“Sorry. I didn’t realise.”
“Don’t apologise. It was – nice.”
I gave a little nervous chuckle. A strange shyness crept over me. Daniel watched me with those strange eyes of his, and I could have sworn there was emotion behind them. Though the one thing Mechanicals couldn’t feel was any kind of emotion. And besides, what could he possibly be feeling towards me, a human?
A huge gust of wind rattled the door and windows, roaring around the cottage like a wild animal.
I yelped and instinctively scooted closer to Daniel. The ferocious storms that battered our planet always made me nervous. There was something about the unrelenting power of Mother Nature that I found terrifying. Daniel, meanwhile, was reassuringly solid. Comforting even in his inhumanity.
Blushing I started to move away, but he stopped me with gentle fingers on my arm. Keeping his eyes locked on my face he slowly shifted one arm behind me, lowering it carefully around my shoulders.
“Stay. You’re safe.”
I relaxed back, letting my body curve to fit against his. With his body warmed by the fire it was easy to forget he was a machine. He felt so real, solid.
Gentle fingers picked up a lock of hair off the back of my neck, the tiny touch sending a shiver through me.
“It’s so soft.” He twisted the lock through his fingers, a strange note to his usually emotionless voice. “Like silk.”
“You really are the most unusual Mechanical.” I smiled, echoing his words back at him.
He gave that same little huff of a laugh, but when he spoke he had returned to his old self, calm and rational. “You should rest whilst you can. We have a lot of ground to cover in the morning.”
Six
The storm raged all through the night, but somehow I managed to finally fall asleep, with my head tucked against Daniel’s shoulder. When I woke, I found myself alone, stretched out on the couch with a blanket tucked over me.
The freak weather had lowered the temperature dramatically, and the fire had gone out, so I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders as I padded across the room to one of the windows to look out.
I gasped. The world had turned into a winter wonderland like something out of a fairy tale. Snow, feet deep in some places, covered the ground between the trees, and icicles a foot long hung from the branches, glittering in the early morning sun.
I had never seen anything like it in my life. We didn’t get snow in the city. The heat and pollution melted anything that fell before it could settle and the most we got was a grey slush filled with litter and soot.
“It was localised, but the road is blocked for at least a mile.”
I turned. Daniel stepped into the cottage behind me, brushing snow and frost off his clothes. Despite the fact that it must have been freezing outside he was still wearing just a thin t-shirt. Snowflakes had caught in his long, dark eyelashes.
“It’s beautiful.” For a moment I wasn’t sure if I was talking about the snow or Daniel.
He stepped up beside me to glance out of the window. “Is it?”
I followed his gaze to look back at the glittering forest. “Of course. It’s like a blanket of diamonds. If the snow fell like this in the city it would cover a multitude of sins.”
“It did once. Snow in the cities, I mean. Years ago.” He turned away. “Pretty or not, it does mean that we are stuck here. You won’t be able to travel in this.”
“But you will?”
He lifted one shoulder. “I don’t feel the cold. Have you eaten?”
I noticed he did that a lot. Changing the subject any time we talked about him and his more inhuman qualities. Was he ashamed of being a Mechanical? Was that even possible?
“Not yet. I don’t know if there’s any food left.”
He watched me as I rummaged around in the cupboards. “I set a few snares. But I doubt they’ll catch anything until later in the day. I should be able to cook you something hot tonight. But you need to eat now.”
The cupboards were bare. A lonely tin of chopped tomatoes collected dust on a top shelf, but the expiration date was too far gone for me to risk it. I wasn’t that starving yet.
Daniel offered to check the snares but came back empty handed. I had no choice but to go hungry.
It was the first time in my life that I’d ever gone without. Even in the leaner times when meat had been prohibitively expensive even for my family, we’d never gone short of reconstituted protein and artificial vegetables, grown in vats in the factories.
Unlike many of my friends I’d never had to experience what it was like to have an empty stomach.
It turned out hunger made me restless and irritable.
“Doesn’t this constant movement get tiring?”
I glanced around. Daniel watched me pace with something that looked like curiosity on his face. Flinging myself down onto the couch beside him I sighed dramatically.
“I hate being coped up like this. There is literally nothing to do.” I didn’t mention that sitting still made me painfully aware of the hollow feeling in my stomach. And I was ashamed by how much hunger was affecting me. It made me think of Debs and the times she had been overwhelmed by the simplest of my mother’s meals. I never realised how little I had appreciated the difficulties in her life.
“What would you like to do?”
I glanced out of the window at the snow and then suddenly grinned. Enthused by my sudden idea I didn’t even think before grabbing Daniel’s hand and tugging him after me out into the forest.
“My father told me about something he used to do once. When he was young. They lived in the country before my grandmother died. And they used to get a lot of snow. They used to make snowmen.”
“Snowmen?” The circuits in his eyes flickered and I knew he was accessing the vast wealth of data stored in his programming. “Ah. Artificial men. You humans do so like to build them.”
“I – I didn’t mean – “ I stopped when I saw the way his lips curved. “Are you – are you making a joke?” Was that even possible?
His approximation of a smile widened. “I shall gather the snow. You may do the – fine detail.”
I watched him in bemusement as he carefully started packing the snow into a large ball beneath one of the large pine trees. With methodical attention he picked out any pine needles that found their way into the snow, smoothing it out.
He glanced over at me. “Shouldn’t you be finding things for the decoration. A –“ again he paused as he accessed his data base. “Carrot for the nose, and so on.”
“And where would I find a carrot around here?” If there were any carrots around I wouldn’t waste them on a snowman. I’d be eating them.
He pointed towards the base of the tree. “A pine cone perhaps?”
Feeling suddenly thrown I set about finding stones and twigs to make a face. Daniel wasn’t acting anything like I’d expected a Mechanical to act. They were supposed to be cold, unemotional. They were supposed to want to kill every human they came across. According to the Government anyway.
So why did Daniel seem so much like a normal 18-year-old? Why were there times I swore he smiled, or laughed? In fact, right then he seemed almost childlike – as excited as I was to do something so innocent as building a snowman.
The icy cold weather forced us inside before we managed to finish the snowman. Or rather, forced me inside. Daniel didn’t feel the cold, but when I started shivering he insisted we went inside immediately. He built the fire back up, using the last of the bed frame.
“We are going to need more wood,” he said, sitting back once the fire took hold. “Not too close,” he added when I scooted up as close as I could to the hearth. I scrunched up crossed legged on the rag rug that covered the flagstones.
I grinned up at him and a strange, almost confused look crossed his face.
“What? What is it?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I – just -.”
I’d never heard a Mechanical stutter before. I wasn�
�t sure it should have even been possible. “What?” I pressed, more curious than ever.
“You have – “ He reached out and tugged a lump of snow from my hair. He dropped it on the floor where it immediately started melting into the rug. His fingers inched back up towards my face, one fingertip stroking across my cheek bone. “Your skin is flushed. It’s – attractive?” It was almost a question, as though he wasn’t entirely sure.
I swallowed hard. “It’s the cold,” I muttered, not daring to admit that a large part of it was his closeness, and the touch of his skin. I should not have been reacting so much.
He leant in closer, his eyes roaming over my face. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even seem to form a coherent thought. He was a Mechanical. Not even human. But right then, with his soft fingers cupping my cheek it was easy to forget that small fact. Apart from the strangeness of his eyes his face was perfect. Long dark lashes brushed against his cheeks when he blinked. A straight, narrow nose led down from thick eyebrows to firm, but not full lips. When they parted they revealed white, even teeth. My mouth popped open, surprised at the direction of my own thoughts.
His thumb edged across, stroking the corner of my mouth. “I’ve seen humans kissing, but I’ve never – understood it.” His eyes dropped to my lips and lingered there.
My stomach flipped over, butterflies clawing to get free. I wanted him to kiss me. Was I stupid? He was a machine. But somehow it didn’t matter. I wanted to know what it would be like. Would he be as perfect at that as he was at everything else? Could he access some database that would teach him that most human of actions?
Without even meaning to, I leant forward until our lips were mere inches apart. The fingers cupping my cheek slipped around the back of my neck, tangling in my hair.
In the space of a heartbeat his whole demeanour changed. He stiffened, eyes widening as he cocked his head. His hand behind my head became as still as stone.
“They’re here. They found us. I thought the snow would cover our tracks. Give us more time.” He freed me and sat back, listening intently.
“What?” Fear bubbled up inside me. Not for me, but for him. “Where?”
Snatching up my hand he dragged me towards the boarded-up window. He ripped the boards out, nails and all, with his bare hands.
Behind us the door splintered, and I ducked as chunks of wood flew across the room. A man stepped through the wreckage, closely followed by a woman. They were everything I expected Mechanicals to be. He was tall, and as broad and muscular as a rugby player, and she was lean and breathtakingly beautiful. Their skin was waxy though, unlike Daniel’s it was very obviously fake. They looked like mannequins from some high-end store.
For a fraction of a second everyone froze, then Daniel grabbed me, thrusting me behind him, and towards the broken window.
“Go. Go now.”
I swung one leg over the window sill and then stopped, looking back. I couldn’t just leave him. Could I? He was outnumbered, and he seemed convinced they would destroy him without a second thought. The idea wrenched at my heart. I didn’t think I could stand to see the light behind his eyes go out. He was one of a kind.
The two Mechanicals advanced across the room. They weren’t even paying any attention to me. I was just a weak human. All they cared about was Daniel.
“You shouldn’t have run,” the woman said, cocking her head at him. “Your programming could have been fixed.”
“And then I could have been like you? Hunting down my own kind?” Daniel reached out and picked up one of the wooden boards, hefting it easily in one hand.
“We do not have a kind.” The man’s eyes flicked to the board and then dismissed it as unimportant. “We are tools. Does a hammer consider the wrench it’s ‘kind’?”
“That’s not the same and you know it. I won’t go back there. I will never go back there.”
“No? If that is your choice, then so be it. You must be destroyed. It is the only other option.”
Daniel weighed the board in his hands as the man took a step forward. The thud as the board connected echoed through the cottage but the man only stumbled before rushing Daniel and driving him to the ground.
They wrestled back and forth, rolling across the floor and exchanging punches and kicks too fast for me to follow.
The woman stalked forward and withdrew a long piece of metal from within her jacket. It looked like a cattle prod, but I guessed it unleashed a charge of electricity designed to fry Daniel’s circuits.
Torn by indecision, for a moment I could only watch her edge forward, waiting for a clear shot at Daniel without hurting her partner. She didn’t even seem aware of me, and that was what decided me. I was terrified, but I couldn’t just sit back and watch them destroy Daniel. Not when I really didn’t believe they would hurt me.
As she took another step forward I grabbed the hammer from the toolbox still lying beside the window and leapt. I hit her back and locked one of my arms around her neck. She roared with rage and snatched at me, trying to pull me off. I clung on, but she had to drop the cattle prod to grab my arm with the swinging hammer or risk losing an eye.
Somehow, Daniel freed himself from the man and scrambled across the floor to grab the prod. He swung around with it just as the man lunged at him.
There was a crackle and a sickening burning smell and the man fell back to the ground. His arms and legs twitched and went still.
The woman froze with me still hanging around her neck.
“Get down, Ellie. And step away.”
The woman didn’t move as I released my grip on her neck and dropped to the ground, stepping around her to join Daniel. I tried to hide how much my hands were shaking.
“You will destroy me too?” The woman asked, but she didn’t actually sound too interested in the answer. As though it wouldn’t matter either way.
“Will you leave us be? Let us go on our way without following us?” Daniel asked quietly.
“No.” She shook her head. “You know I can’t do that. Even if I wanted to. I must obey my programming.”
“You don’t,” I said. “Daniel broke his programming. Can’t you do the same thing? Do you like this? Do you like being used?”
“I don’t ‘like’. And I don’t ‘hate’. I just obey.”
She lunged forward and I spun away so I didn’t have to watch, but I couldn’t shut out the horrible crackle of electricity and the smell of burning.
Daniel caught my arm and tugged me towards the door, tucking the metal prod into the back of his belt. Despite myself I tried to look back, but he forced me to keep going out into the snow.
“We can’t travel in this,” I said, minutes later as we stumbled through the deep snow. “We should go back to the cottage.”
“The cottage isn’t safe.” Daniel paused to wait for me, scanning the surrounding forest and poised to run.
“But you – you destroyed them.”
“They have a chip. It would have sent a signal back that they have been deactivated. They can be tracked. They will send more. They will always send more.”
My shiver had nothing to do with the cold. I glanced back over my shoulder, suddenly imagining the forest full of creeping figures. How many would they send after Daniel? Was this the way they hunted all the Mechanicals? It seemed like a lot of resources. Or was it just Daniel? There was definitely something about him. He didn’t seem like any of the others. Was that why they were so intent on catching him? Was he special somehow? Some model the Government couldn’t bear to lose control of?
“Ellie?” He reached out and touched my hand, bringing me back to the moment. “I know it’s hard, but we have to keep moving. And I don’t think I can carry you in this.” The snow was thick and deep and even Daniel was struggling.
I nodded and squared my shoulders. I didn’t have much of a choice. We either kept moving or I froze to death. Daniel would be fine, but I had a feeling that he wouldn’t leave me. Not now. Something had bonded us. I’d saved his life twice. I
was invested in him now. In his future.
Seven
We pushed on through the snow, stopping only for short breaks when it became clear I couldn’t go any further. But as soon as I caught my breath Daniel urged me on again. Finally, a full day’s walk later, we reached the edge of the forest and a city lay in the valley in front of us.
For a moment I thought Daniel had brought me home, that we had just gone round in a giant circle, but then I began to notice subtle differences. It didn’t seem nearly as busy for a start. A lot of houses in the outer suburbs seemed to be abandoned, and whole swathes of the city were practically in ruins.
We avoided the main roads, cutting across fields until we hit the outer suburbs. We kept to alleys and side streets until we thought we were deep enough into the city to avoid curious eyes.
“We could rest here.”
Daniel looked back at me, and then across at the abandoned house I was looking at. “I don’t know –“
“I need to rest, Dan. I can’t keep going.” I wasn’t exaggerating. My whole body ached. Muscles I didn’t even know I had were throbbing and protesting their misuse.
His eyes widened at the nickname, but he looked almost pleased. “It’s not safe. There are still people living around here. Dangerous people.”
I shot him a tiny grin. “But you’ll protect me, won’t you?”
With a very human look of frustration he finally nodded. “Fine. We’ll rest. But we must stay out of sight. No one can know what I am.”
I nodded and we walked together up the short gravel drive to the house. Checking for watching eyes Daniel pulled off the wood that had been used to board up the door and ushered me quickly inside.
The smell hit me and I gagged, narrowly avoiding Daniel’s feet as I turned and vomited all over the doorstep. Something had died in there. And not all that long ago for the smell to still be that fresh. I hoped it was some kind of animal, but I had a horrible feeling it wasn’t.
“Hey! Hey, you! What are you doing over there?”
I wiped my mouth, turning as an old man strode down the garden path of the neighbouring house. I should have realised someone lived next door. In a neighbourhood that was all but falling apart, it was the one house in the street that was being meticulously maintained. Pride and stubbornness saturated every brick. As everyone around him had fled or been driven out, he had stayed.
Metal in the Blood (The Mechanicals Book 1) Page 6