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Metal Heart: Book 1: The Metal Heart Trilogy

Page 17

by Melinda Crouchley


  “You scared the crap out of me!”

  “Well, that was the intention.”

  She hovers over me, offering more disparaging words until Rabbit taps her on the shoulder. She throws him a nasty look and moves off to the side, barely. He brushes past Scar who scowls at him. He doesn’t even notice.

  “Eleni.”

  “Rabbit.”

  His forehead crinkles. Concerned Rabbit face. “What happened?”

  “Nurse Esperanza didn’t tell you?”

  “They wouldn’t tell us what happened. It took me two hours to figure out you’d been life-flighted in here,” Scarlett complains, favoring the nurse with another of her dark looks. “And that’s only because the Rosas have connections in the medical wing.”

  “And how did you find out?” I turn to Rabbit.

  He rubs the back of his neck and doesn’t answer right away. More Rabbit secrets.

  “Emilia sent me a wave,” Rabbit says, offering me a grim smile. “There were a lot of winking faces.”

  Nurse Esperanza steps forward. “Dr. Dawson is momentarily indisposed. He was relieved to hear you survived and promised to teleport over first thing in the morning. If your condition is stable enough, he plans to bring you back to D.C. to evaluate your implant.”

  Frantic thoughts slam and crash around my brain. I push myself up off the bed and claw at the IV drip in my arm.

  “No. No way.”

  Rabbit reaches out to grab my shoulders and restrain me. I struggle and thrash in his grip. My pulse rockets and alarms wail as the metal heart stages another coup underneath my ribcage.

  “I'm not going back there.”

  Rabbit and Nurse Esperanza force me back onto the bed. Scar stands behind the scene, covering her mouth with a balled up fist. I wish I'd told her more. I wish I'd told her everything.

  Nurse Esperanza turns on Scar, “Buford, bring me that sedative on the counter.”

  I shake my head. “Scar. Don’t.”

  Scarlett stands her ground, indecisive.

  “Now!” Nurse Esperanza orders.

  The command sends Scar bolting across the room. She returns clutching a syringe. "I'm sorry Len.”

  Rabbit holds me to the hospital bed, pressing against my shoulder. He glances down at the wrist, empty of the rosary bracelet, and looks back up, a scowling question contorting his features.

  “This isn’t right,” Rabbit says, catching Nurse Esperanza’s attention. “What we’re doing.”

  “Are you a medical practitioner, resident?” she asks, narrowing her eyes into small slits.

  He drops his head. “No ma’am.”

  “Then hold her still.”

  Nurse Esperanza rips the covers from my body and rudely shoves the hospital gown up past my hips. I thrash harder, but the sharp prick of the needle enters my left thigh despite my protests. Tears build in my real eye. Rage climbs up my throat.

  “Rabbit,” I stop thrashing. “Don’t let them take me.”

  He offers me a look of conflicted heartbreak.

  “You promised,” I say. “You promised you’d help me.”

  “Eleni, it’s Prothero. What can I do?”

  Nothing. There’s nothing he can do.

  “You promised.” My voice soars an octave.

  Rabbit’s grip tightens and the blue electricity snaps alive on his band. It’s not the pleasant tingling sensation from last night. It’s a hard, cruel strike of power. Rabbit releases me with a shout, backing away and stumbling into Scarlett. The look of horror on his face twists the room and blurs the edges of reality. In Rabbit’s eyes, Clinton Fuller stares at me in shock. My parents glower at me with side glances of despair. Dr. Dawson’s scowls in disappointment.

  Rabbit's scared. He’s finally scared of me.

  He sees what I really am.

  A monster.

  The full color display above the bed, depicting the status of my internal organs, crackles and hisses. The siren wails cut off. My heart shudders down to an easy speed and the world shifts back to normalcy. Nurse Esperanza sweeps in front of me, shoving my friends to the door.

  “Visiting hours are over,” she says.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Scarlett asks.

  “It’s not up for discussion. You too lover boy.” She pokes Rabbit’s shoulder. “Go on.”

  “What’s gonna happen to her?” Rabbit asks.

  Scar and Rabbit struggle against Esperanza, but it’s pushing back against the inevitable. They can’t win against the authority the Nurse wields. They can’t win against Prothero. They’ve already lost. The door closes and Nurse Esperanza twists the lock. Hot tears spill down my cheek. I brush them away clumsily.

  “I’m sorry. That was a terrible idea.” Nurse Esperanza moves to fiddle with a vial of drugs on the counter. “You need more rest.”

  “Don’t,” I say, unsure of what I’m railing against. The world lurches away in a sudden rush. Then, I remember. “Don’t let them take me.”

  She strides over to my IV, equipped with yet another needle. She stares down at me with the stony features of a woman resigned to carry out actions she secretly despises. “It’s not my choice. Believe me.”

  She injects the solution. My lids become too heavy to prop open. From outside the spongy grip of blackness, fists pound on a door.

  Scarlett’s voice. “What are you doing to her?”

  “Buford! Stop. You’re only making it worse.”

  “Fuck you!” That’s Scarlett. The rest of their words muffle, as if someone slowly turned down the volume in my ears. They keep talking, spinning their sounds together until I can’t tell who is who anymore.

  Nurse Esperanza breaks the cacophony, whispering into the inky dream world. “You’re too important to die on us.”

  I tumble into a landscape of nightmares.

  The same dream, backwards again. Javier exploding. I’m strapped to a hospital bed. Blurry hands emerge, pressing and pushing at my flesh. Scalpels slice into me. Needles submerge under my skin. Electricity drives over my body in jolts. And then, I'm left. Left to starve and die and rot. Voices thunder in, the voices from the SIM, weeks ago, when Rabbit destroyed the building. Rabbit, pressing the command button on his console. Matty and the women and children trapped in the collapsing building rubble. The drone spinning to the ground. My nose erupting in blood, waves of nausea. Blood on my hands. Blood on Rabbit’s hands. Mateo crushed to death. Mateo emerging from the shadows, holding his hand out. Beckoning me. Calling for help. Asking me to join him.

  I wake up in a cold sweat to a pitch-black room. The sky outside, visible through a sparsely curtained window, is dark. My band indicates it’s 4am.

  I remember. The revelation of the new NV, kissing Rabbit, the suspicious rosary bracelet, the conejos, the letter from Mateo, the heart attack, my friends abandoning me. The pain strikes again, all at once, with the force of a hammer. My blood pressure spikes on the monitor overhead and a vice tightens in my chest.

  I am dying.

  Prothero is killing me. Prothero is killing Mateo. I don't want them to take me back to the lab in DC for experimentation. They won’t offer benign alterations this time. They're done fixing me up. They will take what they want. Do what they want. I’ll be locked up in a little room with a window and everyday they’ll siphon my blood until I wither and die.

  I need to get out of here. I need to get the fuck out of here.

  It's too soon to flee the base. It's sooner than I'd planned. I'm not as strong as I should be. I don't have enough training or experience yet.

  But there's no more time to worry about any of that.

  I inhale and push all the emotions down into the baser regions of my brain. Burying them with layers of military training and technical manuals and computer science. I can’t remember how horrible I feel anymore. I can’t feel anything anymore. But I understand what I must do.

  It's the only thing I can do. No one else can save me.

  I save myself.

 
Time for Plan B.

  I pluck the needle out of my right arm and wrap my fingers around the drips of blood caused by this inexpert maneuver. The puncture doesn't quickly evaporate with nano assistance, which means I’ll take longer than usual to heal. I lift the covers and tiptoe over to an empty chair in the room where the clothes I was wearing this morning are draped. My limbs are shaky, but less so than earlier. My favorite black t-shirt is entirely unusable, cut down the middle with a pair of scissors for easy access to my chest. Same with the bra. I toss these aside and put on the pants, the lump of Rabbit’s rosary digging through the right pocket. I pull it out and wrap it around my wrist. Who cares what Carmen thinks.

  Who cares what anybody thinks anymore.

  The jacket is fine, the medics only unzipped it. I pull it on over the hospital gown. My pack is there too, rifle missing. There’s still a mace, taser, EMP device, and rations tucked away inside the three pouches. Not enough for what I need, but it will have to do. I transfer the mace and taser to my jacket pockets. One in each. They may prove useful before the night is over. With that completed, I stand on tiptoes and open one of the upper cupboard doors. There must be inoculations in here, somewhere. Maybe not six months worth. Maybe not enough for the entire Mexico City Contra leadership. But there could be enough for one person. For Mateo.

  Flimsy cardboard boxes line the shelves, but none are labeled NV-1. I curse under my breath and search the lower cabinets, finding one package of the antidote. The outside label indicates the box only contains eight doses. Two months. It’s not enough. There has to be more in the infirmary. The base is teeming with people who need weekly treatments. I need to find them.

  I gingerly push the door open, scanning the waiting room for signs of life. A male clinic orderly sleeps at the counter, behind him in the pharmacy four shelves are crammed with medications. Jackpot.

  The door to my right accesses this room. I grab the doorknob and turn it gingerly, hoping the click and muffled whoosh of the door sliding open doesn’t disturb the orderly's slumber. He sighs and shifts, but remains napping. I tiptoe onto the buffed linoleum and scan the first row for another box of NV-1. I’m not asking for much. One more box should suffice for Matty. I couldn’t carry much else with me. One more box.

  The first row of shelves does not yield any results. Nor does the second. Then I spy familiar labeling on the bottom half of the third row. There is decidedly more than one box occupying those shelves. But I only need one.

  I creep forward, grabbing the first package, and hesitate. Another package would buy two more months for Mateo, or someone else in the Contra leadership. Cursing my impulses, I grab another off the shelf and turn to find my path is blocked. The slumbering soldier has awoken, his brows drawn together in confusion.

  “What’re you doing in here?” he asks, stifling a yawn.

  Good. I need the element of surprise. I clench my fingers around the taser in my jacket pocket.

  “Getting some medication,” I say. “Could you hold this for me?” I dangle the second box in front of him. He nods sleepily and reaches for it. He must be under the impression I’m either a patient or a medical resident. Or he’s half asleep and could care less either way.

  “Why are you wearing a jacket?” he asks. “It's roasting in here.”

  “Yeah, it is,” I say as he grips the cardboard.

  I jam the taser in his ribs, depressing the button. The soldier emits a terrified shout and I drop the other box of medication to cover his mouth.

  Bad call. A jolt of electricity ripples my body like water and the wires in my temple crackle. The acrid scent of burnt hair and electronics assaults my nostrils. The vision in my left eye stutters and I drop my hand from him, but I keep tasing. The orderlies knees buckle and he collapses to the ground, in too much pain to articulate, saving me from anymore dumb ideas like stifling his cries. I deliver more volts to his abdomen, then I check the vitals on his band. Steady pulse and heart-rate. He’s not going into cardiac arrest.

  A red security camera light winks at me from across the room. I’m not the first drug addled resident or soldier to burst in here and attempt to elicit prescription narcotics. If a broom or pole were nearby I could bust the camera up, but the whole incident will be recorded. There’s no turning back now. Not with the orderly lying prone on the ground beneath a scattering of inoculations. Besides, the other things planned for tonight are much worse than a tasering. I scoop up both boxes and sling them in the pack. I need to get out of here fast, before security is alerted or the soldier wakes.

  I shuffle past the unconscious soldier and exit out into the empty main hallway. It’s so quiet out here this early in the morning. I should grab some better clothes. I should give Scarlett and Rabbit a final goodbye. But there’s no time to do either.

  What else is there to say?

  They won’t help me escape Prothero. No one can. It's better this way. Prothero is hot on my heels and what’s left of my entire world is falling apart in Mexico. I will deliver these inoculations and myself along with them so maybe the Contras can deliver a cure. Rabbit and Scarlett, they’ll manage without me. They'll be better off.

  Nobody really needs me in their life anyway. Clinton Fuller may be a terrible human, but he was right about that. I’m a dangerous person and I will destroy people’s lives.

  Floodlights illuminate the main campus, and a bitter wind whisks across the vacant courtyard separating the Academy from the rest of the military base. Flakes of snow drift in the breeze, unable to make purchase on the ground. Snow could be problematic. I need to escape before the full force of the weather hits.

  My first and only stop is five hundred yards from the munitions depot. I circle around behind the building and slip in using an above ground basement window loosened by years of exposure to the harsh gorge weather and my interference with kinetic tools. I pop the window out of the frame, and the already weakened metal bars snap like twigs when I exert pressure on them.

  Loosening this window has been a hobby of mine. The hours of dark are long here, and some nights sleep does not come easy. Establishing an access point to the weapons depot seemed like a productive use of my time when awake at 2am on a military base. They don't store rifles in the basement. Only heavy weapons like machine guns, rocket launchers and other explosives. A few of which are perfectly suited for my needs.

  I slip through the gap in the concrete, glad of my relatively thin frame and lack of large breasts. I imagine Scar trying to squeeze down in here. Scarlett. A nagging spike of pain rips into my chest but I tuck all thoughts of my friends away in a corner of my mind and close the door. I cannot be distracted from this purpose. They’re better off without me.

  I drop down onto the concrete. The fall is greater than anticipated. It’s difficult to judge distance using a warped, barred window. My ankles buckle as my feet land and I topple forward, knees slamming into dirty grey cement. A cry of pain escapes me and I bite down hard on the knuckles of my right hand. Hard enough to draw blood tasting like poison on my tongue.

  I sit in a crouch, catching my breath and gathering my bearings. My knees throb with a dull ache. The band clicks on to a low pulse, providing enough illumination for me to read the labels on the shipping containers. They are stacked on tall metal shelving units, similar to a warehouse. A forklift or mech suit would reach the top shelf. Luckily the items I need are on a bottom row. I spy them and approach the metal box. How am I going to get past this obstacle? I step closer and touch the side, as I did before in the SIM with the LRAD. Nothing happens. Not sure what I was expecting. A flash of light, the box to magically open, a genie to pop out and grant me three wishes? Stupid.

  I lean in closer to inspect the lid and see if it's possible to pull it off with a crowbar. Text on the label catches my eye. Right beneath the twisting Prothero symbol and the slogan "Advancing humanity at all costs," is a bar-code. I scan it with the band. It reads the printed ink and spits out lines of manufacturer information, including a twel
ve digit lockbox sequence I can enter on a keypad. Well, that's convenient. I reach into the underside of the shelf, searching the container top until my fingers land on the keypad. It's dusty. This part of the armory has been dormant for a while.

  I punch in the lockbox numbers and the box beeps. Nothing happens. A text message appears, “please enter the six digit security clearance.” Couldn’t be that easy. I sigh, rubbing at the wires on my left temple. I have to hack this box. I need the explosives inside to provide a diversion. They’re an integral part of Plan B.

  I bang a fist on the keypad numbers. The box emits another sharp beep and renews the previous text message, “please enter the six digit security clearance.”

  The band however, awakens, gleaming an ominous purple. I've seen blue before, that is a known quantity. This is an entirely new development. An image flickers to life on the display, fuzzy at first and indecipherable, but gaining clarity as the seconds tick by. Schematics for the keypad, displaying a weakness in the wiring. If I exploit this weakness, I can overload the system and force the container open, bypassing the security code. That would be preferable to sitting here playing guessing games until the sun comes up.

  “Thanks,” I whisper to the purple schematic. It pulses and winks out, retaining the dim white glow of the flashlight.

  I shrug out of my pack and dig around inside the flap for the item I'm usually never without, a set of kinetic tools. I touch the screwdriver down to the keys and a spark of electricity shoots up. I dig the metal in under the buttons and lift with all the force in both my arms. The cover of the keypad lifts off, exposing the wiring beneath. The band snaps back on, rotating the schematics. There are six colored wires. I manipulate them into a new sequence based on the read-out. I snap the keypad back on and await an updated text message.

  Nothing happens. I tap out the twelve digit sequence again. Still nothing.

  This isn’t working. I kick at the metal container. A pleasant chime sounds and the lid unlatches with a velvety sigh of compressed air.

 

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