Cultwick: The Science of Faith

by J. Stone

  “Here,” she said to Cassie. “Hold this here.”

  “Sure,” she replied putting a finger to the metal backing.

  Erynn ran over to Rowland’s lab to retrieve some gauze and a bit of adhesive tape. Surprisingly, he wasn’t working in there, which considering his insomnia, was rather unusual. Regardless, she returned with the implements and stood behind Vincent.

  “You think maybe next time you could have all this prepared?” Vincent asked gruffly.

  “Why? You thinking of losing the other arm too?” she countered. “Shut up and hold still, grumpy.”

  Nodding for Cassie to remove her finger, Erynn placed the gauze over the device at the back of his neck and taped the bandage in place. With some excess gauze, she wiped up the blood that had dripped down his back and tossed it idly on the table.

  “Alright, give that a couple minutes,” Erynn said, sitting back down across from him at the table.

  “What now?” he asked. “I still can’t feel this thing.”

  “The software has to calibrate to your personal settings,” she explained. “The biolink needs to adjust to your theta brainwaves and reduce any redundancy feedback it receives from the diode tracker in the chip.”

  Vincent stared back at her with dead eyes. “Whatever. Just make it work, Clover.”

  “No respect,” she muttered. “Translation: It’ll take a few minutes to do all that smart stuff I just said.”

  Erynn rested her head in her hands, while they waited. Both Vincent and Cassie were quiet, and the three of them sat there in silence. Erynn didn’t really mind, as she was too tired for conversation anyway. After a few minutes, she expected that the chip at the back of his head was ready for testing.

  “Alright,” she began. “Give it a shot.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Try using that whole big arm thing I just attached,” she sarcastically explained.

  “How?” the bounty hunter asked impatiently.

  “Just think about moving a finger, and it should move,” she replied more specifically.

  Vincent strained his face, and Erynn stared down at the mechanical hand that rested on the table. Slowly, the pointer finger began to twitch backward and forward ever so slightly.

  “See? Easy,” she said, resting her head in her hands again.

  “I can barely move it,” he replied, releasing an exhaustive breath.

  “You’ll figure it out,” Erynn said dismissively. “Now, try moving each finger, one at a time. We might need to adjust it a bit.”

  One by one, Vincent attempted to move the individual fingers on the hand, and with each successive one, he seemed to gain a better capacity for using it. The pinky finger sputtered a bit when he curled it back, so Erynn picked up a screwdriver and tightened one of the tiny screws lining the finger. A second attempt looked better, and Erynn gestured for him to continue trying to use the mechanical hand. After a couple minutes, he had managed to get the wrist twisting and curling back towards him. Next, he was able to work the elbow, and he could lift the entire limb, though based on his expression, he was exhausted by the endeavor.

  “It’ll take time for you to get used to it,” she said. “But it looks to be working correctly.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Cassie replied. “Is there any way to speed up the learning process?”

  “Use,” Erynn explained with a shrug. “I don’t know of anything else really. What are you in a hurry for anyway? Still haven’t told me.”

  “Uh...” Cassie began.

  “We’ve got a job,” Vincent finished for her. “Don’t know how long they’ll linger here, so we gotta move quickly.”

  “Well, you should pick up the broader movements fast enough. It’ll be the specific gestures that will take the longest. I’d speculate that you won’t have much precision with it for the time being.”

  “Well Clover, I appreciate you putting this together for me,” he said, standing back up and beginning to use the new arm to put his shirt back on and buttoned-up.

  “Sure thing.” She walked them back out to the front door and added, “Good luck with your next bounty.”

  “Right,” Vincent said, turning and walking away with Cassie.

  Cassie then stopped and returned to Erynn. “In case I don’t see you again, I just wanted to thank you for what you’ve done.”

  “Yeah, it’s nothing,” Erynn replied.

  “It’s not nothing,” Cassie said. “Thank you, Ryn.”

  “You are welcome, Cassie,” she replied.

  Cassie turned and walked back to Vincent, and Erynn was left wondering what that had all been about. Yawning, she decided she didn’t have the energy to think about it and closed the door, latching it back in place. She stood there, with her arms wrapped around her torso in an attempt to retain some body heat, trying to decide what to do. Though it had been relatively slow-going, she was eager to get to work on the fusion chamber again. Ultimately, however, spending the morning with Pearl won out the contest. The breakfasts that she and Pearl shared everyday had become a lovely routine for her, so she slunk back to her bedroom, where her partner still slept.

  After stripping off most of her clothes, she began to climb into bed, but noticed her hands were a bit grimy from her chromesmithing work. She hurried to the nearby bathroom and washed off the grease and gunk from her hands with the icy water. Starting to shiver, she returned to the room and climbed back into her side of the bed, where she inadvertently woke up her sleeping companion.

  “Who was it?” Pearl asked in a hushed voice.

  “Vincent,” she answered. “Came back for the arm.”

  “Mmm,” Pearl moaned in response.

  As she situated herself in the bed and under the covers, one of her hands rubbed against Pearl’s skin.

  “Yer hands are freezin’,” she exclaimed.

  “You don’t mind,” Erynn said, matter-of-factly.

  “Oh?” her partner asked.

  “Mmhmm,” Erynn replied, as she rested her head beside Pearl’s on the pillow.

  “Okay, then,” Pearl groggily replied.

  Erynn nuzzled up beside Pearl, placing a hand on her midsection. Her fingers lightly tracing circles in the skin of her companion’s navel, her hand soon began to drift downward, and Erynn whispered in Pearl’s ear, “As long as you’re awake…”

  Chapter 16. Rowland’s Serum

  The experiment had not gone exactly as intended. The professor recounted the experience in his head as the blood dripped from his uncovered nose onto his stained, white lab coat. He was leaning crumpled against the wall, trying to catch his breath and completely ignoring the blood flowing freely off his chin. The room smelled an awful combination of pumpkin, his special herbal tea, and the smoke from serran weed. Broken glass from exploded beakers and vials covered the wooden floor and tables. All of his experiment subjects had broken free of their cages and escaped, making their way to all regions of the mansion as far as he knew. Small sections of his lab along with various parchments of paper had been torn to pieces or pulled into the small window leading into the Pocket, and the sound of a record repeatedly skipping played over and over, echoing throughout the room. Despite all the carnage he had unleashed in his lab, it had been worth it. He found the cure. Germ would live.

  It had all started earlier that day. The thought occurred to him that he was going about his research all wrong. Rather than pushing forward and retrying all the different possible combinations of the formula, Rowland considered an attempt to recreate the circumstances of his first breakthrough. He spent the morning trying to catalog any and all sights, smells, tastes, and sounds that he would’ve experienced all those years ago. Owing to the fact that smell was often seen as the best trigger of memories, Rowland focused heavily on that sense.

  Though he didn’t do it anymore, two decades prior, the professor had habitually smoked the serran weed in his pipe, and so he found an old stash of the herb to see if that would help
ignite his recollection. Just smelling the unlit crumpled leaves brought back a flood of forgotten memories. Instantly, he recalled that it had been rather difficult to kick the habit of smoking the weed. Quitting that particular habit had been possible largely thanks to his rat assistant. Rowland briefly considered that he might have an addictive personality before discarding the thought and injecting more of his biojunk into his veins.

  Fearing that the weed would not be enough, he thought about the timing of Germ’s birth. He recalled that the time had been in the middle of autumn, and as was often the case for that time, he would bake various pastries out of pumpkin. Though it was a bit late to find them in season, Rowland was hopeful that something could still be found. He’d managed to sweet talk Pearl to head into town and try to find at the very least some pumpkin spice.

  He didn’t realize it until he started compiling the mental list of things to jar his memory, but he hadn’t had his special brew of tea since before Erynn’s lottery escapades. Though he personally didn’t think much of the smell it generated, he had been told by both Erynn and Germ that it had a powerful odor. He had become rather accustomed to it over the years. In the cabinet of the kitchen, he found a tin can full of the various collections of herbs that comprised his blend, and he set out the can for later use.

  In the corner of his laboratory, Rowland had a large, brass horned phonograph that had collected a fairly thick layer of dust since its last use. Looking through his various records, he eventually found one that he remembered listening to quite a bit in his younger days. He wasn’t certain that it was one he listened to at the exact time of Germ’s birth, but considering his memory was the exact thing he needed to jumpstart, it would have to do for the time being.

  He hoped the combination of these various things would be enough to trigger some lost memory of what he did two decades prior. After gathering the various ingredients around the house, and setting his phonograph to play the record--loudly--he waited for Pearl to return with his pumpkin. His method of waiting, it turned out, was to impatiently pace in the entryway. When the door opened, he jerked around and rushed toward her.

  “Well, did you find any?” he demanded over the loud music playing in the next room.

  “Does that need to be so loud?” she asked with a wince. She carried a brown paper sack inside and closed the door behind her.

  “Of course it does,” he answered, greedily grabbing the bag out of her hands and carrying it towards the kitchen.

  “Yeah, here’s the bag, Max,” Pearl added sarcastically, following after him.

  Looking through the brown sack’s contents, the professor found more than he feared she would return with. There must not have been any large sized pumpkins, but Pearl had found a pair of smaller ones, roughly half the size of a fully grown pumpkin. In addition, she had brought back an open jar full of some orange, coarse sand with a wick protruding from its top.

  “What is this?” he asked, pulling the jar from the sack after sitting the bag on the counter of the kitchen.

  Snatching it back from him, Pearl answered, “Candle. Couldn’t find any pumpkins fer a while, so I grabbed this in case it’d help. Maybe the smell will jar somethin’.”

  Pulling out a drawer, Pearl found a box of matches. Striking one against the crosshatching on the side, she lit it and tilted it inside the jar, lighting the wick. She set it down on the countertop and wafted some of the scent towards him. Not willing to wait for the air to make its way to him, Rowland leaned into the candle’s fire, sticking his face over the flame. Holding the respirator out from his nose, the professor took in a hefty snort of the candle’s scent.

  Closing his eyes, he drifted into a long lost thought. He recalled the early years of his career teaching at the university, when he was already experimenting throughout the evening after getting home from his lectures. In those days, he still had some modicum of respect for his students, before he resigned himself to the fact that the Church of Biosynthesis had completely brainwashed them, eliminating their capacity for individual thought. Sadly, it did not take him back quite far enough, and it served no use in forcing the formula to the forefront of his mind.

  The memory was short lived, however, as the flame tickled his nostrils. He may not have even noticed the burning sensation thanks to the numbing biojunk coursing through his system, but Pearl pulled him back from the candle to prevent him from hurting himself.

  “Watch it!” she warned him.

  “What?” he asked, genuinely unsure why she had intervened.

  “That burnin’ flesh and hair smell,” she said. “That’s yer face.”

  Tapping his upper lip and feeling the warmth with his fingers, he replied, “Ah, yes. Fair enough.”

  “Well, what now?” she asked. “Is this gonna do it fer ya?”

  “Start carving these,” he ordered, pulling the two small pumpkins out from the brown, paper sack. “We will need to bake some pumpkin bread.”

  “I s’pose a ‘please’ is far too much to ask for, huh?” she said, mostly to herself it turned out.

  Rowland began pulling pans and various other ingredients out from the kitchen shelves, ignoring Pearl’s remark.

  “Guess so,” she added after the silence.

  Pearl did, however, comply with the professor’s request, and together they began to prepare a batch of pumpkin bread. While Pearl carved the pumpkins, Rowland also set to cooking his tea. Cooking the drink wouldn’t take nearly as long as the bread, but it would still be a while, so he needed to find a way to fill the time, while he waited. He got the water heating up for the tea and instantly found himself bored once again. Watching Pearl carve into the small pumpkins was not providing him with any relief, so he wandered back into his laboratory and found the serran weed.

  Returning to the kitchen, he sat at a stool next to the counter and poured a small amount of the herb into his long unused pipe. Grabbing a match from the box still setting on the counter, Rowland struck it and prepared to light the small, torn leaves piled in the bowl. Before he could, however, the boiling water began to whistle at him. Waving out the match, Rowland placed it and the unlit pipe down on the counter, as he returned to the task of preparing his tea.

  He removed the water from the surface of the heat and began extracting the appropriate amount of assorted tea leaves for his beverage. Even without steeping the leaves in the hot water, they emitted quite a combination of smells. Looking over to Pearl, he saw that she had turned to face him and was holding her nose.

  “That stuff is s’posed to help ya?” she asked in a nasally voice.

  “Smells wonderful, does it not?” he replied taking a big whiff of the leaves.

  “It does not,” Pearl answered him, still holding her nose.

  Rowland finished putting together his collection of leaves for that particular batch, and when he was ready, set them aside in a small bowl. The remainder he packed away, placing back inside the tin can he’d found them in and stuck it back in the cabinet. Pouring a portion of the water into a large, teal cup, he prepared to steep the leaves in the very hot water. Dipping them into the liquid, further released their unique aroma, which he found himself to have missed in its absence. Taking off the respirator and placing it on the counter, he took his first sip of the beverage. After swallowing it, Rowland released a satisfied sigh of relief, eliciting a baffled expression from Pearl.

  “How rude of me. Would you like a cup for yourself?” he asked her.

  With a face that looked like she was about to retch, she replied, “I don’t think so.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said, sipping on the warm tea.

  While the professor looked on, Pearl continued preparing the pumpkin bread, combining the ingredients and finally placing them into the oven. Rowland slowly enjoyed his tea and Pearl cleaned up the used dishes, while they waited for the pastry to finish baking. A little over an hour later, the bread had fully cooked in the oven, and it was ready to be removed. Not bothering with an oven mitt,
Rowland reached in with his metal gauntlet, pulling out the pan rather absent-mindedly. Again, he stuck his nose over the pastry and sniffed in the smell it was releasing.

  The memories in his head seemed to be so close to what he had been searching for. Just a little bit more. Reaching his unprotected hand into the pastry, much to Pearl’s inaudible objection, Rowland grabbed a chunk of the pumpkin bread and shoveled it into his mouth. The pastry was quite a bit hotter than he had expected. Juggling it around on his tongue, he attempted to keep it from burning him too badly. He felt even closer now.

  “Did ya even taste it?” she asked.

  “A bit,” he replied, putting down the tray. “I suppose it is passable.”

  “Such kind words,” she said with a little laugh.

  Rushing, he hurried around to where he’d left his pipe. Grabbing it and a match, he struck it against the box, and lit the herbs in the bowl. Placing the mouthpiece to his lips, he slowly sucked in his first lung full in ages, but he was in too much of a hurry to savor the flavor. He ran back into his lab, placed the pipe on a table, and turned to his chalkboard. He knew he was on the very verge of recalling the exact nature of the formula. Shattering what he would have considered a relative calm, a medium-sized explosion erupted behind him. His face smashed forward into the chalkboard, the glassware was shattered, the record was struck and left uneven on the phonograph, and all of the animal’s cages had been knocked over or otherwise broken, releasing them into the lab.

  In the back of his mind, he remembered that the serran herb was known for growing unstable with age. Apparently, it had reached such a point somewhere in the past decade. Through the explosion, the pain of smashing his nose into the chalkboard, the assorted smells he’d put together, the music playing on his phonograph, the pumpkin taste in his burned mouth, and the chaos of the lab, Rowland had reached the conclusion that he’d long searched for.