Hearts Akilter Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Hearts Akilter

  Copyright

  Dedications

  Story

  Epilogue

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  The bomb. Right. Dismantle the bomb.

  In this lift? No, that was insane. “Marlene, if the bomb goes off accidentally—”

  “It’ll blow the station to kingdom come?”

  He nodded.

  “Not to worry.”

  She said that with such nonchalance that he found himself speechless. He cleared his throat. “Why not? Did you snatch the portable Bomb Disposal Unit, too?”

  “Better.”

  “What’s better than a BDU?”

  “Garbage incinerators.”

  “What?” He glanced out into the darkness beyond the lift. Giant machinery stood silhouetted and veiled in shadows. “Where are we?”

  “Deck forty-three, Ring D zero three. Relax. Don’t panic. They once accidentally incinerated a torpedo in number four, over yonder.” She pointed to the left. “Nobody heard or felt it explode, and there wasn’t even a drail’s worth of damage done to the incinerator, or anything else.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It happened three years ago. I was there, a deck above. Never mind.”

  Henry manipulated his finger appendage, grabbing and briefly tugging the shirt sleeve of Deacon’s good arm. “Marlee would never lie about anything so important.”

  “Does she lie about unimportant things?” He instantly regretted his caustic remark.

  “I do not know.” Henry spun sideways, facing Marlee. “Do you lie about unimportant things, Marlee?”

  Hearts Akilter

  by

  Catherine E. McLean

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Hearts Akilter

  COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Catherine E. McLean

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Kim Mendoza

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Fantasy Rose Edition, 2015

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0256-0

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedications

  To my husband and daughter,

  whose unfailing love and support

  can never be adequately expressed in words.

  ~*~

  And to my fellow Pennwriters,

  who have provided

  feedback, advice, help, and support in so many ways

  on my journey to the publication of my stories.

  There are a million stories to tell of those beings, human and aliens, who pass through the portals and walk the labyrinths of Kifel Space Station.

  This is but one.

  Kifel Space Station

  Maintenance Level, Robotics Station 0109

  “Marlee, Marlee, help, help!”

  Marlee startled and hit her nose against the welder’s observation plate. She silently swore at the sharp pain, but didn’t lift her head. “Henry, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

  Robotic treads squelched to a stop behind her.

  Henry’s voice rose two octaves. “I am having a heart attack! Help. Help!”

  Marlee inwardly groaned but blinked and adjusted her own optical implants. Two flicks of her thumb on the micro-fine focus ball and she had the nano-welder head in position on the cable guide. “Give me a minute, then I’ll help you.”

  “I may not live another minute!” His voice quivered with fear. “Please. Help me.”

  “I will remind you that you are a robot. You have no heart, therefore, you cannot have a heart attack.”

  “I have chest pains. Sharp ones.”

  “And I’m the poor human being that has to fix this weldment!” She regretted the anger in her voice. But, skom, she needed to fix this rotor cuff assembly and put that blasted PicPak back together so Vacco stopped bugging her every morning about getting the bot in service.

  “Marlee, forgive me,” Henry said in a calm, modulated tone. “I did not mean to upset you.”

  Guilt singed her hotter than a weld. “No, I’m sorry I snapped at you. Just relax. Count to twenty or something. Let me finish this, then I’ll give you my full attention. Okay?”

  “Affirmative. Yes.”

  Marlee viewed the alignments once more. Satisfied, she pressed the welding sequence node.

  Flash shields dropped into place to protect her vision. Three clicks sounded their warning, and in a sparkling pinpoint of brilliant light, the pieces were fused together. Marlee depressed a lever, and the wand retracted to the ready position. She lifted her head away from the viewer. As she sat back and swiveled her task chair to face Henry, she cued the nodes, readjusting her cornea implants to normal sight.

  Henry stood before her wearing his pristine, blue, pin-striped medical assistant’s smock. Although he was small, a mere meter and a half tall, she had to raise her gaze to study his face. At either end of his T-shaped head were two large lenses. Each was rimmed with narrow blue bands, which were encircled by wider black rings. Those eyes reflected his distress and anxiety.

  Marlee lowered her voice to a soothing tone. “Thanks for waiting, Henry. Now, about this heart attack—”

  “I have pain in my chest!”

  “Is it increasing?”

  “Negative. No. It is about the same. No, wait. It has lessened by twenty-five percent.”

  “I see. So, what did Doc say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because one week ago today he issued an order to me that if I ascertain there is a malfunction, I am to immediately notify the head nurse that I am departing sickbay. Depending on the nature of the problem, software or hardware, I am to see Lieutenant Commander Woodridge or you.”

  “Did you see Woodridge?”

  “Affirmative. Yes. I saw her three times.”

  “Three?”

  “Affirmative. Yes.”

  Woodridge was a master computer tech, best of the best that had ever come to Kifel. She would be thorough. Very thorough.

  “Henry, when did the pains start?”

  “Twelve days ago.”

  “And the second time?”

  “Seven days ago. Then yesterday. Approximately 0830 hours. Today’s heart attack occurred in the ER one hour and twenty minutes ago, while I vacuumed up little Roger Kozar’s vomit. He swallowed one of his father’s bees. Why would a child swallow a bee?”

  Marlee shrugged. “Kids sometimes do the darnedest things.” An image flared of the boy’s father, the handsome Roger senior, the hydroponic garden’s beekeeper. The widower wanted free sex and no commitment.

  The cool front edge of Henry’s left effector nudged her. None of the dozen pharmaceutical apertures opened on that black and white, thirty by ten centimeter oblong unit.

  “Marlee,” Henry said in earnest, “are you listening to me?”

  “Sorry. You mentioning Roger junior brought back memories of his dad.”

  “Ah, yes, confessions and truths do distress.”

  “I am not distres
sed.” Why had she blurted that out? Maybe because she was still mad at herself for falling for Roger senior’s blarney.

  The sensor on Henry’s other effector blinked on.

  “Ah, ah, ah, Henry. No scanning. Please?”

  The light went out.

  She leaned back against her task chair’s gunmetal gray back, and the chair tilted a few degrees. “So, backtrack and continue about your heart attacks. I’m listening. You have my undivided attention.”

  “Very well. As I was saying, the pain always begins in my chest, where my processors are. That makes it a computer problem. I went to Woodridge and explained to her that the best way to describe the sensation was to liken it to a human having a heart attack. She examined me and said everything was fine. But, Marlee, it is not fine.”

  “So, you came to me?”

  “You said friends help friends. You are my friend.”

  Her and her big mouth.

  “Marlee, I require, no, I desire a second opinion.”

  “You’re thinking if it isn’t a problem with your master boards or one of your Universal Processor Units, it has to be mechanical?”

  “It is a logical conclusion, is it not? Please, will you help me?”

  “I’m not sure I’ll be of much help.” Maybe there was a power fluctuation that accounted for his heart palpitations? “Henry, let me see your mechanical power use data summaries for the past three days.”

  From the middle of the light-bar-voice-synthesizer, which was centered below and between his eyes, much like a mouth, came a blue light. The light morphed into the holographic projection of a screen filled with data, along with a graph.

  No spikes. No voids. Nothing unusual. “End.”

  The hologram vanished.

  “Henry, are you still experiencing pain?”

  “Affirmative, but the pain diminished thirty percent when I held my breath.”

  “You don’t breathe.”

  “Technically, no, I cannot breathe. What I meant was that I went to an MRY mode.”

  “An MRY? What’s that?”

  “Mental Relaxation Yoga mode. Mister Xinn teaches it.”

  Ah, yoga, that would account for the breathing. So what else might cause a problem in Henry’s chest cavity? Maybe feedback from a gasket break in his neck? He’d had three in the past year.

  She eyed the square, eighteen-centimeter tube, which was the base part of the T of Henry’s head. The neck-base could rotate two-hundred-and-seventy degrees. “Henry, show me the tension setting on the gear assemblies at the top and bottom of your neck.”

  The holograph flickered anew with the data.

  “No anomalies, Henry.”

  “Of course not. There is nothing wrong with my neck. I have constriction in my chest. My heart hurts.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You do not have a heart so you cannot have a constriction.”

  Henry’s voice whined with frustration. “It is there. I feel the pain traveling down my left arm. This is the fourth instance. Something is very wrong with me!” He paused, then whispered, “Very wrong.”

  There was no missing the emotion in his words. Emotions were something a servobot like him wasn’t supposed to have. AIs, androids, yes, but this little bot? Was he evolving into some sort of artificial intelligence?

  And just what did she know about AIs? Evolving or otherwise?

  Nada.

  Wrong.

  If he were evolving into an AI, he would be shipped off to Razl for study, to figure out how to duplicate that artificial intelligence.

  Damn her, she liked the little bot. He’d consoled her when she’d been told she would be blind unless she had implants. He’d been there for her throughout rehab and the frustrations and tears of using those visual implants. He’d become her friend. Her only real friend on Kifel.

  She could help him if—

  No. She didn’t have clearances to get at his classified UPU areas. Then again, last month Henry told her he could access all his coded and restricted areas himself. And she’d told him to keep that information to himself because it would create problems neither he nor she wanted to deal with. But now?

  Now, Henry needed her help.

  She heaved a sigh. “Henry, I have an idea. Open the bib plate where the constriction is. I’ll peek inside and check the mechatronic systems for your arm actuators.”

  The rims of his eyes spun, more blue than black, and the lens irises became smaller. “Your clearances forbid it, and you told me—”

  “I know. I know. But if you don’t tell, I won’t.”

  “Oh, I see. Affirmative. Yes. Very well. Proceed.”

  Proceeding meant removing his smock and shoving the sleeves down his arms—arms being a misnomer. He had flex-tubes filled with hair-fine cables and power conduits that came out of his gearbox shoulders.

  It took more work to get the material over his right effector-hand, a pod that was three times wider than his left one. That appendage housed medical scanners and a Gatling-styled hyposprayer, one loaded with tranquilizers and painkillers. She’d felt the hypo’s bites more than she cared to remember.

  Oh, the hazards of being a maintenance tech!

  Once she had the smock off, she held it up to him. “Take this.”

  A soft whirring came from the underside of his right appendage. A three-fingered gripper emerged and clamped onto the garment.

  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.”