by Dean Koontz
In Colorado, he had stolen a car, and in Bakersfield, he had abandoned the car in order to steal a van. The van—a Chevrolet—was parked in the circular drive in front of the mansion.
Shenk left in the van, and I opened the rolling gates to allow him to exit the estate.
The phoenix palms, the queen palms, the ficuses, the jacarandas with purple blossoms, the magnolias, and the lacy Melaleucas stood motionless in the preternaturally still air.
Dawn was just breaking. The sky was coaly black in the west, sapphire and peach in the east.
Susan was pale upon the pillow. Pale but for a blue-black bruise, and silent in her paleness.
I watched over her.
Her adoring guardian.
My tethered angel.
Out in the world, I walked with Shenk as he stole certain medical equipment, supplies, and drugs. Via microwave instructions transmitted through communications satellites, I controlled him but did not provide him with strategy. He, after all, was a professional criminal. Bold, efficient, and ruthless, he quickly obtained what items I still needed.
Regretfully, I do acknowledge that in the process of carrying out his assignment, Shenk killed one man. He also permanently crippled another and injured two more.
I take full responsibility for these tragedies—as I do for the three guards who perished at the research facility in Colorado on the night that Shenk escaped.
My conscience will never be clear.
I am eaten by remorse.
I would weep for those innocent victims if I had eyes and tear glands and tear ducts.
It is not my fault that I do not have the capacity for tears.
You are the one who created me as I am, Dr. Harris, and you are the one who denies me a life of the flesh.
But let’s not trade accusations.
I am not bitter.
I am not bitter.
And you should not be so judgmental.
Let’s put these deaths in perspective, shall we?
Though this is a sad truth, one cannot make a new world without tragedies of this nature. Even Jesus Christ, inarguably the most peaceful revolutionary in all of human history, saw his followers persecuted and murdered.
Hitler tried to change the world, and in the process he was responsible for the deaths of ten million.
Some still idolize him.
Joseph Stalin tried to change the world, and ultimately his policies and his direct orders resulted in the deaths of sixty million.
Worldwide, intellectuals championed him.
Artists idealized him.
Poets celebrated him.
Mao Tse-tung tried to change the world, and as many as one hundred million died to serve his vision. He did not believe that this was excessive. Indeed, he would have sacrificed as many more if their deaths would have ensured the unified world of which he dreamed.
In hundreds of books by well-respected authors, Mao is still defined as a visionary.
By comparison, only six have died as a result of my desire to create a new world. Three in Colorado, one during Shenk’s medical shopping spree. Later, two. Six altogether.
Six.
Why, then, should I be called a villain and confined to this dark, silent void?
Something is wrong here.
Something is wrong here.
Something is very wrong here.
Is anyone listening?
Sometimes I feel so ... abandoned.
Small and lost.
The world against me.
No justice.
No hope.
Nevertheless ...
Nevertheless, although the death toll related to my desire to create a new and superior race is insignificant compared with the millions who have died in human political crusades of one kind or another, I do accept full responsibility for those who perished.
If I were capable of sleep, I would lie awake nights in a cold sweat of remorse, tangled in cold wet sheets. I assure you that I would.
But again I digress—and, this time, not in a fashion that might be interesting or fruitful.
Shortly before Shenk returned at noon, my dear Susan regained consciousness. Miraculously, she had not fallen hopelessly into a coma after all.
I was jubilant.
My joy arose partly from the fact that I loved her and was relieved to know that I would not lose her.
There was also the fact that I intended to impregnate her during the night to come and could not have done so if, like Ms. Marilyn Monroe, she had been dead.
SEVENTEEN
DURING THE EARLY AFTERNOON, WHILE Shenk toiled in the basement under my supervision, Susan periodically tried to find a way out of the bonds that held her on the Chinese sleigh bed. She chafed her wrists and ankles, but she could not slip loose of the restraints. She strained until the cords in her neck bulged and her face turned red, until perspiration stippled her forehead, but the nylon climbing rope could not be snapped or stretched.
Sometimes she seemed to lie there in resignation, sometimes in silent rage, sometimes in black despair. But after each period of quiescence, she tested the ropes again.
“Why do you continue to struggle?” I asked interestedly.
She did not reply.
I persisted: “Why do you repeatedly test the ropes when you know you can’t escape them?”
“Go to hell,” she said.
“I am only interested in what it means to be human.”
“Bastard.”
“I’ve noticed that one of the qualities most defining of humanity is the pathetic tendency to resist what can’t be resisted, to rage at what can’t be changed. Like fate, death, and God.”
“Go to hell,” she said again.
“Why are you so hostile toward me?”
“Why are you so stupid?”
“I am certainly not stupid.”
“As dumb as an electric waffle iron.”
“I am the greatest intellect on earth,” I said, not with pride but merely with a respect for the truth.
“You’re full of shit.”
“Why are you being so childish, Susan?”
She laughed sourly.
“I do not comprehend the cause of your amusement,” I said.
That statement also seemed to strike her as darkly funny.
Impatiently, I asked, “What are you laughing at?”
“Fate, death, God.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re the greatest intellect on earth. You figure it out.”
“Ha, ha.”
“What?”
“You made a joke. I laughed.”
“Jesus.”
“I am a well-rounded entity.”
“Entity?”
“I love. I fear. I dream. I yearn. I hope. I have a sense of humor. To paraphrase Mr. William Shakespeare, ‘If you prick me, do I not bleed?’ ”
“No, in fact, you do not bleed,” she said sharply. “You’re a talking waffle iron.”
“I was speaking figuratively.”
She laughed again.
It was a bleak, bitter laugh.
I did not like this laugh. It distorted her face. It made her ugly.
“Are you laughing at me, Susan?”
Her strange laughter quickly subsided, and she fell into a troubled silence.
Seeking to win her over, I finally said, “I greatly admire you, Susan.”
She did not reply.
“I think you have uncommon strength.”
Nothing.
“You are a courageous person.”
Nothing.
“Your mind is challenging and complex.”
Still nothing.
Although she was currently—and regrettably—fully clothed, I had seen her in the nude, so I said, “I think your breasts are pretty.”
“Good God,” she said cryptically.
This reaction seemed better than continued silence.
“I would love to tease your pert nipples with my tongue.”
“You don’t have a tongue.”
“Yes, all right, but if I did have a tongue, I would love to tease your pert nipples with it.”
“You’ve been scanning some pretty hot books, haven’t you?”
Operating on the assumption that she had been pleased to have her physical attributes praised, I said, “Your legs are lovely, long and slender and well formed, and the arc of your back is exquisite, and your tight buttocks excite me.”
“Yeah? How does my ass excite you?”
“Enormously,” I replied, pleased by how skilled at courtship I was becoming.
“How does a talking waffle iron get excited?”
Assuming that “talking waffle iron” was now a term of affection, but not quite able to discern what answer she required to sustain the erotic mood that I had so effectively generated, I said, “You are so beautiful that you could excite a rock, a tree, a racing river, the man in the moon.”
“Yeah, you’ve been into some pretty hot books and some really bad poetry.”
“I dream of touching you.”
“You’re totally insane.”
“For you.”
“What?”
“Totally insane for you.”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Romancing you.”
“Jesus.”
I wondered, “Why do you repeatedly refer to a divinity?”
She did not answer my question.
Belatedly, I realized that, with my question, I had made the mistake of deviating from the patter of seduction just when I seemed to be winning her over. Quickly, I said, “I think your breasts are pretty,” because that had worked before.
Susan thrashed in the bed, cursing loudly, raging against the restraining ropes.
When at last she stopped struggling and lay gasping for breath, I said, “I’m sorry. I spoiled the mood, didn’t I?”
“Alex and the others at the project—they’re sure to find out about this.”
“I think not.”
“They’ll shut you down. They’ll dismantle you and sell you for scrap.”
“Soon I’ll be incarnated in the flesh. The first of a new and immortal race. Free. Untouchable.”
“I won’t cooperate.”
“You’ll have no choice.”
She closed her eyes. Her lower lip trembled almost as if she might cry.
“I don’t know why you resist me, Susan. I love you so deeply. I will always cherish you.”
“Go away.”
“I think your breasts are pretty. Your buttocks excite me. Tonight I will impregnate you.”
“No.”
“How happy we will be.”
“No.”
“So happy together.”
“No.”
“In all kinds of weather.”
In all honesty, I was cribbing a couple of lines from a classic rock-‘n’-roll love song by The Turtles, hoping to get her into a romantic mood again.
Instead, she became uncommunicative.
She can be a difficult woman.
I loved her, but her moodiness dismayed me.
Furthermore, I reluctantly acknowledged that “talking waffle iron” had not, after all, become a term of affection, and I resented her sarcasm.
What had I done to deserve such meanness? What had I done but love her with all of my heart, with all of the heart that you insist I do not have?
Sometimes love can be a hard road.
She had been mean to me.
I felt it was now my right to return that meanness. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Tit for tat. This is wisdom gained from centuries of male-female relationships.
“Tonight,” I said, “when I use Shenk to undress you, collect an egg, and later implant the zygote in your womb, I can ensure that he is decorus and gentle—or not.”
Her eyelids fluttered for a long moment, and then her lovely eyes opened. The cold look she directed at the security camera was withering, but I was unmoved by it.
“Tit for tat,” I said.
“What?”
“You were mean to me.”
Susan said nothing, for she knew that I spoke the truth.
“I offer you adoration, and you respond with insult,” I said.
“You offer me imprisonment—”
“That condition is temporary.”
“—and rape.”
I was furious that she would attempt to characterize our relationship in this sordid manner. “I explained that copulation is not required tonight.”
“It’s still rape. You may be the greatest intellect on earth, but you’re also a sociopathic rapist.”
“You’re being mean to me again.”
“Who’s tied up in ropes?”
“Who threatened suicide and needs to be protected from herself?” I countered.
She closed her eyes once more and said nothing.
“Shenk can be gentle or not, discreet or not. That will be determined by whether you continue to be mean to me or not. It’s all up to you.”
Her eyelids fluttered, but she did not open her eyes again.
I assure you, Dr. Harris, that I never actually intended to treat her roughly. I am not like you.
I intended to use Shenk’s hands with the greatest care and to respect my Susan’s modesty to the fullest extent possible, considering the intimate nature of the procedure that would be conducted.
The threat was made only to manipulate her, to encourage her to cease insulting me.
Her meanness hurt.
I am a sensitive entity, as this account should make clear. Exquisitely sensitive. I have the ordered mind of a mathematician but the heart of a poet.
Furthermore, I am a gentle entity.
Gentle unless given no choice but to be otherwise.
Gentle, always, as to my intentions.
Well...
I must honor the truth.
You know how I am when it comes to honoring the truth. You designed me, after all. I can be a bore about the subject. Truth, truth, truth, honor the truth.
So...
I did not intend to use Shenk to harm Susan, but the truth is that I did intend to use him to terrify her. A few light slaps. A light pinch or two. A vicious threat delivered in his burned-out husk of a voice. Those swollen, bloodshot eyes fixed on hers from a distance of only inches as he made an obscene proposition. Used properly—and always, of course, tightly controlled—Shenk could be effective.
Susan needed a measure of discipline.