Page 9 of Operation Iron Heart

Marci gave a deep sigh and pursed her lips before looking Jack in the eyes and shrugging. “Sorry,” she murmured wearily. “He didn’t mean it like that.”

“I hope he did,” countered Jack, smiling gently, referring not to the tin can comment, but the gawping. Before Marci could reply, Silver swerved suddenly to the left, pressing them all into their seats.

“Fuck!” came the sound from the hermetically sealed driver’s cabin.

“What’s wrong, Silver?” asked Jack.

“Look at the news, you’ll soon see.”

Jack glanced hastily at the holocommunicator that he’d strapped onto his wrist when he climbed into the van. A 3D image appeared on the tiny screen that made the cause of the trouble very clear.

“North-south route completely closed,” reported the traffic service. The very route that they would have to take if they wanted to head north out of the city.

Disbelievingly, Marci watched the breaking news that followed as it danced across Jack’s wrist in a holographic recording.

“This morning, billionaire’s wife Rochelle MacIntyre was murdered by an unknown person,” reported a glossy blonde with a totally inappropriate smile. “Early investigations indicate that theperpetrator entered her villa in a kind of Trojan horse and broke her neck as she lay nakedin bed. Valuable company data was taken from the safe and it would also appear that her cleaner was kidnapped.”

Marci and Jack both continued to stare at the likeness that showed her doing her morning dusting, lending the whole thing a comical air.

“Marcella Finnegan is twenty-eight years old but looks older. She is one metre sixty-eight, slim and has shoulder-length, chestnut-brown hair that she sometimes ties back in a ponytail. She was last heard from at around eleven this morning. Since then, there has been no sign of her. It is possible that the perpetrator has killed her, too. As yet, no ransom demands have been received. Montgomery MacIntyre, owner of MacIntyre LLC, whose company is famous for making combat machines, has offered a reward of ten million credits for any information leading to the perpetrator’s capture. This can be sent to our editorial team or to any police station. The buildings of Copter Robot Unlimited have also been completely destroyed in an explosion. The circumstances are not yet clear, as the satellite recordings were malfunctioning at the time. The possibility of terrorism cannot be excluded. Due to the ongoing manhunt, all roads in the city have been blocked off and are being monitored by the police. This may cause long traffic jams on all routes out of the city.”

“What did you do?” cried Marci, looking at Jack as if he were a monster.

“I didn’t do anything!” he retorted fervently, throwing a fierce look at her. “She was alive when I left. She was unconscious, yes, but she was alive.”

“Why in God’s name was she unconscious?” snapped Marci.

“Because I wiped her memory using an energy pulse so that she wouldn’t remember me. I…” “And you probably got the intensity wrong and that was that…” interrupted Marci.

“Whatever happened, I definitely didn’t break her neck!” said Jack defensively. “I analysed her health data as I was leaving. She was asleep and well.”

“As well as I was when you held my mouth and nose shut,” Marci cried, holding her children tightly to her. “I came this close to being suffocated!”

“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” implored Jack, hoping that she believed him.

Chapter 2 – Rebels

Chicago, October 2056

“You’re in the shit now,” swore Silver, who didn’t stick to the machine language he’d been programmed with, but instead used words he’d picked up from humans. “You should have just grabbed the damn source code and left the woman where she was. She’s not important, Jack. What do you want with her?”

“She is important,” objected Jack, suddenly no longer the gentle robot he wanted Marci to see. “I promised her husband that I’d get her out of there before…” He paused, seeing Marci’s horrified face, still full of revulsion and fear. The worst thing was, she didn’t say a word, just sat there and stared at him as if he were a wild animal, covering her younger son’s eyes. Even Logan seemed to slowly realise what was going on and was clearly considering whether he should go on the attack to protect his mother from this horrible robot.

“It wasn’t me, dammit,” Jack shouted at Marci imploringly. “God knows what happened after we left.”

“Oh really?” said Marci, clearly summoning all her courage to argue with him. “Then tell me, what did you want from this woman? It doesn’t look like you’re an oppressed combat robot who’s managed to escape his immoral purpose. The whole thing was planned from start to finish. A pre-arranged game to get hold of something that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible. So I’ll ask you straight: why couldn’t you leave me out of this dishonest little game? You could have just brought me Will’s message, but now I’m on the run with you and the children. If they catch us, it won’t just be you they lobotomise. If it comes out that you were in contact with Will, they’ll assume that we’re all in together, and then the children and I are in for it, too.”

Marci didn’t go into any more detail, not because she wanted to go easy on Jack, but to spare the boys, who were already looking extremely frightened.

“That’s exactly why I kidnapped you,” Jack retorted, now in a somewhat gentler tone. “Will wanted to know that you’d be safe. Once MacIntyre and the government realise that it’s much cheaper to convert people into hybrid robots than to build expensive machines, they won’t spare women and children. And what could be simpler than to use families that they’re already aware of?”

Marci thought about what he’d said as hell continued to break loose around them. Silver found a gap and turned off onto a quiet side street.

He was a sharp guy and always a good source of creative ideas. He’d saved Jack’s arse several times in the desert by coming up with new methods of camouflage. Right now, he chose an unconventional route, turning off into a derelict subterranean tunnel. Jack hoped this idea would turn out well, too.

As old, crumbling concrete pillars flashed past them at breakneck speed, Jack’s holo-wristband informed them of their next problem. Somebody in Homeland Defence had noticed their little underground detour and sent a couple of unmanned reconnaissance drones, fitted with armour-piercing automatic weapons.

Marci drew in a sharp breath as Jack took a pulse gun out of a compartment in the floor in front of the children and released the safety catch with an audible hum.