V 16 - Symphony of Terror

by Somtow Sucharitkul (UC) (epub)

He looked across at the others, his eyes growing accustomed to the darkness. They were all tied up next to each other; CB could almost reach the next victim, if he could only stretch a little more. Nadia was still whimpering softly to herself. What if the conditioning hadn’t entirely taken? Was there a way of talking her out of it?

  CB racked his brains. The father—he had to be one of them, too, now that he remembered the butler with his shifty, glassy-eyed gaze. Did Nadia have a mother? He said, “Nadia . . . Nadia, where’s your mother?”

  “My mother . . . my . . Something was happening to her now. He could tell that he had hit on some vital image, some bug in the Visitor’s programming. Had they eaten her mother, too? His mind flashed swiftly back to the time he had seen ... no! he thought, fighting the pain of the memory of his old family life.

  “Think of your mother,” CB said urgently. “Mother ... yes ... I can’t think of her, the image is blank, it’s blank and there’s a monster standing there now standing there and opening its jaws and there’s blood dripping—”

  The conditioning!

  Slowly, steadily, CB repeated over and over, “It’s the conversion process . . . conversion is like a computer program, you see, they’ve keyed you in to react to certain passwords and images, but you’re not a computer, you’re a person, your brain is much more complicated than those lizards think, and they think we’re pretty stupid and it never occurs to them we can fight back. You’ve got your own consciousness under all that, like, you can reach out and click on a new program. It’s like they put this thing into your mind and you think you can only emulate a terminal, and you have to run whatever they input into you, but you’re not just a terminal, you can control your own mind, you’re in control, you’re in control—”

  “No, no, no,” Nadia screamed.

  “Think of your mother!” CB whispered harshly.

  Suddenly Nadia burst into a string of Romanian mixed with English and with nonsense syllables: “Mommy please run away they’re after you mommy mommy where are they Doamne ajutal ce sa fac? 1 think they’re gonna kill you—”

  That was it—the central trauma of her conditioning—CB knew that at the center of every conversion process they planted a terrifying image, one that would keep the victim in line and scare him half to death if he tried to disobey. He knew that Nadia’s mother must have died horribly, that perhaps she had been the only witness to her death; that would have increased the guilt and Dingwall’s hold on her. But maybe she could be pulled out. Over and over, he told her to remember her mother while she sobbed and wailed.

  Was she coming to? “Let me go,” he whispered. She snapped to attention now, her eyes glazing over. “I can’t.”

  “Be strong. Let me go. Don’t be afraid because of what happened to your mother. It’s never gonna happen to you. ’Cause we’re gonna fight them, we’re gonna drive them right back to the stars.” She was weakening now. CB said, “Look into my eyes. I’m a human. I’m not a lizard. I’m a human like your mother. And you’re gonna kill me if you don’t let me go.”

  Numbly, Nadia came toward him. She said, “I don’t know how to break these chains . . . they’re made of that super metal “Think! You must’ve seen him do it!”

  “Some kind of password, the central computer listens, understands.”

  “He must’ve said it in front of you a hundred times. They really think we’re stupid. Especially converted dudes. They give away all kinds of secrets all the time—”

  “OPEN SESAME!” Nadia screamed.

  “Give me a break!” CB said.

  Suddenly his chains snapped loose. So did all the others’. “Ho-l-ee shit!” CB said. “That’s the dumbest secret password I ever heard.”

  Nadia said, her eyes still streaming with tears, “He thinks it’s . . . real exotic, you know . . . ancient earth myths and all . . . he’s really into primitive cultures, I overheard him talking to Diana on the monitor once.”

  “Well, let’s get out of here.”

  The other kids gathered around them. They all seemed cowed, expressionless. Many of them didn’t look as if they wanted to escape at all. CB noticed suddenly that most of them couldn’t walk . . . that they had had arms and legs hacked off. Suddenly he knew what kind of a place this really was. “Jesus God,” he whispered, “dinner on the hoof.” These people would never make it out of wherever they were. It was a struggle for some of them to crawl. Their faces were ashen, lifeless. “We’ll have to come back for you.” CB wondered how he was going to do that, how he was ever going to find this terrible place again.

  Seizing Nadia’s hand, he started to drag her from the room. He put his hands over her eyes, even though he knew she had seen the sight already, so many times, she was probably inured to it by now. But he didn’t want her to see it again. Not now, when she was slowly drifting back into the real world from the horrific nightmare of conversion.

  “Show me the way,” he said. “Quick!”

  Tunnels, passageways. They turned and turned again, CB’s mind working overtime to remember the way in case they had to come back to get the others.

  Left, left, left, right ... he struggled to retain the information in his mind. But he knew he was going to be lost, lost without Nadia.

  They continued to run down the dim tunnels. In the meager light that reflected off the blue walls, he could see that Nadia’s eyes were beginning to glow again, that she was falling back into the trap of conversion.

  “Where are you taking me, Nadia?” he said.

  There were some stairs now, and a wooden door. She flung it open and they were in some kind of basement, in a townhouse maybe. He looked around. “Where is this, Nadia?” he demanded.

  She said, stammering, “I’m sorry, CB. I couldn’t help myself . . . the conditioning . . . it’s back now, full force, maybe stronger than before

  They heard footsteps.

  And CB was looking into the end of a laser blaster.

  “Don’t move or you’ll be dead.”

  He looked up.

  A smile slowly formed on the lips of Dingwall, conductor and Visitor saboteur.

  “CB, I swear, I couldn’t control myself, I tried to think of Mom like you said but it was too strong for me—”

  She stopped speaking abruptly and crumpled to the floor.

  Dingwall had turned his blaster on her. She was dead. “Useless little bitch!” he muttered.

  “Aren’t you going to kill me too?”

  “No. You are too useful a bargaining chip for me. I need you, boy, at least for a while ... to placate Diana! Oh, we will dine on your young flesh together, the supreme commander and I, and I will be raised up.”

  CB was too numbed to answer. He just stood there, like a statue. He tried to think of some of the moves Matt had taught him, but there wasn’t any style of martial arts that would work against a laser blaster. He was absolutely certain of that.

  Dingwall slowly peeled away his face and tossed it over a chair, chuckling softly to himself.

  Chapter 21

  Matt dashed back into the house. It’s my fault, he was thinking, I should have watched him more carefully, now I don’t know where he’s gone . . . Tomoko and the others were waiting for him, still seated at the breakfast table in consternation. Tedescu’s elegantly prepared platters lay untouched on the table, getting cold.

  When they saw that he didn’t have CB with him, they all started talking at once.

  “Maybe he’s just off somewhere, in the manner of all mischievous young lads,” the ambassador said without much enthusiasm. Matt could tell that Andrescu really didn’t think so, though.

  They sat around listlessly for a long while.

  At last Setsuko said to Dr. Schwabauer, “I suppose I should take this papinium-2010 sample for some tests.”

  “Tests?” Matt said.

  “Yes. My cousin Yogami-san has allowed me to establish a small laboratory in his basement, and I think I can do more there than with the few

  instruments I happ
en to have carried here in my obi,” said Setsuko.

  She and Schwabauer got up to leave.

  Matt banged his fists on the table. “I wish I’d never come here,” he shouted. “I don’t know where the kid is, maybe he’s dead—”

  Tedescu said, “We’ll find him, sir. Trust me.”

  Why didn’t he trust the man? Something about his eyes ....

  Back in the laboratory, Schwabauer watched anxiously as Setsuko poured reagents into flasks and filtered them and chilled them and whirled them about in a centrifuge. He had no idea what was going on, but the image of the richly-garbed, fine-featured Japanese geisha delicately working with the most high-tech apparatus was fascinating to watch. There was a kind of beauty in the incongruity of it.

  “What are you doing now?” he said.

  She lifted up an Ehrlenmeyer flask and held it to the light. “These are bacterial cultures,” she said. “Just a hunch. Actually, I have been stealing a leaf from the aliens’ superior science, and I’ve been working on some fancy bioengineering.”

  “Ja? You mean, recombinant DNA, something like that?”

  “In a way.” She poured two mixtures together, a clear blue one and a cloudy red one. It looked like magic to him. The liquids seethed as they reacted, and then the solution went clear. “Ha! I may be on to something.”

  “But what is it you are looking for?”

  “Well . . . the bacteria on which the red dust is based are rather fascinating organisms. You see, their red color derives from a ferric ion which is the central atom of this vast pigment molecule. Now what I’m doing is—using a growth accelerating device invented by the Visitors—I’m replicating and simultaneously mutating the bacterium at a rate of about ten thousand generations per minute, in a papinium-rich environment. I’m actually producing a papinium-fixing bacterium which will—” “Ah, I understand! This ultraspeed-multiplying bacterium will actually absorb papinium and render it inactive, destroying the molecular web which keeps out the red dust?”

  “You’re not so stupid, Professor Schwabauer . . . for a liberal arts man!” said Setsuko, laughing gently. “Oh, look! I think I may have something here!”

  Schwabauer watched in awe as the various solutions continued to seethe and froth. He could detect no change at all in the flasks, but all at once a number of LCDs on machines in the lab began flashing, computers began chiming, and a robotlike voice began to repeat. “We have achieved congruency with the project model. Now commencing procedure for isolating target bacterium.”

  “Isn’t technology grand?” Setsuko said, beaming. Only one thing clouded Schwabauer’s elation: they had heard no word about the missing boy, and he found it hard to believe in anything but foul play.

  And they still hadn’t been able to piece together the aliens’ plans.

  Why was the papinium factor so important?

  A forcefield held CB fast. Dingwall paced up and down, lecturing him. He could barely wait to feast on the child; as a martial arts practitioner, the boy had splendid muscle tone and would be particularly good very rare, with just a hint of seasoning. But he’d promised Diana to save him for a mutual orgy of gluttony, so he couldn’t indulge himself yet.

  Besides, it would be fun to convert him first.

  Make him actually want to be eaten in the service of the Visitors!

  He said, “Before I turn you into a mass of quivering, mindless jelly, I might as well tell you my plans. That’s the custom among you Earth people, isn’t it? Before the hero’s untimely demise, it is appropriate for the villain to give a speech about what is going to happen, no?”

  “You’ve been watching too many bad movies,” CB managed to blurt out despite the pain.

  The body of the girl he had recently lasered lay sprawled across the coffee table in the basement. Now and then, Dingwall paused to flick off some bloodflecks with his tongue. It was good not to wear that ape mask; it was good to feel saurian again.

  “Bad movies, eh?” he said. “Yes; I am proud to say that I have made a long and detailed study of your frivolous, primitive culture. But yes, the dramatic revelations. Did you know that the papinium tunnels conjoin in a huge node near here, and that

  Symphony of Terror

  they surface in the vicinity of a small suburb named Spring Oaks, where a brand new shopping mall is being dedicated in a few hours’ time? That a vast new computer for controlling the papinium tanks has been installed right inside the shopping mall, disguised as a—ha, ha, ha—kiddies’ merry-go-round? Imagine the consternation when the tanks start bursting up from their underground installation—tanks totally immune to the red dust —ready to wreak mayhem on this unfortunate city!

  “Imagine the surprise of the distinguished guests when they find out it’s not a shopping mall at all! No—it is the future headquarters of the northeastern command post—of which I shall be commander!”

  “You’ll command in hell when Matt gets through with you, you ugly snake,” CB said.

  “What spirit the creature shows! I imagine you’ve watched a lobster being lowered into a pot of boiling water? You show just the same kind of spirit. Go ahead, wave your antennae, wiggle your pincers. Ha, ha, ha.”

  CB tried to spit at him, but the forcefield blocked the way, and the spit flew back in his face. Dingwall guffawed heartily.

  At that moment there was a beep, and he was forced to pay attention to the calls waiting on his communications console. The first was from Diana.

  “Everything looks good, commander,” he said.

  She smiled. “I trust you’ll deliver the goods.”

  “Look behind me!” Dingwall said. “Part of our dinner is already trussed up and waiting.”

  Diana disappeared from the screen.

  Next he spoke to his lieutenants, giving some instructions as to the proper placement of the forces and the tanks.

  There was one final call he had to answer. He was most irritated to find that it was Medea.

  “You again!” he said. “I thought you’d been temporarily put out of commission by a splitting tongue.”

  “Don’t make fun of me,” Medea said, pouting. “Pm coming in this evening. 1 don’t intend to be left out of your assault. Pm coming in by skyfighter, and Pll be arriving at the usual rendezvous point in about half an hour. I trust you’ll be there to pick me up and bring me in?”

  What a nuisance, Dingwall thought. Now he would have to delay the torture and conversion of the boy. Medea always had a habit of putting a damper on things. He would have to drive down to the secret rendezvous, which was located in Lorton, an area which had once been a prison. “I trust you have a supply of antitoxin?” he said, hoping to discourage her. He didn’t want to give up any part of his own hoard. It had been dwindling steadily, and he still had work to do.

  “Yes,” she said. “I do have a few ampules of the pilfered antitoxin—enough for my purposes anyway.”

  “Very well,” he sighed.

  He looked at the clock hanging on the wall, which told time in comfortingly familiar alien hieroglyphics; converting it to earth time in his head, he noted with dismay that he would no longer have time for converting the boy until after the big event.

  That hideous Medea! But she was still nominally his commander, and he must observe the forms of the Visitor hierarchy ... at least for now.

  “I’ll catch you later!” he said to the boy, reaching for his human mask and pulling it over his head; he shivered as it bonded to his skin.

  Then he stalked out.

  A shadowy figure slipped into the basement.

  A hand moved over the command console.

  Startled, CB fell out of his force-shield induced stasis. He rubbed himself. He’d been bruised, but he wasn’t badly hurt yet. He looked around. “Wait! Who set me free?” he said.

  He was standing in front of the boy now: a ninja dressed in dark, metallic blue.

  “Kenzo!” said CB.

  The ninja put a finger to his lips and beckoned him to follow with a
very Japanese gesture: palm down, fingers waggling.

  “We only got a couple hours,” the boy said, “but I heard him say that he’s not coming back here first. He’s gone to get Medea.”

  “Do not speak!” said the blue ninja.

  Catlike he moved across the room. CB followed. There were basements above basements; they must have been far below ground level. At length they reached what looked like a respectable middle-class living room.

  “What do we do, just walk out through the front door?”

  “No,” the blue ninja said, “the back door.” They slipped out into the early evening, and the ninja carefully restored the lock he had picked to its untampered-with condition.

  Chapter 22

  Early evening at the Andrescu mansion. The sun was setting; the ambassador was upstairs getting into some formal wear, making ready for the opening ceremonies at the Spring Oaks Mall.

  Matt was pacing despondently in the vestibule when he heard a voice from outside . . . the kid’s voice! It had to be!

  “Oh, Matt ... oh, Dad, I’m back!”

  He flung open the doorway and saw the kid and the blue ninja walking up the gravel driveway. As CB caught sight of Matt, he broke away from the ninja and ran toward his adoptive father. Matt caught him and swung him in the air—-and saw the bruises on his face and through the windows of his tattered clothing. “You look like shit, Christopher.” “I’ve been through shit, Matt. But, like, it’s casual now.” He beamed.

  Matt called upstairs: “Tomoko, he’s home!”

  A car pulled into the driveway and Professor Schwabauer and Setsuko stepped out. Setsuko ran up to the ninja and embraced him joyfully, crying,

  “Anata ga watashi o nakasemashita no .. . ai shite imasu no de. . . . ”

  “What are they talking about?” CB said.

  The blue ninja said: “Alas, she is telling me that I made her weep, that she loves me. That cannot be. The one she once loved died in an explosion at Osaka Castle more than a year ago. All things are transient, Setchan,” he said, calling her by a nickname of endearment. “Both the Zen philosophy and the Ritual of Zon teach us the same thing.” “How can I accept your death,” Setsuko said, “when you stand here before me?”