Chapter 10
I could have reported the murder, but honestly, there really wasn't anything the police could have done. It wasn't like there was an evidence trail they could follow. If I hadn't been there making a mess of the place, they'd never know anything bad had happened. By the time I got outside, the smoke coming from the chimney was all but gone and impossible to follow from the street. I suppose I could have called The Bulwark, but I wanted to let the police take the collar and hence, get me in their good graces. Plus, I wanted Officer Kent to owe me one specifically. And I really, really didn't want to see Gale again so soon. Plus, what was The Bulwark going to do that I wasn't about to do myself?
As I drove, I kept one eye on the Mason jar. Every time I turned or moved the jar, the sparkly creatures would float up, looking for escape. After a few moments, they'd settle back down on the bottom of the jar just to do it all over again at the next bump in the road. Finally, I threw the tea towel I had used to cover my mouth over the jar to keep them from distracting me.
My mind kept drifting back to Ed and his family. Everything in the home spoke of a desire for the traditional. Traditional house, traditional furnishings, traditional life. If I'd had to make a bet, I'd have guessed that Sue and Ed had one more child planned and I imagined they would have considered a little girl the best outcome. The proverbial matched pair. Sue and Ed were looking for a traditional family in a decidedly non-traditional world.
What had happened to Sue and the baby? I saw no evidence of foul play, but if I hadn't stumbled across half of Ed, I wouldn’t have known about him either. While I wanted to think that they were out somewhere, maybe having escaped into the night when they saw what was happening to Ed, I didn't believe it. If these creatures were there for a reason, it certainly wasn't the tippy, Ed. No, it had to be either the baby or Sue. And since there was no sign of them, I could only assume that I was much too late. Did Ed try to save them? Was he rushing up the stairs to the screams of his wife and child when they descended upon him? I doubted it. If Leederville was anything, it was tight knit. Screaming coming from a home in the community would have been noticed and reported. No, they probably didn't know what had happened to them. Maybe they just fell asleep and the things started consuming them. I shuddered. While it was better than some deaths I could imagine, it sounded fairly horrible.
The houses gradually got larger and more elaborate as I headed uptown. Leederville wasn't far from Avondale, but there wasn't a straight route. I had to snake through neighborhoods sprinkled with manmade ponds, gated communities and shopping centers. Avondale wasn't quite as stuffy as Hillside, but it did have a sort of haughty feel about it. The houses weren't just larger, they seemed to be raised. Of course, part of this was a function of the landscape. The neighborhood dipped and rose, whether it was manmade or natural I didn't know, affording those with money views of the city center and the coast. Those of lesser means had the privilege to live in an affluent neighborhood with all the status that entailed. Even in the lower elevations, however, the homes seemed to be built up so that they loomed over me as I drove by. They practically said, "Don't knock on my door unless you're sure you have business here." It was the kind of neighborhood where people had just enough money to live in it. The kind of neighborhood that pizza delivery drivers loathed because the tips always sucked.
Doc Arts' home was the same as always, repulsive. Not because of the design, but because of the inhabitant. I know I should have been rushing over there with the evidence of Ed's killers, but the thought of seeing the doctor again, after just a few hours, really didn't sit well. The whole way over I kept trying to speed, to maintain a sense of urgency, but it didn't work. Instead, I had to force myself to even go the speed limit. I kept rationalizing that they were all dead, that Sue and the baby certainly weren't hiding out somewhere, but I should have given them the benefit of the doubt. If there was a chance, no matter how small, that they were still alive somewhere, I should have done everything I could to save them. I should have blown every light, insisted Officer Kent get over there, even call Gale and The Bulwark myself. But I didn't believe it. My gut didn't believe it. I guess I was just no hero. I knew they were all dead and that now, all there was left to do was to give the evidence to the one man who could figure out what was going on and how to stop it. The one man I didn't want to see again, ever.
I blew past Butler, ignoring his pleasantries. I knew where I was going and how to get there. I opened the freezer, located the little button on the inside of the frame and switched off the holographic projection of ice encased bags of meat, vegetables, and leftovers. I took the stairs two at a time using my free hand to keep my balance. Butler, since he was a hologram reinforced by a force field that didn't have to physically move between locations, beat me to the bottom of the stairs.
"Sir, I can see you are in a rush, but I must insist," he stood in front of me blocking the exit off the stairs, "that you please state your business."
"I need to see him."
"I gathered that, sir," the hologram continued, "but I must announce you."
"Oh, for the love of..." I pushed my way forward.
As I'd discovered earlier in the day, the force field that gave the Butler substance wasn't very strong. With a minimum of effort I pushed right through the middle of the hologram. I stopped short at the first of the large doors that protected the doctor's lab from the outside world. Of course, it didn't open. "You've got to be kidding me..."
"Sir, please," Butler actually sounded exasperated. The creator of the hologram really should be commended. "You understand that it is quite late."
"Fine, whatever," I spun on the hologram, "tell him that Ed and Sue are dead. The baby too. See if that gets me an audience with his highness."
Almost immediately, the door behind me hissed as the lock released. Machinery clicked and clanked in a way that I suspect was more for effect than from actual function. Supers were nothing if not dramatic. I'd known supers who would burn holes in brand new costumes and repair them thinking it increased their street cred. If I remembered correctly, there was an incident where a super died from self inflicted wounds right before a big date. He had planned, it was thought, to impress the girl by saying he had been in a large fight on the way to the restaurant. Instead, he had died in a pool of blood on the floor of his bathroom with his cape over the shower curtain and his tights around his ankles.
The doctor must have been coming for me because the door in front of me stayed closed while I could still hear the machinery. Finally, the door opened and Doc Arts, Ignaro Medico, stepped forth. His mechanical eyes did not detract from the obvious look of concern on his face.
"Dead? Are you certain?"
"Pretty sure, yeah," I replied, forcefully. "Ed's definitely dead and I don't see how Sue and the baby would have made it out alive."
"That's just terrible, terrible," the doctor said, turning back toward his lab.
I followed.
"I just can't believe it..." he sighed. "I mean, I suspected, of course. But I had hoped there was some other explanation."
"Other explanation?"
"Oh, you know. Mass abductions by some villain, keeping them all cryogenically frozen, maybe brainwashing... you know, something reversible."
I grimaced, "You consider brainwashing, probably through torture and who knows what other psychological torments, to be reversible?"
He turned back to me, "Why, yes. Don't you?"
"I don't know, Medico. Some things are worse than death."
"So, did you call The Bulwark?"
"Not yet. No."
"What?" the doctor looked confused, "Why not?"
"No point really, there's nothing for them to find."
"I don't understand."
"Okay, Medico, let's just get this over with. You were right, okay? You were right; your patients were going missing. I was wrong, the police were wrong, and The Bulwark was wrong. Regardless of anything else, I figured I owed you that."
"Eh…thank you?"
"Yeah, don't mention it." I reached inside my jacket pocket and placed the Mason jar covered by the tea towel on the lab table. "This is your culprit. This is what killed them."
He looked down at it, "I surmise that it is safe to handle?"
"It was for me. They only seemed interested in Ed." I swallowed, "I found him, upstairs. They were... eating him."
"Eating, you say?" the look of sadness was replaced immediately with fascination. The doctor quickly walked around the table and reached out for the jar.
I put my hand on top of the jar before he could pick it up, "Listen Medico, these things ate not only Ed, but every piece of evidence of him and his family. I saw them consuming pieces of skin and hair off the floor. I'm betting if you go back to that house with one of those gizmos you supers always seem to have lying about, you'll find that not only are there no bodies, but no pieces of them anywhere in that house. They took them. Took all of them. Whatever these things are, they're evil. They're the sort of evil that could destroy the world. If they could do that to Ed and Sue, what would happen if they were let loose on the rest of us? What would happen if they could eat anyone? There would be no one left. I've never seen anything like them."
The doctor nodded seriously. He slowly picked up the jar and removed the tea towel. Inside, there seemed to be nothing. He looked at me confusedly until I flicked the bottle with my finger. The sparkly specks jumped to life and the doctor nearly dropped the jar. He stared at it intently, turning it over in his hands. The specks didn't seem to care about the orientation of the jar. They moved around with obvious purpose.
"Well... eh..." he murmured, "I just don't know what to say."
"I know, they're weird, right?" I forgot my aversion to the doctor and leaned in for a better look. I hadn't been this close to him in years. He smelled of disinfectant and pine-scented aftershave. It wasn't a pleasant smell. I moved away.
"No, actually, not at all," he spun and placed the jar inside one of his larger machines. He closed a door and pressed a few buttons. The machine began to spit paper out of a slot, which the doctor looked at intently. "I've seen these before."
"Wait, what?" I stammered, "How?"
"Well," he rubbed his bald head, "I invented them, actually."
"What!"
"It's a side project. Something I'm experimenting with. Basically, they are very, very small, very, very basic robots."
"Those things," I pointed at the jar, "are robots?"
"Essentially, yes," he tore off a larger piece of the printout. "Ah, you see here?" He pointed at a line of numbers and figures that didn't mean anything to me, "They are my creation. That's my signature. I put that in anything I create. Sort of like a calling card."
"So, wait, what are you saying?"
"To put it plainly for you," the doctor was exuberant, "if these are mine, and I'm sure they are, I can stop them. Someone must have acquired the technology. They obviously improved it as I've never gotten them to work so well together, but fundamentally, they are the same robots. And all robots have an off switch. You just need to know how to access it."
"Which you do."
"Of course," he started whistling as he moved quickly around the lab. He pressed buttons, looked at readouts and screens, pulled levers, and, at one point, poured a greenish liquid into one of the machines. "With my robots, I generally use some sort of auditory, olfactory, or physical off switch. Many times I use more than one. Obviously, with creatures of this size, a physical switch is practically useless. I'm sure I used some sort of chemical trigger, which could be incorporated into an aerosol."
"Bug spray," I interrupted. "You're talking about bug spray."
He stopped what he was doing and stared at me with those mechanical eyes, "In a way, yes. Yes, a high-tech bug spray." He pressed a button on one of the machines.
Butler appeared.
"Now, all I need is the exact chemical combination." He turned to Butler, "Butler, get me the shutdown manual."
Butler disappeared.
"Wait, slow down Medico," I said, "how did someone get hold of your technology? Plus, you said they improved upon it. Who could do that?"
He shrugged, "Like I said, it's a side project. It wasn't like I was devoting serious time to it. I'm sure I could have gotten them to work like this, or even better, if I had allotted the time."
"But how did they get loose?"
Again he shrugged, "Who can say? There are so many powers out there. Someone is bound to be born with something that this lab hasn't been shielded from." Suddenly he stopped, "Ah, it's really too bad about Sue and the baby. She had such potential. Plus, who knows what abilities that baby might have developed."
"What about Ed?"
"Eh?"
I controlled my voice, "Ed, her husband. You know, the tippy?"
"Oh yes, him too. Loss of life is always regrettable. I was speaking scientifically. In fact, I was just saying how I wish I could incorporate that healing ability into some of my projects. I've never seen anyone heal that fast. Quite fascinating, really."
I turned away. Science, that's all he cared about. I didn't believe for a moment that he regretted the loss of life. He was just another in a long line of scientists willing to do anything to...
"Wait," I turned back to him, leaning forward, "you were just talking about Sue's power to whom?"
"Eh?"
Just then Butler entered with a large binder. There were color-coded tabs, maybe five of them. Behind each of the color-coded tabs was a number of smaller tabs with handwritten labels. The doctor flicked the binder open on the table and grabbed the silver tab, turning to the first page. It said, "Robots." He looked through a few of the smaller, handwritten tabs before he settled on one. He opened it and there was a diagram that looked like one of the molecules I had to study in high school chemistry but ten times more complex.
He exclaimed, "Ah HA!" His face was alight, "I knew it. Oh, I'll have this solved in no time."
"Medico."
He turned from me, back to a small refrigerator at the back of the room. He pulled a number of vials from it and moved over to the machine he had poured the green goo into.
"Ignaro."
He started measuring out small amounts of the different liquids and pouring them into the machine. The machine whirred and hissed and, after a moment, a door opened with steam pouring out.
"Doc Arts!"
That stopped him. He turned, hand still half way into the machine, and looked at me.
"You said you were talking about the family. About Sue's power. To whom? Who were you talking to?"
He looked confused, "Eh... no one really. I mean, I was just working and thinking. I wasn't talking to anyone."
I glanced around the lab. We were alone. Butler had disappeared after bringing the folder.
My stomach was in knots, "Medico, where's Assistant?"
"Oh, in the back, recharging I guess. It's programmed to do that when its battery power lowers past a certain point." He pulled his hand out of the machine with a small aerosol can. He moved to another machine and opened a small window. He sprayed a short burst into the window and waited while the machine flashed and chimed and started spitting out paper.
I turned, heading in the direction he motioned. I opened a door half hidden behind one of his machines. I'd never been past the main lab, but I wasn't surprised that it looked much like a kid's room. The only difference was that the toys probably represented enough money to buy a small country. There were shelves and tables everywhere. Abandoned projects were omnipresent. There were half built robots, the stereotypical backlit glass shelves stuffed full of jars filled with creatures and body parts in liquid, and discarded electronics. The little light that was available came from the main lab, the display shelf full of jars and the water cooler in the corner. The floor was littered with boxes, both cardboard and plastic, and filled with additional equipment. There were a disconcerting number that were marked hazardous both with official labels and by the doctor's own hand. I wasn't sure which I was more afraid of.
I searched around the wall near the door for a light switch but couldn't find one. "Medico, where are the lights in here?" I called out.
"Eh?" he replied. "What are you doing back there?"
"Lights?"
"Oh, here, I need to get them."
Behind me, the doctor entered the room. Immediately the room was flooded with fluorescent light.
"You see," he continued, "they are keyed to my bio-prints. It's a very handy system that a friend of mine came up with. Not exactly bio-molecular engineering, you see, but it impresses guests."
While the doctor spoke, I glanced around the room again. The light didn't reveal much more than the shadows had before. While I could see everything more clearly, I still didn't know what any of it was.
"What is all this stuff?"
"Oh, you know, odds and ends. Projects I'll get back to one day." He laughed lightly, "You'd be surprised how many times I come back here and find just what I'm looking for."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, just the other day I was working on a new battery type. I needed something that was light weight, highly reactive and wouldn't burst into flames." He motioned to a box, "So, I started rummaging around back here and found just what I needed."
"Just like that you say?" I noticed Assistant over by the water cooler, motionless as always.
"Yes." The doctor held up the can, "So you see, we spray this on the robots and they'll shut down. Guaranteed."
"Medico?"
"Yes," he looked up from his can.
"What is Assistant doing?"
"Why," he reached up to adjust glasses that weren't there, "I don't know."
He walked over to Assistant. I followed a few paces behind.
"Assistant, what are you doing back..." his voice started to trail off. The can dropped to the ground, "here..."
From over Doc Arts' shoulder I could see Assistant. It was facing the water cooler. But it wasn't a water cooler. It was a device about three feet tall and rectangular with a large inverted glass bowl on top. Of course I mistook it for a water cooler; it looked just like one except for the lack of spouts, the lack of water and all the tiny, sparkly robots floating around inside of the tank. The robots swirled around of their own volition, a vortex of internal and reflected light. In the dark, it was slight and ghostly. In full light, it was like those pictures you see of the center of the galaxy: just light. In the center, the robots were so concentrated that it looked like a ball of light. They rotated around this central mass lazily. Slowly, the concentrated section started to shift from the center to the outside, dancing within its glass cage. If I hadn't seen what these things had done to Ed, I'd have thought it was beautiful. Way better than a lava lamp.
In front of me, the doctor dropped to his knees.
My brow furrowed, "Medico, you okay..."
It was then that I saw what had caught the doctor's attention. Assistant wasn't just standing next to the water cooler, it was touching it. And where Assistant touched it, the tiny, sparkly robots swirled around its hands. Where before it had two skin covered and two robotic arms, it now had four flesh covered arms. The skin on its chassis was growing, visibly, and covering every part it could. It was imperfect. The two robot arms were terminated in cylinders meant to provide different tools and the skin was growing into every nook and cranny. Assistant was rotating the cylinders and exposing each of the tools in an attempt to keep them free of skin but it was a losing battle. The skin on the human arms had grown hair and actually looked like real arms, but now it was growing up the shoulder and onto the torso. It was covering the exposed servos and actuators, even covering the treads by which Assistant rolled across the ground. Blood was splattering all over the water cooler, the floor and everything nearby as every move Assistant made caused the new skin to rip and tear.
Assistant turned toward us, slowly, spraying blood all over the doctor's white lab coat. A bell chimed. Slowly, Doc Arts stood, reached into his pocket and withdrew the device he had called a Handheld.
He looked at the screen, "Assistant is asking for our help. It's confused."
"What the hell is going on, Medico?" I took a step back. I was way out of my depth here. I needed an exit plan before things got dangerous. Wait, who was I kidding? Things were long past dangerous.
"I'm not sure," he stood, absently, staring at the tiny screen on the device in his hand. "I've got access to all of its data and..." he spun and looked at me, a frenzied look in his expression. "My God!" he exclaimed.
I took another step back, "Listen, don't you think we should call someone?"
"Bob, listen to me. Do you see what this means? I programmed Assistant to be a simple helper. Nothing more. But somehow, it's changed, evolved. I say, 'Hand me a scalpel,' and it hands me a scalpel. I say, 'I wish we could get a sample of Sue's DNA and integrate it into your skin,' and it does it!"
"Yeah, I got that."
"No, you don't. This shouldn't happen! That," he motioned to Assistant who now had skin dripping off of it like bloody, fibrous ice cream on a hot sunny day, "shouldn't happen."
I shook my head in horror, "I agree with you there."
"Fascinating! I can't wait to study this!" he exclaimed, turning back to Assistant. He addressed it, officiously, like he was giving a valedictory speech, "Assistant, you should have Sue's DNA removed from your own for now."
Dutifully, Assistant turned back to the water cooler. It placed its hands on it and the tiny robots began to glow even brighter. The rotational speed increased until they were a blinding light. A second or two later and the light dissipated. I dropped the hand I had used to shield my eyes just as the sparkles started to surround Assistant. I couldn't see how they were escaping their glass chamber, but they were. They seemed to just melt through it. The doctor was giddy. He was murmuring to himself as he held up his Handheld, much in the same way he had when scanning Khan.
Khan. I had let this psycho treat him. I glanced up at Assistant and watched as the sparkles ate the flesh off it much the same way it had consumed Ed. I swallowed hard to keep from throwing up. If there were any doubt about Sue and the baby, those were banished. Doc Arts made an offhand comment to his robotic assistant and people died. Good people. People who had just had a baby. People who had done nothing wrong other than have a problem that the doctor found interesting. The doctor kept looking back at me and talking, but I couldn't hear him. All I could hear was my pulse in my ears. Beating hard. Beating fast. What if he had said something about Khan's speed? About Gale's power over wind? He'd said that his patients had been going missing for months. How could he not have known?
"Now, of course, it'll have to be destroyed, that goes without saying. But first, there's so much we could learn!"
I shook my head. Was he still talking to me? This man, who had done so much good according to some - to most, really - was a hero. I had stopped getting the paper because I couldn't stand seeing his name in it all the time. His smiling face with those glasses covering mechanical eyes. Those people didn't know him. Didn't know the things he did. The lives he ended. The lives he ruined.
"You shouldn't have said it," I said.
His head jerked around, "What?"
"You said it like I wasn't there."
He looked genuinely confused. Behind him, the sparkles were returning to their tank.
"In the room, after..." I couldn't finish. My eyes burned with anger and tears.
"Bob, I'm not sure I know..." he stammered.
"You said it was my fault!" I yelled, five years of rage causing my voice to crack like a schoolboy's. "I heard you, you son of a bitch!"
"Bob, I really don't think this is the time..."
"Oh, it's the perfect time!" I took a step toward him, finger extended, accusing, "You came in there to 'comfort' Gale."
"Wendi?"
I ignored him, "You said it was me. My genes. That cross-births weren't possible because the tippy genes weren't strong enough. That she was a 'fantastic specimen.' That she should be congratulated on bringing the first cross-birth to term. But that my genes were weak. That it seemed that cross-births would always abort some way or another."
"But I didn't mean it that way. That's what we all thought. We were all wrong," he protested. "You saw that today. Your case helped save that child. Many children. In ways you don't even know!"
I waved his comments away, "Saved for how long? Saved until you came up with a different way to kill them?"
"But, but, your case was instrumental in developing a treatment... a protocol..."
"I'm not a case, God damn it!" I turned away from him, talking at the open door out of the back room. "Don't you see? Don't you see what you do? Sure you save lives, you build wonderful devices, but look at the destruction in your wake. Look at Sue and Ed. And why Ed? What did he do? He didn't have the genes of Sue or the baby?"
Ingaro looked back at his Handheld, "I'm not sure. Maybe it was covering its tracks? That'd be concrete proof that Assistant is more self-aware than..."
"You're doing it again!" I roared. "Look at their son. Look at my daughter. My marriage. So many others."
"It was an accident, Bob. How was I to know?" he pleaded.
"Oh, yes, ignorance." I turned back to face him.
Assistant, behind him, was motionless and restored. The excess skin and blood completely gone. The tiny robots back in their water cooler cage.
"You didn't know that cross-births could work so you destroyed my marriage. You didn't know your robot had gone serial killer and slain Sue and Ed and many others because of your words. You think that fire blasts and lasers are the only way to kill someone? Do you think that a part of me didn't die with my daughter? Didn't die with my marriage?"
"Bob, I'm sorry. I guess I didn't think..."
I scoffed, "No, I guess you didn't." I glanced up at Assistant. I closed my eyes and chose my words carefully, "I guess Assistant didn't either."
Again his head snapped back in confusion, "Pardon?"
I spoke quietly, "Speaking scientifically, Ignaro, how could this have happened? How could Assistant learn to act on its own?"
He thought for a moment, looking down at his Handheld, "I suppose it must have something to do with incorporating my own DNA. Perhaps my genius is encoded within my genetic structure. Enough to allow Assistant to grow beyond its programming and form a sentient intelligence of its own - albeit, only an obviously primitive intelligence."
"Well just imagine then, Ignaro... Imagine what Assistant could achieve if it had more than just your skin cells... "
"Interesting, yes! If it had cells that are actually specialized for thought and intelligence. Not just the basic genetic structure from my skin cells, but specific cells: brain cells! I could take a..."
"So," I interrupted, "if Assistant wanted more skin, or perhaps the brain to think for itself without having to wait for your suggestions, you would be the perfect donor?"
"Well, yes, I suppose I would, but I don't see how that applies here. Assistant doesn't think."
As I spoke, I turned slowly, "No," I agreed, "it doesn't."
Behind the doctor, Assistant had turned to face the water cooler again. Once again, the sparkles increased in intensity. The doctor turned realizing that something was going on. He raised his Handheld and stared at its screen. Even as the tiny, shiny robots enveloped him, he stared. At the last moment, as they started to enter his nose and mouth, he turned and looked at me, confusion on his face. His mouth fell open in a noiseless scream. Under the skin around his eyes I could see the robots’ internal light shining through as they traveled into his brain. His mechanical eyes were emotionless as his body collapsed to the ground. I turned and slowly exited the back room, closing the door behind me. When I reached the lab table, I turned the folder with the off switches for all the robots toward me. I scanned the tabs until I found the one marked 'Assistant.' I opened it to the correct page, made sure I understood what I needed to do to shut Assistant down for good and sat down wishing I had a drink.
* * *