His processor broke the code in seconds, and the door slid open automatically. What he saw stunned him. There were rows of naked cyborgs in active stasis lockers, ten different genetic lines of thirty in each section. Grown to adulthood, trained and placed in stasis waiting to be deployed for at least fifty years, maybe more. Why were they never deployed?
The Federation could have used every one of them. Untold human and cyborg lives had been lost because they lacked the manpower to defend their positions. Reinforcement never came. All these men standing there waiting to begin their lives for fifty years and they were still waiting. It was an abomination! They deserved to live! Vyken was going to make sure they had the chance.
By now, Jacob Black was well aware that he had wandered off on his own. Vyken wasn’t intimidated in the least by Black. He didn’t take orders from Black. His orders regarding the cyborgs came from the Cyborg Command. He could only guess that they didn’t know about the three hundred viable cyborgs in the depths of this facility. Vyken wasn’t sure he was going to tell them either. He didn’t trust Black not to have them terminated. Natural humans liked to call it decommissioned.
It didn’t sound as bad as killing them. In Vyken’s mind, it would be the murder of cyborgs that couldn’t defend themselves. Even though they were classified as sentient beings, they could debate these had never been activated. Therefore they had never actually been alive. That was a bunch of crap! It was a very thin excuse to justify mass murder. It wasn’t going to happen. They were going over to the Starfire, and so were the embryos.
Vyken paced around the room then up and down the rows of encased cyborgs. They were all alive and ready for release. He was tempted to start bringing them out of stasis immediately. There was room on the Starfire for all of them, and he could get this job done a lot faster if he had more than four cyborgs to do it.
They were safe for now. Vyken decided to go back to level one and catch up with Black and his friends. He left the chamber, and the door slid closed behind him. He ran down the corridor and took the stairwell back up to level one, climbing the steps four at a time. Vyken had been gone ten minutes when he caught up with the other three people.
They hadn’t progressed very far in the tour as James got into a lengthy discussion with Jacob about the administration of the Enclave. Jacob glanced at Vyken as he rejoined them. A quick raise of his dark brows was the only indication that Jacob had noticed his absence. He would talk to Jacob later, privately to find out what he knew about the third level.
“Currently we have about forty people living here. Some of them are descendants of the technicians that ran the cyborg labs in the third level,” Jacob explained. “We currently don’t use that level, and no one goes down there.” He glanced at Vyken pointedly.
“That, seems a waste of space, don’t you think?” Vyken said. “There is the same amount of space on each level. You could probably house a few hundred people down there.”
“It would be something to consider, only the cyborg facility must be dismantled before it can be converted to living space,” Jacob said, “but we just don’t have the manpower. That’s why your help is needed to bring more people into the Enclave.”
“That’s why I wanted to come here and talk with you,” James said. “I’ve lived in the city all my life, and it’s only gotten worse. It would be impossible to restore civilization there without an army to make it safe.”
“We were finally going to leave the city when we got jumped by some thugs,” Danya said. “They would have killed Dad if Vyken hadn’t come along when he did.”
“But there are still good people living there that need help to get out,” James added. “Now that I’ve seen what you have started here, I will help Vyken’s team rescue them.”
“We would certainly appreciate it. So many of the core worlds of the Federation have been devastated by the war, they just don’t have the resources to give us the help that we need.”
“They don’t even know when they can begin rebuilding the Eastern starport or any starport on this world,” Jacob said.
“Earth seems to have gotten the worst of it,” Vyken said.
“Where are you going to get the materials to build homes on the surface?” James asked.
“We are going to scavenge them from what’s left of the buildings in the surrounding countryside for a start, then trees, and rocks. Even though there are no mass communications restored yet, our computers have the information we need to plan and build our community.”
“I think I’ve heard and seen enough,” James said. “I was also hoping to go back to our home to get our things while we were out looking for people to join the Enclave.”
“We can do that,” Vyken said. “Jacob, I want to speak to you privately before we go.”
“We can go to my office,” Jacob said. “James, Danya, you can take a seat in the waiting room by my office.
“Do you know what’s on level three?” Vyken demanded.
“Remnants of the cyborg breeding facility,” Jacob said carefully.
“Not just remnants,” Vyken said. “There are three hundred cyborgs in stasis and a tank full of frozen embryos down there! Just what are you going to do with them?”
“I haven’t brought it up with the council, yet, but I thought we could turn them over to the Federation,” Jacob said.
“No! I am authorized by Cyborg Command to handle them. They are self-aware sentient beings, and they have rights,” Vyken replied adamantly. “That is Federation Law and your council has no say over it.”
“When did this happen?” Jacob asked. “We haven’t had news from the Federation in a while.”
“It was a condition the Wholaskan’s requested for negotiating peace with the Mesaarkans. Cyborgs and not slaves nor are they machines.”
“But they’re bred for fighting and killing, you can’t just put them out in society.”
“My brothers and I will take them to our ship and finish their training. They can help us with our mission here,” Vyken said.
