Honored (Book 2 of the In Search of Honor series)

Elizabeth sat on the edge of the hospital bed swinging her feet back and forward like alternating pendulums.

“How do they feel?” A man with long flowing white locks holding a clipboard asked her.

She stopped swinging them. “They seem to be responding to my mental commands the way legs should. Should I try standing?” Her voice was inflectionless and lacked the man’s excitement.

He smiled, “Didn’t I tell you that being a cyborg is amazing!?”

She shrugged. “It is an existence I guess.” Her eyes glanced around the room looking for something. “Where is Dan? He was supposed to be here when I woke up.”

“You know where he is. Just think about it.” He tapped his head.

She blinked, closed her eyes, and then opened them and nodded, “You are right. I do know. I would be worried if I couldn’t find him.”

“Meliana’s programming is strong,” the man laughed in amusement at his own statement.

A woman with a close cut bob, Meliana, walked in, and shook her head at the sight of the man doubled over laughing. “Landon, I swear you find anything and everything amusing. Shouldn’t you just be focused on the physical well being of your patient?”

Landon stopped laughing and glared at Meliana. “When one works with such lively creatures as cyborgs, one such as myself must get my amusement wherever I can. Laughter keeps you young!”

Meliana sighed and rolled her eyes and then turned to look at Elizabeth who was staring blankly at the door. “So, do you want to try standing? With the enhancements we added to your skeleton and muscles it should be as easy as you remember it being before you were shot through your spine.”

Elizabeth nodded and pushed herself to the edge of the bed and off, easily catching herself on the legs that responded to her commands now.

The door to the room opened, and two people walked through. One had the curly brown hair and face of Dan. The other her old memories immediately recognized from the plain oval face to the shoulder length brown hair that was the same as when she last saw her in the Dishonored dungeon.

“Reese,” she stated the other woman’s name in recognition and in greeting.

“I go by R when I am not on a mission, but I am coming here to download the Reese personality for my next mission.” The woman stated in the same inflectionless tone used by all the cyborgs.

Elizabeth noticed there was an R hovering over the woman’s head, and as she wondered if this was because her chips were feeding her names, Dan’s name floated over his head. But she didn’t need the names. The moment she thought that, the names were gone. She looked at Meliana wondering if it would show her name, and sure enough her name popped up above her head, and when dismissed it was gone. A useful feature to be sure.

Her eyes looked back at R. “Are all the Spies cyborgs, or only some?” She asked to fill up information that seemed to be lacking.

“The main people are cyborgs, but we would not work as an organization if we did not recruit heavily from the City,” as R said this, Elizabeth’s brain filled her in on different Spy missions directly related to manipulating her and others in the City. Sleeper agents is what they were called.

“I am no longer a sleeper agent,” Elizabeth stated.

R nodded. “You are now one of us,” she replied before heading over to the computer and sitting down at a chair next to it waiting for her personality download.

“We have our own mission now,” Dan’s voice pulled her attention back to him. He was still standing in the doorway staring at her. “You should see the mission information if you think about it.”

Elizabeth wondered what this mission entailed, and immediately she could hear something like a voice that sounded sort of like her own voice telling her, “Your mission is to leave with the last group of exiles and head farther out into the world.” As she was hearing this, text was also showing up in front of her, though it was difficult to read. It adjusted, and a gray background blocked out the room behind the text. “We would like to know more about the world outside the Wall and what has happened in the span since we retreated to the Walled City. It is expected that you do not stop at the village you were staying at previously. Roderick will meet you outside the village.”

Her thoughts went toward Roderick. Why would he be meeting her outside the village? As she thought about him, she realized one of the reasons he originally left the Wall with her. It did not seem to be the main reason, but the Wall had ordered him to make sure she returned if it was safe. They needed her to rile up the City. More information that was not listed. It seemed she would have to ask Roderick when she met him.

“The final part of this mission,” the voice was speaking in her head again, “is to blend in with the people you run into. It is expected that you use natural speech patterns and inflections. Use your prior speech patterns and local speech patterns as data to create speech patterns to blend in.” The text and voice went away.

“Is that the entirety of the mission?” she asked. It was a very vague mission without a set length or standard for success or when they should return to the Wall.

“That is the mission,” Dan stated. “It is an ongoing mission where we will only return to the Wall when our bodies need maintenance. For most reporting we will bring information back when coming in for maintenance. We will have a satellite connected phone, but it will only transmit small amounts of text back and forward.”

It seemed Dan did have a little more information than her, but as she thought about it, she did know that she was supposed to come back for maintenance, in fact, she could now see small icons in front of her. One showed radiation levels around her and radiation levels for her body. Another showed joint wear and mechanical parts health. The final dashboard showed her chip and code health.

“I see. And a yellow area on any maintenance setting means head back to the Wall.” She stated

“Correct,” he replied.

Something told her it was time to leave, and she followed Dan out of the room. She didn’t need to interact with the Reese personality again.