CHAPTER FOUR
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A series of expletives and hurried motions jarred Dexter from his concentration.
"Ugh, not again." Mandark angled himself over his desk, pinching his nose with one hand and trying to fish a monogrammed kerchief out of his jacket pocket. Droplets of blood dripped down his lip and spattered onto his desktop. Dexter smiled and laced his fingers together.
"Ah, experiencing a recurrence of epistaxis, are we?"
"You catch on quickly." Mandark's voice sounded more impossibly nasal than usual under the clamp of his fingers on his nose. "Tomorrow we'll learn colors."
"It's like I keep telling you, Mandark, proper laboratory clothing should never be neglected. For twenty years, your greatest guard against radiation poisoning and chemical toxicants has been a pair of knee socks. No wonder your organs are finally suffering from exposure."
"Who says it's chemically-induced, genius? Maybe I've just got allergies."
"Perhaps. But you also happen to reek of noxious fumes, and I assumed it was for reasons other than cheap cologne."
Successfully staunching the flow of blood from his nostrils, Mandark cleaned himself up and adjusted his immaculate collar and necktie. "An intelligent man dresses for the position he desires, not for the one he is currently forced to endure. Haven't you heard? Besides, I'm wearing gloves." It looked like he'd ordered the ink-black articles from an adult website.
"And I wonder where you stole that idea?" Dexter snorted. "Mark my words, Mandark, one of these days you will breathe in just enough hazardous gas to render you totally unstable and unfit for work. In short, certifiably insane. I cannot wait."
"And on that day, you will come to regret your arrogance," Mandark swiftly returned. "I cannot wait."
PLOP. A greasy, stinking paper bag landed in the middle of Dexter's desk.
"I brought Thai food!" Dee Dee sang out, peeking her blue eyes over the top of the bag.
"You know there is a five star, gourmet cafeteria directly on the premises, do you not?"
"You don't want to go there. Scientists eat Thai food!"
Dexter regarded the sack with undisguised aversion.
"I love Thai food," said Mandark.
Dexter proceeded to toss it in the wastebin. "Go away, Dee Dee."
"What are you working on today?" She just wouldn't give it up. Between his detestable colleague and his sister's constant disruptions, he felt like he was fighting his way through fourth grade again. It was not a feeling he enjoyed.
"I am working on some designs for Mr. Magnus," he surrendered. "Our presentation is in one week. As if it matters to you."
"Oh." Dee Dee lowered her voice and turned her back to Mandark, who appeared to enjoy the view. "Is it a secret?"
"Little success we'd have keeping secrets in these confined quarters. It is not. I am currently developing a pair of audio auxiliary amplifiers that will bypass the ear canal to translate soundwaves directly into the cellular matter of the brain. It will aide in the understanding of foreign languages which is ever more important in our increasingly globalized society. If you will recall, my previous attempts at developing the same technology were somewhat...rudimentary." He showed her the drawing on his desk.
"But - those are just fancy headphones! That's so boring, Dexter! You'll never win with those!"
"If you are bored then go away. Simplicity is very respectable, a lesson some people have yet to learn," he raised his voice.
Mandark was clipping two very large schematics to the lightboard for Dee Dee's benefit. "No clue what you're talking about. I'm just working on some concepts analyzing electrolaser technology for use in discharge photon ray blasters and remotely operated robotic defense initiators. Don't mind me."
"Guns and robots," Dexter scoffed. "Exactly in line with the corporation's typical product offering. Not."
"I doubt the United States military will be complaining. Or anyone else dealing with a pretentious jackass."
Dexter perceived Dee Dee's eyes glazing over, as expected. "There are no buttons for you to push, Dee Dee, and nothing for you to destroy, so this office can have little interest for you, so please honor my requests for privacy and leave me to my work."
"But I was going to eat lunch with you – "
"I'm free!" said the other side of the room.
" – and you're always so busy." She stuck out her lower lip and he couldn't imagine what she thought that would achieve. He pointed to the door imperiously.
"Go or I will call security. Do not test me, woman."
"Hmph. Fine. If you're so busy I'll go. But I'm going because I want to, not because you made me."
"Either way the outcome will be satisfactory. I bid you adieu."
With a toss of her blonde pigtails (which looked completely absurd at her 23 years), Dee Dee stomped out and slammed the door so hard the windowpanes shivered in their casings.
Every day. It was every day now. In a way Dexter was astonished how many pretenses she had invented to justify her visits over the course of almost three months.
She only wants to spend time with you! She's not trying to be a bother.
Clearly the combination of the Thai food from the trashcan and Mandark's chemical vapors was making him faint. Dee Dee was a nuisance. It was a fact. She wanted to go where she wasn't wanted, an old theory that had been proven time and time again. She didn't really care. She only thought of herself.
But he wouldn't let her distract him when she was out of his presence. She could not invade his mind, and that was a consolation. He had far too much work to do, and not on some ridiculous decoy of a gadget. Headphones? The most elementary construct imaginable. Where it was effective, though, was in encouraging Mandark to keep his own efforts restrained.
He sneered in the direction of his colleague's workspace. Guns and robots, bah! Mr. Magnus and his colleagues would never be impressed by something so unrefined. And that was the reason why Dexter stayed every night in earnest labor at his true inventions, the ones that would prove the power of neurotomics and the extent of his own genius to the world.
-X-
The Neurotomic Protocore. As a child, Dexter had created it for the simple satisfaction of knowing that he could, but he had soon learned that its energies, its ability to emit waves that affected the human mind, were unlike anything known to man.
It was not mind control. Mind control was the province of a villain, a power-hungry overlord which Dexter, of course, was not. No, society could only be improved by the positive influence of the Neurotomic Protocore, a source of energy that increased brain activity and joined the neurons in the mind to make thought and reason more complex than ever before. As he had grown from a boy genius to a teenager, he had delved deeper and deeper into the studies of neurotomics, discarding all other disciplines but those needed to secure his position as a premier physicist at MegaCorp, the country's largest conglomerate. He'd discovered that the waves emitted from the core could be harnessed, the flow controlled like a broadcast from a centralized location. So he had drawn up a system for directing the waves to the public, in order to enhance the weak minds of humanity.
After years of study, he had recently had yet another breakthrough. With the heightened intelligence the core provided, any average man could, after exposure to its waves, generate matter into physical form with the slightest mental concentration. In the blink of an eye a man could think of anything his heart desired and it would appear before him - teletronically. He knew the public would clamber at such a possibility.
After work each evening, Dexter and Mandark would silently part ways and leave for home in opposite directions. Then Dexter would double-back unseen toward Mega Tower and let himself into the research laboratory with his scan card. That was where the day's real work began. Work, he often thought. Someone needed to invent another word for it. This isn't any kind of work at all, it is a dream!
There, he drew up and improved upon his plans – the centralized power producing pylon that would distribute the energy waves, the high-charge neurotomic fission reactor that would bring the core to its full strength, and the teletronic transference receptors that would make thoughts reality. The latter he had developed into a prototype, useless for the time being, but a good model for the product MegaCorp would soon be selling by the billions. It was all useless without its energy source, of course, hunks of lifeless plastic and metal. But it would not be useless for long.
He had developed a portable containment unit for the core, and he kept it on his person at all times. Safely ensconced in the laboratory, he could take it out of its casing, feel the energy radiating warmth into his hand as the subparticles twinkled along their orbits.
Universal wisdom, peace, and harmony. All are finally within reach. They will thank me.
Sometimes, late at night, something told him to destroy it. He always ignored that voice, because he knew better.
-X-
"I'm going to walk you home!"
"I brought you lunch!"
"Wanna catch a movie?"
"I was just in the neighborhood…"
"You'll need an umbrella!"
"Mom said to keep an eye on you."
"It's National Take-Your-Sister-To-Work Day!"
After three months, Dee Dee was starting to run out of excuses. Sometimes she thought Dexter was finally starting to come to peace with her presence in the office. Sometimes she thought she was just making things worse between them. Sometimes she got mad that he could turn her away so easily. Most of the time she wondered why she was bothering with it at all.
I guess I'm just bored. Or maybe I'm….lonely. Even though he was rude and bossy and way too tall now, he was still her baby brother. She missed him. Whatever it meant to Dexter, it was no secret visiting his office was the best part of her day.
Well, almost the best part. For every excuse she found to talk to Dexter, Mandark found three more to talk to her. He'd extended every invitation that probably existed in the world, and it would have been flattering if he wasn't a total loser. How many ways could you say, "No, I don't want to go out with you"? Maybe she'd make Dexter teach her in French. Lately Mandark had been pestering her about a fancy new restaurant, Chez Ritz, that had opened on 99th Street.
Lucky for her, no one was in the office today. "They must be really busy working on their presentations," she thought, Mandark with his ray gun and Dexter with his lame headphones. Her brother was going to need some serious help if he wanted to impress his boss and get that promotion. Too bad his side of the office was such a wreck. Mandark kept his station weirdly tidy, but Dexter had old cups of coffee, lots of pens and papers, and funny mechanical tools scattered across his desk. How could he get any work done like that?
A lightbulb went off over Dee Dee's head. "He's always complaining when I mess up his stuff. If I help him tidy his office he'll have to thank me!"
Dee Dee hurried over to his desk without another thought. She gathered his calculator, pens, and paperclips and tossed them all together in a drawer. She grabbed his scarf, thrown across the back of his chair, and hung it on a hook on the wall. She peeked into his styrofoam cups to see if any of them held fresh coffee, but none of them did, and they were all super weak. "He should drink black coffee if he wants to get anything done!" That's what she always drank. She dashed out of the room to get him some from the coffee maker, then placed the cup carefully on his desk. If she spilled anything on his papers he would definitely kill her.
There were a lot of papers, too, and they all looked alike. Upon closer inspection Dee Dee found that some of them were reports, others were memos, and the big ones were drawings like the ones he'd shown her in his lab. She flipped through them until she had them mostly sorted into three neat piles.
She bit her lip and looked around the room. They would be safer in folders.
Dexter's desk had a big drawer at the bottom for files. She grabbed the first unmarked folder she saw and pulled it out, but was surprised to find it heavier than she expected. "That's weird," she murmured to herself. "It's full of papers." There was that hamster-ball drawing, and the hearing-aid thing, and some other pictures she didn't recognize. Was it supposed to be a secret or something? Why would he hide it in his office? She guessed that a supergenius like Dexter knew what he was doing, but if it was up to her she wouldn't put her important stuff right where someone else could take it. He'd been doing that since he was a kid.
She shook her head. "I better put this back, or he's going to be mad."
But the folder slipped out of her hand, spilling splashes of blue all across the floor.
She heard a Russian accent outside the door.
Quick, quick! Dee Dee ducked down on her hands and knees and scrambled to put the blueprints back in order. How many were there? Shoot, she didn't know. There was an extra one, it had landed under Mandark's desk! There's no time to get it, her brain screamed, she could see Dexter's black shoes were walking straight toward her. She tucked the folder back in the open drawer and raised her head over the desktop with a great big nervous smile.
"Hi Dexter!"
"Dee Dee?" He rushed over to his desk and assessed the damage in one furious look. "What have you done? You've been tampering with my things! You know my workspace is off limits, what reason could you possibly have to - "
"I've been helping!" she interrupted. "See? I hung up your scarf and got you some coffee. And I put all your papers together, too. Now your work will be a lot easier, and you can focus on your presentation tomorrow!"
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. When he spoke his voice was level and hard. "I had everything where I needed it, Dee Dee. Where's my ruler? The memo from this morning? Why is my coffee black?"
"So you'd stay awake better. It's all here, Dexter, just clean!" She couldn't understand it. Why was he mad? What had she done now?
Good thing he doesn't know about the paper. It was still under Mandark's desk. Dexter sat down and began pulling things out of drawers and putting them where he wanted them. Maybe if she stretched her leg, and got it with her foot –
It was no use. Mandark sallied in, chomping on a chocolate donut, and spied her loitering on his side of the office. He instantly wiped the icing off his lips in case he was required to use them. "Why Dee Dee, what a pleasant surprise seeing you here today! Your presence in this tedious place is always an unrivaled delight. I'd been meaning to tell you, there's a new restaurant on 99th, and I was wondering if you might like to – "
She knew she wasn't getting any French lessons today, English would have to do. "No, Mandark. I don't want to go out with you."
"You are busy. I understand. Perhaps another time, then," he smiled. "Perhaps after tomorrow you'll change your mind."
He meant after the presentation. Mandark's attention was almost worse than Dexter's rejection. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach. "I hope you get a lot of work done, Dexter," she offered quietly.
Dexter kept his angry glare on his calculator display. "More work than I previously anticipated, yes. Thanks to you." He didn't give her a second look. He could only assume Dee Dee was as capable as showing herself out as forcing her way in.
-X-
He had torn the office to shreds.
"Where is it? Where is it?"
Dexter overturned the wastebin, scattering crumpled sketches and old coffee cups along the floor. He raked through the mess with his gloved hands. "Nothing. Not here." He kicked the trashcan aside. "Do not panic Dexter, remain calm." He breathed slowly in an effort to regulate his heartbeat and steady his mind. Where did he put it? It was not in the research lab, he had checked there twice already. Not in his file cabinet. Not in his wastebin. Not in the folder he'd specifically designated and left unmarked for just this purpose. Not where it was supposed to be.
"How am I going to explain the foundations of the neurotomic distribution system if I cannot depict the high-charge neurotomic fission reactor?" It would seem like gibberish without the research to back it up, the ravings of a deluded fool at best and a madman at worst. And his presentation was only half an hour away; Mandark was in the conference room now, finishing up any moment.
Wouldn't the reveal of the core be sufficient on its own? Would Magnus be able to appreciate it for the unprecedented marvel it is? It didn't matter, that was not the point, the point was he had had something and now it was gone when he needed it the most!
He sprang for Mandark's desk and yanked open the top drawers which, to his consternation, held only fun-size candy bars and bags of chips. He pulled open two other drawers, but everything was in order there as well. He plowed his fingers through his frizz of red hair. Mandark had it. He knew he had it. Mandark could never accomplish anything on his own and was horribly jealous and was always trying to steal his ideas at every turn and –
No. No, he was all wrong.
Dexter shut up the drawers to Mandark's desk and returned to his own workstation. With trembling fingers he readjusted his glasses, which had been knocked askew on his face. How could he have missed something so obvious? It was not Mandark, not this time. It was someone else's fault.
"Hiiii Dexter! I came to wish you good luck on your – "
"GET OUT!"
Dee Dee halted at the doorway. "What? I don't – "
"You did this. You did it on purpose!"
"Did what?"
"You deliberately misplaced the blueprints for my high-charge neurotomic fission reactor!"
"N-no I didn't! I mean, well, it was an accident!"
Dexter reached the office door in three strides and Dee Dee backed up against it, looking guilty.
"An accident? You just happened to lose my most important and complex design the day before I required its use?"
"I didn't even know what it was, Dexter, I swear! It was just a drawing, right?"
He grabbed her shoulders and she winced at the grip of the rubber on her bare arms. "Do not insult me, Dee Dee! You know that drawing was the product of years and years of careful work! You know that! But you don't care! You do not care what you destroy because you never stop to think! Perhaps you were angry because I closed the laboratory, hmm? I was finally free of your constant interference and you simply could not bear to let it go. Well you should be very happy, my entire career is in jeopardy and all because of you!"
"Dexter, how can you say that? I was only trying to help! We can look for it, together, I'm sure it's here – "
"No, I don't want your help! You never do anything right! Everywhere you go, you only make things worse!"
Dexter's wildly gesturing finger was inches from her face when he felt her hands collide with his chest, and he stumbled backwards into the room. "At least I try to help people instead of acting like I'm the only guy on the planet!" she shrieked. "At least I know other people have feelings and that they get hurt! You don't care about anyone but yourself! You are nothing but a selfish creep!"
"I already told you to get out! Get out of my office at once! Don't you understand what this means for me? For science? For the world? You have ruined everything I've worked for you stupid, stupid girl!"
Like a child, his sister's face crumpled, and she tore out of the room with her face in her hands. Heart thumping in his ears, it was only then he realized, on the other side of the glass panes, that every employee in the department was staring at him in utter shock.
He heard his name crackle over the office intercom. "Please report to Mr. Magnus' office - immediately."
-X-
There was no hope in holding it back, she had burst into tears before she made it out of the research department and was sobbing by the time she got to the ground floor.
Dee Dee managed to get to the bus stop, half-blind, and flung herself down on the bench with a sob that made every muscle in her body ache. She was only trying to show him that she cared. She wasn't trying to make him mad. He was so smart, how could he not understand? Why did he hate her so much?
The bus wouldn't arrive for another half hour, and there was no one nearby except for a few pedestrians who passed her without interest. She sat on the chilled metal bench for a long time before she heard footsteps approaching behind her. She was too numb to care or wonder who they belonged to. She knew without looking that they didn't belong to Dexter.
Mandark sat down beside her. "I saw the whole thing."
Dee Dee swiped traces of sticky tears off her face. "Good for you."
"I thought it was highly inappropriate. Completely inexcusable behavior." Not that I'd expect anything else from a fool like Dexter, she finished for him. But he didn't say it.
First he was studying the cufflinks on his shirt, then he was looking right in her eyes and she didn't know what to do.
"For what it's worth, I think you are very smart, Dee Dee. One of the smartest people I know."
How did you respond to something like that? She had never had the practice. "...Thank you, Mandark," she said at last, her voice smaller than she expected. "I…really needed to hear that."
"Believe me, it's my pleasure."
Dexter's rival. She was sitting here talking to Dexter's rival, like a terrible sister.
But then…what did it matter? A little flare of defiance prickled in her chest. If everything she did was wrong, then she might as well stop trying. Might as well do whatever the hell she wanted.
"So, Mandark," she sniffled, "about that new French place…."
-X-
The office was cold and stark and white, and Magnus seemed taller than before, and Dexter could not remove his eyes from the crown-shaped pin on the executive's lapel. The stink of the cigar smoke made it hard to think, but he shot each apology out as rapidly as his accent would allow him to form the words.
"I'm very, very sorry, sir. I assure you, it will never happen again! I made it clear to my sister that her visits here are unacceptable and – "
"I know you did. The entire department heard you. Dexter, I believe you're smart enough to guess that you will not be getting the promotion."
"I understand, sir." Dexter clenched his jaw. He simply had to explain. Mr. Magnus would surely reconsider. "I realize I am unprepared, and so I cannot complete my presentation today, but if you would only allow me a little time I know I could – "
He jumped as Magnus brought his hand slamming down onto the desk. "It doesn't have anything to do with missing papers, or annoying sisters, or any other problems you want to create, Dexter. It has to do with you. Like I said, you're a brainiac, always letting your ego trip you up. MegaCorp may be at the forefront of science and technology, but we're also here to serve the public, to make our future better. No matter what skills and knowledge you bring to the table, at the end of the day you have to care about people if you want to change the world. Why should I believe you are ready to be a leader in our company if you think so little of your own flesh and blood?"
"Mr. Magnus, please, you are very much mistaken! My inventions, the very idea I was prepared to share with you today, all are designed with an aim to improve our society! I am a good person, I only had a momentary lapse of judgement this afternoon and I am sure my reputation here can be repaired – "
"You love your sister, boy?"
The unexpected query stunned him into silence. "Do I – "
"Do you love your sister, boy?"
"I…don't understand the question."
"Should have been an easy one." The executive shook his head. "I'd worry a little less about your reputation and a little more about what really matters. Some things just can't be repaired."
With his thumb, Magnus pressed a button on the intercom. "Buzz him in."
Dexter felt the darkness of a long, lean shadow fall upon him in the light of the doorway. He didn't bother looking up, even though he heard Magnus' congratulations through the throbbing in his head, and the familiar sound of a triumphant cackle.
This is all Dee Dee's fault. All of it. And he would never forgive her.