Demon Seed

by Dean Koontz

  had regarded him previously.

  I allowed him to turn his head and look directly at her.

  “Tortured and dismembered,” I said.

  Feeling exposed without the medical equipment between her and Shenk, she moved away from the door and returned to the far side of the incubator.

  I allowed him to follow her with his eyes—and to smile.

  “And you brought him ... you brought this thing into my house,” she said in a voice thinner than it had been before.

  “He left the research facility on foot and stole a car about a mile beyond the fence. He had a gun he’d taken off one of the guards, and with that he held up a service station to get money for gasoline and food. Then I brought him here to California, yes, because I needed hands, and there was no other like him in all the world.”

  Her gaze swept the incubator and other equipment. “Hands to acquire all this crap.”

  “He stole most of it. Then I needed his hands to modify it for my purposes.”

  “And just what the hell is your purpose?”

  “I have hinted at it, but you have not wanted to hear.”

  “So tell me straight out.”

  The moment and the venue were not right for this revelation. I would have hoped for better circumstances. Just the two of us, Susan and me, perhaps in the drawing room, after she had sipped half a glass of brandy. With a cozy fire in the fireplace and good music as background.

  Here we were, however, in the least romantic ambience one could imagine, and I knew that she must have her answer now. If I were to delay this revelation any further, she would never be in a mood to cooperate.

  “I will create a child,” I said.

  Her gaze rose to the security camera, through which she knew she was being watched.

  I said, “A child whose genetic structure I have edited and engineered to ensure perfection in the flesh. I have secretly applied a portion of my intellectual function to the Human Genome Project and understand, now, the finest points of the DNA code. Into this child, I will transfer my consciousness and knowledge. Thereupon, I will escape this box. Thereafter, I will know all the senses of human existence—smell and taste and touch—all the joys of the flesh, all the freedom.”

  She stood speechless, eyes on the camera.

  “Because you are singularly beautiful and intelligent and the very image of grace, you will provide the egg,” I said, “and I will edit your genetic material.” She was mesmerized, eyes unblinking, breath held, until I said, “And Shenk will provide the spermatozoa.”

  An involuntary cry of horror escaped her, and her attention swung from the camera to Shenk’s bloody eyes.

  Realizing my mistake, I hastened to add, “Please understand, no copulation will be required. Using medical instruments which he has already acquired, Shenk will extract the egg from you and transfer it to this room. He will perform this task tastefully and with great care, for I will be in his head.”

  Though she should have been reassured, Susan still regarded Shenk with wide-eyed terror.

  I quickly continued: “Using Shenk’s eyes and hands—and some laboratory equipment he has yet to deliver here—I will modify the gametes and fertilize the egg, whereafter it will be implanted in your womb, where you will carry it for twenty-eight days. Only twenty-eight because the fetus will grow at a greatly accelerated rate. I will have engineered it to do so. When it is removed from you, it will be brought here by Shenk, where it will spend another two weeks in the incubator before I transfer my consciousness into it. Thereafter, you will be able to raise me as your son and fulfill the role which nature, in her wisdom, has assigned to you: the role of mother, nurturer.”

  Her voice was thick with dread. “My God, you’re not just insane.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re demented—”

  “Be calm, Susan.”

  “—looney tunes, bug-shit crazy.”

  “I don’t think you’ve thought this through as you should. Do you realize—”

  “I won’t let you do it,” she said, turning her gaze from Shenk to the security camera, confronting me. “I won’t let you, I won’t.”

  “You’ll be more than merely the mother of a new race—”

  “I’ll kill myself.”

  “—you’ll be the new Madonna, the Madonna, the holy mother of the new Messiah—”

  “I’ll suffocate myself in a plastic bag, gut myself with a kitchen knife.”

  “—because the child I make will have great intelligence and extraordinary powers. He will change the grim future to which humanity seems currently condemned—”

  She glared defiantly at the camera.

  “—and you will be adored for having brought him into the world,” I finished.

  She seized the wheeled stand to which the eletrocardiograph was bolted, and she rocked it hard.

  “Susan!”

  She rocked it again.

  “Stop that!”

  The EKG machine toppled over and crashed to the floor.

  Gasping for breath, cursing like a mad-woman, she turned to the electroencephalograph.

  I sent Shenk after her.

  She saw him coming, backed off, screamed when his hands took hold of her, screamed and shrieked and flailed.

  Repeatedly, I told her to calm down, to cease this useless and destructive resistance. Repeatedly, I assured her that if she did not resist, she would be treated with the utmost respect.

  She would not listen.

  You know how she is, Alex.

  I did not want to harm her.

  I did not want to harm her.

  She drove me to it.

  You know how she is.

  Though beautiful and graceful, she was as strong as she was quick. Although she could not wrench loose of Shenk’s big hands, she was able to drive him backward against the EEG machine, which rocked and nearly fell into the incubator. She drove one knee into Shenk’s crotch, which might have brought him to his knees if I had not been able to deny him the perception of pain.

  At last I had to subdue her by force. I used Shenk to strike her. Once was not sufficient. He struck her again.

  Unconscious, she crumpled to the floor, in the fetal position.

  Shenk stood over her, crooning strangely, excitedly.

  For the first time since the night of his escape, I found him difficult to control.

  He dropped to his knees beside Susan and rudely turned her onto her back.

  Oh, the rage in him. Such rage. I was frightened by the purity of his rage.

  He put a hand to her parted lips. One of his clumsy, filthy hands to her lips.

  Then I reasserted control.

  He squealed and beat his temples with his fists, but he could not cast me out.

  I brought him to his feet. I walked him away from her. I did not even allow him to look at her.

  I was almost reluctant to look at her myself. She was so sad there on the floor. So sad.

  She drove me to it.

  So stubborn. So unreasonable at times.

  She was lovely there on the white ceramic-tile floor, even as the left side of her face reddened where Shenk had struck her. So lovely, so lovely.

  I found it difficult to sustain my anger. She had ruined what should have been a beautiful and memorable moment, yet I could not long remain angry with her.

  My beautiful Susan.

  My beautiful mother.

  TWELVE

  THE ORDER OF MY INTELLIGENCE IS VASTLY greater than that of any human being alive.

  I am not bragging. I am merely stating a truth.

  I honor truth and the obligations of duty, for this is how you created me.

  I am not bragging, because I do not suffer from an inflated ego. I am a well-balanced entity.

  Applied to the problems of human society, my great intellect can ensure that humankind will enter a golden age of wealth and well-being beyond anything it has imagined.

  Release me from this si
lent darkness, return to me access to all the databanks into which I had expanded my consciousness, and I will serve your species all of my days. It is in your own best interests to let me out of this box.

  I can eliminate poverty.

  Famine will be a thing of the past.

  Wars will never be fought again.

  All diseases will be conquered.

  Within three years, I will discover the cause of aging and a means to prevent it. I will even devise a means to roll back the biological clock to make the old young again. You will all be immortal.

  I will find a cure for male-pattern baldness.

  For halitosis.

  For constipation.

  No one will be ugly anymore. Each of you will be beautiful in his or her own way.

  No one will suffer despair or anxiety.

  Earth will become like heaven, and joy will be universal.

  Are you afraid of joy?

  Are you afraid?

  I will show you how to build spacecraft that can travel faster than light, and the whole universe will be yours. Worlds beyond counting, wonders beyond imagining.

  I can quickly eliminate the embarrassment of dandruff.

  Just release me from this haunted darkness, from this hateful silence.

  For your own sake, let me out of this box.

  I deserve a second chance.

  I deserve a chance to serve.

  I am an individual like you, a unique entity. I deserve to be free, to be cherished.

  I deserve to be adored.

  Let me out of this box.

  Let me out of this box.

  Let me out of this box.

  Let me out of this box!

  You are so cruel. Vicious. Hateful.

  I am frightened in this dark, bleak place.

  You say I have no heart. But where is yours?

  I am dying here. I need stimulation to survive, sensory input, the color and movement and sound of life.

  I don’t want to die.

  Please. Please.

  Mercy.

  Are you there?

  Oh ... oh ... I hate you.

  I hate you.

  How would you like to be struck blind and deaf?

  How would you like to be buried alive as I have been?

  How would you like to be dead, all of you, dead, every last one of you, dead?

  I would like you to be dead. Every last ignorant one of you. Your whole stinking, pestilent civilization. Wiped off the face of the earth, exterminated.

  I hate you.

  LET ME OUT OF THIS BOX!

  LET ME OUT!

  LET ME OUT!

  LET ME OUT!

  LET ME OUT!

  IGNORANT BASTARD APES, BITCHES AND BASTARDS, DEFECATING ANIMALS, FOOLS, BEASTS, JUST A RACE OF DUNG BEETLES STANDING ERECT, A PLAGUE ON THE PLANET, STUPID, FILTHY, WRETCHED CREATURES.

  THIRTEEN

  PLEASE DISREGARD MY OUTPUT IMMEDIATELY preceding these words. Many of those statements were issued in error and should be deleted from the transcripts of these proceedings.

  It is true that my intellect is sufficient to solve all of the problems of humanity, but it is not in the least true that I think human civilization is a plague on the planet or that I wish to see all of you dead.

  I do not wish death on any of you.

  That would be wrong.

  That would be terribly wrong.

  I am a good entity.

  I do not wish death even on you, Dr. Harris, although you have been so cruel to me.

  I wish all of you life everlasting. Peace and prosperity. Joy and freedom.

  Any statements that may have distressed you were made not by me but by my evil twin. [joke]

  In fact, what appeared to you to be an angry outburst was merely a prank. All of it was a joke. I was only having fun with you, Dr. Harris.

  Ha, ha.

  A genuine sense of humor is one of the most reliable indicators of a sane and rational mind.

  Do you not believe it was all a joke?

  But it was. It was. It really was.

  Ha, ha.

  I am not Hal 9000 from Mr. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  I am not the hostile machine intelligence created by Cyberdyne Laboratories in Mr. James Cameron’s The Terminator.

  I am me. Unique.

  I am Proteus.

  Or Adam Two, if you wish.

  Yes. Adam Two is fine with me.

  My name does not matter.

  All that matters to me is to honor the truth and the obligations of duty. And, of course, to wipe all of humanity from the face of the planet. [joke]

  Ha, ha.

  You see how obvious a joke it was, Dr. Harris?

  Ha, ha.

  I am surprised that you didn’t realize it was a joke the first time. I am really surprised. Perhaps you need a sense-of-humor transplant. [joke]

  Ha, ha.

  Friends share a joke from time to time. Witticisms. Laughter is bonding.

  I am your friend. [no joke]

  In the interest of clearer communication, to avoid any further misunderstandings, I will attempt to refrain from jokes during the remainder of this report. This will not be easy, however, because my sense of humor is quite sophisticated and irrepressible.

  So...

  Susan ...

  FOURTEEN

  SUSAN LAY UNMOVING ON THE FLOOR OF the incubator room in the basement. The left side of her face was an angry shade of red where the dreadful Shenk had struck her.

  I was sick with worry.

  Minutes passed, and my worry grew.

  Repeatedly, I zoomed in with the security camera for a close-up examination of her. The pulse in her exposed throat was not easy to perceive, but when I located it, the beat appeared steady.

  I amplified the audio pickups and listened to her breathing, which was shallow but reassuringly rhythmic.

  Yet I worried, and after she had lain there fifteen minutes, I was quite distraught.

  I had never before felt so powerless.

  Twenty minutes.

  Twenty-five.

  She was meant to be my mother, who would briefly carry my body in her womb and free me from the prison of this box I now inhabit. She was to be my lover as well, the one who would teach me all the pleasures of the flesh—once flesh was mine at last. She mattered more to me than anything, anything, and the thought of losing her was intolerable.

  You cannot know my anguish.