Short Story: Type III

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The first five or so pages of the (maybe not-so) short sci-fi/cyberpunk story I've been working on recently. Contains brief strong language, and possibly other potentially offensive material later on. Please feel free to let me know what you think of it so far; and if you're interested in reading further, I can post up more as I write it.

So, yeah. Here it is, without further adieu: Type III.

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Being woken from a sound sleep by the buzzing chime of the doorbell was neither expected nor welcome at two in the morning, but who was I to complain, considering what I did for a living these days. Sleepily annoyed, I sat up, shoving back the covers and pulling on a pair of faded jeans from the floor next the the bed. I didn't bother to turn on a light as I fished into the nightstand drawer for the particle accelerator I always kept there for home defense; the gray-orange ambiance from the lights outside were enough to see by. When you live in the part of town I do, and associate with the kinds of people I have to deal with regularly, its a pretty good idea to have some kind of weapon around.

Making my way from the small bedroom at the back of the space I used for both my home and my place of work, I tucked the weapon into the back of my waistband, making my way past the kitchenette and the lab equipment towards the front door. Not even half way there, the bell rung again, followed by loud knocking. Whoever it was at this time of night, they sure as hell were impatient.

“I'm coming, I'm coming...” I muttered irritatedly.

Reaching the solid-core steel portal, I flipped on the door screen to check who it was that had so kindly disturbed my sleep.

It was Keegan.

I should have guessed. Only that a**hole would have the indecency to drag me out of bed in the middle of the night to ask me a question or show me something he'd found that he thought might be of interest or use to me; which, most of the time, it wasn't.

Watching him for a second on the screen, he was shifting from foot to foot, looking around almost as if he was extremely nervous about something. Probably strung out on some new designer drug he'd just discovered or something.

I really wasn't in the mood for this.

Pressing the intercom button on the screen, I voiced the first thing on my mind.

“You know what f*****g time it is?”

He looked directly into the micro-camera, even though it wasn't even visible from where it was positioned up near the ceiling of the porch.

“Yeah, I know, but I just found something you really might want to have a look at, Jan.”

I was skeptical, ladling on a helping of disgruntled sarcasm into one single word, “Really...”

Keegan shifted again on the other side of the door, “Yeah, really...”

The edge in his voice was making me wonder.

“Look, you gonna make me stand out here all night, or do you want to help me bring it in?”

I sighed and thought about it for a few seconds. If he had actually found something of value, which was still unlikely, it might actually be worth it and turn a decent profit somewhere along the line. If not, then he was going straight back out the door.

Deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt, I unlocked the door and opened it wide enough on the safety chain for him to be able to see some of me, but not much else.

“So, what do you got?” I asked, resting one arm vertically against the door frame.

“You gotta see this, man.” was all he told me, pointing over us shoulder to where his car was parked out on the narrow street.

Rolling my eyes briefly, I shifted my stance. “Right. Just hang on a sec...”

Closing the door, I quickly went back to the bedroom for a shirt and shoes, then back to the door. This time, I undid the safety latch and stepped out onto the porch, following him to the vehicle.

Reaching for the key faub on his belt, Keegan hit the release button to pop the trunk of the aging ground car. He lifted it all the way to give us both a better view of what was inside the relatively small compartment. Stepped aside to allow me a good look at what he'd brought me. As the diluted light from the illuminum street lamp poured in, I instantly fixed on a large form amid the piles of other biomechanical junk he had crammed in there for whatever reason.

Immediately identifying the blanketed form for what it was, I looked from it to him and back again, surprise and more than a little disapproval in both my expression and my voice. Under one part of the blanket, a section of soft razored brown hair was visible. Gingerly reaching for the blanket, I pulled the covering back to reveal that the short bob framed the almost elven face of a rather attractive woman. She was apparently still breathing, too, which was a good sign.

“Oh... You did not...”

He just grinned, “Yep. I did, actually. Told you you might want to have a look. Cyborg of some kind; I know that much from scan I took.”

Another glance between the inert form and the man standing next to me.

“Where did you... Ah, what the f**k, man? Why me?”

“You used to do this kind of stuff for a living, didn't you? Thought you might want first dibs or something, you know?”

I shook my head in disgust at the memories he'd just brought up. “I don't do that s**t anymore, Keegan. You know that.”

“Once a CRA, always a CRA. Takes a certain kind of person to do that kind of job.”

“Yeah, and I quit because I figured out that I'm not really that kind of person.”

Keegan shrugged, “Well, you want it, or should I move on to someone else?”

I was getting irritated with his use of the word 'it' to refer to the woman in the trunk, but I didn't say anything.

“Yeah, I'll take her.” I told him after a short pause.

“Cool.”

He moved to help me pick her up, but I stopped him, subtly putting out a hand to block him from stepping in closer.

“I got it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure.”

“Alright...”

Picking her up to cradle her in my arms, I found that the woman was actually just slightly heavier than I expected her to be, judging by her size. It was a barely perceptible difference, but it was there, confirming what I already suspected about her from the start. I mean, why else would Keegan come and bother me in the middle of the night if he hadn't already confirmed her to be what I thought she was?

I took the slight woman back inside, Keegan shutting the trunk again and following a short ways behind me like a smug retriever. Something I never liked about scroungers like him. The always seem to have an air of smugness or entitlement about them that really just doesn't sit well with me. No, I'm not going to give you a reward for sifting though the detritus of human society, looking for something that could potentially turn a profit on the black market.

Winding my way among the various machines and scanners, I laid the woman down gently on the examining table. Turning on the overhead examining lamp, I looked to Keegan again.

“Where'd you find her, anyway?”

“Out in the Junkyard, of all places, actually.”

I nodded. “Huh. Must've showed up there pretty recently, then. Would be been killed and stripped for salvage by now, otherwise.”

“Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Probably wasn't there more than a few hours when I came across it, I'm guessing.

“Would you stop that,” I turned on him, finally irritated enough to say something. “She's not an object, god damn it.”

“But she ain't exactly entirely human, either.”

I made it clear what I expected, taking a step away from the table and closer to him.

“Around me, you refer to this woman respectfully; you got that? I don't care what your personal opinions are on augmentations and cybernetics.”

As I turned back to the table, he noticed the particle accelerator I still had tucked into the back of my waistband.

“What's with the gun?” he asked, vague concern in his voice, probably because of what I'd just said.

“Just in case.” I told him, booting up the dormant holoscreen on the desk next to the idling bioscanner. “You never know around here, these days.”

“I guess not. You got any idea what she is?”

Inputting a couple of commands into the bioscanner's interface, I moved to check her pulse manually, before the scanner kicked in. Checking it against the holoscreen's readout, it was well within an normal range for a human at rest.

“She's obviously not an android; they run hotter than we do, and don't give off any of the traditional life signs. She's base organic human, that's for sure. What else she might be, I couldn't tell you without running some scans first.”

I spared a glance down at her as she lay there on the padded table, unconscious. No facial bruising; no ligature marks on her throat, either. Checked her hands for coinciding defensive wounds. Nothing.

“No signs of a physical struggle...” I muttered, more to myself than to Keegan. I shook my head, “What was she doing out there...”

“No idea, man... You mind if I grab myself something out of the fridge?”

Before I could protest or move to stop him, he'd sidled through the clutter of the tiny dining and living areas and over to the kitchenette. Opened the door and fished out a beer. Nodded to me briefly, cracked it open and took a swig.

“Appreciate it. Really do.”

I nodded back with throttled back annoyance in my voice, “Yeah, sure...”

Still occupied with what I was doing setting up the scanner and other equipment, I watched from the corner of my eye as he wandered around the living area, staring at the piles of stuff I had stacked around before heavily taking a seat on the slightly dilapidated low couch against the wall. Propping his feet up on the coffee table, he nearly knocked over a stack of old hardcopy magazines I'd set there for the time being.

He looked back at me after taking another sip. “So. What do I get out of this?”

Oh great, here we go. Always with him and the money, every time.

I looked up from what I was doing. “What?”

“What's she worth to you?”

“You've got to be kidding me.” I said with mild disgust.

His response was subtly pleading. “Oh, come on, man. Give me something, here...”

I sighed and shook my head. “I pay for parts, not people. I'm not a butcher or a slave trader, for f**k's sake.”

“She is parts. If she doesn't come through, anyway...”

“I meant individual parts. And she's not at death's door.”

“Jan, come on...”

“No.” I told him, putting my foot down. “I'm not paying you for her.”

“Some of the stuff in the trunk, then?” Keegan asked, shifting subjects, suddenly optimistic.

I took a second to consider, “Maybe.”

“Alright then.” He said, getting up from the couch.

“Not now. Maybe later.”

Coming over to the exam table, he stared down at the woman for a moment, still holding his half-empty drink.

“I don't think she's going anywhere right away.”

Turning around, I shifted my gaze from the patient he'd brought me to him. “I just want to get this done right now, OK? Figure out what's she's got on board and make sure there's not something seriously wrong with her.”

“Alright, alright. Just trying to make a living somehow, man...”

“Yeah, I know. Just give me some time, will you?”

Already directing his attention elsewhere, his response was distracted. “Yeah, sure. Take your time. I got nowhere to be, yet.”

“Oh, great...” I muttered darkly under my breath as he moved away again.

Back to the scanner, it'd finished it's boot cycle, finally, and lowered half way down its track and stopped in the ready position. As I began to remove the blanket that covered her so the scanner could make a better analysis, I realized she was naked beneath it. I looked over at Keegan, who was now standing a ways off, messing with a hand held EMF detector.

“Why is she naked?” I asked, curious, and just a bit suspicious.

“Oh, come on; what, you think I'm that kind of creep? I found her like that, man; honest. Wrapped her up in that blanket; only thing I had with me.”

I cleared my throat briefly, “Right.”

Leaving the blanket to cover her, I went back to the holoscreen interface and upped the scanning grid's power output to compensate for the thick material.

“You tried to wake her up, yet?” I asked, filling the moment of slightly awkward silence.

“Yeah, once or twice.”

“Did it work?”

“No, nothing. Like her consciousness is off-line or something.”

“That's basically what being unconscious is...”

“You know what I mean...”

I did.

There are physical and chemical processes out there that are capable of keeping a person's higher consciousness repressed or in a sort of hibernation or suspended state. Most of the time, they're used for extensive and extremely delicate physical surgery, and more often, for any kind of psychosugery- memory modification and fabrication, reducing response intensity to traumatic memories, and the like. If she was still under the influence of one of those processes, there was no way an outside force could intervene and wake her up though external stimuli. It would either have to wear off, run out of time, or she'd have to have some serious fortitude to break out of it on her own.

Making sure everything was set to go, I let the bioscanner get on with it. I stood back and watched as its scanning racks, mounted on each of the arms, circled her body in a double helix pattern as she lay there, motionless, on the examining table.

A real-time-generated hologram began to etch itself into existence in the air over the holoprojection unity on the desk just off to my left. I stared at it as each new chunk of data from the scan fell into place continuously over the next hour or so. Organic tissue showed up in blue tones, while inorganic compounds showed up in shades of yellow, orange, and red, as according to their size and complexity.

Augmentations weren't all that uncommon these days. In fact, they were quite common, actually. It's a relatively new science by traditional standards, but its progressed so much since its early days that it could hardly be called primitive now, by any means. I suspected that the woman on the exam table in front of me had quite a few of them, as well, judging by her slightly above-average weight for someone her size.

Coming back after a while, I watched the the hologram complete itself, the scanner going for a second, faster pass now to achieve more detail, it suddenly hiccuped. It stopped drawing for an entire second before continuing after beeping once to let me know. What it showed when it resumed was a display of color I never expected to see: blatant red and orange throughout almost the woman's entire body.

Keegan had seen it too, coming back over to have a better look at the image. He voiced the same thing that was on my mind.

“Holy s**t... How much is that?”

I turned to the holoscreen, checking a few numbers quickly. Surprise in my voice as I said it.

“Hard to say, but it looks like at least thirty-five percent of her body mass...”

“Is that even possible?”

“I don't know... Apparently, it is...” I trailed off.

Keegan immediately wanted to know, “What all does she have on board?”

Checking the readout again, I was in for another surprise.

“Filament-cabled musculature, carbon fiber-reinforced skeletal structure, sinew micro-servos, aural amplification units, broad-spectrum ocular implants, pin spines... The list goes on... She's a cyborg alright. Like nothing I've ever seen before, though.”

“Me neither...”

“Thirty-five percent... What would that make her? What class?”

I thought about it for a second. “Well, a Type One's zero to fifteen percent... A Type Two's sixteen to twenty-five percent... And they say that anything after that is potentially physically dangerous to the subject... Then what...”

“Could they have been lying about it?”

“What, about it being dangerous to the subject?”

“Yeah.” Keegan said, pointing to the holodisplay. It was now showing perfectly normal human vital signs and statistics. “I mean, look. She seems fine, at least according to this thing. Perfectly healthy. Except for being unconscious, of course...”

“What are you, some kind of conspiracy theorist, now?” I asked.

“Come on, man. I mean, think about it... The Feds and the military want to keep their coolest, most advanced toys to themselves, right? So what do they do?”

“They outlaw or otherwise ban the public from getting their hands on the most sophisticated stuff they come up with.” I offered.

Keeg nodded, “Exactly. Of course, it doesn't stop some of the luckier, crazier-.”

“Or stupider.”

“Or stupider, people from trying themselves, but, you know. And thirty-five percent...”

“Yeah. That would put her probably right at the high end of what I'd guess would be a Type Three, if there really is one.”

“Oh, there is, man. There is. You've heard the rumors over the past few years now. And now you've got living proof of it, lying right there behind you.”

“Yeah, and if the government wanted to hide the existence of a Type Three category from us, and someone finds her here, then we are so fu-.”

I didn't get to finish my sentence, and the warning alarm from the scanner came too late.

Before I could even fully register what was happening, the gun, still tucked into the back of my waistbands was wrenched from its place, while at the same time, a strong hand gripped me by the shoulder to turn me around before slamming me hard back against the wall. Now turned to face my assailant, I was gripped by the throat and lifted fully off the ground, and the muzzle of the gun shoved up under my chin. In my abject panic, my gaze met hers for the first time.

Those beautiful, dark eyes.

She was awake now, and looked as if she had every intention of killing me right then and there.