The Fixer

by Woods, T E

  The prospect’s first contact had come a week earlier. The Fixer was amused when her call back was answered with a digitized voice mimicking the same technology she liked to use. Two voices altered to disguise any hint of gender, age, or dialect spoke for less than three minutes. Another call two days later confirmed the time and place for their meeting: Pier 39 on the Seattle waterfront. A location The Fixer knew well.

  At precisely eleven o’clock the Fixer stepped from behind the dust-covered shipping crate that served as her surveillance spot. She’d been in the warehouse nearly two hours, hoping to gain any advantage a glimpse of her prospect’s arrival might offer. But no one came. She heard no vehicle approach. No door creaked open. No flashlight broke the darkness. She’d remained hidden and watching deep in the maze of ladders, forklifts, containers, and carts that had once been the tools of an active import-export business. The company’s founder had a heart attack three years earlier trying to convince a longshoreman to work his crew past quitting time. Dropped dead into a shipment of canvas patio umbrellas at the age of fifty-three. A court battle between his two sons left the place locked and gathering cobwebs while their respective lawyers bled their legacy dry waging dueling lawsuits.

  A spotlight snapped on before she made three steps. The Fixer froze. She looked up and estimated the light to be twelve feet overhead. The warehouse was an impenetrable shadow outside a three foot circle of bright white. Her eyes tried to adjust to the glare as she willed her breathing to return to normal. She took a few slow steps. The spotlight followed her. She stopped and looked up.

  “Hey, no worries, huh, buddy?” she called out. “I don’t mean no harm. Just looking for a place out of the rain’s all. Thought this place was deserted. No problem. I’ll be on my way.” The Fixer headed for the door.

  “Stop where you are.” A digitized voice blasted from unseen speakers.

  “Whoa!” She turned circles, looking up. “You some kind of robo cop? That’s cool.” The Fixer held her arms out to the side for inspection. Black leather jacket over ankle-length black velvet skirt. Men’s work boots, scuffed and scratched. Leather gloves with silver studs. Short black hair spiked and gelled. Safety pins pierced her ear lobes, complemented by a delicate silver nose ring. Heavy black eye makeup accentuated pale gray eyes. “Scan me if you want, brother. I’m clean. I got none of your crap on me, I swear. Just looking to stay dry.” She ventured another step.

  “I said stop. Stand still while I figure out what to do.” The Fixer smiled at the hesitancy in the electronically masked warning.

  “Hey, buddy. You wouldn’t be a fella name of Jones, would ‘ya?” She shielded her eyes with her gloved hands as she looked toward the rafters.

  The silence relaxed The Fixer. She leaned against a dusty file cabinet and waited for a response.

  “Are you Carr?” the mechanical voice finally asked.

  “I am.” The Fixer saluted the light. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d turn down the spot.”

  “But you’re a woman. I wouldn’t have guessed that.” The spotlight dimmed sufficiently enough to end the harsh glare.

  “No one ever does.” The Fixer stepped to the center of the light. “Now let me see you.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Ms Carr. We’ll conduct things this way, if you don’t mind.”

  Her anger flared. “We’re done here, Jones. I don’t do business with invisible voices.” She walked to the door, her ire punctuated with every step.

  “Wait!” A man’s voice came over the speaker. “Please. Don’t go. I need you.”

  The Fixer stopped but didn’t look back. “All you have to do is step out and introduce yourself. We’ll take it from there.”

  “I’m afraid, Ms Carr. This is all very new to me.” A woman’s voice over the speakers. “Please hear me out.”

  “How many of you are up there?” The Fixer turned to again face the light. “I came here to meet with Jones. Just Jones.”

  “And that’s what you have. I came alone.” A child’s lilt from the speakers. “Tell me a voice your comfortable with, Ms Carr. I can give it to you.”

  Curiosity pulled The Fixer back a few slow steps. “What have you got up there, Jones?”

  “Whose voice do you like, Ms Carr?” A woman this time. With a thick Irish brogue. “Try me.”

  The Fixer stepped forward in challenge, captivated with the technology suggested. “Let’s hear Barbara Streisand.”

  Nearly a minute passed in silence. The Fixer wrestled an inner warning to find the nearest door and run.

  “Well hello, gorgeous.” The voice over the speaker was unmistakably Barbara Streisand’s. The cadence was slowed, as if each word was pieced together from an infinite library of the diva’s iterations, but the inflection and tone were perfect. Anyone over the age of twenty-five would be certain they were listening to the superstar.

  “That’s some gadget you got there, Jones. But I’m going to have to see you if you want this conversation to go any further.”

  “If you could indulge me, Ms Carr.” La Streisand asked. “Please. Watch this.”

  The light that had been tracking The Fixer went dark and was replaced by the glow of a large television mounted on the side of a catwalk above her to the right. The image of a middle aged man filled the screen. Late 40’s she’d guessed. Fit, handsome, and with the body of an athlete. His face unlined and his suit custom-tailored. He walked with the easy grace of someone who knew he turned heads. There was no audio as the man ascended to a podium. He shook hands with several people before taking his place behind a lectern. He smiled into the camera and pulled note cards from his pocket.

  “That’s Fred Bastian.” The speaker now projected a man’s voice. Soft southern accent. “Some say he’s the best in his field. Maybe destined for the Nobel Prize some day.”

  “But you say different, I suppose.” The Fixer wanted to get to the reason for the meeting.

  “Dr. Bastian is a butcher, Ms Carr. A fiend. A sadist of the highest order.”

  “What is it you want, Jones? By the way, is it Miss or Mister Jones?” The Fixer grew weary of the game.

  “Jones is fine, Ms Carr.” This time a woman with the nasal inflection of a New Jersey housewife. “Bastian is chair of neuroscience at the university. He’s built his career identifying and locating the molecular substrates of human emotions. Most of his work is with animals. ‘Non-human primates’ he calls them. He does most of his experiments on monkeys and chimpanzees.”

  The Fixer knew of Bastian’s lab. Over the years it had been the target of demonstrations by animal rights activists. She recalled an investigation by the National Institutes of Health a few years earlier.

  “I’m listening.” No need for Jones to have any indication of her knowledge of the scientist’s work. “What do you have in mind?”

  The response came as a female voice from the heartland. Devoid of accent as any network anchor. “Bastian’s lab has as many as fifty primates at any given time. Caged. Chained if necessary. Screaming for their freedom at first. Soon learning they’re helpless and submitting to captivity. Huddling in the corners of small crates. Some starving themselves to death but most succumbing to the seduction of survival and performing for their captors who come twice a day with kibbles and fruit.”

  The television switched to another video. Bastian smiling into the camera as he gave a tour of his lab. Green porcelain tiles covered the walls. White-coated assistants stood behind black-topped utility tables. The audio was muted, but The Fixer assumed Bastian was pointing out various instruments or explaining his theories or research protocols. She watched Bastian go to a large steel door, key an entry code into an electronic panel, and push the door open.

  The audio blared into action as Bastian entered his holding rooms. Unseen dogs barked. Monitors beeped. Bastian spoke directly to the camera with an assured voice. “And now the stars of our little show.”

  The camera tracked dozens of cages that filled the sterile room
. Monkeys peered out as Bastian walked by and identified them for his audience. The small macaque and tamarinds. The proboscis and squirrel monkeys. Several with shaved heads. Two with implanted electrodes. Faces of pleading fear captured in heartbreaking close-up by the zoom lens.

  “Here are my larger specimens,” Bastian led the way to another room. Four monkeys were in individual cages. “First, a male and female baboon.” Bastian put his hand on top of their respective cells. “They allow me to measure the hormonal contribution to emotions.” He turned away from the cowering animals and directed the camera to the final set of cages.

  “Meet Frost and Nixon”. Bastian smiled at the two captives. “Chimpanzees. Ninety-six percent of their DNA held in common with humans. Very social animals in the wild. They form clans of 100 or more. Like families. The information we get from them is as close to humans as possible.” The camera framed the two chimps. Electrodes protruding from their skulls. Catheters inserted into their arms and penises. Nixon held his arm out, reaching through the cage in supplication.

  The video went blank. The Fixer took two deep breaths and tried to shake the images from her mind.

  “Okay, so Bastian’s an asshole,” she called up to the rafters. “I don’t get involved with the politics of academic research. Contact some sort of review board.”

  This time a woman with a soft English accent. “Bastian brings millions in grant funding to the university. The regulatory agencies are under-funded at best. Apathetic at worst. Even the newspapers aren’t interested.”

  “Lots of universities conduct animal research, Jones. It’s an evil, I’ll give you that. But it doesn’t warrant my involvement.”

  “Think back to your history lessons, Ms Carr.” This time it was the patrician tones of a Boston male speaking to her. “Back to the beheadings in ancient Rome or during the French Revolution.”

  “Your grace period is long past, Jones.” The Fixer wanted her prospect to know her irritation. “You want to waste my time on a Western Civ review or do you want to tell me what you want?”

  “When I’m finished, Ms Carr, you’ll have no question about the need to rid the world of Dr. Bastian’s work. Indulge me, please?” Sincerity rang through the synthesized plea. The Fixer gave a reluctant nod.

  “Recall the scene re-created in countless epics. The defeated led to the chopping block. The blood-thirsty mob gathered to witness their payback. The victor grabbing the severed head and holding it aloft for the cheering crowds.”

  “What’s this got to do with Bastian?” The Fixer stood with her hands on her hips. “You’ve got two minutes before I walk out of here.”

  “Common lore has those severed heads held high so the crowd could savor their revenge.” The Boston-accented man had the perfect voice for this history lesson. “However, the act served another purpose. You see, the victims’ senses continued to work for as long as a person can hold their breath. What’s that, Ms Carr? A minute? Perhaps ninety seconds? The victor could turn the poor soul’s gaze for a horrifying view of their own headless body. One last exquisite torture before the great abyss.”

  The Fixer swallowed hard. The list of ways humans could be cruel to one was as endless as the heavens. “What’s this have to do with Bastian? I won’t ask again.”

  “You’ve seen the monkeys in Bastian’s lab. You’ve heard the dogs. I’m sorry they’re not enough to convince you. Let me tell you about Ortoo.”

  The video came to life again. The Fixer took a shuffled step back as the screen filled with a colossal hairy face.

  “Ortoo’s a Silverback Gorilla. A rare specimen in the wild, let alone in captivity. Silverback’s are between 98 and 99 percent genetically identical to humans. Our closest cousin.” Jones fell silent as The Fixer watched Ortoo pace back and forth in a room-sized cage.

  “Ortoo was somewhere around 20 years old when this video was taken. Full in his prime. Did you know, Ms Carr, that gorillas live 50 years? Some more. They have individual fingerprints. They even have face-to-face sex. I’m sure you’re aware that it’s possible for them to learn sign language and communicate thoughts and feelings with us.”

  The Fixer watched Ortoo grab the iron bars of his cage in his massive hands, yanking on them as he roared and bared his teeth.

  “Ortoo must have been the dominant troop leader prior to his capture.” Jones continued the lesson. “He never went submissive. In the end I think that’s what cost him. Bastian was never able to make Ortoo grovel.”

  “Bastian has a gorilla?” The Fixer asked. “Does he conduct research at a zoo?”

  A soft sigh came through the speakers. “No one knows how Bastian got him. He kept him in a secret facility. The few assistants who held Bastian in god-like esteem were the only ones who knew Ortoo existed.”

  “How did you get this tape?”

  “I can’t answer that, Ms Carr. Please allow me one last story. Like I said, Bastian was incensed by the gorilla’s insistence on dominance. He could get near Ortoo only when the animal was fully sedated. He implanted electrodes but all he got from Ortoo was rage. No fear. No submission. Ortoo never gave him the subtle emotional distinctions Bastian was looking for in his research. I even think Bastian began to fear him. At least that’s my hope.”

  The Fixer wasn’t watching the clock any more.

  “After nearly a year Bastian realized Ortoo was a liability. He was of no research benefit. Bastian couldn’t give him to a zoo. He’d have to explain how he came into possession of a Silverback. He couldn’t return him to the wild. It must have been difficult enough to smuggle Ortoo in. He couldn’t risk detection by returning him to the jungle.” A resigned breath came across the speakers. “One night a casual conversation gave Bastian his out. And his revenge.”

  “What happened?”

  “Bastian was holding court with his inner circle of research assistants. Wine and cheese while Bastian pontificated and soaked up the unquestioning worship he demanded of his graduate students.” The speakers shifted to a woman’s tender voice. “One particular night the topic centered on proving that a severed head could, indeed, continue to function once it was separated from its body. Neuroscientists are often intrigued by ghoulish topics. Bastian suggested an experiment.”

  “Ortoo?” The Fixer whispered her question.

  “I imagine some of the lab assistants were emboldened by the wine. Maybe others were terrified of Bastian’s power to ruin a career with one phone call.” The woman’s voice turned sad. “For whatever reason the entire meeting headed out to Ortoo’s hidden prison.”

  The overhead television came back on. The Fixer saw again the spartan room. She heard various voices, male and female, chattering behind whoever carried the video camera. She watched Ortoo pacing his cage. Saw him look up when the research entourage approached the mighty behemoth. Ortoo shifted into a violent rage several seconds later and The Fixer assumed Bastian had entered the room.

  “He recorded this? Why?”

  “Ego, Ms Carr. Bastian believed every move he made was of profound importance. He was convinced future generations of scientists would benefit from his archiving every step of his work. No matter how mundane or cruel.”

  The Fixer watched a dart fly into the raging beast’s chest and tried hard to swallow the bile rising in the back of her throat. Less than a minute later Ortoo was slumped in his cell, his breathing rapid and shallow. The screen went black for a second, then resumed to show Ortoo chained spread-eagle in his cage. Wires had been connected to the dozens of permanently implanted electrodes in his giant skull. Lingering effects of the tranquilizing agent were evident as Ortoo struggled to lift his head off his gargantuan chest.

  No people were seen, but the television speaker blared the audio of a scolding man.

  “Damn it, give me the blasted tool.” Bastian’s angry face came into view. The camera captured him as he approached Ortoo’s cell and opened the door. The gorilla tried to react to his captor but a roll of his titanic head and a small grimace
was all he could muster.

  Bastian looked off to the right before turning back to the camera with a nod. “One fifteen a.m. Subject is approached.” He toggled the switch on a long-bladed reciprocating saw and entered the cell. Stepping past the chains that held Ortoo, Bastian circled behind the once-proud Alpha and climbed onto a stool. He grabbed a handful of the gorilla’s hair and jerked back, exposing the mighty primate’s thick throat. The throbbing veins in his own telegraphed Bastian’s rage.

  “One sixteen a.m.” Bastian called out to the camera. “Subject is sacrificed.”

  Bastian placed the blade against Ortoo’s windpipe and sawed. A geyser of red erupted. The Fixer added her own gasp to those heard on the television. Bastian maintained his vice-grip on Ortoo’s hair as he manipulated the whirring saw through muscle and bone. Ten long seconds passed as the scientist struggled to free Ortoo’s massive head without disturbing any electrode lead.

  Bastian was covered in blood, muscle bits, and bone fragments as he cut through the last slippery sinew connecting Ortoo’s head to his body. He threw the saw to the concrete floor.

  He yelled to no one in particular. “Are we recording?”

  Bastian scurried around Ortoo’s body, still suspended in chains. The camera captured him taking two quick steps outside the cell before he turned the bloody head toward the carcass in the cage.

  “How’s that, you bastard ape?” He screamed as he held the severed head high in two hands. “You see that? You know who I am now, monkey?”

  The gruesome image on the screen disappeared. The Fixer didn’t move.

  “Bastian got what he was looking for.” The speaker this time was a female child. “The EEG signals proved beyond any doubt that Ortoo’s brain was registering the sight of his own headless body. For the first time Bastian got an emotion other than rage from Ortoo.” The child’s voice caught. “The readings on the EEG were identical to human terror.”

  The Fixer stood silent. Her body weary from the weight of the depravity she’d just witnessed.