Cyber 0
Chapter 4 : Discoveries and Deductions


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AN: This is going to be the longest chapter yet! I think I'm going to start taking my time more now with each chapter, and wrting more. I also make a reference to the original Spanish comic in this chapter and more to come, revoling around Von reichter's main lab in South America.
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Cybersix's limbs were feeling too stiff and sore to take the usual route over the roofs of Meridiana to Lucas's apartment. Instead, after she had dried off from her shower, she had dressed in Adrian's attire, said good-bye to the sleeping Data 7, and set off on foot.
Even though the sun was shining, the blue skies couldn't repair the damage to their town, or the moods of the people Cybersix passed as she walked along the streets. Most of them were police officers surveying the damage and putting up yellow tape around the more severely damaged areas. She passed the school, not expecting to see anyone there; 7 in the morning was too early for most of the students she knew.
Her thoughts drifted away from the depressing scenery around her, and towards the mysterious Cyber she had discovered not long ago. Cyber 0, she mused to herself. Von Reichter obviously kept her for some reason.... But what? And what if she's still alive? The thought startled her, and she quickened her pace towards Lucas's apartment. Lucas said he might be able to help me... But how can he? Even I don't know what's going on...

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Where is she? wondered Lucas, staring out the window at the rooftops before him. He had called her over an hour ago, and there was no sign of the familiar figure leaping around Meridiana. Well, what was left of them. There was a light knock on the door, and Lucas went to answer it.

"I walked," said Cybersix, looking amused at the confused look on his face. It was strange to see her as half Adrian, half Cybersix. Though she was wearing Adrian's shirt, slacks, and jacket, her bangs flopped against her brow in their natural curl, and she was standing up straight, poised elegantly, as she greeted him.

"Hey, Adrian..." He held the door open wider so she could slip past him. "I guess I should have realized you wouldn't be doing all that jumping."

"And I'm not dressed for it," Adrian pointed out to him. "You asked me over the phone if I wanted to find out who that Cyber was that I saw in the lab... How?"

Lucas shut the door behind them and went over to to the big table he often spent hours grading papers on, and sat down.

"Well, first of all... Do you think Jose knows about her?" he askedd, thinking. Cybersix shrugged.

"He could. Von Reichter could have told him, in case his life was put in danger... Or if he was killed. And Jose could know who she is... or what she's for." Cybersix began to page the length of Lucas's apartment.

"How would Jose know what she was for, though? Would Von Reichter have told him who she was, what her purpose was..." He scartched his head in confusion. "I'm not getting any of this..."

"Well, Jose is a clone of Von Reichter... Which means he has a clone of Von Reichter's brain... So he should know pretty much everything his father knew at the time Jose was created." She frowned. "But it seems to me that Jose didn't know about the forgotten Cyber... If Von Reichter had gone to all of this trouble to keep her hidden and trapped in that tank, you would think that she was pretty important... Maybe even important enough he'd tell Jose about her."

Lucas thought about what she had just said. "Do you think she's still alive? She was in that tank for who knows how long..."

"But it was full of sustenance. It might have been injected into her every month to keep her alive, or they could have revived her briefly and given it to her orally. I'm not placing my bets on this, but she could have survived the explosion."

The biology teacher frowned. "But that stuff is a type of acid... extremely volatile and probably flammable... If the flames had hit the tank, most likely it would have shattered with the reaction..." Cybersix stopped in her pacing.

"When the explosion died down, bits and pieces of the lab were scattered around the riverside. The force of the explosion could have made the sustenance tank land there, too." She started pacing again.

"To say she is still there right now would be a bit of a stretch, Adrian. The debris could have landed anywhere within......" He paused, doing the math in his head. "Okay, it could have landed anywhere along the radius of the labratory... Adrian?"

"I'll be along the river, Lucas," she called over her shoulder, Lucas sighed and grabbed his coat off of the back of the door.

"Hey- Adrian! Wait up!"

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Silence.

Warmth.

Where am I?

She slowly opened her eyes, and winced her glass prison was caught in the sun's glare. She sat up slowly, relieved that there didn't seem to be any damage to herself. She felt a bit shaky, she was covered in the familiar green sustenance, and she was wearing what seemed to be a length of black fabric winding around her chest, torso and thighs. She was sitting in what seemed to be a shattered tank, large enough to hold a person her height and build, and sustencance was eating through the grass and weeds...

Listening. She could hear water, and she looked past the shattered glass tank to see a slightly murky river snaking its way along the bank she was lying on. Water... she thought longingly, and slowly, on unsteady legs, wandered towards the small river. She had just about reached the water's edge where a flash of light caught her eye. The sun was reflecting of another tank, identical to the one she had been in. She went over to it, and gasped. Inside was what seemed to be a dead creature. It was suspended in the tube, motionless. Looking around at her new vintage point, she could see ever more tanks- so shattered, others still intact- holding hideous creatures and clones.

Oh, God... she thought. What has he done?