Heart of Steel (9 page)

“So...?” Mechanus prompted.

“Industrialized.”

“Well, food has to come from somewhere,” he pointed out. “You can only do so much by replicating proteins and complex sugars, and my chimeras don’t seem to like the nutrient slurries at all. I grow fruits and vegetables in greenhouses like this one, as well as grains and medicinal plants that I’ve gathered from all over the world.” He took her hand and led her on into the greenhouse. “For example, did you know that there are over two hundred species of plant that have the potential to cure cancer?”

“I was talking about the flowers, but cancer cures are impressive, too.”

Idiot. Of
course
the flowers. Women liked flowers. “If you enjoy them,” he said, recovering with what he deemed sufficient grace, “I could give you

one of my greenhouses. They’re self-maintaining, each with their own crew of maintenance drones who will ensure that they will remain healthy and green for the foreseeable future.”

“Um... thank... you?” She looked more confused by his gift than anything else, as though she expected the azaleas to attack her. That was silly, of course—carnivorous azaleas were never on his list of projects. The spinescent plants would make much better herbaceous guardians, once he figured out how to make them mobile.

A small table for two had been set up in a large area of floor created by a lot of creative shifting of planter boxes. Arthur had insisted upon surrounding the eating area with yellow tulips for some reason, though he didn’t explain why.

“Here we go,” Mechanus said, pulling one of the chairs out for Julia. “Our food should arrive in a few minutes.”

She sat, perching herself on the edge of the seat. Mechanus chewed his lip.

“Do try to relax,” Mechanus said. “I swear I don’t bite.”

She looked up at him doubtfully, but after a moment of hesitation she shifted herself back in the chair. He pushed it in and seated himself opposite her, interlacing his gloved fingers on the table in front of him. She sat with her hands in her lap, her gaze focused somewhere near the center of the table.

The silence crawled.

Mechanus cleared his throat. “I’m... not great with small talk,” he said. Julia looked up at him questioningly. “Lack of practice, you see.”

“Arthur says you’ve been here ten years,” she said quietly.

“Yes. You’re...” He cleared his throat again. “You’re the first human company I’ve had in all that time.”

“That must have been hard,” she said.

She wasn’t
wrong
, exactly, but he hadn’t known what he’d been lacking until Julia had arrived. He nodded.

“What did you do before then?” she asked.

“That’s the problem with which I was hoping you might help me. I remember... next to nothing before I came to Shark Reef Isle. As far as I can recall, I’ve always been... like this.” He gestured to himself, and then took a deep breath. His cardiac pump was working double-time in his chest, and he could feel the blood roaring in his ears. “Which leads up to what I wanted to ask you.”

This wasn’t the entire truth, of course—he had a thousand things he wanted to tell her, but his mind shied away from vocalizing many of them.

You’re beautiful
, he thought. “You... fascinate me,” he said. “You’re the first human being in a long time to come here, and since you came here I’ve been having... flashbacks, or visions, or whatever you want to call them. Possibly memories of who I was before.”

I need you,
he thought. “I need your help,” he said. “These visions seem to be triggered whenever I interact with you, so... perhaps you will be able to find a way to unlock my past.”

You make me whole
, he thought. “You... remind me what it was like to be human, rather than this...
admittedly very functional
amalgam of flesh and metal. If you help me, perhaps I might be able to... ah... heal properly.”

She stared at him for the better part of a minute. During this time, Romulus came by with two trays of food, set them before Mechanus and Julia, removed the covers, and left. The smell of grilled cheese and tomato soup caressed his nostrils, and he realized that

it had been a long time since he’d eaten a prepared meal rather than the aforementioned nutrient slurries.

Finally, she glanced away from him, looking down at her food.

“I... should be able to do that,” she said quietly. “I’m a doctor, after all. I’m supposed to help others.”

Relief and triumph washed over Mechanus in equal volumes, tempered only by the lack of enthusiasm in her voice. A hundred thousand possible grateful responses flooded him, and he fairly choked on all of them save one.

“Thank you,” he whispered. He glanced down at his lunch, acknowledging its presence for the first time. “Let us discuss further details of this arrangement while we eat, shall we?” He gestured to both meals. “I thought you might want something more familiar, so... tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.”

She took a tentative bite from one corner of her sandwich, chewed, and swallowed. “It’s good, but...”

He raised his eyebrow. “But?”

“Do you keep dairy cows here or something?”

He frowned at this apparent non sequitur. “No... they would require a great deal of grazing land—why?”

She regarded her sandwich for a few seconds, a mild expression of confusion forming. “In that case, where on Earth did you get the cheese? I know you didn’t get this from a grocery store.”

“Oh! Is that all?” He smiled, taking up a spoonful of his tomato soup. “It was a fairly simple matter, really, of replicating the appropriate milk proteins, adding the rennet, and—”

She put her hands up, palms out, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Okay, okay. I

should have known better than to ask how a mad scientist makes cheese.”

He tilted his head slightly. “You... consider me a mad scientist?”

She flushed, dropping her soup spoon back into the bowl with a small
splish
. “I’m—I’m sorry—” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to offend—”

He enfolded her hand between both of his own, and she fell silent immediately, staring at his hands.

“It’s all right,” he said gently. “It’s as accurate a term as any, really.” He glanced at their hands, his cardiac pump skipping a cycle, and then back up at her face. “I will concede that by most baseline standards, I’m quite insane. Mad as a bag of cats, really. I would have to be, to want to take over the world—and I think that frees me from a lot of the constraints of other men of science. I can… imagine the world I want, and the means to accomplish what must seem like a ludicrously lofty goal.”

Her gaze flicked from their hands to his face; her expression was a mask of tightly controlled unease.

“But,” she said, “why do you want to take over the world?”

He stroked her fingers, trying to soothe her anxiety. “I want what I think most people want—a better world. A better place for people to live and work and thrive. I want people who are sick to be able to get cured, without worrying about the cost of the treatment. I want doctors—people like you—to be

able to do their jobs without having to answer to a board of bankers who worry more about finances than medicine. I—” His throat suddenly closed, choking off his next words, though he couldn’t say exactly why. Something about that last statement had sent a spike of ice down the back of his neck.

“Alistair?” Julia said, from approximately a hundred miles away. “Alistair, are you okay?”

“I…” he choked out, searching his mind frantically for the cause of his reaction. He felt chilled, like he’d just been dropped into an ice bath, but whatever lost memory may have prompted it did not surface, instead remaining stubbornly in the miasma of amnesia.

She touched his cheek then, her hand warm and comforting against his skin. He forced himself to focus on her, and saw that her previous anxiety had given way to concern.

“Hey,” she said quietly. “Are you okay?”

He ran his tongue across his dry lips. “I… think so,” he managed. “I just… I don’t know what came over me just then. It was so strange…” He took a deep breath. “I think I’m okay now.”

Her eyes suddenly flicked a few degrees to the side. Her breath caught, and he saw the color drain from her face.

Mechanus closed his eyes and heaved a long-suffering sigh.
Of course,
he thought.
I’m finally making meaningful progress, and she sees something scary standing behind me.

He tapped into one of the security drones patrolling the greenhouse and piloted it over to check the area behind him.

It was Jim. His face was still slack with the same concussed expression, but his eyes blazed.

Damnation.

Mechanus snarled.

why
is he currently standing thirty feet behind me?>

see
that, but why is he not in Sector Six?>

Mechanus inhaled slowly through his nose and opened his eyes, seeing that he was still clasping her hand. “Julia,” he said slowly. “You needn’t be afraid. I will take care of this. Finish your lunch, and I will rejoin you shortly.”

He released her hand and drew away from her, privately regretting the loss of her touch. He stood up briskly and turned to face Jim, blocking his rival’s immediate view of Julia. Jim’s focus shifted, but the expression didn’t change one bit.

“Jim,” Mechanus said, reaching through the neural link into Jim’s mind. “You are not supposed to be here. You will go back to Sector Six immediately, is that understood?”

Mechanus flexed his mental control, and Jim staggered.

“What are you doing?” Julia half-whispered behind him.

“He’s not supposed to be in this part of the complex,” Mechanus said. “I saw how much he upset you, so I arranged for him to be assigned somewhere very far away. I’m just getting him back where he’s supposed to be.”

“How much does he remember?”

Mechanus bit his lip, knowing the truth, but then came to a decision. “Next to nothing.”

He heard her let out a relieved breath behind him, and suddenly felt like a bit of a cad.

“Jim,” he said, forcing his voice to remain steady. “You
will
go back to your station in Sector Six. Is that understood?”

Jim’s lip curled again, and abruptly the sense of mental resistance vanished as Jim turned and walked away.

Well. That could have been a lot worse.

He turned back to face her with what he judged to be a reassuring smile. “See?” he said brightly. “Nothing to fear. Shall we finish lunch, then?” With that, he sat across from her once more.

Her tentative smile was enough at that moment to make him feel like a knight in a lab coat.

Chapter

EIGHT

At this point, Julia was willing to admit that Alistair Mechanus wasn’t the scariest thing living on Shark Reef Isle. That didn’t make him completely
not
scary, but there was something about a man asking for help that tended to get past her defenses. Then he’d locked up when talking about his plans for global conquest. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen such a haunted look on anyone’s face before—and in her line of work that was saying something.

Then there was that expression on the face of that thing that used to be Jim.
That
sent a chill down her spine. Mechanus said he didn’t remember anything, but...

She shoved the thought into the back of her mind as she ate her lunch. It was pretty good, even if the

cheese came about through a science experiment. She decided not to ask about the bread.

“Enjoying your lunch?” Mechanus asked.

She nodded. “I am.” She took another bite of sandwich to prove it.

“Good. I... apologize for Jim. I specifically requested that he be kept away from you, but—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. In truth, she would rather not have seen him again. “So, what did you have in mind as far as getting your memories back?”

“You’re the doctor,” he returned. “What would
you
recommend?”

She made a face. “I’m not that kind of doctor.”

“But you studied emergency medicine,” he pointed out, “which covers many different fields—including psychiatry.”

She sighed. “Under normal circumstances, I would recommend hypnotherapy—a field that is
not
one of my specialties—but these aren’t exactly normal circumstances, are they?”

He glanced away. “No. They’re not. Everything I know is here. I can’t leave. Not until I’m done.”

“Which eliminates most of the ideas I have... leaving only trying to find out what the cause was.”

He sighed. “And of course, if I knew
that
, I’d know what happened to me.”

She nodded. In all likelihood, the triggering event was locked up in the same place the rest of his previous life was—out of reach.

“Well,” he said, “We must make do with what we have, correct?” Julia heard a strange, rhythmic squeaking noise, and glanced in that direction to find that he was rubbing the pad of his right thumb over the corresponding fingertips in a strange nervous ges-

ture. The squeaking was from the rubber of his glove. She hadn’t seen him fidgeting before.

“What’s that?” she asked, nodding towards his hand.

He followed her gaze, and shortly afterwards, his hand stopped fidgeting.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “It... just started recently. I don’t know where it’s from.”

“How recently?”

He looked her in the eyes. “Since you came. The same with the flashbacks. I only started having them the first time I saw you.”

She chewed her lip thoughtfully. That would have been, what, three or four days ago? “It’s a start,” she said. Of course, all she would have to do is pretend that he was any other patient, and...

Yeah. Right.

“Is there anything you require in order to help me?” Mechanus asked.

“Shoes,” she said, without hesitation; if she had something on her feet, going outside would be less dicey. She felt a guilty pang at this thought, though; under the new circumstances it sounds suspiciously like she was planning to abandon a patient, which she absolutely was
not
going to do.

He raised his eyebrow. “Just shoes?” he asked.

Her mind raced. “Well... we’ll also need a quiet room to work in...”

He nodded. “I have plenty of rooms that can be cleared out.”

“Someplace comfortable where we can sit and talk.”

“Yes. I have furniture that we can use.”

“And we’ll need to find out how much you
do
remember.”

He was silent.

“Including talking about these flashbacks you mentioned.”

Presently, the wolf-man returned and took their empty dishes, as discreet as a well-trained waiter.

Squeak, squeak, squeak
went Mechanus’s gloved fingers.

“I will... procure the items you have requested,” he said, the right side of his face carefully schooled back into neutrality. “But first, I would like to show you the... the gift I made for you.”

With that, he leapt from his chair and pulled her to her feet. Julia was left scrambling, so quickly had his attention skittered away from the topic of his past.

“Wait!” she protested. “I thought you—”

“Later,” he interrupted. “I’ll get you the things you require, and then we can begin the process, but first I want to show you your new companion. I worked very hard on him.” And with that he was off, pulling Julia along by the hand and striding so fast on his long legs that she had to jog to keep up.

“Wait—!” she protested again, but he wasn’t listening anymore.

Get control of the situation, Jules,
the sensible voice cautioned.

Right. Easier said than done. Well, nothing ventured and all that.

“
Stop!
” she commanded, digging in her heels and pulling her hand free. She was aiming for an authoritative bark, but her bark was less mastiff and more teacup Chihuahua in register.

He trotted to a halt and turned to look back at her. He looked honestly confused. “What?” he asked.

She took a deep breath. “Look. If you want me to help you get your memories back we’re going to have

to concentrate on that for... more than two minutes at a time.”

An expression of sudden anxiety flickered across his mismatched features.

“I... know it’s going to be scary,” she continued. “These things typically are. But you’re never going to get through them if you avoid them.”

That was when Mechanus checked out entirely. The right half of his face suddenly went slack, and his right thumb started rubbing furiously across his fingertips.

“Shit!” she hissed, and then turned her head to address the ceiling. “Arthur! Are you there?”

“Yes, Miss Julia. What seems to be the matter?”

“Something’s wrong with Dr. Mechanus. I need a penlight.”

“I will get you your penlight directly.”

She turned back to Mechanus, whose condition hadn’t changed. If he passed out or his legs let go, she didn’t know if she would be able to control his fall.

Probably not.

“And bring someone strong enough to lift him if he collapses,” she added.

“Affirmative, Miss Julia.”

The stick-insect robot arrived less than a minute later and handed her the penlight. She shone the penlight into his right eye, flicking it away every few seconds to test his pupil reactions. That eye seemed fine—but then she realized that this might not work effectively on his mechanical eye. So much for checking for brain damage. She tried it anyway, for the sake of completeness, and found the mechanical iris to be just as reactive as its organic counterpart.

Okay.
Probably
no brain damage. It seemed to be just an absence seizure of some sort, but even those required supervision in case of complications.

“Miss Julia?” Arthur said, this time from behind her. She turned and saw the interface drone floating there, displaying a generic frowny-face.

“I... think he’ll be okay, as long as this doesn’t last more than a few minutes.” She glanced at the stick-insect robot, realized that she had no clue what to call it, and decided to improvise. “Stickman and I will watch over him to be sure.”

“Very good, Miss Julia. While we are waiting, I wish to speak with you.” The frowny-face flicked to a flat-mouthed neutral face.

“Okay... about what?”

The Arthur-drone floated down slightly so that it was level with her face. “What are your intentions towards my master?”

“I...
what
?” The question seemed to be completely out of left field, the sort of thing a protective father would ask the prospective boyfriend of his teenaged daughter.

“Answer the question, please.”

Julia sighed and crossed her arms; she didn’t want to have this sort of conversation with a metal football, especially not right now. “First tell me what brought this on.”

“Of course, Miss Julia,” Arthur replied politely. “I am aware that you were wandering the corridors earlier today, and that you absconded with a few items from a first aid kit.”

Julia’s blood froze.
Shit.
Of
course
Arthur would have seen her.

“I am also aware,” Arthur continued, “That leaving here has been foremost in your mind for the duration of your stay.”

“D... does he know?” Julia managed to ask, swallowing the urge to bolt.

“He does not. I have not told him.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because, Miss Julia, I have known him for ten years. I have been his only friend for that entire interval, and I am dedicated to seeing that his needs are met, whether they are as a conversational companion or as an assistant in running the complex. He is deeply in love with you, Miss Julia, and has been ever since he first laid eyes upon you. He would do anything to make you happy, and wishes only to see you smile. I believe your presence has overall been a positive influence on him, so much so that he has not been paying as much attention to his plans for world conquest as a result.” Arthur paused to let her digest this information. “That said, if you break his heart, I will disassemble you without hesitation.”

Her heart clenched in dread. Arthur’s voice hadn’t changed at all from its artificially calm politeness, nor the generic face from its neutral expression, but Julia had absolutely no doubt that he meant it.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

“Do we have an understanding?” Arthur asked.

“Yes,” she squeaked.

“Wake up,” Mechanus suddenly whispered.

Julia looked back up at him, and found an expression of urgency starting to creep into the cyborg’s face.

“Wake up,” he said again, louder, and suddenly grabbed Julia’s forearm.

“What—?” she started.

“Wake up!” he shouted, and he now wore an expression of true terror. “Wake up—please, honey, you have to wake up—I... I can’t move—you need to get out!” He started shaking Julia’s arm, gently at first. “Please—I... I think the car’s on fire! For God’s sake, wake up! Please!” He shook Julia’s arm more violently, and anguish half-choked his next words. “Wake up! Wake up—please, can you hear me? Honey, can y—can you move? Please! Can you hear me?”

“Hey!” Julia called, trying to snap him out of whatever sort of flashback he was having. “Hey, you’re hurting me!”

He released her instantly, his right arm curling up so his hand covered that side of his face, while his left arm continued to hang passively by his side. His breath came in ragged gasps. The rictus of helpless terror on his face alarmed her, and her mind raced, searching for a way to snap him out of whatever sort of attack this was.

“His adrenaline levels are spiking,” Arthur observed.

Julia had no time to think. She remembered a technique that one of her colleagues had used in the ER, during one of Julia’s own flashbacks.

She reached up, seized his face—warm flesh under one hand, cold metal under the other—and forced him to face her. His eyes remained unfocused, his mind still locked in whatever hell he saw.

“Alistair,” she said gently. “Alistair, look at me.”

His eyes finally focused on her; the pupil of the right one dilated so that only the barest ring of green remained, while the mechanical iris of the left twitched and whirred jerkily.

“Alistair, you’re safe. You’re not trapped anywhere. You’re safe at home on Shark Reef Isle, in Sector...?” She looked at Arthur, who was still giving her that unnervingly generic neutral face.

“Nineteen,” he supplied.

She nodded and looked back at Mechanus. “In Sector Nineteen. Arthur’s here, and I’m here. You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you right now. Do you understand me?”

He let out a shallow, quivering breath, and after a few seconds his iris finally contracted to a more relaxed size. He started to shake—at least his right arm did; the rest of him remained rock steady—and he slowly reached up to clasp her wrists with both hands. Shame and gratitude warred on his face, and he dropped his gaze, looking absolutely everywhere but at her.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

He nodded, still not looking at her. He took a long, shuddering breath, and released it slowly.

“I—” his voice caught. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Thank... you.”