Girl Cyborg: A Dystopian Action Adventure Thriller

Exam by Fire

The sound of planes leaving the scene had barely faded when explosions started to hit. Bess sent the silent alert via Academy net then ran to her rescue vehicle and strapped in behind the wheel. The team piled in. She knew it was wrong to be excited, but this was it, her final exam.

The bombs had hit a residential tower in the city's east end not far from the Academy, but it wouldn't be easy to get there. Her fat tires bounced over chunks of cement and smaller rubble which filled the streets. To either side, she drove past buildings which had been reduced to mountains of debris, like jagged Lego blocks dropped by giant children. She put the pedal to the floor until each bounce made her head graze the ceiling.

They were getting close. Smoke filled the air stinging her nostrils. Automatically, hyperactive tear ducts released enough liquid to wet the front of her face before she could pull down her gas mask. Hero's tears they called them, at least search and rescue specialists did. Time to earn them. She adjusted the visor over her face, switched on her tanks and took a deep breath.

She pulled up as close as she could to the building and they got out, shovels in the hands of the rescue specialists, machine guns holstered on the backs of the defence cybers as they piled out of their vehicles. The Academy signal came into her head and informed her that this would be a civilian operation in an area not known for anti-Academy activity. The specs she received were for a large apartment building, so it made sense when Bess saw ten vehicles already there, disgorging medics, security cybers, and ordinary undergrads. Each mixed specialty team would be led by a different search and rescue specialist. For the first time, Bess would be in charge of her own.

The building released multiple plumes of smoke. A large piece of the top floor and a chunk of the west side were gone. She jogged through the throng of civilians ignoring the crying babies and moaning wounded all the way to a point 200 m from the front door where she called a huddle with her team members.

To an outside viewer, it must have looked like chaos. Parts of the building were on fire and there was too much smoke to see with ordinary eyes, but Bess couldn't even remember a time when she was ordinary. She was cyber, with the ability to see infrared when she closed her eyes thanks to skin grafts on her eyelids. The Academy had given her a cluster of heat-sensing cells sourced from a pit viper. She scanned to be sure the debris where they were about to stand did not have a person trapped beneath it.

She opened her eyes and directed 20/8 vision at the team members gathering around her. The inner ring was made up of security cybers and medics. The outer ring were prefects, grads who specialized in organizing local civilians to do things like assist victims to ambulances, and sort through recovered bodies. Behind them, standing head and shoulders above, stood the security cybers.

"This will be a humanitarian mission," she said. "All civilians."

"Plenty of eyes on this mission." It was Cap, a security cyber who always acted like he led an offensive team. Bess barely came up to his chest, which made her want to say something to put him in his place - except he was right.

Most of the tenants had heard the planes coming and gotten out in time. The area was thronged with people milling around with that blank-eyed look which meant they were on the edge of shock. A handful of the injured were covered in dust or stained with blood. Despite their moans, Bess's augmented hearing detected weak cries of people still trapped in the building.

"There are a lot of civilians to rescue," she said.

She used the Academy net to access blueprints of the building which she shared in her virtual headspace with the team.

"Bess?" Cherry's voice thundered through the virtual headspace.

"Wait till the rest get connected before we discuss," said Bess. Visibility this close to the building was iffy so she wanted to make sure everyone had seen the floorplan before she gave any orders. Giving orders, especially to the security cybers. It was nerve-racking but she was eighteen years old, strong, and ready. She had to be. Bess had completed every exam and assignment for her degree before the Academy put her in charge of this mission. It was the final practical test of her leadership abilities. If she succeeded she would graduate with honours.

"Let me take the top floor." Cherry was practically hopping up and down she was so excited to go in.

Bess didn't want to let her friend down but Cherry was the last person she would send there. She could just imagine Cherry bouncing and stomping her way right through a weakened floorboard. It would be safer to let her friend dig out the perimeter with the prefects and the security cybers.

Before Bess could break the bad news to Cherry, she detected a faint growling and shifting - the sound of foundations giving way.

"Back!"

Her warning sent the search and rescue team retreating. Bess shouted and gestured for the civilians to move too, but only the closest ones could see her. Fortunately, the rest of her team started fanning out as they ran, racing to get out of the way before the building crushed them. The civilians ran the best they could.

Search and rescue worked in tandem with the defensive members of the Academy, cybers who were built strong enough for combat but who were assigned to provide protection, crowd control, and help with heavy lifting.

Watching them racing ahead she couldn't help but admire these security cybers with their powerful legs, broad shoulders, and graceful movements. Some stopped to help injured civilians, lifting not one but two or even three people at a time.

Behind her, the crash was coming. Bess could feel it. She sped up - with no guarantee she would escape when the building collapsed. Even with her augmented fast twitch muscles, Bess's thighs burned in a life or death race. She pushed herself to the limit. It was fate whether a stray cement block would take her out, or whether she would live to rescue again tomorrow.

Behind her, she heard an ear-splitting crack - rumble - boom as the building went down. The sound became thunder as the rubble rushed outward like a cement wave. Instinctively, Bess held up a hand gesturing for her team to wait but it was the messages she sent out via Academy net that they would hear.

Bess used Academy net to check the time and waited for the building to settle. Judging the correct waiting period was tricky. If she hesitated too long, more civilians might asphyxiate before her team could dig them out. If they moved in too quickly, the building might be still settling. Concrete chunks could shift under their feet and bury her team. Bess didn't always agree with the school's conservative time guidelines but she was 100% by the book on Academy objectives: they must save cybers first, then human military personnel, and then local civilians. It was a matter of applying the strategic and economic principles she had studied in class.

Five minutes felt like an hour.

"Go!" She could sense the heat signatures and hear the cries of people trapped in the rubble. As she drew the shovel from her back-mounted scabbard and raised it to lead the charge, she heard Cherry mutter under her breath:

"About time."

Over Academy net Bess broadcast a message to every grad and undergrad in the rescue team: "The mother I save is my mother. The father I save is my father. The child I save is my child. And she who saves one..."

"... saves the world." Cherry and thirty-five rescue team members responded in a perfect chorus.

Bess took a deep breath and smiled. Time to go in.