Page 38 of Operation Iron Heart

Reluctantly, she followed him to his glider – a monstrous, gold-wrapped vessel with space for at least ten people.

I’m going to die, she thought, feeling on the edge of hysteria as she sat down in one of the comfortable upholstered seats. Even more so when two more heavily armed robots suddenly appeared, joining the robot pilot in the glider.

Marci fought the urge to be sick as the glider took off and headed for an unknown location somewhere in the middle of the Nevada desert.

“Are you feeling unwell?” MacIntyre asked with false concern, seeing Marci holding her stomach throughout the thirty-minute flight.

“No, I’m fine,” she replied hurriedly. “I think it’s just my lunch not agreeing with your pilot’s flying abilities.”

“We’re nearly there,” MacIntyre assured her. “I’ll instruct my technicians to change pilots before our return flight.”

Marci took it as an encouraging sign that he mentioned a return flight, but she was almost paralysed by fear when they landed in the middle of nowhere. The glider had barely touched down on the red sandy ground when it opened up beneath them, lowering to reveal a large landing platform. The vessel sank twenty metres and the ground closed over them like an iron gate. The brightly lit underground facility teemed with dozens of technicians, probably robots. Some looked like humans, others less so, but all of them without exception were tall and broad and looked terrifying. A relatively thin, Asian-looking man in a white lab coat hurried towards them.

MacIntyre welcomed him with an enigmatic smile. “Allow me to introduce Dr Tanaka. I acquired him from Copter Robot Unlimited after my wife died in tragic circumstances and the CRU lab facilities were destroyed in an explosion. Unfortunately, we still don’t know who is responsible for this attack, but a few winners have emerged from the disaster. One of them is us and another is you, dear Skyla.”

“Um…” Marci struggled to think of a response. “What can I say?” she stuttered. “I’m really sorry about your wife and I hope they find whoever did it soon. As for the rest, I’m really looking forward to a successful partnership.” With an insincere smile, she held out her hand to Tanaka. She had seen him once when he came to dinner at Rochelle’s house and she’d had to clear away and wash up all the expensive crockery afterwards – by hand. They had unfortunately crossed paths when he’d asked her where the guest toilet was. Now, though, he didn’t seem to recognise her.

“Monty said you’ve developed new formulae that can make robots even more human? I’d love to discuss them with you to see whether these formulae are more advanced than the ones that were stolen from us along with the source code.”

“All in good time, Dr Tanaka,” replied Marci, repeating what Cathrin Porter’s headquarters told her. She found it reassuring that her connection to Cathrin and the rebels was still working.

“First – as promised – I’d like to see the production facilities for the combat robots, including the spare parts store where you patch them up so that we can make escort robots out of them.”

MacIntyre reassured her that he would of course honour his promise and she gave Tanaka a tentative smile. She was suddenly certain that he was in cahoots with MacIntyre and had been involved with Rochelle’s death and the subsequent burglary. She didn’t know where this certainty came from, but the two men were acting strangely and there was something about how they interacted with each other. She hadn’t noticed it when she’d just been with MacIntyre on his own.

She quickened her pace to keep up with her host as he led her and Tanaka, followed by two robots who accompanied their boss like loyal stooges, through a maze of brightly lit corridors. She felt like a sheep surrounded by wolves and wished that Jack was with her, feeling adrift without him. At least she still had Silver’s reliable voice in her head giving her orders. He told her she should follow MacIntyre everywhere and assured her that Jack was OK.

“I reactivated him as soon as you’d got into MacIntyre’s glider,” he explained calmly. “Don’t worry, he’s already on his way to you.”

As if that’s going to help, thought Marci. What in God’s name could Jack do here, even if he could get into this hellish place? What if MacIntyre’s robots grabbed him and tore him into little pieces? Losing him now would be the death of her.

When they finally reached a large hangar in which giant 3D tissue printers set about churning out MacIntyre’s combat robots in glass boxes, her worst fears were realised. It looked like one huge meat factory – the sight of bodies being created layer by layer as nozzles rapidly applied the different cell structures onto the titanium exoskeletons of future robots reminded her of a complex web pattern with new threads of varying colours being added all the time. The smell of copper and something organic she couldn’t name increased her sudden nausea, particularly when she saw that the next stage of production involved filling the veins of the completed robots with artificial blood plasma and giving their hearts an electric shock, effectively bringing them to life. Even though she knew that Jack must have been created under similar circumstances, she couldn’t bear to watch. Not wanting to reveal her disgust about the total lack of ethics in MacIntyre’s scheme, she clamped her jaw firmly and tried to look as relaxed as possible. Dr Tanaka, however, noticed that she had gone white.

“Are you not feeling well, Skyla?” he asked with apparent concern as MacIntyre continued to show them around the production facilities. “You look quite pale.”

“It’s the xenon lights,” she replied with a tense smile. “My cosmetics robot probably used the wrong make-up this morning, but he wasn’t to know that I’d be under this kind of light this afternoon.”

“This is just the beginning,” MacIntyre chimed in and Marci wasn’t certain whether this statement was meant as a threat.

“So when do I get to see a complete robot?” she asked MacIntyre, who apparently couldn’t get enough of looking at his almost completed robot soldiers. “I mean, we can hardly show this lot to women like Jill Ambush, can we?”

“Patience.” MacIntyre gave a thin smile. “The lads are in the next hangar, all prepped and ready for deployment.”

Marci felt her anxiety increasing, sensing that all of this was just a diversion and that MacIntyre actually had something different planned for her. If he really did believe she was in possession of the source code, he surely wouldn’t be toying with her like this. She was just waiting for him to point a gun at her chest and demand she hand over the code.

When they reached the next hangar, they were suddenly surrounded by incredibly attractive men’s bodies, standing upright, large and pulsing with power, like Jack, but poised motionless in dozens of glass cases. The only thing missing was their faces.

“As you can see, Skyla, we’ve not been slacking. Dr Tanaka and my ex-wife were almost ready to put their CRU robots into production when they were sabotaged. It’s strange that only two weeks afterwards, MfM and a previously unknown programmer appear out of nowhere and make me an offer that fills the gap perfectly. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

Marci felt the trap closing in on her, but it wasn’t a physical cage, it was a huge robot that looked like Jack, right down to the last detail. His green eyes didn’t betray the slightest emotion as he stared down at her coldly and, before she could fully process what was going on, he grabbed her upper arm and held her in an iron grip.

“Jack?” Marci froze in fear. She searched his handsome face in vain for a sign that explained why he was acting so strangely, but he apparently either didn’t recognise her or didn’t know what he was doing here. Silver had assured her that he’d reactivated Jack and that he’d followed her here to help, so MacIntyre’s people must have caught him after he’d somehow gained access to the hangar. They must have overpowered him and transformed him into a submissive minion. How else to explain his strange appearance? After all, MacIntyre and Tanaka were professionals who were almost as skilled as Cathrin Porter. At that point, she realised that her link to Silver and Cathrin’s team had suddenly dropped out.

“How is that possible…?” she stammered helplessly, feeling an icy stab of fear.

“Did you seriously think you could pull the wool over our eyes?” MacIntyre considered her with a cynical smile. “Do you think I didn’t know that Cathrin Porter is behind your unprofessional get-up? I think it’s time we put an end to this disastrous plan! The game is up, Skyla,” he declared with an ice-cold expression. “And in case you’re wondering why your link to the base is down – we’ve blocked it with a jammer and reprogrammed your escort robot. So, either you voluntarily cough up the source code or your escort robot will fuck you until you hand it over. Do you understand me?”

“You can’t do that,” she replied breathlessly to MacIntyre, appealing in desperation to his conscience even though she already knew he didn’t have one. “I don’t know any Cathrin Porter. I’ve placed my trust in your support and your honesty, Monty.”