"What the hell do you mean? You let CyberSix get away! I should kill you right now, if it wasn’t a waste of resources." José von Richter, psychotic ten year old with a thirty-year old’s impulses, smashed anything breakable in reach, which wasn’t much as the Fixed Idea maids had been ordered by several technos to keep everything above the four foot line on the wall.

"Uh, boss? She was rescued. Not my fault for telling you." José stopped short when he heard that, and, turning towards the large Idea, he simply screamed

"She was rescued? Well, why didn’t you kill the moron, huh? Wait, I forgot, IT’S BECAUSE YOU ARE AS DUMB AS A FUCKING BRICK!!! Damn! Must I think for everything on my side?" José walked back and forth while thinking, slowly wearing a hole in his carpet as he paced, and, just before he hit a wall, he spun around and looked at the Idea. "You, take the most powerful gun you can carry, and go look for CyberSix. When you find her, kill her!"

The Idea scurried away, thankful that it was only escaping with a suicide mission instead of being relegated to caretaker duties. José went over to a large-screen TV turning it on so he could watch his favourite show, something called ‘Ren and Stimpy’. Watching the two moronic creatures get abused, mutilated and produce biological functions that were more suited to the Discovery Channel rather than entertainment calmed him down enough to think clearly, and feeling that he needed to see what was going on in the city, he switched to the news. Watching it, he smiled when he saw another oil tanker blowing up outside of the city, courtesy of a squad of his technos with rocket launchers, but he lost his good mood when he saw a video of one of his Ideas getting the crud beaten out of it by a young woman with long reddish-black hair.

Seeing the woman, and remembering the description of the person who saved CyberSix, sent José into another fit of rage when he recognised them as one and the same. Hollering for a Techno, he had almost totally trashed his room when one arrived. "Look at that woman! She helped CyberSix, and killed one of my Ideas with her bare hands the day before! I want you to find her, get as much information as possible about her, and hopefully, kill her! I want CyberSix’s allies dead as fast as possible!"

Sara woke up at around seven, and, after hearing her invalid charge begin to move around, she decided that it would be a good idea to start moving about herself. Getting up, she decided on camo pants and a tank top, and mentally thanked her foresight in getting all her stuff into the house weeks in advance. Checking on CyberSix, Sara had to stifle a laugh as she saw the poor woman learn how to use a cane in order to keep pressure off her bad leg.

Sara checked the wounds, and was surprised when she saw that the abrasions and scrapes had healed completely, leaving small pink marks that would soon disappear, and the more serious leg wound had barely bled overnight, and had also shrunk by about one third of its original size.

"Just wondering, but why didn’t you tell me you could regenerate?" Sara was almost surprised, but had seen too many things appear out of the Twilight Zone to be shocked.

CyberSix shrugged and responded "I regenerate flesh wounds fairly quickly, but injuries to my skeleton take a lot longer. Of course, I expect to be back in fighting shape in less than five days." CyberSix smiled mischievously as she used the cane to gently whack Sara in the arm, then continued, "I have one major side effect after I’ve been healing for a little while. In order to keep from losing muscle mass, I’ll have to eat about twice as much food as a normal person." Sara instantly saw a mental graph where the chances of her being eaten out of her new house by a ravenous Cyber spiked through the top of the graph. As a response, she looked like she had just been force-fed a lime.

"Y`know what? I now have a feeling of great sympathy for my poor mother, who had to deal with three bottomless pits in a row. Now, because I just have to deal with one, breakfast is whatever you want, provided you help out some." CyberSix laughed at the look of pure aggrieved misery on Sara’s face, and managed to get downstairs with no muss and fuss after she struggled into jeans and a T-shirt that had been graciously donated by Sara, even though Sara was a good two sizes smaller than the bulkier Cyber. Helping each other cook, however turned out to be a comedy of errors, involving one accident after another that only ended when Sara told CyberSix to go watch TV.

Sara’s blunt opinion of CyberSix’s cooking skills was roughly analogous to being able to burn water, so CyberSix sat out on the cooking of breakfast after Sara had threatened her with a dishrag. Eventually, breakfast was ready, and the two dug in. As the two ate, Sara’s worries about being forced to buy more food increased drastically. *My god! She’s more stomach than person! Even I can’t eat a dozen poached eggs on toast, but she cleared the plate in less than three minutes. If I didn’t know better, I woulda thought that she had a V-12 diesel in place of her stomach. Hmmph. I’m gonna have to go shopping before she decides that her legs are still hollow and eats everything in my kitchen. *

Sara swore under her breath at the idea of having to restock her fridge daily for the rest of the week, but still finished off her much smaller meal. "Well, you’re gonna have to learn how to cook before you burn down my house, but, because I have to go off and restock the fridge, you get to find out how to use my dishwasher with my help. Oh yeah, keep off your bad leg for as much as possible." CyberSix nodded, got up, and, with the help of her cane and Sara, she hobbled around the kitchen, cleaning up the sizeable mess.

Fifteen minutes later, Sara sat down in her favourite chair and ran a dry dishrag through her drenched hair. "Well, that’s the last time I trust you with an extendo-faucet. Thanks."

CyberSix, also soggy, sat on the couch as she mopped at her face and shirtfront and replied "Well, you gave as good as you got with that jug of water in the fridge. Look at us. We’re both drenched because of that waterfight in the kitchen, and we managed to almost wreck your stove anyhow." Sara chuckled and flipped on the news with a gesture, a wave, and a poke at the TV remote in front of her, and watched the anchor spew out a report of the total disappearance of CyberSix which caused both women to laugh, and the discovery of six deceased greenskins near a destroyed machine gun, prompting speculation about another vigilante roaming the city.

Sara flipped the remote over to CyberSix, then stood up and tossed her now-soaked cloth into the kitchen sink. "Well, while I’m getting some food for that black hole you call a stomach, you can do nearly anything while I’m away. However, if I find out you’ve been bouncing around the city like a one-legged frog, I’ll break your other leg." Grinning, Sara got her coat, and, after getting her bike out of the garage and after emptying out the saddlebags of her remaining luggage from the plane, she drove off to a nearby supermarket. Returning about half an hour later, with the saddlebags filled with enough food to choke an elephant, she found that CyberSix was asleep on the couch, with the TV set to the Learning Channel. After refilling the fridge with the groceries which took about fifteen minutes and several muttered curses, Sara then went to her room and sat on the side of her bed.

*It’s odd. I save CyberSix from being killed within two days of my arrival in the city, and I’m going to an important job interview tomorrow. I don’t really know why, but I have an urge to take a look at the only thing my father gave me that I respect him for. I still don’t know why he got them for me, especially as he knew that I was going to be either a biologist or a medical researcher when I graduated. Then again, considering what happened, maybe he did do something good for once. *

Sighing, Sara went over to her nightstand, and, sticking her hand underneath it, she grabbed a key that she had taped to the back of the drawer. Moving over to a colourful painting of a grey-haired woman working in a garden, Sara read the brass plaque naming the painting, and was struck again by the standing joke from her grandmother. The painting had been titled ‘The Lesbian Gardener’, and the original joke was that Sara’s grandmother had entered a gardening store with an old friend, and after talking excitedly about what they wanted to do, the clerk had pulled Sara’s grandfather aside and asked if the two were lesbians. Sara chuckled at the memory, then sobered up and pulled the painting off the wall, revealing a heavy-looking safe.

Opening the large door with the key, Sara pulled a large box out of the safe, and placed it on her bed, absently smoothing the sheets as she unlatched the box. Opening the box, Sara picked up one of the two matte black DE50AE7 Desert Eagles that had been custom-built by her dad. They had extra-long barrels, reaching about ten inches in length, and also had underslung laser sights matched to pistol scopes. They were ugly guns, but Sara didn’t mind their appearance. After all, not many people decided to be stupid when staring down a half-inch muzzle of a gun that would pop a person’s head off with a good shot. The twin pistols had saved her from several uncomfortable moments when she had travelled the world, but the most memorable had been when she had been hunting slavers in Africa.

Replacing the gun in the box next to its twin, Sara put the box back in the safe, looked at the two embossed and locked books that lay on a shelf in the safe, sighed, and said out loud "You can come in anytime, you know. I just own it. I don’t shoot it." CyberSix popped her head around the doorframe and grumbled about being thwarted again in that ability. "What do you mean ‘again’? This is the first time you’ve done that to me." CyberSix scratched at a small scab and looked at the floor.

"Well, I guess it’s okay to tell you. But only if you promise to keep it a secret." After getting Sara’s assurances, CyberSix continued. "Officially, I’m the last survivor of the Cyber series, created by a Nazi scientist who wanted to dominate the world and create his own race of super-beings, but one of his co-workers, when she heard about what he did, abducted the body of my little sister, Cyber 338. Eventually, the woman developed a way to resurrect 338, and called her Kayla. After the woman was killed by my creator, Kayla travelled the world before settling here and subsequently being killed by a clone of my creator, a stunted and evil little boy called José. That was three years ago, and I actually found the lab notes used to resurrect Kayla in the first place. Using them, she’s back and living peacefully in the city somewhere."

Sara looked at CyberSix for a few seconds, then looked at the ceiling. "Y’know, I honestly think you may be joking, but I don’t know. It seems to be farfetched, but knowing you, hell, I think you’d find a way to bend the rules in everything." Sara smiled faintly, then got up from where she had sat while listening to CyberSix, and motioned for CyberSix to sit down, then walked back over to the safe.

"Now, you know that I have at least one handgun. Do you want to hear the entire list?" CyberSix grimaced, and looked like she would rather chew on razor blades, but she agreed. "I know that look. I used it against my own relatives when I was younger and wanted to avoid something that I hated. The reason why I keep my stuff in the safe is for the same reason you probably have something close to your heart all the time. Well, that and the damn thing is five inches of Durallex Alloy.

"I bet the only thing that can punch through the door is a fifteen-inch battleship shell fired a point-blank range, and then it’s an iffy proposition at best. The reason why it’s so powerful, is because it deters thieves and it has all my sentimental valuables in here, along with my two Desert Eagles, and a gun my grandfather made out of an ancient anti-tank rifle."

CyberSix winced at the mention of guns, but otherwise kept a straight face as Sara rummaged in the safe for a few seconds, eventually finding what she was looking for. Turning around, Sara handed over a small, yellowed photo of a young girl with two older people hugging her. "That is one of the last pictures I have of my grandparents with me. It was taken way back when I was ten. And the time I spent with them was always well-spent. My grandfather taught me to appreciate nature through fishing and hikes in the wilderness. He was one of the reasons I became a biologist. When he died, it felt like a part of me had been chopped out and some of my soul just shrivelled away. That was almost six months ago.

"I think I never told you how I got the scars on my face." As she was speaking, Sara lifted her hair away from her face, letting CyberSix look at the deep lines and curved traceries engraved into her skin from chin to just above her right eyebrow. "I was visiting the orphanage my grandparents took care of, when several of those greenskins showed up and tried to kill them. I shot one through the chest with my grandfather’s idiot gun, but the grenades the thing was holding blew up when it disintegrated. My face is the result of the first blast, and the second blast wounded most of those freaks with the shrapnel. My injuries, which were a bit more serious than a shredded face, prevented me from rescuing my grandparents when the greenskins fired a load of rockets at the orphanage. My grandparents died trying to shelter the children from the wreckage when the building came down on them."

Sara looked like she was about to break down, and was barely keeping tears at bay. "I didn’t even care about my injuries. Those greenskins left almost immediately afterwards, but I didn’t notice. All I did for a week was dig through the rubble, but eventually, I found their journals, and right beside them were my grandparents. Those creatures had callously murdered almost twenty children and two people who were harmless and only wanted to make children happy, just to destroy something. Nobody had survived the collapse, but my grandparents’ will had also survived.

"By decree of the will, I buried them in the Fraser valley near Vancouver, and the only mementoes I wanted from all the stuff they bequeathed to me was my grandmother’s favourite ring, the journals, and the hand cannon from my grandfather." Sara showed CyberSix a small platinum ring, with the engraving of a snake eating its own tail and a word stamped into the underside; ‘Ouroborous’. After putting the ring on her left ring finger, Sara then brought out the two leather-bound books, reinforced with gold bindings. Finally, she produced a wrapped object that she slowly unwrapped. Sara glanced at CyberSix, and saw that she was focussed on what Sara was doing.

When the object was unwrapped, Sara showed the huge handgun to CyberSix, and compared its size to her arm. The gun was easily twice as long as Sara’s forearm, and the barrel, about 30mm wide, was a gaping maw with tooth-like scorch marks radiating outwards from the aperture and the breech. It was a pistol in name only, with a better comparison being a handheld artillery piece. Sara caught the unspent cartridge in midair as she worked the breech, and showed the huge slug to CyberSix. "This is a 30mm anti-tank slug for the Browning ‘Tankbuster’ Rifle, which is what this gun was before my grandfather converted it. Personally, I’ll only use it when hell freezes over, or when a tank drives through my front door, whichever comes first. Now, I know you hate guns, and I’m wondering why, but first, let me tell you something. I would rather be shot than let any civilian in my presence be hurt by somebody with a gun."

CyberSix smiled slightly as Sara re-wrapped the big gun, then spoke up. "You know, Sara, you can call me Six. But the reason why I hate guns is because when I was assisted in my escape from my creator, the old man who helped me was killed a few weeks afterwards by some Technos with machine guns. In order to let his spirit rest, I vowed to never use a gun on a living being, or let anyone fire at a civilian." CyberSix looked at the hideously ugly pistol, now almost completely re-wrapped, and raised her right eyebrow. "I do have to wonder though, how do you manage to keep your arm from being dislocated every time you shoot that abomination?" Sara chuckled, and finished wrapping the gun.

"You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to shoot. The thing has a recoil operated reloading system, and most of the exhaust gases leave the barrel with the bullet. However, when I first shot it, I nearly took my arm off at the elbow, and the only other time I used it was when I tried to save my grandparents."

Sara felt tears begin to stream down her face as she remembered the last day she saw her grandparents. She was on a break from her usually hectic job, and decided to visit them, just to use up most of a roll of film in her camera. She had spent most of the day playing with the orphans, and had to deal with her grandmother’s fussing over the ‘Idea of having my only granddaughter die of malnutrition.’ At dusk, Sara convinced everyone to troop outside for a photograph of the entire family. After the photo of twenty children clustering around Sara and her grandparents was taken, and some of the younger ones had dropped off to sleep, the greenskins attacked, killing everyone except her.

CyberSix was at a loss when she saw Sara just standing there crying openly, but was saved by the doorbell, allowing her to keep quiet. Sara dried her eyes, and walked downstairs to respond to the insistent ringing. Opening the door, she found herself face to collar of a huge man wearing a trenchcoat. As she looked up at him, she thought she saw a flash of revulsion in his eyes as he looked at her. "Good day madam. We are searching for a wanted fugitive who was last seen in this neighbourhood. If you see anyone resembling this picture, call the number on this card and hide the police will handle the rest." He then gave Sara a small poster with a pencil sketch on it and a business card, turned around, and walked away. As soon as he turned the corner, Sara closed and locked the door, then turned to CyberSix.

"Well, my day just went from bad to worse. That man is definitely not police, and likely out to get one of us. I just felt something like waves of malicious intent mixed with total disdain. It was just ... scary."

CyberSix agreed with Sara’s intuition and tried to defuse the situation by explaining it. "That is one of my creator’s technos, and he’s actually hunting for me. You, because of your being a relative unknown, won’t be marked unless you’re actually seen with me by one of the minions that are smart enough to recognise you. Now, would you like a basic synopsis of the forces arrayed against us?"

Sara nodded, so CyberSix sat down on the couch and started on a basic rundown of the forces arrayed against her. "Well, there’s your basic Fixed Idea. About as smart as a brick, but strong enough to bench-press a Buick with little effort. They’re usually armed with machine guns and rocket launchers, but they can’t aim worth a damn. Next is the Techno. They’re infiltrators, and pretty vicious ones at that. Most of them are weapons specialists of some sort, and they can all aim a lot better than an Idea can. The worst part about them is that because they’re infiltrators, they’re the ones who will pull a gun on you while you’re walking down a sidewalk. Finally, there’s the Type, which is more of an administrator than an actual combatant. They’re expert tacticians, strategists, and skilled with sidearms, but they can be ruled by their emotions, which makes them the most unstable of the three basic types arrayed against us."

Sara whistled slowly, then caught the look on CyberSix’s face. "There’s more, isn’t there."

"Yes. Over the years, there have been beings which are known as ‘specials’. Some of them are created ‘from the tank’ as the term once was, but a lot are innocent people who have been abducted and experimented on. If you ever meet one, be extremely careful as they are the ones that can knock me for a loop if I’m not too careful."

Sara nodded as she absorbed CyberSix’s summary of what was roaming the city, then glanced at her watch. She grimaced as she realized that it was almost 2:30 in the afternoon, and her stomach was beginning to wonder whether it should start polishing her spine in order to get some attention. "Yay. Well, now that you’ve managed to ruin my appetite, do you want to learn how to cook, or do you want some take out?" CyberSix decided on learning how to cook, so she had fun ‘experimenting’ with Kraft Dinner. Eventually, they sat down to eat, and they had a short but heated debate over eating out compared to cooking your own food. Sara won the debate by pointing out the failings in CyberSix’s logic.

"You’re just sore because you have never used that type of stove before. Besides, it’s your own fault for burning the KD into the bottom of the pot. Look, because you managed to produce a meal, and because it was your first try, I’ll clean the dishes." Sara grinned maliciously as she went to the garage first, returning with a large chisel and a hammer.

"What the-... I didn’t do that bad a job, so what’s with the chisel?" Sara laughed as she started to tap at the caked-on grunge in the pot, flaking away large pieces of pasta-shaped black goo, and shot back

"Well, I need something to clean that pot you managed to destroy, and only a coal chisel will get through the mess you created in that thing." Sara ignored the frustrated scream , but had to duck the pillow thrown at her from the living room. "Hah! Good throw. Ever thought of pitching for the Blue Jays? You’d probably be a great batter as well." CyberSix laughed at the suggestion, so Sara shrugged and tossed the pillow back into the living room, accidentally whacking her poor friend in the head.

Looking at the charred mess in the pot, Sara swore vehemently at Murphy’s Law, and continued to knock encrusted pieces of KD off the bottom of the pot. "GAH! This stuff reeks! You really did a number on this thing. I think it could be used as pet repellent, considering the fact that you destroyed the Teflon lining. Just wondering, but do you have any cats as pets? I bet they’d absolutely hate this."

CyberSix looked over the top of the couch in time to see Sara put on a dust filtration mask and yelled "Hey! Why is it that you need a filter to clean that thing when you could eat the stuff with a straight face? I could barely keep myself from crying because of the disgusting taste of that goo."

She watched as Sara waved her middle finger in the general direction of the TV and responded to that as well. "Very subtle, Sara. Why don’t you check out your mail?" Sara agreed, and after chucking the pot into the garbage, followed closely by the mask, and after cleaning and replacing the chisel, Sara headed into the living room, curled up into her favourite seat, and turned on her laptop.

Playing a computer game to relax got her nowhere, especially when CyberSix started with the infamous ‘suggestions’ that nearly crashed the computer. As a result, Sara flipped over to her E-mails and neatly described all the genetic aberrations that would send ads for Viagra over the web as she dealt with dozens of junk mail files. She read another message from the high school, confirming that she could come in for an interview in Friday, and caused CyberSix to crack up with a joke she got from her subscription to BestofHumour.com. Sara also managed to crack up, laughing her ass off when she found CyberSix featured as IGN.com’s babe of the day.

After calming down enough to breathe properly, Sara turned off her computer, and decided to check CyberSix’s injuries. Sara really was not surprised to find that CyberSix’s small abrasions had disappeared completely, and her leg wound was almost completely healed. With a few more pokes, prods, and ignoring muffled curses, Sara found that CyberSix’s leg was beginning to heal well, and her ribs and collarbone were well on the way to recovery. Also, the skull fracture as almost nonexistent, as the line had sealed itself overnight. "Well, you’ll probably need to use the cane for several more days, but the tape on your ribs can be removed tomorrow morning just before I go off to my job interview at Meridiana High."

CyberSix just looked at Sara for a few seconds, then in a quiet voice said "Sara? When you go to the school, can you do me a favour?" After seeing Sara nod, she continued. "There’s a teacher there, and he’s a good friend. His name’s Lucas Amato, and I’d like it if you could tell him I’m okay and where I’m staying." Sara nodded, gently making sure CyberSix’s bandages were keeping the blood inside of the Cyber, where it belonged. "You’ll recognise him when you see him because he is almost always wearing a brown trenchcoat, and is about the size of a small Fixed Idea."

Sara looked at her friend, and simply muttered to herself for a second. "Amato, Lucas Amato... where did I hear that name before? Ah now I remember. He was an exchange student at my university for several months. My frat house voted him ‘most likely to become a serial killer’ when he responded to their hazing him with fifteen cans of whipped cream, about three rolls of duct tape, and about a third of the house’s members."

Sara grinned as the memory floated up to the surface of her mind, then she looked at Six "I had to cut the victims down from the rafters, and when I took the tape off, they screamed and cried like little girls. What’s really entertaining was when I found out what he had done with the whipped cream."

CyberSix chuckled at the story, but stopped when she remembered something. "I think he actually told me that story. However, he never said what he did with the whipped cream. Just wondering, but you said that you were in a frat house. Were you a ‘little sister’?"

Sara, glancing at her watch and noticing that her examination of CyberSix’s injuries had taken her until it was almost Six in the evening nodded at CyberSix’s question. "Yeah, I was a little sister. Didn’t really like it too much because there were insinuations that I got around, at least until I mashed one person’s face into a wall. Still, considering that there were no vacancies in the sororities, I think I managed fairly well."

Standing up, Sara stretched her arms over her head, letting her muscles strain enough to define themselves, then reached over to the phone that was hanging on its charger next to the fridge. Grabbing the phone and flipping through the directory for a fast food place, Sara managed to find a relatively good-sounding Chinese food shop, and so she ordered a medium sized meal to be sent to her house.

Fifteen minutes later, and three seconds after Sara paid the delivery boy, CyberSix had already started to tuck into the fairly large amount of food, letting Sara feel a pang of sympathy for her mother again. Sighing, Sara also had some, but, yawning loudly, she decided to go to bed early, letting CyberSix decide when she wanted to go to sleep. It was almost midnight when CyberSix poked her head into Sara’s room to see Sara sprawled over her bed, fast asleep with a compilation of medical disorders resting beside her.

Top
Next
Previous