Chapter 1: Not Just a Machine
"Command to Cyborg, command to Cyborg, do you read?"
Click.
"Two bogeys approaching northeast. Neutralize or exterminate at will."
Click.
A whimper broke the silence. Marisol Delgado spared a glance over her shoulder at the woman and child behind her. It was the six year old who was whimpering and Marisol raised a finger to her lips. The mother pulled her son to her and made quite shushing noises to soothe him.
Marisol turned her back on the family. She held up a hand and pointed to the armored car on the other side of the parking garage at the bottom of the ramp. Pointing first to herself, she indicated she would go first and then signal them when it was safe to follow. They had been in her care for a month and MArisol had made sure to practice signals for different scenarios over and over again so they'd be prepared if the unthinkable happened and they had to flee.
Now that it had come to pass, the mother nodded to indicate her understanding and Marisol could focus on the first part of their escape. She just had to get them to the armored car and out of the parking garage and then the Secret Service escort would take over.
The problem was that there were two guns for hire in her way.
Marisol took a deep breath before rising slightly from her crouch and moving out from behind the van they were sheltered behind. She aimed her gun down the aisle as she moved quickly across the row to the next vehicle, eyes primed for any movement in the almost complete darkness of the underground garage. She'd always had excellent night vision and what little light there was in the structure made the shadows both untrustworthy and dangerous. Luckily she had studied this garage, navigated it blindfolded for two nights, and knew every nook and cranny where an enemy could hide.
Marisol made her way up the ramp to the first blind corner. If dispatch was right, they'd be around the bend by now. She slid under an SUV parked one car back from the blind waited.
Footsteps, barely audible but discernible through the vibrations in the pavement approached.
She waited until she saw feet pass her car. Idiots. They weren't checking under cars as she would have or even bothering to conceal themselves. They were counting on the child to make a sound or for her to start firing first. Amatures.
Angling her pistol she fired a silenced shot from under her car, deliberately hitting a window on another car a few feet in front of the two assassins.
As expected, the rookies dove apart and returned fire, shattering windows around them. In the cacophony of shattered glass, one of the gunamen, who had taken cover between her car and the next, never noticed as she rolled out to meet him, slashing his Achilles tendon so he dropped to the pavement. A quick blow to the head silenced him and then she was on her feet, aiming across the aisle.
The assassin saw her movement and turned, startled but firing off a shot she barely dodged. A quick shot from her slammed into his arm and he dropped the gun. Marisol sprinted across the aisle and delivered another blow to the head to knock him out as well.
"Bogeys neutralized," she said quietly into her earpiece to dispatch.
"Prepare to move the target and hand-off."
Marisol left the two bodies after making doubly sure they were out cold and returned to the mother and son quickly, motioning for them to follow but to duck. She stayed upright, weapon out and sweeping the garage as she made for the SUV but dispatch was right. This fight was over.
They made it safely to the car and Marisol took the driver's seat. "Stay low, in the floor board until I give the all clear." Her passengers did as they were bid. Marisol started the car and eased out of the garage, driving as though nothing was amiss, as if she was just a normal suit heading home from a long day's work in busy Washington DC.
Two blocks from the garage, a black SUV got behind her. As she drove further more joined, forming a small motorcade around them. She followed their lead to a nearby airport, driving straight on to the tarmac through a back entrance.
Marisol and her passengers got out and the mother grabbed her arm, sobbing and thanking her.
"Just doing my job ma'am," she said, trying and failing not to flinch away from the contact. The little boy looked up at Marisol, whimpered in fright, and buried his face in his mom's shirt again. The secret service moved them to the private plane and in a few short moments they were airborne.
Marisol watched them go for a moment before turning away and nodding to the Secret Service agent nearby. She recognized him from past jobs her organization had worked on with the agency and mustered a polite smile.
"Another successful handoff, Agent Delgado," he said cheerfully. "Did they tell you they arrested the Senator?"
Marisol nodded, but she felt the first twinge of anger at his words. "It shouldn't have taken that long. He's been beating her for years. The boy for at least the last few months if not longer."
The man shrugged. "You know how it is, all these government men have money to keep them safe. But thanks to you that's one less."
"It needs to be a lot less," Marisol responded coldly. "Your people should have handled this better."
The agent looked offended as she brushed past him into a sleek black car that was waiting for her past the wall of Secret Service men.
"Cyborg indeed,"she heard him mutter.
Inside the town car sat a man in his mid-forties in a business suit. His normally pristine tie was askew and his brown hair going silver was standing up where he had been combing at it with restless fingers. One would assume he was sloppy but Marisol knew better. If her boss, Mitchell Tucker, was here to pick her up in person in this state of dishevelment, something was up.
"I can't get one day off?" Marisol said wearily as she slid in and closed the door..
Tucker grimaced. "One day is literally all you're getting off. We have a high priority, top secret, national security assignment and it's intense." Marisol opened her mouth. "They requested you specifically."
Marisol closed her mouth against her initial instinct to refuse. It was rare but not unheard of to be requested. "Who's the client?"
"Walter Robotics," Tucker said, handing over a fact sheet. "They are a relatively unknown robotics company in San Diego, but they are of great interest to many. They've had a number of breakthrough discoveries, mostly of something called blue matter which acts as a sort of organic artificial intelligence."
Marsiol gave him a bewildered look. "You're making this up."
"Wish I was," Tucker said grimly. "Anyway, It's very closely guarded as it's pretty unpredictable. There are other types of matter as well, green and purple and red, but blue matter is the objective here. Most world leaders are after it but Peter Walter won't part with it."
Marisol flipped the initial fact sheet over and found herself staring at what normally would have been a client dossier. Instead it was a picture of a man with a keyhole for a face.
"Tucker, what the hell?" she said. "I don't do anonymous clients!"
"Yeeeeeeah he's not anonymous," Tucker said. "That's his face. Something about a blue mater experiment gone wrong." Tucker shook his head. "Anyway he's who is hiring us and paying, but you're guarding someth…someone else."
Marisol flipped the page again and found three photos attached to more dossiers. These dossiers were shorter than she was used to, but as she read them her jaw dropped.
"Rabbit…Zer0…The Spine?" she asked slowly, reading the information. "Tucker, these are robots?"
"Powered by blue matter," he confirmed. "And they aren't robots they are 'singing musical automatons.'"
"What's the difference?"
"I have no idea, but Walter was very clear in that distinction." Tucker said. Marisol frowned. Tucker normally didn't take any kind of nonsense from clients and she had to wonder what this Peter Walter man was like for Tuicker to be both skeptical and utterly sincere at the same time. "These robots are basically sentient, or so Walter claims."
"I protect people, not machinery," Marisol said. "Stick these in a vault somewhere."
Tucker sighed. "I said the same thing but…Walter was insistent and something about what he said…" Tucker trailed off. "These are people. Or at least close to it if Walter is to be believed. Not only that but he is paying double your rate and double the agency's cut. He also wants you and only you."
"Why?" Marisol demanded, completely floored. She had a reputation of being an excellent agent, but no one had ever offered that much for her services. The whole thing struck her as bizarre, though it did explain why Tucker was taking this seriously. That couldn't be the only reason. There was something more.
Tucker met her gaze and she felt a sense of doom approaching. "Because they are being hunted by Tony DiMarco."
Marisol stilled as icy rage swept through her. Tony DiMarco was a notorious hacker who she had put away 5 years ago after he killed her partner. Unfortunately, DiMarco got himself out on parole and promptly disappeared. Despite their best efforts, they had not been able to locate him. DiMarco had been laying low for five years but he had a grudge against Marisol and it was only a matter of time before he struck again.
Tucker passed her the tablet on the seat behind him. "DiMarco has mastered some kind of hacking technique where he can interface with these robots and control the blue matter core without having to be on site like most of the Walter Robotics workers. Today, he launched an attack directly at the band."
"Band?" Marisol said, but she looked down at the tablet and instantly had her answer. The news was showing a breaking story headlined "Musical performance in Balboa park turns violent." On screen the three robots in the dossier played instruments and sang silently while the anchors narrated the story. As she watched all three robots seemed to twitch and start to steam. The tallest of the three, a silver man in a suit and a fedora seemed to stumble back, gripping his head between his hands like he had a headache before lasers shot from his eyes and lit the grass on fire. He shook himself, glowing eyes flashing from green to red and back before he finally seemed to regain control. Once he did, he immediately dropped his guitar, turned, and dove on top of the smaller copper robot dressed in a skirt, pinning her to the ground as sparks and smoke oozed from her. Two girls with shockingly blue hair and strange blue white skin pulled a twitching stockier robot away as his hand shifted shape into what may have been a cannon.
"Originally designed as weapons, the automatons now use their existence for music," Tucker said. "Their band is called Steam Powered Giraffe. They're niche but popular. What you saw was DiMarco attempting to take control of them and nearly succeeding. According to Peter, the robots have enough control to fight back but not forever. He needs them moved to a secure, wireless facility until we can figure out what DiMarco wants with them and lay a trap."
"And he wants me?" she said. "Why? How does he even know me?"
Tucker had the decency to look ashamed. "I provided him some options, but he saw your call sign on your sheet. He asked why you had it."
Cyborg. "What did you tell him?" Marisol asked
Tucker fidgeted. "That you were my best agent and you operate like a machine, all business, no emotions, and ruthless."
Marisol rolled her eyes. If only that were true. Marisol kept her emotions behind a tight mask, she always had ever since her partner was killed while she stood powerless to stop it. She never got close to anyone after that, not did she ever form any attachment to any client. She had seen horrors in her work and not batted an eye. Her heart was ice, it had to be, it was safer for her. She was infamous for it and her fellow agents dubbed her Cyborg behind her back. They thought it was a clever way to call her emotionless like a robot while acknowledging that she had human parts. Tucker, who was one of the few she did respect and let close, respected her and had the idea to take the unflattering nickname and use it as her call sign, hoping to empower her and remove the sting.
It didn't work. If anything her fellow agents and even some clients weaponized it more. Still she was the best so it's not like anyone could complain.
"That made him pick me?" she said skeptically.
Tucker nodded. "He said he wanted someone who needed the robots, not just someone who would take them."
"Needed them?"
"He didn't explain and I didn't ask," Ticker admitted. "I didn't need to know given what he's willing to pay and what's at stake. These robots and the blue matte could literally hand DiMarco the world. We can't let that happen."
Marisol bit her lip considering. The pay was good but she knew what kind of assignment this would be. She'd be babysitting for weeks even months depending on how long it took to track down DiMarco. Did she want to be off the grid like that for so long babysitting the pet projects of some mad scientist?
"Do I have a choice?" Marisol said.
Tucker stared out the window for a long moment, so long she thought she might have to ask the question again.
"Not if you want DiMarco," he finally said.
Marisol glared. Tucker wanted her on this case, that much was clear, but it was exactly the kind of case she hated. She'd be in close quarters with three…people for days and weeks. Still, she'd be damned if she turned DiMarco over to anyone else. She had a score to settle.
"I'll take the job," she said.
Tucker nodded and they rode in silence the rest of the way to Marsiol's apartment in Crystal City. "I'll send you the full info packet. Get some sleep, we fly out tomorrow morning at 9 am."
Across the country in Walter Manor, Rabbit was paused outside the Hall of Wires. She listened at the door and winced when she heard the sounds of screaming start up again.
Rabbit knocked on the locked door. "Heya Spine, Zer0 and I are gonna go make a pie for the guest, why don't you come out?"
"Not now, Rabbit," The Spine replied, his voice muffled by the door.
Rabbit sighed. "C'mon bro. You gotta stop watching that. No one g-got hurt and you were able to snap out of it and stabilize me. You're a hero!"
The Spine didn't answer for a long moment. "But how did it happen, Rabbit? People could have been hurt. We could have been…changed."
"But we weren't!"
The Spine sighed. "Go on, Rabbit. I'll come down when the guests arrive."
Rabbit stepped back and shook her head. She knew how he felt. It was the same uncomfortable feeling she got whenever she thought about how her own blue matter power core had once hurt and killed people even if it wasn't her fault. The Spine would have to learn to live with it.
In the meantime there was pie to make for their new Cyborg friend!
The Spine listened to Rabbit's footsteps retreat and stared back up at the giant screen before him. "Please play it again, Beebop," he asked the AI quietly.
Beebop hesitated but complied. The footage rolled. They were performing Brass Goggles, Rabbit leading the tune.
"You can't do this, you can't do that. You're not a living thing with feelings. Feelings. Feel-feel..feel…feel-INGSSSSSSSSS."
The Spine watched as she malfunctioned, as they all did, their eyes flashing red. He would never forget that moment: He had felt parts of him activate that he hadn't used since the wars and he only just managed to aim his eyes at the ground before they went off. He had been looking at the crowd of adults and children. The children! Zer0 was dragged away by the Walter Workers but Rabbit…a loud rumbling came from her chest, a sound he had never heard before. The Spine was terrified that her power core was overreacting again so he did the only thing he could think of and threw himself over his sister. He figured his titanium alloy body would absorb most of the blast so he shouted for the crowd to run.
And then it stopped.
But what the footage didn't show, what he couldn't forget, what apparently only he sensed was a voice somewhere in his head just before he malfunctioned.
Kill the Cyborg.
End Chapter
Author's Note: I am not a secret agent, nor am I an expert on cyber crime, and I'm probably diverting from SPG's vision of lore so please take all of the action and crime and science with a grain of salt. My goal is just to be entertaining, not hyper realistic. Thanks for reading!
