Chapter 23 #2
“Yeah, I’m here Loverboy. Lower your weapon. We got a bead on all your team.”
That just made Valor tense for battle. “I have an entire squad of weaponized cyborgs with me. Stand down and show yourself or else it’s gonna be a shitshow for you.”
“Only one squad of cyborgs, huh?” Gage snickered. “I have a whole platoon of the same. And mine are more feral than yours, believe me.”
Valor growled and shot hand commands to his team to keep eyes open and ready for an ambush.
Gage sighed. “Listen, Loverboy. You’ve been sent on a fool’s errand. You’ve been told lies about us, about yourself. We are not the enemy.”
Valor’s voice hardened. “So, you switched sides, huh. That makes you a traitor, Python. And you know what happens to those.”
“I’m on the same side I’ve always been on: the land of the free and the home of the brave.
But that side doesn’t have my six now that I’m a cyborg.
That side doesn’t want me to exist, even though it made me.
And that side has been lied to and deceived about cyborgs, by an enemy within who has sold us out to a foreign country. ”
“Prove it.”
“Gimme a week and I will.” Gage glanced at Everett, who nodded his confirmation. “We’re not the enemy, Loverboy. Cyborgs are not the enemy.”
Valor snorted in disdain. “Says the cyborg who’s gone rogue.”
“I haven’t gone rogue. I am very much still in control of myself. I can ignore the voice in my head. You know, the one that doesn’t sound like you.” He lowered his voice to nearly a whisper. “The one that sounds like Richard Hawks.”
Valor blinked in shock. Then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Python. Come back to headquarters with us. Tell your story to the higher-ups. Don’t make me turn this into a bloodbath.”
“Negative. I’ve seen the evidence of how extensive this corruption is.
They made us, and now they want to eradicate us.
And how fitting that they send other cyborgs to do it.
” Gage paused to give Valor time to deny any of what he’d said.
Instead, the other man’s shoulders dropped in guilt.
Gage rested his chin atop Audra’s head for a moment, collecting his emotions, collecting his determination.
He and Valor had fought side-by-side in a battle very few would ever suffer through or even understand.
They had carried each other, cheered the other on, pulled each other out of the depths of despair, and celebrated every small victory along that harsh road to healing.
They were brothers-in-arms unlike any other.
Hopefully, that bond would hold strong with his next words.
He pressed the button to talk again, his voice low. “Do you remember that night we tried to get drunk?”
Valor remembered. There was no way the man would forget the soul-baring conversation they’d had in the deep, dark, starless night when there seemed to be no light in the world willing to shine on their poor souls.
When desolation and utter hopelessness had washed through them more potently than alcohol.
When the other man was the only thing keeping each from pulling the pin on life.
“Three bottles of tequila each, and not even a buzz thanks to our cyborg filtration systems. Yeah, I remember.”
“Remember what we promised each other?” He and Valor had promised to move mountains for one another if they ever found someone who could love them with their cybernetic parts.
Gage squeezed Audra closer, as if she might disappear should he let go.
“I found that, Loverboy. I have that in my arms right now. It’s everything we’d hoped it would be.
It’s everything you and I deserve the chance to have. Give me a week to prove it.”
Several tense moments followed. Everyone in the room held their collective breath. Finally, Valor sighed, and if ever there was a wistful note heard, it was now. “I got your six, brother. You keep that dream alive.”
With that, he turned to address his squad. “Stand down. There’s nothing here. We’ve followed a false lead. Let’s pack it up and head home, I’ll fill you in on the details along the way.”
They grumbled, but did not challenge Valor’s command. The screens showed them lowering their weapons and retreating swiftly.
Audra and the others exhaled the collective breath they’d held, but Gage lifted his hand to halt the premature celebration. No one was safe just yet.
As Valor and his team crossed over the threshold where Doc’s signal scrambling ended, Valor removed his helmet and knocked on his head, talking to himself. His voice still projected into the command center room. “I know the signal ends here, but there’s nothing there. Just run-down buildings.”
Maybe he wasn’t talking to himself. Who was on the other end of the conversation? Could it be the same voice Gage had talked to? “Everett, would we hear who he’s talking to if it’s through his headset?”
“Yep. Whoever he’s talking to, it’s coming through a different way.”
“You thinking it’s a voice, like what you had, Gage?” Adam asked. Gage nodded his agreement and the other man muttered an impressed dammmnnn under his breath.
“You did not monitor us with a drone.” Valor continued. “One. my men are too good to not have noticed that. And two, if you didn’t trust us to do the job, why did you send us?”
Valor walked in a circle, hands on hips, looking at the ground and talking to the voice in his head while his team patiently waited for more orders.
“This is not insubordination, sir. This is fact.” His arm shot up and swung toward one of his soldiers.
“NO!” Valor yelled and jerked backward to aim his cyborg arm away, lifting with his other hand as if he had no control over himself.
His soldiers ran to him, grabbing and pushing his arm upward to keep the loaded weapon pointed in a safer direction.
One yanked up Valor’s uniform and opened the loading panel at his side, tugging the belt-fed ammo out of him.
He was still armed, but now with only a few bullets.
Together, they aimed Valor’s arm at the dirt a safe distance away and he fired the remaining ammo.
The squad all sagged with relief, but none seemed surprised this had happened.
How often did their cybernetic weapons malfunction in that manner?
And how many of their own had they been forced to ventilate?
Gage’s stomach climbed up his throat at the possibility Hawks was using other cyborg soldiers to perfect his control.
Bile shot to his mouth at the possibility Hawks was just a sick bastard who liked killing people.
“With all due respect, sir,” Valor, panting from the battle he’d just fought against his own cybernetic appendage, spoke again, “You can go to hell.”
Crisis averted, he and his soldiers made a hasty retreat. Within ten minutes, there was no trace of any soldiers in the area. Charlie gave Doc the all-clear. Everyone in the command room finally relaxed.
“?Dios mío! I think I aged ten years.” David claimed.
His tone was exhausted, yet he held Doc firmly as the older man stood on trembling knees. Doc turned to the rest of them, pale and shell-shocked from the intensity of the last couple hours. “We make one helluva team, don’t you think?”
Adam shook his head. “No, we make one helluva rebel alliance.”
“And these rebels need sleep.” Eve leaned into Adam’s arms. “And this girl needs a glass of wine or two to calm down.”
Everyone agreed, and they all filed, arm-in-arm with their loved one, down the stairs to the bunker, Apollo leading the way like the Grand Marshall of a parade.
Gage held Audra close as they walked and through the rest of the night, needing the reminder—the proof—that there was still some good in the world and something worth fighting for.