Heart of Steel (4 page)

He grasped desperately at the details, trying to tease out more information, but when he tried the vision started to dissolve.

“No,” he whispered urgently. “No no no please no—”

But it was gone, and he stood alone in the corridor. What the deuce was going on? Was his

fractured mind starting to break entirely? And who was this blonde woman? He was certain that he’d known her, loved her, wanted to marry her, but...

                     “Sir?” Arthur’s voice came with a certain degree of calm concern.

                     “Yes, Arthur?”

                     “Miss Julia is back in her room. Are you all right, sir?”

                     “Yes,” Mechanus said, “I’m... I’m fine. I got lost in my thoughts for a bit there.” He shook his head, scattering the last few shards of the mystery woman, and then stood, focusing his mind on the task at hand.

Limb replacement was child’s play to him, but replacing an entire lower half would be more of a challenge—and a delightful one at that. He had detailed files about the particulars, collected from his work on himself. He would need to reinforce the spine, wire everything to the new legs and pelvis, and of course make the new limbs out of something better and stronger than mere flesh and bone. The limbs, too, would need to be stronger, and they could have all the functionality of the originals and more, if he put his mind to it. Even then, of course, Mechanus was certain he could prove to her why he was the superior choice over the ragged remains of her... her fiancé.

His mind stumbled a bit on the term, but he had only to look at Jim’s remains and the flicker of uncertainty was replaced with a fresh surge of smug triumph. Some fiancé he would be for her
now
.

His mechanical lens dilated and glowed blue with enthusiasm as he planned the rebuild. Yes—this

would be a perfect companion and servant for his beloved Julia!

Chapter

THREE

Julia thought that she wouldn’t be able to eat anything after seeing Jim like that, but the laws of irony clearly had other plans. Once she was back in her room, her stomach growled again, almost reproachfully, as if to say
you knew I was hungry, so what’s the delay?
She wrapped her arms around her stomach.

“Arthur?” she asked. The metal football turned to face her with that generic grin.

“Yes, Miss Julia?”

“Could I get something to eat?  I haven’t had anything since before going scuba diving, and that feels like ages ago.”

“Of course, Miss Julia. I will have a meal brought in for you.” The drone paused. “Dr. Mechanus offers his apologies. He does not wish to be a negligent host.”

“I
bet
he doesn’t,” Julia grumbled.

“To your knowledge, do you have any particular food allergies?” Arthur asked, apparently electing to ignore that last remark.

“No allergies. I just want something simple.” She
really
didn’t want Mechanus to go all out on her. It might give him ideas.

“Very well, Miss Julia. Do you wish anything else?”

Julia thought about this. At this point she wasn’t sure if Dr. Mechanus’s hospitality came with any strings attached. She glanced down at the toes of her new leg, wiggling them experimentally. They moved easily, with no indications of nerve misfires or muscle damage. He was a brilliant surgeon, she would grant him that, but...

“I... did have a couple of questions for you.”

“Of course, Miss Julia. I will answer them as well as I am able.”

“How many visitors does Mr. Mechanus actually get, on average?”

“None, Miss. He is very diligent about discouraging the curious.”

She frowned. “The legends about monsters on the island—he spread those?”

“Yes, Miss Julia.”

“So... how many people actually live here?”

“Please specify.”

She frowned again. Specify? What did he mean, specify? Then she made the connection. He was a mad scientist. That meant...

“How many people live here that he didn’t create?”

“Three, Miss. You, Jim, and Dr. Mechanus. You and your companion are the first outside company he’s had in ten years.”

Her stomach dropped. That explained a
lot
, actually. She’d heard of people going insane from extended isolation.

She sat heavily on the bed, looking around at the room where it seemed she would be living for the time being.

Not if I have anything to say about it
, said the sensible voice.

“Is there anything else you require?” Arthur asked.

“‘Anything’ like what?” she asked.

“Anything you could possibly want, Dr. Mechanus will be happy to provide,” Arthur cheerfully told her.

“How about a boat back to Hawaii?” she ventured.

“Except for that.” Arthur’s generic smiley face didn’t even flicker.

“Well, it was worth a try.” She sighed despondently, massaging her forehead with the heels of both hands. She had to think of a way to get out of there.

But first, she needed some way to defend herself.

“My new leg hurts after my walk to and from the lab,” she said, although in truth she felt only the mildest ache at the junction. “I could use a cane or something to help me walk.”

             
And if it’s made of metal, so much the better
, said the reasonable voice.
Even aluminum hurts like a bastard if swung hard enough.

The drone bobbed in a limbless approximation of a bow. “Very well, Miss Julia. I will have it brought along with your meal. Dr. Mechanus additionally invites you to partake of the bathing facilities adjoin-

ing your room. You will find them through the door just ahead of you.”

She looked up; across the room from her was a second door, aside from the one by which she’d entered. She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed it, but figured that she’d had a valid excuse for being distracted, what with being held prisoner and all.

Julia got up, glancing down at her new leg and noticing that, just as Mechanus had said, its skin had changed color to more closely match her own. The foreign foot was shaped slightly differently than her own, and she figured she only noticed now because she’d been paying attention. What sort of surgeon has spare legs just lying around? For a crazy moment, she found herself imagining a room somewhere in the complex with a vat filled with limbs.

She opened the door and found, as promised, a bathroom with a toilet, a shower, and a vanity bearing a number of grooming implements. She looked around the bathroom, certain that Dr. Mechanus had another camera somewhere in there. She didn’t see one—which meant nothing—but did catch her own reflection in the mirror. Her hair was an absolute rat’s nest—not surprising really, after everything. Well, as long as she was an
honored
guest of this Mechanus guy…

“Would you like any assistance in bathing or grooming?” Arthur asked, startling her.

“No! No. I just want to freshen up a bit. Uh, there aren’t any cameras in here, are there?”

“No, Miss Julia. In any case, he has already seen you in the altogether.”

Julia grimaced. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“You’re quite welcome,” Arthur replied, without a hint of irony in his synthesized voice. Julia glared.

“Feel free to indulge in the amenities that Dr. Mechanus has provided. Your meal and your cane will be waiting for you once you have finished.”

“Uh, yeah. Okay.” She wasn’t sure if she could trust the word of one of Mechanus’s faithful servants regarding the presence or absence of cameras, and planned to offer as little of a show as possible.

Let him suck on that.
It was an uncharacteristically rebellious thought for Julia, and she blinked in surprise almost as soon as it had formed.

She waited, listening to the drone’s soft hum fading in volume, until it was cut off by the hiss of her door sliding shut, and then glanced at the neatly-arranged assortment of combs and brushes. She selected a wide-toothed comb and combed out her hair while sorting through her thoughts.

First things first—wait until she saw what Mechanus did with Jim. By all rights, Jim ought to be dead, and while Mechanus could do some astonishing things with limb transplants, she had no idea how he might handle a project that involved a bisected man. She wasn’t even sure why she trusted him that far—for all she knew he was a psychopath—but slim hope was better than none. She was pretty sure any medical board worth its credentials would have a heart attack about even the suggestion of such repairs. She knew that the idea was causing her own stomach to twist uneasily. What would Jim be like on the other side of that? Would he even be functional—either physically or mentally?

She glanced down at her new leg again, wiggling her toes while she teased out a particularly stubborn tangle.

Second order of business—find out how big the place was. The layout was confusing, but so was that of most hospitals, and she knew the complex wasn’t infinite. Shark Reef Isle itself was, what, only a mile or two across? And even assuming the lair took up the entire interior of the volcano, that cut the distance in half. Once she found her way outside, all she had to do was reach the coast...

...Which brought her to the third point: the wolves. He’d called them dire wolves, but for all she knew that was an exaggeration. She didn’t know how aggressive dire wolves would be, but that shark-thing had gone straight for them without hesitation.

She set down the comb and stepped into the shower stall before undressing. She set her clothing outside the stall and turned on the water. It was deliciously hot, and while her tired muscles cheered, she felt a pang of guilt. There she was, in a huge, luxurious bathroom with gold fixtures, fluffy white bath towels and—above all—hot water, while Jim lay in a laboratory somewhere, ripped in half by a shark-monster.

Her throat closed and her eyes stung with tears. It wasn’t fair. None of it was. This was supposed to be a vacation, for God’s sake! She was supposed to be relaxing on a beach and working on her tan, not trapped on a remote island in the South Pacific at the mercy of some mad scientist and his minions. Then again, she was supposed to be happy with Jim, too, and look how
that
worked out.

Her breath hitched, and tears trickled down her cheeks, only to be swept up in the water from the shower and washed away. The lavender scent of the shampoo should have been comforting, but instead it

just reminded her of how far away she was from everything normal.

You need a vacation,
Jim said.

We should go to Hawaii,
Jim said.

I know a great place to go scuba diving,
Jim said.

It will be great,
Jim said.

Not once had he asked her what she’d wanted to do.

For that matter, Dr. Mechanus was doing more or less the same thing. Yes, he’d given her luxury accommodations, but that was just a gilded cage. In the meantime, she had no idea what the hell kind of plans he had for her. He’d given her a new leg—how else might he try to improve her? She might not be able to fight him off if he got it into his head to have his way with her. Best case scenario, he was some sort of weird government experiment that got out of hand, or an escaped mental patient who was
really
into self-modification.

She hugged herself, suddenly shivering despite the hot water.

Stay frosty, Julia
, the sensible voice said,
Panicking will get you nowhere.

She took a shuddering breath and wiped at her eyes. She would have to get control of herself if she was going to get control of anything else.

“Miss Julia?” Dr. Mechanus’s voice suddenly echoing in the shower stall made her shriek in fright.

“What?” she demanded, trying to get her heart rate back to normal.

“Are you finding everything to your liking?”

“I thought the bathroom didn’t have any cameras!”

“It… doesn’t,” Mechanus said, sounding startled, “Arthur  told me  you were  freshening up, and I

thought I would see if there was anything you needed.”

“Just to take a shower in peace!”

Dr. Mechanus was quiet for a long time. “Very well,” he said finally, “I do sincerely apologize.
”
To his credit, he sounded genuinely contrite.

She heard the speaker click off, but remained where she was under the spray for a good minute before she turned off the water. She reached out around the frosted-glass door, grabbed one of the fluffy towels, and wrapped herself in it before stepping out of the shower stall.

When she came out of the bathroom, she saw the shark-monster standing in the doorway. Her heart leaped into her throat, strangling her scream, and she backpedalled so hard into the bathroom that she lost her balance and sat down hard on the tile. She crab-crawled from there, backing into the far corner.

It was a huge, hulking stack of leathery flesh on thick, muscular legs that ended in misshapen webbed feet. Its bullet-shaped head hung low between its heavy shoulders, and it turned to regard her with soulless black eyes. Its arms—oh, how vividly she remembered those arms!—looked like they could lift small cars with little trouble. A leathery shark’s tail hung behind it in a thick J that twitched lazily back and forth. She couldn’t tell what sort of shark had been used as its base, but her mind immediately supplied her with scenes from various
Jaws
movies.

It bore a small table in one hand, a covered aluminum tray in the other hand, and a cane in its jaws. It watched her with the bestial curiosity of a particularly intelligent—but no less deadly—predator, tilting its head slightly, and then set down the table in the middle of the room. The tray came next, carefully

placed on the center of the table, and finally it took the cane from between its serrated teeth and leaned it against the edge of the table with great care. Its task apparently complete, it turned and left. The door hissed shut behind it, but she didn’t hear it lock.

Julia sat where she was for several minutes, not quite able to make her frozen limbs move after the sight of the shark-monster. After what felt like an eternity, her clenched muscles finally loosened, and she uncoiled herself from the corner of the bathroom. She clutched the towel close as she got up, heart still pounding, and ventured out into the room to investigate what the shark-monster had left for her.

As she drew closer, intending to examine the cane first, the smell of hot food hit her nostrils. She lunged forward and snatched the cover off the tray to reveal a plate of baked fish—striped sea bass, unless she was mistaken—steamed string beans, and white rice, plus a glass of a dark red beverage that a small sip proved to be fresh cranberry juice.