“Is there anything else about Master Ellis?” She leaned closer to Hart.
The RAM hummed then clicked. “A bit. Yancy’s memories are more intact than the maid’s, as if he remained sentient longer, possibly because of how he was converted. The machine recorded his memories for at least a few weeks, too long for me to play it all, but if you can give me a minute, I can give you a quick digest.”
Nyssa swallowed. She remembered leaning up against the larger mirror and feeling Hart’s warmth through it, almost like touching another person. What if he is another person? What if Hart is Ellis?
Chapter Eight
Hart's examination of the memory wheel took much longer than the promised minute. Nyssa had nearly drifted off to sleep when he finally said, “I’ve got through all the viable data.”
She sat up, stood, and stretched her legs. The light through the high windows was fainter now, suggesting the day was drawing to an end. Her stomach gnawed at itself.
I wish I’d thought to ask Albriet for some provisions. Can’t really eat lockpicks.
“What did you find?” she asked, holding the RAM up.
“I found out a bit about the conversion process. It’s extremely complex, the linking of organic and electronic components. The idea is to combine the best aspects of both—the self-healing and adaptive capabilities of the human body and the resilience and speed of electronics—to create a longer lasting, more capable hybrid.” The lights zipped back and forth across the screen like anxious fireflies. “The potential applications are staggering: a man loses his arm, integrate a mechanical limb that responds as his own. You could give a human the ability to make calculations with the speed of a computer while still maintaining the creativity and unpredictability of imagination. It’s like the perfect marriage of science and nature.”
“Tell that to Yancy.” Nyssa scowled. She stuck the RAM back into her belt.
“Yes, well, the application here is obviously being used for much darker purposes. Also, it isn't working as intended. The conversion killed Yancy, not immediately, but within a few days, and during those days he was in extreme anguish, both mentally and physically. When he perished, certain organic components were electronically bolstered to continue. The memory wheels recorded his vital signs, and his brainwaves ceased several weeks before heart and lung function. Whatever the professor was trying to do—make robots more human or humans more robotic—it failed. Considering the maid, I’m not sure he ever succeeded in creating a working hybrid. He managed to keep the heart going for much longer than with Yancy, but not the brain.”
Nyssa faced the knight. Removing the screws from her pocket, she fastened the breastplate back in place, hiding the bones.
It’s not exactly a good Christian burial, but at least he’s not on display like a lab specimen.
“I can’t imagine … trapped inside here, knowing what you once were, what you should be? How could you bear it?”
“By thinking about what you have to live for, at least that’s what Yancy tried to do.”
Nyssa rubbed her arms.
“He thought about Mary, his wife, a lot. Some of that was quite intimate. I did my best to skim over without gawking, but also, surprisingly, there’s a lot about both the professor and this Ellis character. Seems like he’d worked for them so long, they were sort of his family.” The quiet hum from the RAM rose in pitch until it sounded almost like a sigh. “Imagine being betrayed by someone you trusted that way.”
“And Ellis?” Nyssa forced her voice steady.
“I guess he was only about fifteen. He was badly injured some time before Yancy’s conversion, in the accident that killed the professor’s wife. Yancy and Mary cared for him in his illness, but he was confined to a wheelchair.”
Nyssa’s ears twitched. “You said that this technology could replace a man’s arm. Do you think it could allow a cripple to walk?”
“Easily.”
Her breath quickened. “Imagine you’re the professor. You have materially everything you can give your child, but ill-luck deprives him of one thing you can’t provide: health. What wouldn’t you do to heal him?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe start butchering and experimenting on my trusted friends and employees?” Hart’s voice almost creaked from its own dryness.
“I’m not saying it’s justified, but if you’re already eccentric and recently had the shock of losing your wife?” She forced her mouth shut and let out a long breath through her nose. “It may have triggered his madness.”
“You’re the one defending the professor now?”
“The professor, not the creator?” She placed her hand on the frame of the RAM, wishing he could feel her touch.
“Creator isn’t a title you give to someone who causes such destruction.”
What about 'Father'? Oh please, God, let me be wrong. If Hart is what I think he is, then he has a soul to crush, and I don’t think he deserves that.
She cleared her throat. “Do you want to keep going?”
“Yes. You still need to get through this, right? Also, I want to know what happened to Dalhart himself. He needs to pay for what he did. Yancy was a good man, a husband, a foster father to a young invalid. He deserved a better end than that.”
Nyssa walked through the hall, trying not to think of the other knights and who might be entombed inside them. Another curtain covered the far end of the space. She flipped her goggles to x-ray and found a solid wall beyond. “I thought you said there was a staircase here?”
“There should be.”
She scanned the area. A rectangular outline glimmered like a beacon in the corner. Pushing back the curtain, she examined the seemingly solid oak paneling. Skillfully rendered vines and flowers twined up the edge. She brushed her hand over them, and the leaves of one vine gave beneath her fingertips. “Buttons?”
“Oh yes, I remember now. It’s a code. Third leaf from the bottom left, first on the bottom
