Cyborg Claude
Episode 1
Welcome to the beginning of this serial fiction. Future episodes will have a sentence or two of what happened before along with the following link that will take you to the main page with the table of contents.
Cyborg Claude Main Page and Table of Contents
Rain dripped down the back of Claude’s neck. It rained more often than not on Goeken. The fools of this planet had tried to play God with the weather. He stepped under an overhang barely clinging to the side of a building with its first two floors boarded up. He ran a hand through his wet hair. A colder rivulet of water ran down his neck to soak into the shirt under his leather trench coat. He grunted.
He peered around him. Not a soul in sight. Only the derelict buildings of yesteryear brooding in the wet. Goeken didn’t bother cleaning up the old city sectors. Instead, they corralled every one into a shiny land of pristine tech. The facade proved an overkill of chintz for Claude. So much waste on this planet. He couldn’t wait to be done with it for good.
The hum of an electric vehicle reached him from his left. Only Goeken’s Space Association had the authority to drive in this area.
He turned to his right and ran for the corner. The door at the overhang provided no access. He had set up a service entrance in the back for his primary way in. Anyone could walk in the front door. Vagabonds had broken that out long ago, with no one bothering to close it in again.
The vehicle reached the intersection, causing its hum to reach him clearly. He dodged around the corner, glad the alley to the service area contained nothing but clutter. A push of speed and long legs helped him reach the door. He glimpsed the nose of a large transport van with a quick look while stepping into the dank darkness of the building.
He locked and bolted the door. Pitch black wrapped around him.
Piles of junk formed a maze to the inner door. He had the layout memorized because he had reorganized it into a small maze. He danced two steps forward, turned to his left with a bow, and then marched hunched over for three. He shimmied and twisted with hands held high for seven steps. Three diagonal steps to the left and then to the right. He chuckled as he took another bow and stepped forward to the inner door.
He sucked in a breath as he pulled the door open. The scent of mildewed carpet assaulted him while the light blinked irregularly. Oddly, they hadn’t cleaned up the electric grid either, not that much worked.
He slipped through and closed the door. A little lubricant had rendered the hinges silent.
He jogged left to a stairwell with one steady bulb four floors up. Thankfully, this stairwell had no windows. However, his boots thumped as he took the steps two at a time. Better to have distance rather than stealth at this point. If the goeks, what his crew called the Goeken Space Association, wanted to check this building out, they could easily come in the front.
He frowned as he stepped into the hallway on the fourth floor. He shouldn’t even be in the field, let alone alive. If he ran into one particular agent, they would know him immediately. He had nightmares about the man coming close and putting a final bullet in him.
A shudder ran through him before he could slam the door on the memory of waking up with Min hovering over him. She had done something to keep him alive. That something should keep him aboard ship in a command position, but he did not accept the choice. Sitting around led to more thinking than what he already did while mostly alone on his missions.
He sprinted through several smaller corridors into the warren of inner offices. Many of them still held relics of its better days. He had shuffled through a few of them as a diversion to his thoughts between trips into the New City sector.
He slowed to a walk, sucking in breaths from his sprint as he approached the office he would slip into.
Some days never came together, and this was one of them. Salindra drummed her fingers on the keyboard. The information she needed could not be accessed until the next safe transmission period. Claude had not reported in yet. Where was he?
She slapped her hands on the keyboard and rose from her seat. Stiff strides carried her to the other side of the room, where she turned to pace back. The small room only allowed four steps one way.
The door opened behind her. She spun to face the one who entered. The leather clad form leaned back against the door, working to catch his breath. He removed his mirrored shades and wiped his sweaty face with a large hand.
Claude gave her a smirk. He stepped past her and pulled a thumb drive from his pocket to slip it into the portable computer sitting on the cluttered desk. He pulled up a blueprint that he scrolled through with quick swipes on the touch screen.
Salindra sat to examine the plan. She looked over her shoulder when the door opened. She frowned at his broad back and then the door shut out her view. He never stayed longer than that, nor did he say a word to her. His presence only accented the solitude of her life hiding out in derelict buildings analyzing data brought to her by active field agents.
The last one had talked too much and had come on to her enough that she reported him. He had never returned after that. She blew out a breath in frustration.
She turned back to the computer to study what he had left her. At least she had something to do now. It would test her memory of information she could not safely access at the moment. She had several hours before the window for today’s access through a piggybacked link to the space station.
So far her nigh on four years here had pulled information to help the Alliance in small ways, but they knew the Space Association worked on some secret tech. Four years of living in derelict buildings with only a handful of trips to local assets for new clothes. Most of her food came as ration packs delivered by the same agent handing her information. Water was easy to come by, but required a filtration unit and the right timing for rain collection on the roof. Thankfully, it rained a lot.
She arched a brow at the list of documents. All of them started with the same words. Mind Sweep. Now this could be what they wanted, but the thought of a tech that could sweep one’s brain sent a chill down her spine. She examined the schematic Claude had pulled up.
Diving into the analysis drove all thoughts and worries about her years hiding out on Goeken to the recesses of her mind.
Claude strode down the hall in the opposite direction he had come. No one was in sight, but his back tingled as if someone watched him. He made his way to the side of the building where he had seen the transport. He shouldered open the door to the stairwell on that side. His eyes adjusted slowly to the light filtering through a grimy and amazingly intact window on the landing below. He quietly stepped down to the landing and peered out without coming close to the window.
Nothing but an empty street. Good. He needed to slip out and verify where the gook transport went without them deciding to explore this building. The past few months had gone by quietly. Today’s brush with a transport was the first one he had encountered this close to the building. Not that they couldn’t have traveled by when he had been deep inside or somewhere else entirely.
He continued down the stairs at a jog, keeping close to the inner rail. He stepped out onto the first floor. A quick scan assured him of being alone. He went to the left to return to the service entrance he had used. The smell of mildew in the back hall hit him harder this time. It took effort not to gag while he listened at the service room door. He cracked it open. Nothing but the dark. He slipped in and quietly danced back through the stacked boxes and odd remains of office furniture.
At the outside door, he remained perfectly still for several minutes, straining to hear anything in the alley. Then he flipped the bolt and unlocked the door. He cracked it open to the sound of rain drumming on an empty barrel near the door. With a quick check that the door would not lock behind him, he stepped into the cluttered alley. The door softly clicked when it shut.
Nothing stirred in either direction. He traversed the alley in the opposite direction he had entered.
“I lost him, sir.”
Conrad sneered at the trooper, who banged the scanner against his hand as if that would help. He knew the silly instrument would not work in this area. This part of town contained old metal buildings that disrupted the signal from penetrating deeply.
His eyes took in the rusting warehouse across the street before turning back to the building towering over him. The old office building stood unused by anything but vagabonds and homeless now. Boards filled in all the windows on the first two floors. Above that, most of the windows had at least one pane broken. What a dismal place. He wanted to return to the hustle and bustle of the New City sector.
“Get me a helicopter, search bots, search dogs, or even more men with some brains.” He glared at the idiot who continued adjusting the scanner. “He must be found, and we know he isn’t far away. Search that building and block off this area.”
The dozen troopers with him gawked at him.
“Now!”
A smile of satisfaction spread across his lips when they jumped.
Half of them ran inside, two went for the alley on the right, and two went to the left, where they had thought they saw a man running up the street. The last two worked on quarantining the area. A shield would surround it within five minutes. They would find the man they chased in here.
At least this day would provide some cat and mouse games. Wouldn’t it be nice if the man proved to have the information they knew was accessed the night before? If it were the files to any secret tech they had in the works, it could prove devastating for the Space Association and the planets it controlled. He didn’t want to know what it could be. There were several things with biotech that gave him the creeps. Worse, the Alliance could have similar things. He scowled and stomped into the office building’s large lobby to get out of the rain.
They had almost wiped out a full unit of the Alliance several years ago. However, the bold move of the enemy swooping in with an armed space shuttle had made them scuttle for safety before they could gather all the downed spies. He remembered the one he had shot at point blank range. Somehow, the man had remained alive, staring at him until the shot hit him in the chest. The leader of the spies went home dead.
They had come close to escaping with a prototype of a small but dangerous energy gun. It could cook a man’s innards before the skin showed signs of burning. The weapon had never been issued for use. The thought of it existing brought a foul taste to his mouth.
He popped a mint in his mouth and chewed on it, while putting his attention on the two troopers that remained in the lobby with him. One pointed at his tablet while the other sent orders to the men searching the interior.
He settled in for a long wait. They had too much to search in this derelict building.
Claude ducked across the alley on the right side of the building he had just left. He reached the next four-way intersection of alleys when the rain stopped. He looked up. The rain hit a barrier just above the tops of the warehouses.
His eyes narrowed. With no care to the people that lived in this dismal area, they had thrown the shield up in minutes. It vaporized anyone too close. What a disgusting way to die. The Space Association did not care who they took out to get what they wanted.
The quarantine area centered on the building Salindra sat in this very moment. He swore under his breath and turned to the left. No use trying to get out now. He had to get behind the gooks that chased him like an animal.
Chatter traveled down the alley he had just turned out of. He dared a peek around the corner. Two gooks with readied guns stopped in the intersection.
His hand flexed, wishing for a gun as he slipped down the alley toward the street the old office building faced. The transport sat in front of the office building with no one around it.
Time to become the hunter instead of the prey.
Share your thoughts about the episode in the comments. Thank you for reading.
There is a super subtle change to this document since it was mailed because the word I wanted as a short term for what the spies want to call the Goeken Space Association as a combo of Goeken and goon turns out to be a super derogatory term for real. So, I changed that. I may have been born in the era the derogatory term was used, but I've encountered it so little that it was not on my radar until a friend noted it.
I'm not normally a reader of science fiction, but I enjoyed this! As we encounter more advanced technology in our own lives, it's always refreshing to encounter fiction that addresses it from a Christian perspective.