Heart of Steel (6 page)

he said.

didn’t
,> he returned, He grimaced; that last statement was perfectly accurate as far as he

could tell, but in his own ears it sounded unnecessarily harsh.

Arthur offered.

Mechanus frowned, realizing he hadn’t even checked on his plans for world domination since Julia arrived.

Blast and damnation! He shouldn’t have let her distract him so much. He would have to steel himself better in the future.

he said, but as Arthur filled him in, his mind drifted to Julia’s beautiful golden hair.

He was a genius, wasn’t he? If he could build an army that would ensure success in his bid for world conquest, why shouldn’t he be able to win the heart of one woman?

He held up his hand, and Arthur paused in his catalog of resources.

Mechanus said.

He wanted to make Julia smile. No—he
needed
to make Julia smile.
Need
was as foreign to him as the burst of anger that had come with her rejection of the refurbished Jim, that flare that had worried him a little and, to his dismay, frightened Julia so badly. He’d
wanted
to conquer the world for some time now, among a great many other
wants
, but had never
needed
a thing until now. The need was deep enough to hurt, to make his more global plans seem insignificant.

He would find a way to fill that need.

Chapter

FIVE

Julia didn’t stop shaking for over an hour. Her knee still hurt, but the pain was receding, leaving her hopeful that it was merely a strain and not a torn tendon or something. If it had been too serious, she knew that she was going to need help in repairing it, and the only help that seemed to be available was a mad surgeon. It was clear enough to her that Mechanus was insane by any standard she could apply, and that Jim was going to be no help to her.

At the thought of Jim’s current state, her stomach churned, and she had to rush to the opulent bathroom to throw up. She leaned on the toilet for several more minutes after she was sure her breakfast was gone before getting unsteadily to her feet and looking in the mirror.

She looked like the sole survivor of a car crash, the sort who had gotten away with only a scratch and

then been informed that all her friends had died on the scene. She’d seen the shell -shocked face that now

looked at her from the mirror a hundred times in the ER—traumatized, disoriented, uncomprehending.

             
Get it together, Jules,
the sensible voice said.

              “How?” she answered it aloud. “He’s... he...” Her voice broke, and she fell silent.

             
Jim is out of the picture, yes,
but you’re not stuck yet. You just need to be smart. You need to take control of the situation, just like you do in the ER. Let’s look at your options.

                  Julia took a deep breath. “Options,” she whispered. The tremor in her voice was lessened but not entirely gone. “What are my options?”

             
First, you need to get yourself patched up. That cat monster did a number on you.

Julia looked down at herself, and for the first time she noticed her torn, bloodstained shirt. She hiked up the hem and saw the blood and claw marks across her ribs on both sides. The claw marks were shallow but painful and still seeping blood. She stripped the shirt off entirely and, standing in her bra in front of the bathroom sink, began washing the scratches with soap and water. As she worked, she heard her door slide open. She peered around the doorjamb and saw the shark-monster entering again with a bundle clutched in one webbed claw.

She froze, her heart pounding, and watched the hulking thing glance around, and then raise its head like a dog catching a scent.

How keen was a shark’s sense of smell? She remembered seeing something about it on the Discovery Channel, but couldn’t recall what the answer was.

Presently the shark-monster lowered its head back to neutral and turned to look directly at her. She was sure she was fairly well-hidden, but then again she just
had
to peek around the doorframe.  Her blood froze and her throat tightened under its gaze, but the expected attack did not come. Instead, it lifted the bundle and held it out to her silently.

Oh, God—what was it doing? Did it expect her to go over to it and take whatever it was from its hand? Did it even know or remember that it had attacked her and Jim?

“Just—just set it down on the bed!” she squeaked in fright.

It tilted its head. How smart were sharks? She didn’t know that, any more than she knew how aggressive dire wolves were. To her shock, the shark-thing answered that question itself.

“Yes, Miss Julia,” it gurgled in a harsh basso rumble that sounded like it was talking through a throat full of thick mucus. She even saw its gill slits flex as its jaws full of chainsaw teeth laboriously pronounced the words.

—
what the hell what the hell what the hell what the hell what the hell what the hell what the hell
—

The shark-monster carefully set the care package down on her bed, and without another word it turned and left.

So,
said the sensible voice,
Now we know that the shark-monster is at least smart enough to talk.

That didn’t mean much—parrots could talk, after all—but it also meant that she was going to have to be extremely careful in her next escape attempt.

Good to know.

After pulling the torn and blood-crusted shirt back on, Julia ventured out to investigate what the

shark-thing had brought. She opened the bundle to find three rolls of bandages, a bottle of clear liquid that smelled of rubbing alcohol, a clean white shirt, and a small slip of paper folded in quarters.

She opened the slip of paper, and found a note written in tight, precise handwriting:

Dearest Julia,

In light of your recent experiences, you may be relieved to learn that I have taken measures to ensure you need never be troubled by Jim ever again, and likewise Bagheera has received punishment for the injuries he has perpetrated upon you.

Please accept these items and use them as you wish. Since you do not wish me to tend to your wounds, it is the least I can do. Please accept my humblest apologies for your recent ordeal.

Yours,

Alistair Mechanus

Julia’s stomach twisted as she reread the note. On the one hand, she was secretly, guiltily relieved that she wasn’t going to see Jim again. Even thinking about him in his current state still horrified her! On the other hand she couldn’t help thinking that him being a cyborg was her fault. After all, she’d asked Mechanus to fix Jim—hadn’t she?

Well,
yes
, but she hadn’t asked Mechanus to do
that
to him.

As for Bagheera, she supposed that was the cat monster that had pounced on her. Well, good riddance to
that
.

On the heels of this, she recalled the expression on the cat-monster’s face when Mechanus—holy
crap
he was pissed—had strode up to them with his mechanical eye blazing and the lights exploding all around him. Julia, for her part, had been certain that he was about to turn that wrath on her as well—and then he’d turned to her, and his expression had softened, as though someone had flipped a switch. He’d looked...

What? Worried? Concerned?

Heaven forbid,
frightened
?

What the hell did he have to be frightened of? This was
his
lair, with
his
minions, and
she
was the one who’d just seen her soon-to-be-ex turned into something horrible.

She picked up the shirt, bandages, and rubbing alcohol and headed back towards the bathroom. Halfway there she stopped in her tracks as another idea struck her.

He wasn’t afraid
of
anything. Maybe he was afraid
for
her.

She continued walking.

No. That was stupid, thinking he was afraid for her. If that were the case he wouldn’t have mangled Jim like he had.

But you saw that expression of relief on his face,
said the sensible voice.
It looked a whole lot like he was worried you’d been hurt. And when he started to reach for you...

Julia shut the bathroom door a bit harder than she’d intended. She didn’t know what he’d had in

mind when he reached for her. She’d just had a cat-monster jump on her—of
course
she flinched away!

She stripped off the bloody shirt again, feeling the dried blood scratching against her skin, and tossed

it aside. She doubted even his people would be able to get the stains out if they intended to, and in any case, it was all torn up. They could do whatever they liked with it now. She started cleaning the scratches again, this time with the alcohol. She hissed in pain as the alcohol stung her wounds, but kept going until she’d treated all of them as thoroughly as she could. She didn’t know if cat-monsters carried cat scratch disease or toxoplasmosis or rabies, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. She wrapped her ribs in the bandages to protect the wounds before putting on the fresh shirt, and then started to wash her hands.

Okay, now that her wounds were treated, now what?

The next thing you’re going to need is a map of the place,
said the sensible voice.
Otherwise you’ll never get out of here.

“That would require paper and pencils, probably,” Julia whispered. “And lots and lots of patience. What else?”

This is going to be the hard part, Jules. You’re going to have to gain his trust.

She blinked. “What—make nice with Dr. Mechanus? Hell no.”

Calm down, Jules. If you gain his trust, you’ll be able to gain more access without getting stopped by his minions.

“Yeah, and?”

And he might have a communications room so you can call for help.

Julia sighed. “Well, there is that.”

A sudden stinging pain in her hands made her jerk them back and look at them. She’d scrubbed them raw.

She hadn’t done that in...

Well. In a while, anyway. It had
almost
become a problem when she was a resident and was washing her hands dozens of times during her shift. It got to the point where she couldn’t get her hands to feel clean no matter how much she washed, but the washing relaxed her. A classic case of OCD, her therapist had told her.

And it had cropped up again after she’d survived the attack. After Jim had rescued her—

She closed her eyes, leaning against the sink. She didn’t want to think about that again. For the longest time, her brain simply refused to let go of the experience, even after weeks of talking to a therapist. She didn’t sleep right for a week. It was just how her mind worked, seizing on an idea and twisting itself into a loop.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Well. Her hands didn’t feel dirty now, but she would have to watch out for this.

She rinsed off one last time, dried her hands, and pulled on the fresh shirt. She looked less like a shell-shocked accident victim now—barely. She splashed water on her face, and then took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy. At all.

She left the bathroom and stood in the middle of the main room, regarding the red LED that marked the security camera.

“Um,” she said. “Hello?”

“Yes, Miss Julia?” Arthur responded.

“Oh. I was thinking that Dr. Mechanus would answer.”

“Dr. Mechanus is currently in one of his laboratories, working on an unspecified project. I believe he is suffering a fit of melancholy after your reaction to Jim.”

A fit of ‘melancholy’?

...Ugh. In other words, she’d hurt his feelings.
Great
. This made things both easier and harder.

“Yeah. About that.” She scrambled for the sorts of words that might function as an apology along the lines of
I’m sorry I freaked out by your turning my boyfriend into a horrifying cyborg
and came up empty. Because she
wasn’t
sorry for that. Not at all. You don’t apologize for fight or flight reactions.

She rubbed her hands together as she thought, in an unconscious hand-washing gesture.

Get his trust, Jules
.

“Look, I... I know he worked hard to get Jim back on his feet. Or any feet.”
God
. What was she saying? “So I wanted to, uh, thank him for the effort?”

Wow. That sounded lame.

Arthur was silent for several seconds. Then:

“Dr. Mechanus accepts your gratitude.”

Julia let out a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding.

“Okay. Good. Um.”
What else what else what else?
“I was wondering if he might be willing to allow me some graph paper and pencils.”

“For what purpose?”

Here we go. She took a deep breath. “I’d like to map the complex. I mean, I feel like this place was designed by Daedalus, you know?”

There came another one of those
oh God this was a bad idea I know he’s going to say no
silences.

“A map of the complex will be provided to you,” Arthur said finally.

Wow. That easy.

Arthur continued speaking. “You should remain aware, however, of the continued hazards of venturing outside.”

“Right,” Julia said. “The wolves.”

“The
dire
wolves,” Arthur corrected her mildly.

“The
dire
wolves, got it. No going outside.”

“Dr. Mechanus wishes to additionally assure you that he is willing to provide you with anything you like in order to make your stay more comfortable.”

Gah. Then again...

“Could you have him... not send the shark-thing by with any more gifts? He... was the one who grabbed us and he kind of freaks me out.”