The Cyber Chronicles VIII - Scorpion Lord Read Online Free PDF Page A

following at
Jorran's command.
    Sabre found it
interesting that the research centre had no alarms, but, in a place
full of enforcers, enemies would not get far. Unless they were
cybers, he mused, something that was supposed to be impossible.
Estrelle led them down the corridor and turned into another that
ended in a door, which slid open at her approach. They strolled
across a tropical garden under a clear dome, the pale clouds of
Myon Two visible through it.
    Entering a
door on the far side, they marched along another corridor that led
into a vast, cathedral-like structure filled with rows of
artificial wombs. The plasti-glass containers, filled with yellow
fluid, each held a tiny boy child with an umbilical linking him to
a placenta that fed off a biological interface. Thousands of
artificial wombs lined the room in tiers that reached the ceiling
high above, catwalks running between them. Sabre ordered his
prisoners to stop and gazed around. Great ropes of cables and
feeding tubes hung between the rows like vines, feeding the
infants. Tarl had succeeded in destroying a hundred and
seventy-eight artificial wombs before he was stopped. Sabre planned
to do a great deal more damage than that.
    "All my little
brothers..." he muttered, and Estrelle turned to look at him.
    "You're going
to kill them?"
    His eyes
flicked down to her. "It's an act of mercy."
    "We could take
you to a docking port and get you on a ship."
    "No. The
enforcers would hunt me down, even with you lot as hostages. It
ends here. This is where I die, in the place where I was born.
Someone cared about me. Someone saved me from slavery, and now they
have me." Sabre gazed around. "I just need to know where the master
control is."
    When no one
answered, Sabre twisted Jorran's collar again until he gurgled.
"The master control panel, now. And tell my brother to break the
wombs."
    Jorran pointed
to the other side of the room. "Over there. Cyber Fifteen, destroy
the artificial wombs."
    The cyber
turned to the container beside him and smashed his fist through it,
releasing a flood of fluid and a squirming infant. Sabre prodded
Estrelle forward. The infants were about four or five months old,
too young to survive outside the wombs. The smashing continued
behind them as Cyber Fifteen worked his way along the row, and
Estrelle led Sabre to a vast bank of lights and keypads. The
console was made of metal, and Sabre eyed it, glancing up at the
cables that emerged from it to snake into the walkways above.
    Brushing past
Estrelle, he jumped onto the console and reached up to grasp a pair
of cables, yanking them from the panel in a shower of sparks. Two
rows of artificial wombs went dark as the light and heat elements
in them went out, and he gripped another two cables, ripping them
from the panel. Another two rows went dark, and he moved on to the
next pair of cables. The infants would die within minutes without
the oxygen the power provided via the biological interface. Cyber
Fifteen's efforts would cost Myon Two a fortune, but Sabre's main
aim was to kill as many infants as he could.
    Alarms
sounded, and several white-suited techs appeared from an office on
the far side of the room, shouting in confusion and alarm. Sabre
worked his way along the panel, pulling out the cables, each of
which supplied a row of artificial wombs. Two techs sprinted for
the door and the other four ran towards them, shouting at Cyber
Fifteen to stop. The cyber ignored them. Evidently he was a
research and development unit, and the production techs had no
command privilege. Sabre jumped down as the techs ran up, their
expressions shocked and disbelieving.
    "What's going
on here?" the most senior of them demanded.
    Jorran jerked
his chin at Sabre. "Ask him."
    "He's a bloody
cyber! What the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind? Do you
know how much damage you've done?"
    Sabre nodded.
"Yes, I do. And I intend to do more. Get over here and join this
lot, or die."
    The senior
tech gaped at him.