Free The Cyber Chronicles IV - Cyborg by T C Southwell

and his eyes
screwed shut. He hauled on the brow band, his fingers whitening
under the strain. Muscles bulged on his chest and arms, and his
breath came in harsh gasps. He rolled sideways as his back arched
again, his face twisted.
    Tassin’s heart
hammered with excitement and anguish. Sabre groaned, a sound of
intense pain that made tears flood her eyes, and she stood up and
stepped back as he writhed, his brows knotted and teeth gritted,
muscles writhing in his jaw as he struggled against the
micro-supercomputer in the brow band. The sixth control light,
which his hands did not hide, turned red and flashed. Then Sabre
convulsed once more as all seven control lights flashed three times
in unison and turned green. He slumped, releasing the cyber band.
The rest of the brow band had regained its normal configuration.
His eyes opened, unfocussed, and he sat up.
    She shook her
head in numb disbelief. “No… Sabre… God, what have they done to
you? Damn them!”
    Tassin bowed
her head, brushing away the tears that trickled down her face. Myon
Two had done something that made it impossible for him to get free,
just as he had said they would.
     
    ****
     
    Kole’s smile
faded at her expression when she entered Trevare’s computer room
the next morning, and he looked concerned.
    “ What’s happened?”
    “ Myon Two has done something to Sabre. He can no longer get
free of the cyber.”
    His eyes
flicked past her to the cyber who had followed her in. “He
tried?”
    “ Yes, last night, but that damned… thing stopped him. It shocked him
into submission or something. He had a seizure.”
    Trevare
swivelled his chair to face her. “If he could free himself before,
and went back to Myon Two for repairs, you can be quite sure they
fixed him so he can never get free again. A free cyber is, like,
their biggest fear. In the early days, their detractors used to say
it would happen one day. A cyber would get free and go on a killing
spree. So if your guy could get free…”
    “ He could, but now he can’t. I have to find a way to fix
it.”
    “ Have you tried asking him?”
    “ He can’t tell me when he can’t get free.”
    Trevare
nodded. “No, I don’t mean the host, I mean the control unit.”
    “ I’m sure it will be classified, like every other aspect of
cyber design.”
    “ But it’s not part of cyber design, is it? It was a repair,
and, as the new owner, surely you have a right to know the
maintenance history of your unit?”
    Tassin glanced
around at Sabre. “I don’t know.”
    “ What harm can it do to try?”
    “ None, I guess. What do I say?”
    “ Just ask him. The AI is designed to be extremely user
friendly.”
    “ I bet it’s a software patch,” Kole murmured. “The brow band is
a sealed unit. There’s no way they could have repaired the
hardware.”
    Trevare smiled
at him. “I agree.”
    “ Sabre, come here,” she said.
    The cyber
approached and stopped before her, assuming a guard stance. Trevare
pushed a spare chair over to her, and she sank onto it, gazing up
at Sabre.
    “ Cyber, have you ever been repaired?” she asked.
    “ Yes.”
    “ When? What was done?”
    The brow band
flashed. “Three years ago, this unit experienced a malfunction in
the host control interface.”
    “ How was it repaired?”
    “ A software patch was installed.”
    “ Software patch!” Trevare and Kole said in unison, and Kole
reached over to bang his fist against Trevare’s in some sort of
congratulatory ritual, she assumed.
    “ How does that help?” she asked.
    “ Well, it’s more than we knew five minutes ago. Ask him if it
can be uninstalled.”
    Tassin looked
up at Sabre again. “Cyber, can the software patch be removed?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ How?”
    “ A Myon Two control unit technician can uninstall
it.”
    She frowned.
“I order you to remove it.”
    “ Unable to comply.”
    “ Why not?”
    “ Erasure of the software patch is forbidden. It requires
high-level access codes.”
    She