ZPG: To Protect and Kill.

By Allen Patterson

In the future, there is no disease, no hunger, and no war; unless you don't have a birth-tag. If you don't have a birth-tag you are an Illegal. Then disease, hunger, and war are all you know.

It is 2207 and Earth has changed dramatically. After nearly destroying ourselves in a global war, humans now live in peace. The Global Coalition, a group of the strongest and most developed countries surviving the economic chaos that came with decades of war, brought that peace by violently ending the fighting that had ravaged the Earth. However, that world peace came at a very dear price. We sacrificed one of humanities basic freedoms: the right to reproduce.

The Global Birth Act was a brutal response by the Global Coalition to the near ecological disaster of the global war fed by overpopulation in the mid twenty-second century. Zero Population Growth, ZPG as it became known, was the agency formed to enforce the Global Birth Act.

Cyborgs were originally created at the end of the war to help humanity. Dr. Bentenhausen, their creator, programmed the Cyborg brain to serve and protect humanity. They were first tasked to help clean up the environmental damage inflicted by the global war. They did so well with that task they were enlisted to help ZPG enforce the Global Birth Act.

Chuck is Cyborg with ZPG. As a nearly immortal Cyborg, Chuck and his subsequent line of human partners struggle with the duty of enforcing that act.

The Global Birth Act requires mandatory implants of a birth-tag, a micro-transponder filled with ones personal data and powered by body heat. Then there is the mandatory birth control at age ten, chemically linked to ones birth-tag, to ensure it is working. Other severe requirements are in place. One must meet stringent genealogical, genetic, and psychological parameters to earn the right to have children.

Circumvent your ZPG enforced birth control to have a child without a ZPG birthright, and you are removed from society in one of three ways; sterilization and a life of forced work camps, stasis (if you're too subversive for the camps), or death if you resist either.

ZPG and its teams of elite humans with Cyborg partners hunt the Illegals, and either bring them in or kill them. It is common that usually death for most Illegals comes at the hands of a ZPG Cyborg. Chuck must reconcile his programming to serve and protect humanity with the brutality of his duty to enforce the Global Birth Act. All Cyborgs must do the same.

In this world where Cyborgs struggle with their duties that are at odds with their innate programming, humans also have a choice. Live by the law and live in peace. Choose not to obey the Global Birth Act and live as an Illegal. Most humans live in peace.

Illegals fight for their lives everyday. Some days they win.

Most days they lose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allen Patterson
• Release date: Feb 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465929518

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

13:27 UTC, 24 December, 2207;

LANZHOU, CHINA.

The rebel guard stopped in front of a cell as he made his rounds. He looked through the bars at the Cyborg.

The Cyborg's white composite-armor was scarred from the battle. He raised his head and gazed at the guard. The yellow eyes sent a chill down the rebel's spine as he turned away.

Baby-killing demon! he muttered as he walked away.

The Cyborg stared back at the wall across the cell.

Chuck tried his internal comm frequencies again. No response. He glanced about the cell. The metal jail door and the bars in the small window would have been no barrier for him a day ago. This was his strangest experience since he was commissioned eight years before. He, a ZPG elite Alpha-series Cyborg, was a prisoner.

Nothing in his year of Cyborg Ops indoctrination after commissioning or the three years at the Academy with his human partner had prepared Chuck for this. He reviewed that training, searching for something to solve this predicament.

Fifty-four years had passed since the Global Birth Act had become law. There had been hundreds of riots. Chuck had watched most of them on vid-disc in Riot Suppression Training during indoctrination, then later again, as he taught Riot Suppression to Emilio at the Academy. As a team they even had one riot duty behind them.

The Illegals' tactics had improved since the earlier riots he had seen on the vid-discs. He noted the difference since his first riot duty.

The rebels had located a cache of military weapons that had not been destroyed in the world wide disarmament mandated by the Armed Forces Disbandment Treaty of 2161. Chuck wondered how many more weapon stockpiles were still out there from the time before the Global Coalition came to power.

He looked down at his shattered knee joint. Stainless steel cables protruded, slack and broken somewhere within his leg. His detail sensors for his leg were down; only the extremity sensor was still on line. He recalled the event that did this to him.

Rebel anti-tank rockets destroyed the battle android that had been on his right. The blast shattered his knee. The subsequent concussion destroyed both of his main hydraulic pumps deep in his chest. This was why he was a prisoner.

With only the backup hydraulic pump, the weight of his body weapon made him collapse. It was all he could do to struggle free of the pneumatic assisted coil guns and their huge magazines when the rebels over ran his position. Without full hydraulics or his weapons three or four humans easily overpowered him.

Chuck looked at the gleaming steel shackles on his ankles and wrists. Before his body systems damage he could have snapped them like cotton thread. Now they bound him as they would any human.

But he wasn't human. He was ZPG Cyborg and he had a duty: Protect and serve humanity by enforcing the Global Birth Act. That duty was actually secondary to his prime directive; protect and serve humanity at all cost.

Footsteps grew louder in the corridor outside the cell. The lock turned. Chuck became aware of distant explosions. Was it rebel or ZPG androids' rockets? He couldn't tell. The sound signatures were too muffled.

The door slammed open. An athletic human in civilian clothes stepped into the room and glared down at him.

C'mon, Cyborg, he said in English. The man was of indeterminate Asian descent, in his mid thirties. Two Chinese rebel soldiers appeared beside him. The athletic man was much taller than either of the two soldiers. The civilian turned to them.

Take him, he ordered in Chinese. Chuck understood the command perfectly. He accessed his language banks. The seven primary languages and the forty-three secondary languages and dialects were intact. At least the rocket blast had left no discernable damage to his bioelectronic brain.

A quick status check revealed that besides the major damage to his hydraulics and his knee, only a few peripheral systems were damaged, all repairable. The soldiers pulled him to his feet.

This way. The civilian led them from the cell.

They hustled him down the darkened hallway. Chuck stumbled along between the guards, his shattered knee refusing to function. After a couple of turns they stopped in a foyer near a large fire door. A sliver of sunlight was visible at its base.

Printed in large black letters on the white wall of the foyer were the English letters, ZPG. Below them also in English was the slogan of ZPG, borrowed from North American police forces of earlier times: To Protect And Serve. Below that was the Mandarin Chinese translation of the slogan.

In both the English and the Chinese slogans Serve had been crossed out with red paint and replaced with the word Kill, in English and Mandarin respectively.

A squad of soldiers filed into the foyer from another hallway. Two carried an oblong box. Another carried a similar, smaller box.

The large box was aluminum, battered but intact, about a meter and a half long. He recognized the container from his military history file. It held a late twentieth century antitank rocket launcher, of French design. The dim markings indicated it was manufactured in Israel under French license nearly two centuries ago. The smaller box contained the projectiles the weapon fired.

Footfalls came from a hallway down one side. Chuck turned toward them.

The Commander of the rebel forces entered. He glanced at Chuck with disgust, then turned away. The Commander was the oldest human in the group. The civilian handed a folded piece of paper to the Commander.

Here is our verdict. The Commander took the paper, unfolded it and read. A smile of appreciation crossed his face. He folded the paper and stuck it in his breast pocket then spoke to the civilian man in English.

You must leave now, to live and fight another day. You don't have much time. His English was succinct and clear, like that taught in most of the schools all over Asia, and very different from that of the young civilian man. The civilian nodded to the Commander, then left down a dimly lit hallway away from the door. The Commander turned to the soldiers.

Outside, the Commander ordered in Chinese.

One of them opened the door. Another prodded Chuck with his bayoneted rifle.

Chuck hesitated in the doorway and faced the courtyard. Opposite the door, a large sandbag-reinforced gate framed the rest of the city. Distant gunfire and explosions echoed off the walls revealing the conflict in the distance. The two soldiers shoved Chuck roughly from behind. He stumbled across the threshold and landed hard on the brick courtyard.

Chuck rolled to one side and increased the gain on his aural receptors. At that heightened level Chuck heard the quad-tracked ZPG androids fighting the rebels who were equipped with outdated weapons. He heard the distant whine of the superconductor motors in the six-wheeled armored carriers as they advanced behind the battle Androids. The shouts of the wounded and dying rebels echoed above the mechanical clamor. Beneath it all the faint electric whir of the Androids' rotary coil guns buzzed.

Chuck looked about as the two soldiers pulled him to his feet. He adjusted his visual and zoomed in on the distant smoke-streaked skyline beyond the gate.

White ZPG helicopter gun-ships swooped, launched rockets, dropped video guided pulse bombs, fired tracers from their coil guns, then climbed above the chaos. Their superconductor motors screamed as they swarmed like maddened hornets over the unseen battle below them.

Chuck returned his visual to human normal and looked around the courtyard as they entered it. He lowered his aural gain to a normal level so he could concentrate on his immediate surroundings.

The sun shone down from a clear blue sky onto the frozen courtyard of a white windowless building. The large U-shaped building dominated the courtyard behind him and to each side. Mud and ice filled the scattered craters blown in the rubble-strewn brick pavement. Bullet holes pockmarked the walls.

A section of the building to his right was reduced to rubble. A burned-out armored vehicle sat to one side of the ruins.

The helium power generator had been salvaged from the destroyed carrier. If undamaged, the unit could power a small town. That would come in handy in one of the rebels' remote compounds, Chuck noted. Still visible on the ruined carrier, the faded and soot-stained letters ZPG ENFORCEMENT were in black across its side.

This had been the ZPG headquarters before the riot. Although he had never seen to the Lanzhou ZPG headquarters before, it matched his holographic memory image of it perfectly, the same as the others around the world.

The rebels had erected an old wooden post about two meters high in the center of the courtyard. Across the courtyard two rebel gunners stood beside an ancient rubber-wheeled howitzer that was aimed toward the city beyond the gate. The gunners looked toward Chuck and the others in the doorway.

The Commander entered the courtyard. The two soldiers flanked Chuck and walked beside him toward the post. The gunners stared at Chuck. Neither had seen a Cyborg up-close before.

The white-composite armor, battered and scratched, still covered his body except for his face and head, which looked quite human. However his skin was gray and his head hairless. Black syntho-rubber covered his neck, hands, and body joints.

The syntho-rubber was torn away at Chuck's knee joint at the back of his leg. Broken stainless-steel cables were exposed. The soldiers shoved Chuck ahead of them. He staggered, but didn't fall, as gears made a hideous grinding noise from his knee. He limped toward the post.

As he moved closer, the gunners could see his yellow catlike eyes with black vertical slits. They shuddered and turned away. The eyes were just like their mothers and grandmothers had told them on the long winter nights when they were children: cold and evil as a hungry tiger.

The Commander stopped the group at the post. The two soldiers flanking Chuck slammed him against the post and then chained him to it. Then they fell back behind the Commander as he faced Chuck. Two other soldiers carried the aluminum case from the rear of the group. They sat it down and stood beside it as the single soldier with the projectile case stopped beside them. He set it down beside the larger case and fell back into the ranks of other soldiers.

The Commander took the piece of paper from his breast pocket and unfolded it. He spoke in Chinese.

Cyborg, you have been captured by the Ancient Rights League of Gansu Province and are our prisoner. As a Cyborg, you have no rights within the Ancient Rights League as a human prisoner would. Therefore, as it is the Ancient Rights League's forsworn duty to fight ecological fascism with all our being. By decree of the Supreme Counsel, all captured ZPG Cyborgs shall be deactivated or destroyed.

He quietly folded the paper and returned it to his pocket.

Chuck slowly looked around the courtyard.

Do you have any last thing to say for yourself, Cyborg?

Chuck turned to the Commander and replied in Chinese.

You are in violation of the Global Birth Act. Put down your weapons and surrender.

Chuck reviewed his file on the Global Birth Act. Armed resistance to ZPG forces by Illegal Birth citizens was in violation of the Act. The Commander glared at him and seemed less than impressed by Chuck's logic and his order to surrender.

The Commander turned on his heel and stomped back to the group of soldiers. He glanced at the two soldiers by the cases then turned to Chuck. The distant gunfire of the retreating rebels grew louder.

Ready the weapon! the Commander ordered.

The two soldiers opened the case and pulled out a well-used rocket launcher. One put it on his shoulder as the other opened the smaller case and loaded the single rocket left in the foam-lined locker. The one with the launcher steadied it on his shoulder and took aim on Chuck. The other one looked up at the Commander.

The last rocket, Commander. The Commander glanced at the launcher.

Then don't miss!

As the soldier brought the launcher to bear on Chuck an explosion sounded closer to the courtyard. Momentarily distracted by the noise, the soldier realigned the weapon on the Cyborg. The Commander focused on Chuck and allowed a brief smile to pass his face before he shouted.

FIRE!

The other soldiers shielded their eyes. The weapon clicked and the rocket didn't move. Suddenly it ignited, but with the muffled hiss of contaminated fuel. The propellant ignited in fits and starts as the rocket barely cleared the end of the launcher. The underpowered rocket wobbled toward the stone pavement. Alarmed soldiers dove to the ground, the Commander with them.

The dud rocket bounced off the ground a couple of times and came to rest about three meters from Chuck. He looked at it as it sputtered like a nearly spent firework. The soldiers stared at Chuck, dumfounded. Chuck looked at the Commander. Fury burned in the human's face.

The Commander jumped to his feet and glared at the rocket as it fizzled out on the ground.

Insidious bastard gunrunners! How am I expected to fight ZPG forces when every third round is a dud?! He stomped over to the dud and grabbed it. He cursed again under his breath, then with a battle cry, threw it with all his might toward the burned out android carrier.

The dud bounced once then exploded in midair next to the carrier, flipping it on its side. The blast knocked the Commander on his ass and scattered the rebels back to the ground. One was hit by a piece of shrapnel and screamed in pain.

The Commander sprung to his feet and glared at the overturned carrier as several rebel soldiers aided their wounded comrade. The Commander then looked at Chuck, intact and still chained to the post.

The white composite armor deflected most of the shrapnel that had went his way. A piece of it had grazed him on the side of his unprotected head.

A small patch of his bio-engineered skin hung loose from the side of his head. A trickle of white synthetic blood ran from it down to his neck. Through the small opening in his skin, Chuck's titanium braincase glinted in the dull sun through the white fluid.

Chuck looked at the smoldering carrier then at the Commander who stared at his wound and the glint of metal it exposed. The gunfire and explosions grew closer.

Surrender now. Resistance is futile, he said in Chinese to the Commander.

The infuriated Commander turned away and frantically looked about the courtyard. His eyes locked onto the cannon. He shouted in Chinese to the gunners beside it.

Turn the howitzer around!

But Commander, the enemy approaches.

Do it now! That's an order!

They struggled with the ancient artillery piece, turning it only a few degrees to one side. The Commander turned to the soldiers helping the wounded man.

Help them!

The squad rushed to the cannon, the wounded man also. The Commander followed close behind shouting orders. Soon, the big gun came to bear on Chuck. One of the gunners cranked the elevation wheel, lowering the barrel toward the Cyborg as the other chocked the rubber tires.

Chuck watched and changed his visual reference to infrared. At the top of his field of view VISUAL SPECTRUM: INFRARED flashed in bright blue letters. Suddenly BATTLE COMM CHAN 3 OPEN appeared below it in flashing green. A subtle 'beep' sounded in his internal aural receptor. A crackle of static hissed in Chuck's head as he changed his view back to normal spectrum.

Cyborg thirty-four eighty-six, Command thirty-four eighty-six. Chuck, do you read me? Over. A static hiss, then a pop signaled the end of Emilio's transmission. Chuck's partner was alive.

Chuck glanced around the courtyard and then looked toward the gate. Gunfire, closer, and the cries of men dying in combat came in from just outside the courtyard.

Cyborg thirty-four eighty-six reads you loud and clear, Chuck responded out loud. The Commander scowled at Chuck as the gunners aimed the weapon. Chuck chastised himself for responding out loud. Nothing in his training helped him here. He recorded in his long-term memory to respond silently in similar situations in the future.

Suddenly, a squad of tattered rebel soldiers rushed at the gate, frantically shouting at those by the gun.

They're coming! Hundreds of them! Thousands! Let us in!

A soldier broke from the group by the big gun and opened the gate for them. The fleeing rebels rushed into the courtyard and scattered. The soldier closed the gate.

Chuck looked down the barrel of the howitzer, pointed straight at him. He noted it also was an Israeli copy of a French design, circa 2050 to 2070. As with all Israeli copies of other countries weapons, it had several improvements. That was probably why it was in operational condition after a hundred and thirty years, Chuck thought to himself.

Chuck, we're about five klicks from you. Can you hang on? Emilio's voice echoed on his receiver.

The gunners shoved a round in the ancient 105-millimeter gun and slammed the breech shut.

Chuck then realized he might never get a chance to use the information he just recently stored about responding silently unless he did it then. The Commander looked at the Cyborg with a wicked grin and raised his arm.

I don't think so, Boss. Chuck sent the silent message; relieved he had been able use something he had recently learned before being terminated. The Commander dropped his arm and shouted.

FIRE!

The big gun erupted. Chuck and the post he was chained to exploded. Chuck's upper torso flew nearly straight up.

A huge flash of white combined with the overpowering sound of the howitzer blast permeated Chuck's senses, followed by an abrupt communication cutoff of all his peripheral sensors. Then he had a view of ground and courtyard below him, receding and turning, then blackness.

The words EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN flashed in red in what used to be Chuck's field of vision then disappeared. Chuck stopped recording into his memory banks. Then curiously, he ceased to exist.

Or perhaps ceased to know he existed. All sensor inputs were nil. Memory was accessible, but nothing could be recorded. The moment a perception occurred to him, it was gone. A very strange existence indeed.

Total darkness and void, for what seemed to Chuck like an eternity. Or perhaps a microsecond? He couldn't tell. All his attempts at time reference were futile after shutdown. Then something flashed.

A green POWER RESTORED intruded into the darkness that was Chuck and announced itself with a beep. The floating message disappeared and a dull hum came from everywhere, mixed with distorted voices. Memory began to be recorded and Chuck thought that was a pleasant turn of events, but didn't know why.

Extremities were disconnected, aural was garbled, but becoming clearer. His Auto-Scan of systems turned up more systems with Inop signals than with Operational or Ready. All this information scrolled through the blackness that would have been the top of his field of vision if his visual had not come back Inop in the Auto-scan.

Suddenly a blurred infrared image of a man hovered over him. Voices became clearer and more directional as the hum faded to a light background noise that Chuck recognized as the 60-cycle drone of a florescent light. Aural 60% and Visual 20% flashed by the top of the blurred image making it through to him.

Chuck tried changing his vision back to normal spectrum. It worked, but was curiously flat with no depth perception. He glanced up at the Cyborg Repair Tech hovering over him then looked around the room.

Cyborgs and Androids in various stages of battle damage were laid out on steel tables about the large room. A dozen or so human Cyborg Repair Techs attended to them.

Chuck was then aware of another human beside the Repair Tech above him. Chuck turned his head. It was Emilio, his partner. He smiled at Chuck.

Had me worried there for a bit, Chuck. I thought I lost you. Chuck nodded.

Yeah, I thought I was terminated. Actually, I am surprised at the lack of damage... He tried to prop himself up on his arm, but fell back to the steel table he lay on.

His arm was missing from the elbow down. He cocked his head trying to see the damage. The Tech noticed and handed an inspection mirror to Emilio. Chuck looked at himself in the mirror as Emilio held it.

Oh... Interesting, he said quietly as he saw his face. Optical fibers hung from the left eye socket, the ends quivering from some mechanical vibration coming through the table. Monocular vision. No wonder the images are so flat, he said quietly.

Emilio adjusted the angle the mirror at Chuck's direction. Chuck calmly surveyed the rest of the damage.

Most of the biosynthetic skin covering his braincase was missing, shiny titanium in its place. His body was gone below mid-torso. Shredded cables hung from his right elbow. Tubes, wires, and a thick power cable ran from the ruins of Chuck's chest cavity to a bank of equipment beside the table. Chuck glanced at Emilio then looked at the Tech.

Guess it's beyond repair, isn't it?

Emilio looked at the Tech and suppressed a nervous laugh. The Tech smiled, then shook his head.

Yeah, yeah. This will definitely get you a new body. He turned and shook his head. Lame Cyborg humor, he muttered then wandered off among other damaged Cyborgs, Androids, and Techs working on them.

Emilio watched the Tech leave then looked at Chuck. Chuck looked up at his partner then down at the table where his legs should have been.

No harm in asking, he said quietly.

Emilio laughed and gently touched Chuck's shoulder. As his laughter subsided Chuck could see a tear run down Emilio's cheek.

CHAPTER TWO

23:53 UTC, 24 December, 2207;

ABOARD THE DEEP SPACE SHUTTLE THOMAS PAINE

APPROACHING HIGH LUNAR ORBIT

A huge polished quartz view port framed the unwinking stars of deep space in a dim observation deck. The stars moved slowly past to the right, winking in and out as they passed the spider-web of metal holding the blocks of quartz in place. The dark surface of the moon rose on the left edge of the port.

Above the surface three large spaceships appeared, one by one, as the moon slowed and centered at the bottom edge of the view-port. The immense ships hovered in orbit; two were complete, one was still under construction. A massive scaffolding encompassed the unfinished portion. Tiny specks moved about in their matrix of cables and piping. In the background on the observation deck, a constant, light whir of ventilation could be heard.

The deck was designed to support human life forms. However, the only one there to hear it was a Cyborg, similar to Chuck.

Erik was the original Cyborg Doctor Bentenhausen created sixty years before. To all the Cyborgs who had been commissioned after him, he was known as the First Cyborg.

Erik sat immobile, staring into the space beyond the view-port at the ships. The ships were the dream of Doctor Bentenhausen. Erik watched the tiny specks that were Cyborg workers moving about the scaffolding, building the doctors dream. He watched the dream take shape and thought about the good Doctor.

Doctor Calvin Bentenhausen was Erik's creator, the Creator to all Cyborgs. Bentenhausen invented the prototype bioelectronic brain in 2125, which was the predecessor to the brain of the modern Cyborg. It was a combination of cloned genetically altered brain tissue, and the hydro-electronic brains used in the first generation artificial intelligence computers. The Doctor continued to develop and improve his new invention through the chaotic times that were before Cyborgs came to be.

By 2135 the world was on the brink of destruction. All the former third world countries were industrialized and trying desperately to catch up to their more affluent global neighbors. The environment was failing on all levels. The polar ice caps were melting and breaking up from human-induced global warming; the ozone was near depletion; the oceans were dying; and food and water shortages were common even in affluent countries. Disease and food contamination were common worldwide. Measures to prevent ecological disaster came too little, too late.

Several countries were plunged into the depths of social chaos. There were numerous civil wars and minor confrontations with stronger neighbors. The object of all conflict was the competition for the Earth's few remaining natural resources with potable water and oil the at the top of that list. Many of the world's governments were in anarchy or total collapse. In the spring of 2136, the untimely U. S. Department of Energy disclosure became the catalyst for a worldwide revolution.

The U. S. Department