Just A Number

"Good Evening. The time is 10:00 O' Clock. I'm Jessica Freeman."

"And I'm John Webb."

"Welcome to News at Ten. Up first, reports have been flooding in of mass-murders all over the island of Hawaii. Eighteen people have been found dead, all following in the fashion of the Valerie Holmes murder mystery."

"All of the victims have the same bite marks on their necks, and experts cannot match these to any animal. But strangest of all is the puncture wounds on the victim's legs, showing an injection of an unknown poison."

"Our reporter, Cassie Wright is on the scene. The following images may shock and disturb."

As soon as the presenter said those magic words, everyone leaned in for a closer look at their screens. All except a certain yellow experiment.

Reuben flicked off the TV and went to bed, pulling the covers right over his head and curling up. He screwed up his eyes in horror. A1 had gone on a killing spree, and he had started it. Evidently she was trying to ignore the thoughts that he had put into her head. He was trying to ignore the ones she put into his as well. Thoughts of Jumba, Jeeba and the kids dying. Thoughts of Angel being hunted down. Another one came into his head as well.

'I'll kill you while you sleep'.

That was the last thing she had said to him. Would she really do that? Of course she would, he told himself, she's killed 19 people and severely injured Slushy. Slushy's attack wasn't on the news, what if she's attacked experiments as well? He leapt out of bed and raced off to Jumba's house.

As he approached the door, scanners shot from either side of it and analysed him. Seeing that he was not a threat, they allowed him to proceed. He raised a fist to knock, but it was opened by Jeeba, who explained that an alarm sounded when someone came towards the door. She was wearing a white apron, which seemed odd, even for her. Sure, she was a chef, but at 10:00 at night? She took him through to the lounge, and it all became clear. The coffee table and chairs had been removed, and instead the room was filled with small beds. In each of the beds lay a different experiment- the lounge had been converted into a miniature hospital. Jeeba was looking after them, with the aid of Pleakley. Reuben looked at all the cousins in horror.

Nibbiolo lay miserably in a bed that had the corners chewed off. One of his arms was missing. Squeak sat up in another, the covers swamping him. He mumbled to himself, although he didn't seem to be able to see anyone. He was shaking, and rocking back and forth in a very disturbed way. Sparky buzzed in the corner, sparks constantly flying off him. It seemed that A1 had covered him in water. Drowsy trembled, an ear missing and a huge slash on his stomach. Slushy was still curled in a corner, bandages round his throat. Pleakley bustled around in a nurse's costume, and Jeeba paused on the way to the kitchen to mop Squeak's head delicately. Reuben sat down next to Slushy, who seemed the most capable of conversation.

"Hi. How're you doing?"

"Not too bad. The kids have been looking after me." Slushy's voice rasped like nails on a blackboard. Evidently his vocal chords had yet to fully recover.

"The kids? What, Ruby and Keltzam?"

Right on cue, the twins rushed in, dressed in play dress-up doctor and nurse costumes. Keltzam had a stethoscope around his neck that seemed very realistic. It was evident that his dad had given him some equipment from the lab. They hurried over to examine their patient. Slushy grinned appreciatively at the pair as Keltzam made him say "Aaah", placed a thermometer in his mouth and checked his heart, warming up the stethoscope first, a tad unnecessarily as it froze on contact with his chest. Ruby stopped to explain to her Uncle Reuben. He had always been her favourite Uncle. Only he and her mother knew that she was named after him, not even she or her father knew that, but she had always seemed more attached to him than anyone else.

"Hiya, Uncle Reuben! I'm a nurse, like Uncle Pleakley!"

"Hey there, sweetie. Are you looking after Uncle Slushy?"

"Yeah! He's in a bad way, but in our care he'll soon be better."

Reuben grinned, and watched the kids playing grown-ups.

"Nurse Ruby," barked Keltzam, sounding spookily like his father, "I need the patient's pills, pronto."

"Here you go, Doctor Keltzam. These are the very ones that Surgeon Jumba prescribed this morning."

"Very good," Keltzam replied, grabbing the bag of M&Ms greedily and adding, in an undertone, "Did Dad, I mean, Surgeon Jumba prescribe any for me?"

"I don't know. I'll ask the specialist."

The two were using long words for six year olds, thought Reuben, but the again, with Jumba as a father, maybe it wasn't surprising. Ruby turned to him and asked.

"Mr. Reuben, please may the Doctor and Nurse have some medication as well?"

"Sure. Why not?"

The kids ate almost all of the candy, saving only a small amount for their 'patient'. When they had finished, Reuben ushered them out of the room to go to bed.

"After all, good doctors and nurses always make sure that they're rested up. And professionals always make sure to brush their teeth so's their mummy doesn't find out that their Uncle Reuben let them eat candy before bed."

Settling back down, Reuben looked around at all of the patients. Strange, he thought, how A1 has failed to kill any of them; just injured them. Or had she? He hurried off to find Jumba, and ask him. He found him, as usual, in the lab, researching A1 on the computer. Or, at least, trying to.

"Stupid piece of… must be something… about as much use as six-two-fi…"

"As much use as who?"

Jumba jumped, and turned in his swivel chair, looking faintly embarrassed.

"Oh, 625, I didn't hear you come in. Can you believe that there is nothing on internet about A1? Is worthless waste of time, humans are so primiti…"

"Has A1 killed any experiments?"

"No. But she has come very close to doing so. Is strange… she kills humans with no thought and yet, experiments… They are all saying she attacked them, but hesitated before killing them, giving them chance to fight back."

"Yeah. I had a little chat with her. I said something about no-one caring about her, and she went all weird…"

"Weird?"

"She screwed up her face; put her hand over her heart briefly. That kinda thing."

"Hmmm. Interesting…"

Jumba didn't elaborate, and Reuben knew better than to ask him to when he was in deep thought. The two sat in silence for five minutes before Reuben decided to break it.

"Jumba? Are you scared? About A1?"

Jumba looked away from him, suddenly very interested in a beetle that was making its way across the tiles.

"No," he said finally, "I am not scared. I am apprehensive… curious…jealous. But not scared. Why are you asking?"

"I am. She said she'd come after me, Jumba. That she'd kill me in my sleep. That she was going to kill my cousins, kill you, the kids and Jeeba."

Jumba looked up sharply at the name of his wife. But not because of the loving tone of Reuben's voice, in fact, because of the lack of it.

"625, you are just nervous. Nervous about loss. You haven't really experienced loss, 625…"

"Shut up. Stop calling me that. Why must everyone call me that?"

"What, 625? Why do you have aversion to experiment number?"

"It's just a number. Not a name. Having a name shows belonging, having a number shows belonging to someone else. I hate it."

"You haven't complained before."

"I tried to put up with it. And you called me Reuben once, remember?"

"No…"

"Why do you always call us by our experiment numbers? And Lilo 'little girl'? Didn't you have names for us in the lab?"

"I did have names for the first experiments I ever made. Before 001. Junior and Keltzam…"

"So Keltzam is named after…"

"Yeah. But I named the experiment after my father. There was an accident… they were both killed. Just hearing the names upset me; they were like children to me. So when I continued my experimenting, I gave numbers, not names, so as not to be getting emotionally attached to them."

"So why do you still call us that? We have names now."

"It didn't work. Your numbers have become names to me…"

And they sat in silence for another ten minutes before Reuben left the room.

A1 sat under the waterfall silently, listening to the constant music of the water crashing down around her. She was meditating, as the sound had cleared her mind. Meditating over what Reuben had said.

She had killed many people, in an attempt to remind herself of how powerful she was- how they should mean nothing to her, because she was their superior. But killing left her no pleasure and try as she might, she could not bring herself to actually kill another experiment. She remembered how she had hooked one of her curved claws under their throats, only to bring her shaking hand away and run off.

She had used to think only of the mission, only of what would bring her master one step closer to domination. But now she was thinking of what would happen after domination? Would she be needed? Would she be kept alive, or shut down? And more importantly, did her master care about her? Normally, she wouldn't have cared, and it had taken a lot to think about it when Reuben had suggested it. In fact, thinking about it had hurt. It had hurt her brain. As she tried to puzzle it all over, the same thing came rolling around her mind.

'That name is from when I was nothing more than a number. You're still a number.'

She wanted to be a living being, not a number. She decided that she was going to have a little chat with Reuben. Thinking these thoughts of numbers and lives was not allowed, and her master would be disgusted at her if he knew about it. He might even shut her down. Then she wouldn't even be a number. Maybe getting rid of Reuben would get rid of the thoughts.

'That's stupid,' her brain replied to the meditative voice, 'Of course it won't.'

But another voice, from near her heart, replied back.

'What do you know? I need to get rid of these thoughts somehow. I'm losing my grip.'

She clambered out from behind the sheet of water and set off, arguing with her own brain. And the more it protested, the faster she ran, until she was a black streak headed for Reuben's ship faster than the eye could follow.

I though I ought to show a little of Jumba's emotions and his family into the story here. Please review!