Cyborg Slayer

By Raymond S Flex

"The good news is that you're still human." He nodded to my bionic fingers. "A small augmentation like that doesn't make you cyborg—you only meet that definition when your heart stops, when you are no longer able to sustain your own life without mechanical assistance. A true merging of man and machine. But you are still human. Good news."

 

In the near future, a nameless man wakes naked and alone on a tropical beach. It appears to be paradise … until a blinking light out in the forest warns of an imminent threat.

 

A threat which throws him into a journey fraught with lethal force and danger.

 

As he struggles to recover his memories, he is thrust into a cut-throat post-apocalyptic world domineered by the sinister figure of the Controller and an unseen, all-powerful artificial intelligence. A world where human beings are thrown to cyborgs for the entertainment of unseen audiences like dystopian gladiators. A cruel and twisted game.

 

As he battles cyborgs, memories returning to him one-by-one, he comes to understand that the only way for mankind to survive is for him to stay alive.

 

To dominate his own memories, his own mind.

 

And become the fabled cyborg slayer.

 

An action-packed dystopian, cyberpunk thriller

• Language: English
• Publisher: DIB Books
• Release date: Jul 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223468721

Raymond S Flex

From fleeting frontiers to your kitchen sink, with Raymond S Flex you never know quite what to expect. His most popular series include: the Crystal Kingdom, Guynur Schwyn and Arkle Wright. On the lighter side of things he also writes Gnome Quest: a high fantasy with . . . yup, you guessed it, gnomes! And not to forget his standalone titles: Necropolis, Ethereal and more short stories than you can shake a space blaster at. Get in touch, keep up, at www.raymondsflex.com

Book preview

Cyborg Slayer

Raymond S Flex

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Contents

1 AWAKEN

2 RECESS

3 THE SPIKE

4 MY NAME IS JOHN

5 BACK ON THE ISLAND

6 GIVING UP

7 THE AMMO DROP

8 BACK ON BOARD

9 MURDER AFOOT

10 ONCE MORE AWAKE

11 THE CONCRETE COLISEUM

12 THE VOLCANO

13 LEVEL FOUR

14 THE HERO INSIDE MY MIND

15 THE MECHABORG

16 THE CONTROLLER

17 THE BRIDGE

18 THE FOREST OF TRUTHS

19 THE ENDGAME

20 THE SPACE STATION

AUTHOR’S NOTE

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

1 AWAKEN

Iwoke with a ringing in my ears. I had a reverberating sensation in my head. A throbbing sensation at both of my temples. It felt like someone was beating a metal pipe with a hammer inside my skull. Like I had been standing in a ship’s engine room for hours on end and had only now stepped out onto the deck for momentary respite from the thrashing machines and a gulp of fresh air. When I opened my eyes, I realised I was lying on my back.

Up above, I saw the flawless blue sky.

Not a cloud.

Further out to sea, the sky had turned darker, the colour and shade of blueberries. The gradual sweep of twilight was ushering out the evening. And night was falling swiftly.

I was in the tropics.

That was what common sense told me.

And common sense seemed about all I had.

I realised I couldn’t remember anything about this place.

How I arrived here, or why …

Come to think of it, I couldn’t even recall my own name.

Putting these existential queries out of mind for the time being, I looked to the tangerine glow on the horizon where the sun had been. The sky just above lightened to a pastel blue before sharpening into cyan. There the shade of the sky changed again, this time to a lemony yellow before finally giving way to a grapefruit shade.

I reached out to my side, moving my arms.

I felt the rough texture of sand upon the backs of my hands.

Sand.

I was lying on a beach.

At last the shushing of the waves lapping at the shore cut through my tinnitus. The ringing in my head began to subside so that it became only a dull, distant echo as though the sound of the waves themselves acted as a restorative. When I breathed in, I tasted a fruity sweetness on the air. It was a smell so pungent and ripe that the fruit felt as though it was close to rotting. There was banana, mango, pineapple … and others that floated in and out of my mind almost too quickly for me to assign them names. My mouth felt dry, parched, and I wondered whether I had been lying on the beach, in the direct sunlight, all day. I wondered if I was suffering from sunstroke.

That might explain my lapse in memory.

The fact that I didn’t know who I was.

Or what I was doing here.

I reached my hands up my body, soon realising that I was completely naked.

My skin did not ache to the touch as it would have done had I been suffering from sunburn. Neither had it turned raw-red from exposure to ultraviolet rays although it was sparkling with perspiration. When I touched my chest, I established that I was likely male (a few moments later when I allowed my hands to venture further south I confirmed this beyond all question). I lay there another few minutes before rocking myself into a sitting position on my elbow.

Sitting upright, I swept my surroundings, trying to spark some recollection of who I was, what I was doing and why … but no matter how long I waited the neurons just would not fire.

My eyes picked along the shore. I looked for any sign of nearby islands, a ship glinting in what remained of the sunlight, but there were no forms or shapes that I could see.

With this resolved, I turned my attentions inland.

The beach was secluded thanks to the palm trees jostling thickly together, concealing the inland area of the island. This meant that there was nobody within view to remark on my nakedness (at least no one I could see). This also meant there was nobody nearby who I could conceivably call upon for help.

I was all alone.

Up in the trees, I heard the chatter of some tropical bird, the chittering of what sounded like a small species of monkey, perhaps something like a tamarin.

Getting the tingling feeling up my spine that I was being watched, I glanced over my shoulder. But there was nothing but the shore, the thick foliage concealing the island interior.

As night continued to fall, and I convinced myself that lying out on the open beach was perhaps not the best approach to ensure my survival, I pushed myself up onto my feet, glad to note that my body appeared to be well-toned, strong.

Now if only I could find some clothes …

I put one foot in front of the other, feeling each leg sink into the sugary sands, requiring an effort to pull it free each time. The sand was pleasant and warm against my bare feet. When I finally reached the first trees at the top of the beach—something like a cricket or frog was chirruping away—I stopped for a long few moments, absorbing my surroundings once more.

Trying to see whether I might have alerted some other organism to my presence.

But aside from the birds, the monkeys, the sea swelling into shore, the insects I had no prospect of spotting, the unpicked fruits dangling down from the branches deeper into the forest, I could see nothing. I was about to look away from the trees when I saw it.

If it had been broad daylight there would have been no chance of me seeing it. However, as the world was now washed in twilight, any form of illumination was ominous.

About fifty paces into the trees, a white light pulsed.

My heart rose up to my throat.

Because all my instincts told me that this could be a bomb.

Primed to go off.

I felt a chill enter my veins.

I considered my options.

It all depended on the size of the bomb (again some common sense piped in with that realisation). I might be standing at a safe distance depending on this factor.

And if not …?

Well, I would be blown to smithereens, or else mutilated somehow, or maybe just catch a flesh wound if I was lucky (I was stark naked, after all).

I watched on as the white light continued to pulse, trying to work out whether there was any sign that the pulsating was growing faster in its repetition and thus closer to exploding. But from where I was standing I judged that the intervals of the pulsating light remained more or less regular. Darkness had fallen almost completely now, the previously intense sunset colours smothered beneath a film of grey. Behind the trees, I could make out the milky white glow of what appeared to be a full moon, although judging from the weakness of the light it seemed to be concealed behind a rare bank of cloud.

I waited longer, feeling my pulse through my tongue.

My heart raced onwards and my breathing shallowed.

And then—as quickly and decisively as someone snapping their fingers—I realised I should seek out this light in the forest. If it did blow me up then it would only kill a man who no longer remembered who he was or what he was doing. And I morbidly considered that at least the explosion might attract the attention of someone passing by—someone who did know who I had been …

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I picked my way carefully through the undergrowth. The earth was moist and felt pleasant against the soles of my bare feet although the odd rock or thorn in my path sent a juddering sensation up my spine. The long grasses tickled the backs of my exposed calves. I held the white light with my gaze—keeping it to the forefront of my focus.

Adrenaline spiked my veins, sending an electrical charge across the surface of my skin.

The hairs on my forearms stiffened into bristles.

When I got within a dozen paces of the pulsating white light, I experienced a momentary misgiving. My survival mechanism, I suppose—something hardwired into most (if not all) mammals. I came to a halt and then pivoted, taking stock of my surroundings.

It was off in the distance. Back to shore.

A silhouette.

A person.

I observed the silhouette ambling along in the inky darkness which now consumed the island. The person was apparently unaware of my presence.

A voice within me suggested I call out.

And another—louder—voice insisted I remain silent.

In the end, I stood my ground, watching as the silhouette slipped behind the line of trees once again and disappeared from sight. When I was sure the silhouette had moved on, I realised that if it hadn’t been for the tree trunks and foliage standing between me and the shore my silhouette would have been clearly lit up against the pulsating white light.

I had done my best impression of being nothing more than another shrub in this forest.

I had been demoted (or promoted) to being land.

Overhead I heard the warbling call of what I thought might be a monkey. I decided that given the time of night it was more likely to be an owl or some other nocturnal creature. Content that I was once more alone, I stalked the final few steps towards the pulsating light. As the light flickered over my skin it made me seem like some strange, otherworldly beast. I was only able to properly see the object to which the light belonged in the scant moments directly after the light pulsated.

My mind raced as I absorbed the object.

It was some sort of bag.

Long and black with a silver zipper.

It had a white cross marked upon it.

I followed the cords attached to the bag, saw that they led upwards to a parachute stuck in the canopy further above. This bag had been dropped here.

With another glance over my shoulder—and seeing the coast was as clear as I could tell—I stooped down and reached for the bag, for the time being my misgivings about it being some sort of explosive device forgotten. Apparently sensing my proximity, the light stopped flashing.

I waited a few moments for the daze from the glare to dissipate from my gaze, for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, and then I fumbled for the zip on the bag. With jerky motions, I got the bag open, spilling the contents over the forest floor. I could see the whiteness of the clothing in the bag. It was made of some synthetic material which to the touch felt waterproof and yet also breathable (which given the stifling heat of the island on which I found myself was a good thing).

I looked around again.

Through the gaps in the trees, the moonlight beamed down upon the beach.

Everything seemed to be still.

Almost unnervingly so.

Like I was sitting at a chess board across from nature and nature was waiting for me to make the next move.

I pulled the clothing free, seeing it was a one-piece overall with a zip down the middle. I unzipped it and—with another look around, as though someone might have minded me concealing my nakedness with this found outfit—I stepped into the suit.

As I shoved my arms and legs through the sleeves and trousers I was surprised at how well padded it appeared to be despite the apparent thinness of the material. It wouldn’t have repelled a bullet, of course, but I was also fairly certain it would keep out the chill when it got colder early in the tropical morning. Just how I was pulling on this knowledge of tropical mornings escaped me, as did my presence here, my identity as a whole. I also noted—wearing the suit—that the neck, armpits, elbows, cuffs at the wrists were all ringed with black. As was the waist, the knees, and the shins. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw the upper torso was also completely black. I wondered if this was to give the jaguars, no doubt roaming this forest, the challenge of spotting me before they ripped my head clean off.

Within the bag, I also found a pair of ankle-length rubber shoes. These were all black save for a white slash across the top of the toe and had a Velcro strip to fasten them. These were perhaps even more welcome than the overalls because they would make walking bearable. I slipped my already aching feet into them and did up the Velcro so they were tight against my ankle.

That done, I straightened, checking my surroundings another time.

Overhead, I heard a distant whirring, whining sound. What sounded like a swarm of mosquitoes approaching. As I knew I would have little chance of spotting a mosquito—even a swarm of them—in the darkness, I focused back upon the bag.

There was more inside.

A one-litre stainless steel water canister. It had a carabiner looped through its lid. After taking a short drink, I clipped the canister onto a belt loop on the waist of my overalls. The canister would dangle and bat against my thigh while I was walking but I decided that water was so valuable that it was worth the annoyance. There was also a squashy zip-up bag containing tear-open pouches. Upon closer inspection of the pouches, I saw they were all food. In the moonlight, I made out an illustration and then read the lettering, Roast Beef Dinner.

It looked like astronaut food.

Was that what I was?

An astronaut?

With that thought echoing in my mind, there was an impossibly bright light.

And then a searing heat cut through my shoulder.

My heart kicked double time.

A flaming hole sprang from the trunk of the tree where the bag’s parachute had become entangled. On instinct, I dropped to the ground, falling onto my front, gripping my afflicted shoulder. I listened for the sound of anything. Footsteps approaching. The crunch of weight through the undergrowth. But there was nothing—even the night-time critters had fallen silent.

There was a thumping feeling at my shoulder.

I caught a sharp smell of copper.

All at once, my stomach lurched, told me what it was.

Blood—my own blood.

Knowing that I had to move before whatever—whoever—had fired on me would come to inspect their kill, I brought my hand away from my shoulder, seeing it was slick with blood. It stained the previously white overalls. The hysterical, wry thought existed in my mind for the briefest of moments:

That’ll be an expensive trip to the dry cleaner’s.

Sure enough I had caught my flesh wound, just not from a bomb.

I wriggled on my front to the bag, seeing whether there was anything within I had missed on first inspection. A moment later, I came up with what looked like a spray can. At first glance it looked as though it said Flesh Putty, although I knew that was most likely my imagination. All the same, I slipped it into one of the zip-up pockets on the thigh of my overalls. A final root through the bag turned up a small foil tray of pills which I slipped into the other thigh pocket and zipped up too. After padding the bag and seeing there was nothing else inside, I almost forgot the astronaut food I had sent scattering when I’d been shot.

I scrabbled on the ground for all the packets I could muster, slipping them into zip-up pockets on the backs of the overalls, other pockets down at my shins. I wondered whether these packets wouldn’t be more like cat food than astronaut food.

This done, I squeezed hold of my shoulder wound and raised myself into a crouch.

I took it as a good sign that my head didn’t immediately get blown off my shoulders so I straightened up a little more before proceeding deeper into the trees.

My survival senses told me I’d be better off in the jungle tonight.

The natives appeared to be hostile.

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I kept up my pace for about ten minutes before I felt comfortable crumpling into a heap at the base of a trunk. There was good thick foliage at ground level, too.

And I could no longer see the beach at all.

Happy enough that I would have a few moments of peace and quiet, I took another slug of water and slit open one of the food pouches (it turned out to be Stewed Carrot and was about as appetising as it was marketed). My immediate pangs of hunger and thirst tended to—if not entirely satisfied—I turned my attention to the spray can I had liberated from the black bag. My shoulder was still oozing blood. I could feel the beginnings of a migraine making its presence felt on my brain. Pouting, I looked at the name on the can again. Sure enough I hadn’t been suffering from psychosis. It indeed read, Flesh Putty.

I looked up, half expecting to find a gun pointed at the bridge of my nose.

But there was nothing except trees.

Off in the distance I heard the cackle of some beastie or other and I took comfort in the fact that nature seemed to have regained its confidence.

Comfortable in its dominion once again.

I unzipped my overalls, slipping the material down my shoulder.

It felt like someone separating my skin from the bone with a hot knife.

The shot had fused my skin to the synthetic material of the overalls.

I sucked at my teeth to stop myself crying out.

As the night air met with the wound I felt a renewed pounding pain.

With my eyes only slitted open I snapped off the cap on the spray can and squeezed the trigger, directing it at the centre of the wound.

At first the sensation was cooling, welcome … and then it became a strange feeling, like a bath sponge expanding under a running tap. I felt the foam—the putty—expanding to fill the entire expanse of the wound. As it pushed up against the extremities of the wound it was like invisible fingers attempting to prise it open before slackening at the last.

I swallowed a yelp, biting my lower lip.

Soon I tasted blood on my tongue.

About a minute later, the pain lessened and then dulled.

When I got my wits back about me, I peered at the wound, marvelling at the flesh graft which had fused into place. The graft was a much lighter tone than my own flesh so it was conspicuous but it covered the entirety of what had been the wound. It had already knitted into my own tissue, stopping the bleeding completely. In the darkness—with only the aid of the moonlight which filtered down through the canopy—I thought the fused skin was darkening at the edges, morphing to match my own skin tone.

For some reason, my stomach twisted in on itself.

I had the uncanny sensation that some sort of creature had landed upon me.

Mended me.

And that now I and it were one.

Content enough that the skin graft was taking, I zipped my overalls back up and then I sat back against the tree trunk, legs splayed out on the soft earth of the clearing. I had been dozing when I heard what could only have been footsteps. My eyelids batting, gradually seduced by the promise of sleep; my mind unspooling, slowly submitting to unconscious thought; my eyelids suddenly fluttered open to their fullest extent. And my mind sharpened to full focus.

I had enough sense not to make any sudden movements—beyond my eyelids—and I remained as still as the tree trunk which propped me up.

A simple old man of the trees.

I knew that this strategy for going undetected was not likely to stand up to close scrutiny. That if I heard my pursuer creeping closer, into visual range, that my white overalls were likely to be conspicuous, even in the near total darkness.

My pursuer’s eyes would have adapted to the gloom just as mine had.

The footfall got louder—the crunch of boots over foliage.

What I thought was the gentle rasp of breathing.

There would be little I could do to escape my pursuer. I knew the odds were not good for anyone unarmed going up against an armed opponent. My only choice would be to run or to stand and fight as best I could with my bare hands. And—feeling the wound my pursuer had already inflicted upon me with their weapon—I knew they had sufficient firepower to just rip my head right off my shoulders. If that shot had been a fraction over to one side, they would easily have done so. If I’d been standing ten or so paces closer it might’ve torn half my body away.

The footsteps crept closer still.

And I heard the ragged intake of breath.

A hesitating sigh outwards.

That was when I realised they were afraid.

More afraid than I was.

Keeping as still as I could, my eyes sharpened on the night air, snapping from one side to the other, scanning for any discernible movement—some advantage which would ensure my survival. And that was when I saw my pursuer.

That was when I saw him.

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Like me, he was dressed in overalls.

Unlike my overalls, which were white, his were entirely black.

The intention was surely that he might melt away into the night.

An unfair advantage if ever there was one.

Although his suit kept him camouflaged to a certain extent, it was his weapon which gave him away.

As best as I could tell, his weapon was a rifle. Every few seconds a light blinked somewhere along the barrel, alerting me to his position anew. He was coming towards me from a three o’clock direction relative to where I sat. It was a marvel that he hadn’t already seen me. I wondered if he wasn’t somewhat unsighted by the blinking light on the rifle—if it prevented his eyes completely adapting to the darkness.

I knew I needed to act fast.

Seize upon every advantage I possibly could.

And that I needed to act now.

I didn’t want to risk giving him another free shot.

I waited as long as I thought feasible—until I could see the whites of his eyes.

Under these circumstances I knew close-range combat would give me the greatest advantage. His weapon was designed for medium, medium-long range combat.

I watched his eyes, seeing them sweep left, and then far to the right.

This time he nearly pivoted on his heel.

And I knew it was my moment.

I kicked off against the tree trunk, leaping towards my pursuer, no thoughts in my mind any longer, just the primal urge to kill or be killed.

I was flying through the air, hands reaching for his throat, by the time he regained control of his weapon, brought it around in an arc. But it was already too late for him.

I had my hands about his neck.

I felt the bones of his spine.

The swell of his Adam’s apple.

I knocked him clean off his feet, onto his back.

He clung onto his rifle.

A couple of shots fired off up into the night air.

The heat was oppressive, stealing the moisture out of my mouth and drawing beads of sweat from my forehead. I smelled burning as the shots singed the canopy above.

A bird or some other creature squawked out in alarm.

We wrestled a few moments before I managed to pin one of his elbows to the ground with my knee. With the other hand, he swung at me with the rifle butt, however he was unable to gain any momentum. If he had relinquished his grip on the rifle he might have had better luck in a fight of brute strength, but he was too attached to his weapon to give it up. And I had my advantage.

My thumbs got into position, pressing down upon his Adam’s apple.

I could tell I was squeezing the life right out of him.

The moonlight glinted off the surface of his still-wet eyes.

I willed his eyes to freeze in their sockets.

For the irises to dry up, his pupils to dilate.

To lose their life and surrender to darkness.

But he hung on, writhing, scrabbling beneath me.

A couple of times he managed to knee me in the backside, but it did him no good.

He could get no leverage.

Finally, the moment came.

Brutal.

Anticlimactic.

A croak at the back of his throat.

The final fit of flailing limbs.

And then … nothing.

He conceded to stillness.

And succumbed to death.

My heart appearing to catch up with what I had just done, now bouncing wildly in my throat, and a fresh coating of perspiration upon my brow, I properly took stock of my pursuer for the first time since we had come together so violently.

I leaned away from him, having to consciously relax my finger muscles, to pull them away from his throat. I could see the deep-purple bruises I had caused with the force I had exerted upon him. The killing force.

But there was something else.

Something on the side of his neck.

As I angled my head to get a better look, I saw that there was some kind of device embedded in his skin—scar tissue surrounding it. A digital screen with a dimmed backlight flashed ERROR over and over again in block capitals. A rasping sound at the back of the man’s throat caught me off guard and I prepared to throttle him once more with my hands. However, when I saw the lifeless expression upon his face I reassured myself that he was gone. And that the device embedded onto the side of his neck controlled something or other within his throat.

That the device was some sort of breather.

Most likely the man would not have been able to survive without it.

At some point a timely medical intervention had likely saved his life.

Only for me to end his life right now.

The heaviness I felt as I lifted my body up off of his corpse was not just due to fatigue, the weakness at recovering from the injury to my shoulder. There was perhaps what I might have thought of as being a moral weight. The knowledge that I was the one who had brought about this man’s demise. And yet I also knew that it had been me or him.

I had won that particular battle.

For some reason I got the sense that this wasn’t the first man I had ever killed.

Overhead, I was aware of that mosquito-like sound once again.

Deciding to exercise caution, I yanked the rifle out of the dead man’s hands, glancing up through the canopy, some of the leaves still burning where the shot had torn through minutes before. The rifle grip was still warm from the man’s hold and the light still blinked away on the barrel. I had no doubt that it was still charged—ready to fire.

The mosquito sound got even louder. And it appeared to be coming from all around.

Then—in the distance—I thought I could hear a much louder chopping sound.

Without a doubt I knew it was a helicopter.

A Chinook, perhaps.

Again, I had no clue as to how this instinctive knowledge had popped into my head.

It was just there.

Like chasing a bug around the room, but it being so tiny I couldn’t see it against the backdrop of the trees, I twisted and turned, trying to see. But before I could catch any sort of glimpse something up and bit me on the side of the neck. My first thought was that it was a horsefly rather than a mosquito. And my first thought was my last thought as my knees weakened and then doubled over, losing all strength.