Mechanical Hearts (Skeleton Key)

by Nicole Blanchard

  “Captain wants to see you, miss,” he said, and at his words, I jumped so hard I nearly catapulted back into the swirling water.

  I glanced at it and then eyed the horizon, as though I could spot the beach I’d left behind in the distance.

  There was nothing but dark green-black water and thick fog as far as I could see. Not a single city light shone in the shadows. Even the stars were dark.

  For a moment, I was frozen with fear—too scared to step forward, and too afraid I could never go back.

  Welcome to Port Arliss

  “Tink!” came a gruff voice from inside the submarine. “Either get the girl in or toss her over. We haven’t any time to waste.”

  I shivered and frowned. I knew I should have been grateful for his assistance, but the rough tenor of his voice didn’t sound anything close to friendly.

  The thought of fighting with the tempestuous ocean again spurred me to action. On numb fingers and rubber legs, I crawled along the top of the submarine to the door held open by the curious little robotic contraption. He eyed me with the knowing look of a sentient being, but surely the near-death experience was playing tricks on me.

  Robots couldn’t think.

  And pirates—at least, the swashbuckling sort—were long since dead.

  It had to be a dream. Too much stress and not enough wine.

  My knocking heart and pounding head assured me, however, that it was no dream.

  I climbed feet first through the opening and landed with a thump on the floor in a room full of gauges and levers. The little creature climbed agilely down after me, pulling the door after it and locking it with a deft flick of its wrist.

  “I’m sorry,” I began, “I don’t mean any trouble. If you’ll radio the Coast Guard, I’m sure my aunt is looking for me.”

  The creature didn’t answer. Instead, it loped by me with whirring cogs and creaking hinges and into the captain’s room.

  Mind still swimming, I pressed my fingers into my eyes.

  A moment later, the voice I was already starting to despise barked, “Get in here!”

  The adrenaline crash started to pull at my eyes and tug me under, but I forced my feet to move. It was then I realized that I’d lost my ballet flats sometime during the night. My bare feet scraped against the curious metal floor.

  The captain, whoever—whatever—he was, stood at the helm, large capable hands wrapped around the wheel. My thoughts ground to a halt when my eyes caught on the gleaming metal that was where his right arm and fist should have been.

  I caught myself staring at the intertwined coils and sleek metal and forced my gaze back to my bare feet. He didn’t even glance up from his intense scrutiny of the dashboard.

  “Take her down below. I’ll deal with her later,” was all he said. I didn’t even think he’d spared me a glance.

  My head shot up, and I gaped at his broad shoulders. I swallowed, winced at the burn, and said, though it came out as more of a croak, “Excuse me. Did you hear what I said? If you’ll just call the Coast Guard, I’ll get out of your hair.”

  He turned then, finally, and for a moment, I wished I hadn’t said a word. His eyes glinted with the same golden light as the strange metal that made up his arm. They looked real, but how were they glowing? It was unnatural.

  Not for the first time, I wondered where exactly I’d wound up. I’d heard of artificial eyes for the wounded, but never anything like his. Much like his sub—ship?—it wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before.

  An oily, unnerving tension coiled inside my stomach like sour medicine as he studied me. He continued to stare at me, unblinking, and I wondered if he was blind or just extremely rude.

  I wasn’t quite sure what to make of his thick, black overcoat, diamond-studded ears, and dull gold chains dangling from his neck. Some eccentric fisherman, I decided. Or a billionaire with odd proclivities. Or maybe both. No other explanation made sense to my over-tired mind.

  Finally, he tore his gaze away. “We’re in dangerous waters here, girl. I don’t have time to play nursemaid. If you don’t want to get yourself and everyone else on the ship killed, I suggest you be quiet.” His gaze pinned me to my spot for a few more seconds and then he dismissed me by turning back to the front to speak in low tones with the robot Tink.

  Dangerous waters?

  Just how far had I drifted?

  Not wanting to incur the wrath of the surly, and quite possibly crazy captain, I shrank back against the closed door and rubbed at my gritty eyes. My jeans and shirt had begun to dry, and I was left feeling damp and dirty as the salt-stiffened material rubbed at my raw skin. We’d get back to the bay and I’d just have to suck it up and spend the money on a rental car or a cab to take me back to my car.

  Then I could put the terrible night behind me and focus on school and getting Phoebe.

  I was too tired to process my surroundings, so I just gazed dully as the captain pressed a few buttons and tugged at a few levers.

  Finally, I mustered the energy to say, “Look, I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

  “I’ve found it’s the women who don’t want to cause any trouble that always seem to be stuck right in the middle of it.”

  I had to take several calming breaths, and even then, my response was said through clenched teeth. “I just want to go home.”

  “You’re a long way from home,” he said. Then, he jerked a long lever and the submarine lurched. Unprepared for the sudden movement, I wobbled and fell to my knees. A sensation much like the freefall from a mountainous roller coaster assailed my stomach as the submarine began to sink into the ocean.

  I was equal parts terrified and awestruck. We dropped with surprising speed, soon swallowed by the massive depths of the dark-blue, fathomless water. Tink hurried around as the captain barked orders. When I regained my balance, I couldn’t seem to find the impetus to get back to my feet. The submarine continued to dive, and I was worried if I stood I’d simply collapse back down again due to exhaustion.

  As the captain twisted and punched at the dashboard, he caught sight of me hunched down behind him. He gave me a furious scowl and jabbed a button that caused the door to eek open with a whoosh.

  “Take her down below,” he ordered the robot.

  The robot lifted a hand and clasped mine, but I stood my ground. “When can I go home?” I demanded.

  “We make port in the morning,” he said, before he dismissed me.

  Billows of steam erupted from the walls as the robot led me down a dark, dank hallway.

  Thinking he was going to take me somewhere that I could call for help, I followed close behind him. He was about two feet tall, if that, and made of the same gold metal as the captain’s prosthetic arm. His face was expressive, for a robot, with little slashes above his eyes that twitched when he spoke. He had four fingers instead of five, slim arms and legs, and moved as nimbly as a dancer.

  But it was his grip that was so impressive. For something so small, he had the strength of ten men. The deeper we went into the submarine, the more I wanted to turn around and swim to the surface. But no matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t pry my hand loose, and when he tossed me in the cell and threw the door shut behind me, I crumpled on the floor like a rag doll.

  I screamed. I pleaded. I cursed. None of it did any good other than to strain my voice to the point of hoarseness. After a few hours, I gave up trying to get anyone’s attention and huddled on the bed. If you could call it a bed; it was a plank of wood suspended from the wall with a thin blanket that was essentially useless.

  When I could no longer shout without my voice cracking, I laid on the plank of wood and plotted. First chance I got, I would try to escape. I didn’t know how I would, I didn’t even know where he was taking me, but I would escape. I tried to stay awake, but the moment my head hit the too-soft, slightly mildewed pillow, my body simply shut down.

  I spent most of the night alternately freezing and boiling. Like everything else on the godforsaken submarine
, it was damp, and my still-wet clothes didn’t help.

  When I woke an indeterminable amount of time later, it felt like I had slept on a bed made of stone. There were places where splinters clawed at my shirt where the planks were exposed. Scratches marred my face and arms, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the bed or as a result of my near-drowning.

  Water came in from … somewhere. It dripped, constantly. I’d puzzle the where when my head didn’t throb quite so viciously. The wetness soaked through my flannel shirt and the camisole beneath. Maybe even through my skin itself, because I couldn’t shake the convulsions that knocked my teeth together, even in spite of the heat.

  I could almost hear my bones rattling around together inside my chest. It was a hollow echo that did nothing to rid me of the constant shivering. It would be my luck that I’d catch pneumonia, which I sure as hell couldn’t afford since I had Phoebe to take care of and neither of us had insurance.

  A greenish glow shone from the curved window that peered out into the abyss of the ocean beyond. We had to be deep under the surface, because I couldn’t even make out anything up above. Not even a ray of light. The glass was thick, and I knew that meant we could go down; I just wasn’t sure how far. I didn’t see any fish, no reef or identifying landmarks. Just water. Endless water.

  Since I’d rested, such as it was, I was going to demand answers. For instance, why we were still deep underwater, and why they’d locked me into a room without an explanation? I was more than appreciative for their rescue, but I wanted to go home.

  I managed to crawl my way to a wall, hissing as my hand came in contact with hot metal. My clumsy fingers fumbled along its heated surface until I found a switch. I flipped it, and a dull light came on overhead. I had to blink at it a couple times before I realized it was some sort of gas lantern.

  I studied the inside of the room when my vision cleared and the pulsing in my head softened to a dull roar.

  It didn’t have much, which was no help at figuring out where exactly I’d wound up. Then again, what did I expect?

  There was the bed, which I was already trying to block out of my memories, some sort of sink that was nearly rusted over, and a chair was pushed against the wall next to it. But it was the foul-smelling bucket that sent alarm bells going off in my already aching head. I rubbed at my gritty eyes and swallowed back the bile and panic that rose in my throat.

  Fear sharpened my resolve, and I found a partition in the wall opposite the window that must have been the door, but there was no doorknob. I clawed at it with my fingers, broke the nails on three of them, but it didn’t budge an inch. By the time I was done, I’d worked off the chill and was spitting mad.

  There was a square of glass about shoulder-height up, but it was nearly opaque with the amount of grime smeared across it. I could see a dull reflection of myself—it did me no favors. The remnants of my makeup leaned more toward clown than classy, and there was a long scratch across my cheek that was an angry red. My hair was a matted rat’s nest that could use a good wash or two, and my clothes were stained beyond recognition.

  I grew more and more annoyed, mostly at myself, for being so reckless when Phoebe was depending on me. I glanced around the shadowed room for a way to escape. There wasn’t much, I admitted, but I didn’t claw my way to med school for no reason.

  I started with the chair, but it was of simple construction: wood and little else that would be of little use against the thick metal door. I didn’t even chance the bucket and gave it a wide berth.

  The bed proved to be my best chance. The blanket was useless, but when I tore it off, the platform underneath the planks was constructed of a series of steel bars that were only loosely screwed into the base. Using one of my remaining fingernails, I managed, barely, to unscrew one of the bars.

  I hissed and grumbled to myself as I wedged the bar into the small crack in the wall that I judged to be the opening for the door.

  I could only hope the door was built to swing inward, otherwise I was going to be stuck inside the makeshift dungeon until someone let me out … if they even remembered I was in there in the first place.

  The door whined in protest as I applied pressure to the bar. My muscles shook from a combination of dehydration and exhaustion, but I pushed through it. I heaved, leveraging my weight against the bar until the door swung open with a god-awful groan.

  If they’d forgotten about me, they’d certainly remember once they heard that sound. It had probably woken the whole ... ship, it was so loud. It still echoed in my head, that was for sure.

  With one hand clutched at my temple and the other feeling along the wall, I inched my way down the hallway, hoping to recognize something, anything, along the way. Maybe I could find a phone or a computer to send a message for help.

  But it was empty save for those weird lanterns along the walls. Curls of steam licked at the ceiling and hovered above my head. Sweat clung to my brow and upper lip. My already-damp clothes grew even more by the time I reached a ladder.

  A shaft of light shone down the opening and made me wince in pain. After a few minutes, my eyes adjusted a little to the bright artificial light and the knots in my stomach began to unclench.

  My growing panic was masked by annoyance. At myself. At my aunt. I was going to find the idiots who locked me up and tear them all a new one for abandoning me in some dungeon. Rescuers or no.

  I was halfway up the ladder when I heard—and felt—the whole ship shudder. The ladder shook so badly, my foot slipped off the rungs, and I nearly fell the ten feet back down to the bottom.

  My heart kicked back into gear and what little fog remained in my brain cleared as the shuddering stopped a few seconds later.

  Were they messing around with something up there with me down in this hole? They were going to kill me.

  No. I am going to kill them, I decided as I crested the top of the ladder.

  The main deck was a flurry of activity. Men in similar odd-looking uniforms hurried back and forth to huge engines spewing steam. There were too many for me to make my way, or try to make my way to the captain’s room unseen, so I climbed the rest of the way out of the ladder and started down the first hall I came to like I had every right in the world to be there.

  It didn’t seem to matter who or what I was or what I was doing there because more men ran by me without so much as looking in my direction.

  I had no idea where I was going, so I chose twists and turns at random as I went in the opposite direction from what I began to call the engine room. Sweat still clung to my skin from the heat of the furnaces and steam dripped from the walls in the hallways closest to it. The room I was in must have been directly below it because it was extremely hot. My fingers twitched remembering the burning hot wall. The farther away from the room I got, the more the air cooled, and the easier it was to breathe.

  The walls and piping above were all the burnished gold of the exterior, but it wasn’t bright, it was a deep color, just a few shades lighter than a deep-honey-brown.

  If I weren’t so worried about Phoebe and getting back home, I would have given in to my natural curiosity. There were rooms on either side of the main hallway I seemed to be on. They looked like bunkrooms, offices, a kitchen with attached mess hall, and more, though I didn’t give myself much time to look at them.

  When I heard the low baritone of the captain, I pushed through the door in front of me to the only room on the vessel I actually recognized, except the view outside the window was completely different.

  At my gasp, the captain and the robot both turned to me, but I was too distracted by the sight out the front window to care about their attention.

  We were deeper in the ocean than I ever could have imagined. So deep, that what little light made it down to those depths was an eerie green. If it weren’t so terrifying, it would have been beautiful.

  Blood rushed in my ears, and I gripped the door frame to steady myself. “You’re going to tell me exactly where we are,” I said, my earlie
r nervousness forgotten and replaced by a fight or flight response. My vision narrowed to the man leaning casually against the back of his chair.

  Apparently, I’d already decided on fight.

  I wasn’t awestruck by him that time; I was thinking somewhat clearly and wanted answers.

  Metal scraped against metal, and Tink crossed the room to a weird machine that hissed in the corner. It turned out to be a little coffee machine, and after a few seconds, he brought me a little metal mug full of the steaming liquid.

  I didn’t know if I was supposed to address him, but I said, “Thank you,” anyway out of habit. He—or it—seemed to be grateful as he acknowledged me with a nod.

  As I sipped the spicy, sweet coffee, I studied the captain over the rim of the cup.

  His mechanical arm whirred as he threaded his fingers through his hair. “I’ll be the one asking the questions,” he said. “What were you doing topside?”

  “Got caught in a storm,” I answered. “Where are you taking me? Who are you?”

  “I’m Captain Ezra Castle. And we’re going to Port Arliss.”

  “Is that in Florida?” I asked, though I had the sinking feeling that it wasn’t based on the look Ezra shared with the robot.

  His prosthetic eyes studied me intently. “Where are you from, exactly?” he said after a few moments of intense scrutiny that I ignored by taking another deep gulp of coffee.

  “Florida.” When he only stared blankly, I added, “The United States? North America.”

  Tink, who I’d forgotten was also in the room, said, “From the Otherworld, Sir.”

  The captain glanced at me with renewed interest, or, at least, that’s what I thought it was. There was no telling with those eyes. Maybe that’s what had me so unsettled the first time I saw him.

  “How did you get here?” he asked, and I didn’t know if it was my imagination or the lack of sleep, but he seemed to stand straighter at the mention of whatever the Otherworld was.