Metal Heart: Book 1: The Metal Heart Trilogy

by Melinda Crouchley

  A few residents chuckle but most concentrate on their own test in these final moments. With a pang of loss and the death of my hope, I type “I’m Sorry” into the last sentence of an essay question and close out of Clinton’s tablet, returning control to him.

  I submit my completed exam and log off the borrowed tablet, carrying it back to the instructor with leaden feet and a lump in my throat. Clinton grimaces down at his exam, knowing he's failing for a fourth time. It’s painful to witness. He may be a wealthy, privileged jerk who bribed me into helping him cheat, but no one deserves this kind of humiliation. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. As we gather our belongings to leave the lab for the day I can’t stop myself from offering a consoling pat on his shoulder. It’s so foreign to me, so against my nature and better judgement, but...we’re in the same boat, Clinton and I. Full of holes and sinking fast. Losing hope of ever reaching dry land.

  The moment I make physical contact, it’s clear this sign of compassion is a mistake.

  “Don’t,” he says. A group of residents stop their forward progress to the door and watch us curiously.

  “You could have let me tutor you,” I try to explain.

  “Don’t touch me, Garza.” He shrugs me off his shoulder and my arm falls limply to my side. “You’re a fucking freak.”

  “Oh, right,” I murmur as he exits the lab.

  Rather than depart with everyone else, I loiter at Vargas’ desk with the ruined tablet until the room empties. I proceed to a tool drawer and dig around inside, shoving kinetic instruments around with an angry fervor. Something feels right about the clattering, banging noises in the otherwise silent classroom. Clinton failed his exam. Our deal is done. My hope is gone and Mateo and freedom are far, far away again, out of my reach.

  I slam the drawer closed and bang a fist on the table. It thunders like a gunshot in the quiet. The tablet leaps from the counter and clatters to the floor. I bend over to retrieve it and as I’m standing back up, movement flutters in the corner of my vision. Rabbit watches from the door. He nervously shifts some kind of bracelet around on his wrist, his features dripping with sympathy. Maybe pity. I don’t know what else. He should be gloating. He has good reasons to gloat. But he doesn’t look happy about my misfortune. Somehow that’s worse.

  “Is this what you wanted?” I shout the question at him.

  He turns his back, slinking away. More a cat than a rabbit.

  Two days after the exam, during Tech lab, our bands emit a wailing siren. Clinton and I, our bodies bent around the project we’re working on, slowly lift our heads and stare at each other in horror. Sergeant Vargas walks over to our table.

  She grabs Clinton around his meaty bicep and leans in, whispering to both of us, “Stop what you’re doing and step outside. Two armed guards are waiting for you.”

  She turns to me. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

  I scoot off the stool and fall to the ground, my shaking legs buckling and knees giving out at the same time. With a grunt of frustration, Vargas hauls me up and I regain a wobbly bit of composure. The class full of residents stare at us. Rabbit stares at us and I want to exchange eye contact with him so badly the desire burns in the back of my head, at the top of my neck like an animal need. But I resist. I look straight ahead as Vargas drags me across the room and dumps me unceremoniously through the door, Clinton chasing our heels like a big dumb dog.

  In the hallway, as predicted by Vargas, two armed guards wait for us. They box us in and we follow their lead without question. What would we say? Where would we go? We know what we did, what this is about.

  “Clinton,” I whisper, voice choked.

  “Don’t talk to me,” he croaks back.

  At a fork in the hallway, we turn left, exiting the Academy. We are ushered into a waiting hover car. It swoops left as well, towards the administration building. The guards don’t speak to us, they stare straight ahead. I don’t recognize them, have never seen them on base before. They wear irregular uniforms I didn't notice in my initial panic, with white stripes running down the arms. These are not ordinary soldiers. These must be Prothero hired guns.

  Maybe Prothero cares about me after all. Momentary relief wells within me but I squash it by biting down hard on the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. Prothero doesn’t care. They left me here to die. They abandoned me to my fate.

  We reach the building. The guards drag us to our feet, out the door and shuttle us down the steps. I beep past the tech scanners and no one bats an eye. The X-ray reveals my body dotted with all the metal and technology. Ear, eye, lung, heart, arm. Little bits of my skull. A few bones in my rib cage they had to rebuild. The soldier manning the scanner blinks in surprise but the guards push us past too fast for me to read the rest of his reaction.

  We’re herded towards a conference room where a wall slides away to reveal a gleaming metal table. Sitting in an uncomfortable chair is Senator Edmund Fuller. He’s a handsome chiseled white man in the way most rich, powerful white men are handsome. The way Clinton Fuller is handsome. Wheat and grey dappled hair, fair skin, blue eyes. Reasonably sized nose and mouth. Chins pointy. Forehead sloped. Edmund Fuller frowns at our approach, his freckled nose wrinkled as if he smells a foul odor.

  “Goddammit Clinton,” he curses when we’re within range. He socks Clinton across the face with a lazy, deliberate backhand devoid of emotion. A cruel greeting.

  Clinton reaches up to cover the swollen red lump and smear of blood with a mechanical air. A perfunctory ritual. Beside me, Clinton retreats inward into an empty shell. Despite his malicious tendencies, I’m sad to watch him go. And also scared to be left alone with the Senator.

  Edmund Fuller snaps his attention over to me and studies the wires and implants with all the curiosity of a person debating whether or not to switch from one mildly entertaining virtual movie to the next. He pauses and holds his hand out with a gesture oozing calculus.

  “Senator Edmund Fuller. You’ve met my son,” he says using an affected southern accent, the intent to provide maximum charm. I don’t even think they have thick accents in Texas.

  I flop my hand into his, wishing it weren’t coated in a film of terrified sweat. He gives it a hard, angry squeeze and a wave of dizziness passes over me. The world is not making sense right now. The Senator speaks, so I give him all the attention I can muster.

  “Really appreciate what you tried to do for Clinton. What Rory Santiago was never able to achieve, no matter what wheels we greased. It’s a shame you two weren’t quite able to pull it off,” he says with a shrug and shark toothed smile. His teeth are impossibly white.

  Rory Santiago.

  “I’ve taken care of the fallout for you. For both of you. You appreciate that, don’t you Ms. Garza?” Still grinning. The grin makes him look rabid.

  I nod passively, dumbly. Clinton drops his hand from his face, the trauma of the slap drawing his limbs down as if he might melt into the earth. Clinton’s a statue next to me, so paralyzed and wracked with fear you could land a bird on him.

  “I thought you might appreciate that. You—” He touches me and I control the urge to flinch. Barely. I’m taking my cues from Clinton and the best approach seems to be as still and cooperative as possible. The Senator rubs the back of his index finger down the wires of my temple, over my jawline, resting on my chin. He grabs the bone and flesh there, hard.

  “You hold a bright future ahead of you. You’re a smart young woman with powerful friends. My son here—” He releases my chin and slaps Clinton on the arm—“should be so lucky.”

  “Lucky.” The word tumbles from me with all the bottled bitter taste I’ve ingested over the last four years.

  “Lucky,” Edmund Fuller repeats with a scary twitch of his wolf mouth. He looks more like a wolf now. His eyes are too pale for a shark.

  “Sorry for all the pomp and circumstance. I thought it might do you both some good to be taken down a notch. Next time you feel the urge to do a terrible job cheat
ing the system, there won’t be a next time. Enjoy the rest of the year kids. It will absolutely be your last here at the Academy.” He turns on a dime, expensive pleated pants and black shining shoes sparking against the cement. “At least one of you will be graduating and making yourself useful to society,” he says with his back turned.

  The soldiers press in on us and shove us out of the room. The wall slides back into place and Senator Edmund Fuller slides out of view. Clinton lets out a spooked sob. I turn to him and my gaze catches on the welt dotting his cheek. I open my mouth to speak.

  “Don’t talk to me,” Clinton says again, with measured ferocity.

  “What did he mean?”

  “He means we were caught cheating. He saved our asses. I’m not graduating. You didn’t catch any of that? And everyone says I'm stupid.” He pushes away from the guards, stomping out through the tech scanners and into the heavy grey day.

  The guards don’t attempt to stop him, instead they disperse like the seeds of a dandelion in the wind, scattering back to their posts. Probably glad to be out of the cross-hairs of our odd grouping. I don’t follow. I linger in the hallway of the administration building. Edmund Fuller can’t hide in there forever.

  After ten minutes of no activity, the wall slides away one more time and the senator emerges. He straightens his tie and a silver Prothero band slides into view, rolling back down into the cuff of his crisp, gleaming white button up shirt. His straw colored hair is neatly parted. He leers over at me and I notice his perfect, artfully sculpted dimples. Goosebumps surge and spark along my skin. It’s a familiar sensation. I’ve come to associate it with the Fullers.

  “You stayed. How incredibly thoughtful.” He glides over to me with a perfect, languid gait. Like he’s floating on air.

  “How did they catch us?” The words plunge forth with a life of their own. It’s a stupid question but I need the answer. I need to know where I messed up and how Prothero found out. Loopholes like this can’t exist. I can’t make stupid mistakes.

  “Prothero has eyes everywhere, Ms. Garza. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed. Don’t you possess one of theirs?” He offers me another slippery, toothy grin.

  “I wanted—”

  “I’m sure you did. But as I explained earlier, your wishes are all used up. It’s an incredible disappointment. You had such high hopes, I’m sure.”

  He winks at me. I suppress the urge to shudder. Weakness in front of this man would be like swimming in bloody water with a shark.

  “Clinton—”

  “Don’t trouble your devious little mind about him. He’ll be fine Ms. Garza. So will you. I’ve made sure of that.”

  “What did—”

  “I exerted the pressure I am capable of, to save you both from yourselves. You’re welcome.”

  “Thank you,” I say, sounding more sincere than I feel. His comment about Rabbit filters back to my memory. “You mentioned Rabbit—I mean, Rory Santiago,” I begin, anticipating he will cut me off. He doesn’t. The senator’s expression is blank, waiting.

  “Yes, what about him?”

  “You said he owes you,” I repeat his statement, hoping to avoid asking a question I don’t really deserve an answer to.

  “Oh, I believe Rory’s secrets should be his own. Don’t you? Men are so often incapable of true subterfuge. If he hasn’t told you his sorted background, I don’t believe that is my place. But it is curious of you to ask. Any particular reason you need this personal information?” One side of his mouth curves up in vague amusement. “It’s very personal.”

  “No, not really. I—no,” I falter.

  “I suspect he would echo the sentiment. You look a little deflated Ms. Garza. I know, it’s all so overwhelming. Drink a glass of warm milk and lay down for a bit. Consider the future I mentioned. It’s very bright indeed. There are many uses for your talents. It would be a shame for all that to end here, don’t you think?” He tips an imaginary hat and brushes past me. The guards resurface on the other side of the scanner and escort him from the building.

  They move fast and vanish into a heavily armed hover car, trailing two more in its wake. A helo in the air above, blades thumping and chopping the wind all around it, monitors the procession.

  Senator Fuller leaves and takes the remainder of my hope of a clean getaway with him. It’s back to my original, much more complicated plan for exiting National Service. Plan B. It’s back to waiting for an opening. Waiting for something to change.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SOMETHING CHANGES

  The nano migraines return with a vengeance. My head throbs, my skull stuffed with nothing but nerve endings and glass. Jolts of electricity shoot across my veins with each thrum from my temples. It’s bad enough by fifth period I’m excused from Flight Simulation and sent to the infirmary.

  Helo SIMs are my favorite part of course rotation, both for the chance to showcase my tech expertise and the knowledge that each SIM brings me closer to my goal of departing national service and Prothero forever.

  The infirmary is a newer one story white stone building attached to the Academy compound, and the compound itself is on the far southern end of the base. It’s next to the open land used for running field exercises.

  The infirmary is a component of the classroom training, where field nurses and doctors practice, so the buildings are connected to one another by a covered glass walkway. Whoever designed this structure knew of the rainy reputation in the Pacific Northwest and cared enough to keep us dry. On the way down the hall my vision blurs and doubles, fading into disorienting patches of black. I use my hand as a guide, fingers trailing across concrete and brick until I stop in front of the infirmary. I pull open the heavy metal door and enter the main room. A young male receptionist, probably a failed resident, sits at the front desk, boredly surveying the empty room. Standing next to him is a woman in her late 30s.

  “Another headache?” Nurse Esperanza asks. She wears a scrub shirt and uniform pants, and her sable hair is pulled back into a ponytail. She motions me behind a secure door and I trail her into an empty examination room.

  I hop up on the exam table, massaging the pressure point of my temple.

  She studies me. “Have you taken your injection today?"

  “This morning. Just like clockwork. I don’t like this new stuff they’re pumping into me.”

  “I was worried about that. The dosage with the next generation injectors is excessive. That started when, around the turn of the New Year? January 1?"

  “Yeah. Somewhere around the bombing anniversary. I hate it. The headaches are so much worse. What would happen if I stopped taking it?” I ask.

  “At the worst you would suffer catastrophic organ failure and cerebral hemorrhaging. The least would be chronic immune system deficiency. The nanos and organs are waging a war inside you, Eleni. Those injectors keep you on the winning side.”

  “And the only side effects are nose bleeds and constant migraines.”

  “Don't be so dramatic. It’s not that bad, is it?”

  I fish the injector out of my pocket and set it against the tip of my right pointer finger, depressing the green button at the top. A needle pops out and stabs into my skin. The fluid enters my veins. Metal fills my mouth. Bile rises in my stomach.

  “This new stuff is that bad. How about some pain meds?” I ask, attempting to apply a modest amount of charm. Prothero has turned me into a glorified junkie.

  “Nothing strong enough to cure your winning personality. Here’s extra vicodin. You can lay down here or in your barracks.”

  I lean back against the wall in defiance. “Vicodin isn’t strong enough.”

  “OK, here’s what’s going to happen. The bloody nose in the SIM a month ago seems to be the catalyst for this series of headaches. And that started when they upped the medication dosages. Yeah, I heard about that. I heard about all of that. You’re my patient Eleni. My responsibility. I’m sending Dr. Dawson a wave about these complications. I’m not sure what’s
going on in there.“ She taps on my head.

  I peer up at her, brows furrowed.

  “But I don’t like it. I don”t like this new medicine they prescribed you. You should return to the old dosage.” She turns and opens a cupboard, retrieving a bottle of pain medication from a middle shelf.

  “I don’t like any medicine,” I inform her, glowering.

  Nurse Esperanza spins back around, all traces of her former patience vanished.

  “Glare at me all you want. It doesn’t hurt my feelings one bit. 5,000 individuals with their own complicated medical histories live on this base and I treat every single one of them. You are by far the most stubborn.”

  “Dr. Dawson won’t come. He hasn’t seen me in over two years.” I swing down off the bed and scoop up the bottle of pills from her.

  “Oh ye of little faith,” she says.

  “More like no faith,” I mutter.

  I'm touching the doorknob when Nurse Esperanza calls out.

  “One more test before you go,” she insists, rifling inside another drawer.

  “I'm a human guinea pig anyway. What's one more test?” I grumble, hoisting myself back up on the bed.

  She retrieves a needle and extracts a blood sample, bandaging up the barely visible puncture wound with gentle precision.

  “What do you want with my blood?” I ask, running a finger over the band-aid.

  “Nothing really. I just have a hunch.” Her smile spreads, crinkling her pert nose. “Don't worry so much Eleni. You're a good kid.”

  “You’re probably the only person who believes that,” I say, enjoying the comfort of her words.

  “Oh, that’s not true. But you could ease up on the angst and self loathing. You’d probably make more friends that way.”

  “Precisely what I need. More friends.” I roll my eyes.

  “I’ll wave you when I hear from Prothero.”

  “I’ll probably die before that happens,” I mutter as I walk past her.

  She waves me off dismissively and shuts the door of the exam room against my back. For the moment, the pain medication burns the headache out of my system. The only option now is returning to class. I take my sweet time walking down the empty hallways and corridors back to the education building where sixth period tech awaits.