Frankenstein: Dead and Alive (29 page)

Victor had asked James to phone him when the task was completed. Alternately consulting his world-class wristwatch and the dashboard clock of his magnificent sedan, he thought the new butler was taking too long. No doubt, awed by his promotion and by the realization that he would be speaking more often with his maker, James approached his mission with excessive care.

As he waited for the butler’s call, the conviction again rose in him that he was not alone in the Mercedes. This time, he turned to look in the backseat, knowing full well no one was there.

He knew the cause of his edginess. Until James
completed the task he had been sent to do, Victor remained mortal, and the world could be denied the shining future that only he could create. As soon as the butler reported completion of the job, Victor could proceed to the farm, face whatever threat might wait there, and be confident that the future would still be his.

CHAPTER 62

Chameleon suspects deception.

Once again, the PUZZLE smells like both an EXEMPT and a TARGET. The scent of an EXEMPT is far and away stronger than that of a TARGET, but the second scent is definitely present.

The car has been stopped for some time. Yet the PUZZLE does not get out. It sits in silence behind the wheel.

After a while, the PUZZLE makes a phone call. Chameleon listens, hears nothing incriminating.

But the PUZZLE talks about hidden doors and passageways, a hidden room. This suggests but does not prove bad behavior.

Chameleon assumes that EXEMPTS are incapable of bad behavior. But its program is not clear on this point.

It is permitted to act on assumptions, but they
must be Class A assumptions, which in a rigorous application of logic, must conform to at least four of five proofs. This assumption is Class C.

Chameleon is capable of impatience. It has been a long time between kills.

It remembers clearly three kills. They occurred during its testing phase.

The pleasure is intense. The word Chameleon knows for the pleasure that comes from killing is
orgasm
.

Its entire body spasms. In orgasm, it is as fully in touch with its body as it will ever be—but, strangely, at the same time seems to escape its body and for a minute or two is not itself, is not anything, is only pleasure.

After the phone call, the PUZZLE sits in silence again.

Chameleon was a long time in the cold. A long time in the imprisoning polymeric-fabric sack.

Now it is warm.

Under the pleasing scent, the infuriating scent.

Chameleon wants an orgasm. Chameleon wants an orgasm. Chameleon wants an orgasm.

CHAPTER 63

Under the dump, Carson and Michael and Deucalion followed the landfill workers and the resurrected Alphas along a passageway that branched off the main course. It would lead them out of the landfill and under the tank farm next door.

Ahead of them, torchlight ignited faux fire across the glazed curves of the tunnel. Because they were at the end of the procession, an inky gloom pooled behind them.

The Resurrector was far in front. Perhaps it had already entered the main building at the tank farm.

Carson had no concern about the darkness at her back. Here, in the warren of their monstrously strange accomplice, they were safer than they had been in a long time.

“What it does telepathically,” Deucalion said, “is project its inner nature in order to screen from us its
physical appearance, because it would be impossible for most people who see it to believe it’s benign.”

Like Carson, Deucalion and Michael had been suspicious of the telepathically projected image and had been strong-willed enough to peer through the Resurrector’s radiant veil to the truth of its form. Deucalion had seen it twice, once for perhaps half a minute.

Michael achieved only the brief glimpse that Carson had seen. In spite of his tendency toward cynicism, he was convinced that the creature could be trusted, that it was allied with them. “If not, it could have killed us all back there, as big and powerful as it is.”

“None of the landfill workers saw through its disguise or even suspects there is one,” Deucalion said. “I doubt that the Alphas, Erika Four and the others, have any suspicion, either. They and the Resurrector are of the same flesh that Victor engineered for the New Race, and perhaps that renders them more susceptible than we are to its masquerade.”

“I was plenty susceptible,” Michael said. “I felt as if I was in an anteroom of Heaven, getting a pep talk from an archangel while waiting for judgment.”

“Why make a thing that looks … like that?” Carson wondered.

Deucalion shook his head. “That it should look like that was not Victor’s plan. Physiologically, it’s a gone-wrong. In its mind, in its intentions, it’s a gone-
right.”

The tunnel ceased to pass through compacted trash. Abruptly, its walls were formed of earth, coated
with the glossy material that had sealed over the trash in the main passageway and in the first part of this one.

The Resurrector was a digger of considerable industry.

“Will he really come here?” Carson wondered.

“He will,” Deucalion assured her.

“But Erika Four says she’s called him twice. He knows she’s up here somewhere, reanimated. He knows something unprecedented must be happening.”

As Deucalion looked down at her, the light of the centuries-old storm throbbed through his eyes. “He’ll come nevertheless. He’s got too much invested in the tank farm, a new crop birthing in less than twenty-four hours. Mercy gone, this is his best bet. He’s arrogant and insanely certain of himself. Never forget the pride that drives him. Perhaps in all of history, there has been only one other whose pride was greater than Victor’s.”

Maybe the caffeine tide pulsing through Carson was brewing up new symptoms or maybe sleep deprivation torqued her mind in spite of the NoDoz-cola cocktails. Whatever the cause, a fresh anxiety began to pluck at her. She was not a seer, not a Gypsy with one eye in the future, but a prickly intuition warned her that even if Victor died in the next few hours, the world he wanted to make was a world of which others dreamed, as well, a world in which human exceptionalism was denied, in which the masses were regimented drones who served an untouchable elite, in which flesh was cheap. Even if Victor received justice
and a grave in garbage, Carson and Michael were going to be making a life together in a world ever more hostile to freedom, to human dignity, to love.

As they reached the hole that had been bored through concrete block and into the basement of the main building at the tank farm, Deucalion said, “The first time I saw the Resurrector, before you two arrived, it told me—rather, it impressed on me in that wordless way it makes you know things—that it expects to die tonight, here or at the landfill.”

Michael let his breath out in a hiss. “That doesn’t sound like our side wins.”

“Or,” said Deucalion, “the creature may know that, in winning, sacrifices will have to be made.”

CHAPTER 64

The blue laser scanned James, approved of him, and switched off the security feature that would have fried him crisp if he had been an unwelcome intruder.

Carrying the crystal ball, he went to the second steel door. He put the sphere on the floor while he pulled the five lock bolts from their slots.

“Try prosciutto,” said the crystal sphere.

“That’s ham.”

“It works with.”

“With what?”

“I know the path to happiness,” said the sphere.

Voice tight with frustration, James said, “Then
tell
me.”

“Paper-thin.”

“What does that mean?”

“Serve it paper-thin.”

The thick door swung open. James had been forbidden
to enter the windowless Victorian drawing room. On his way out, he must leave the steel doors open, the exit route unobstructed.

He remained obedient, even in his current state of distraction.

Anyway, he had no interest in that room. Not when happiness might be within his grasp.

The crystal sphere said nothing on the way back to the library.

From the library desk, James phoned Mr. Helios and reported that the task had been completed precisely according to instructions.

The moment James hung up the phone, the sphere said, “You were not made for happiness.”

“But if you know the path …”

“I know the path to happiness.”

“But you won’t tell me?”

“Also works with cheese,” said the sphere.

“So I’m not worthy of happiness. Is that it?”

“You’re just a meat machine.”

“I’m a person,” James insisted.

“Meat machine. Meat machine.”

Furious, James threw the crystal ball to the floor, where it shattered, spilling a mass of slimy yellow seeds and revealing its orange inner flesh.

He stared at it for a while, uncomprehending.

When he looked up, he saw that someone had left a book on the desk:
A History of the Troll in Literature
. He picked it up with the intention of returning it to its proper place on the shelves.

The book said, “I know the path to happiness.”

With renewed hope and excitement, James said, “Please tell me.”

“Do you deserve happiness?”

“I believe I do. Why shouldn’t I deserve it?”

“There may be reasons.”

“Everyone deserves happiness.”

“Not everyone,” said the book, “but let’s talk about it.”

CHAPTER 65

As the GL550 raced north in the rain, Jocko hoped for more deer. While he hoped, he thought about some things.

Sometimes Jocko thought about big issues. Usually in two-minute segments. Between activities.

Big issues like why some things were ugly, some weren’t. Maybe if everything was beautiful, nothing would be.

People saw one thing, they swooned over it. They saw this other thing, they pounded it with sticks.

Maybe there had to be variety for life to work. Swoon over everything, you got bored. Beat everything with a stick—boring.

Personally, Jocko would be happy to swoon over everything.

Jocko sometimes thought why he had no genitals.
All Jocko had was that funny thing he peed with. It wasn’t genitals. He called it his swoozle.

Fortunately, it rolled up. Folded away. When not in use.

If it didn’t fold out of sight, crazy drunk hobos would vomit about that, too.

One thing Jocko tried
not
to think about. About how he was the only one. Only one of his kind. Too sad to think about.

Jocko thought about it anyway. Jocko couldn’t turn his mind off. It spun and somersaulted like Jocko.

Maybe that was why no genitals. No need for them. Not when you were one of a kind.

Through all this thinking, Jocko secretly watched Erika.

“Do you think about big issues?” Jocko asked.

“Like what?”

“Like … things you don’t have.”

She was quiet so long. Jocko thought he screwed up again.

Then she said, “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a mother.”

Jocko slumped in his seat. “Jocko’s sorry. Sorry he asked. That’s too hard. Don’t think about it.”

“And what’s it like to
be
a mother? I’ll never know.”

“Why never?”

“Because of how I’m made. Made to be used. Not to be loved.”

“You’d be a great mother,” Jocko said.

She said nothing. Eyes on the road. Rain on the road, rain in her eyes.

“You would,” he insisted. “You take care of Jocko real good.”

She kind of laughed. It was kind of a sob, too.

Way to go. Jocko speaks. People weep.

“You’re very sweet,” she said.

So maybe things weren’t as bad as they seemed.

Letting their speed drop, she said, “Isn’t that Victor’s car?”

Or maybe things were worse than they seemed.

Rising in his seat, he said, “Where?”

“That rest area on the right. Yes, it’s him.”

“Keep going.”

“I don’t want him behind us. We have to get there separately from him, or I can’t sneak you in.”

Erika pulled into the rest area. Stopped behind Victor’s sedan. “Stay here, stay down.”

“You’re getting out? It’s raining.”

“We don’t want him coming to us, do we?” She opened the door.

After receiving confirmation that James had done as instructed, Victor took a few minutes to consider how he would approach the tank farm.

Some of the New Race who lived and worked at the farm might be breaking down in one way or another. He would need to be cautious, but he refused to be scared off. These were his creations, products of his genius, inferior to him in every way imaginable, and they could no more frighten him than one of Mozart’s concertos could have terrified the composer, than a
painting by Rembrandt could have sent the artist screaming into the night. They would submit to him or hear the death phrase.

He foresaw no chance that anything like the Werner abomination would greet him at the farm. Werner had been a singularity. And where was it now? Vaporized with everything else in the Hands of Mercy.

No rebellion against Victor could hope to succeed, not only because his power was that of the mythic gods, but also because the smartest of the Alphas was an idiot by comparison with its maker, he on whom the centuries took no toll.