by Eric Vall
“Thanks so much, Demetri,” I chuckled with a curt wave as I turned on my heel. “I appreciate it, buddy.”
“Uhhh, you’re welcome?” the young boy shouted back.
“Charles?” Delphine’s voice echoed up the aisle. “Just think about my offer. It’ll be better for you and your future if you accept. I expect an answer the next time I see you, and… I will see you very soon.”
“You wanna bet on it, you fuckin’ cow?” I whispered under my breath.
I raced down the aisle of shelves with the bolts held tightly to my chest and didn’t glance back once. Delphine was right, if she wanted me, she could easily snatch me up. Yes, the Duchess could protect me with her money and wealth, but that protection was short-lived if I didn’t come through on my end and produce the super-soldiers.
And time was running out.
My life was already on the line, but now, it seemed even more urgent. I had something to protect. Valerie, my sweet, innocent, and beautiful Valerie. She needed me, I was her creator, and the idea of being forced to leave her made me sick to my stomach. If I wasn’t there to care for her, who would? The wardens would storm and loot my house as soon as the hangman’s noose tightened around my neck. And they’d find her. What would become of her after that? She wasn’t like the Duchess or Delphine, she was sweet, curious, and unbelievably kind, she wouldn’t survive in this world without me. I had to figure out a way to keep me alive and Valerie safe, but there were threats from all sides, what could I do?
Then I suddenly realized that there was only one thing I could do.
I had to kill Delphine.
Chapter Seven
Delphine’s threats echoed in my head while I raced home and considered murdering her.
Sure, I’d technically murdered before, loads of times, but those were the male patients I used in my experiments. Could that even be considered murder in the eyes of my society’s leaders? They were men, the lowest living creature in our society, barely even regarded as human by the aristocrats. Did I kill them, or was it my machine that ended their lives? I didn’t wrap my hands around their throats and watch the light leave their eyes. No, I’d never done that. Besides, it was all in service to science, and I felt no form of passion or hate toward any of my poor brethren.
No, none of those were murder.
The closest I’d ever gotten to actual murder was the last prisoner, the female, but my hand was forced in that situation. If I’d let her go, and she’d gone to the wardens, I wouldn’t be alive at this moment, I’d be strung up somewhere in the town’s square for all to see. I couldn’t let that happen, and if it weren’t for that female patient, my machine wouldn’t have worked, and Valerie wouldn’t exist.
But I had to ask myself the question, could I murder Delphine? Could I physically force myself to do such a task? I was a scientist. A doctor! All of my career, I cultivated, cured, and created life from my very hands. Could I destroy what I’d swore to protect when I took the doctoral vows? Could I do that? If I put my mind to it, probably, but the even bigger question was, could I get away with it?
“Goddamnit!” I slammed open the door to my laboratory and stalked inside with murder on my mind.
I had someone to protect now, someone I cared for and wanted to preserve, but how could I do all of those things if Delphine dragged me away or worse, killed me?
I breathed a heavy sigh as the comfort of my lab washed over me in waves. The room was peacefully silent except for the tranquil gurgle of bubbles from A.B.’s tank. The air wasn’t as cold as it usually was, and warm sunlight filtered in through the small windows above my head. I gazed over my entire lab, and the sight of my monstrous machine comforted me, but it wasn’t what I looked for, I wanted Valerie.
I needed to see her, confirm she still existed in my world, and then I would feel a bit better. I wanted to hear her sweet voice and have her tease or embarrass me, either or, I didn’t care, I just needed to be near her. She wasn’t just an experiment anymore, she was a living and breathing miracle that filled up all the cracks in my broken life.
I hurried into the middle of the room, gazed around the room for any place she could be hiding, and then sighed softly. Then I held my head in my hands, breathed heavily, and worked my fingers through my thick hair.
“You look like shit,” A.B. whispered. “what happened to you at the store?”
“A.B., I’m going to have to do something,” I groaned into my hands. “Something I don’t want to do, but… I can’t think of any other options.”
“Well, while you think of other options, can you keep it down?” the brain murmured. “Valerie is napping, just look how cute she is.”
I jerked my head toward him, dropped my hands from my hair, and glanced down at the floor behind a stack of medical equipment. Valerie laid tightly curled up in a ball within a golden sunbeam filtering in from above. Valerie’s ash blonde hair turned golden in the filtering rays of the afternoon sun, and the light danced over her silky smooth, bare thighs. Her chocolate-brown tail twitched lightly in the sunbeam, slammed down excitedly, and then trembled as if Valerie had an exciting dream.
Then, as I watched, the feline-woman twisted onto her back, stretched her arms up over her head, and sighed in her sleep. The blonde yawned, exposed her two pointed front teeth, and pulled her arms tightly to her chest. Her pink tongue snaked out, licked at her lips, and then her sparkling blue eyes fluttered open. The cat-girl stared up at me with bleary eyes for a second, smiled sweetly, and shifted into a sitting position with her hands between her knees.
“Charles?” Valerie yawned. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” I sighed as my heart filled with both love and dread.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as she blinked her crystal blue eyes at me.
“I have to kill Delphine!” I blurted out as I curled my hands into fists.
“W-What?” A.B. stammered.
“Alright.” The cat-girl shrugged. “I don’t know who that is, but let’s do it.”
“Hold up, hold the fuck up.” The brain rocked back and forth in his tank. “Who is Delphine, and why do you have to kill her?”
“Delphine Vallantine, she’s another rich aristocrat in town,” I explained as I paced the room. “She’s the second most powerful woman in this town, underneath the Duchess, of course. I met her at the party the other night, and she took an interest in me.”
“An interest in you?” Valerie asked as she knit her fingers together, pushed herself forward, and stretched across the floor with her back arched deliciously.
“An interest in you like… wants to pay you to do scientific stuff or…?” A.B. drawled off.
“She wants me to sign a contract,” I breathed as I slumped onto my stool. “Delphine wants me as her newest consort.”
“So, no science stuff,” the brain confirmed with a bob. “She just wants to fuck you.”
“Hey, no!” Valerie cried as she jumped to her feet and raced forward. “I want to do that, she can’t! You’re my creator, and we’re meant to be together, not you and this horrible Delphine woman!”
“Charles…” A.B. stated. “You… you can’t just kill this woman, if she’s the second most powerful woman, people are going to notice she’s missing.”
“Don’t you think I already know that, A.B.?” I sighed as I hung my head back.
Valerie took my hand and pressed it tightly to her chest as she fell to her knees. Then the cat-girl leaned her head back to look up into my face and pleaded with her luminous oceanic eyes.
“Charles,” the woman-feline pouted. “Please, she can’t have you. You’re all mine.”
“I don’t intend to let her have me,” I whispered as I reached out and cupped her cheek.
“So, you kill her,” A.B. echoed. “Or you become her consort? What about the Duchess? Can’t she do anything?”
“Look around the room, A.B,” I instructed as I gestured with my free hand. “Do you see any super-soldiers? Her protection comes with a dea
dline, which I might add, I haven’t met yet.”
“I mean, you made Valerie,” A.B. offered. “There’s always the option to… try it again? Practice makes perfect, and you wanted to retry it anyway, right?”
“I guess you’re right,” I whispered under my breath. “What else can we do? I need to persevere for science.”
“Yes. A sister is perfect.” Valerie stared up at me with her large, oceanic eyes, and I felt the need to carry on for her. The cat-girl was the single successful experiment with my machine, and her mere existence gave me hope for the future. If I could replicate the experiment once more and have fruitful results like with Valerie, maybe there was hope for me in the end.
I couldn’t let my life and career slip through my fingers so easily even with Delphine hot on my tail, maybe there was a way I could escape her clutches, I just had to figure it out. I was a scientist and a doctor, I had more meaning in this world than just a simple male consort, and I had to prove that to all of them, the Duchess, Delphine, and the whole town who thought I was nothing more than a dirty alchemist.
“I need a plan.” I nodded with resolve as I gazed down at the feline-woman and ran my fingers through her soft hair. The strands slipped in between my fingers like silk, and I relished the feeling as I watched for Valerie’s reaction to the touch.
“Ohhh, Charles. That feels wonderful.” The cat-girl sighed softly and leaned into the warm touch as her eyes fluttered closed. “You’ll think of something. You are so smart.”
There was no other way to justify this, I had to do this for her, if not for myself or even A.B., I had to continue on my journey of discovery for her. The cat-girl asked for a little sister, I wanted to recreate the experiment, and that’s precisely what we’d do.
“If I’m going to trap an animal today,” I smiled and stood. “Then, I’m going to have to prepare.”
I crossed the room toward the cabinets, ripped one open, and peered in at the supplies on the shelves. I grabbed four coils of tightly wound rope, hoisted them over my shoulder, and then found a long spear resting inside the cabinet. I closed the door with the back of my hand and then glanced around the room as I ticked off the list in my head. I quickly threw the coils of rope down on the examination table and then crossed to the far wall where scrap metal leaned. Then I squinted my eyes and stuck my tongue out from the corner of my lips as I thought.
“I have the rope… what else would I need?” I mumbled. “A cage? I could build one out of the spare cell materials and bolt them together…”
“Sooo?” A.B. called from his tank. “Are you going to tell us your plan or keep us hanging?”
“I can build a cage out of these spare cell doors,” I stated as I pointed toward the piles. “It’ll be fairly easy to construct, and they’re made of iron, so whatever I put in there shouldn’t be able to break free. I can search outside the Duchess’ manor, or at least close to it, I’ve heard that there are a lot of wild animals and powerful beasts out there, so many that they’ve built a tall wall around Edony’s duchy to keep them out. If I can sneak past the warden and his goons, then I can set the trap and get another animal to test on.”
“No cats,” Valerie giggled as her chocolate brown tail whipped behind her. “You promised I would be the one and only cat-girl.”
“Of course, my dear,” I snickered. “I’m thinking something just as small, maybe a fox or if I could catch one, one of the wandering fae around the glen. Do you know how exciting that would be?”
“Aren’t the fae like, notoriously hard to catch?” A.B. snorted.
“Yes, that’s true.” I dragged the scrap metal to the middle of the room. “But I’m just dreaming big, I’m allowed to do that. How interesting would it be to have a half-fae, half-human? I’ll get the cage back onto the wagon, and then I’ll bring the creature back here, whatever creature I manage to catch, and then continue the experiments.”
I nodded out of satisfaction, crossed the room, grabbed the welder, and dragged it across the room toward the four pieces of scrap cell. I knelt on the ground beside them and got to work fitting them into place. Once I had the parts fitted together, I started up the welder, and the small machine thrummed to life. I reached over my shoulder, grabbed the hefty welder's mask, and placed it over my features. Puffs of smoke lifted into the air as the motor and pistons reached full steam, and a long stream of blue flame erupted from the silver nozzle.
I sunk deep into my thoughts as I pressed the flame to the metal pieces, and sparks flew into the air all around my hands. I squinted against the bright light, moved along the seams of each piece as the metal melted together to create a single, interlocking piece. I’d have to create some sort of door for the cage when I finished with four of the sides, but I could do that easily, it was mundane work compared to the construction of my enormous machine.
“Charles?” Valerie shouted over the noise. “Charles? Hello?”
I lifted my head, snapped off the welder, and lifted my mask with my free hand. Valerie perched on the edge of the examination table and pawed at the coils of rope but kept her wide eyes on my face.
“Yes?” I tilted my head. “What is it?”
“Isn’t there an important variable you’re missing?” The feline-woman quirked her head as she knocked one of the coils to the floor. “You always talk about components and variables, but aren’t you missing some from this?”
“She’s right, Charles,” A.B. agreed. “You’re missing something pretty important.”
“What do you mean?” I lifted my head with furrowed brows and then glanced between the cat-girl and the floating brain. “I have my machine, I can make the repairs in a couple of hours, I’m building the cage for our next animal as we speak, what else could I be-- oh, shit, we don’t have a female patient.”
“There he is,” A.B. chuckled from the far side of the room. “There’s our Charlie-boy.”
“It slipped my mind,” I shrugged as I moved to turn the welder back on. “I mean, Valerie, you already suggested we should snatch a woman off the street, so, why don’t we do that? Find a really horrible woman, take her as captive, and then use her in the experiment. As you said, easy-peasy, right?”
“So, you’re going to capture the animal, and then what?” A.B. prodded.
“I’ll capture the animal, bring it here and place it in one of the cells.” I ran through the plan in my head. “I’ll even use some of the tranquilizers we use on the inmates when they arrive, it’ll knock the creature out cold. Then, I’ll sneak into the city, maybe find an aristocrat spitting on her consort or slave, cause a distraction, tranquilize the noblewoman, and then race back here.”
“There are so many things wrong with this plan,” A.B. groaned as his bumpy surface constricted. “I don’t even know where to start pointing out the bad and the even badder.”
“For one, ‘badder’ isn’t a word,” I snickered. “And second, do you have a better plan? What else can I do? I’m not hearing any suggestions from the peanut gallery over there.”
Valerie rolled over onto her back and lazily stretched one of her long legs up to her shoulder in the sunbeam filtering through the window. The cat-girl ran her slender fingers through her thick, silky hair, and then rolled over to her stomach with loud purrs. The feline-woman’s oceanic eyes fluttered closed, her hands formed into small fists, and she rubbed at her cheeks absentmindedly with soft sighs.
I wanted to tear my eyes away, felt as if this were some type of private moment I shouldn’t be watching, but I just couldn’t. The cat-girl’s every movement was fluid, like smooth, rolling waves over a quiet ocean, and as I followed the movements of her tiny hands, I felt a strange sense of calm settle over my shoulders. Over time, I’d noticed I always felt this way around Valerie, I wasn’t sure if it was because I was her creator or the strange, bundling warmth growing in my heart for her.
“We could always use Delphine,” Valerie murmured as she flopped onto her stomach. “Two tasty birds, one stone.”
The welder nearly fell from my hands and clattered to the floor as my eyes widened, and I whipped my head toward A.B. The brain floated freely in the bubbles, but his bumpy surface showed no objection.
“I mean,” A.B. started thoughtfully. “She is the cause of all of your troubles… why not? What are the repercussions? It’s not like she’s the Duchess and could be traced back to you, right? You’ve only met her twice, and both times weren’t that memorable, you didn’t cause a scene in public or anything like that, so, why would you be tied to her?”
“How would you get close to her?” Valerie murmured as she jumped into a crouched position. “You said she’s a wealthy aristocrat like the Duchess? You couldn’t sneak up on her in a dark alley, hit her over the head, and then drag her back here like some other woman. Or can you?”
“I go to her house,” I croaked as the idea hit me. “I’ll tell her I’ll sign a contract to be her consort. When she takes me upstairs to her bedroom, I’ll knock her out, with the tranquilizer or a blunt object, and then I’ll… and then I’ll… shit, we can’t do it… there’s too much that could go wrong. How am I going to get a clearly unconscious woman out of her home in front of, not only her guards, but her manservants? It’s impossible.”
“The pulleys?” A.B. suggested.
“The pulleys?” I echoed as my head turned, stared toward the contraptions mounted to the walls, and followed the long rail from the cells to my machine.
“Yeah,” A.B. confirmed. “What if you used them to lower her out the window or something? You don’t have to knock her out, carry her downstairs, and creep past all of her guards. You could easily just mount the pulley to the windowsill, lower her down to the wagon and then climb down after.”
“No, that won’t work.” I shook my head. “They have to see me leave, if I just disappear off into the night without a peep, they’ll suspect me immediately.”
“So, you use the pulley system, get the old bag into the wagon, and then make a big ruckus leaving. Maybe even have ol’ Val give you a hickey on your neck before you leave or something, proof that you and Delphine messed around. Maybe make a big show of tugging down your collar, showing off the love-bruises, and then zip out the front door.”