was where
the control unit imprisoned him."

"Yes, but it's
also familiar and comforting, in a strange way. All those unwanted
feelings can't find him in there. It's his little cocoon."

"Bloody cop
out," Kole muttered.

Tarl turned to
glare at him. "Have you ever felt despair? Real, gut-wrenching
dread that someone you love is going to die, and you can't stop it?
It's like being crushed in a vice, emotional torture, inescapable,
mind-bending anguish, like being torn apart inside. Your heart
labours, you can't breathe, and you just want to die too."

The hacker
shrugged, looking uneasy. "Maybe."

"Well, think
about that, then double it, and then imagine you've never felt
anything like it before."

"Yeah, it's
shitty, but he didn't have to -"

"Yes, he did,
to save his sanity. He doesn't know how to deal with it, and you
didn't help, did you?"

"I didn't
know!"

Tarl turned
back to the screen. "Then you should have been more careful, and
tried to support him. You did know he was having a problem,
right?"

"Yeah." Kole
threw up his hands. "If I'd known -"

"Hindsight is
always perfect, isn't it?" Tarl sighed. "How long has he been like
this?"

"Two weeks,"
Martis supplied.

"Unfortunately,
insulating himself like this hasn't helped him to come to terms
with his feelings. The fact that we know where Tassin is, and can
free her, should help a lot."

"How are we
going to free her?" Kole asked.

Tarl shrugged.
"You could offer to buy her, but you're on Endrovar’s shit list
now, for freeing me. We need another person to do the buying for
us."

"Oh, we're more
than on his shit list; we're at the top of it. If we stick our
noses out he's going to try to blow us away. Why didn't you tell us
Tassin was aboard when we came for you? We could have freed you
both."

"No, you'd just
have lost me, too. I don't know where she is, and that's a big
ship."

Kole frowned.
"When was the last time you saw her?"

"Not for a
while. About a week and a half. They wouldn't let me, and when I
got too insistent they threatened to sell her. I couldn't risk
that."

"So you don't
know for sure that she's still on that ship. They might have sold
her already."

Tarl inclined
his head. "It's possible. I don't know. I wasn't exactly in the
loop."

"Man, if
anything's happened to her, Sabre's going to kill you."

Tarl turned to
gaze at the cyber. "No, he's more likely to try to kill
himself."

"Well let's
wake him up, at least."

Chapter Nine

Tarl
disconnected the access cable and moved the brain scanner away on
its jointed arm. Martis frowned in puzzlement. Tarl glanced around,
spotted a resuscitation unit and pulled it over, then removed the
paddles from the ends of the cables, exposing the wires. Martis
made a strangled sound as Tarl adjusted the amperage on the
resuscitation unit down to a few milliamps.

"What the hell
are you going to do?" Martis asked.

"Wake him up,"
Tarl replied.

"With
shocks?"

"Yup." Tarl
touched the ends of the cables together, causing a fat spark to
jump between them with a soft crackle. "It's not ideal. I made a
special instrument for this, which worked great, but this will do
the trick, I reckon."

"Wait," Martis
said. "Where are you going to put that shock?"

"Through his
brain, of course, where else?"

"You
can't!"

Tarl turned to
him, frowning. "Look, I know you're a host researcher, but you know
shit, okay? I've done this before."

"To him?"

"Yeah, to him.
I used it to destroy his memory block a long time ago."

"But this isn't
the same thing!"

Tarl shook his
head. "It will work. It must, because nothing else will."

"It's insane.
You'll cause brain damage."

Estrelle
nodded. "I agree."

Tarl eyed them.
"You kids just sit back and watch. You might learn something about
cybers."

Martis turned
to Kole. "You can't let him do this. He's going to destroy Sabre's
brain."

Kole shrugged,
looking uneasy. "He's the expert."

"I wouldn't do
anything to harm Sabre," Tarl said, turning to the cyber, the
cables poised. "Sorry, bud, this is going to hurt."

Tarl touched
the ends of the cables to the edges of the brow band, and a fat
blue spark shot into it with a pop. The control unit filled with
flashing red lights, and Sabre went rigid, his back arched and his
hands clenched. After several seconds he relaxed, and Tarl studied
the lights on the brow band, most of which turned green again, then
the cyber's face.

"You really
don't want to come out of there do you, bud?" he murmured, and
touched the cables to the brow band again.

Martis made a
strangled sound, turning away as Sabre's back arched again, lifting
his midriff off the table, his lips drawn back and his hands
clenched. Tarl studied the brow band as the cyber relaxed, nodding.
The seventh control light flickered green.

"He's starting
to come out of it."

Tarl touched
the cable ends to the brow band once more. Martis made choking
sounds; Estrelle looked like she wanted to be sick. Sabre convulsed
again, and the sixth control light flashed, the seventh becoming
steady.

"The cyber's
taking control," she muttered.

"No, it can't,"
Tarl said.

All seven
control lights turned green, flashed once, and turned red again,
then two new lights flashed green. Sabre opened his eyes to stare
at the ceiling. Tarl switched off the resuscitator and put down the
cables.

"Welcome back,
bud."

Sabre groaned,
raising a hand to his brow.

"Get him
painkillers," Tarl ordered. "He's going to have one hell of a
headache."

Estrelle jumped
up and ran to a cabinet, digging in it. Sabre turned his head, his
brows drawing together, and his eyes flicked over them, coming to
rest on Tarl. His mouth worked, and he coughed.

"Tarl..."

"Yeah, bud, I'm
here."

"You...
bastard."

"Sorry, I had
to do it."

The cyber sat
up in a smooth movement and swung his legs off the table. Tarl
jumped up, retreating. Sabre glared at him, slid off the table and
swayed a little as he stood.

Martis and Kole
backed away, and Martis said, "I should warn you, he's probably
still very very angry, Tarl."

"Oh yeah," Tarl
agreed, "he's furious."

Sabre stalked
towards the cyber tech, who retreated, shaking his head. The
cyber's hands flashed out, gripped Tarl's throat and slammed him
against the wall with a bang, pinning him to it.

"Ow. Calm down,
bud," Tarl squeaked.

"You bastard."
Sabre thrust his face closer to glare into Tarl's eyes. "Why the
hell did you do that? You think that was fun, do you?"

"No, but you're
awake."

"I should break
your bloody neck!"

"But you won't,
so how about letting me go so I don't have to talk like I swallowed
a frog, huh?"

Sabre's grip
tightened until Tarl's face mottled, then the cyber released him
and stepped back. Tarl sagged against the wall, rubbing his
throat.

"Thanks." He
coughed. "We need to talk."

"We found
Tassin," Kole announced.

Sabre swung
around. "Where?"

"Wait." Tarl
shot Kole a furious look. "Let's not worry about that now. She's
fine, bud, relax. We'll get her back soon. She's in no danger, I
swear. First, we need to help you get a grip."

Sabre turned to
him and slammed his hands against the wall on either side of the
cyber tech's head. "I want these feelings gone! Can you do that?
Old buddy? Old chum? Hmmmm?"

Tarl rubbed his
ears. "No, but I can help you to deal with them."

"How?"

"I'll figure it
out."

Sabre pushed
himself away from the wall, clasping his brow, and Estrelle held
out two pills. The cyber took them and popped them into his mouth,
then turned to Tarl again.

"You'd better
start figuring then, and fast."

"Okay, okay, I
have a headache too now, from being smashed into the wall."

Estrelle tipped
another two pills from the bottle and held them out.

Tarl took them,
eyeing Sabre. "Okay, you're angry, let's deal with that first. What
are you so mad about?"

The cyber
glared at him. "I have all this shit in my head, and it's driving
me nuts!"

"Yeah, it's
shit, but it's human shit. It's a part of who you are now. Do you
want to be a half man all your life, unable to feel like the rest
of us?"

"You don't feel
like this, I guarantee it."

Tarl nodded.
"Yeah we do, just not all the time, because we deal with it. We
work through it, put it aside, get over it, whatever we have to do,
and with time it fades. You're just new to it, but you're going to
have to get used to it."

Sabre pointed
at Martis. "He reprogrammed me. Did he do the right thing?"

Tarl shot
Martis an incredulous look. "And you let him?"

"I was already
having trouble before the brain block failed. I had strange
feelings then too, just not this bad."

"What did you
do?" Tarl asked Martis.

The host
researcher spread his hands. "I built a bridge between his machine
mind and his flesh, I swear, that's all. I erased some subroutines
that would have hampered him, and reprogrammed his core to accept a
host choice instead of cyber law."

"You
reprogrammed his core commands?"

"Yeah."

Tarl glanced at
Sabre. "How do you feel?"

"I am so sick
of people asking me that. I'm angry, and it won't go away."

"Because you're
being constantly irritated by the other feelings." Tarl turned to a
cabinet and took out a handful of bottles, going through them until
he found the one he wanted. "Okay, this should work on you. I don't
think cybers were ever immunised to this, simply because it can't
be used to incapacitate them."

"What's it
going to do to me?"

"It'll calm you
down, make those feelings a lot less, so you can get used to them
slowly."

Tarl filled a
syringe and turned to Sabre. "Okay?"

The cyber eyed
him, then shrugged. "I suppose, of all the people who poke, prod
and bugger around with my mind, I should trust you the most, hey,
old bud?"

"Yeah, you
should."

Sabre held out
his arm so Tarl could inject him, then smiled and yanked him into a
bone-crushing embrace, making him cough and groan as his ribs
creaked.

"It's good to
see you again."

Tarl drew in a
gasp as the cyber released him, staggering a little. "You too, even
if you did just break my back."

"Serves you
right for sending shocks through my brain, you bastard."

"I already got
my throat crushed for that."

"You'll be
paying for a while yet, trust me."

Martis stepped
forward, sensing that the danger was over. "Are you having any side
effects, Sabre?"

The cyber
turned to face him. "Like what?"

"Dizziness,
blurred vision, nausea?"

Sabre shook his
head. "Just a bloody headache." His eyes flicked past Martis to
Kole, and he walked closer to the hacker. "Good job, finding Tarl.
Where's Tassin?"

"We think she's
on the ship we just rescued Tarl from, but it's heavily armed."

"You
think?"

"Yeah. She
might have been sold. Tarl hasn't seen her for a while."

Sabre swung
back to Tarl, who shot Kole a dirty look. "Thanks, Kole."

"Any time,
pal."

"Why didn't you
stop her?" Sabre demanded.

"The only
person who could have stopped her from getting on that shuttle was
you, bud. I didn't stand a chance in hell."

"You managed to
keep her out of the castle when I fought her damned cousin... What
was his name?"

"Yeah and I got
kicked and punched for it. I couldn't grab her with her soldiers
there, they’d have gutted me."

Sabre nodded,
rubbing his brow. "Yeah, you're right. If she couldn't go around
you, she'd have gone over you."

"Are you
feeling a bit calmer, bud?"

"Yeah. More
like myself, detached."

Tarl smiled.
"Good."

"How long was I
out?"

"Two
weeks."

Sabre sank down
on a stool. "God, it was like having a damned circus in my head,
especially the wild rides. I couldn't think straight."

"And none of
these idiots thought about giving you a tranquiliser?"

"Apparently
not."

"Hey," Martis
protested, "we were in the middle of a search for you and Tassin.
We couldn't sedate him."

"That's exactly
what you should have done."

"It'll impair
his thinking; slow down his reactions. It's dangerous. It wouldn't
work on an in-control cyber, but he's now incapacitated."