The Rise of the Cyborgs

Chapter 59/Paradi

Given the closeness of Halloween, this is a very suitable chapter. 

The Professor's lab: Meta's POV.

After my contact with Brooklyn, I had returned to the professor. The professor at least was pleased to see me. When I got back to doing more programming. It was two days later and I was getting bored. What had been difficult was becoming easy. While Brooklyn had gone back to sort the others out I wasn't sure if I would be in permanent exile. I was still cut off on the administrator campus, it was the only place I could be off grid to them.

I felt terrible - I was becoming truly certain I could kill them all with a single thought. I had to stay away from the only people who could possibly understand me. I felt isolated and only the professor seemed moderately immune. Even then I had managed to damage him accidentally in our core-war combat. I was trying not to think about how dangerous I had become. I so desperately wanted to abandon all this. 

I looked up at the recombinator that beeped. It stopped because it was out of one of the chemicals it used to synthesis bio-probes. It was building an adjusted formula for Valarie to help cure her. Now it would wait until the professor came back to restock it. He was doing a lecture and would be gone most of the afternoon. This batch might go off. My code was running, computing a large neural net and I had to wait for the result. I needed a distraction so I decided to reload the recombinator my self. It wasn't difficult. I walked up to the storeroom door. It was locked with a mechanical and digital lock.

A small amount of code and the digital lock was unlocking it's self. It didn't take many tries to make some more code which would silence the security systems. I left it running when I began looking for some stiff wire. By the time I came back I had already read a book in my head  about how to pick locks. While picking a lock In a hurry is difficult I felt I had plenty of time. Soon the lock clicked and I checked on my neural net. My code continued to adjust and learn before.

The door sprung open slightly. I checked for signs of more security systems And then slowly open the door I walked carefully into the space.

The laboratory beyond was larger than I had expected as a storeroom. I left the lights off as I didn't want to give any signals about my presence. I stood quietly in the entrance.t I began to hear whispering. Straining my ears I began to make out.

"Me miserable! Which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath and infinite despair?

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep,

Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven"

This seemed deeply strange. Why would someone be reading Milton ? I moved slowly closer to the sound. I moved past some tall sets of metal shelves laden with various instruments and collections of chemistry. As I eased past a corner of the shelf I saw row after row of empty metal cages. Some were small enough for rabbits or rats. Others were larger. I could smell bedding.

Soon I could smell more than straw. It took me a moment to begin to recognise what clung to the air. Raw meat. Like an old butcher's shop I had once been taken too.

"Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate

With head up-lift above the wave, and eyes..." I heard a quiet voice whisper.

I moved closer. As I approached I could see flecks of red blood on the floor.

The whisper continued as I moved.

"That sparkling blazed, his other parts besides

Prone on the flood, extended long and large"

I paced lightly. There was a little light. Mostly the glow from the tiny red eyes of powered devices.

I decided to announce my self and continued the line.

"Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge as whom the fables name of monstrous size,

Titanian, or Earth-born, that war's on Jove" . I had read quite a lot after I had left the institution. I didn't forget anything any more.

Step by step I moved into the dark space. Every sense I owned was on high alert. I knew where the exit was and I even knew which chemicals I could throw. As I cautiously turned the corner all I could see was a space filled with cages. Whoever have been talking had disappeared. I looked around. At this point, a large dog or wolf lifted its head from beneath the lip of a cage.

"Hello?" I said in a friendly way to the dog.

On the far side I discovered the source. It was what used to be called an Alexa, a smart speaker. It glowed not only in light but also in the electromagnetic spectrum. I approached it and turned the speaker off. With it the whispering stopped. My aunt did this. She left the radio on for the cats so there was some human conversation.

The dog was side on, It's unblinking eye followed me as I moved.

Just then a wheel inside a lab rat cage began to spin. I flinched at the sound and relaxed. I turned to the dog wolf thing.

"Who are you?" I said in a calming voice to the dog as I approached. I knelt

The dog continue to watch me with its one eye. I smiled "What's your name ah?" I said in the dogs direction.

"I am thy captive talk of chains" I heard silently over the wifi.

At this point the dog turned its face to point at me. While the left side seem normal. As the right side came into view I saw the right eye had been replaced by some complex camera. The right side was a portrait of hideous. The right side of the dogs head was laced with cables connected to pins drilled into the animals skull. The skin around the dogs jaw had been completely ripped away leaving only the bear flesh studied with sharp yellow teeth. Cables emerged from the skull and were braided together. This macabre sticking of flesh and machine was a foul and misshapen work of amateur taxidermy. As the dog moved his head, some flies fleed from the mutt's face. My stomach stiffened, and my larynx choked. The partially flailed fresh still raw, was an image I would to the ends of long days not forget. The hound stood up and growled.

"Him first make sure your thrall, and lastly kill. Kill me." I heard at the same time .

As he spoke I saw the dog's jaw move.

The dog started to roar and split the loud savage roaring with barking as breaks.

I found my self screaming in terror and rushing out. I was chased by the words "Kill me, Kill me. Kill me NOW."