Frozen Hearts: The Ionia Chronicles: Book One

by Pamela Stewart

  “I didn’t think you got cold. Do you?”

  “If this flesh is exposed for a long period of time, it will become damaged.”

  “Is it painful?”

  “I am not certain how to answer that. I do get unpleasant feedback when a portion of my chassis is in need of repair. I can endure much colder temperatures than a humanoid.”

  She motioned him to come with her, and he followed her back up the corridor.

  A moan, then the clang of metal against metal rang. She turned on her heel, just as the pipe erupted. The mouth of the break was at least a half-meter wide and spewed liters of water in a high-pressure torrent like a giant carbonated beverage exploding.

  Dear Lord, most of the base’s supplies were stored in this segment. “We have to stop the flood,” she shouted over the roar of fluid into the room. “Do you know where the shutoff is?” The water that was furthest away was already freezing.

  Den shielded his face and slipped though the wall of water taking slow, deliberate steps. She attempted to follow, but the pressure floored her and swept her back, smacking her into the wall. Her head jerked and popped against the station wall. Little strobe lights flashed behind her eyelids, and more water pounded her.

  Den’s reaction was immediate. He changed directions and was at her side in half a second.

  “What are you doing! Go and turn off the water or--”

  He scooped her up, held her hard against his chest, and sprinted down the hall. Like the day she had first activated him all over, his face blank of emotion, running the savior protocol. She banged against him, half expecting a tin hollow th-rupt. Instead, damp warm flesh pushed against her hand. “Den! You have to fix the station. That’s more important.”

  He ignored her, completely a machine again. Damn, him. She didn’t need protecting! They neared the infirmary as the station’s emergency system came online. The red flashing lights and sirens blared. Crap, crap, shit, and more crap. “Please go back. I am fine, but no one will be fine if the station is wrecked.” Finally, he looked down at her. She could almost see the wheels turning. With a tiny nod, he lowered her to the floor and flew down the hall. Her black and white, polka-dotted skirt hung on her, sopping wet. Her whole body shook. The wetness made the cold seep into her through her skin and muscles down to her core.

  She could still handle the fallout. Her mother didn’t know she had been at the scene. Perhaps she would blame Den, but that would be horrible as well. First, it wasn’t his fault, second, she was the one who pulled him away, and third, what if her mom deactivated him or sent him to CONUS? She had to negate the damage, try to explain. She ran into the hall and down to the room. The water had stopped, but reached over their ankles and was frozen in spots. Rod and her mother both explored the room and examined damaged supplies. Ionia caught a glimpse of the outside portal--black and empty.

  She sucked in a breath and held it for a second to dispel the huge ice block of weight pressing down on her chest. This was bad. It was hard getting supplies during the winter months, but not as bad as it had been a hundred years ago. Now that they had blazers and engine warmers designed to withstand the cold it was better. But when the wind blew or a real storm came in then all transportation was grounded, not even the highest tech equipment could survive.

  Her mom noticed Ionia and straightened. “You’re wet.” Her lips rolled in like they did when she was thinking hard. “Why are you wet?”

  She instantly played defense. “Trying to help out. I heard the alarms and...”

  “Well, help then.”

  ###

  The next two hours they spent saving what supplies they could. Her mother’s mood deteriorated the longer she worked in the sopping wet and cold. No matter how much they turned up the heat, the wet froze them to the bone.

  “Good thing Cam’s due for a layover in a couple of hours,” her mom said. “Damn droid wasn’t meant for this kind of work. Probably why it bungled the job.”

  Den paused at the mention of his name, holding a dripping bag of wet rice in his hand, and then returned to sorting.

  “I should send the machine to CONUS and try to get some sort of refund.”

  “No. Don’t, I like having him around.”

  Rod finally spoke up. “Send it back before it kills us all in our sleep.”

  “How can you like having the thing around? You’ve been studying in your room with very limited interaction.” There was something in her mom’s voice, some edge that made Ionia feel like she’d just stumbled into a room full of snakes and one wrong move would get her bitten.

  “Yeah, I have. But you know, I’ve been helping. I have been programming Den--remember, so he could help out.”

  Her mom picked up another sopping box and dropped it back into the water. “I’ve had it with this. Droid.”

  Den stopped and turned to her mother, his arms hung at his sides. Why couldn’t her mother use his name?

  “Keep working here. Stay in this area unless otherwise instructed. Understood?”

  He gave her a slow nod. Thank goodness she had taught him not to look to her before agreeing to do her mother’s commands.

  Mom wheeled to face her. “With those scores, you should still be done before dinner.”

  Brandy barked at Rod as he abandoned his work and they all went back to their rooms to change.

  If she took Den now, it would be a blazing finger of guilt, and she couldn’t risk it, not with the party only two days away. Her feet were twin ice pillars stuck to the floor, more from her mood than the environment. She forced them to take her back to her room. At least she still had her secret weapon--birthday guilt.

  Ever since she could remember, there was one day her parents would drop everything: experiments, meetings, important top-secret mumbo jumbo. That day was her birthday. No matter where in the world they were, her dad would bake a cherry chip cake with pink frosting, her favorite, and he’d sing an ancient song about how she was his sunshine, loudly and off key.

  Her mom would even join in, usually gifting her with some educational item, a telescope or new tech, personalized of course with her name engraved.

  But her dad had gotten the best gifts. A ride on lamas up the mountains, always the paints and the pencils and the sketch pads. Never had they forgotten her entirely. Never. She could use mom guilt to get back to the world she missed.

  ###

  An hour later Ionia sat in the mess hall with Rod, Cam, and Mom.

  “Pass the roast.” Rod’s voice boomed. Cam sat next to him and had not looked up from her plate since dinner hit the table. Hard to believe such a tiny woman could pace Rod. And he always indulged his big appetite.

  “Won’t you explode if you eat anymore?” Ionia asked. She was still upset he’d wanted Den to be shipped out.

  “Na’sir, I’m like a cow in the eating department. Multiple stomachs.” He grinned behind his brown beard and Cam snickered. Her mother’s fork hovered over her plate for a long moment. She pulled her napkin up, dabbed the corner of her mouth, and turned to Ionia.

  “How did you do on the biology final?” She didn’t blink, her attention never wavered from Ionia.

  Ionia dropped the bite of gravy-laden potatoes and her mouth dried. She didn’t seem in a let’s-celebrate-my-baby-girl’s-birthday mood. “I didn’t finish. With all the alarms and water… I’ll do it tonight. You will give me a pass right, being my special day and all.”

  A genuine look of confusion flashed across her mother’s face. “If you mean the party in Mac Town, you are even slower than I feared. No, you will not be going to a party and this is why.”

  The low murmur between Cam and Rod stopped as her mother’s tone blossomed. “I forgave you the ordering of the droid and allowing it to almost kill us. I looked the other way when you hacked my computer system.”

  Ionia’s face numbed, her head spun, and heart staggered. “You know? How could you?”

  “You never could resist the peanut butter.”

  H
er anal-retentive mother had noticed the peanut butter. There was no justice in the world. “But now you lie to my face. You have been letting him do your enclass work.”

  “That’s not true!” It was true, but it wasn’t fair for her to bring that fact up, and not like this. Not in front of Cam and Rod, who were both squirming uncomfortably in their seats.

  “The final test. Will she admit the lie or make it worse? You nearly flooded the station so you would not get caught.”

  “Stop, Mom. It wasn’t my fault. It was an old pipe, and it burst, and Den tried to fix it.”

  Her mother stood and threw her napkin on the table, her dinner abandoned. “I’ve had it. Starting tomorrow, you will be under constant supervision. I will be conducting your enclass lessons. You will sit quietly and read and do your work, like a normal sane child.”

  “No. No, I won’t. You can’t.”

  “Maybe we should go and let you--” Cam said and stood.

  “Oh and that sex bot you brought into my station? It’s on the plane out to CONUS. They can junk it for all I care.” Her mom spat the words, leaving Cam standing, her mouth hanging open, looking uncomfortable.

  “But you…Mom.” Her feet felt slick, unbalanced, like sliding off the roof without a safety line. The last shreds of her happiness slipped from her and crashed.

  There were huge trucks in Mac Town, with tires the size of houses, used to overcome any obstacle of snow or ice. She often had imaged how it would feel to be run over by one of them.

  She didn’t need to wonder anymore. She shrank inside. The only thing that came to mind was to say, “But it’s my birthday.”

  “Oh is that what-” With her hands balled into fists and her teeth bared, her mom replied, “Sometimes I wish I’d never had children. Look at the time I’ll have to waste babysitting you. You--a seventeen-year-old. When I was your age--”

  “I don’t care what you did at my age.” Ionia melted down into the chair. Her legs would no longer hold the weight. No Mac Town, no Den, nothing left. “You can’t do this.”

  Her mother gave her a tired smile. “Yes, I can.” A shuffle from the end of the table drew her mother’s attention. Mom finally realized they had an audience.

  “Sorry about this interruption to your dinner. Teenagers,” her mother said with the calm sorry-my-dog-shit-in-the-dining-room tone. “Sergeant Dickum, Captain Thompson, please excuse us.”

  Her mother yanked Ionia up and herded her out into the hall. Ionia let her guide her to her room, too stunned to think or resist. Her mother had known. She’d known! And waited to pounce, waited until Ionia was complacent, waited until she had an audience. Blood thundered in her veins, her heart a piston driving it hard to her limbs. Her head spun.

  The woman who birthed her shoved her into the room and pressed a group of buttons on the outside. Ionia knew what that meant. Hard lock. Not going to open unless the alarms were sounded, no override. “No more late night rendezvous, no more android, no more cheating.” She sounded so pleased with herself, so cocky, so self-important.

  “I hate you.” Ionia collapsed on the bed and brought her knees to her chest.

  “It’s for the best.” Her mother slid the door of her room shut, leaving Ionia alone. It wasn’t her room anymore, but her cell. The cheerful yellow paint on the walls mocked her misery. The little voice in her head, the one that usually assured her that everything was going to be ok, that there was always a way out, remained silent.

  Smart voice.

  She was doomed. Doomed to spend the rest of her life locked in her room or with her mother hanging over her forcing her to be something she wasn’t. Something she would never be. She had to leave. Had to get out, or die trying.

  But how? Her door was hard locked, Den was shut down and probably already on Cam’s plane, and she assumed her Cortex back doors were shut.

  She could set a fire in her room. That would set off the alarms and open her door. But how far would she get? Even if she stole a blazer, traveling in the heart of Antarctica in the dead center of winter was dicey at best. Cam only flew on clear nights, and then she had to use back up warmers on the engines, which took twice as much fuel.

  Then it came to her like a flash from the moon from behind a bank of clouds.

  Cam.

  Cam was the answer. But she still had to get out of the room undetected and pray no one discovered her absence until morning.

  She rolled over on her bed, reached for the light on her nightstand, and got a doozy of a hit of static electricity. Electricity. Maybe she could short out the door. Her mother had always called her a genius at wrecking things. And if the door shorted out, the alarms wouldn’t sound. She pulled her knapsack from under her bed and threw in what was left of her things:her journal, the pen from her dad, a picture of the family when they still lived in Mac Town, and an array of clothes. She laced up her boots, dug up a metal knitting needle her mother had missed, an autotooth brush, and a pair of scissors. She looked down and laughed. The artsy girl’s tools for breaking out of jail.

  Chapter Five

  Ionia rumpled the bed and arranged the pillows into a human-like lump. Her mom wouldn’t be around to collect her until her morning routine, and by then Ionia would be gone.

  First, she had to disable the door. She shoved one of her knitting needles into the crack beside the entry button, and with a light jerk, the cover fell off. Twisted black and red wires ran down the center of the electric panel and attached to the electrical system. But which one to cut? Red or black? Red. Definitely red. No, black. Her hand quivered. Sweat beaded on her forehead even though the room was bone-chillingly cold.

  Getting electro-fried would not give her quite the trip she had planned. But she had to decide. Red. She leaned away, slipped the scissors under the wire and sliced.

  A loud pop sounded, then a sizzle. A zing traveled up the skin of her hand, and she dropped the scissors. She was dead. Dead. Her hand vibrated from the shock. Pain, not death. If she felt the pain, she was alive. She laughed and rubbed her stinging hand.

  The smell of burning polyplastic hung in the room and choked her. She’d be out soon enough and away from the stench. Using a rubber boot, she shoved the needle against exposed wire. Another pop and the door slid open. Phase two complete. Her internal voice gave a small cheer.

  She stuck her head out. The hall stood dark and empty. Her heart slammed in her chest like a fist trying to escape her ribcage, and a buzz of excitement pulsed in her head. This was it. She was gonna do it. She snatched up her backpack and hit the external control panel to close the door and set the hard lock.

  It didn’t respond.

  Crap. She’d shorted out the whole system. The door wouldn’t shut, and an open door was as good as a giant red arrow pointing to her jailbreak. She had to get it closed.

  She yanked. She pulled. She grabbed the edge of the slider with both hands and all her weight and leaned, but the mechanism would not budge.

  The only way she would get any head start at all was to make everything look normal. Closing the door was not optional. Slowly, painfully, until her hands rubbed raw, she threw herself against the steel. The door moaned, and she used her foot to brace against the frame and gave one last pull. Creaking, the door finally released and slid shut.

  She pulled her backpack onto her shoulders and scanned the hall. No sign of the dictator or the drunk. The hall’s night light shone, and the temp sat at sleep mode chill. She shivered and pulled her jacket closer. The hangar waited a short distance away behind one more door. The door she prayed still had her bypass.

  She crept to the entry. A heavy stone pressed on her throat, slowing the flow of oxygen. The code had to be the same. No way, her mom would think to nix her access. She couldn’t conceive that Ionia sometimes planned ahead. Logically, her mom would never imagine Ionia would try to leave, running away in Antarctica with hundreds of miles of ice in every direction. Crazy stupid. Suicide stupid.

  And she wasn’t crazy-suicide stupid.<
br />
  She’d stay with Simon and Miranda in Mac Town until she found somewhere else. A job would be easy. They were always in need of workers, and no one checked credentials too hard, not with all the fugees arriving nearly daily.

  Best of all, it would be far, far, far away from that woman.

  She punched in the code, ROYGBIV1. The colors of the rainbow plus one, similar to her bracelet. But her dad had mixed the colors, so she always had a piece of her own unique rainbow, a piece of him.

  The door slid open into the antechamber. Warmers surrounded Cam’s plane to ensure the fuel tank didn’t freeze. The cargo door stood like an open mouth waiting for a snack. Her body tensed, every fiber of muscle, tight, coiled, ready to spring.

  Leaving the station was big. Abandoning the only home, she’d known for the last three years was huge. But leaving her bitch of a mother was the only choice to save her sanity. And, really, living with her mom in the station hadn’t felt like home in a long, long time.

  The door whined and began to slide up.

  Crap, crap, crap. What the actual hell? Cam wasn’t due to leave for hours. But due to leave or not, Cam was going. The engine coughed then settled into a purr lurching forward. Ionia had to go. Now or never.

  She ran the six meters to the plane. Her blood surged, shoving a blast of power to her legs. She launched forward and caught the edge of the gangplank. The plane dragged her forward and taxied out onto the ice field. Shards of frozen snow splayed back, cutting her face. She pulled with her arms and kicked against the ground with her legs. Anything to move forward. The tail of the plane began to transform, the rear closing like huge teeth.

  Her heart beat in her ears, bass drum loud, and dulled the roar of the plane. The back should have closed, but her weight held it down. But that wouldn’t last long. The rear door had to seal or Cam wouldn’t be able to pressurize the cabin, so either Ionia got chopped, or she let go.

  And she wasn’t letting go.

  She flexed every muscle in her upper back, pulling until the fibers felt like they were separating.