V: The Florida Project

by Tim Sullivan

  Starting out of the cell, he wondered what had become of Sabrina. Dr. Morrow must have finally realized he'd been had. Would he punish her, or would he try to force himself on her?

  Would he do worse than that?

  There were two more sentries in the corridor, so he had no chance of getting away now. Three lasers was too much to contend with, especially since the sentries were being extremely cautious.

  They pushed him roughly toward the middle of the compound. In a few moments, they stood before a door. One of the sentries produced a crystal key and inserted it in a slot next to the door.

  The door opened.

  Inside was a dimly lit room. Candelit, in fact. Jack squinted, trying to see what was in store for him. There was a white-jacketed, bearded, silver-haired figure sitting in a chair. Dr. Morrow.

  Sitting across the table from Morrow was a woman, sipping from a wineglass, dressed in a flimsy nightgown.

  It was Sabrina.

  "Leave us," Dr. Morrow commanded the sentries.

  They did as they were told. As soon as the three of them were alone, Sabrina spoke.

  "Hello, Jack," she said.

  "Sabrina—what's this all about?" Jack asked, uncertain of what to do.

  "We're going to make love, Jack," Sabrina said, as if she were telling him what they were having for dinner.

  "What do you mean, 'we'?" Jack asked.

  "You and me—and Dr. Morrow."

  Chapter 35

  "Surely you understand, dear," Sabrina said. "You and I will start, and Dr. Morrow will take over, as is the custom."

  The custom? What was she talking about? Had they done something to her mind? Conversion? Or was she bluffing, playing for time with a new tack?

  If the latter was the case, he didn't want to blow it.

  "Yes, of course," he said.

  "Would you care for some wine, Mr. Stern?" Dr. Morrow asked politely. "I understand that is the custom in these matters."

  "Yes, I think I will have a glass, thank you."

  "I brought these two wineglasses in my suitcase," Sabrina said. "And a bottle of Rothschild '79." She poured him a sparkling glass of wine.

  Jack accepted the glass and downed the liquid in a single gulp. It warmed his insides and seemed to help him think a little more clearly while Sabrina acted out her charade. He had no idea what she had told Morrow about human customs.

  His best bet was to keep his mouth shut and let her do the talking.

  "First, Jack will show you how to kiss me," Sabrina said. "Come here, Jack."

  He set down the glass and went around the table. Bending, he kissed Sabrina deeply.

  "Any time you feel like it," she whispered in his ear as she nuzzled him, "let him have it."

  "Do we go to the bed now?" Dr. Morrow asked.

  "Don't be so eager," Sabrina said. "Proper lovemaking requires time and patience. As a scientist, you understand those two virtues, I'm sure."

  Jack stood behind Sabrina's chair, caressing her shoulders and kissing her soft neck. God, how he had missed her. But he couldn't involve his feelings now.

  "Would you like to try it, Dr. Morrow?" Sabrina asked.

  "Try what he has been doing, you mean?" Morrow said eagerly. "Yes, I would."

  "Come, then," Sabrina said, beckoning him to join them.

  Dr. Morrow pushed back his chair noisily and placed himself next to Jack.

  "You saw what he did, Doctor," she said. "Just do the same thing."

  Sabrina felt his hands on her neck, indistinguishable from the touch of a human being. And yet he wasn't human. He only wore a human disguise, and he hated humans, as did many of his people, perhaps because of their ancient creation myth.

  "That feels good," she said.

  Dr. Morrow rubbed her shoulders more vigorously, forgetting Jack's presence. "And now the kiss?" he asked, bending to plant one.

  Jack's arm shot out and clamped Morrow's throat in a stranglehold. Morrow gasped as Jack squeezed tighter and tighter.

  Sabrina jumped up from the table, shouting as the sentries poured into the room. "He's dead if you don't stay right where you are."

  The sentries hesitated.

  "You fools," Dr. Morrow choked, "kill them."

  Jack put on enough pressure to crush a man's windpipe. Unable to breathe, Dr. Morrow writhed helplessly in Stern's powerful arms.

  "Shoot at us," Jack said, "and I'll tear his head off."

  A bit of an exaggeration, Jack knew, but he assumed they knew little of the limits of human strength. They could see that Dr. Morrow was in great pain, and that seemed to be enough.

  "Back off," Jack commanded the sentries.

  They backed off, moving toward the door. Relieved, Jack relaxed his grip a bit. "Get their guns, Sabrina," he said.

  Sabrina started forward when Jack suddenly felt a rending pain in the fleshy part of his forearm.

  Dr. Morrow was biting him, his razor-sharp teeth tearing through the human mask he wore. Jack tried to hold on, but the pain was too searingly intense. Dr. Morrow broke free of his grasp.

  But before Morrow could get completely away, Jack had him by the hair. A human would have been yanked backward, but not Dr. Morrow. Instead, his scalp tore open, revealing the scaly green hide underneath the pale, synthetic human skin.

  Dr. Morrow stepped away, leaving Jack holding the scalp in his hands. Standing between two sentries, Morrow peeled the rest of his mask away.

  "There's the thing that wanted to make love to you," Jack said, disgusted.

  Dr. Morrow's yellow eyes flashed.

  "You'll pay for this!" he screamed. "Both of you!"

  Sabrina stood next to Jack, her arm encircling his.

  "How touching you both look," Morrow said, regaining some of his composure. "Together again at last."

  "You can destroy us, Dr. Morrow," Jack said. "But you can't destroy what we feel for one another."

  "Then you will have a chance to demonstrate that feeling, Mr. Stern," Morrow hissed. "Take them to the experimental combat area."

  Jack's heart froze. "No, don't take Sabrina there. She didn't know what I was going to do. Take me, but not her."

  "Silence!" Morrow shrieked. He turned to his sentries. "To the arena!"

  Chapter 36

  The two condemned sentries were rudely awakened by boots jostling them from their dreams. Odd dreams of freedom in the case of sentry number one, and in the case of sentry number two, a nightmare of death. The details of their respective dreams faded into vagaries, nothing more than moods, as they were roughly pulled to their feet and marched out into the compound.

  "Where are you taking us?" sentry number one demanded.

  "They're taking us to our deaths," number two said when none of the guards deigned to answer.

  Number one fell silent as they were dragged down a passageway and through a door into the experimental combat area. The place was writhing with spectators seated all the way up to the top of the walls on every side. They hissed and bellowed for blood—his blood, he reflected, and the blood of his moribund friend.

  In his special box, centered underneath the far wall, sat Dr. Morrow. The guards pushed the two doomed sentries toward him. Bright lights nearly blinded them.

  Dr. Morrow, no longer in his human disguise and wearing a crimson jumpsuit, lifted his right claw. The throng immediately fell silent.

  "I have decided to treat you to an unprecedented spectacle tonight," he boomed, his rasping voice echoing through the suddenly still arena. "But first, a small amusement."

  A murmur arose from the crowd at the promise of entertainment.

  "These two cowards before you, who ran away from combat with humans, will now have the opportunity to redeem themselves. They will be given primitive weapons and will fight to the death."

  The crowd roared its approval.

  Dr. Morrow gestured for silence once again. "And the winner will be sent back to the home world in disgrace, to lead a life of drudgery and ostracism."

/>   Hooting and hissing, the crowd showed its eagerness for the spectacle to begin.

  The lights shining on the two combatants were dimmed to a level not much brighter than moonlight. As soon as their eyes recovered and adjusted to the more suitable lighting, a guard appeared, carrying long blades with serrated edges.

  These were handed to the gladiators. Both of them stood hefting the heavy blades up from the dirt, the crowd noisily exhorting them to begin the fight.

  A blue laser beam nearly burned a toe off sentry number two's foot. He lurched forward but still didn't lift the blade.

  Another shot made number one jump.

  "If you do not try to kill each other," Dr. Morrow assured them from the stands, "I will instruct my guards to slaughter you, make no mistake about that."

  "We must try to fight," sentry number one said, "so that at least one of us may live."

  The idea of killing his friend was dreadful, but number two had to agree. They had both been created in the same laboratory and shared a common bond. Now they owed it to each other to finish this bloody business as quickly as possible.

  They began to warily circle one another, round and round, looking for an opening. To each, it was as if he were reliving his nightmare. One of them saw the chance to live, the other saw nothing but death.

  Sentry number one swung his blade. It whistled through the air, missing his opponent by several inches. Many in the crowd shouted encouragement while a few clucked at the obviously half-hearted lunge.

  Sentry number two swung wide in response, and the crowd responded with a little more enthusiasm, though there was dissatisfaction in their cries at the feebleness of the combatants' efforts thus far.

  They continued to circle one another and occasionally sliced the air with their blades as the crowd grew ever more restless. Dr. Morrow instructed a guard to fire a laser at their feet again, to enliven things.

  "If one of you doesn't die here, then you will both die the slowest, most agonizing deaths imaginable."

  The energy beams burning their soles, the two friends knew that they had to fight as if they meant it.

  Suddenly number one saw the flash of his opponent's blade and felt the fiery pain of a cut on his shoulder.

  He raised a claw to the wound, feeling green ichor bubbling out. Shocked and enraged, he charged at his friend without thinking of the consequences. His blade held out to the side, he realized abruptly that he was a vulnerable target. His opponent could have cut him down with a single slice.

  Curiously, sentry number two did no such thing. Instead, he lifted his blade high over his head and hesitated, holding his arm up and providing his friend with a clear, unshielded shot at his torso.

  Closing the membrane over his eyes in grief, number one cut him down with a single slice.

  The crowd raged, its taste for blood thoroughly awakened by this gratuitous killing. The lone sentry, standing over his friend's corpse, wished that he could turn the blade on every one of them.

  His friend had let him kill him, fulfilling the dream of each.

  Sadly, he allowed the guards to lead him out of the arena so that the next spectacle could be made ready.

  Chapter 37

  "Leave the dead one there," Dr. Morrow commanded. "And bring out the actors in our next little drama."

  The door on the far side of the arena slowly lifted, and two humans were pushed forward: Jack and Sabrina.

  Fully half a dozen armed guards followed Jack, their lasers trained on him at every moment. They forced him and Sabrina to the center of the arena, where they stood and waited for ...

  Jack heard a crunching sound at his feet, followed by the unmistakable sound of shifting dirt. He saw a hole open in the arena floor, and a thick column began to rise into the humid night air.

  Dr. Morrow shouted a command in the Visitors' tongue, and the guards pulled Sabrina away from Jack. She was taken to the post and bound to it with crimson cords.

  "Jack," she whimpered. "What are they doing to me?"

  He wanted to go to her, but four weapons were pointed at him. He stood and watched two of the guards finish tying her, wishing that he could get his hands on them for just a few seconds. He swore to himself that if Dr. Morrow came down from his box, he would tear the sadist to bits with his bare hands, lasers or no lasers.

  As soon as Sabrina was securely bound, the guards stepped away from her and joined those pointing weapons at Jack.

  A hush fell over the crowd as Dr. Morrow addressed them.

  "My faithful friends," he said. "You have worked long and faithfully in the service of our cause. Tomorrow, we will launch an attack on the local humans, destroying them all so that no rumor of our presence here can reach their disorganized authorities.

  "But tonight, as a prelude to the pleasure that awaits us in the morning, we shall enjoy a spectacle that no one has ever witnessed before. The mating of human woman, man, and—"

  Dr. Morrow flung a claw out in the direction of the opposing wall, and a door began to rise from the ground up. Jack watched, his hopes fading as the taloned feet of the prototype came into view, followed by its scaly, tree-trunk-size legs, its armored belly and chest, and finally its hideous fanged snout.

  "If Mr. Stern should be so cruel as to kill the poor beast," Dr. Morrow said, "then he and Dr. Fontaine will be set free. But if the beast should kill him ..."

  He left the sentence purposely unfinished. The crowd, at first waiting for him to complete it, slowly began to get the joke. They registered their approbation as loudly as a tidal wave.

  So, Jack thought, if Dr. Morrow couldn't have menage a trois, he would have his revenge with this grotesque travesty of the act he had believed he would perform with Sabrina. But in Dr. Morrow's place would be the prototype, and there would be no mercy.

  The gigantic reptile-man emerged from the shadows, slowly at first. Its huge form didn't look as if it could move quickly, but Jack had seen what it could do. No human ever moved that fast.

  He would have to outsmart it, if he and Sabrina were to have any chance at all. Never taking his eyes off the advancing monster, he made his way toward the nearest wall.

  The reptile-man stopped moving, beady black eyes swiveling from Jack to Sabrina and back again.

  "Hey, you!" Jack shouted at it.

  The monster turned its immense head toward him.

  "That's right," Jack bellowed belligerently. "I'm talking to you, you ugly bastard."

  The crowd was stilled at this unexpected behavior. They sensed that they were going to get a better fight than they had bargained for.

  The prototype seemed confused at Jack's baiting. After a few seconds, it decided the noise was meaningless and turned back toward Sabrina, who squirmed on the pole tantalizingly.

  Seeing that he was losing its attention, Jack looked around him desperately. He picked up a clod of dried mud and hurled it at the monster.

  The clod bounced off its armored head. It was only the merest annoyance, Jack was sure, but it was enough to distract the thing from Sabrina, at least for the moment.

  "Sabrina," he shouted, "stay still. It's attracted by your movements."

  Sabrina was frightened out of her wits, whimpering and struggling to free herself. Nevertheless, she tried to do as Jack said. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed every muscle in her body with a tremendous exertion of will.

  "Come on, big boy," Jack yelled, "over here!" He jumped up and down, waving his arms. "What are you, chicken?"

  The reptile-man stood squarely facing him, tail lashing angrily. Its misshapen head reared back, and it let out a bone-chilling, subhuman wail.

  Jack put his back to the wall. "Come on, you ugly sucker!"

  The monster charged.

  Chapter 38

  Jack spun, scraping one arm against the wall as he came up between the monster's legs in a crouch.

  The beast-man smashed headfirst into the wall. There was a resounding crack! Staggering, the monster tried to find Jack's remains on the
ground, and then realized that it had been outsmarted.

  "Very good!" Dr. Morrow shouted from his box. "Very clever indeed, Mr. Stern. But you have only served to enrage the creature further."

  Jack tried not to listen. He danced in front of the snarling monster, taunting it, challenging it to come after him again.

  "You have already seen its strength," Morrow called to him, "and you know it is impervious to projectile weapons."

  The monster's tail snapped like a whip as Jack moved back and forth in front of it.

  "But you don't know that we intend to create an army of these warrior beast-men. Imagine them coming out of the swamps, killing and terrorizing humankind, demoralizing you from below while our ships attack you from above." Dr. Morrow's foot-long tongue shot out of his mouth in delight as he thought of how sweet his vengeance would be.

  Opening its cavernous jaws, the monster roared its terrifying subhuman war cry and lunged toward Jack again. Jack stood his ground, watching the monster loom large.

  "Jack!" Sabrina screamed, unable to stand it any longer. "Look out!"

  The monster's shadow covered him before he acted. Then he threw himself forward on his side and rolled in the dirt. He heard the monster hiss as it tried to stop its forward momentum.

  But it was too late. Jack's cross-body block knocked it off balance. The clawed feet tore Jack's shoulder, and he feared that the monster's huge bulk would topple onto him and crush him to death.

  Jack kept his body rolling in spite of the agony of his injured shoulder. The monster's tail struck the side of his head, stunning him. He ended up lying flat on his back in the dust, clutching his shoulder. Blinking into the arena lights, he waited for the monster to fall. He had completely lost his bearings in the few seconds since he had jumped in front of the charging beast. He was certain it was going to fall on him and kill him now.

  A collision shook the earth. Deliriously, Jack wondered what could have caused it. An earthquake? No, not in this part of the world.

  He rose painfully to his knees and saw the flailing monster on its back. It had spun around like a bowling pin and was now as helpless as a newborn babe.