The Synthetic Soul
A cyberpunk short by @kiminblackink.

It was near daybreak. The light had not yet reached the lower levels of the Nation Major city towers. The air was chilled and they sent clouds of condensation to be swallowed up by the vents high up on the walls

Ratface could not resist a grin as he settled his body against the concrete. They had done it. It was good to be alive and to know you were alive.

After a hundred yards or so their footsteps skidded to a halt as the corridor bore to the right, [User1] near some functioning security lights. A few billboards rippled past and the humidifiers roared overhead, moreso now as the late evening shift changes began to get into their stride. They had to get off the industrial level-or as it more aptly called Dead Man's Alley.

As if to add urgency to the thought there came the howl of a siren from down the road. Then came the sound of another, almost like an echo from ahead. Four figures froze, all with the same thought. They were running out of time.

Stane leapt down from the rails onto the slate and stumbled on through a fractured and rusted turnstile, decimating it. He raised an arm to save himself and crashed against a battered wall. After a moment of indecision, he accessed his remote interface. Steel plates shredded through the last of the silicon that sheathed his arm. The wall gave, crumbling beneath the reinforced metal as though it were meant to. He peered inside. He could see nothing. He listened intently but the engines overhead made it impossible to hear anything either.  He pulled his head out and turned to the others.

"I can't see a thing." He said and pulled down the sleeve of his sweatshirt to conceal his exposed alloys.  "I'll scope it out."

Then they heard it, the deep rumble that shook the corridor's foundations. The mechana were coming.  Any cybernetic implants could be detected within ten feet, AI signature patterns within fifteen. Put simply, if that monolith came round that corner then they were done for. The tower's targeting system would be activated and the streets would bathed in molten fire.

Ratface craned his head round the street. His cheek glowed a light blue as the Nets pumped his processor with fresh data. Two heat signatures lit up the periphery of his maps before it winked out .It took him a moment to register that his static feed had been restricted, canceled out by the newly activated magnetic fields. The feeling was disorienting. He rubbed a grimy hand across his jaw and scowled. "Definitely coming round this way. Whatever we do, we gotta do it now."

Stane pushed the rubble aside and slipped through. Then Ofu hoisted Asuka onto her back and squeezed into the shadows after him. Ratface quickly followed and shoved the stone back into place as best as possible. It was fortunate they had reached a more dilapidated part of the level, where the damage would go unnoticed.

The smell overwhelmed them. For Stane, it was only a sudden influx of data.  Behind him, he heard Ofu suppress a loud retch and the sound of her spittle splattering the floor. With her enhanced sensory implants, it must have been torture.

"Strewth" Ratface swore, "what died?"

His harsh voice echoed through the chilly air.

Suddenly, strong bodies moved behind them, passing between them and the wall. The smell became unbearable.

They reached for their backpacks but they had no chance. Freezing hands held their arms, so tightly it hurt. A high voice cackled. A light came on, a flickering fluorescent bulb that dangled on a frayed wire as the trains went past.

The sight that met them was almost too foul for words.

Close by them were several dozen people but even then they could barely be called that.

Spinal fluid leaked from heavy rubber neural drainage cables. Broken veins released trails of blood long expired and rancid pus dripped down decaying skin. Some of them dragged along calcified limbs and others stared out from non-existent eyes.

The hands that held them were tattooed with dirt but powered through by unearthly strength. The air swam with their sulphurous stench.

"They're cyphos," breathed Stane

Somehow they had ended up fallen amongst the most dangerous men and women under the Towers, the data drinkers. These were beings whose souls decayed, whose brains had been eaten alive by addictive, malicious strings hidden in the information they devoured. They had no sense of morality. They would die without a thought- more importantly, they would murder anyone just as easily if it meant plugging in.

Ratface cursed again. The nightmare had just begun. There were cyphos as far as the eye could see. They all seemed alive, though judging by the smell some were most likely dead.

They huddled closer together again. Their backpacks were ripped from their shoulders before they were hurled to their knees. Asuka flopped onto the ground, her limbs akimbo and her hair scattered over her blank features.

 Without warning,they were thrust forward. There was a flurry of excitement as they were searched and their bags tossed on the floor. It seemed like most of the visible cyphos were awake now and began to surge closer. Their eyes were dull with a ferocious madness.

Sheer numbers separated them from each other as they were dragged into the cavern. Stane kicked out as he kept his arm pressed against himself. Ratface fought viciously and thus took the brunt of the cyphos sudden rage. There was an audible crack and he screamed as he heard the bones in his arm shatter. The cyphos punched and scratched with startling strength until it seemed that they would be torn apart.

Suddenly, there was another scream and the scream became words. The cyphos retreated  and the others backhanded blood from their eyes as they tried to recover. Ratface reached for Asuka and hauled her against a nearby flickering monitor as her head lolled lifelessly on her neck. Ofu's breaths were harsh as she clutched her waist with one arm.

In the middle of them stood a woman. She was a cypho like the others but larger and fiercer. She didn't appear to have a body, outside of a shapeless mass of flesh held together by the innumerable cables that pierced it.  It was clear that she was the leader. A word rippled through the stinking bodies. Magda..

"Bring the kids over," The voice came from a large speaker, fractured as though devoured by smoke.  "There might be a reward for them."

She studied their faces one by one and as she did so she ripped a neural out of a nearby cypho and plugged it into herself. The man collapsed, shuddering painfully. Snot dripped down her face as her rippling flesh lurched in pleasure and several monitors blinked out.

Disgusted, Ratface stepped forward and he shook with anger and fear. "Fuck you!There's  laws against child abduction.You're-"

Magda snapped jnto awareness and thrust her chin forward, like  as striking snake. The speakers boomed and sent the cyphos around them writhing in response."I'm heaven and earth. They would have torn you inside out and eaten what was left, if I had let them have their way."

"We're from a home."As usual, Ofu kept her cool. Her eye was swollen but she kept her dark gaze fixed on the monstrous addict.

The matriach snapped her head with a loud crunch. One by one monitors flickered on around them and they quickly realized they used a dual feed. Even without any visible eyes, this woman could definitely see them."All of you, from a home?"

"It was big." Ofu's voice was steady. She pressed her arms against herself, her fingers tightened.  "We ain't doing nothing but keeping out of the factory ma'am. Honest."

"Honest?"Magda repeated, mocking.

Stane kept his eye on the doors. They had been sealed shut. Any attempt at escape now was futile. It was best just to do nothing for the time being.

"Idiots," said Magda and she pointed at the backpacks. The contents had torn through.  "See that? That's a cyberbrain and that can only mean one thing. These are synths and synths mean the access to the Nets. Look under the hoods, the jackets. We have it made..."

Immediately, they were molested, their clothes torn away. Stane's arm was exposed, so were Ofu's external server stacks along her back and the nanohydraulics that edged Ratface's features. Several whooped with joy at the sight. "You're right. We're set for life."

"Shit." Ratface gasped as the groping ceased and he retreated."We're in for it now."

Asuka's optics responded for the first time. They glowed softly with feedback through the curtain of her hair and flushed her darkened corner. Ratface stared at her intently but the light quickly dimmed and diminished.

Ofu chewed on the inside of her lip as her gaze darted over the snoring cyphos between them and the door. "It's alright.It's not the security forces this time. These are amateurs."

"Amateurs?" Ratface snorted bitterly. His eyes were damp and bloodshot as he cradled his distended arm. "Not doing too badly are they?"

As though she heard him, her eyes darted to the cyphos nearest to them. They grabbed him and bent him backwards onto the floor. A knife pressed against his belly. Reacting instinctively Stane shoved his friend away, only for fingers to seize his own head.

There was a crunch as his skull was swiftly crushed and destroyed. The pressure lifted and his main processor was exposed.

He swiped at the blood dripping down his cheek but he couldn't do more than that as he was held firmly in place.

The others froze. Ratface collapsed beside Asuka, no longer aware of his surroundings. Ofu watched them carefully, tensely.

"Look at them eyes, sneaky as shit. Ain't human the way those things move. Always moving." The voices above him sounded muted. Stane darted his tongue across the corner of his mouth. The blood trickled in ."Aren't they?"

"Oh, yes. They all are. Never miss anything. Imagine being able to catalogue every fragment of data you are exposed to. All the memories are pure, unblurred by time or age."

There was buzz of an electric scalpel and his personal feed was flooded with warning signals as the tool cut away most of his head."Some of them feel pain some of them don't. This one doesn't. Reinforced skeleton, silicon dermal interface. He's a brute model, bred for combat. It's almost like a game figuring out their purpose.

"All because of this beauty right here."She broke away the remains of his crown, exposing the precision machine beneath. His cerebral sensors activated protective stasis and he slumped onto his knees as his world dimmed.

"So are we gonna harvest 'em?"The nameless cypho asked. Brown slobber already glistened on his chin from the thought of plugging into the Nets.

"Stop thinking with your dick." There was a dull slap of flesh against flesh. "We can use 'em longer than that."

A flicker of meaningless noise, the first sign of his forceful exit from stasis. The live feed was hazy and it took him a few moments to adjust. Most of his internal processors had been remotely deactivated. When he glanced up he sent a silent thanks to Ofu, who had the sense not to acknowledge it. The only sign of her hack was the visible tension around her jaw as her overworked servers were flushed with coolant.

"Here's what we'll do.

"We keep the injured ones, the mute and mouthy one. The brute and the runner can run the Tower for us, hack Nation's higher security Nets."

"What's stopping them two from making a run for it?"

Magda flicked a distorted, fleshy hand towards the others."Them. You see synths ain't just 'droids. They ain't really AI neither. They're unique and they're finite. Most people would prefer to have a crippled arm than none at all.  Why do you think they've been dragging that lifeless doll with them?"

"So, the injured one and the mute can stay while their little friends go out and harvest the Nets for us." The cypho cackled with glee.

Stane gazed at Ratface and Asuka. A  heaviness spread in his chest that had nothing to do with his ejection from stasis. He knew what would happen now.

The cyphos shoved Ofu then him(with far less success) roughly towards the door.  "What are you waiting for? Get lost!"

They blinked. It was daylight outside. The door opened up on the commercial level, many floors above where they originally escaped to. Still, they kept along the shade of the plastic balustrades. Stane immediately broke into run, one hand pulling his hood low over his damaged cranium and his other buried deep against the folds if his clothes, away from view. Soon, they came to a heavily crowded square and they came to a stop, hidden in plain sight.

They letting bodies occasionally pass between them.

"The last time we were used like this," Stane murmured as he estimated the time of completion for his repairs.  "We had to kill to get away."

"I'd do it again," Ofu muttered through cracked lips. "If I had to."

But it would hurt them. Just as though they severed a part of themselves.

"What's stopping us going back Stane?" She whispered, her voice teetered on the near side of strident. "Right now."

He looked up. "If we all die, what evidence would there that we ever lived?"

The look she gave him was bitter but resigned.

***

 Ratface was resting and performing a routine diagnostic on his functioning systems. He also took the chance to look Asuka over. Her optics were no longer active. They had returned to their milky sheen. Still, he took her face gently in his hand and tilted it back. "You almost woke up there, kid. That would have been a little problematic wouldn't it?"

He pulled her close to him. Pressed against her, he could feel the vibrations that so easily echoed his own. It was steel calling to steel.

The relative peace was broken by a loud racket. There was a banging of fists and the sound of someone swearing loudly. "Magda, open this door!"

"It's Fasha."

"Let her in before that noise brings down the security forces!"

The cyphos soon dragged in their new arrival, kicking and screaming."You better learn to exercise some common courtesy before I boot your faces in, you goddamn zombies!"

"I'm the only one that boots any skulls around here, as you well know."

"Magda, darlin'." The new arrival directed a smile so sweet at Magda that it almost looked warped."I came here 'cause I know you got room to spare for your old surgeon, eh? The heat is little high at the moment. I need to lay low."

As she turned, Ratface saw her face for the first time. He straightened in surprise. It was a weathered face, partially hidden by a battered military helmet. She dragged a trolley beside her whirling skirts. It made an unholy noise. Even from here, his feed showed him that she had no enhancements whatsoever.

 She was human.

 A human had walked into the cyphos churning mass unharmed.

She took notice of them just as quickly as he had of her. Slowly, she approached and Ratface watched, his good arm held around Asuka's shoulders. She stopped in front of him, her eyebrows perched expectantly.

After a moment he moved, pulling one leg to his chest. She pulled her trolley within arms reach as she sat down in the small space. Then she reached inside. He tensed then relaxed when he saw an amber bottle glint in the dim light. She lifted it to her lips and took a long drag.

"Word got around about you poor, poor children." She said, at last. "Except, you aren't children are you? The Tower's former finest."

"So what?" Ratface sneered, thrusting his chin out.

She shrugged a heavy shoulder. "It just surprises me that after so quickly gaining your freedom, you would risk putting yourself on the security force's radar by working for these sacks of death."

"We aren't with 'em," he muttered.

"I see," she said. She snorted and spat. "Why're you still here? Talented as I hear you are."

Ratface's grip tightened on Asuka's shoulder but he said nothing.

She examined his features before she leaned her head back against the wall. "So, your friends left you behind?"

He shut his eyes and sighed, a familiar peace settling on him."We would only slow them down."

"It's simple really." She said, eventually."Blow 'em up. Your friends ain't coming back. That one next to you is a sleeper isn't she?"

"I already thought of that." He spat. "It ain't worth the risk.Especially with Magda's goddamn prosthetics. She would probably survive. No-one even croaks here without her say so. "

He sighed."Besides there's no guarantee that the cyberbrain will survive the detonation.

"Even if we all bite it, that has to survive. It's all of us who ever were, our source code."

"Leave Magda to me." She snarled as her face darkened with sudden rage. "I'd like to flush her fatsack full of nanobots and have them eat her inside out."

Ratface didn't miss the venom in her voice by a mile. He squinted at her."What's with you and that cypho bitch?"

"Magda needs me, to keep her alive and I need her." Fasha murmured. With that, she removed her helmet. Her skull was the only smooth part of her head. A  protrusion thrust out from the base of her ear, threaded with dark veins. Judging by its sheer size, the tumor was artificially created and at an advanced stage.

"I'll take it for you, that cyberbrain of yours. Can't promise that I'll keep it safe, I only have a few weeks myself but if you are connected as you say then your friends will find their way to it." With that, she tossed the empty bottle in the tram. There was a sharp sound as it smashed against her tools. "I'd better get going then."

Ratface stood and put his face close to the engineer's. He noticed then how bloodshot her eyes were. "If you're fucking with me, I'll kill you myself."

She pulled her helmet back on with a lazy grin."Son, you remind me of someone."

Ratface watched her make her way towards their backpacks. As she drew closer, he pressed his lips against Asuka's temple. All at once her arms tightened around him. Her optics were already activated and filled his vision with a brilliant light. The Net beckoned them, it was only refuge as their bodies were consumed by fire.