Orphans Beloved: "Brazil…"
Summary: Like my Immortal Beloved bits in my Buffyverse stories, these are fragments and short bits, some longer…Just to fiddle with ideas, possibly forming longer tales later. I do plan at least one longer tale, "Nessun Dorma" but that's just getting sketched now.
Disclaimer: No copywrite infringement intended.
"Brazil…Where hearts were entertaining June. We stood beneath an amber moon.
And softly murmured 'someday soon'…"
"Doonnniiieee…"
"Donnnniiiieeee…"
Soaring over the clouds, the summoned…One Donald Hendrix, in gliding wings…
He scanned the horizon, then to the distant sides..
"Donnie!..." Call…A bit more insistent.
"Allison?!" He spied in the distance, a figure, in a suspended, almost floating cage…The figure of a woman…Hair flowing more like a mermaid in the ocean than a figure in mid-air…
"Donnie!? Where are you? Donnie!"
"Ally! I'm coming!..." he swooped in her direction…
A huge white mass rose from the ground to bar his path…A gleaming marble pillar… "Dyad Institute of Advanced Genome Research" spelled out on its crown in gold letters.
"Donnie! Don't let me down!" insistent voice…
Another pillar rising to block him…Likewise labeled for Dyad…More rising as he tried adjust his course around them…
He tried swooping back, to gain height and rise above the pillar tops…Two hands emerging from the ground to grab his wings, breaking them…The face of Dr. Aldous Leekie appearing in the ground far below.
"Hendrix? What are you doing?!"
Wings hopelessly battered, he tumbled to earth…Rising, with effort, he saw figures approaching…An army of Pauls, Delphines, Mrs. Ss, Oliviers…He pulled out a sword from its scabbard by his right side.
"Donnie! I believe in you!" Allison's faint cry…
He pulled sword, slashing…The figures fell back to reveal another more formidable force…An army of clones…Sarahs, Beths, Cosimas, Janikas, Danielles, Katjas, even to his horror, Allisons…All in white plastic battle armor, though most not wearing helmets.
"I don't want to hurt you guys, let me through!" he demanded, sword in hand. Several Sarahs charging him, Beths leveling guns…
Uh-oh…
"Surrender, Donnie!" joint cry…
"Come on, call it a day…" Aldous Leekie emerged from the horde of clones, motioning them to stand down. "This is all a fantasy…You don't love Allison…It's guilt over betraying her."
Donnie eyed him, keeping sword extended… "That what you think?"
"Hendrix, you were her monitor, not her loving husband…Now it's time to wrap things, including her, up and you're feeling a mite guilty. Perfectly natural. But we've no time for it now. Come on, put that stupid thing down…" Leekie eyed the sword. "…And lets go over your payoff settlement."
"Let her go, Leekie." He kept the sword up. "You've got all the data you need, let me take her away."
"No can do, Hendrix…Not only was this not part of the deal you signed onto but we need to study our Allison in her last ride down that dark corridor to total insanity, utter bananas…For the greater good, you know…And in part because watching her freak from a distance is just so much darned fun." Grin…
"Girls?" Donnie addressed the clone army…All eyeing him, awaiting Leekie's order
"Sorry…Order 666 has been issued." Leekie grinned. "Copywright Dyad Institute, 1977, 1983, patent approval pending. They're the property of Dyad Institute and subject to me now."
Thanks, sweetheart…He turned to nod to a clone bearing tea pot and cups who set them down on a folding table next to him. Tea, Hendrix?
"Order 666?" Donnie stared.
"Sue me, I love sci-fi…" Leekie grinned. "The imbedded order we planted at conception as a failsafe should our girls get a bit too rambunctious."
"Ally is not your property…" Donnie, ignoring the courteous tea offer…
"She signed the release form, the idiot…" Leekie, pausing to add sugar, sip. "Which gives us an even stronger claim for the courts." Grin. "Though it is interesting that she has not been responding to her ingrained command. She's unique, Hendrix and therefore all the more valuable to us. Only poor feral Helena was her equal there."
"I thought Sarah…The little girl with regenerative properties…" Donnie began.
"All very nice…Possible immortality and all that…" Leekie nodded. "But Allison's mental condition caused her to move outside our box…Way, way outside…And that makes her a very valuable commodity to us, kiddo. Now lets be sensible, put up the outmoded toy, and you go sign off on your final paperwork."
"No, Aldous…Let me have her."
"Fine…Ok…Kill him, girls! Order 666!" Leekie shrugged.
"Wait!" the clone bearing teapot…In accented voice.
"Think brother-in-law has good point. I has good point too." Helena, pulling off wig, while holding knife to Leekie's throat. "Hey, devil. Nice to finally meet you. Better not fire, sisters…Or steppapa go to Hell quicker."
"But…You're dead!" Leekie frowned. "Sarah? G5S461, I mean…"
A Sarah stepped out of line…
"You did say you shot Helena…Through the head?"
"Please…Worst place to shoot to kill…" Helena shrugged. "I play dead in dark, she go…Here I am for family get-together." Smile.
"Hello, sisters!" she waved, keeping knife at Leekie's throat.
"What do you care what happens to Allison? Helena, she's on your list…" Leekie frowned.
"Are you on your list, Ally?" Donnie eyed Helena who grinned.
"What? That's not possible!" Leekie, trying to squirm free… "You're locked in our cage…"
"Don't do that, Dr. Leekie." Allison, insistent. "You know it's funny, I seem to have a really instinctive knowledge of how to escape from cages…Maybe you guys dropped some Houdini in me?"
"So she's not Helena?" Sarah G5S461 stared.
"Certainly not…" Allison frowned. "Helena's dead, right Donnie?"
Uhh… "Yeah, sure…" he nodded.
We can hope…Assuming nothing sets her off and I can get her to a really excellent psychiatric clinic…
"And wasn't my Donnie wonderful playing you for fools!" she beamed.
"What, him?" Leekie glared. The clone army stared…
"You betcha…" proud nod. "He told me all about the monitor thing after I signed the release form but he'd just been trying to find out what Dyad was up to all along…"
In between trying to find out about and keep my wife's other personality from slaughtering the whole city, yeah…He thought.
"That's ridiculous…He's been on the payroll since the project started…He's betrayed you since high school…"
"He's here savin' me…Well, helpin' me save myself and the sisters…Leekie…You tell me who's been betrayin' who?" she beamed.
"Hendrix, you lil'…You'll pay for this!…The clone army may not be eager to attack one of its own but my monitors will! Paul, Olivier!"
"Actually, boss…" Paul noted. "This isn't looking like it's going down well. We think we're gonna cut a deal with the feds while the gettings good."
"Olivier?!"
"You let Helena cut my twin brother's tail and then you killed him, Aldous…I'm not saying I don't still have the greatest enthusiasm for the project but really…" Olivier noted.
Sound of sirens…Leekie staring…
"And here comes poor Bethie's partner with the Feds…" Allison noted, contentedly. "And we can go back to our blissfully contented lives…Right, honey?"
"I can keep my wings, right?" Donnie asked… "Really kinda liked having these…"
"Of course…Make you like angel…Sweet angel from Heaven coming for saving me…" accented voice.
Uh-oh…Donnie stared…
"Something wrong, honey?" Allison beamed. "We can go home now."
Hmmn…
"Nah…" he sighed. "We're together, Ally. It's all good."
"Or maybe take a long vacation…Maybe Brazil, like we talked." she suggested…
"Sure, that's a great idea…Brazil, it is…"
They should have good shrinks there…
"It's all good, sweetheart…"
All…Good…
Sigh…
Bright lights…Austere office, Dyad Institute…Two exam chairs, currently occupied.
"They've got away…" wistful tone of Aldous Leekie, eyeing the frozen-faced figure before him…
"They've got away from us, Paul."
"I'm afraid so, Dr. Leekie." Paul, beside him, in lab coat, shaking head.
"This won't make a difference…You've got her." Voice from across the room. "We still have a deal?"
"Certainly, Sarah…" Leekie nodded. "We asked for Helena, you delivered…It's not your fault she managed to slip away from us with this dolt of ours. You may take Kyra and go. We've got all we really needed from our exams." He frowned at the second figure slumped wide-eyed in a second exam chair…Donald Hendrix.
"Who've thought this one would pull this…Fall in love with the craziest of them all." Paul shook head.
"Protecting her all this time…Helping her pull off the role of Allison…Completely pulling the wool over our eyes for years." Leekie shook his head.
"She did try to kill me…And the others…" Sarah, mostly to herself…Trying to justify…Staring at the frozen blank stare of her twin…
"She was out of her mind in far more than one way…" Leekie shrugged. "But with her like this we not likely to ever get a complete picture of why or how she became Helena and Allison…"
"Can't we just?…" Paul began, suggestively…
Leekie eyed him…
Well…I mean…We do have the body…" Paul noted.
Oh, I am def taking Fee's advice and dumpin' this one…Sarah thought.
"Paul? She's still alive. Besides, we couldn't just…Who do you think we are?" Leekie, shocked.
Didn't we just drug and psych torture them into a mutually catatonic state? Paul pondered.
"Are they both humming somethin'?" Sarah eyed the two in their chairs.
"Return…We will…To ole…Brazil…"