Heart of Steel (12 page)

              Her throat closed suddenly as she imagined Jim’s current state—mangled and rebuilt, left mindless and insane by whatever process had left him a misshapen cyborg—and she sagged, leaning against Mechanus. She heard his breath catch, and he wrapped his right arm around her waist.

“And to think,” she said numbly. “I was planning on breaking up with him when we got back home.” She had no idea why she was telling Mechanus this. It wasn’t like it was any of his business, and it wasn’t even relevant now.

He was silent for a time, and she could feel his breath lightly teasing her hair.

“That’s quite interesting,” he said finally, speaking slowly. “I believe he was under the impression the two of you were going to be married.”

She dropped the Ionizer.

***

That... could have gone better.

He’d assumed that she’d already seen the note that had been in Jim’s diving bag, but apparently this was so far from being the case that his theory might as well have been in Alpha Centauri. He was disoriented enough from Arthur’s absence and having to concentrate on keeping Jim out of anything crucial, and now he’d gone and said the wrong thing again.

He caught the Plutonic Ionizer 9000 as it fell from her fingers, and was suddenly, acutely aware of how close he was to her. She’d been using the lavender shampoo he’d given her; he could smell it in her hair. The fragrance alone was enough to make his cardiac pump skip a cycle again.
Thud.
The segments of his mind left unoccupied by recent events raced to find a way to fix this latest foul-up.

Maybe she won’t even ask.

“How could you know this?” she asked.

… Blast.

“I’ll tell you later,” he hedged, disengaging himself from her and selecting another weapon for himself, a Jovian Stormcaller. “For right now, we need to get to one of the auxiliary storage facilities by some means and find out what happened to Arthur.” He offered the Ionizer back to her.

“Wait—I thought Jim was the priority,” Julia said, not taking the Ionizer.

“I...” He fell silent, his priorities warring with each other.

He wanted to keep Julia safe.

He wanted to get Arthur back.

He wanted to deal with Jim before he caused more damage.

And he was starting to feel the need for sleep wearing on him. His last few days of frenetic activity were catching up to him, and it was getting harder to concentrate.

“Arthur first,” he decided. “Once he’s back, he’ll be able to help us corral Jim.”

She looked doubtful, but took the Ionizer.

It was something, at least.

“And if we can’t find him?”

The thought sent a prickle of trepidation down his titanium-reinforced spine, but he pressed on. “I have backup copies in data storage facilities all over Shark Reef Isle,” he said. “I find it highly unlikely that he is completely unrecoverable. He can be restored. In the meantime, I’ll get in contact with my assistants for reinforcements.”

He quested out mentally, his mind’s eye calling up a primitive map of the complex, and then narrowing it down to the floor they currently occupied. He glanced across the scattering of data points that marked his creations.

They were wandering—some aimlessly—but he counted at least a dozen nearby. And... the large red marker that indicated Jim staggered drunkenly down a corridor. Mechanus smiled; his plan to blind Jim was working perfectly. On the heels of this thought, however, he felt Jim trying to turn on the lights.

Oh, no you don’t
.

“Hey,” Julia said, touching Mechanus on the shoulder. “Don’t check out on me again.”

He turned to face her. “I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her. “Several of my employees are nearby, but so is Jim. He’s headed this way.”

She took a half-step closer to him, her face a rigidly-controlled mask that endeavored not to look absolutely terrified. “Who’s... who’s closest?”

“Fortunately, that honor belongs to Scarface.”

She slumped. “Shit,” she groaned. “Him again?”

“What?” Mechanus demanded. “He’s—” He stopped short, on the cusp of saying that Scarface was harmless... but then again, one doesn’t make a shark-man to be ‘harmless’. He took a deep breath and tried a different angle. “He’s quite obedient, and he can navigate just fine in the dark,” he said. “He’ll offer some added protection. I’ll call over Bagheera as well—you’ve met him, if you recall.”

She frowned in thought. “The... cat-man?”

“That’s the one.” He was about to summon Bagheera when she continued.

“The one who pounced on me and you said that I wouldn’t have to see him again?”

Mechanus blinked. “Er...” She was right, he realized. How much of his memory went with Arthur? “This is a bit of an emergency, you realize,” he pointed out, all the same, adding for good measure, “And he’s cuddly when you get to know him.”

She gave him a doubtful look. “I’ll... take your word for that.”

“Fortunately, it looks like Scarface will get here before—” A white-hot lance of pain shot through his mind, then, and his sentence broke off in a strangled scream. He dropped the Stormcaller and clutched at

his head, fighting back a wave of dizziness. His left eye was filled with static for several seconds, his right with an opaque red haze. As his vision cleared, the first thing he saw was Julia’s face fixed in an expression of concern. He focused on the sight to anchor himself, and a few seconds later the dizziness faded. He felt her hand on his right shoulder, as if she were trying to steady him.

The lights came on in the hallway, and he glanced up instinctively, the back of his neck prickling with fresh dread.

“We don’t have much time,” he said urgently.

Then a large shape filled the doorway to the armory, and Julia screamed.

Chapter

TEN

Julia was almost certain her heart had stopped when she saw the huge shape lumbering towards the two of them. That it turned out to be Scarface the shark-man was not, in her book, much of an improvement over Homicidal Cyborg Ex, not even when he spoke to Mechanus.

“Master... okay?” he gurgled.

“Yes,” Mechanus replied, maneuvering himself deftly between Julia and Scarface, “Master is relatively uninjured—see?”

Julia didn’t think it was as obvious as Mechanus tried to make it sound, considering his lab coat was torn and his face and one sleeve were smeared with blood, but decided that now was not the appropriate time to point out blood to the shark-monster.

Scarface regarded Mechanus for a few seconds, and then gathered the mad scientist into a bear hug. Mechanus grunted at the impact, and then patted Scarface on one beefy shoulder. It was weirdly touch-

ing to see such a gesture of affection from a shark, but she’d heard of lions and tigers who still remembered people from rescue centers, so it made a very weird sort of sense.

Then he released Mechanus and looked at Julia, who had a sudden, terrifying mental picture of Scarface trying to hug her as well, and she put her hands up in a warding gesture.

“I’m fine!” she squeaked. “No need for hugging, thanks! I, uh... Thank you for your concern!” It wasn’t the most coherent she’d been since coming here, she had to admit, but Scarface nodded his understanding and patted her gently on the head with one leathery hand.

That
was close.

“Scarface,” Mechanus said, “Have you seen Jim recently?”

Scarface nodded and pointed with one webbed hand. “Back that way, headed here. Looks pissed. Caught Anubis.”

Anubis... Julia remembered that was the jackal-man who had brought her and the horse-ape back to her room before all this went down.

Mechanus let out a small groan of dismay. “Is Anubis okay? Did he manage to get away?”

Scarface shrugged. “Didn’t see. Still fighting.”

Mechanus sighed, his face clouded with concern. “Well, there’s nothing we can do for it, I suppose. Are you aware that Arthur’s...?” His face twisted and he fell silent. Julia reached out and squeezed his arm.

Scarface tilted his head and considered this at length, and then nodded. “Not hear him lately. Bad man get him?”

“I... hope not. Julia and I were just about to see if we could find him. Perhaps he was merely deactivat-

ed rather than... deleted.” His tone when he said
deleted
made the word sound a lot like
dead
. He took a deep breath and straightened up a bit. “Fortunately,” he said, his voice sounding steadier, “Arthur is quite clever. I’m certain he managed to get away to one of the auxiliary storage facilities.”

Scarface nodded readily, but Julia thought Mechanus was just trying to convince himself. She’d seen that a lot at the E.R.—people who were convinced the doctors could try one more thing to save their loved ones, or that a D.O.A. patient was just a case of mistaken identity. After all, doctors were miracle workers. Doctors had amazing powers to bring people back from the brink of death. Doctors could do anything.

Denial was a powerful thing.

              “I’ll need you to help round up any of my assistants we can find. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Jim’s on a bit of a rampage, and there’s no telling what he’ll do to anyone he finds. Have them meet us in Sector Three.”

              “Yes, Master,” Scarface burbled. “You be careful.”

              Mechanus nodded. “And you.”

The shark-man shambled off.

“What’s in Sector Three?” Julia asked.

“An access passage to the nearest storage facility,” Mechanus replied. “Once we get in there, we’ll be able to search the network and hopefully find Arthur’s kernel, at least.”

“And then you’ll be able to restore him?” Julia asked.

“Exactly. Then I’ll have all my senses back and we can handle Jim properly.”

He glanced down the hallway, in the opposite direction from Scarface’s path, and then beckoned for her to follow him. She trotted along in his wake, toting the heavy Ionizer and not at all sure that she could use it if pressed.

“I’m also not clear about what you meant by rampant,” she said several yards later.

“It’s... when a machine intelligence goes crazy,” he said. “It could be from anything, ranging from a core malfunction to an inability to reconcile apparently contradictory instructions. Either way, the result is largely the same.”

“And that makes them go crazy?”

“If one is not careful, yes.”

A harsh, metallic roar echoed down the corridor. Julia looked back over one shoulder, but saw nothing in the darkness behind them. She was simultaneously relieved and worried by this.

“Tell me we’re nearly at Sector Three?” she asked hopefully.

“Right through this doorw—”

CLANG.

Julia’s head whipped back around, and she saw that Mechanus was standing in front of what had apparently been an open doorway moments before. Her heart dropped.

“I... did mention that he was in the network, correct?” Mechanus ventured.

“You did.” She glanced back, hugging the Ionizer close and expecting to see Jim thundering towards them at any moment.

Julia glanced around, but when the door closed they were left at a dead end.

“We’ll have to double back—” she started, though she was pretty sure this would lead them directly into Jim’s clutches.

“No need,” he interrupted, and when she looked to see what he was talking about she saw that he was looking up at the low ceiling. She followed his gaze and saw an air vent. His eyes glittered as he looked back down at her. “I have an idea.”

She wanted to tell him that escaping through an air vent only worked in bad action movies, but then remembered who and what he was, and where they were. “Let’s hear it,” she said.

He looked up again and let out a short whistle. The vent cover banged open on a hinge, and she saw an insectile robot the size of a small dog peering down at them from the opening. Its huge, golden luminous eyes blinked owlishly at them.

“I’ll boost you up into the passage,” he said. “It will be sufficiently large to accommodate you, I assure you. This maintenance robot will lead you to the next vent over, which will take you past this door.” He closed his eye, concentrating on his mental map. “On the other side, you’ll find a manual override in the wall to the left of the door. It’s a red handle. Pull it down, and it will open this door.”

She stared at him for a few seconds. “What are you going to do in the meantime?”

He looked up at the vent opening again. “I’m too heavy for the passage to support my weight. I’ll stay here until you get the door opened.” He raised the gun he had taken from the armory, though he didn’t look entirely happy about the next part of the plan. “If Jim comes, I’ll... distract him.” He offered her a wan

smile. “Besides—it’s you he’s after. It’s... the least I can do.”

Mechanus’s logic was getting weirder and weirder. He was acting like Jim going rampant was completely his fault, even though the way he explained it made it sound more like a glitch in Jim’s programming. She still wasn’t sure why Jim would be after her if, as Mechanus said, Jim’s personality was gone. He’d always been a bit on the controlling side, but that shouldn’t matter now.

Shouldn’t it?

She had no time to worry about that now. He was potentially risking his life to give her a fighting chance. That was definitely worth something.

“Okay,” she said, and handed him the Ionizer. Then she reached up and gently caressed the right side of his face, running her fingertips across his cheekbone. “Don’t get yourself killed, do you hear me?”

He shivered at her touch, placed his right hand over hers, and nodded jerkily, licking his lips.

“Okay,” she nodded, pulling her hand away. “Boost me up.”

Conflicting expressions flickered across the right half of his face, but ultimately he propped the gun against a nearby wall and laced his fingers into a stirrup at knee height. She grabbed his shoulders for balance and stepped into it, and he lifted her up until she could pull herself into the passage. It was a bit cramped, but not so tight that she couldn’t move.

She looked back down the vent opening at Mechanus, who was watching back down the hallway.

“Hey,” she said, and he glanced up. “Hand me the gun.”

He handed it up to her, and grasped her hand gently when she reached down to take it. “Be quick,”

he said. “I’ll hold him off as long as I can, but be quick.”

She looked at their joined hands for several long seconds, her heart hammering. Then she looked him in the eye.

“I mean it,” she said. “Don’t die.”

“That’s the last thing I intend to do,” he replied, and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “Now go. Quickly.” And with that he released her.

She pulled the gun back up into the access corridor. The maintenance robot squeaked at her impatiently, then turned and scuttled off down the passage, headed for another vent.

She heard another metallic roar, so close that she jumped and banged her head on the passage ceiling. She looked ahead to the next vent, where the maintenance robot was hopping around and squeaking like an excited puppy eager to be taken for a walk. That vent looked really,
really
far away.

She began crawling, aware that if Jim found them, Mechanus’s survival hinged on her getting that door open.

#

Mechanus was quite positive that this was
not
the worst idea he’d ever had. He was willing to concede that it was
one of
the worst, but it was definitely not
the
worst. Unfortunately, the winner of that particular distinction did not come immediately to mind as Jim stepped into view from around a corner.

He immediately felt Jim’s awareness trying to barrel through his own. Mechanus braced himself for the mental impact, but his concentration was not quite

up to par. Jim’s signal buffeted against his defenses with all the finesse of a derailing train, as though hoping to overwhelm him with sheer force. Mechanus felt a spike of pain in one temple as he struggled to keep the walls in place. Some of them buckled, and Jim raked through certain storage compartments. Mechanus was, however, able to keep Jim out of certain crucial portions of his mind.

The trick, of course, was to keep Jim’s attention on him—to distract him long enough for Julia to get the door open. Mechanus did not consider himself much of a fighter, not without the near-omniscience that Arthur would have given him. He squared his shoulders anyway, and slammed down what defenses he had on Jim’s continued probe.

Jim demanded, the transmission tinged with frustration.

Mechanus returned, leveling the rifle. Jim was
not
getting past him if he had anything to say about it. Mechanus detected a flicker of a thought through the mental link—not so much words as intent—and dodged to one side an instant before Jim’s fist slammed into the blast door where his head had just been. he pointed out, and unleashed his own assault.

He wasn’t trying to get control back just yet—he would have to regain his full mental facilities first—but if he could drive Jim back, or delay him, it might buy the time that Julia needed. Aside from that, he didn’t want Jim to be too close to the blast door if and

when Julia managed to get it open, or else this whole half-baked idea of his would be for naught.

Despite Mechanus’s own flagging mental endurance, he was gratified to discover that Jim still

hadn’t learned the finer points of mental defense, apparently electing to throw everything into offense. Mechanus’s assault sent Jim mentally reeling and actually drove him back several steps.  The expenditure left Mechanus feeling light-headed, though. He tried to concentrate on the task at hand, and caught the flicker of intent again. This time, though, he was too slow, and Jim’s utility claw tore into the meat of his right arm.

Mechanus hadn’t felt true pain for a while—not since working out that particular kink with his cybernetic implants, and the shock of it was breathtaking. Normally Arthur would have automatically administered an analgesic or deactivated Mechanus’s pain receptors, but in his absence the sensation was white-hot, as though his arm had been torn off entirely rather than lacerated.

Jim said, the transmission cutting through the haze of pain.

Mechanus scrambled to activate the pain-cancelling function that Arthur had used, and in the meantime Jim backhanded him with his utility claw. The appendage slammed into Mechanus’s facial implants with a metallic jolt that rattled his teeth together. His mechanical eye sparked and failed, leaving him blind on that side.