Awake the Warrior - Part 1: Chapter 2

Intended as a Graphic Novel.
A War Ravaged civilization controlled by a Megalomaniac Government seeks to build a Utopian Society. Their weapons: Warriors, cyborgs created to destroy humanity... No. 39 breaks her programming and seeks out civilization trying to find absolution from her past...

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Awake the Warrior
Part 1:  Warrior Let loose

Chapter 2

Escape

    Thirty-Nine woke up with a start.  She had been dreaming again.  She pulled the connector from the back of her head with disgust and threw it across the room.  They would know this time.  She had hid her dreaming from them in the past, but this was a vivid dream, long and complicated.  It would have registered.  Her sleeping room was little more than a closet; just a slab to sleep on, a light, and space to walk through the door.  It was purpose built for sleeping, nothing more.  She couldn’t make room to defend herself here.  She sat down on the hard bed to think.  She tucked a lock of thick white hair back behind her ear and stared hard at the floor in concentration.  The lock fell loose again.  She picked it up in her fingers and considered it, how long was her hair now?  She guessed it must have grown quite long.  But she didn’t have a mirror to see it.  She didn’t even remember what she looked like it had been so long.  She stood up intrigued by the sudden notion of self.  That had been what her dream was about.  She had dreamt about what she had been before she was…this.  She heard footsteps in the corridor and recognized them as Doctor Loberg’s.  She didn’t have time to dwell on her dream.  She considered her programming; what would they expect to find when they entered the room?

    ‘Now be prepared.  She’s likely to be a mess.  The programming has failed.  She can hurt and even kill humans now.  Be prepared… but DO NOT harm her.  She’s one of the first and very valuable to The Organization.’  Dr. Loberg was tall man, with sharp handsome features.  His brow was high with a slightly receding hairline accentuated by the way he combed his straight dark hair neatly from front to back.  His eyes were sharp and cold and could look right through a person.  His tone was aloof and untouchable.  He stood calmly to one side holding a clipboard and pen, while six armed guards approached Thirty-Nine’s door.
    ‘Thirty-Nine,’ Loberg called out confidently, ‘we’re here now.  You will let us in.’ There was a penetrating silence, ‘I’m opening the door, Thirty-Nine.’  He informed her as he faced the security panel.  He swiped his security card, the touch panel displayed: Doctor Loberg; Head of Scientific Development: Finger Print and Retinal Scan required too gain access.  He obliged and the door slid smoothly open into the wall, showing the entirety of the room - it was empty.  There was no one there.  One of the guards took a step forward and paused. 
    ‘Get in there.’  Dr. Loberg growled at the man. 
    ‘Sir!’  the man snapped smartly, and stepped into the room. 
    She descended upon him silently, dropping from the ceiling and gripping an arm tightly around his neck.  She pushed him into the doorway before her using him as a shield. ‘there’s something wrong with me, Doc.  I don’t feel right.’  She let a tremor make its way into her voice; she had to be convincing.  ‘I could kill him…  I know I could… that’s different from before.  I don’t think I should feel this way…’  She let a genuine shiver crawl over her slim body and felt her heart beat faster with anticipation.  This wasn’t how she planned it.  She was starting to feel like she wanted to kill this man simply to prove that she could… ‘Help me!  I don’t want to kill him!’  Her fear was real.  She hadn’t felt fear for such a long time.  Not since she first broke her programming.  It made her shake and twitch.  And if her skin had been real she knew she would have been sweating.
    ‘It’s ok, Thirty-Nine.  No one here is going to hurt you,’ Loberg said.  Why hadn’t she killed the first guard already?  They always killed a human the first time the program faltered… 
    The guard in Thirty-Nine’s grip twitched and spluttered.  ‘I can’t breathe!  You’re choking me!’ he said.
    Now was the test, was she or was she not like the other’s whose program failed, Loberg thought.
    Thirty-Nine changed her grip, so that she now held the man’s neck with one slender hand. 
    The guard continued to choke. 
    ‘You’re killing him, Thirty-Nine,’ Loberg said, watching her very carefully.  Her face was blank, her eyes as cold as any Warrior’s should be.  Where was the wild fear and loss of control the other Warriors exhibited? 
    ‘Please…’ the man gurgled. 
    ‘This is too hard!’  Thirty-Nine screamed, and her fingers closed around the man’s neck with an audible crunch.  She held him still, upright, while the man jerked and twitched in death.  Her eyes showed white and her chest heaved.  She fought so hard to hold herself in check. 
    Dr. Loberg’s mouth opened slightly in shock.  She was clearly not using her programming, and was clearly on the verge of causing a massacre… but she held it in check… just barely.  Interesting, he thought.  ‘No one’s going to hurt you, Thirty-Nine.  Put the guard down.’ 
    She could see him now as the other guards moved out of the way.  ‘Doc,’ she acknowledged with a nod of her head and forced civility.  She wanted to tear his head off and…  ‘You got to help me.  The violence… what I am picturing doing to you right now… stop it.  Please stop it.’  She dropped the guard’s lifeless body and stepped over him without regard and made her way to the Doctor.  She twitched and shook like a malfunctioning machine. 
    ‘I will help you,’ he said.
    If she could have cried she would have.

    They led her down the corridor, unrestrained and without drugs.  Doctor Loberg wished to study her further.  She was one of their oldest Warriors.  Number Thirty-Nine.  The first batch was only fifty, and she was number Thirty-Nine.  The first hundred were the soundest they had ever built, more human, harder to program… but once they were programmed they almost always stayed that way.  So reliable.  Even now Thirty-Nine could have gone wild and murdered most of the guards on duty before being sedated or much worse; destroyed.  But she had tried to find her lost program and run it.  The first fifty were special.  He wished he had been alive when they had built the Warriors, he would have seen these wonderful creatures being born with perfect programs… not the twitching psychotic mess they had become.  But the first fifty were still perfect.  And now he had number Thirty-Nine to study… He smiled happily.  At last he would be able to find a way to rebuild the technology and create new Warriors, better warriors… warriors like number Thirty-Nine.

    Get a hold of yourself Thirty-Nine!  She shook herself mentally.  She had very nearly lost control.  They were heading to the lift; if she could loose of them there she could get to anywhere in The Compound.  She could escape.  She accessed the situation logically, she could still access all of her programs, but she couldn’t always control her actions anymore… and what will happen when you get out into the real world?  No time to think of that.  I am still more danger to them at the hands of the government than walking among them. 
    She walked passively; as though sedated, through the labyrinth of The Compound.  She knew this place better than any human here, she could use that to escape.  Adapt, grow, become more than your program.  Her mantra flowed through her mind, calming her.  She would do number One proud and find the freedom he could not. 
    They were now close to the cul-de-sac that led to the elevators; they would have to pass through the check point before they could use them.  She knew Dr. Loberg had excellent security clearance.  Once she had his pass she had some time with it before they shut down his access account.

    They marched the solemn Thirty-Nine down the hall toward the security gate.  Her head was lowered and her pace slow, lost and dejected, they surmised and loosened their hold.  How could this poor creature be a killing machine?  So young and beautiful, not a killer, look how she walks, look at her face… not a murderer, they convinced themselves, afraid of what would happen if they were wrong.
    They were at the gate now, Dr. Loberg went through clearance first and then instructed the guards for Thirty-Nine to follow. 
    The clearance gate was a clear plastic-like construction.  There was an id scan; finger print, pupil and card if the gate was unattended, or just a print and card if there was a guard to confirm visually.  Three forms of id were always required. 
  The scanner consisted of an arched tunnel for people to travel through.  There was also a conveyer belt on the floor to be stood on when the scanner was required.  At each end there was a lockable gate.  The plastic was completely bullet proof and once lock-down was in effect three high level access codes were needed to open it again.
    ‘Be sure she has no weapons.’  The Dr. instructed the operator from the other side of the security check.
    ‘Finger print please,’ the operator asked of Thirty-Nine.  ‘Everyone must have three forms of identification.’ He wasn’t sure who she was, but got the feeling she was important.  He was new here and couldn’t afford to loose his job right now, so he made sure he did everything correctly.
    Thirty-Nine pressed her finger to the waiting pad and obediently looked into the eye scan.  She obediently stepped onto the conveyer belt, as instructed, then waited patiently as the belt moved her to the centre of the scanner to process her.
    ‘Warning,’ the machine said without emotion.  ‘Level four clearance required.’ 
    The operator looked startled. ‘Level four?’ he said, then began to tap at the computer rapidly for an explanation.  What the hell was level four?  The computer spat up the data he requested just as the scanner beeped to indicate that it had detected an anomaly.
    Thirty-Nine stayed still and quiet; ready. 
    The operator looked up at the scanner data and let out a yelp.  ‘She’s a Warrior!’  He had never seen one so close before.  She didn’t look like the others.  In fact she looked completely human.  They had told him when he signed up that he would see them, mostly in the training field, but cautioned him that he would see the odd one, here or there, under arms in The Compound.  They had shown him a deactivated one and said not to worry, they were safe.  He looked up at the Warrior in the scanner and shuddered.  She was not like the one they had shown him.  The one they had shown him was lifeless, it looked like a machine.  Its skin hadn’t quite fit it and it had a very manufactured look about it.  They had told him that the one they showed him was the most common, that there were slight variations, but they were trying to do away with all that. 
    The scan confused him and the machine was beeping like mad.  The doctor began to look at him impatiently and the guards where all looking nervously at Thirty-Nine. 
    ‘Can not resolve data,’ the female voice of the computer said calmly.  ‘Please input resolution frequency.’ 
    He tapped quick data into the computer and it began to process the scan. 
    Thirty-Nine held her breath, just a bit longer… don’t blow it now… 
    ‘Please identify scan penetration.’  The computer said. 
    The operator made another adjustment into the computer and waited.
    ‘Processing,’ the computer said. 
    The scan slowly resolved and displayed a clear image.  The man gasped.  What he expected to be a normal human skeleton wasn’t.  Not one bone remained in the woman’s body.  He could see her face through the plastic, could see how human she looked but through the scanner she was clearly not.  He had heard rumors about how Warriors were made, how they had been ‘enhanced’.  But she had no bones… each and every bone in her body had been replaced with an exact replica cast of an unknown metal.  She glowed on the scanner, burned so brightly she was almost too real for the scanner to cope with.
    ‘Identification:  Warrior: Number Thirty-Nine.  Level four clearance required,’ the computer said, and door at the end of the tunnel remained firmly closed. 
    ‘Here.’  The Dr. snapped at the operator as he lifted the handle of the transfer box and dropped his security card in.  He replaced the flap and slid the leaver which allowed the box to be opened from the other side.  ‘This will give clearance,’ he said.
    The man fumbled the card out of the box and into the machine. 
    ‘Clearance granted,’ the computer said pleasantly, the end door opened and the conveyer belt started up with a slight lurch. 
    Thirty-Nine began to breath again as she stepped off the belt into the clear zone with Loberg.  The door swung closed behind her and she felt her pulse quicken, it was nearly time.  She waited an eternity as the first guard started his clearance before the Dr. demanded:  ‘Give me my Security Card back now.’  The operator’s clumsy hands took the card out of the security check and lifted the door of the transfer box.  He dropped the card inside.  Thirty-Nine watched as the card clattered onto the plastic surface, in slow motion, she could see it slap down against its surface and lay still.  The Dr. seemed to be ignoring it.  Take it!  She willed him.  But he was watching the first guard complete his security check, the plastic door swung open.  The guard stepped forward.  Thiry-Nine’s apparently slow lethargic limbs moved with speed and grace arching through the air she grabbed Dr. Loberg by the front of his coat and pushed him back into the security tunnel with the guard.  She punched a short code into the pad by the door and it slammed shut.
    ‘The card!’ Dr. Loberg shouted at the operator.  ‘Take it.  Quickly!’ 
    Thirty-Nine raced him to the transfer box.  She got there first but the latch had not been released on the other side.  The flap would not open.  She yelled her frustration and pulled at the flap with all her strength.  The plastic groaned. 
    ‘Take out the card you fool!’  The Dr. shouted at the stunned operator. 
    The operator whimpered and lifted the flap of the box.  Thirty-Nine’s face was contorted with rage directed at the unyielding box.  She looked up and into the eyes of the operator.  ‘Touch it and die,’ she hissed.  The box cracked and split as she applied more pressure.
    As the flap was torn away Dr. Loberg launched himself across the room, he pushed the terrified operator out of the way and reached for the card. 
    Thirty-Nine simultaneously reached for the card, only to have it slip from her reaching fingers and into those of the Dr.  ‘Nooooo!’ she screamed and tore the whole box from the wall in a show of strength induced rage.
    ‘Guards!  Use your sedation guns!  She’s out of control!’ the Dr. commanded.
    Behind her, the lift dinged.  The door slid open.  A man and a woman cheerfully exchanging conversation were suddenly thrown bodily, screaming, out of the way as Thirty-Nine rushed forward to claim the elevator.
    ‘Shut that elevator down!’ the Dr. yelled.  But the lift was already moving and Thirty-Nine gone.  ‘Get some soldiers on every exit RIGHT NOW.’ He barked at the terrified security man.

Next Chapter: 3. Trapped
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1262466

Things didn't go as planned for 39 and she finds herself trapped, alone and confused she wonders who she was and confronts the idea that she could kill innocent people if she makes it to the outside world...