Heart of Iron

by Ashley Poston

  “Good evening, Gregori,” it said, a staticky blue holo-screen appearing over the console.

  Rasovant? Tensing, she glanced back to the entrance—but there was no one there. She was alone.

  The computer meant her.

  “I have five thousand forty-three abnormal readings from our data cores. Would you like to examine them?”

  A YES-or-NO dialogue box appeared on the screen.

  The computer wasn’t an AI but one of those older analog consoles Siege had told her about, older than the Dossier’s consoles.

  YES, she pressed.

  The screen expanded to fill half the wall, bringing up vitals for thousands of names, maybe more. The computer monitored RAM and processing speed.

  At least a quarter of them were marked blue, others dark and flat-lined.

  D204. D710. D1489.

  Her breath caught in her throat. They were Metal vitals. The blue-colored ones must have been HIVE’d—there were so many—and the dark ones smashed. The others, judging from the spikes and dips in vitals, were rogues. There were so few of them left.

  She paused the screen once it reached the beginning of the list, a number she knew best of all. D09.

  But his vitals weren’t dark. Her eyebrows furrowed—why weren’t they dark?

  Hope fluttered in her chest as she keyed up the prompts.

  D09 COORDINATES, she typed.

  “Error. Cannot locate.”

  She pressed her lips together and tried again. D09 STATUS.

  “Unknown.”

  She slammed her hands against the keyboard. Took a deep breath.

  It’s wishful thinking, Ana, she told herself. It didn’t matter if this computer knew. She knew. He was dead.

  And she wasn’t here to remind herself of that.

  This must have been Rasovant’s lab from before the Rebellion. He said it had burned, but here she was, standing in it. This was where it all started. His research, his breakthroughs, his studies.

  Everything that could have saved Di was right here. Schematics of memory cores, blueprints, answers. It hadn’t been lost after all. But why did Rasovant hide it? Why not share this information with the kingdom to understand Metals? To save ones like Di?

  Could Di have been saved? She had to know.

  Bittersweet, she typed in MEMORY CORES.

  “Gathering content.”

  Screens upon screens popped up over each other, each denser in content than the last. Photos. Videos. Case studies. Experiments. Schematics of memory cores. There were notes with case files, different experiments detailing human consciousness and the quantity of memory. Different processing speeds—

  And then there were photos of Plague victims, the black patches on their skin—as though their flesh was rotting away. She’d heard stories. She’d seen photos. But nothing as terrible or as extensive as this.

  The computer must have been confused. It was bringing up Plague files.

  METAL CREATION, she tried.

  “Content gathered.”

  But nothing had changed. Frustrated, she prompted the console again.

  “Error. Content gathered.”

  “How is it . . .” Her words lodged in her throat. She looked at the case files again, the experiments, the studies on the Plague, the contagion rate, the lack of a cure. The growing number of Metals, the experiments on human memory, the megabytes needed, the RAM, the processing speed, the—

  D03, Retains little knowledge in transfer, but not memory. Slow. Must up RAM.

  D05, Retains most knowledge in transfer, little memory. Perhaps need essential memory supplement?

  D08, Retains all knowledge in transfer, but no memory—yet. Memory core functional.

  There was a file with this next case number. She clicked it, and a video popped up. A shaky holo-pad recording, pixelated and almost unwatchable. It showed a Metal sitting in a chair, watching someone behind the camera with bright moonlit eyes.

  “Now, I want you to think hard,” said the gravelly voice of Rasovant—the man behind the camera. “Identify AI.”

  “D09,” it said.

  Her heart jumped into her throat. D09? Di?

  She reached for the holo-screen, toward his face, but her hand fell through the screen.

  “No, let’s try this again. Your real name. You must remember it. Identify AI.”

  “I am D09,” it repeated. Di repeated. “I am D09.”

  “No! Your human name.”

  FILE CORRUPTED, the blank screen read.

  Her eyebrows furrowed. His human name? But what did that . . .

  “Oh, Goddess,” she whispered, retreating from the console as if it had burned her, and she searched the lab for something—anything—to prove her wrong, but all she saw was the Plague and memory cores and death.

  Metals had once been people—the Plague victims.

  All the Plague victims were burned after they died, so no one would know the difference if their bodies went missing. The disease was so contagious, if you so much as touched an infected person, you would also begin to rot. The kingdom sent out guards to take the infected away, so no one was there when they died. Or when they were put into Metals.

  Oh, Goddess.

  Then . . . D09 . . . he was . . .

  She typed in the prompt and hit enter.

  IDENTIFY SUBJECT D09.

  The files—all of them, the schematics, the experimental files, the lab results—went dark. Words typed out over the screen.

  Tsk-tsk, little Ananke.

  The screen changed to a mirror—just her reflection in the dimly lit room. But in the doorway to the lab stood the red-eyed Metal, its head bowed to the side, sparks frizzing, a slat of metal missing from its cheek.

  I told you, you should have burned like the others.

  The screen glitched, and the Metal disappeared, replaced by her brothers, dressed in proper waistcoats and trousers, ashen, with smudges of soot on their cheeks.

  But she knew the Metal was there. Its footsteps were heavy, patient, slow. She trembled, unable to look away from the screen—she was afraid to. In the reflection, her brothers prowled closer, shifting, shimmering, growing taller, older, with stares as dark as space. How old they would be, if they had survived. This was a cruel trick. A fabrication.

  “You burned the tower,” she whispered, and the malware grinned through her eldest brother’s mouth. “You’re the Metal who burned the tower and killed my family.”

  The eldest brother, Rhys, bent toward her. His voice was right in her ear. “We did burn the tower, but it was Father’s idea.”

  “Your father? You . . . you mean Rasovant.”

  “Father lost his patience with the Emperor. He did not mean to kill him.” Wylan shrugged.

  Her mouth went dry. “Why?”

  “Because Father thought the Great Dark was coming. He needed an army. He wanted to HIVE all Metals, to conscript them, and the Emperor would not let him.”

  “That’s because the Great Dark doesn’t exist,” Ana replied. “It’s just a story.”

  “But all stories have their beginnings, little Ananke,” replied Rhys. “Like the story of the Rebellion. It was not all lies, was it? There was a fire, and humans died.”

  “But my father didn’t die in the fire,” she snarled. “Rasovant killed him, and then you burned the tower to cover up the evidence! There’s a difference.”

  Her eldest brother seemed pleased. “The only difference is who is telling the story.”

  “Then who . . . what are you?” Her voice shook with the question.

  All three of her brothers grinned at that, and all their eyes flickered—until they were the brightest neon blue.

  HIVE blue.

  Her eyes widened. “You’re the HIVE.”

  Her not-brothers laughed in unison, but it never reached their dead eyes.

  “Why do you want to kill me?” she asked. “What could I possibly do to you?”

  “What could your D09 do?” asked the eldest. “He died
on that ship trying to save you, but for naught.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You can join him,” said her middle brother. “We can put you into metal armor. We can make sure your heart never breaks again. We know you hurt.”

  “I said shut up.” But her voice cracked.

  Their grins widened.

  “We will help,” her older brother echoed. “Are you not tired of running?”

  “Come home,” the youngest said.

  Home. It felt like she had wanted that for so long. Her eyes filled with tears, because there was no way to escape the Metal behind her, as it wrapped its cold fingers around her neck—

  Someone wrenched them away.

  The reflection rippled and she spun around as a Royal Guard tossed the Metal across the lab with inhuman force. It slammed against the bookshelves, toppling them, burying the Metal under the heavy tomes.

  It tried to right itself.

  “You shall burn . . . ,” the red-eyed Metal said.

  “She shall not,” the guard hissed, wrapping his arm around its neck, then prying his fingers underneath its chin and ripping its head off. Wires sparked and hissed.

  She’d seen that move before.

  The Metal did not stir again.

  She stared, wide-eyed, at the guard. His uniform hat had toppled off, revealing red hair and dark eyes. It was the boy from the ballroom. Rasovant’s Metal.

  Goddess, she really was going to die here.

  He looked pained, like he could hear something that was terribly off, but she couldn’t hear a thing. “We must leave.”

  She snapped to her senses, backing away.

  “He is more monstrous than we are,” said her brothers’ voices in unison from the console.

  And that was the last she could take.

  “I said shut up!” she roared, grabbing the metal stool from under the counter and raising it over her head. She memorized what her brothers looked like—the curve of their cheeks, the curl of their hair, the depth of their eyes, committing them to a memory she wished she already had.

  And then she slammed the stool into the computer. Again and again. And again. How dare this malware use her brothers. How dare it taunt her with ghosts. She already had enough of them living in her head.

  This was for her brothers. For Wick. For Barger.

  For Di.

  When she went to raise the stool again, the guard stayed her hand. “It is broken,” he said.

  She reeled away from him, raising her makeshift weapon against him instead. “Don’t you come any closer.”

  “I am not here to harm you.”

  “Bullshit,” she hissed, her arms shaking from the weight of the stool. “You’re Rasovant’s Metal. The one from the ship—”

  “I am not Rasovant’s,” he interrupted. “I am my own. I am me.”

  “And who is me?”

  He met her glare and his eyes sparkled to life—bright, fluorescent. Like moonlight. “You once promised you would always come back for me,” he said hesitantly, “but it was I who should have promised to come back for you.”

  She dropped the stool, and it clattered to the floor.

  Robb

  Hiding a tool kit he’d swiped from the Royal Guard station under his suit, he waved at the Valerio guard standing outside his mother’s door. “Good evening,” he greeted. The guard put a hand up to stop him.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but this is your mother’s room.”

  “Oh, is she not in?”

  “She is not, sir.”

  “Not a problem, I can just wait inside. . . .” But the guard put up his hand again, not letting Robb pass. Robb set his lips into a thin line, annoyed.

  The guard stood stalwart. “I’m sorry, sir—”

  He slammed his fist into the unsuspecting man’s face. The guard slumped against the wall, unconscious. Robb shook his hand, hissing through his teeth. Goddess, that smarted. When he’d shaken the pain off, he wiggled the guard’s lightsword out from his belt—he’d rather try to escape the palace slightly armed than not armed at all—and went inside.

  To his relief, Jax sat on the fainting couch, staring at the carpet. He didn’t even look up when Robb came in. “We’re getting that voxcollar off tonight,” he said, tossing the lightsword onto the bed.

  But the Solani didn’t move.

  “Jax?”

  Finally, the Solani glanced up with bloodshot eyes. Had he been crying? Jax blinked, wiping the tears away with the back of his gloved hand.

  “Are . . . are you okay?”

  “Leave,” Jax mouthed. His voxcollar sparked in warning, making him wince in pain.

  “I can’t do that. I promised to get you out of here, and tonight’s the best chance for you to escape. Don’t you want to?”

  The Solani looked uncomfortable, tugging at his obsidian collar.

  “Then you’re here for a reason,” Robb realized. “But . . . why?” When Jax didn’t reply, he knelt down in front of the silver-haired boy. “Jax, Di is in the palace—”

  Jax gave him a dumbfounded look.

  “You know that Metal we found on the Tsarina? Well, I tried uploading D09 into it—and it worked. And he’s here, trying to rescue Ana, because the malware from the ship is in the palace and she isn’t safe. None of us are. So please, you have to leave. Or at least let me take this voxcollar off you so you can tell me why you can’t.”

  For a moment it didn’t seem like the words registered, until Jax tilted his head to the side, flourishing a hand at his neck.

  Robb sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

  Taking the tool kit out of his coat, he found the omnitool and situated himself beside Jax, as close as he dared without touching him. Even having been in the palace, Jax still smelled of fresh lavender, like he had on the Dossier.

  That felt like lifetimes ago.

  Robb slowly lowered his omnitool against the voxcollar. Sweat prickled the back of his neck. “So, to be honest, I can’t remember anyone ever successfully picking themselves out of a voxcollar. It just doesn’t happen, you know? My grandfather was a genius with circuitry—”

  He lightly tapped the circuit board with his omnitool, and the collar gave a jolt. Jax bit his tongue, squeezing his eyes closed against the pain.

  “Goddess’s spark,” Robb hissed, sucking on his burned fingertips. The chip in his wrist throbbed. Could it be overloaded?

  Too late to find out, he thought, and lowered the omnitool against the circuitry again—when Jax caught his wrist.

  “What? I never said I wouldn’t barbecue us both,” he began to laugh—but Jax’s face widened with horror.

  At something behind him.

  The bedroom door slammed shut.

  Robb whirled around. To his brother, knuckle rings glinting in the soft night-lights around the room. Erik looked like a feral animal in the low light, a creature of shadow with marble-like eyes. His tongue rubbed between his canine and incisor. “You’re trying to free him, aren’t you?”

  “Free who?” Robb asked, playing dumb, knowing his brother hated it.

  “You are,” Erik snarled. There was a horrible glint in his blue eyes. Robb had learned to be wary of that look. To run as fast as he could the other way. “Mother was right about you. You’re a piss-poor Valerio. You ruin everything.”

  Robb stood, putting himself between Erik and Jax.

  “At least you won’t be on the throne—”

  Erik shoved him. He stumbled and fell backward over the side table. The omnitool went skittering out of his grip. He tried to reach for it, but his brother grabbed him by the collar and pulled a fist back, knuckle rings ready.

  “I will be Emperor,” Erik seethed, and slammed his fist into Robb’s jaw.

  Pain sliced across his face, bursting out like an explosion. His vision swam. He’d almost forgotten what this felt like.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jax grabbing the omnitool and trying to get the collar off by himself.

  Don’t, he thoug
ht. Don’t—you’ll kill yourself.

  He tried to struggle out from underneath his brother, but Erik punched him again. His vision filled with white. Then red. The room melted and swirled together.

  “But you know what? I’ll let the star-kisser tell you I’ll be Emperor, once he reads my fate.”

  “What?” Robb slurred.

  “Oh, you didn’t know? It’s quite a show, I hear.”

  Robb thought of what a fool he was, actually, not to have realized it sooner. That answer in the infirmary—

  Please don’t ask, Jax had pleaded.

  A curl had slipped from Erik’s greased pompadour, his snarl eating up half of his face. Behind him, creeping up like a shadow, was a silver-haired ghost with the voxcollar in his hands.

  “I’ll have him read my fate,” Erik went on, “and I’ll let you watch while I slice his face up. What do you say?”

  “I think you won’t get the chance,” Robb replied, and with a hard kick, he forced his brother backward into the waiting Solani, who fastened the voxcollar around his neck.

  “What the—” Erik barely got the words out before fifty thousand volts of electricity sparked through the nodes in the voxcollar, sending him convulsing onto the floor. He gasped, spittle oozing out of his mouth, and clawed at the collar.

  Jax stepped over Erik and took the lightsword from the bed. There was a burn from the voxcollar on the side of Jax’s neck like a spiderweb, almost black against his pale skin. He twirled the sword in his grip and let the blade come to rest at Robb’s throat.

  “You’re joking,” Robb said.

  “Look me in the eye, Robb Valerio,” the Solani rasped, “and tell me the truth: Did you have four queens?”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

  “During the Wicked Luck game on the Dossier,” Jax clarified. “Did you really have four queens?”

  “Goddess no, no one’s that lucky.”

  Jax studied him for a moment, then sheathed the blade. “Good, then I would have won.”

  They locked Erik in the wardrobe in the corner of the room and set a chair under the door handle to make sure he wouldn’t be escaping anytime soon. It would give them a few minutes, at least. And it wasn’t like Erik could yell for help.

  “So,” Robb said, wiping his bloody lip on the arm of his coat, “you can read the stars?”