But she was committed now. She looked at Jose.
“On my word, open the doors. Then lock them again once I get inside.”
“Lock you in with him?” He shook his head. “I can’t! Corinne?—”
“We can’t risk him getting loose in the rest of the station!” she snapped. “Just do it, Jose!”
“All right.” He swallowed hard and nodded.
“Good—now!”
There was a buzzing sound as the locking mechanism disengaged. Corinne rushed forward as soon as the doors slid apart…then came to an abrupt halt as they closed behind her. Her heart was pounding and adrenaline was coursing through her body.
The Rogue Unit still hadn’t noticed her presence. He was bent over an industrial-sized spectroscoper, attempting to tear it up from the floor, no doubt so he could fling it at the cracked window. The thing was as big as a small air car, but he was definitely making progress in unmooring it from the metal floor it was bolted to.
Silas was huddled under a desk beside the spectroscoper—presumably the Rogue hadn’t noticed him yet or he would probably be dead, like the two technicians whose bodies lay broken in the wreckage of the lab. Corinne tried not to look at them.
Taking a deep breath, she shouted as loudly as she could,
“K-Unit, stand down!”
At first it seemed that the Rogue didn’t hear her. He was too busy straining to lift the heavy piece of equipment. The muscles under his mechanical overlays writhed and bulged—he was the biggest specimen she’d ever seen. But despite his size and obvious strength, Corinne wasn’t about to give up.
“Do you hear me? I said stand down!” she shouted again, putting as much authority into her voice as she could.
At last, the Rogue Cyborg seemed to hear her. He stopped straining to lift the spectroscoper and turned to face her. His broad, bare chest was heaving and his pale blue eyes were wild, Corinne saw. Yes, he was clearly having a Neural break. Obviously the idiots who had brought him out of Stasis hadn’t bothered to link with his interface and bring him out gradually.
They probably just hit the kill-switch on the Stasis tube and brought him out all at once, Corinne thought. Which was the exact wrong way to do it.
The K-Unit had almost certainly been flooded with new input, which had undoubtedly caused the overload. Any Handler worth their salt knew you had to bring a Cyborg out of Stasis gradually and the longer they’d been under, the longer the process should take. For a Unit as old as this one, she would have let him have at least twenty-four hours to slowly process his new environment and surroundings. If Silas had given the order to bring him out of Stasis immediately instead of gradually, he was certainly getting what he’d asked for.
But it wasn’t the shivering scientist under the desk she was looking at. All her attention was focused on the Rogue K-Unit. He was just standing there, glaring down at her with those pale blue eyes. Though he had to be hundreds of years old, he certainly didn’t show it. His shaggy, dark hair didn’t have any silver in it and there was no salt and pepper in his beard.
Corinne frowned—that was one difference between him and the newer units. Most modern Cyborgs had no facial or body hair at all. This K-unit had a wild, unkempt appearance—clearly his hair and beard had kept growing, even in the Stasis unit. Maybe there had been a time leak?
But it was his eyes she kept returning to. They were filled with horror and fury, but she could tell it was the kind of fury that consumes someone when their flight/fight/or freeze instinct is activated. This K-Unit wasn’t going crazy because he wanted to maim or kill or destroy—he was trying to protect himself from what he perceived as a threat to his very existence.
Have to calm him down, she thought. Let him know he’s okay.
“Hey, big guy,” she said, taking a step towards him. She kept her hands up and open, letting him know she didn’t have any weapons. The box with the two Linking Stars was in the pocket of her lab coat.
The Rogue Unit took a step towards her. He narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow in a mixture of aggression and confusion. Clearly he was sizing her up—trying to see if she might be a threat.
“I’m not here to hurt you” she said, making her voice soft but firm. “I need you to calm down, okay? Everything is all right—I’m here now. I’ll take care of you.”
His brow furrowed even more and his throat worked as he spoke.
His voice was low and rumbling and the guttural language that came from his lips was some dialect too old for even the lab’s translation software to handle.
Corinne shook her head.
“We don’t understand each other right now. But that’s okay—I can fix that. See?”
Slowly, she withdrew the box from her pocket and opened it for him to see. Inside, the two Linking Stars blinked softly. Lifting one, Corinne placed it on her right temple. There was a slight pricking sensation as the arms of the star sank in and she felt them elongate into tendrils that would reach all the way to her brain. It wasn’t extremely painful but she still wasn’t sure how he would tolerate it. He might go berserk again and try to kill her. Still, she had to try—Linking was the only way to communicate with him.
“Come here.” She beckoned for him—making what she wanted clear with her gestures, even though he couldn’t understand her words.
His eyes narrowed and he took a step towards her.
