Shockball

by S. L. Viehl

  He didn’t take a sip of that, but called for a drone and had it removed. I sat and smirked until he gave me an irritable glance.

  “You are only delaying the inevitable.”

  “The inevitable what? Lab rat tests?” I picked up my fork and toyed with my shrimp. It wasn’t spiked, but he’d touched it. “Why the drugs?”

  “You indicated you’d try to escape. A mild tranquilizer would inhibit such impulsive behavior, and make what lies ahead less stressful for you.”

  He really wouldn’t try to sedate me without a good reason, and his idea of stress would make someone else have a nervous breakdown. “What lies ahead?”

  “Revelations.” He ordered a carafe of plain water from the attending drone and gestured toward my plate. “Please eat your meal now. We will discuss my plans for your future after dinner.”

  I accepted the water after I saw him drink some from the same container, but I didn’t eat. How could I? I was sitting next to a monster, the man directly responsible for nearly every miserable moment of my life. Besides, I couldn’t eat and listen to him at the same time—I’d throw up. And Joe never kept quiet when he had an audience.

  He didn’t disappoint me. “The reports I’ve received since the Hsktskt captured you at Joren have been few, and very sporadic. A number of colonial aliens have sent signals to Terra regarding your heroic actions on the slave world. I will need more details about your activities since you left me.”

  Left him. Like we were married or something.

  “Let’s see.” I made a show of thinking it over. “Not much happened. I treated alien patients. I avoided the League. I got married. I was away from you. I was happy.” I tapped my finger against my cheek. “I heard you started a war between the League and the Hsktskt. You get that bored while I was gone?”

  “I did not initiate the hostilities between the Faction and the League. They have been ongoing for decades.” He put down his fork and instructed the drone to clear both our places and bring dessert. “I merely offered my opinion before the Fendegal XI delegation as to a possible solution to the perpetual border disputes and colonial attacks.”

  “Such as wiping out the entire Hsktskt civilization. Good solution.” When the attending drone would have set a plate of fruit in front of me, I pushed its arm away. “When millions die as a result of your opinion, Doctor, tell me—how are you going to feel about that?”

  “The Terran involvement in the conflict will be marginal. The balance of the League’s forces are not human.”

  “Don’t feel bad. A lot of people have no hearts. Of course, everyone else besides you is a cadaver.”

  His brows rose. “It is obvious you wish to provoke an altercation with me.”

  “Gee, you’re quick. Want to show me how fast you can run out in front of a glide-bus?”

  “We will continue this discussion later.” He folded his napkin, placed it on the table, and rose. “You will accompany me now.”

  I got up, too. “Where?”

  “To my laboratory. Where you were born, Cherijo.”

  I’ll confess, I wanted to see it. The facility I’d been created in wasn’t located on the estate, but rather under it. Joseph took me to a lift I’d never seen before, hidden in the back of his study, and guided me in.

  “How far down?” I asked as he closed the panel and rapidly input a code into the panel. I watched so I could memorize the numbers.

  “I had the lab constructed five hundred feet below the fault line,” he said. The lift began to silently descend. “Also, for your information, I change the access codes daily.”

  I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything at dinner. My stomach was starting to roll again. “A bit paranoid, don’t you think?”

  “Where you are concerned, my child, I find unnecessary precautions are absolutely imperative.”

  “Don’t call me your child. I’m not your child. If anything, I’m your sister.”

  He didn’t comment on that as the lift continued to drop. It came to a smooth stop and the panel slid open to reveal a huge, empty white room.

  White walls. I’d had nightmares about them, I remembered. So they were real. How many times did he drug me and drag me down here? He went to take my arm, and I jerked away.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “I intend to do a great deal more than simply touch you. But for now, I will allow you your distance. Come. I will give you a complete tour of where you were created.”

  I stepped out of the lift. “Does it come with an Igor?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The lab. Dr. Frankenstein.”

  He shook his head. “I never understood your fascination with those ancient fictional texts. They were poorly conceived, absolutely without the slightest scientific foundation, and luridly composed. Although they were not quite as bad as those disgusting romance novels.”

  Those disgusting romance novels had kept me from turning into him. “You never liked my taste in anything.”

  The interior temperature equaled the warmth of Joe’s personality, a few degrees above frost formation. I shivered. Beyond the open, empty area we were standing in were five separate corridors lined with other door panels.

  “Where’s the dissection room? Got your lascalpel rig powered up?”

  His upper lip curled. “We’ll start with Central Analysis. Follow me.”

  Central Analysis was a research scientist’s fantasyland, fully stocked with all the latest in medical examination tech. Some of the scanners were so new I didn’t recognize the models. Several worktables stood ready for human subjects, but there was a sterile, unused feel to the room.

  I wiped up a little dust from a console with my fingertip and examined it. “Been suffering mad scientist block lately?”

  “I generally work in Development and Engineering.” He pointed to another panel. “Through there.”

  I walked through the door and entered an equally sterile, cold environment. However, here there were signs of ongoing experiments, centrifuges spinning, culture dishes cooking, and an entire wall of containers stuffed with organs and other, less recognizable objects preserved in duralyde solution.

  I nodded toward the wall. “Spare parts in case you mess up?”

  “Some are continuing experiments in cloned organ scaffolding. Others are failures. As were these.”

  He pressed a button on a console, and an entire section of the opposite wall slid away. Behind it were endless rows of glittering plas bubbles, filled with black liquid and hooked to dozens of data cables. Each had a drone clamped to its base, and from the flickering lights many were still active.

  That didn’t get my attention as much as the contents of the bubbles. Inside the murky fluid were small, pale objects enmeshed in a web of monitor leads. They were human. Human fetuses in various stages of development.

  Hundreds of them.

  I could feel the color draining from my face. “Embryonic chambers, I presume?”

  “That is correct. This one”—he went over and placed a hand on the only empty chamber—”was where I developed you.”

  I walked toward it, morbidly fascinated. Memories stirred with every step.

  The sea of warm, black fluid … the intricate web held my body suspended … warm and safe….

  “How long did it take to develop me?” I asked as I got close to the technological horror that had been, in essence, my mother.

  “Synthetic growth hormones cut the gestational period by a third. You were full term at twenty-seven weeks.”

  “Prematurely mature.” I touched the outer curve of the chamber. The flexible chamber housing felt warm against my palm. Old sensations washed over me.

  Unexpected light … ferocious pain … pulsating strands stabbing into my tiny body … tearing at my bones and flesh … changing me … a younger Joseph staring at me through the plas … the fluid draining away … clawing at myself … unable to breathe … cold … empty … blind …

  “You probably have some
residual recollections of the chamber. Tests indicated you were fully cognizant and aware of your environment by your third month of development.”

  “Second,” I told him, not caring if he believed me. “Yes, I was. I remember when you took me out of here.”

  A note of eagerness entered his voice. “Tell me what you recall.”

  “Fear. Disgust. Horror. Outrage.” I slowly took my hand away and faced him. “I won’t let you do this again. It’s wrong. You can’t create human beings like this.”

  “I was telling the truth, Cherijo, when I said I would not repeat my past mistakes. Even if I wanted to, I now know the success I achieved with you is singular. There will be no more clones raised in embryonic chambers in this facility.”

  I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “Good.” Then I got skeptical. “What are you planning to do to produce the next perfect human?”

  He sat down and regarded me steadily. “I’m going to impregnate you with my own DNA.”

  “Oh, please.” I couldn’t help it. I started laughing. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.”

  “You’re a geneticist, Joe. You know the damage that can be created by analogous gene pools mixing.”

  “That can be prevented.”

  “By two nearly identical twins producing an offspring? Get a grip. Artificially inseminating me with your own sperm will only produce babies who have the I.Q.s of broccoli.” I wiped my eyes with one hand. “God, I haven’t laughed that hard in ages.”

  “In-utero adjustments will have to be made, of course.”

  He was absolutely serious. He had the talent and knowledge to repair whatever damage came of blending our mirrored DNA. He could get me pregnant, but could he control my immune system response?

  Of course he could. He was an expert at organ transplant techniques. If anyone knew how to keep a body from rejecting foreign tissue, it was Joseph Grey Veil.

  He could have prevented my miscarriage. And there was the ultimate irony—Joseph Grey Veil likely represented my only hope of ever having another child.

  For a moment, I entertained a revolting idea. Just for a moment. Then it hit me: He had engineered my body to reject my unborn children. He was directly responsible for my miscarriage.

  “If you will look over the project specs with me, I can show where I—”

  He never completed that sentence. I lunged at him, and knocked him flat on his back. My first punch broke his nose. My second drove the air from his lungs.

  “You are never going to use me again!”

  Just as I was preparing to follow through with a knee to his groin, something grabbed me and pulled me off him. It was one of the maintenance drones. I struggled wildly, but couldn’t free myself of the unyielding mechanical grip units.

  “I’m going to kill you!” I shrieked at my creator. “Your days are numbered, I swear to God!”

  “There is no God,” Joseph said in a distinctly raw, nasal tone. He grabbed a cloth and held it tightly against his nose as he turned away from me and addressed another waiting drone. “Bring in the prisoner now.”

  The drone went to the lift panel, and opened it. Two more drones wheeled out, dragging a semiconscious man clamped between them. He was battered and bleeding from several small wounds.

  I took a step forward, but Joseph grabbed me by the hair and spoke softly against my ear.

  “You can save him, you know. Cooperate, and I will let him live.”

  I made a low, helpless sound, then called to him. “Duncan.”

  My husband slowly lifted his head. The pain in his eyes tore an invisible hole in my chest.

  “Continue to resist,” my creator said, “and you can watch him bleed to death right here.”

  I didn’t bother to look at Joseph when I said, “Fine. You win.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dancing with Christopher

  Joseph wouldn’t let me touch Reever. He treated my husband’s injuries, while I got to cool my heels in one of the clear-walled treatment rooms in his Research and Development lab. Trying to see what he did as he sterilized and sutured Reever’s wounds made me clench my fists. By the time he was done, blood stained the edges of my fingernails.

  Joseph had one of the drones wheel Reever’s gurney into the adjoining treatment room, and lock him in. Then he came over to look in on me.

  “You made the correct choice. We will begin the new trials tomorrow. Good night, Cherijo.”

  “Is he all right? Was anything fractured? Let me take a look at him.”

  “I will return in six hours. Sleep well.”

  “Why don’t you answer me? What did you do to him?” I called after him as he left the lab. “Oh, you’re dead the minute you let me out of here.”

  One of the drones trundled over to the clear wall. “No talking. Take your sleep interval now or you will be sedated.”

  I had no doubt the drone would drug me if I kept shouting, so I stalked over to the medical berth that served as my bed, and flung myself on it. The interior lights dimmed as the drone made another pass in front of my cage. I wondered if it was going to sing me a lullaby.

  Cherijo?

  My mental walls snapped up as I saw Duncan lying on the other side of the plas wall, watching me. I pushed my berth over until it lay against the wall, like his.

  “Are you okay?”

  He shook his head and tapped his ear. The treatment rooms were soundproof—he couldn’t hear me.

  I eased myself into the link, trying to clamp down on my hostility. Hey. How are you feeling?

  I have had better days.

  He was blocking most of his thoughts from me, too. From the sweat on his brow and the way he was breathing, I could tell he was in pain. Then I dug my hands into the berth mattress until linen tore. He didn’t give you any analgesics.

  It doesn’t matter. I prefer to be clearheaded. He pressed his hand against the wall. Has he harmed you?

  No. I’m okay. I matched the outline of his fingers with mine. We’ve got some problems. The committee turned me over to him. Unconditionally. You should have stuck around. The only good part about it was seeing the look on Shropana’s face when they announced it.

  I would have liked that.

  Where did you go when you snuck out of there? How did Joe catch you?

  Reever shook his head. I didn’t escape. One of the guards infused me with a narcotic and removed me from the hearing. I woke up here.

  You mean he had you kidnapped?

  Did you think I would leave without you?

  No, I thought—He knew exactly what I thought. Yeah, I did.

  You have a very poor opinion of me.

  I’m working on it. Duncan, he’s really crazy. Seriously deranged. He told me tonight that he wants to impregnate me with his own DNA.

  My husband’s mental blocks fell away as his thoughts became elemental. Images of Joseph dying in various gruesome ways filled his mind.

  Honey, have I ever told you I like the way you think?

  He curled his hand against the plas, until his knuckles turned white. We have to get you out of here.

  Us. Us out of here. Tomorrow he’ll start testing me again. It’ll give me a chance to get the layout of this place, maybe find a weapon or a way out. You’d better rest now. Those drones really did a number on you.

  The drones did not inflict my injuries.

  No, I could see that now, from the images of the beating he was remembering. The man who’d done it had taken prolonged, vicious pleasure in doing so.

  Joseph did this to you? It must have happened while I was dressing for dinner.

  Yes.

  One more reason for me to dismember him in his sleep. God, I’m sorry, Duncan. I got up and started pacing.

  You should sleep while you can.

  I can’t. Not here.

  He intensified the link, until he gained control of my body, and brought me back to the berth. He hadn’t taken me over like this since we’d left Catopsa,
but I let it happen, and everything but the two of us dissolved away. Then we were transported to a very familiar place.

  Now you can.

  Show-off. He’d created an illusion around us, to fool my mind into believing we were back on the Perpetua, in our bed. I couldn’t feel homicidal here. You sure like watching me sleep.

  His mouth touched mine. Just for tonight, beloved.

  * * *

  Exactly six hours after Joseph left (five hours after I fell asleep with a luxurious sigh), a lab drone woke me up. Not the way Joe had sent Maggie in to shake me awake, when I was a kid. Instead the drone hit me with a shot of static discharge. Right in the upper arm.

  “Ah!”

  I jumped off the berth and collided with a wall, then saw the little hunk of junk at the panel.

  “What the hell did you do that for?”

  “It is 0500 hours, Dr. Cherijo, the scheduled time for your initial examination. You will remove your garments.”

  “Go fuse yourself.” I turned and headed back to bed.

  The lab drone trundled over to Reever’s treatment room. My husband was still asleep. “You will remove your garments or this specimen will be disciplined.”

  Specimen. Disciplined. Two of my creator’s favorite words.

  “I’ll do it. Get away from him.” I forgot about going back to sleep and slipped the Lok-Teel out from under my tunic. I formed an image of it hiding under my pillow, and it obediently oozed out of sight. Then I went through the motions of stripping off my clothes as I edged toward the door.

  The drone opened the panel. I kicked it over and bolted.

  A second, more vicious discharge knocked me off my feet. I hit the floor, then lay there for a moment, gasping. The drone rolled over to stop beside me.

  “Advisory: applied static discharges will increase in severity and duration with each unauthorized action.”

  My hair was practically standing on end. “Now you tell me.”

  “Stand and follow me, Doctor.”

  The drone led me out to Central Analysis, and indicated a recently sterilized table. “Recline here, Doctor.”

  “I’d prefer to stand.”

  “Recline or receive further discipline.”