Heart of Steel (11 page)

Jim swung his heavy claw at Mechanus’s head. Mechanus dodged backwards, feeling the wind of the appendage’s passage past his nose.

Mechanus backed up further until his back met a wall. Jim lunged, grabbing the collar of Mechanus’s lab coat and pinning him in place. Jim raised his utility claw, setting the sharpened phalanges spinning around the central wrist in a blurred display of impending mutilation.

Mechanus had no time to wonder where Jim planned to use that claw on him and, as Jim bore down on him, Mechanus reacted. In a moment of pure, primal desperation, Mechanus threw a left hook at Jim’s face. The metal fist struck hard enough that Mechanus heard Jim’s jaw break, and the whirling blades of death skewed off to the side. Sparks flew as the utility claw screeched and ground across the wall inches from Mechanus’s head, and the handful of lab coat that Jim had grabbed tore, sending three buttons shooting off in random directions. Mechanus staggered away from the dazed Jim, breathing hard and fighting back panic.

Jim soon recovered, straightening up heedless of his broken jaw sitting askew. He gave a distorted yell and brought his claw around in another deadly arc. Mechanus threw himself back, and the claw whipped heavily through the air, missing Mechanus by inches and ending with a squeal of tortured metal. Mechanus recovered his footing, and saw that Jim’s claw was stuck firmly in the wall. Jim was glaring utter hatred at Mechanus as he wrenched at his arm again and again, trying to pull free.

Why did he have to give Jim titanium replacement limbs?

Because you never do anything in half-measures, you dolt
, he thought.

No time for regrets, though. Jim wouldn’t be stuck forever.

Mechanus stripped off his blood-smeared right glove and tossed it aside as he started to run.

Chapter

NINE

When Julia got back to her room, she changed out of the blue dress that Mechanus had given her. After some consideration, she hung it up in a wardrobe that looked at first to be made of wood, but when she opened it she found that it was a wood veneer over metal.

Of course it was. She hadn’t seen a single thing on this island crafted out of wood since she’d arrived. Everything was metal here.

Her new pet, the horse-ape, handed her a shirt and pants. To Julia’s surprise, the creature did indeed seem to be as gentle as Mechanus had promised.

“You... need a name,” she said to it—or he, as Mechanus had indicated the creature was male—as she got dressed.

The horse-ape tilted his head attentively and offered no suggestions.

“You’re not one of them that talks, are you?” she ventured.

He shook his head and whickered.

She sighed. “I don’t know what I was expecting.” She pulled her shirt on and looked the horse-ape over.

She remembered one of her neighbors back home had an Australian shepherd whose name had nearly been Chewbacca, until he noticed how gentle the dog was with children. She smiled, remembering the name the dog had quickly earned as a result.

“I think I’ll name you Cuddles.”

Cuddles whinnied in delight, clapping his huge leathery hands.

Just then, the lights flickered and dimmed for several seconds. Julia paused, glancing up. Some instinctive danger-sense sent the hairs on the back of her neck prickling, even when the light levels returned to normal. She held her breath, watching and waiting for any sign of what was happening.

Cuddles knuckled his way over next to her and crouched there protectively, his head on her shoulder.

Just then, the door to her room slid open to reveal Mechanus leaning against the doorframe. The collar of his lab coat was torn and missing a few buttons, revealing the white line of a vertical scar up the center of his windpipe and the top end of a thicker, puckered scar running along his sternum. His nose and mouth were smeared with blood in a swath leading off the right side of his face, and the right sleeve of his lab coat was likewise streaked with a shocking scarlet stain. Her heart immediately started hammering double-time in alarm.

“What—?” she started to ask.

“We have to go,” he said shortly.

“What’s going on?” Julia asked. “What happened to you?”

“Jim’s gone rampant. He’s headed this way. We don’t have much time.”

Julia’s mind raced. “How long?” she asked.

“The lights will go out in thirty seconds. Hopefully that will blind him enough to slow him down.”

“I need to get something from the bathroom before we go,” Julia said, and then glanced at Cuddles. “And I want you to make sure Cuddles is safe.”

As she headed into the bathroom, she heard Mechanus behind her ask, “Cuddles?”

She rummaged in the cabinet under the sink and grabbed the antiseptic spray and suture kit that she had liberated earlier. She shoved both into the waistband of her pants and emerged from the bathroom just as the lights went out. Julia bit back a yelp of surprise and froze in place, while Cuddles whinnied in alarm. She glanced around in the suffocating blackness that now filled the room—and as far as she could tell, the corridor outside as well—but the only landmark she could find was a small green light coming from Mechanus’s direction, at about the right height to be his mechanical eye.

For a few seconds all Julia could hear was her own breathing.

“Listen to me carefully,” Mechanus whispered, and his voice carried easily in the silence. “Jim’s gone rampant. He intends to kill you. He...” He faltered, and his next words sounded tight. “I’ve lost Arthur. I don’t intend to lose you. Take my hand.”

“I... can’t see a thing,” she said.

“Put out your hand, then, and trust me,” he said. “I’ll guide you.”

Julia’s throat grew tight, her mind on the edge of panic. She hesitated for a few moments, thinking of all the possible meanings behind Mechanus’s statement that Jim intended to kill her. Jim had always been nice enough to her... more or less. True, he was the take-charge sort of guy, but he’d never been cruel to her.

             
That’s a lie, and you know it,
the sensible voice said.
Not all cruelty leaves a visible mark. You’ve seen enough abuse cases to know that.

              She shivered, suddenly feeling chilled, and then blindly reached into the darkness.

              “Good,” he said, “Now head towards my voice. You don’t have any obstacles in your path, but just step carefully.”

              Julia picked her way forward across the thick carpeting. Every fiber of her being was screaming at her to
hurry hurry hurry
, but she didn’t want to stumble in the darkness, as she headed for the green light.

              “Keep going,” he said, his voice soothing, “Just a few more steps—there.”

Intricately articulated metal fingers sheathed in a rubber glove closed firmly around her hand in the darkness, and she had to bite back another yelp. His grip was gentle enough, though, and after a moment she allowed him to draw her forward in the darkness. His other hand closed on her shoulder, and she instinctively put her free hand out to steady herself. Her fingers found the ragged flap of his torn lab coat, and beyond it, his shoulder. He released her shoulder and wrapped his right arm around her waist. As this proximity she could just make out a strange border

through his lab coat, running diagonally across his chest. Above his line, he was as warm as she expected a person to be, while below it he was rigid, unyielding, and cold.

How much of him had been lost, not just mentally but also physically?

“We don’t have any time to waste,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “We’re both connected to the network. He knows where these rooms are. I’m shutting him out as fast as I can. We have to move. Quickly.”

“I can’t see a thing!” she protested.

“I can see just fine. I’ll guide you. Two of my drones are coming to guide Cuddles to a safe location.”

She hesitated, but finally nodded and allowed herself to be pulled. She didn’t entirely like the idea of pulling all her trust in Mechanus, but clearly he’d tangled with something bigger, meaner, and crazier than he was. If it was after the two of them she didn’t relish the idea of being alone, either.

And besides that, Mechanus looked like he was on the verge of panicking. This didn’t bode well, no matter how you cut it.

She jogged and stumbled through pitch blackness as he led her down the corridor at a swift trot. Her mind spun through the newest revelations, though.

First, Jim had gone crazy—sorry,
rampant
—and intended to kill her. Her mind immediately tried to reject this as false—Jim wouldn’t hurt her... would he? He still seemed to be fixated on her, true, but he hadn’t done anything hostile since he... he...

Maybe Mechanus was keeping him under control,
said the reasonable voice.
He said that Jim wouldn’t hurt you.

That didn’t make current events much better—she had only Mechanus’s word about this supposed control, and clearly it had slipped.

She stumbled in the dark and yelped in surprise. The small green light whipped around to face her.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I just can’t see where I’m going.”

“I’ll guide you,” he replied as he helped her back to her feet, this time placing a strong guiding arm around her waist. It was his left, and it felt like metal all the way to the shoulder.

“Where are we even going?” she asked.

“First, the armory. I have a number of weapons of my own design stockpiled there in case the island was attacked. We’ll gather any minions we encounter along the way to rally a proper defense.” He guided her back into a swift trot.

“And then?”

“Then I need to try to get Arthur back. I need to find out what happened to him and get him back online.” His voice quivered slightly towards the end.

Of course it would—according to Arthur, he’d been Mechanus’s only friend while he was building up Shark Reef Isle. Losing him would have been like losing a brother. Or a child.

Or even a part of himself.

“Here we are,” Mechanus said, slowing to a halt. She panted slightly from the combination of fear and exertion, leaning against him slightly. The green light of his mechanical eye turned briefly in her direction again, but he did not release his grip on her waist. She heard a rapid-fire pattern of beeps, followed by a hiss

and a whoosh. He guided her through a doorway, and seconds later red emergency lights flickered on inside the new room. Only then did he release her.

Dully illuminated by the emergency lights were racks and racks of weapons that she nominally identified as guns—but they weren’t any types of guns she recognized. He picked one up that vaguely resembled a futuristic rifle.

“Plutonic Ionizer 9000,” he identified it. “Delivers a beam of superheated plasma to your target, but watch out for the recoil.” He offered it to her, but she put her hands up and pushed it away.

“Hold on,” she panted. “I have no idea how to use any of these things. I’m not even trained in regular firearms. And if you’re proposing shooting Jim—”

He set aside the Ionizer and took both her hands in his own. He looked at her earnestly with his mismatched eyes.

“Look,” he said, “I think this... this thing with Jim might be my fault. I... I’m not used to working so extensively with human brains, and this was the result.” He took a deep breath. “Therefore, I intend to fix this, any way I can. And I absolutely plan to protect you, with my life if need be—but I don’t plan to leave you otherwise defenseless. Do you understand?”

“How is handing me a plasma cannon going to help things?”

He shook his head. “Without Arthur, I’m... missing half my senses. It’s harder for me to access the maps and databases about the complex. I need you to keep an eye on things behind me while I’m fixing things. Once everything’s back, I should be fine,

but...” He shook his head. “I’ve... never had Arthur

not
in my head. He’s always been there, do you understand? I’ve always had him to talk to.”

This put a different light on things; rather than merely Mechanus’s creation, Arthur had been a literal part of him for ten years. It would have been like losing a limb.

“I... yes. I think I understand.” She knew she never could, though. “I still don’t know how to use any of these things, though.”

He held up the Ionizer and pointed out a small crosshair sight sticking up at one end of the barrel. “You center your target here, and then pull the trigger.”

“Where’s the safety?” she asked, looking over the metal tube.

“...Safety?” he echoed blankly.

Of course there wasn’t a safety switch—weapons like these never seemed to have safety switches, just settings like Stun, Kill, Carbonize, and Disintegrate.

“So... I hold it like this?” she asked, grasping the molded handle and putting the rifle to her shoulder in a way that felt plausible. She was acutely aware that she absolutely lacked any action heroine credentials, but if Jim had gone off the rails, she needed to defend herself.

And if Mechanus was lying... well, she needed to defend herself.

Shark Reef Isle had never exactly felt homey to her, but as she held the Ionizer she was suddenly aware of how unsafe it was: two crazy cyborgs fixated on her, beast-men, robots, constant surveillance...

“Here,” Mechanus said suddenly, reaching around her and helping her position the Ionizer properly. “Like this.”

She froze in his maybe-accidental embrace, but then allowed him to adjust her grip when he gave no indication of an ulterior motive.

“I don’t know about this,” she said.

“Call it practical chivalry,” he said, from somewhere close to her ear. His breath tickled. “I told you when you first got here that I was going to make sure nothing hurt you, right?”

She nodded, her heart pounding. That voice of his! Right now she could almost pretend that it didn’t belong to a physically and mentally broken cyborg. Reminded of his earlier assurance that he wasn’t going to let anything hurt her, she decided now was a bad time to inform him that his closest friend for the past decade had promised to kill her if she broke Mechanus’s heart.

              “Correspondingly, I’m also not going to leave you dangling while I get this fixed. You may have to face him again, and I’m sorry for that. He will need to be handled, one way or another.”

             
Handled.
That was a very...
sterile
way of putting it, like performing surgery to get rid of a tumor, or a foreign object embedded under the skin. Well, it would be a lot more final than...