Anger Management

by Lawrence M Schoen

  Want more proof? You should know that the promised 'signing bonus' never happened. The bank transfer specified in the contract turned out to be bullshit. They stiffed you.

  Bottom line, your so-called contract is null and void. Get yourself back to Earth, if not for your sake than mine. I'm making 15% of nothing while you waste time caught up in some alien scam. You're better than that, Benjamin. Or at least you were.

  — Sylvia

  “Son. Of. A Bitch!”

  The concierge barely blinked. “Sir? Is everything all right?”

  «What? You can't be pissed off about the money? You've socked away much more from selling Box parts to Al. And you had to know there wasn't going to be a movie once you wiped Scatola off Titan.»

  “That's not the point,” said Coop. “He played me. He preyed on me. That bastard took advantage of my emotional and physical desperation.”

  “I'm sorry, sir?” This time the concierge did blink.

  «Well, yeah, maybe. But you ended up on top. Healed. Younger. Stronger. And together we kicked that sorry xenon's ass!»

  Coop crumpled up the message and shoved it at the concierge, snatching back the pillow case at the same time.

  “You're right. I know that. It's just… there's no way Sylvia is ever going to let me forget this.”

  «Let's worry about that after we get back to Earth. First we've got to outsmart this Doos jerk.»

  Without another word, and without a tip for the concierge, Coop continued across the hotel lobby and out into the spaceport.

  Chapter 10

  After exiting ahead of Cooper, Alhiz’khlo’tam strode down the short hallway that accommodated the four suites on this floor of the hotel. He slapped at the elevator's call button without breaking stride and continued on to the wall at the end of the hall. A quick press of his hand here and over there on the featureless wall caused a panel to recess and gave him access to the passageway used by staff for room service and other needs. He stepped within and closed the panel before Cooper had stepped into the hall, his thoughts elsewhere.

  They should all be dead.

  Which surely would not have been optimal, but if the Box had sent Doos then clearly his expectations that these humans could be useful to his larger plans had to be abandoned. No one on Titan knew the futility of going up against Doos better than he did. Except… Cooper had bested Doos. More, he had utterly disabled the Box. The same Box that had effectively ended Clusteran civilization, slain almost all his family, stripped him of his art, and destroyed the person he had been.

  And yet Cooper had singlehandedly defeated the Doos that had come to his suite.

  Such a thing was unimaginable. Impossible. He'd rushed to the hotel, thinking perhaps that the Doos might be satisfied retaking the creature and abducting Dr. Acorns, that he might find common cause with Cooper as a survivor.

  But more than survive, the human had prevailed against a Box that Al knew all too well had killed twenty thousand with a single extension.

  How had the human managed it? What was Cooper's secret, and was it possible the human could be of even greater value to his goals?

  He took the staff elevator down into a sub-basement, ignoring the shocked looks from employees who knew both that he didn't belong and that they would be wise to keep out of his way. He stepped into a maintenance closet and after closing the door pushed aside a few items on a dusty shelf to allow a disguised retinal scanner to read his gaze. A portion of the floor slid away and he stepped down into an access stairwell that moments later led to a hidden subway known only to himself, Titan's two other crime lords, and a handful of their respective top level aides.

  A car had arrived by the time he'd descended, summoned by the same scan that had admitted him. Its interior lights were the only illumination in the dark tunnel. This was by design. Those who belonged there knew the distance from the stairwell to the edge of the platform and would not be hampered by darkness. Any unwary trespassers who might stumble upon this place deserved their fate if they rushed forward, falling onto the track and meeting an arriving car as the last act of their lives.

  The car dimly illuminated the brick of the surrounding wall, revealing that it had been painted but falling short of revealing its color. As he often did, Al wondered, but his curiosity had never been great enough to cause him to shine a light along the wall. He boarded the car and entered his destination code. The door closed and he was whisked away through the dark. Minutes later the car halted at a seemingly random point between existing stops. Al pried the door open against the car's wishes and jumped to the service ledge that ran the length of the track. The door snapped shut behind him and the car began to roll away, picking up speed. A moment more and it was gone.

  Pressing himself flat against the brick wall, Al reached high above his head, feeling in the dark for a faint change in the depth of the mortar that a human wouldn't even be able to reach. He'd assumed that Big Tony and the Diamond Queen — the two human leaders of Titan's other crime syndicates — had similarly secreted access points when the three of them had built the subway, one of the few joint ventures they had pursued. If they had, it made sense that he not attempt to locate them, and his security devices assured him neither of them had ever stopped a subway car near this spot. It was another example of the healthy, mutual respect that kept things in balance.

  His fingers danced, pressing places among the bricks, triggering the entrance to the lair where he kept his most precious treasure. Seeing the defeated Doos extension had filled his mind with memories of the slaughter from his homeworld, images of death and destruction, of discovering the mangled remains of his familial pod. The adults, knowing they were doomed, had piled themselves upon the children, hoping that they might be spared. The mad, desperate ploy had failed. The weapons Doos employed had taken them all. Or nearly all. At the very bottom of the mound of kin corpses he had discovered his daughter, Antella'nestra, still alive, her mind shattered.

  Entering into his sanctum, Al went immediately to his daughter's room. He found her as he always did, seated at her work table, her fingers listlessly moving in the complexities required to spin the crystal instruments that she was driven to pursue in her madness. He kissed her head but she gave no sign of noticing. He checked the supplies of food and drink that lay nearby, the closet of simple clothing beyond that. At some point in the past day she had eaten and changed into a fresh outfit. Likely she had tended to her ablutions and slept as well. Her body knew to do these things in service to her need to continue her work.

  “Antella'nestra, my dearest, something unbelievable occurred today. A human, a man who calls himself Cooper, he defeated Doos.”

  As with his fatherly kiss, she gave no response.

  “If such an impossibility can happen, who can say what else might be possible?”

  Sighing, he turned from her and moved deeper into the complex he'd built, settling in to his workroom and the desk where he could tap into the spaceport's security systems and review the sorted results of his network of operatives. Of the now nineteen Doos extensions on Titan, as before, thirteen remained at their positions at the spaceport's main exit gates. The remaining six were in motion, spread throughout the spaceport's main avenues as well as its underground streets and tunnels. Doubtless they were making use of the DNA sniffers Dr. Acorns had mentioned, a methodology soon to be spoiled by Cooper and his pillowcase of false positives.

  Except… as he watched the data, it became clear that two Doos, the two closest to the Palais Titan, had adjusted their vectors and would converge on the hotel. Al did not believe in coincidence. The Box would get there and ascend to the Presidential suite in pursuit of their mission. And this time, Cooper would not be on hand to stop them!

  Chapter 11

  Jessica found herself alone with Potato.

  Relieved by the solitude, the doctor returned to her work. She still had a lot of research to do and needed to gather as much data as possible before she was forced to tear down her
makeshift laboratory for the move. And it would be a lot easier without the odd-couple of Mr. Cooper and Dyrk hanging around.

  She began by taking new blood samples from herself and Tycho. The job was made more difficult by Potato who insisted on scrambling around and rubbing up against her legs like a homicidal house cat. It just kept winding around her, demanding attention while she tried to work.

  “Aw geez, Potato. Give it a rest.”

  If it understood, Potato was not inclined to honor her request. It actually increased its frantic neediness. In the end Jess had to pick it up and forcibly set it down on a portion of the bed's lush duvet, shaking a finger and admonishing it until it pulled its legs in and drew its tongue back inside its lipless mouth leaving behind a lavender lump. Jessica returned to her work. Potato's contrition was short lived. It lingered there only a moment before extruding several of its legs and scrambling over to Tycho's comatose body and positioning itself in the crook of her arm. It settled down, more or less, opting to prop its front-most legs on the young woman’s upper-extremity. From there it seemed content to snuggle in and track the doctor's every movement as she went about running a new series of scans on the sleeping girl.

  Jessica worked quickly. She didn’t have time to study the data in depth, but the brief glimpses she saw told her that something important was going on. It kept her mind occupied while her hands dealt with the mundane work of positioning equipment and pushing buttons.

  It was that mixture of concentration and distraction that made her miss the sound of the suite’s door opening. In fact, she was so engrossed with her patient that she still hadn’t noticed the pair of Doos, even when they had rolled through the suite's foyer and entered the palatial bedroom behind her, not until a pair of voices spoke in unison behind her.

  “Dr. Jessica Acorns, do not move or we will be forced to eliminate you.”

  Jessica froze.

  She did not flee. She did not fight. Terror gripped her tightly and held her with her back to the door and the Doos extensions. The only parts of her that moved were her trembling lips and shaking legs. Some portion of her brain acknowledged that, once again, the Box must be projecting infrasonics, what Dyrk had deduced to be a 'Fear Gun', and with scientific detachment she appreciated what a powerful weapon it was. Then all pretense of rational thought departed as she succumbed completely.

  I’m going to die. I wish Mr. Cooper was here. Oh, Lord. Please don’t let that be my last thought.

  “Turn around, Dr. Acorns. Slowly. Please keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Jessica complied. Her body pivoting of its own accord, desperate to keep the Doos avatars happy and non-violent. Her eyes locked on the floor, seeing two sets of the same heavy treads as the previous extension had possessed, treads that she could glimpse through the bedroom door where the tilted and dead machine body of the first Doos still lay.

  Her knees began to shake violently while her heart raced. It was very hard to breathe. Her chest was tight. Too tight. Air wouldn’t come. Her legs wouldn’t hold her upright.

  I have to leave. I have to sit down. I can’t be here…

  Anxiety assaulted her as her ability to remain upright abandoned her. She collapsed atop her jellified legs on the bedroom's plush carpeting. She still hadn’t managed to look up. Her hands went to the floor and she tried desperately to get a full breath. But the air wouldn’t come.

  Her vision blurred and her ears began to emit a strange buzzing noise. She commanded her arms and legs to push herself up so she might stand, might flee, but they ignored her.

  Not good. This is not good. I'm going to die. Oh god, I'm going to die.

  With a groan, Jessica's arms also gave out and her torso slid to the floor as her heart began to pound faster. Then the pain struck. Her abdomen seized up and she writhed and moaned.

  Spasms wracked Jessica’s body. Her legs kicked of their own accord and a shooting pain in the back of her eyes made her hands move and grasp her face. Her fingernails dug in, tearing her flesh. She screamed.

  Her head rocked back and forth on the floor and as the Doos watched, frozen by the unpredicted display, the utilitarian-length strands that remained of her red hair began to fall out. They littered the floor around her as her body convulsed.

  She'd never imagined such pain. As a physician, she'd asked suffering patients to describe their pain on a one to ten scale. Somehow, a tiny, detached piece of her intellect was tracking her experience, deciding the agony rippling through her now was at least a twenty-seven! Her body burned like it was on fire from the inside, like she'd been dropped in a volcano and swallowed molten lava. But even those similes didn't explain why her arms and legs were somehow shortening. She could see it. Skin and bone and muscle were changing size and shape. Was that the source of her pain? Each finger and toe altered itself before her eyes, mutating.

  The virus! It must be doing this.

  Nearby, the pair of Doos pivoted their sensors to look at each other. Their weapons remained trained on Jessica, but they were clearly at a loss. If their avatars had been equipped to shrug in confusion, they would have done so.

  “What should we do?”

  “Seize and secure Potato and deal with the human after.”

  “Very well.”

  Potato had watched all this with interest from its perch in the warm confines of Tycho’s armpit. It waited patiently, shifting back and forth on its tiny feet. Its long tongue tasted the air, snake-like. The Doos approached from either side of the bed with their multiple limbs extended like a rapidly closing net.

  The avatars accelerated as they closed in.

  Potato jumped out of its cozy abode and leapt from the bed to the floor. The Doos almost crashed into each other over Tycho’s prostate form, tangling three of their wavering limbs.

  Potato's beady eyes watched the avatars try to unknot themselves. They wrestled and tugged, each acting as an individual, before finally trying to solve the problem together. As they freed themselves, Potato darted under the bed.

  One Doos rolled away and stuck one of its sensor-equipped arms beneath the bed frame. All it got was a view of Potato’s tiny legs scrambling over it as the shaved purple alien dashed out from its hiding place and ran between the tread assembly that the avatar maneuvered on.

  The Box attempted to seize Potato. But while its limbs were equipped to deal lethal damage, less consideration for manual dexterity had been included in their design. Potato easily dodged its clumsy attempts and the avatar’s weapons gouged away bits of carpet and flooring where Potato had just been.

  The other Doos rolled around the bed to assist. It fired a stun blast from one of its weapons. The bolt of energy missed Potato by a hair.

  The first Doos smacked one of its weapons against the Box that had fired on their pseudo-deity.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to capture it.”

  “If you hurt it, we will be shunned, perhaps exiled.”

  “It was a stun blast!”

  “I don’t care. How are we out of accord on this? Do we want to wind up like Scatola?”

  “Of course not. Scatola has been relegated to the lowest of activities.”

  “Exactly. Which is why I tell you this. Do. Not. Shoot. Potato! Now, come on.”

  They turned and found Potato bouncing on top of Dr. Acorns. The unconscious woman’s body still spasmed, but it didn’t deter the tiny alien.

  A pair of Box sensors pinged loudly.

  “This is unprecedented. There is nothing in the archive to suggest anything like this kind of behavior. All past reports indicate that Potato is prototypically sedentary. Why is it behaving like this?”

  “I do not know. Could it be related to the humans shearing its fur?”

  “Possibly. But that may be a distal explanation. My sensors suggest it is exuding pheromones at unprecedented rates.”

  “Mine as well. This is strange and well beyond the parameters of our purpose. We must retrieve it and return hom
e, so those better suited to the task may study it. And quickly before the human authorities show up and complicate our mission.”

  “Agreed.”

  The Box advanced and Potato scrambled away again. The pursuit continued for several moments, but the avatars found it incredibly difficult to chase down the elusive alien, especially with the writhing form of Dr. Acorns getting in their way.

  Frustrated, one of the Doos opted to loop a tentacle-like limb — capable of administering massive electrical discharges — around one of Jessica's legs and dragged her into a far corner of the bedroom to keep her out of the way and improve their ability to maneuver.

  While that was happening, Potato took advantage of having only a single pursuer and clawed its way up the duvet and back on top of the bed, returning to the nook of Tycho's armpit.

  The other Doos advanced and leaned over Tycho, extending its limbs in a wide arc as it effectively hemmed in Potato. The creature cowered, attempting to burrow behind Tycho’s head on her pillow.

  It nuzzled into her skin and frantically kicked its little legs as it sought refuge under her neck.

  Tycho opened her eyes.

  Chapter 12

  Tycho’s pupils widened and her eyes darted left, right, up and down, taking in the details of the situation.

  Her arms came up and she placed both hands against the chest of the Box looming over her. She bent her knees and positioned her feet against its lower torso. Her muscles uncoiled like powerful pistons as she pushed and shoved the surprised avatar up and away from her.

  Then Tycho sat up.

  The Doos were stunned. Their sensor readings when they had first swept the bedroom had identified this human as in a profound state of coma. Brain activity had been at maintenance levels. Muscle tone had shown significant atrophy.