Frozen Hearts: The Ionia Chronicles: Book One

by Pamela Stewart

  A gentle, feather-soft touch cradled her hurt hand. She was too weak to fight and let her hand lay limp. Alcohol stung her nose, and her eyes snapped open. She tried to yank back. But he kept her still, with stern but not cruel force, and applied the cool gel that would numb the area and prevent infection.

  He held the stitcher in his other hand, and her heart jumped to a samba rhythm. “Do you know how to use that thing?”

  His head jerked up and down, in a no-room-for-funny-business nod, and then he straightened and looked up at her with those crystalline eyes. “This unit has basic first aid programming.” His attention returned to her injury.

  The gel numbed her skin. Every instinct told her to pull back, but he held tight. She turned her head. A small pressure, then nothing.

  She turned back. The wound took three stitches, tiny flesh-like sutures which matched her skin and would dissolve when the wound healed.

  He released her and stepped away, arms at his side, waiting. She flexed her hand. Still painful, but better.

  Sirens blasted in the air and red warning lights flashed.

  “Step away from the girl.” Her mother stood in the door, her quad gun trained on the droid.

  Jesus, how this must look to her mom. An unknown man hovered near her daughter, who was lying on the table, bloody from elbow to fingertip.

  The droid’s eyes darted between Ionia and her mother, like a cat doing the math for a long jump. He adjusted his stance and placed himself between them, then leaped toward her mother with the agility and grace of a panther. He pushed the gun to the ceiling, his movements a blur of limbs.

  Four shots exploded, taking out the florescent lights. The fireproof ceiling sizzled with the impact. The smell of laser shot and burning wires filled the infirmary. They were in darkness except for the glow of light from the entrance.

  Seeing her mom, arms behind her, face planted into the floor, jolted Ionia’s heart like a live electric wire.

  “Stop, stop, she’s my mother. She was trying to protect me.” Ionia pulled herself up and off the table, fighting a belly-dropping wave of dizziness, and took a stumbling step toward them. The droid inclined his head and removed his knee from her mother’s back. But he still held her gun.

  “Threat has been neutralized,” he said. In the shadowy light, he looked like a green soldier who didn’t know quite how to hold his gun. It seemed he could turn soldier mode on and off as needed. She prayed he didn’t feel he needed it again.

  Her mother rose from the floor. Ionia was glad. Glad for the dark, glad that she couldn’t see her mom’s face, glad those black eyes weren’t visible and couldn’t send knives through her soul, slice it to ribbons then ask what was the matter. Her mother approached her, a compact wall of anger.

  “Threat detected.” The droid, who had looked so unnatural with the gun, swung around and sighted her mom.

  Ionia launched forward and put her body between them. “No, God, no. Stop, really stop.”

  Her mom put her hands in the air like a captured criminal. He lowered the gun and stood at attention.

  Ionia staggered to the droid and took the gun from his loose grasp. He didn’t resist.

  Her mother’s nostrils flared, her eyes too wide, her hands shook. She took a breath, rolled her hands into fists and propped them on her hips. “Do you want to explain this Ionia?”

  “Want is a strong word.” Ionia handed the gun to her mother. “I believe we’re ok as long as you aren’t threatening me.”

  “Who is this man? Why are you covered in blood? Where’s Rod?”

  “I think he’s down the hall. Pretty sure.” She shrunk inside. If only she had a bomb shelter to hide in to protect her from the impending explosion of Mount Mom.

  The droid stepped in close to Ionia. She could feel his heat behind her, and a tiny part of her wanted to laugh, when her mom took a small step back. Maybe the Mom explosion wouldn’t be so bad with her new droid friend around.

  “Iiiionia Paaaaaatricia Soooonnnnberg.” Her mother sounded like she was calling the next victim to the guillotine. “Explain.”

  Chapter Two

  DN17232 stood in the medical center between the mother and the mistress. His martial skills had subdued all threats. The mistress was safe and in good health. Conflicting information made next steps uncertain. He remained stationary but prepared.

  DN17232’s backup defensive system hummed. If his mistress was still in danger, she needed full protection mode. A scan of the room found one weapon lying on the examination table, safety active. The hum lessened.

  The mother’s fingers clenched and unclenched as if testing their functionality. Heart rate elevated, adrenal glands working, breathing not providing the oxygen her body required. His preloaded information indicated she was experiencing the fight-or-flight response.

  “Alarms. Code Roy-G-Biv0620.” The sirens fell silent, and he detected the external reinforced doors sliding back to an open position. The mother turned and regarded the mistress.

  “You told me to get a droid.” The mistress’s voice rose in pitch, filled with the emotion of stress and strain.

  “Not a companion droid. They are twice as expensive, hard to deal with, ill-suited for the weather.” The mother splayed her hands wide and gestured to the ceiling as if requesting more information from the Cortex via her appendages. “Then you activate him alone like an imbecilic toddler.”

  “I thought I had it under control.” The mistress’s shoulders dropped, arms held against her middle, head bowed. “It should have been easy. The advert said ready right out of the package.” Her voice was not fully supported by her diaphragm and lacked volume.

  “Ionia. Enough.” The mother closed her eyes and pressed her hands against her forehead.

  The center of DN17232’s attention shifted to the mistress, Ionia. Number 1,200,157 on the list of popular names in the year 2130.

  “Tell the droid to listen to me.” The mother took a step toward the mistress. His combat system clicked, and he moved between them. There were .375 meters to the weapon on the table, in less than ten seconds he could have it locked and loaded. He waited for her counter move.

  The mother’s eyes rounded, and she raised her hands to show surrender. “Ionia.” The woman’s lips moved, but her teeth remained clenched.

  Ionia looked up from examining her damaged palm. “Don’t send him back,” Ionia said. Her breathing spiked, but not enough to indicate danger.

  Although the information she imparted set his sensors on edge.

  Being sent back to Central after attaching to a primary companion meant decommission. DN17232’s chassis would be recycled for parts. Total brain wipe. An unpleasant wave of electrons sent his alert level higher.

  “Do not argue with me. Order him to do as I say.” The mother’s blood pressure rose, eyes fixed unblinkingly on the mistress.

  The mistress paused, and her eyes shifted from her mother to him. Her back straightened, and her chin lifted. “Companion, follow my mother’s commands. She means me no harm.” Ionia turned from her mother and faced him. “Mostly.” She added in a whisper.

  He lowered his head in the human symbol of acquiescence. No countermanding direct orders unless the mistress was in mortal danger. “Understood.”

  “Go to your room, and I will discuss your punishment later.” The mother pointed at the doorway. Her finger quivered so slightly his sensors had a difficult time perceiving the motion. The older woman controlled her baser emotions well, but his Companion programming could detect her true distress at the situation. He gaged her anger level was still well within safety parameters.

  “Oh joy. I cannot wait.” The mistress dragged her feet, as if they had gained mass, and exited the infirmary.

  “Droid, follow me to Segment 3.” The mother stepped into the hallway, and he fell in behind. His scans split between the mother and daughter.

  Ionia’s stress-indicating ghrelin hormone elevated above human normal, but nothing that would trigger danger
as she moved to another area of the abode without him.

  DN17232 and the mother moved quickly and reached Threat One, still incapacitated on the floor.

  “Rod. Rod!” The mother crouched at the unconscious male’s side. She used a hand med scanner over his inert body.

  “Slight concussion and blood alcohol beyond safe limits. Military liaison, indeed.” She straightened and kicked his shin. “He is completely useless. Come on.”

  They continued forward six meters and arrived back in the location of his activation.

  The mother walked across the storage room floor. She stepped over disregarded bits of carton and looked back at him, shaking her head. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”

  “I have many skills. This unit is fully capable of socialization, multiple techniques in pleasuring--”

  “Stop.” Her expression lacked emotion, as blank as an android without programming, calm, cool, collected. But her hurried steps, balled hands, and bunched muscles were the physical definition of anxiety.

  She halted in front of him. “Can you do hard, physical labor? Repair? Withstand subzero temps?”

  “That is not this unit’s primary function, but DN17232 has the capacity to do all of those duties.”

  “I’ve worked with droids similar to you, but without all the skin.” Her nose crunched as she captured his arm and held it in a firm grasp.

  A yellow warning light flashed, his processor whirled, his auto defensive sent the impulse to his extremities to be ready, but he remained still.

  Orders were to allow this human access. She opened his circuit compartment, and his security level rose to red.

  He scanned for Ionia. Safe in her quarters not more than ten meters away. No immediate danger presented to the mistress, so he allowed the mother to continue. One aggressive move and his protection protocol would take over, and then orders would mean nothing.

  The mother reached in and twisted his defense switch down.

  Pressure released. The tight knot of preparedness that had wound his joints loosened their hold. She appeared more like a human female and less like a weapon.

  “That should keep your protocols at normal levels. No militant action unless attacked. Correct?”

  “Correct.” The maternal unit posed no threat, held no weapons. The assurance was sound.

  “Why would she order a damn fleshie?”

  He prepared an answer, but she continued. “Like I need a renegade droid on top of everything else going wrong.” Her voice grew strangled at the end of her sentence. She inhaled sharply and squared her shoulders. “We’ll keep you. Costs too much to send you back now that Cam has gone overland. You will follow my instructions?”

  “I will. But only if your commands do not put the mistress in danger.”

  She jerked her head up and down, more a spasm than the traditional nod. “Clean up this mess and await further instruction.”

  “Of course.”

  She turned toward the door then twisted back. “You will keep Ionia safe, yes?”

  “It is this unit’s primary function.”

  “Good. She needs someone to watch out for Ionia. Too impulsive. Always has been.” Her voice grew lighter, then she added in a lower tone. “She doesn’t understand what’s out there.” Her shoulders fell. She closed her eyes for two seconds, exhaled in an exaggerated fashion, and left the storage area.

  He scooped up the remains of the carton, pleased that he had a task. Deep programming urged him to reunite with the mistress, but orders came first. Orders, then Ionia.

  ###

  Ionia pulled out her palate to work on her copy of Sunflowers. Before her brush hit canvas, the door clicked and slid open. Her mother was dressed in her usual dull gray, warmth-giving jumpsuit. Her dark hair pulled away from her rounded face, her light coffee colored skin looked faded, like she’d been through the wash cycle one too many times, a side effect of living in a freezer.

  Her mother scanned the room. Ionia tried to view her quarters through her mom’s eyes. Frivolous, copies of famous paintings hung on every wall, scarlet silks decorated the lighting to filter the harsh fluorescence and give the room a warmth and ambiance.

  Sandalwood saturated the air from the incense she burned. Her blanket was a patchwork of fabrics from all the places they had lived. It was Ionia’s haven, her paint, her books, her vidclips. Bright red, orange, and yellow origami figures littered the shelves and made it feel like home.

  “I have decided your punishment.”

  “What? Being stuck at SPS isn’t enough?” Ionia rolled off the bed and stood barefoot in front of her mom. She was a physical head taller than her parent was, but that didn’t matter. Her mother filled the room.

  Ionia’s stomach dropped like a kid caught with her hand in the treats’ jar. This was her mom’s totally serious face, her I-have-to-put-down-a-wounded-animal face.

  Worse, this was her death face.

  “You nearly got Rod and me killed. Do you think that a day in your room would satisfy that sort of infraction? What you did endangered not only us but also this station. We have a responsibility to keep it going.” Her voice rose with strangled emotion then stopped talking and rolled her lips in as if to stop something she was going to say. Her arms crossed tightly over her chest, and her laser-focused, black eyes never left Ionia.

  Ionia fingered her bracelet. She tried to concentrate on the strings, silently listing the color of each string. Red, orange, yellow, then the weird streak of violet that always made her think of a sunrise in South America.

  “Since your father...passed, I’ve allowed you too much freedom, too much time to do as you will. You flout the rules and ignore your studies. No more. No more time wasters.” She reached up and took down two of Ionia’s pictures, the ones with the clown and the jungle. “No more paper toys.” She scooped up Ionia’s origami and threw them in the dump basket.

  Ionia’s mouth hung open. Each move sliced her heart with raw and stabbing pain.

  “No,” Ionia whispered and stepped forward.

  Her paints, her colored pencils, her medium hard charcoal sketch pencils she’d waited a month to get. Everything. Mom was taking everything. All her supplies taken, the only things that made life bearable here in the outskirts of nowhere.

  “Stop! Stop, you can’t.”

  Another look from the dictator impaled her. An ice dozer burrowed into her chest, emptying out all the warmth and sunshine she had and leaving only slushy, dark, ash in its wake. “Please don’t. I’ll do anything you say.”

  Shoveling an armload of materials from Ionia’s shelves, her mother didn’t pause. She moved quickly, pulling down posters, even her paper calendar. Ionia’s upper lip quivered, but she trapped the traitor in her teeth. She wouldn’t give her mother the satisfaction to see her cry, to see her break. She wouldn’t give up, she would get it all back. She just needed some leverage.

  Then her mother’s thieving hands reached for her silver pens. The pens that were guaranteed to write, underwater, upside down, in space, and in below zero temps. The perfect pens. “No.” Her mother stalled at Ionia’s deeper, colder tone. “Dad gave me those. You will not take them.”

  Her mother hovered above the pens, then scooped them into the waste bin with the rest of her treasures. “He coddled you. That’s why you almost killed yourself, and everyone else on the base. No more. It’s too dangerous for you to run rampant. You will study. You will do your assigned tasks, as asked for, with no embellishments. You will show respect to both Sergeant Dictum and me. If your Results Scores don’t improve, then the punishments will be increased.”

  “What?” Ionia splayed her hands wide as if in offering. “What more can you take from me? Mo-ther. Or should I call you, Dr. Sonberg?”

  Too much. This violation of her one safe place was too much. Ionia rushed through the open door past her mom, and raced down the hall in a full-on sprint as if she could outrun the violent storm in her head. Her heart pounded like a loose wrecking
ball slamming in her chest. Hot blood burned her face and pounded in her ears. She couldn’t organize her thoughts. Couldn’t stop the wave of images: her dad handing her the box with her special pens, her parents singing her a birthday song, riding in the front of the research boat held only by her dad’s massive hands.

  Never worrying about falling, because he would never let her fall.

  Dad would never have let Mom destroy her life. He would’ve talked her down, even coaxed a smile from her ramrod lips. Ionia remembered a time when she stole away aboard a zodiac and had nearly gotten mauled by a bull seal. She could hear her dad’s soft baritone voice cajoling. She likes adventure, ‘Bell. She’s curious, like a proper scientist.

  Ionia had caught a month in her room for that fiasco but never had her mother been this unyielding, this stern. Maybe because he was gone now. Gone forever. Over a year and it still hurt like it had happened an hour ago. The same ice pick of torture plucked at her heart, and she tried to breathe through the pain.

  She slowed. Her bare legs broke out in goose flesh under her crinoline skirt, and her toes took on an odd shade of blue. She stopped, no more hall, nowhere to escape. She was back in the room where she’d activated her droid--where he’d been born.

  Her mom had forced her to give over control of her droid to her, so now Ionia didn’t even have her companion. If only she had a do-over. If only she’d read the manual a bit more before trying to open him. But she had been so excited and thought if she could get him open and imprinted, her mom would never pay to have him sent back to CONUS.

  The cold in the room bit into her, and her fingers numbed. Crossing her arms, she shoved her hands in her armpits. The room had changed since her last visit, the crate gone, the floor cleaned of any evidence of blood, and the tools sat neatly in the toolbox. “Mom must have made a sweep of this room, too.”

  “This unit cleared the room, Mistress.”

  She jumped, and her heart jack-rabbited against her ribs. “Sweet, mother of Odin.” The voice came from the darkened corner, behind her and to her right.