“Thanks—you can go,” said Monty.
“Ah, a number of labs in there are bound to be locked and require special clearance codes. Security has override keys.”
“Forget security. If you see anyone outside who knows the codes send them in with a forcer, but have them wait until the forcers come.”
“Who are you after?”
“Westy Dwork.”
“Why?”
“He’s an asshole.” Monty moved through the automatic sliding door.
Beak peered into a huge bin filled with green pills like peas. The next one had orange tablets like Halloween candy. Dirty pills of assorted colors were scattered under a huge machine nearby. A radio on a table beside the machine still played, photos of someone’s children were taped to a support column. Ahead of Beak was a low corridor lined on either side with thick red pipes, and it drew him toward it, pistol ready. He was jumpy; the fire alarm masked potential sounds which might otherwise alert him and save his life. He had a layer of bulletproof mesh inside his jacket, also impervious to moderate ray blasts, but the skin of his scalp crawled vulnerable inside his purple ski hat. He thought of poor Tanabe.
He entered the tunnel. They let him get halfway down it, trapped exactly in the middle.
The Stem stepped before him at the tunnel’s end, pointing a tubular black object—which it discharged as Beak was dropping into a crouch…
…unfortunately for the black-garbed human security guard who had just stepped into place at the end of the tunnel behind Beak. The Stem’s weapon fired a black crystal bullet, which struck the man in the thigh. Immediately on contact with flesh the crystal branched out, multiplied its mass in black obsidian spears. Even as he dropped howling, the guard saw that his leg was being forced away from his body by the crystals tearing out through flesh and cloth.
From his crouch, Beak fired crazily at the Stem, shot after shot of plasma. The odds of hitting the stick figure were slim and Beak knew it. Five shots missed. One hit the Stem on the elbow of one of its three arms.
The two good arms and the smoking, melting third arm flailed wildly in the air, a high-pitched whistle of agony coming from the tiny jack-o’-lantern face. Plasma drops sprayed from the melting arm the creature flapped as if to extinguish the fire. Snapping off two more crystal projectiles without aiming, the Stem darted away out of view.
One bullet missed, the other hit Beak in the chest. He flew onto his back with a grunt. The fire alarm and the wounded guard kept wailing.
“Shit,” Beak grunted, but he was okay. He rolled to his feet. He couldn’t hear the Stem’s whistling shrieks any more. From his jacket pocket he pulled his balled-up winter gloves. Then, glancing at the writhing guard, Beak dug in the hole in his jacket, fingered a tiny object wedged into the lightweight armor mesh.
The bullet in the guard’s leg had quit expanding but the pool of blood was enormous; only crystal linked leg to body now and the man’s face was gray and glassy-eyed. Beak stood over him. The man’s cap had come off to reveal, no surprise to Beak, a greasy black bouffant.
The man’s eyes rolled to meet Beak’s. Beak liked the fearful recognition he saw dawn in them through the fog. “You know me, huh? You know my wife? A good fuck, huh, tough guy? Ready to pay for it?”
The mongrel moaned, just minutes from death anyway. Beak almost hesitated; why perform a mercy killing—wasn’t it better to let him suffer? No. He was bleeding to death, slipping away, now. Better to give him a nice fat jolt, however brief.
Beak knelt by the man, hooked a finger in his mouth and dropped in the crystal bullet he’d pulled from his jacket. Then Beak stepped back to watch.
It was fast. Glassy black spears plunged out of the mouth, which stretched and stretched to accommodate them until it split at the corners. Spears out the throat, out the nostrils and eyes. The mongrel’s head split apart in all directions, and now he had a jagged black crystal globe for a head. Beak considered it to be an improvement.
Beak could now say he had killed the man himself. He was satisfied, didn’t even feel the need to spit on the remains. Prudently scooping up the security guard’s ray blaster, Beak moved on after the Stem.
*
A number of the rooms in the Research Department were open and accessible. Monty observed abandoned desks, monitor screens still exhibiting data, coffees still steaming, a radio playing top-forty trash (a revoltingly bouncy tune from Dora Deering at the moment). Other doors were locked, wouldn’t open to his manipulation of their inset keyboards…
He turned at a noise in an open room further along the hallway.
Monty peeked into the room to see a work area filled with machines, the functions and duties of which were beyond his immediate speculation. He was too distracted from speculation, anyway, by the actions of the person within this room.
The Stem had an arm missing, the end of the stump still smoking and dripping glowing drops of plasma. Beak had hit it. But had it hit Beak? Its back was to Monty, and as he watched it inserted its melting arm into an oblong opening in the front of a refrigerator-sized gray device. The Stem touched some keypads. A glare of red light shone inside the oblong opening, then a sharp buzz and the Stem reeled back with a whistle of pain, its melted arm neatly trimmed back to the shoulder, the slowing spread of plasma arrested.
Monty had his pistol on it. “Freeze right there, skinny!”
The Stem whirled and launched itself at him. Monty’s heart catapulted into his throat and he fired; once, twice, and by the third time—having missed even at this range with all three bullets—the creature was on him.
It swung one of the two remaining arms, the hard little fingers at the end raking his face, almost catching him in the eye. The other arm and an upraised foot took hold of his clothing. Stick-like though it was, it was still tremendously strong and it seemed like a great heavy being was forcing its weight upon him. Monty fired a fourth bullet as his sleeve was gripped and his arm wrenched to one side; once again he missed. He cried out as its other arm switched grips to seize him by the hair, forcing his head into an agonizing angle. The grip on his sleeve now leapt to his hand. Hard fingers dug into the meat of his thumb, bringing blood, and the pink semi-automatic clunked to the floor.
Monty pushed at the insectoid limbs, chopped at the body with his free hand, to no effect. He went onto his knees. He felt blood trickling down his face. With a surge of strength he propelled them both forward, the Stem bumping roughly into a counter edge, knocking a tray of instruments to the floor in a loud clatter. Would someone hear? Monty kept crying out, and tucked his face into his shoulder as the upraised foot released his coat to make swipes at it, one gashing his chin.
Monty remembered his hand phone at last, and had it out in a moment. “Beak, help me, help, I’m in Research, a Stem has me!” he shouted, half hysterical. A finger hooked the corner of his mouth then, but before it could rip he shoved out his hand that gripped the phone to push it away, and raised himself up to his feet with a cry. The Stem left the ground for a second before Monty twisted and toppled onto his back. He dropped the hand phone.
The Stem loomed over him, the inane carved jack-o’-lantern face—ridiculously small in its pencil-thin body—gazing down at him, grinning emptily like a shark. It still had his right hand pinned, but Monty had caught its other arm between his knees, hooking one leg over its elbow. That wouldn’t last for long; as it was, he’d have been dead already if the thing hadn’t been so badly wounded, in such pain. He could feel the arm about to free itself from his legs, and saw the foremost of its three legs readying to fold up and lash out at his face again.
From inside his jacket Monty withdrew a red pen. Vern Woodmere had given it to him. The night he had thought he was rescuing Mauve from her bodyguards he had come close to using it, but the Stem—this one?—had overpowered him.
His luck was better now. He jammed its point into the triangular, single black nostril of the tiny unmoving face and thumbed its button. A syringe.
Th
ere was a single capsule of plasma inside. The Stem’s grip on him flew instantly away. Monty let go of the pen and rolled out of the way of any deadly overflow or dripping.
The whistling was incomparable to any sound he’d ever heard, the dance of the Stem as incomparable an image; all frenzied thrashing spider limbs. Both impressions were very brief, however. The top of the Stem’s head, containing the eyes, dropped away from the rest of the body. The creature folded up to quiver and jerk and melt down further—so much more slowly than a soft-bodied human, but the prime objective had been achieved. Death.
Rubbing away the drops of blood from his chin with the back of his hand, Monty scooped up the Stem’s weapon from where it had set it down on a counter—thank God, rather than replacing it in its holster, where it would have had it handy during their struggle—and tossed it into the zapper slot which had clipped off its ruined stump. A buzz and the gun was no more. Monty now retrieved his hand phone and blipped Beak.
Beak came on. “Monty, I heard you call—where are you?”
“Research, I said; it’s over. I nailed it. I’m all right.”
“I nailed the other punk, the one with the Elvis-do. Come on down to the loading docks; I got Dwork pinned down. We can hold him ‘til the forcers get here, then we can close in.”
“Jesus—good work, man.”
“He almost made it out but I spotted him. Hurry up and help me. Rear docks, back of the building.”
“I know—I’ve been here before.” Monty bolted.
*
Monty saw a flash of green streak by in the distance, heard a hollow clang of punctured metal. He ducked down, darted from cover to cover, from support column to pill bin. Behind some machinery he blipped Beak again.
“You all right? I saw him fire.”
“I’m fine. He’s closer to the doors than I am but he’s afraid to make a dash for it. Get between him and the doors if you can. I’ll let off some shots to keep him occupied.”
“Do it.”
Solid bullets whined off metal, slammed into less resistant material. Beak had thought it safer to slap in this clip in place of plasma, where Monty was getting too near the line of his fire. Monty crawled on hands and knees to a robot hover-lift, quietly humming as it recharged, and gingerly peered over the top of it. A flash of green as Dwork returned Beak’s fire. Monty was able to get his bearings on Dwork’s position. He dashed again.
“Give up, Dwork!” Beak called out. “The forcers are probably surrounding the building this very minute, asshole. You step out there and you’re gone…and I don’t mean escaped.”
“Why are you after me? What have I done?”
“Oh, gee—you killed one of our agents a few minutes ago…”
“Self-defense! I was confused—you stormed my office!”
“You had my wife raped and killed!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“They’re both dead, your security guard punks, Dwork. If you want the same that’s fine with me. Fight us and you die. Fight us in court if you’re so damn innocent…maybe you got a chance. Right?”
Monty crouched under a huge, clear plastic tray filled with red pills. He could see Westy Dwork squatting behind another charging robot lift. He was reaching up into it, touching controls. Activating it. Monty knew he meant to power it up, fling himself inside and escape in it. A control on the dash would automatically open the dock doors, no doubt, when he was ready.
Monty extended his pistol in both hands to take careful aim, squinted his left eye shut.
He fired four times. Two bullets struck Dwork in the side, knocking him away from the sleeping robot. Dwork barked once loudly in surprised pain. Blood had flecked the yellow, scuffed robot. Dwork kicked on his back, disoriented like a fallen ice skater. He lifted his pistol in Monty’s direction…
The half-dozen arrows of green light streaked mostly off to the left of him, but one hit the clear tray of pills above him. The plastic began melting rapidly around the puncture, the widening edges of the hole glowing green. A rain of red pills poured down in front of Monty, obscuring his view. Before he could turn and go out the other way the bottom of the basin opened up and an avalanche of pills poured down on him.
Dwork pulled himself up the side of the robot. Blood was spreading across his white shirt and long white lab smock.
Beak skidded into view. He and Dwork sighted each other, fired almost simultaneously. Both missed. Beak dove behind a shipping rack full of cartons ready to leave the plant. Dwork kept firing to cover his retreat. Cartons burst and a Halloween rain of colored candy pattered across Beak’s back.
Spitting out red vitamin pills, Monty pulled himself from the mound beneath the melted basin. Glancing toward the robot Dwork had crouched behind, he now saw only blood. And then Beak, through the rack beyond the robot. Monty blipped him. “Where’d he go?” he hissed.
“Not out the doors.”
“Keep them covered…I’ll follow the blood.”
*
Monty expected the second Stem to spring up at any moment, but he went unmolested as he traced the trail of blood drops back into the Research and Development Department. There he reached a door. No doubt the blood continued on past it, but the door wouldn’t open at Monty’s urging.
By now the police had come. In minutes they had joined Monty at the door. In several more minutes they brought in a top technician from Research and Development who knew all the security code.
He unlocked the door for them, the forcers then pushing him out of the way of danger. The first of them let Monty come right after him.
A half-dozen guns pointed. None fired. None had to.
Dwork was slumped against a desk, sitting on the floor, legs splayed, head slung to one side on a slack, dead neck. Blood had saturated much of his white smock. He’d pulled papers to the floor with him, a portable keyboard lying across one knee.
Monty looked at the activated monitor screen atop the desk. It took him only seconds to guess Dwork’s final intentions. After all, he recognized much of this equipment from backstage at the Jason Scarborough Theater.
“‘Friendly flesh,’” Monty said. “He had his own molecular pattern on file. He was trying to repair himself but he didn’t make it.”
No one at the moment understood what he was talking about. Monty holstered his pistol.
The building was searched thoroughly, without turning up the second Stem. Captain Nedland came at last, joining Monty, Beak and Giddry. The paramedics who’d arrived to cart bodies had treated and taped up the lacerations in Monty’s face. They’d heal without scars.
At Monty’s request, Nedland called in one of the top computer techs at HAP.
They had coffee in the cafeteria while they waited. The forcers interviewed certain employees, particularly those from Research, but made no arrests. The corpse of Westy Dwork/Pilter De Vard had been removed. The computer tech, Olive Slate, arrived; an attractive black woman who greeted Monty warmly. Besides her extensive research and library duties at HAP, Olive was specially trained to decipher corporate computer codes during the investigation of various sorts of organized wrongdoing. Nedland set her to work at Westy Dwork’s equipment.
“Watch it for booby-traps,” Monty warned her, not joking; remembering Vern.
“A little messy, Captain, wouldn’t you say?” the police officer in charge commented, hands on hips. “You lost a man, and three suspects are far beyond questioning. Why didn’t you call us in before you moved?”
“We acted well within our legal authority, Lieutenant,” Nedland droned calmly.
“You just wanted to nab Dwork before we could, that’s all. Big game—the prize lion. The boy who made M-670 for Matt Cotton.”
“We just wanted the job done right,” snarled Giddry.
“Oh, you did it right, pal…just ask your dead partner.”
Giddry took a step forward. Nedland blocked him with an arm. “Sludge,” Giddry growled.
Monty ignor
ed them, took a seat beside Olive but said nothing to distract her as he watched her work. “Mm…we do have some encryption as we get in here,” she murmured, mostly to herself. “Looks basic, though. Mm-hm. Not that this boy wasn’t smart enough to do better, but he obviously didn’t expect anyone to look…”
“What are we looking for?” the police lieutenant said.
“Proof of Dwork’s involvement with Matt Cotton, his creation of M-670 with his dead partners,” said Nedland.
Proof of his involvement with Toll Loveland, thought Monty. “Are we still into ‘friendly flesh?’” he asked Olive. She’d been briefed on the subject first, Monty explaining about Mauve and Meathearts.
“Yes…but it’s…just hold on. Let me turn this into English—I know I can clear it pretty easy. Yeah. Here we go…” Monty held his breath, expected the computer to explode. It didn’t. Meaningless symbols on the monitor screen were replaced by three words in English.
THE BIG FROWN.
“Jesus,” said Monty. “Hold it.”
“What?” Nedland came closer.
“The Big Frown. That’s a billboard I’ve seen. An ad in the papers, too. ‘Opening soon—The Big Frown.’ That’s all it says. Doesn’t say if it’s a film or a play or what. Or when. It just shows a guy’s face with his mouth in a huge grimace, like a Choom’s mouth, but with blood running down from the corners like his mouth’s been split open…like Mauve in her play, but more of a frown than her grin.”
“Go on,” instructed Nedland, leaning in over Olive’s shoulder.
“It’s a program name,” she announced coolly.
And now the program lay unveiled, explained by Olive along the way.
“Montgomery.” Olive looked up from the screen for only a second. “When Dwork explained his ‘friendly flesh’ process to you and to Mauve Pond, he said only that the injured body could be rapidly regenerated…nothing along the lines of the reverse of that?”
“Reverse of what? Of regeneration?”
“No, then?”
“No—why?”
“Well…apparently he didn’t tell either of you about a whole other range of his invention. And his intended uses for it.” Olive punched up a full-length illustration of a human being on the screen, not much more than an outline. More work, however, laid in the brain and nervous system, or the internal organs, the muscles or circulatory system or the skeleton, or all in combination. Monty was reminded of the changing of Toll Loveland’s light painting Matter of Life and Death. Olive zoomed in on the head so that alone filled the monitor screen. “Not only could Dwork use his drug to repair injuries long-distance, but to inflict them long-distance. By slashing this figure—don’t worry, I know what I’m doing—he could inflict a matching wound on whoever’s molecular code he had punched up, and the ‘friendly flesh’ would respond and obey.” She demonstrated by drawing a red line down from the edges of the illustration’s mouth.
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