Hearts Akilter (2 page)

Marlee eyed Henry’s long torso, the dove-gray polymer over synthmetal mesh was scored by the blue-gray edges of eight plates. The plates allowed access to circuitry, data storage, and the processing units of his brain.

She squeezed her left earlobe to engage her hearing implant. On the other side of his chest plate, she detected the soft purr of micro-motors unwinding screws.

Marlee swiveled her chair around to her workstation table. From the haphazard piles of tools, she picked up a suction wand and spun around to face Henry. “Which plate?”

“It is grid four,” Henry replied.

Hearing the click of the screw-rods popping free of their sockets and the micro-motors go silent, she squeezed her ear lobe to disengaged the amplifier. One press of the wand’s tip to the cover of grid four engaged the suction. As she removed and set the plate aside, it occurred to her the area was exactly where a human heart would be if Henry were a human.

Selecting a palm-sized analyzer, she pointed the tool at the opening in Henry’s chest and turned the unit on. Its blue-white light reflected off exposed motherboards, a tangle of silk-fine optic fiber bundles, and junction boxes of aqua-blue hydro and pea-green bio fluid lines. She steadied the light. Wedged along a set of upright guards supporting a pulley system’s gearbox was a ten centimeter long, thumb-wide, coffee-brown stick.

Memories exploded in her mind of the first time she’d seen a stick like that—and the consequences. Her pulse quickened and the rush of blood in her ears deafened her, but her gaze locked on the junction of six thin wires of various colors protruding from a coin-sized black disk in the middle of the clay.

“Marlee?” Henry said. “What is wrong? Your breathing has become very shallow. What do you see? Why are you staring inside my chest? MARLEE!”

His shout brought her back to her senses. She swallowed hard. “I—I’m okay. Be still. Don’t ask any more questions.”

Using her cornea implants, she magnified the clay, the black disk at the center, and the wires radiating from the disk. Her blood ran colder than cold. With effort, she kept her voice even. “Don’t panic, Henry.”

“I am not programed to panic.”

She fought the anxiety that tightened around her chest.

“Marlee, what is wrong?”

There was no easy way to tell him. She locked her gaze to his wide-open lens-eyes. “Do not panic. You have a bomb in your chest.”

“A BOMB!” His treads engaged, taking him backwards, away from her.

“No! Stop! Stand still. Don’t panic! Henry—STOP!”

The robot jerked to a halt. His right arm came up and a light blinked at her. “Your blood pressure and pulse are high, Marlee. You are frightened. Inordinately frightened.”

“Anyone would be.” She felt lightheaded, her hands clammy-cold.

“Marlee, are you positive I have a bomb inside me?”

“I’ve seen one like it before.”

“When?”

“Eight, no ten, years ago. Never mind. That was then. This is now.”

Yes, this was now, and she was tired from a long day and the overtime. Could she have been mistaken?

She dug her boot heels down on the grating and heel-walked her task chair forward until she was in front of Henry. “Maybe my tired eyes are playing tricks on me. Hold still. Let me take another look.”

“An excellent idea. Proceed.”

She flashed the analyzer light on the clay and its wires.

No doubt about it. This was like the bomb she’d seen as a second-year maintenance tech, only there were differences. Like, where was the detonator? The timer? On the clay she’d seen all those years ago, there had been little boxes for each on the central disk.

Setting her cornea optics to max, she inspected and traced each of the six wires. As she followed the last, a pale blue wire, she spotted the wire’s exposed tip. Somehow it had come free of its cap and now protruded out the back of the clay. The bare end didn’t touch anything, but a couple of millimeters in front of it was a power relay. Pinpoint burn marks marred two of the unit’s tiny post heads.

“Henry, are you still having heart pains?”

“Negative. No, I am pain free. I feel…normal.”

“It shifted.”

“It?”

“The bomb.”

His voice upped an octave. “It is a bomb? A real bomb?”

“Yes. No doubt in my mind, and it obviously moved.”

“Why would the bomb move?”

“Sorry, shifted. Not the same thing as moved.”

“Why is there a bomb inside me, shifting about?”

“I don’t know.” She turned off the analyzer and blinked, readjusting her optics. “What I think, Henry, is that when the bomb shifts, the wire sticking out of the clay makes contact across two posts of a micro power unit. I’m guessing the arc goes up the guard-support to your arm. Ergo, you feel the current.”

“It is shorting out? Will I explode?”

“Don’t panic! Be glad the wire isn’t transferring current to its detonator cap.”

“Affirmative. Yes. I am grateful for that, but why do you frown so?”

“I don’t understand why the clay isn’t fastened down.” She again flashed the light inside him, up and down, right and left, then turned the unit off. “Looks like there’s nothing really to fasten it to.”

“So when I move, it moves?”

She shook her head. “It would take jostling or jarring, like when you suddenly engaged your treads just now.”

“Marlee?”

“Yes, Henry?”

He almost whispered. “How did I get a bomb inside me?”

“That’s a good question.”

A very good question. Only a few techs had clearance for a prototype automaton like Henry. And all of them worked for the Guardian Security Systems Unit. Henry being one of the most sophisticated of units, he was serviced by the best in the GSSU, the ones who also worked on the top secret MSRs. Those Mobile Security Robots were Woodridge’s responsibility, or one of her underlings. “Henry, when did you last have your bib plates opened, and who opened them?”

“Yesterday, 0920 hours, when Woodridge checked me.”

“And she said everything was okay?”

“Affirmative. Yes. Despite my complaint, she was insistent that nothing was wrong.” His eye lenses narrowed. “Surely Woodridge would have seen the bomb inside me, wouldn’t she?”

“I should hope so. Unless it wasn’t there. No, no. That can’t be right. If you were in pain from the bomb, she had to have seen the bomb.”

“The pain had subsided and vanished by the time she opened my chest plates.”

“So the bomb may or may not have been there for her to see?”

“Affirmative. Yes. Why are you frowning again?”

“I’m perplexed.”

“By what?”

“Wondering why you wouldn’t know something extra had been inserted inside you.” A thought erupted that sent her pulse racing. “Henry, could someone have opened you up without your knowing it?”

“I do not believe so. I will check for system and subsystem anomalies.” His eye rims spun until his irises became pinpricks.

Marlee sighed and set her analyzer aside. Clutching her cold hands together, she concentrated on taking calming breaths to steady her nerves. At breath number eight, Henry’s eyes dilated to normal.

“Marlee, I have checked all systems. Every nanosecond of time is registered and accounted for. I have received no data that is inaccessible or encrypted, nor have I found any instructions to shut down or to ignore a specific shutdown sequence. My internal logs confirm Woodridge has done all my downloads and upgrades. No one else.”

Which meant, Woodridge had to know about the bomb. An icy coldness settled in Marlee’s gut. Why would one of the finest techs on the station not report finding a bomb inside Henry?

“Marlee, how much time would it take to install a bomb in me?”

“Depends on the bomber’s skill. My guess would be ten, maybe fifteen minutes or less. Only, come to think of it, to put the bomb in you, the person wouldn’t want to be interrupted or be seen doing it. Is there any chance—”

“Woodridge upgraded my core processor unit three weeks ago. I was out of operation for eighty-four minutes.”

“Upgrades happen all the time.”

“This was different.”

“How?”

“Woodridge told her staff she was not to be disturbed while she made the installations. She sealed the lab doors. She has never done that before when attending to me.”

“She might have closed the doors to make sure people left her alone. Sometimes, I lock my bay doors to keep people from distracting me when I’m working on something sensitive.”

“Affirmative. Yes. It was likely that, and I am reading into the matter what is not in evidence. Why are you frowning again?”

“Because it seems odd why Woodridge, or anyone else, would put a bomb in you. You’re a medical robot, a prototype, not any kind of security robot. You don’t even have access to people or compartments with high security or anything valuable.”

“Affirmative. Yes. That is strange.” His voice changed to one of entreaty. “Marlee, please remove the bomb.”

“Me? Don’t be daft. I’m a robotic-mechatronics tech, not the bomb squad.”

The bomb squad!

“Henry, I have an idea. We call the bomb squad—Wait. Forget that. Bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have clearances for opening you up, and what will they say when they find out you can open yourself?”

A few clicking sounds came from deep inside his chest cavity. Gravely he said, “There is a ninety-two percent likelihood they will conclude I am evolving into an AI. I will be deactivated. I will be crated and shipped to Razl. Disassembled…” His voice became a strangled whisper. “I will cease to exist.”

“Exactly.”

“Marlee, dearest friend, I do not want to perish. How can we get the bomb out of me?”

“We? I just said I can’t help. It’s a bomb, Henry. You need an expert, a bomb expert, and offhand I don’t know any bomb experts.”

“I do!”

“What?”

“His name is Deacon Black. He is a major in the Centauri Space Fleet. He arrived six weeks ago to instruct the bomb squad on new technologies and to certify and re-certify squad members for duty. Five days ago, one of his demonstrations prematurely fired. He received third degree burns on his left forearm, which necessitated treatment in the ER.”

Hope flared and warmed her. “Is he still in sickbay?”

“Negative. No. He was released. I saw him daily during his stay in sickbay and dressed his wounds. He did not treat me like a drone. I like him.”

“But the question is, can you trust him?”

“I do not know. His next scheduled checkup is in three days. Considering the bomb, that is a very long time to wait to talk to him, is it not?”

“Yes, it is.” Marlee laced her fingers together. Resting her hands on the top of her head, she leaned all the way back in her task chair, the pivot joint softly creaking. “Let me think and see if we can come up with a plan or two that won’t get me reprimanded and busted down to a drone dispatcher, or worse—you shipped off to Razl.”

****

0230 Hours, Deck 11, the Lamplighter Saloon

Deacon Black sat at the far end of the bar in the semidarkness of the American, Old West themed saloon. He sipped his third DW. The DeLupian Whiskey hit his stomach with a smooth warmth. A memory surfaced of his first night on the space station. In this saloon, he’d drunk a dock worker under the table and won over a thousand drails in the betting.

Such credits were a nice perk for being one of those rare individuals DeLupian Whiskey didn’t make drunk. Oh, he might end up happy by the tenth one. Still, it didn’t do to out-drink too many men, or women. Particularly tonight. Tonight he must be extra cautious, extra observant, because liquor and meds rarely mixed well, and he had an objective.

He glanced down at his left forearm. Beneath his brown Centauri uniform’s sleeve, a hard-shelled, transparent cylinder protected his second and third degree burns so they would heal without scarring. An instant later, he felt the tingling of the atomizer inside the container spray meds over his wounds.

None of the other med vials had created a tingling sensation. But this was a new cartridge, and his burns were healing, so maybe the CMO changed the prescription. Besides, he hadn’t noticed any adverse reactions to the meds and drinking DWs, now had he?

He shifted his gaze to his liquor. A few more sips and he’d call it a night. To anyone watching, his self-imposed three-drink limit would make them believe he was a staggering drunk when he left. But would his drunken act succeed in bringing out the lowlife who was trying to kill him?

A twangy piano tune wafted out of the bar’s hidden speakers, followed by the caterwauling of the beer-glutted foursome nearby. He was used to military uniforms and ranks, but here on Kifel, the uniforms were a color-coded caste system. The foursome’s denim-blues meant they were spacedock workers. They huddled around a small gray table. Two men, two women—all singing off-key and butchering the lyrics.

Across the way, two heavy-set men in a booth put their heads together, whispering then chuckling. Their beige jumpsuits designated them as food service workers.

Hearing the rattle of glassware, Deacon eyed the bartender. The thin man, in circa 1800’s attire, stacked clean shot glasses into the auto-dispenser of a one-armed liquor servobot.

Deacon took another glance about the saloon. No one looked like a killer. Then again, few killers ever looked like killers.

With the next lull between tunes, the patrons silenced their chatter.

The bar seemed too quiet, the patrons too subdued. Okay, so the bartender mentioned this was a slow night, the usual for two days before cargo handlers got paid.

The saloon’s side doors shushed open, and a slender woman, in a rumpled, russet maintenance tech’s coveralls, walked in. Sticking out from under several denim-blue pocket flaps were tools of her trade.

She swiped her fingers through her long mahogany bangs, raking them to the right and behind her ear. As she continued to the other end of the bar, she glanced at him but didn’t make eye contact.

Yet, it was enough of a glance.

He recognized the mirror-blackness of her eyes. Both eyes were implants. Usually such implants were a one-eye necessity for the micro-techs. Was she so skilled she chose implants for both eyes? Or was she a cyborg?