into the mother mass.
But she was getting up.
Sam scrambled to the doorway, stooped, and snatched up the 'two
cartridges he had dropped when he had reloaded the gun.
e broke open the cylinder, shook out the empty brass casings, Jammed in
the last two rounds.
neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed . . . neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed She was on her feet,
coming toward him.
This time he held the Smith Wesson in both hands, aimed carefully, and
shot her in the head. 2 Take out the data processor, he thought with a
flash of black humor. Only way to stop a determined machine. Take out
its data processor, and it's nothing but a tangle of junk.
She crumpled to the floor. The red light went out of the unhuman eyes;
they were black now. She was perfectly still.
Suddenly flames erupted from her bullet-cracked skull, spurting from the
wound, from her eyes, nostrils, and gaping mouth, He moved quickly to
the socket to which she was still tethered, and he kicked at the
semiorganic plug that she had extruded from her body, knocking it loose.
The flames still leaped from her.
He could not afford a house fire. The bodies would be found and the
neighborhood, Harry's house included, would be searched door-to-door. He
looked around for something to throw over her to smother the flames, but
already the blaze within the skull was subsiding. In a moment it burned
itself out.
The air reeked of a dozen foul odors, some of which did not bear
contemplation.
He was mildly dizzy. Nausea stole over him. He gagged clenched his
teeth, and forced back his gorge.
Though he wanted desperately to get out of there, he took time to unplug
both computers. They were inoperable and dammaged beyond repair, but he
was irrationally afraid that, like Frankenstein's homebuilt man in movie
sequel after sequel, they would somehow come to life if exposed to
electricity.
He hesitated at the doorway, leaned against the jamb to take some of the
weight off his weak and trembling legs, looked at the computers and the
strange corpses. He had expected them to revert to normal appearance
when they were dead, the way they were in the movies, upon taking a
silver bullet in the heart or beaten with a silver-headed cane, always
metamorphosed for the last time, becoming their tortured, too-human
selves, finally re leased from the curse. Unfortunately this was not
Lycanthropy. This was not a supernatural affliction, but something
worse that men had brought upon themselves with no help from demonic
spirits or other things that went bump in the night. The coltranes - 355
as they had been, monstrous half-breeds of flesh and blood and
silicon-human and machine.
He could not comprehend how they had become what they had become, but he
half remembered that a word existed for them, and in a moment he
recalled it. Cyborg a person whose biological functioning was aided by
or dependent on a mechanical or electronic device. People wearing
pacemakers to regulate arrhythmic hearts were cyborgs, and that was a
good thing. Those whose kidneys had both failed-and who received
dialysis on a regular basis-were cyborgs, and that was good too. But
with the Coltranes the concept had been carried to extremes. They were
the nightmare side of advanced cybernetics, in whom not merely
physiological but mental function had become aided by and almost
certainly dependent on a machine.
Sam began to gag again. He turned quickly away from the smoke-hazed den
and backtracked through the house to the kitchen door, by which he had
entered.
Every step of the way, he was certain that he would hear a voice behind
him, half human and half electronic neeeeeeeeeeed"-and would look back
to see one of the Coltranes lumbering toward him, reanimated by a last
small supply of current stored in battery cells.
At the main gate of New Wave Microtechnology, on the highlands along
the northern perimeter of Moonlight Cove, the guard, wearing a black
rain slicker with the corporate logo on the breast, squinted at the
oncoming police cruiser. When he recognized Loman, he waved him through
without stopping him. Loman had been well known there even before he
and they had become new People.
New Wave Power, prestige, and profitability were not hidden in an
unassuming corporate headquarters. The place had been designed by a
leading architect who favored rounded corners.
gentle angles, and the interesting juxtaposition of curved walls-F some
concave, some convex. The two large three-story buildings-one erected
four years after the other-were faced with buff-colored stone, had huge
tinted windows, and blended welt with the landscape.
Of the fourteen hundred people employed there, nearly a thousand lived
in Moonlight Cove. The rest resided in other communities elsewhere in
the county. All of them, of course, lived within the effective reach of
the microwave broadcasting dish on the roof of the main structure.
As he followed the entrance road around the big buildings toward the
parking area behind, Loman thought Sure as hell Shaddack's our very own
Reverend Jim Jones. Needs to be sure he can take every last one of his
devoted followers with him any time he wants. A modern pharaoh. When he
dies, those attending him die, too, as if he expects them to continue to
attend him in the next world. Shit. Do we even believe in a next world
any more?
No. Religious faith was akin to hope, and it required emotional
commitment.
New People did not believe in God any more than they
believed in Santa Claus. The only thing they believed in was the power
of the machine and the cybernetic destiny of humanity Maybe some of them
didn't even believe in that.
Loman didn't. He no longer believed in anything at all-which scared him
because he had once believed in so many things.
The ratio of New Wave's gross sales and profits to its number of
employees was high even for the microtechnology industry, its ability to
pay for the best talent in its field was reflected in the percentage of
high-ticket cars in the two enormous lots.
Mercedes. BMW. Porsche. Corvette. Cadillac Seville. Jaguar. high
end Japanese imports with every bell and whistle.
Only half the usual number of cars were in the lot. it looked as if a
high percentage of the staff was at home, working through the modern.
How many were already like Denny?
Side by side on the rainswept macadam, those cars reminded Loman of the
orderly ranks of tombstones in a cemetery.
those quiescent engines, all that cold metal, all those hundreds of wet
windshields reflecting the flat gray autumn sky, suddenly poemed a
presentiment of death. To Loman, that parking lot represented the
future of the entire town silence, stillness, the terrible eternal peace
of the graveyard.
if the authorities outside of Moonlight Cove tumbled to what was
happening there, or if it turned out that virtually every one of the New
People was a regressive-or worse-and
the Moonhawk Project was a
disaster, the remedy would not be poisoned koolaid this time, like
Reverend Jim Jones used down there in Jonestown, but lethal commands
broadcast in bursts of microwaves, received by microsphere computers
inside the New People, instantly translated into the language of the
governing program, and acted upon. Thousands of hearts would stop as
one, The New People would fall, as one, and Moonlight Cove would in an
instant become a graveyard of the unburied.
Loman drove through the first parking lot, into the second, and headed
toward the row of spaces reserved for the top executives.
. If I wait for Shaddack to see that Moonhawk's gone bad and to take us
with him, Loman thought, he won't be doing it because he cares about
cleaning up the messes he makes, not that damn albino-spider-of-a-man.
He'll take us with him just for the bloody hell of it, just so he can go
out with a big bang, so the world will stand in awe of his power, a man
of such incredible power that he could command thousands to die
simultaneously with him.
More than a few sickos would see him as a hero, idolize him. Some
budding young genius might want to emulate him. That was no doubt what
Shaddack had in mind. At best, if Moonhawk succeeded and all of mankind
was eventually converted, Shaddack literally would be master of his
world. At worst, if it all went bad and he had to kill himself to avoid
falling into the hands of the authorities, he would become a nearly
mythical figure of dark inspiration, whose malign legend would encourage
legions of the mad and power-mad, a Hitler for the silicon age.
Loman braked at the end of the row of cars.
He wiped at his greasy face. His hand was shaking.
He was filled with a longing to abandon this responsibility and seek the
Pressure-free existence of the regressive.
But he resisted.
If Loman killed Shaddack first, before Shaddack had a chance to kill
himself, the legend would be finished. Loman would die a few seconds
after Shaddack died, as would all the New People, but at least the
legend would have to incorporate the fact that this high-tech Jim Jones
had perished at the hands of one of the creatures he'd created. His
power would be shown to be finite; he would be seen as clever but not
clever enough, a flawed god, sharing both the hubris and the fate of
Wells's Moreau, and his work more universally would be viewed as folly.
Loman turned right, drove to the. row of executive parking spaces, and
was disappointed to see that neither Shaddack's Mercedes nor his
charcoal-gray van was in his reserved slot. He might still be there. He
could have been driven to the office by someone else or could have
parked elsewhere.
Loman swung his cruiser into Shaddack's reserved space. He cut the
engine.
He was carrying his revolver in a hip holster. He had checked twice
before to be sure it was fully loaded. He checked again.
Between Shaddack's house and New Wave, Loman had parked along the road
to write a note, which he would leave on Shaddack's body, clearly
explaining that he had killed his maker. When authorities entered
Moonlight Cove from the unconverted world beyond, they would find the
note and know.
He would execute Shaddack not because he was motivated by noble purpose.
Such high-minded self-sacrifice required a depth of feeling he could no
longer achieve. He would murder Shaddack strictly because he was
terrified that Shaddack would learn about Denny, or would discover that
others had become what Denny had become, and would find a way to make
all of them' enter into an unholy union with machines. Molten silver
eyes . . .
Drool spilling from the gaping mouth . . .
The segmented probe bursting from the boy's forehead and seeking the
vaginal heat of the computer . . .
Those blood-freezing images, and others, played through, Loman's mind on
an endless loop of memory.
He'd kill Shaddack to save himself from being forced to b come what
Denny had become, and the destruction of Shaddack's legend would just be
a beneficial side-effect.
He holstered his gun and got out of the car. He hurried through the -
339 rain to the main entrance, pushed through the etched-glass doors
into the marble-floored lobby, turned right, away from the elavators,
and approached the main reception desk. In corporate luxury, the place
rivaled the most elaborate headquarters of high-tech companies in the
more famous Silicon Valley, farther south. Detailed marble moldings,
polished brass trim, fine crystal sconces, and modernistic crystal
chandeliers were testament to New Wave's success.
The woman on duty was Dora Hankins. He had known her all of his life.
She was a year older than he. In high school he had dated her sister a
couple of times.
She looked up as he approached, said nothing.
"Shaddack?" he said.
"Not in."
"You sure?"
"Yes.When's he due?"
"His secretary will know."
"I'll go UP."
"Fine.
" As he boarded an elevator and pushed the 3 on the control board, Loman
reflected on the small talk in which he and Dora Hankins would have
engaged in the days before they had been put through the Change. They
would have bantered with each other, exchanged news about their
families, and commented on the weather. Not now. Small talk was a
pleasure of their former world. Converted, they had no use for it. In
fact, though he recalled that small talk had once been a part of
civilized life, Loman could no longer quite remember why he ever had
found it worthwhile or what kind of pleasure it had given him.
Shaddack's office suite was on the northwest corner of the third floor.
The first room off the hall was the reception lounge, Plushly carpeted
in beige Edward Fields originals, impressively furnished in plump
Roche-Bobois leather couches and brass tables with inch-thick glass
tops. The single piece of art was a Painting by Jasper Johns-an
original, not a print.
What happens to artists in the new word coming? Loman wondered.
But he knew the answer. There would be none. Art was emotion embodied
in paint on a canvas, words on a page, music in a symphony hall. There
would be no art in the new world. And if there was, it would be the art
of fear. The writer's most frequently used words would all be synonyms
of darkness. The musician would write dirges of one form or another.
The painter's most used pigment would be black.
Vicky Lanardo, Shaddack's executive secretary, was at her desk. She
said, "He's not in."
Behind her the door to Shaddack's enormous private office!; stood open.
No lights were on in there. It was illuminated only' by the light of
the storm-torn day, which came through the blinds in ash-gray bands.
"When will he be in?" Loman asked.
"I don't know."
"No appointments?"
"None.
"Do you know where he is?"
"NO."
Loman walked ou
t. For a while he prowled the half-deserted corridors,
offices, labs, and tech rooms, hoping to spot Shaddack.
Before long, however, he decided that Shaddack was not lurking about the
premises. Evidently the great man was staying mobile on this last day
of Moonlight Cove's conversion.
Because of me, Loman thought. Because of what I said to him last. night
at Peyser's. He's afraid of me, and he's either staying mobile or gone
to ground somewhere, making himsel' difficult to find.
Loman left the building, returned to his patrol car, and sel out in
search of his maker.
in the downstairs half-bath off the kitchen, naked from the waist up,
Sam sat on the closed lid of the commode, and Tessa performed the same
kind of nursing duties she'd performed earlier for Chrissie. But Sam's
wounds were more serious than the girl's.
In a dime-size circle on his forehead, above his right eye, the skin had
been tensed off, and in the center of the circle the flesh had been
entirely eaten away, revealing a speck of bared bone about an eighth of
an inch in diameter. Stanching the flow of blood from those tiny,
severed capillaries required a few minutes of continuous pressure,
followed by the application of iodine, a liberal coating of NuSkin, and
a tightly taped gauze bandage. But even after all these efforts, the
gauze slowly darkened with red stain.
As Tessa worked on him, Sam told them what had happened ". . . so if
Dean Koontz - (1989) Page 45