Authors: Elizabeth Einspanier
Her stomach growled again, but she was not about to eat in just a towel. Not here, and not now. Reluctantly, she put the cover back into place and retreated back to the bathroom to get dressed, certain that Dr. Mechanus could look in on her at any time otherwise.
Once she was dressed, she investigated the door through which the shark-thing had exited. She remembered that it slid open, and a brief glance revealed a simple panel set into the wall to the right of the door. The panel had a single large button, which currently glowed green. She tentatively pushed the button, and the door promptly hissed open, revealing the corridor again. She leaned out, looking left and right. She heard footsteps approaching, and
she ducked back inside. The door closed automatically a second later.
Only then did she return to the food. God, she was hungry! She tore into it, filling her stomach for the first time in what seemed like days without really tasting it, just driven by the need to eat, eat, eat. She would need to get her energy up if she was to escape, so she made sure to clean her plate.
Once she was done eating, she turned to examine the cane. It had a familiar design—a length of aluminum tube with light scratches where the shark-thing’s teeth had marred it, with a padded, angular handle at the top and a rubber foot at the bottom. She hefted it experimentally. It was fairly light, and she knew that such canes could be a handy weapon in a pinch, and in the meantime she could affect a small hobble to justify its use.
She was starting to feel a little better about her situation, now that she’d given herself at least a fighting chance. She had no idea what time it could possibly be right now, but now that her stomach was full her body was telling her that it was time to sleep. It sounded like a really good idea, especially since she would need her rest if she was going to get out of here.
She climbed into bed, curled up around her new cane, and fell into a fitful sleep. She dreamed—
Her nightmares had recently followed a common theme, relentlessly reliving that night at the hospital, but this time, rather than a single drugged-out maniac with a scalpel, she is being chased through the hospital corridors by a gang of hungry shark-monsters. She turns a corner and collides with Mechanus.
Not to worry,
he says, in his soothing mechanical baritone.
I’ll keep those monsters from getting you. I just need to perform a simple procedure…
And then, supernaturally fast, he whips out a scalpel a foot long, still so wet with blood that the motion sends a spray of red across her face.
She screams—
Julia jolted awake with a yelp. She glanced around quickly, like a hunted animal, searching every corner for shark-monsters—or for that matter, any sign that Mechanus had silently entered her room in the night and was about to perform a simple procedure on her.
She saw that the lights in her room had dimmed to an artificial twilight since she’d gone to sleep, offering just enough of a glow to see by. She saw nothing but the furniture of her room—no shark-monsters, no mad cyborgs, no scalpel-wielding maniacs.
She curled around her cane again, settling in on the bed, but she was sure that she wasn’t going to get any more sleep that night.
***
Mechanus’s thoughts were wandering.
This was not a usual state for him, as he’d long prided himself on his level of concentration, but all the same he kept thinking about Julia, and specifically about the discomfort he’d felt when seeing her in the altogether. It didn’t make sense. Nudity shouldn’t bother him. He was a surgeon and scientist, after all—the human body, while a magnificent machine, should be no more than a very well-organized set of
moving parts and biological processes to him, and in nearly every case it was. He’d seen hundreds of nude bodies in his career—cadavers, mainly—and none of them had bothered him. Not one.
And yet, seeing Julia naked and vulnerable caused the heat to rise in the right side of his face, leaving him with the distinct impression that seeing her that way was just
wrong
. The idea was more than a little unnerving—but her presence seemed to be awakening parts of him that had been dead for ten years.
He’d been working all night on repairing Jim, just as Julia had requested. He bent over the operating table that bore the man’s broken body, working smoothly in tandem with half a dozen robotic arms that dangled from the ceiling. He riveted a new arm onto the abbreviated stump, and then turned the limb over to his assistants to make the necessary wetware interface connections. Jim had a new pair of legs as well now—more functional than pretty, to be honest, but he would be able to get around on them just fine. Flesh had been melded with metal, bone reinforced to support the extra weight, and damaged organs replaced with mechanical equivalents or circumvented entirely. Mechanus had even taken care to keep Jim’s personality largely intact, if muted, in order to preserve his bond with Julia. He didn’t usually work so extensively with human brains, as the animal brains of his assistants worked just fine and could be enhanced as necessary, but he felt confident that he’d repaired enough of the damage. Once he was done, Jim should be a perfect servant for her.
He pushed off, gliding smoothly on the wheels that currently protruded from the soles of his feet until he reached another collection of cybernetic
parts. He rummaged through the bin, surfacing with a three-fingered pincer that he judged would work magnificently for a hand—but then paused, looking at the pincer and then at his own metal hand.
So much of him was machine now... he’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be human. But now...
Ever since meeting Julia he was starting to remember. He was remembering things he couldn’t properly understand, but most of all she reminded him that he was a man, and he wanted to believe that he had standards.
He was a
gentleman
, dammit.
Another memory flashed in his mind, another vision of the strange blonde woman, walking towards him with a double armload of books. Her smile was warm and sweet, and her lips were soft against his cheek. She spoke, and although he couldn’t hear the words she said he suspected there was a name in there—his name. Not the name he went by now, but perhaps the name he had in his previous life, before whatever happened,
had
happened. His closed his eye in frustration, massaging his forehead. This was no time for hallucinations. His project was almost done, and then Julia would be happy. And he would see her smile.
But first things first.
He bent over the repaired—and improved—man on the operating table, putting the final touches on his project. He flipped a switch, and a jolt of electricity coursed into Jim, causing his fingers to twitch. His eyes rolled beneath their lids, and the mechanical limbs that Mechanus had used to replace Jim’s lower half began to move. The repaired man groaned. His face pulled into a rictus of agony, and he let out a strangled cry, trying to sit up. Mechanus placed a
hand on Jim’s shoulder, gently pushing him back down.
“Easy, there, Jim. The pain will subside in time.”
Jim’s eyes slowly flickered open. He glanced around, and ultimately focused on Mechanus. His upper lip drew back in a snarl, baring his teeth.
“Do you know how you got here?” Mechanus asked.
“Ngo,” Jim replied, his slurred speech likely a result of residual neural damage. No matter—Mechanus could fix that as well.
“You had a little encounter in the reef near this island. An encounter with one of my guards. But don’t worry; you and your diving partner will be just fine under my care.”
“Gyu-ya?” Jim asked.
“That’s right. You were a bit more banged up than she was, but I’ve repaired you, as a special favor.” Mechanus smiled. “Just imagine how delighted she’ll be to see you again, Jim.”
Delighted in
me, he thought. “Now, let’s get you on your feet, shall we? Arthur?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Would you be kind enough to go tell Julia that Jim is up and about?”
“Of course, sir.”
After a few false starts, the refurbished man in the lab with him finally managed to lurch to his feet, staggering slightly on his new limbs. Mechanus conceded that the whole affair looked a bit bashed-together, but at least Jim had a new life ahead of him. He could walk and talk, which was more than anyone else who’d been bisected by a shark (or shark-man) could reasonably say. Julia seemed to be impressed
by the work he’d done on her leg; certainly she’d be dazzled by how well he’d fixed Jim!
“Nearly there, sir,” Arthur informed him.
“Excellent! Jim, wait here. I want this to be a surprise.”
Jim looked at him with a dull expression of disorientation, and then looked at his mismatched hands with what might have been wonder, or else confusion. This wasn’t surprising—Mechanus judged his surgical talents to be without peer.
He stepped out of the operating room to meet Julia, and saw that she was leaning slightly on the new cane he’d given her. To judge by the expression on her face, clearly she was expecting great things from him—and to be sure, he intended to deliver.
“Miss Julia,” he greeted her, sweeping a bow to her, “As radiant as always.”
“Uh, thanks,” she replied, “Arthur said that you’d fixed Jim?”
“Yes, of course,” Mechanus replied proudly, “In fact, I toiled all night on him, just so he would be all fixed up for you. Not to worry, though, working on a project of this magnitude is an honor—“
“I want to see Jim.”
“Ah. Yes. Of course. Well.” Her words stung. “Jim? Would you come out here please?”
Jim lurched out. His metal feet clanked on the tile floor, providing percussion against the harmony of servos and gears at work. It was, in Mechanus’s opinion, a decent amalgam of flesh and metal—it would require some refinement later on, but Jim was up and about, as he’d promised.
“Gyu-ya?” Jim slurred.
Julia’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Mechanus beamed. Any minute now, she would tell
him what a marvel the repaired Jim was, and gush over Mechanus’s genius in repairing Jim’s mangled body, and—
His hopes were dashed when Julia screamed.
Chapter
FOUR
“
What the hell did you do to him?
” Jim was a horrifying mashup of flesh and steel—a primitive cyborg or the victim of a devastating industrial accident. His missing arm had been replaced by a three-fingered claw, his legs and pelvis had been replaced by clunky, ugly lower limbs that allowed him to move about under his own power without worrying about such frippery as elegance or streamlining. He looked like he was in intense pain.
Mechanus, for his part, looked confused by her horror.
“What? I...” His brow darkened. “I
fixed
him. Just like you asked me to. He has new legs that won’t wear out. His new arm and hand are stronger than the previous one. I replaced his ruined organs with viable mechanical equivalents. He will live a very long time
like this!” He was nearly shouting now, his mechanical eye blazing red.
Crap
. She’d pissed him off.
The Jim-thing lurched towards her, reaching for her. She backed away from it, not wanting to find out how easily it might rip her apart (accidentally or otherwise) if it got her in its grip.
“Get it away from me!” she yelled.
Mechanus blinked, and the storm-cloud of anger that had been building on his face dissipated just as suddenly.
“Jim, stop.” Mechanus’s voice was quiet but with a note of authority that came from being accustomed to having others follow one’s instructions. The Jim-thing stopped immediately, casting its misshapen shadow across Julia, and turned to regard Mechanus. “Come away from her. Now.” The creature that used to be Jim lumbered away from her, to her immense relief. She saw a small smile cross Mechanus’s face—he was still
proud
of the thing!
Julia was shaking. Alistair Mechanus had done that to him overnight. What plans did he have for her? Regardless of how genteel and polite he had seemed during their initial meeting, anyone who would ‘fix’ a man
that
way was obviously a lunatic.
Mechanus approached her, reaching for her. She let out a short yelp and reflexively swung her cane at his arm. It connected solidly with a loud
crack
, knocking his arm away, and she took off running.
She didn’t have a particular goal in mind—she just had to get the hell away from Mechanus as fast as possible. She just ran.
Her bare feet slapped against the metal floor as she dodged down one corridor after another.
“Julia!” Mechanus called, his voice echoing from a dozen speakers around her.
She ignored him, focusing on getting as much distance between herself and that… that maniac.
“Julia, I can make this right!” his voice called again. She ignored it.
A door slammed in front of her. She dodged right.
She was starting to get a stitch in her side, and her new knee was starting to hurt from the abuse. She hoped she wasn’t about to rupture something. If her new knee gave out before she found a good hiding place, she would be at his mercy—whatever that was worth.
She heard movement around her—various minions barking and growling assent to whatever orders they were receiving right now.
“Julia? Please don’t make this difficult,” he called, still emulating the Voice of God. “I have security forces converging on your position, and it would be best if you didn’t try to fight them.”
Yeah. Not likely. She tightened her grip on her cane. Let them eat aluminum.
A flying robot resembling a metal housefly the size of a cat whirred up to her, and started screeching out an alarm. She whipped her cane around in a flat arc and clubbed it aside. The shock of the impact made her arm go numb, but watching the robot bounce off the wall offered her a certain satisfaction.
That was when a huge furry weight barreled into her from the right. The creature bore her painfully to the floor, knocking the air from her lungs in a painful cough. The cane skittered out of her hand. She twisted in the monster’s grasp, trying to get free, but
it dug its claws into her sides and let a harsh shriek into her face.
She looked up, and found herself nose-to-nose with something modeled after a black-furred jungle cat. In a panic, she swatted at the thing’s face, trying
to fight it off, and it dug its claws in harder. Red-hot pain exploded along her ribs, and she screamed.
“DROP HER.” Mechanus’s voice was like a thunderclap. With an additional twist of dread, Julia realized he wasn’t communicating through the speakers anymore—he was in the room with them. She hadn’t even heard a door open.
She turned, and her eyes widened with fresh terror.
Mechanus marched towards the two of them like the wrath of technology, the hem of his lab coat swirling around his metal-sheathed legs, his mechanical eye glowing hellish red, and light fixtures exploding in his wake, showering sparks. He was holding his right arm close to his side, his only apparent concession to the fact that she’d hit him with a metal crutch, but was otherwise unhampered.
“I. Said. Drop her.” He advanced on the cat-monster, whose ears flattened against its head in a definite
Oh no, Daddy’s mad at me
expression. It released her, and she skittered away until her back met a corner. She was vaguely aware of the continuing burning pain in her sides.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
His mismatched eyes flicked over to Julia’s discarded cane, and then to the light smears of blood—her blood—on the panther-thing’s claws. There was no way she’d be able to reach the cane—her only weapon—in time if he turned his attention
on her, so she stayed still, freezing like a frightened rabbit.
The panther-thing bore the brunt of his wrath. He turned his full attention to it, and it flinched away under his enraged gaze. He grabbed it by one furry ear and slowly pulled it further away from her. It let
out a startlingly kittenish mewl, but shuffled along to keep up.
“She-is-not-to-be-harmed-is-that-understood?” Mechanus snapped at him in a sharp staccato.
It made a plaintive noise and nodded, not looking at either Mechanus or Julia. He released it, and it rubbed at its abused ear.
“Now get out of here,” he snapped. “Now.”
It slunk off, looking more like a kicked puppy than a cat-monster should.
He turned his attention to her, and she instinctively tried to make herself even smaller. She had no idea what he was going to do in light of her escape attempt, and—
—and to her surprise, the right half of his face softened slightly when he looked at her.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly, and then glanced over her. “Oh, dash it all, you’re bleeding—here, let me—” He reached out to her, and she instinctively recoiled.
“Don’t. Touch me,” she hissed.
He froze, wincing, and then glanced away. “I’m... sorry about Bagheera,” he said. “He just gets so enthusiastic. I...” He fell silent for several seconds. “You’re bleeding,” he observed. “I could—”
“I’ll be fine,” she snapped, cutting him off. “Just take me back to my room.”
He looked conflicted, caught at a strange intersection between anger, frustration, and worry. He flexed his right hand and cautiously reached for her, but she flinched away again. The
last
thing she wanted him to do right now was touch her.
He grimaced, and then let out a short breath.
“Arthur,” he said quietly. “Kindly take her back to her room.”
The drone soon appeared, bearing its generic smiley face.
“Miss Julia?” Arthur said. “Right this way.”
She stood up, grimacing as her left knee twinged again with fresh pain. She clutched at it, and saw Mechanus instinctively reaching out to help her, but she hobbled resolutely away and retrieved her cane from the floor.
She risked one last glance back at Mechanus before following Arthur, and she saw an expression of hurt confusion on half of his face, as though he honestly didn’t know what he did wrong.
***
The drone floated away with a low hum, and she followed it, leaving Mechanus standing there, suddenly feeling more alone than he’d ever felt in ten years.
Oh sure, he had his minions and his robots and the ever-faithful Arthur, but—
… but what?
He groaned, rubbing the right side of his forehead with the heel of his hand. He glanced at his fingers and saw that his whole hand was shaking.
That hadn’t happened in... well, about as long as it had been since he’d last felt anger or fear.
In fact, the last time he’d been that angry, he’d...
—he slams his fist through the orange sharps box with the biohazard symbol on it, and then turns his attention to the sphygmomanometer on the wall, tearing it free with his new metal arm and dashing it to the floor. He is screaming, a ragged, inarticulate sound of grief and rage and bone-deep anguish, while
tears stream down his face from his remaining eye. He sees the world through a viscous red haze. Why does this have to happen to him, after all his hard work? He far outstripped all predictions for his recovery, and now—
He snapped back to the present, so abruptly that he had to catch his breath.
What.
The.
Deuce.
. I need you to try to record one the next time it happens.>
Mechanus frowned, thinking. They’d only started when Julia had arrived—which meant that, in her own way, she might be able to help him piece together his own past. But that meant getting her cooperation, and
that
meant making her less afraid of him.
And he
still
wasn’t sure where he was going wrong.
Well. He would do what he could.
He returned to the room where Jim still stood, obeying his last command to stay where he was. His dull eyes met Mechanus’s, and his slack expression twitched briefly into a snarl. He wasn’t a perfect repair job, to be sure, but he was up and about, and that was a start, at least. And Julia had acted like he’d vivisected the man.
Abruptly, Jim jerked his arm from Mechanus’s grasp.
“Hold
still
,” Mechanus commanded him, and Jim froze in place once again.
Mechanus looked at his metal hand, and then touched the plates on his face contemplatively.
Mechanus looked over at the cyborg in question. Jim was still watching him—glaring at him, if Mechanus let his imagination run away with him.
trying to escape,> Arthur pointed out.
Mechanus scowled.
Mechanus pursed his lips thoughtfully, looking at his bruised arm. It hurt like the dickens, but nothing was broken. If she’d hit his metal arm, no doubt the cane would be broken now.