Authors: Elizabeth Einspanier
He decided not to tell her that this was the only suit he currently owned, manufactured that day for this exact event.
“I have one more item to give you,” he said, “Something I made special while you were asleep.” He fished in his jacket pocket and pulled out a small box about the size of his palm. He offered it to her, and watched closely as she took it and opened it.
Inside, on a bed of velvet, was a silver pendant crafted of wire, in the shape of several interlocking hexagons.
“What’s this?” she asked, pulling the pendant out on its delicate silver chain.
“It’s a caffeine molecule,” he said, and held his breath as recognition blossomed.
“This is…” she started, and then bit her lip. “Is this like the one you gave to Lauren?”
He nodded slowly. “It’s… a bit complicated. It was an in-joke between us, but… I would like very much for you to wear this tonight.”
“But… why?” She didn’t sound angry or upset, he was gratified to note, just confused.
“You know that I loved Lauren more than life itself, right? That I would have done anything for her?”
She nodded slowly.
“You mean… every bit as much to me. You helped me uncover my past, my humanity. This pendant… that’s what this represents.” He closed his eye. “I’m not skilled with poetry, or flowery language, but… you make me feel whole again. Like I was
before.
Being around you reminds me of burning magnesium, like putting potassium metal in water, like—”
She smiled gently and put two fingers over his mouth, silencing him.
“As far as I can tell, you’re comparing your feelings to explosive chemical reactions, am I right?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I feel the same way. And… under the circumstances, I think it’s sweet that you want me to wear this. It’s beautiful.” She stretched up to kiss him
on the cheek, and he reflexively bent a bit to meet her. “Help me put it on, will you?”
She held out the pendant to him. He took it by its delicate chain, unclasping it as she turned her back to him. He settled the pendant above her cleavage and clasped the necklace in place. She touched the silver molecular diagram and smiled over her shoulder at him.
“Shall we head to dinner, then?” she asked.
He took her hand, lightly kissed her knuckles, and led her deeper into the greenhouse, along a path lined with red roses. This was another arrangement that Arthur had suggested, but Mechanus didn’t need to ask what the red roses meant.
“Wow,” she breathed. “This is all so beautiful! You really didn’t have to—”
“But I did,” he replied, finally back in his element. “I don’t like to take half-measures with anything I do. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”
In the center of an arrangement of planter boxes, they came to a large dining table designed to look like carved mahogany. At its center sat a carefully chosen and arranged floral centerpiece, and off to the side were a bottle of Chardonnay, two glasses, and two place settings.
He led her to one of the chairs and pushed her in, giving a mental command to his servitor drones to bring in the first course. Her face lit up anew with each course that was brought in: smoked oysters, hot-and-sour seafood soup, roasted striped bass, a Caesar salad, and finally tiramisu. She savored each dish with low noises of appreciation that, he thought, sounded a
lot
like the sounds she’d made during their last kiss, which lent the whole meal a fresh degree of sensuality that he’d never exactly associated with
food. Food was for nourishment, after all—but then, he’d made this meal to impress her, and clearly he’d
succeeded. The meal was savory and delicious and a treat for all the senses, a far cry from the utilitarian meals he’d consumed before Julia entered his life.
“You’ve really outdone yourself, Alistair,” she said as she spooned up the last remnants of her tiramisu.
He smiled, basking in the praise. “I have more planned for this evening, remember?”
She let out a satiated groan, sitting back. “No more food, please,” she begged, laughing. “I’m so stuffed I can’t possibly eat another bite.”
“Not quite—we’ve finished with dinner, actually.”
She sat forward again. “What, then?”
“Well, I promised you drinks and dancing as well, you may recall.”
She looked him over speculatively, her expression thoughtful. “That was something else I meant to ask you—when did you learn to dance?”
He coughed modestly. “About five minutes before you arrived.” He smiled and tapped his cranial implants with a fingertip. “I have detailed files.”
She raised her eyebrows at this. “In that case,” she said, “I’d like to see how well the installation went.”
He took her hand and drew her to her feet. At his mental command, a squadron of servitor drones converged on the table, bussing away the dirty dishes but leaving behind the Chardonnay and glasses. As he led her away from the table, more utility robots came forward and smoothly shifted away the planter boxes of roses, making room for a spacious dance floor. Overhead, flying hummingbird drones trained a trio
of searchlights on them, but then dialed back the in-tensity to a soft glow. She looked around, grinning like a schoolgirl at the arrangement.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, putting her free hand over her eyes. “This is… I don’t know. This is beyond anything I’d ever dreamed of. I mean, I knew you had dinner and dancing in mind, but I’ve never...” She laughed, a quiet, breathy sound that would have prickled the hair on the back of his neck delightfully if he had any. “You’ve really pulled out all the stops on this.”
“Always,” he said, pulling her into a dancer’s embrace: his hand intentionally placed on the small of her back, her hand resting on his shoulder, free hands clasped easily. With another thought, he started the music playing, and as the drones tracked them with their spotlights, the two of them danced that romantic dance that lovers do.
He saw a delicate pink blush color her cheeks, and his cardiac pump skipped a cycle. He could hardly believe after everything that they’d been through, that he’d succeeded at this venture—that he’d finally managed to charm her and, by all accounts that she’d fallen in love with him.
Not that he was looking a gift horse in the mouth, he considered as he twirled her through a dance step. Gracious, no. He would no more look for reasons why he should not have such a beautiful, gentle woman as Julia than he would try to talk himself out of world conquest. He had succeeded. He was triumphant. He had his memories back, he had Julia, and soon enough he would have the world… but still something seemed to be missing. He had not yet completely closed the door on his previous life. Lauren’s phantom remained, and the part of him that
she had occupied felt utterly hollow. He wasn’t sure how he could fill this space.
“Miss Julia?” Arthur said from the vicinity of the ceiling.
She glanced up, but Mechanus spoke first.
“What is it, Arthur?” he demanded. “As you can see, I am a bit busy.”
“I have information that Miss Julia requested earlier today,” Arthur said, unruffled by the irritation in Mechanus’s voice.
Mechanus blinked and looked down at Julia. She was closer to him than when the dance had started—almost brushing against him, in fact—but she did not appear to be surprised by this interruption. She met his gaze.
“Yes, Arthur?” she asked.
“Mount Hope Cemetery, Norfolk, Massachusetts. Section 5—”
“What’s this about?” Mechanus demanded, though he had a strange, foreboding feeling that he already knew.
“Miss Julia requested the location of Lauren MacKenzie’s burial site.”
For a few moments, Mechanus couldn’t quite comprehend what Arthur had just said. Then the full significance crashed into him like a derailing train.
“I…” he choked out, but then just stared at Julia. She continued to meet his gaze, her expression gentle and sympathetic.
“You said you’d never had the chance to say goodbye,” she said quietly. “I figured this might help. I can go with you if you want.”
Mechanus’s right hand started to tremble against the small of her back. The offer was simple enough, but once again her charity had caught him by surprise,
and the implications of such a journey were profound. He’d snapped immediately upon learning of Lauren’s death, and events had progressed too quickly from there to have allowed the possibility of finding out where her grave was, let alone visiting it. It might be good for him—and if not, then Julia would be there.
“Arthur,” he said, keeping his voice as level as he could manage.
“Yes, sir?”
“Where did you say her grave was again?”
Julia smiled and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
Epilogue
A few days later, Mount Hope Cemetery found itself host to a strange spectacle. A small flying craft like a helicopter slowly swooped low over the treetops, its twin rotors buzzing like the world’s largest hornet, while the body of the craft bore glowing green tracery that pulsed like the beat of a mechanical heart. It landed delicately within the cemetery itself, agitating the tidily-mown grass into overlapping crop circles that centered around one particular grave marker.
Once the ornithopter came to rest, two gull-wing doors opened in the sides, and its passengers stepped out. Dr. Alistair Mechanus, clad in another black suit, a simple sack coat and grey waistcoat combination that was in high fashion a hundred or so years ago stepped down onto the grass, instinctively raising a gloved hand to shield his mismatched eyes from the
brilliant sunlight, while the other clutched a bouquet of white lilies wrapped in green tissue paper. From the opposite side, Julia Parker likewise stepped down, clad in a navy blue dress.
Mechanus glanced around; some distance away, another funeral service was taking place. Its participants seemed to be paying no attention to the newcomers. Finally his eye fell on the granite headstone. It bore a carved angel on top that seemed to be watching over the grave itself, and on the front were the words ‘LAUREN ELLEN MACKENZIE—Beloved Daughter’ and, below this, ‘1974-2002’. Mechanus took a tentative step towards the gravestone, looking like a man in a dream from which he fully expects to wake.
Julia gently touched his elbow. He glanced over at her briefly, then back at the gravestone, as though mesmerized.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked quietly.
He considered this, and then nodded. He stepped forward, slowly and reverently, and sank to one metal knee before the gravestone, resting his free hand against the rough granite and laying the bouquet of lilies before it. Julia stayed back, giving him the privacy he needed. Ten-year-old grief closed a vise around his chest, squeezing the breath from him for several seconds until it returned all at once in a hitching sob. This time was not as severe as when he’d first recovered his memories; it appears that repetition and time dulled the pain, just a little with each iteration.
Julia walked softly over next to him; he became aware of her presence when she squeezed his right shoulder. He glanced over just as she knelt next to him. She said nothing, but her warm presence com-
forted him beyond words. Julia was right. Coming here did help, if only to bring closure. Fortunately, he now had all the good memories to offset the loss of Lauren, and with them permanently archived on the network, he could revisit them as he wished.
What did one give the woman who had given him back his past?
He looked up from his meditation and over at Julia.
He would give her the only gift that would possibly convey the amount of gratitude he felt towards her.
He would give her the world as her dreams would want it to be, whatever she desired. Would she want to stay in the real world or go back to his world on Shark Reef Isle? She gave him a sweet glance and pointed upward as if to say,
Let’s go back to your world.
Mechanus placed his arm lovingly around Julia’s waist.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Einspanier is the author of the Weird Western novella
Sheep’s Clothing
, as well as a number of short stories and poems published in magazines like
Dark Fire Fiction
,
Down in the Dirt
, and
Abandoned Towers.
She is a member of the St. Louis Writer’s Guild. While she lives in St. Louis, MO, she frequently spends time in worlds of her own creation.
Heart of Steel
is her first romance novel.
Connect with Elizabeth online!
Website: http://elizabetheinspanier.com
Facebook
:
https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth. einspanier.author
Google+:https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Elizabeth Einspanier/about
Twitter: @GeekGirlWriter
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Heart of Steel
, please show your support by writing a review! Independent authors love hearing from their fans!