Page 9 of Her Cyborg Commander
After a few frustrating minutes of cross-talk and repeated questions, he raised both hands to get everyone’s attention. “You need to understand that none of us talk much about our time at Reamus Station. Not even to each other. You haven’t been left out of the conversation, and we weren’t withholding information deliberately. But revisiting those memories isn’t something any cyborg is eager to do.”
“That’s understandable,” Denz said. “But now, we need to know more. Are you willing to fill us in?”
Edge appreciated that the Torski phrased it as a question and not a demand. “I’m the only one who can.”
He lowered his hands to the table and steepled his fingers. “Multiple experiments and research projects were going on at any given time. Some of them didn’t directly involve us, but most did. In some ways, it was a shared nightmare, but in others, our experiences differed.”
He tried to thread the needle between what the others needed to know and what would be deeply intimate secrets that weren’t his to tell. As far as he knew, he was the only one River had ever talked to about what Dr. Jens was trying to accomplish and what he’d done to her.
“River was one of the ones whose experience was unique. All of you know that three cyborg females were created with specific behaviors encoded into their programming and reinforced with behavior modifications. Skye, Talia, and River.”
Everyone nodded.
“What you don’t know is that others were in the program. Those three were the only ones who didn’t suffer mental deterioration so severe they were deemed as failures and terminated.”
Edge let his words hang in the air for several seconds as the others took in what he meant. They all knew the cyborgs had endured mental and physical degradation and abuse, but he needed to remind them all of how bad it had really been. Every month at least one of their number had been terminated or had found a way to escape their eternal hell through suicide by guard.
“How many were there?” Zanyr asked.
“Eight females were created using variations of the same process. One was captured after the war and added to the program. Dr. Jens believed it was possible to alter our core personalities and turn us into what they’d wanted us to be fromthe beginning—compliant, battle-ready weapons of war with no free will.”
“Thosefraxxingbastards,” Raze growled. “Did it work?”
Edge cocked his head from side to side. “Yes and no.” He looked at Denz. “Do you remember what River was like when you first met her at Astek Station?”
Denz’s eyes narrowed as he caught on. “River was the one they recaptured?”
“She was. Can you tell the others what she was like back then?”
Denz nodded and looked thoughtful for a second before speaking again. “She was soft-spoken, almost meek. It took incredible courage for her to speak up at all. She had so much compassion and was determined to do her best to represent the cyborgs from Reamus Station, despite how hard it was for her to face her fear. And she was afraid. I remember that.”
“I didn’t know that,” Zanyr said. “That doesn’t sound like the female I met when I arrived here.”
“She’s worked incredibly hard to reverse what Jens did to her. The female I knew, the one Denz described, didn’t call herself River. That was the name she chose for herself at some point during the war. I have no idea what her name was before that. But when I first met her, Jens had given her a new name. Petal.”
“River was a soldier? I would have never guessed,” Raze said. The veteran warrior looked nonplussed at the idea. “She’s so…gentle.”
“Everything I know, I learned from River while we were all captives. I suspect her kindness and compassion were always there. It might be why Jens selected her for his experiment in the first place. We have no way to know. What I do know is that River fought in the Resource Wars for several years. She was released with the majority of the cyborgs but then recaptured atsome point. She was already at Reamus by the time I arrived, and by then, Jens had already started adjusting her personality.”
He scrubbed at the back of his neck, reluctant to share the last details he knew. This wasn’t his story to tell, but it was important the others knew.
Finally, Raze broke the silence. “What else did he do to her? There’s something you haven’t told us.”
“I’m not sure we need to know,” Tyran said.
“And I am sure I don’t want to know, but we need to.” Denz glanced around the room before meeting Edge’s gaze. “Don’t we?”
“You do. But this is not something anyone else needs to know. She kept this a secret, even from the other cyborgs.” Edge cleared his throat. “Jens wasn’t satisfied with merely turning River into an obedient soldier. He decided to make her into something else, too. A pleasure slave. The more obsessed he became with her, the more he tried to change her core personality to match his twisted fantasies.”
Every being present reacted with various combinations of shock and horror.
“And we’re sure he’s the one who sent the message she mentioned?” Zanyr asked and then raised his hands to fend off Edge’s glare. “I’m not saying she’s lying, but we need facts, not conjecture.”
“I’ve got people retrieving the message from her household AI right now. I or any other cyborg who had contact with that bastard Jens can do a voice analysis and confirm it’s him, but I have no doubts. River wouldn’t have left if she wasn’t sure of the threat. Shewantedto be here.”
It wasn’t fair that she’d been forced to leave the colony she’d helped to establish. Not every cyborg was entirely happy to be trapped on this world, but River had made a home for herselfhere. She deserved that… and once again, he’d failed to keep her safe.
Fraxx.
