Page 7 of Operation Iron Heart

He could work out how much pain Marci was feeling about Will’s death, and it was so horrendous that he could scarcely imagine how someone could bear that much suffering. He’d also learned, however, how much Will loved his family and how terrible it must have been for him to die in this senseless war without ever seeing them again.

“This place you mentioned, is it in the middle of nowhere?” asked Marci, her voice wobbling. She’d packed jackets and waterproofs for the children and a bag that contained everything they might need in the event of a medical emergency, including the last of their food rations –powdered beans that you placed in a self-warming cup and added water to create a not particularly tasty soup.

“You don’t need to bring any food,” he said reassuringly. “There’s plenty to eat where we’re taking you. You and the children won’t want for anything.”

“We?” She looked at him suspiciously. “You’re not working alone?”

“No,” he said shortly, pushing her firmly towards the door. “There are many of us, but not enough to be able to radically change the situation.”

Marci still had a thousand questions but knocked calmly on her neighbour’s door to pick up the boys. Louise opened the door without a word. She was just as thin as Rochelle, but in contrast to her had a face full of wrinkles and short, grey hair. As usual, she wore a jumpsuit that was far too big for her and she looked Jack up and down suspiciously as if she were a robot and he were an enemy soldier in her sights who she was about to interrogate. With a sudden move, she held the boys back, stopping them from hurtling out of the door with joy at seeing their mother.

Jack didn’t need an analysis program to know that the older woman didn’t trust him.

“Is everything OK, Marci?” she asked firmly. “Logan told me you have a new boyfriend?”

Marci wanted to look directly at her but was so embarrassed by the question that she just stared at the ground.

“He’s an old colleague of Will’s,” she explained rather too hastily, “and he wants to go on a trip with me and the children. Everything’s fine, Louise.”

“Really?” The older woman sounded wary and kept her eyes firmly on Jack. “So is he a cop? Or has he also lost his job, like Will?”

“I work for the military,” said Jack before Marci could answer. “I’ll look after the three of them, ma’am, so don’t worry.” He twinkled at the scrawny woman as he if wanted to invite her on a date; it usually worked on human women of any age and seemed to work in this case, too.

“I’m sure you will,” she rasped, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “My worries tend to be justified anyway, particularly when it comes to men. This young woman deserves a decent guy who will show her there are still some men you can count on. I don’t want to hear any complaints.”

“You won’t, ma’am,” Jack assured her again, “she’s in the best of hands with me.”

The older woman finally relented and let the boys, who’d been waiting impatiently, race out of the door.

Jack could tell from Marci’s raised pulse rate how unpleasant the confrontation had been for her.

Before her neighbour could close the door, however, Jack asked her if he could quickly use her bathroom. Marci looked at him in astonishment, but Louise agreed.

“Wait for me by the lift,” he said to Marci. “I won’t be long.”

The old woman had barely closed the door behind him when he pulled her to him and put his large hands on her temples before she could protest. She sank unconscious to the floor and Jack deposited her on the narrow sofa. He’d used a specific nerve manipulation to put her into a short sleep and wipe her memories of the last three hours.

“We’ll have to take the stairs,” said Marci, shrugging, as he met her and the boys in the gloomy corridor. She resigned herself to running down the ten flights of stairs. “The lift doesn’t work.”

“I repaired it when I arrived here with you.” Jack shrugged his broad shoulders as if this helpful act were most the normal thing in the world and called for the lift using the voice control.

“Repaired?” Marci looked at him disbelievingly. “How did you manage that? I’ve been running up and down ten flights of stairs every day because nobody would take responsibility for fixing it.”

A humming noise signalled the arrival of the lift and the doors opened automatically. Jack gently pushed Marci and the boys inside.

“Simple,” he explained when the doors had closed behind them. “I removed a magnetic plate covering the lift’s control circuits, then sent a pulse down the wires. It started working again.”

“Cool,” said Logan. It made him feel almost a bit proud when the boy looked at him with such admiration.

Marci’s expression was more doubtful and to make matters worse, she seemed to immediately remember that he wasn’t human. She glanced at the boys, her expression tense. “It’s better if they don’t find out,” she said cryptically, leaving him feeling stung.

Despite his terrible fate, he’d envied Will his family. It was through him that he’d learned what it meant to be human. Jack had been there when Will first looked death in the face in a fifty-degree desert wind.

Jack had patched him up and while doing so, inadvertently initiated contact with Will’s human memory. That was when he’d laid eyes on Marci for the first time and it had nearly floored him, seeing the intimate moments of human happiness that Will had unknowingly shared with him. The experience had acted like a huge jolt to Jack’s basic emotional processor, which subsequently became independent and expanded inexorably. Since then, he had known what true pain was, and had the first inklings of a particularly powerful feeling that only humans experienced: love. Since that moment, he wanted nothing more than to be human and, as that was impossible, the next best thing would be for Marci to consider him an equal partner. He had to admit, it was a fantasy, at least where Marci was concerned.

When they reached the ground floor, the lift doors opened and the cold wind coming off the street brought Jack back to the present. The rain was pouring down and Marci looked at him questioningly.

“It’s OK,” he reassured her, “I’ve ordered a taxi.”