Madness

by Bill Wetterman

  Pendleton bristled. “I’ll tell you what I told him. If my Lord returns in my lifetime, I’ll gladly turn this world over to Him. He’s much more capable of running it than I am.”

  “But the means by which you took control aren’t approved by God.”

  “Did you love this world when greed ruled?”

  “No.”

  “Did you approve of the guns and drugs and poverty?”

  “Of course not, but. . .”

  “Jesus said, ‘Feed the hungry. Give to the poor. Clothe the naked.’ I’m doing what He commanded. When He comes, He’ll deal with my sins.”

  “I can take your confession now. Sin is Sin, Arthur.”

  The Pope’s tone pierced him. “If I could have accomplished my purpose any other way, I would have. In fact, leaders talked about freedom, but greed allowed humans to abuse other humans in the name of freedom. Politicians talked about giving the people what they wanted. Which people? Individuals want things their own way. No one agrees.”

  “I can’t say I disagree, but that’s not my point.”

  Pendleton’s throat clogged and he gulped. “In dictatorial nations, the haves ruled over the have-nots using terror, committing genocide and torture. In capitalistic countries, the haves used misrepresentation—Ponzi schemes, market manipulation, and insider misinformation to horde money. I used their greed against them.”

  “Again, two wrongs don’t make a right. Two hundred eighty-million people so far have died as a result of your actions.”

  “Half of those died rebelling against the Global Realm, not in the conflict preceding. In the former United States alone, five million people died committing acts of rebellion.” He sighed. “I had a choice, save the planet at the cost of millions of lives, or let mankind destroy itself.”

  “But are you repentant?”

  “Yes, of course. I dislike the methods, but now the Earth has a chance.”

  “I empathize with you and the decisions you were forced to make,” the Pope said. “Call me if you need to talk. I think you’ll find me a good listener.”

  #

  Security here is a joke.

  Beatrice Kolb shut the door of her room and quickly mixed a Dixie cup of bleach with her nail polish cleaner. She’d obtained a small syringe from the medicine supply cabinet when an attendant wasn’t around. She’d won the National Medal of Science Award for Genetic Chemistry for God-sake. She could make chloroform.

  She filled the syringe with 33cc’s of the mixture and capped it. If she had the chance to use it, she would. She placed a folded white handkerchief into her pocket next to the syringe and took a deep breath. She taped a shiv to the inside of her left calf just above the pant leg opening of her new Global Realm outfit. The razor whip she slid into an empty toilet paper roll and slipped the roll into her pocket.

  Pederson’s voice called her from halfway down the hall. “Laverna Smythe is here, Beatrice. Time for your visit. Are you ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  The question is are you ready?

  #

  The lights seemed to dim every few minutes. Peacock faced Kolb across a six-foot rectangular metal table. Elaborate electronics connected both women to a brain monitor. At first, the conversation seemed predictably artificial. However, as anger rose and ebbed within her, Peacock convinced herself the lights dimmed and strengthened accordingly.

  “Why did you have to be such a rebel?” Kolb asked, in a high snippy tone. “You knew what you signed-up for in Hercules, and you accepted the first implant readily.”

  “But you never told me about the second one. I had just begun to feel like a human.”

  “A human being—good God, you decided against humanity before coming to us. You agreed to become the ultimate weapon. You betrayed me and you betrayed your duty.”

  Peacock focused in on Kolb’s eyes. In an instant, she could finish the job she’d started back at Kolb’s laboratory. “No, you stole me away from Arthur and my baby. You forced this implant change on me. You destroyed my memory. I couldn’t remember much of anything before Hercules.”

  “And you didn’t want to, particularly the accident.” Kolb squeezed her arms together across her lap. “You erased the reason for that accident on purpose the moment it happened.”

  “I did what!” Peacock edged forward.

  “You told me so during your mental adaptation testing your second day in Hercules.” Kolb reddened but didn’t lean back. “Do you want me to tell you why?”

  Peacock tried to gulp. She didn’t remember meeting Kolb until a month after she started training. How could this be? Her throat ached from parching. Her tongue dried at the sound of Kolb’s words. She nodded.

  “On the road that day, you and your father were arguing about a boy.”

  “No. All he said was that I was too bright to waste my time with my boyfriend. He said my talent would take me beyond his dreams and expectations. At least that’s all I remember.”

  Kolb sneered. “You don’t remember my testing you. Do you?”

  Peacock wanted to strangle her. “No.”

  “You screamed at your father, telling him to mind his own business. Then you took off your seatbelt and asked him to pull over and let you out.”

  A rush of memories flooded back. Peacock pushed back her chair. “I’m going to be sick.” She grabbed a wastebasket and threw up. “I need to take a break.”

  Doctor Levi appeared at the door. “Shall we stop for the day?”

  Kolb cackled, “But I was having so much fun.”

  Peacock wiped her mouth. “I need a few minutes to gather myself back together.”

  Two orderlies rushed in as Peacock ran down to the women’s room. She headed into a stall and leaned against the side. Her father had turned back toward her shouting, “Put that seat belt back on.” That’s when the first impact occurred throwing her free of the car and she blacked out.

  My fault, all my fault.

  The nausea subsided after a few minutes, and she pulled herself up to a standing position. Hercules knew what she’d done. They played on her ability to isolate herself from her feelings. They did it with her approval. She inhaled deep breaths and washed her face and hands, then slumped down next to a stall door.

  I’m the problem. I always was.

  #

  “You’re enjoying this too much, Beatrice,” Levi said.

  Not as much as what I’m going to do.

  Pederson headed out the door. “I’m calling third floor security for additional help.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kolb told Levi. “Let me go and comfort her. Maybe we can work things out between us if we’re alone.”

  “No, I’m not a fool.”

  Into her pocket she reached, squirting the chloroform onto the white cloth. She leapt upon Levi knocking him down and covered his nose with the cloth.

  Easier than I thought this would be.

  Kolb dashed out of the room and down the hall in an instant. She’d prayed for an opportunity to kill her enemy, and it fell right out of the sky. Her feet felt lighter than air as she held back from skipping down the hallway. She might not come out of this alive, but what the hell!

  She saw the two orderlies guarding the ladies room and grabbed the shiv out of its hiding place. Nonchalantly, she reached for the door handle.

  “You can’t go. . . .” the man nearest her said.

  Kolb plunged the shiv into his chest, opened the door and locked it from the inside before the other man could react. Her emotions ran wild. Peacock sat curled up against a stall door in the far corner of the bathroom rocking. “Discovered I’m right, didn’t you, Bitch.”

  “Yes,” Peacock sobbed. “You made your point. Still you never should have taken my son from me.”

  “You never should have had a son.”

  “I wanted to give Arthur a son. I married him with Ursa’s approval.”

  “True,” Kolb interrupted, “But that doesn’t matter now.”

 
; Kolb fingered the top of the vial in her pocket. Popping the top off, she poured the remaining contents out on the handkerchief. “Here let me help you up.”

  She pulled the chloroform-filled cloth out of her pocket and lunged at Peacock, attempting to cover her nose and mouth with the cloth. Peacock’s eyes shot open. To Kolb’s surprise, she made a direct hit blocking Peacock’s airways. Then she found herself flying backwards.

  #

  Kolb’s bold attack ignited Peacock’s instincts. She raised one leg and launched her opponent away. The chloroform’s fumes burned Peacock’s nostrils and disoriented her. She stumbled into battle position. Kolb screamed when her back hit the sink-top.

  A male voice yelled at the door. “Get me a crowbar or something to pry this open.”

  Kolb leaped up, thrusting a shiv into Peacock’s thigh. But Peacock hurled Kolb across the floor, slamming her into the door.

  “Ahhhh,” Kolb screamed, raising herself up to her feet. Peacock charged her, the shiv still lodged in her thigh. Kolb whipped something out of her pocket and blades cut into Peacock’s face alongside her right ear.

  Peacock ignored the pain even as Kolb yanked the insidious weapon out tearing flesh off Peacock’s cheek. Peacock threw Kolb bodily into the mirror over the sink. Glass shattered and flew like shrapnel. A sliver the size of a thumbnail lodged in Peacock throat to the right of her voice box and blood spewed skyward.

  The door burst open and Pederson rushed in. Peacock glanced down to see blood pouring into the sink. She tried to speak but everything around her dimmed into blackness.

  Chapter 37

  Doctor Pederson flashed a light into Peacock’s eyes and then away. Her throat hurt as it had when The Sons of TIW had choked her half to death. She rode on a gurney heading out of an operating room.

  “Kolb attacked me,” Peacock managed through the pain.

  “We know. She managed to make three separate weapons to even the odds in a fight with you. But she failed.”

  Peacock tried to sit up. “She scarred me for life.”

  “Relax. Let me talk.” Pederson pushed the gurney into her old room in the hospital. “Arthur’s been informed. We’ll release you tomorrow, if you don’t develop further problems. I’ve patched the artery in your neck. Your thigh wound is deep, but superficial. It took twenty-one stitches to sew up your face. Skin grafts are possible, but the chunks that came off can’t really be grafted back.

  “Superficial? My thigh hurts like hell.”

  “Still superficial,” Pederson said. “Kolb’s head and neck suffered fatal injuries from the impact against the mirror. You’re one strong warrior, Laverna.”

  She made a fist and raised it in response. Good. The wicked witch was dead.

  Pederson sighed. “Before you can heal your mind, Warrior Woman, the Laverna Smythe Pendleton you are today needs to forgive the Donna O’Conner you were when the accident occurred.”

  She didn’t want to hear this, but she hurt when she attempted to speak.

  “You made a huge leap today, Laverna. Kolb helped you remember your past. I’m sure Doctor Levi will agree.”

  “To what will I agree,” Doctor Levi asked as he ambled into her room.

  “That Laverna made great progress today.”

  “Yes, you did. Our Doctor Kolb, sad to say, not so much.”

  Peacock listened as the two physicians talked about her as though she wasn’t in the room.

  “She’ll need several months of follow-up,” Levi said, “particularly now that she’s rediscovered her past. She’ll have issues with guilt.”

  My psychological problem with my face is what sucks right now.

  “Nothing more needed on her medical condition,” Pedersen said examining her neck. “A couple weeks’ time will heal these injuries. Meet with me twice a month during the day. Healing your guilt will heal your rage as well.”

  #

  Two cups of coffee in his hands, Doctor Levi headed into his temporary office in Zurich. Doctor Pederson opened the door for him. Levi would be heading back to Israel in two weeks. “Good god, I need a drink,” Levi said. “I’m exhausted, mentally and physically.”

  “Pendleton married an interesting woman.”

  “Pendleton married a woman his equal. Her head’s straightening out, and I suspect she’ll have Van Meer’s job in three years tops.”

  Pederson plopped down on a comfortable leather sofa and rubbed his arm. “I should be trained in Jujitsu.”

  “Jujitsu won’t help you with Laverna. Being her friend will. She’s a genius who fell into the hands of Beatrice Kolb. I knew Kolb from before Hercules, pure evil that woman. Laverna will tear herself apart with guilt if not handled properly.”

  “She could. But I’m betting she’ll throw herself into Pendleton’s arms, confide in him, and release all her guilt.” Pederson grinned. “Her biggest challenge will be to keep her edge as the predator she is.”

  Optimism wasn’t one of Levi’s strongpoints. “She’ll always be a predator. She’ll always be a siren. The scars will make her that much more desirable to most men. The best she can hope for is to balance those givens with her intellect and self-control.”

  “What are her odds of remaining cancer-free and sane?”

  Levi shook his head and silently poured his friend a drink. “I’m not one to bet.”

  #

  A week after Kolb’s death and home from the hospital, Peacock rocked George to sleep and then held him close in the dark, more for her comfort than his. Most of her childhood memories flooded back after Kolb’s revelation, and they haunted her when she was alone. She’d been a spoiled brat, coddled by her mother and nagged at by her father, who bombarded her with his pulpit teaching while her mother rolled her eyes and said things like, “Give her a chance to learn about life on her own, Jim. Like you and I did, okay?”

  Strange, she thought, I never saw the boy we were arguing about after the accident. I dated a lot of men, but not for love, only for the physical, and only until the physical happened once. Then I tossed them aside.

  Arthur Pendleton gained a strong foothold inside her soul. He loomed larger and larger as a lover, protector, and father for their son. More than those things, she needed to hear his voice and feel him close at night. Donna O’Conner and Laverna Smythe Pendleton had fallen in love.

  Peacock, unfortunately, had different wiring directing her. In her role as the defender of her leaders, love had no place. Respect, honesty, loyalty, and unwavering zeal drove Peacock. Yet, even with those things working in her, rage and passion made her effective and without conscience. Like an addict on crack cocaine or meth, her fix came through combat, lust, and subterfuge. She and Arthur needed to talk.

  She put her son in his crib and turned down the bed. Her husband might come home tonight or maybe not. Until he’d filled the twelve regional government positions, the responsibility fell on him to attend meetings and make decisions.

  She chuckled at the thought that he’d ever be unfaithful. He was too busy. If he’d had an affair, she’d feel less guilty about her own sexual infidelity. He wouldn’t have an affair. He loved her.

  At two in the morning, she awoke to the key turning in the lock. An exhausted Pendleton limped through the door and collapsed into his side of the bed, kicking his shoes across the room. Snoring soon filled the silence.

  #

  In the morning, Peacock awoke to find Arthur in the same position he’d been in when he fell asleep. She made coffee and wrote down things to talk to him about. Occasional sounds of gunfire during the night reminded her not everyone complied with government orders, unfortunate for the disobedient.

  With the smell of coffee filling the room, she whispered in his ear. “What’s on your schedule today, my love?”

  He half-opened one eye. “Have you forgotten? You’re sitting next to me tonight. This is the evening we broadcast live the announcement of the formal Global and Regional organizations. By January 1st the duties of the regional government
s will be placed in their hands.”

  How this man could snap into his First Citizen role out of a deep sleep surprised even her.

  “When can we have an hour or two to talk? I need you to help me in a difficult time.”

  His face brightened, and he looked at his watch. “Five hours of sound sleep and coffee perking. Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll give you two hours of undivided attention.”

  She realized she was sweating. God, how would he react to what she had to say? Still, he needed to know, and he needed to know now. Peacock rolled her words through her mental filters and strived to find the exact way to explain her inner self to him. She knew who she was—three separate personalities in one frame. She heard the shower turn off and some glorious singing. The man had a solid voice. Then the door flew open and her husband came out smiling.

  “Now, Lovey, I’m all yours.”

  “I hope you’ll be when we’re done.”

  He took her hand with a strong grip, yet surprisingly gentle. “I’ll hear you through the ears of love.” He traced the lines of the scars Kolb etched on her face. “I love you.”

  “We had a breakthrough in the hospital the day Kolb attacked me.” She watched his face. If Levi had called him, he didn’t let on. “Kolb revealed something about my past, and most of my pre-Hercules memory came back.”

  He gazed at her as though absorbing her being with his eyes. “Then why are you afraid?”

  “I know the real me. I’m not an innocent victim. I’m a nasty, selfish little girl, who caused my family’s death. Then I hid inside myself and denied my guilt.”

  He cuddled her in his arms, as tears poured down her face.

  “I’m sorry. I’m blubbering like an idiot.”

  “Well, you’re a bloody good looking one.”

  “But don’t you see? I use my body as a weapon. I’m evil, Arthur. I seduce, steal secrets, murder like a black widow spider, and Hercules saw the real me. They programmed me using the skills I already had.”

  “So far you’re not telling me anything I haven’t expected.”

  “I told Kolb the truth during a mental adaptation test my second day in Hercules.” Peacock pushed herself closer to her husband nestling in next to him on the bed. “I didn’t remember meeting Kolb until a month after I started training. Yet I had met her and suppressed that meeting. I told her, ‘On the road that day, my father and I were arguing about a boy.’”