Metal Heart: Book 1: The Metal Heart Trilogy

by Melinda Crouchley

  “I guess it's working then.”

  His gaze drifts down to the letter.

  “What’s it like?” he asks. “All that pressure to be the perfect victim for these people you don’t even know?”

  “Shitty. It used to be worse. A lot worse. So I went crazy and cut off my hair and ripped the implants out of my face. Most of the crazy I don’t remember but I remember the bombing in excruciating detail and sometimes it’s all I think about—kinda like time froze in that moment and it just keeps repeating over and over again in my brain.”

  “And everything else exists in the before and after. Like your life gets divided in two.”

  “Yeah.” I furrow my eyebrows. “Exactly like that. How do you—”

  He interrupts me—his words running on top of mine in a way that feels accidental but also calculated and designed to change the topic. “You gonna burn those? You promised pyrotechnics and I’m here to make sure you deliver.”

  “You do love fire.”

  He ghost-smiles and gives a low chuckle. “Guilty.”

  “Do you—do you want to burn one?”

  He gives a reserved nod. I offer the letter to him. He accepts it with a rolling of his shoulders, as if a heavy weight pushes down onto him. I turn and grab a lit candle, touching it to the bottom of the page. It burns fast but he keeps his eyes locked on mine. The flames hit his skin and he curses under his breath in Spanish, dropping the letter. The paper ash drifts to the floor. He sucks the tip of thumb and forefinger to dull the pain, looking down at me with a little lift to his lips. My stomach dips unexpectedly.

  I turn to reset the candle into the display.

  “Did you feel anything?” I ask, my back to him.

  “I felt something,” he whispers. The emphasis on the final word makes the hairs on the nape of my neck tingle. I will myself not to turn around. “Did you?”

  Again, the plink of his fingers dipping into the water. He performs the sign of the cross, moving to the entryway and down the row of pews. He stops to kneel and say a prayer in front of the crucifix. I watch him, compelled by his sincerity in these actions.

  The Buddhist monk enters from a side door and nods kindly at me. I don’t return the favor. Rabbit stirs and looks over at him, blinking. He wipes a palm across his face and rises from the ground. I take this opportunity to slip out the door.

  Scarlett Buford, my best friend, waits on the steps leading up to the chapel exterior. Her presence so shortly after my intimate run-in with Santiago disorients me. I stop in my tracks.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I might be blonde but I’m not dumb. I know what day it is. I know you come here on the anniversary. I know you well enough Lenbot,” she says, her voice bordering on cross. “Also, we exchanged GPS coordinates. I always know where you are.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” she says, looping her arm through my elbow and dragging me down the church steps. “This place creeps me out.”

  “You don’t like church?”

  “Not particularly. Religion never made life wonderful for me. This, however, is going to take us somewhere wonderful. Like neverland.” She drops a round, white pill in my palm.

  “What is this Scar?” I ask, closing my stiff fingers around it. The newly repaired synthetic skin wraps tight around my robotic arm, covering it with a sparkling nano sheen. It will take time for the skin to loosen and return to its normal state.

  “An anniversary present. Don’t ask questions,” she insists. “And don’t take it yet.”

  She pulls me across the base, past the dormant tanks and helos and the silent airfield, to the gates on the north-western end of Fort Columbia which open towards Hood River and away from The Dalles. She navigates the rocky terrain on four inch heels with a terrifying swiftness. I stumble along behind her in combat boots like a toddler wearing new shoes.

  We skirt around the plasma cannons entombed in the ground underneath us, until we round a bend in the earth that brings us to the first stop on our route.

  The thick concrete walls of the Fort Columbia base separate us from the train depot on the other side. The silent uniformed guards standing sentry at the gate don’t bother Scarlett. They’re a staple of the scenery, like the trees and the bats. She drops a baggy of Salt in an outstretched hand and the gate opens effortlessly.

  “What’s in the bag?” I inquire, after we pass security.

  “Told you not to ask questions,” she says.

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  She sighs explosively. “Fine, there are clothes in my bag. For you.”

  “Are we running away?” I ask, a scoop of fear and excitement dipping in my belly.

  “For the night.” She grins mischievously.

  I return the smile, but it’s hard to swallow back my disappointment. Today’s not the day for running from Prothero. Today’s the day for running from ghosts, real or imagined.

  We walk in the wintry darkness, only the bands illuminating our path. Owls hoot and bat wings clatter, whipping through the night above our heads. Overhead the Iron Curtain, the massive Prothero funded satellite hangs over our heads like a second moon. It’s monstrous and ugly, a permanent fixture in the sky to remind the entire world who’s really in charge. I shiver, and it’s easy to blame it on the cold.

  Scar moves so fast and with such confidence, that despite my extra sharp kinetic senses, I’m left to stumble along behind her. Even out here in the great wide expanse, we are not exposed without a weapon. This is her territory, a well-worn tract of land she could walk blindfolded if the situation required it.

  “I figured it out already,” I hiss over her shoulder as we barrel across low brush, the Columbia river to our right, the rolling muddy green hills of the Columbia Gorge to our left. “Where you’re taking me. I don’t want to go.”

  “You don’t have a choice. You need this.” Scar doesn’t slow her pace.

  “Do I need this or do you?”

  “Same thing,” she mutters back to me. “No more arguing please. You’ll attract the wild animals.”

  We skitter through the night silently until the train depot appears before us, a dimly lit automated station with comforting bulbs flickering in the solace of a dreary winter evening.

  We arrive at the platform just as a high speed bullet train whooshes to a stop, the brakes hissing and the electric currents shifting between the rails and train, humming a pleasant tune. Relaxation takes hold of my senses. Odd. I haven’t even imbibed Scar’s mystery pill yet.

  Scar waves to a baggage attendant—an acne scarred man with short shaved red hair and a splash of freckles contrasting against the gleaming whiteness of his teeth. He wears a stiff grey uniform with green piping signifying the color of the railway we board. The green line runs between Fort Columbia and Portland, our intended destination—Scarlett’s Salt distribution territory. She is drug-running and dragging me along with her. I try to work up anger or irritation at this intrusion on my bombing-anniversary ritual, which has already been intruded upon by both Rabbit Santiago and Clinton Fuller, but nothing comes. Nothing comes from nothing. And a metal heart feels nothing.

  In my dreams I keep dying. By electrocution, by explosion. I'm walking for miles down a sterile, white hallway similar to those in the Prothero lab where they rebuilt my broken body—but it stretches on endlessly with hundreds of doors. Some open as I pass, revealing the horrors lurking inside. My dead parents, disfigured from the explosion, clothed in hospital scrubs hovering over my bloodied corpse on an operating table. Burnt and mutilated children, with the smell of fried flesh wafting towards me. Moaning, helpless victims of the nano virus, black veins tangled like roots in their skin.

  The sounds of chaos and suffering bounces off the walls and echoes down the corridor. Whispering, fuzzing voices—a high pitched whining sound and the crunch of static. The scent of copper, the taste of metal on my tongue, the tempo of the buzzing increases, until I have no other c
hoice but to run. The end of the hallway holds the key to my salvation, if I can only reach it before the noises drown me completely.

  Overhead the fluorescents crackle and snap, the bulbs exploding as I pass, raining down glass and little sparks of electricity, landing on me like flakes of snow. They absorb into my skin, leaving a glowing blue residue in their wake. I run to avoid the mini explosions above, but escape is futile. My presence triggers them.

  Up ahead, the door recedes no matter how fast I run, until there's no other choice but to give up. I slump against a sterile white wall, closing my eyes in defeat. When I open them again, the door is right in front of me. I swipe my band across the security key to enter and the heavy metal door slides cleanly open, silencing all the sinister noise in my ears. The illumination spilling into the hallway blinds me, and I take the first step inside, shielding my face.

  The room is huge, cavernous, a storage warehouse devoid of any items. My shuffling steps echo against the walls as I move further into the beam. A large platform rises in front of me, and on it rotates a massive metal ball riddled with microchips and wires. It is suspended in mid air of its own accord, there are no cables attached either above or below. I stumble towards it, drawn by its overwhelming size and the subtle shivering of the metal. It emits a pleasant calming hum, transfixing and compelling me forward.

  I approach with caution, and though the room is too large for this to be a reality, I’ve only taken two or three steps before I’m at the base of the platform. I mount the stairs, and notice the entire platform is composed of a similar material to the metal ball. It thrums and shudders beneath me, like a microscopic, violent earthquake. As I step down, the wires and coils trapped within the metal flare a vivid green and fade away. The platform senses and tracks my progress.

  I’m close now. I’ve nearly touched the surface of the ball when the humming turns to a scraping, grinding noise. The white hot light of the room shifts to a strangely familiar silvery blue. A window shutter rolls open to reveal a giant floating mechanical eye. In the center, what must be the pupil, an orange pulse clicks on. Before I can scamper backwards, or run, or contemplate doing either of those things, the beam hammers into my stomach, knocking me off the platform. The room erupts in an electric pulse and the once pleasant humming of the metal ball becomes maddening. Pounding into my skull. Whispering nefariously in my ears.

  A robotic, prosthetic arm reaches out from the center of the orb, the iris of the eye. The flesh of the limb is mottled with disease, crisscrossed with data chips and tiny veins of wires. Cybernetics. A fully realized merger of man and machine. But no, not man. This is the arm of a woman. My arm—the one Prothero gave me—palm open and grasping. Somehow—without mounting the steps—I’m standing back on the platform in front of the orb eye. I touch the chilled, synthetic skin. Its fingers lock around mine and pull me forward. I fall into the ball of energy and disintegrate instantly.

  When I awake, I should feel fear or terror. Sweat cools on my brow and the metal heart shivers in my chest. I push a tangle of hair out of my eyes, working to calm my ragged breathing. A warmth wraps around my wrist. Growing too hot and almost angry. My body is on high alert, but it’s not fear. Not fear.

  I sink into relief, relaxing back into the pillows, pulling the covers over me. What is it? What is this warmth spreading in my chest like the exhalation of breath I’ve trapped for too long? Like the hand trapped in the orb, begging for freedom from its prison. Freedom from its body. Or is it begging for freedom from something else entirely?

  Am I begging for freedom too?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Power Differentials

  A few days later I’m in an empty tech lab, taking apart a third generation band, the kind with a physical clasp and lock. I’m hoping this process will reveal the secrets of the fifth gen version formed to my prosthetic arm. Three years ago this band existed only as a prototype, but it’s now worn by all Academy residents, Prothero staff, and government officials.

  The mysteries of unhinging and rooting the band, continue to elude me, and the best place to find answers lay in the source itself. This process would be helped along significantly by examining a fourth gen model. Those versions acquired a bug, introduced by the Contra terrorist organization exploiting a poorly constructed firewall in a new and improved security feature. The Contras could unlock the bands whenever they wanted with a signal as basic as a radio wave or piece of music. Sloppy work by Prothero, no doubt assisted by a Contra mole on the inside.

  Fourth gens don't exist except for on the Contra black market. No one has figured out a loophole in version five yet. Prothero built them to be impenetrable, unlockable. My mission here, in this room, is simple: I’m going to unlock it. If I can extract myself from the band, maybe I can extract myself from National Service.

  Halfway into deconstructing the band with a kinetic knife, a door opens at the front of the room. Clinton Fuller passes the threshold and swaggers over to where I sit, taking a seat on a battered stool at the opposite side of the table. He’s wearing his off-duty clothes, the hooded sweatshirt unzipped to reveal no shirt underneath. He chews on a gristly piece of beef jerky and the aroma of cured meat churns my stomach.

  “Garza, you’re the biggest nerd,” he says.

  “What do you want, Fuller?” I ask, nerves on high alert. Clinton rarely talks to me. He rarely talks to anyone unless he wants what they possess.

  “It’s not what I want, it’s what you’re going to give me,” he replies, confirming my suspicion.

  I laugh. He frowns. Probably not used to people laughing at his demands.

  “And what’s that?” I ask.

  “A passing grade in this class.”

  I snort. Without extensive tech knowledge, remotely piloting a Raptor or stepping into the cockpit of a Condor is out of the question. Without National Service experience, a political career is equally dead in the water. Clinton Fuller needs more than my help. He needs a miracle.

  “And how am I supposed to deliver that?”

  “You’re going to tutor me.”

  “No, I’m not,” I say. At the same time, I scoop the scattered band parts into a metal box on the table. I need to get out of here before things turn ugly, so I’m preparing a quick escape.

  “Why not?” he demands, because he’s probably used to hearing only compliance.

  “Because you’re unteachable. If Rabbit Santiago can’t teach you, I won’t be able to,” I say.

  “He has all these moral issues or whatever. You heard what he said. Nobody’s better than Garza.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. What was that supposed to mean anyway?

  “This could be good for you,” Clinton says. “I’ve got connections. I can protect people like you.”

  “I already have all the connections I need in life, Fuller. Thanks.” I slam the container down into a drawer built into the table, a little too harshly. The pieces clatter and roll around. The cacophony is deafening for a moment.

  Clinton’s features lock, eyes shrinking to tiny pinpoints in his meaty head.

  “Prothero isn’t going to protect you forever,” he says. “That’s why you’re here.”

  I sneer at him, but his words sting. Years have passed since I saw Dr. Dawson, my primary surgeon. Three years since I was inside the Prothero lab at DC, since they sold me into National Service and abandoned me here to a fate worse than death. A fate designed to turn me into a weapon, used to kill others.

  “You’re an asshole,” I mumble halfheartedly. His mentioning Prothero’s abandonment needles me.

  “I want your help, Garza. Why are you holding out on me?” he asks, voice rising.

  “I can’t tutor you because…because I don’t really know why I’m so good at this stuff. It comes naturally, it’s intuitive. I can’t explain it and I couldn’t teach it if I wanted to,” I say. “Which I don’t.”

  “That’s a lame excuse.” He leans towards me with a smug, satisfied grin. “Let’s stop pretendi
ng you have a choice. I get what I want. And I want you to tutor me.”

  “Well, it’s not going to happen,” I say.

  I scoot back from the table and rise to leave. He clamps a hand down on my left wrist, around the band, squeezing my arm threateningly. The band sends an electric shock flashing over his hand and forearm. A mildly unpleasant sensation bites at my wrist, like a thousand tiny needles poking but not penetrating my skin. He releases me in surprise and pitches off the stool from the force of the electrocution, slamming into the table behind him as if I’d given him a heavy shove.

  “What the hell?” he asks, cupping his injured hand delicately. He stares across the table at me like a confused puppy, his head almost cocked at an angle. “How did you do that?”

  “I dunno. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” I say, backing away.

  My cowardly pinwheel backwards reignites the part of him bent towards cruelty.

  “Tampering with Prothero technology is illegal.” The sneer he serves up fumbles into a grimace of pain. “My father could destroy you for that.”

  “Prothero owns your father. Just like they own me,” I say. “Why would Prothero want to destroy me?”

  “One word from my father, and I own you.”

  “You couldn’t afford it.”

  “I could. Now get the fuck out of here Garza.”

  I don’t need any more motivation. I take long, confident strides to the door and bang through it, then swiftly jog the hallways until I collapse into bed in the barracks. I briefly contemplate waving Scarlett, but she’s busy this evening. She’s out at her Salt patch, past the east end of the base, checking the tarp she lays over the beds during the frosty winter weather, making sure no wild animals disturbed her preparations. She won’t be back until after lights-out.

  I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, ruminating on the fantastic frying sensation of the band against my skin. How it almost seemed to protect me from Fuller. I’ve never experienced tech like this. I’ve never seen or heard of a band malfunctioning and sending off electric pulses. If Fuller decides to make a big deal out of it, there will be repercussions to answer for. Won’t there? I’ve never had much interaction with politicians, outside of obligatory Prothero sponsored events, designed to promote the benefits of corporate sponsored citizens. Sweaty palm pressings and glittering, calculating smiles is all I remember of those senators. How am I supposed to fight back against that kind of power?