CYBORG

0. initiation

It is night, and the sky is without stars, black as pitch. The ground is dusty beneath the soles of her boots and dirt covers the worn leather (something she’s never known before, the floors in the doctor’s house and the streets outside were always swept clean, immaculate), but it softens the sound of her heavy footsteps, so that’s something, at least. There are no buildings in sight; she has long left any semblance of what she might call civilization behind – but then, that was her intention when she jumped the fence, wasn’t it? Her vision is blurry, hazy, shapes dancing in her eyes that she knows are not real, and pain arcs like a lightning bolt through her body, aches straight to her fingertips and throbs in her temples.

She keeps walking.

Red covers her sight now, pulsing like her heartbeat, and a warning flashes across the blackness before her. DANGER. SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE SUSTAINED. SYSTEM FAILURE 79%. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN WILL COMMENCE. There is an image, the shape of a body, with sections lit up in red – the left arm, the right side of the head, the junction where the neck meets the right shoulder, the left thigh down to the knee. She blinks once, clearing the images away and ignoring the searing pain in her body where the highlighted areas were.

She is still walking, but she knows she will not be for long.

SYSTEM FAILURE 82%. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN COMMENCING IN 10... 9...

“Damn!” she hisses, her left knee locking and sending her crashing to the dusty ground. She tries to fight it, to push herself up from the ground, but she is helpless as the countdown continues, filling her line of sight.

6... 5... 4...

Desperate, she shuts her eyes, focusing all her will on the tiny circuits whirring in her brain. [ADMIN: SA-7260: Command: Manual override: Emergency Shutdown.]

SHUTDOWN OVERRIDDEN. The scrolling text brings her no reprieve from the pain, but the joints in her metal knee unlock, and she breathes a sigh of relief, placing a hand on the metal panel on her leg as she stands again. She stumbles on, biting her lip hard to distract herself from the scorching agony.

She doesn’t know how long she walks through the pain. It could be hours or mere minutes, but the dirt beneath her feet turns to scraggly grass, unkempt and wild that catches at the cloth of her uniform trousers. Sweat pours down her cold, flushed cheeks, and everything is dark, deep as the ocean, pressing in around her – until there is a pinprick of light before her. She squints, unsure if her eyes are still playing tricks on her.

But no, that’s definitely light, cutting through the blackness. She is dizzy with exhilaration and fear, and she walks faster, ignoring the sting it brings to every cell in her body. The light is close enough that she can see it comes in the shape of a small square. A window…?

A door is flung open, and brilliant light floods her vision, too much after so long in the darkness. She closes her eyes briefly against the glow, then opens them again. There is a figure standing there, silhouetted in the doorway, dim and shadowy, with no discernable features. She opens her mouth to speak, but is interrupted by the blaring alarm only she can hear, a warning only she can see.

SYSTEM FAILURE 99%. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN COMMENCING. SHUTTING DOWN...

Her knee locks again, and she falls, and this time she doesn’t try to get up. She thinks she hears voices, but then her vision shuts off, and she lets the blackness swallow her whole.