Soul of Stone

by Leo Romero

  “Hi!” he said in a jovial voice, his teeth clenching in a big-ass grin straight after.

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked.

  “I’m Professor Mackintosh,” he said matter-of-factly. “Some of my best buddies call me Pro Mac.”

  Pro Mac? More like Prozac.

  “I built this,” he said with an air of pride. “All of this.”

  I gave him a brisk shake of my head. “What’s going on here?”

  Mackintosh sighed. “Well, see, Gabriel. Mind if I call you Gabriel?”

  I nodded vehemently. “Yes, I do.”

  “Thing is, Gabe,” Mackintosh continued regardless, “I’ve seen the future. And it’s right before you.”

  The Dark Suits gathered around me. They faced the screen and bowed their heads before Pro Mac. I stared at them all and shivered, feeling like I was in some weird version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  “Professor Mackintosh has opened our third eye silicon cortex,” one of them said, “which will instigate the harmonious integration of man and machine.”

  “One, zero, one, one, zero, one,” they all said in unison.

  What the hell?

  Professor Mackintosh chuckled. “That’s very good, children. See, Gabe, we’re all family here.”

  I shook off my creeps and pointed at a nearby tank. “What’s going on with these babies, Mac?”

  He grinned. “Cool, isn’t it? We can print off up to a hundred a day, but that’s just superfluous stock. Can’t find a use for that many. We control how many we produce to keep the quotas in check.”

  I looked around at the Dark Suits. They still had their heads bowed. “All of these were created here? They started life in those vats?”

  “Yes. Although we prefer to call them ‘embryonic tanks’. When the time’s right, they’re sent to the next floor up where they begin their education.”

  “You mean brainwashing.”

  “Oh, Gabe, you’re such a cynic. Surely you’ve worked out by now that left to his own devices, man ends up screwing everything. You’ve got World War One, World War Two. Teetering on the brink of nuclear war during the Cold War. No, no, no. We need...order. Stability. To do away with all those outdated superstitions and replace them with something new.”

  “Uh-huh. And where are you right now?”

  “Oh, I died back in the 60s. Bit of a bummer. One day I was trying to connect a DDP-116 to a Vector 3900 and bam, electrocuted myself to death. But my spirit lives on, so to speak. My consciousness was uploaded to this supercomputer so I could finish my work. Science, huh? Wild!”

  He grinned, but I wasn’t grinning. This shit was creepy. “You were able to do that back in the 60s?”

  “You betcha. We were capable of all kinds of weird stuff back then, like you wouldn’t believe. Secret black op DARPA units within DARPA itself. Circles within circles, cubes inside cubes, man. Some of the newer, more advanced stuff leaked out into the world by mistake, and we ended up calling them monsters or even putting it down to magic.”

  I put two and two together. “You mean some of the Netherworld freaks are your doing?”

  “Woops!” he said with a chuckle.

  God, this guy was an asshole. But a powerful asshole, just like the rest. He’d helped shape the messed-up world I lived in, whether by mistake or on purpose. I began thinking of the frog and hog monsters and whatnot that had spread through the Netherworld. All triggered by this guy. “So, what are you...a god?” I asked.

  “You could look at it like that, Gabe. I prefer the word ‘synthesizer’. Because that’s what creative gods are. The god you serve made us in his image. I made them in mine out of my preserved DNA.”

  “Why you? How did you get this gig?”

  He sighed. “Back in the day, some old geezer banking dynasties concocted this plan to control the world using fiat currency or something or other. But they couldn’t get their decrepit heads around the technologies of the time, and so they hired the youngest and brightest. I was a top Harvard student, so they came to me for assistance.”

  “So where are they now?”

  “Oh, I had them phased out and took over their operations. I saw their plans and thought ‘hey, that’s kinda groovy’, but I just didn’t like the way they wanted to do things, Gabe, dropping A-bombs and massacring half the planet and whatnot. So I took control. I became the super Mac, and these are all my children.”

  “Professor Mackintosh will lead us to the integrated synthesis,” one of them said.

  “One, zero, one, one, zero, one,” they all said. “We will reach the final frontier.”

  Mackintosh grinned. “I personally like that final frontier part. I’m a bit of a Trekkie.”

  Holy moly, that’s all the world needed. A megalomaniacal, uber-geek trying to take over Earth posthumously. All while wearing a pair of fake Spock ears and giving everyone the Vulcan greeting.

  Mac the Nerd shrugged. “So, now you know how things work around here, Gabe, we can talk. Father to father.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Talk about what?”

  Mackintosh sighed. “I really don’t want this to get ugly, Gabe. I mean, you come across as a cool guy, and I’m a pacifist, but we really need that demon back.”

  “What demon?”

  Mackintosh chuckled, tonguing his bottom lip. “Thing is, Gabe, in order to reach the final frontier, there has to be a touch of...expansionism on the way. It’s unavoidable.”

  “So much for pacifism.”

  “And there lies my quandary, Gabe. There’re all kinds of weird beliefs and ideologies out there that fly in the face of progression. Now we’ve tried. We’ve tried to make them see sense and apply logic to the world around them, but they just can’t let go of their old-world superstitions. They want to cling onto the ‘natural’ world, rejecting a brighter future. The truth is, the old gods have failed miserably. They’ve had a chance, but now it’s time for something new. For man to come out of the cocoon.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let me get this straight. You want to ethnically cleanse humanity and replace them with clones of yourself?”

  “I prefer the term ‘phase out’, but essentially you’re bang on the money, Gabe!”

  “And I would want to help you because...” I rolled my hand on the air.

  “Well, we’re not planning on phasing out everyone. Just the useless ones. The strong ones such as yourself will be kept alive. You’ll be part of the team.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’ll be our supernatural guy, helping bridge the gap between the new and the weird.”

  “I’m honored.”

  “Now we want to do this with as little violence and as cleanly as possible, Gabe. I don’t want to drop A-bombs and pollute the planet with radiation. So imagine if you will, an army of soldiers each possessed by a Draxil, therefore charged with demonic powers. We saw what you did against those vampires. Totally rad, my man.”

  “Thanks.”

  “With an army like that, no one would dare take us on. Wars would be won without a bomb being dropped or single bullet fired. People would literally bow down before the battle even began. In such a scenario, we’d be free to conduct the phase out in a humane manner, paving the way for the new model to be smoothly rolled out. And that’s why we need Draxil back, Gabe. A demon in its own form hasn’t walked Earth in an age. It’s an opportunity not to be missed. We really want to know what makes him tick. Where he gets his powers from and how we can use them.”

  “Seems like you’re in a hurry to get this plan of yours in motion,” I noted.

  “And you’d be right. As you can see, I’m not getting any younger. The program is so sophisticated, it’s added aging to my consciousness. Truth is, I don’t know how long I’ve got or what the program will do once I die. All the religious texts and scientific data have been integrated into the system, which the program will process and conclude what is the most appropriate outcome for an entity such as I. Worst case scenario, I vanish into th
e ether. Best case, I’m reincarnated as a younger version of me but with my current mental capacities. You never know, I could be the next Doctor Who!”

  “Hipster douche,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “But in all seriousness, the uncertain outcome of my inevitable demise has resulted in a desire to reach the final frontier asap. So, what do you say, Gabe?”

  I looked around at the Dark Suits. They’d closed in, trying to intimidate me. I shook my head. “I say you’re totally nuts, Mac. You’re proposing the end of free will, emotion, achievement.”

  “Come on, Gabe. The final frontier won’t be like that. They’ve got free will.”

  My jaw dropped in astonishment. “They can barely tell a joke! They’re robots, automatons.” I looked around at the Dark Suits sweating me. They were just staring at me without flinching or saying anything. It was like being locked in a mannequin storage facility. “Can they feel joy, elation?” I asked Mac. “Can they love? Do they even know what love is? They exist to serve, and that’s it.”

  “So does Man. So do you.”

  “Yeah, but I get to actually feel what the hell’s going on around me, good and bad. Up and down. I experience it all, and I grow as a result.” I sighed and looked around me. My eyes fell on Smith. “Hey, Smith, tell us a joke.”

  Smith’s head twitched up. He took nervous glances around before locking eyes on his god’s image. Mackintosh’s mouth was a gash across his face. He gave Smith a nod.

  Smith cleared his throat. “Erm. What did Adam say to Eve in the Garden of Eden?”

  I shook my head and shrugged. “I don’t know. What did Adam say to Eve in the Garden of Eden?”

  A twitchy grin spread up Smith’s face. “He said, ‘Wow, darling. It’s really nice here.’”

  The other Dark Suits let out some fake laughter.

  “See? What kind of life is that?” I asked. “Here’s a joke for you. How many Dark Suits does it take to change a lightbulb?”

  They gave one another dumb glances. A couple shook their heads. A few more shrugged.

  I bowed my head. “One, zero, one, one, zero, one,” I told them, replicating their robotic voices. Confusion jumped on all their faces.

  After a few seconds of hard deliberation, Smith’s deep frown unknotted itself, and his mouth rose into a grin. “Ah,” he said with a knowing nod. “Very good, Mr. Stone.”

  “I think one of ’em’s finally unplugged himself from the Matrix, Mac. Before you know it, you’ll have a full-on robot rebellion on your hands.”

  Mackintosh looked unamused. He pointed at the screen. “You know, back in the 60s, we had names for guys like you.”

  “There’s a few floating around in these heady times too.”

  “You’re just a drag, Gabe. A buzzkill. It’s guys like you that sent us under-resourced to ’Nam. Open up your cerebral cortex, man. The sky’s the limit. The final frontier will be wilder than a trip to the moon.”

  “Woodstock was a helluva time for you, wasn’t it, Mac?” I sighed. “Look. It’s been a long day. I’ve been to Hell, met Satan, was almost tortured more times than I care to think about, and just had an almighty battle against a legion of vampires. And, on top of all that, I just found out my Mom’s a Princess of Hell who had me killed in a satanic ritual.”

  Mac grimaced. “Oh man, what a drag.”

  “Yeah, to put it mildly. But it gets worse. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are due tomorrow at noon to blitz the planet. That means you and all your offspring are about to kick the bucket.”

  Mac’s eyes narrowed in concern.

  “Now the only guys who can stop them are myself and the fallen angels who battled them the first time around. Including Draxil. It’s the Earth at stake, Mac. Handing over Draxil will mean the end. I can’t do it. But I’m willing to negotiate. You let me go on my merry way, and I’ll help defeat the horsemen. After I’m done, I’ll hand Draxil over to you. You’ve got my word.”

  Pro Mac tongued his bottom lip while he contemplated what I’d just told him. His children continued to stare at me, giving me the heebie-jeebies.

  “Okay, Gabe,” Mac finally said. “Go. But when you’re done, we want that demon back. And we’ll get him one way or the other. Understood?”

  I nodded. “Loud and clear.”

  Chapter 28

  The Dark Suits arranged a ride back down to the parking lot where my bike was waiting. I watched them slide away in their black van with tinted windows. A shiver coursed through me. I had no doubt they were watching my every move.

  “Thanks for selling my soul to those things, Stone,” Draxil said to me once they were gone.

  “Don’t worry, buddy. I have no intention of handing you over to them. I was bluffing.”

  “You were?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Well...I...no...”

  “Don’t worry, Draxil. I don’t sell my friends out. I may be many things, but a traitor isn’t one of them. I had to say something to get us out of there. Buy us some time.”

  “What will we do once the battle with the horsemen is over?”

  “Well,” I said as I climbed on my bike. “Either we’ll both be dead, so we won’t have to worry about it, or if we win, we’ll have to fight the Dark Suits. Oh, and Satan.”

  “I look forward to it,” Draxil said in a dry tone.

  “That’s the spirit.” I took a look over both shoulders, twice shy about being stalked by vampires. The coast was clear. I started up my bike, and headed back to my apartment in Humboldt Park. All the way, thoughts collided in my mind, none of them good. The horsemen, Ming, Lucy, my mother. And now the Dark Suits. All these things plagued me. I wanted to knock them down one by one, get them over and done with, but I knew it would never be as easy as that. Knock one down and another popped up like clockwork. Break through one obstacle and it splintered into five more. First things first, I had to see my daughter. Had to let her know I was there for her.

  As I rode, images of Gretchen infected my mind. Seeing her there next to Satan, so proud of herself for having slaughtered her own child and daughter-in-law. It was beyond sick. My thoughts shifted to Mia. Oh man, how I wished I was going home to her right then. I needed her touch more than ever. Her comfort, her solace would be the perfect tonic for facing the horsemen. It would give me the strength to see the battle through. I began contemplating whether I should tell her the truth the next time I used an L45 form—the special dispensation form which gave half-angels their wings back for a day out in Heaven.

  How would she take it? Mom had always been good to her. I just couldn’t believe she would’ve killed her in cold blood. What could have gone so wrong in Mom’s head to turn her? Or had she always been that way and had hidden it well? I didn’t have the answers. I decided to keep my powder dry. Mia would be devastated to know the truth. I had to get to the bottom of it myself first. But before all that, I had to help Draxil.

  I made it back to my apartment, a sense of relief flooding me. I was home, safe. I was aching for a hot shower and some food. And then some sleep, if I could get any with all this damn shit weighing on my mind. I got inside and shut the door behind me. “Lucy?” I called. No answer.

  Uh-oh. I hoped she hadn’t done anything stupid. Teenagers these days could be hyper-sensitive. I went into the living room and gazed around with anxious eyes. Godzilla was in there, sleeping on the floor. My entrance disturbed him out of his sleep. He poked his head up to see who it was.

  “Hey, Zilla,” I said.

  He just poked his tongue out on the air in response. Everything was as I’d left it. But, no Lucy. I walked back out and headed for her bedroom. The door was closed. I grabbed the handle and eased it open. I poked my head around the corner. A clutch of blonde hair was in her bed, facing me. She was fast asleep. Must’ve got tired waiting for me. Damn vampires. Damn Pro Mac. I went back into the hallway and closed the door behind me. At least she was safe and sound.

  I wanted to lay myself out on the co
uch, but I smelled like a dog. I peeled off my jacket and dumped it next to the washing machine. “I’m gonna have a shower,” I told Draxil, taking the rest of my dirty, sweat and bloodstained clothes off and dumping them with my jacket. “No peeking,” I said as I stripped all the way.

  “You have nothing that can scare me, Stone.”

  I didn’t know whether to be insulted or not. I hopped in the shower to wash off the day’s troubles and stresses. The water was the most glorious it had ever felt. It was liquid silk, the heat invigorating. I was still amazed that I’d made it out of Hell in one piece. It was difficult to believe I’d actually been there that very day. My eyes fell on the etchings of Hazatar running up my arm and then on Satan’s mark. Nausea rippled through my stomach. I lifted my other hand and focused light magic. My palm glowed with light. I got some anger brewing and dark mist rose from my other palm, but the light started to fade. I put more positive emotion into my system, and the light returned, but the dark mist faded. I took a deep breath and searched inside me for a place where I could balance. A place where I could get both going at once and for both to be as strong as one another.

  Gretchen popped into my head. The dark mist intensified, the etchings on my forearm burning bright. A globule of hate formed in my palm, big and hefty. I closed my eyes and searched for a positive thought, something to counterbalance my hate for Gretchen.

  Lucy popped in my mind. I opened my eyes to find the light in my ‘good’ hand burning bright, but also dark mist shrouding my other, thick, and the globule still weighty. I’d found my magical balance.

  Gretchen. Lucy. Mother. Daughter. Both of them triggering love in my heart, but both a pain in the ass.

  “You’re learning to use your skills with greater prowess,” Draxil said.

  “You aren’t supposed to be watching.”

  “Oh, get over yourself. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.”