Stolen Future Read online

  Stolen Future

  Cyborg Guardian Chronicles Book 1

  Cameron Coral

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Also by Cameron Coral

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  One

  The man with dark gray eyes and curved nose glared accusingly at me from the floor, clutching his shoulder and frowning. I’d just punched him in the shoulder, throwing his body back several feet from the force of my blow. His crime? Inviting me in. “Y-your eyes are glowing,” he said. “What are you?”

  But I had no good answer.

  I was something new.

  Something machine, and not entirely human.

  Eight Days Earlier

  The robot in the corner had been perfectly still except for when it opened the window. A light breeze invaded the room and rustled the runaway strands of hair framing my face. From outside, the scent of street vendor noodles and sofu protein wafted in and made my stomach growl.

  I was fake-sleeping—and freaking out silently in my head—because earlier, the thing had come in and stood by the bed where I lay for an ungodly long time, until finally it moved, and that’s when I glimpsed the machine’s polished metal back as it crossed the room.

  If it were people holding me captive, at least I would know what I was dealing with. But an AI-powered abductor? I had no idea whether it wanted to help or kill me. An image popped into my head—an old urban legend where a man wakes up in a bathtub full of ice with a note taped to a phone that says, “Call the police. You have no liver.” Had those nightmarish things really happened to somebody? Was there a black market for body parts? And was that my fate?

  Somewhere in the distance, a siren blared, then faded. Street noise bubbled up. I must have been a story or two above a busy avenue. One thing I was fairly certain of: I was still on Luna—the Moon’s first and only colony. AI-powered machines, robots like this one, had been exiled from Earth nearly a century ago, settling on Luna and eventually colonizing Mars.

  This place felt like home in an odd way; the sounds outside the window were familiar, comforting even. The word Luna rolled around easily in my mind. I could picture the busy pedways, the street vendors, and the massive, thick dome that protected the colony from cosmic rays and the comet particles that battered the Moon’s surface every 24 hours.

  My memory was uneven. Wiped? I had no idea how I’d ended up in this room, guarded by a robot. And before this? I came up blank. It was the oddest sensation—like my brain was numb. Weird.

  Maybe the painkillers had altered my brain. Hell yeah, I knew they were pumping me full of meds, because the sensation when I’d first woke up was something I’ll never forget. Imagine you’d swallowed a thousand wasps, and they stung you from the inside out. Now imagine you felt that way for a solid week, so you couldn’t even move. They’d fed me through tubes like a lab rat—that, I did remember. The sensation of someone jamming your body through a meat grinder leaves a lasting impression.

  Memory issues aside, the more obvious concern was why the hell was a damn robot watching over me after I’d clearly been tortured? Or something—I wasn’t sure what had happened.

  Steadying my breath, I considered my options. Did I show the thing I was awake or wait it out and hope it would go away? At least if I were to face the machine, I could get some answers. But what if it didn’t want me awake? What if its job was to keep me sedated?

  No. I couldn’t risk it knowing I was conscious. Did robots sleep? I hoped so.

  Another hour or two passed in this way. In that time, I would’ve killed for a glass of water. The last rays of daylight streaming in from the window eventually faded, punctuated by neon building facades and their flashy ads that occupied every available surface. Lunar night. Since the Moon took 27 days to revolve around Earth, night here lasted two whole weeks, followed by two weeks of daylight—a phenomenon that endlessly fascinated the tourists. How I could remember trivia like that, but not recall what had happened to me, was unsettling in a way that was fraying my nerves.

  How long would the damn robot just sit here? Didn’t it have anywhere to go or something to do? Waiting it out until the waking hours might be hopeless. After a time, fatigue washed over me, and I fought the urge to let go. Teetering on the edge of sleep, my foot jerked and startled me so badly I gasped—loudly.

  Dust maggots. I couldn't help it.

  Sure enough, the robot shuffled over, presumably to investigate. Something hard and pointed nudged my shoulder. Between squinted eyes, I saw the damn thing poke me with a long steel finger. That's when I’d had enough.

  My eyes flicked open. “Who the hell are you?” My voice came out cracked and choked like a frog’s.

  The robot stepped back, surprised, allowing me time to take in its appearance. Nearly six-feet-tall, it had a humanoid shape with a charcoal-gray chrome exterior. Masculine, its chest was flat and mirrored a human man’s. It wore no clothes.

  “You are awake,” it said. The robot’s face was a lighter shade of gray with curious black eyes, an unobtrusive nose, and pleasantly rounded lips. The top of its head was smooth, hairless.

  This time I cleared my throat first and tried to sound stronger than I felt. “What am I doing here? What happened to me?”

  It hesitated. “Are you in pain? I have more zandal.”

  So, it wasn’t armed with a needle to force me unconscious. Also, it was concerned about my comfort?

  “Water,” I croaked.

  “Yes, just a moment.” The machine turned and left the room.

  In those solitary moments, I tried to sit up. Rolling onto my left side, I grimaced as my shoulder lit up with the heat of a blowtorch. I groaned, and the next thing I knew, the robot loomed over me, pressing a straw to my mouth. Sweet, cool water quenched my lips and coated my dry throat. I downed the entire bottle, and the robot refilled it. As I drank, my gaze traveled to its face.

  “You mustn't struggle,” it said in a low, gentle tone. “You are in pain. It's part of the process.”

  Spitting out the straw, I hissed, “What process?” Only I was tongue-tied, so the words spewed clumsily from my mouth, spraying droplets of spit across the robot’s metal arm.

  “You will learn in good time. For now, you must rest. Heal.”

  Exhausted, my eyelids drooped. I allowed the machine to place a pain tablet on my tongue, sucked down another swig of water, and passed out.

  My sleep was black emptiness, and I was grateful.

  My eyes traced three spidering cracks that weaved across the pale ceiling stretched above. Turning my head, I squinted at a bedside lamp and cursed its harsh tint. Same room, same bed with the same scratchy brown blanket. And the robot was in the corner again in a plastic chair.

  On my back, I shifted and pressed down with my arms to sit up, but every inch of me was tender. Then I remembered the constant stinging, as if something had erupted inside me. Days must have passed while I floated in and out of consciousness.

  The robot gave me more zandal tablets which, honestly, I needed. My stiff body felt like it was covered in bruises. It offered more wat
er. “What did you do to me?” I managed after quenching my thirst.

  It regarded me. “I didn't do anything to you.”

  “Then who did?” I secretly vowed to strangle the person who gave me so much pain. But the machine pushed the straw into my mouth again, told me to drink. So, it was avoiding my questions. Great.

  It shuffled back to its corner chair, while I festered alone with my thoughts in bed, which didn’t seem like a good idea, not when I was obsessed with what had happened to me and who was responsible. After twenty minutes, I pushed myself up to sit, even though it hurt like hell. “I need a bathroom.”

  Alert, the robot walked over, crouched, and pulled out a chamber pot from underneath the bed. It placed the bowl on my lap.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “According to my research, chamber pots were quite common in the—”

  “Is there a toilet nearby?”

  It shook its head.

  I sighed, wondering whether I had the strength to lift myself enough to use the damn pot, but my full bladder wanted to burst. The damned robot just stood there.

  I glared. “Some privacy, please.”

  “How long will you need?”

  “Hawking hell! I don't know. Five minutes?”

  It left through the door. Alone, I pushed myself up and wedged the pot underneath to relieve myself. Holy Mars, it felt good. All the water I’d been guzzling was finally making its way through my system. Who knew the last time I had eaten, other than when they’d force-fed me through tubes?

  After a few minutes, the robot returned and strode forward, then reached for the pot, but I tossed it up so my piss splashed the machine’s torso and ran down its legs.

  The machine halted, peering down at its urine-soaked front. “Why did you do that?”

  “I need answers. Who are you, and why are you keeping me here?”

  It placed the now-empty pot on the floor and moved toward a cabinet against the wall to retrieve a towel. “Don't make this difficult on yourself.”

  Rage flared up inside my chest like a simmering cauldron. “No, I'll make it difficult on you. Throwing piss on you was nothing. Wait until I really get started.”

  The robot shifted its head to watch me. “Your attitude is what got you chosen in the first place.”

  “Chosen?”

  Outside, a siren wailed in the distance while the word lingered in the air, and the machine said nothing.

  “What do you mean I was chosen?”

  “The Cyborg Trials.”

  “Cyborg what?”

  “Newt said you wouldn’t believe me.” The robot raised its hand and rolled its palm forward. A blade rose from its middle knuckle, and it stepped toward me.

  Despite my raging headache and bruised body, I cringed and tried to huddle against the wall. “No! Stop.”

  But the machine—shockingly strong—grabbed my wrist and yanked me forward. It raised the knife above my forearm. A scream caught in my throat as I realized it was going to cut me open. The blade sank into my skin, and the robot cut a long vertical slice from wrist to elbow.

  Then it let me go.

  I gasped for air, my mouth unable to form words. I waited for blood to start streaming out, for the white sheets to turn crimson. Squeezing my eyes shut, I gagged.

  “Look at your arm,” the robot said evenly.

  But I couldn’t. I must have been in shock because the pain from the gash hadn't hit me yet. At any moment, I’d feel the warm stickiness of blood.

  The machine shook me by the shoulders. “Open your eyes and look. You are not in danger.”

  Not in danger? Its cold, metal fingers gripped my chin and twisted my face toward my arm. My eyelids fluttered open. For an instant, a wave of red filled my vision, but then I blinked again and forced myself to look at the long slice through my flesh—my skin had been pulled back. And yet there was no blood.

  “Look at what's inside you,” the robot said.

  Gazing at my forearm, I peered at my wound. Beneath the peeled-back flesh was a silvery mesh-like covering. Blue lights danced where the mesh lines criss-crossed. No veins showed. No bones appeared.

  How can that be?

  A wave of dizziness and nausea hit me. I retched. The robot thrust the chamber pot into my lap, and I dry heaved into it. My body was weak, so my mind must be too. How could I trust what I was seeing? This machine must have medicated me—forced me to hallucinate.

  “Do you believe me now?” it asked.

  Staring at its cybernetic hand with the protruding knife, I trembled, then cringed as uncontrollable shivers racked my limbs.

  The robot cocked its head as if trying to figure me out. As if I was some puzzle. Finally, it said, “You are a cyborg. The first from the trials.”

  Two

  Two days passed, or at least what I thought were two days. Hard to tell since I slept so much, not to mention the lunar night lasted two weeks. Drifting between dreams and a dreary, wakeful grogginess, I dozed, hydrated, slurped soup, and pissed and shit in a pot, all under the watch of my robot caretaker. What a life.

  “Do you have a name?” I eventually asked.

  The machine’s unblinking black eyes bored holes into me. “Drive Nine.”

  “What kind of name is that?”

  Silence.

  In this dingy bedroom with its mildewy walls, the robot sat in the corner chair and helped me when I needed things. A few times, I’d woken and it hadn’t been around, but it always appeared within a few minutes. I assumed we were in an apartment located in a busy area of Luna, but I had no idea how big the apartment was or whether we were alone. Were other people here? Other robots?

  Occasionally, Drive Nine paced the small room and stared out the window. What it was looking for, I didn’t know. It wouldn’t tell me even though I’d asked seven times. It kept the blinds slanted up, facing toward the ceiling so nobody could see in.

  So I couldn’t see out.

  No matter—I wasn’t able to get out of bed anyway. I wore a dark blue gown that covered my front and tied together with strings in the back, as if I were a hospital patient.

  On the third day of this sleeping, eating, and pissing loop, something happened. I woke and Drive Nine was gone. I’d been in a deep sleep, lost in lucid dreams. In one, I was riding in the bed of a red pickup truck. It was nighttime on Earth—I knew because I breathed the air, and no dome encircled the sky above. I was laying on my back, staring up at the stars, my body shaking from the rumble of the rough dirt road underneath the truck’s wheels. More happened in the dream, but I couldn’t remember. My thoughts were imprinted with the stars overhead—so many stars—as if a lazy painter had splattered them across the sky in a careless brushstroke.

  Sitting up, I pushed my back against the wall and stuffed a pillow behind me. My belly rumbled, and I salivated at the prospect of the chicken broth Drive Nine had been feeding me. But there were voices outside the door. By now, I recognized the robot’s flat, monotone tone. It was there, speaking as calmly as it did to me. But there was someone else with a higher pitched, feminine voice. The woman spoke rapidly, her voice raised. Questioning.

  The sounds were muffled, and I couldn’t make out their words. Were they arguing? The woman sounded irritated.

  My heart beat faster knowing another human was here. It comforted me to know I wasn’t alone with this lifeless, artificial machine. For some reason, I didn’t trust Drive Nine. Artificial beings made me leery. Maybe something in my past made me suspicious of them.

  I kept waiting for my memory to return; this amnesiac state was annoying. And I worried, became anxious that I was forgetting important things. Was someone out there looking for me? My family?

  Did I have a husband, boyfriend? A wife?

  Then there was the awkward matter of my name. I didn’t know it, and I wouldn’t admit that I didn’t know it.

  The door opened abruptly, and Drive Nine entered, shutting it quickly. Footsteps—the woman's, I assumed—stor
med down the corridor. From the sound, it was a narrow and long hallway. Where did it lead? Were there others trapped in rooms like mine?

  Drive Nine stood in the middle of the room, gazing at the window as if perplexed.

  “Who was that out there?” I asked. “I heard you arguing.”

  But the robot ignored me. “Quiet,” it said with no emotion. It edged toward the dark window, gazing out, and suddenly the one dim lamp next to my bed went out.

  “Did you do that?” I whispered.

  Then I noticed the eerie quiet. The usual cacophonous din of sirens was absent. Luna’s street noise—the constant beeping of motorbikes, whirring of hover scooters, and shouting of human voices—was missing. Even the appetite-inducing odor of noodle stalls had disappeared.

  “It’s happening,” Drive Nine said. “Sooner than I expected.”

  “What’s happening?” I clenched the blanket and sheets until they twisted around my legs.

  It pulled a string and flattened the window shade, closing us off from view, then came to my bedside. “I must leave now. You will be safe here… for now.”

  “Where are you going? When are you coming back?” It's not as if I’d miss the robot, but it was the only thing keeping me alive.

  It raised its arms as if trying to explain, as if to apologize. “I will not return. I cannot risk exposing you.”

  Shaking my head, I could barely form words. “Wha—?” Everything was happening so fast.

  “I should have explained more, but there's no time. The woman who lives here will help you.” Drive Nine walked to the bureau along the wall next to the door, opened a drawer, and retrieved a small bag. After rifling through it, the robot shuffled over and set down two small objects on the wobbly nightstand.