Metal Man

Chapter 15: A sacrifice

The world was a sea of white paper and the gray of a pencil on the paper. I shook my head, clearing the bees in my brain, and squinted at the diagram.   

I had made the blueprint, and I knew it was right, but it was perplexing at times. Like this one. I stared down at the head, which was almost as big as my body. I hadn't put in the eyes yet, and it was far from finished, but you could see where the eyes were meant to go, and the holes stared up at you. 

"Oh," I said. I fiddled with the gears inside and corrected it. "There we go." I said, and continued. The stop button hadn't been inserted yet, and putting in the one simple thing was harder than I thought. It would have to connect to the entire body, and I would have to trust the person putting the parts together to connect the wires and trust me. 

I kept working throughout the day, my hands sore and scratched, my entire body coated in grease, and my brain hurting from all the calculations I had make. Just before they brought in dinner, the head was finished, all but for the eyes. A person came in with my food. I waved then away and selected two glass orbs to insert into the empty sockets. They were just barely larger than my head, and definitely all glass, but surprisingly light. One was red and the other a light green-blue. I put in the red first, and then the blue. The head stared up at me, emotionless. I shivered. 

"Take it away and tell the Boss he got his wish." I said. A lieutenant came in and took it, and I watched it go, wondering what would happen now. 

I don't remember falling asleep, but I woke up, blinking bleary eyes. I didn't have a clock, but I could guess it was around five in the morning. The bars lifted up and the smug man with the silver tooth yanked my arm and pulled me through more passageways, until we got to the Bosses room. The Boss was at the desk, and beaming like a schoolboy.

He didn't say anything, but minutes later Jade was herded in, and soon after came a boy with dark hair and eyes, a blind boy, a boy who had gone limp, and a girl with bright pink hair, all around sixteen or eighteen. Jade looked surprised to see them.

"You know them?" I asked her out of the corner of my mouth, feeling curious at how she had come to know these people. 

"Yeah," she replied. "They helped me. The tallest boy with black hair is Crow, the blind one is Hugo, the one who's knocked out is Oliver, and the girl is Lissy." I nodded, trying to process their names. 

With no preamble, the Boss began. "Rosemarie here has finished the automaton." he said, grinning. Everybody kept their faces carefully straight, but I could tell they were horrified. I was, too. I had constructed something that would destroy the world. But maybe it could feel a tiny spark of emotion and sorrow. Just maybe. 

"I have invited you all to come watch it come and overtake Venice," he continued. "You will be accompanied, of course, by my lieutenants. I shall go up first, and then you children and we will watch." He turned around in his chair, and walked to the end of the spherical room, his feet making soft clicks on the floor.

None of us made a move or a sound, paralyzed. He stepped into a glass case, which closed, and it shot up like a bullet from a gun. I didn't even think of how the elevator was still there, just stood. We had failed in out attempt to close all the elevators. But that was the least of our problems. 

The lieutenants herded us to the elevator, and piled us in, them squeezing in last, and the elevator flew up. We appeared on the roof of a very high building, the tops of the apartments lit by the dawn-gray sky. The Boss was standing in the center, his mahogany hair blown by the strong wind.