Face Number 1: Doctor Human
I remember when he was brought to the facility, in September 18, 1962. Back then he wasn't his cartoonish, yet sophisticated self. Oh, no. When Monger opened the door of the half-track and forcefully moved doctor Cockroach from the machine, he fell on the ground pathetically. He was wearing white coat, shirt with tackled sleeves, and long pants – all dirty and torn. His big yellow eyes looked at general with despise. I wasn't surprised. Back then we all thought that Monger was a douchebag. Well, maybe BOB didn't, but he has no brain.
"From now on your name is Doctor Cockroach." Said our dear guardian. "We've prepared your lab but if there is something you would need, feel free to tell us."
Doctor Cockroach got back on his feet and slowly approached Monger. And then he started to yell at him:
"So now you're acting like I am your guest, huh? Do you think that I will just forget that you captured me like some wild animal?" He took few steps back and looked around. "What is this place, anyway?"
"Area 51." Monger answered casually.
Doctor gave him shocked look but quickly regained his composure. Still there was some uneasiness, some kind of sadness in his eyes. He perfectly knew why he was here, even without Monger's exposition. But the old soldier had to say it.
"You're in the secret military facility for monsters. From now on this is your new home. Get used to it, because you can't leave this area."
Doc's eyes snapped open.
"That's outrageous! I have a research to do! Besides, I'm not…"
"You are a monster." Monger cut him down and closed his face to Doc's. "And believe me, right now it's the best place for you, doctor." He said quietly, then moved back with his jetpack and added: "And don't worry about the research, you can do it right here. As I said earlier: we can send you a necessary equipment. Now excuse me." The general turned back to him and started to fly to the big, metal door. "I have to do few things. You, on the other hand, have to meet other monsters."
The half-track moved alongside with him. The doors of our cells opened widely, so I and BOB could finally came out (Invisible Man and Insecto weren't in the place back then… yet). Earlier we were observing everything through narrow gap that was lower part of our cell's entry. The same way we were later observing Susan.
But Cockroach didn't even see us. He just ran after general (that was also the moment when we saw him running like a cockroach for the first time), calling:
"Wait! You can't do this!"
The half-track was on the other side of the door, Monger however, stopped and flew down to doctor's eye-level, forcing him to rapidly stop. Meanwhile the front door started to slowly closing up.
"And one more thing, Doctor Cockroach." The general hissed. "Do. Not, Try. To. Escape."
Before poor insect man could reply, Monger turned his back on him and quickly disappeared behind doors which closed with loud thud. In act of desperation Cockroach clenched his fists and began to bashing metal entry.
"Let me out! Let me out! I'm not a monster! I'm not!"
His fists hit the metal one last time and he unclenched it. Next, he touched delicately the cold surface before him and with sad, shaking voice said:
"I'm not a monster. I'm a scientist."
He lowered his head, turned back to the door and slowly slid down, still observing the floor. After few seconds of hesitation we finally moved from our spots, our steps announcing our presence. I said quick "hay" and Doc put his gaze up on us. Then his eyes went wide. Then he abruptly stood up, leaning on the door, before he turned back and started to hit it again frantically.
"Open up! Please, open up! I don't want to die!"
I was used to such reaction. After all, I spent some time scaring some crap out of people. However, for the first time I scared the other monster. It was kinda weird feeling. Why he would be scared of me and BOB, when he himself probably brought fear to some of humans? I understood it only later.
Nevertheless, Doc quickly realized that his attempts to escape was useless, so he ran away from us to the nearest corner.
"Yay, we're playing tug!" BOB screamed. "I love this game!"
And he started to chase our new friend around the place.
"Hey, BOB, wait!" I on the other hand went after them both. "And you, Doc, calm down. We're not gonna hurt you!"
But he didn't listen. He quickly climbed on the wall and stopped halfway to the metal ceiling, so we couldn't reach him.
"Ha! How about now, monsters? You can't touch me here!"
"Oh, come on, Doc!" I called after him. "We aren't your enemies. We're closed in this place with you!" I turned to BOB and told discretely to him: "I already hate this guy. He's such a sacredly cat…"
"What kind of abominations of nature you are, anyway?" Cockroach asked.
"He's not very nice, either." I added.
We introduced ourselves and in big short told him our stories. Doctor Cockroach blinked at us twice and for a few seconds observed us. He probably was thinking whenever going down or not. I still don't know what thoughts ran through his head back then, but I think that maybe his inner scientist won over the fear, because when he finally got down he started to examine us both carefully. He even smelled me under armpit and poked BOB's blobby essence. With every second of it I liked him less and less.
"Fascinating." He murmured to himself when he finally finished. "Marvelous!"
"Don't get used to." I said. "We're not going to be your guinea pigs."
For a moment I thought I was too harsh, because Cockroach reacted pulling back his hands. But I didn't have enough time to wonder about it, because Monger came out and ordered us to go back to our cells. Doc wasn't resisting. He just let himself being led by Monger to his new home. And it so happened to be that our cells were originally beside each other (later we demanded to be moved out because we couldn't stand each other, but that's a story for another day). I could hear some of things that was coming from there, even though my cell was filled with water.
I remember that every one of us felt horrible during our first few weeks in Area 51. And since I myself wasn't there for very long back then, I thought, I know what Doc was going through. But I was wrong. I had absolutely no idea what he was going through.
So first thing, I've heard, were steps of Doc coming closer to the wall separating our cells. Then there was a soft thud, so I assumed he sat down on the floor. My imagination brought to my mind picture of him banding and hugging his knees. For a few second there was just silence. For some strange reason this silence felt horribly sad. And then I've heard his voice. Quiet, but hearable enough to be coherent.
"One of the finest minds of our times. Yeah, right."
I put my ears closer to the wall to hear it better. He laughed quietly.
"My hands looks normal, just like the rest. What a weird side effect… But will it last?"
Another few seconds of silence and…
"God, what have I done? They're going to experiment on me."
Silence. However, this time it wasn't cut by Cockroach's self-pity, but with short 'Huh?', like he'd found something weird. Then I heard the sound of him standing up and distancing from the wall; then soft rustle like he drew something out and put on something hard. Next, there was some sounds I couldn't quite put my finger on, and after short time the air had been filled with music.
When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go – downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know – downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?
And I realized that he had a gramophone in his place. Monger must have got him it… for some unknown reason. To mock him, probably. Before the second part of the song started, Doc quickly stopped the vinyl and I've heard sound of the record breaking on the metal wall.
Surprisingly, there was no whining for a rest of the night. There was just silence. I guess, Doc decided to sit on the ground (or bed) and sink in his own thoughts. I tried to stay my own business and don't think too much about my new neighbor. Yet, I couldn't help myself but wonder what was his story. After all, he heard ours, but we didn't hear his.
He said he was a scientist. I and BOB had a bad memories connected with scientists. Not only it was scientists fault that we were there in the first place (after all, BOB had been created by some loons from Food Department, and I would live happily in this ice cube, if it wasn't for some idiot paleontologist), but also from time to time military scientists were making some tests on us. Not very painful, but annoying as hell. I kept on wonder if this Doctor Cockroach wasn't here also to make some of this tests. If so, apparently he didn't know about it. Even if he was here for the same reason we were, and nothing else – I still didn't like him. He didn't make good impression and he was going to make even worst one (but that's a story for another time).
The next day we've met him on breakfast. He carefully sat at the table alongside with me and BOB, who quickly explained that there will be food soon. Doc only nodded with recognition, and I decided to observe him. Soon we're got our breakfast. I've got bunch of fresh fishes, BOB – a ham, and Cockroach – some kind of puree. For a moment he was just poking his food with spoon and watching it with doubtful look, before took some of puree and put it into his mouth. That was the moment when I saw for the first time the moustache on his upper lip, alongside with stubble on the chin.
"Hey, Doc." I started. He fixed his eyes on me but didn't stop eating. "How it happened that you have facial hair on this head?"
He suddenly froze and shot me cold gaze. For a moment he was looking at me suspiciously, but after few seconds he shyly touched his cheek, realizing that I was saying the truth. For a half of the minute he was running with hands around face, feeling relief with every brush of black hair.
"Damn, I must look awful." He said, mostly to himself, but I think that to us too.
Suddenly one of the hangars in our living room opened and Monger flew inside.
"Do he always do this?" Doctor Cockroach whispered to me.
"Yeah, pretty annoying, huh?" I said. "Just eat, Doc."
General flew closer to us and landed in front our table, precisely in front of Doc.
"How was your first night in new home, Doctor Cockroach?"
Doc obviously was fighting with himself to not say anything stupid. After all, he might not know if what he was going to say won't anger Monger and complicate his situation even further. Finally he had spoken:
"You said earlier, mister general, that you can bring me some tools if it will be necessary."
"Positive. What do you need, Doctor Cockroach?"
"I've spent four days going from one room to another through the tight and dirty vent, not to mention that I had to hide in some really nasty places. I need to shave and change wardrobe."
"Of course, I will take care of it. Is it all?" General asked, starting the engine.
"No." Doc looked up at general, took a deep breath and with stern eyes said: "I need a mirror."
"Mirror?"
I thought that it was the first time, when I saw Monger's eyes going wide with surprise.
"Mirror?" He repeated. "Are you sure, you're ready to…"
"Sorry to interrupt you, but I've already seen myself, general. Now I have to shave and I won't do it properly without mirror. Will it be a problem to get one?"
"If that's what you need, doctor, I will provide them to you as soon as possible."
"Thank you, general." Cockroach nodded with smile.
Later that day our cells were open (as always during daytime), so I decided to finally come to Doc and check how's he doing (I still didn't like him, but I hoped to find out something about him, one way or another. Besides, some part of me was worried about him). He just ended buttoning his new shirt. I looked around. In the middle of the room there was big table with lots of probes, Tesla coil and weird looking machines, while beside wall on my left there were: nightstand with gramophone and collection of records, big wardrobe filled with neatly folded clothes and white coats hanged on the hooks; and small bathroom mirror.
Seeing me, Doc stopped in the middle his activity, probably don't knowing what to expect from me.
"Relax, I just want to see how are you doing."
"Oh." He said surprised and drew some blue tie from the wardrobe. But I could clearly see he was nervous. "Well, then." He added. "I'm fine, I guess."
Cockroach put up the collar of his shirt and took the tie. He stood in front of the mirror and started tying the tie up, but he suddenly stopped. He began to stare at his reflection in silence. I could read from his face a sadness mixed with disgust. But then Cockroach smiled to himself with acrimony and proceeded to tying his tie.
"Can I ask you something?" I finally spoke up. He looked at me once, but then came back to his tie, so I decided to move along: "How it happened?"
When he turned his face on me, I knew that he didn't like this question. But I had to push it. To both mine and his peace of mind.
"Come on, Doc. You will feel better. I'm a monster, you're a monster. Who will better understand you than I?"
He quickly finished tying up, opened the mirror and drew out shaving accessories. Once again he was observing his own reflection, before gazed at me and began to do what he supposed to do.
"Probably you're right, my monkey-fishy friend. However, you do realize that you and I are different kind of monsters. You were born this way. Nature itself created you that way. I, on the other hand, was a human just few days earlier. And I did it to myself."
I still can't believe that he opened to me so easily. Maybe back then he really needed to tell somebody what happened to him.
He put some shaving cream on face. Meanwhile the sink moved out from the wall just like in some cells bank beds moved out.
"Right now the country we're in, is in tight situation with other country." Explained Doctor, cleaning his shaver. But before he would do something with it, he looked at me and asked: "Do you understand what I'm talking about?"
"Well, a bit." Was my answer. "Monger spent some time explaining to me that this place is called America and we are now in war with Russia."
"Are you sure, you're from Ice Age? Because you're too eloquent to be a Missing Link."
"I don't know how it works either, Doc." I said. Meanwhile he started to shave. "Maybe these scientists who digged me out, had done something to my brain. Anyway," I cut it out. "we're talking about you."
"As I said: because of Cold War, Americans live in constant fear of atomic wars. After all, both America and Russia has nuke missiles. So I said to myself one day: 'We need something to protect us from missiles in case fallouts wouldn't be enough, or else our civilization will vanish from this earth!' And I finally found the best way to prevent that situation. Or that's what I thought."
He gave me really long lecture about cockroaches' ability to survive particularly everything. Then he quickly explained to me the main idea of his mutation invention. During this whole time he somehow managed to shave himself without even one cut and put his moustache into order. I know, because I was so bored after some time of his techno-babble that I started to observe his shaver.
"And finally the big day came." He said, suddenly saddening. He wiped his face with towel (I don't know where he got it from. I'm a freaking prehistoric monkey fish, I can't remember every damn thing that happened.), came closer to the table and continued his story: "Since most people thought this idea was ridiculous, I was the only person present during all 78 attempts. Of course, I didn't perform them all during one day. The experiment was prolonged through weeks and it absorbed all my energy and free time. Most of attempts weren't doing much. Actually during only last ten I registered any progress." He paused and gave a big sigh. "If only I knew when to stop…"
He took something from the table and put closely to his chest. When he turned to me, I saw that it was some square object. It looked like a frame but the picture was on the down side. Doctor came closer to me, still it looked like he wasn't going to show me the thing he was holding.
"It supposed to be slightly different than how it really came out. I wanted to make myself immune to radiation and then show it to other scientists to prove that my theories were right. When I entered the mutagenic chamber that fateful day, at first I felt how every cell of my body is changing painfully, including my eyes. It was like somebody was violently opening them wider and wider. The whole transformation took only few seconds, but for me it was like an eternity. When everything was over and the chamber's door opened itself, I felt both relief and confusion. I took few steps on the ground, but my vision was blurry and I couldn't make anything from what was going on. Finally I collapsed and lost consciousness."
"Did somebody found you?"
"Yes, it was my assistant, Mark. Right after he saw what I have become, he screamed with fear and ran away. I was already conscious back then, so I tried to stop him and ask for help. But when I pulled myself together and saw my reflection in titan cover of mutagenic chamber, I realized that I'm not human anymore. I've tried to find out in my notes what exactly happened, find that one thing that went wrong, but before I could at least flip a first page, I've heard Mark coming with security guards, so I took the notes with myself and…"
"And ran away." I finished for him. "Through the vent."
"Yes. It's a miracle that my big head didn't stuck in it and I was able to move through it in some way. During that four days between the incident and Monger's arrive, I discovered with shock to myself that I not only can run like a cockroach, but also have an urge to eat like one. On the one hand, it was disgusting, but on the other – I didn't have to go to the kitchen and risk being spotted. I only had to find some trash can. Anyway, I tried to find a way back to my lab that had been sealed and guarded just in case I would like to return. People that were working with me, people I was passing on a daily basis, were now scared of me. They all wanted to take me down like some animal. Because I wasn't someone they knew anymore. I was a monster. And I had to hide before them in darkest areas laboratories. But even then I couldn't escape from military that came shortly after. I couldn't hide for eternity and Monger was very clever. In less than one day he manage to track me down and put to sleep. When I woke up I was in the half-track to Area 51."
For a moment he was silent, but then he lean both hand to me and finally showed the picture he was holding on. I saw a tall, slim man in his early thirties, standing in front some laboratory table and holding two probes. He had big, square chin, pointy nose and already familiar to me moustache. I looked first at Doc, than on the picture, and again on Cockroach, whose big eyes seemed to be near to cry.
"I had a life before this accident. I was respected scientist with promising career. I was a human being. Now I have nothing. Now I'm just a freak. And I am imprisoned here, so I won't be seen or even remembered. Do you understand me, my friend? Do you understand?"
"Yes. I think I do." Was my response. I gave him back his photo and smiled to him.
It really was something different than what I or BOB were. I was wondering if there is any way to cheer Doc up, but for the most part I couldn't think of anything good. Cockroach, on the other hand, opened the wardrobe and drew out from it a white coat. Then he put it on himself and started to button it. When he finished, he took few steps back and looked at himself in the mirror.
"But you know what?" He began suddenly. "This thing has one huge advantage. I have none of the physical weaknesses of both species. I'm not that sensitive to sunlight like a regular cockroach, yet even my human part of the body can survive most of things that could be lethal to people. All in all, I've got what I wanted."
"Does that mean you won't try to turn yourself back to normal, Doc?" I asked.
"Of course, I will." He state in 'as-a-matter-of-fact' manner. "I'm just saying it's not that bad as it could have been."
He did try to change himself back to normal. During the first decade in imprisonment Doctor Cockroach did lots of experiments and attempts to return to his previous state. However, after that whole time, I guess, he managed to get used to his new form and eventually abandoned the whole 'turning back to normal' idea. Now he wanted to just go out. So he started to making lots of plans to break himself and us out. He also developed some of his mad scientist antics (or maybe they were there before, but I didn't know), which would make me scared if it wasn't for the fact that guy proved many times to be rather harmless. Anyway, as time was passing by he was more laid back, becoming the Doctor Cockroach we all know and love.
But even though he might like his current state, I'm sure that there are still times when he's thinking about his human life. And maybe… just maybe… he misses it a bit.
Nevertheless, that was the first of many faces of Doctor Cockroach and during all those years I've managed to see also others.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, even though Doctor Cockroach was a bit OOC here. For my defence I can say that his situation back then was calling for him to being emo. After all, which person wouldn't be upset by the fact that he turned himself/herself into someone with head of the bug? I think that Doc C could be scared and sad that he lost his humanity.
I promise that next chapters will be more crackish and cheerful.
The song's name is a Downtown by Petual Clark.