Half museum and half antique shop, Sir Gottfrey’s executive suite was littered with the statuettes of the past’s famous and infamous, all washed in the morning sun that poured freely through the glass wall facing the ocean. The other walls were covered in posters and paintings depicting iconic figures of long-forgotten centuries—military leaders, kings and queens, musicians and artists, politicians, and religious zealots—dozens of faces drowned in anonymity under the ban of the Church, but whose memory was kept alive inside Sir Gottfrey’s history-buff den. Like a mouse negotiating the twists, turns, and dead-ends of a maze, the man guided his nongrav armchair around the cluttered artifacts, sailing gently between Martin Luther King’s outstretched arms and Billy Idol’s diamond-covered guitar.
“Today is another glorious bloody Sunday, miladies. And Sunday is a day of rest,” Sir Gottfrey said, words dipped in Cockney all the way to their neck, as he approached the door of his executive suite. “No exception, miladies. Ol’ chap Moses had it right for once—six days thou shalt work, and the seventh day thou shalt have some bloody fun. Ha-ha!”
Flanking the exit door, four identical Joan of Arcs focused their digitally enhanced pupils on their master. The four cyborgs sported the same pixie cut and wore elaborate fraises around their necks. The fluffy ruffs separated their cute, innocent heads from the rest of their bodies built like those of track athletes. Thin layers of titanium alloy covered their vital parts, like patches of gladiator armor. Whatever was left to view—which was plenty—was nothing but synthetic muscle, chiseled to perfection to serve its martial purpose. The kind of women you don’t want to bloody fock with—that had been Sir Gottfrey’s tagline when he’d commissioned them.
“Protocol Cheap Butterfly Broken Katana activated,” a Joan of Arc said. “Shall we proceed to the party, milord”?
“We shall, miladies, we shall,” Sir Gottfrey said.
The paneled doors parted and loud organ music poured in from the corridor that opened to view. Sir Gottfrey glided through.
“Ah, Beethoven, that bloody jerk-off! Ta-ta-ta-ta! If only I could get my hands on a strand of his hair or one of his rotten molars!”
Green fluorescent light seeped from the ceiling, casting an eerie glow over the man and his entourage of organs and cyborgs as they all made their way toward the elevator doors at the end of the corridor.
“The Monkey Who Covers Its Ears is the Sister of the Monkey Who Covers Its Mouth,” a Joan of Arc said, and her eyes blinked a few times scanning the corridor ahead. A string of tiny digits flashed in her irises as laser sensors assessed distances and open lines of fire.
“Fockin’ bloody monkey,” Gottfrey said. “So I guess all we have for today are leftovers, am I correct, miladies?”
“The Templars against the Lions, milord,” a second Joan of Arc replied. “An encore.”
From behind the glass walls on either side, Sigmund Freud, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, and Muammar Gaddafi kept staring into a void not of their own choosing, resigned and serene. The prized trophies of a hundred years of genetic engineering, the five frozen replika specimens—the grandbabies of Dolly the Sheep—paid no mind or homage to their Maker as he glided by with his organs in tow. Behind him, his four bodyguards walked in sync, the heels of their boots marking the seconds on the granite tiles, while the Ninth Symphony poured from the ceiling in relentless waves.
“Encore my arse! Nothing but bloody leftovers,” Sir Gottfrey said, and he grimaced.
He grabbed the duct connected to his heart, pulled his organ in, set it on his lap, and started to drum nervously with his fingers on its glass box.
“But we do have a show coming, don’t we, miladies?”
The four bodyguards stopped. The organs bounced to a halt.
“Oh, yes, we sure do,” Sir Gottfrey said. He grinned, a macabre squint in his eyes. “One week, miladies—seven days, seven resolutions of old planet Earth around the fockin’ sun, and we shall have one hell of a bloody show on our hands, make no mistake about it.”
A bell rang. The doors to the elevator parted with a torturous squeak.
“Bada Bing, Bada Boom—Calvary, here I come!” Sir Gottfrey said, and he glided inside the elevator.
His five encased organs and four bodyguards followed him.
Soon Available On AmazonKindle and in Paperback:
Coming up in the Spring of 2014,
on AmazonKindle and in Paperback:
MISBEGOTTEN
A Tale of Two Clones
Volume One
The Road to Harlequin Island
I.
Runaway Nun
II.
Tear of Death
III.
‘Cause You’re Famous, Babe!
Epilogue
The Coffee Rosary
For regular updates on the state of this project, check us out at:
www.Facebook.com/MisbegottenTheNovel
Runaway Nun (Misbegotten) Page 6