Heart of Steel Read Online Free PDF

party.
    “By replacing the damaged and missing parts, of course. It will be a very simple procedure. I can even improve upon nature.” His mechanical eye glittered with anticipation. “All you have to do is ask.”
    Julia considered this offer. It sounded too good to be true, but she didn’t see many other options. “So you’ll fix him, and then we can go?”
    The mechanical iris contracted as Mechanus’s smile faded. “I’m afraid that leaving won’t be possible for you.”
    A chill went down Julia’s spine. “Why… why not?” she demanded.
    “I enjoy my privacy, and I have projects in place that I do not wish interrupted. If I let you go, you’re likely to tell people about what goes on inside Shark Reef Isle, and that could get extremely messy. My research could be endangered. My assistants’ lives would be at risk. Everything I’ve worked for... gone.” He took her right hand in his left, and she felt unyielding metal under his glove. “Now, I promise you—I swear to you—that I intend no harm to befall you. However, you should put escape right out of your mind. We’re miles from the closest inhabited island, I have no boats to take you anywhere, and I have three packs of dire wolves that patrol this island. Beyond this, I will give you anything you wish—good food, comfortable accommodations, and I will even fix up your diving partner so that he’s good as new—no, better than new. How about it?”
    Everything about his demeanor seemed to be generally off —more than the fact that he’d replaced her leg without batting an eyelash and was now keeping a bisected man alive by some means, for whatever purpose he’d originally had in mind. He acted like she expected a mad scientist in a movie to act, with an unsettling enthusiasm for whatever science was keeping Jim alive. His voice, though overall pleasant to listen to (honestly, she could have listened to him reading the phone book to her all day) had a slight metallic quality, probably due to other hardware that she hadn’t yet seen. Also, while he was speaking with her his voice remained largely neutral,
    but there was a definite spark of fascination in his human eye.
    If he put Jim back together, maybe she and Jim could figure out a way off the island. She got a twinge of guilt when she recalled that she wanted to break up with him, but at the same time it wasn’t like she could just leave him here in the hands of some madman who probably wanted to turn him into Frankenstein’s monster or something.
    “Okay,” she said to Mechanus, hope starting to bloom for the first time that day, “Fix him. Can you make him good as new?”
    He smiled, and his lens gleamed in anticipation. “I can do even better than that, my dear lady. I will make him better than he ever was.”
    “O-okay,” she said, feeling uneasy at the look of glee in his eye. She didn’t want Jim improved , just back how he was. Then again, she wouldn’t say no to some personality improvements, maybe make him a bit more compromising...
    No. Bad Julia. Having some mad scientist scramble Jim’s brain according to her own whims wouldn’t help anything.
    “I’d... like to go back to my room now,” Julia said quietly.
    Mechanus bowed deeply to her, sweeping his arm across his waist like a Victorian gentleman elaborately tipping his hat to a young lady he fancied. “Very well. Arthur, kindly show her the way.”
    “Of course, sir. Miss?” The drone turned and flew away, and Julia followed, feeling numb.
     
    ***
     
    “I’d say that went very well overall,” Mechanus said to Arthur after Julia had gone.
    “Perhaps so, sir,” Arthur replied, “but she appears displeased by her current situation.”
    “I don’t see why she would—I replaced her missing leg, I patched up all their injuries, and I’ve even managed to save her diving partner’s life.” Her fiancé’s life, he thought unhappily, recalling the note that the man had on his person. Well. He would not