The Rise of the Cyborgs

Chapter 55/Moses Returns from the mountain

GovSys Administrators Training Facility - Meta's POV.

Leaving the Professor's lab had been straightforward. I had a map. It was more like a complex dance with the building as my dance partner. Go this way, hide at this door way. Wait for the robotic sentry to go past. Avoid this camera. Soon I was a few streets away from the complex. It was two in the morning. A beggar slept holding his phone up with a sign asking for food. I on a whim I transferred a thousand from the phone of a drunk wealthy party member nearby. I had noticed an empty car was passing driving down the street. The owner had gone home with a friend sharing his car and sent her car back.

I stopped the empty self-driving car like was mine and stepped in. I programmed the car to move towards the factory. I would switch cars later and leave less of a trail. After an hour of travel, I felt I would not give Brooklyn's position away. I tried to contact the Factory but couldn't get any signal. I felt deeply worried. What if the black scales had taken them?

**************

The Factory 

By the time the sun began to rise I arrived at the gates in the fifth hi-jacked autonomous car. They had upgraded the security but still left a space for me on the entry system. I rushed in. I couldn't feel Zoe or Collin. Valerie, I could only feel weakly. I pushed my way through a wall of plastic they had hung from the ceiling to form a make shift hospital. There, in a bed was Valerie. Her face looked swollen like she had been in a fight.

"Valerie," I said rushing up to her "you OK?"

"Hey my maker," said Valerie smiling weakly. "long time no see."

I was sitting by the bed. I grabbed Valerie's right hand to hold it. "I've been desperate. I got to the professor. You won't believe where he is. He cured Brooklyn."

Valerie smiled and spoke weekly "Hey that's good."

"We will get you sorted too. What about Zoe and Collin?" I asked checking the readouts of the machine that all the sensors she was connected to were saying.

"They went out." Valerie said.

I was both relived and horrified "Out. Out where?"

"They discovered a casino fairly close." Valerie said weakly. "They went there."

"WTF" I said "they went out to a casino leaving you? Whats been happening?"

Valerie had the sheets pulled up to her neck. Only her right arm emerged above the sheets.

"Orange 9 here is looking after me. I'm OK" Valerie said lifting her right hand up under the sheets to indicate the large orange industrial robotic arm on the other side of her bed.

I held my hand to her forehead. I could tell she was slightly delirious but that was due to a huge amount of pain medication she was giving her self. She felt a normal temperature.

"After you left we began thinking about what was going to happen to us. We got ready. Zoe was first she noticed a discolouration of her toes." Valerie said.

"What did you do?" I said.

Valerie pulled her left hand out of the sheets. The light wasn't strong in this space but I could see the sparkle of metal. Valerie grabbed my jacket with her left hand. Her arm looked like it had no skin on it. In fact, the whole thing was synthetic. Four metal fingers and one metal thumb held me.

"I amputated Zoe's legs up to her hips like she asked,"  Valerie said her voice was both slightly terrified and slightly drunk " then I did  Collins legs. Knees first. Then thighs."