The Frankenstein Factory (14 page)

“Get up! I’m going to kill you!”

“You haven’t gotten the word, Tony. Men don’t kill each other for this anymore.”

But his calming words only served to further infuriate Cooper. He grabbed at Earl’s arm, yanking him off of Vera, pulling the covers away from him. Earl came off of the bed with a surge, butting him with his head, and followed through with a bearhug that pinned Tony’s arms to his sides. They jostled there like two erotic dancers, Earl naked and Tony clothed, kicking against the fallen arclight until the room seemed alive with flashes of fire.

For a moment Earl thought he’d gotten the better of the man, but then suddenly Tony brought his boot down on Earl’s bare toes. He gasped with pain and released his grip. Tony brought both fists up in a hammer-blow to Earl’s jaw, toppling him backward onto the bed.

“All right, shitface,” Tony Cooper snarled. “I’ll wait for you downstairs. We’ll duel with Hobbes’s laser pistols.”

“No!”
Vera screamed from the bed, but Cooper ignored her and stalked from the room.

Earl lay on the rumpled bed, running his fingertips over his jaw. “Knowing you can be a dangerous pastime,” he told Vera.

“Don’t fight him! He’ll kill you!”

“Is that what you told Freddy too?”

“At least Freddy lived!”

“He’s not living anymore.”

She was kneeling on the bedclothes, her firm, naked breasts pointed accusingly at him. “You’re going to duel with him?”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did he know you were here? Isn’t this whole thing another one of your little sex games, like the belt? You told me you have some other little tricks, but I didn’t take it seriously.”

“Earl!”

“What happens—does the winner of the duel get to screw you?”

She was out of the bed, on her feet, and she slapped his face hard. “I won’t take that from any man!”

At that moment Dr. Armstrong appeared by the door. What’s all the excitement? Woke me out of a sound sleep.”

Earl stared at his bland face; it seemed the only island of sanity in a world gone mad. “Just a little disagreement,” he answered. “Nothing serious.”

“Nothing
serious?
Tony wants to
duel
with him!”

Earl was quickly slipping into his clothes. “Let’s go downstairs and see about it.”

“He’ll kill you,” she said softly, and already seemed contrite at having struck him.

“We’ll see.”

He finished dressing, slipped into his shoes, and headed for the door. He remembered the laser gun in the dresser but decided against taking it. He’d reached the stairs and was starting down when Tony Cooper appeared at the bottom. Hobbes’s other laser pistol was in his hand.

“All right, fucker!” he growled, then squeezed the trigger.

A thin, deadly beam of laser light cut through the dimness and hit the wall a foot in front of Earl, cracking the plaster. It had been only a half-second burst, but it was enough to show Earl that he meant business.

“I’m unarmed,” he called down.

“Then you’d better get armed! Quick!”

“Let’s talk this over.”

“No talking. I let Freddy talk me out of it once, but not you! If you won’t duel I’ll cut you down. Then I’ll kill Hobbes and that monster of his too!”

Earl sighed as he reached the bottom step. Behind him, he could hear Vera and Armstrong starting cautiously down the stairs. “All right, I’ll fight you. But as the challenged man don’t I have any choice of weapons?”

“What?”

“The code of the duel—I have the choice of weapons.”

“The weapons will be laser guns.”

“All right,” Earl agreed readily. “
One
laser gun.”

“How …?”

“We’ll play the game, and use a real laser instead of the light beam.”

“You can’t!” Vera cried out, rushing to his side.

He pushed her gently away. “How about it, Tony?”

Cooper, now on the defensive, weighed the possibilities. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll play you.”

The living room lights were turned up and the laser-game grid was assembled. The tall Plexiglas pieces came out of their felt-lined box. “Game for two,” Earl said, beginning to position his pieces on the grid.

Tony Cooper worked quickly, putting aside the light box and clamping his laser pistol in its place. It was just above board level, aimed sideways across the field of play.

“This is madness!” Vera insisted.

Armstrong agreed. “It certainly is! You can’t both be serious!”

Tony ignored their comments. When he was ready he said to Earl, “Roll the dice to see who positions first.”

Earl picked up the heavy dice and rolled them in the box. He had an eight. Tony rolled a nine. “I’m first!”

Tony’s first game roll was a six. He used it all on one man, moving the left mate into the field of battle but not quite in line with the laser’s path.

Earl rolled a poor four. He matched Tony’s move the best he could. Then Tony rolled a ten and moved a mirror-man out to intercept the beam. At a right angle it would strike Earl full in the chest. But for the moment he had a mirror-man blocking it.

“Let’s see,” Tony said. He tapped the laser level and the beam shot forward, deflected by his man, then by Earl’s. It hit the far wall and Vera gasped. “This is insane!”

“Shut up!” Tony told her.

Earl rolled next; he got a seven. Tony came back with a valuable twelve, and then a six. The men were moving out from both sides of the board into a confusing jumble in the middle. The play was slower now as both men knelt before their moves to check sight lines and angles above the grid. Sometimes it was difficult to remember the mirrored men from the clear glass ones, and both knew that a mistake could be fatal.

“I think I’ve got you now,” Tony said, moving two men on another twelve.

“Maybe.”

“We’ll see!” Tony tapped the lever that fired the laser beam. It reflected off a half-dozen pieces and finally came off the board on Earl’s side at a forty-five-degree angle, just missing his arm.

“Close,” he said, trying for a smile.

“Next time.”

“This must stop!” Armstrong insisted. “Are you both mad?”

“Yes, stop it,” Vera chimed in. But Earl thought she might be secretly enjoying it. Perhaps, she bad arranged Tony’s discovery of them after all.

“At least set a time limit,” Armstrong urged.

Tony looked up, seeming to hear them for the first time. Earl could see the faint traces of sweat on his brow. “All right,” he agreed. “Two more turns, Jazine?”

“Fine with me.”

Tony’s luck seemed suddenly to desert him. His rolls were poor and he could do nothing with them. Earl fired one beam, for effect, knowing that it would go harmlessly off to the side. Tony was sweating now. On his final move he placed a mirror-man with a clear shot at Earl’s chest. “Got you,” he breathed.

“We’ll see” Earl said, eyeing his own chance-man.

As Tony’s finger hit the lever Earl’s feet stretched out and yanked at his chair beneath the grid table. It was a sudden, unexpected motion that caught Tony off balance. He went backward on his chair, waving his arms to regain his balance, just as the laser beam fired.

It reflected off a forest of pieces, passing through some others, and came off the board at just the point where Tony’s chest had been a moment before. Vera and Armstrong gasped.

“A little miscalculation,” Earl said simply. “You would have been a dead man.”

Tony got shakily to his feet. “I …”

Earl took the gun from its bracket and dropped it into his pocket. “Game’s over. Let’s go back to bed.”

“I’m not through with you,” Tony sputtered a bit half-heartedly.

“You’d better be through,” Vera told him. “He just saved your stupid life!”

Earl mounted the steps, the others behind him. He half wondered if Vera might follow him into his room, awarding the spoils to the victor, but she continued down the hall to her own room.

Nobody said good night.

This time Earl was able to sleep. When he awakened the morning sun was already pouring through his eastern window, and he judged the time to be nearly eight o’clock. He got out of bed, showered quickly, and went downstairs to find the others. He wondered how Hobbes had survived the night with his patient, then decided not to worry about it.

Vera was in the kitchen, fixing breakfast, but there was no sign of the others. “Sleep well?” he asked as if nothing had happened.

“Terribly, thank you. I got up as soon as it was dawn.”

“Where’s Tony?”

“Dead, I hope. If we have to have another victim I’ll vote for him.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Sure, I do!”

“Are you going to leave him after this is over?”

“Damn right!”

Tony appeared at that moment, looking just a bit contrite, and she lapsed into a sullen silence. “Sleep well?” Earl asked him casually.

“Off and on.”

“Looks like a nice day.”

Tony stared hard at the floor. “Look here—that was fairly decent of you last night. Kicking my chair over and all. You didn’t have to do it. I would have killed myself with the laser beam. You wouldn’t have been responsible, even.”

“Forget it.”

He started to say something else, then thought better of it. Instead he walked over to the counter where Vera was quick-squeezing oranges and tried to strike up a conversation. She ignored him, finishing her task and bringing a pitcher of juice over to the table.

“The supplies are beginning to run low,” she said. “But there should be enough for the five of us.”

Apparently hearing the voices and movement, Lawrence Hobbes came up from the lower level, moving a bit like a sleepwalker. Earl glanced at his chalky complexion and asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes! Just a bit tired.” He still clutched Whalen’s pistol, though now he laid it on the counter next to the microwave oven. Earl could see a swelling at the back of his head where Tony’s blow of the previous night had landed.

“You’d better get that head looked after. There could be bleeding under the scalp, or a slight concussion.”

Hobbes glanced sideways at Tony Cooper. “We have enough doctors around who can take care of me.”

Tony put a pained expression on his face and went to inspect the bump. “Sorry about that,” he mumbled. Then, “It looks okay. Nothing serious.”

“How’s Frank?” Vera asked.

“His eyes were open again for a time. I really thought he was coming out of it. But now he’s sleeping.”

Vera pushed a glass of orange juice across the counter, toward Tony, without comment. He drank it down and said, “You know, I can’t figure this whole thing out, Hobbes.”

“What whole thing?”

“Your attitude. This sitting up all night with that thing down there!”

Hobbes turned away. “I’ve come this far. I have to see it through.”

“Even if Frank is a killer?”

Hobbes nodded slowly. “Yes, even that.”

“Christ,” Tony exploded. “The way you’re acting, he might as well be your son!”

“He is my son,” Lawrence Hobbes answered.

T
HEY LISTENED TO HIS
story then, over breakfast, with Armstrong coming down in the middle of it and being waved silently to a chair by Earl. The stocky man did not look at them as he spoke, and there was about his voice an air of some old storyteller relating a seminal legend to those who might carry it on after him.

“The file you saw the other day was a fake,” he began, his voice low but firm. “His name was Lawrence Hobbes, Jr.—Larry Hobbes—and he was my son. He died of a brain tumor—that part was true enough—and I froze his body along with the others. That was twenty-four years ago, and I’ve been trying ever since to bring him back to life. Oh, I knew from the beginning his brain was no good, and of course I realized that with a new brain he’d be a whole new person. But I wanted to see that body move again, wanted to see that smile and hear that voice. I didn’t care if the brain was different and the memory gone.”

“Is his mother still alive?” Vera asked.

Hobbes took a deep breath. “I might as well tell you all of it—Emily Watson was his mother.”

“Emily—”

“That’s right. We never married. It was one of those liberated affairs of the mid-century, when such things were still talked of in whispers. A decade later and it would have been out in the open. Emily was lovely then, a few years older than I and much, much wiser. Larry took my name, but he always lived with his mother. I saw him often, as I did Emily. Then, as I’ve said, he developed a brain tumor. Several other organs were affected too, before he died. I made a promise to Emily that night—a promise to bring him back someday, somehow.”

“And the money?” Earl prompted.

“Emily lived a very successful life. After we parted she traveled for a time in Europe with young Larry. For many years she was the mistress of a Turkish landowner who grew vast quantities of opium poppies. Then there was a Greek shipping millionaire, after Larry, Jr., had died.”

“And she gave you the money?”

“She came back to me a few years ago, reminding me of my promise about Larry. I already had this island, and she poured more money into it, furnishing me with the finest equipment available. And I started hiring the best surgical brains and hands I could find—people like MacKenzie and Whalen and O’Connor and you all. Finally, last Sunday, I was ready.”

“Your son,” Vera said quietly, as if still not quite able to grasp it.

“And now he lies down there—no longer dead, but not quite alive either. Is it any wonder I sit up with him at night?”

“Would you have killed for him?” Earl asked. “That too?”

“What—killed the doctors who brought him back to life?”

“Killed all but Dr. Armstrong—the one you need now to care for him.”

“No,” Hobbes said, shaking his head. “Not that.”

Armstrong cleared his throat. He’d been listening on the sidelines, over coffee, and now he said, “I’d better go check on him, speaking of that.”

Vera finished her own coffee and drifted out of the room. No one seemed to want to talk about it any longer. It was like a bad dream come true, with Lawrence Hobbes as some sort of mad scientist breathing life into the body of his son. The fact that he talked rationally about it didn’t help.