Strange Robby

by Selina Rosen

  Spider glared at her through slitted eyes.

  "Goddamn it! You know what I mean." Carrie sighed deeply. "Do you really think I would have stuck my neck out for you if I thought you were some freak? If I didn't love you? Look at us! Look at all of us. We've been forced to give up our lives because of the SWTF. We're all in this together, Baby. There's only one enemy here—and it isn't me."

  Spider nodded silently and looked at her feet. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm being such a jerk." She started to cry.

  Mark frowned and started patting her on the back.

  Carrie stood up, walked over and took Spider's hand.

  Mark gave her a dirty look. Obviously he blamed Carrie for Spider's tears.

  Carrie didn't really care what he thought. "Come on, let's go somewhere and talk." She helped Spider to her feet, and Spider followed her out of the cabin without argument.

  Mark started to follow them, and Tommy grabbed his arm.

  "Hey!" Mark protested.

  "Give them some space, boy," Tommy said. He pulled gently on Mark's arm till he was sitting beside him. "You stay here and help us."

  "She looks worse," Robby said to Laura.

  "She does not," Mark said harshly.

  Tommy glared at Robby, and Robby nodded. "I wasn't talking about Spider. I was talking about . . . this radio, computer shit . . . stuff."

  "That's the way they do," Francis said matter-of-factly. "They use more of their brain than we do. They do more with their brains, and for this reason they are capable of complete regeneration of brain cells. But to do so they have to shut almost completely down."

  "What exactly does that mean?" Robby asked.

  Tommy shook his head indicating that he was as confused as Robby was.

  "She gave herself a head injury, and she used a power she'd never used before, she drained herself. Her brain has been damaged. When we take a hit to the head, drink, do drugs, just about anything, we kill brain cells. That's a permanent loss, because when our brain cells die, they don't come back, they're gone. Not the hybrids. Their cells are harder to kill, and they are capable of the total regeneration of brain cells. But, in order to do it, their whole metabolism has to slow down. In cases of severe head trauma hybrids have been known to go into a coma. Then they arise from the coma in perfect mental and physical condition."

  "Damn! All this time she's been pushing herself trying to get exercise. Making herself stay up. Trying not to just lay around all day sleeping, and instead of helping her it was hurting her. That's why she's getting worse," Laura said thoughtfully. She glared at Francis.

  Francis shrugged. "No one asked."

  "Maybe someone should go tell Spider and Carrie," Laura suggested.

  "I'm sorry, Carrie," Spider said looking at her feet.

  Carrie squeezed Spider's hand tighter. No reassuring pressure was returned. Spider's hand felt cold and clammy.

  "It's all right. I know you've been through hell emotionally and physically . . . "

  "It's not just that . . . " She seemed to be having trouble breathing. "I need to sit down."

  Carrie helped her over to a rock and they sat down. Carrie moved close to Spider without letting go of her hand.

  "How bad are you?" Carrie asked carefully. "Tell me the truth. Don't blow smoke up my ass."

  Spider laughed.

  "What?" Carrie demanded.

  "It's just funny to hear my sayings coming out of your mouth. You used to talk so classy."

  "I'm still the classy one—don't you forget it. And don't try to change the subject," Carrie demanded

  "I don't really know. To tell the truth, I actually feel worse instead of better." Spider looked up at the full moon. "It's all still a little hard to believe. All my life I knew I wasn't like everyone else, but I thought I was just psychic or something. When I first realized there was a connection between Robby and me, I thought about genetic engineering. I never thought . . . I never dreamed . . . extraterrestrial! I'm so sorry that I got you into all this shit. Sorry about your job, and your house, and all of the shit with the SWTF. When I met you, all I thought I was doing was tampering with a little evidence in a way that would ensure that I'd never be caught. I never had any idea that we'd end up like this."

  Carrie put her hand on Spider's shoulder, and was a little hurt when Spider flinched at her touch. She told herself that Spider didn't find her touch revolting. It was just that she had been tortured, and it would take a while before she could accept that every touch wasn't going to be accompanied by pain.

  "How could any of us have known? You don't have to apologize to me for anything. Like you said you had no way of knowing. If this is what I have to go through to be with you, then I'd do it twice."

  Spider put her arm around Carrie's shoulder and pulled closer to her. "The boy . . . Mark . . . he's . . . "

  Carrie let her off the hook. "I know already, Spider. I knew the minute I saw his picture. Everything I discovered after that just proved what I already knew in my heart. So, what's that like? Having a son, I mean."

  "You know, of course, that I probably have a dozen," Spider said.

  "From the files I've seen I'd say at least that," Carrie said matter-of-factly.

  "I never thought I'd have kids. I never really had parents, so I have no idea how to raise a kid. Besides, I've seen the worst that this world has to offer, and I'm not sure I would want to willingly bring children into it. Even when you and I got together, I never thought kids would be part of our future. We were both too caught up in our jobs."

  "We might have taken a break from work to raise kids," Carrie said with a smile. "I can't say I never thought about it, especially since you and I have been together. But, in all seriousness, I always thought that if one of us were going to have kids—it would be me."

  "It's weird, because suddenly here's this kid. I didn't give birth to him, didn't nurture him, and didn't raise him. Hell! I didn't even know he existed. Yet I feel this unbelievable closeness to him. If I let myself think about the rest of them, I could become really seriously weirded out. Who knows what's happening to them? Mark had a good family a good life, but who knows about the others? Where they are, or what's happening to them. Those bastards killed Scott, you know. My mother, too."

  "He didn't pass the test," Carrie said. "These So-what-if guys are some real heartless bastards. Seems that when the hybrids reach a certain age if they haven't done something that obviously shows their power, then the SWTF tests them. Apparently they hire a bunch of thugs to attack them. They don't do it themselves, because if the subject passes the test all of the thugs wind up dead. If the subject doesn't kill them, he flunks the test, and they kill him. It's that simple. They didn't have to test you because you went into the service, and that was all the test they needed. After all, they bred you to be soldiers. What better testing ground than a real war? But in order to keep you under wraps, every doctor who ever examined or took care of you had to either be one of their own, or be convinced not to tell . . . "

  "If they couldn't convince them . . . "

  "They just killed them," Carrie said. She looked up at the moon. "The more I found out, the more scared I got. The SWTF are completely ruthless, single-minded bastards. I had no idea what had happened to you—or Tommy and Laura for that matter. I didn't want to expose them, because in exposing them I would have to expose the entire project, including you. But at the same time I was very quickly running out of options. I'm glad Tommy got me when he did."

  "I'm not sure the general public is ready to learn that they aren't alone in the universe, much less that the federal government has been using American citizens as guinea pigs in their experiments. That we are living among them, look like them, and have the power to cook their brains in their head." Spider looked at Carrie. "I think . . . Carrie, I think I'm dying, and . . . "

  "You're not dying! You can't die." Carrie was insistent. She hadn't given up her life for a corpse.

  Tommy walked out of the shadows. He hadn't been
eavesdropping; not really, he had just been waiting for a good time to interrupt them.

  "You're not dying, Spider. You're regenerating."

  Carrie was more than a little disappointed. She would have liked to curl up around Spider, but the boy was sleeping between them instead, and she had to be content to hold Spider's hand. Laura tried to convince the boy to stay with she and Tommy, but he freaked out, and Spider insisted that he stay with her. Then, of course, he had to sleep with them—and not just with them, but between them.

  No doubt he felt that Carrie represented a threat on his claim to Spider. Spider was all the boy had, and after the shit he'd been through he needed Spider. Needed Spider to be his mother.

  When Carrie told Mark that she'd talked to his parents, that they missed him and were worried about him, he didn't even seem to care. He hadn't asked her a single question about them or about his sister. It was weird, because they had been the only family he'd ever known, and yet he didn't seem to be suffering from any separation anxiety. He seemed more than happy to forget them and form a new life with his biological mother.

  It was a good thing, too, because God only knew if any of them would ever get their old lives back.

  Carrie wondered where she was going to fit into the equation if that happened. If Mark stayed with them, would he accept her as part of Spider's life? Could he grow to love her, and she him? Or were they just going to be in each other's way, each trying to get what they both wanted—Spider's attention.

  For now, she was the adult. She realized that a little boy who had been through the trauma Mark had been through needed someone to hold on to. For the time being she could take a back seat, but she was damned if she was going to do it on any sort of permanent basis.

  She could just barely make out Spider's face in the moonlight. She had fallen to sleep the minute she lay down, and seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Behind her, sleeping on a cot close to the door was the black man. The Fry Guy. He had killed dozens of people, but then so had Spider Webb. He had an awesome power, but if he had wanted to kill them he could have done it easily, so she wasn't afraid of him.

  Spider trusted him, so she trusted him, too. Spider had given up everything, risked all of their lives for him. Therein lay the real rub. He was the cause of all of their problems. If it hadn't been for him, none of this ever would have happened. She and Spider would be home in their own bed, as would Tommy and Laura. Mark would still be with his family with no idea that he wasn't right where he belonged.

  Suddenly a chill went up Carrie's spine and she was covered with gooseflesh as somewhere in her mind enlightenment dawned. She was where she was supposed to be. They were all where they were supposed to be. All that had happened to them their whole life had brought them to this place at this time. If only one thing had been different . . .

  Everything she had ever done had pointed her to this moment in time, and given her the strengths she needed to help take down the SWTF.

  With this new enlightenment, Robby Strange became not the man who had witlessly ruined their lives, but the purveyor of their destiny.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  "Moreover, land has an advantage for everyone:

  he who tills a field is a king." Ecclesiastes 5:8

  Deacon looked across the desk top at the evil, prune-faced man, and wondered just how he was going to break the news that Han's favorite project was dead.

  "Well?" Hans asked after it had been too long. He put an inhaler up to his mouth and took a deep, wheezing breath.

  He looked worse than usual, so maybe he already knew.

  "Get on with it, Deacon. I'm a busy . . . " another breath from the inhaler, " . . . a busy man."

  Deacon decided to just spit it out. After all, maybe the old fuck would have a cardiac and die—hopefully in pain.

  "Brawn is dead."

  The old man's head jerked around and he stared at Deacon with his cold blue eyes. He was a tired, fragile, wizened up old man, but when he looked at Deacon like that, Deacon's blood ran cold and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. This fucker was just plain wicked.

  "What!" Hans shouted with a quiver in his voice.

  "He's dead," Deacon said matter-of-factly.

  "Did you capture the others?" he asked, all emotion now vacant from his voice.

  "No, Sir, and they got the DA, too." Deacon only kept the smile from his face with an effort. "She'd uncovered a lot. Apparently Denisten was able to access files through the FBI and he downloaded them to Carrie Long. What they don't already know they can get from Doctor Grant. At this point they no doubt know more than I know about the project."

  Hans looked thoughtful. "How did he die? Was it the black one?"

  "No, Sir," Deacon couldn't quite keep the smug grin off his face. "He was most probably killed by the Oriental."

  Deacon watched the old man's face with baited breath. His super-hybrid son had been killed by a normal human. The old man's face contorted in rage. He glared at Deacon, and Deacon looked down at his own feet.

  "So, what are you going to do now, Deacon?" he hissed.

  "Excuse me, Sir?" Deacon didn't understand the question.

  Hans got slowly out of his chair, and stood up behind his desk. His every movement was a lesson in pain. He put his fists on the desk and turned slowly to face Deacon, and now Deacon had to look at him.

  "It's your job to take care of security, Deacon!" His voice shook in anger. "You incompetent fools! We did all the work. All you had to do was take care of security, and you screwed it up. We were so close, and now . . . The whole project is in jeopardy because of you American idiots."

  For some reason Deacon just didn't feel like taking his shit today. "With all due respect, Sir. They killed Brawn. Brawn who was in every way superior to any of us. If Brawn couldn't stop them, what makes you think we could?"

  "Get out of my office! Get out!" Hans hissed.

  Deacon left. He didn't slam the door, but he did in his mind. His comlink buzzed and he answered it. "Hello, Deacon here."

  "Deacon, this is Franklin. Get over to my office right away."

  Deacon took a deep breath. Franklin was further up the food chain than Hans. He didn't know what to expect, but he didn't like it.

  Franklin's secretary waved him right into the office.

  Franklin looked up at him.

  Deacon couldn't read his face.

  "Just talk to Han's?"

  "Yes Sir."

  "Sit down, Deacon," Franklin said.

  Deacon nodded and sat down.

  "How'd the old fuck take it?" Franklin asked.

  Deacon shrugged. "He was angry. I think he's basically incapable of any emotion as complex as grief."

  "Deacon ole boy, word just came down from the top. We're going to put an end to the project."

  Having been told what she needed, Spider had gone to bed and stayed there, getting up only to use the bathroom and eat a light meal, the rest of the time she slept a deep, dreamless sleep.

  They had given up on trying to get the comlink to work as a computer.

  To pass the time, Tommy was teaching Robby and Mark Jujitsu. When they weren't doing that, Robby and Tommy were hunting or working in the garden.

  Francis was still gathering rocks and laying them out on the ground in the clearing in a strange formation. When Mark couldn't find anything better to do he helped her.

  Laura had started talking and as far as Carrie could tell she hadn't stopped except to sleep or eat since she had arrived. Apparently she had really been starved for female companionship, and hadn't found it in either Spider or the weirdo scientist chick.

  Carrie was usually a very attentive listener, but today as she helped Laura hang out some laundry they had beat on rocks down at the creek, her mind was on more important matters. However she did realize that Laura had asked her a question.

  "I'm sorry, what?"

  "Where the hell were you?" Laura asked with a laugh. "I asked if you ever thought in a million yea
rs that you'd be going back to the stone age."

  "No, I didn't," Carrie said. She was still far away from thoughts of laundry.

  "OK. What is it?" Laura asked.

  "I left instructions with George to post the files on the internet if I came up missing for more than a month. It's been a week and a half, already. Spider's still sleeping most of the time, Robby and Tommy are off playing martial arts, and no one's come up with a plan of action yet," Carrie said.

  "We're all waiting for Spider, Carrie. After all, Spider's the only one who's ever really done anything like this before."