As we drove down the driveway, I saw someone walking towards the house and slowed the ground rover just enough to exchange quick pleasantries.

“Dave! Long time no see.” I said. “Can you order up replacement parts for the maintenance bay? I used up a bunch of components.”

“Sure thing, Jack.” Dave said. “Do you mind if I...”

I laughed. “You know you can order anything you want, as long as it's not ordinance or weapon related.” I said and waved. “You might see me again in a year or so.”

Dave laughed. “Yeah, right!”

Dave waved back to me, and I increased the power to the rover. It didn't take long to get back to the main lift, and at Alyssa's request, we rode it back up to the top to see if anyone else decided to get on. I could feel the tension in everyone as the lift approached the third stop from the top, where the other ground rover had gone; but, there wasn't any sign that anyone was there, or had been there, within the last few hours.

We rode the lift back down to the bottom and drove out of the industrial area to get on the main road back to the military checkpoint. Since there wasn't one on this side of the skirmish area, I followed the advice we'd received the day before and stuck to the rock wall all along the way until we passed the spot we assumed the skirmish was happening. None of the cyborgs could hear anything, so either there wasn't one today, or they hadn't started yet.

We went through the military checkpoint without having to stop. The cyborg on duty just waved us through and we continued on. For some reason, the trip back went a lot faster than it did on the way there. I wasn't sure if it was because I was in a much better mood, or if it was because everyone was a lot more companionable after having a relaxing night's stay at a vacation house.

We got back to the residential and small business area near the Cross-Cavern Tour, and I dropped off the ground rover at the rental place. I picked my robot dog Rusty up and carried him with me as we walked down the street to the platform to wait for the next Cross-Cavern Tour. We stood there for barely five minutes when the warning lights of an incoming car came on, and I smiled.

Things just seemed to be going my way this morning. I thought, and watched as the car came into the station. Only a couple of people got off, including my on-again-off-again girlfriend Sandra, and the large crane picked up the subway car and transferred it to the other track and turned it around.

“Jack!” Sandra said as she saw me. “You really did stay overnight?”

“I had to.” I said, and pointed to Crush. “I had to wait until morning to get this junk pile out of the house.”

“Hey!” Crush exclaimed. “You fixed me! I'm not a junk pile anymore!”

I laughed. “I mean the old server on your back, Crush.”

“Oh.” Crush said, and everyone laughed.

We loaded up on the subway car, and scanned ourselves in to show that we were using up the other half of our purchased tickets. Sandra talked about the sights on this side of the Cavern as the car made it's way across the expanse. Living areas, biodomes, the large Arena where the official cyborg competitions were held, and then we passed the huge building that housed the System.

“I've always wanted to go in there.” Alyssa said.

“Why?” The other female cyborg, Evilin asked. “It's just going to be another server complex, just like the one at the base.”

“I'm just curious.” Alyssa said. “I mean, look at everything the System takes care of. That's some serious processing power!”

I nodded. “It sure is.” I said. “She has hundreds of sub-systems that handle the every day things, though.”

“How do you know that?” Alyssa asked.

“Jack's one of her main programmers.” Sandra said, happy to interject into the conversation, rather than stand there quiet until the next object of interest came along. “He does everything she needs.”

“I do not.” I said. “There's way too much maintenance for just one person to handle. She's got an entire team of us to help her.”

Sandra leaned in close to Alyssa, but spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “He says that, but the System always gives him all of the high priority jobs that she can.”

I laughed. “No she doesn't. Before I left yesterday, One of the jobs I worked on was a food service device's malfunction.”

“You fixed it right away, didn't you?” Sandra asked.

“Well, yeah.” I said.

“How many other attempts to fix it were there?” Sandra asked with a big smile, and Rusty barked. I opened his back panel and looked at the message.

There were 13 other attempts to make repairs; both physical and electronic.

I cleared the message and closed the panel. “A couple.”

“Say, isn't that the tunnel people take for their Turn?” One of the other passengers asked.

“Oh, dammit!” Sandra said, then walked back to the center of the car and activated her microphone. “Sorry for the brief interruption.” She said, covering her ass professionally. “If you look to your right, the office for voluntary sign-up for the Turn...”

I tuned out her voice as I thought about my mother's last Turn. She had gotten so sick afterwards that she never recovered. She withered away despite the doctors best efforts, and died less than a month later. It was then that I finally agreed with my father; he made himself too useful to the System for her to risk his life by forcing him to take a Turn. So, that's what I did, too.

“Why are you so sad?” Alyssa asked.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Taking a Turn is what killed my mother.”

“WHAT?!?” Alyssa exclaimed, and everyone looked at her. “Sorry.”

The other passengers looked back at Sandra as she continued her speech.

“Why do you think that?” Alyssa whispered to me.

I explained what happened, and while I talked, her hand slipped into mine. When I finished, I had a hard time holding the tears back.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I'm so sorry, Jack.” Alyssa said. “I shouldn't have asked.”

“It's all right.” I said, and gave her hand a squeeze. “Although, I should ask you a personal question to make up for it.”

Alyssa looked from side to side, and then back at me. “Okay.”

I leaned in close and whispered in her ear, and her hair smelled nice. “How many norms have you killed?” I asked her, and she froze still. I moved my head to put my ear by her mouth and waited. After only a few seconds, she spoke.

“Fifteen.” Alyssa whispered.

I moved back a little to show her my smile, and her mouth made that little 'o' of surprise.

She must have thought I'd be shocked. I thought and put my mouth back by her ear. “Is that all?” I asked her, and leaned back to watch the scenery. I could feel her staring at me, so I kept the smile on my face until the tour was over and we pulled into the Cross-Cavern Tour Station.

“Thank you for taking the Cross-Cavern Tour today!” Sandra said enthusiastically, and waved to each passenger as they left the subway car. When I came to the door, she turned off her microphone. “I'm glad you made it back okay.”

“It was a close call a few times, especially when we had to cross the war zone twice.” I said and saw Sandra's eyes widen. “With this crack team of cyborgs to help, though; we made it back with only a few repairs needed on Crush.”

The cyborgs laughed, because I was twisting the truth like a pretzel; but, none of them called me on it or told her what really happened. Sandra held my arm until the other passengers left the car, then she kissed my cheek.

“Now I'm really glad you're okay.” Sandra said and let me go. “See you in a few weeks.”

I nodded and left the subway car, and the cyborgs followed me. I followed my HUD display in reverse, just because I could, and we arrived at my living section twenty minutes later.

“You live here?” Crush asked. “This is the upper echelon!”

“I worked my ass off for years to do it.” I said and unlocked the front door with my hand scan, then hit several buttons on the keypad. “Five guests, heavy load.” I said, then looked at my guests. “I had no idea I could get here eventually, though.”

“You didn't know?” Alyssa asked. “Then why did you work so hard?”

“I was bored.” I said and opened the door. “More than you'd think, especially since I was doing what I enjoyed.” I explained. “After I put my five years in the military...”

“WHAT?!?” Alyssa exclaimed.

“You really should try not being so surprised every time I say something shocking.” I laughed and walked across to the heavy elevator that I now had access to. “I was bored there, too.” I said and the heavy elevator door opened. “Five years of replacing the same components, over and over. Running diagnostics and updates all the time. Tweaking operating software that hadn't been updated for longer than I'd been there.” I shook my head as the door shut and the elevator went down to my floor. “My brain was almost numb by the time they let me take an honorable discharge.”

“You opted out on purpose?” Alyssa asked, incredulous. She'd never even considered leaving the military. Once you joined, you were military for life; and that was it. Doing anything else seemed like such a waste.

“Damn right I did.” I said. “They even let me keep my clearance... well, they forced me to, actually... since I pretty much knew everything about their computer operations and they wanted me to keep quiet about it.”

“You...”

“The first thing I did when I got out was sign up for maintenance on the System.” I said. “Grunt of the grunts. Lowest of the low. Bottom of the barrel.” I laughed. “Military time didn't count for diddly-squat there.”

“That's the way you wanted it!” Alyssa said as the elevator door opened.

“Now you're getting it.” I said. “If I'd let my experience in the Cyber Corps affect my work, I'd be stuck in a dead end job and have to do the same thing over and over.” I shook my head and led the five cyborgs down the hall to my apartment. “I was still bored almost to tears, but at least it was different.”

“You're a strange man.” Crush said and stepped into my apartment. “You have got to be kidding me!” He said, completely shocked. “You live in a suite! A full blown top of the line suite!”

“It gets better.” I said as I put Rusty down and hit the button for the food dispenser. “We missed having breakfast at the vacation house.” I picked up a handful of colored algenate discs. “Who's hungry?”

“Somebody hurry up and get this thing off my back!” Crush said and knelt. “I'm starving!”

The other two male cyborgs held the server gently and the other female cyborg unhooked the straps to free Crush from his burden.

“Hand one over!” Crush said, and held his hand out for a disc, and I put all three of them in his hand. “What.. you...” He looked at the three discs, grinned and shoved one of them into his mouth. “Oh, man!” He mumbled with his mouth full. “It even tastes better!”

“Military rations are half a disc while on missions.” I said and handed three discs to each of them. “You can eat them now, or save them for later.”

“Jack... you really shouldn't...” Alyssa tried half-heartedly to say no to them, then ate a disc and hid the other two, just like what her squad mates did.

“Hey, you're all right in my book.” Crush said.

“If I'd known giving you food would change your opinion of me, I could have saved myself the two thousand Points in parts and updates.” I said and laughed. The cyborgs stopped eating and looked at me.

“What?” I asked.

“What did you just say?” Alyssa asked.

“I could have just given him food instead of fixing him.” I said. “He'd be just as happy.”

“No, about the two thousand Points in parts and updates!” Alyssa said, a little loudly.

“I only use the best parts.” I said. “I got sick of the military's policy for 'built by the lowest bidder' parts. They're worse than garbage.”

“But... but...”

“It's fine.” I said. “If it makes you feel any better, I'll send a bill to the military for offsite repairs.”

“No!” Crush said. “I'll... I'll work it off! Every weekend... or... on my days off...”

“I was joking.” I said and laughed. “It would be rejected faster than I could submit it, anyways.”

“Then... how will I...” Crush said, dejected.

“You don't have to do anything.” I said. “I told you before. I enjoyed working on you and your systems.” I explained. “I've never seen such degradation in primary systems before.” I grinned. “I can honestly say that was the most extensive repair operation I've ever done!”

“How can you be happy that it cost you so much?” Alyssa asked.

“It wasn't boring!” I exclaimed. “I got more out of it than Crush did, I think.”

“I don't know about that.” Crush said. “I sure got a lot out of it.” He smiled. “How the hell did you give me an auto-link to the local security grids and sensor packages?”

“It's just a general passcode.” I said. “All of you should have it.”

“We don't.” Alyssa said.

“Crush? Execute 'team share'.” I said.

The flesh side of Crush's face crunched up and he looked like he was under a lot of strain, and then his face smoothed out and he laughed. “It worked! I didn't have to force it or anything! Ha ha!”

I saw the looks on the other cyborg's faces as they received the minor communications update I had given Crush, and it unlocked their access to the security grid and sensors.

“Oh, my god.” Alyssa said as she saw what the minor update had unlocked for her, which included maps and squad communication protocols. “How... how did you...”

“I cannot divulge the intimate secrets of the cybernetic up-link.” I said and put a hand over my heart. “Let's just say that I couldn't give you the update myself, so I had Crush do it.”

“Because you had his access point!” Alyssa said, and I nodded.

“He's already hooked into your squad link, so it was easy to have him shunt it to you.” I said and smiled. “Now, since you've safely delivered me and my old server back to my humble abode, I believe your assigned task is done.”

It was Alyssa's turn to nod. “If the System has been keeping tabs on us, then we should be receiving recall orders pretty soo-” She stopped talking and closed her eyes. “Okay, boys and girls! We've been recalled.”

“Aw.” Evilin, the other female cyborg said and walked to my apartment door. “I liked hobnobbing with the rich and reclusive.”

I chuckled and the two male cyborgs followed her out into the hallway. The door shut behind them, and Crush held a hand out to me.

“You're not going to crush it on me, are you?” I asked and took his hand.

“Naw, Crush is my code name.” He said and shook it. “If you ever need anything, ping it on the military network.”

“I will.” I said and nodded, and he left the apartment.

“Jack.”

“Yes, Alyssa?” I said.

“That was a very nice thing you did for my squad.” Alyssa said.

“You did protect me... eventually.” I said and grinned at her. “I couldn't let you go back into the field without fixing your lack of... well, necessities.”

Alyssa stepped close to me, invaded my person space just like I had done to her the day before, and I didn't mind it in the least.

“Thank you.” Alyssa said.

I reached a hand out and ran it through her hair. “You're welcome.”

“You know... if I wasn't so prejudiced against norms...”Alyssa whispered. “...I wouldn't mind... giving this a chance.”

“If I wasn't so prejudiced against cyborgs...” I whispered back. “...I might... might... crawl into bed with you again.”

Alyssa smiled. “Nothing happened, though.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” I leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Goodbye, Alyssa.”

“Goodbye, Jack.” Alyssa said and left the apartment. I waited for only a moment, then looked down at the server in the middle of my floor.

“Amanda? Pull up the files I saved in my personal space.” I said and knelt. “Let's get to work.”