by Amy Cross
“I see.” Hanson paused, looking down at his desk for a moment as if he was struggling to come up with a response. “Mr. Robinson,” he said finally, “I hate to waste your time, and the truth is, I feel we might not be good bedfellows.” He moved a couple of pieces of paper from one side of his desk to the other, clearly trying to look busy. “I'm sure you've had great success, but-” He glanced at Robinson, and immediately froze.
Sitting in the chair, Robinson was now holding a human forearm bone, gently tapping one end against the palm of his right hand while smiling quizzically.
“Mr. Robinson,” Hanson said after a moment, “I...”
“Yes?”
“You...” He paused.
“I what?”
“You...”
“Oh, this?” Robinson replied, looking down at the bone. “Sorry, I can imagine that it's a little off-putting.” Leaning forward, he placed the bone on Hanson's desk. “I recently liberated this from a friend's safe. It's a priceless religious relic, you know, and some people even...” He paused, with a faint smile on his lips. “Well, you'll think this is complete hogwash, but some people have taken to claiming that this is the bone of an angel. I know, it's amazing how impressionable the human mind can be, but nevertheless, that is the story and I believe the monks are sticking to it. That's the problem with monks. You can never get one to admit he's wrong, no matter how much evidence you put in front of him.”
Hanson stared at the bone, and all the color seemed to have drained from his face now.
“The legend,” Robinson continued, “says that the Archangel Lucas came down to visit mankind a few centuries ago, noised around a little, and then headed back upstairs, leaving some remains behind. Why he'd do that, well, it's all rather lost in the mists of time, isn't it? Still, the story is the story, and that bone is said to be the only part of him that exists to this day.” He paused, watching the deeply uncomfortable expression on Hanson's face. “Of course, such things are absolute nonsense, aren't they? Angels can't possibly exist, so what we have here is simply a very well-preserved bone from a normal man.” He paused again, trying to judge the perfect moment to deliver his next little hint. “Shame, really. There's some meaty marrow left in this thing -”
He reached across to grab the bone, but Hanson put a hand out to stop him.
“Why did you bring this to me, Mr. Robinson?”
“Well,” Robinson replied, “either it's a stunning coincidence and I take the bone everywhere I go, or I did my homework and I learned that you might be interested in such a thing.”
“You clearly know more about our business here than you've been letting on,” Hanson said cautiously.
“Do you think so? Well, yes, I suppose that might be the case.” Robinson kept his eyes fixed on Hanson, who in turn couldn't tear his gaze away from the bone. “I would hazard a guess that this bone is priceless,” he continued, “especially when it comes to the kind of work you're carrying out. As I told you earlier, Mr. Hanson, I'm a very hands-on investor. When one is considering sinking ten-figure sums into various companies, one would be remiss not to do a little digging.”
“Name your price.”
“I'm sorry?”
“Name your price and we'll buy this item from you.”
“It's not for sale.”
“It must be.”
Robinson shook his head.
“It must be!”
“Well, it's not.”
“Don't play games with me,” Hanson continued, clearly struggling to stay calm. “Just name your price.”
“It's not for sale,” Robinson said again. “However, I might be willing to loan it out, if I could be convinced that it would be used for something... worthwhile. Or even just something interesting.”
“Everything's for sale,” Hanson replied.
“Not my bone.”
“How did you hear about this company?”
“I did my research,” Robinson told him. “Your company brochures are maddeningly vague, almost as if you're trying to bore people and keep them from poking into your affairs. So I asked around, dug into a few dark spots, made some assumptions and leaped to a few conclusions, and now here we are.” He paused, enjoying every moment of Hanson's extreme discomfort. “Of course, I'm not trying to force your hand. If you don't want to work with me, or you think you can't, that's your choice, but...” His voice trailed off for a moment.
“But what?” Hanson asked.
“You see,” Robinson continued, “I don't think you're physically capable of letting me leave this office with that bone. You want it, you need it, you have to have it... You're a tightly-wound ball of nervous energy, Mr. Hanson, and you're struggling to contain yourself. Were I to get up, take my bone and walk toward the door, you'd have to stop me, wouldn't you? You don't even know how you'd do it, but you'd even resort to violence if necessary.”
He waited for an answer, but Hanson seemed far too agitated to respond.
“Perhaps we should test my theory,” Robinson added, getting to his feet. “I'll just take this -”
He reached out for the bone.
“No,” Hanson said firmly, grabbing the bone and pulling it away. There was sweat on his forehead now, and his hands were trembling.
“Well,” Robinson continued, “it is mine.”
“What do you want?” Hanson asked, his voice filled with barely-repressed anger.
“I'd be happy to leave the bone here,” Robinson told him, “if I had some idea what it would be used for.” He glanced at the D.N.A. painting. “I'm a naturally inquisitive man.” Turning, he looked at the painting of Harrington Cole. “Curiosity can lead a man down some dark paths, you know.”
“We have a laboratory,” Hanson replied.
“I assumed as much,” Robinson said, turning to him.
“We conduct various studies.”
“And?”
“This bone would be of great value to us,” Hanson continued. “We've been struggling with the previous samples we acquired, since none of them contained the level of biological material that we really needed. We've had to scrape sub-standard samples, but this...” He stared at the bone as if it was the most wonderful thing he'd ever seen.
“But my bone would be a big step up, wouldn't it?” Robinson replied. “It's rather meaty, in fact I think you could cook up a nice pot of broth from that -”
“I need it,” Hanson said firmly.
“Then persuade me,” Robinson replied. “Show me why I should help you.” He paused for a moment, watching as Hanson turned the bone over in his hands. “I don't know if this helps with your decision-making process,” he added finally, “but you might be interested to know that I have a very loose moral outlook. There's nothing that I consider to be too far in the name of science. I believe in progress, above everything else.”
“I'll show you,” Hanson replied, finally looking at him again. “Come with me, and I'll show you everything.”
***
“Milhouse!” a voice called out. “Oi, Milhouse!”
“Busy,” he muttered, making his way along the corridor before suddenly feeling a tap on his shoulder. Turning, he found Detective Carter standing behind him. “Like I said,” he continued with a faint sigh, “I'm busy.”
“You're gonna be even busier in a minute,” Carter replied breathlessly. “We've got one for you.”
“One what?”
“You know, one of those cases you always like so much.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Everyone knows you're the go-to guy for cases that are a bit weird.”
Milhouse paused for a moment, considering the implications of those words. “They do? I didn't know I was developing a reputation.”
“You're gonna love this one,” Carter continued, taking a step back. “Some nutter's going on about angels.”
***
“Okay,” Milhouse said, taking a look at the second page of the witness statement for a moment, “so let me
get this straight... Craig, isn't it?”
The scruffy, painfully thin man on the other side of the table nodded.
“You were approached in a park and offered a deal?”
“They said I could have food and somewhere to sleep,” Craig replied. “The guy even said he'd get me some new clothes and a pair of shoes.”
“Yeah,” Milhouse muttered, glancing at Craig's tattered clothes, which in some places had worn through to show glimpses of flesh. “That might not be such a bad idea. So this guy, he offered you all sorts of things -”
“Obviously I figured he was after something dodgy,” Craig continued. “I mean, people don't usually offer free stuff to people like me, so I had him down as a pervert, or maybe a full-on murderer.” He paused for a moment. “Or, you know, maybe someone from the church.”
“And then what happened?”
“I turned him down,” Craig explained. “I mean, he wanted me to go in his van. He kept saying how he could tell I was pure, how he had a sixth sense about that sort of thing. The guy was kinda friendly, but in a creepy way. So I told him I wasn't interested, and he kept offering more and more stuff but I still wasn't having it, and he had these two goons standing nearby and I thought they were gonna set about me. After a few minutes, he was offering me wads of cash and stuff, and all he wanted was for me to go with him in this van and listen to some story about what he was trying to do.”
“Sounds... elaborate,” Milhouse muttered, making on a note on the witness statement.
“And that's when he starts going on about angels.”
“In what sense, exactly?”
“Asking me if I believed in them.”
“Seems like an odd thing for one man to ask another.”
“He really got going about it,” Craig continued. “He was telling me that I could help him with this big project, and he said I'd be totally, like, amazed if only I'd let him show me what he was doing. I started to get really creeped out, and I just wanted to get out of there. I mean, there was clearly something wrong with the guy.”
“So what happened next?”
“I told him to fuck off and I walked away.”
“So what happened,” Milhouse continued, trying to hide his frustration, “between you walking away, and you getting arrested for causing a disturbance outside Charing Cross station?”
“They came after me, didn't they?” he replied. “I headed up away from the river, and I thought they'd given up, and then suddenly the van stops in front of me and they tried to bundle me inside.”
“As in, physically manhandle you?”
“Exactly.”
“And you managed to get away?”
“I bolted. Reached the front of the station before I saw the two goons up ahead, and then I just flipped. I mean, I'm not a paranoid guy usually, but these people were creepy and I was really starting to panic. It was okay, though, 'cause as soon as I started making a fuss in public, they totally backed off. They blatantly didn't want any attention drawn to them, so they high-tailed it out of there as fast as possible.”
“Which is when you were arrested while you were ranting about being kidnapped by angels,” Milhouse continued.
“Not kidnapped by angels,” Craig said, correcting him. “It was more like they were kidnapping me for angels. It was almost like they were gonna feed me to something.”
“Sounds melodramatic.”
“You don't believe me, do you?”
Milhouse stared at the witness statement for a moment longer, before turning to him. “Thousands wouldn't, Craig... but as a matter of fact, I do believe you. I even -”
Hearing a knock at the door, he turned just in time to see Wagoner storming into the room.
“Out!” the older man bellowed.
“I'm sorry?” Milhouse replied, genuinely shocked.
“Out, now!” Wagoner continued furiously, holding the door open for him. “I need to talk to you about something!”
“Hang on, Craig,” Milhouse said with a sigh, getting to his feet. “I'll be back in a minute.”
“If you're lucky,” Wagoner said firmly.
Heading out into the corridor, Milhouse took a moment to reset his thoughts and ready himself for a verbal battering, as his boss pulled the door shut and turned to him.
“Fancy a guess,” Wagoner said breathlessly, “as to what your friend Robinson has been up to lately?”
“I honestly don't have a clue, Sir.”
“How about the fact that we caught him hacking into the police computer system and copying large portions of our database?”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Via your phone.”
Milhouse sighed.
“It's a good job you reported your phone missing yesterday,” Wagoner continued, “otherwise we might have assumed it was you. Fortunately, Mr. Robinson didn't cover his tracks very well, so our analysts were able to determine that it was him. Leaving aside the fact that you should never have let him get hold of your phone in the first place, I'm sure you can appreciate that this is a very serious situation.”
“Maybe there's been a mistake.”
“You don't think he'd stoop to hacking into our servers?”
“I'm sure he does that frequently,” Milhouse replied, “but I'm surprised you caught him. Not unless he wanted you to know he was in there.”
“He's a national security threat,” Wagoner continued, clearly still angry. “It's one thing for the man to be an inconvenience, but I've finally got him banged to rights! Do you know that this means?”
“Perhaps you can explain the -”
“It means I can have him arrested as a potential terrorist!”
“Steady on, Sir. Robinson might be a little unusual, but he's definitely not a -”
“I should've known you were going to defend him,” Wagoner continued. “I hope you realize that the only way he could have entered our system is if he had help? If I find that you've got anything to do with this, Milhouse -”
“No way,” he replied. “Sir, I know Robinson can be difficult and I know he gets involved with things that aren't strictly his business, but I can assure you he's not -”
“So you didn't give him your phone on purpose?”
“Of course not.”
“You might very well have to testify to that fact under oath.”
“I let him look at something on my phone,” Milhouse replied, “and then he took off with it. To be honest, he might not have meant to take it, he might have just forgotten to give it back to me.”
“And then he also forgot to not access the police computer systems with the damn thing?”
“So why did he leave a trace behind?” Milhouse asked. “He could've accessed it without doing that, it's almost like he deliberately wanted you to -”
“Save it,” Wagoner told him. “If you think, for even one second, that I'm letting this matter go, you're even dumber than I thought. With the evidence I've got against him, this Robinson guy is going away for a long time, and you're be wise to tread carefully if you want to keep from going down with him. Even if you weren't involved in this hacking business, I can tie you to a lot of his other stunts. Letting your phone fall into his hands is, by itself, a disciplinary matter.”
“I simply call him in sometimes when -”
“Stop right there,” Wagoner continued. “Seriously, John, you're on thin ice right now. If you know anything that might help with this investigation, you'd do well to spit it out. Otherwise, you can kiss your friend Robinson goodbye, because he's going to be locked away for a very long time.”
Milhouse opened his mouth to argue, but it was too late: Wagoner was already storming along the corridor, heading back to his office, leaving Milhouse to lean back against the wall and sigh. He'd always known that Milhouse hated Robinson, but he'd never expected the situation to escalate quite so dramatically.
“Sorry, mate,” he muttered, heading back to the door that led into the interview room, “this time y
ou're on your own.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Lift her gently,” Doctor Leach said, standing at the edge of the vat. “I don't want any more mistakes.”
Over on the far side of the room, two technicians were slowly turning a wheel that, in turn, was pulling a series of cables attached to the ceiling. The cables dropped down into the large vat of gel and were attached to a lattice-framework beneath Meg's body, and the framework was now slowly being raised from the vat until finally it emerged, with thick waves of gel sloughing off the girl's skin.
“Easy does it,” Doctor Leach continued. “That's good, now bring her to the side and raise her up.”
Turning several other wheels and pulling on a series of levers, the technicians began to move Meg toward the edge of the vat, while tilting the framework up until she was finally vertical. After a moment, the framework locked into position just a few inches from the edge of the vat, allowing Doctor Leach to step closer and examine the girl in more detail.
“Beautiful,” she whispered with a faint smile. “This one is a marked improvement over all the rest.”
She paused for a moment, admiring Meg's face.
“Hello, my dear,” she continued finally. “Can you hear me?”
She waited, but there was no reply.
“I know you can hear me,” she added. “Deep down in your mind, you can hear my words and you know I'm speaking to you. Why don't you open your eyes and see the world for the first time now that you're approaching your new form? I know you must be very scared, but you mustn't let fear rule your mind. That's a very human way of dealing with the world, but it's also one of the qualities that you're supposed to transcend now.”
Watching Meg's face, she saw the faintest hint of movement beneath the girl's closed eyelids.
“That's right,” she continued. “You want to wake up, don't you? You want to come back to the world and take your new place.”