Metal Heart: Book 1: The Metal Heart Trilogy

by Melinda Crouchley

  I take a seat on the floor—what used to be a helo wall—and rest my arms in my lap. The damaged left hand is tender and stings with pain. My nose runs slick with blood and snot. A layer of sweat shines off me like a filmy beacon. The electricity I absorbed from the fence buzzes in my veins, humming a sweet tune, pleading for release.

  I’m sitting in this position, cross legged, hands in my lap, when the soldiers enter the rear of the helo three minutes later, fully geared, guns drawn. They shout orders to raise my arms in the air, but I don’t comply. I don’t speak. I don’t move. I sit calmly on the ground as they approach, yelling commands that go disobeyed with each foot they set forward. When they reach me and grab my arms, yanking the right one out of its socket, they must believe I’m too traumatized to retaliate. They must think they’ve won.

  I let them think they’ve won. When they’re within reach, I explode in a furious blue aurora, electrocuting and bringing them all to their knees.

  The power evaporates. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got left in me. The sum total of the energy left in me. I slump forward, resting my head against the cold metal of the ruined Condor, my sight landing on the backpack. Three boxes of stolen inoculations nestled inside will never see their intended recipient. I should know better. I should be smarter. I thought I could do it. I thought I was better than everyone else, like Rabbit said. Turns out I’m not. I’m fallible and broken. I’m nobody’s hero today.

  Another squad of soldiers approaches, no doubt taking stock of the inert bodies scattered on the ground. I don’t see them, I only hear them, the earthquake of boots against metal, the shifting of their uniforms, their ragged, frightened breath dragging in and out of their lungs. A soldier reaches out and rolls me onto my back. I’m staring into the black, shining barrel of a rifle. More guns aim at my head from other angles, but the one pointed directly at my forehead is the only one consuming my attention.

  I glare up at it, into it, willing the female soldier to pull her trigger. Calling out with all the algorithms and codes and kernels of software and run time voices I’ve heard over the last two months to the machines around me. But the glow is snuffed out. It’s all gone.

  She kicks me hard in the ribs and robs the air from my lungs. I don’t retaliate. They cuff and lift me, dragging my bruised and aching legs carelessly over the white ground, jamming me into the belly of a tank, painfully squished and bouncing against the interior.

  None of the soldiers speak to me. The ride back across the airfield is endless. I’m transferred quickly from the tank to a prison holding cell deep underground. No one comes for me for hours. I don’t attempt to wave Scarlett or Rabbit or The Rosas or anyone else. Communication would implicate them in my attack on the base.

  The single piece of furniture in the cell, a hard metal bench, bites painfully into my flesh. After hours of no movement, I get up to stretch my legs and walk the confines of the cell. It’s metal and concrete with a single pane of glass on the door, showing me nothing but the deep grey of darkness. I sleep for a while. All my dreams are nightmares. I can’t remember them though the taste of fear lingers thick on my tongue.

  Upon waking, I stare at the unforgiving walls of the cell. Wishing, still wishing the soldier had pulled that trigger. Wondering why, with the power to control machines, I couldn’t make her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Solitary Confinement

  The cell door swings open, and on the other side Dr. Dawson appears. I expected as much. You don’t destroy half of one of the largest bases in the country without attracting Prothero’s attention. I had their attention before that. Now I will undoubtedly suffer their retribution.

  Light snaps on behind him and I blink into the brilliance for a moment, so his long white coat and crisp, shining black loafers only appear as a silhouette standing in front of me. He steps forward into the cell and closes the door behind him as if he doesn’t possess a care in the world.

  My thoughts drift over him, scanning for signs of tech. He is a wasteland of technology and it doesn’t matter because I can’t do what I want with it anyway. I haven’t generated a single spark from my band since I was captured. And I’ve tried.

  Dr. Dawson doesn’t sit down and make himself comfortable in the cramped cell. He remains standing and with no particular inflection asks if I want to go on a walk. I nod. He steps into the hallway and I shuffle out in front him. Before we proceed forward, a soldier shackles my legs and arms. We move down the hall, the chains rubbing and tinkling like church bells in the tombed silence.

  “You’re adjusting well to the new implant,” Dr. Dawson says.

  “It’s better than the other.” My raw voice croaks out of my smoke damaged throat. I sound older. Different. I don’t recognize myself. “Makes me look more like what I am.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “A monster.”

  He blinks.

  “You didn’t come here to talk about my eye, Doctor.”

  “You’re in very serious trouble Eleni. The magnitude of which you don’t fully comprehend,” he says. “You never do understand the consequences of your actions.”

  We reach the end of the hallway and turn around, heading in the opposite direction.

  “What’s happening to me?” I ask. I want to hear the truth from him. He owes me that much.

  For the first time since he opened the cell door, Dr. Dawson really looks at me. He stops in his tracks, pausing his long, healthy strides and drinks in my crushed spirit, my dull demeanor. I stare back at him, secure in the information gained from the Rosas.

  “You’re dying.”

  “Oh is that all?” the new Eleni voice asks. It lets out a smoky chuckle sounding as cool as the chains around my feet. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “You’re coming back to the lab in Washington DC.”

  “I don’t want to go,” I say, taking a step back. The scrambling anxiety which compelled my recent escape attempt slams through me.

  “You don’t want to stay here. You were fortunate enough not to kill anyone with your antics yesterday, but officers were wounded in the chaos. It will take the base months and upwards of a billion dollars to recover. The military brass is supremely displeased.”

  His words are tinged with sour amusement.

  “They would love to punish and make an example of you. I can’t let that happen. Returning to the lab is not a choice. You are in danger out here. You are a danger to yourself and a danger to those around you. Not only because of your poor decision making, but because you are harboring an infectious disease. Prothero invested too much time, energy, and a substantial amount of money in your recovery,” Dr. Dawson reminds me, a hint of annoyance underlying his statement. “Are you aware of what’s keeping you alive Eleni? I mean, besides me?”

  “Nano suppressants? Artificial organs?”

  I hate all his questions. I hate him.

  “Ok, besides those. Whatever disease you contain in there.” He points at my right temple, “and whatever lurks under here too.” He runs a perfectly manicured, sculpted finger down the length of my arm, a desire radiating along with it. Not a sexual desire. No. It’s far more sinister.

  “What is it?” I ask in my old voice, feeling more like myself.

  “If I knew the precise answer to that question, you wouldn’t be here. Or anywhere. You’d probably be dead.”

  Goosebumps trickle down my spine.

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “You blew up two federal buildings!” Frustration breaks his neatly sculpted facade and I step back away from him, stunned. “Two military buildings. Ten Condors, nearly the entire fleet. Seven defense cannons. 36 wounded soldiers. All military operations in this sector suspended for over 24 hours because of security protocols. It took all the political power I possess to keep them from court-martialing and executing you. Where were you going?” He grabs my shoulders, the right one stiff from being pulled out of its socket, and shakes me angrily, “What were you th
inking?”

  “I was trying to escape.”

  “Where could you possibly go where we wouldn’t find you?”

  My mind reels out over the miles of ground I would need to cover to get to my true destination and bumps against a Santiago shaped roadblock. There is a good answer and I owe Rabbit for it.

  “The Space and Aeronautics Institute. In Georgia. They take resident applications there. They recruit promising aeronautics specialists from national service bases all over the country. You said there were no other choices Doctor. You forgot to mention that one.”

  “Eleni—”

  “Don’t Eleni me! You said I had choices but you left me here to die. Until it was convenient for you to come back. I don’t want your eye. I don’t want your excuses. You should let them kill me!” my creaking, smoke stained voice breaks on the last sentence.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Then I’ll kill myself.”

  “I can’t let you do that either. You made your choices and now you’ll have to live with them.”

  “You did this to me. You made me into this.”

  “I saved your life. You’re welcome.”

  “I hate you.”

  “I’m sure you do. I’m so sorry to burst your self-absorbed bubble Ms. Garza but things are difficult for you because you create complications. If you wanted a calm and easy existence, you wouldn’t fight with fellow residents, steal inoculations, and blow up buildings when things don’t go your way. You’re an adult now and you need to act like one.”

  “You first."

  “A stunning example of your maturity. Do you mull things over before you say or do them? Honestly, is there any long term strategy rattling around in that brain of yours?”

  I shrug, looking away. Plan B had seemed pretty solid.

  Until it wasn’t.

  “Look, I would love to stand here all day mincing words with a reckless, violent teenager, but fortunately more pressing matters demand my attention on the eastern seaboard. No more arguments to the contrary.”

  “We’re leaving the base,” I say, my voice warbling.

  Dr. Dawson nods. “I’m sorry you felt you had nothing to lose. I’m sorry you wasted what little opportunity you had at normalcy by acting on a ridiculous impulse. If you can stand to curb your selfish desires for a moment, you might consider how studying this virus and developing a cure could benefit others. Humanity will gain much from your cooperation. We need you, Eleni.”

  I drop my head, my shoulder sagging with the weight of his supplications. The cuffs, the shackles are a hundred pounds each.

  “Try not to look so tortured.”

  “At least not yet,” I mutter. He ignores this comment.

  “These officers will escort you to the barracks. You may gather one pack full of belongings. I’ll collect you in an hour.” He whirls on his heels, exiting the hallway through a side door.

  I’m left with the stoic guards, their pistols poised to shoot my artificial heart at the sign of any offensive gesture.

  Traveling across the base to the Academy campus is similar to the tank ride from the crashed helo. Only with less claustrophobic bouncing, much more stony silence and not-so-subtle glares from the soldiers assigned to protect me. I’ve already been kicked in the ass, tripped and spit on. And that was just the transfer from the military prison to the hovercar.

  At the barracks I shove my pathetic personal belongings in a duffel bag and consider dumping my off-duty clothes in as well, but likely Prothero will have a lab uniform for me. I retrieve the tin from under the bed, stroking my fingers over the Arabic symbols. My father bought this from a street vendor in Afghanistan. He gave it to me for my thirteenth birthday. It’s followed me around the world. It followed the first time my world fell apart. It followed me here where I started to put my world back together.

  And now it’s all broken again.

  Nobody shows up. No Scarlett or Rabbit or Emanuelle or Emilia will burst through the doors. No one will embrace me and not let me go because I will never see them again. I should have said goodbye. I should have appreciated them more. The whole time I thought it was the worst thing to be here at Fort Columbia. And now I know there is a much worse fate awaiting me. No matter how nicely Dr. Dawson wants to coat it.

  I’m going to spend the rest of my life hooked to machines, drained of any joy or any semblance of humanity. No Scarlett whining about runny eggs. No Rabbit kissing me in the dark. No Rosas with their endless medical banter.

  The tin box I leave out. I leave it behind. It's too dangerous to travel with. It’s stupid to keep it. It’s stupid to cling to the ghost of Mateo. Stupid to risk everything for nothing.

  Dr. Dawson’s words tumble over me: I’m sorry you thought you had nothing to lose.

  I had everything to lose. I had Rabbit's promise wrapped around my wrist and I chose nothing instead. Plan B was nothing. I drop the rosary off my right wrist and lay it on top of the tin. The coin necklace along with it. Where I’m going, those belongings will only cause trouble.

  We’re flown to the building housing the only Telepad in a seven hundred mile radius. I’ve never used one before. I’m instructed to disrobe and step onto a huge platform, in the middle of a giant circle ringed with incandescent tubes. Silver rays of light slip down from the ceiling, scanning me.

  “Non-organic material detected. Please override,” the comforting computer voice requests.

  I glance up and around the warehouse to the control room behind me. An uneasy feeling burrows in my guts. The circular stand reminds me too much of the nightmare orb eye.

  “Override accepted. Telepad charge: phase one. Please remain still.”

  My body trembles. I keep a steady, leveling gaze on Dr. Dawson while white lanterns of luminescence shoot up all around me, accompanied by a hum gaining in volume and intensity. He watches me curiously, as if observing a scientific experiment and making mental notations. This is how Eleni Garza responds to molecular stimulation in a new environment. This is how Eleni Garza responds to emotional manipulation in familiar settings.

  “Telepad charge: phase two. Please remain still.”

  I wonder if it will hurt when my cells unhinge and reform on the other side. I wonder if I will vanish into space, instead of traveling to the connecting telepad at the Washington DC base. I want to reach out with the new digital languages I learned, but the power is more immense here than any technology I’ve ever touched.

  “Telepad charge: phase three. Have a safe flight.”

  The telepad engines surge to life. The surrounding radiance distorts, fragmenting into swirling shapes and patterns of light. Static electricity builds in my pores, rolling into my veins and dancing up my arms. I’m a charging battery. I’m a machine coming back online after a temporary disruption.

  Everything goes black.

  Dr. Dawson clamps a second band around my right wrist before I even have a chance to dress. Despite my vulnerability, I try to discern where the device snaps together like the older models, but it’s impossible to tell. Once the metal shrinks and the ends click together, there is no break. It must be an optical illusion like the virtuals. A latch exists somewhere on the device, but it’s obscured.

  The code to hack the bands is buried somewhere here in the recesses of Prothero’s archives. And I’ll have plenty of time to ferret it out. I don’t bother questioning the second band because Dawson rarely provides answers. It’s a security precaution, I’m sure. Part of the politicking he endured to secure my release from Fort Columbia’s prison. Besides, I’m sitting naked on a cold metal chair where I’ve been instructed to remain until further notice, after recently transporting thousands of miles across the continent. I want nothing more than to put on clothes.

  I dress in the standard Prothero lab uniform behind a screen, desperately missing my comfortable hooded sweatshirt but grateful to be clothed again.

  Dawson escorts me to the new quarters, which look a lot like the old quarters. They’re
all the same quarters, basically. The hospital room, the barracks at the base. Each one sterile and soul-less with cameras and discomfort hidden in the walls. I throw my duffel on the bed and sit down in a huff. Dawson watches from the doorway.

  “Eleni—” he begins with his smug, reassuring delivery and I hate the way he says my name.

  “What do you want?”

  I will tear out my hair if he says one more thing. He’s either oblivious to my impending bout of insanity, or he doesn’t care.

  “Nothing, we’ll talk in the morning. Get some rest.” The lights fade to black and he shuts the door. A locking mechanism hums and clicks into place. Alone in the dark, I pick up the duffel bag and dump the contents out. In the rush of packing I’d grabbed up half a Salt cigarette and it tumbles onto the clean white sheet.

  A cloudy image of Scarlett drifts across the atmosphere of my mind. Scarlett sunning herself on a beach near the Columbia River, wearing nothing but her bra and panties, sand dappling her thighs. Scar drinking from a dark bottle. Scar passing me a cigarette with a goofy grin. Scar with the bridge of her nose sprinkled with freckles only visible with the precise amount of sun. Too much and her tender pale skin burns.

  I reach for the coin necklace. My fingers close around empty air where it used to be. Oh right, it’s gone. I left it at Fort Columbia. The last time I gave away the tin and the key to someone, I never saw that person again. Then my parents died and Prothero bought and sold me. My fingers dive into my meager pile of belongings, curling into claws of rage. I grab a scrapbook filled with clippings of funeral services I don’t remember attending and fling at the heavy metal door. It hits with a dull thud and memories I don’t want to be reminded of explode out of the book in a shower of pages.